as the chair of this meeting I need to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me school committee members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative Elizabeth elota yes Mary branley yes Hillary Griffiths yes Mara Hogan yes okay um I know that we do not have student Representatives tonight um I believe we do oh we do oh okay I thought they mentioned at our sack meeting that that Kaye K Kay is oh Kaye you are here okay well it hi can you hear me okay ah okay all right I was all ready to kind of take over but I realized the weather maybe put a damper in some of you guys plans okay um so kayy thank you for for joining then uh staff when I call your name please respond to the affirmative Colleen and TR here Brian hos yes Chuck Cara Janis yes Wayne White yeah um and we have is anyone else from staff NOP okay um this open meeting of the mayor school committee and our budget hearing is being conducted remotely as Allowed by chapter 2 of the act of 2023 signed into law by Governor Healey on March 29th 2023 this act continues to exam ex certain Provisions under the open meeting law require uh regarding remote meetings and Public Access until March 31st 2025 this committee is convening via Zoom as posted on the district's website while um let's see this meeting will uh oh while an option for remote meeting is being provided as a courtesy the meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast um to remote attendees unless otherwise required by law and just as a caveat um if there's technology issues during our public hearing we will have to probably reschedule that so that would be the only um exemption to that please note that this meeting is being recorded accordingly be aware that other folks may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording which is audible too and viewable by the public if you're planning to record a broadcast this meeting please use the raise your hand function now and I don't see anyone there um along with the agenda most of tonight's meeting materials are available on the mayor Public School website under um in the folder titled 2023 2024 agendas under the tab school committee also um for awareness because again this is a a public hearing the budget information for fy2 has been posted on under the under um on the school's website as well for reference public comments it's devoted time for the school committee to hear from the public as such it structured primary supports a unidirectional recording of public comments rather than a bidirectional conversation here are the general rules of public comments any person wishing to speak and make a comment during the meeting um can sign up using the link provided on the agenda to speak in advance please have your name your Zoom name match so that we can unmute you to speak all public comments are limited to 3 minutes to ensure that everyone who wish to comment has the opportunity to be heard no person may comment more than once without permission of the chair as time allows a chair could consider allowing a person to comment a second time especially if it's related to a topic that has not yet been brought up any person wishing to submit comments and writing to be read may do so by emailing in advance comments for SC meeting at mayor. k12.us you must indicate public comment in the subject line and include your first last name in your town to ensure your comment can be read comments uh will only be read for 3 minutes if the submitted comments are longer they will generally um be suspended at the 3 minute Mark to ensure all comments can be read in their entirety suggested that you keep them to approximately 350 words however comments submitted longer will be included to the um in the public record in their entirety anyone who wishes to send a comment after the meeting um can do so or after the agenda item has passed can do so by submitting or emailing comments for SC meeting at mayor. k12m uh ma. us up until the end of the meeting specifically stating that their comment to be additional comment to be included so for additional some ground rules I'll introduce a speaker on the agenda after they conclude the remarks I will ask each member if they have any additional comments questions I will go through the members for um additional comments or question of time allows please hold all speaking until your name is called and remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes if members wish to engage with other members please do so through the chair and take care not to interrupt anyone who is speaking finally each vote taken is this meeting will be conducted via a roll call vote so um I will go ahead and call the meeting to order via roll call Mary branley here Mara Hogan here Elizabeth elota here Hillary gripitz here and Natasha Rivera yes okay and now I already lost my agenda there we go um so now it's at 78 we'll go ahead actually need to open um the hearing so we're going to open the public Hearing in accordance with mgl chapter 71 um section 38n so I'm going to do another uh roll call to open in the hearing Mary brandley yes Hillary gripitz yes or Hogan yes Elizabeth alota yes Natasha rera yes okay um I'm gonna Brian turn it over to you to discuss our budget again and we can go from there great thanks very much um it's great to see so many people here tonight we've worked really hard on our fy2 budget from early on this past fall um with the school committee support with the leadership team support working with the town as well um it's we're the largest Department in the town we're one but we're one Department in in the town so you can see Colleen are you gonna share and run the slides I know you are right there thanks and so one of the important things is that um we really look at our district priorities we want to advance best practices and we want to align our resources to make them sustainable and what's in the best interest of students and staff and that's really been our Focus um so the next slide talks about our major initiatives and they're not new they're our district Improvement pieces um we focus primarily on obviously curriculum social emotional and student services those have been three big areas and you'll see that's primarily where a major portion of the money goes to um literacy curriculum math curriculum assessments Etc um social emotional in terms of Mental Health First Aid maintaining our schooling school counselling staff members um and integrating social emotional learning curriculum into the schools and student services covers a wide variety there everything from maintaining a fourth nurse to continuing in District support of students um with specific needs to reduce our out of District costs and a host of other things Colleen is going to go to the next slide for me thanks um and this is a slide which has shows our okay go back one please there we go she's testing me I appreciate that she was likeing too slow I know I need to get it going we've done this a lot of times but I think there are people on at the at the meeting who may not have seen it each and every time so this just shows historically the green bar is what I would say is our level service and what we've spent year to year year and you can see that the blue bar is what was allocated from the town so every year from f520 we've spent a little bit more in some years it's been a little bit easier because we've had an increase in Grants other years we've had to use our revolvers and as you see every year that Gap grows and by FY 25 that is not a sustainable Gap so we had to really go back to our budget and really maintain stick with our priorities priorities but really zero in on what do we have to keep and how much of our revolvers can we use and we'll talk about that a little bit later but you can see that gap for fy2 between the blue and the the green is substantial now now you can go to the next slide I see you just having so much fun tonight so a topic that comes up quite often which it does for I think most schools is how much do you spend or do you spend enough on maintenance you know we have lots of buildings they're municipal buildings um and right now we have two really really beautiful buildings and one building that um we just needed to last a couple more years CU luckily the town supported uh the green meow building project and we are in design development for a new building but this shows from fy19 all the way to F y23 that we really in fact have spent money um on year after year whether it's in the hundreds of you know 160,000 180 275 $300,000 whatever that number is um we have contributed money to maintain our buildings and grounds so just to put that to rest and they're buildings they're kind of like your house so one of the things you see on there are capital roof repairs like your house roofs only last so long furnaces only last so long so those are normal things wear and tear on a building like wear and tear on your house so we in fact do maintain those some of these are Big projects so you'll see we go back to the town for and ask for Capital money because they're larger projects than a school budget can absorb thanks now we get to the slide that really spells out the options and when we started the budget process we were kind of at we were at the enhanced level service budget I was pretty excited with that as superintendent I should be excited with that that's everything we want it includes what we're currently doing it adds a couple of things that we think are really important but we also know it was a big ask um and if you've been watching the news lately across the state many many towns are looking at overrides this year just to maintain and without those they're looking at significant Cuts right right so we worked with the town we worked with our leadership team we went back and said okay so if we can't have as much as we're asking for the 2412 24 million 101 656 um what would that look like what would we be able to do and you know th those are difficult conversations um so we came to a level service budget which is a little bit less um um in terms of we're doing exactly what we're doing this year and then we we dug a little bit deeper and said okay we have revolving accounts that's one of the things school systems have and I saw the list of names of people here many of whom have been involved in school systems so they know this excuse me so for example school choice is a revolving account as kids come into Maynard who don't live in Maynard we get funds and they go into an account that we're able to use to offset our operating budget and luckily we have a business manager um Wayne White who's on screen who's really good at keeping us financially um fiscally responsible and financially conservative and we've been able to use our revolvers to really maintain that Gap that we talked about between what the town allocates and what we want to spend on our students this year it's the green row across the middle of your screen which talks about a minimum service budgets 23,6 29,5 65 which is about 3.5% above what we spent last year and it's above what we spent it's more than that above what the town allocated last year but recognize what we spent last year that's what we based that on that's what it cost us to do business in fy2 24 so three and a half% is not significantly that's not a huge ask that maintains some of what we've been able to add on to our programming and our buildings things that make us successful things that are good for kids for example a fourth nurse given the needs of our students we absolutely need that uh a counselor at Green Meadow um and we're able to do that by making some reductions in other budget lines one of there are a couple of things several things in fact that we were not able to fund which we they're part of our priorities we would love to have them but they're in the higher um enhanced level service budget if you will and we recognize we had to make some hard decisions so in the minimum service budget which will be the recommended um we don't have an athletic trainer although we want one so I don't want people to misunderstand because we're not we're saying we can get by without that um it's not that we don't want it but we recognize we can't have everything we want um a literacy coach an mtss uh person at Fowler School those are things that we've had through Esser funding and they have been helpful uh really helpful they will be the people who did them did a phenomenal job they they they helped students they helped staff we've grown as a system because of those things and in a perfect world I would keep those things no question but even without those things to meet that budget number of 23629 we need we will use everything the town allocates us plus and here's sort of the deal breaker we will use $800,000 of our revolving accounts for us that's a big deal that's a big number it's and I'll be let's just be frank that is not a sustainable number I will not be able to come back to you year after year and say we're going to use $800,000 out of our