three two one good evening and welcome to the Tuesday March 26 2023 meeting of the Long Meadow school committee School committees and other public bodies may continue to hold remote meetings through March 31st 2025 under legislation enacted on March 29th 2023 the statute chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 extends Quorum reductions for remote meetings all votes while there's remote participation must be made by roll call vote this meeting is being recorded and aired live on lctv we we begin with the Pledge of Allegiance Al United States the stands Nation God indivisible all right we have no correspondence um so we'll move right into approval of minutes we have a possible motion I move that the school committee approve the minutes to the March 12 2024 school committee meeting as presented we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we will move to a vote Zach yes Jamie yes [Applause] Michaela Julie yes yes thank you all right and yes for me so moving ahead to public speak um we'll give a moment if there's anybody here that has anything to share as part of public speak we definitely are headed to you guys in a few moments but if there's anyone for public speak and or anyone at home also if you're at home and would like to make a statement or share something now would be the time and raise a hand all right seeing none we are headed into school um business with guests and we have some visitors here today from Blueberry Hill who are going to share with us about their vision of The Graduate so so to as as our team Blueberry Hill gets assembled here um students you can come on up with Dr Allen um as part of a for the for the folks that are assembled with us here uh for the parents and caregivers and special adults in our children's lives we um periodically the school committee hosts students who present on our vision of The Graduate and all the various ways that we try to help students meet the competencies associated with our vision of The Graduate and so to our elementary school students to our Blueberry Hill students and many ways you're working on some of the same skills that our high schoolers are working on and so that's what we're here to demonstrate tonight and uh if we could I'll turn it over to Dr Allen the principal of Blueberry Hills so welcome Blueberry Hill well thank you we have six students from Blueberry Hill uh tonight and they're going to be talking providing some examples of learning behaviors related to the vision of The Graduate so we have every grade represented and we're going to start with our fifth grade U representing fifth grade is Leo Diamond um hello so um for my first learning behavior I'm going to be doing demonstrates perseverance and so one time I was taking a test and there was a problem I was stuck on it was super hard and I spent a lot of time on of it um I put down the answer after all my work that I had done that cuz that was the best one so I get the test back I'm super excited I get the answer right that's how I demonstrated perseverance for my next learning Behavior I am doing uses time effect effectively and I was doing science problems and I was sitting next to my friends and all my friends were talking and I was trying to answer the problems while also not talking to my friends so I was able to finish my the problems when my friends did not so yeah all right well done thank you so much all right and representing fourth grade is Alexa capotasto okay what does the vision of The Graduate look like in the fourth grade in the fourth grade we are taking on more responsibilities for example we can volunteer for Vis Council that gives a chance for kids at school to make their school a better place the fourth grade demonstrates a lot of expectations for example we do group projects like trying to turn on a light bulb on with a batter some batteries and some wires in this project everyone is cooperating and engaged and in special during mileage in recess we don't goof off and put our hands on each other bad make bad choices or hurt others feelings for example if someone put their hands on me that is not what is expected in the fourth grade or Blueberry Hill school that would be an example of not having self-control instead we try to do all the opposite of those things because they could lead to bad situations in the fourth grade we are doing a lot of independent practice projects which allows us to excel at our own pace we also do a lot of partner work projects so we can learn how to work together and help our partners as we go through thank you all right representing third grade is Fagan winter um the first learning Behavior I was talking about is using time effectively every Friday third grade takes multiplication tests we have to take it in under 40 seconds we get the whole week to study one time I didn't study and it took me 60 seconds to finish a test I wasn't using my time effectively the next week I studied for a lot longer and a longer amount of time and I passed my test in 20 seconds I was using my time effectively the next s Behavior I'll be talking about is demonstrating L responsibility for Behavior one day we were doing a partner project and I got partnered with one of my good friends it was hard not to start talking about other things but I really tried just to stay on track and then I told her that we just need to talk about the work that we were doing we did that and that worked out we got the work done wonderful thank you right and representing second grade is Conor Ryan for my first learning behavior I'm going to do demonstrates perseverance perseverance is defined as persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success usually when I think of perseverance I think of my favorite athletes overcoming an injury or huge loss and going on to win the big game however one of the greatest examples of first arance happened this year in my very own classroom my class demonstrated perseverance when we were rais when we were raising money for the St Jude Hospital fundraiser since the class raised the most money we win a big prize we knew we had to work hard since we are only a second grade class and other students kept telling us their class we win we were a bit intimidated instead of land the intimidation get to us my class worked even harder to raise money for St Jude by hosting extra bake sales asking for extra donations and put forth our best effort even though we weren't sure if we would win our joint efforts and perseverance paid off because our second grade class raed the most money and won the big prize and for for my second learning behavior I'm going to do Falls classroom routines and expectations I'm going to say the morning so you come into school you unpack your stuff and you put all your stuff in your desk and then you put your backpack back in your locker and then you have morning work to do and then when the time's up we come to the floor uh we do foundations and then we do writing and then we go to Wind Block and then Wind Block is any unfinished work and then we go out for races thank you excellent okay and representing thir first grade is Sophia bvy so for my first one I did demonstrates responsibility for behavior my example is one in class we had morning work packets and my whole group was talking and I was the only person not talking in my group and then for my second one I did use time effectively and I did doing independent reading and instead of talking to my friends I got straight to reading and did great and my third one is actively engages in learning one time in class my teacher said it is time for Math and I was ready and I was