##VIDEO ID:R1P7vAdtaQ8## e good yep that worked no pressure yes indeed you ready all you ready C I'm ready beautiful all right good evening folks welcome to the uh MBO school committee meeting for today uh September 12th uh please rise and join me in the uh pledge Alle pledge allegiance to flag comments to three minutes all right we're going to check that um at the select board meeting on Monday um the select board um who also functions as the uh Town's Board of Health excuse me reported that the communication that was shared with the school Community stating that um the decision to not have um School sanctioned activities after Sunset was made after discussions with the Town Administrator uh and the Board of Health the Middleboro Board of Health um was there were no discussions that were made um with the Board of Health so um after hearing that that was concerning for me and I wanted to bring it to the attention of the school committee because the communications to the parent were such the parents were were ones that said that this conversation or discussion occurred and so if it didn't Ur and and then this is more than a lack of transparency this is dishonesty and so my bringing this to your attention is um to put this on public record because as a school committee you're responsible for overseeing the uh superintendent and one of the things in the initiatives that we were looking to see was transparency coming from um the superintendent as well as um Improvement in Communications this really is um a violation of our trust how do we know as parents when we're getting honest Communications and when we're getting dishonest Communications so next year when you're doing performance appraisals I don't want a wh whitewashed performance appraisal in which we hear that her communication is stellar and that um there's wonderful transparency and how she's communicating with um the district because at this point it appears that there's willful deceit in in sharing that now um she has the authority to make that decision and I and if that decision is a good decision then stand in that um space and say I have the courage to do this and and this is my decision and I think it's a good decision and I think it's good for the safety of the students um the other concerning part that I want to bring to the attention is that it appears that we have other youth teams uh using the fields at the hours that are deemed unsafe for our students which usually my understanding is that we do rent the facilities which is a great way to make money but now this seems like an opportunistic thing in which we can move our students off the fields rent it out um which is another concern so is this about safety or is this about profiting I don't know it's not really important the only thing that I want to bring to the attention is that this communication is a violation of our trust and it's very hard to restore trust once it's been lost thank you hello H Sarah zigoris 35 gr Road sorry no no comments at this time from the SE from our board on public comment we can't do it sorry it's been the practice of the board that we don't respond to a public comment because we're not prepared for it I think it is important that Carol clarify the record we can have that discussion at a later time we're not going to have it now thank you do I I need to say my name again please okay Sarah zagoras 35 Granite Road um I just want to bring up a couple things about the start of the school year so um the buses again this year um seem to be an issue um the while the routs may be fine it's the times so I'm just not understanding how these roots are not driven and times are kind of better gauge uh before school starts so not only did the bus schedule come out pretty late for people especially when there was so much training going on in the buildings that people couldn't contact and and get um communication back from people in the buildings regarding these issues um but the times have children getting to school after the Bell how is that okay I understand there's GPS on the buses but seeing that the bus arrives at Tiger drive if anybody's ever driven tiger drive it's pretty long so just them getting to Tiger dive doesn't mean they're actually in the building learning in their home room so you're creating this situation of Stress and Anxiety on kids to get there they're supposed to be allowed to have time for breakfast now they don't they're racing to their classrooms to get there for Home Room how is that okay um so I really think that the bus times are even printed wrong they're they're printed as arriving to school after school starts so how is I understand there's a whole system I get I've heard so many different things from so many different people but the bottom line is these roots are out they're not verified the times are not checked it has sometimes going from one stop to the next stop which our next door eight minutes going on I don't know who's proofing these but they're at five star I'm not blaming Terry the dispatcher I feel like she gets a lot of the flak and I don't believe it's her I believe it's somebody higher up at corporate at festar but they're not checking these routs they should have somebody driving the route to see how long it takes to get from stop to stop it shouldn't be that difficult okay they have all summer I get it people are moving into the district But ultimately the rootes don't change that much the times may change um and with that we expect times to be late but some kids buses Middle School came 30 minutes before the regist the time on paper and parents called to verify and were told yes your time is this and it came 30 minutes before what happens when that child's waiting outside because parents have gone to work because middle schoolers do not need an adult to get on the bus and now what happens it's not acceptable it's a second year in a row this has happened and and I was going to look at the minutes to find from last year when I spoke on this it's not it should not be happening again this is not acceptable behavior um the second thing if with my time is communication we're still struggling with communication the directory on the website there's two spot says directory and then directory and staff directory empty no emails how are parents supposed to communicate with the with people in the buildings it's not okay and not everybody follows that format of first letter and then last name and some you know maybe there's two people so they have a modification to that it shouldn't be on other parents to communicate that information to these parents coming into buildings wherever it is that that should have been updated a long time ago and I know I've spoken about that before and it's completely unacceptable at this point that it's not done thank you anyone else have anything on the public comment all right uh discussion items uh do we have any reports from school committee members I have well some uh first I'd like to thank all the staff in the district the administrators the superintendent and her team for overall a really strong start for all of our students but I do want to Echo some of the concerns that Dr zigor has had um I know I had been in communication pretty regularly with the superintendent and we were addressing a lot of issues but there are still uh the issues that were just we just heard um they seem to be smaller in number this year but if you are one of the families that is affected you that's not really part of your concern because your kid is still arriving late we've been open for more than a week um and then we dig a little further and it seems like you know parents are getting frustrated with the bus company or the district uh which leads to um fairly hostile language on both sides which to me is unacceptable um I think anytime you call or you have an issue with the bus company or the the system that you know you kind of have to un be a little compassionate but at the same time we as a district and and uh F star need to be always professional when we're dealing with the families we service um to me I think one thing we should do and we can do now that we've had back-to-back years with these struggles is I think the six of us need to really take some accountability and I think we should form a transportation subcommittee um the amount of money that it comes out of the budget for transportation how important it is for all families to get their kids to school on time home on time safe uh not just the buses but the mini buses and all other Transportation would you like to be chair of that committee I would love to be who else would like to be on it I'd AC I'd accept a nominate a uh a motion to nominate Chris to be chair of the newly formed Transportation committee so moved I'd accept a I need a second second second all in favor I opposed passes unanimously I'd accept a nomination for Zeke to be on the transportation committee as well so move second I have a motion in second any comments questions all in favor you I know that that time has been an issue as we've been talking about that with the other subcommittees that are you you're on you're feeling comfortable that you're going to be able to absolutely 100% any other comments questions all in favor I I I oppos pass is unanimously congratulations gentlemen thank you thank you anyone else have any other reports I have one M did you have can go go ahead oh okay um so sub uh budget subcommittee met on the third to discuss strategies for public engagement the preliminary consensus is that we uh want not only to be as active as possible but as open as transparent as possible uh we talked a great deal about the kind of feedback that we were looking for since that would ultimately influence the type of questions we would ask uh this brought us to consider a few pieces of the budget that go beyond fixed costs such as salaries and facility facility maintenance excuse me uh the idea being that we would bring our public discussion uh pre-selected topics uh needs and asks which the subcommittee with the help of our community could prioritize uh Sue had an excellent idea about the venue for our Outreach being a part of the school Improvement councils uh since their discussions are already focused on topics uh where there can be Improvement um through them we can have a budget Forum uh Forum uh with parents and interested parties um if the school committee agrees we would ask superintendent allance to discuss the proposal with the principles and create a plan this would be an informal Ascent we just didn't feel uh comfortable moving forward without you know everyone's Ascent um the meeting was highly productive conversation uh and in the meantime Carolyn and Michael are obtaining various pieces of information that Sue and I both requested so that we can create a cohesive and poignant presentation so I guess we're looking for a if you want it to be a formal motion that you support the idea we didn't want to go to the principles ask for them to then go to the to the uh councils without a support and endorsement by the full school committee we didn't want to be moving forward without your full support um so I guess maybe in a formal way we're asking for a a motion for support of the idea just make make a motion I just did okay do I have a second second all in FA any comments questions I do just want to I don't haven't been on a school council so as long as the um if it's too much with what else is on the agenda for the principles and their councils then I just want to note I still support the idea and pursuing another Forum but my support is to bring the idea to them and that is that is the motion that was specifically what we talked about that we would go and ask them about what was if it was a good idea and