revolving accounts because they're not being replenished as quickly as we're spending them I'm just letting that sink in but at the same time I'm GNA reinforce that when we we open yeah you can reinfor but we also don't want to leave money sitting in the savings account if you will in the revolving account and have to hurt programming or hurt students so that's why we're spending that money just so we're clear there the town's recommended budget um is 22839 which is not enough quite frankly that would that just isn't enough for us it would require significant reductions to our Educational Services our programming our kids it would eliminate subst it would eliminate Staffing that we don't want to lose we're not willing to lose and it would still require us to spend a significant portion $300,000 of our revolvers so for us as a team that wasn't a an option it was it was too deep of a cut so we looked at what can we spend and we'll get to that slide briefly in a moment um all right con let's go to that next Slide the next couple are quick so this is essential positions that we are keeping that I mentioned the fourth nurs and the school adjustment counselor at Green Meadow and how we're paying for them absolutely important the next slide talks about some positions that we're unfortunately unable to fund right now in the future we'll keep our eye on them we absolutely think they are important and beneficial to the system the athletic trainer the literacy coach and the mtss well and then we'll show you exactly where we're pulling money from from our revolving accounts um you can see it's a lot it's from our preschool account so we have a preschool program it's tuition based we have we have some funds in there we're going to use $200,000 from that account we're going to use $100,000 from our foreign exchange account circuit breaker is a reimbursement account which if you want to know all about circuit breaker Wayne's going to open up and talk about circuit breaker but it it reimburses for expenses related to special education so it is one that does get reimbursed but it's got restrictions it's for specific things related to special education I can't just say oh I want to use that to pay for a nurse for example or I want to use that to pay for another teacher to keep class size down that that one's pretty restricted school choice has the aster because it also says goes down to the bottom of that screen we have less money in there and we're bringing in less money the nice thing about that one is it has the least amount of restrictions so we can support the overall operating budget nicely with that one but still total amount is $800,000 from revolving accounts and again I won't have the ability to come back to you in a year and say we want to do this again I want to do it again quite frankly I would love to be able to do it again but we won't have the same amount of money in those funds to do that next year for FY 26 and then somebody's dog likes that they're pretty happy with us so far and the next slide is really a repeat of the last slide because we kind of shortened our presentation for the town budget committee meeting so you've just seen this you just heard this it's just a reminder of that green Row in the middle is that minimum service budget we are we can really provide the same level of programming for our students and support for our staff um it's about 23 and A5 million it's a significant drain on our revolving accounts it's about three and a half% above what we spent last year um and we will have a different conversation a year from now when I'm sitting here right this is a good conversation for this year before you before you move off of this slide just a clarifying point because it's this is the second place I'm seeing it the um Town Administrator recommended budget you have the 3% from expended but I know the number over the prior allocation is about 2.75% or something along that can we I just want to call that out a little bit I know the community generally looks at that number and I don't want the takeaway here to think that that it was only a three like it's a different way we've framed it this year um so I just want to make sure so from this is what you've calculated or spent last year right but over what was previously allocated and Mary you might have I think this was in the fir one of the first slides you had the graph I think it was what 2. was it 2.75 Mary 2.75 y yeah yeah okay so just to clarify yeah for if we're if if things are people are looking how we how it's been preva um um clarified in the in the past um it was 2.75 over our prior allocation which is clearly not enough to fund but I just wanted to put that number out there y thank you thank you and I think that we can go to the next slide it just says thank you and it really then turns it over to you to open it up for questions okay um I'm going to just say a couple of things and then I'll go around to the school committee um one just to reinforce Brian what you mentioned about the Reliance on those accounts um I know there was a slide and it probably is in a larger presentation um that looks at how much we've relied on on those funds um it was pretty significant what we're going into next year so I I just reinforcing this is something that is only kicking the can down as what we've conveyed that I think at all of our finance meetings that this is not um next year will be a really tough uh discussion a lot of other towns are having that discussion this year um for override so I think as a community we probably should really be um expecting to have um that next year because there will be this is this is our this is our this is our savings and the the part with the school choice the other part is that it's the revenue continues to go down for that so we that are one one account that we do have flexibility is coming in lower and lower every year for our or what we can rely on so that's just um something to to call out as well um I do thank you Brian for and and the leadership team for all of your hard work and and putting something together I know last budget season was felt very contentious and um I I know we have a lot of other Town priorities as well and I think trying to present something that is keeps things moving which does not take us back um is what you've what you've worked on to do and I think everyone um from what I've seen I think it's um it's it's a it's a a great option at this point with what we have so uh I'll I'll go ahead and um start off Elizabeth I don't know if you want to have you on my screen I don't know if you wanted to have any questions or thoughts oh she needs oh she's muted thanks those are my dogs that were excited um so actually the things you just said Natasha were the things I wanted to say um to highlight those exact same things so I'm glad that you did that I think it is important that everybody knows that that we are up against some tough times and that you know all you know that it is we are digging into our savings and that this is not something we can continue to do I think is important to see um and I I think that I think that Brian has been strategic and thoughtful about how we use the money that we do have and what we can dig into for this year without it being an emergency immediately um and that's it's just a it's just a hard time and like you said it's not just here so it is unfortunate so yeah I think that that's that's really all there is to highlight yeah I think the the Reliance just to kind of frame it it's a it's been it's a risk-based decision I don't think anyone is entirely comfortable with the approach of going as deep as we have it's not something we've done I think we recognize as well that if it gets to a point where you know the town we have Reserve funds at the Town level as well so if there is some unanticipated maintenance we have that relationship with fincom that we might you know have a resource there which has helped us in the past when we've needed it but again um you know not it's a risk-based decision I think we we're all kind of weary and making but at this point the right thing at this juncture Hillary I don't know if I'm G to oh you're muted too um mostly just you know I appreciate that we're making this risk right now so that the kids can get what they get next year um but I think we need to like almost to really literally lay it out at town meeting that there's no more money left after this and that the same way we're hearing towns I think a lot of people are hearing about acten and the debate there that's I don't see a I don't see a way that we're not going to be in that position next year um like so when we stress the difficulties next year you know last year I thought that the town should have allocate I I thought that the allocation we were getting was um a a choice for the town like the town could have made a different choice and given us what we needed um this year I'm not so I'm not sure but next year I don't know that the town would even be able to even if they chose to prioritize the school and how and meeting all the needs of the school I don't know that it's even a possibility at that point so I don't think it's I I think we need to stress it it's not you know hyperbole it's it's very much we're going to have to prepare for probably needing an override a year from now I I agree U marrow um I agree with with Hillary that we definitely need to um make the um voters aware um at at town meeting um because I I also don't see how next year is is going to go without even with the I still think that even with an override I still don't think that we're gonna get enough money um so I think we're still going to end up having to cut um and that's really really concerning um so you know to be able to let voters know and that we're you know I think we're going to have to do quite a bit of marketing over the next year to you know to let the town know how you know where we're at and and how um you know if we want to keep going with the way with the programming that we have set forward which I think is fantastic and and I don't personally think that it's like over the top the things that that we're asking for no so I think that that's it's you know definitely really imperative that we're communicating um this message out that's it thanks yeah um a couple of things I just wanted to add um Mary did you did you have anything yeah but if you want to add do yours yeah I just wanted to yeah just real quick um so in addition to I I think when we talk about override and I think we need to think about it the town as a whole you know there are so many things education one for certain um but if anyone has had the opportunity to see the asit presentation that has come out since we've done our budget conversations asit votc which has you know 65 63 Man U mayor students that go there they're experiencing the same uh crunch they but their assessments are going up 8% every year that we have to pay them um they you know they're hiring an athletic trainer next year um there are you know things with the transportation you know they subsidize complete Transportation um so what I want to make sure that we look at it it's really the holistic approach right we don't want it to be uh um the educational experience aside from just being vot vac you know to public you know to mayard as um the the general uh General school it shouldn't feel like a completely different experience um of resources that are being able to be funded for the different um schools and and that's what I worry about is that it comes down to we're we're all fighting over the same you know very sliver piece of pie because you only get two and a half% um that you can bring in um and that's just not enough for overall Revenue I there are needs around the town I know DPW has the garage like there's a whole bunch of things and this is what I think when we talk about override that's what my my hope would be is that we're talking about the needs of the Town not just education of course that's what I think we advocate for but um there's so many things that can't be done the capital um the the Capcom has a lot of projects around town that can't be funded because there's just not enough Revenue that is coming in so that's the approach I would hope that we look forward to but as it comes to our budget the school I think um we certainly need to um be realistic on what the future looks like for mayard public schools and the Horizon there's no windfall of of um there's not another 129 opening up that we could expect an influx of of Revenue that's coming in um that so anyway Mary go ahead yeah no I wanted to just stop by thanking Brian and all the staff um the leadership team um for being so creative and so strategic in in helping um this budget that it did not negatively impact the the kids which is what we're all about um and also wanted to give special kudos to um Wayne for using the Esser funds um the way that we did in that you know we're hearing so many different cities and towns that really Incorporated the SR