##VIDEO ID:qtlj1kn7OL8## I'll Now call this meeting to order we would please stand for the plate I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much I will now hand it over to the superintendent for the student recognition Okay welcome everybody this evening um it is my honor and pleasure to present the Massachusetts Association of school superintendence award um this award is something that schools can elect to give out it is based on how the size of your school Middleboro was entitled to one award um and tonight I will be announcing um this year's recipient Karin Horseman so come on up [Applause] Karen and principal brand again if you want to come up to um while Karen is coming up I want to tell you a little bit about her um she has a GPA of 45976310 82 seniors and this award captures the essence of a senior who epitomizes what it means to have a well-rounded and Comprehensive High School experience Karin defines this award she's been involved in the majorette program all four years of high school she serves as the lead twirler for the last two years she's competed at the state level Regional level and even the national level as the reigning Champion Karen has been involved in the fine arts program at MHS and her twirling has featured her in many band performances her additional talent and stunning additional stunning Talent is in the TV studio where her creativity and Talent come to life on the television screen she's the 2022 New England student production Award winner for best music video additionally she had an honorable mention in 2023 and also 2024 Karen's work can be seen in many school and community events she's been a true leader with many media projects for the Massachusetts associate of student councils her work is simply outstanding academically Karin is a very strong and determined student she's a member of the National Honor Society the Spanish Honor Society Ro Kappa the H the history National Honor Society and the English National Honor Society Karin has been instrumental in the start strong program and an active member of the MHS student council Karin is in the midst of the college application process as we speak with plans to major in digital me media in business her future is clearly bright we are very proud to honor Karin this evening um and I I wish you the best and cannot wait to see what you do next I'll come over and give you the award and a nice round of applause for Karen [Applause] [Applause] thank you uh moving on to item four public comment if anyone has anything for public comment if you have anything that's on the discussion items I would ask that you please refrain until that discussion item comes up thank you hi Bri C you hear me um excuse me congratulations Karen way to go so proud of you um anyhow I had um come here I I had sent the uh committee school committee all the school committee members a very lengthy email this week and I wanted to um thank all six of them they all responded with a reply that of acknowledgement um in addition to the responses I got um four of the committee members really reached out to me thanking me for the information and a offering me an opportunity to um share more information with them through other avenues so I really appreciate those um that extra effort those four members are taking to really hear the parents concerns I know I come here and speak for a couple um you know more parents than just myself so it's nice to have some people that are on the board that are are really starting to listen and hear us so I look I've been able to meet with two and I'm looking forward to having either phone conversations or meetings with um the remaining two that are interested in hearing the concerns so I did um I did want to one of the concerns that I keep bringing up is the communication and I just kind of wanted to share just a little snippet of some of the communications that parents get back and forth and maybe what I thought like a like a maybe more positive communication could be so as we know the pledge has been an ongoing issue so I'm just going to draw from that most recent one because there's so many um so on a a email chain between a principal and a parent um which goes back and forth on a couple of topics you can see that the parent is escalating including signing at one point in this exchange her her her closing remark trying not to be frustrated it is clear the parent is getting frustrated with each email as it goes on um and so in the response that was given that I find not as um positive and doesn't validate and doesn't make that parent feel um heard um or acknowledge her concerns in any ways the response is I would like to correct you of the misinformation based on your assumption that the Pledge of Allegiance has stopped at M&S at no time has the pledge been stopped been directed to stop or not occurred in fact I have done the morning announcements myself to include the pledge morning announcements are done once students arrive at their first block at approximately 8 8:00 to make sure any students who arrive at the tail end of Home Room have the opportunity to par participate and hear morning announcements thank you for reaching out so I have the opportunity to accurately share what's happening this is so negative and it's connotation it's derogatory and it's accusatory with this misinformation it does not do anything to build trust with a parent it does not allow the parent to feel heard or validated and it does not it it's not something that the parent's going to deescalate as you can clearly see there's escalation happening in these emails so for me as a parent something that might be heard better would sound something like this dear parent I'm surprised to hear that little Tilly is not hearing the pledge with announcements I'm under the impression it's being said but I will check with our new vice principal as I myself can get busy at that time of day I will also check with little Tilly's teacher to see what is happening in the classroom I want to make sure all students have the opportunity to participate in the pledge and I will get back to you with more information I mean it it doesn't take a lot the content Remains the Same the the accusatory language goes away you validate the parent it's doesn't sound like it it really is something that I feel like any Administration or person dealing with a parent or the community has and should have the capability to diffuse deflect make sure that parents feel H make sure that parents issue um they feel validated and you know what those Communications are going to get shorter and shorter because if you do that from the get-go you're not going to have eight nine 10 back and forth and you're not going to have that parent being so Vigilant that every little time every something happens they're not checking in with you but because they don't trust you they're going to continue to check in over and over and over again there's a lot more examples I'd like to share but I'm sure other people might want to have something to say so that's it for this evening and um again I want to thank those four committee members who really are taking that extra effort to hear parents voices thank you very much anyone else moving on we'll go to our excuse me we'll go to our discussion items and I'll hand it back over to the superintendent actually sorry sorry hold on I'm I'm going over I'm sorry yeah I'm skipping all the way over to D huh uh a reports from school committee members yes um Sam if you don't mind um so I heard earlier this week from Eliza thoron a music teacher at the Nicholls Middle School that a group of middle school students in the band who are pictured here Eliza graciously sent me a a picture from their day today so these nine students um are representing the Nichols Middle School and the Middleboro Middle School at the Bridgewater State University Music Department presenting the 2024 Middle School honor band Festival um so these students spend all day today at Bridgewater there are nine of them and I am going to say all of their names although I know if we have the opportunity to bring them to share anything about their experience in the future that would be great um Eliza's also hoping that they record some of it and maybe we can pop the recording up with uh our pre-show music at one of our future meetings so those people who come early can have the opportunity to listen um but these students um so there were 11 different middle schools in their group today and they received the music for their parts to work on independently um maybe only a week or so ago and then today they played all day with their colleagues from the other bands and had some fun breaks at sounds like um and then we're able to put on a performance at uh only like 3:00 this afternoon I believe so kudos to them for participating and for um having this wonderful opportunity to learn from a a college level uh conductor um so those nine middle school students were Olivia Miller Jasper Freeman Will Bradley Briana Perkins Sebastian glasby Logan pittsley Quinn saesi and Oliver ruwi so congratulations to all of them and I think it's just so wonderful that the middle school band is expanding and growing and that there were some students um able to go and have a wonderful day playing music with uh students from other area schools so congratulations to all of them thank you Sam for putting the picture up um and then the only other thing just quickly I just wanted to thank all of the um the teachers and the administration at the high school who were there for parent teacher conferences I know it's always a very long day for everyone to hang around until 7:30 and make themselves available but um as a parent I always appreciate having that opportunity to meet teachers that I haven't had a chance to meet check in and make sure the school Year's off to a good start so thank you to everyone for um helping us find find our way through the building cuz even those of us who have been to an area still can't find room 272 very easily so thank you and uh that's my report for today thank you anyone else yes Sue uh I also want to take the opportunity to say uh that I went to the um open house at Mech uh I think that was last night last night uh and to say what a wonderful joyous occasion it was uh and uh the individual teachers what they had in the classrooms for the parents grandparents and children to do uh was very engaging and above and beyond all of that the way that it it presented itself as a true Community uh lots of hugs and joy all around wherever you went we met with the different Specialists and uh different members of the professional staff there in the building and I also want to say a big thanks to Tracy Lords for uh taking over the responsibilities and what a seamless job that you've done there uh that all the reports that I hear back are very positive and I know it's not an easy thing to do to take on at the last minute so I want to take the opportunity to say thank you publicly all right moving on move to B report from student representative headward firstly I want to start with the Mech the last day of the the last day of the mech book fair will be tomorrow Mech parents the mech will be hosting a PTA meeting next Thursday October 17th secondly hbb and mkg hbb parents hbb will be hosting a PTA meeting next Tuesday October 15th from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. mkg will be holding a bus evacuation drill Wednesday morning the 16th of October mkg parents looking ahead mkg is holding a PTA meeting on Monday October 28th from 5: to 6: p.m. Nicholls Middle School parents looking forward nms will be holding a PTA meeting on Tuesday November 12th and lastly MHS homecoming will be held on Saturday October 19th from 6: to 9:30 p.m. and MHS student council is holding their leadership overload event on November 16th from 5: to 11:00 p.m. and now will be open only to MHS student council members only that's all yes may we go back I had another report oh absolutely sorry about that no worries I also wanted to say that I've had over the last couple weeks the opportunity to talk with a few different uh individuals about uh the topic of communication with the school committee and in various ways uh with throughout the system and it's really given me some thoughts about how it is that we might even in these meetings be able to uh improve the way that we are communicating and not I'm not making a proposal I'm not making even any suggestions at this point but I just wanted to acknowledge that um that uh that I heard the concerns and and some of the uh uh positive suggestions that have been made and that I think it is something that we will be I will be bringing forward in the future and talking uh about those topics thank you U moving back to um Edward's report any uh questions for Edward all right thank you Eddie thank you very much now I can hand it over to the superintendent report oh uh mea report oh yes okay yes mea report from co-presidents