[Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good evening the end of year school committee business Workshop executive session of June 24th 2024 will now come to order this meeting is being recorded and will be made available for viewing on the methu public schools website secretary would you please call us the Ryan daglio present May Beth Donovan present Lori Keegan present Kristen Maxwell presid Daniel shabila here Kenneth wette yeah may an Neil Perry thank you may I have a motion in a second to accept the agenda for June 24th 2024 as presented so moved second mooved by member dolio second by member shilia any discussion all in favor I I so moved unanimous can we please rise for the flag salute pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Li and justice for all may I have a motion in a second to go into executive session for June 24th 2024 we will return to open session of the business Workshop session at the conclusion of executive session executive sessions are not televised or recorded so move second move by member chilia second by member dolio pursuant to mgl c3a section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigation position of the public body and the chair so declares all units roll call please Martha Ryan dolio Yes Mar Beth Donovan yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell yes Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes may an Neil Perry come e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to the business Workshop session of June 24th 2024 has anyone signed up for public participation no one has um we have one email um from Anne Heisler Hargraves and Jeffrey Hargraves 26 Dewey Street methan Massachusetts 01844 dear school committee and public listeners I am writing to bring up concerns about methan public schools I am concerned with Donald T timony grammar school being different from the other schools and consistently denied by the principal and assistant principal requests by parents and the PTO events I am concerned that timony double tested the eighth graders on the Reading Plus assessment this past year my child took this test a week after mcass and then had to retake it after all of mcass was completed she was told she got less than at the beginning of the year and was told if she did not get a higher assessment hello is it better [Music] okay this works um I am concerned that the timy double tested eighth graders on the Reading Plus assessment this past year my child took this test a week after mcass and then had to retake it after all of mcast was completed okay she was told she got less than at the beginning of the year and was told if she did not get a higher assessment she would need to retake it and would miss out on the PTO fundraiser held at the school during school my daughter did not miss this and was not asked again to take this assessment I feel that the last test from eighth graders is fraud and that it should not be included in any numbers as they are not the first test they took my child was threatened multiple times this year saying that their eighth grade is the worst they have ever had my concern with this is that the is the school has multiple times had bullying issues and nothing was resolved at timy bullying is not taken seriously why my child was taken out of class out of a class she had a quiz in and was threatened by a teacher that if she found out my daughter had something to do with the incident she would not do any eighth grade events I was then called by my assistant principal who talked down to me and was very rude I then reported this and Quang sent it to the principal to deal with he called and no results were or Consequences were given just an apology the timony principal has multiple times not emailed back because it is documentation that can Trail back to him that is why I received a call and nothing was addressed properly timoy grammar school did not get any option to do fundraisers this year parents wrote to the school multiple times to set up and help with fund risers and were told the assistant principal had it planned out we paid 133 for our kids with the PTO covering buses they did not allow any fundraisers and were told at the beginning of the year we would get as other schools had many fundraisers and paid a lot less I am sure I can list many more things but I will leave it with this for now I will be meeting with Quang and Reeves in the future to address a lot more issues but these are real issues issues that need to be known and worked on not just thrown under the bus thank you for your time in advance thank you I hope that there will be change sooner than later since my eighth grader lost a lot this year Anna Heisler Hargraves and Jeffrey Hargraves at this time we will close public participation of the meeting if you cannot make the meeting in person for public participation you can send an email to Martha s at maoy at methuen.ma us before 3 pm on the day of the school committee meeting we will now start the discussion on the solar project presentation there we go good evening again thank you madam Vice chairman and members of the school committee my name is Joe Cosgrove I'm the environmental planner with the city of methan energy manager and we are here tonight to give I'm with David Bisson of Select Inc and um select is a uh vendor with the power options program and they're working with Community communities to uh install solar projects throughout schools throughout communities throughout state agencies in the state um Massachusetts methan are looking to decarbonize and to improve the efficiency of our facilities and solar is one of those options it's a way for us to save money over the long term and uh you know as we as we move from a fossil uh Energy Future you know into a non-fossil Energy Future solar is an option um it's an opportunity right now where there's um where we're able to get this project done at least two projects two solar projects done um in this calendar year in the months ahead so um we just David is going to go into more of the background of the projects but um there there is uh I know they we've been approved to go forward by National Grid which has held up other solar projects that we've been forced to go into a uh what's called a group study that would require several years you know delay in our projects at some of the other projects we're looking at but the two projects in the West and have opportunities go forward this year so we want to this is really an introductory briefing there is there is kind of a I think select right now is doing their due diligence and they are as they negotiate a power purchase agreement and license or lease agreements with the city they are they have to make a decision in the coming days as far as whether they are going to execute an agreement with National Grid to initiate the project impact studies it would take about 60 days but um you know it's getting that on the National Grid calendar and so I think what select is looking for is they're they're gauging whether there's interest in the communion move forward I know mayor Perry is very um interested in Saving uh energy cost and reducing our carbon footprint and is excited about the opportunity of putting in more solar projects you know throughout the you know in our community so I want to without further Ado turn it over to David Bisson who is our representative for the vendor of Select Inc David thanks thank you uh members of the committee for the invitation and um as Joe mentioned uh we've been doing a lot of work in the last uh four weeks I think especially um with superintendent Quang and mayor Perry and the whole uh Team for the schools and the city um because we kind of found oursel in a in a nice um position at the end of May finding out from National Grid that some of these two of the projects that we had looked at we had looked at a total of six actually um around you know August last year in 2023 um that they're kind of being put towards the front of a line that had been uh previously thought to be like a three to four year weit and now it's as Joe mentioned more like uh you know 60 business days three month or so wait so we're kind of um we still have to get through U what they call an impact study but it's just a much shorter duration specific to these you know two projects uh you know where the engineers at National Grid kind of sit down and look at what we're proposing they already know a lot about what we're proposing but kind of take a fine uh tooth you know comb to it and tell us if there's going to be any upgrades needed so basically by by the end of this I'm Sorry by like really Wednesday this week this 26 uh we want to be kind of in a position to know as much as we can about um any kind of risks that the project May face before we commit approximately $199,000 to each project so about 38,000 of our own Capital At Risk um to enter that impact study phase um and again nothing is due from the city um under these uh these are power purchase agreements we'll talk about in a little bit but uh essentially you know you know we again appreciate the city kind of and the schools uh re-engaging quickly after these were a little bit on pause for the last uh eight or so months and then um quickly kind of picked back up because we had a very tight deadline so um but I'll I'll take you through I know you've got the packet which I've um got the same here so I just want to highlight a few things but also leave time to address uh questions you might have um but uh you know just on the introductory the slide that has sort of the orange uh table and the pictures um you can see Marsh Grammar is uh is the the first project and it would be all on the roof of the marsh school um and it's uh you know sizewise it was it was designed to be kind of right at the top end of a certain bracket of uh project size within the smart incentive program so it's kind of optimized for incentives it also happens to be um although you see some white space there it's uh it's really the best parts of the roof that are require like the least uh labor and kind of um I think the parts that you're seeing over on the right side that don't have solar are actually sloped roofs so there those are a little more challenging with a membrane roof if it's slope they require a lot of attachments so um they tend to be more costly so we're really uh kind of an optimal size here um and we you know we'll go into the net savings uh in a little bit more detail but 1.14 million over 20 years is what we believe would be the net saving so again no out- of pocket cost to the district of the city but um really just saving uh on on electric costs um because you're reducing your your purchasing of energy from National Grid and instead replacing it with solar at a a lower fixed cost um for a good good chunk of it um and then the nine Branch Street administrative and child care uh building you know the roof uh there's actually two roofs um not quite as big um as the marsh school but then we had um what we thought was a good opportunity in the parking lot um because it's it's kind of a wide open layout um and has uh you know good room for what you'll see there just kind of two blue rectangles representing solar parking canopy so these are kind of uh open structures that you know have solar panels angled um slightly to the southwest and uh you can park under them you can park a school bus under them they're quite tall um but they allow for uh a lot of energy production on a a surface that doesn't really do much uh right now but you can still get the same number of cars and vehicles under them and you get covered parking and maybe your car is a little bit cooler in the summer and you don't get snow on it in the winter kind of some extra benefits um in terms of savings it's uh it's actually structured as a 25e um projection but it's uh it's similar to the marsh a little bit less um but uh yeah it's a combination of the kind of roof and the solar and the canopy put together in that case um it is a bigger system in terms of its output um and and the number of panels involved um the next page the executive summary I might uh come back to this one I think we touched on a good amount of it I did want to kind of go to the about select energy uh page just uh you know briefly give you an introduction about Who We Are Who I Am uh I've been with select uh since March of 2023 and I've been doing solar in Massachusetts for about five years um but select is really the leader in non-residential solar in the Northeast so we don't do um you know home you know residential homes but we do focus on uh non-residential buildings and a lot of public owned uh buildings especially schools is a very large part of the market that we focus on um because as you might imag Imagine School roofs are some of the biggest roofs in a community and schools use a lot of electricity so there's a great opportunity there to partner and and save um schools money and generate a lot of clean energy uh so yeah we work um really in the commercial sector as well with with businesses and nonprofits um but you know one thing that kind of sets us apart is our services team we have uh over 30 people based in Hopkinson that service these systems um day in day out making sure that they're producing at their potential and you know under these agreements we would be doing all the service work um ourselves because we own those assets and are providing kind of the the the output um to you but uh that's kind of uh all going to be done inhouse with our team and then Joe had mentioned um we're offering these power purchase agreements under something called the power options solar program so power options is a separate from select uh 501c3 nonprofit and they provide a competitively uh procured energy um program uh they actually provide in other areas besides solar like uh electricity uh competitive Supply procurement um gas procurement but they have been doing uh for quite a few years a solar and storage program and they bid essentially at a Consortium level they they issue an RFP and they evaluate competitive bids and select our company has been uh chosen three uh kind of rounds in a row of three three-year contracts um as the provider for large um public solar projects as well as um some for certain nonprofits but um you know we've essentially out competed 15 or so other companies um to provide upfront pricing um within you know certain kind of segments of of project size and project type whether it's a roof or a canopy so um all of the sort of power purchase agreement pricing that we've presented in the in the proposals here is really coming out of uh it's it's compliant with the the RFP award that that we uh have with power options so the pricing is essentially vetted by that third party power options and this this is all done under Mass General Law chapter 164 section 137 which allows for um um comp essentially Consortium level procurement on energy um products and services uh for public entities so essentially is an alternative to some traditional procurement like um you know 25A and 149 um and it's efficient uh so you don't need to you know issue your own RFP basically at the at the project level um so we've gone through all that with the the solicitor uh city solicitor and um Council as well for the school department um but just wanted to bring you up the speed on how that works um and then select just all this rounded out we're holy owned subsidiary a pattern Energy Group which is a larger uh clean energy developer has done some of is doing one of uh the largest uh wind developments in the western hemisphere in uh New Mexico but uh we are you know doing sort of the the smaller uh yet still large you know projects on rooftops uh such as the schools um and an important part of their their overall uh portfolio um and they are majority owned by the Canadian pension board um so um you know the next slide has kind of some icons on it if you're looking at it says solar and storage power purchase agreement um it's got like a picture of a dollar dollar sign in the upper left uh so we're all looking at the same thing but essentially I'll just I'll fly through this because I've said a lot of it already but no upfront cost um to the district and to the to the city we're selling the energy produced by these solar arrays for 20 to 25 years depending on the project we're looking at at a fixed price so we say fixed it's not changing over time over those 20 years so um it's a huge you know hedge against the inflation in in electricity rates that we do see um you know typically in the two to two and a half% annual range of increase from the utilities um and as we've talked about power options kind of the the right side of that slide uh is an adviser an advocate and a facilitator of the transaction so they are always available um kind of as another party um that acts and you know on behalf of their members which are municipalities and organizations um that participate in their program um the uh and and there's a kind of pre-negotiated contracts that we've already circulated with with the legal council for the city and the schools but um a lot of work's gone into making those favorable to U municipalities that participate in the power options program um and then select's role uh you know is to do everything from end to end to install the finance operate and maintain the system and to decommission so anything that you're seeing whether it's a solar canopy or a rooftop system It's Our obligation you know at the end of the the power purchase agreement term um unless it's extended year to year but even at the end of that we have to take it away you know at our cost so there's no kind of hidden uh end of life costs in these agreements um I'll probably uh skip the there's a little bit more kind of text on the next Slide the power options solar and storage program I've talked about you know most of this but you know it is I think theyve more than 500 members at this point in the Consortium so just kind of underscore they've driven a very kind of competitive deal um on behalf of a number uh you know several hundred members um but I think we've we've probably you know talked about that I can always Circle back if there's questions um why don't we talk real quick on the so the executive summary which is kind of going backwards sorry to be out of order but uh the executive summary it says at the top the 2024 uh two project methan solar portfolio um yeah so I just just in round numbers the the total net savings if you add both of these together over um the term of those agreements is about 2.26 eight million um dollars again nothing out of pocket but that's the uh the lifetime kind of avoided um utility costs and uh less you know the amount that you're going to pay us for the energy produced so that is the true net um savings um and then why have these two projects gone forward so there there are four other projects that we have uh applied for incentives and actually received preliminary statements of qualification they call it for the incentives um but we're still waiting for probably another three years we think it could we could get good news you know uh but we're not we don't have any yet about U meth High School uh this building was quite quite large roof um and then the the Tenny uh there's one other Joe um but oh I had it I had it up here just because I was trying to refresh my memory um but uh it was the the comprehensive CGS comprehensive grammar so all those are kind of waiting the reason that these these two the marsh and the the nine Branch they're on a separate substation um just because of their location and how National Grid has their system divied up so the other four are kind of on a different substation that still has this group study that Joe mentioned that's sort of a lot of other projects that are trying to get evaluated at the same time by national grid for you know whether there's big upgrades needed to the network um to allow them to come online because they're going to produce energy and it you know requires infrastructure grid infrastructure so so yeah we'll have to sit tight with those but these two um are really uh Prime to maybe move a lot faster and could potentially even uh in the case of the rooftops be built by you know before the end of this year um the canopy could take a little bit longer um just because of the engineering requirements and construction but um so that's kind of why these two pro projects have been uh chosen to move forward it's it's a really a National Grid determination and we got not a ton of notice but wanted to when we reached out um the city and the schools really did a lot to get us a lot of answers and movement on these so we really appreciate that um and then why the nine Branch Street you know project has a canopy I think we touched on it it didn't have a lot of roof space but it had a lot of you know parking space so um those uh parking canopies can work uh they need a big open parking lot so it was it was ideal um I'm happy to take more questions on those but uh I guess uh if we go to the design slides those are the ones with the bigger pictures the first one is the marsh school it's like uh going again back you know uh or forward I should say through the presentation here um just a little bit more up close but as I mentioned you know we went with kind of an optimal size if we go a little bit bigger we lose incentive value and probably don't come out ahead um financially uh due to the way that roof is configured but uh the next Slide the the Marsh Grammar PPA financials has more numbers on it um which I'll probably just just pick a few to highlight um there's a left side table that is smaller uh number of things and just uh just to give you a sense like it covers about 42% of the building's current electricity usage um in a year so that's um that's about what we're able to achieve um in terms of the roof area compared to like how much energy that that building uses at Marsh um which is you know very typical for for a school um you know they tend to uh if it's like a one-story building in a very spread out area you might be able to You Know cover more of your usage because it's just more surface area but uh this one is uh that's where we're able to get to um but the PPA rate you can see is just over 10 cents it's about 10.16 cents per kilowatt hour produced so basically every month we'll send uh you know an invoice that says okay the system produce this many kilowatt hours multiply that by a little over 10 cents and that's how much um the district would be paying select for the energy produced and then what you're avoiding is all those kilowatt hours being purchased from National Grid at right now and avoided electric uh rate of over 20 cents just over 20 cents so um you're saving close to not quite 10 cents on every kilowatt hour the system can produce um so that's the basic math but that's so that 20 cents per kilowatt hour that you're paying National Grid now we do expect to escalate over time um as it as it does um it's not entirely predictable how much every year but over over the long run we've got it uh going I think at a 2% clip here in um so that's why you're seeing greater Savings in the you know as you go forward in the projection to the to the end of it 20 years later um so again fantastic hedge against rate inflation um the rest of the information there uh you know the smart incentive we actually get that um as the owner of the asset but when we get a good smart incentive from the state this is them paying basically Pro producers of electricity from renewable sources because uh there's value to that because of our policy in Massachusetts uh for clean energy um we take that revenue and it it's used to it's baked into the financials here it provides a lower power purchase agreement cost to the school essentially like if we didn't have that incentive we'd have to charge you approximately 7.7 cents more per kilowatt hour so it wouldn't be quite as compelling but um since we have good policy it um it really offsets a lot of what we have to charge for the electricity essentially and we did get that locked in last year when it was a lot higher than it is this year so we uh we appreciate getting the city moving to sign a letter of intent last year which just allowed us to apply for these incentives and locked them in at a much much higher rate in 2023 um yeah so I think that that's kind of um the how exactly the the financials work is pretty straightforward in that right table and then I'll probably you'll be familiar with it when we do nine Branch so it won't take long but uh essentially um it's just showing you know in the the second column so from the left the solar production kilowatt hours does go down over time that's a typical um projection that you know