##VIDEO ID:LVaZ7pOPZ-E## I call the meeting to order and I'd like a motion to ad adopt remote participation as written in the agenda please so moved any discussion on that motion roll call vote pam pam no actt yes Sarah montigue Arlington yes Linda herbison Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes Maggie Sharon do yes Sharon must Lexington yes Jeff stulen Needum yes Al Lucas Joe yes good my understanding is that we have uh no public comment is that correct Julia that is correct very good consent agenda uh receive no comments in the minutes so I will like a motion to approve the draft minutes of October 9th 2024 November 12th 2024 is written please so moved second any discussion on those two sets of minutes hearing none bring it to the vote pam pam nurse Acton yes Sarah montigue Arlington yes Linda herbison Bolton yes Steve wue conquered yes Maggie Sharon over yes Sharon Musto Lexington yes Jeff St need yes and char yes Charlene can you hear us yes I can hear you oh we were voting on The consent agenda of the two sets of minutes L castle yes very good okay great cheer's report I have something for the good of the organization but with uh somebody else have something for the good of the organization to speak up okay my for the good of the organization is to give the school committee members a little heads up on things that will be coming up so we are now uh halfway through our school committee year Believe It or Not uh yes Al said is exactly right we are in um uh and essentially in mid December and things have been you know pretty easy for the school committee so far none of that that many big but a lot of exciting things are coming up that are going to require your attention so I'm just going to Rattle off a few of these so that you will understand and give you maybe an opportunity uh one of the most exciting things our year is our our budget discussion which which you will hear uh Steve talk about briefly today at the full school committee now the the fincom has received the first draft of the superintendent's budget and they're gonna the administration is going to go off and come up with a second draft and pretty much at that point it's going to be shortly thereafter presented to the full school committee for your review and comments and then shortly thereafter to the um um Public Finance session the public budget session now for some of you who may not be up to date on the uh minman budget uh format uh the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to uh suggest that the prior year budgets book is sent to all members so that all members um especially the the new newer ones we'll see what the format of the budget book is now it won't be the exact same this year but it'll be close enough the second thing I'm going to see if the membership is interested is for those of you that are relatively new you may want a um a little bit of a tutorial on the pieces of the budget and the pieces of the budget book and that could be given by um it could be given by um Steve it could be given by Nikki whomever so are there any members who would be interested in them are suggesting that they create this kind of um presentation SL tututorial to bring you up to date on things you may not understand of our budget book if not I'll just you know SEL it sure okay a few okay so it would be good I'll leave it to Steve and Nikki and uh the superintendent to try to create just a brief presentation an online presentation for those people who would like to be brought up to date on that prior to you have to vote on the budget okay uh the another uh very exciting event that's coming up in February I'm very much looking forward to this is the superintendent's presentation of you know what I learned during my summer vacation now everything that she has learned about the school and kind of her vision of starting to move forward that's my understanding of what we're receiving in February and that's kind of one of the highlights of our year I'm looking very much forward to that and once that happens I I suspect that we're going to have a lot of uh discussion and um um perhaps some needs to act on various things so that's coming up in in February um another thing is that you may recall that um towards the end of the uh uh previous school committee a year we discussed about having a retreat possibly in the fall of this year and the decision was made that the fall is not a good time for it because the superintendent is just brand new and it doesn't make sense but we probably should have a school committee Retreat and so I suspect I'm going to suggest to the officers that we plan sometime for the spring um a school committee Retreat this would begin after the superintendent president presentation and after the budget in which we get together for a number of hours and discuss various school committee is things which ones we discuss will be um considered after the superintendent's presentation so I'm just going to say I'm going to suggest that to the officers and they'll you know maybe develop a proposal to bring to the full school committee for your um approval or disapproval just let you know that's coming up that would be in person at the school The Retreat uh something that I'm am extremely looking forward to on the financial front is the capital planning subcommittee has been doing a lot of very interesting work of looking at how we can maintain this facility in its uh Primo condition over a long period of time what needs to be done to do so and what resources do we need and how does that impact our budget and that's what they've been working on I do expect that they're going to make a significant presentation to the school committee sometime during this school committee Year and that is something I've been looking forward to for more than a decade when you come to think of it I've been asking for that since the beginning of time and now we're finally going to get it because what a lot of schools do is they don't consider this in their budget and the facility deteriorates over time and they end up with a facility that has to be replaced um earlier than it's um suggested life and we would like to avoid that we would like to uh keep our facility in in good condition which requires Financial oversight long-term Financial oversight like 10 or 20 years of um planning ahead in a sense and they've been working on that um very hard and I'm very very excited and that's going to happen sometime this school committee year is that correct Alice yes I'm very excited to hear that uh one other item is that's going to be coming up and the reason I bring this up is that this is going to require some uh training for school committee members is we're going to do a school committee evaluation now we did not do one of these last year or really for a few years because it wasn't really quite relevant but we are going to be doing one this year and we have to start planning for that now because it happens in like uh May or June I don't the exact month in my head but so we're going to have to start and that requires the school committee members who may have not have done this before and this may be most of you to be brought up a date on how the process works now the process is based on the goals that the superintendent presented and that we um voted on and uh there is a subcommittee who is being led by Pam who's some experience doing this and I think that one of the things we'll do at one of our meetings is have a little training session one of our me we're gonna have many meetings in which Pam is going to give a presentation or members from our committee going to give a presentation on what the pro the uh procedure to do so is so we want to make sure that we're on time for this and we follow the the policies and the contract and the whole kettle of fish so that's coming up to and that's going to require some um school committee Level Training so that's my um items for the good of the organization a lot of interesting things coming up I look forward to this stuff so I guess you know I so talk about people who you know need a life um okay any questions or comments on that list that I it brought up did we lose the superintendent he's coming in right now yeah okay she got so excited by her evaluation I guess that she had to like you know leave for a minute okay give her there she is okay uh as far as school committee goals go you you got an email uh today that had a list of the ones so far now some of the Committees haven't met yet so we have a few more coming but I sent out the ones that I have and I think that they're all pretty clear I'm not going to have a vote or discussion on them um at this time in another month we'll have a couple others joining it but I wanted to get those out because they've been voted on by their various subcommittees so that concludes the chair's report and I'm going to turn this over to the principal as all sorts of fascinating things for us this evening so Paul you're you're on I think thank you everyone and um Julie if I'm able to share my screen I can have our student rep start off and then I'll do my end certainly can everybody see perfect um so again I'd like to welcome our two student Representatives we have Riley trudell our senior and trale excuse me and uh Matia Matilda trudell our Junior representative and they each are going to share something that they experienced um during the month of November so Riley I'm GNA let you go first thank you um yes so we had a wonderful than Thanksgiving luncheon on um November 26th um in preparation for our upcoming Thanksgiving game that happened on Thanksgiving Day um there were senior football players and cheerleaders from minute man as well as Keith Tech um as they were to be our opponents for our Thanksgiving game this year again um some of the coaches uh Mr Fusco Miss Murphy and Mr daa was there um um spoke some words of encouragement um as we um went on to our Thanksgiving game um and then we also had some delicious food that was provided from culinary um even though it may not have been um you know like the traditional like mashed