to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all um just a reminder everybody that Norton media is recording the meeting if anybody else is we just need to know um and I just want to thank everybody for accommodating the meeting here tonight I guess the select board needed to meet here tonight so we move from the school to here so I know it's kind of cramped in tight quarters but we appreciate everybody being flexible um all right so we're going to start with the minutes you guys all had a chance to look at the May 9th minutes does anybody have any questions concerns no no is there a motion to approve the minutes for May 9th 24 is there a second second all those in favor I all right the warrant that's me I reviewed and approved the following warrant School expense warrants May 9th 2024 49 $ 5,729 School payroll warrants May 2nd 2024 $1,238 218 and 19 cents they wish to enter them into public record and you guys are out okay so for the Y the fifth grade students made their way to the move up day visit to the middle school today May 23rd students got to meet Mr Hayward Mr Goldstein in the sixth grade teacher teams they got a tour the norm middle school and even got to see the amazing play Wonka but amazing day to help him transition into the six grade for upcoming third grade students from the lgn and JCS we have third graders coming up to us in the upcoming weeks a family informational night and Mr gagan and Mr Bal will be having their yearly visits to each third grade classroom to talk with them about their transition to the our fourth graders will also check out the second and third floors of where they might be next year for Memorial Day our students will be doing readings throughout the day to help students remember and understand why Memorial Day is important and how it's not just a day off or a reason to barbecue we have Field Day for both grades on June 10th packed packed full with some fun engaging outdoor activities next week we have our hey PTO buy one get one free Scholastic Book Fair in the middle in in school which everyone loves to get a book or two for the summer our fifth grade has an anti-bullying assembly from animal Adventures from the he PTO coming next week with our students learning not not to bully by seeing touching and hearing about about such animals as a frog chinchilla python armadillo and Kangaroo such a great message while being an incredible experience and oh yeah a lot more coming from the yell including the sliming of Mr G and Mr B all right so from nms uh drama club is currently in the middle of their run for the show Willy Wonka last evening students of nms performed to packed house and are looking forward to do the same this evening and tomorrow night as well tickets are still available nms just hosted Our Best Day Ever celebration yesterday as a reward for all of our students hard work on the fundraiser this year collectively the nms community raised an excess of 12,000 to go towards various efforts here at nms many thanks to those families and members of the community who made gifts towards the fundraiser mcast season is almost over at nms with our eighth grade eighth grade getting ready to wrap things up with Civics mcast coming up next week I didn't takeen brand new this year spring Sports have also wrapped for the season and we want to congratulate all those student athletes who participated in spring Sports we have begun the field trip season here at nms as well some of our sixth graders traveled to Buttonwood Zoo earlier this week while some of our eighth graders just traveled to Kimble Farm and will be traveling to New York City next Friday and so for the JCS students have been enjoying days of Adventure at norn Outdoor Center thanks to a wonderful partnership with YMCA and with the support of the JCS SPO in the tremendous volunteer support from dozens of parents including two awesome school committee members every day in kindergarten throughout third grade has or will as of tomorrow spent a full day at camp finberg taking on rope challenges playing games and enjoying nature students walk from the JCS to fber and back even in the hot weather this is our second year of these special days and we hope to see the partnership continue into the future especially with a possible bridge over the waiting River to shorten the hike tomorrow our second graders under the Tage of Mr place will be performing the annual Memorial Day concert behind the school near the baseball field at 2:30 p.m. we are pleased to honor our local veterans with with special seating and individual thank yous for their service all right from the high school we had a great spring concert last week on Thursday the performances were excellent we're looking forward to the Memorial Day Sly tomorrow morning seniors have a loaded week coming up with graduation walk on Tuesday Six Flags on Wednesday graduation on Thursday and prom on Friday 9th and 10th grade students are looking forward to the semi-formal at we on Friday June 7th that's all we have for you sir that was a lot of information thank you guys and it's your last meeting yeah well thank you for being a part of this definely so um we just wanted to thank Gabby for her dedication to um being a student repr Edition it's a wonderful thing and so these are just some flowers for you and as I said you can take your name tag with you too can you share your plans for the fall with us um so I'm going to be attending Simmons University and I'm going to be majoring in bio on a premedical track wonderful congratulations but thank you so much I love being here this is an awesome opportunity thank and yeah we love having you for sure good luck in the future always stay in touch let us know how you're doing well definitely yeah all right all right so next up another um great tradition that we have as introduction of class of 2024 salutatorian and valorian Dr O'Neal I'm going to go up to the podium if that works for so I can see our audience here excuse me all right so tonight I have the honor of introducing our class of 2024 salutatorian and validator I'm going to ask Maddie Dumont to come up and join me first please so meline is an incredible goal-driven resilient young woman who has the lofty career goal of becoming a radiologist Maddie has a deep love for learning about sciences and Spanish due to her diligent and Resolute nature towards her academics she has received exceptional grades in all