solar panels produce a little bit less um each year but it's about 0.55% annual degradation so we built that in um and then your electric rates from from the utility we're assuming are escalating um so you're saving more on your electric bill each year and then you're paying us the same rate every year um so the net is just basically electric savings 85,000 year one minus PPA payment year one is 43,000 that's the net Savings of 42,000 and the far right column so it's pretty straightforward um calculation any questions on um on how the the cash flow Works before uh we go any further sure why is there a differential between the uh contracts oh this why is there a differential between the contracts between a Mas grammar school and nine Branch Street for the PPA but 20 years versus 25 years what is the cause of that yeah so the 20 year um for the marsh is is that's our typical unless the roof is um like brand new and you you just you just put it on the last kind kind of two or three years we typically go with the uh the 20 year um which is I think Marsh you know the roof there is in very is in good condition but you know it is about eight or N9 years old I think so it's kind of to try to match the life of the roof so 20 years from now think you'll probably be um wanting to get a replacement on the marsh roof so we don't want our panels kind of up there you know presumably longer than the life of the roof whereas so on on um on nine Branch um you know the solar canopies we typically the parking canopies we do those almost all always as a 25 year agreement because there's a lot of structural steel that goes into you know putting those in the ground that's got a pretty high upfront cost and we want to you know if we can try to make that um a little bit longer of a of an agreement than than the 20 years um go out 25 just uh and it it does help keep the rate lower so if we can if we can Bank on like a 25e cash flow we can offer um a little bit lower of a rate just because it's uh you know kind of a guaranteed extra five years of um of energy sale you know for the same upfront Capital expense that we're going to have to build that canopy so that's that's that's basically the explanation of why we went for 25 um there is a rooftop element to nine Branch obviously um it's all tied in as one system so I think um with that one I know um there has been some discussion I think with uh the facilities Department about doing um potentially a restoration on the nine Branch roof um basically to get another you know pretty pretty long 25 year um kind of horizon out of it it's uh uh but that so I have looked at it it's possible we could go with a 20-year agreement for the nine Branch overall it just the rate would be a little bit higher and so we you know typically try to start can we figure out a way to make it work for a 25 year first um because there is you know that upfront piece on the canopy cost is pretty high so in terms of The Upfront cost is that identified and the proposal before us because The Upfront cost for the grammar school versus Branch Street is that encaps ated because I'm I'm not seeing that right now we we don't present that directly when we we show a power purchase agreement because there's zero upfront cost for the school and for the city so it's there's a cost to regardless is a cost to a project for us yeah so we're paying the capital expense of all the panels and the engineering basically all this development cost so there's really like the only time the schools start paying is when there's electricity flowing and and you and you highlighted that but I I would like to know the the cost of the the project for each entity okay I also want to know what grants and incentives tax incentives will revert to your company sure and also there is a huge differential between the grammar school and Branch Street in terms of potential output of solar power that I don't know if it's reflected in a Branch Street proposal in terms of savings to the school district okay and that's something I'm concerned about because if you look at the net savings is minuscule at the beginning of the project as compared to the Marsh Grammar School and you're talking about in your proposal 3.5 times as much solar power that's going to be generated so I'm I'm concerned about that because you know it's not like you know uh the charity of your company you're going to be making money off this this project with the generation of solar power and once you install it is I would imagine is low maintenance and upkeep to it and you're going to be generating solar power so I want to have all those details on this I'm very I'm concerned about it overall I want to see it but I I it's very lacking to me I want more details so that's just my opinion okay I want to First clarify one thing about so I think you're referring when you said 3.5 times so that's not actually in comparison to the marsh project so I think you're seeing that in the third uh kind of section of the executive summary there it says why does the nine Branch project have uh solar panels on the rooftops and and parking canopies no it's it you know I it's would imagine that the msh is strictly rooftop yep and the branch is dual can it be in rooftop it's Blended that's why yeah so that's why you have 3.5 times additional energy production no no no so what I was trying to clarify was so we're seeing at nine Branch Street the combined roof and canopy design will produce more than 3.5 times as much solar energy than uh or as compared to a rooftop only designed at nine Branch so what what we're actually looking at here you got to take Marsh out of it um I can I can address your other question you had but so essentially if you if you look at the picture of the nine Branch setup if you did rooftop only the size the the production of energy from rooftop only at nine Branch both roofs would be uh you know can't it's the inverse of 3.5 let's say the full thing the canopy plus the two roofs at nine branch is going to produce 3.5 times as much energy as just the roofs at nine Branch so I mean I was just trying clarification I definitely need because you're looking you have two projects one is strictly rooftop the other one is dual you have canopy which is a going to be more incentive for you and rooftop so like that's how I derived looking at it just initially so if there's a differential I want to have that differential between a M and Branch Dr okay so so have I I I think I've C basically the part in the executive summary that says 3.5 times that was just an explanatory thing why did we decide to do a rooftop canopy or sorry a parking canopy is is that the rooftop would have been pretty small it's like 140 kilowatt DC or something it's it's totally worth doing but it's small and it's also it requires trenching to connect both Roes together so it's little more costly than just doing a rooftop that's that big once in one place so doing the basically the campies it's an opportunity to produce a lot more energy on that property and get a lot more savings um but it shouldn't be compared directly to Branch H to Marsh I'm sorry um but again I'm I'm not understanding because if you're going to do the duel and the net savings is not going to be as great with the duel y I'm there's a disconnect I'm not understanding so so let's go we could go to the introduction slide where where we look the orange uh table right so the the nine Branch Street produces more energy than Marsh it's not three and a half times as much that's for sure it's it's 582,000 versus 425 which you know it's less than it's like 1.4 times or something it's it's it's that's so that's the the the what you're really seeing in the difference is you have a higher power purchase agreement uh price under nine Branch so Branch we're offering it for 18.5 I'm I'm looking cumulatively over the course of 25 20 years yep cumulatively Branch Street is exceeding greatly you know it might not be 3.5 but it's definitely exceeding greatly Marsh Grammar School L looking at those numbers so you can't really compare them directly they are different animals the the canopy so basically you know we have again the smart program does incentivize canopies a little bit more than rooftops um but it does not make up for the fact that canopies are much more expensive to construct the reason that people do canopies and why we wanted to offer one is that it allows you to produce a lot of clean energy and generate savings on a piece of asphalt that has no other use other than parking so it's always more beneficial economically to do a large project on a rooftop unless there's extraordinary cost for some reason but you can see that in the numbers for marsh we're offering um a smaller project overall at 10 just over 10 cents per kilowatt hour because it's extremely low cost to build relative to right doing a parking canopy plus a small rooftop with trenching connecting everything there's there's some serious cost there um there are also a lot of electrical costs at the nine Branch site but we still think if it's worth it to the district and to the city to be able to generate you know over $1.1 million in savings over 25 years then that's again again you know I'm not privy to the construction costs so if that can be furnished to me then I can make a we don't provide construction costs on power purchase agreements but we do you know provide a competitively procured power purchase agreement price which is through the power options program so if the city was interested in buying it then we would we would quote a different purchase rate which is a cash purchase amount and that's that's a possibility but it hasn't been discussed and it would be in the millions of dollars now at the end of the contract whether it's 20 years or 25 years ises that revert those that equipment does that revert back to the community no so so there are opportunities to buy it early they're not there you know they're they're basically it's it's calculated on like what value are we you know surrendering if we sell it to you so it's based on like the future you know value of the Generation Um so that we're entering the contract in year one and getting made whole if we decide to sell it early Beyond you know before the end of the term um so you can buy it it's not usually what any municipality opts to do because um when you buy it you know then you you have to come with that Capital cost and then you also need to be um you know budgeting for decommissioning because then you you own like the the disposal of the asset at theend end of its life whereas if we stay within the PPA contract and go to the end of the term then we have to take it away um at the end so it does not revert back to the city at the end of the ter I'm just curious like a homeowner that equipment is installed in their home eventually does that revert to the homeowner that they have are they always are leasing that equipment I can't speak to any uh I'm familiar with some of them but we don't we don't do those contracts with homeowners but usually if you if you're doing a power there are power purchase agreements um allowed in the National Grid territory for homeowners and they don't they would still have to buy the system at some point they don't just like it doesn't revert usually um but it's neither here nor there for for this contract we've got our own you know you know terms but uh yeah M shilia has a question sure thank you so I just this I got the I got the defective one now thanks Lori um so first off I want to say that I support the whole idea of solar in general I have a PPA at my house we pay monthly it's oversized whatever the max was for a residential and I haven't seen an electric bill in three four years it's been fantastic um but looking at these side by side and fully acknowledging that they are very different animals I put the numbers side by side and in every element Branch Street is more stereotypically beneficial in producing more and offsetting more but yet the savings Target accum ulates much lower savings year one $7,200 versus the marsh at 42k which I think was what member Willette was was leading to right and my understanding listening to what you just said and I want you to correct me if I'm wrong but those net savings are an impact because of the cost to build the canopies yeah a lot of it is the the cost of building a canopy even after taking into account the superior um incentive that a canopy gets under the the state smart incenter program there there are other costs I I alluded to it a minute ago with nine Branch Street we did we sent out our our full operations team and our electrician we we even had to have National Grid out there to open the Transformer and unfortunately there's just certain things about that um infrastructure at that site that make it costly so there's you know it's a 280 uh sorry 208 volt transformer which is unusual um for a building like that and we you know it's a lot cheaper if it were 480 and a lot bigger so we have some constraints and we know we've had to estimate the cost there are you know multiple tens of thousands of dollar kind of add-on costs that we can't really avoid unfortunately because of the way it was designed from from you know National Grid side a long time ago but um you know this is still you know we it still came out you know saving the district you know over 7,000 in year one and it's really a longterm a long-term play I mean there's still you know well over you know 1.1 million there in in potential savings it's all it's OB if if it means something to to folks who work there you get the benefits of you know covered parking um and and such and and obviously you're generating a lot of clean energy I know the city has some goals around that so it's not it's not as uh it doesn't um it's not as much uh bang for the buck as the marsh to to be totally you know Frank you're right about your analysis there and you can see it in the rate right it's 18.5 six cents which is still below substantially below what you're paying now but it's not as low as 10.1 at Marsh So reading between the lines there we are paying for these canopies we're just financing them over 25 years I well we're financing it we we go to the bank and get the capital but it's uh you're you're paying your name may be on the the mortgage you're saving money the but you're saving money on the in the first year so you know you if you don't do it you're going to be spending s10,000 a year more years one and two um so so I would I guess I I hear you know to say you're financing it is I wouldn't really if we're we're we're already guaranteeing you savings at that rate I have other questions do I hold those until after the financial part or yeah no I I think we're yeah we could okay I wish I wish this can you hear me like thises this because okay good I'm loud enough I don't need the microphone um how did the city come to be connected with select originally I think that we I think we reached out um and connected with somebody I want to say Joe right this was uh back in 2023 you know but we have um you know worked with a number of municipalities in the area you know we've worked with AAL we know we just we're signing up you know 12 projects in L we uh you know all around them all around the state have worked with municipality so it's really like I said our bread and butter kind of um we do a lot of Outreach to make sure that people know about the power options program power options does a lot of Outreach too but um I think that was uh we did some some Outreach based on knowing that schools have a lot of good um roofs you know what I think took me a second to remember I remember I saw the bid we we follow public bids on roofs and we saw that um I believe it was the Tenny grammar roof was being replaced that's always an opportunity if you're placing a roof to do solar project like the next year or less um so we knew that was happening then we find out CGS is happening and there's there's a lot of opportunities so yeah so there was no and I know it's exempt under 30b but there was no competitive bid done I mean not to question your qualifications or capabilities or anything like that just for my own knowledge I know it's not required under 30b but as a sourcing professional I use 30b as a guideline not a rule um my other big question is who's gonna shovel our roofs because these things leak anyways and it's not a ding at the city and it's not a ding at the facilities it's a ding on flat roofs and it's the reality that we have to deal with even our new roofs they leak they well they shouldn't but here we are who's who's going to shovel these things so we've heard that like we definitely talked about in in uh in the summer last year superintendent Quang and the and Bruce Stella and team that the high is not currently ready for a solar project um it it does need um it would need to have and we're not you know fortunately we're not kind of in a rush to do the high school due to the group study thing with National Grid um I know there's a proposal from you know the facilities uh consultant um to do a restoration but there would have to be something done that would give everyone confidence that the roof would not leak um or have substantial issues for at least 20 years to so we can do a Power you know we can do a solar project and not worry about you know you having underlying roofing issues while you know we've got an expensive hard to move asset on the roof um I'm not aware of any so you like Mar school I'm not aware of any issues right there SCH does leak and I have I can provide pictures to back that up okay it's it's a reality it's a flat roof you know what I mean is you can go up there and waterproof it as best you can water's sneaky it's gonna find a way in if it wants to like it's just kind of the nature of the Beast not to Advocate against it but my concern is these are old buildings these are flat roofs and if there is a problem in three years that the marsh School Pops a leak and it's under one of those panels who's eating that cost yeah so I mean just just to answer your initial question we don't shovel rofes um yeah just you know because people no people wonder that legitimately when it snows you know it stays on the panels for a little bit and then the Sun comes out and it melts and it falls off onto the roof like it would you know normally um and we generally don't get that much snow anymore um but we've built it into the the weather models we know there's going to be some days where there's no production because there's snow on the panels that kind of thing um but if there's a leak that is underneath one of the solar arrays um you know it's Pro you know first of all if we cause the leak um that would be very you know anomalous but that would be that would be on us to help you know fix it um generally you know we we have had a structure engineer out to Marsh and the initial opinion there's no formal report that it was just last week um there's no formal report but you know essentially it's what we thought it's a it's wellb built you know even if it's a little older um it has a lot of carrying capacity so these are going to be primarily ballasted arrays where it's just weighed down by cinder block uh against the roof and not attached through the roof although we do that and when we do it it's always with an approved attachment for that roof with the warranty intact Etc so it's not kind of willy-nilly um just uh you know doing whatever we want um but you know the panels tilt up you would have to you would have to like de Electrify the system briefly tilt up a panel um that we do that because we're the we're the you know provider of of Maintenance and we're doing preventative maintenance as well as reactive maintenance if there's like an electrical um you know miscommunication with the inverters and the the the Wi-Fi or something um that tends to be the issue that that happens once in a while um we're out here fixing it so we would be the ones to kind of flip up a panel it might only be like one or two panels that need to be kind of you know flipped they're not even being removed really from the roof but to get to the underlying you know spot I think you know I it's interesting I I haven't really heard anybody in all the years I've been doing flat roof say like uniformly flat roof Sleek I mean they shouldn't right but they you know we uh we think uh if they're in good shape and and they're not too old then and everyone you know generally we get we get the cons we always get the agreement of of the facility the owner and and maybe you're a roofing consultant we know you know Garland Industries has done a lot of work looking at these roofs um to make sure everyone can you know say with confidence you know we think there's a pretty good chance there's not going to be a lot of issues there might be a small issue here and there but we we generally don't have a ton of that um where there's like a big area of need to remove systems we don't plan for it I mean it's it's not it's not if if if we think that's going to happen like that's a whole another discussion because um we really shouldn't be signing a 20-y year agreement assuming it's not going to happen if but intentions and all that exactly have you guys come out and ho a panel for uh a repair that's not your fault it's just natural wear and tear whatever it may be yeah what's the bill to the city or is there a bill so if if your if your roof has an issue because of something that isn't our fault related yeah I mean so so there's there's certain Provisions in the contract about if it's out if if we have to turn the system off for an extended period of time um I'm not sure exactly uh you know at what point that's triggered but there would be some loss of production which is a loss of Revenue right as we're owning the thing so that might come into play but if it's if it's a quick fix um it's probably not going to be you know um a significant amount but um to actually to it would be time and materials you know basis basically if we have if it needs to be your a lot of times it would be your roofing contractor doing the work right and we would just need to be there to make sure that they can get to the areas that they need to get to safely um and that our system isn't damaged in the process so I guess it would really depend on the size and the scope of the fix um but we're you know um we have a team out of hopkington um so it's really like it's people who are familiar with the system doing the work so they're not going to have to like do a bunch of research on like what is this thing and you know how do we what if it is damaged what if there's a a windstorm we had some big winds not to Longo and an umbrella comes flying over the from the neighbor's yard and you know shatters panel yeah that sounds like that's an insurance claim that we would have to deal with like if it's not something that was just like you know gross negligence like someone didn't go up on the roof and just start swinging a sledgehammer like an umbrella from a neighbor's yard that's that's a that's that might be a property insurance we we insure the asset um and and have have that insurance against any trees or or stuff that just acts of nature yeah can I um Vice chair do you mind if I interject for a moment and then I know everybody else has questions just um being cognizant of time but also being cognizant of everybody's questions I think um and I am sharing so member per um mayor Perry I don't think will be joining us he just texted so uh he sends his apologies but uh I think a couple of things that when we met in August I think all of our intention is to the cost benefits right and the environmental benefits nobody's arguing against either of those two uh here at all um I think we're we're in an interesting position right now because uh there was a large lag time between August and when we got this a week or 10 days ago to turn this around um and so Joe is here and Dave is here uh I think you know trying to figure out the goal for tonight and the goal for July 1st with the city council and you guys can Joe you can jump in and correct me uh is to make sure that there is some interest in moving forward to see if these are two viable projects right on our end their end they have to still do things um as well um right now there is no contract in front of you there is no agreement in front of you those are still being reviewed by your legal council so uh Mike macaro's office uh has an attorney that does contract so he's looking at at these for us as well as city solicitor so there's no agreement before you tonight we're not ready for that there's still a lot of questions that I think everybody has to before we do that um so we're we're trying to slow it down a little bit um but understand that they're under a