funds into the general fund and you know it's tough of a situation as we're in right now they're in dire straight so thank you very much Wayne for you know being such a good Steward for um those Esra funds and uh you know I'm I'm constantly saying been saying forever that um if our school system stays the same level then we're actually falling behind because it just education is just not like that um the world is not like that so got a lot to be proud of we've got a new literacy program we're going to have a new math curriculum um we've got the new value the new um assessments that we're putting in we've put in place I see Marx sinopoly here we just uh Governor Hy just um um certified mayard as one of the 32 communities I think to to have a computer science pathway so thank you mack for that um you know the work on the DECA business pathway up at the high school so in light of all of or in spite of all of these Financial constraints we've been doing some great great things thanks to thanks to everybody um but yeah I've got one of notes is the scary elephant in the room is that the fact that we are using our our $800,000 um safety net um God forbid if we have any kind of um um unexpected um cost that comes to us we're going to be in a difficult position so I'm hoping that we can actually get the rest of the boards on um on track as far as an override goes because that's our first challenge um you're you're hearing different different members of the different boards saying you know not being um as upfront about needing an override as we do I remember Dr Masterson when we had him as a superintendent I don't know four or five ago he said really we should and that was a long time ago he said every 10 years we should be going for an override just for the operating because the two and a half% the you know just is not wasn't even cutting it then never mind now so um I think as as well as us working as a community we just have to really start hitting the pavement as far as our state representatives go in that because they it needs to come down loud and clear I think it is hitting the state as far as you know the fact that we're just not getting enough money um I know the state isn't in in a great situation now too but it's multifaceted what we what we have to do um to help help these kids so that's it Colleen I was going to open it up um do we have any public comments that you need a vote to continue because it's stated that 7:35 the public hearing will end oh okay with objection are we um are we okay with extending it has to be roll call I don't think it it's the end time is not set it's just approximate it is we've done this in past um budget hearings okay all right so I'll go ahead and extend for another well first let me see if there's anyone we have anyone who has public comment okay so any public comments that you I don't think we got anything in the email all right so I think I'm actually just going to if go ahead and and close the public hearing if that's um okay so I'll go ahead and um make a motion that we close the public hearing any second a second okay all right roll call um Mary yes marrow yes Hillary oh she needs to be unmuted um I'm a little bit resistant to saying yes because I don't I feel like the way that that conversation just went um people who maybe had something to say might feel like they should hurry it up since you know we're 10 minutes over and I just no we're not we're not it was no we're not over it was just that whether we were going to extend it if we had public comments or we were just closing it no one was raising their hand yet from what I was seeing so we didn't have any hand raise so it wouldn't make sense to me do a roll call to extend for 10 minutes if we have no no one but if that's that's why so I don't know if you yes but I I don't really like how that played out cu I feel like people okay may may have felt like they shouldn't say raise their hand at this point no anyone if anyone has a comment please raise your hand welcome them we want them yes yes every every every budget hearing we almost get no comments so that's I know we almost get no comments but I feel like this there's you know looking at the people who are have joined they might have really great feedback or questions or comments or concerns and this I really want people to comment and share aside from calling on people which I really don't want to do I don't know what else I can do except for just all that so does it prevent anybody from making a comment in the public comments if they have a second thought no all right right okay yeah okay yeah all right who did I so Hillary are you yes or yes yes okay Elizabeth did I call on you sorry and yes yes okay you're yes okay and then oh myself yes so of course now that we're Clos a public hearing if anyone still has a question later on maybe tomorrow please send an email or a comment we will read your comment if it's something you think about later obviously um or in a few minutes when we get to the public comment section of the regular meeting yes Hillary Hillary is dying for someone to to give a comment and I don't know if she's gonna want us to move on unless someone does so well I just it's so much more helpful and productive to have a discussion in this format than on Facebook Facebook or you know later that's not yeah that's not really a discussion on Facebook um okay yeah I I agree all right so I'll go ahead now that we are closed the public hearing I'll return back to um any regular schedule meeting Brian any urgent business uh no no urgent business tonight okay all right and now we have a public comments agenda anyone wants to think about Hillary's or you know request all of us should we sit in awkward silence for H 30 seconds just to make sure now they're really GNA feel weird about raising the hand I know I know all right okay I don't want to make it that awkward all right um so seeing no public comments and not having any emails I will go ahead and move on to the student representative report Kaye thanks for joining this evening hi um hi so for our highlights we have the international dinner last week was a huge success and a highlight of the year so far um mayor Jazz night was an amazing concert featuring female jazz artists as part of the Jazz her initiative fer and MHS students played with the international artists um today nearly 50 MHS music students attended the the Boston Symphony Orchestra they learned a lot heard great music and had fun the cdac spring conference is rescheduled for April 11th due to today's storm eight MHS students are attending and Kaye Donahue is running for public relations representative woohoo um for concerns and solutions wabm students want to start planning for next year they met with the friends of wabm on Tuesday to work out a timeline and we are brainstorming for next year's Improvement plan in upcoming we have Miss Adams is looking for families interested in the Spanish and German exchange programs for 2024 to 2025 um an art gallery field trip is planned in Lawrence on May 1st um we have an Earth Day celebration on April 10th um opening games for spring Sports have started and will continue to start senior pops nights is coming up I believe auditions were today um and Senior projects are on the horizon um is there any particular senior projects that that um I know we discussed at the meeting a few students are doing something on body image um get the specifics on that I know my older brother is planning on doing something with the maor business Alliance not sure what but and there was someone who was doing um a i I know this is gonna Mary might love this the financial literacy um for Fowler right was that presentation Luke fer is planning on doing a presentation for Fowler students on financial literacy yes Mary as soon as I was like oh you were just asking about that recently so I was like I want to make sure you heard that update so students are yeah I thought that was really cool um kayy thank you and can you speak a little bit more about that the position I know I I went to the the SAC meeting the other day but it seemed like there was a lot of enthusiasm about you and this particular position that you're running for can you yeah so cdmc is a subdivision of masc which stands for this Massachusetts Association of student councils and it's essentially student councils from all over the state um come together for different events um and we do workshops and keynote speakers and all sorts of community service events um and each region there's four I believe um has an a executive board and I'm running to be the public relations officer for the central District's board which will entail um running and managing like the social media Pages um updating the website and communication between students and the board um organizing can't elections for next year and general stuff relations positions I just thought it was really really cool exciting I know it takes a lot to put your name out there to to go through um an election you know process so kudos to you for really um stepping forward I think that's great that and good luck is there when is when will that um take place um so the election is the conference that's rescheduled for next Thursday so I'm not exactly sure when the results will come out but we give speeches and do voting then so either the end of the conference or the next day okay well good luck um all right and Mary I'll go ahead and any questions comments no just thank you again Kaylee can we send letters of recommendation I wish I know you would have had five of them at least anyway but thank you very much and thanks for stepping up to to run for that that's pretty cool yeah Mar I don't have any anything uh extra but Kaylee thanks so much that's really fantastic and I hope that you win thank you Elizabeth oh muted thanks and the same sorry meaning to say exactly what Maro said so thank you again appreciated Hillary muted oh yeah um just thank you and good luck thank you and just as I mentioned earlier I was able to attend their their meeting this week and um superintendent hos the the question of school or no school today was very much a debated um topic it was about 5050 I think for the students half of them wanted a delay half wanted no school so just to let you know it wasn't a consensus I think people realized going into June the next week was not um great either so seniors were for the snow day because they would have to make up right because they wouldn't be there yeah everybody else was like the two hour delay sufficed in this situation I heard the possibility of bribery although I'm not sure if anything played out it doesn't seem like it since it was a school day today um but I just uh thought that was pretty pretty great to hear the conversation around that and also um wavm that know that that came up they were having their meeting was it yesterday um um Tuesday I believe okay I know there was some conversation about just getting a little bit more organized and and planning for wavm programmatically so that would be good to hear in the future how um how that um plays out and and then I also um gave an update about the bleacher um just because I know that there's been about you know the theay there were some questions about you know why that is looking at the fall as opposed to the spring um and just you know reaffirming our commitment to the students that we are still proceeding forward a lot of it is just Community um seeking more information and so there's not necessarily substantive changes in the project scope itself it's just giving the town time to process um the designs and information and the cost associated with it um not feeling rushed so Kaye I don't know if you had any questions about the budget I know that was just we had our hearing but if anything um any thoughts on that um no I think it was good it seems I mean I didn't understand all the financial talk but um seems kind of like a similar issue last year um hopefully this year we can make it work again no problem if there's any questions will there be a town meeting for that like there was last year yeah so we'll go we um so last year so this will be this will go to town meeting in May and and then we'll they'll vote on it it won't um the school isn't taking a different position or recommending a different position which is what we did last year so we um that that is a little bit you know not as challenged so this is we've worked with the in our town budget subcommittee meeting um very well to discuss all the questions that we've had um and I did mention also which was uh discussed is that the peg access so that part as uh they the select board did vote on so we do have funding for Peg which is the public access um for Verizon their contract was recently renewed and it'll be for five years so that is um it was I believe at the same level that they had so that was a a good thing we were worried about uh the potential of of losing Verizon or them you know coming in substantially lower um to what they were wanting to fund