of her classes culminating in a 4.77 GPA which makes her our classic 2024 saluted um Maggie Maddie is involved with six honor societies has a leadership role in two societies which she has most passioned for which are science in Spanish she's the president of the Spanish Honor Society where she loves to spread her love for Spanish and is historian for the science Honor Society Maddie has also been a member of the cheer squad for four years and was Captain this year as well um and Maddie why don't you tell us what your plans are for the followers I'll be going to George Washington University and I'm going to be majoring in exercise science on a premedical track that's amazing congratulations congratulations and somebody on my team take a picture I'm looking at you guys look at each other you know what you have to move yeah with the nice picture here we go I know all right oh yeah is your family here all right Mom Dad family who's here come on up thank you guys I appreciate I've never done this before too say cheese everybody here we go all right all ready jeez got it thank you congratulations [Music] all right now I am going to invite Carolyn to come up as well all right uh Carolyn Powers is our class of 2024 validator congratulations uh she hold us 4.8 GPA in rank number one in her class she has taken numerous advanced placement levels courses each year she takes great pride in her academics and received the academic Excellence award in English science and math during her junior year Carolyn is an active member of several honor societies including National Honor Society math science English History Spanish and business she holds leadership positions of the environmental director for the science Honor Society and the president of the business Honor Society Carolyn is also co-president of the debate team and participates in Deca in which she's vice president of public relations and social media in addition to her rigorous academics and extracurriculars Carolyn is also a dedicated gymnast she's on the high school team as well as a club team uh she also coaches gymnastics for students ages 3 to 10 and I spent time volunteering for a summer gymnastics program uh Carolyn also stays active by running Spring Track she's able to balance all of her commitments with Grace and has even picked up a job at the Tropical Smoothie Cafe during her uh Caroline can you please tell us what your plans are for next year yeah I'm going to Stonehill and measuring in environmental science and I plan on going to law school that's amazing I'm a stone home we love it congratulations over we'll have Dr aan take a picture for us he didn't know he was going to be on duty tonight three two one and there we go all right and I see Mom and Dad in the audience as well all right fantastic thank you conratulations so I just want to say real quick you girls probably don't even realize but I've known your family since you guys were really little so this is like a full circle moment it is awesome to see what you guys have done in your 12 years of Norton I mean to know you from this high to what you I mean we were kind of chuckling over here cuz none of us even knew what AP classes were I mean it's amazing I think every year well I'm sorry the rest of us what you guys have accomplished you should be extremely proud We are very proud of you yeah we'll see you next week in graduation congratulations you guys don't have to stay yeah you have to it's you guys all right so next up another great topic um alternate Pathways at the Norton High School so I think oh yeah there you are the [Music] back a great question that's it we have it you want to work more than happy to share my packet sure um well we have we we have two share so um thanks so uh we to come and Report out some of the work that we're doing at Norton High School really to provide Pathways for every student who enters obviously we just had our validator and salutatory in here so we have a huge college preparatory track Gabby has benefited from that as well heading off to college um so the first bit of the presentation here really just kind of was was letting you know about that but that really only captures about 75 to 80% of our student body so the other 20 or 25% um is looking to figure something else out after high school and so one of the things things that we wanted to do is to provide ways at high school where they could be prepared for Success when they re nor um so uh the first sort of thing just a little bit organizationally is we have two programs that we really run one is our chapter 74 program and the other that's began this year and hoping to continue to grow is our Innovation pathway in advanced manufacturing uh and then just to give you a little bit of a sort of broad overview of some of the other exploration connections that we do at the high school as well um to give students some really experiences that could lead uh to a path down the road um so I'm going to turn it over to miss plot who's going to talk about the chapter 74 program at the high school um okay so I'm a teacher in the chapter 74 program and we started this probably I don't know six or maybe five or six years ago um it was you know a lot of work to implement this we had to go um to bat with Jessie and stuff in order to you know either bring one of these to the high school you have to be able to prove that there's a weight list at the ational School within your community so that was a big hurle right there and so what we have here is three Pathways within the chapter 74 program there's a marketing Tech pathway there's a small business ownership pathway and then a an engineering pathway and so students select a pathway everyone takes the intro to Business course which is kind of just a smattering of all business things so everyone takes that mandatory course and then before they graduate they take three more courses within their pathway so if it's a small business ownership uh pathway they choose they may take entrepreneurship business law and you know TV video one or something like that um they also do an OSHA 10 uh certification online so we are able to provide them with that upon um you know completion of the pathway um they also can do uh take part in the cvte program at Bristol Community College so we have articulation agreements with them where student students can take up to um two classes you know um they can well they can take a class each semester