timeline for this project this year so there's questions about that what happens maybe I'm asking the questions to prompt it a little bit um but what happens why if we don't do this this year can we do this pick this up next year uh I will share with you uh two of our biggest concerns our bran street is a federally owned building so let's that is something that they're aware of where aware of we we have to get some answers on that issue so that money was completely purchased with federal funds Co relief funds and the US doe has interest in that building and we know that going in which means uh there might be some processes and procedures we have to follow if we're changing anything about that property so we're trying to figure out we don't have the answer to that right now the folks I have contact with uh some of those folks are on vacation um and uh you know I'm trying to get some answers for that but obviously this all came up pretty quickly last week and so um we're working to do some of that um you know so that's the for me that's the most important answer here the carports are going to be a challenge I think you guys are already asking some questions about those challenges physically on that property um but it as you can see those combined will yield you know a better product for us so we have the same questions that you have um and again there'll be this a similar and I'm you going to City Council on Monday evening both of you going to city council Monday evening are you going to city council Monday evening there is a plan yes plan to go s presentation tonight so again the the the rolling this fast uh for us was to make sure they had some feedback from this group and the city council to either move forward or halt right and so again there's not a contract to vote in front of you I think they're trying to gaug that tonight if there's any interest in moving forward we do have unanswered questions so I want to be very upfront about that um and you know the city council will go through the same process as you know um there will be some kind of long-term agreement and that was where the city council will have the final say uh you know anytime we have any kind of lease agreement you know the iPads anything like that that puts the city in longer term debt uh they have the final say over those kind of contracts licenses approvals so both parties it's really important that you all feel that you have questions and information uh as well as the city council so I should have probably started with that to put this in a little more context of where we are but this is all I'm learning tonight as well some of the details you know we've only met a couple of times so um and again it's moving quick after after our initial excitement about this last August you know we thought there'd be a lot more time in between any of this this work it's so so i' I'd only say uh the other piece is that uh you know I'm concerned he's aware that any of this work happens it looks like during the school year while kids are in the building building is also going to be incredibly challenging for us I know that's happened in other districts I I I know it can be worked around but I just want to say that publicly right all of these two buildings are going to have kids in them buses uh to actually do with this kind of work we're trying to make sure that we have language to uh protect the fact that if it's you know too much that it happens before school hours or after school hours to not impact this the learning in the building bus or safety in the building so and again this is I'm not saying anything that the folks behind me don't already know are questions that we have that they're willing to work with us but again we don't have those things sealed up at this point I think that's all I need to like put that in a little context of what I have and again I'm learning from whatever questions you have as well in the details thank you m Donovan well thank you for that clarification or that additional information um just very quickly okay so the um carport I I for get shoveling off I'm thinking of the plowing that's one little sidebar I would be concerned about also in case of a situation where we had to get people out of that building quickly um I wonder if you've you know considered what would happen if we had some sort it's happened at another school a few years ago we want everyone off everyone out will people be able to get in and out quickly if we needed the police to come in and there was a jam up I'm even thinking about there's a car that breaks down during one of the drop offs or one of the buses um I I don't know I've never seen a carport can you give us an example of where you put a carport near a school has that impacted safety concerns uh no concerns that I've heard so Hopkinson um we've done number of carports I I wish I had a a picture with me on to put the pack I think it was one at a college yeah there there's uh actually in the packet there's uh you Stonehill College those are uh but no we've done a lot of public schools um not nearly as many as rooftops but um essentially they you know you can think of a lot of you know parking lots have like light posts and they're always um located right at the intersection of the white lines that make up parking spots and that's the same way that these canopies are designed is they actually don't occupy any parking spots because the foundations are always right at the intersection of of the white lines that form the parking spaces so um essentially you know you still have the same Drive aisles as before um where you're you know supposed to drive you know down and not through the parking spots like if you're following the rules um there will be posts uh you know every I don't know exactly how many feet the spans are but um probably like you know every five parking spots roughly um but they're right on they're right on the Center of those those perpendicular lines um bus could go underneath yeah yeah because they're 13 feet 6 in minimum clearance by by you know regulation so you can really you know send anything other than like a large Crane or something that you wouldn't really have you know unless you have a special but you can still get that through the lot you just can't drive it underneath the canopy um so I don't yeah I'm not I'm not aware of any additional um you know safety or Mobility concerns in the lot um you mentioned plowing people do ask about but that is totally totally a common question I think um you know you're going to get basically these these particular canopies are designed to slope um slightly off to the west southwest Direction um sort of towards the the next door parking lot um so yeah they will uh there will be some so they're actually they're actually designed to have one row um at the The Edge that's sort of on the downhill side tilted in the opposite direction so what they're actually do is retain snow in that sort of Valley that's right at the sort of near the edge um and that was designed to basically minimiz the alternative is to have a snow guard that prevents like snow from rapidly sliding off but those are expensive and they don't really add anything in terms of production so it's we generally find it's more beneficial overall to have that inverted we call it's a it's a dual slope thing so you have a small Valley um uh you know that sort of retains so it'll slowly melt off um or fast if it's you know it's a really sunny day but um you're not going to get like big droppings of snow that could impact people or cars yeah and I know we are you know we have some time concerns tonight but I just want to say as someone who has run a building when there was roof repair done while school is in session it's an absolute nightmare um teaching and learning it's so disruptive and that would be one of my biggest concerns there safety issues um you know don't you know people in and out of the building or how do you access it so I would want I would be really interested in hearing that work would be done during off hours yeah yeah I think we we've definitely exchanged as as superintendent mentioned uh some you know back and forth uh you know I I drafted you know some sentences that I thought maybe covered the concerns so I will say though what we're planning to do on a roof is way less intrusive than a roof replacement so we're going to be loading materials generally like one or or maybe two days and it's uh you know that itself I've been told is not generally very noisy but we could certainly schedule it to be pre or post school day or even a Saturday and we're happy to do that if if we think there's a you know concern that's going to sound you're going to hear something generally the only loud things that we that we might do is if we're having to like do a small core through um the wall into like the electric room to it's just the necessary way to like get back out to the outside of the building for something that type of work it might be like there might be some noise and vibration we can certainly you know keep that off hours it also tends to be like not near a classroom because it's near the electrical room so you might not hear it at all but I hear I hear what you're saying I U actually uh I know with the best of intentions anything can go wrong anything that can go wrong often does um so I would prefer yeah that's a major concern of mine yeah and and work on the carports as well yeah the work on the car ports is is definitely of a different different nature because um you know no no mistake about it we're going to we would need to occupy you know at least a portion of the parking lot you know not the entire thing but during you know if you're constructing something you got to you know have that area roped off and um it might need to um you know we might need to do it during a vacation week or um you know there there can be different ways of appro we we do these a lot with schools we do way more rooftops with schools and it really that's like our number one type of project is a Public School rooftop solar project so we're very very experienced and used to working on those and we uh we are always um careful and want to listen to you know any concerns that in advance and make sure that we address those so but yeah the canopies tend to be a little bit more um not not impossible at all but uh they need they require a little more logistical planning especially with kids coming in and out classes coming in and the last thing I just want to put out there is you know we got construction going on here we are the um assistant what what do we call it it was a layoff of what is that title assistant facilities manager thank you yeah so we really are down to one person that would be your contact yeah and that would have to be you know readily available to help put this in place so I I think that puts a lot of pressure um on the school side and it's something that needs to be considered yeah yeah will say I I mean I think the the Branch Street opportunity will if if we were to get a National Grid you know interconnection approval that one could move forward more quickly because it's just a rooftop and like I I mentioned before the canopies have a longer uh you have to do a lot of geotechnical you know engineering studies you have to um get more permits um you know conservation department you know sometimes weighs in um so it can just take a lot longer you got to get the steel to the site you got to with a rooftop so I I think they generally these probably wouldn't be happening at the same time because the marsh we would have an opportunity if things are going reasonably well to do it like you know late fall this year um maybe over the winter on the marsh um and then the nine Branch realistically is more of like a early spring 2025 at the earliest like um kind of start date so hopefully you know I think you know BR Bruce uh I know he's got a lot on his plate um uh we are always you know happy to if you wants to delegate you know just to to a custodian in the building just access stuff but obviously like the real planning and and the real kind of decisions need to he needs to be involved in those so I know bandwidth is um until he get somebody else hired it's probably going to be a little bit limited so we understand you know okay thank you y member Maxwell um so my concern is that none of the school none of the buildings have new roofs and the flat roofs the rubber roofs typically last 20 years um so right now we're in a lot of repair status um so putting on these um panels would just be a huge financial impact to us maybe it would save us electricity wise but it would be a huge impact on us especially with them not being brand new roofs I don't know how old our roofs are in like without being patched but as a whole roof um I can't imagine you even wanting to touch a roof that you know any you know I don't know and then when you say that you're going to do the winter work that worries me because roofing materials don't really go well with cold weather so um but the other thing too is roofing contractors are going to charge significantly more to come in and do a repair on a roof that has solar panels because it's an inconvenience um this provides no benefit to the students or learning so it just it's just a huge concern to me the the way if it were presented to us as all new buildings have a brand new roof they're all in great shape they're all in great quality maybe we'd have a different conversation but with the with the condition they're in now I can't see how we we could do this successfully and to to have this 20 to 25 year proposal that's on a new roof you know so yeah I mean we have spoken with uh Garland Industries uh that works with Bruce Stella regularly about the marsh it's in excellent condition it was very well maintain it's about nine years old um it's having repairs right now okay um that's not it's not the conversation I had but um I think the I mentioned the nine Branch there are some concerns about that one and there probably there might need to be some work done on that roof there's a proposal for a restoration so nine Branch might not be able to you know move forward until there's something done with the roof I'll just say that um CGS and and tenny are brand new so that's uh we're hoping those two will will pop out of the group study uh in short order while they're still kind of in their infancy roofwise um but we don't know that yet so the Tenny is being completed so most of it is done that middle section is being done moment you know in the next few weeks but those are the only two brand new ones at least that I'm during my tenure is CGS and tenny so they're not like patch jobs they are actually no CGS and tenny new full new roof again the Tenny we just couldn't finish the middle which is unfortunately where most of the leaks are coming in right now um that will be done again in the next I think they're starting July 1 so that they'll start that just that one section to finish the tenning but that's yeah the CGS we're talking about I know they're not on this I know yeah different right they are different buildings and Tim the timy does uh we we believe need need probably a new roof before we do solar and that one's still in the group study the good news potentially there is there's a new State uh Grant um that they finally just released some information uh about um there's G to be a webinar in July um but it's uh called The Green School Works program and we think you know it might be a good opportunity to to try to apply for some Roofing money to make solar possible at the timony next and uh but you know I think I think where maybe the conversation I haven't I haven't heard from the facilities Department if they're doing repairs right now at Marsh that's good um I think you know a 20-year PPA we do we do install 20-year ppas it's it's really it's a mutual decision between us right we're going to own that system and we don't want a lot of interruptions to the production and we don't you know want to have to coordinate a lot of roofing work but it's obviously a decision that you know the facilities team with the schools and the city needs to be comfortable with too so I think so far I haven't heard anything from the facilities team that the marsh project shouldn't be done um you know in the next four to six months so I think we would definitely want to know that that if um you know if if it's not going to be ready like we probably don't want to pay 19,000 this week um to get into an impact study that is going to make you know solar possible later this fall so I just I just want to ask Dave I prompted it but we didn't get to answer it what happens if we don't move forward now do these two projects still qualify for next cycle or like what happens to these now if we just have too many questions or right there seems to be some of that like what happens to these two projects that are ready to go but maybe not ready to go yeah and I and I do want to there's there's not a ton of guarantees let's that that's the headline but I'll elaborate a little bit so if if we pay the fee this week it's roughly 19,000 per site to National Grid and when we sign the impact study agreement they get 60 business days which is around three months to study the projects as proposed and then they can the National Grid team can come back and ask um for nothing in particular and just say here's your interconnection services agreement go go at it and that's the ideal situation the other situation is some number of dollars need to be spent by us to you know improve the infrastructure um maybe it's a Transformer upgrade maybe it's something else there's there's all kinds of things that may be required um and we don't know that really with a lot of certainty until it happens so I think I'll tell you this the marsh project because it generates such high level of savings year one it could absorb a pretty large utility cost requirement that we would pay again coming out of our pocket and still save you a lot of money um and you know you still have the long-term savings so like you know these are these are relative numbers but I'm talking about potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of upgrades those get plowed into the pro total project cost they raise the PPA rate but again it's nothing that the city has to pay um but to the superintendent's question about you know what happens if we don't pay this week um essentially they're going to say National grd is going to say uh your internet connection application has lapsed and there is then a little bit there's no certainty but it would be we we could reapply and we might need to wait another you know three months uh to be offered the opportunity again to do an impact study or it they could form a new group study in the meantime we don't know and a new group study is kind of back where we were which would put us somewhere in the range of uh you know at least two years um to to being able to to begin a project while they kind of look at a number of other projects that want to connect to that same substation um so it is a generally a minimum two-year process so and it can take months to kind of form it and that sort of thing so we might be talking about 2020 sish kind of at that stage so one more followup question to that so if if uh positive SCH city council you pay the fee National Grid still has a certain amount of time that could move it forward or stop it yeah so they have they have kind of by by law they have 55 to 60 is we say think 60 business days um to do their evaluation of their impact study they call it um and then uh they they generally they will always like give you a way to do the project it's just how much will the upgrade cost potentially be is we what we don't know so it's not a guarantee if if you move forward with this and the city agrees it's not a guarantee that both projects will happen without without upgrade costs that are yeah that you might say not worth not worth it yeah so what we try to do to like in the the the marsh uh contract for instance we we State what um kind of an upfront maximum PPA rate and and that basically says that we'll keep the contract in place with the city and us um up to a certain PPA rate um and that allows us to basically budget up to like I said it could be you know multiple six figure kind of cost for the utility upgrades but we can absorb that and raise the PPA rate up to that maximum and still we wouldn't like breach the contract but if we if we felt like we had to raise it above the maximum that's where we would have to come to the city and say hey do you want to do it for a little bit more than the maximum and you could say no and then we would just have lost you know our our investment and you wouldn't ow us anything but um if we say we want to do it at the maximum the city needs to um go along with it or else if you exited the contract at that point we would probably just you know be looking to recoup the cost we put into the project so it might be just the impact study fee you know roughly um sure you're welcome M zag yeah so I just want to just say a general statement I was here last time you guys came and talked to us so I've heard it um before it might it might have been someone else because I my first no we heard about this type of soal energy stuff so what so this is a totally different group so the energy package that Mr Goin put together was for the HVAC controls and upgrades that's happening and that's different all right savings still and is still an energy savings but definitely not this company totally different all right so but not solar okay yeah I've been with so many contracts in the last years I feel like who else have you had no definitely not a this is definitely you know Joe Cosgrove a city project the other energy was more us looking at how to upgrade our current hva systems and the that's a that's just trying to get things better more efficient to answer um remember Don vins I UMass Amhurst actually has carports uh at their campus um and that feeds into the stadium and it doesn't interfere with any of the parking um I've seen it I was actually part of that committee when I was there at UMass on student government that supported that Energy Efficiency um so seeing it develop it actually keeps your car shade during the summertime um that's a benefit um I've actually talked to the facility um when we were putting those carports in uh green to that and we asked the exact same questions about parking um doesn't interfere and when you said way they slope it it just brought back memories of that guy coming in and saying the exact same thing to us like how it it's easy to get rid of it actually doesn't put Snow underneath the cport because it's obviously being like a blocker um and it's actually actually keeps plowing to a bare minimum in that area so uh I hope that answers um if you ever want to look on pictures of the corts at UMass amher that's exactly how it's going to probably look like when it's in our puls um but I also been hearing everybody's concerns and like I said like uh and Dr Quang said there's no contract being important in front of us so we're not losing by voting yes to this it's going to go and do the impact study and if no that's exactly but you are going to agree to say yes go bring it to the city council that we're going to do a nod we're not voting on it but we're just giving a go-ahead um and I think this is not a like I don't think this is an issue right now um and I'm just saying like thank you for your time I I do approve of it for a nod so um but yeah that's what I just wanted to cover thank you so hold on um so I haven't had any a chance to say anything yet and so I just want to say most people have covered most of my questions um but I do want to reiterate my concerns about the marsh roof with all of the leaking that's happened this year um I'm very concerned about putting weight on that roof um and I want to know that you've looked into the amount of weight you're going to add to the roof to make sure that it's not going to make the situation worse because we already have enough leaking in that building that it's a problem so yeah have you looked into the weight issue of that roof so we always look into the weight um so that's why we had our structural you know contract engineer out last uh Wednesday I think it was um uh and they have to take you know they have to run a bunch of calculations on you know what kind of weight we're going to have and and that it's a little bit of a moving Target because if we're doing a fully ballasted system that's the maximum weight we might do attachments on a little bit of it that's a little bit less weight but essentially they're looking at what's how is the building built the structural members what what could it take in