potatoes or turkey or ham that other people um enjoy but we had some delicious uh chicken parm and some pasta as well as some salad and rolls um this is um even though I'm a senior um I'm really excited that this is going to hopefully be one of our New Traditions um for especially for some of the senior football players and cheerleaders um as we hope to do this again next year with Kei Tech um as I believe we're gonna be hosting the Thanksgiving um game next year so maybe hopefully we'll be able to have a lunch in at ke Tech you does anybody have any questions regarding the luncheon all right Matilda I'm gonna go to you next to talk about our our pepper alley and our Powderpuff game um yeah so on November 27th we had a pep rally and Powderpuff football game um it was incredible we had we started out with just having all four grades Gather in the gymnasium we welcomed all of our fall sports team so for all those people that are not in any sports it was nice to kind of put some faces to all of the wonderful Seasons we had this year um and all the wonderful wins we had um following that we had quite the entertaining game um where grade vers grade went up against each other to play this um mattress sliding competition where um we would run at a mattress an air mattress and see how far it would slide and it was kind of a competition on who could get it across the gym first the winning grade ended up being the Juniors who then went against um a group of teachers which was very entertaining following that in the gymnasium Mr Dela and a group of seniors LED um led the school in a little skit um which involved um kind of a fake Scandal where the where our quarterback was taken by the Keith Tech players and it was a very entertaining watch to kind of watch all of our seniors um role play and get our quarterback back it was great school spirit because none of the superheroes were able to do it but our lovely Minute Man students were able to rescue our quarterback um and then we all headed outside for a entertaining round of a powder pup football game where our juniors and seniors went up against each other so juniors are there in the pink and seniors are there in the black the seniors ended up winning that game which personally I think they deserved having it be their senior year it was quite an entertaining watch and then we were all dismissed from there so it was a lovely little way to wrap up um school before we all headed off to Thanksgiving break thank you Matilda does anybody have any questions uh regarding the pepper Alle the Powderpuff game great so again I want to thank my uh our student reps uh for present uh presenting what's going on uh in Minute Man from their eyes um and giving the reports to things that are occurring and I'm sure in December we'll uh in January we'll explain what's been going on in December and continue that pattern throughout the rest of the school committee meetings I I guess I will make actually one comment the first is even though we had no questions it does not mean that we're not intensely interested and um uh very happy to hear your report it's just that you know we may not enough questions because your presentation was uh so clear the only thing that came to my mind is that you gave lunch to your rivals in the in the football game which caught my attention if only we had more of that kind of standard of thinking and other aspects of our nation I think we'd be much better off yeah and just to um to go into that for one second Riley if you don't mind if I could interject on your slide um the idea that we are developing is that um and speaking with ke Tech since we're hosting the game uh next year um they would like to host us um so that that will continue back and forth if they continue to be our uh rival on the Thanksgiving day uh game so um really was a great time by all and again as as Riley had said um you know really really just great school spirit on both ends and I was happy to break bread with the rival team as well so um and I think it just sets a good tone for the the next day I think I saw Alice's hands up uh yes I just wanted to say same as Jeff that um both Riley and Matilda should be very proud of their presentation because we had no questions to ask so good job you great Sharon is your hand up yeah just um Riley am I correct that we actually won the football game on Thanksgiving Day uh yeah we did win the Thanksgiving game this year yep as uh yes six 16 to 14 and that trophy that's in the uh Kei te's coach hand is in our hands okay very good um great um so whoops going the wrong way so moving on to my uh portion of the leadership report I just wanted to give the or we as a school council wanted to give the school committee a update regarding where we're at what we've been doing who we are um because it's a new year with myself um and making sure that um we're following the procedure that's there so things that we're going to talk about uh is who's on our school council uh you may not be aware of who's participating uh as of this year um what we're working on as of now and what our next steps are from there and if you just look at the graphic that's really there when you really talking about change in environment and structure when you have all stakeholders that are involved um it really makes for a good collaboration of making sure that environment is positive so many of you may know this and I just wanted to quickly review it that uh this came from the Ed Reform Act in 1993 uh where sort of power had shifted a little bit regarding who was in charge of what even with school committees as well as principles as as well as um other uh staff members as well and the idea was to develop a school-based committee that would analyze things that were going on at each School level and that's composed of a principal and parents and teachers and then at our level which is the high school level um we are required to have a student representative as well so for our school council and I do have a couple people here and I'd love for them to introduce themselves um obviously I am part of that group um we do have two teachers here um i' like to introduce them first is Aon berau who's our visual arts teacher and I will say that she does more than just Visual Arts um she does digital photography she's part of our yearbook Club um there's a lot of functions that Erin uh is involved in and um having her as part of the school council is really uh exciting because she brings a great perspective to our meetings so Erin if you're want to unmute yourself and just kind of introduce yourself that'd be great hi everybody my name is Aaron I um I've worked at Minuteman since 2008 and I have been a teacher but my daughter also graduated in 20123 so I have multiple perspectives and I know many of you because my father was the superintendent for a time so nice to see some of you and then our other teacher member uh Dan shano who is a culinary teacher and a Fabulous Baker and I will give him props because he also uh produced wonderful cake for our lunch in as well um and uh I can see when I walk by and I see the students engaged Dan is very very um Hands-On with our students and making sure that they're doing what they are able to do and I just wanted Dan if you could unmute yourself and do a little bit of introduction that'd be great sure my name is Dan shabo I have been at minut man for 22 years in The Culinary department and I'm the baking instructor and I look forward to working on the school council thank you Dan um we do have two parents that are on our Council Unfortunately they couldn't make it tonight uh they received and tomorrow is actually our meeting so I rather um that they be at our meeting if they can make that um but uh we do have two parents that are part of our group and that's El Elena spencil in Brook classs um again Elena comes to us with uh some expertise as she was part of the school council the previous school council uh so things that we've been reviewing she has an Insight of of where the direction had come from when we're asking questions um our own Riley trusdale has also been part of our school council um so obviously having our student uh representative is one that's very important to us because you know we are part of the even though we're a stakeholder and and look at things from a certain perspective having the student perspective is very important when we're making decisions or determining what we need to work on so Riley has been great on that end of it and the other part of the school council is there should be a commuter representative on our Council so I know I'm doing a little bit of a plug with a QR code that's there uh we're currently looking for a community representative and ideally an employer of of that's been working with our students um so if anybody is watching or is part of this and they want to just do the QR code and send me a recommendation um then I can contact that person that is going to go to a Microsoft form that's just going to give me names so that we can figure out um how to get this member on our school council I'll just pause for one second in case you didn't get the QR code Sharon's smiling so I think she got it so what is it what have we been working on so one of the things that you know a school council does is they focus on the educal educational needs Minute Man students so what we really have been doing again myself being new is we've been looking at past Improvement plans what's been developed what's been working things like that things that we we want to work with more but we know that there has to be some goals that are established because our school Improvement line plan needs to be aligned with that so when you're working on your school committee goals and we work on our school goals and that aligns with the uh School Improvement plan those are things that we're kind of reviewing so that we're heading in a direction uh that's positive and moving Minuteman forward as I always say and then as we talked about in the summer one of the big things that the school council is going to be working on