I don't know why you had that one cross off thanks Eddie I'm not a sitter good evening thank you for having us um uh with the beginning of the school year we just want to say that we're um very excited and uh ready to go with our negotiations for the professional contract and I would like to introduce my new co-president for the year Miss Donna germano Donna hi um good evening everybody um first of all thank you um superintendent Lions school committee um administrators that I see here community members um and a student um so uh thank you all for welcoming me um it has been um a pleasure working with Sam these last couple of months I look forward to a great future I just thought you ought to know a little bit about me this is my 13th year teaching in middleb um I'm kind of an old bed but I've only been teaching 13 years so I do have some new tricks um I love teaching I had a couple of former careers before I became a teacher but it was a lifelong dream of mine to be a teacher um I don't take anything for granted I love my job I love what I do I try to be enthusiastic about it um I've been involved in every aspect of um our school district my first couple years I was on this um principal's advisory committee I've done curriculum work I've been a teacher leader I was a building rep for the last several years with the mea I've been on the negotiating team and this year I kind of threw my head in to take off a little bit more I mean why why sit back and rest in uh my old age why not just jump in you know Dive Right In so I'm thrilled to be doing this I'm thrilled to have the support of a wonderful co-president and an outgoing co-president I can't say enough about Eva Crawford and the work she's done um and continues to do as our prnr rep for K to 5 um I've been loving working with the principles getting to know them a little bit better and um you as well Carolyn and I look forward to working with the school committee on our upcoming negotiations I'm sure it will be fruitful for all of us um mainly us hopefully um but um but thank you again and uh have a great night I can't sit I'm not a sitter any questions for Nea just thank you for for coming and speaking and welcome to the the process go to bed moving to superintendent report sure okay so tonight um I have a couple of items and I do need to take the budget item out of order and do that item first but um we'll be talking about our final draft we now have a course you know finalized copy we've spoken with the um Town manager and the director of business and finance to finalize that document which was shared with you there is a printed version that is very small print and um you also have it electronically and we can talk a little bit more about that after that we're going to be hearing from two schools regarding Improvement plans both at the high school and the middle school and we'll have a transportation um update before I launch into that business I just want to um share a reminder that tomorrow is high five Friday at all of our schools we'll see our First Responders from the Middleboro Police Department Middleboro fire department I believe Coastal will be here too um to welcome our students in uh this is always a wonderful event we thank our First Responders for coming and partaking I think the kids really like it um and it's an important Community Partnership for us and then I also want to take a minute to thank the oako community last Saturday the 5th was the oako yard sale I've asked the oako folks to come so we can properly thank them they'll be here at our meeting in November on the 14th I heard that it was a banner year and that they cleared $40,000 which for if anyone's ever run a yard sale you can imagine um what that means I spoke with John Burbage who's sort of my contact over at oako and he was very proud as well he should be and very excited about what that means um for our students because it is Middleboro students who are the beneficiaries of of that money and that's a very exciting thing um finally I will call your attention to that little icon at the bottom of this slide that says establish meaningful family and Community Partnerships I'm going to link the items that I present each time to our district strategy for continuous Improvement so strategy number four they are not numbered in any order but the fourth strategic initiative of our plan is to establish meaningful family and Community Partnerships so when you look at an event like high five Friday yes it's a feel-good thing and we love to do that but it's important to understand the intentionality behind an event like that and Partnerships with with groups like the oako homeowners association these are exactly the types of you know collaboration and you know um Partnerships that we're trying to grow because we know that students benefit from this exact effort so that's what that icon means we're going to hear more about these icons you can see them prominently displayed in our classrooms special thank you to Shan ciciliano who is our director of communications who helps um with this sort of thing it also helps you to better understand our strategy at work in real time so with that I will move over to the um FY 26 budget calendar in Timeline I've asked um director of business and finance Mr Michael Peron to come and present before I turn it over to him you will notice you have yet another icon in front of you engaging in collaborative data informed planning and problem solving the budget is part of the process of looking at what is our data telling us and how should we be allocating our resources to what that data is telling us so the budget calendar is an initiative in that in that direction so that we aren't doing things halfhazard you can see all the areas where we're reaching out um beyond the school committee process and you also have a clear understanding of what to expect over the next couple of months so with that I'll turn it over to director Peron who can walk us through the latest draft which you will notice is a little trimmer than the previous drafts good evening so we have a new and improved uh updated budget uh timeline uh superintendent and I sat down and uh made some changes tightened it up uh tightened up some um of the dates that we have that's hard to read even there um so um some of the things I'd like to call to your attention we actually removed some lines that were redundant um but the uh two main things I wanted to talk about um on uh just under the first green line there the December 9th date there's a November 12th 14th and 20th those are the school Improvement um Council meetings that um the budget subcommittee uh Mr Lewis Mrs Panini wanted to have uh for some um Community input so those are the dates superintendent will get back with you as to which of those dates in schools in her uh Friday flash because trying to put all that in that box would be a little bit difficult it's already tough to read now so I wanted to call attention to those we finalize those we told you we'd uh be getting those dates the other one is down the bottom uh when it's uh the last um third from the bottom which is the uh annual town meeting uh it's usually from my understanding is the third Monday of April uh and every year um but this year that's a holiday so they have not determined what date that will be so that is still TBD we want to change that we will do that once we get that date we're working with the town they will let us know um we did leave we took off some of the yellow highlighted uh they were you know the school committee uh dates that they needed to be aware of but we left a couple on there either cuz we changed or uh felt the importance to keep them on right now so that you have you see the yellow which uh references school committee uh either action or presence or or whatever it is um other than that uh we just made a lot of changes to the uh as I said actual we got actual dates and so it's a lot cleaner now uh a little tough to read but the electronic version uh when you see it is a is a lot easier easier to read I'll take any questions if you have any questions Michael are the times for the school Improvement Council meetings known yet yes I can answer that okay through you um I emailed the budget subcommittee today with the specific times and buildings but I'll include all that information in the flash for any member of the committee that wants to attend I'm also happy to share that twice there were there was overlap so that's why you don't see five distinct dates because twice there was overlap and at one point there's only a half an hour difference so we can talk about how to best divide our attention and then as a reminder executive committee will be with you just to assist in the management of note taking and anything else that you think would be helpful for that for that purpose wonderful thank you a comment not a question I just want to uh thank the principles for agreeing to partner with us on this endeavor um I think it's a a great opportunity for us all to work together and talking back and forth specifically around things to do with the budgets and the school communities uh and it's a way for us to become more educated about um the Flesh and Blood um of how the budget expresses itself uh with parents so I am personally really looking forward to those meetings and I would like to um at some some point collaborate with whomever uh about how we get as much messaging out there about these so that we have a good showing of people so that we can have those conversations thank you thank you Michael thank you okay um in the past the school committee has voted on this there is no obligation to vote on this but with your permission uh is it is it acceptable for me to consider this approved I'll move that we accept the uh timeline as proposed for the budget process I would like to amend that briefly with the the the note that some dates are TBD and we will uh establish those without having to vote to approve them necessarily as we go everybody okay with uh accepting that so uh yeah uh so you're making a motion to I am making a motion to approve as is and note that as the dates are filled in when not known we accept that we'll just go with the flow how's that for official language good luck to the notaker I'll have I'll move so do I have a second on that I can't second my own motion second all those in favor I I those opposed it's unanimous thank you um with that I will turn to our next item which is the MHS School Improvement plan and I will invite Principal Paul branagan up to the team aable to present his plan while he's doing that I'm just seeing that the spacing is slightly off on that slide but there are four icons that you will see here in all their Glory these are all four strategic initiatives it will not come as a surprise to see them denoted by school Improvement plan because that's exactly the goal that's what the goal is supposed to be what the plan is supposed to be hinged upon so what you are seeing is all four initiatives personalized success for all students engaging in collaboration I mean collaborative data informed planning and problem solving um create Innovative responsive and safe learning environments for all and then finally establishing those meaningful family and Community Partnerships so with that I'll turn it over to Principal Paul branagan to present his plan awesome thank you Mrs Lions good evening everyone um I'm really excited on behalf of the middlebar high school school council to be able to share with you tonight our school Improvement plan for the upcoming year for this year I should say um so I just want to share with you our slides um so just first and foremost just a thank you to the um team last year who spent a tremendous amount of time helping to create the five goals that you're going to hear about tonight so the names of The Faculty members to the parents to the community members and students that were part of the council last year I just a sincere thank you to them um for that work over the last year um these are the five goals that you see and I wanted to start with this slide just simply because um it's important to see the scaffold that happens with each goal so the most important goal is the instructional practices that will then how do you do it through our professional learning communities our future ready program the vision of The Graduate and our work with our accreditation and of course the the the most I think one of the most significant is school culture so first and formost most I would say to you if you've taken a look at the school Improvement plan that this goal number one is is quite significant and I would say that when you look at the body of work that we will be doing over the course of this year um this particular goal is is really the most instrumental um and one thing I want to make sure that I note is that our plan those five goals that I shared with you just a moment ago is really embedded with the district plan that