whether um how what would be the best approach to do it thank you any other comments questions all in favor hi hi opposed passage unan uh M yeah to bring up the issues that were just spoken about public comment um regarding the bus I know that a lot of people were having issues with the bus coming way earlier than the state of time do we have any policy that states that the bus must if the bus arrives early at a stop do they have to stop and wait to the until the time because this could create massive issues not so much it's more of an inconvenience for the younger kids and their families but middle school kids often go up to the bus stop on their own they may not have parents at home in the morning when they're off to school and if they're Left Behind they could be stuck in a position where they're left home alone and no way of getting to school so is there any policy that has the bus that has they have to wait until the state of time at that pickup because otherwise if they're leave coming a half hour early and leaving it doesn't make any sense is the early arrival happening in the morning or the afternoons or both I think it's afternoon it's definitely late um I think but in the morning it's early yeah um I I don't know of a school committee policy that ties transportation to timeliness um I can double check where the other place we could look is the bus contract the contract that we have with festar that'd be the better place to look to see what their obligation is to timeliness so I can check that and and get back to you and see if I have more information that would be helpful there and uh bringing up with Bridget's Point um with the um Board of selectman meeting when they stated that they were not consulted uh regarding the restriction on the use of the facilities I mean is there can you state like I mean I I agree that with Sue that I think that needs to be cleared up because that the communication that came home and how I read it was that that decision was made in conjunction with these groups saying that this was the best course and the best case to go and then the town is now saying that wasn't a discussion that was had we can have that discussion at the next meeting if someone wants to make them if someone wants to place that on the agenda so we're not going to answer that today not right that's not exactly open communication then no but it's if you want to have a discussion about an item if you give us notice we can absolutely do that this isn't unanticipated I don't what what is not there was plenty of time if you wanted to have this discussion to ask to be to place it on the agenda and we would have okay then can we place it on next agenda absolutely okay anyone else I do have a third thing um I was going to wait but it looked like the the budget is just basically a timeline I know that um concession stand that money that parents used to volunteer to work the concession stand at the varsity football games and it seems that that money was now taken away um that control was taken away um parents are no longer uh being volunteering and that money is not going back to the teams it was a great way for like the football teams and I know my son runs cross country and we were able to um volunteer and have that money go back to the cross country teams that money 100% directly went back to our students and now it doesn't seem I don't know where that money is going now is there any way to determine where in the budget the concession stand money is going if it's not going to the teams uh to my knowledge concession stand money has always been part of mass for the boosters and then it nothing has changed there I don't know about who's actually working the concessions but nothing's changed financially as to where that money's going so it's not going it's still going back to it's always been Maba they've always taken it handled it banked it done you know and mba's very generous with us in terms of athletics they're kind of you know always funding different things but to my knowledge um athletic director Sylvia I believe is coming tonight so that would be something we can talk with him about that's news to me and then just a fourth one um I had some parents and members um from the hbb Community Reach Out they had some concerns stating that since the start of the school year the Pledge of Allegiance um has gone away in the morning and I didn't know if there was if you heard about that because there are a lot of parents that are concerned and upset that that decision was made uh new this is news to me is it it's not happening anywhere in the building I heard that no that pledge allegiance is not happening in the morning and neither are morning announcements I don't have a child there so I'm not let me look into it I'll get back to you before the flash tomorrow thank you anyone else s yep um just wanted to say that um I went to convocation and I wanted to give a a big shout out to Carol uh I know that one of our our strong initiatives this year is that uh the retention of our uh employees teachers uh and that I attended the opening of that and the information that was given the way that it was given um the spirit in the room the recognition of those that have done good work over time uh it was uh really a good kickoff to the year and I just want to publicly say thank you because I think it's a good start to what it is that we're trying to do thank you you're welcome anyone else have anything all right Eddie you're up so firstly from the mech the mech welcomed their kindergarten students on September 5th and their preschool students on Monday September 9th the first Mac PTA meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on the 26th of September picture day at the mech is September 30th and for those of you looking ahead the mech book fair is October 7th to the 11th secondly we have hbb and mkg the school year at mkg and HPB has began smoothly rebranding of two homes one roof is underway this rebranding allows each school to maintain its uniqueness while fostering a sense of belonging key aspects of this transition sharing of resources between the two schools a unified daily schedule for for both schools a combined grade five chorus and this is just overall um opening up excitement and opportunities to collaborate and better serve the uh community and the students moving on to Nicholls Middle School the Nicholls middle school has been off to a great start and they will be holding a PTA meeting on October 1st from 600 p.m. to 7 p.m. lastly MHS School sessions have began smoothly with a newly implemented an attentive schedule um MHS student council will be hosting their first freshman meeting on Wednesday September 25th from 700 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. the MHS student council will also be hosting a leadership overload event on September 28th from 5: to to 11:00 p.m. and that will be open only to MHS students and council members um that event is pretty much um just a six-h hour student council event where we just throw a bunch of different um team building and life skills at um our council members and it builds a lot of things that'll stick with you throughout high school and life and that is all I have all right thank you very much Ed thank you um a report from mea co-presidents they are not present tonight so we will go on to the superintendent report okay thank you chairman FY members of the school committee um I'm going to take our items just one item out of order tonight um and that is I wanted to start with the discussion on the budget calendar so I'll welcome director of of business and finance Michael Peron to the table so we can go through um so that we can go through actually s if you can click into that draft calendar in the Dropbox this week you received last year's budget calendar in order for you to see what did we do last year and then you know tonight what I think director Peron wanted to do is show you this draft which really is a draft um especially when you look to the left side of this document because the dates there are many dates that are still to be determined um but conceptually we're looking for your feedback on the right hand side um of this draft and I'll have director Peron go through it in more detail just so that we can talk more about items you're looking to make sure we cover in our process so with that welcome director Peron and if you want to take it from there um this is an extremely rough draft at this point we're we're very early in the process um so you'll see as the superintendent said there are some tbds just because we don't know the dates right now um some of them are dictated by the town and they have not uh come up with their calendar either so we're working with them uh a couple notes before I turn this over uh because this really is a document for the committee [Music] um um there are as I said the the dates will um come and this is a working document um and as the superintendent said the right side is the action items and that's where we want you to focus and if uh you have anything that you would like us to add as you just talked and made a motion we will embed those again we don't know the times that you're talking about uh and how we put that into the calendar but we'll meet with the various groups and then we will add that uh into the timeline I highlighted in yellow and we'll probably take the yellow out unless you want to keep it that way uh the yellow uh in the action area is everything relating to the school committee and dates that uh are important for you and where you may have some action items uh during during the course of the budget uh process um so um Mike I hate to interrupt could you zoom in on that just a little bit while he's doing that if you don't mind I'll give you just a a little overview while we're situating this document the budget has a cycle this budget calendar mirrors last year's in that we're asking to extend the calendar to effectively begin our process as early as October the process in Earnest begins with collecting information in order to begin building the budgets at some point the capital planning process if you think of it running alongside the budget process also has to be um Incorporated with feedback and stakeholders and approvals but we don't know at what point Capital planning is happening right now that's why you see so many tbds there um once the budget is built in October and reviewed through November bud budget subcommittee would come together and start going through that process as we did last year November into December as the calendar predes there are opportunities for um the budget subcommittee and the finance committee liaison to participate in our process all heading into our our public hearing here which is really two meetings there's a meeting where we discuss the budget and then there's the meeting where we have the public hearing where the budget is voted on and then that continues all the way through our town meeting date where it's finally voted so I just thought like the bird's eyes sort of path would be helpful this is very detailed um and all customizable so if there are steps in here that aren't what you want or if there are steps that are missing that you think belong what we're asking is between now and the next meeting because I think it's a lot to go through each line item in this meeting give us that feedback so what we build is something you comfortable with so that we can talk about that calendar at the next meeting so go ahead uh director per sorry you you covered what I was going to talk about ask again that was very the touchtones were very helpful so uh November December was what um once the so you have to give time for all the budget directors to actually call the information which