##VIDEO ID:5XRWvqUiGXw## is that the bunch that is everyone okay so then I would like a a motion to adopt no participation as written in the agenda please so moved second he very well roll call vote starting with Pam is here again so we can start with her and we're back on track amam Nur Acton yes Sarah montue Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes am I next yes you are charling gabra Lancaster yes Sharon must Lexington yes Jeff stolin need him yes Alis delcas Joe yes very good my understanding is there's been no uh public comment is that correct that is correct correct very well we move on to the consent agenda now the way the consent agenda works is we take all the items together and if there's a problem with one of the item we bump it from the consent agenda there's actually two minor changes on the minutes so if there are no other changes on the minutes other than ones I'm going to mention then I think we can still do it with that modification of those two minor changes so there are any other changes to the three sets of minutes that we have here we've I don't think we've heard of any can I ask one question on the July ones yep um it says that the school committee goals um under that section it said that we were unable to achieve our that's one of the two changes okay good the two changes are exactly what you said under number 4A it stated that the school committee did not complete its goals that is incorrect the truth is that the school committee did not set any goals so that would be the first change is to change the statement from um the school committee did not complete its goals to the school committee did not set any goals last year because we didn't that'd be the first change the second change is in the minutes of March 21st the final action I believe was an action to adjourn the meeting but it didn't state it was an action to adjourn the meeting so we would add the fact that that was a action to adjourn the meeting and those are the uh two changes to the minutes so I'm I'm going to move that we um accept the consent agenda with those two changes to the minutes so moved a second second okay very good any other comments on the consent agenda yes um on the April 23rd minutes it looked like under the item about skills USA that there was a duplicate of information below the um below the vote it just like it looked like it repeated the two paragraphs from above that's just a typo um that would be in the April minutes April April and um the motion it was that under the motion to accept skills USA yes it was right underneath the motion it repeated the two paragraphs from above okay so this is the uh duplicated it was really two sentences uh M jazen confirmed that they are um compliance with overnight trip rules and policies relative to those things from the school district committee members wish the students good luck that's just repeated twice it's a typo so I would add to the motion to remove the second the repetition of that I think we can do that without any um major changes any other the table which is to adopt the consent agenda with those minor changes very well then bring it to a vote Pam Hamner sanon yes Sarah monteu Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes steo conquered yes sh gab Lancaster yes Sharon must Lexington yes Jeff yes H luas Jo yes okay have we heard from Maggie Julia I have not je okay then we will continue consent agender done so uh chair's report um I'm I'm going to ask the school committee to make a change in the order of the agenda and the reason is that under item 6A and B we have a guest and that guest may want to get home you know back early enough to create like you know nachos in order to watch the debate so I thought it would be a good thing to those items 6A and 6B to occur after item 5e of the chair's report think that um a through e will go reasonably quickly so if there's no objection I would like to make that one change in The Ordering of the agenda to allow the items under the superintendent report items 6A and 6B to occur after the chair's report item 5e is there any objection to that motion then I will say that was unanimous consent are there any um items that I do not know about for the good of the organization yes Charlene I don't know if you don't know about it but I just wanted to give a shout out to the Minuteman teams that have been doing so well so girls volleyball had a great game against Kip girls soccer team won three one over Northeastern um BL soccer team W one zero over nooba Tech uh there was a football win I believe it was varsity football one over roxburry 22 to zero and the JV uh football team also won their game yesterday so a lot of great wins starting of the seasons okay that is indeed for the good of the organization that I did not know about are there any items other items I'm going to hear I'm sure we're going to hear a lot of stuff at the principal's report of the star school year um Sharon I was just going to say for the good of the organization that the the principal did a lovely uh presentation for parents nice Q&A it was really informative there was a decent number of people there and I think it was a really nice um casual environment and setting and people I thought asked some good questions so that was really nice to be at and you give them a good rating for his answers Sharon he did a good job he was very open to all the questions The Good the easy ones and the hard ones okay very good and we're gonna hear a lot more from the principal shortly anything else for the good of the organization very good we move on and now I think Alice is going to have a couple comments and I will also have a comment or two about a h past school committee member who recently passed on the wonderful wonderful Carrie flood so Steve notified me about this and then um um Alice and I were talking and then she found that great link that you were sent about her and Alice has a few words about Carrie flood yeah so many of us were lucky enough to know Carrie flood she was um a member from 2011 to 2019 um I just wanted to recognize that she joined us during an incredibly challenging period when the district reorganized from 16 Town s to nine and she when we were gaining approval for a new building which as you know was one of the first vocational schools in Massachusetts to be a new school since the 70s I mean people said it couldn't be done so it was really you know a difficult difficult time and like a lot of people who become part of the Min and man Community she became kind of immersed in it and dedicated far more of her time than we were reasonably entitled to and I think be more than she thought she would be dedicating um she um she probably gave us full-time use of her skills and she had a lot of skills and also managed her family life and did other volunteer work and held down a full-time paying job on the side so it's really difficult to overemphasize the amount that you contributed and you all saw the obituary so you have seen the list of of services that she performed in her own Community from 1989 forward every role practically that you can imagine in town government and then um here for us she was an officer and a member of the finance subcommittee and um she was The Keeper of the voting spreadsheet when we first started doing the percentage voting and that was actually a pretty big deal because it was not always unanimous um she was the chair of the regional agreement subcommittee when we had 16 member towns and and we were one of the largest school committees in Massachusetts I think we were the second or the third largest um she was clever and courageous and strategic contributor and she rolled up her sleeves and she got to work for minute man when we needed her the most and she was truly an incredible human being miss her it's hard it's hard to add to that except it to say that nothing that Al said was an exaggeration in any way one of the best people I've ever had um the pleasure of working with um great moral compass and we could we could send a note to her daughter who works for the the town of conquered just a thought um there also is a a calling hours um I believe this coming Saturday at D Funeral Home in in conquer from 2: to 4: um for anybody's interested and there are donations at uh they specified in the link uh where to make donations and beh so we'll take a very brief moment of silence and memor of especially those who really can remember uh the wonderful Cary flood okay back to work we have talked um since about uh June about the possibility of a uh School Community Retreat this fall and the thinking well actually we were thinking about it maybe during the summer they said that doesn't make any sense because Heidi should have a chance to you know be engaged before we do it and then um I think early fall is not going to work out um for number of reasons I think Heidi should be a little further along in setting her grand plan which is going to present in February a little further along that and most importantly the vote coming in November if indeed the mcast is eliminated that's going to change the way a lot of things work here and that would be a major um challenge of our Retreat so I'm suggesting for our Retreat is a half day on a Saturday in November or December and what I would do is I would have a Julia sent out you know the calendar November after the election actually probably mid November through uh December list of Saturdays and you send back which ones are you're available for and then we'll choose one of them and um if we ready to have the retreat at that point then we'll have it else we'll postpone it again but I don't see um the wisdom of of having it on on because this will be a earth shattering event if the mcast is eliminated that will have a enormous impact on all the schools in the in the state and we better be prepared to talk about it then so for that reason I'm not going to have unless you have an objection to what I just mentioned I was not going to worry about setting a date tonight for an early fall rather have um Julia send out the request for late fall meeting does that make sense to people any objections to that okay school committee goals um let's see Julie could I share