for free at Bristol Community College so right now they could take things in the summer off fall like uh Spanish 101 math 152 um English 101 Humanities business things like that so there's a whole um range of courses they can choose from depending on what Bristol is offering at that particular time right there um am I missing anything oh we also we apply every year for a grant so the last couple years we've gotten like a $10,000 grant that we use to purchase things for our programs so we purchased like a a t-shirt press we've purchased new color printers a a lot of um you know Macs and all these stuff that we use to produce the TV video um classes and stuff like that so hopefully waiting on that to hear about that hopefully we can get that 10 grand again this year because that's kind of how we um self fund a lot of our stuff we have like like a Spirit Box Vending Machine that we sell things out of and that in turn you know funds more of our initiatives like Deca trips and stuff like that so we're able to really um do a good job of self-funding a lot of our um things that we want to undertake with the students um so in you know hopefully eventually we'd like to have a space within the school where we could have an actual um like school store with you know an actual space where we can also take part in like this SBE program for Deca which is the school-based Enterprise so the eventual goal would be to get some nice space in there where we can do that but am I missing anything I don't think so about you have 50 people that oh yeah we do have about 50 kids in there right now so it's growing Leaps and Bounds this year a lot of sophomores and freshman signed up so they do have to sign up either as a freshman or a sophomore and you know then they can just go from there and it's good both of my boys did it it was a great experience yeah don't forget there's also addition funding that comes in through the state for y everyone I didn't see so that's always a good thing too we can always use more money absolutely and so our second pathway is something that we just began this year um similar sort of process of application through uh the department of Elementary and secondary education and this one is really driven by the labor market in the area um so we work with the mass hire board that really identifies areas of growth uh particularly in in parts of the workforce where the current Workforce might be aging out there's going to be a lot of opportunities and a lot of economic growth um and that's one of the reasons why we chose or selected Advanced manufacturing we also have many partners in the area um that are really involved in advanced manufacturing to give our students really the opportunity to have as many authentic connections um as they possibly can so I'm going to turn this over to M Murphy you I was going to say all that um okay I'm K Murphy I teach computer science and Robotics and I um we definitely wanted to do an innovation pathway for our students to provide something else besides just a college pathway but this one actually includes both so you might want to be in a s major engineering math science um and you also might just want to go into a trade right after so it's for both so getting kids from both um Pathways into one is kind of interesting we're trying to get more people in from for both angles um the classes uh you just have to take one class every year and you might be taking it already like physics chemistry engineering um some of the AP math courses AP English and of course computer science and Robotics um and then we have some of the Woodshop classes too like problem solving and um so anything that you can actually it's already in the school we didn't have to add any more classes um we're going to add an internship SL Capstone project so if there can be an internship where they go into a manufacturing facility then they can do that if there if not they can do the project at our school so we purchased all these machines and I have to open them and put them together and learn how to use them um and I'm working at a manufacturing place this summer to learn more about the processes and how what's the best way to teach the curriculum I've then we U I went to oxburg J day to look at their curriculum so we're kind of working on getting the curriculum in to have a halfe manufacturing course and a full year internship um let's see and well you talked about why we picked manufacturing um one of the reasons I like it is because it is a pathway for both types of student I love that and we have some examples of like well if you're not going to go to college this is a kind of like a schedule you might pick it will fit with all even if you're in like special education classes and it also provides mentoring and um support for someone to take an AP class that didn't think they could we we know they can but they don't think they can so we have a whole support system there for that and uh let's see oh so we we do have nor Easter machine and acur rounds that's committed with us and then we have a lot of other businesses that we've been going around talking to and explaining what we're trying to do we had a business breakfast um to get all of them to come and talk us about their ideas of what we wanted to do and what they think is important um let's see uh I don't know do you have any questions about Advanced manufacturing no I'm just happy to see it yes yeah and really you know the thought is one will benefit the students as far as having that pathway that could prepare them for a career or in college as well sort of having that hands-on experience but it also lend some of that relevance to the other course work that they're doing within school too and hopefully provides a more kind of robust experience overall um some of the other things that we have in that presentation are a little bit smaller scale and what they are is really opportunities for students to explore lots of different fields um within our high school when they're there and I got to give a lot of credit to Miss Jen prw who um is our guidance academic coordinator who really set up a lot of these things through connections with labor unions um throughout the state actually in Milbury um Boston um and other places one of these um you've actually seen before I know we had some students present on it which is the pre-apprenticeship program um we just finished our third year this this year in