is the revision of our student parent handbook um I think again having everyone at the table looking at what's there uh understanding the policies that was put into the handbook what can you know be recommended for us to look at and to maybe make adjustments to uh that's going to be one of our major focuses uh moving forward so like I said some of the relevant I'm sorry I'll go back to the handbook in a sec but some of the relevant elements of the past School Improvement plans that we have seen uh as a common theme is we want to continue to enhance parental involvement within the school we want to continue maintaining and enhancing welcoming School environment obviously characterized by tolerance and respect for all groups that are for a minute man and we want to continue enhancing student engagement in extracurricular activities uh one of the things that has been noted is that the addition of an extra late bus has been really good so that students can have choices throughout the uh school year of you know maybe I stay here but I have the ability to go to one or more things that's available to them so those are some of the relevant topics that we've looked at so far um there sure will be more as we continue to delve into the school Improvement plan so then what's next again we'd like to engage all stakeholders in when we're working on the student family handbook revision process um we'd like to draft a revised handbook uh make sure that all parties uh are part of it so that's including our staff our e team and then having a final doc ready for you to approve or review and approve by June of 2025 I think that's all I have so I'm def definitely open for any questions that you may have I stop sharing my screen questions or comments school committee members Alice so happy to see the school handbook being um done in thorough manner thank you very much I'm I'm going to second that because that has been a um um a problem the school handbook and revising it and its current state has been a um an issue that comes up every year and there have been a number of uh problems I see Heidi's hand up we'll get to her in a second uh with it that have have caused us some issues and you know not really reflecting what we're doing covering some things not quite covering the right things and I'm I'm delighted that um an effort is being made to look at it holistically and to maybe come up with a revised handbook that really does um mirror what we're actually doing Heidi um I just want to formally recognize everybody who's dedicating their time to be on the school council um because we we mention all these groups and the projects we're doing and it sounds quick and easy like many of you on subcommittees sounds quick and easy but it is truly a commitment um it takes time it takes thought and I appreciate um the parents the teachers um our student student um and of course um principal DEA um for taking the time to to do this well so thank you all any the other comments or questions from the school committee membership on this report we look forward to your revisions for the handbook if you need anything from us to help you with the handbook you will please let us know we look forward to your report in June I believe you is that correct yes okay thank you very much thank you and is that the end of the principal's report yes that is the end thank you very much brings us to the superintendence report I think we have two very interesting items under here yes thank you Jeff um so um in the past typically around this time the superintendent gives an admissions update with numbers of applicants and things like that um this year I'm I'm sharing a little bit more about admissions with all of you because it is a Hot Topic across the state for vocational education um so you will get those numbers but you will we're also going to talk about um some um some issues that absolutely affect Minuteman and um vocational education across the state um so if you have not heard the Hot Topics in vocational education or CTE Career Technical education um are the ideas of a blind Lottery which is what Charter Schools do um whoever wants to come they're drawn out of a hat people get seats um the discussion has come up about the blind Lottery because of The Limited seats available there are more students than seats available in vett across the state um the other piece of this conversation um that connects to uh lottery or no Lottery is selective criteria should vocational schools have selective criteria to ensure that um the elements that are essential to participa participating in voked are um are looked at before we enroll students so I want to thank those of you who went to the Board of Education meetings Alice actually drove out to Holy o I would like to call her but I I was so thankful and and impressed um I've been working with maava which is the superintendence organization for vocational school districts and I made a statement in front of the the Board of Ed I know many of you watched it online um Alice was there in person very early very far away um and uh what's been happening is uh maava superintendent um the Massachusetts um school committee um Region 8 president um have been making comments to the board of ed because they have had some some business and some points and some statements about vocational education that um we as a group have not had voice into so we're we're um we're making our voice heard essentially um so the why do these conversations matter and now this is not new I'm sure you have heard this before sometimes um there's conversation about vocational schools cherry-picking their students um I having worked in voked for so many years I know that is absolutely not the case um but during this conversation about um vocational schools selecting the cream of the crop essentially um and leaving certain groups out um the data that was shared um was absolutely uh flawed there was information that was incorrect and I'm going to share with you some of that information um that I shared with the Board of Education um that as it relates to Minuteman and we have been um discussing as an organizational group U mava across the state um proponents of a blind Lottery claim that a blind Lottery will increase equity and access to vocational education um there were specific concerns raised by the Board of Education or by the Department of Education in front of the board about the number of English language Learners enrolled in Career and Technical education schools so Minuteman is one of the 34 what is called a wall-to-wall vocational school that means that is our only program every single student is in a chapter 74 program there are other schools many schools that have chapter 74 programs but they are not wall to--all which means within the school they can apply to be a part of those programs but it is not half of their experience in high school like like ours is and if anyone has questions I can only see a couple boxes but please feel free to get Jeff's attention interrupt me as we're going because I'd rather stay on a slide and answer questions as we go through okay so this is an example um some of you have seen this because you have attended some of the vocational study sessions um that were put on by the department of Ed and the Board of Ed um slides like this are absolutely jarring um from the years of to 2024 vocational or CTE schools admitted uh English language Learners at lower rates than non-p same is true for low-income students same is true for low Inc uh students with disabilities same is true for students of color I'm going to read this line again the non student with disability we're losing Heidi ID is [Music] Frozen okay oh can you hear me okay yes now we can hear you okay I'm GNA keep my video off while I'm sharing my screen oh my whole I'm going to have to redo this my entire thing shut down great the number one rule about technology is that it is guaranteed to fail when you need it the most keep that in mind whenever you turn on your computer right I will share this again okay another slide that was shared um in one of these study sessions that was particularly jaring um was that out of the 34 wall-to-wall vocational schools 22 of the CTE schools made fewer than 20 offers to English language Learners and 20 of the 34 schools made fewer than 10 offers to English language Learners this for those of you who watched you saw the emotions that this um that this I guess made happen that sparked um and uh was watching this myself live and in much like a school committee meeting um the public can't comment to say whoa wait a second let's look at this um so here's a slide that I shared with um the state 34 total CTE schools you see from this navy blue bar um 20 of the schools made fewer than 10 offers to elll students the missing data was that only 16 of the schools had 10 applicants it we just didn't have them we excluded the number of actual applicants so it's important to see that 16 of those schools did not have 10 applicants who are in that category and um out of the 22 who had fewer than 20 offers 21 of them had fewer than 20 applic so that's crucial information when we're making a decision um And discussing um inclusion or or ex exclusion of populations and I put a little reminder up here um vocational schools uh admitted uh did not zero of 34 vocational schools admitted students with disabilities at the same rate are higher than their non um student with disabilities uh peers and this is Minute Man's line um of course I'm aware of our Minuteman population if you look at the dotted line at the at the bottom that is the index or the comparison index from our region from all of the special education students in our region and as you can see it's been very consistent um with their enrollment in our regions schools across all of these years and Minute Man's line is this dark line so not only uh and I I couldn't look up 34 schools but I care about Minuteman we actually have a substantially higher rate um according to this comparison index questions about that so where this data came from was um a state um