listening so when she asked a question I raised my hand and said the answer all right thank you and our last student representing kindergarten is Lily Griffin um for my for my first learning behavior I'm GNA be doing work cooperatively with others one time um we were playing a math game and somebody would roll the dice and the other person would move the space for my next learning behavior I'm going to be doing interactr respectfully with others her interacts respectfully with others is one time we were playing a math game and somebody was to one of my good friends they were saying like like they were like taunting my good friends like like that cuz they won and I didn't want them to taunt one of my good friends so I said stop that's not nice to do in a nice way and they stopped for my third learning behavior I'm going to be doing advocates for self one time my teacher was explaining the rules of a math game um and I needed to go to the bathroom and I tried to wait but I still needed to go and I went in the time that I was done my teacher was done explaining the rules of the masth game so I raised my hand and asked her what should I do when she told me right thank you so much that was excellent any any questions for our students or yeah anyone wants to jump in l i i can jump in I don't have questions but you are all pretty amazing I'm pretty sure I couldn't have got up in front of everybody and done that as well as you did Leo your stories were awesome kasto I don't know if you wrote that but that was ridiculous Fagan your eye contact you were good I think you may be better than most people in this room including all the adults and you three I don't know how you got up here in first second grade in kindergarten kindergart I there's no chance I would be shown showing up here so be proud of you that was pretty impressive with how well each of you did in your stories and what you said pretty pretty darn impressive that's my two cents I don't have any questions all I know is someone at Blueberry is doing a lot of good things so you guys did a great job and next upbody El Andrew I was so impressed by how accountable you guys all were I thought that was really impressive especially at your age and I think that will really help you as you move up in school and then beyond that just throughout your life I think that you guys are really developing some really good skills and it was so awesome to see from such young people and just congratulations for being able to speak like this it's so incredible all right well done we are very excited to have you guys here tonight it is always a lot of fun to have students come in and tell us more about their day and you guys were as everybody has said absolutely fantastic um Naturals ready to go um I love how much you talked about things like persevering even when your work was hard or even when it was very tempting to talk with your friends which is very tempting for all grown-ups too so um you're already working on that which is really cool um and advocating for yourself that is fantastic um and learning how to cooperate with others these are all great things so big thank you to all of you for Leo and Alexa and Fagan and Sophia and Lily and Connor you guys did a great job thank you so much for coming out tonight and if I could just it's it's so impressive to hear you thinking about your learning and your behavior and I think when I was in school teachers would tell me how I was doing and how I was behaving and if I was learning but you're thinking about it yourself you're thinking about your own learning and your own behavior and that's going to help you and maybe someday one of you will be sitting in Andrew's seat y as our student representative to the school committee when you get into high school so remember that remember Andrew here he's done a great job with us so you all have the skills to replace Andrew someday okay all right maybe tomorrow may that's right that's right thank you everybody that was wonderful [Applause] thank thank you so much to all the GRS for coming out tonight too nice to see everybody thank you all right we are headed into other reports um school committee chair report I don't have much to say other than just a reminder um that tomorrow night is our community visioning Workshop this will be an opportunity for members of the community to come out and engage a little bit more in the process related to the Middle School building project um a chance to discuss some of the possibilities some of the um educational planning and um perspective ideas and just a chance for um the um Team to hear from the community about what the priorities are going into this project um it will be here in this building in the um BCC from 7: to 8:30 um so if you are able to be here that would be excellent um there was an email that came out um from Dr OA earlier um that has a sign up link so if you're able to check that out and come on out tomorrow night um and then otherwise a big thank you to our uh middle and elementary schools for successful conferences um and evenings again that is all for me tonight I'll turn it over to you Dr certainly um so um just to build on the uh the the building project I appreciate you mentioning the visiting session uh tomorrow night we have right now about 45 uh community members signed up to attend and so that's a great number it'll give us some um some focus groups to work with the design team on the vision for Education uh for our middle school students and so that's that's super exciting it's a it's a busy busy busy period right now in with the building project we uh are working towards the submission of a preliminary educ a plan and so these visioning sessions can feed into that as well um but that Ed plan really will be the basis of a lot of the design work uh going forward in early May we'll be expected to submit uh some preliminary um uh ideas projections on the middle school project to the msba so very exciting um the literacy curriculum field testing is still underway our Educators completed uh field testing in a program known as CK that's core knowledge language arts uh framework and they'll be kicking off a field test of a curriculum called into reading on May 1st and then Our intention is to um excuse me April 1st but Our intention is to bring a recommend recation to the school committee on May 28th so uh appreciate all the work of uh that our educators are doing associated with that field testing it's it's intensive work but they uh seem to be very excited about the possibilities in front of us um we have one of the things that that the committee has uh talked to with me about in relation to my uh midyear evaluation was our efforts to promote uh administrative sustainability and so pleased to report that we've identified uh three aspiring administrators um to participate in an emerging leaders program uh offered by offered through our partnership with the center for leadership and educational Equity uhal implementation is underway we have um uh classrooms that will be piloting the uh Yale ruler lessons in the weeks ahead couple of important Community engagement events uh coming up April 2nd uh we will welcome Scott Driscoll uh he's a retired law enforcement uh person an author and a CEO of Internet safety Concepts and Scott will talk with staff and students and parents about how to stay safe online uh should be very very informative and then on May 2nd uh community members are invited to a session called creating affirming spaces in our schools it'll be a panel Le discussion that focuses on um addressing anti-Semitism in our schools and to complement that