addition to its existing you know what's on the roof already and the snow load that has to be budgeted in um and uh that's always required for every solar project because it's required to get a building permit to eventually actually do the project um as for I we don't typically I I don't think we have any way to analyze like what um you know the solar system is going to do to you know if it's going to make leaks worse because we we don't want there to be leaks in the first place before we do the project so I would say that that part I don't really have an answer for um other than I I wasn't fully we we had talked with facilities and I just didn't realize that there there were as many leaks in Marsh um as I'm hearing um and so if that's being dealt with this summer then that's hopefully what needs to happen before solar goes on but uh you know our goal is not to make any um Roofing issue worse because we're we're hoping to be installing on a roof that's really sound you know that's the the goal thank you my other question is um are the solar panels going to impact the access to the roof that we need for HVAC or whatever else is up there um are are our people still going to be able to get up there and maintain what's up there already yes so that that was that one's pretty easy yes um we know you know there's always minimum setbacks around the HB and then it can be customized based on feedback from from Bruce uh Stella's team on him on but generally I mean with that Marsh design like I I pointed out there's there there's some there's quite a bit of open space left but we're avoiding all the walkways that you that you know where there might be mats that are like um leading to the hbac unit so that you know people can always walk and we want our team not just we want everybody to be safe on the roof but we're we're also going to be maintaining that system for 20 years um so our teams need to be able to walk safely not have to take like a route right at the edge of the roof you know there's there's rules on that stuff so so yeah it should there will be full access great thank you oh one more from Member Maxwell sorry I just have one more question um as far as the um you said you said that it would be the school's responsibility to hire the roofing contractor if other people are on the roof and have access to the building does that void your workmanship warranty because there will be other people there no no we we we have certain things in the the lease that are just kind of common sense like you know you're not going to let people kind of go up on the roof and you know mess with the system or you know change configuration wiring that sort of thing but um you know when we do a Power purchase agreement we we're really in charge of making sure it's productive for for the term and unless there was something like in in you know you know deliberately done to the system we wouldn't um you know we just ask that people who aren't trained on it don't try to move it essentially yeah so I think um I and and you guys have to tell us what you need from us tonight what is it that you need from this group do you need a consensus of move forward do you need a we need more information don't move forward what is it that you need from this school committee tonight am I is that don't know I mean I'm thinking we just need to know I know it's not a vote because we have no contract but I think they need something from this group as a whole to move to the next step not move to the next step get more information I'm not sure you guys tell us what you need right now before we move on to the next item well the next step yeah is really and I'm going to turn it to Dave because these guys have to make a decision whether they're going to go ahead with the project and their risk is they have a bill due to National Grid this the end of this week yeah one for each project and so in terms of the sentiment I know you we have a lot of work to do in terms of addressing the concerns we've had you know the internal review the superintendent has raised a lot of the concerns that you've raised uh at this meeting you know as part of our internal viw and other other uh staff people as well so we haven't really sat down and negotiate an agreement and I think you know the the time time frame has as the superintendent talked about up until up until the end of May these projects were kind of in in bureaucratic limos tied up in National Grid and what happened in on May 29th was we got notied that National Grid had released two of the six projects um you know from the group study requirement so that really Advanced this and push the and and what's driving I think select decision making is hey do they have real projects here that are going to get approval at the local level that that that can be done within the next nine months yeah and so you have to make the you know de based on what you've heard tonight yeah in terms of I know you have leadership the mayor does support the projects the city does want uh clean energy as part of the clean energy transition we do like the the um you know the cost savings as well and sort of negotiating the part of that and there are opportunities now in terms of with the federal tax incentives and we are locked into a incentive through that smart block uh program that we were approved in last year's I think it was block 11 so the incentives we're in 10 which is so the incentives go down from the smart block every year as you go forward for so if there's a way we can move forward this would be a great time to do it but you have to make that decision you select is going to have to make that I mean this I'm sorry this I can see you guys going back and forth there's no official vote because you don't have a contractor lease but if if the school committee wishes to go around the T we've done this before and do like a yes move forward I need like we need like a notd of approval of things or no I think that's what they need to hear tonight if does that make the most sense but I want people to understand we're we're just noing for the um moving forward yeah but no contract no lease we don't have there's nothing like that that you're voting on tonight it's just so they can do a possible say study the impact study impact study like he needs to know if he's going to give $37,000 tomorrow that's what he know that's that's what he wants tonight Wednesday whichever day this week so so that advent has to be decided before he gets to city council I you know city council is going to have the S similar conversation on on Monday night they haven't seen this yet as well so we can go around the table and do a temperature check so yes that sounds great M disagio why didn't you start yes v no no no see this between a rock and a high place this is a fact finding Mission and I POS questions and I want to wait until I get the answers before I can make a determination because as the knowledge as an elected official I don't have the full picture so I I can't say that at this stage do I like the idea of solar energy yes do I have questions yes do I want to get the biggest bang for the buck for the taxpayers yes if it can be accomplished yes then thank you you're abstaining yeah I I think I'm with um yes with um member wette and with the provision okay so we all the concerns that we raised tonight if we move forward and then we see the contract and it's like yeah we're going to be working during the school day we can throw everything we can say no we don't want this so I'm not going to speak for you guys I'm going to do my best here um so the the everybody is recognized yeah everybody here is recognized the turnaround time from getting has been really fast right for them for us for everybody has been challenging um because we haven't even be been able to have this conversation with you until right now and they owe money in two days right so everybody recognizes that um you know I think for them it's it's we're not done until a contract a license is agreed upon and voted by this group and the city council I think that's understood uh I and and it's not you know that we're not paying the $39,000 or whatever $38,000 I think they're trying to figure out if they want to move forward if this is an option for us and so it is challenging J because I think there is and he's right we've brought up a lot of questions we've had meetings we we're having email exchanges I think they're amenable to working with us but the city solicitor our team we need more time to come up with a contract that is appropriate everybody is comfortable with uh so so we're not there yet because yes there's language being exchanged you know I have a concern about the teaching and learning priority the city has other things that they're concerned about that they have to you know there's a lot happening uh and it's not a it's that conversation is happening it's alive uh but we need time to do all that um so you know I don't know what the best answer is here uh because again I think we all would say it I'm saying it on behalf of the mayor too right we want we all believe in in Energy savings and and you know cost benefits to the city and the school department in all aspects right um so that we want to entertain this but again the timeline is is is binding us a little bit and making us a little bit nervous about it and I we totally get I get it I am you are I get it lots of questions here on how this is going to go just because we've never lived this before right I haven't even had time to call any other school department that's gone through this I mean it's just it's been a little bit of a whirlwind so you know I want time to be able to do that too I can call my colleagues and Lincoln Sunbury who has a carport how long did this take what was that project like right like we haven't been able to do that so uh I don't know what else to say to all of you other than that piece and I know that was you know the that we support the project I just don't know how you know I'm I'm saddened to hear a little bit because that was the one question Dave I didn't ask you uh last week is what happens if you know can we just slow down and and say this is great can we try this next spring for summer when the kids are out of school and do that and you know I don't think because we're not on our timeline we're on National grids timeline it doesn't work necessarily that way so we are stuck a little bit and you know I think at the it might just be up to Dave and his team whether or not they want to pay the money and eat the cost I I don't know I don't know I'm saying that out loud and maybe I shouldn't but you know it's just it's a hard place for us to be because we would like to support this but there are a lot of questions I think I hope that was and I don't that was going to be my comment I think for you you guys it's a business decision my know is based on the age of the marsh roof and putting a 20year lease on a roof with a 10y year lifespan on it h that's the concern but you guys are the ones that's got to Shell out 40K to see if this is going to be possible or not so that's I think it's it's a business decision on your end not so much on ours because it doesn't impact us yet so does anyone know I mean I know Bruce still is not here but the nature of the work being done on the marsh school because I was I was going to propose this um it might be useful for me to get in a yes or no on just the marsh project because my sense is that I understand that the canopy uh is a little bit we have clearly you know appreciate your support you you've been through it um there are some questions there's also that Federal interest in the property obviously that we have not had a chance to really get to the bottom of um and uh you know I would hope that the federal government supports solar that saves school's money but you never know um you know they're so but yeah I was not to be honest anticipating the marsh roof um conversation to be as as much of a factor as it is yeah we definitely you know we and I don't uh Bruce is not here tonight but we we've definitely had last year especially we had roof leaks in all of our buildings that needed some patch repair so the marsh is not in a place where the Tenny was or the CGS was was before the new roof replacement but the timony and the marsh both still have leaks um that need patch repair so that's they're more in a patch repair place than they are in any kind of like wholesale replacement space um but Bruce would have more details about patch repair and locations in the building that are I mean I can tell you in the back of the building is always a challenge with with leaks but he can be more spec you know tomorrow he can be more specific even would that um would that change anyone's vote if we were just talking about so the only I I I just want to say the only thing that would change my vote is if we were in this situation with the Tenny and the CGS where we had a new roof the the mar just has too many issues to put a solar system that you said isn't even secured to the building it's just on the building correct it it depends on the analysis from the struct structural engineer a lot of times there's at least a few attachments needed but um by and large with with a big system like Mar I think you guys are going to hit a lot of roadblocks with the marsh roof so just my opinion yeah I mean our team looked at it I know and uh we like we spoken with uh um with Garland about it and it was um generally thought to have been pretty well maintained but it sounds like there are there are some issues I don't know how widespread but yeah so given our time crunch can I make a a motion to move it along I mean you guys it's a business decision I mean work with Joe work with Bruce and we can get onto our next agenda item so we're not back here tomorrow can I do that is that how that works I don't think there's a motion point of clarification that was the nod right that was our nod for long chair Keegan I didn't I'm not sure what the nod was yes or no for um Donovan and member wette I wasn't sure with I Madam chair I don't feel comfortable taking a formal vote when this was under public participation and we keep on identify it as a vote so the I think we have issues and we have concerns and it's fact finding and just let it be yeah that's that's it just I would move forward I would even that's just my opinion this is like Uncharted Territory I don't like it point of clarification we're not voting yes you said vote um I just want to mention that they're having a hard time with the microphones and everyone needs to move it very close to their mouth in order to speak so that they can be heard on TV thank you me chair Keegan I was just asking for the nod I wasn't sure if it was a yes nod or a no nod not a vote I I think there's just there's a lot of information that this committee we may need in order to feel comfortable with these projects however we get that information is is up to you guys to be able to move forward with that I'm not really clear on what what other information other than roof condition is being asked for but I think member will let ask for some specific information honestly at this stage I'm all set I'm all set thank you okay how many times I have to say the same thing fact finding Mission we ask questions I have concerns about the 20 year versus the 25 year I want to have some uh analysis of the construction costs what type of incentives grants tax credits you're receiving you know those are things that any typical City councelor School Committee Member anybody in elected capacity those are basic questions that you would ask 30% tax credit federal government okay and I need that listed on wri that's all I you know seriously PPA R I'm getting getting really I'm all set all right okay appreciate the time thank you may I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of May 2nd 2024 so moved second mov by member shabila second by member daglio discussion um do we need a roll call votes we don't so all in favor I I um no no okay um so I'll do present all right may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of May 13 2024 so moved second moveed by member shilia second by member zoglio discussion all in favor I I I I'll opposed so I heard three votes for and I I think they all they all agreed all agreed okay sorry I didn't hear it all right may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of May 22nd 2024 so moved second move by member shilia second by member wette discussion all in favor I I I opposed may I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of the policy subcommittee of June 13th 2024 so moved second move by member shilia second by member dolio discussion yes um the there's a portion here that says parent notification of a bullan complaint I thought we said within one school day from the time of complaint and then the safety plan developed for alleged Target within two days from the time of complaint so these are notes from a meeting from a discussion this is not a policy okay this was just what took place in the conversation so this isn't like actually what's going to be in Noy this was just notes of our discussion okay and the timy spelled wrong can we fix the timy spelling yeah no I appreciate it um and with the timy spelling corrected all in favor I I opposed all right Vice chair may I make a suggestion just to to take like a two-minute recess yes absolutely okay so we'll re we'll take a two-minute recess we'll come back at 7:45 thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e and we're back um does the committee have any questions about the assistant superintendent of Student Services report seeing none does the committee have any questions about the Director of Human Service Human Resources report um members shilia are the are [Music] these Martha don't don't do that Martha are these inclusive of resignations non-renewals that we have since last day I believe so yes and any other questions does the committee have any questions about the facilities report member of Maxwell um I think I think Min is the Student Services report oh that's okay go ahead okay um what is what is it when you list other handbook policy violations that would be an out of school suspendable offense oh sorry I thought that was student services all right does the committee have any questions about the out of school suspensions and other disciplinary actions report member Maxwell sorry um just I was just wondering about the um other handbook policy violations what those are and I mean there's a significant amount of them in two of the schools so so if you I don't have it in front of me if you look at the handbook where it has um suspensions there's a there's typically a list of like a through G or a through H or I for the high school so there's other violations that can happen other than these categories of the handbook rules that's what we're talking about right talking yeah there weren't enough um to identify in a category of their own so by putting them all together it came up with a sizable enough group um to come up with that 3% or or some odd that may be there but those are um vague in that it it violates any anything that's outlined in the handbook um and so that would cause an out of school suspension sometimes if it's a um repeated behavior um or an offense that's particularly egregious in a particular area if you'd like I could follow up with some examples of yeah that's what they may be it just might not be representative of that whole cluster because um they're they're unique okay yeah I just feel like 13 you know almost 13% at the timy and 19% at the high school I'm just curious what you know what those are MH sure any other questions all right um may I have a motion in a second to approve the residency policy jcac second read so moved second moved by member wette second by member shilia discussion seeing none um all in all in favor I I opposed passes unanimously may I have a motion and a second to approve cell phone language for the handbooks so moved second moved by member wette second by member shabila discussion so oh oh can I just explain the survey yes but and so um I know has been a while since we talked about this maybe three months or so since we brought this up um but we did and it was recommended by the committee that we put a survey out to see if uh it would assist if we had language in there if the teachers wanted to use those clear pouches or bins to hold cell phones during instructional time um so there were I think there were a few other questions on the survey but these were the three that were data collection the others were more narrative um Dr glovsky put this together we put it out to grades 5 through 12 teachers we did not include we did not include one through K through four uh but I don't want to misrepresent the fact that we do have cell phone violations in grade four for sure sometimes three uh but not typically lower than that um so we just wanted to share some of that data with you I think the last question was really the one we were trying to get at uh if the cell phone policy were amended to follow to allow teachers to store cell phones in the visible Pockets holders during class time would you utilize it 75% uh or more actually said yes or maybe so you know we it's it's cell phones are uh clearly impactful in instruction and we got that from this survey to teachers um so we didn't change any other language uh but what was highlighted in yellow if the committee agrees to that we'll add that to the handbook for August and again this isn't a a stand alone policy this is language in the handbook which the handbook as a whole will be voted on as policy we're trying to tackle like one section at a time if there were questions about it by the committee okay member Maxwell so I have a few um I have a few comments so on uh in the introduction it says that there's 298 teachers that responded but there's 238 responses um that's the first one in all of the responses there are 200 38 um that's the first point the second point is um it says MPS recognizes that students will have cell phones with them during school hours um and I know that there are some issues where kids are using school after school hours in the school and that's a problem so I think that we need to um kind of I guess fix the wording there the other um point that I wanted to make is cell phones and other electronic dis device that disrupts the educational environment blah blah blah it goes on to say that violates any school conduct rules involves inappropriate photographs or video recordings who decides what is inappropriate um and then if a cell phone or other electronic devices confiscated by an administrator due to unsanctioned or unlawful use um um I don't know I don't know where I was going with that but then to alleviate cell phone use during instructional time teacher May instruct students it's either they do or they don't I feel like you can't say may because some classrooms will make you do it in some classrooms won't and it needs to be universal one point that I did want to bring up regarding cell phones and taking them away is as an adult I know when I leave my house if I don't have my cell phone I turn around and I go home these kids have all grown up with cell phones attached to their hip kind of like a security blanket if you will and if you take those away and you if you just take them away because I said so the anxiety is going to go up in kids the you know so I I feel like that's concerning um yeah I don't know I I I just have a lot of concerns when it comes to people taking away phones for kids that aren't actually abusing them I think that we need to start with you know punishable offenses for the kids that are abusing them and if they don't use them appropriately then they can't have them in the classrooms I don't think the whole classroom needs to be punished for one or two people abusing their cell phones that's all member shilia go ahead like who decides what's an inappropriate photograph because that's concerning administrators and police the SRO would would the SRO sro's and the administration so Administration is looking at potentially inappropriate photos of miners so if there's any indication that it is something of a criminal it would be handed to the police officers to view I think part of what we deal with every single day and I know I've expressed this but I'm saying it again because people it is we are chasing a lot of issues with cell phones because of the behavior kids are taking pictures of each other that are unwanted so a parent may come to an administrator and say I'm very concerned because my daughter was recorded at lunchtime unwanted by some kid and now that's on Tik Tock YouTube a Snapchat that's unwanted right and so we're dealing with a