dashboard that was created and some of the data on the dashboard um was was baffling to many superintendents so at this point um we do not have clear vetted data or evidence that a blind Lottery will address the alleged admissions inequity or or Equity issue across the state's CTE schools um and uh we are making sure that we are a part of that conversation the other thing I want to bring up is selective criteria so some statements that have been made um in public is that wall-to-wall vocational schools are the only SCH schools that have selective criteria um the commonly used selective criteria since 2021 have been grades discipline attendance recommendation and interview um by law the only discipline that can be counted are um 10 days suspension or expulsions colonies um we cannot just look at a discipline record um and as far as attendance goes only unexcused absences um can count in this selective criteria um and as a side note um so this was um this again was a desie slide it is true we do use these things um there are many many programs and schools with Selective criteria if we're not familiar with them there are actual exam schools across the state uh Boston Public Schools the entire Massachusetts University system including um uh community colleges educational collaboratives advanced placement courses honors courses stem or other acmy within comprehensive schools Junior r RC Sports internships the list goes on um so that is a a picture of hey we have to look at education across the state and not just on CTE schools but why CTE schools are a Hot Topic is because of the number of seats that we have so what is next I would kindly request that when we send out information about a Board of Education meeting where vocational education is one of the topics please join please watch um they are usually um broadcast uh live through Vil live video and if you have not watched the ones so far they are available online um on their Channel I also re highly recommend even more important than the regular Department uh excuse me Board of Education meetings are the CTE study sessions at this point there have been three of them there was also a data subcommittee so since all of the advocacy about please look at this data let's have it accurate the Board of Education decided to to create a data subcommittee to look at this specific Data before making decisions which is wonderful um I am going to share with the committee I will Julia will send it in an email after this meeting the latest communication from maava to the Board of Education um I am going to continue to send that as it comes through so we can see how the conversation is progressing and if you didn't know um we to look at our own admissions policy to make sure we're in alignment um with what may be coming down the pike and making sure that we are reflecting on our own access and Equity um we had a joint legislative and policy subcommittee meeting to discuss um in depth these issues and to talk about and look at our own admissions policy um that committee is meeting again in January 2025 um according to the um the institutional knowledge um that all of you have been um sharing with me so wonderfully when it came to some of the decisions that had to be made when desie just came down with past changes it was quick reactive changes so we wanted to start meeting early with both the legislative subcommittee and the policy subcommittee to make sure we are proactive and thoughtful in everything everything that we do questions about these okay so um I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath for our actual admissions data um if you see the column in gray that is our information from last year as of December 8th we had a total 90 applicants as of December 8th last year and that's the class of 2028 our current freshman class if you look at the green column we currently have a total 143 in District applicants and I wanted to include or start including how many out of District applicants we have because I do think that's important to know that people are banging down our door to come to Minuteman um and of course uh we always fill from in District but we we already have have these are completed apps that exist in our system right now um and some events that will be helpful if you know of families in your community who maybe did or did not attend open house in our showcase day we have a virtual family information night on January 15th that will continue to be pushed out when we get the link and all that information I will send it to all of you so you can share with your communities put it on Facebook put it on Instagram put it everywhere um and the second Amy correct me if I'm wrong the second Winter Wonderland um which is um more of an an open house um It's a Wonderful positive event um but students who come visit do get an opportunity to experience our vocational programs um during this winter wonderland event and I think that that is that is all I have I'm going to stop my share and I will put my video back on and hope I don't get kicked off okay I know that was a lot um and it's I guess a summary from 2011 and prior um does anyone have questions or any clarifying points or information that you'd like to share yes Sharon oh um I think and again Amy or Katie correct me but I believe that the winter wonderland is more of like a family event for um also encouraging like younger family members within the community to come in like last year my young son and his friends all came in and there was a bunch of great activities and um it was a fabulous event but I think it's it my understanding is it was more Geared for the community to try to get them to understand like to get into to minute man and to see it and then potentially think later on like oh that was a fun place I went to and let's go back and maybe you know in five years I might want to be there at school so so we are still yep we are still including those um the younger students they are not excluded but um as Paul and Erin our director of admissions and I discussed this year we really do need to make sure that our eighth graders understand that they have access and they need to know what Ved looks like so we are definitely going to make sure we Market more to eighth graders to make sure they know they are included in this and we hope that this would be something that fifth grade sixth grade seventh grade eighth grade you want to come back to every single year all right other questions I just have a quick comment um it's incredible discouraging that Professionals in our industry are presenting information that is so flawed and that is the part of it that we have to explain you can't make good decisions if you have information that um doesn't make sense the you know the uh the earliest prime directive of uh computer technology was gigo garbage in garbage out without the right information doesn't matter how smart your computer is how great your algorithm is yet garbage coming out and some of the information some of the data that they put together um had no merit and that is very discouraging that professionals who should know better have done that that's really my only comment on this ongoing issue Maggie um I I just want to share I mean I don't have specific questions the presentation was very clear I want to share an appreciation for for you um and the time that you have put into advocacy because I think that you know especially in a first year in a new District um it feels like there are plenty of things even with in the building that could keep you busy all day and um and yet understanding that this is sort of a um existential threat to the existence of CTE education in general um I really appreciate it and I think that it's such a narrow uh needle to thread because it it feels like the advocating for what we need in CTE is um not supporting equity and that is is couldn't be further from the truth and I think that there's just you know if you're the Boston Globe or if you are a political person it feels better to have this like damning data and the fact that the reality of it is so much more nuanced um it's hard to get people to pay attention to nuance and um I just from my point of view really appreciate your advocacy and your willingness to kind of clarify it for us and for anybody watching this um because I mean the reality is that you know sometimes if if you're a family with English language Learners you have different priorities maybe that make you know going out of District to a different School less appealing and and there's like so many layers and complications to that you I really appreciate your work uh I really appreciate you saying that um very much it is being a a superintendent at at Minuteman has has felt like sipping water from a fire hose but I'm here for it um and I know if the the actual structures that support vocational education are not in place then we can't do what we need to do here and I want to give another shout out to principal Dela Amy I see Katie bushard Nikki in here Peter kellerer our administrative team and our teachers have made it so that I can do those things out of the building and make sure things are still happening um the right way in the building and it has it's been um it's been a lot but it I feel like we have a a good team to make things happen that's that's a huge part of it too thank you for for noticing yeah you can't leave the building if there's always a fire going on so keeping keeping the the dayto day moving on in you know a a positive direction it's really it's been it's it's been really heartening to to hear these presentations any other questions or comments I will say that um uh the reaction of the Board of Education was very positive to Heidi's presentation and the presentation of at least one other CCH um superintendent that I saw I think that they were giving very very impressive presentations and really caught people's attention that's at least my takeaway from it all right the second part of my presentation is um introducing assistant superintendent uh Dr perau and I will share my screen I will be her