my screen I think I have them somewhere [Music] certainly go here here we go here this will work today go and share great can you all see those is it um let me make it a little bit bigger let's go to so where did these goals come from well they came pretty much from you so I said um uh send in your goals what you suggest goals for the school committee for the year and we got you know a number of them and we took a look at them and and some of the things sent were um didn't really come under the category of school committee goals uh but there were three things that uh came out more than once which was support the superintendent in her transition increase enrollment in their retention and improve Communications now these are not meant to be smart goals and things that can easily be measured at the end of the year and we check off and you know give us a rating on each one these are more a little bit more abstract goals especially the last one improved Communications officers had a brief discussion what does it mean to improve Communications we want to specify that exactly what it means and the thought was no there are a lot of places that Communications could be uh improved always it's an ongoing effort and we should leave that um pretty vague instead of having a whole bunch of language and see what we are able to do over the year with this in the back of our mind so these are the goals that came they're rewarded somewhat but they came pretty much from your submissions and I'd like somebody to put a motion on the table to accept these as the school committee goals for the year and then we'll have a discussion on that don't moved second very good discussion on the goals and uh you may have to I don't know um yeah I may not be able to see your hand so you may have to because Zoom is not really cooperating for me I can't see all of you for some bizarre reason even though I have tons of screen real estate that doesn't help that helps a little bit are there any comments on the goals school committee members all seem okay with you pretty straightforward yep very well then let's bring it to a boat vote ham nurse ham nurse acting yes Sarah monu Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes Charlie gabal Lancaster yes Sharon mus Le yes Jeff stolin need him yes Al look Jo yes good that was the easy one now the harder one let's see stop share let me get the other one no no let's try this again I think this is bright window okay can you see this way window yes um is it legible is is okay let me try it's just too small how's that is that helpful yep yes okay so I think that there are a few comments and um uh changes required before we vote on this so once again these are are the um subcommittee assignments based upon what we had before and your requests and I think that I got them all so let's make sure that I got them all there's one or two things I need to point out along the way uh budget subcommittee is currently the same as it is this year um interestingly the MFA negotiation subcommittee are the same people as on the finance subcommittee but I know that Steve asked to join this committee and leave a different committee so I that's fine and Sarah was brave enough to sign up for this one good uh the policy subcommittee remains aliceon Sharon now on superintendent negotiations and evaluation Maggie asked to be joining this one I don't know if Charlene you really want to be on this one if you're going to be on the new committee that we're going to talk about in a minute what do you think um if I don't have to be on it or I'm not needed I'll just stick to the legislative okay so we're g to take her name off here so this is going to be as written except for the changes that we make right now that's one that's stuck in my mind we have the capital planning School building committee which is Alice Maggie and Fort Spalding a non-school Comm member you have a typo and Sport's name there's no U where was that his last name doesn't have a u okay didn't ask him if you wanted to remain on it but unfortunately he's here so he could OB but we're not going to let him uh enrollment membership access currently that's going to be Pam's chair myself and um as I mentioned at the beginning of this document we don't have a new member from Bolton yet which we hope to have in September Erica is that still likely yes so I'm thinking that that person will be on this committee you know because um everybody else has quite a workload so I'm going to leave it as just Pam and Jeff for now we're going to make a change on that later and then we we have a new legislative subcommittee and uh I know that there was a little change in this is that correct Charlene is there a little wording change for this yeah I think um upon the request the last sentence upon the request at the direction of the full school committee the sub commmittee will also write or draft letters not May letters okay so I'm going to actually read this I'm going to discuss this one for a minute because you haven't seen this before until we sent it to you yesterday uh this scub committee works with the superintendent to review track and address current state legislation and resolutions issued by mcast and other groups relevant to vocational Career and Technical education so that it may report back to the full school committee it may collaborate with other legislative subcommittees from other division 8 vocational Career and Technical educational schools as well as attend masc and or other events concerning upcoming or current legislation that affects vocational Career Technical education upon the request or at the direction of the full school committee the subcomittee will also draft letters in support or against legislation or resolutions to promote the best interest of mman Regional Vocational Technical High School now we have had subcommittees that have done this sort of thing in the past and Charlene recommended that this would be this is number of months ago recommended that this was would be a good thing for us to uh do again to keep in track of those sorts of things that are happening at the state level that's going to have an impact on us so of course I said well that's a great idea if you if you'll cheer it you know um so you know yeah you you you make a suggestion you got to you know get some skin in the game so we didn't have enough time to go to the membership to you know do our normal process of um adding you to this committee before today's meeting so I'll probably ask for permission of the uh um school committee to allow in this case for the chair to appoint people to these committees because I think we're going to want this committee up and running before our next meeting so what I'm going to ask is for you if you're interested in being on this committee and I hope a few of you will to submit your names to Julia and as part as the motion I'm going to make to allow the chair on his own to from that group appoint the remaining members of this committee so that's I haven't made that motion yet so there's no discussion yet but there will be in a minute the final one is the that we're going to vote on tonight we're not going to actually vote on this one tonight but I'm going to mention it is the general Advisory Board liazon now once again you did not have this information early enough to decide if you wanted to take on this task prior tonight's meeting so we're not going to vote on this one tonight instead we sent you the information that describes it describes your responsibilities in it and we're going to ask for a volunteer to be the lison to this group is there any school committee member who would like to talk about bring a little this a little bit more to life to our membership a little bit more about what it's about all about Pam I served as the general Advisory Board liaison at one point um I think when I first joined the school committee and it was actually a wonderful way to um um you know to meet people within the school committee um within the school family particularly The Advisory committees um just learned a tremendous amount um and you know and and it actually was really fascinating as you know the advisory committee members would bring their expertise in their V in their various areas it's actually a really interesting group to be a part of any questions to p who has had experience during Sharon Sharon's on mute not anymore um it says that the uh General Advisory Board like you would this this liaison would attend those meetings when do those meetings usually be or when are they usually held does anyone know I think that I don't remember the schedule um I can have uh oh Alice does and Heidi does so both of you so let's start with Alice and go run to Heidi there's an annual dinner that people usually report back about and Heidi Heidi is still on mute no no hi to your soul you're not I can't hear you no I can jump in Jeff I just let you know when this the meetings are there's a meeting in September um it's I believe the 28th it's when our back to school night is um it might double track it might be the 26th and then the big program meeting with the dinner uh is October 24th uh so that's a Thursday night and then we meet again uh twice in the spring um using usually around the March time frame testing was that hide did we get you through there yes so I think that based on that September date we're going to have to have the chair appoint this person as well because there's not enough time uh may not be enough time for us meet again for us to you know vote on the candidate that the chair recommends if that first meeting is in on September 21 4th there's no guarantee we're going to meet before then so that would be another thing for you to send your request in Alice uh Dave OK Conor used to really enjoy this particular assignment just saying that too yeah you communicate with a lot of people of jobs in the real world yes a lot of different Real Worlds a lot of very interesting different Real Worlds so once again it would be a thing you would submit your name and based to Julia over the next few days and the chair will probably have to do that appointment as well if to make the September 24th date okay so before I put the motion on the table are