would begin in October and wrap up sometime in November and December something I did last year was I met with each budget director individually I'd like to be able to do that that again that allows me to go through every single line um and ask questions do we really need this expense exactly how tight is this margin that sort of thing um so that I would ask to do before budget subcommittee comes together last year I believe we met in December and January if memory serves Zeke and and Marcy would remember I think we had two meetings two if not three meetings so kind of keeping with that timeline November December January um wrapping up in febru in February and March February and March are when we have our two uh budget meetings here at school committee one is a discussion it's the presentation of the budget to the school committee and then in that open hearing it's where you can ask any questions and then the school committee really votes to accept that as its budget thank you sure so yeah that's February 13th tentatively again these dates are um subject to change I mean anything could happen even a weather day could change our budget timeline so because if there was a meeting um so it is fluid but um the dates uh are changed over from last year's to kind of mirror where the meetings were held uh at what school committee meeting um so we are asking again for your your feedback as superintendent said if there's anything um adds or deletes uh I know we I heard some tonight uh but we have two weeks and I plan to bring this back at the next meeting uh hopefully with a little more uh detail and Clarity but again it it will still keep moving um as the year goes on uh but if you have any feedback or any additions you'd like you could email me uh and I will put them in uh to the document and then we will bring this back on the 2 uh 4th uh 6th 26th September 26 so I will uh turn it back over to the chair to if there's any more discussion to for ideas on uh changing or adding or deleting or what the committee wants to uh be a part of or more of or less of so we're open to those suggestions Caroline can I ask a question about the the capital um whatever they're called sorry Capital proposals yes um so what's the process I mean there's some some highlights there in terms of what the process is of getting them submitted and reviewed I don't remember I remember talking about the ones that were chosen after they were chosen last year but I don't know what goes into narrowing down the top so choices sure so Capital requests that process C combines multiple members budget directors here in the district so for example Jim Hutchinson for facilities uh Sean ciciliano for technology um the uh director of business and finance superintendent we have a long-term capital plan so there's not a lot of guesswork to it because you can only afford so many things at once um and it covers everything from technology to Paving um at various at various buildings and facilities so we get together and put forth our formal Capital requests I come and report them to school committee the capital requests then get reviewed by the capital committee at the Town level they invite us to a meeting the director of business and finance and I will go to a meeting where the capital planning committee asks questions why do you why are you asking for this funding uh do you have another funding source for it exactly how much do you need what's the useful life of this all sorts of questions and then they make their decision about which capital projects are going to get selected we always prepare several requests I think in in all in the years I've done it there's been six or seven requests each which is done on D one because it there's always something that needs to be done but it also creates your order so it isn't picking a random pet project or something um you know unknown or or or not sure that we really need once Capital planning decides what's going to get funded the rest goes into to next year's process and it kind of it goes on its own process through the town separate and apart from our budget because anything funded through Capital planning would not be funded from your operating budget it it get at it gets uh voted on a town meeting and then it's funded through a separate account with the town um but Capital planning is different each year so you know we're beholden to the town process some years you know it's in it's been at different times of the year so um we just don't know that right now okay thank you if I I have a question okay thank you um it would be helpful for me to know a differentiation of the role of the subject the budget subcomittee and the full Committee in terms of input review within this process um uh budget or capital or both for both so um you know what is the role of the sub committee to get into the depth of it are we expecting that the entire you know that the entire group is going to review all of this and or is that for the deeper dive is that for the subcommittee um I know that's a good that's a good question and the answer is it's been done different ways over several years um every year the budget subcommittee receives a budget book which has really I think a lot of information in it it's really every line last year I turned that information public it's still it's listed on our website I plan to do that again so that information is made you know available to the budget subcommittee and budget subcommittee meets with all the budget drivers for the purpose of vetting the ask asking any questions of the budget directors and then bringing it to the larger committee the subcommittee does the the kind of Yan's work of really so so there's going to be points in this process where the subcommittee will be meeting and then bringing that forward to the full committee correct okay I didn't and then the full committee votes on the budget right so I probably missed it but that would be something I would want to see in the timeline of how and when that happens that's that's in here that wasn't there I I was I know it's the boxes are very small okay um but that is that is in there I added the additional layer of meeting so any years past the budget subcommittee would spend several hours going over the budget every single line right right down to the pencils at a school so I took that out of it last year I felt like that was a lot of time to ask I I did that step so we brought a more streamline process to the budget subcommittee and I I think it went well but I'm certainly open to feedback if if there are different opinions about that and then and then we went forward from there really you still looked at everything line by line we went through line by line it it was just the second draft instead of the the first draft it saved a lot it saved a lot of time on on the subcommittee's end yeah great thank you I believe that's on line 24 I don't think they can see the number unless they're in the document you know what I mean they're they're looking at um a hard copy or our screen oh there it is yellow okay thank you February um that was January TBD I think uh school committee budget subcommittee meetings thank you I see it now my apologies and I think last year subcommittee met twice and and in the past it used to be that we met because we were going line by line by line and with no with on just the first draft it was like three or four meetings and does that also include Capital sorry Capital um you were asking about capital is that a similar process capital is large well one of the reasons it wasn't done that way was because of how early it was in the year last year so Capital was prepared I um communicated through the flashes so the school committee knew what the capital asks were made the request to the town um and we went forward from there C capital's really a separate process from the budget um because it's funded through a separate Source but that would be exactly the type of input we're looking for for do you want the budget subcommittee to get together before Capital requests are put together or to review the capital plan any of those things can happen personally I think it's a good idea so the um the capital planning projects have to go before the capital planning committee which is a town committee um and there's I served on that committee I think for 10 or 11 years it's it's a fantastic committee but you really got to sing for your supper when you go there um um and they you need to what sing for your supper you have to prove your case yeah because everybody in Town's coming in front of them asking for everything sure you know it's uh most a lot of people take the uh you know throw it at the wall and see what sticks approach so there's they're they're picky they do their job well it's uh I always thought it was one of the better committees they ever served on but just because you bring it to the capital planning committee doesn't mean that they're going to approve it so it is completely separate from your annual budget that's one of the requirements it can't be an item that could be on your annual budget and they go through that pretty rigorously as well so it's uh I I'd invite anybody who's interested in any type of Cl Capital planning to uh to attend those meetings and see how that that process works because it's pretty interesting but it's not there's no guarantees at all sure understood I just think it's our responsibility you to make sure we really understand that oh absolutely yeah so Mike I'm I'm all finished so so with that what I would just ask is any feedback you have because I communicate in the flashes don't respond all because that's all of you are on it but we'll take feedback however you're comfortable if you want to send an email if you want to have a telephone call if you want to create a document it doesn't really matter to us we just want to make sure or if you're conversely if you think this is fine that's fine too I just if you could give us that feedback I would say within the next week because we'll be back together in two weeks so I want to make sure we have time once we have your feedback to now incorporate it into the next draft Mr chair um is that something you want us to do individually or is that something that we should do cohesively for the feedback yes me yeah as a chair sure I would um I do just what uh Carolyn suggested that individually individually and then we can have a group discussion if if that's warranted at the end if you reply all or send it all to me then it's it starts to get into some gray areas about public discussion but we'll it's on the agenda to discuss at the next meeting already so and just to clarify you both feel that this sets us and you up for Success bottom line that earlier we so you know we've talked about this a little bit before I think the earlier we do the budget the better because it gives us the most amount of time possible to plan the problem with planning early is that if I'm using October Concepts or October numbers numbers do change between October and colle it you know January February March but that's true of any budget I'm of the Mind why not take longer you have a team that's more than capable in doing it let's do it see if we can't refine that budget um as much as possible before we're asking the town to spend that money so I'm I'll do whatever you all think but I I do think the earlier the better thank you okay thank you all right with that I will move to my next item which is to just recap the opening days uh thank you sue for your kind words about the opening day of convocation uh she was here to to see um everybody here in this Auditorium which was Wednesday August 28th I just wanted to send special thanks to some students who helped us on that day Max barard who led us in