Vanna White but you won't earn as much as Vanna White earned that wasn't a proposal don't worry Jeff it's okay perfect thank you superintendent disil good evening everyone um I'm very excited to talk to you about student services um I wanted to give a a quick sort of overview of what student services kind of is and the services we provide and the students that we support um so the first one first group is students experiencing homelessness um I am the homeless liaison for the district so supporting homeless students and homeless families um starts kind of with me um I will say I am usually not the first person to know about it our support staff guidance counselors teachers are awesome um and students tend to go to them first and then they Loop me in after um students in foster care I'm also the um point of contact foster care liaison I think is the official title but that is me um and again the same um I tend to get a notice from DCF or um other adults in the students um support network of someone that's entering into the foster care system and then we continue to provide Services um English language Learners um not a huge population at minute man but still require a varying level of services for their language acquisition um the re-entry after extended leave is our program that supports students that have are coming back from a hospitalization or an extended medical leave it's um some of you may have heard of bridge program it's based on that like model where we found several years ago that students that were hospitalized mainly for mental health issues had a really hard time re acclimating into the building and they ended up withd drawing to go to therapeutic programs within their sending districts for level of support and we found that it wasn't a long-term level of support they needed they just needed more of a short-term support to transition from one setting to the next um and since we have created this program we have lots of um re we have re-entry meetings where the all the adults and the students life come together we make a plan they come in and over the course of one to two weeks they get caught up at work they meet with their counselor touch base with their shop teachers make a plan and make up work that is essential for them to move on and then acclimate back into the class it's completely student driven no one plan looks the same as the next um but we have seen such a dramatic increase in students being able to transition back get into their classes feel comfortable feel safe not have to withdraw to go to another program and less often have to rely on the support of outside placement or additional hospitalizations um there's students receiving special education services um you know that our numbers are above the average of the state currently we're about a 45% special education rate of our student population and then other students with disabilities um so not just students that have an IEP but we also have students that have 504s um about a hundred of our students and then also Health Care PL so any student that may have asthma or allergies or maybe diabetic every student has to have an individual plan on how to um provide care for that particular um disability um so those are like the overarching um services and one of the things that I want to point out is that a lot of these things are kind of hard to plan for so I know as you're working with the budget and you're looking at different things transportation is a huge piece of what minute man does for both homelessness and Foster Care um and it's very hard to predict right now between like last year and this year our numbers fluctuate some students stay homeless for a month and some stay for the whole year so it's very hard to predict what next year will look like now for our homeless and Foster Care populations um it's the same thing with our English language Learners as the populations change and that's also not our English language learners but it's also our families whose first language isn't English so we have to provide translation um for all of our documents our special education documents um for the parents in their native language as well related Services as our disabilities in um special education have changed for some of you that have been here for a really long time you know that about 10 years ago it was less than 1% of our students were whose primary disab primary disability was autism right now it's 12% of our student population so huge um shift in presentation which is amazing because it shows again that we're providing access to so many different types of learners but that also requires different types of support for those Learners to access the curriculum and we start to see like a pattern so we can sort of try to predict what might be coming down for those types of services as we look at um Trends but again we're special BL blind so during the admissions process you know um we don't really know what services we need to provide for students until we get a look at those IEPs and that's not until after students are accepted so we're looking at late spring and then as students are accepted kind of after the first wave um throughout the summer so I know that's a lot of information and I talked really fast so is there any questions on that it's very hard for me to see your hand so you got to really raise them if you have it okay I see Alice um I'm interested in the re-entry after extended leave so how long are they on extended leave like ballpark you know range and also how do they make up the shop or major time if they're out great questions um and there isn't an answer I can say on average most partial hospitalizations are about 5 to 10 school days long so like at average I guess two weeks um some are much longer some are you know they're out for uh extended weekend there's also students that are out for concussions so that varies you know someone they have we've had students that are out for surgeries so depending on what their Mobility is coming back so it really there isn't an average um I I guess for partial hospitalizations the average for that is about two weeks um and then it's really difficult um the our teachers are amazing I I mean that's the first answer is that they prioritize what the most important thing to learn is for the students what they need to focus on so that they can continue to build upon that um when they're oh we do have um communication and contact with the students most of the time regardless of the situation um and the help that they're getting so we can send work so that's when related work comes in really handy for shop is you know whatever their related work is that they can do um while they're gone and then again when they come back during that time during that re-entry we focus their time based on what they need so if that means that they need a couple extra days in shop we can we can work that into the schedule to get them caught up I one further question if you don't mind um this is the first time in 22 years that I've seen anything relating to students in foster care so I wondered like are you seeing an increase in the number of students in foster care um is that a trend Beyond just our school or is what's going on there I for us we haven't seen a dramatic increase it is it has been pretty steady I mean I've report to the state every year and I can get those actual numbers for you but it hasn't been an increase in the last five years it's been pretty steady it's never nothing um but it's also never for us in our small population it's never like gone to the double digits school okay thank you I have a kind of a follow-up to Alice's question could you give me a a snapshot this doesn't have to be anywhere near the actual number but just kind of the magnitude of the number students in those first four categories yes I can um I'm counting um roughly 35 but it's a very fluid number may I also add may I interrupt and add I apologize but there are students who are in several categories um so please understand that um one student may be in four categories or what so depending on the F and how many how many about are in foster care and how many are homeless of our of our oh we actually there are so few that we will not share that number on our uh we don't want to possibly identify any students or have someone try let's figure out who those are so I am happy to touch base and share that with anyone um have a conversation separately um but we definitely don't want to blast that out on a on a school committee meeting but I appreciate the question because I know zero it is not zero and it has not been zero good so I just wanted to bring that up to let the school community members know that this is not just theoretical for us these are real problems that uh the staff here deals with on on an ongoing basis and that we pay for on an ongoing basis and um there are there are children we take care of them and it's it's really good to get a presentation to remind us of the kind of issues that some of our children are facing on a daily basis and remember what Heidi said you might have one kid who's in all four of those categories so a lot of um challenges that are administrative and teaching staff deal with on a regular basis and that we deal with in our budget on a regular basis and I think I see Maggie's hand up I just I yeah I appreciate the um clarification of the student services thing and my experience I think Alice to your point about foster care I think that one thing that has changed in the last decade around schools and Foster Care is that my experience was that this has always been an issue but there hasn't always been a designated Point person in schools to um respond to the issues that crop up so in the past it might be just just a guidance counselor new and I think the obligations of schools you know whether it's the homelessness and the mckin vento act or with regard to foster care I think in a slightly different context is that we are obligated to educate the students even if being homeless means that they are living quite a dead a diff you know a distance away