uh wanted to note that our middle schools are initiating a membership in an ADL program called no place for hate and so it's going to empower students to put together some schoolwide events to address uh hate and bias so that's really really exciting no place for hate it's called and then uh as we'll we'll hear shortly from our special education director Nicole Paris Crow uh who has been organizing some uh extensive trainings for educators administrators and service providers on the new IEP form that I'm sure Nicole will address later on in the agenda so uh Lots going on and happy to answer any questions you might have on any of those items any questions from anyone all right seeing none I think we're headed into other administrative reports and that will be our um director of special education Nicole Ferris gr come on in come right up well just give me a moment to pull up your slide deck welcome thanks for coming out tonight always the best part so annually uh at least we welcome the director of special education to the school committee to provide an update and uh answer any questions that you might have and so uh Nicole was uh kind enough to pull together a slide deck for us and I will pull that up on the laptop now and share the screen we have some additional information that I'll hand out and share with you guys as well just put together a little bit more information all right so at your command I'll run through the slides here and uh I don't usually command but I'll I'll try um so thank you again thank you for having me I wanted to come and just give you guys everyone an update on what's going on in special education Lots going on um we uh support students ages 3 to age 22 so it's the preschool all the way up to postsecondary um schooling for some of our students that require that so if we go to the second slide I think right this is just a breakdown of some of our guiding principles so there's a lot of language there a lot of information but I'm just going to hit the highlights for you and I kind of highlighted that in this um in this slide so the guiding principles of special education the long metal public schools and through my office is Equitable access for all students and that can be done through the multi-tiered support system so ensuring that students all students have the supports that they need in order to access school um and specifically those students that are special education students or have been identified as special education students that they have equ Equitable access to the content to the curriculum to the classroom to the lunchroom to the um where the um playground you know things like that the same access as their peers um and through the multi- tiered system of support um we want to make sure that we're supporting students not just academically but social emotionally and behaviorally so that full um wraparound supports of services in the least restrictive environment so that's you know the golden rule we always want to support students in the least restrictive environment first um start there which is generally the general education classroom with their peers and then I have an overview of the special education programs and programming for Long Meadow Public Schools it's a Continuum of services um I think you have that in your packet but um what you'll see here is again we start in the general education setting so that orangish sort of color would be the gened setting with no special education supports and then that goldish sort of of Golden Rod color represents um students requiring tiered support still gen education general education support but maybe through the multi-tiered mtss system or they may get some inclusion special education support but still their primary location is Jed and then when we get into that sort of awful green color right it's not the best green probably is where you'll see some of the pull out services that students might get so you'll have students might get pulled out from specialized reading instruction with a special ed teacher or they may get some OT occupational therapy or physical therapy outside of the classroom so that's where some of those pullout Services generally happen and then that um bluish color is representing the students that might be participating in a sub-par program and would have very thoughtful intentional inclusions such as music art lunch um technology Library things like that and then that pointy sort of other bluish color um in the Continuum of services represents students that would be participating in a uh private or public Day School experience so out of the district or um residential so that's the Continuum of services when you think of special education it's sort of starts at that top layer of all inclusion general education and then Works its way down dependent upon students needs and I'll note that this this sort of detailed document um is in your packet um and so that provides some descriptions of some of the specific programs at some of the specific schools yeah so each school has programs or inclusions and that document goes into a lot more detail than you may want or need but uh please review it at whenever you have time and feel free to reach out with questions I'd be happy to answer them we go to the next slide um this is an overview of academic services and supports for students so taking out some of that extraneous or very specific language and giving you an overview if ever you're in an IEP meeting or as a general education teacher you're participating in an IEP meeting or you uh are participating in your child's I AP meeting you may hear phrases like service goals and Service delivery and service of location and this is just a quick breakdown of what that might represent so when we're talking about service goals we're talking about how best to Provide support to students so they can access the general curriculum or so that they can increase their independence and learning or so that they can experience academic growth aligned to their non um disabled peers and then Service delivery is how often and where that service happens and service location usually speaking about Long Meadow Public Schools when we're talking about service location related Services you may have heard this phrase over the years either in meetings or when um my predecessor uh Jean Fontaine was here sharing information with all of you related services are um Services provided to support students in accessing or successfully accessing um the general curriculum um general education setting or School in general and that can be provided by people such as physical therapists occupational therapist uh adaptive PE uh teacher our school adjustment counselors our speech and language therapists our assist of Technology folks and even transportation we have some students that require specialized transportation to get to and from school so that is a overview of what related Services represents or means if ever you hear those terms or phrases in conversation this slide here represents student enrollment so um the Department of Education has us collect information on student enrollment certain times of the school year so October 1st for example is the first time in the school year we would be collecting that information so they look at the total enrollment of the school district and then the the number of students with disabilities so this is just a projectory from 2019 where we were at with total enrollment and students a number of students with disabilities all the way to this um past October in 2023 so you see our total enrollment has fluctuated a bit right it's currently um