the Pledge of Allegiance we had lucenda Orca Caruso and Liam Lenahan um perform for us uh which we has become a bit of a tradition to have students perform at our opening day I wanted to make sure I thanked all the middle burough Public Schools Employees because we engaged in a food drive and I thought that was a very nice thing to uh give back to this to this very generous community and then finally our MPS Educators we then went into two full days of professional learning um and we had Educators who were presenters and providing professional development at no cost to the district and that's always a huge um a huge help to us as a community and then finally thank you to the ptas who sponsored events and treats for everybody as they as they got back um so with that I'll re I'll cover just a little bit of the professional development I don't want to go into too much detail though if you want more detail I'm happy to do to do that two full days of professional learning after convocation because remember the convocation day also involves you know building level meetings there's a union meetings teachers actually need time to set up their classrooms far far more time than we than they are probably given um so we were together on Thursday August 29th and then again on Tuesday September 3rd which was a voting day on the 29th um we had that is a typo but we had curriculum based content which included aligning classroom instructional strategies writing instruction literacy datadriven instruction this was provided by a cross-section of um administrators and teachers and teacher leaders within our district Mr Charlie appelin came and presented in uh basically Elementary and then secondary divided he was in this room and gave uh what I thought was one of the most warmly received professional developments I've seen in a long time in Middleboro everybody I spoke with it did every level deeply connected with his content um his whole concept is about a strength-based approach with our students so rather than focusing on what's not happening or what children can't do how do you tap into what they're good at in order to build that relationship and and get better outcomes from them ultimately um very very engaging um and with the help of some title grants we're going to be bringing Mr abstein back to work with our staff which is one of the first times we've done that as well rather than have this kind of one hit wonder sort of and then thanks for coming we're going to try to infuse more of those principles into what we're doing um when we so that was then the than the long weekend um and then Labor Day we came back into September 3rd and what you see is a continuation of what I would still call curriculum okay we had uh various Personnel work with mental health first aid to train our staff to look for how to best assist our students that doesn't make them counselors it doesn't mean outright counseling is happening Mental Health First Aid is not all that different from regular first aid just can you identify an issue and how are we helping the student you know with that finding appropriate help for that issue um we focused ourselves on the new IEP implementation led by the special ed Department I know I know that's been a big source of conversation for our our teachers and also our families um we had continued and extended literacy professional development at the elementary level um and and that's ongoing we had emergency procedure training for our par professionals to make sure they understand those procedures that was led by our dirt leaders um both Andy dael Josh Dyer and also uh Lacy Foley we had cyber security as we are onboarding 2 faa2 Factor identification did I say that right two Factor identification authentication authentication and this is a a cyber security measure to Greater protect our systems we are doing this uh teacher and educator facing to better um guard against fishing and all sorts of terrible things that happen electronically um and then finally we had another presenter on September 3rd in Dr Teresa Sullivan and she kind of does a pedagogy PowerUp which is a fancy way of really looking at teaching methods what learning activities we're using with students and then assessment this was geared at the secondary level so grades 6 through 12 so that was the professional development that we did over those first two days as a reminder the district has four professional development days over the course of the school year days one two and three are now in the rear view it leaves one more day in November so I'll I'll be collecting info for you if you remember when we set the calendar last year there was a lot of conversation about should these days happen earlier in the year we've kind of long had this day in march sometimes it's been January what do we think of that day we got feedback from from staff that we're saying you know it's really more helpful for us to have it earlier in the year so we can use it for the rest of the year so I'll have some of that information for you after the November day because we survey after our professional development days as well any questions before I go to the next item what other kind of feedback did you get through your assessment for um the original this this professional development to come still well the surveys just went out so I haven't really looked at them in depth but I can tell you by far in away Charlie applin was the lead leader they really really liked that presentation um but I don't want to take away anything else that was provided because I do think there was a lot of good stuff that was provided but he just was I watched for a while as well was he was very engaging so um with that I'll just announce that we were talking about this as a leadership team this week and actually came from director Siciliano the whole district is going to go gold for Childhood Cancer Awareness um in September so this is you're going to see this graphic September 27th um I can share with you we've had many students in my 13 years here in middleb who are true Warriors who have battled and beaten cancer um and so these events have happened sometimes at a building and we decided to unify and do it all on the same day please wear your gold it doesn't cost anything to participate um we're just trying to recognize this and provide better support to our kids and families so look for that you'll see that um and with that I will turn to our summer programs review I have several guests to come tonight we can begin with extended school year and I'll invite uh Mrs Jennifer Healey director of special education and Mrs Wendy youngclaus our esy program coordinator to come and share uh just a a a wrap on how this summer went and uh anything else they want to share so with that welcome and the floor is yours thank you um thank you school committee I hope that you had an enjoyable summer we in the special ed Department uh had both an enjoyable but a busy summer and so one of the great programs we get to run during the summer is our esy program and I get to share all of that great information with you usually around this time of year this year I brought our esy coordinator for the past three years Miss Wendy Yas um Wendy is during the school year is our lead RBT our registered Behavior technician she has been with us for many years 15 to be exact and this is her third year overseeing the esy program um Wendy is humble and she will not give herself enough credit for the work that she has done uh We've made many different improvements with this program over the last three years and a lot of that has to do with um Wendy and our creativity the purpose of this program for those who are not familiar is that uh for our special ed students there are some students who demonstrate significant regression over long periods of time and so there is concern that they're not able to recoup skills when they come back to school and so during team meetings you would look at data um the team would collect throughout the school year and they would determine at that point in time whether the student re requ ired um some kind of programming in the summer to prevent that that slide all students have slide but for some of our students it's it's really significant um and so that recommendation and determination comes from those team meetings and then those students are put forth for the summer program and um hopefully come and attend our services include a full summer program which is a five-week program four days a week from 9: to 1: um we also offer tutoring services and itinerant services so if students just need social skills or just need speech they're able to come in and get that um as well as counseling um and we also are able to deliver that tutoring in a flexible model although I will say we had four tutors this summer and most of our students were in person um we did have a couple that were virtual but most of our students were in person with us which I think is great so just some of the skills we work on over the summer specifically in the full program but also also through some of our tutoring um ranges from academics so looking at all of the different areas of deficit social skills learner behaviors emotional regulation communication um just going over those school expectations and routines that's an area where students can significantly regress and organization that executive functioning component of things and so we monitor that progress through the summer to maintain those skills and all of that is really um individualized based on their students bu specific goals and benchmarks within their IEPs so the next couple slides I'm going to share some highlights for you last year when I presented this my last slide was the goals for um the summer of 2024 and what I've done is I've created these slides with those goals and just what we've done um towards attaining them so one of the areas that was a concern for last summer was just the time frame it was a strange uh calendar where July 4th fell and so we were mindful of that when we planned the program for this summer so we were able to avoid that holiday weekend which I think um actually increased our attendance for students and staff that first week um we found that there were far less people missing those first few days which was great um we also found that there were minimal con uh concerns that were raised this year with any kind of conflicting District programming so um I know in in the past years parents were concerned about other programs that were were taking place we didn't hear a lot of that this year some of our internal procedures that we've worked on um is it might sound small but the way that our buses drop off in the morning for esy um in the past buses will come we hold our program at the Early Childhood Center they would come in and program teachers would stand outside they'd wait for all their kids in their class to be dropped off from the buses and then on once they had their whole group they went inside um we changed that so that stent we had people assigned to each student and students were going directly in grabbing their lunches from the or breakfast rather from the cafeteria and going straight to their classrooms this decreased behaviors um which is not surprising because students were not waiting for their entire class to arrive they knew the process and they knew the expectation pretty quickly they were able to move in get their breakfast for the morning and get started it also increased the time on learning that we could have because they were going straight to their classrooms and even if they were doing an activity that was preferable it was still some sort of prompt some sort of task that we were asking them to do um so that was great and that was actually I'm