uh for Peg and so we are grateful that that is a conversation that we can pivot for another time yeah I think wasn't it about $182,000 or something that was it was like 186 yeah their contract alone and and so um yeah that would have been a hard in addition to everything else um you know again it would been a hard thing to overcome from from a town perspective so okay Hy thank you very much um and you're of course you're always welcome to hang on and if there's any other questions about budget things that if you guys meet um in the future please um please email if you there's anything that everyone else is thinking of okay thanks K thank you thank you guys right superintendent uh report Brian back to you yeah thank you since we just had a meeting last uh last Wednesday the report is somewhat short this Mee it's not very been very long but it's focused on students which fabulous to say uh we had a senior Emma cryan who received the first female eagle scout in Maynard history um on March 30th so that was super exciting that's a really hard process and um it's takes a lot of work for a lot of years um so it's a huge accomplishment so congratulations to her Y and if I can just um I had the opportunity to be invited and it was it was incredible the room was filled um Kate Hogan was there Jamie Eldridge was there our um Town Administrator Greg Johnson was there our assistant um principal up at the high school Miss uh doov was there um it was it was incredible everybody um Everybody giving kudos for her her job well done so and she even had a day named after her Saturday that was pretty cool too anyway sorry Brian no that's perfect that's good addition right on topic um the senior recital for Alvaro Gonzalez was April will be sorry April 12th at the Sudbury United Methodist Church um and all donations support the mayor trian music Honor Society so if you can make it I'm sure based on all the other musical um experiences we've seen it also will be very good um National Junior honor Honor Society Award winner a follow student Arabella C was selected as the National Junior Honor Society outstanding Achievement Award recipient so congratulations to her and that involves scholarship service leadership character and citizenship and she will receive $500 in a529 college savings amount to be applied toward her higher education so very exciting um lots of good just lots of really exciting good student centered events recently upcoming um in in Personnel we've in the end stages of our green meow principal search um that's a great search I want to uh thank Chuck har Janice for chairing that and the committee and um to get us to where we are today we uh we have two finalists with more information upcoming in the very very near future uh we are starting the process just in terms of personnel continuing on with that um director of student services that search has be beginning um letter I think that email actually went out today to form the committee um so if you know people or if you're online and you're somebody who wants to participate um reach out and the director of facilities um that also is going to be kicking off next week as well uh the committee and job applicants so it's a busy busy spring for us with with a lot of really key RS and we're taking that very seriously and it's a great process I'm sure they will be successful and I think one more final thing that I think Mary already mentioned but and it was in the memo that you got it'll go out after this meeting tomorrow it'll go out on social media as well uh but the fact that mayard Maynard high is really now an innovation pathway in computer science and Mark copoy who is online um really want to thank him for all his efforts to make that a reality um we're really excited about that given everything we just talked about with budgets and how they've been tight and how we don't get funded 100% forever and we manag to find a little bit more money to do what we need to do not only do we do that but we have people like Mark sinopoly who go above and beyond and then we're even able to go forward and become an innovation school which there's only a handful in the state so thank you to Mark and if he wants to say anything he's welcome to I'm not putting him on the spot it's just an opportunity if he raises his hand you should call on him and if he does Hillary don't call on him I'm watching and I don't see a hand oh oh I do oh good okay Mark you're on you might need to be unmuted Colleen can you unmark un yeah thank you un Mark unmute Mark you're on Mark why not oh no he'll figure it out Mark you are unmuted but we can't hear you yet oh that's disappointing wait time wait time it's okay we can I think of all the the work that he's done we can wait um here we go Mark go can you hear me yeah hello hello hi this is Eve schlutter his wife hi hi he actually not on the oh that's so funny I know so I wanted to just apologize he actually being the wonderful person he is just took the dog out in this weather for me so a I apologize that he didn't get to hear that that's okay please please pass along the the accolades I will sorry for that no worries that's okay thank you I know we got we I was excited we got a hand raise so thank you for raising your hand so then I will uh that's what I have for you tonight so thank you okay um any other anyone have questions comments for superintendent report Hillary no okay um marrow um Brian when did when does the Green Meadow uh principal search like when does that decision get made if all goes well tomorrow okay great awesome and just so you know in full disclosure one of the two finalists is actually on screen she might wave if you ask her to there you go there you go hi Heather hi wonderful good question Marl Brian if you can um just thank Bob seavoy too for hanging in there a little bit to help with facilities manager search that I thought that was really great that trying to yeah incorporate his his uh talents yes absolutely I will pass that on all right Elizabeth no thank you okay um Brian nope nothing else okay all right um so then we are moving on to the literacy and math curriculum presentation I'm guessing Chuck this will be you that's correct and I'll be uh sharing my screen in a second uh if anything goes wrong I did share this with Colleen but I don't think anything will oh Colleen has it okay I guess I won't click on share then or or I could check and see what actually happens if two people are sharing the same thing simultaneously but experiment for another night um the uh this is just a brief four slide presentation um on how things have been going with with our uh Ela uh adoption and uh where we stand in the process of selecting a new math curriculum um if we go on to the next slide um we uh can see that uh the materials for CA amplifying Caminos now in their second full year of use in grades 3 to8 um we've had a really good partnership with a group called instruction Partners uh which is a desie approved vendor um uh this vendor specifically works with districts around Ela adoptions uh uh that um various districts have um and they've been instrumental in helping with the training of our staff in particular um I think one of the things that's been stressed through through all of the training and all of the work uh with the new curriculum is that we want our students to have what we're terming productive struggle um we we want our students to be doing the bulk of the work we want our teachers to be acting as facilitators and coaches um and we want the work to be you know I guess you'd call it in the zone of proximal development or in other words that kind of work where with skillful teacher scaffolding a student uh really uh pushes themselves a bit to uh always be improving their skill set uh always expanding where they're at uh under this model really the teachers's work is very much in the preparation for the lesson the selection of materials um the the choices about student groupings and once the period's underway it's really the students that are that are uh doing the work uh without the teacher I guess in the vernacular sort of giving away the answers if things are going a little too slowly so um we've been very pleased with that work uh one thing that's pretty well known about new adoptions is frequently uh progress appears to go backwards uh while the while the staff and students get kind of used to using the new curriculum what we've seen this year uh thanks to our our map uh tool is uh that we're seeing that students are actually uh growing at a pretty good rate so rather than have that sort of um hesitation or stumble out of the gate That's Not Unusual at all for a new Adoption where we're seeing that the students are actually doing pretty well um our students took the map test uh to create a baseline at the beginning of the school year and they completed a midyear assessment and the midyear assessment compared to the initial assessment is where you get a growth score from we've seen at the Green Meadow that they're actually uh at the Green Meadow above the national average in um both achievement and growth uh percentile so uh the students are doing quite well there we're seeing at the school that um the school as a whole um is in the high achievement range and they're just outside the high growth range they're they're very close to the high growth range so again there we're we're getting indicators from a nationally normed test that our students are actually doing quite well with their Ela curriculum so we're very pleased with that um if you move on to the next slide to talk briefly about the math Pilots um um we've uh been working for a couple years now toward this uh we've had a extensive review by the math curriculum committee uh we have representatives from all three buildings I believe there's 18 members uh it was determined that we would pilot Kendall Hunt's illustrative math and Carnegie math um teachers in kada 8 received training on illustrative math on February 27th and then actually piloted illustrative math through the month of March um at the end of March is they were wrapping up uh the pilot for illustrative math they received training on Carnegie math um and that pilot has begun uh this week um so we are now in the second pilot um we're going to be piloting that through the month of April into early May um we've uh agreed to evaluation tool that we'll be using to um evaluate both of the curriculum uh uh un tool both of the curriculum uh um offerings that we've piloted uh and we will be on Monday at our next math committee meeting uh we're going to go beyond just saying we have a tool for the evaluation we're going to talk about the process we're going to weigh the different elements of the tool and determine a uh like a final methodology to um make a decision uh it's our goal at uh at our uh I believe it's Monday May 5th we have uh one final meeting and at that time uh we're going to complete the evaluation process and make a recommendation to the superintendent on May 6th um so that's moving right along our timeline for that has shifted a bit uh over the course of the year um it's gotten pushed back a little bit some of that had to do with when we could book the trainings and when it sort of made sense to take a whole block of time for each pilot um but we're still going to be completing the process and making the recommendation by May 6th uh the superintendent uh will be or I will be able to report to the school committee at the meeting on May 9th um which of the two curriculum uh are is going to be put forward um and it's our goal to have a I mean this has been budgeted for so this isn't anything surprising um so we hope to have the POS draw drawn up by the end of May and the and all the materials and licenses on their way over the summer to be ready to come in um for August and September we do anticipate having further training just before the beginning of the school year so that uh teachers using the math curriculum um will be up to speed as the school year opens um so that that's what uh our plans are um and if you go on to the final slide colie um we do know that the trend toward student results in ela uh using the CK amplifying comminos materials will continue to be supported uh this just kind of it's just about official as of today we're going to be doing further training on our May early release day and we're going to have a uh voluntary uh online session in June for further training for our staff on CK and amplify to keep that work moving forward um and uh the budgetary impact right now is is not great um or we have grant funding for the uh training that we want to do uh our licenses uh are are good for another year we are considering bringing second grade under CK um which would have uh some budget impact um but we can handle that um and uh the real the real uh issue and and uh Karen linquist at the Green Meadow has been in contact with uh our our C vendor um are the real impact will be when licenses do come up for renewal in out years about two years from now uh what