lot of those so so you're we're trying to figure out where that line is we're talking about bullying cyber bullying all of those things this leads to a lot of that and we get a lot of parents who call us saying help me fix this right my so so inappropriate it's inappropriate that way it was an unwanted picture it's not criminal but it's unwanted because the sixth grader eighth grader 11th grader does not want pictures taken of them during school time or in recess or in a classroom and posted and that's happening every single day it is such a challenge do they have document signed that says no pictures do we what I said do they do they have that document that sign that we have to sign in as parents like do you approve of being well the no publish is from for me Kid to Kid I mean that's a whole different ball game yeah that's a whole different ball game so the no do not publish is do you agree for the school I go and I take pictures of events and I make sure that I don't have kids who aren that do not right I'll go to the teacher and say is there anybody on the do not publish I'm not going to post this for read Across America oh NOP you're good okay so it's on it's methan public schools right I'm not sharing it on my personal Facebook page I'm not sharing it to my friends right it's it's we're talking about totally different things and I think you know we're we when we generated this language the first time uh a few years ago it was really trying to um you know the the violent ation in the handbook and this is the hard part and I know you've asked for this member Maxwell and this is what makes this challenging is there's a cell phone violation but that cell phone violation uh sometimes is simply a cell phone violation because they're insubordinate and won't put their phone away right that's a that's different than a cell phone violation because it falls under harassment or bullying or cyber bullying and we try to handle that yes the phone was involved but it's not a it's a cell phone violation but the violation is really the infraction that is violated in the handbook right so so although uh we let's say we under we uh know about the situation because of the cell phone we're not going to categorize that as a cell phone violation that's not why this child is getting a consequence or a phone call home may not be because of the cell phone it's because of the infraction that it's the bullying the harassment the inappropriate meme or whatever is in Snapchat or right that infraction that violates the language in the handbook am I I I hope I'm being clear I'm trying to trying to discern those two because it's it's hard and it's it's so complicated but that's where this is coming from that kids are going into the bathroom with their cell phones I can't go in I can't ask an administrator to stand in the bathroom and guard against kids in the bathroom with a cell phone they're going to take videos and they do and they take pictures and then we deal with the out my staff deals with the outcome parents are dealing with the outcome right so this uh for me I think when we went through this with the principles and some of the staff we talked to who I've never seen them respond quicker to a survey than this one and I think Dr L will agree to that um the response was super quick right the teachers saw this it was five questions they responded because they're dealing with telling kids to put their cell phones away or parents emailing them they look for us to solve those problems that's just our reality and we're there to do that it falls in the lap of school it becomes a school issue right we don't want kids feeling uncomfortable around other kids because they're taking pictures of them or videotaping them I mean we we typically put those languages in safety plans as well you can't video you can't take pictures kids are uncomfortable so it's it's just challenging and I think that language and I I don't disagree with you that there's some conversation about the May or will uh and I'm happy to have that conversation because if it's a will I definitely have to provide everything for staff which I would anyway if they wanted it um you know I think some Staff feel like they have a system in the classroom where it's a non-issue uh which is some of the feedback we got majority it's an issue uh and the majority said they would use it but I do understand that if we say will then we're going to provide it and we're going to tell every teacher consistently to use it and it's during instructional time not during passing time every kid sees it that's why it was very specifically said clear CU you don't want it to get confused by anything you want to see it that that's my phone in Pocket number three that I put in I take my pocket number three and I leave during that class right but it does eliminate that instructional Interruption and it eliminates kids taking it to the bathroom no kid needs a cell phone in the bathroom none so it does eliminate that too which is where a lot of the problems do arise from kids sneaking it into the bathroom now does that solve all the problems because they're going to have it in between classes and they're going to have it at lunchtime and they you know I no but it could eliminate at least some of those as a start and I think the teachers and staff and parents some most parents will appreciate that that's a time where it's uninterrupted they still have it it's you know nobody's taking it from them and putting it somewhere for the day it's you know class by class and the kids can handle it that way with those and I know we do that there are definitely teachers I've seen it uh I'm I'm sorry member Donovan I'm pointing to you um but I think this started at the ten a few years ago teachers really wanted to try this because it was just challenging in the Middle School and it does work well if every teacher is doing it consistently so the whole team knows I'm not missing out on something because one group has a phone and one group doesn't so I totally get that if that's you know a conversation the committee wants to have about the May or will I do I put May because I wasn't sure um you know during that instructional time I you know I think that's a a fair conversation to have for sure I don't know if I answered your questions I I think too if I may the focus of this survey was the cell phone as a distraction to learning so um if you look at the results in the bar graph most teachers say that for most of their students it's become a distraction whether that's the the non-stop stream of social media dings or communicating to one another that's taking the students mind off the lesson and onto something else um but also what we ask of the teachers is it's really tough we ask a lot of them to differentiate learning and to to know where everyone's at and to deliver high quality lessons and to see that there are um a large proportion of teachers um who need to stop instruction to redirect students to put their cell phone away sometimes more than 10 times in what would be a 55 minute class it's really tough um so some of the comments that we received about the pockets and holders um that teachers put was just to say that we would really love the district's backing we we weren't sure if that was something we could do to put it in the visible pockets that's great others had concerns about what would happen if a phone was to go missing would that be my responsibility so that was where most of the the Mayes and NOS came from they just wanted Clarity on that piece um but largely teachers were happy to have the option if they wish to do so and Miss member Maxwell well uh that was definitely a typo I just looked at this survey it closed at 238 responses so I'm not sure I must have been looking at something else when I typed 290 98 teachers I apologize for that member shilia so looking at the language the first bullet on the bottom of the second page to cell phones if I get any closer I'm going to choke on it okay okay I I I can only get so close cell phone smartphone use will not be permitted and cell phone smartphone shall remain concealed at all times all times means to me all times not just learn educational time so that based on what you just said you know they they they are they using it during transition time are they using them at I don't know re recess or whenever that time may be so I mean it's it's gray there I agree with member Maxwell where some of these kids who are following the rules I think we're going to see a spike in an anxiety response because you're now taking it away from them when they haven't done anything wrong and I just inherently have an issue with managing to managing to the problem I guess you could say where if a teacher telling a kid 10 times to put their phone away and they're not that could should be getting an invitation to detention or something else whatever our recourse is and you ruin enough Friday afternoons these kids aren't GNA continue to repeat offend or maybe they will and I am just patently incorrect I I I don't know but I also agree with member maxwan I mean who's going to Define an emergency when a child wants to make a call from their phone I mean remember Donovan and I had this conversation over the course of the last few days I think we're generally reasonable people and we agree on what an emergency May or not be but I think that there's a big gray area out there for folks and it's it becomes very much open to perception um there is you know the direction here to have families call into the the offices I know and we've all seen the comments and I don't know if they ever make it to you because there seems to be that giant void in what people say and then what actually makes it to the superintendent office but you know folks calling schools and the phones ringing because our secretaries are doing 974 other things that they can't always get to the phone so if there is an emergency and a parent wants to follow the rule and call the main office they don't answer now they call the kid is I mean how do we police that how do we know it's not us because of Staffing and resource demand and then I also do agree that we either have to do it or we don't and has to be uni uniformly applied to throughout the schools because giving that ability to differentiate I think has the possibility to lead to the beginnings of a hostile environment kids oh I like teacher a better they let me do what I want they let me keep my phone and it's I'd rather start with disciplining the problem it's like a community policing approach let's start by cracking down on one thing and driving it home it's no different than speeding in a neighborhood if we stop it and we can stand in front of something it'll curb hope hopefully curb the behavior yeah I think just a couple of comments I think you know again the school committee two years ago had this great debate because we didn't have any language and uh our administrators and teachers were really struggling with how to manage it and so this is the first shot we put in the handbook with any language really about cell phones and how they would be handled I think there is as you just said that I think there's a thing missing here that that I would friendly add is that we're talking about earpods you know earbuds or airpods as well devices that might be connected to phones we see those all the time to well the watch is in here but the the the we didn't put devices like the earbud devices which we would probably add to this so that that's a just you know if the kids have the earbuds in uh right now it's a one in one out at the high school level we see it the most not necessarily at the grammar schools but um you know phones can be on and things can be listening to and they can still be concealed so we're just we're trying to figure out a way to support our teachers for the instructional time having those uh In Pockets we're not taking them away from the day we're just we're we're removing them so it's it completely can't be a distraction during that 45 minute 55 minute block of time right again as soon as that kid pulls it and leaves for the next class they're going to see whatever message they might have or whatever right might come their way um I I just I I feel like we just this really needs to support the teaching and learning and the staff in the buildings and I don't think this is is too much to ask our kids and our and our teachers our teachers are maxed out with distractions other Behavior you know just going back to teachers and saying disciplined kids they are like it it's not that they're not addressing these issues either um the you know we just asked some basic facts we we didn't follow up with the kid who you asked 10 times did you give him a detention I'm guessing some of those things did happen we didn't ask that level you know we just we wanted to get to this question that was asked of us about the the bins is this something that teachers would even use because we weren't sure um but I I just am advocating for the staff here I think and and the students because the this the parent phone calls that do come in that we are on the other end of you know you get the you get the phone call about what's happening on a cell phone and parents discover and it's happening in the day and it happened in the sixth grade bathroom and it just becomes really trying and talk about anxiety the kids are really anxious about those things too so you know just trying to curb some of that so that there's no questions about the phone and this also keep in mind this is a this is an honor System nobody's going to be patting down a kid for a phone to put in a clear box too right so there's no like that's not it's hey everybody put it in the thing and if they don't and then they pull out their phone you know now you're now the teacher has to then do the whatever they do right so there's no guarantee this just gives everybody more leverage with so many issues that happen with cell phones in schools I don't think that this curbs the anxiety because you're taking it away when they're in the classroom they're not in the bathroom when they are using the honor System to put it in the pocket I think that we could probably say that there are are probably less kids I can count on two hands in the high school that don't have a phone unfortunately at least in my opinion but I I would be more interested in seeing what the the numbers are for how many detentions were handed out in a week for kids with phones like because it's it's not clear to me I know I don't think the teachers are doing nothing don't don't take it that way and I don't think there's a good answer to this particular problem I think we're doomed either way because cell phones are a crutch of society and I myself and just as guilty as everybody else but how do [Music] you I I feel like we we are quick to take it away from everybody because of the few and it's not a methu and school thing it's our society in general um but I would I'd be interested to see if we could even hypothetically do a pilot you know timy Marsh Tim Tenny timoy CGS and have them do a community policing style approach or a pocket approach and see what the attention comes back as and how the Improvement is that way we can make kind of an informed decision I don't know if something like that would be possible or even Le legal but yeah it's just it's I I totally understand what you're saying I guess for me it's it's challenging because we brought this forward two years ago because we were already there I I already had teachers and principles who were just maxed out with I mean I had all the aps at that time actually keep marks I had sheets for every building that was how much time are you I that was the that was the fall I came back to the school committee three times because we allowed the students to have them during lunch which was also causing more problems um use them during you know blat not blatantly but like explicitly saying they could use them during lunch which was causing uh more of the issues I just shared with you with the videos and the unwanted pictures and the kids standing around watching inappropriate videos during you know in circles at recess things like that was happening I mean everywh where the principles looked that's that's what was happening so again I'm I'm here to Advocate um for the staff and I'm advocating on behalf of a lot of the parents as well who feel very strongly about cell phones and have been on the other end of inappropriate cell phone use I do not think uh I don't think we would be here I wouldn't have brought this up two years ago if this was just about a couple of kids doing wrong versus 500 doing right that's that's not what we're talking about here there's a capacity of an issue uh that brought this to the Forefront and it that's not going away and so you know it's it's you can't say we need to deal with X but a way to actually help deal with X is to curb some of this this right this is one way to curb some of the um bullying issues some of the you know inappropriate dialogue between kids inappropriate photos and bathrooms it is a way to to curb that and so you know that's what we're trying to put in place so again it's it's in the purview of the school committee uh it's it's one of the most challenging things for our staff is is how to handle and again I know you said it and we're not alone in this right every school district is kind of doing something different whether it's a put them all in pouches and nobody has access all day long or you know seeing new policies pop up almost every day uh PE you know school districts are going to be implementing new things next year you know desie actually didn't come back and say we thought they were because they did that pilot pocket thing last year we thought they were going to have some input on cell phones and educational settings but we haven't heard anything yet um so it's it's a it's a dilemma um and I'm not sure what the right answer is I just know that uh this is one way that we can help uh you know keep our teaching and learning environment teaching and learning by not taking away the cell phones all day putting them in micro you know I'm not that's not what this is about and I'm not necessarily in favor or you know of that approach um I think this still gives the kids access but not while they're learning in in their classrooms and that's what we're trying to curb to start to see if that can help MoGo yes thank you um Madam VI sh so as an educator and also at a school where there is no cell phones allowed at all they are to be in their bags or in their pockets and even during transitions and I I'm looking at this status the fact that a teacher is telling a a student possibly one time in my school I see a cell phone I could take it and the parents coming in and get getting it and it works like the kids are not they know like when they come in put the cell phones away and of course they go to the bathroom and they're doing their Tik toks and and their whatever they are doing in the bathroom and that's working in a middle school level so for that to happen in the Middle School level I totally understand that can work but obviously in the high school level it's a different but when you're in a classroom and a kid has an air because I work both high schools and middle schools when a kid has his airpods and he's not listening to educational stuff on it he's listening to his music so he's distracting himself so he's not learning um or he's on it texting so he's already distracted and to me I we're not taking it away from a person that has it in their pocket but if they take it out after giving the option to put it in a clear clear pouch that they can see it yes why are you having your cell phone when you should be listening to the teacher and I get it I do it myself but at the same time that that this is not beneficial they're not looking up educational stuff in the classroom they're looking up their Instagram they're texting they're Facebooking they're doing all that and to me if this and again I'm not saying this doesn't happen I understand the anxiety and thank God Mr crock is here today um but this there shouldn't be the anxiety of not being able to text when their friends are right here they should be so wait a minute I'm just going off of I'm just just hand me out they that to me is concerning that they have to be on Facebook they have to be on Instagram they have to be on Snapchat and text when they're in an environment where they are socially Gathering and should be learning to communicate with each other that just my opinion again that's how I was in methu public schools we didn't have our cell phones out and I I get it I was here towards the beginning of cell phones where the cell phones were that big but I had a cell phone and we were told to put it away and because there was nothing good coming from it and we're learning that it's worse now than it was and that's just my take on it that's why I supported this to years ago when it was first brought that's why I will continue to advocate for that I don't believe cell phones should be in classrooms I don't believe but I understand it's different in a middle school than it is to a high school because you're not going to stop kids transitioning classrooms and they're going to be you're not going to stop put your cell phones away put your cell phones away I get it but when they're in that classroom their cell phon should be put away they should be learning they should be reading they should be doing those things that's just my take on it from a different perspective thank you member Donovan can you put your microphone close to yourself please thank you I I totally agree member with everything you said if we want to see our test scores get better if we want kids to learn we have to remove the distractions if you read all the studies about the impact of social media and cell phones on the brain your brain the brain is rewired by this constant need to be checking I see look at us how many of us today looked at their cell phone during the meeting I I know I did I'm not throwing anyone under the bus but I did see the cell phones come up and that's not fair to what would you know we shouldn't be doing that but it's that constant need to be checking to see what I'm missing out on or whatever um I think providing every teacher with those envelopes or whatever you want to call it to hang I've seen it work in a classroom we're putting I think by doing this we'll be putting added pressure on the teacher to establish the routines the rituals at the beginning of the school year these are my expectations I saw it work beautifully in some classrooms um and there'll always be a kid who can work around it and and good for them you know what I mean there'll always be somebody but I think by not taking some action and supporting the teachers we're sending a message that your cell phones a little more important than learning and following some basic expectations so I would hope we just give this a shot I don't think it's um I think it's a good middle of the road policy because as I was going to bring up some school districts are saying turn your cell phone in the minute you walk in and we zip it up and you'll see it at the end of the day and we survived years ago when we didn't have cell phones and um I think it was probably a better environment if you wonder what goes on I invite you to go on Tik Tok put in some school names and you probably would be appalled at what some of the kids are doing during you know you you can access it I used to have to do that you you it's not what our kids should be focused on so um I I just hope we accept it we give it a shot probably ask for some feedback down the road to see if this is successful if this is working and then move on because I think we're spending a way too much time wondering you know not just accommodating when we should be preparing our students for what's really important and what'll get them ahead in the world social media will not thank you for coming to my TED Talk remember rette thank you madam Vice chair uh politics is the art of the Practical the possible so I'm hearing Divergent viewpoints and like member D Donovan indicated um I think the middle path is this is a pilot program that we're envisioning to give the discretion to the teachers and then at the conclusion of the school year we can resurvey those teachers now the teachers that applied it was it effective should it be mandatory and we should be giving the teachers discretion because they're on the front lines every day now the placement of a bin or a wall the plastic to put a cell phone in that might be motivation enough for the students to adhere to what the teacher is instructing maybe not but at least if we have this pilot program