Mrs Lions had referenced just a minute ago with the with the icons that were there with School Improvement plan our accreditation needs and also our parent feedback we had done a survey back in the spring um that was vetted through our school council so when you take all of that information as well as our most recent data that we needed to make sure the fact that we had a plan that was going to be allowing us to really hit the ground running this year so with this particular goal in mind um I just want to share with you really briefly what these all mean because each one really connects to each other and so this goal about instructional practices has been an ongoing goal for us in terms of really looking at where we're meeting our students where they're at but at the same EXA time really moving them in a direction of growth so the first is our curriculum pacing guides which is really the ongoing um real work of curriculum that it's never written it's never completed it is always something that is a body of work and with our curriculum team in particular and with the work of our department leaders just that collaborative work that we're doing to make sure that we're under curriculum review process all the time articulation of really what we're seeing from the lower grades coming up so that way there we're seeing that trajectory over time but really just alignment of what and when to teach because we're changing that all the time based upon really the scope and sequence of the curriculum as it is presented with that being said it's also looking at our engagement and really what are those entry points of active learning you see relevance and rigor and and what they really kind of working the same at this level we need to make sure that our students are seeing relevance in what they're learning as a former history teacher that taught about dead people by entire career in the classroom you had to really work hard to figure out how did you make it important and how did you make it relevant in their life and so now more so than ever it is the same exact thing but at the same exact time it is also raising the bar that we could really make sure that our engagement with them is even more rigorous than where we are currently and so with that being said said it's really through the lens of active learning we have really implored The Faculty to really make sure they're taking a look at how they're utilizing the the time they have in a classroom and really what does it look like from Bell to Bell and that is really spearheaded through our school Improvement plan I really want to make sure I make note about our advanced placement redesign and Alignment we've been taking a lot of time and really looking at our not only our scores but also our enrollment our engagement the stamina of our students by the time they've reached the end of the AP experience are they really ready for an exam or more importantly are they exhausted by the time they get into it and then what do we look at in terms of making that happen it's really exciting which is the first that we're announcing it that the College Board actually recognized the high school this year is being an honor rooll school for um our program and that we're given a silver rating a silver rating um for our engagement our scores our qualifying scores for at least one or more exams and then our students who rece received qualifying scores on two or more exams so we're pretty excited by that but it's also getting our AP teachers around the table and part of that is is really digging into the scores what is it telling us what is it yielding for example just as an important element of an example of something we're digging at is that our AP Chemistry program for the first time we allowed sophomores to engage in AP Chemistry and it was really out of um out of an opportunity to see well these students haven't had chemistry yet and maybe if you just allow them to take AP Chemistry what would that look like for them and what's interesting is all of those sophomores qualified on the AP Chemistry test but then conversely the upper classman who are in AP Chemistry it was hit or miss so we're looking at that to say well what is the is there a correlation the fact of students who already had chemistry to then go into AP Chemistry or is it just the fact they walked in not knowing anything maybe about chemistry and that was the lens they took it from so we've already had one meeting with all of our AP teachers of creating this Think Tank and we have more meetings to come really looking at the trends that we're seeing within our students who are engaging in that program our instructional Frameworks and I I want to make sure that I give um really a a just really an appreciation to the curriculum team to Dr Marco litis and Kelly stuckenberg and of course to laori LeBlanc because really working with our instructional Frameworks this is an initiative that's happening in the district but it is so important at the high school because it's really the framework that teachers are using using of really what are the scaffolds that need to happen in a classroom for our teachers but then conversely those scaffolds the teachers are doing what does it look like in terms of student language and student learning that's happening in the classroom that instructional framework is embedded in everything that our staff is doing this year of really looking at what does a lesson look like from beginning to end to follow that it's really looking at Best Practices you know I've always I've always said to our staff here and I know through our school council we've talked about this as well is really always imagine a teacher has like a toolbox and that inside that toolbox are all the strategies that are tried and true tools that they would use in engaging students we also know that really since the pandemic that those some of those tools or many of them are no longer applicable potentially or it's harder to engage them with the tools that maybe with something we could have done 10 years ago that was tried and true is no longer tried and true so it's really about retooling those tools and identifying what does that toolbox look like now the PED um the pedagogy framework that we're launching is really doing just that it's working with staff to identify what does active learning look like in a classroom now and how do we embed those skills into really those tools for teachers because ultimately that's going to impact student learning also use of Technology it has been something you've heard me talk about before are really finding balance between what we're seeing in the use of the technology in the classroom but really making sure if we're talking about Active Learning is it in front of the computer screen or they up and around the room actually being active in their experience the one that I really want to highlight is our data informed decision making this has really been a huge shift for us we've always used data but really this year it is really done with such intentionality um in all content areas it has been something we've been reviewing not only just our mcast data which we've always done but in many ways our mcast data is the carcass you're looking at what was done and now how do you address a whole new group of students that is coming in for the first time in that part where the scores you're looking at are students have already gone through it what I am so excited by is we are as a faculty is really our um on Theo data through star 360 that has never been a thing that the high school has been able to engage in so we just finished the preest of all of in English and in math and that data point is allowing us to look at our students who are truly sitting in front of us right now we can take the mcats data and look at that from a curricular standpoint what is the the tweaking we need to be doing but more importantly how do we take our students that are sitting in front of us right now with the with the pedagogy with the instructional framework and make that shift that we're getting more of our students out of partially meeting expectations into meeting expectations and Beyond it is really exciting work and I'm really excited to be doing it and that the high school staff finally has a document in front of them that they can be looking at and say this is what the data is telling us for our students that are sitting in front of us today it is a a game changer for us I truly believe and the last two was really cross-curricular learning experiences really between stem and Humanities we know if kids can Master a skill they can take that skill and transfer it from One content area to another and the more that we're aligning that in stem in Humanities I think the better results we're going to see and lastly which has been what probably one of the largest rocks you have to move at a high school is when you're looking at grading practices and it has become really the the the goal of the work this year of our leadership team is to really begin chipping away at why do we do what we do what does it look like and really the age-old question is if we say that there's an a is the a that I think is what an a work is it is the same as Mr MERS and really looking at that as we're tooling that so that's really I think our most fundamental goal and most vital in the most media as well our next one is R so how do you do all of this so I I will tell you that um as much as our new schedule has been an evolution of really just some trial and error and things that were successful and things that were not what has come out of that is time and that we're really excited this year and this has been really something that was so supported by the school council is really our launching of true professional learning communities at the high school and it is something that we just began um we did all the pre-planning and all of the fundamental work that needed to be done during the month of September and we launched our first round of meetings um at the beginning of October our faculty right now will have close to 40 sessions of meeting time this year which is almost every week between their faculty excuse me between their PLC time which used to be faculty meetings I'm no longer doing them if I can do it in in email is it better to have them sitting at a table together doing the good work of unpacking their data I think the second is the most important and then also their department meeting time and our common planning time based on this new schedule every single content area has been given 16 opportunities to meet as a department the idea is is our work has always been stop and go and stop and go and now it becomes continuous throughout the year and that I've really charged the The Faculty I'm not telling you what your charge is my charge to you is it's growth and achievement what I want you to do is tell me how we're doing it because in a true professional Learning Community I don't dictate what it is it has to become the problem of practice from within and then from there it is really launching how do we get there so this particular goal is the creating of the plc's and it's also the structure and areas around it this is happening in all content areas and programs throughout the building and it's really about if we focus on instruction we focus on engagement you're going to see growth and so and I think with those areas in in connection this is a really big CH game Cher for us and um and watching the content areas really be able to identify their areas of focus and start chipping away at really um seeing where they can take their growth there's a graphic I just want to share with you quickly I shared with the department leaders to share tomorrow in our in our work that it's really not about adding another thing onto their plate it's really about making sure we have the right things on the plate that we're looking at in our work so the last the last couple of goals is our future ready program and it's really the exciting work of really the of moving this High School in a direction to ensure that every single student is Future Ready it's our Innovative Pathways designation in advanced manufacturing which which is an incredible honor for the school but now it's important that we're taking that pathway and we're embedding all the things that have to be in there to make sure that the 40% of our seniors who are not intending to go on to postsecondary education that they have everything that they need to take the step forward and so that is the important work with this through our senior internship program we started with the class of 25 with really doing pre-work in the late winter of really where do they see themselves and that became the trajectory of the work of identifying for this year's senior class um where their internships were taking them but also work experience if we can get our students to be in full-time placement in a in a job someplace in our community or Beyond and