March um where we had another cohort of about 15 students who went through the whole thing it's actually described there on one of the slides um where they have some time in the classro where they get some certifications such as CPR um and then they also have some time Hands-On out at the facility uh for the laborers union in hopkington where they're trenches pouring concrete forms uh all of those types of things again to get some hands-on experience they're also in that program they're actually providing with Connections in order to get right into the Union if they'd like to um the other thing that we've seen students do with it is use that experience to really talk a little bit about um what a union might mean to them if they're joining another Union so one of the students who participated is actually going into the electrical union um and moving forward with that as well and so we've seen that develop into sort of really interesting especially if they take it as a junior senior years where we've been able to be very flexible with our schedules in order to give them that hands-on experience and prepare them for the workforce um I'm going to talk or turn it back over to Carrie um to talk a little bit about the photonics program U Stonehill has a photonics lab and photonic chip is like a different kind of microchip that America is trying to produce and so they have these programs they have a one- year and you can either do two or four as well but the one year you can go right into the industry so that's another um trade that we're promoting and we have someone signed up for it this week and we just keep we took some kids over there on a field trip so the a lot of this is like spreading the knowledge of what we can offer you and um getting that out there so Jen works out at that too yeah and the last uh bit you have there has to do with something that's new this year which is shop Friday um and Shop Fridays are actually we had two cohorts this year of about 10 and 12 students and that was four Fridays over the course of the Year where we took basically a full day from about 8:00 to 1:30 and we went out to Milbury where the Carpenters Union has their training center and the students got to go to four different shops and experience what a training facility would be like if they were to enter that that Union um and the benefit of it was is they got some sort of career counseling and life lessons from the people who are there who are instructors who have worked in the field and are then coming and instructing people who are apprentices uh actually in the union um so they got to learn some skills we did some things with uh metal framing wood framing finished carpentry and concrete forms and students they got there they got to do the Hands-On stuff they got to hear about the opportunities the union had um and I know one of them actually is going to be going to the information session they have every Monday night um where they have an opportunity to actually become part of the union and go through an interview so they get kind of groomed for that process and it's something that also allows them to um know a little bit more about it and when they go into that interview uh they have a lot to talk about when it comes to why they're choosing that field um so again this is new this year but we had great experiences with about the 22 students we brought there and we hope that some of them will actually choose that um moving forward and then lastly um sort of uh for everybody um is our partnership with Ador school to Career um that has been a really a partnership that has really flourished in the past few years lots of opportunities been brought to Norton High School Heidi kazus is the name of our person who is our liaison um but some of the things that she's brought just there we've had a career week in April where every day we had a new person come present career opportunities right out of high school um some of them in there were electric boat um which is a corporation of General Dynamics um they were looking for people right out of high school to get involved um the people who work in dispatch between 9 911 court reporters um all of those types of things that that students could get involved with right out of high school and they came and presented some information to a specific cohort but we've had broad things as well like the career fair that we do with sophomores in the fall and our opportunities Fair which we had this April where we had over 30 businesses organizations locally for students to come and take a look at U moving forward so it was a great experience for that and that's just been a partnership that continues to to flourish um including I would say our our internship program through um the business department um this PowerPoint was put together by an intern that works for Miss Murphy um so again it's some hands-on experience of of people getting uh to be able to really put uh the skills that they're learning in our school to to good use um get that kind of authentic engagement yes I love getting this update um because I I think for so long the track was always high school right to college right and I think we're learning there's more kids out there that another track it might happened to my own son my older son did a year at college and realized it wasn't for him and is now in the trades and is doing very well so I think it's important for us to to kind of expose our students you know to different ways of doing things and value them and show them that we all 100% yeah exactly because I think there was a bit of a stigma if you weren't going to college you know so it's nice to see Norton is kind of you know once again leading the charge with doing something you know kind of out of the box and really focusing on our students and helping them so thank you all very much and we actually have a student in this chapter 74 program who's currently a business owner who yes yes that is true future day use that as some self-promotion how do we um like how do you guys promote this to students I guess on one hand and how do you kind of promote it to like families as well like kind of these different options of like what's going on yeah how do we get them on the track I guess so um as far as students go we do it through our announcements through our TVs we uh broadcast those things through my Flex for students to do it during LLB for a lot of it some of the stuff