amount of money we'll need to budget um annually um for license license renewals um most of those packages are typically in the form of eight-year licenses so we would probably have a a significant expenditure in one year and then minimal expenditures for the next seven years after that so uh the impact will not occur next year but uh we are looking into right now getting quotes so that we can can look at budgeting two years from now and Beyond um and again the math curricular materials uh the purchase has been um budgeted for um and uh therefore you know it's it's not like there'll be an unexpected bump in in next year's budget uh because those funds have been set aside um I was wondering if folks have any questions yeah um I actually had a question about especially since you're talking about budgeting I was reading recently about um the fy2 there's a literacy launch initiative the state um Healey they're looking to do for reading success from ages three through grade grade three um and there looks to be some funding in fy2 relating to this I I haven't really actually read a lot in depth I just know it was in the news a couple of times um that there's a lot of focus on um literacy funding in the upcoming budget I don't know if that um there's opportunity there I'll take a look um and then kind of a related question to that as you're looking into it um is is because it's targeting from age three to grade three this literacy launch Reading ESS um how does that complement what we are already doing or would we need you know I guess maybe a follow-up once you were able to provide more information if um if our current literacy plan for the lower grades would need to shift um as a result that's an interesting thing about grants right um Grant has money doesn't always mean that the money aligns with what want to do right and that's what I was wondering is if if the money if it's going to come with um yeah I don't know the details about it but maybe if we could see I know that we're putting so much effort in it there's licensing that you we're looking that we're going to need to be paying soon for uh CK if there's an opportunity or a barrier there if it means that we'd have to change our our plan in order to do that yeah one one would like to think that since the state has approved CA and is grant funding us for training and everything I would like to think that the new initiative wouldn't align would fail to dovetail with that um but you know you never know till you till you read it though so right and I think that's what I was wanting to make sure exactly that is that because we've we've our Focus has been so much you know that three that CA 3 and you're looking to expand it I think this other initiative is more of the lower um grades and into it yeah okay and then my other question about the math um as well and I I didn't really think about this when we're doing our calendar um do we need to have an additional you mentioned that in June there's going to be an an optional day for PD for for ccla that's CA but what about the the math curriculum is do we feel like that there needs to I don't know maybe this is a Brian like additional PD before the school starts for that me we we are planning on that we're we're planning just before the start of the school year to have uh Math training available um we're also looking at the very early um professional development days because although uh we will be offering it very close to the start of school year it isn't within the contractual year so we can't mandate that people attend I suspect we'll have a pretty good turnout from the the I've been receiving but we also know that we'll need to do additional training very early in the year um all of the teachers did receive uh training um prior to the pilots but you know that's that was a single three four hour session um and they've had an opportunity to look at uh teachers guides and materials for several weeks but it's still not the sort of it it's not the level of training that we'd want people to have uh going into the year so we will be offering additional training opportunities just before the start of the school year when it's fresh um and uh in those early uh professional development days okay great um Mary yeah um thank you czeck very much I was wondering um map um growth scores and that you you had the Baseline and then the midy year um two questions regarding that are we going to be able to see and I know you said that you know it's going to be sporadic as to you know the the growth in that although it sounds like it's it's going really well can we see an end of year um is that something that is planned so that we can take a look at that ourselves uh Yes actually the the map model does call for a beginning of the year mid year and end year assessment great and then um one of the nice things about the map tool too is as you go into your second year and Beyond you can then start to track uh grades um longitudinally over time and you can even track individual students longitudinally over time so you can uh you can it's a you know there's an old saying about mcast you know when you get the mcast it's AOS po morem um and uh the mcast is particularly uh not as useful as you would hope for uh at the elementary level because it's really the third graders are the only grade that take an mcast test they take it late in their third grade year you know the results come out over the summer and by then they're already into the Fowler School and uh you know on their way to the fourth grade so uh one of the reasons we did bring in map is we wanted at all grade levels to have that more fine grained um sense of how students were doing over the course of the year and map has a very robust um uh ability to look at individual student responses and see what specific areas within Ela and specific areas within math where a student might need additional support um and also for students that are doing quite well it really strongly indicates that you know even though the student might be in fourth grade in certain areas of math or Ela really they they should be having fifth or sixth grade level material so um it it's uh it's a much it's a much better um tool to inform instruction uh within the school year uh that it's just not what mcass is designed to do I'm really I'm hoping it's going to be a game changer actually it sounds like it could be for the kids um specifically so um the other my other question about that was can I know you said you know they the map um does the um the comparison nationally did can we also get it by the state can we just look at Massachusetts and where we rank there yes and in fact you can you can one of the things that you can do with the map tool is you can project a student against mcap scores and it has a high degree of reliability so you can look at an individual student you could look at Chuck right and you say Chuck is growing but we can project that at this rate of growth he really won't get to a proficiency standard by the time he takes the test in 10th Grade so uh he's not far off the beam though so if we can just get him a little bit of additional support year by year between now and 10th grade we can kind of so what you're at talking about in terms of map is can we bend the his growth curve up just a little bit to create a projection that would bring him to proficiency by the time he takes mcass in 10th grade um so it really has that level of detail uh it can link directly to State mcast and it can link directly to Massachusetts its uh median scores so um yeah it's a very interesting tool that way so if that could be incorporated into the presentation at the end of the year too you know the Nationwide comparison but also if we could look at the state because we all know that Massachusetts is way up there thank goodness um anyway that would be great thank you and my my last question is having to do with the pilot the math pilot um it's the same teaches that are doing both Pilots right they go from one to the other so the same kids in that which is what I assumed but um they how many how many teachers are part of that and what grade levels so it's uh it's grades kada 8 um and if you tally up all the teachers it's uh We've also trained special Educators we're somewhere north of 30 somewhere around 35 teachers great that's great it's a good good base thank you thank you very much tomorrow uh this is great thank you very much I um guys have done a really great job and um I had a question about um the the amount of money that we spend so so we spend a certain amount of money say on the go maath that we're no we can no longer get that money I'm assuming is going to go towards the new math curriculum um unless it's similar to the the CK where we we buy the license for however many years so I'm just wondering like how is that I guess I'm I would like to know you know approximately how much we're talking about here with um if we're talking about you know $100,000 or only 50 you know because of the amount that we already budget and there this over the amount that we already budget for for this kind of instruction um materials so right now with go maath um we're pretty much for several years have been purchasing The Expendables um things like workbooks for students um things that are used up annually uh there will be some materials like that whichever uh whichever curriculum we bring in so I don't think the Expendable costs will be appreciably different um and The Upfront cost would be as if you know in in the olden days of about you know 10 years ago uh when you would buy a set of textbooks you know you knew that you would have a big cost in one year and then those that cost would not reappear until you replace that ser um similarly with licensing now if we purchase say 8year licenses which is what Karen is looking into um you know our big expenditure would be this year the consumable cost would be the sorts of cost that we've always absorbed um but you'd know that eight years from now would be another big year and so as you look at curriculum in general that's why you try to stagger adoptions so that uh um you know you don't have Ela math World Language and science all Landing in the same year where you know suddenly you're trying to figure out how to come up with half a million dollars or something um and you could say yeah but you know we're not going to have to spend a half a million dollars for another eight years so that that's still isn't very helpful because you're going to kind of torch that individual year which is something you really can't do okay thank you Hillary oh um okay I have a few questions um for the um Ela piece when you said that the trends that you are seeing early Trends was that specifically for the kids that are using the cka or did that include the younger kids that were using the sort of um peace me approach so uh for this presentation where it was for CK um uh this presentation was about CK but I did look at the map Trends in uh k12 and they're actually quite strong um so uh I was very pleased to see that as well um what the reason we're considering adding CK to grade two is the the the data coming out of our students who have done K1 is actually looking quite good now so we're thinking that moving into a more uh literature-based uh real reading program kind of moving from uh I think it it appears that our students are in a position to start the transition from learning to read to reading to learn uh it looks like like they're in position to really start doing that in the second grade um and uh so that's why we're considering CK uh moving that into the second grade but the the second grade oh sorry the scores were quite quite strong though would the second grade cka still be able to help the kids who haven't really learned how to read totally yet yes okay um and then the complaint that I had heard from kids and parents about CPA is that it REM it felt a lot like distance remote learning where they were on the computer for extended periods of time has that changed like I haven't heard that much this year um I heard that the year previously is that something that the teachers are complaining about that the kids are not liking or has that um in the second year of implementation sort of been able to be worked into the day in a different way that it's not um as much of a complaint I don't know exactly how to answer that because I haven't been getting excuse me oh almost get a big Ste there um uh I haven't heard any complaints this year so I don't know if that's a I honestly don't know if it's a function of the students and teachers are getting used to how it's presented um I don't know if the teachers have done some sort of adapting of the material so that's that's something I'd need to check into more but uh like you I just I have received no complaints from teachers or from parents uh about that this entire year and great I say no I mean like none zero yeah that's awesome um for the math um I had tried to look on the Ed reports for the two those two curriculums and I