down from last year but not by much and our total number of so total enrollment is 2773 as of October 1st it's grown a bit since then and our students with disabilities number was 624 so that number represents not only students on IEPs but also students on 504s as well cuz my office supports both students on IPS and students on 504s just gives you sort of an overview this slide represents some specific data and its referrals and just initial referrals and so what that means is any students that it was their first time being referred to special education through an valuation process so either through the mtss process at multi-tiered systems of supports that's building based either that team has determined that students may need to be evaluated for special education due to their lack of progress or some other um specifying data that had been collected or whether or not parents have initiated the evaluation process because parents can do that as well this slide represents those initials so the first time they've ever been tested so not the re-evaluations that happen every 3 years but just that first time out so this is a um sort of a glance at what that looked like from this 2020 21 school year up to present as of March 20th so staff referrals are represent representative of students that have gone through that mtss process that I mentioned and parent referral numbers represent parents requesting that their child be evaluated themselves so our numbers have gone down slightly as far as parent referrals um and also in staff referrals so as of March 20th we were at 104 initial evaluations for this school year um and at the end so that's June of 2020 21 June of 2021 22 and 22 23 those were the numbers that we were at at that time so considering it was March and we're at 104 I think that we will based on some of the consent forms that have recently come in that we will uh meet at least the number that we were at last year this is a breakdown of students by disability categories so there are several categories so there is 13 Al together of disability categories when we are determining eligibility and this is a representation of nine of them excuse me this is a comparison from 2021 to 2024 where we are at um throughout the district in regards to disability categories that we're determining eligibility for students at so I'm not don't have to read the slide to you I I'm sure you all can see that um but there are a couple of specific um changes or tra cies that I pointed out with the colorful little stars there so in regards to our disability of developmental delay we've had a um increase over the last few years in students being qualified with a developmental delay and that is for students ages 3 to 9 once they are 9 years old and on they are no longer considered to have a developmental delay and we have to pick another disability that they have um they have shown that they it's more prominent than others through the evaluation process so developmental delay can represent occupational therapy so fine motor challenges or physical therapy some of those gross motor challenges um usually those are the types of disabilities that fall into the developmental delay category um we've had some District professional development in collaboration with u Beth Nelson and Nilda arari we've been able to pull together some wonderful professional development these professional development opportunities are specific to special education but have been offered to General gened and special ed staff members and I've been able to fund this through the new IEP grant that um I wrote in it was when was that Tom maybe fall winter fallish May late fall um we were awarded over $26,000 to be able to use towards PD or training of staff on this new I AP form or um variety of different things to help us get to where we need to go um in order to be prepared for our next school year um next school year we will be implementing the new IEP form we'll have till June 2025 to fully implement it so these are some wonderful opportunities we've been participating in to prepare for that some current fun current initiatives I heard Dr OA share with you earlier that we have our second and new IEP training that's coming up um we're going to be training our assistant principls and administrators related service providers um staff on April 29th and the first time we did this we all prek through 12th grade we all participated in the trainings all in the same day we're going to do that again we're doing the Train the trainer type of models so myself along with our special education supervisor from the high school Juliet Keenan um our district supervisors Lauren heon and Christine Corbett um our preschool coordinator cat beas we are going to get into the schools we each choose a school and we provide the training there so that we're all hearing the same information on the same day and it's been wonderful so far had some really great participation good questions um thoughtful feedback from staff so I'm looking forward to that our Focus for that um particular training will be on developing the student team student and team Vision one thing about this new IEP it's very much student te student Family Vision oriented it's much more student Centric than before so I'm really looking forward to that we have students as young as three years old that we're encouraging to participate in this in in Sharing articulating their Vision either through a drawing through coming in and talking to their talking to the team um but they they have opportunities to provide feedback so we're producing some questionnaires for some of our little ones so that they can fully participate in their IEP meetings so that's looking forward to sharing that information with you we're also really going to focus on a comprehensive understanding of accommodations versus modifications so um I don't know what your familiarity of with those uh terms are but they are often confused and interchangeable accommodations are providing opportunities and equal access where modifications are generally a change in curriculum in order for students to um meet the the content or the spe specifications of um what it is that they're trying to do so we're going to get into an indepth conversation with staff about that um we've got some fun seal things coming up on April 10th we have our very own Long Meadow Public School social workers are going to chat with our seal folks um on anxiety and specifically on how that affects students abilities to access school school refusal and their anxieties on being able to stay in school public speaking and just how our school adjustment counselors and social workers support students with strategies and a thoughtful conversations and referrals for mental health supports when necessary uh May 8th I will be meeting with seal to discuss the new IEP we're going to have a little new IEP Workshop you all are invited it's going to be the best thing ever definitely get your tickets um there'll be some Q&A opportunities as well so looking forward to that we have our preschool um earlier this month our preschool coordinator cat beas and her team held a preschool screening for incoming three-year-olds so we've had quite you know quite a few people come out and participate in that screenings but if you are all know of anybody or if anybody that's watching has a child who has recently turned three or 3 to four years old and that are not curent and reside in Long Meadow and not currently registered for preschool please contact Katherine Vias our preschool coordinator at Wolf Swamp School I've attached um the prek handbook that cat and