is mandatory uh where they all go all nth 11th and 12th graders go to the opportunities Fair um and we talk about it through our guidance counselors and sometimes it's a situation especially for the pre-apprenticeship program and I know you can talk a little bit about the chapter 74 program too but it's sort of like we identify students that this would be a really good fit for you um having conversations about uh sort of what their future plans are um their their sort of academic profile what they might be thinking about in the future and so that's kind of a not that we volunteer them for it but we talk to them about why it would be such a good fit for them I would say we train the guidance counselors in the middle school and the high school about what we're trying to do and then we go to the Middle School um we used to we actually used to go down there and then right now I think this year Vinnie did most of that with the guidance Council so they're they're down there telling the like you want I might want to pick one of these Pathways and but it is it is definitely like a hard thing to get it's new so it's hard for me to get we have 10 so far so that's that's great for like the first year so we just going to get keep trying to get more convincing okay you want to go to college on the end stem pathway come to this mate come to this pathway you want to go to a trade come to this pathway do you even know what Advanced manufacturing is we'll tell you and it's a huge need so you might go to that pathway or if you don't want to go that pathway you can go to another trade but you can learn about how to run a shop and organize it and work with people and and have mentors and we've seen it grow it's something that we mentioned 8th grade open house night we go down when we talk about sort of course selection for the next year um all of those things as far as far as what Norton can offer you and definitely we've seen the business program I think in the first year I was here 5 years ago was the first year that it existed and it's grown to 50 students now and it's something that you know definitely The Innovation pathway is new this year I think we have seven eight committed students but we plan to try to grow that every year um and definitely it's one of those things I think when you have people who' gone through and they see the benefits of it they then sort of word of mouth is the best marketing of that as it goes yeah so those are I mean free college classes that can transfer to you know somewhere else isad thing um there's also lots of information that get sent out from the guidance Department specifically in my list of events so we get um a calendar of events regarding the guidance problem that goes out twice a year parents and then followups um and through parent Square as well so listing the different opportunities esally around things like pre-apprenticeship um shop Fridays career days that all get sent out as hey these are the things that we're doing um and so that's that's kind of an ongoing piece it's always hard to get the word mon out like we went you took on a fa trip and Tanya helped um like three or four kids from the Middle School came with us so we getting there yeah we have our we went to airs in Northeast and machine which are our two uh kind of on our Advisory Board there as well so students got to see what the shop was like and understand what Advanced manufacturing is and it was a really fascinating experience we also spoke to all the physics nth grade biology and physics classes played some Snapp videos about the industrial industrial eth you touch upon this a little bit but I guess like what are some of like the future goals what's kind of the vision you know year two year four year 10 you know kind of that's might be a little far out but you know kind of what are we looking at you know um grow of the program and how do we kind of keep it sustainable yeah I mean we want to continue to get people into the Advanced manufacturing pathway the other thing is sort of meeting the need that we have students as we actually heard from two of our students tonight are interested in biotechnology or healthare um that's another Innovation pathway growth area that's been identified by the state um so working to try to grow more Pathways here as well to fit individual student need or student desire um outside of high school so really what it is is getting it basically students to be able to make the choice um and when they first arriving at really out of Middle School um is talking about their future plans and what that entails for their experience at the high school and have lots of choice um that would give them the skills that they can go right there so we're looking to try not to have every single student in the high school um have a pathway um but to have similar to the the business and Tech 50 or so students who are are really secure in what they want to do when they get out of high school going along that track and giving those experiences um and I think the the biotech is probably the next area of focus um also with nursing being part of that and then after that know where we'll go as far as some of the needs that our community has and another thing we'll be doing in the next like five 10 years is is getting more Partnerships and some companies don't know about Outreach and how to work with high school students but we're going to keep changing that and working with more companies that do know how to do it to influence the other companies and then my last question sorry um how does this kind of all factor in with South Eastern or Bristol agie kind of like what can Norton do I know we're kind of a little bit stuck if you will because we we are part of those those uh programmingsoftware get them into South Eastern then we can give them a pathway how does that all kind of mix and work well like I said you do have to prove a need like so when we first started to you know uh try and make this program we had to actually um you know we named an office Tech we looked at the marketing but then if you go to Southeastern and there's not a wait list for that program you have to be able to prove that there's a weit list for the program at the vocational school before you can explore starting that one hereo so we just you know we chose to call it office Tech it really wasn't you know business and technology that really wasn't a program at Southeastern called