there any questions about any of these committees subcommittees that I make any other errors on your requested assignments very good then um I would like somebody to make the following motion to to approve all these subcommittees and assignments as written with the change made that is I took um Charlene's name off that one committee plus giving the chair the ability to um appoint members to the legislative subcommittee and to the general Advisory Board um Le on so moved second any further discussion of all this work you're going to be doing this year okay roll call vote Pam nurse Pam nurse acting yes Sarah montigue Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes sh Lancaster yes Sharon must Lexington yes Jeff Stan him yes Al Lucas do yes well thank you all so much for volunteering to be on these committees and to do that um extreme amount of work that will be required in this upcoming year and thanks to my fellow officers who spent a fair amount of time pondering these issues to try to arrange things as um uh uh both to what the school committee members requested and for the best of the school committee and the school as a whole I look forward to hearing some volunteers for the um um legislative committee and for the um leison position so please submit those over the next few days so we can get those positions filled and all the subcommittees have been recreated great okay now as we mentioned earlier we're going to take out of order items 6A and 6B so superintendent Driscoll go to it thank you I'm so glad I H had that attempt to talk about a general Advisory Board to fix my microphone before I had to introduce Cindy um I'd like to welcome cind tamore she is my new superintendent induction program coach for this year and I'd like to give you a little background um she was a middle school teacher science and Ela in wber she was a coordinator for Al an alternative education program in East Boston a team chair and assistant special education director in Malden a director of special education and assistant superintendent in Bedford and finally she was the superintendent in Melrose until she retired in 2020 but she couldn't stay retired so she was the interim director of uh the Edco collaborative for two years and an interim special ed director in Bill R for a year um and Cindy would like to um share some information with uh with all of you about the program that I'll be participating in this year welcome Cindy thank you Heidi um and thank you for the introduction um and my resume um and when I finally stopped being a full-time employee of some kind I became a nisip coach um nisip is the new superintendent induction program it is a joint venture from the Department of Elementary and secondary education and the mass Association of school superintendant with a funding Grant from the ba ba Foundation this is the 15th year I myself was in the third year it is a highly valued and successive Pro successful program at this point over 300 superintendents in Massachusetts have gone through the program and the purpose of um nisip is to support new superintendents like Heidi as they come to communities that are new to them or they are new to the state and to help them grow and learn so that they can be more successful for your students and families the program focuses on instructional leadership team building and supervision and evaluation um there is a strong focus on Equity across all aspects of Education as well it is a scaffolded program this year Heidi will have 48 hours of meetings that includes six hours a month with me either directly on site or virtually um in the second year there'll be 39 hours of meetings and in the last year there is a consultancy about four times a year um I will tell you having gone through the program I I just cannot underestimate the value not only for what um nup has helped new leaders learn and adapt to but for the network it creates to this day I still have a Cadre of colleagues that I see we are and we share information among ourselves um to this end the scaffolded program Heidi has uh as you know um what she will report out on tonight to create an a entry plan and this is basically how does she get to know the minute man Community um it is basically a listening and fact finding and at the end of that Gathering of information she will report out to you her entry plan findings that will discuss um the strengths of Minute Man the challenges Minuteman is facing and ultimately come next spring next summer create a strategy plan this is not a strategic plan as you may develop where you talk about buildings grounds financing this purely focuses on teaching and learning and I think um Jeff y mention of the mcast ballot question is very appropriate considering whatever she just finds this year that will be a large factor that you will have to navigate under her leadership um I'm very happy to answer any questions about the program but I will tell you I've already started to work with Heidi I've been to day two of the Leadership Retreat I had a great time um I got to meet the whole team you really have a great team in place um for minute man and I will actually be in the building what a week from Friday Heidi maybe next week sometime because while I visited the building I have yet to have a tour of that magnificent facility you built and I am really looking forward to that so if you have any questions just let me know School Coy members could you share those number of hours again so for the first year she does 48 Hours so that's six hours a month with me and a full day meeting with her cohort and then in the second year it's 39 hours four hours a month with me and every other month a meeting with her cohort and in the last year they do Regional consultancies usually three four superintendents who meet every other month or every third month to share problems of practice um I will tell you this is all high all everything that I share with Heidi or Heidi shares with her colleagues is highly confidential and the purpose really is to support each other in um becoming better at the job um attacking issues that may come up and finding Solutions R committee members now is your chance have a lot of expertise here can learn some stuff I just want to say I appreciate the background on the program thank you Cindy anyone else going ah Heidi I would just like to thank Cindy um when we had our superintendent Retreat this summer um that's when I met Cindy in person that was I think in July if I'm not mistaken and Cindy said I will see you on Monday at Minute Man she was literally here 9:00 a.m. the following Monday um to get started and um and I think we've hit it off and we're a good pair so um I'm happy to have this opportunity and I'm happy to share um the entry plan today any other comments or questions well then Cindy thank you so much for being involved in this program thank you for um sharing a description of it with us kind of in person you know as person exists today and um I think it's time to move on to the superintendent's entry plan which is item 6B all right thank you Jeff um so what I shared with you in the backup are the slides for my PowerPoint um and then the entire entry plan so I'm going to go over the whole plan and I'd say an executive summary um but I won't be reading the entire plan word for word today because it's quite a few pages so if you give me a second to share my screen um the first thing I'm going to talk about is how I shared this um with teachers um and staff on the first day of school and I know all of you got some information about our welcome back day um um but I wanted to make sure that the beginnings of the entry plan were in motion we're hearing voices from all over the district and I'm taking time and not making any snap judgments about um what minute man is or what minut man is not um because there's a very rich history um so at the welcome back with staff and faculty I reviewed my goals my entry plan actions and we recognized service minute man um we did for the first year we had uh which I hope will be a new tradition each fall we recognized uh teachers staff members anyone who works here for five 10 15 20 25 30 years of service um it was wonderful I sent the photos if you haven't seen them um and it was a it was a good day um something that we did differently was I used a tool called mometer and maybe we'll have an opportunity to use that at some point here so that when I shared um some of the feedback from the survey in my entry plan all of the people who were there who may have said hey I it was over the summer I didn't have time to complete the survey or I didn't know about the survey could actually provide live feedback and have a visible reference um during our actual um conversation which I'll give you a sample of um as we go over this so the overarching goal of both uh my goals and the entry plan which really do overlap is to renew a sense of community founded in trust professional professionalism and transparent communication which if you received the survey this summer um were some of the words that we even used then um it's been made very clear to me from all of you when I met with all of you individually that this is absolutely all of our goal um and um I'm happy to lead the charge here so my entry plan has several different steps so right now we were in the planning and preparation going over to the information and data Gathering so those are kind of overlapping because you'll see I've already started to collect some data um some there's quite a list of key documents that I'm going to review meetings that I'll attend um people who I'll be meeting with um enrollment is a huge part of that if you want to look in detail or you have suggestions for additional things that I may not have listed please reach out to me individually and I'm happy to check those out um from December to January that's when I am processing the information developing um the framework of a plan and I will take the next steps from no November to January those also overlap so I'm going to read a couple points from that so when we get to the point where we are at next steps I will be making a draft of the entry findings and I will be reporting some emerging themes which I