going to give Wendy another shout out because that idea alone came from her um in looking at how how do we make this smoother in the morning how do we make this better um another internal procedure is that we got an earlier start on hiring and I'm going to talk about hiring in a little bit and Staffing in a little bit but because of our earlier start in the hiring process we resulted in a full Staffing of this program by May um which is truly something we haven't seen in many years so that was really encouraging for us um we continued our communication efforts by issuing weekly s'mores newsletters to families so that they knew what was happening inside the classrooms knew what activities their students were working on they got to see some pictures of the students working on their activities we also looked at our high school and postgraduate program um we continued our partnership with Wellspring Farms which when we talk about a little bit we Contin to use our high school Fitness space so that our older our older students would be able to have um equipment that was more readily available for them um and so and then we also did a lot of vocational opportunities within the mech itself so our older students really served as um those mentors and got to do a lot of different jobs that were available during the program itself which is helpful because um you know we certainly need extra hands um and then monitoring the balance between academics and enrichment we're always looking at these pieces because it is a program to prevent regression we want to make sure that we're we're doing the academic piece but there's so much more involved for a special ed student it includes those social skills we need to include physical movement for them throughout the day um and and also the enrichment part of incorporating art and music and so we did that with a lot of our enrichment programs that we added so like I said we were able to fully staff in May of 24 which um again is really really early for our program in past years we are we are still hunting for people in the district who want to participate um one I think that has to do with our early hiring process but two I also think that has to do with the climate and culture of this program and what it's gone through in the last three years and that again attributes to a lot of Wendy's hard work um we had a lot of returning staff um and I think that's important to highlight so if you look at just some of those stats we had 31 out of 49 staff members return from last summer to this Summer's program so that's a 63% retention rate and then um just to kind of keep note 12 of those 49 staff um were employed by MPS during the 23 24 school year which means that they would not have had the opportunity to be part of the summer of 2023 so again we either had our own staff or people coming back to us which is is really great that consistency for our students um is really important and then if you look at that IND District staff versus outside um staff we were 39 out of 49 which is almost 80% of our own um staff members participating in this program I'm going to turn it over to Wendy to talk about some of the specific activities okay um as you can see from the bullets there there we have a lot of the enrichment activities we like to continue on it's like there Specialists that they have within the school year they have art music and and physical education um it's a a good part of their day but what it also does as well is it's not just um for them to do the activities it's also for them to in help with transitions not to be in the same room they have to go within the school they have to navigate that um they have different instructors different teachers they have to listen to a direction from a a different teacher and be able to um be okay with you know the different directions and instructions that they're doing um some of these are are sensory input so um if we go to the next Slide the first one that um you can see is ASD fit it's a it's a great program for adaptive uh physical education and these guys they they know what they're doing it's it's their job but they're they're just they love the kids and you can see in their faces when they come in and the they set up um they're high-fiving they're getting them involved in activity and they're going to get to them their level where they're at so if you know they're breaking them into different groups so it's not like everyone has to you know do this or do that but the the movement that they do is incredible that they their ability to get them to um do all the fun stuff and it's their second year and they have that about twice a week that's okay um the surprise storytellers we have couple in the building um Mr beran Mrs lion they were um here uh as well during the summer we have that at least once a week and we send it out um before summer uh starts and we have an overwhelming uh from the staff that reply back and say okay I'll come in and read and then when they come in the the students love to see um different faces but then familiar faces as well so with the themes I would either pick a book or they can bring their own book to read and and um we have you know them go to a couple different classrooms so they're there for a couple hours at least to be able to reach the classroom so the next is um the themes so we create it based on what would be relative to summer so Fourth of July oceans uh you know things that you would see in the summer and and I give that out to the um the art teacher so she can also use that um the and then the music as well so it's um they don't have to use it but they seem to like the themes to be able to know that we're working on it in the classroom we're working on it art and music and it's there's different ways to go about you know what would you do you know if you're talking about the ocean you know you can dance you can create something and then you know for art you can see that they can pick you know different things like the bugs is one of the things that we have here is um just the variety of being able to go back and take that and they can do that the teachers for the academics as well like oh you did this in our class so let's you know gather these manipulatives and and the bugs and you know count them or something so um so that's the themes that we do um oh yes um so for Mrs ion works with us and then we had uh um she has her own family so there Mrs uh catalon is another um music teacher she did a fabulous job they are they just love their jobs the music and then we had um Miss Kathy who is an art student come in and um do art class which was good for her for being able to get out in front of the students and and they really seem to like her all of them uh well spring farm you may be familiar with they've been partner with us for a lot of years um but it's just something that the the students enjoy but it's another it's another activity that helps with again transitioning and um they get to do certain things like whether not just the riding they have that they're feeding or they're they're doing certain things within navigating the farm um that they do it's most the high school and the postgrad the other students get that through the regular school year so um just not enough time for everything for all the students um drums alive they come at the end um it's an extra thing that we um we offer and there a fan frv it let me tell you um as you can see they have the yoga balls they have the drumsticks they have fabulous music that the kids really resonate with um he does a great job um goodness I can't think of his last name Kevin anyway yes Kevin sus um and there's other things like they bring up big you scars so he it's not just the drums they do other activities and movements and stuff like that and it it helps with them again listening to a different instructor someone they even haven't met and also imitation you know like there there's it hits all different points so that's another that's another fun um activity um Family communication you mentioned the newsletter um we they get a blur from the teachers they love the pictures and then the families get it and then they can go to their their students at home their kids and say hey I see that you know that you did this in class or you know this what you were working on um and then some most of the teachers give a communication either a log or just a piece of paper or an email or just to let them know what's what's happening and the last um the next slide is the Showcase that we do for the end of the year for the families to come into the school and see all the hardwork all the great stuff that they do throughout the program it's not just our they do they keep I ask all the teachers to keep some of their classwork and and even if they individually did something on their own just so they can we can put it all together and it's really is a showcase on how much they do throughout the program and how wonderful it is just to be able to see what they put into it so and the teachers are just fabulous so I just I mean it's just great all right so like I said last year I gave a slide that talked about the goals for the summer that we just had um there are some areas that we'd like to improve upon because we'll never say that this program is perfect that doesn't exist we're always going to um strive to improve it um one of the things that we noticed and we thought about this year was that while we do have 80% of our IND District staff working for the program 80% is not 100% And so we do have some staff that are not familiar with our emergency response training um and they're actually they're in a different building so even for our in District staff who might be familiar with our response training um they may not be familiar on with how that training looks in the Early Childhood Center um so one of the things that we would like to do is during that open house for this coming year when teachers are coming in and staff are coming in and setting up their rooms is that we would schedule some eem emergency response training um for the staff because anything can happen um a a drill could happen and we don't typically do any kind of fire drills for our esy program it's only a five-week program but in the event that the fire alarm goes off we need to have staff know how to evacuate the building so these are some things that we just kind of looked at and um wanted to make sure that we were training all staff especially where we do have some outside staff coming in so that'll be one thing um the second is we're looking at doing some electronic registration forms we've used paper copies for a long time and part of that is to to make sure that everybody has Equitable access um we'll keep paper copies for those who are going to need it but just paper does get disorganized and um you know I'm sure everybody has had the experience where they hand their child a piece of paper to bring into school and then that paper never shows up I know that that has happened to me um and so we want to just make sure parents are able to get the registration information so that there's no confusion about who's coming um we make sure that we have the buses scheduled for them all of that so we're looking at doing an electronic form that should help with that process we're going to continue to um keep on our staff retention um I think we've made great great efforts in this department but we're going to continue to make this program a place where people want to work and engage in um we would like to make some clear expectations this is something that um the special ed administration department will look at Clear expectations for what academic materials need to be provided by the sending teacher so sometimes um for some students