that so we kind of went that Avenue and just kind of morphed it into like more of a um small business engineering rather than just marketing marketing just one of the pathways so then you have those other two as well and where join when was joining with them to help the labor market so we're all in it together so we talked to them um and they come to our SE night and things like that so we're kind of partnering with them we're not really but some kids go there and they don't love it so they come and they still have the opportunity school so they don't lose it yeah I mean in some ways it's it's it's sort of competition with them as far as providing them students who come to Northern High School as a way to again develop pre- professional skills that are going to equip them to go into the workforce um but it's also if students haven't made that decision in eighth grade maybe they want to get involved in everything at the high school and then kind of find uh the track from there as well so um it's definitely meant to provide that experience for students not at the vocational school but um we do work in concert with with them as well and share ideas and they brought sort of manufacturing stuff toward Steve KN and things like that too as well so um kind of a competitive yet Cooperative does anybody else have anything you yeah sure so uh my name is Matthew jock uh resident in town and I just wanted to publicly thank uh all of you my son is Alex jock uh Mr Cersei um yeah that's the better reaction that I could have so no um but Mr Cersei uh M PR uh Mr dolman and you you folks have all helped Alex Alex came to us a year or so ago and said he wanted to be an electrician and didn't really know how he was going to do that but he wasn't going to go to college he said he wanted to go to college but he wasn't going to go class so that kind of rolled out uh but when he said that you know you're kind of think what is he going to do and he said he wanted to be an electrician and he brought that idea forward and I've got to say that Mr Cersei uh jumped to that and said well that's what we're going to do for you and uh and he did Alex worked very hard he got an apprenticeship with Hannon electric right in Easton so he's um this year has worked three days a week and gone to school two days a week so he's worked 24 hours a week uh so he's got over 600 hours of apprenticeship he's applied to the union which puts him a huge leg up uh when he applies to the union so but that doesn't happen without all of you and and I mean that very sincerely that he walked down the hallways when he told people about this and teachers were saying good for you really this is going to be awesome for you not one person ever said boy I don't I don't think that's a right idea or you shouldn't try that or don't do this uh you know again and be just the outpour of support really let him know that he was doing the right thing so he doesn't hear until June whether he's in or not um if he's not in Hannah has offered him a job uh in a non-union um so he's going to be an electrician one way or the other but I also think that that doesn't happen without you and without dril at the top saying let's try something different and without the school committee saying hey it's okay to be a little bit different and try something new and it may not be what we've done before but we're going to try it and without Mr Cersei and M Fu and they made they they really held him accountable but we're flexible Alex doesn't like to write but one of the requirements was to keep a journal but they were flexible to say well keep a photo Journal he said can I do it in photos so he brought in his photo Journal so instead of saying no our course says this you were so great to him I I'll get emotional but I can't than you all [Applause] and more importantly that to see your son smile when he when he talks about his career path is I mean I've known him since he was little so I cry too he plays a bet of how many times going to cry tonight but to see him smile and just be so happy with what he's doing with his life is awesome to see it's because people are telling him he's doing you know nobody's saying don't do that and and again I give you all the credit everybody here has has helped him in uh you know sky the limit so to speak but thank you for your flexibility he actually had other kids asking him about it how did you do see that's how it starts it starts we have friends that have a son in middle school and they're like oh maybe our son can exactly well thank you guys for coming and and acknowledging our St it is nice no that culture is what we're looking for I mean that that it is acceptable that it's not something that you know every can find their own path and get what we can in order to provide them that successful start so we're going to fix our lights thank you guys for the update that's awesome thank you VIN go first the flag so we're gonna jump to Vinnie um Hayward you here so you guys can go back to the pl we'll get you guys going appreciate it yeah so we're going to jump to the Middle School handbook got my team up here assistant principal Mr Goldstein DEA students Mr Benoy they do a lot of thebook inforcement I guess and we're key to that so we're here seek an approval of our recommendations for the handbook believe you guys got those in advance and answer any questions that you may have did you guys have a chance to go through the middle school handbook yeah okay does anybody have any questions or comments or concerns on anything that was s we going over what was highlighted or or was taken out I just I had a few comments just I really liked the addition that you put in for the the teachers like page six I thought that was very well written and very appropriate and just I really I I just really liked how you you did that yeah I actually thought it was sad that we actually put that in hand I agree honest I it makes sense why it's yeah i' like to see it in all of them to be honest anybody have anything else no I think I mean overall I mean there's obviously a lot here um I mean what's our I guess my one of my questions was is like our corrective actions yeah can you just kind of highlight a little bit cuz just like and again this is where Jen always tells us education's a lot different in school you know it's like session detention you're out of school whatever suspension blah blah blah you just kind of highlight some