actually have some emerging themes already for you today um and I will have the presentation of the entry findings in February um after that comes the development of a district strategy and even though it is separate we do have to make a plan for creating a district strategic plan um that will start spring and tentatively until the June of 2026 so before I keep going does anyone have a question for me or for Cindy about the process of the entry plan okay so on the last page of my entry plan you'll see my goals my goals do have to relate directly to the entry plan um because I'm working on it now until Midway through the year I can't start goals in February so my first goal is effective entry and Direction setting and I will read the top of it so basically it's a goal is to complete my entry plan to give you key findings and by May to engage stakeholders in identifying key strategies for the district um the benchmarks so these are more smart goals I know your goals are more General mine are a little bit more specific um that the presentations are completed on schedule and we launch a strategy development um my second goal is to maintain momentum during the transition so I do need to keep the district moving forward this year by working with leadership on goals um make sure that teacher leaders and administrators make meaningful progress on their critical goals so it is to do my um go through the evaluation process with um each person who reports to me to make sure we're I'm modeling that through um the district and the Benchmark is completed evaluations ass summi of evaluation reports those are not public those don't go out but that is a part of the process and my third goal is to participate in the new superintendent induction program um I saw Jeff smirking and it seemed like he was laughing a little at the amount of hours which was a little heartful Jeff but that is uh I am committed to doing that and working with Cindy and if you didn't notice I also added an additional layer um I'm meeting with the president of maava um to discuss and share some ideas about mava creating a companion program to niss of that addresses the specific needs of Voca new vocational superintendents and I think that it is very important that I I think Cindy am I the only vocational superintendent that who's new this year yes you are um we've had some schools that have large voke programs but no no no one that is a regional voke like you with that with that a committee like you have repres 10 districts right it's very it's it's very different um so right now I'm in a I'm in a cohort of one um so um there's another Superintendent at another school district who uh at a vocational school district who has taken me under her Wing she's been absolutely wonderful and I'm hoping that the two of us along with the leadership of maava can come up with some sort of a structure so that in the future um it will be an option to work with nisip in this way and it will be a wonderful add-on um so that will absolutely take um quite some additional time as well um so if you look at those details those are my three goals and I did want to share with you some of the work that I've been doing already with some of my entry findings you saw excuse me my the entry plan um the survey takes beyond the way um to those findings I know that you've all seen that joint survey that was sent out um and this was the question that was asked to students and teachers and parents and anyone who had the link who cared to give us some opinions about Minuteman in your opinion what practices should Minuteman sustain revise or reconsider to positively move forward for the success of all students um something very interesting is the average response time was seven minutes that so that means people really were thoughtful about what they shared I was very impressed with that um this is some information that I also shared with the staff this isn't new today um we had 44 responses which seems not doesn't seem like a ton but it's about 5% so for a summer survey that's not so bad but as we were reviewing the statements um because they were only 44 and they were very unique the most common words that came up were thank goodness uh This was done with AI not with me in a calculator by the way um student students School classes work CTE students Minuteman students Minuteman and need I thought that was a very positive outcome for the most common words and this is what we did as an activity um I shared uh a sample of quotes from the survey some from students some from um one student actually asked if they could have clemency on overdue library books very hilarious um but there were lots of statements and I needed the staff to tell me do we agree with this which is the thumbs up do we love this or do we disagree with this and it's or it's untrue so I know that looks very tiny but this was one of my favorite statements rebuilding trust and communication at all levels will go far thank you that was from an anonymous educator or staff member I had 45 thumbs up I had 35 loves and I had one thumbs down so why this is wonderful to share is because everybody saw those numbers in real time so if somebody says hey we don't want that that's it's just not true we shared it um with everybody in real time and I thought that was really important to do because people want to give their opinions they want to be heard and if I'm starting to do this process I really need to give many different types of of opportunities for people to share um what they think minute man needs and if I'm not mistaken I actually used mometer at the Cindy did I do that on your day or not I used mometer at The Retreat too I wanted to test it out with administrators the second day we did some of that oh okay was yeah yeah so it was very useful and um and that's it and my last slide is something that I shared with the faculty and this is my personal philosophy leadership is not a license to do less it's a responsibility to do more and that is what I'm committed to do and I would love to um hear any of your questions or comments um I'm happy to answer questions about the full detailed um entry plan or anything I just shared I just have uh two quick comments that got to make the first one is yes I am amused by the amount of hours you're going to be spending on this I think it's for the important for the school committee members to really reflect on how many hours you're going to be spending on this program how extensive and important it is the second one is that if you look in your packet you'll see um a little further after presentation is the list the of her three goals her three suggested goals for the year um and some information on how she's going to achieve the those goals or reporting those goals that's very important because what we have to do is we have to accept those goals at our next meeting and that's what she's going to be evaluated on at the end of the year so she mentioned her goals in descriptive form in her presentation they're in written form in your packet very nicely laid out goal one goal two goal three this is what I'm going to do for it in some detail and we will want to vote on those at our next meeting and should be evaluated on it later in the year that's how this stuff works usually is that your understanding Heidi yes so um those are all my comments Alice I think it's very difficult to be a leader especially these days and um I'm glad that the superintendent have a program to support educational leaders um and I'm excited that it's going to expand with MAA Focus too to you know just a uh I don't know what the word would be but to include the diversity of the educational experience in the vocational sector is very very different and I'm just very grateful to everybody who's helping to support superintendants other comments or questions for Heidi on her presentation or ER yes hi Heidi um thanks for that presentation I was curious um you did mention that you were in the data collection phase um gathering information um I don't know if you could share like what type of data you're collecting or looking at um whether it's something absolutely can so there's a complete list of the key documents and data that I'll be looking at um in your backup in the full plan but I can read you some of those so I'll be doing some short survey opportunities individual and group conversations with stakeholders informal visits to academic vocational classroom supplemental programming and general School operations um a review of key documents and data School Improvement plan District strategic plan school um report cards School discipline reports mcast AP ACT SAT um the kneas reports tiered Focus monitoring reports our collective bargaining agreement the policy manual crisis action plans administrator job descriptions curriculum guides School handbook faculty handbook um senior exit interviews certifications CTE Advisory board minutes and programmatic reviews MTI handbook the district curriculum accommodation plan the district enrollment data both 9 through 12 in MTI so it's pretty comprehensive what we did to make sure that anything that existed that I should read um gets on here is I actually meet with um uh the President and Vice President of the Union um pretty regularly I think it's been about once a week so they actually saw some of this and gave me input into things they thought I should look at as well as all of the administrators I brought a full draft of this plan to The Retreat so that every administrator um would review it and give me feedback and I don't want to put anybody on the spot but we do have a couple administrators who were present Paul was there um Katie was there um if you have questions for them about that process um they could give a perspective that isn't from the person who ran the review thank you you're welcome any other questions on the report that we have just seen very good thank you so much for your report superintendent and thank you again Cindy for being part of this process and for joining us today appreciate it now we uh bounce back to item 5f oh uh before we get to 5f I just like a comment from the subcommittee because of the length of the packet and some of the things in there might