really earning the hours for an apprenticeship or uh hours for Union then that's really important for us to be doing the connections to world world experiences not only in their internship experience but also in the classroom as well but also really career Readiness it is a mission of our school counseling department thanks to all of them and through Kevin avat and Jeffrey Sylvia it's really making sure the fact that as we're doing all the college readiness programming that we're doing we're also doing an equal compliment of ensuring the fact that students have the exposure to Career Readiness opportunities for them that they can step right out of the high school and be ready for that lastly last two is vision of The Graduate it's really taking our work of our accreditation I just want to really thank Mrs Lions and the District Administrative team because this entire goal was really a high school goal only that became out of compliance because we needed to have it for accreditation however as we started really working at our vision of The Graduate we became that it's so much more than that and so really for the high school it's the continual implementation of the vision of The Graduate what do we see in it is it working are we speaking to it but also are our students seeing it as well but also the second bullet there the partnership and Leadership of the high school working with the district it has now become the vision of The Graduate the Vision just doesn't start in kinderg excuse me in freshman year high school it actually starts in kindergarten when they begin their journey in Middleboro and lastly just one of the big targets that we have for the district or for the high school is really making sure we have performance assessment benchmarks which is important for us I put that date there because a year from now I'll be coming before you all um as we are on the doorstep of our denal accreditation process that will happen next October these benchmarks is going to be able to take um our vision of the grad and be able to look at a kindergartner and to be able to say what does critical thinking look like in K1 and two then what does it look like in 3 through 5 and 6 through 8 and 9 through 12 and that is the ultimate goal by the time we come back together again in September that we will actually be having the first draft of these performance benchmarks to be able to say what does these skills look like going from grade to grade and level to level and the last one which personally for me is I think the Cornerstone of any strong school it's your school culture um and I'm really excited by the work that we're doing this year of really ensuring that our students are feeling engaged and belong at this build in this building the first one is the Freshman experience you've seen me come before you in the past our school council has seen it about the Freshman Academy we really blew it up this year because we thought we needed to be doing better with our in transitioning of our ninth graders into the high school and we created a program called The Freshman experience that is being done through our PE Department because of the PE requirement in grade n a program called Fit for Life we found an unbelievable entry point of taking every single n9th grader having them all have their PE class in the fall semester and they're having embedded in there of all the skills of surviving ninth grade from time management to organization to relationships everything about really how do you navigate the transition from middle school to high school um and our PE teachers have really done a fabulous job of of looking at that and I just wanted to make sure that is the goal for us to be looking at to assess it and then to be able to see what we do with the class of 2029 um really looking at our Student Activities profile making sure we have something for everybody and ensuring that we have all of these programs with advisors and contacts on the school website really the work of I have to give um kudos to the Middle School especially to Meg Mar Ari because of the work that she did of really assessing and collecting data on our Rising nth graders that are here now why did they choose to come to middlebar high school but more more important ly why did they not and to be able to look at that and be able to say what are the entry points we should be doing as we begin the transition from middle to high school um really now um and that start strong program and our senior buddy compliment is really something that's come out of that the relaunching of the principal's round table which allows for me to be able to have our our student leaders from all facets of our school Community from Athletics to the Arts to activities the Big A's to have them sit at a table with me and talk about what's working in our school but more importantly what can be better and the last two pieces as our sense of belonging and that is really through our data points through our Panorama data through our tier interventions that we're doing in the classroom and to make sure that when our students are engaging in student life here at the high school do they feel like they're a part of something and that's really vitally important for us and then lastly just focusing on our peer-to-peer engagement this was something that our Nas accreditation said we were doing fabulous in our faculty thought we could be doing better and I think it's just really the constant body of work work of us really making sure the fact that our students can engage each other they can resolve conflict together and to make sure the fact that they can grow into prospering adults and I just thought it was important to share with you here's the plan but I thought it was important for you as a committee as our community and members of the school council that are here of what we have actually done thus far um the AP teacher PLC we had our September Think Tank we're preparing to do an October meeting that will be taking all of their AP data data and doing a form dive Humanities and stem working together to look at trends of where they saw our students were really strong but more importantly areas that they were not professional learning communities the first meeting started on October 3rd um and every Department leader has been given the charge that at any point I should be able to walk to Any teacher or any Department leader and say tell me what we're doing to help our students grow and to achieve if they can answer that question then I know the fact we're on the right track unpacking data we're really excited about tomorrow that that is our Daya day that we're taking this data from Star 360 using it as the menu I've really seen where our students need to be going and then also our MCAT data to be looking at really what worked for us last year what do we tweak and then also what do we enhance and that's all happening tomorrow across all content areas with the exception of Fine Arts and PE those two departments are redesigning their instructional framework because we recognize that what Mr moer does in theater is going to look vestly different than say maybe the algebra 1 teacher so want to make sure we're being respectful of really what that looks like and then also the leadership team PLC looking at grading practices that will begin at the end of the month Innovative Pathways um that is work we are doing currently the vision of The Graduate the entire district is coming together on October 21 and then also obviously the continual work at school culture so at that point that is our our school Improvement plan for this year we're really excited by it and I'm happy to take any questions you may have thank you bran I did have just a a I don't know if it's a question as much of a point of clarification so the the PLC time that you were talking about and and that the wonderful 40 hours I am pretty sure from the way you presented the schedule previously that that time for the teachers is built into the existing school day we're not talking about staying after for faculty meetings we're we're building it all into the day so that the teachers can do it as part of their school day right it is thank you for that question so if I can clarify it so as you know contractually every teacher has two after school meetings a month so those meetings have been dedicated to PLC work the common planning time is built through our success block so we just had that today so every Tuesday and Thursday we have our success blocks for about 45 minutes of time where the students are choosing where they need to go or teachers are signing students up what we did this summer is based upon our data points of looking at what worked last year and what did not we end up cohorting the entire faculty so we have four cohorts and every four sessions like today was the science department and PE that is the cohort so today the entire building is in success time students and staff the whole entire science department and technology department and PE separately were in their PLC time today they're common planning so every cycle there is 16 of those opportunities that start throughout the year we opted to take the pretty much the beginning of September to do all the trainings we needed to be doing with our staff but also the trainings we need to be doing with our students so our first cohorts of we just literally started cohort number one again on Tuesday so we've only gone through one rotation so it's a combination then of of having that that joint time during the day and using what would traditionally be faculty meeting time in the post school um block those twice okay great thank you you're welcome uh couple thoughts maybe a question um first I just want to say Kudos uh of the way that you described your the transformation of the way that you're using data um not just as whether we passed or failed but more how to inform the road map for our students uh which is a I think a a the best perspective of how we can use data informed decision making so just had to say kudos to that um other question that I had uh was around when you were talking about advanced placement uh and you talked about not only how well our students performed but uh the numbers of students that are participating um is that something that we want to increase because we are it's an area that we think is not a strength for us the number of our students that are enrolled in it or just as a matter of course it's something that you want to strengthen I think it's a little bit of both um Mrs Panini I I think that it is I'm a very big believer and I students will say that I say this to them all the time is I want them to take academic risks because I think that only just prepares them for the next stage of life and so if they're in a college preparatory program I really want them to try an honors class at some point before they graduate or conversely in however I think one of the things that we have been working at especially with this year with this year's cohort of AP students we were much more intentional about why they were taking AP what they wanted out of AP but also how many APS they were taking because there was a sense the fact that you needed to take five APS because I have to take the AP but in actuality is it really important for you to take all of that one is it appropriate two do you have the ability to do all of that but then third is it really meaningful work for you as well so what we did this year is that for students who signed up for AP courses we really vetted the whole process with them like what was the why behind it is it that you really want to go into a stem subject so you're taking AP Chemistry or AP phys or AP um um computer science or something like that and so but it's also I think finding the balance between having students engage in that but then at the same EXA time I think the more important work that we need to be doing is making sure for the student who's starting their High School experience in a college preparatory program that that this the step of getting to AP is not Monumental and that really needs to be the work that we're doing so that when the student who's walking into advanced placement who may be taking this academic risk that they're not a complete fish out of water that it's really making sure that they can do it and that's all really part of our kind of looking at our leveling really the pre-ap program that we can be embedding which is really the skills of AP um and so that's really kind of the really the energy we're putting in this year is to make sure that the access is there but that everyone can take it but they can walk in feeling that they can do it thank you one more yeah please uh last one is about career and internships uh which is uh something that I've begun to watch Blossom here in in middleb which I think is wonderful in career career Readiness for graduates uh and my question is this if if is a barrier to getting to where you want to be with that um the