of those of like you know you have like a social suspension on a lunch session like what is kind of is that like the progression steps kind of yeah typically I mean sometimes people enter with their offensive you know the offense is pretty bad down the line you know you enter a kicking somebody exactly pass it so it kind of depends on the entry point of the offense but there is kind of um a progressive of discipline whenever we consequence people it's never out of Revenge it's never out of you did this now we're going to do that for you it's done to get them to change their behavior some people change their behavior simply with uh we clarify the expectation we need you to not run in the hallway we need to keep your hands to yourself and be safe simply clarifying the expectation other people you need more of a correction go back go to the back of the line or wait here till everyone passes then other people after so many times need a consequence now you're going to have a lunch session and we're going to remove that as a privilege social interaction um student centered time is leverage it's something that they like that we can withhold and again get them to change their behavior in the future and meet the expectations so there is you're reading it right there is kind of a hierarchy of that um one of the couple of things around the consequences that we put in was just the clarification that a cons consequen is less than a suspension are not available there's nothing within the law or even within our prior handbooks and really their decision is final they're The Operators of that they collect the facts and evidence and as principal I'm not going to spend two hours revisiting a half hour after school because I need to focus on curriculum teaching learning planning and teacher evaluation so I just wanted to clarify that that they're well paid well trained have a lot of experience to do that um and then also like any rule I know I people tell me a rule of LW I'm kind of listening and then I'm waiting to hear well what's the consequence if I don't do it you know the speed limit is 35 but what what if I go 60 tell me what Happ you get a $200 ticket oh okay that's interesting to me now um so really it's failure to serve consequences and that um what happens if someone just doesn't do it or a parent doesn't agree to it what happens and then we just kind of outlined if you don't do it it'll lead to a social suspension in which you don't have access to going to after school games going to the next school dance that term things like that cuz we don't want to just get into Grudge matches over a 30 minute session over a difference of opinion on something so we we did a little bit of that around the consequences and the behavior code the other thing I'll just bring your attention was in there was the water bottles that the the amount of time and the amount of spills my maintenance I hear on the radio numerous time per per day water spills we're also giving them you know $250 $300 Chromebooks on every student desk um we we just wanted a plastic bottle that's sailable even the ones that have the slide magnetic often times the kids drink they put it down they don't close it we also want movement in our classroom kids lose recess we want there to be movement and when we got all these obstacles in the way to move desk and stuff it actually hampers teaching and learning and you know doesn't need a 64 Oz thing of water to carry around all day don't look over times that by 206 the entire class sound and so you know it seems but it is a disruption to teaching and learn all those things so we just wanted to put that in handbooks people don't run and buy the kids Stanley for $50 is part of the back to school clothes and outfits exactly just to get that out there ahead of time I'll send Communications regarding that in the future uh as we prepare for uh like our preschool Communications again people don't go and feel like the pressure to buy that for their kid cuz I got to have that that we just want kind of the sports water bottles um and then we just the other new thing around was the buying and selling of objects um we're not going to be involved in people not you know we're not we don't want kids buying selling things like that and I put a rationale as to why that's not good in there so those were really like the the major changes other was like the concussion policy which district why we put that in and some recommendations from our attendance committee we made those changes and what do we have and I know there been a not hot button anymore but in terms of cell phones what do we have is it different from the high school to the Middle School to the proba down to the um we don't have them out in the Middle School awesome uh kids can bring them in in uh we don't we understand that they're a vital communication tool so after school kids are on their cell phone at school it's not a big deal we we really don't have that many cell phone issues occasionally we have disrespect around a cell phone like put that away should we backpack the kid is insubordinate doesn't follow through or repetitive but it's not so much like the phone itself it's the behaviors around clarification of expectations um but we don't have that as a practice our teaches we find lunches a lot louder cuz the kids are talking during Co were they on the phones lunch was pretty peaceful during lunch duty which we primarily do you could get stuff done kind of but uh so but it's caused as the kids to learn how to talk and communicate uh but we have less issues coming from it I think most of our kids realize no one else is texting on that thread no one else is sending something no one else is posting something so once we get kind of get over that threshold that kind of fomo kind of goes away cuz people realize no no one else has it out and is using it either so it's been good for us this year um that is but again after school before school like before class kids have phones on them and they can ask a teacher commission if they need to text home just say oh can I text my parents I forgot my gym clo they just we just ask them to ask so we know yeah we have so many times kids with sports and clubs and they just ask them step over there you can use it and it I would say was it less of an issue this year in the past yeah it's just louder at l but that's we deal with it yeah but it's good because they do communicate so the