have been a surprise like the auditor's report that might have been what am I getting this for I wrote you a little memo just kind of you know describing why it is you have so much stuff in there and i' like to know if that was uh I don't I'm not going to do that very often uh because usually we don't have packets that are quite this complicated but was that useful or was that just a waste of your time to read so I'll know for the future useful okay very useful okay so if I have another really uh an item a complicated item in the packet that you're going to say what the heck is that then I will do something s and say that's why it's in the packet okay right so let me tell you why item 5 f is on your agenda so as you know we are a member of the um Mas Mass Association of school committe it's an organization we've been involved with for many many years and has done I think many many very positive things in the state I it was brought to my attention that in a very unusual mood masc has taken a stand on a very controversial on both sides uh ballot question that is coming up in the November election it's the question that a question that will impact us in enormously which is do we eliminate the mcass Exum now normally what masc does is they you know pull the members or we get together one of their conferences and we discuss these issues and we come up with a resolution based on that discussion but because of the timing of the election being before that meeting is going to occur they got their board of directors together and they voted on a opinion on ballot question to which was to accept it and to reject the idea of having the mcast so that brings us two issues the first issue is that I find it unbelievably annoying that they would take a stand on a u important issue like this without um membership input um it it may be technically within their uh bounds but I find it extremely distasteful the other thing that caught my attention is that um not everybody's opinion is that the mcast should be eliminated without going into any detail from the very beginning of the mcast one of the questions I've asked at minut man as a school Community member to whoever was making the annual or the twice a year presentation of the mcast was is the mcast good thing or a bad thing overall for a minute and the answer that I normally got that I always got was it's a good thing for minute man it has had us improve our academics improve our curriculum I believe that that's what led to the program by which in their freshman year they get a full year of math and English I think that was for the MC so clearly at the at the very least the is going to be two sides to this story here at mcast about mcast so what I am going to at some point suggest is and you're going to hear from the superintendent and then anybody can make whatever you know comments they want to about this I'm not going to suggest that we take a actual vote on this issue you know we approve disapprove item two what I am going to do though is suggest that we um um send a letter to masc expressing our displeasure of them taking a stand on it and perhaps listing some reasons why people may not be um in favor of question two but not to take a vote on it so I'm going to um kind of uh open this by um asking the superintendent if she has an opinion on this issue and or just whatever comment she has for it so um sure thank you um I would like to direct you to your packet there is um from tus University there's the state policy analysis where um the topic is question two eliminating the mcast graduation requirement I want to make sure that we understand because I'm not sure with all of the social media out there that is blasting us that people understand and Jeff I would never interrupt you but we are the vote is not to eliminate mcast the vote is actually to eliminate mcast as a graduation requirement so some of the things that aren't our favorites at schools the amount of days it takes the time um those things would still actually happen we still the state would still be using this data to look at the achievement of schools um so that troubles me a bit because it isn't clear I think everywhere that it is just the graduation requirement itself that would be lifted um and that's a big huge difference um so that being said I would really love for more people to read the balanced info um when I started my career I was a teacher um before mcass there should be an acronym for that b mcast or something um and I taught seniors at an urban district and it would break my heart um that there were some very capable students who didn't have the opportunity or to have access to rigorous curriculum and I was at a comprehens I was teaching at a comprehensive School District um and it was a crazy time I'm some of you remember I'm sure I know some people in here were teaching then are you you know it was huge and when Urban schools especially our scores were abysmal there were all sorts of actions taken to change things like Jeff said some kids didn't have particular subjects full year so we would give half of algebra one and then wonder why they can't do Algebra too those kinds of things um it really made some changes with structures of schools um and then when it became a graduation requirement the scores skyrocketed and many people talked about oh that's because we changed things that's now yes things were changed but that very first year when everything jumped up you cannot make systemic change in a year to make jumps like we saw I think it was 2004 so long ago um but that jump was because the stakes changed so our problem will be if we are being judged by this test still even if this vote goes through but it doesn't count for anything um I fear that school districts will be judged on performances that don't really represent what their kids do and the public perception and all of those other things now that being said um do I think school districts know who should graduate and have the right yes absolutely and I know at Minute Man people when I've asked them about their feelings about this um they say well it doesn't affect us our kids just do what they have to do the most it affected us is when we made changes that people really like like the English structure at Minute Man for example um that even came through in the survey please keep the English how it is um so that's that's I guess in short it's such a huge heavy issue that will really change so much no matter how this goes and I think we have a wonderful well balanced group here and I think we'll be ready to handle it um whatever it happens to be you're right it was not eliminating the mcast but eliminating it as a useful measurement of what schools are doing because the student when you if you were to if I was to give a student a math test and say this test isn't going to count for your grade uh I don't think i' get much effort in in studying or preparing for the test so the same thing yes they will still be giving the mcast at least for a while but the information we get from it will be worse and I'm just going to give um before I go to the membership I'm just going to give you my kind of uh I have 10 points here but I'm not going to go through them about what why it would be problematic but the worst one I know this because if you only know this if you really work at a school for a very long time what's going to happen is right now we have about 1% of students who fail the mcast something like that the thing that's that it's not good that there's anybody not passing the mcast but the thing that is good is that you know who's not passing it and you know where they're weak if there isn't a universal standardized test and all districts are going to try to create their own standard most districts are going to create a standard in which the measurement of the students who are doing poorly is going to be extremely bad and you're going to have a much higher group of students who will be learning little because it's not going to be measured properly and they won't know it until after they graduate and they get to whatever that goes next college or whatever so for 1% who you know what the what the problem might be to five or 10 or 15 or whatever percentage who's going to have a uh a weaker education and they won't even know it because what happens is is when districts want to look better they kind of fudge they fudge the standards and they fudge how they grade the standards and if you want examples of how that happened in Newton South which I'm not going to give you unless you ask for it I have numerous examples of how they um in my opinion fudge things to make the statistics look better for the way they wanted it to do and in ways that did not help kids that's at Newton South and that's what going to run rampant through through most of the districts of the state some will do better job minute man would do a better job because of the type of school it is and the type of people we have here many others especially the ones who are the worst off financially are going to not do such a good job in creating their own unique standard so um comments or questions from anybody here Sharon so um I think I think it's very important for us to remember that um although it may quote unquote only be the 1% I think a lot lot of students who have learning disabilities or learning differences have a real hard time with the mcast and I'm um in my 30 plus years and being in special ed I've seen a lot of kids not pass the mcast that I know have those skills um and I think um you know when you talked about you've seen schools like fudge the scores and stuff I've seen mcast scores um have that situation for districts where they've I've seen students getting accommodations that they have no business having because the district needed it to be um you know we need we need good scores because we need our district to look good because we want people to move here and things like that so I think I think what I take out of that um of all the documentation of you know question two pro and and con is just the idea that it's looking to acknowledge that students do learn differently and there are other ways other than just a standardized test that in my opinion from