I don't see the Carnegie one for K through 5 um is it new or is it is there any reason for that or is it just my error and not finding it I'm trying I'm trying to recall uh there Zed reports and what's the other one Cur is it on Cur I believe it's on it's not on there either but uh I know I saw it on on there somewhere um so uh I can I can double check on that but uh um Carnegie is is definitely there um okay Hillary were you asking about what what grades were you particular the um the K through five I saw it for 6 to8 in high school I just didn't see it for K through five so I was wondering if maybe they had only done older grades and just expanded it to younger or something along those lines um and then I was just wondering like what was the appeal about those two um from all the different options like what are you most excited about with regards to those two what was the appeal so with illustrative math um the appeal to the group is or was because that was a few months ago now um illustrative math from references we got from other districts and things that we read and actually examination of the material by the Math teachers um really does a very strong job at um having students work in groups and teams to really understand the underlying math concepts um in a way that's much deeper than traditional math curriculum uh and so I guess the easiest way is if you're thinking about as students get to say pre-algebra and algebra it's not can you remember this formula um and even can you remember this formula and can you use it to solve even a real world problem but do you know why the formula exists do you know why the formula works because as students get into more and more advanced mathematics um the kind of formula memorization uh and plug it in here plug it in there uh really starts to fall apart when you particularly when you start getting into calculus and in upper level um math and trigonometry um so we were really attracted by uh having students have a much deeper understanding so that it wasn't sort of a rot exercise uh to to take the rout out of mathematics and really get an an understanding um so that was the appeal there uh Carnegie has a number of uh it the strain seems to be in uh real world applications the way their problems are set out uh seems to be uh really lend itself toward um much more of here's a problem you really would see uh in your life um and uh I think that was the appeal uh again was to to get away from sort of formulaic mathematics and get into uh you know um you I was in a fourth grade class uh recently and you know they were talking about perimeter um you know perimeter is a math concept it just means the edge of a of a geometric two-dimensional shape but uh and you add it all up together but you know you get into things like uh you want to put baseboards into a room you know how many feet of baseboard do you need to get well that that's a that's a perimeter problem um so that's a super simplistic example but you know to to again move move it into here's something you might actually do or if you're if you're a 10 year old year old or 11 year old here's something you might see your parents doing in your house or here's something you might see out in the real world at a park or something like that you know what's the math behind that so that was the appeal for each of those and uh um the illustrative pilot uh the feedback from the teachers was actually very good the the concerns with illustrative that I've heard initially really aren't about the curriculum itself people are concerned about um uh it's very teacher intensive early on and in the first year or two uh it really asks a lot of the staff in terms of planning um but once those lessons are planned they've been extremely pleased with the results so you know there is uh there is the possibility and and we did hear this from other districts as well that particularly year one is a really heavy lifting year for staff with illustrative math um Carnegie math were just in the first week the report was the training was very good um but uh you know I I popped into a classroom today and you know they're they're just a couple days into it at this point so it's really way too early to say much beyond that any other question thank you so much that was really good to hear Elizabeth hi yeah thanks Chuck just to follow up with what Hillary's just talking about um as far as the pilot goes um so I'm imagining that the pilot last month stopped off at a point and then you're picking up at that same point with the next pilot right they kind of I assume that they're kind of lining up in a very similar way for each grade so that they're covering the same material in the grade they're so they're they're they're maintaining the grade progression through the curriculum so we're not doing the same material in Carnegie that we did in illustrative it's more like in whatever the next topic would normally be so when the teachers were looking at the illustrative unit they were looking for the unit to fit into where they were in their process in the year and now that we're into carnegi they're looking at where they would be in their grade uh at this point in the year um because they didn't wanna you know it up yeah they didn't wantan to you know double up on something and then have the students Miss Right eventually learning time during the year and and then I guess because you can't pilot this um you can only pilot like how it feels in the classroom when you're looking at both of those curriculums um they are are they covering the same material or is there something that one's leaving out that the other one covers is there any issue with that sort of thing well I I know that I know they're both well aligned to the Massachusetts its curriculum Frameworks um how they we are inserting them into what teachers normally do so I would almost doubt that the Align you know the alignment would be perfect I do think the alignment is pretty good you know it would be the same topics um I don't know what to say and then both of them I imagine stop right before algebra or do they stop right geometry um they actually go up through algebra in uh uh grade and um the high school teachers actually requested the uh the companies do have additional curriculum that extends into high school so the high school teachers we were able to get sets of teachers guides and Sample texts uh for Algebra 1 I'm sorry Algebra 1 two and geometry so the high school teachers have been kind of going through those to try to get a sense of the type of preparation they could expect as as you know a flavor of what the students would have been learning prior to getting to the high school so the high school staff is looking through the materials as well and the high school staff has been invited uh to the trainings as well so even though they wouldn't necessarily be using car or illustrative at the high school they were at the training so they could get a sense of what students uh what student preparation would look like in the in the grades leading up to high school great that's exactly I was wondering is that I just wanted to make sure that there's no chance that they'd be like oh no we thought they would come in with this and now they don't have it anymore because of the change of curriculum but that's but you're covering That Base so that's really good to hear so thank you for that and just out of curiosity I'm wondering how you what kind of measurement tool you chose um or they chose to decide which one to use and you know how they chose it so uh Terry Morrison was really took the lead on on this um she's the math coach at the Green Meadow actually um she she wanted to take this on and I didn't stop her she said I I live for this kind of stuff so um she went out uh surveyed some districts looked at tools that District were're using uh we brought those various tools into one of our math team meetings um we discussed them and the the tool we came up with uh really seems to do a pretty good job of of looking at a bunch a group of different dimensions of the curriculum um uh ease of use uh is the uh how culturally responsive is the curric curriculum um and and I know maybe for some people maybe uh culturally responsive and math kind of don't sound like they go together but when you look at uh nature of instruction when you look at the type of problems that students are asked to solve um you know it it really does start to get into is the curriculum Equitable is it accessible um so that a dimension it it looks at as well um it looks at the uh um ease of ease of use by the teacher ease of um understanding by the students uh so it it looks at uh just a whole variety of Dimensions um what we haven't done though is I I was noticing this looking at the uh looking at the instrument uh earlier actually today is we haven't sort of assigned there are like five or six categories but we haven't assigned a weight to each one so you know it's not like uh if is an excellent in this category carry the same amount of weight as an excellent in this category so that's really going to be a topic that we look at on this coming Monday is uh how do we how do we want to approach balancing out this tool so that when the teachers are filling them out for the for Carnegie and illustrative um that you know we we don't wind up with people at the end of the process still saying but I think Carnegie is better I don't care what the score says you know it you you be because of how how it was waited so um so we'll we'll have that wrestling match on Monday and get that sorted out um so that when we wrap up the pilot at the end of April uh we we're ready to um finish the job uh at our May meeting and I know that there are two different units but I'm wondering where where can you or where are you thinking of fitting in student assessment so for example are you thinking about fitting into your decision things like this student usually excels in math uh in our old curriculum and in this curriculum but here they're suddenly falling down you know are you looking at those kinds of things patterns of learning or here it seems like the whole class did better at this you know is there some way of looking at the data you're collecting on assessment so that you can see if kids are actually learning you know um I'll I'll bring that up on Monday I I you know I am quite confident that teachers are um doing forms of assessment whether it's a quiz or a test at the end or if it's feedback in class uh if it's classwork um and they're sort of dip sticking um how students are doing on on a day-to-day basis but I will bring up um you know how how are students doing with the material compared to previous years I think it's a very fair question yeah and sorry I didn't I want to make sure you understand that I don't mean that teachers aren't doing that I just mean when you're comparing one to the other you know it seems like that's a good place to compare because that's what we're actually going for is to have kids do better and so are we looking at where are kids actually doing better you know because I I want to make sure we get that we want the end goal to be that they're they're getting the material and that's making sense yeah I think uh I think one one thing one thing that we need to considered to is um illustrative I'm just going to talk about briefly it it's it's kind of known that illustrative kind of goes slow and then it goes fast so in the early parts of uh of a new unit um from the teacher perspective I've heard from a number of teachers it can almost feel glacial um be because the the curriculum is really going for a deeper understanding so in the foundational elements of the unit it seems to go very slow but for the for the students when you get deeper into the unit all of a sudden the pace really accelerates because they have a deeper grasp so that's something that I think staff members are sort of wrestling with getting their head around almost is like um it it's just a much different pacing than than they're used to and to a certain ENT um part of the evaluation process is will the staff members sort of adjustment or it could almost be discomfort with something that's so different um can they step back and say and I think they can say but how did the kids do at the end of the unit right which is which is really what you're looking at right yeah that makes a lot of sense and then if whichever one you choose we're buying everything from K to but just I'm Sor for one dat but just for one year uh right I believe so um we're we're getting the pricing right now okay right good um thank you for all that and then going back to what you were saying about actually to Mary's point and to um to literacy um I think it would be great I think I think it's great that we have map and I think it's such a hard thing to have our only quantity of data to look at um when we talk about these things being mcast because MC as you said is a postmortem and a pretty inaccurate one I mean there's a lot of factors I think that people don't think