we get these lovely binders all kinds of things to work on specifically for our tutoring students and then sometimes we don't get as much and I think it's probably born out of um the need for Clear expectations as to what that looks like and that's certainly something that I can address and then just continued access to Our Community Partnerships our um our older students are able to go to Wellspring farms and they are able to use our um our athletic space here in the high school but I would like to look at more community Partnerships where they're able to go out um and engage like they do during the school year in our postgrad program um so those are the things we'll be looking at and we likely be reporting On To You in September of 25 any questions uh yes I have a couple first to say um you know congratulations on the gains that you made against the goals that you set you know that that's always uh a sign of true success and uh that address some of the things that I had heard about um uh both in things that were going well and some things that needed to improve from year to year uh particularly around the Staffing um and so just a follow-up question on that sure um within the Staffing did you feel in the academic skills area that you had the appropriately trained folks for doing the kinds of tutoring you know I reading is one that comes to mind um uh that you were able to to um recruit from within or from wherever um with the kind of training that you needed for for the academic skills yeah so all of the teachers that work in the the program are certified teachers in order to be either a tutor or um a program teacher you have to have a teaching license um most of our teachers are specialed teachers that's just with the program that's what we draw our in we do have General Ed teachers though um and some of our tutors were General Ed teachers who um do very much have that content knowledge um and specifics in Reading what we try to do is we look at kind of what um grade area or or specialty each teacher has and then we are assigning students kind of based on that so for instance we had a couple Elementary General Ed teachers who were tutors we gave those teachers most of our elementary students who had tutoring needs because their knowledge of the curriculum lined up nicely with those particular students so um so yes I would say that we're drawing in people who have the background the certification The lure in order to deliver these Services um and then we're also just being kind of mindful of of purposeful pairing when it comes to you know age and um and you know specialty area thank you um a follow-up question and that's about capacity um which I'm going to tie to how it is determined by the IEP team whether someone is or is not eligible um based on is that a formulaic um how is it that you determine that someone out of an IEP because this is a concern that I've heard yeah um uh out of an IEP team whether someone is at risk for the kind of regression that is mandated by the state that we need to provide uh the service to meet that need and is it we look at capacity and then make what what we're going to be able to handle and we make decision decisions based on that or is it truly based on some thing that we can look at and say yes we know that this person has demonstrated a risk for uh regression yeah so um so typically when we're taking that data um over the course of the Year we're specifically looking at skills that a student would be able to master or almost approaching Mastery right before a lengthy break so if I'm a classroom teacher I'm taking that data right before February vacation I'm looking to see that student skill set in specific areas and then upon having that student return I'm I'm giving that same skill area to compare the two if the student has shown Mastery here and after a week is fairly unable to do that same skill that's significant regression and we do that at multiple points during the year because we have multiple breaks during the year um we look at that summer slide right so in September when you're taking your Baseline data we're looking to see whether or not the student had lost skills over the summer um and we're comparing that to all students because like I said all students will lose some level of skill over the summer months um but for our students that need esy it's going to be considerably more and is that a based on a person formulaically the regression it's it's it's based on kind of looking at whether they've met Mastery and then looking at whether or not they're if they're only able to do 10% or 20% of that skill um or or sometimes nothing at all um or they need a significant amount of prompting in order to recoup the skill that's what we would call significant but we also are looking for patterns too so that's why it's not just a a one piece of data it's September data yeah it's holiday break I was just if it was a 50% versus a 10% that's what I'm I for each for each student and and their own disability and how that impacts their access to the curriculum it's going to R so you know it's going to depend on their cognitive levels or academic levels um as far as capacity for the program that's not a consideration when we're looking at who qualifies um there have been years where we've added we've we've needed more full program teachers because we've had or more tutors because we've had more of a need and then there are years where we don't post for as many because we're not anticip you know we we are able to kind of forecast based on some of the data that we don't think we're going to need as many um this summer we last summer we had three tutors this summer we had four so just to give you an idea we knew we were going to have a certain number of tutoring students um and in some cases that tutoring number increased because some of our students sort of like graduated from Full program they didn't need the fa program they just needed some tutoring so we saw a little bit of a shift and so we shifted in our hiring as well thank you sure anyone else have any other questions thank you very much thank you thank you thank you especially to Wendy I've worked with Wendy a long time I'm proud to tell you Wendy started with us as a par professional and her trajectory continues uh now as our esy program director so thank you both um with that I will turn to our next item which is summer Athletics our program review I'll welcome athletic director Ryan Sylvia he's come a couple of times now to talk about some to be honest with you but I didn't want to leave them out for our review of all summer programming so welcome Mr syvia and what can you tell us about how the summer finished for athletics uh summer was busy uh it was fun we had a ton going on we had our highest level of participation that we've had since I've been here in terms of programs and student participation um just a quick recap of kind of how the programs run but pretty much we offer every head coach um that works for our school uh opportunity to run a summer program and based on their availability and if they think it it's something that can be beneficial to the students uh in Middleboro then we'll run the program and there's been years where some programs have run and some programs have been not run because the interest level is just not there um and all of our staff are um School Employees coaches assistant coaches and really it's an opportunity for our youngest uh students to get exposed to the facility here at the High School uh meet the head coaches and the and the uh High School level coaches and be coached by them and learn some skills and and have a lot of fun and it's really all about fun and and skill development um so really what I have for you tonight is numbers um which are which are outstanding overall we had 9910 uh unique participants in the program um many of them from from other schools too and I'll kind of hash it out now um at the elementary level we had 293 participants uh at the at the high school and middle school level we had 255 participants and then we had 362 participants from other uh high schools because we run three different leagues in the summer so um just more numbers for you uh the football 7v7 league that we run had 131 participants from uh eight different schools the um the boy the girls basketball league had 136 participants from 10 different schools and the boys basketball league had 100 participants from um from eight different schools and that those numbers include middlebar high school students and one of the nice things about those leagues that we run is that um our high our students don't have to go anywhere in the summer they can go right to their their home their High School uh and participate in their games and um and develop that way and then the rest of our program uh the most popular program in the summer was the youth and Comm Community track and field program we had 91 participants if you were able to get out to the track on a Tuesday night um was awesome to see we had another probably 20 to 30 high school student volunteers all wearing bright yellow shirts and helping coach the kids with their uh adult assistant coaches and and head coach TJ Smith um so that program continues to grow probably the next um most popular summer program was the strength and conditioning we had 71 participants and then I'll just kind of rip through what we offered beyond that for the youth programs which was basketball majorettes girls basketball wrestling um tennis soccer volleyball softball uh endurance track and field training and then field hockey um and that pretty much rounds out everything that we did as far as Athletics in the summer um and it was a it was just busy it was um difficult for me to work not difficult but I say a CH a challenge I guess for us to find uh time to get the gym floor done because it was pretty much used all summer long and got done right before the school year started uh which is great our custodial and maintenance staff was awesome which kind of working around uh the facility issues just because everything was being used all summer so I think that's I think that's all I have for you unless there's questions or anyone have any comments questions just congratulations on another successful summer my kids loved it I appreciate it all right we'll keep it going we'll hopefully continue to grow maybe add some some sports next year yep thank you thank you and finally we turn to our Our Last Summer update um which involves our summer programs I'll welcome to the table Dr Terry Mar our director of curriculum and instruction um Miss Carly hold on I'm just moving forward there we go Miss Carly paling who is our one of our first two MPS distinguished educator Award winners that she learned on convocation day and then also miss Courtney CER both of uh both Carly and Courtney are our Mech teachers at the kindergarten level at uh the mech and they are here tonight to co-present to talk about several programs actually that we're running over the summer as well as some Visionary shifting that we'll be doing in the forthcoming summer so welcome please get comfortable and uh you have our United attention everybody thank you for having us um I'm going to talk about Splash Nicholls summer school Pro programming um middle bar High School programming and the future of MPS summer programming God I missed the beach that picture um okay so I want to um talk about Summers Splash to start this is where we serve our youngest children from rising kindergarteners through Rising sixth graders our coordinators this year were Rachel Howard who is not here tonight but she did a wonderful job um coordinating our efforts at um Brooklyn and with me tonight are Cari paling and Courtney CER who are our coordinators