and we can study it give it a year and resurvey the teachers and I think we had a very powerful message from the teachers that a they want the discretion and B I think they're in favor of the the policy now if someone wanted to offer an amendment to make it mandatory and that's a compromise I'm not that I don't have a problem with that but I don't want to lose sight of we need to make an improvement to the policy so I'd rather do that middle path of let's study it for a year give the teachers discretion resurvey them and if we need to make it on a mandatory basis because it the efficacy is working in certain classrooms but it's not working in other classrooms because the teachers are not applying that policy then we revisit it as a school committee um but sometimes in policy you have to do a peace meal and then do an analysis of it I'm not in favor of uh the L Public Schools what they did um in deference to member I I don't think we're at that stage yet um I understand what member shabila is indicating the anxiety associated with the cell phone um and also the the tick tock the Facebook the Instagram and The Addictive nature of young kids using those devices and has been studied and I think there's a movement at the state level and at the federal level to ban those devices for underage kids and I hope we can move in that direction because not only you're doing data collection of young kids but you're also enticing these kids to do actions and behaviors that we would never want them to do in a civilized Society so I think if we can do the compromise um I'm in favor of that um and I understand the mindset of my colleagues I really do the anxiety the need to have it maybe uniformity to it I understand that I understand about banning it totally I I understand that it's a very complex issue but I think when you compromise and then you study it and then you revisit it I I think that's the proper path thank you hold on it's my turn you've all had a turn um my I'm in favor of it for the middle schools um for the high school I think it's a it's okay to have it if the teachers want it but I don't think it should be mandatory for the high schools to do it um but my biggest concern is for the disabled students and the medically fragile student students that require their cell phones on their person for their accommodations and we need to somehow acknowledge that in here that we have students that have to have their cell phones on them for a medical reason or for an anxiety reason or whatever it's on a document a legal document that we have to follow and by by taking it away from everybody those students now have to divulge their disabilities and that's that's a problem for me that a student might have to say I have autism and I need I have this on my 504 and because it's happened to my child personally it's very sensitive to me so I'm I'm a little bit concerned about making this mandatory and not protecting our special needs kids so that's all I have to say member Doo um in response um so two points to first to you I would think teachers would be notified of IEPs that that would be that's what I would say in this policy be like well for kids with IEPs and 504s it's the it would be whatever you want to word it to the point where they their teachers will be notified and they need to go for a walk and they have to use their cell phone or for I I don't know I have a I I had a student at the high school and he had to go for a walk and he listened listen to like classical music and that's diff like that's that's a different appro I'm talking for a kid that does not have a 504 IEP and he's listening rock music in the back of the room or looking up Tik toks like that's what we're looking at to deter um and I'm all for um the second thing is I'm all for mandator this but we also have to have consequences if if if a kid doesn't put it in the pouch all right if he pulls out his cell phone going to um member shabil was saying well how many detentions are we giving out the kids for using their cell phone because there's no consequences and I've learned this if I don't put it in the pouch and I take it out and they just said put it away and they're not taking my cell phone away or they're not giving me a detention well why would I want to put it in the pouch where I could still do the text and dist the class and there's no consequence if I pull it out and they say well give me my your cell phone we're escorting you or we're giving you a detention now it' be like wait a minute oh okay then I'm going to put it in the pouch or I'm going to put it away in my bag until I get out of the class I'm just saying if you keep it's I'm just saying the negative effects of this pilot program if there's no consequences attached to it because the the kids are not going to care if there's no consequences for not putting it in the pouch so I'm not going to waste on voting for something if there's nothing going to be put onto it m Maxwell um two things so you had said something about the honor System so the kids that are already breaking the rules and taking the pictures of the kids they're not going to be honest they're not going to put their phone willingly in a cell phone pouch that why would they do that locks don't keep burglar out of houses right taking away I don't know I don't know I can't I can't come up with another analogy but like I don't know you want to stop drunk driving take away alcohol you know like you can't punish everyone for the misbehavior of certain students when we're not disciplining those students we can say that we're disciplining those students but we're not we have no record of how many cell phone infractions are actually happening in this District none so I I have a hard time with that and everything you can do on a cell phone you can do on a computer and every kid in this district has a computer and they email back and forth to each other and they send pictures back and forth through email because I've seen them so to take away a cell phone I hope we're looking at taking away the computers that's all member do um member shilia so I I'm I I I want to support the policy because I don't I don't see another clear option I also to member Donovan's earlier Point think it's it's a pilot um however I do think we need a baseline from our just ended school year so when we are in this point at the end of the next fiscal year the next school year we could say okay we run the survey again how many how many kids were what are the teachers responses how does it line up and how many detentions we giving out for these kids for these infractions remember do Zago spot on rules without teeth aren't worth the paper they're written on so it's it's got to have some kind of some kind of backbone to support the program I would like to make two friendly amendments or I'll make one friendly Amendment with two bullets in it I would like to make this mandatory with a specific set for the elementaries and the high school because I know they're different worlds and they're going to be treated slightly different but it should be mandatory at all K8 and the same rules throughout the high school in addition if we're going to do this and we're talking about the headphones we should include the headphones be it the airbuds the the 1970s cool kid giant ones that they wear now beats what I I mean I haven't been right but if you're not using them for an academic purpose there's no need for you to have them on during the day if you're using them in class because you're watching a video on your iPad or whatever that's a different story um right but there there will always be legal exceptions and that's that's what it is so my friendly Amendment would be to provide mandated management at the elementary and separately for the high school and to include headphones can I just clarify what you mean by do you want to change that to will instead of May yes okay um I think that we need to clarify that it's going to be a different set of rules for the K8 versus the high school what are the different I'm confused what the different sets of rules are I'm reverting to what member Keegan said about how it may be a different plan so I was just allowing for that flexibility should it be needed I don't know I don't can I just clarify because I think what you're saying could apply to middle school kids too right I mean if it's on any of their plans I don't know if I would if I would right and my big issue is is that if if we make this a plan and a kid has headphones then all of a sudden we know oh wow that kid has a disability and so now we're we're identifying just by the sheer and we use headphones for lots of kids with disabilities we got lots of kids who need headphones during the day so I have a real problem with including headphones in this at all um and th some of those kids with the headphones are using their cell phones attached to those headphones some don't but some do right and so I have a real hard time saying I mean you would never say somebody's going to walk around saying oh there's a diabetic oh there's an autistic kid well we're doing that now by by making them stick out and so I'm really I I'm struggling with this a lot may I make a suggestion um and I don't is this in is this a formal approval I'm wondering if we table this and allow I don't know if I don't know what the right word is tonight if we' give us another shot at this um for two reasons I wrote down some ideas um from Member daglio and a few others of uh I don't disagree that there might be some followup here of the if right if if students uh this is different if we're going to if we're going to make a will here like it will happen these pouches um then I think there has to be a if a student uh does not put the cell phone in a c pouch and is uh does have a cell phone then like that might be a specific consequence that doesn't fall under that a through I I piece because it's a violation of this language I just need some time to wrap my mind around that a little bit I think we could come up with some language there uh and then maybe that gives us a little time to think about this idea of the headphones and what is the compromise with that so we're not identifying kids because of what we're taking away from other kids um CU those are all good points and I want to make sure that I have the time to sort of think through that and even potentially uh consult with legal on other cell phone policies they may see because this can't be the first issue obviously other districts are moving faster and doing like I don't know how school districts are handling what you just said if it's just like all or nothing because that you're right we're identifying kids right off the bat so I'd just like some time to take the feedback and see if we can rework this a little bit and bring it back to you in August with the handbook changes have another conversation motion to table great second motion to table by member shilia second by member Maxwell all in favor I I I opposed okay it's tabled thank you I think that will be helpful superintendent would you please start the discussion on the Strategic Plan update quarter 4 I'm going to turn it right over to Dr golovsky to share with you our last quarterly update for the 23 24 school year thank you very much I'm just going to share my screen for folks at home so I'm just moving through the slides that are in your packet um and they're also viewable on the monitors if you want to follow along so this is um quarter the quarter 4 update for year three of our strategy for district Improvement so as you know it is a three-year plan um so we are thinking as we're reviewing quarter 4 some aspirations for goals um priorities um that tie into our SOA plan but where we're going to maybe think about going and run by you for feedback for our next three-year plan so objective one um centered on literacy outcomes and the use of high quality instructional materials objective two um dealt with the increase to increase prevention and intervention activities to lower prevalence rates of anxiety depression and post-traumatic stress in students um and John Crocker is here tonight to present objective two and objective three um was to Prov provide students from historically disadvantaged groups with Equitable access to an excellent education so um as an overview for objective one um we aspired to and did execute the continuous um Regular walkthroughs um with the central office team um the leadership team in each School building um walking through Ela classrooms both with our tntp partners and without um and including other administrators along the way we um continued with our Universal screening three times throughout the year for k through eight um we supported the integration of foundational skills and background knowledge um through our highquality instructional materials and that would be um K through 8 and I'll detail that further as we move through it um and finally we focused on student ownership and making sure that all students had access to grade level expectations so this first slide is a little bit of a review so this was pre presented um this format was presented in a memo at the beginning of the year when we talked about the need to switch the screeners um because the of the discontinuation of um the Lexia screener we had been using so we had presented it in three groupings or grade bands so K through two 3 through five and then six through eight so I tried to remind you of the screener we primarily used the September percentages um both by grade level and grade band and that would be for students reading on or above grade level based on these screeners only um and then the bu May levels so so the highest score students received of the three benchmarks by grade level and grade band so you can see the percentages of increase which I will go through in more detail as we move through so as a reminder the uh Dibbles Benchmark is a composite score of subtests and I included this slide to remind you which subtests would be grouped with each grade and what we would primarily be looking at and Dibbles as we go through the three benchmarks it's different every time and the expectations are different because it's at a different point in the year so you really can't compare a student on their own in terms of um this one student from the beginning to the end but Dibbles does recommend that we look at the whole um conglomerate or group together and if we see that that whole group is moving forward then that's data we can rely on so the score ratings I just wanted to explain blue meaning above Benchmark indicates that the student is doing very well um and there is very little risk for them falling um below where they should be the app Benchmark in green indicates a student is also doing very well um and as long as they are continued to be provided with adequate instruction they they most often will not fall below the yellow the Strategic support indicates that uh teachers need to keep an eye on at least one of those subtests um to make sure the student is still progressing and the red which they call intensive support means that that teachers need to be really thoughtful about how they're delivering extra supports to students through intervention small group instruction so essentially there's more than likely um multiple subtests in which students may have fallen below or at risk of doing so and then for 4 through eight we use dream box um which is the Reading Plus Insight assessment so Insight measures comprehension vocabulary um and the silent reading rate which is fluency or efficiency um and we have groupings of a bun above Benchmark Benchmark and below so I did want to point out the dream box assessment is a computer adaptive assessment so it what the student is prompted to respond to and the texts that are presented with differs based on what they're responding to so it's not necessarily a right or wrong test whereas if they were to take it again they would know the answers because the computer is adapting as they're responding and that gives us um the student proficiency rating in the grade level um language okay so here's our K2 um grade band so it's broken out by grade and then as you can see um the percentage of students reading at or above Benchmark um and so overall 69% of students in the grade band have grade level literacy skills or reading proficiency and that's that's by the end of the year so we can see k one and two okay with the most significant uh or the highest average and I wanted to break this down um by grade because I was really struck by the increase in the number of students reading above Benchmark so whereas there students reading um in our group on or above predominantly most are reading above and and it's significantly above as we get older in the grade bands I'll give you some more statistics um but as I said to Dr Quang it's it's a good problem to have because now we have nearly half the class um reading far above grade level and then and then students who are also not so we're going to have to do some professional development and really work with teachers to make sure all students are getting what they need okay so we can see at the beginning to the end and that's what we would expect of um kindergarten students in terms of their growth just entering school and here's grade one so we have 70 Stu 70% of students reading at or above and it's a little bit tricky because it's not always a linear progression in terms of students just moving up to the next box or the next row um most often that's the case um but some made incredible G s over the course of the Year grade two is at 65% so we can see that at Benchmark um stayed consistent throughout the year but that's different students moving through so we're happy looking at the grade as a whole and its progression and the grade three through five uh band is something that we brought up earlier in the year um as our our partners at desie cautioned us this was the band that they were most concerned about um these were students who were um potentially in remote or hybrid setting during the pandemic in their formative years K through two um so this was a group that the state was particularly concerned about um primarily it was mentioned grade three pretty often in the um the circles that we were in so in grade three um 59% of students were found to be reading at or above Benchmark which um was a significant gain from the beginning um these grades are the grades that started off um with the lower percentage and so their gains were I would say commendable although they're still definitely work to be done um and to know that we have the reads through um sibles that will point us in the direction of how to continue supporting students so in the Intensive um band there are students that were that were significantly below and the humanity supervisors were um quick to point out and were proud to do so that students had meet me met their goal that was set by the teacher for their gains throughout the year so even though they may still fall in that intensive band they had made significant progress and with an an additional year they might bump into that yellow row of strategic support and here is grade four this is when we started to see something interesting um so I pulled the the data and summary and looked at the grades looked at the charts and then I started looking through by students individually and noticing some disparities in terms of how students were scoring in the middle versus the end or the third Benchmark um and there were some big disparities there and this is the dream boox data and so sometimes at that middle point which would be the January test they were three grades say higher than in their end date and I thought well that was kind of strange and then I so I crossed it against their their grades in their classes and that still didn't seem to REM in my mind why that was happening and so I have the aster at at the bottom to show that 82% of students in grade four did score their highest score at the end of the year but that percentage decreased as we moved to grade eight so once mcast hit is what I'm I'm suggesting here with some assessment fatigue students stopped scoring their highest in that that third benchmark so just something to be mindful of okay so you can see there um the third row has the end of the year scores end being May and the highest um percentage is when I pulled their highest rating which was either middle or end um and the percentages and how that fell excuse me Dr glovsky yeah um I need a motion in a second to extend the meeting past nine o'clock second move by member shabila second by member Donovan all in favor I unanimous okay I'm sorry for the interrup back to the late night reading discussion okay so grade five we can see on the um the next slide now we have 75% of students who are earn their highest score during the May screening but 66% overall were shown to be reading at or above Benchmark um so again the reading enhancement assessment is an achievement assessment where the questions vary and differ based on how students respond and I can also see the rate at which students move through the assessment um and so I'm able to tell how quickly they're reading and how quickly they're thinking um in terms of their response rate okay and here's the 6 through eight grade band okay so 68% of students in grade six were at or above um and at this point 70% of students earn their highest scores in May um and I think we can see here as we get older in terms of the grade level the opportunity to fall below grade level is bigger because there's more of a range um in which students could could um fall into those levels and as we talked about in earlier um quarterly we're still looking at students with disabilities and our English Learners um as students who may have some um strides to make and how we can better support them is going to be the focus of our work going forward here's grade seven so we're at 67% for grade seven so we're noticing now we're down to 64% of students earned their highest score during the May screening so um that will spark some conversation between the humanity supervisors Dr Dr Kang and myself about should we vary our assessment calendar um for next year so is May on the heels of uh three or four in the case of the Civics in grade eight mcast exams and grades coming to a close and this not being for great does that have some impact into what's going on we want to make sure the data that we're that we're grabbing is Meaningful in terms of helping us make redirections if necessary but also for the student to know where they stand and how they can grow going forward um and here we are in grade eight um in grade 8 there were a significant amount of students um reading above grade level and I wanted to point out of the 435 kids in grade 8 117 of the students in grade 8 are reading at a grade 11 level or above so 117 of those kids in grade 8 are reading at a grade 11 grade level or above which I think is really impressive um so that's not even Tak to account those raing at 8 n or 10 um and so we're proud of of their progress there and that brings me to the um tntp walkthrough summary so we had two parts we were really looking at here one was the literacy screener portion and the other is the delivery of high quality instruction to our students so maybe this is a good point if there are questions regarding the screener or data I can speak to that and then I'll move into the second part member Maxwell so just to be crystal clear we're not testing um the competency of the students we're testing the competency of the schools right um is it standard that we retest the students when they have scored bad the first time they take the test yes so if we find that students it's not that they score poorly or worse but if we well explaining the process so if we find that someone scored five grade levels like for instance I had a few students in grade eight um who had scored in grade seven or six in that midpoint and then when they took it again they were shown to score below a first grade level and take it in less than 20 minutes so that wouldn't be meaningful data so what I asked was the humanity supervisors if you see that someone has really taken Seven Grade nose dive which is not reasonable at all ask them to retake it because this data is important the grade eight data is what we use to populate the intervention reading classes at the high school so we want to make sure that when we send those along to the um the grade nine students that their classes are popul teachers or classes are populated with kids that need to be there and if we find that someone's misplaced creates a little bit of a jumble in a schedule so that's one of the reasons that I would ask for them to do that so is there a standard