administering more versions of the mcast than I care to remember um I'm not sure that the results show me what those students like where their weak parts are because I've only administered it to special ed students not to um non-sp specialed students but I just think that the idea is that you know we would still have it we would still take it and I understand you know you're saying when a student thinks it doesn't count but I can also tell you that pretty much third fourth fifth sixth seventh and eighth grade they realize that it doesn't really count because it only counts in 10th Grade when you have to do it to graduate and that's when they take a lot of the language out of the test so that students can pass it more easily so I just think we spend a lot of time teaching to those tests and we spend a lot of time I think it would be more Bene in my opinion I think it's more beneficial for us to look at the whole child and maybe be like how you do on mcass and how you do in your class because I don't think that it should be all all for one but I think a lot of our students admited me and although they do pass it and those teachers are amazing in making our students be ready to take the test I do think we have to look at the emotional impact that the test has on students who've worked really hard throughout all their years of high school and then just struggle on that test and then feel badly about themselves so I I wrote down a couple of your points I I absolutely agree with you that this is definitely something that doesn't count previously if you notice statistically what year did those scores drop middle schools middle schools get a bad rap because those kids are old enough to know it doesn't count high schools there's a miraculous jump with most students Elementary School is a different animal and I've looked at these K12 um what you said really res reses with me I hope that there is not a single educator out there or School District out there that does not look at the whole child because right now all school districts have class requirements for graduation it is in fact all of those things right now just like you said it's mcast it's attending the school it's passing your classes it's getting enough credits it's that piece and if kids need extra support that is absolutely absolutely what school dist should do and if school districts are doing the right thing which I do believe Minuteman does the right thing they make sure that students who don't pass that initial test you're not saying here's what you can't do here's what you need to do they're looking at it and saying okay when you get to that retest which is a much easier test because it's not an achievement test we're going to make sure you have the right classes we're going to make sure you have the right supports and prepare for an mcast appeal for sence you only have to take it once for English and math you take it three times and those those work um and I'm curious if there are students who didn't get a diploma I am curious if those school districts filed an appeal did they have the kids take the right classes I hope that they're using all of those tools because this should not be a scary situation it shouldn't be um so I I the the perception I think that you only need mcast to graduate we have to make sure people understand it still exists so when you're saying oh people want to fudge scores or people want scores to look a certain way because they're being judged we will still be judged because the vote isn't to get rid of it um it's so it is it is really a catch 22 um and I hope um I I really feel in good shape at Minute Man either way but it it's it's a big deal I hope that addressed or added added it didn't wasn't repetitive Alice um my central issue with this is procedural um I believe their board took the vote in June they did not pull the membership they have access to all of us via their email they could have sent out a survey they have in their bylaws a mechanism for sending out surveys um they didn't do that and they are supposed to represent us they're supposed to be a collaborative organization that represents school districts and does things to benefit education but this is a very big deal there are implications potentially for funding formulas there are all kinds of things that might come up as a result of this decision and there is no plan for day two that is the thing that bothers me if you look at what it is they're saying you know take away this requirement for graduation and then whatever that's why we have this feeling of a chaotic system that we're going to face we don't know what we should move our strategic uh meeting because we don't know what's going to happen is not educational policy planning and its finest and you know that is um my personal beef with him with MC at the moment is is that they chose to do this without any input without any discussion and it isn't as if they didn't know about in advance if they voted in June it came to me in an email in September on the day after Labor Day so that is too too much of a shock there's no day two not even day two plan in what they're doing there it just says you know eliminate that as a requirement and then every every one of these districts would have to come up with their own solution and many of us remember what it was like before when a kid failed Algebra 1 and then they failed it again and they never took geometry and then they had to take the mcast test the first time and then everybody learned oh you know the reason why they failed is because they never took geometry it was a real wakeup call so I I think Jeff's suggestion of sending a letter to the masc board and saying you know this is not a good process um for dealing with something of this importance and you know here are some thoughts for you to consider is a good one Charlene I sort of now want to Second what both what Alice said and Sharon said um with regard to Sharon's comments um I I think that the 700 students that don't pass is still significant um because those the students who need a high school diploma because they're not probably going to go to college um and I also want to remind the the committee that one of our own parents at Minuteman was a strong proponent of this legislation and we need to consider that as well um secondly with regard to what Alice said um having gone to the Mas uh c conference last year there was and it was my first year in attendance um there was a lot of discussion about how masc represents us masc works for us and I was really shocked to see that there was um a decision made without any consideration of the membership that's it here's uh one more one more thought when I um started over at Minute Man there the the uh there's been a transition I actually it started before I started at mening it started like 30 years ago a transition between before what people used to think about vocational schools and the way they think about it now so the transition has been uh basically uh scorn you really if your kid goes here it says something really bad about you your kid and your family to admiration and part of that has been because of the mcast it's been the M part of the mcast because they can look at our mcast scores and say despite having 40% special education look how well you've done on a universal test not a test that you just made up to look good but a test that we all have to take we know how hard it is and that has been one of the reasons for the in my view because I've talked to people of the shift of people's perception of Career technical schools and and and perhaps one of the reasons why we able to get enough support to have this building in place because we um kind of eliminated theide idea that the education we get here is inferior and that's what the mcast did did for us as far as public perception goes other comments or questions on uh there's been no um motion yet but I kind of told you what the motion will be one way or the other Sharon I guess I just want to clarify like I 100% age agree with you and Alice that masc never should have well it feels wrong that they took a stance without polling the membership I just think that it would be important for us to make that our point if we are going to write a letter to them and not in any way say that we think that their stance is right or wrong I think we should just state that they shouldn't have made a stance without polling us because I don't think that we as a committee can really I don't I'm not sure that we have consensus of whether we think it should be yay or nay and I just think that we should be careful about not Al or also not making a decision um I don't know I just think we should just be clear on that it's just we think that they're wrong in their process but not necessarily that they are right or wrong in their choice some uh some I find this very distasteful but some communities have are taking a vote their school committee is taking a vote Pro or Con in this issue which I find personally unsatisfactory as well um yeah Pam I just want to say I I completely agree with Sharon I think we absolutely should write a letter I know I personally um have can and have argued both sides of this um issue um I think you know and and I think some of you know those arguments have already been articulated so I won't do it again but you know particular this is you know when you're talking about students with disabilities it has a major impact on both sides and so I would not be looking to take a position but definitely be looking um to talk about the procedural problems with um um masc uh putting out that this position well then I would like uh somebody to make the motion that the legislative sub committee uh draft a letter to the m ASC MCA uh right MC MCAS uh expressing our opinion on their procedure for coming out with their statement so moved I have a second before we take comments second second hey Alice I think um we should give direction to the legislative subcommittee um I think that uh it's it's my opinion that um well they're by they're not asking us what they've done is they've actually not allowed us to take the temperature of our own Community um and to have the thorough discussions that are required in order