her team have worked on that really goes into a lot of detail on what they can what families and students can expect um during preschool we we have our kindergarten screenings coming up in May um screening registration is completed through power school so that's something else that come goes through my office and we have created funfilled day of screening um so any children that are preparing for or kind going into kindergarten they should um make sure that they register with Diane um and Tammy and also it's available online and get into Power School please and pick their dates and times that they want to come in to register so we're looking forward to having this whole place is going to be filled right Marty and Tom it'll be filled with little ones um so excited to chattering with one another we'll have our nurses here for some screenings um we'll have our elll excuse me teachers here as well to provide screenings we'll have speech and language so it's a full full day um preparing for kindergarten and then um we are working on our esy which is extended school year we have a pretty intense uh summer school program um here and we have got a lot of great things planned for students and for staff and we will be providing services for students uh preschool through 11th grade in the Summers those students that qualify for summer Services through their special education their IEP and evaluations process kind of touch a little bit on the new IEP um the goals of this new IEP is to really um have the family and student voice at the Forefront of the document have it be less about a document and more about a conversation having students be able to share what works and what doesn't talk about their goals for themselves whether it be for the next year 5 Years After High School um the form and the document in the process are actually much more streamlined which is really great they organically lead into one another so I'll share more information with all of you next next time around you know it's a lot of information to hear um the focus continues to be least restrictive environment and it's a very integrated thoughtful transition planning from high school to secondary so it it's really embedded throughout the whole IEP the students and family voice and the transition planning is what drives the IEP so this is a wonderful way of looking at it it's a longer Pro it's a longer document than we've had in the past but it is actually much more streamlined in that it's it really develops through a conversation just some more information our parent engagement we are very lucky we have a wonderful seal um group really really do we have uh two co-presidents with Diane perfilio and Megan Downey they do an outstanding job the folks that are participate in Seal are just great they're very enthusiastic they bring wonderful questions and great topics of conversation um they meet every Wednesday of every Wednesday of the month and that is just a little link to their website some of the seal presentations we've had this year have been on basic rights and how to build effective and thoughtful Communications between family and Educators um some other pres presentations we've had are with our El um long metal Public School supervisors and administrators such as Tom and Marty have been guests um related service providers and school social workers we've had a lot of wonderful Rich conversations some Trends we've seen are um teams and families are keeping students in the least restrictive environment that's always our first and best start you know all of our special education students are general education students first who receive specialed supplementary Services um we see students with autism and significant mental health needs are highest rate of out of placement students and the achievement gap between general education and students with disability remains we we close it slightly uh some next steps in future plans we'd like to explore expanding District programming at the elementary and middle and high school levels we've talked a lot about a Pathways type of program at the elementary and middle and it's it's really just that providing students the opportunity to access parts of programs for example they may not be in a program all the time but they may need aspects of it we've had students over the years that have um had a hybrid type of um programming or we've built programming around students and we should really expand our flexibility in creating flexible programs for students to access when and if they need it we are thoughtful about expanding our high school life skills program we want students in our life skills program so that's at the high school to participate in more internship opportunities so these are some of our kids that will be with us till they're age 22 and we're working with the high school Aaron Corbett um specifically who heads up our internship program and Kate M who as our life skills teacher have been working um diligently on exploring additional internship opportunities for all of our students to access so even our students that um are non-verbal and use augmentative communication devices we are um we found some really wonderful internship opportunities for them and so we're working towards helping them to build the skills that they need in order to be able to work in um different parts of the community uh we also have this goes back to someh sort of um goes hand inand with the pathways program some student support centers goes back to talking about centers or programs that students need for a time in order to access um the general education setting access school they may need to shore up some skills such as regulation or social emotional skills um not as much academic but all of the other pieces that um are part of our whole child we will continue to provide trainings and cons consultations and coaching for special education general education staff on inclusive practices so um that is what we're going to continue to work on for the rest of forever I guess not just the rest of the school year uh we have some additional resources for you all to access whenever you have a free moment I'm not sure if you do but when you do you might want to click on one of these a couple of these links so that first first link is an interactive guide through the referral evaluation and eligibility determination process it's actually really cool you kind of click on the different aspects of the evalu um the eligibility or determination or evaluation guide and it brings you to different um Pathways and different questions and um some thoughtfulness through that process there's an interactive parent Guardian guide to special education in general that speaks about your rights and the um the whole process the timeline of the whole process which is really wonderful for families to see especially if they're new to special education or those that have been in special education for a while may just want to refamiliarizing and then the parents notice of procedural safeguards also goes into a lot more detail about what your rights are as a parent um whether you have a whether you're as a special education student or a 504 student but just it's really important for you to understand timelines and your rights to request certain services or evaluations and when you would do that within a certain time frame and then just the last um excuse me the last link is the special education process under the idea this is a um basic very simple explanation of takes you from you think that your child might need an evaluation all the way down to okay so now they've been evaluated and