and that includes the transportation and it includes other kind of supportive wraparound services to ensure that they can access education during this period of whether they're you know Foster students or homeless students and like to Amy's point it is completely unbudgeted and that can be a huge challenge for us as school committee members who are tasked with you know approving and making sure the district is able to pay for these wraparound services for these vulnerable vulnerable kids so thank you for being so clear about the different categories of students who need that kind of support no other questions about that one I can move on um I chose mental health I wanted to give a more sort of deeper dive of one sort of area of me of the minute man services that we provide which are vast um but I remember telling everyone a little bit about the mental first aid train the trainer a while back and I knew that people were kind of excited about that so I wanted to go into a little bit more of our Mental Health Services um we have we're very fortunate that we have such talented mental health uh practitioners and they all work in different capacities within the school um slightly through different lenses to support all of our students uh we have four guidance counselors we have four social worker adjustment counselors that th those are the the clinicians that provide the Direct Services to students who need like school-based counseling it's it's above and beyond the counseling that a guidance counsel would provide or at the level that a guidance counsel would provide but knowing that the student needs it as an and an ongoing sort of um manageable like schedule time so we so that we our four guidance counselors can do all the things on their plates that they do we have these four clinicians that provide the Direct Services that are on IEPs and 504s and if you haven't heard me say it you'll hear me say it more I don't believe that you need to be on a specific plan in order to have your mental health needs met so we have a system in place where the guidance counselors make a referral directly to me about a student and then I can assign them to one of our counselors to check in with and then help the family whether it's they see them themselves they make a referral out we have a um great partnership with Advocates um which is a community-based program but they bring we bring in a clinician um God we keep increasing her numbers so I think she's up to three days a week that she's here doesn't cost us anything the students get um outpatient therapy while they're in the school they build their insurance directly but it takes away the part of Transportation um it takes away the part of finding a time that works for the family to get the student to after school um so it really is a win-win for everyone so I should have added that to it but we don't employ this person we just have a um great relationship with Advocates we also use Advocates if we need like an emergency mental health of Val like in the moment they're one of our um partners that we can call if we need crisis help um and then some of the things that we do are our SOS screening which is our signs of suicide um we do it with every freshman and then we do a refresher in the junior year so we like to get to know our freshman better because again we're in the unique position that we didn't have anyone in eth grade so we always like to do our freshman and kind of get a sense of who they are um but we all know as maturity and development happens over the years different things can um take place so we do a bit of a refresher junior year so we kind of just circle back and touch Bas back again and that's what every freshman and every Junior um we've also in the past offered um parent SOS classes um for parents to come in and learn it from a parent perspective what the signs of suicide program is and get educated on that um I wish those we got to figure out a way to do that more via Zoom because in the in person it's hard to get a lot of attendance in that so we're going to try to tweak that that a little bit and do it more in this sort of virtual world um so this is huge to me um so over the summer we used a a mental health Grant from the state to send seven minute man staff to a train the trainer for mental health first aid so myself I was the only administrator but we had counselors we had vocational teachers we had special education teachers we had regular academic teachers it was like the greatest mix of our school staff um attend this very intense week of training to be train to be Trainers for mental health first aid and um I I may have elbowed principal DEA a little bit to take two of our professional development days but we are going to train the ENT entire School the entire school by the end of this school year unless they were absent or whatever is going to be a mental health first AER they're G to have those basic skills to notice things to feel comfortable to respond to to things in the moment with their students to ask the question that they want to ask but they're not really sure how to ask they're going to know how to ask um and when students come to them they're they're I know that they want to stay say the right thing but they never know if they're saying the right thing if they if a counselor should say that if they can say that so throughout this training they're going to get so many resources and really the the goal is for me is for every staff in this building to feel comfortable talking to a student about mental health issues they don't it's not therapy it's not crisis work it it's just first aid I mean it's great name Mental Health First Aid um but because our seven trainers are in the school my long-term goal is incorporating this in so that as new staff come in when staff retire out that we continue to keep the training up so that um all of our staff know how to support our students and to me that is very exciting any questions on that I see Alice's hand yeah I just want to thank you for that um a lot of schools they just are very reactive when some national disaster occurs in some state or another and all of a sudden it's let's get to know the kids but it seems to me over the years that minute man has always been focused on always knowing the kids always knowing everybody in the school and I really feel that's critical um and I'm glad that you have a plan in place to continue to Train everybody that's terrific thank you great Shar yeah I was gonna Echo what Alis said and just as you know somebody who's had a student there within the last four years to see the types of programming that you're providing for the students and to see the knowledge base of the teachers has been remarkable and I really appreciate that you're kind of championing this you know training for all faculty because I think with our popul especially with these kids having come out of Co and what it did for their mental health and their social pragmatic skills and I think it's just it's critical and I I love that you're doing it so thank you thank you any other and my last piece um I'm gonna quote principal DEA because I think he said he's gonna put he was putting out a plug for um his advisory Council um and I know that he talked about it and said that he was looking to increase parental involvement so I'm stealing or jumping on to that um we have as every school is supposed to have H is a CPAC special education parent advisory Council I was and I'd like to publicly thank um Sharon must for her work on the CPAC for the last three this is her fourth year um along with Will Barker Unfortunately they both have seniors and they're leaving um we have had a volunteer step up to say they would help but we need um a a team to lead the CPAC so um we're working with the mpa um to try to communicate the fact that we would like more um parent involvement in our CP um so it's kind of a three- tiered we're looking to drum up participation we have historic this isn't new we have historically had very low um participation in like CPAC programming and that's not unique to vocational schools at all um all of my colleagues in our other vocational schools are are represent or say the same thing about their cpacs and um participation and a lot of that is because we're high school kids and it's rare that a student is entering the special education World in high school um and parents tend to need that support when they're learning all the vocabulary and wanting a parent um like who has shared experiences and whatnot but as we're getting parent we're getting students in ninth grade I think that that level of support might not be as needed as it is in the earlier grades it's a hypothesis um so I'd like to get membership up and get um new lead a new leadership team in place and then we are members of mass pack through the Federation um so we that's how we um support ourc pack we send um our leaders to um the leadership training Su Sharon I think you went through that once yep um and then W widen it so you know get our leadership team train our leadership team and then provide our training and support to our parents and caregivers and um the Federation actually as part of that training they also provide training to the larger cpacs as well that is um just on point and they're great and their delivery is specific to parents so parents feel um heard and validated and it's in parent friendly language like I can't say enough that those are really great trainings for our parents so um we're looking to kind of a rebuilding year and I'm sad to see our current leadership go and I just want to thank you for your many years of service who we missed and I see Pam thanks um I I just wanted to add that um as a mass pack member um that you can get technical assistance to help specific issues doesn't just have to be the training but it can be technical assistance in terms of how to build it up recruiting new members whatever you want so I encourage you to reach out okay I will thank you charene has there in the past or can there be in the future um as I I heard what you said