to understand this problem and to think about what would happen on day two day two for a minute man I mean we can ask the super done it you know what would be the implications I don't know if there there's time in the day given you know all the things that are going on but to to briefly say what kinds of What kinds of changes would have to happen in a single School District or vocational school districts in general um to address you know the potential change of not having the state level um requirement for graduation which is what that is but I think we should we should ask the legislative subcommittee also to include that that they they did not give us the heads up to take the temperature of our own communities um and to have the the the high level discussion about the issues so that we thoroughly all understand them we're reading this information in the packet which is excellent um it's a very complicated program it's something that went on for decades um they they've been through all these arguments before uh with regard to kids having with disabilities and so on and um you know I don't think they they took it lightly back then um so and I and I don't think that people who are in favor of the mcast are you know not in favor of kids with disabilities I think it's uh much more complicated than that I um I do think that minute man regardless of how this comes out is is poised to support its students and I think that what may happen is school committees would then have to decide is there a policy change necessary because I think it is in everyone's graduation policy at this point because it's state regulation what does that policy change look like so that would then put the onus on school committees so an appeal process that would be the next kind of like maybe what happened with masks that got pushed to school committees um and that I think would be the next step it's going to be very challenging both for school committees for administrations and for teachers all of whom would have to create new um uh standards for graduation furthermore the legislation would say okay we can't have m as a graduation required anymore what other restrictions should we put on school systems like they do in other states which is for example to determine the courses that are needed for graduation so they're going to make a they're going to be other changes that are uh that are going to come down the pike that are going to be extremely expensive and extremely time consuming possibly without any um great benefit we've seen this sort of thing happened before as a teacher I've been on the blunt end of a lot of this stuff um so any rate there is a uh a motion in the table there is a comment from Alice other comments on the motion on the table very well then bring it to a vote pam pam nurse actt yes Sarah montigue Arlington yes Erica oie Bolton yes Steve will do conquered yes gter yes unmuted now Sharon must Lexington yes Jeff him yes Al Lucas Joe yes okay now legislative subcommittee so I hoping that you're going to send information to Julia uh if you want to be on this sub which is going to be doing a lot of other things together with the administration now I would like uh in order for this to be timely enough here's the bad news I would like this letter to be uh drafted within a week or two and I may want us to have a special meeting so we can look at it revise it and approve the letter so it'll go out in a relatively timely fashion and without going into any details there may be another issue that we need a special meeting for so we can put the the two together in about two weeks um so that is what I'm going to ask for I'm going to ask if you want to be on the subcommittee um let me know you know tomorrow and also if you want to be the lers on let me know over the next few days so we can the chair will appoint some people to it and we can uh get this in the works and get it out and again the goal is to object to the process uh we're not going to take a vote on this as a school committee yay or nay like some of the Committees are doing which again I feel very objectionable personally any the other final comments before we move on so thank you for expressing your opinion on this on this very difficult subject and coming together to work at group despite A diversity of opinions on it um if our if our federal government worked in a similar manner we would be a in much better shape in this country they could learn a lot from us not vice versa okay I get to find my agenda again moving on I think that the longsuffering principal finally gets to have his say so Mr principal do you have a report for us yes I do and um gonna share my screen and I'm sure hope everyone can see that um so wanted to give an overview regarding the first few weeks of school um giving from we are officially in the third week of school and we've had two weeks on our belt where we've had uh students do rotations through their academics and their CTE classes and just a general feel around the building and things that happen so the school committee is aware of what what's been going on so to start off this works I'm stuck try this ah there we go um Mr tley tilsley and myself we um held class meetings student meetings for each grade level 9th 10th 11th and 12th uh we reviewed expectations I wanted the students obviously to get to know me not just to say who's this guy in the office um because I'm new there and they really haven't had an opportunity to fully uh interact with me so when they're seeing me around the building they know exactly who I am and what my goal is uh for Minuteman and for them uh to be their highest potentials as learners during that time as well we had um uh guidance counselors come down just to review a couple things we had our student advisors our class advisors to talk about events as well um and I would say that the feel for everyone was that it was very exciting uh it was really exciting for um them to really get started within the school year I was very impressed how you know our our um our sophomores and our seniors went right to their CTE classes while everybody else was heading to their academics and it was like a almost like a weld oiled machine that I didn't have to do much to kind of change or fix or anything like that so that was very impressive then after the uh the student meetings um within second week um our director of uh CTE programming Miss bushard she um made sure that our freshmen were aware of their uh exploratory rotations that we had going on um we had our staff that were meeting in the student union and we have also our students our upper classmen that were also helping out making sure that our freshmen knew where they were heading for their programs and just like to give a couple shout outs to the people in these pictures so if you look over to the Early Education we have uh tanas uh Sylvester from Lancaster Liberty mulski from Acton um we had Matilda trudell from Arlington uh sequia kamini from Arlington Karina kajer from Needum and Gabriel Kaji from Lexington they were a big help and then for our Horticulture and plant science we had um Val prbo from Lexington and elanar Paul from Acton so uh really and truly this is what I see is that makes minam man special is that you know there's nobody that's really lagging behind everybody supporting each other and doing the best that they can to uh make sure that the day is running smoothly and students know where to go um I know Miss cabal mentioned it and I will say that Athletics has been a big big big factor uh moving forward um this picture here I'll just give a quick overview uh the soccer team um prior to the season starting has a uh scrimmage practice with ke Tech uh they come over here and they work on skills together so it's kind of a nice collaboration between two Regional School Districts but um very excited if most people might realize or don't realize that uh our fall athletes actually start two weeks prior to school even starting um you know they do their preseason workouts uh that are there and just a reminder for our fall Athletics you know our cheerleading team is has been practicing we have our cross country team for the boys and girls varsity our football team te we have the JV and varsity team golf um soccer boys and girls both in Varsity uh volleyball which is uh really taken stride from what I've heard and what I've researched out volleyball's really become a sport that has really increased through men and man and um I'd be remiss not to mention that uh a huge help has been our trainer Mr Jesse Williams as well um really and truly he's making sure everybody's able and actively able to continue um we do know that things happen but um it's important that that trainer is available and he's been great I watched him literally when I was looking at uh I was watching the girls game and the boys game just uh last week and I watched him bounce between both Fields um it really was a good uh Good Feeling to see that somebody was on top of all of that so um just again great things that are happening at Min man and that's the only in week two the final thing that we've sort of implemented here at Min man is uh the voices of minut man high school um I've had students that have auditioned auditioned for uh this role where they're doing the announcements in the morning and the point of this too is that on Fridays um well they'll be pre-recorded on Thursdays but on Fridays um there'll be pre- recording the announcements and we'll be doing the video announcements on Fridays probably call it the minute man minute uh we're we're working on a catch a catch phrase uh for that but um these are our three seniors that auditioned and have accepted the position and they've been doing such a great job um I think it really makes a great feel for the school too so I just want to give a shout out to um Felix Nelson there on the right and then we have uh he's from Arlington we have Sarah Selsa from and Emily gron from Medford so all these students um on a rotating basis because some go to co-op um some have uh um field trips things like that that they've been doing so we've been working on a rotating schedule and we may need to actually put this a little bit towards the Juniors