number of Partners in the community that you have and if so um is that something that the school committee as one of our functions is to be ambassadors within the community um is that something that we can be helpful with yeah thank you for that question um we can always use more Partners but I will say that between the work of people like Tammy Miller who's our school to career counselor people like Tony cupy who has been really instrumental in the Innovative Pathways um you know designation that all part of that is really building these Community Partners and we've been very fortunate with the people who have partnered with us to be able to work with our students you know we have some students right now just one this morning he said this is the greatest year of of my school career and I said why is that he says because I'm not here a lot and um so and what he's doing now is that he spends a good chunk of his day as as a diesel mechanic which is exactly what he wants to do and so he comes in he does what he needs to do academically for for requirement but then he's doing exactly what he needs to be doing and wants to be doing and that career piece is so vital for us that I think the more Partners we can have um is in getting our students from here to there is really I think um really the most vital I would like to offer myself as someone that if uh Tony or whomever um would want someone from in official capacity to help build uh the pool of potential Partners I'd be more than willing to do that thank you very much I'll be in touch along those lines um Carolyn I was just thinking at the town meeting on Monday the town voted to uh bring rexa Rex was one Rex was one of the on into the the the you know it's going to take a bit but can't hurt to start working on that relationship well so what's exciting is that rexa is a light manufacturing company coming here to Middleboro and we now have a pathway for light for manufacturing right here in our district so uh I already spoke with director avat and also principal brand again about this so our brains are already great sort of thinking about how we can partner with this new company here in town once they arrive and um also help our students better access Hands-On training yeah so I I foresee that happening for wonderful great thank you principal BR again you thank you everyone and with that we will turn to the Nicholls Middle School I think you can leave up that uh slide deck that principal ban had up I'll invite Dr Heather Tucker to the table and we can talk about the Middle School school Improvement plan much like the high school you will see the same four strategic initiative icons um denoted as all Improvement plans are tightly connected to our district strategy so welcome Dr Tucker thank you good evening everyone um I also want to recognize the current and while I did remove the names of the last um board I do want to thank everybody who does donate their time for the importance of um trying to make improvements in school being part of the community of the nickels and looking forward to what can we do to continue to support our students to develop and grow um and I'd say particularly at the middle school level where there's so much growth and development happening in those three years um I just wanted to provide for you a few um sort of highlights um while my goals did not have or the school Improvement goals did not have significant changes the way in which we're attacking them is much more intentional and much more um specified because we needed the ability so this is my second year as the principal so this is you know my second plan and with that we needed to look at the structure and Frameworks from which to Anchor the work that we wanted to do and so over last school year we had um started a new schedule and then we had started another new schedule this year and it is not common that you have two schedules back to back but I think what we were able to do was to identify what do we need to continue to drive instruction forward to increase our student outcomes and this new schedule actually provides that structure um very much like um the PLC time for the professional learning communities for our faculty to be able to dig into the work that needs to happen um creating an advisory block for students because we had some additional teaching and learning that is you know special to middle school around executive functioning um you know just growth and development of social skills um it allows us to be much more intentional with our data-driven decision- making um we have more opportunities in terms of last year we laid out what is tier one and tier two instruction what does that mean this year we're really able to apply what is happening in tier one what is happening in tier two bless you um how are we using those during our child study meetings how are being more intentional with those interventions that small group instruction we're doing during our Wind Block Wind Block was a new structure we put in place last year to be able to provide more individualized interventions to students um last year we were really able to get PBIS um the positive behavior um initiative systems like back in back running and we were able to launch a whole new um lunch Legends was a whole new piece to try and you know catch students being good rewarding them for that in the cafeteria it was something that found such great success it was launched maybe in January that we are we started it right within the you know the second week of school of you know student earning tickets by teachers who are supervisory I think that's the other piece our new schedule is provided is more staff to be able to do supervision in the cafeteria in the hallways just to help guide students um through maintaining appropriate and expected behaviors um we launched you know as we continue to build um programs for students we launched a new Mentor program for sixth grade students to be mentored by seventh and eighth grade students so those are just some of the highlights that have come out of um looking at where we were last year what are things that we want to be able to do okay excuse me so for us um very thankful for um when when we go and create a school Improvement plan the the process that we went through was to take the the district um Improvement plan and actually break it down for what does that look like at Nicholls what did we want to achieve in the 23 24 school year what do we want to achieve in the 2425 school year knowing that that is a multi-year plan how are we breaking that down through um through the Improvement plan process here and this is why some of what I'm going to say sounds very similar to what principal Bagan had to say and we should be aligned and our our um under the the guidance and Leadership of the um great work done by the curriculum Department with laying out instructional framework laying out the data driven protocols we are in a place for professional learning for the staff of how to be um it's not that we didn't have data and didn't look at data but how are we um being more intentional with the data and how are we digging further into um um those star 360 the mcast any of the ISL the the work that the students are doing to find out what do we need to do you know from a curricular standpoint what does individual students need and how can we do that so um for us last year when we were doing PLC time we were doing that on Wednesdays and you know each sort of curriculum Department got something maybe you know once every six weeks once every eight weeks now in our six days schedule with the way that we have um reallocated time staff now have 2 53 minute plc's twice in a six day cycle that is so much more time to be able to analyze student work to be able to collaboratively discuss what do we see what do we notice and how are we going to support students to extend their learning to further their growth um to remediate any skill deficits um also we had started the initiative last year of trying to push our our faculty meetings um if it could have been an email it was um you know I have a very lengthy Monday morning memo that I sent out to all the staff of all the things so it doesn't have to be part of the faculty meeting so we can use that time in order to continue to look and examine our practices either as a building or within the Departments um and we also created subcommittee time um in on months where there are like like four Thursdays or four of a day our meeting days happen to be on Thursday we have three um extra faculty meetings where we are calling them subcommittee meetings and one of the things our subcommittee is going to focus on this year is developing a program of studies for the middle schools so families understand what happens in these different subjects what does that look like across the years it's something that we haven't had that we're looking to develop one because I think it brings greater Clarity to what's happening in the Middle School it's another vehicle of commity communication and information sharing for families um so last year we developed that common language and understanding of what when was what is our data doing this year we have greater focus into how are we applying that data for increased student outcomes okay so as part of not only having the data but what are we doing with it and how are we using that different times um we know that when families say to us you know my kids losing assignments their backpack looks like everything's fallen out of it great that's Middle School we totally understand that that's where your child is developmentally however at middle school we need to actually teach some more direct skills in that executive functioning how do you manage an agenda so we bought a paper agenda for every single student and in advisory you know we have an advisory protocol open up your agenda take out your you know what assignments do you need to finish what assignments do you need to do you see um when you're walking through classrooms even so far as if a teacher is not giving homework write none so you know that you didn't just miss right I'm seeing a knot of a head that you not you didn't just forget to write it down it means there's actually not something in that class um in also the opportunity for us to help students as they navigate the social dynamics of middle school we tell you know everybody in elementary school you have to be friends with everybody it's not the same at Middle School you are allowed to be a little bit more selective does not mean you H you are allowed to be rude or mean to anybody else but you are allowed to identify what makes a good friendship and what's a good friendship for you and what do you have that are common interests and so actually building inal lessons that are short mini lessons that the teachers are able to do um we just launched you know um a slide deck for the staff to be able to do on what is friendships how do you set boundaries with those friendships what is bullying what is not bullying and being able to help students identify what does that learnning mean for them um in addition to um that monitoring how are we really using that star 360 Ela how are we grouping and regrouping students based on what that skill need is during that wi time um what's exciting is the counseling um the counseling department just um revised our Panorama um to the our Panorama um survey which actually you know asks more about um some some of that social emotional what what do you have a sense of belonging do you have a trusted adult what does that mean and we made it more tiered to our Nichols Middle School students um so this was a great revision and where I can't wait to see how that unfolds this year what kind of information do we get and how does this set Baseline for us to be able to measure against um so we talk a lot about how to create that sense of belonging and how students take more ownership autonomy in governance over their learning that's part of the reason why we bought everybody agendas we wanted to teach students how to actually look at what their work is how to manage that work how to actively break down those parts and pieces um you know we have had I think a really nice acclamation last year of sixth grade into the school but always thinking what else can we do what's one more um we had I think 56th graders and 80 sth and eighth graders who wanted to be paired in a mentor mentee program so um the seventh and eighth graders were creating questions that they could ask to find out what are commonalities they have with their mentee they gave specialized tours of the building um the next Mentor activity is October 22nd after school so it's something that we're looking to try and do you know a monthly or bimonthly to continue to build those friendships um across the building for somebody to be able to say hey I know what that feels like I did this last year um we want to continue to have those student celebrations of