practice on saying like Okay this child has tested at this level so we are going to retest them in a week there was there's no time frame but I think I I noticed um we were talking before and from what I was hearing before if a if a student was given the test in the middle of the mcast span the teacher might think o I wonder if that may have led to the the student not achieving let's wait a couple weeks and have them do it again but it would be I think advantageous to have a more accurate measure if not I think it's almost irresponsible because then we're working with data that we know is false because we know that student isn't reading below first grade um and so that doesn't help at all in terms of instruction or the student knowing where they can improve um I mean I I obviously don't want to see the kids scool poorly I just think that this testing is to measure the school's competency and um it's it's not doing that these numbers aren't accurate I I I would like to see if we have the original test scores from the first tests that were given and I'd like to see how they compare to what you're presenting to us the first Benchmark no the first round of testing because a lot of kids are retested and they're told if you do not do better you do not get to participate in certain activities I know I've dealt with it for firstand myself I know it's happening so yeah that that's definitely not the policy and shouldn't be happening to eliminate a student so these numbers are skewed because they're now being tested under pressure and saying if you don't do better you can't do this well I would argue that someone gr um scoring below first grade is a skewed piece of data sure but that's not what I'm saying I'm not saying if they're scoring below first grade and they're a seventh grader that's not what I'm saying I'm saying if any of the children are asked to retest then I would like to see the numbers of the first test given so if you're tested on January 9th and February 3rd I want to see January 9th I don't want to see February 3rd because February 3rd is just a misguided number on where we actually are the first number is what we should be taking so that the kids so they retest on the third Benchmark is the one that I was talking about when there was a great disparity between what we found the that I know of retesting are the ones from January and February okay and there are grade levels that are being retested not just one student not just two students grade levels as a whole are being say are being retested so that needs to be looked at because I mean these numbers don't even compare to mcast scores so to see us and I know you say that there's different data however mcast is the standard we want our kids to be at standard yes well mcast measures terrible you're talking about last year's scores because this year haven't come back yet yes okay mcast measures many standards no I within Ela Reading Writing listening speaking language so that's five five different sets so MC testing the district right I'm sorry mcast is testing the district not the actual student it tracks a student as well and I think you mentioned that this is tracking the school no but we use this isn't tracking the school it's tracking like I mean I guess yes it's tracking the school sorry Mis tracking like the competency of the school like so we also use this data to figure out with Wind Block and in the younger guys with the um reading success where they should be placed and how we can better support them during that time so it's informative for teachers it's a formative assessment which is why isn't graded or isn't included in report card grades um because it helps us direct our PR practice and know where students can grow so when students come back to school next year teachers will be able to look at how they fared in that third Benchmark the year prior and we can compare that to the first Benchmark next year and we'll be able to see how much loss was there over the summer or I see that this student really needed extra support in these few areas is that still the case and then we know how to to better work with that student rather just going from scratch so we do make efforts to try to make uh the data accurate for our own purposes or else we just be spinning our Wheels with things we don't know are real um but I did want to emphasize that this is an Adaptive assessment so it's not necessarily the case that someone who takes it and as in the example I Rec I suggested scored significantly lower and they take it again it's not as if they've learned the answers in a repeating them it's the skills that they're practicing but it's a different content and different phrasing of questions so in no way was that meant to be um deceitful at all I thought it was more irresponsible not to test them and to pretend as if I thought that student really was scoring below grade one yeah I think I think I'd just like to see the first round of scores as opposed to the second round of scores and you know and and not for any other reason is to you know we've already lowered the goal from 80% to 65 % and now we're saying that we are we're meeting 65% across the board however students are being retested so yeah I could definitely pull that for you next year I remember in one of our assessments with all of this I know the timy for instance was like 57% 57% or 52% were not at grade level and now all of a sudden every grade is at 64% that's mindboggling to me I just can't get on these numers I think that's really good and I think that I do too if it were real okay um let me can I just make a statement so I think because I think other folks might have questions before we move on to the next part but um I think there's a the I just want to reiterate what Dr golovsky said too there's nothing there's nothing fake about these numbers we're talking about students being at or above grade level and I think our conversations were really rich in the fact of like this assessment was profound in US recognizing that we do have some and I have brought this up in the past but we haven't been able to put our finger on it that test fatigue happening now we understand that our kids are checked out at the end with all of the assessments that they have to do and the M especially the fifth grade and the eighth grade with the mcast and being tested in so many subject areas our goal is to have kids reading at or above grade level whether or not they showed that in February or may our hope is to show as much growth as they can so we had students who had their highest score at our above grade level in February and what Dr glovsky was outlining which is what came out of our conversation was that as we went up in the grades less kids showed their highest performance at the end of the school year year and so we really have to think about this so we're not talking about like a science test end of unit where there was kids seeing a test getting to take it again because they saw the questions and know the answers and then that that's that's not what we're talking about right this is a this is a a different kind of assessment and our goal is to make sure kids are reading at or above grade level and I saw those we sat for several hours sharing the data trying to figure this part out that there were many seventh and eighth grade students who showed they were reading at grade level in February and then in in May when they took the final assessment were reading grade one and two grade level so that that just can't happen right so this is this is again a little bit of identification of what is happening what kind of conversation do we need to have about the assessment here because we didn't see that in in 1 through 4 the way we saw that in 5 through 8 we we just didn't and so you know it was it was a stark difference between what was happening on our elementary which kind of makes sense the kids are still they want to do it they don't understand the it doesn't count issues uh as much as our upper school kids so we really do need to rethink this part so that we're not retesting all the time like we want our kids to be reading how do we need to show that and assess that that's what we're trying to say to you here like we've discovered something a little different this time time and I think it's because of the assessment right using Lexia didn't we we weren't able to discover this discrepancy at the at the rate that we did this time and the test is different right the kids have to do a lot of reading different passages and answer a lot of questions the Lexia was a little different in how much and what kind of reading they were doing right so the assessments were different this showed us this this is this is now our next steps is talking about what's what this means and how what what's the next thing for us like how do we actually go through the assessments and make sure we want kids reading on grade level we need to make sure it's purposeful for the teachers and instruction and our classes at all levels and uh you know that's what we're going to work on through the summer when we develop the next plan so there was no uh deceitfulness in this no no fraud uh no fakeness in the numbers these numbers are real when the kids met the Benchmark or not was determined in middle or and that that's the part we're identifying here as the number the number is the number that's is how the kids performed so you know looking at a first take second take the first take was at grade two the second take was at grade seven or it could have been vice versa first take a grade seven the second test could have been a grade two right like we're going to take the highest because if that student actually the score came out at grade level that's the score I want that means that they can do the work at that grade level am I making since I hope but okay M shilia two quick things when we saw this in was it February is yep it was presented in a different manner if when we see it again if it could kind of pick a presentation consistency because it's just so much data it's hard to see it in that chart we started before and then to see it differently at least if we could have the chart that we saw before with the new information added on addition to it's just a lot to digest and it's there's just too much value here to not be able to get through it and understand it um second point to member Maxwell's comment earlier about these kids being told that they need to do better it's I mean she alluded to the fact that she had a first in experience we heard another one earlier and I heard three other ones and I know it's not District policy I know that none of us in this room would ever condone that but if it's happening I would hope that we could take a proactive approach to say if this does happen again there needs to be some repercussion because that's unacceptable that's my only comment on that M Zago um um to go off the first question um my I have um do we see um on the data like how many kids rush through the assessment yes oh so that's one thing I would would put on the data to kind of ease people's minds of because again dealing with assessments and having to do it after mcast it's absolutely I think it's Dreadful um but we have to do it um and we do occasionally do retesting for students especially when because uh in districts that myself and other teachers that I know do this determines if they go into high level classes now again I'm a traditionalist and all that if you bomb the last assessment because you didn't want to do it well that's that's your fault like you shouldn't be retested the fact that in certain aspects that teachers say well you should try it now again going off of what member Maxwell and shabil is saying is happening that's a totally different criteria like that's unacceptable um but for for them to be retested so they could get into high level classes I don't see what's wrong about doing that opportunity but I also kind of disagree with retesting when we know that kid is capable of doing it we understand it but we can also say on the data well no you rushed it that's that's your fault you decided to do this so moving on to high school and whatever level classes you're getting into you chose this and holding them accountable for them bombing the last assessment that's that's just my take on that to kind of avoid this whole argument about well this one's told to be retested and you better do better if we just kind of not do retesting maybe that's a suggestion to avoid all problems in the future that's just my general statement I know I know we want to sew kids at benchmarks but I feel like to avoid these controversies in the long run um that's my take on it maybe we should avoid retesting I am happy though that we're making I think that I don't want to lose sight of that remember wet thank you um by grade can we get a breakdown of what the kids are taking for testing I know the mcast is different for various grade levels it's subject matter and then you have literacy testing can we get by grade level how many tests they participate in a given uh year by grade because then we'll have an assessment of are we doing testing fatigue and that's a valid uh concern that we might have have or you might want to do retesting I know students you know for college they retest for SATs or elat so why not have the students retest if they do it in um for college kids and you know and also Civil Service examinations how many people initially failed it and then people have difficulty uh testing period um and then they have anxiety they have it might be uh family emergency they might have other issues and then you retest but then you also want a balance between retesting and then the mcast requirements and maybe testing fatigue so that's something maybe at the next meeting we can have a great great breakdown of that um and then also the The Gleam Grant um that's concluding now is what kind is that a state Grant Federal grant what is that encapsulate it's a Federal grant dispersed through the state um so I'm going to talk about that in a little bit that we are on our last year of that which is focused on grades 6 through 12 yes there is a free spin-off um called the Lan which is run by tntp and they've accepted us into that program which is free um and we've decided to continue with the literacy Focus so we still get the Consultants coming out to do walkthroughs with us we get get to be part of a network with neighborhood districts looking at the same pieces we still get to look at um work submissions and evaluate them for grade level standards but that's at no charge so we're happy with that and it seems like it's a nice continuation of what we've just been doing um and we have a a little bit more work to do um before we're ready to fly with that um so the land will be a nice Bridge from gleam to a lighter dose um and then our self- sustaining practices because that was one of the concerns I I have is in terms of continuity of Grants because we discontinued through no fault of our own testing a certain test and then there was a discontinuation of a grant and so we're going to have a continuation through a a free program all just I want which is very similar yeah so it'll be really nice um and the land is offered for other uh subject areas as well so maybe we'd be even considered for additional um subjects after this one next year all right thank you okay all right that was a nice segue um into the tntp walkthrough summary so this is the last visit of the year um the third the spring 2024 visit so I have the grades and the number of classrooms we went through um and this would be with the building Administration Dr Kang and myself and our tntp consultant um we debrief afterward word they grab student work um they they take photographs they analyze it there's rubrics that they they write against um you notice we didn't go through grade 12 um because the seniors had left by the time um the Consultants came through there so these were the findings from grades three through 8 so as I mentioned The Gleam spans 6 through 12 3 through 5 we um worked with tntp um through our own funding to really promote and expand their offerings to try to build that consistency and vertical alignment so the again there is a reminder The Three core actions that we look at with tntp the first is that students are presented with grade level curriculum and text um core action two is that the tasks are the questions that the students are being asked are of high quality and are standards aligned um and also that they're ordered in the correct fashion that they're appropriately scaffolded not overs scaffolded um and that leads into our success in correction three which is student ownership which is the real goal of of one in two is that students will be able to direct their own learning take ownership over that and we're building toward autonomy and students being able to interact um independently with grade level texts so so you can see the difference site visit one two and three that spans this year um and the Improvement in each um and it's very hard to improve in cor action 3 unless cor action two is increasing which is the exposure to to high quality tasks but we're proud of that Improvement um correction one is basically if the teacher is implementing the curriculum so that tells us that that's not an issue at all that we're sticking with curriculum and complex test tasks it's really um thinking about the ordering of those tasks the pacing um and letting the students Drive the discussion okay and here's this is MHS 9 through 12 um so we have a little bit of years previous as well because um it wasn't included on the earlier slide because 3 through five is a new edition for us which tntp um you can look at um the trend over time so again the high quality text um and what I wanted to point out too is you can see in in Spring 2023 vers fall 2022 there was growth there and then when students returned that Following fall there was a little bit of a drop off so we're prepared to counteract that by making sure that teachers are aware of the message um early and often that this is something that's consistent um with our expectations in the district and more importantly making all leaders aware of that not just those directly involved with literacy um but 100% of classes were exposed to high quality texts um and then with the questions and tasks we saw 80% of classrooms um on grade level and often it's just a switch in phrasing or quick reordering of tasks which make it a grade level assignment um and then the student ownership piece from the fall of 2022 to the spring of 2024 I think that shows that the message is out of what we're looking for um and teachers at the high school especially have been willing to relinquish some of that control because they've seen the dividends it pays with student growth okay so I just wanted to wrap up um um to let you know um to member willette's Point The Gleam work has concluded um we had done high dosage tutoring over February and April we had 31 lower school literacy groups five upper school literacy groups and six upper school math groups um so those were students who were just at below grade level that we really worked hard um to get them to get that extra boost that they needed before school started in the morning and they worked hard and came consistently and we saw that to be very successful and those were in small groups of no more than five students um and then we just concluded our first round of professional development for grade five teachers who are awesome and came the Monday after school was over and sat for two days and got um caught up to speed on the El curriculum and we're feverishly taking notes and engaging in discussion and we're going to do another offering um for that and gr five teachers um and August so next year we'll have grade 5 through 8 with the El curriculum um in the summer we're running acceleration acmy which are weekl long um focused classes um that are a little longer than half day so we're focused on early literacy Ela and then older grammar grades math um and the high school is going to focus on English and math so this week those acceleration Academy teachers are coming for professional development and then teachers will provide students with more of that um extra boost in Late July and early August depending on the week their Academy is running to get students prepared for school to prevent some of the Summers slide but to also um have them with the self-efficacy to be successful um we're currently revising um our new literacy action plan which involves a new um assessment calendar and we're working on that throughout the summer and as we conclude The Gleam work we're moving into the landan which I just spoke about um and continuing to seek feedback on where you think we should head with our new plan um so that should be top of Mind as we look to the new strategic plan and I will um invite John Crocker up while you're asking questions sure um so I'm the acceleration acmy the acceleration Academy yes how many students were you able to sign up for that and was that by invitation it was By Invitation um so it's 10 to 12 per Academy um and then we have a backup list so if it comes later in the summer and students decide that they can't attend we have more students to call um but we do offer busing yeah offering busing for all students and breakfast and lunch um and so they get uh a dose of seal instruction um but then the rest of the day from 8 to 12:30 is primarily focused on Hands-On um content instruction that's engaging and fun but also in line with our objectives and where we're heading for the fall thank you yeah so the acceleration eies um will have a set for each school um which is different from how it's been in the past so we're fortunate to have that and that's Grant funded thank you do you have okay so I uh I'll run you through a little bit of an update for objective two um just a few of the priorities that we've been focused on over the past quarter and really over the past year so this is going to be kind of a a wrap up of many of the objectives that we've been working on and continue to work on our comprehensive student support team leaders have been engaged in some coaching and implementation support to ensure that we're well prepared to expand the collaborative problem solving implementation uh that coaching and support has uh really kind of kicked off in the winter concluded late spring um in addition to that we have been working with think kids the provider of the collaborative problem solving training to uh facilitate and advanced concepts training that happened actually last week on Monday and Tuesday with a CO cohort of teachers counselors and administrators it was a two-day training um very long days but um it was a very engaging presenter training went really well this is the last step that we need to take uh before we start to select some staff to engage in uh certification the reason why that's important is because uh think kids has been very open and honest that the the way to build capacity within a district is to build Trainers for your District we've had a funneling effect with this training everyone saw steuart ablon across all buildings so they got that foundational training we funneled that down to tier one training which is the um now it's called essential foundations um uh right before the advanced concepts training that was offered to a set of Staff members counselors teachers admin from that group they were uh those individuals were were invited to attend the advanced concepts training again a funneling effect not everyone decided to continue with that and from this advanced concepts cohort we're going to have uh some IND uh some individuals who are asked to engage in certification so uh it's been a process to to engage a very large group of Staff in collaborative problem solving training but we are approaching a point in which our capacity is being built that will allow for us to really spread this practice across the district uh and again with the the feedback from from think kids that trying to get every blessed person through tier one or tier 2 training is simply not possible it's uh it's cost ineffective it also doesn't build sustainability into your planning so this is the way to go if we want to move forward with collaborative problem solving long term we continue to implement cognitive behavioral therapy groups and Individual Services those are offered across all grade levels all staff are being trained uh through Beck Institute um across a variety of different cognitive behavioral therapy modalities or or or specific approaches um including trauma Focus cognitive behavioral therapy that's being facilitated by a trainer from Beck Institute uh the mental health parents un