of the intro Tok program which is phenomenal um so Splash ran for two weeks um Monday through Thursday 9:30 to 1130 and here's some pictures of our cherubs they had a really good time we had a lot of different offerings um which included traveling the world through ART beads and bobles uh we had scrapbooking hanging with Harry which is Harry Potter of course if you don't know that get with it um stories and steam Under the Sea nature explores baton twirling with a guest um provider um Mr folley you know what I'm talking about and um and our intro to kindergarten we had um esp's Step up to teach some of these which I want to give a shout out to them that was wonderful they were so helpful um and of course we had our teachers on staff also teaching some of our offerings I am going to turn it over to Courtney and Carly to speak a little bit more about intro de Kay um good evening superintendent lions and school committee My Name Is Karly paling I'm entering my 14th year at Mech um kindergarten teacher I love it there I'm actually going to let my partner in crime here speak first but we just learned a couple of hours ago that we were going to be here talking to you tonight that's why we have our team uniforms on you never know first week of K if you're going to have to chase a kiddo or what's going to happen so we've got our jean jackets and our sneakers I apologize about that hello my name is Courtney CER this is my seventh year at Mech and it was for years ago that Carly and I were sitting and talking and we started talking about how Middleboro did not have a kindergarten Readiness program like many surrounding towns did um and we thought it would be a really great thing to bring to Middleboro so after doing some talking and planning we brought the idea to Dr marulius and some of the other kindergarten uh not kindergarten District admin and everybody was really on board um Dr marulius was excited excited to help us and brought it to life um three years ago so this was our third year um holding the kickoff to kindergarten program the goal of kickoff to kindergarten um is to give kindergarteners the incoming kindergarteners just a glimpse of what kindergarten is all about so when they came to the program over the course of the week they learned how to sit on the rug how to listen to a story with their peers um they rotated through play centers and work centers they they learned how to work together um and they really got just to experience all of the things that they will get to experience when they enter kindergarten just to try to calm some of those anxieties of the unknown um in addition to all those wonderful things that Courtney spoke about um the first year that we ran this program we coordinated it with the existing Summer Splash Program Courtney and I had both taught sep separate segments of that prior but this was the first time we were doing it with incoming K students um so we actually hosted it at hbb and then collaborated afterward and said you know what this would it was great but it would really benefit everyone involved if we could do this at Mech so another shout out to Wendy over there because she worked with us and we figured out and planned how we were going to merge both programs existing at the mech um at the same time but not conflict in with each other um so we were able to do that which was great this benefited the students number one um they get to experience intro decay in an actual kindergarten classroom they see the school where they're going to be you know in the fall they get to play on the playground and learn how to use the equipment that they're going to access daily they get to see the cafeteria and you know have a tour of the school and we we build it up you know you're going to be able to lead the line and show your classmates who didn't get to do this this summer you know where to go at school they get to meet some of the staff at Mech whether it's Courtney or myself um Administration is there other staff members working in District that are working at the esy you know they just see faces that they'll be familiarized with they also get to meet new friends and and meet kids that are coming in to K just like them um hosting it hosting the program at Mech also really benefited the families and the parents um they got to become used to the drop off routine and see where they would drop their child off we we mimic our drop off during the summer the same way that it happens during kindergarten during the year um this also helped ease a lot of anxiety with families we were doing this with many families who have you know their firsttime kindergartner coming in and you know those nervous parents dropping their babies off to us so they kind of got a glimpse of it in the summer um and then as well as families who hadn't done drop off before but maybe had a kindergarten prior um at the end of each SE each session Courtney and I would ask the families please please please give us any feedback send us an email give us a call um or tell us right now and and that was always really helpful they were always eager to share things that we could maybe tweak for the following year or just you know how how helpful it was for themselves and for their incoming kiddo um the program really Mech really benefits from this just as a district as a school um it's only the two of us and some years we have had the benefit of an ESP as well but we're able to get eyes on kiddos that we may not have had eyes on prior to school starting the nature of kindergarten is that some of our kiddos have attended preschool at Mech some of them have attended preschool elsewhere some of them have never stepped foot in a school before um So Courtney and I were able to you know kind of kid watch and get get lots of information on kiddos that we may not have otherwise known about and then we're able to share and use that information to help form class lists you know we we run this program prior to creating the placement lists in kindergarten um and it can be something as simple as hm this one's you know kind of tricky to understand when he's speaking or hey you know letting the teacher know you might need to look at OT for this friend um wow that child has never climbed a flight of stairs before just little things that we may not have noticed or that one's going to be a really great friend and really help support this one so maybe we think about placing them together together when we create that class list so just all sorts of information um that really helps just get to know the kids before they come in um selfishly Courtney and I benefit a little bit we get to to meet these little guys that we're going to be spending you know the next several several months with um we make it a big deal you know you're learning this poem that your other friends aren't going to know yet so your teacher's going to call you up and you know have you help practice and and show your friends how to how to sing the poem we have kids already we're we're six days into kindergarten and we have kids this year that weren't placed in our classrooms but we got to know for a week over the summer and we tell them you know make sure you still wave to us in the hallway and they come every morning good morning Miss paling hi Miss CER we're like celebrities yes in our Gan jacket Celebrity Status um so just just all sorts of benefits of housing it at Mech um Courtney and I feel fortunate that we were supported you know when we brought this idea to admin um we've been able to grow the program a little bit each year we did three weeks this year and had three separate groups of of students um we feel lucky to work in a district that really supports us when we when we bring an idea like this to the table um so thank you Administration and we hope to continue to to see it grow um we could sit here and tell you how wonderful it is but instead why not let the class of 2037 tell you um we just have a short video clip to share with you this was at the end of one of the weeks of Splash this past summer um just I don't know you'll be able to hear and see the excitement in these these little kids as they embark on their kindergarten Journey so ready hi loud and proud you ready 2 three I know the kinderen yes I am am you I'm [Applause] [Laughter] in okay so by far the most interesting part of the presentation right um so I cannot speak highly enough of these two ladies next to me they really did have this idea and they grew it and they made it into something truly wonderful and have advocated um not only for the program but um for the students uh whoops I missed the slide sorry um so for Splash overall the summer we had 77 students incoming first to fifth graders I think the K number we're 37 students um and as we always do we provide scholarships for those in need moving on to secondary um our coordinators were Kathy cubec for Nichols and Amy burn for um the high school they were also going for 2 weeks 9:30 to 11:30 and they served Rising 7th through Rising 12th graders we had 13 students at nms 35 at MHS and again scholarships were provided just I want to talk to you a little bit about feedback we got from the Nichols Middle School we had several parents um who stopped to speak with Dr Tucker at open house to say that um summer school not only prepared their kids for high school if they were going but they also um were able to alleviate some of the fear um of middle school and you know it helped them kind of come up to speed so it was a really well-received program this year we want to talk a little bit about next year because as you just heard um director Healey say we're always looking to improve our programs so we're going to continue on with credit recovery at middle and high school it's not truly Credit Recovery at middle school but it is um you know remediation we're going to continue with intro de Kay and after just talking with these two to wonderful Educators we were talking about recruiting more students at local preschools so really doing an Outreach um which I think we will be well served by that so we're going to start that earlier um we are going to have Arts programming next year we did not have it this year I think when we start planning earlier um we will be able to plan around summer plans um if people know what the dates are everything will just be um easier to run so we'll be bringing arts program Arts programming back College boot camp will run again when we started splash I believe four or five years ago it was a result of covid um and it was funded by um a bunch of different grants we got for that purpose specifically we no longer have those grants so what we are funding we are doing on our own to that end it's not about getting kids back in school anymore for us it really needs to be a combination of academics and enrichment while the enrichment part is wonderful we do have a lot of students who are not eligible for esy who experience summer slides summer regression summer regression and we want to make sure that we're addressing those needs so there will be um more of a focus on academics um planning will beginning December as I said to accommodate summer plans and we are going to have a digital sign up and online payment with credit cards which is um new to the district and is going to be very helpful any questions just add a curiosity what's the uh incoming kindergarten class size right now oh that's a good question do you guys know off the top of your head we have 11 classrooms have 20 kids each give or take give or take so I was I was just told this afternoon that I have a new friend joining me tomorrow so they're still enrolling um this is a very rough number but I want to say off the top of my head at the end of the summer we were around 215 um now that number of 37 