as well um so we're working on that just to make sure that we have a voice uh every day when the announcements are being mentioned but it's a very exciting time uh for minute man and it was a great uh the energy was a great first two weeks and the third week I mean it's just been wonderful to be part of all the positivity that's been going on at M so just want to make sure I gave the school committee that update and I'd be happy to answer any questions question Charlene just a quick question about the voices of Minuteman yeah it's only open to Juniors and seniors as of right now um but I obviously would be wouldn't be remiss to not open it up to everybody um I think we're just working it slow and then seeing what we can build in other question comments my comment is thank you very much for those great pictures I loved them thank you gave you a good good view of what's going on any other questions or comments for your new principal no I just want to add that I I love the fact that students are doing the morning announcements I think that's a great way to build a nice culture Community thank you anything else very good we move on to a I normally don't say this but a very exciting Finance report all right um uh first of all I'm really happy to announce that the msba has a approved our final payment we received the final payment and our ban has been paid off so I know I feel like we should have a party you know I remember when I was a kid when my parents paid off the mortgage they had a mortgage burning party I feel like we should have like a band burning party or something like that but and if you don't if you don't mention Steve I noticed that Fort Spalding is here an unusual for would you like to make a comment on the completion of the project if you're still there maybe when to get a Coke or something um the only comment I'll have yeah I I was hoping it would be live so we could go into the msba and then some of us would go off to some establishment afterwards but they did it by Zoom so I left and left the state and went somewhere else instead um but I I I looked at when the school committee had a school building committee and it's very interesting it was I think it's September of 2011 and that school building committee has been in force up until right now and it was the same people pretty much the whole time I think we we um one person didn't participate much so I won't count him and another person did drop out for other reasons although he stayed close to Minuteman so it's pretty exceptional that you can have people serve on a committee for that many years and and did they did a great job so I have nothing but great things to say about the committee um I would had the fortune last week of going up being with some people from scansa who are owners project manager and they still say that the minute man job has been their favorite and when I think of that they've done our um adbor they've done walam they've done LOL that scansa has and you know they still think of minute man is their favorite it's really quite something so I think we have a lot to be proud of I think we have a great building my only warning is you got to keep it up and you're going to have to spend money to keep it up on a regular basis but you know it was a good project and um I actually talked to Dr billin uh yesterday and today about another subject and he feels the same way so it's good thank you Fort sorry for the interruption Steve but I thought that's that's great I mean you know anybody uh should feel really happy should be Ford and and if memory serves me I think we were expecting this final approval about a year ago maybe last October so it's it's been a long time coming you have a good memory with the m msba and Closeouts is not a quick process right right right I know Kevin thought we'd get it about a year ago but just didn't work out for whatever reason um the finance committee did meet on August 19th and September 3rd uh we did review a a a draft uh of policy DJ e which is um uh regarding procurement and bidding um masc has has made some recommendations that basically would bring the policy up to date with the changes in state law um and we just had one little concern that that Nikki has been able to resolve for us so uh that will be getting forward to your committee Alice for review at some point and um I guess with that uh Nick Let's uh turn it over to Markham and and the and the Student Activity fund audit hi everyone um unfortunately the Auditors had a conflict tonight so I um Steve if you're comfortable I provide a quick update on the onepage um response the Auditors did come to a finance committee meeting and present um and certainly if there's any questions I'd be happy to answer them um so I will share my screen this is included in your p ET um markr are our Auditors and they provided some agreed upon procedures our Student Activity accounts which is the student um fundraise money um are um accounts that we present to you quarterly um so every three years they're required um by the state to be audited by our Auditors um this was a few of the findings that they had in regards to some of the transactions that they tested um one of the findings was a um a cash um a cash deposit that didn't have pre-numbered receipts since then the horiculture program has um gotten an iPad and they will have um pre-numbered receipts for all transactions going forward um the other compliance finding they had was um based upon a deposit not having a student advisor sign off um the business office did receive the funds and in transparency we provide updates to the advisers um on a quarterly basis they were aware of this but the signature was not on the form so those were two small compliance findings the business office is aware of them um and will'll ensure that you know going forward those two um items are met I reviewed the inactive accounts with our principal this morning we're going to reach out to the advisers um what the Auditors do is look at um any accounts that haven't had revenue or um expenses within the last three years to determine if they're still active accounts and the last um kind of recommendation they had was implementing a statement of final accountability for any student travel so we did have student two student travel dispersements that were tested um those were um travel like a gas receipt for um one of our student Vans um they are recommending that any student travel even if it's just a gas receipt has a statement of accountability which is a summary of all the um receipts for the travel that happened so we will be implementing that as well um we are going to have maram audit our Student Activity account again next year and we'll provide you with an update and that is about it for the summary we also provided the actual report from Markham um I'm happy to answer any questions if anyone has them and as as n Nikki pointed out the uh the finance subcommittee did have this presentation by Markham and and uh you know we were happy with with Nikki and her staff's response to the audit very good okay uh I guess we're moving on Mr chair absolutely okay so uh in your packet last but not least is our budget process calendar for FY 26 I it hurts me to say that number I I just can't believe it but anyway um we are now starting budget SE and so uh we have put a calendar in there for your review some of the some of the key dates I think as they relate at least to the school committee the uh uh the admin team and the staff will be obviously be compiling budgets through uh uh better part of this fall um but uh come early November we uh the finance subcommittee will have a uh presentation of initial draft which basically would be the departmental requests uh uh to our finance subcommittee um uh then the uh superintendent and her team will be reviewing things and come December uh uh December 2nd uh Finance sub committee will have our first uh budget overview uh review December SE 16th the 2nd in between and December 10th uh we'll give a little presentation of where we're at with the budget to the full school school committee and then uh come January we'll be developing our preliminary estimate to our members member towns and then getting geared up for our uh budget public hearing which is scheduled for January 30th with our snow date of February 4th so it's once again it'll be a busy fall and early winter for us if anybody has any questions you know the year is really starting when you get your budget calendar I'm sure Heidi was extremely happy when this crossed your desk for the first time I I always viewed it as like the first pitch of baseball season when when this thing came out any questions or comments in the budget calendar so that affects the sign finance subcommittee a lot and the school committee not for a while but still very good does that conclude your report uh it does Mr chair very good so that concludes the business for our regular meeting but we do have the fun of an executive session coming up and the good news is that uh Julia has sent you a separate link for the executive session so when we finish this session we'll close out this link go to your next one and you know for the miracle of Zoom hopefully we'll be back together so I'm going to read the purpose of the executive session as is required by Massachusetts law uh and this is going to be I believe that we're going to need um um the full school committee and uh Julia and Heidi to join us not to return to open session is that correct we need Julia and Heidi and no one else right pursuant mg L chapter 30A section 212 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to likely litigation with the town of Lincoln regarding permit fees if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares once again uh Julian Heidi will be joining us not to return to open session somebody like to make that motion please moved second very good roll call vote Pam sa yes Sarah montue Arlington yes Erica sorry Erica LZ Bolton yes Steve wo conquered yes Maggie Sharon over yes G Lancaster yes Baron must Lexington yes Jeff stol need him yes El delcas Joe yes going to Miss Erica when you get replaced Erica yes likewise very good then uh I'll see at the other Link in a minute