determined to require special education services what does that mean now so just a very quick simplistic um overview of that I'm going to click on the uh the second link there just give you an idea of some of the resources that the department of Elementary and secondary education has pulled together you know over the years sometimes we we grous about uh what desie sends across the pike to us but this is a they've really put together some really accessible userfriendly sites for parents um and I you know just to give you some idea um clicking on the what is special education and it's it's very accessible very easy to read principles associated with special education a lot of you know accessible Graphics to help staff and community members and parents understand um all the rights and responsibilities associated with special education so it's really worth poking around if you haven't had that opportunity so um and I I just want to thank um before we gather some questions from the committee I just want to thank Nicole for her leadership it's been a busy year it's been a busy several years in special education and and uh we uh rely tremendously on Nicole's expertise um she's one of the first cars here in the morning one of the last cars to leave every day and so we're grateful for the the steady leadership that she provides the advice that she provides uh administrators and then the leadership she provides to the the staff that she leads and you can see the complexity of the of the programming and the varied roles uh that um she needs to support so um thanks for the presentation and of course my pleasure happy to answer any questions you might first question um will this be available or is it already online for families perfect yep it's a really great source thank you very much for putting it together a pleasure um I'll open up for other folks questions first and then there I I don't have any questions um but I would like to Echo Dr oa's thanks uh both on a professional and personal level for all that you do for students at long middle of course of course I love the work that I do than the people that I work with the children that I work with so thank you Jamie did you have a question just a thank you as well my question on page six do we do we we all probably know that I'm assuming some of this has to do with the pandemic do we we expect this to like like are we seeing it's going to come back down or do we think it's going to stay like just I'm just guessing I just want to know whether we're going to be at this elevated where a lot of it's going to take 5 10 years to work our way out of this or whether we see the light at the end of the tunnel that's a great question and I can say that throughout the state they've seen an increase in special education referrals and um finding students eligible for either an i AP or 504 I would say the ramifications the the effects of covid uh I think we'll see for many more years I can't say when that will sort of level out I think that it's going to take time for sure so got I don't know if that was a direct enough answer no I I I figured that's what you going to say just is so but but it looks I mean these two years do we think that that's is this look like where we're going to end 2024 the 620s kind or a little higher we a little higher yeah mhm I do I do uh currently I was looking at our um numbers today I'm I'm always not quite a math person as you guys are however I do the best I can I was just looking at it see well well Nicole's looking forward I I think that I think you you hit a key issue for us Jamie and it really is tied into the discussion you just had and and sort of the lingering effects of the pandemic and then you can see the referral rates in in the 21 22 22 23 school year um those referral rates jumped um and Educators and parents concerned about kids' progress coming out of the pandemic I think that and I think it will be with us for some time I think that what what it suggests to most of us is the importance of making those investments in tier one y regular education and sort of making sure we have the interventions in place both academically and social emotionally um so that we can support kids in a general setting as as much as possible and um I think tightening up mtss practices and making sure that we're you know um we're understanding kids progress where they are that we have appropriate interventions in place and that we're regularly assessing them so that they're making progress at at tier one and then so that you know parents don't feel the need to refer staff maybe won't feel that they're left with no other options so that that's really the the critical piece of this um just to make sure that we have those those that tier one mtss related supports in place I agree so our current uh enrollment as of March well March 1st I should say we have 270 two 2779 students in Long meta Public Schools our numbers have leapt to um see 662 currently uh students with disabilities so that has already jumped pretty considerably from October to March and that's IEPs and 504s so I would yeah it's a pretty big jump I would expect we probably won't have a big jump like that again before the school year is out I think we'll probably settle around that but um yeah that that's a represent ation of recent um evaluations that we've had eligibility meetings that we've had both for IEPs and for 504s we've had a pretty sizable jump in our 504s as well yeah Jamie go ahead I one recommendation to us as a committee is you know I know a budget season's kind of in the midst of this whole thing but I think we should be regularly communicating with our legislators uh directly from the school committee pressuring them that you know they they they've obviously cut you know and I'm sure a lot of schools are feeling this way but they're cutting funding to us right yet they're leaving us with a lot of children who need a lot of help I'm sure we're not the only school this way but I don't think we should relent on that cuz they you know at least we're one school pushing back on them and do it fairly regularly cuz if we just wait the budgeting season it's not going to go anywhere but if we do it every couple months you know where we're saying the same letter hey you know by the way you cutter funding yet we still have a yeah you know a lot of different things my understanding is colleges are the same where they've have a major spike right now of you know children who need a lot of help um you know in every classroom and you know it's it's it just feels like they left us with a bag of stuff uh of things just to fix on our own but I think we should pressure them regularly uh just so we're not kind of back because this is probably you I hope it doesn't Spike up anymore but I'm I'm not that I know I'm I'm not that optimistic I'm just wondering what else school year is over I don't think it's going to start yeah probably not but going into next year you know good sure you bring up a a great point I mean that we're talking about so we're looking at October numbers around the time October November was where we start sort of talking about the budget right and then by March you see that increase and it's so it's hard to capture you know everything that we're going to need when we're looking at October and November's numbers what it's going to look like in March April or May so when we're making our proposals for Staffing or programming we're doing the best we can based on the information that we have so it's unfortunate the budget can't be as flexible as special education and that you have to be ready to Pivot on any moment you