about like for example you know every year I see kids and and even my own kids this year you know where you know you're in taking damn cast and you're in a room full of kids and you're the last one and then there suddenly that pressure to stop you know and so things like that affect scores you know there's a the reading at the end where it says you know the the report at the end where it says you know here's how your students did at things like grammar but there's like a question or two about that and that's not you know it's it could be that's very touch and go about whether you know the kids got grammar in general but this is saying that they don't get grammar for example so so I think that I agree with Mary and I hope we will from now on use our map data and and and make that more prominent because I think it's going to be more accurate and it's going to help us see better how our students are doing with literacy and you know math and I think as you were saying it also does cover that you know that learning to read and then the reading to learn so that we get the whole picture um yeah so because I think um because I think that you know every year when mcast scores are released I feel like it's like a a scramble like oh where do we screw up you know and how can we do better next year um and and I think that this is a much better way of looking at you know look at the look at the trends over time look at how this class has changed look at how the third grade has improved you know in general even though the third grade keeps changing every year um so I look I look forward to having that data um at the end of the year and then figuring out some way that that becomes the standard and you know maybe potentially once or twice a year to look at that data together at the school committee yeah we we actually uh at the beginning of the year we we held back the scores because they were but we we did send uh the map scores home to parents after the midy year so that they could look at both the achievement and growth data um so we intend to do that at the end of the year as well so from a parent and student point of view uh there you know we're not trying to you know we're not trying to hide anything here the the the score is the score and uh with the exception of the very first Administration this year it's our plan to release every set of data from here on out including next year's first round because at that point for the vast majority of our parents they will then have four data points at that at that point and then a fifth and then a sixth so um that that is our plan going forward is for this to be out to our parents and to the community as a whole and uh you know to really almost try to create a culture within the entire School community of um you know how how do we work on continuous Improvement yeah yeah I think that it's it's not just a way to communicate but it's also a way for us to understand you know where we're strong when we're weak and then continue to build our goals around those kinds of things too so so you know I think I think that's great too so yeah thank you for everything sounds great and look forward to the one at the end of the year next time oky dokie um Chuck just one more thing um I I actually just I got to see as a parent that Maps um for the mid year and I thought it was fantastic um from a parent perspective was easy to understand um and and so that's great to hear that is expected to go out to to parents um or families three times a year it sounds like that was the plan um so that parents can get very easy but concrete information of the growth of their their child through the year um aside from just you know you know prog toward of meeting with teachers I think that's a really great data element to embed in our um our partnership our parent you know school to home partnership um and then um I had a question this might be more Wayne uh or Brian just or it could be you Chuck a followup for later um when we're talking about and and Marrow maybe me think about it when we're talking about shifting our our curriculum um to more of these licenses that we're getting this is more of a budgetary question how does that look from our our budget like where does that land does it go to like it or is that still because there are licenses or does that um go into stay in a curriculum line I'm just curious that because we're seeing so many more licenses um with all of these curriculums that are growing versus more tangible um products I I I'll defer to Wayne in in just a second but generally speaking um we've kept it in the curricular lines and in many respects these are our new textbooks and so we need the the one thing that is a concern con to me and it's probably a concern to Wayne and Brian is when you purchase a physical textbook if you're having a lean budget year I know it's going to sound not ideal because it's not ideal but if you need to squeeze maybe one more or two more years out of a textbook uh than you had originally hoped to you've got a physical textbook and you can kind of do it um it's not ideal but you can kind of do it when a license expires um right right it goes away so once you get on a cycle um there's no more we can tweak this for a year or you know it it's it's uh a pretty hard transition it's like absolute and I think over the next few years you know that's going to become the reality in every school district is just like man do we have to think about our curricular allotment every year in a in a much different way and that there's a floor number that we're not going to be able to lower period or else the kids won't have English texts next year yeah and this might be more for Budget subcommittee as I'm thinking about it but I I think as we're exactly to your point you know CK you know math a lot of this is is licensed you know based um and growing in large amounts I um way that you hopped on I don't know if you had anything that maybe to add um the curriculum budget was increased significantly for FY 25 um that was at Brian and Chuck's request um so for 25 was significantly increased and so tentatively that money was staying um so hopefully they don't have to do this heavy left every year and then that money in subsequent years can be used to pay for the types of things that you're talking about okay so it's not going to be so my first question was it is going to stay under the curriculum which I think it makes sense I just know that we normally don't see a lot of license you know that that's kind of like a a nuanced approach with that so really it's not going to be even though it's licensed it's not going to be an IT expense it's really going to retain under the the curriculum okay great that' be that's good to know all right um that's all I had I don't know if anyone else I just I just wanted to say thank You Chuck and please thank all the the staff that has been yes working on this similar to the the literacy so much work goes into this and we really appreciate it so please pass that on and yourself included defitely on thank you thanks okay um so uh chair report I only had a few things some of them I had mentioned already so I talked about the the peg access it's a a 5-year uh deal that was um voted on at the slel meeting the other day with Verizon so it will continue to fund from April 24 through April 29 um it did give me some thought Brian um because there's so concern and this might you know as we're thinking um budget wise because Peg access alone doesn't fund wavm the the the general fund for the town also has increased the subsidies if there's um if we need to think about in future budgets shifting like like an FTE into our general operating budget and relying less because I think longterm what I would hate is that we get to that place where we were worried about now because we're going to have two contracts they're both Comcast and Verizon are going to be up around the same point in 5 years and so what I I worst case scenario is we lose both and we have no funding source for for that so I don't know if there's strategically we need to think about um you know should we be shifting over some FTE into the operating budgets in future future years like maybe one or two just so there is no Cliff um that we would encounter in five years um and then yes congrat ulations um about the the eagle scout that was wonderful I know that they the select board um read the part Proclamation they had and um March 30th was declared um uh a day of Celebration and that was always great to hear um a lot of people apparently attended as well so that was wonderful how how widely celebrated this accomplishment was for her um I also wanted to mention I know that we had the the National Junior Honor Society induction ceremony Tuesday night and Mary and I were able to attend that it was uh it's always a great great ceremony uh the kids are the families are so excited this is kind of one of the first more formal as they kind of like getting prepared to talk about high school and transitioning you have the eighth grade you know that's there and um and they're kind of you know they give these wonderful little um little quick descriptives of each each new inductee and I always think that's really ni kind of like passing the Baton so that wouldn't really really great um so you know kudos to miss Coleman for another um wonderful event that she organized and just in followup about the sack meeting that I attended I thought about this later and I mentioned there but I thought I'd share considering we had the elpac presentation the other the other night I don't know if the international night dinners because those are so um um attended by it's like almost a Town Event now like you see people like multi-g grades multi-age siblings are tending that if that might be an opportunity maybe to do like an elpac table in future um because if you're getting a lot of maybe people who are um from the community who are coming that are maybe more diverse in their families they feel like that's already an opportunity to be more welcoming like their their food might be celebrated in some way maybe that might be a place that elpac can just kind of have a presence and um to see if anyone if they're happen to be there you know just to kind of say who they are and you know kind of getting to Charles's um always say like go where they are you know and and so if they're if they do have a participation there because it it does draw a lot of um folks in the community um maybe that might be a good opportunity to to see an Outreach for elpac and then just a reminder for um the board June 11 this is on our calendar at 6:30 so that is going to be a i if it's a tri board or a qu quad board I think the Capcom is going to be so it's we're going to be talking about and I think um like for next year budgeting and capital projects but also I know Mary and I have been really insistent that we keep the override conversation that that needs to be part of like we can't just continue to shift that because it needs to be had um that also wanted to to kind of get a sense from every the school committee um because I heard a lot this evening do we want to do maybe a school committee letter for Town budget um maybe that just kind of does that you know expressing a you know concern however we've kind of talked about but just informing the the public or you know having that as a handout to people as we're considering we're voting for fy2 but also you know concerned for going into beyond that so I don't know marrow do you think that would be something you'd be interested in participating in if we do something like that for the school committee sure yeah great Mary Mary you think so absolutely absolutely okay I'd rather get up and talk in front of them but I think the letter will actually I don't want to side I know I'm kind of like on the I don't want to Sidetrack from the other conversation now nothing as a resident I mean I might myself go up and have my own you know give public comments and anyone anyone can um but I didn't want to past I mean in the past until the recent years um school committee always got up and defended the budget or presented it or whatever so it was only last few years that it's sort of not been quite as um part of it you know on yeah so maybe as we get closer we can think about but it sounds like I don't know Hillary as a at a minimum we we would want to do a letter right of something that we can at least have as a handout Elizabeth is that I don't know if you have any thoughts on that yeah okay so as a Min at a minimum we can maybe work towards that and if there's if there are other opportunities like the finance committee might um you know they're going to have their hearing coming up on the budget and they might have an opportunity they're to include in their comments you know just some of these things so I think if it can't oh but I don't want it to be only the school committee is saying these like it really is a town issue and I really want to make sure that that's where we we comes it's a town