advisory Council has convened throughout the year this has been one of my most uh enjoyable experiences I've been able to engage with students um and parents Guardians across the district we've broken it out into a couple experience es we've really doubled down on our student Le experience so I've met with them probably every two weeks sometimes every week when we're in planning mode with uh with families with the larger group of of um parents Guardians and students we meet virtually once a month um and recruitment for the adults I'll be honest is something we want to continue to work on um our adults uh our kids are are coming to the table and they're they're uh engaging in a a tremendous amount of activities I'll share more about that in a couple slides um I want to make sure that our adults are tasked with things that uh will improve awareness um that will improve advocacy access to Services level setting with a larger set of the population around what we do and how to get services and support so that that remains a a a focus point is to recruit more adults and recruit more kids uh to be a part of that advisory Council we continue to uh partner with Nan project uh Nami care Solace and heart wheeel that really represents strategic priority 4 for objective two our community- based Partnerships and leveraging opportunities to engage in um activities that will improve access to community-based Mental Health Services and mental health literacy offerings in grades 5 through eight have um have definitely improved we are seeking to continue to expand with our the signs of suicide curriculum and we'll continue to part with nami Nan project and um and in addition we're looking to align our screening Administration in grades 5 through 8 I'll talk about that in a few slides sorry about that here we go okay for the mental health parent student advisory Council um we have um they've undertaken a lot of efforts and I want to give the the students associated with this Council a ton of credit for the actions that they've undertaken over the course of the year they did uh work really hard to facilitate U with the MHS Administration a a a a presentation that focused on um stigma reduction mental health awareness mental health literacy that was facilitated by think fast which is an educational vendor that facilitates these interactive assemblies um I think you know this kind of came to the light uh last year when they had a a different kind of assembly the uh the students loved it so much that they approached this uh vendor and asked if they could do a mental health presentation they said yeah that's something that we do and they really went through the efforts of contacting these people uh working out the logistics with the MHS admin so it was U it was a learning experience for sure for them but something that they're going to take with them uh down the line they have conducted Outreach to the upper school students and uh the upper school administration to facilitate some discussions with some of the peer leadership groups and the um and the sad groups at the at the different buildings to be able to generate some more recruitment that's going to continue into the fall there is a student Le video that is uh that was just finished the second iteration of this so we're going to be using that in the fall to communicate how to access Services what um methan Public Schools offers in terms of services and supports and that was all student Le and um and the students were responsible for really um drafting up the script and um and all the filming which was facilitated here at the high school um I was really proud to see them represented at the empowering youth voice convening that was put on by the N project and the Department of Mental Health so methu Public Schools was well represented there by some members of the mental health parents advisory Council and I did mention this at a previous meeting but uh members of the council did present to the safe and supportive schools commission uh midy year and they were lauded for the work that they've done by the Statewide leadership commission so that was uh that was a high point for them for sure I've mentioned much of this um so I won't wax poetic over it but we are continuing to implement collaborative problem solving expanding the use of this practice building capacity will continue that next year professional development it has been secured for the 2425 school year we will continue to partner with Beck Institute to secure cognitive behavioral therapy training for all mental health staff in the district um these courses are nuanced there are some courses on um CBT for autism anxiety depression trauma so we're really trying to expand the the breadth and scope of the skills that the counseling staff have at their disposal to address a the the wide array of presenting issues that our students come to the table with did want to mention care Solace um this is really encouraging data in terms of being able to access Community Based Mental Health Services 404 referrals have been made using the car soless um service and car Solace has facilitated close to 34,000 points of communication with families um I think the message that I want to send here is that that's the level of communication required to get 404 individuals into care in this day uh in this in this current state in in our society that's the level of investment that's necessary which is incredibly disappointing if I have to be blunt but I'm thrilled that we have access to a service that can facilitate the the body of work required to make that happen this has saved counseling staff time dramatically such that they can provide more services instead of chasing down service providers in the community so it's it's duly beneficial in that we're getting more time to provide Serv serves to kids in school and when we're facilitating Community Based mental health referrals we're doing that more efficiently more effectively and with a team that can actually deliver on matching those uh individuals with care I mentioned previously we're investing in mental health literacy with the N project Nami signs of suicide curriculum we're trying to spread those programs across the 5 through eight grade span so that all of our students are getting something um and that we are keeping this front of mind for our students as I stated we do want to expand our use of the signs of suicide curriculum suicide remains and continues to increase as the leading cause of death for individuals 10 through 24 it it needs to continue to be a topic that we address and that we invest in in in terms of Education um it it simply uh it's simply not enough to have a oneandone presentation on this and expect that we're going to be preventing um such a serious concern uh mental health parents student advisory council did uh sponsor for mental health awareness month a presentation on uh anxiety and social media it's timely topic for sure um Attorney General's office is doing some work I was able to attend a meeting with the attorney general and uh a group of Statewide leaders where that was the focus phones in schools and social media with kids it's a it's a a topic of ation for sure as was discussed tonight um I feel like this was a a very timely presentation that that hit home with the individuals who attended in terms of what's next I do want to focus on uh describing the alignment that we're going to be doing in 5 through 12 with our screening uh we are going to uh move to administer common measures across grades 5- 12 right now we have a measure of anxiety and depression in grades 5 through eight that's 47 questions long it's a rather lengthy um measure and Survey fatigue is a real thing we want to back that out and have a A reduced um a reduced but a a still very quality set of measures that will allow for us to reduce survey fatigue still get the data that we um that we want to secure and um with measures that we trust that we've been using for years and years at the high school uh so that's a piece that we're we're going to work on we do want to improve our mental health literacy offerings by expanding the signs of suicide curriculum especially for the grade 5 through eight grade band we're going to continue with our our CPS coaching for staff uh support professional development and um I did want to show you this piece um in particular this is the um the really the screening map for methan public schools and what I've circled there is what we're targeting in terms of so really Sun um or or sun setting use of the revised child anxiety and depression scale that's the AR cads and replacing that with the phq9 and the Gad 7 that's going to do a few things for us we're going to save 31 questions for our 5 through eight population it's a significant reduction in questions we're hoping that supports a reduction in survey fatigue um it is also going to help us to focus on suicidal ideation uh there's a a question that asks about thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way it's important that we ask that question directly we know this from a body of research that it is important that we start to educate our students about suicide and that we when and that when we talk about it we don't sugarcoat it or use language that is not very clear um that is that is there's a massive body of research to support that uh this will also give us an 8-year Continuum for our data so that we're not comparing apples to oranges when students jump between grades eight and nine we'll have a a full eight-year Continuum for our data to be able to measure growth I think I'm going to hit pause there and if you have any questions M shilia uh stupid microphone so the mental health parent and student advisory Council uh I get a lot of feedback on this one as you could expect I I imagine you would um by all accounts the the students you have in this group are killing it and they seem to be the shining star of the whole thing um my concern is those kids are going to graduate someday so we need to keep that pipeline full we got to get our farm team up and ready to go um but as for the adults which I know are a whole lot harder to capture um my thought would be to reach out to the pto's and if you could get a representative from each PTO just to bring that stuff back so when they're having their conversations at the schools to see how they can integrate that stuff I think that there's really no harm in that that effort um yeah I really like that uh for the the CPS with think kid think kids uh my only question that would be I would be curious how we're measuring that impact over time and I'm sure you are I just I would I would like to see what it's doing and how it's helping us over time undoubtedly it is I acknowledge that but I would just be curious to see the impact and then if worthwhile I'm sure that you could probably give us three or four other things that we could be doing when we're um eventually come back into some money so yeah it's a fair point um one I love the idea about approaching our PTO I think that's just a great natural entry point for some recruitment um and yeah it is recruitment of adults it's a it's a thing um uh our our standing task for all council members is recruit the kids know it I don't even have to say it um which is wonderful but to your point we're we're it's the best reason for us losing these kids right they're moving on to an adult life but it it poses a real problem for these groups um Statewide one of the issues that came up at the safe and support schools commission meeting was that they love these groups they want to Champion these groups and they're miserable to sustain because for the best of reasons they end up um kids move on and that's wonderful so um we've really intentionally asked our kids to engage in some recruitment from from these 5 through eight um peer leaders and and the uh the SAG groups but I don't want it to stop there um we're going to have to just have that as a constant effort um otherwise to your point it's just it's going to be the case that it just dissolves over time and that that would be a shame because I think they are really you know they're doing a phenomenal job anded um and yeah so um for CPS the only thing I would offer is that we're approaching a point where measurement is going to become a possibility because we will be um implementing with greater breadth and we will be able to um really monitor that implementation in a way that makes more sense we've been in professional development mode we've been in capacity building mode implementation mode pilot style so you're going to see less impact score but the the outcome measures associated with CPS really is are are a couple things one challenging Behavior reduction that's that's a an outcome I think everyone can get behind is reducing instances of challenging Behavior but the other piece that I think um I want mention is you know think kids is coming out of the MGH Department of Psychiatry um it 100% is building neurocognitive skills for our kids and when you build neurocognitive skills you also build skills such that you're reducing instances of anxiety depression and post-traumatic stress so it nests well within our objective two anyway but it also does uh a really good job of reducing those challenging behaviors that happen when our expectation are met with lagging skill because that's really where challenging Behavior lives is is that Confluence of our expectations and students that don't have the skill to meet those expectations so I'm excited to be able to start to think about the measurement the coaching that I mentioned that occurred in the spring actually has helped us to shift our thinking around some of our data collection methodology for our Behavior data collection we're going to start to talk about that over the summer and start to make some shifts we've already highlighted a little bit but um yeah I I appreciate you bringing that up I I I don't want to engage in a practice where we're not actually measuring outcomes that wouldn't make any sense to me so um I happen to like data so you'll see lots of it in the future um on the K Solus stuff I acknowledge and you saw my face because you made a comment the 35,000 points of communication is both fantastic and miserably representative of the system we have um but the question then Becomes of those 404 referrals how many were referrals and how many were connected the difference being how many are now connected and in active patient versus how many were referred here Dr Tim is ready to see you now you have to you have to go and make an appointment or however that works yeah so Carol is good about getting us uh getting back to us with the the degree to which follow-through occurs with care some of that we can control some of that we'll never be able to control you know you can you can provide or you can offer a service and some people are just not ready to take that service even though they're ready to admit that they have a problem now or that they need support so when I look at the data the vast majority of those referrals have been routed into care and stayed in care and care sols does a good job of also ensuring that there's kind of sticky with the referral they'll go back to the family and they'll say do you like who we matched you with are you staying and then they'll do like a two- week followup so that's not perfect right like because you could drop off care in a month you could drop off care in two months but I at least appreciate that there's some thoughtfulness around we're not just like saying go see this list of people and never following up um so I would say that um the vast majority and and an exact number I don't know I can give you an exact exact number but um but we we've noticed that um when we're routing people into care through care Solace they are actually getting linked up with and following through with the referral um and again the vast majority of the time yeah thank you yeah member Maxwell I just have a quick question um I know I and I don't want it to be taken the wrong way because I'm a huge supporter of mental health like I I think it's huge for the kids I support it 100% I'm I'm curious though if I know that parents can opt out of like the screenings can parents also opt their kids out of the curriculum like the signs of suicide the the curriculum is part of our is is part of our um so they have to take part in that now it's not to say that students can do not have to are are going to be forced to participate um but it it is the case that um the the thing that that students and parents can opt out of remains screening the screening but they can't opt out of the class or I I just feel like signs of suicide might be a little dark for grades five six maybe even seven but just uh I want to make sure that you have the full story in terms of what we've done in terms of research for this so um I had the same question I I was Wonder want parents to feel like we're like shoving mental health down their throats totally I I I had the same question I wanted to know like okay what's a good example of a district that has implemented signs of suicide in grade five um does that even exist is that a thing so um I I called up signs of suicide I asked them you know kind of nationally point me in the right direction is there is this a thing is this a thing that we should look at uh is this a worthwhile Endeavor they pointed me to St Louis Public Schools massive School District they've been implementing this for years um the the single greatest message that I got from St Louis Public Schools was I can't believe we didn't do this earlier um and they're actually considering even younger grades with adapted curriculum because I want to honor that that's that's just true this is a heavy topic but the message that they sent loud and clear was those fifth graders they already knew about this in a big way but they had a lot misinformation and that was the problem so it I think that what I want to be real about is that our fifth graders six s eth and probably younger for sure are already aware of these topics and getting information about these things and talking about it in circles but not all the information's good and and sometimes it's it's actually incredibly damaging so this is an opportunity to level set and provide research based information and to provide opportunities for students to access care in a meaningful way and to know how to ask questions and to know how to get support um in a way that's more preventative um and that is about real information and not unfortunately what they typically or how they typically get this info which is like Tik Tok and um it's a bad scene so um so yeah I I appreciate that question because I shared that initial kind of thinking and and wondering uh I was really pleased with the the feedback we got from St Louis could could parents learn about the curriculum that's offered absolutely I know curriculum night exist but like will this be kind of laid out in that or like can they just contact you and say what is this program well you know what I'm going to be doing is um for Nami Nam project because those are programs that we've run signs of suicide um again we've run that but I I want to package all of these things together I'll be sending the kind of full message along with links to these these different bodies of work out to the entire parent population um we want to be transparent about what we're offering uh we believe in it it's something that we know is going to support kids in making good decisions and in getting access to care but I also don't want to I don't want it to be the case that parents aren't able to access and look at this stuff too quite frankly I would prefer if parents also talk about it with their kids um before and after the presentation because I think that a lot of what we are teaching here needs to be reinforced at home so yeah we we'll be doing that for sure thank you thanks think you're off the hook thank you so much MH sorry go ahead so I was going to say because we only have like seven minutes left um and the superintendent goals and evaluation uh committee is next I I don't know if we can amend the agenda and move up like these little items like ratifications and and get that over with because we only have 7 minutes left and to stop her goals just to continue on tomorrow I just feel like the will of the committee just moved those things we're not we're not finished with the presentation this presentation yet oh so we still have another but I can definitely do it in seven minutes and so I think we're probably GNA end after this presentation that would be a nice I think clean sorry I'm no no problem okay so this is uh objective three which speaks to um equitable access to an excellent education so again just highlighting the work with tntp whose focus is equity in teaching and learning um and then our expansion to three through five um and then the continuation with the land all of whom are focused on um Equity I also just wanted to highlight that at our districtwide leadership meetings um I had spoken before that grading for Equity was a book that we were looking at as a a distri District team um administrative team and at our final three quarterly meetings we looked at grading practices that currently exist within the district so reflecting on current practices going through a protocol recognizing our sphere of influence um we pulled up some sample grading practices from throughout the district to look at inequities or how we are representing our students progress in learning through grades um because we work so hard to communicate with families we really want to make sure we're clear in that communication um students progress toward the standards as the year goes on um and ultimately it led to a draft uh a proposal of grading Norms um that we bandied about um and made revisions to um and that's something that we'll share with you at our August meeting um so just some boundaries for uh and expectations that we would ex expect of um teachers and students throughout the district um in order to align a representation of progress um and then again uh we participated in Desi's pilot of the Continuum of services for advanced Learners and talent development which was was really interesting um and that was a districtwide team and they offered us a a one-on-one followup with professors from um Northwestern so we could speak specifically about Methuen and we covered topics there about uh like advanced math or how to Leverage The Wind Block and how to make sure that now that we know we have so many students reading above grade level how are we going to support them when on the first Benchmark that already showing that they've exceeded what would be the grade level standard um so we've really leaned into developing Talent which might not necessarily be that the student is uniformly across the board um above average and and anything but that we're really making sure that students have opportunities to succeed um and so we've talked about plans for promoting the knowledge of access and Pathways um particularly at the high school things that are available to students that families might not even know or realize or understand how to opt their student into um we're going to look at the advanced math um rubric making sure that we're getting as many students into that as possible um and then I worked with um Joe harb who's the AP coordinator to run all the AP rosters for next year to see who's eligible for Advan uh reduced exam fees whereas previously we had relied on students self- advocating when they were in need um so we already have a list of of who would need um that barrier eliminated for them to access the class oh boy we're out of battery here we're going to finish under the [Music] wire well I think that died just in time okay so that's concludes the quarterly update if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them may I have a motion in a second before be before we convene I don't know if it's appropriate or not to ask but tomorrow we're going to talk about the bid for Ditson can we request that someone from the company be here or is it we just if they show up they show up if they don't they don't all right worth a shot well maybe they hedged their bets and thought it'd be [Laughter] tomorrow all right may I have a motion in a second to recess and continue tomorrow Tuesday June 25th 2024 at 5 PM this business Workshop session of the methu public the methan school committee so moved moved by member doag Leo second by members shilia all those in favor I I oh I need to do a roll call call I'm sorry um member daglio yes member Maxwell yes member shilia yes member Donovan yes member wette yes member kein yes meeting is recessed at 9:59 see you tomorrow m [Music]