the things that students did well so trimester Awards was something that was new that was launched last year having content superstar that was something that was new launched last year um we continue out to have the be in the no um we applied for Playbook initiative so hopefully we'll gain that we have students doing the the Mark um so we're continuing to say what else can we do we also in creating that sense of belonging want to do those lessons around what is friendship what are boundaries what are bullying because it helps students to understand how they fit into the social community of the Nicholas school and how they behaviors impact people both you know positively or at times unintended consequences of the way somebody said something or an eye roll or what happens in middle school that nobody's meaning to be malintention and taking on those different perspectives um okay and in our um last goal we continue to think about ways in which we um bring families and partners into the school and how we make those connections and um Middle School is a little bit different you know families the elementary school just has it's Elementary um High School you have different public sort of events Middle School is a little bit tighter so how are ways in which we can bring um families in we changed our open house date to bring in um all of the families at once so if you had a sixth grader you didn't do it on one day and then two weeks later come back for another day we had every everybody in the building all together the energy was phenomenal it was great we made sure that we put out the different clubs we lined a hallway with all the different Flyers we moved where the UA teachers were so people had better access to find the teachers that their students did um we did it on the second day of school which I know was a little frightening for some sixth grade parents but it was the second day so people get to at least have met your child through the cycle and the seventh and eighth grade teachers got contact with their you know the families get to see their teachers even earlier and just putting that face with the name makes a huge difference when you're sending your child off to school um we have thought long and hard um you know there was a request um for a parent to figure out how can we have more parent volunteer opportunities so we actually I did um in August 21st maybe I did a parent volunteer training of what does that look like in the Middle School um we have a few parents that are serving as lunch ambassadors that are coming in you know I call it the Oscar of the Crouch everybody takes a trash barrel and you wheel it around and you you know collect trash as you go or you know you um guide students to sign out for the bathroom and we had some families that said I can't do the lunch but I would love to be in volunteer at a different event so now we have a bank of parents for if we're doing opportunities to bring to be able to come in so that's a nice partnership um we were discussing as the middle school administrative team that we want to give parents more information so we've actually created um on October 29th from 5: to 6:00 a parent information night we're going to talk a little bit about Internet safety what does student discipline look like in the building um what does Title One mean um you know what what are some of what does advisory mean now that your kids are there you now have the paper agenda that's been going back and forth so we wanted to bring families in to share a little bit more information that sort of makes sense now that your kids have worked through this new schedule and then the other piece that we really wanted to be able to do is to bring families in for what we're doing so we worked with the the staff we actually um shifted our parent teacher conferences so we we run on trimester so we now have one parent teacher conference per trimester and we turn the fourth one into a curriculum showcase night and so we will be bringing families in and the exciting part of the curriculum showcase night is families can go all through the building you can go back and say oh I remember when we did this in the sixth grade we did this project or wow I'm going to be in the eighth grade look at what we have to look forward to and we're looking to bring that curriculum experience out to families um which I think is a nice way to bring families in and and to get that openhouse feel but students to be able to see what other clusters did even though they're usually a lot of the same types of things and we have teachers now as they're looking at their instructional framework and the activi in lessons that they're having students do you know this would be really great for curriculum showcase night so I love the passion that we're getting in September October looking forward to that evening and so just F future Focus we're going to continue to do that deep dive into Data analysis to identify areas for that continued skill growth and really being intentional and specific with what that is and really applying that analysis during those plc's for our multi-tiered system of supports how are we looking at student needs to be able to move students whether you're a high achieved student and we're moving you forward how do we get everybody to move a bump up how do we continue to support kids to grow um we want to be able to um think about what are those specialized learning opportunities look like and talking with teachers around their educator goals what are those interventions looking like what does that that specially designed instruction look like I know PBIS is launching so I can't wait to see what they bring back to us with this is what we want this year's Focus that lunch Legend piece so you know we have the tiger stripes that came out of I think a PBIS and it's ongoing now we have lunch Legends and it's ongoing what else can we build um continuing to look at those you know student leadership programs student celebrations um digging into fifth to sixth grade transition and actually looking at how have we done it and what can we do in the springtime and how do we launch actually um not the full-on brand experience of heading to high school but how do we do a you know a a student strong start for our sixth graders to bring them in so that's part of our discussion that we want to be able to figure out and how to launch as well and then um continued partners with families and again I think you know that's such a great opportunity for you know the school council or subc committies to look at that program of studies it's just one more opportunity that we can try and bring more information to families so they really get a good sense of what's happening in their child's everyday life okay thank you any questions for Heather yes um I love the idea of the program of studies I know that some of the the titles of classes in Middle School have changed through the years and it's uh interesting to um try to figure out what it means so I love the idea that there would be that process um I also love the potential then of tying that program of studies into the vision of The Graduate and where does the middle school program of studies transition you into the high school program of studies and and you know what's the next step if you took this math class in 8th grade then that puts you here when you start off um just to have that trajectory kind of available as the the students start thinking about what's next um you know don't want to terrify them in sixth grade but at least to to start that um I also love the the mentor program um it's um is it something that like if you welcome a new student in in the middle of the school year or is that going to be something that you could extend to those you know new students coming in and get them partnered up with a mentor absolutely I think that's wonderful and and hopefully the the students will start to you know if you have sixth graders you have a mentor hopefully that means you'll start to have more and more students interested in being mentors as you to expand the program so um some great ideas and wish you uh continued success and in uh implementing things thank you any more questions or comments yes always um and like Jess uh lots of really interesting things that you're implementing and and I know as a new principal of coming in with new ideas and at the beginning it seems like I'm always just turning up these new ideas and they're getting started um as compared to Mr ban who's been doing it a while and it's an on an ongoing process um it must feel like a bit of an onslaught and and I I want you to know that I I appreciate that I I understand that so it's within that context that I ask a couple questions sure um one just want to understand a little bit better about some of these overarching uh initiatives like mentoring uh the executive functioning um initiatives of having the agenda but then how to use the agenda and and other things that go along that where is that embedded is it and this is going to show my lack of information uh is there a Home Room time now still where that that is initially generated and reinforced throughout the day in different classes or is there a specific time during the day where uh during the day where there's a a block of time that in my day we would have called a study uh that that it's embedded in there how do you do that it's a little bit of both so we started with The Home Room teachers handing out agendas explaining what an agenda is now the child should be student should be traveling class to class with their agenda so homework is posted on the board the teachers are saying write that down what do you have to do but when we're getting to advisory um just because we say write it down and we check and I know a lot of the teachers are stamp and and writing um sometimes students just didn't quite finish their in-class work or they started homework and didn't quite finish that it's you know so where does that checkbox work so we in our um in our schedule we did revise to create this advisory block okay for direct instruction in those executive functioning skills we wanted to carve out specific time so within that within that block of time we want students to be able to open up their agenda what do I have to do what am I missing let me look at my Aspen do I have a zero or not turned in did I think I turned it in and just not hit click which happens right and and we know that that happens with students or I was supposed to turn it in and it's still on my notebook then what do I do can I can I bring it to the teacher right then how what what do I need to be able to do with that we wanted opportunities for um social skills development and in the last block schedule it was all core academics and we didn't have an extra block to be able to push in some of those lessons and not that we want um all of this instruction is important and all of this is part of our instructional framework but we want to make sure that we have that opportunity to help students learn and grow and you know just learn more about who they are and what they like and and what does that mean so we we carved out a specific time for that called advisory students have advisory three times out of the six day schedule that's great thank you and so we we had to actually redo how our unified Arts were working in order to have you know we only have um we have approximately 12 teachers we need to have 10 in order to cover class numbers gets tight at nine so we had to make sure we had enough uas to cover and the UA needed to get their prep and their advisory time so the schedule itself was kind of complex but worth so if a student does need to see something or we've had students that um right now we have some teachers on duty and some are doing advisory but the kid might be able to go next door because the whole grade level's off and say hey math teacher I don't understand this problem can you help me sure so there's some little opportunities for a little additional extra help um also the school counselors when they're analyzing the Panorama data they can say all right maybe we need to create an anxiety group so we have these students that we may take during this time to do that type of support or a frustration management or a distress tolerance or um whatever that data may show um so that's where it C that out thank you very much okay last question of course um do you have a data group uh when you talk about uh people getting together and looking at the data and deciding where the where the gaps may be or where we need to is there a group of people that are doing that is that done so tomorrow is the big data launch um you know kind of across the district so we have all of our curriculum departments have you know the mcast data that they are you know sort of dissecting to see what are the themes what are the trends what are the notices um but are there a specific I guess my question is someone coaching people on how to look