issue that we're faced and and I I hope other boards are on on that same logic and Pathway to to Really support like this is what we need to do Advocate together I think a handout could also be helpful in that um because there have been comments at prior Town meetings about the school finding money um we could in writing sort of address yeah what what that actually means um and sort of by like saying you know we did this we did this but here's where we're at now yeah and I I think that's that's that's right because that did come up after you know and a lot of it is is uncertain I mean then the budget from the state doesn't really get approved until later um but there are um there are always some changes actually one of the things that the select board just on that note um they did change their free cash recommendation that um Mary that they moved over that Personnel remember how we we talked about it it seemed like that was something that was doable so they the the idea of not funding operations through the free cash I know we've gone back and forth and it the feedback we provided at at our town budget subcommittee it it seemed like it's a becoming more of the norm as opposed to the exception um and I think that's just an area we're all uncomfortable with is just it's uncertain funding especially know now that we know that we're probably going to get less free cash in future years as well because um Greg is you know maybe not being as conservative as he's been in the past recognizing it's it's just slim across the board so um okay so now that I have consensus that everybody would like to do something for I can you know maybe think about that a little bit more and um at a minimum put a letter together and we can see how maybe at a workshop or something we can can um we can work on that and that's all I had Natasha I had gotten that MOX sinopoly is back in the meeting himself um so is at the real Mark it's the real mark So yeah so if you wanna oh yeah yes Mark um I um we were trying to put you on the spot but we got Eve earlier um I don't know Colleen if you can un unmute Mark um we just wanted to give you an opportunity wanted to just really make sure you heard everyone praises and appreciation for the work you're doing um with the the computer science and the the pathways there but also if you had anything else that you really wanted to elaborate on um and Mary you you I know you kind of brought this up I know you've worked you've been the champion with this so much more um but anything else you wanted to highlight Mark about the the pathway and the work that you you've been doing okay can everybody hear me yes okay great um thank you for the opportunity to talk um I just wanted to say that you know the idea of the Innovation pathway I think started maybe around eight years ago when the state was starting to uh um design this plan um probably to give the regular high school students a chance at vocational type activities but through the eight years we've gone from having no computer science in the district to this being the first year where I'm teaching a full load and while I'm the most visible part of the program um a lot of the um parts were already in place from having the Capstone program at the high school to having senior project um we're starting to implement the uh myap career and college uh education program and so when it came time for us to put forth the application everything was really in place and it wasn't a whole lot of work you know it was a lot of work and of course you know I want to thank Liz York for putting in the submissions of both part A and Part B of the application uh we sat through an interview process about two weeks ago and they kind of gave us a preview that we were likely going to be designated and I'm just really um glad of everybody's work and the support of you know Chuck and Brian and the school committee of course as well um directly and indirectly so that's really just all I want to say is that we have everything in place to to start a really successful Innovation pathway program in information and it's likely going to be um software development which is what most of our course work is about that's wonderful well you know what um thank you for bringing alignment to to that because I think that's really you know having the pieces there is important but also getting the pieces aligned to making that a true pathway so pre everything that you you're doing and and Liz and it sounds like so many people behind the scenes um I know you've been the face of it for so long so um so thank you Mary I don't know if you no I'm just so thrilled I was so excited to see that um that yeah like Marx said himself and just so many people have um just continued to step up and really give our our our kids the the best opportunities that they can so thank you mack and please pass it on to everybody else too thank you I will yes okay um so now we're going to move on to uh uh subcommittee reports um tomorrow I don't know if you I know we have policy stuff happening but yep um so we have a um a policy subcommittee meeting on the 16th so um I know that there are some comments in some of the ones that we're doing for the first reads tonight and so the plan is to still go through this consent agenda and we'll address all of those on the 16th um so that's that one um I went to the jazz concert last night which was really great um our all of our kids did so fantastic especially like the solos were amazing um and um I don't remember his last name but um Clayton who is the um he does both the Fowler and the high school jazz um groups um was just so excited and you could just the way that he interacts with the the kids the students are just amazing so um and then the last thing is our Outreach um I sent emails to all the um three schools um principls to get staff um dates um I put I put the dates in our um in our spreadsheet um the only one that I'm unsure about right now is Green Meadow both of the dates that um Karen um gave to me was um their really full days um so I did mention to her about the what we did Natasha last year last year was showing up at the the very last one um and I haven't heard back from her but the um the other two um have dates so I don't know if um it might be nice if um we could maybe have two people um so I do know that some a couple of them there's some next week so um if we wanted to I know at least when I went last year for the high school they one of the teachers had mentioned to me that it would have been nice to have a little more warning um so that they had enough time to formulate some questions um so if um if anybody is planning on going next week if some if you could let me know and I can um let um Liz know so that they can let all the teachers know so and that's all I have right um Mary anything um no I mean we had our um budget subcommittee meeting um a few days ago but the the the school one but um and then the town budget you had talked about Natasha the big thing was the peg access the fact that we're not going to you know have to look at another loss of of 175,000 or or that so um there was talk about the the fact that aset had um had done their presentation and what the impact of that was so and then the the tribe board meeting on June 11th um where there's going to be the capital planning presentation the bleach of design and discussion about a possible um override so that was basically the summary of that um um Elizabeth um yeah nothing new since last week okay okay all right um then I think we'll go ahead and move on to the consent toena so we have the minutes um and they are so without objection we have three sets of minutes for January 25th uh January 11th and February 8th so um that OB ction a move that we approve those minutes with edits unless anyone has any particular thing they want to discuss okay so hearing no objection those minutes are approved with edits and then um warrant oh Colleen you did sent this oh here we go um I will go ahead and move that without OB C that we accept the approved warrants for 2461 2462 and 2463 and 60 oh wait nope hold on I think I need to go back and we only have one to accept oh those other ones the other one just came in today just came in today yeah okay never mind scratch that so only doing 2460 without objection that we accept that one which has already been approved all right okay and then the next thing um Mara I might PIV this one over to you I know this okay all right okay you have yeah all you so without objection we're doing the first read on B section part of section B so I'm going to read those and then section e i and K I think we also had J's yeah J's yes yeah we have yeah okay J's and K's okay so all right so first read for bees ba AA we have B B B A bbbbbbb bbbc BCA B DFA B DF A- e b d g b DB be e e bhc bhe e b i a b i b a b d and BJ we have uh section e EB ebab ebb EBC EB c d e c ECA e c a c e c a f e d c e e a e e a e e e a e c e e a g e e a j e FC e f d e f e e a a ehb section I IB I IA i d IG AIG d igb i m i m-r i m a i MB ihb a ihbd ihb b e a i h BF I HB g i hbh i hbhe e ICA i j i j-r i j l i j l a i j n d i j n DB i j n d c i j o b i j o c i k a b I ke e i KF i l d i MB i d i mg I IMG a section J JB jbb JC jca JC sorry j EB JF jfab c jfab d jfab e jfab f f j h j h d j i j i c a j i c c j i c e j i CF j i CF a j i CF A- e j i CFB j i c h j i c i j i c j j i h j i i JJ JJ a JJ e jjf JJ h-r JJ IB JJ i f JJ i f-r j k j k a a j l jlc jlca JL CB jlcc JL c d JQ j r a jrd section k is K a KB KBB a KB e k c d k DB KD C KD CB k d d k e KF kf- R KH HB k i k LG K LG klj KL K that's it for the first reads ah good job wow and so right now we're just just to clarify those are just we're um accepting first reads yes yeah just to clarify for the public anyone say we're not approving them we're just accepting the first read right and now um this is the second reads there's a whole section of bees um all of f hold on F G and H and L oh goodness and then we have a couple of um ones I think in J and then in I so let me start with the B's okay so without objection the second reads in section B we have b a bb bb a BB a a b B BB e b d a b DB b d d b d e b DF b e b e c b e d a b e d d b e DF b e d g BG bgb BG c b g d b g e bgf uh we have IJ o a jjh that's all of those and then we have F G H and L sorry F fa a FCB FF ffaa section g g a GB a GB EA gbb GB EB C GB EB D GB e c GB e d GB e e GB GB GB G g e GB GF gbi gbj GB K GCA gcba GC BB gcbc GCE GCF gcg sorry having a hard time reading these that's a lot you want me to pick it up no that's okay I got it GC I a GC j g c k GC o GC qf GCR d g o I'm sorry GB GDB g d d GD Q is that gdo sorry gdo this is so bad um okay and then section H ha a h B HF and then L which is section L is l a lb LBC and LDA holy moly all right um that is quite a bit um anything else so at the next one just to clarify next steps um for this process that you guys are working on um we will then be approving right we're going to be doing a resend and approve at the next the next meeting is that what we're so the next meeting the 25th we have a list of ones that are so these ones that we did first reads today we're going to do second reads the next meeting and then after we do those second reads we're then going to do a blanket approval of all of these okay and we have to do send right we also have to do yes and then we also do need to do the resends right okay and um we might we have a few that are we're um we'll we we'll be discussing at our next um SubCom meeting about recot Ying um stuff and I'm not sure whether or not those will be included or not so a lot of that stuff is already in the 425 folder um so um yeah so like a c and I think D are already um because they've already gone through the first and the second read so they're already those are already in the 425 folder all right and then we might just have a couple of stragglers that are like um a complete uh for example the wavm the chapter 74 program policy that's currently a number we would just assign letters um but the policy isn't changing okay right all right um all right thank you um yeah I know I mean reading it was a lot of work I know I feel like I was listening was probably a lot of work too no okay so um that's good to know so we will have some more specific we'll have two votes on um and that willon won't be a consent agenda right or we we could it will okay okay got it it'll just be the second read consent agenda and then the approvals and then the re sending so it'll be like three got it okay all right um oh Mary I wanted to I forgot to mention um your feedback for the FAQs I um passed that along and um and they will be incorporating that into a future uh revision when they do the revision so um so thank you very much for that and I think that's all we have so I think it doesn't say adjourn on my agenda but I know we are adjourning um if that's right so um we'll go ahead and make a motion that we adjourn second all right Mary yes Maro yes Hillary yes and Elizabeth yes oh and Natasha yes all right we are adjourned