it's just misser and myself so we have three different groups over the course of three weeks but to give you an idea of how we've been able to GR it the first year that we incorporated the intro Decay um I think we had 11 students enrolled for the whole thing and we were kind of like oh maybe this isn't such a great idea um so we've slowly been able to grow um but when we were just talking to Dr marculus um we're hoping that by reaching out to preschools other than just Mech we're going to be able to gain a lot more interest and make the community aware I I think that the I mean even the percentage you were able to get is fantastic I think it's a wonderful ful idea it's absolutely something that I would have sought out if my kids were that little still um and I just I think the uh the idea of the planning ahead so that when you're recruiting that you can tell families what dates you're looking at so that they can make sure to think about summer plans and accommodate that is a great way to increase your enrollment as well absolutely sorry sorry we also talked about um just another idea is maybe extending the hours of our intro Decay program just slightly the hours are tricky and we found that a lot of the students that we got were kiddos that actually attended our preschool program at Mech probably because the families were used to those short that short window of hours you know summertime is tricky can be can be a multitude of schedules um so we're we were talking Loosely about maybe extending it just a little bit some of the kiddos that we have are still four years old when we have them so we can't really do a full long day um but extending it a little bit May encourage more families to participate we hope so just to add to that um I had that same feedback from Splash at hbb that they wanted a longer time and they were actually thinking about offering morning sessions afternoon sessions giving families more flexibility so that's something that we'll look into in the planning of this um we do have to fund a part of this so that is something else that we do have to consider and be aware of I do plan for it in budgeting but you know we have to make sure that all of that is there so that we can pay our Educators to um support our students during the summer last Kudo um I was intimately knowledgeable of of the uh prek program this summer and Kudos uh to the cre creativity and the content and the excitement and that you brought it from something your idea that this is something that middle bro should have that other places don't have to a place where my daughters their parents talking to their friends from other towns and P private schools when they were hearing what our kids are doing in prek and during the parent orientation it blew away every other parent from any other town or private school that they talk to so I can't say enough about how good a program it is we appreciate that feedback we're lucky enough that we're going to get to spend some extra time with your granddaughters this year um we've had other school committee members kiddos join us over the summer and we appreciate all the positive feedback yes thank you great thank you thank you everybody and with that I'll turn to my last item um of the evening I'm happy to share that we are seeing a return of our our um music field trip so I'll invite uh I don't know if Mr BR again wants to come up Mr Justin pittsley is here this evening our fine arts department head um this is a trip that we used to do every single year prior to co very important to um our performing arts program during Co this program shut down and we have not seen it return so these gentlemen are here this evening to talk about this trip Tri um that they are seeking consent to do out of state um for this coming school year so with that Mr pittsley why don't you take us away sure I don't have too much to say other than last time I was here for this purpose I was begging you not to cancel our trip to Montreal back in 2020 and uh that seems kind of foolish now but the stories that were told that night uh and the impact that uh student travel has was tremendous we had student after student after student sharing what it meant to them and that's always been in our mind through this period and uh our program you know obviously had setbacks last few years but we're starting to grow again and student travel is is one of the most important things that we do not only for retention but just the amount of learning that happens when they're out um I'm incredibly intentional about working with our travel agency to ensure that our trips are first based around what they're doing in the classroom so the musical piece of that is the most important thing and they either do a clinic at a university like we we went to uh Vanderbilt down in Nashville and did did a clinic there um or we do a music festival and um so it's based around that and then the rest of the trip is really based on sightseeing places that they might never go to again and that's why I think it's really important that we go on these trips so the the trip to New York uh has all the sightseeing stops that you would think in New York City would be appropriate uh Time Square 9911 um Memorial site uh we'll go to Statue of Liberty in Alis Island um we have some fun stuff built in at Medieval Times uh going to see a Broadway show um just as much as we can pack in into three days for a weekend that we can possibly imagine and uh that's really the key to Student travel as Mr Branan knows is keeping them busy from the moment they wake up until they are too exhausted to do anything else um a couple things we've added this time around we have a a security guard that will be dedicated to our program overnight in the hotels uh we have not done that in the past but that's something that is part of our package now um can't be safe enough so I think that's a a great ad um so if you have any questions or anything I can answer I'd be happy to anyone have any comments questions great stuff I do have one question do we have anything in place so we can avoid what happened with the field trip that was uh canceled because of Co and the reimbursement I did not plant that question I just want to go on and say I did not my question for I think very good reason yes absolutely so first uh we were very fortunate when we were cancelled that this company worked with us and students were reimbursed just about everything there was a small amount that was held back uh before covid but uh this time around we are building into the package insurance that every student will have and it it's full protection for 100% at the cost of the trip um you know with any insurance there's way things that are involved in that but it's it's protection that we're just building into the cost that every student will have so if something were to happen we'll be covered I have the details of that plan and uh we think that's that's the way to go is there any opportunities for type of scholarship if someone doesn't have the means to pay for a trip but still interest yep any student um you know as needed is something that uh the district would look at and build into part of the trip so thank you by way of review when we reviewed the World Language trip happening next April February Fe every time I do it every time next February we worked as a group some of us on this release form that is now complete it's been vetted by the school committee as an additional safeguard for exactly this situation so something in terms of a lesson learned was that we went um through our legal department and developed a release form we've now vetted it it'll be used for both trips I think the concept of endurance is a great idea and I think the more upfront we can be as a community about this sadly now that we know things like that happen um I think it'll just add another layer of protection and and understanding before anybody signs up for for the trip so I'll attach this to the flash tomorrow in case you want to read it um but other than that any other questions thank you very much thank you and thank you for bringing back a time honored tradition to Middleboro that's an important thing thank you and I believe that completes my report for this evening all right um just a reminder we had we do have the conference the uh Massachusetts school committee and school superintendent joint conference in hyan since November 5th through the 8th highly recommend it last year it was uh fantastic and I plan on going again this year um any comments or questions not about that I have something else not about that on something else all right okay now okay um I would like to request not at the next meeting but the meeting after that um we put on the agenda um a discussion of establishing a calculation uh calculation for the retention rate of of uh our Educators uh that's consistent with how it can be compared on the Desi site and then a more longitudinal one that we might look we might want to look at it in different ways uh so that we're working from real data that we know can compare in different ways when we have those kinds of conversations uh and I also would like to have on the agenda a discussion of um starting exit interviews can you send me an email with those so I know exactly what you're asking I would actually I would ask everyone on the school committee if you ever have anything that you would like to have a discussion on and placed on the agenda send me an email and I'll absolutely do my best to make sure that we can get it on the agenda so we can have a full and informed discussion with the entire board right so but so you want an email too please okay because I would screw it up if I had to do this from attention I do that all the time so that's why and I honestly if you have public comment it's better if you send me an email with the public comment that way we have a direct record we don't need to go back and forth with verbal things if it's a written record then we all have that it's just it makes better records anyone else have anything all right we'll go on to the consent agenda I'm going to break this up a little bit I'm going to take item a b c and d as fundraisers I would entertain a motion to approve those fundraises as presented so second have motion and second any comments or questions all in favor I opposed passes unanimously um I'm going to take the next three e items e f and g is three donations I would entertain a motion to accept those donations as presented so moved second have a motion and second any comments or questions all in favor I I opposed passes unanimously um the last item are meeting minutes we'll take them one at a time I would entertain a motion to approve the April 4th 2024 meeting minutes as presented so moved second any comments or questions all in favor all I opposed passes unanimously entertain a motion to accept the August 15 meeting minutes as presented so moved second have a motion and second any comments questions just to note I did point out one minor correction I think that's the version that we're approving yes yep thank you anything else all in favor I opposed passes unanimously um did we vote on the field trip I don't think we did so I would entertain a motion to approve the out of state field trip as presented for April 4th through the 6th so moved moved have a motion and a second any comments or questions all in favor I I opposed passes unanimously um we have a list of resignations um 1 two 3 four five and we have a list of 31 new hirers and with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second a motion a second any comments or questions GL to see you catching right up there CHR all in favor hi POS passes unanimously thank you very much folks enjoy your evening this is the end of the meeting