at that that yes yes yes yes yes yes so it's collaborative work between the principles and the curricul department and the department leads so we have Department leads that are facilitating each of the department meetings great but everybody's being trained to do that that's what I was wondering thank you okay that's all I have thank you Heather thank you okay thank you very much so with that I will turn to the next item which is our transportation update so if we can go back to our previous slide de and I'll invite Mr Benson to help me co-present we met a couple of weeks ago with Terry carvalo from Five Star there was some question and comment during public comment about some Transportation concerns Mr Benson Miss carvalo and I sat down to talk um pretty extensively about those concerns and I have with me some information tonight you know recapping what that conversation was so Mr Benson I'll start with with you and then you know jump in as you as you prefer um I thought it was a very productive meeting we we talked a lot about communication and information uh and collaborated and I think um what we came up with was either recognize that things were already happening to solve the problems or Solutions going forward sure yes we talked um so what this slide here is just the timeline of routing we talked pretty extensively about what does that process look like and we thought it would be helpful to kind of talk a little bit about that tonight so the community can see that this is a process that really starts in the spring there have been multiple meetings between Middleboro and um five star with the specific intent of trying to have a smooth open um I'm also happy to share that I have not received any questions or concerns um over the last several weeks nor has Miss carvalo nor has Mr ciciliano or Miss gine which which I think is I think you should repeat that after the after the first two weeks um which is difficult and I I don't want to minimize that that is a a point of frustration for families but there has just been a very sharp decline in any concern which is a testament to five star and the preparedness um and the high quality of the service that we are providing over 72 square miles so after those spring meetings we actually meet during the summer again with MPS and fivar these are internal meetings but during these meetings we're talking about communication what information are we sharing with families and at what point um something that I can share for next year that we're that we definitely is a big takeaway for us we do not survey our families to say are you going to use transportation we don't do that because we route for every single student we shouldn't be doing that and anybody who's been in our five buildings in the parking lot at dismissal will tell you we have many many children that are parent transported each day now all students are entitled to Transportation so nobody will be forced out but I do think it would help if we know we're 3,200 students and only 2700 need transportation that makes this task different so that's something already that we're going to be carrying forward next year um the rollover which I don't think most people understand your school year has to electronically roll over so the 2 3 24 school year has to close out formally before you can open the 2425 school year that includes rosters of students students who have graduated students who are aging in or moving buildings that happens in July and you cannot route until that rollover happens we call it in the industry a rollover um so fivar really has between mid July to Mid August to root all of the all of the students what we can do on our end is get a better handle on the number and you know using this time five star every every bit needs those four weeks it sounds like hey how much can it possibly move but quite honestly it moves a lot five star is very Dynamic about constantly analyzing is this is this road on time or do we have new ride new uh Riders do we need to make adjustments and they are they they're making adjustments year round so that's something that they need um the other thing that happens is that family move uh move in or move away or move within our district and then new students come in continually throughout the summer this does create a delay you wouldn't necessarily think that it would be that honorous but truly it is if you already have a route established you have three New Riders it sounds minor I assure you it's not so that can't be helped that that's part that's the nature of our business but that's one of the reasons why we can't release those roots at the beginning of August as an example um we're you can talk with uh Kitty gine about this we talk about it pretty regularly we're our admissions are rolling there is no time when you can't come so that does present a bit of a problem that I think all communities face um once we do get the roots once you know five star has verified their Roots um and we have the roots there's additional information that needs to be verified I know there was some concern about this year in feeling like that information was released later but it it was done that way to avoid last year's issue where a lot of information when it's incorrect in Aspen so you know you you solve one problem but sometimes open up another and I think that was something that was happening there after that point roots are released and then the drivers actually practice their roots and I thought that was important you know to share there were some other concerns I want to make sure I touch upon because there was a concern about the accurate timetable of roots this was actually a point of discussion between MPS and festar whether or not that whole route should be public ultimately each parent needs to know ex the time that they have to be outside to drop their child off and the time that they have to be back they don't actually know need to know the whole route but since we produce that information the natural question is why is that inaccurate and it's important to understand that roots are generated by a by computer software it is not done by a human that software decides using ultimately an algorithm how long things are going to take and and that's just it's a flawed system one of the um one of the points was how come if the two stops are next door there's eight minutes in between because a program a computer program decides that it takes eight minutes for one child to get on a bus at house a move one house down and get to house B and pick up that second child we we are not able to adjust that but it is the reason we put a Proviso on our we website that these are estimates only I recognize that that is frustrating but this is how rooting through through software works and um I think it's important to to remember that that these are estimates um there was some concern about late arrival to schools outside of the first few days of school I am simply not seeing that evidence I am also not seeing evidence of students not having access to breakfast in one example the schools actually rotate I think in two examples the schools rotated how breakfast would be handed out to cut down on students having to walk throughout the building to get to the cafeteria and then get to their classroom that was an accommodation to make sure our kids aren't walking all over the building to get what they need um but students have at all times had access to free breakfast um and I don't see that as being um a major issue the other question was about verification of roots are these roots actually verified and in fact they're double verified they're verified by festar and then verified by MPS and on this note what I'll tell you is we do our best to verify we don't always have accurate information because of shifts so when people move or when there's something late that can cause the discrepancy but they are verified the dry run or the practiced route is something else that happens all drivers are running their routes prior to taking students on board and it's important to know that Roots will continue to be adjusted to ensure that they're Timely I know in some cases that was some of the concern why did my child's bus change or why did this have to be shifted the only time we make a shift like that is either to accommodate more riders or to shorten the time span so that our buses get to school on time five stars Mission as is ours is the safe transport of children and I'm proud of the work that they've done and I think that we have responded to the concerns that have been expressed and I also will say as a testament we're seeing buses arrive on time leave on time I will say that with a big kind of star next to it a lot of things impact Transportation weather traffic road construction I have some folks here from the mech and they can tell you there was road construction very recently and that throws a monkey wrench in everything so I would ask you know if you have concerns please reach out um please remember that we are doing the best we can I know five star is doing the best they can um and sometimes there is more patients needed than we would like to have to have and I understand that um I think that can be frustrating especially when you have very young children in particular um but this is sort of the nature of the size of our town um but I wanted to thank Mr Benson and I also wanted to thank Miss carvalo for their help um I do think our transportation is running very smoothly any questions about that or anything I missed Mr Benson no I I think um giving the information out and I think we talked uh maybe reaffirming this maybe in early August next year just to give families a new families a timeline and just so they know exactly what's happening um is very important so and also thank you for Miss cavalo for attending and and uh that meeting was very productive Chris did you have any were there any outstanding issues that you thought uh needed to be addressed in and but weren't sure that it was addressed in the way that you wished no I think um we we talked about you know the communication piece and and just getting the information out there and um I haven't received any uh information that Transportation isn't going along smoothly so I I think since then it's been it's been pretty smooth good thank you and and I agree that that reminding people of this kind of General how the process goes over the summer um including that you know even though you were on this bus last year it may not be the same bus next year because you may have had changes in the student population so give us the necessary time and we'll get it out as soon as possible but um that is just unfortunately you know as somebody who grew up in The Boondocks of this town and always wished that I didn't have to be the second to L stop on the the drive home and why couldn't the bus just go the other way I get the frustration um but uh yeah it is a um it's very helpful to see what the process is and to just get that that reinforced where how it goes and um I think the reminders and the channels for communication um at that point as well and and what's the best route for if I'm having an issue do I go to the principal I go to Five Star what's what's the best process for the issue to be addressed as smoothly as possible would be another great thing to include in that communication um and that completes my report for this evening just one quick thing Chris thank you for taking that on and for helping make sure that this got put together and Terry thank you for for participating as well moving on to item number six uh masc Mas joint conf uh joint conference in hyanis is taking place November uh 5th through the 8th um if you haven't signed up yet may I ask who's attending uh yeah I believe Alan is also attending as well you going to join us Chris uh unfortunately uh the weekdays make it tough oh yeah got to work huh yeah yeah it's it's great fun I know that all of us are going to you know learn something really valuable like the had a great takeaway the last time I went last year here so aesome thank you um item seven the uh consent agenda I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moved second um all those in favor say I I I uh all opposed it's unanimous see can we just take a moment to recognize the donations yes absolutely let you go um go ahead you go well actually before you get to the donations which I also want to take the opportunity to say thank you for um I do have a special guest here this evening and Miss Val rufo who is uh been a very treasured special education teacher here for a few decades now and I wanted her to come and talk tonight one of the things you just approved is a standing fundraiser um M rufo has been instrumental in the development of our Asim program which is a special education program here at the high school she focuses her she's taught with students at all levels at the high school level for as long as I've been here but she's been most recently