about um you know low participation because this is not really the entry point of um for for students and parents uh in the you know 9th through 12th grade grades generally parents have already been in the system for quite a while with their student so um they don't necessarily need that beginner information but are there opportunities for things that are really more focused to V Tech like um opportunities for special needs students or I students for um you know particular types of co-ops or accommodations during Co for coops or things like that that might interest the parent population of our school um I can jump in on that so at at a student accommodation an individual student accommodation would not be the role of the CPAC so the CPAC is a parent organization where we would hope we'd have a robust group who could inform us on our practices and as we grow our programming and and right now um as Pam said we we do need some help because we are in desperate need of of people um to come do that with us that's not what I meant let me explain um so the CPAC often times does I I ran CPAC at nooba for three years so the CPAC oftentimes does presentations for parents and what I'm wondering is are there opportunities for presentations for parents to that are more you know gauged toward this AIDS group more gauged toward vocational education vocational um co-ops things like that so that the parent you know I mean I've gone to understanding an IEP probably 10 times at least right but I haven't heard anything about special accommodations and co-ops or um you know opportunities for students with special needs in you know job placements or transition employment yeah transition those but typical transition I mean more like your V Tech transition so that is 1,000% on the table we need um a CPAC leadership to work with a so we can get those resources in place have an a meeting plan where we're meeting monthly or at once every term so we can do what the parents need to support their kids so that type of idea is awesome Amy can't do it alone and that and that's where we are right now and Sharon and I don't know will personally but I think sometimes a struggle with the 9 through 12 cpacs for a district is that sometimes parents will come with a very unique issue for their Sharon correct me if I'm wrong um with a specific issue about their own child um to the and that's not the appropriate venue with a you know you go to the school you come to Paul or you go to us but the CPAC is just like a school council but focused on that particular population um and we need that so we can have those um create those resources have a parent group that's active who's working um in conjunction with Amy um and we need your help to to recruit parents um who are willing to put in the time like we do on a school council or um uh like a subcommittee and and those type of things and I I would say just from my experience the last few years is that even when we I mean we tried to Market I think the the largest you know the most widely attended event that we've had in the past three years was when we actually had Amy come in last year and present kind of tell us about special education at minut man and I think we had like 22 or something and that was wasn't that wasn't it somewhere around there you think it was less than that I thought it was I think we hit 20 it absolutely was the highest attendance we've had in a long time but I think it's also I mean I think part of the problem with a vocational education school is that it's not so much that we're in 9 through 12 and we don't sort of need or have these questions anymore I think part of it is that again you didn't know any of us from eth grade so we arrived at the school and everybody comes from different places and especially most of us now we arrived you know the seniors arrived right after covid so you really didn't get to know anybody because there wasn't a lot of communication and time together so um I think that was one of the things that we that will and I felt over the last few years is trying to find a way to reach out to the parents and get them to come in or have but the it's the attendance of meetings I mean we were ad nauseum sending out reminders we we did start a a Facebook page for the minute man CPAC and that did get some you know got a little bit of um people joining that but again it was mostly like here's the stuff that we were getting that were announcements and we would just post them there but not a lot of interaction and engagement and I think it's just hard and we and Sharon I like your point we we want how to is frozen again we'll hold timate goal you're back now you were frozen for a minute sorry Heidi all we heard was we want and that's the we we want people to not just do a one and done um I'm going to shut my video off so hopefully it uses a little less of my um my bandwidth here I guess um we want people to be able to come and do the work and support the mission of minute man and not come in for a one and done and then they come in for you know we need a small committed group um and hopefully we can we can get to that this year and they'll work in partnership with him Charlene you have some thoughts on that um one of the things that I did which worked really well was combining with other cpacs so um getting together in our case perhaps with other cpacs of vocational education to do targeted uh vocational Ed CPAC presentations might be good or even getting together with the cpacs from our sending districts um to have more of that Community feel because um you know and then then the third point is to really mix it up with um those who are not necessarily CPAC um attendees so one of the most successful events that I had was um Sarah Ward and executive functioning because that is something that all students struggle with whether you've got a child that's got um special education needs or not you know the majority of students in school today are are struggling with um executive functioning so a lot of parents are attracted to that and by having something that has more wide appeal to all parents and and is published to all parents um it it can get the CPAC more um more exposure I do believe that that is the end of your report Amy is that correct that is Mage any other questions yeah I will say that the report was extremely well received by the school it was very clear and it um emphasized a number of areas that I'm very happy that were emphasized to the to the full school committee especially your slide showing all the different groups that you deal with and the fact that we have some of each and you and the staff manag to work with all these kids and um and to help them out so thank you very much for that and then we move on from special to finance okay St thank you so much um as Jeff uh mentioned at the beginning of the U meeting uh the finance committee did meet last Monday December 2nd and we had uh uh we were able to review version one of the superintendant recommended budget and uh I have I'll have to say from the get-go and I'm I'm sure my my fellow committee members agree that uh for first time uh uh putting a budget together it was very impressive uh what what Heidi has done um uh when we uh back in November saw the departmental request Heidi review those and uh she basically decreased um those requests by $1.1 million um so where we're kind of at right now after version one is uh combined our total operational and capital budget is up about 2.99% just a little under under 3% um and uh uh the uh required uh member Town assessments would be up about 3.34% on average um however we we we did Express a couple concerns and and one of them actually was was pointed out in in Amy's presentation and that's the area of Transportation you know we've seen a pretty big increase in and transportation particularly for uh uh foster care and this is also going to be uh we'll be opening up bids for our our regular school bus transportation in the near future and um uh the uh superintendent had only budgeted for a 5% increase in in the transportation um uh B bid so we've we've asked her and and Nikki to kind of revisit the whole Transportation issue just to make sure uh we've got some wiggle room in that in that line item and and similarly uh we were a little concerned about uh um goods and materials uh that that are used for for academics primarily because of uh inflation and you know if if some of these tariffs come to be particularly building materials that come from Canada you know we just want to make sure that that that the the numbers in in those areas transportation and and supplies are are realistic uh going forward and you know as as Amy mentioned in her presentation transportation is a wild card particularly in the Foster and and homeless situation so and and it's hard to find drivers as I understand it so when when it's hard to find drivers that means the costs go up even more so uh we will be meeting again uh next Monday the uh whatever that is and uh hopefully uh we'll um be able to come out of that meeting with a recommended budget that we can present to the full school committee in in January but um I have to say you know I I've been involved with budgets for like 40 something years I don't want to even think about how many how long it's been but this is like what of the best preliminary budgets I've ever seen um and very impressed with with both uh both Heidi and and Nicki and the work they've done so it it makes our fincom job a lot easier and um you know hopefully uh maybe you'll get some harder numbers on those two areas and be able to present a really good budget to the full school committee in in January so unless there's questions that basically uh concludes my report Would S like to add anything else to that as another fincom member uh I would just Echo Steve sentiment that um Nikki and Heidi have done a great job and um very thorough and um there's a lot of detail that they take us through but um it's important to know all the components any questions from the membership on that very brief just an appetizer for the budget the