don't know you could have a family move in uh a family of students with significant needs there could be three or four of them in one family that um will impact programming will Impact Staffing so it's just it's it's hard to project I guess I um my first year sort of at it it it was a certainly a challenge to just sort of project exactly what uh we might need yeah well and as you mentioned an extra Challenge in a year where both our federal Title One Fund and state 7 funds were dramatically lowered or taken away so yeah that's that's a significant extra challenge for sure and in July August that's when I write our Ida Grant which is an entitlement Grant right and so it's a pretty daunting process you know we have we we are provided some numbers and figures and dollar amounts that are non-negotiable we will get that's part of the entitlement of it we'll get based on our enrollment um um but it's then deciding how and best to utilize that money for an upcoming year so you know it's something that I've already been like I've been taking notes on all this year and okay so this is how I would reallocate you know that thoughtfulness moving into the next school year we're also my office is also responsible for the private schools and providing um Yeshiva St marri's and other private schools um supports and services for Long Meadow students who attend private schools were still responsible for providing them um with IEP meetings and providing them Services whether it's during their school day or after their school day with tutoring so you know there is a there's a lot of pieces to the work that's being done all right um I was curious if I could ask I love that when you're talking about your um professional development part of the focus of that is kind of getting everybody on that same page of making sure that the terms are the same that that vision for students and families that everybody's understanding that I was curious when you're planning for professional development like that does that tend to include rsps who might be part-time or contract Etc they're everybody everyone gets to participate and um It's Tricky getting the time to do it because there's a lot of competing needs right now we have our uh literacy uh folks and our ruler folks and all kinds of other wonderful things that are going on with the district there's only so much time right and we don't want to have you know a school be completely void of all of its teachers to be able to participate in a training trading uh training so we've been creative with trying to piece together some time um which administrators have been really flexible about allowing us to do that because we're really trying to grab everybody from prek to you know all the way through high school to participate um either after school or um like at an hour to uh from the school day and then work after school to meet so I have to say all the folks all of the um staff has just been very flexible and showing up and doing some hard work well thank you for putting all this together um looking ahead at those next steps I'm looking forward to hearing more about the internships of the life skills and those Pathways and support centers thank you I did have a little bit more information that I will give to you all and to look at um in regards to what our staffing looks like uh Staffing overview by building as well as uh related service providers and District staff I think it would be good for you to see just how many staff are really involved Under the Umbrella of special education um it might be more than you expected or you might think um but I I think that's good information for you to have and I apologize I didn't get it in the slide uh in your slide deck in enough time but I I want you to have access to that so I will hand on my desk just two more things um one is and it relates to the Staffing piece um one of the challenges that Nicole and every other special education director in the state at least are experiencing is uh the shortage of folks coming out of college who are interested in being special Educators there's a there's a serious um pipeline issue and so our ability to attract and retain and support special Educators is more important now than ever I'd say um and more than other uh parts of our organization we're we're really need to focus on U making sure that we're uh doing our best to attract really high quality special Educators and we have we've been fortunate that we've been able to do that but uh it doesn't it doesn't come easily for sure um the other thing I want to note and I tie it in with the the Blueberry Hill presentation earlier and you saw evidence of young young students being able to reflect on their own progress uh and their own learning and that's really tied into this new IEP model which you know encourages student voice and encourages students to be part of the of the process and it's another way to give kids opportunities to reflect on their learning and growth so I thought it interesting book ends there the Blueberry Hill presentation and then this new IEP form they they sort of fit together yeah notely other thoughts or questions thank you so much I really appreciate your time thank you look forward to seeing that online and parents who are at home are welcome to check that out yes and please parents at home reach out to me directly with any questions or guidance that you're looking for I'm happy to help wonderful thank you so much you thank you thank you thank you all right next up is our student representative Europe so uh just a quick reminder that quarter 3 ends on Thursday and uh Q4 starts on Monday um and then just a huge thank you to everyone from across the community who came out to the LHS School play um the senior class play for High School Musical uh I ran the ticket sales well I helped with ticket sales um on Thursday and Friday night and I know that they rais like $2,500 just in ticket sales on Friday night so huge thank you to everybody who came out and also all the sponsors who um sponsored the event and then um also just a quick reminder of the LHS class 2025 will hold the little Lancer events um on this this Thursday uh March 28th for fifth graders for a night of games I know I said in my last report that it was $10 but it's actually on by donation so um just for any parents watching and then um just good luck to all of our spring Sports athletes as they start their matches games and meets thank you wonderful I'm going to add in on what you said about the senior play I realize I have a senior um but also just as we saw it all three times it was fantastically fun um and I think my favorite part about it was how many people in the community came out to watch this over all three shows and just that feeling of support for all of the kids and all of the work they had put in and all of their friends coming out to see them and just a really excellent experience so thank you for all the work you guys put in there well done all right other reports um lpvc has a meeting coming up um nothing from energy and sustainability tonight um Michaela did you have anything from seal um did a great job talking about seal in her presentation um it's really a great great organization um to hear from so many people in the district and that can be resource and also to connect with parents and so she like she said there's an upcoming meeting on April 10th about anxiety and then um a really important meeting on May 8th um about the new IP that really every parent of a student um who is on an IEP should uh try to get information and resources about the new IEP all right wonderful thank you not