working with our postgraduate students ages 18 through 22 and she's way too modest so she's not going to tell you about the robust programming that she provides and shapes for these children that ranges from um Food Service food prep um catering um Expo you name it she can do it and she works with our students to Not Just Produce some of the best food I've ever had because it's delicious and I highly recommend you come visit the Cranberry Cafe but now she's taken it one step further and determined a way to allow kids to add even more learning units to this process where they can actually sell products really not for fundraising purposes in the in the pure sense but to actually continue the the funds for materials and supplies so I'd like to turn it over to miss rufo who um she has brought you have actually the slide deck in front of you she's brought photos of some of her work um and I can attest firsthand to not just the amazing work of these students but the the way that she confers skills to these kids to enable them to enter adulthood um in a competitive market with real marketable skills so with that Miss rufo thank you um Mrs Haley's gonna take it first and good evening so um as superintendent lion said we are here to talk about a standing fundraiser proposal that would certainly support our post-graduate program um Mrs Valerie rufo is the Beloved special ed teacher behind the program and has really developed this 18 plus program to be able to access our community to be prepared for what life looks like um after 22 so I'm going to very quickly I promise go through um just a little description about what the ases program is our as program actually starts as early as the elementary schools travels through the middle school and then meets us at the high school where it serves students from um grades 9 through 12 and then continues into our postgrad program and so it it's truly a program for student specialized students who require that substantially separate setting um and are working on a combination of academic skills and functional life skills and so for some of these students they um may get to 12th grade and they're receiving a diploma and they're um moving on to either continued education or um a vocational track and then other students are going to remain with us they're going to return to us for the 18 plus program and that's really what we're talking about today some of the focus areas of these of this program um are really kind of what I said the independent living skills academic support organization social skills um we have have overall related services that um work really push into the program because it's so unique in that um students are really not in the building all that much they're out they're working in the community and when they are in the building they're doing um more vocational driven activities and so our related services are really pushed into that and and how how are they able to access real world application with those skills um and so these are I won't go through every everything because I'm sure you can read through them but these are the major buckets um in which the postgrad program would be working on those skill sets so you can see self- advocacy that's really looking at that IEP recognizing um Their Own Strength within and how they can goal set um money career exploration job Readiness time management health safety um and then that inter agency connection because after 22 many of these stud students are then going to continue with supports and services through um our agencies through the state so mass rehab commission the Department of Developmental services and so we we work closely with those agencies um and so this really ties closely to uh principal branagan's um School Improvement plan goal four where we talk about future Readiness this program really is truly future Readiness so um you know that drawing that connection um again we talk about the Community Partnership so some of the things that our students have done um is work in in local small businesses within Town um they did a wonderful project through um the Pratt Farm where they created signage for um hikers so they were able to identify different um plants and animals throughout our PR Farm which was great um working at the Town Hall things of that nature um I know I heard earlier tonight that um Miss Panini you talked about being an advocate for Community Partnerships if you have anything in mind for specialed students we're always looking to partner with other um you know other businesses in town so we would love to you know partner with you on that sure um and so here's just some more pictures of some of the work that the students have done and Miss rufo is going to tell you some specifics about the Cranberry Cafe um before I start I just uh really want to thank the administration Carolyn Jen Paul um currently Kim orc and many other admin on my way through this journey um the support they've given me the trust they've given me in taking care of this program um I also want to recognize this education support staff because without that they are they are the backbone to what I do every day um so the education support staff right now is Jason bean and Glend desplain and I just really have to credit them for a lot that goes on um this is just going to be a snapshot of what we do in the cranber cafe because as uh Mrs hly had mentioned we have the fitness uh program at the YMCA that Jeanie Williams helps us run um and we have many Community connections throughout the week There's sometimes six to 12 different Community Partnerships that we have but the cranberry Cafe um we presently uh serve uh staff members uh We've changed it to Thursdays because we uh able to go to the bridge State College on Fridays now that is something that we uh just started with the tab program over there and to get prepared for the cafe we have a range of skills there's menu planning we create um and fill the shopping list and then they go out in the comparison shop uh we use the actual money to purchase and the money that we use is use the following week to buy more products so we can make more more meals um each student has to go through the food handlers uh course through the town it's on the volunteer level um and on the next slide Jen is um a sample of the weekly order form that we send out to certain staff um I shouldn't say certain staff but some staff um enjoy eating there others like to just do what they normally do so we uh our students interact with them give them this so there's some communication skills going on with this and at the bottom there's a small clip uh and we'll show you it's a register that we just recently purchased that we're very proud of we were using a little cash box for a long long time and as a student is doing this that he's interacting with the staff and telling them to have a good weekend or sometimes other things do you never know um on the next slide there's just some quotes and I just want to highlight a couple of them um Mr Breen stated that the Cranberry Cafe provides a wonderful opportunity for students to experience real life hands Hands-On job skills in a real environment the food is delicious and it's a wonderful treat to visit the C Cafe each week and there's several other quotes there from teachers that just uh enjoy coming um some people say it's the highlight of their week on the next page um there's just some ideas on expansions and some things that we've already done as far as um just making different gifts for family members and everybody um that allows them to go to the picture up the top is at Home Depot uh we've gone out to Sawmills we use local farmers markets uh we were out there this week buying butter nut for the squash that we made um so all that communication and interaction with people in our Partnerships um we'd like to expand and we started growing some plants last year and we'd like to really utilize that Greenhouse but in order to do that you have to have the money coming in and coming out to buy more product um we also uh have I've talked to Mr Branan about the store trying to have some items that students could come in and buy and we would hope to maybe do some cross-curriculum work with uh um Mr Cy in the my lab and maybe sell some product there so that's where we're at Jen great so ultimately we know that um anytime there's a fundraiser that it would be something that we would bring to school committee's attention and I think the nature of this program is that fundraisers are happening throughout the entirety of the school school year it's really the very nature of what we're trying to do um but it's a fundraiser to really continue the growth of the program um continue to be able to supply the kitchen with materials weekly um replace those old baking sheets and uh K you know Cutlery um or even be able to buy High higher quality products like a register or um you know an electric mixer things like that so that students are really able to um expand what they're doing and also um expand to areas like the greenhouse or making um seasonal items that they can be sharing so um what we would be requesting is that you would be approving a standing fundraiser for this particular program so that we can continue the the good work the students can continue the good work of making their products and she says replace old cookie sheet some of them we started this over at the old high school so some of of the equipment we used was equipment that the cafeteria was going to throw away and I said oh no no so for that yes so I took some of that but slowly we're replacing and able to purchase new items so do you have any questions for us no just Kudos uh what a wonderful program oh thank you thank you and and I do um off of the time if you want on Thursdays it's 10 to 12 that we're serving we have four lunches um but if and where is it again it's a right across from on this floor here yeah down on sewing um right past the conference room that's attached to the office okay and um yeah I welcome you you can send an email if you want or just pop by we usually have extra so we either serve soup and dessert sandwich and dessert or um we've done shepherd's pie and a few other items as well as the wind as the weather gets colder so please come by and see uh the students actually uh September the 2nd week into school uh we were getting ready to serve and about 20 minutes before serving time there was a fire drill and I was supposed to get the cafeteria set up and meet with Mrs Hy well she came in the room after we got back from the fire drill she came in the room and she watched the organized chaos of pulling it off and being done on time um and it was the best part of my day by far so I asked you to come by and and watch the students prep and prepare for this yeah and as Mrs lion said we have done some uh catering so we actually helped Mr mul what was that uh the yes so we we supplied them with food on a weekend so we're known to do some of that as well can we call a take I actually we do have a few people traveling we haven't started delivery yet but love [Laughter] that thank you both thank you thank you so I'll turn it back over to you but I I really did want to make sure we took a minute because this is a very special program very special Educators and I thought you would enjoy hearing about that absolutely thank you are our friends from the mech here for a reason our friends from the mech appear to be here uh just to was that about the fundraising support I saw it on the agenda that's the only reason why I asked no okay great glad you're here um was there another request I just wanted to to say out loud the the donations that were just approved for acceptance so yeah I think In fairness I'll just run through all all the absolutely please so I'm starting with a postgraduate standing fundraiser B approval of warrants C donation from the Lewis family family for $1,500 uh D donation of a Kil from the Oak Point yard sale which might I say John Burbage was fantastic I really got to know him when I went there fantastic man uh and he was so gung-ho to to help and donate soon as we heard as soon as you heard that we might have been interested um e the fundraiser middleb High School class of 2027 um selling middleb merchandise F fundraiser M middleb high school student council homecoming dinner uh which is occurring October 16th and G the fundraiser Memorial early good child uh Childhood Center uh PTA uh with that I will move to uh Point uh excuse me uh the action items um which there is only one uh a uh out of district field trip this is to remain secret but still requires a vote so I will entertain a motion to approve the action item so moved do I have a second second all those in favor say I I I those opposed it's unanimous uh and number nine adjourn I will entertain a motion to adjourn so move second all Oppo sorry all those in favor I all opposed it's unanimous thank you very much have a fantastic rest of your night