big budget um details that are coming down the pike full course and dessert will be in January Sharon Jared you're muted I know I was trying to like unmute and I couldn't find my Mouse um I I appreciate what you are looking at as far as Transportation because I know that that's been an ongoing issue of like just the cost of transportation and the quality of transportation and I wish that there were more bus companies in our vicinity that would be willing to do things so yeah I mean that's one thing that uh I actually did not know but I learned from Nikki is that uh uh these bus companies kind of divvy up areas so it I hate to say it it's almost like the trash collection on The Sopranos I mean it's like it's kind of like that so uh makes it harder and definitely uh harder to control costs for sure yeah very well other aspects of your Finance report Steve for today that was pretty much it I mean you know that's where that's where're all about any comments Nikki or Heidi since we mentioned the budget and I I just want to thank all of you for your patience this was a a lot to get through um like I said I'll reiterate the sipping water through a fire hose um so I'm excited to get through the process and and I just wanted to mention we have been speaking most of you I think Nikki and I um have talked to um to me managers Town administrators finance committee members um from other towns um so I just wanted to make sure you know that's going on in back very good that's the end of the finance report we move on to subcommittee reports and we have the joint policy legislative subcommittee update so that'd be both Alice and Charlene so if it's okay with you I'll do policy and Charlene will do legislative is that all right um I you know you've already heard quite a bit about the admissions thing but I I wanted to remark uh a bit about it myself because if you think about over the years the the per the current admissions policy is actually something that we inherited and tinkered with a couple of years ago um under pressure from the department and um I think Amy can recall if it was maybe two years of work um to do that that um there was constantly new information coming to us and it was it was something else but there has been a remarkable focus on these 34 schools admissions policy when you consider the Department of Education had the board meetings Friday Monday and Tuesday consecutive days of that whole Board of people to discuss vocational admissions in these 40 schools 40 34 schools when they have reading problem problems Statewide when they have attendance issues all kinds of curriculum issues building problems any number of things that affect a great many people more than has affected here um but they chose to do that um and it's just something that's curious to me and I kind of like to understand it better and because I like to understand things and we did spend um a a good meeting uh going through every bit of the current admissions policy to just understand you know is there a room for improvement and yes there is in all of it I spent a little bit of today looking at the admissions policy uh recommendations on the desie website and it took me some work but I discovered that the current recommended boilerplate policy was written in 2021 and hasn't been updated it does not say that on the front page you have to go into the properties of the word document but it's in there 2021 um they haven't changed anything since then um so you know I feel like there's going to be more surprises because that's how these this seems to play out every time they do it um and uh you know we're gonna we're going to work on it but as Heidi mentioned um that's it's a long process it's not it's not going to be one meeting to just redo the ad missions policy and then we're not going to know what actually happens at the board level you know up ahead of us that for a while you know um there are there are forces at play that I don't understand and I just keep coming back to this three consecutive board meetings can you imagine if Jeff called a board meeting on Friday Monday and Tuesday to talk about an issue I mean nobody does that you know so I is I'm not sure what their beef is but um as Heidi said the data the data is not there for the proposal that they're making um datadriven decision making used to be what everybody said in their sleep with education um but they're not saying that um so you know we'll look policy we'll look at it we have other things on our plate which um as usual they when this comes up when the admissions policy comes up um sometimes we get sides wiped by it and it takes over but I think we'll still go back to what we were working on before which is the other policies that we're behind on but I just want to just make everybody think a little bit about that three consecutive meetings about an issue that affects so few people that's it from me you want me to start um so like Alice um I have thoughts on this as well as far as the subcommittee uh goes we're at a little bit of a standstill right now because we're trying to figure out what is happening with um the masas and the masc response to this I don't even know what to call it um you know this this admissions um crisis that the powers that we are marting um anyone who walks through our V Tech schools knows that they're pretty diverse uh communities in many cases far more diverse than our sending communities I mean I can say that's the fact for for my um just going to a football game at Minuteman versus going to a football game at nooba there's a huge level of difference in diversity and Minuteman is way more diverse than nishoba and that's nothing against nishoba just happens to be the demographics um anyway uh I'm very concerned with the level of the level of faulty data um I know that the board of education is also very concerned with this that's why they have the data subcommittee and that's great we can applaud them for seeing this and um acting appropriately in response there to um but I I guess the thing that's frustrating me most is that VTech schools are being given a bad rep they're G being given um a they're being painted with a broad stroke of being discriminatory of not allowing these elll students of not having special ed students and that's simply not true um our special ed student population is much higher than the comprehensive counterpart parts and um you know we do a lot of work with all kinds of diverse communities you know um so it's very frustrating to be accused of something that is simply not true um and I have a I have a hard time with such blatant Injustice so I've been really chomping at the bit to write a letter I want to write a letter I want to send it to everybody um and I've just been you know everybody's been kind like hold on right um because we need to see what the positions are going to be with mass and masc I did invite division 8 to minute man this weekend but due to the holidays there doesn't see seem to be enough um we don't think we're going to be able to get enough people to come uh on a holiday pre holiday weekends so we're holding off until after the holidays and we're waiting to see more direction from the leadership as to how they're going to proceed because we just don't want to be going um to do do something quickly that isn't well thought out that's where we stand we will have a joint meeting with Poli next month and um if more develops we may have a quick meeting for just this legislative subcommittee so that we can propose at our next meeting or you know to have a special meeting to get something done more quickly s that was long be you're muted so sad school committee members comments or questions very well then thank you Alice and Charlene guess what this is an issue we're going to hear about a lot coming up Alice you did have another comment got to push that magic button Mouse on the table um I'm going to go to the next Board of Ed meeting so if anybody wants to um witness history um I'm happy to carpol I've got an electric car not going to pollute the Airways just just go along and and I think it's good to um have the public present at these things because um especially if you talk to your legislator eventually if some if something like that is necessary it's good to be able to say I was there that actually is important so if anybody wants to go Charlene you want to go so we'll go and we'll just sit there and listen you know I'm not going to say anything I'm just sit there and listen I usually take notes that's keeps me out of trouble what's the date it's um next week sometime okay next week sometime Tuesday Morning Tuesday Morning Tuesdays it's um in Everett this time Tuesday Morning in Everett yeah well I hear a rumor it may be virtual but they haven't put that out yet so when it when it does come out officially I'll make sure that um Julia sends it to the whole it would be great if it was virtual although then they don't know we there but Charlene I was just gonna make another comment that um desie is obviously Serv of a new uh commissioner and they are seeking feedback for anybody who watched those um sessions you may or may not want to provide some feedback we haven't decided as a committee whether we're providing any feedback as a committee so you'll be providing it as an individ all see no more hands or comments so I believe we've come to item 10 which is adjournment unless there any final comments no final comments I would like then a motion to adjourn our meeting so moved a second roll call vote pam pam nurse Acton yes Sarah montue Arlington yes Linda herbison Bolton yes Deo conquered yes Maggie Sharon do yes Sharon mus Lexington yes Jeff Stan nean yes Al Joe yes so everybody thank you all the attendees thank you school committee members we have lots of exciting stuff coming up for the rest of the Year look forward to it thank you again Amy and Paul for all those reports telling us really what's going on that's very very important for us to hear and everybody have a good night and we will see you in January so enjoy your holidays I don't see you before then bye-bye