quite bur sorry all right uh Middle School building committee other than the community visioning tomorrow do we have anything else on that uh that's it working on the development of the Ed plan and we'll be hosting uh the design team tomorrow at Glenbrook and Williams uh the team of consultants and Engineers will uh tour the building and then they'll also the design team will also be observing classes and interviewing our Educators so uh very busy couple of days at Glen Brook and Williams coming up all right wonderful uh subcommittee reports I think our first one up is um naming subcommittee Zach can I turn that over to you uh certainly can the naving subcommittee met on Monday March 18th we had a an excellent discussion ultimately voted not to recommend that the application uh move forward um and since the naming subcommittee is not scheduled to reconvene um we would um entertain a motion to approve the minutes from that meeting all right I'll entertain that motion I move that the school committee approve the minutes to the March 18th 2024 naming subcommittee meeting as presented we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion thank you to the naming subcommittee for your work um seeing no discussion want to a vote Zach yes Jamie yes Michaela yes Julie yes and yes for me as well we move on to ongoing business and our student Opportunity Act plan turn that over to you Dr so the um this is the second meeting in a row that you had an opportunity to take a look at the student Opportunity Act plan and this as you recall is a requirement of the student student Opportunity Act that was passed in 2019 and we look at this as sort of a focused subset of our district Improvement plan it's a focus subset of existing initiatives the idea is to um articulate how we would use Chapter 70 money towards evidence-based programs to uh improve student outcomes with some specific focuses on um English language Learners and special education students uh and lowincome students so this requires a vote of the school committee prior to April 1st this particular student Opportunity Act um it really reinforces our commitment to the K5 literacy curriculum mental health andal initiatives and an expansion of the vision of The Graduate so I happy to answer any questions but the an Opportunity Act plan for your consideration any questions related to this just say a thank you to Dr Nelson um also for the work she put in it is very easy reading through this to see all of the things that have been a part of the conversations at school committee meetings and in a variety of other community um Avenues over the last few years the district Improvement plans and the vision of The Graduate and everything shine through so very well done um on that seeing no questions I will entertain a motion I move on the recommendation of the superintendent that the school committee approve the 2024 student Opportunity Act plan as presented any uh we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any [Music] discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Zach yes Jamie yes Michaela yes Julie yes and yes for me as well thank you again all right we are moving into new business we have a gift for the school Mr Mao is that you taking that one or I can I can feeli it unless you'd rather uhad so it's uh per your policy um a requirement that we bring forward any gifts that we received that would become the property of the school district and so two for your consideration tonight one is a gift of $700 from the LHS parent advisory Council um and the other is a gift from the Community Foundation this uh is a donation that comes to long metal Public Schools periodically every few years uh it's a donation from the Community Foundation to long metal public schools in the amount of $500 and it is expected to be directed towards uh teach teacher training so those two gifts for your consideration tonight all right any questions or discussion on those all right seeing none we'll entertain a motion yep I move that school committee accept with genuine appreciation the gifts to Long Meadow Public Schools as presented on the document dated March 26 2024 thank you we have a motion do we have a second second any further discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Zach yes Jamie yes Michaela Julie yes and yes for me as well thank you to the um long midle High School parent advisory committee and the Community Foundation for these gifts we are moving on to building uh use requests we have a few different building use requests um they are all part of your packet anything to add to them and or any feedback on them before we just one correction the um the request from the dance company the submission they gave us said Sunday June 1st but June 1st is a Saturday so the correct date is Sunday June 2nd gotcha so just uh clarification on the date but thank you otherwise no concerns with the request all right any questions about any of these requests but these These are different from the ones from these are just other dance these are additional approvals for different dance companies than the ones that were approved that our previous correct a lot of dance ones this this season yeah any other questions all right um note the change to date and I will entertain a motion to the first one I move the school committee approve the building use request from the dance company for use of the long medal High School on June 2nd 2024 as indicated on the request form dated March 15 2024 we have a motion do we have a second second any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Zach yes Jamie yes Julie yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well next up nothing that on that one you good no changes no changes okay I move that the school committee approve the building use requests from youthful expressions for the use of long medal High School on June 29th 30th 2024 as indicated on the request form dated February 13th 2024 we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion none we'll move to a vote Zach yes Jamie yes Michaela yes Julie yes and yes for me as well next up satena satena yes satena got it I moved that the school committee approved the building use request from sat samula Foundation Inc for use of the long metal high school on May 19th 2024 as indicated on the request form dated February 15 2024 thank you we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Zach yes Jamie yes Michaela yes Julie yes and yes for me as well and finally oh no not finally sorry two more NAIA shastra notra okay I got it I moved that the school committee approved the building use request from naasha for use of the long metal High School on August 1st 3rd 4th of 2024 as indicated on the request form dated December 22nd 2023 thank you we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion say none I Mo for vote Z yes Jamie yes Michaela yes Julie yes and yes for me as well thank you all right good thank you I was wondering about that one um and that is all for those um so we are headed out of our regular meeting and into executive session Reed that was sorry did not know that all right um so we have a possible motion related to an executive session I move the school committee meet an executive s session persuading to Mass General law section 30A subsection 21A purpose seven consideration of the release of executive session minutes of previous meetings not to recr reconvene into Open session we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Zach yes Jamie yes Michaela yes Julie yes and yes for me as well have a good evening thank you Andrew we will see everyone in a few weeks