only question I had um it's just under office administration managed you highlighted filming or recording a teacher without permission which I like but is it is is it possible to add like a students as well right cuz um yeah like students shouldn't be you know we have this issue with and listen this is society right something's going on and people there first thoughted to take out their phone instead of trying to you know help so I just wondered if maybe putting not just a teacher but other students in there that it might yeah we'll expand it to that I will make that change we'll put that through there so you guys can you know vote to amend this part with that addition make the change okay do you guys all okay all right anybody have anything else on that okay so now we have to is there a motion to approve the Norton Middle School Parent student handbook for 2024 2025 as written with the amendment of adding what I said earlier so moved is there a second follow those in favor thank you guys appreciate it have a great time with enjoy the play all right so you want to turn [Applause] [Music] we're just talking about the agenda we've got to Jour at 7 to go to the next one yeah sorry all right um so I'm going to skip the process similar process that we've used in the past um as far as getting feedback on um the handbook here um just skip into the attendance similar to um pretty much the exact same language that we anticipate being everywhere else coming from a district committee on attendance um was in there our Honor Code this was a response to students and uh faculty feedback as far as including AI as something that is a constant concern that's both uh mathematics um with the ability to take pictures of mathematical problems and basically if anyone's actually looked at photomath in their phone it tells you all the steps because do all those things which could be a tremendous learning tool um but also is something that if a student needs to have it completed they can do it very quickly and move on so the way that we phrased that was just that teachers could direct students to use AI um but that it was something that you know if you're trying to submit something as your own work that is not yours that is a violation of our Honor Code so that was something that we included in there um one thing that we noted at the end is I think we're do a little bit more robust dive into that um with students and faculty um into what AI means and what the sort of capabilities of it are there are other things certainly coming down the pike as far as AI generated photos and um videos and voice recordings and those types of things that um you know our handbook might need to be updated in order to uh deal with appropriately um PBIS uh is the other uh thing that we've kind of included this is really our first full year of implementation last year we did sort of our our groups our coaches um our student group talking about sort of what to roll out we rolled something out in May at the end of last year um this year uh we've rolled it out throughout the course of the year um we've collected a lot of data on it gotten a lot of feedback on sort of how to make it happen at the high school level um and are making adjustments sort of accordingly um when we took our last data point when we had electronic ticket submissions we had about 70% of our staff awarding incentivized tickets to students who have done their appropriate thing within their classes um but we've kind of revamped that looking at a paper ticket system um we've also sort of taken some feedback and kind of paused our implementation in order to try to get additional teacher Buy in as far as the incentive that's something that we found is sort of developmentally um our teachers and our students really don't buy into the incentives quite the same way as Elementary that's no surprise but how do we sort of also put in place a lot of the sort of predictive consequences things like that um that our teachers are looking for within the PBIS system um so we're still sort of implementing that collecting feedback revamping it um but I think the first year uh was a pretty good success we just got to then kind of figure out what works best and move forward um from there with it so we included our Behavior Matrix which wasn't complete at the last time we tried to submit our handbook um which we have here as well um just our concussion policy again uh that was something that was a very hot button issue about a decade ago um and I think that some of our awareness of it and sort of adjustments to it has dwindled so we wanted to pull it back into the handbook to make sure that everyone saw it and was um responsive to it within the classroom um the SE stag uh that comprehensive threat assessment guidelines language and so this is something uh that is going on at the middle and high school uh that we actually um stepped out but um earned a grant through Mass General Hospital um and also the mass partnership or youth partnership um and what that is is really clinicians from Mass General Hospital our staff locally and it's really cutting edge research on the best way to respond to potential threats so it's people who are very familiar with the environment very familiar with the student collaborating with law enforcement clinicians and those who are outside the school environment to talk about cases when students make threats to themselves or to others um we really go about what the action plan from that is it's a very regimented process that has specific sort of protocols for conducting interviews collecting evidence and then a checklist of decision-making tree there as well so we wanted to make sure that was in the handbook it's something that we started last spring um with training for all our ad Administration clinicians and uh SRO um so that's something that we wanted to include in the handbook so everyone understood what it was about um we remove all sort of uh references to school brains replace them with power school um credit recovery and summer school that's something that we're kind of working on when we have students who don't pass the course for the year what are the remedial efforts that we can make um and so we had one line that was essentially just um if you below 50 not eligible for summer school and what we're trying to do is make that a little bit more data driven responsive to our imss structures where we ask teachers to talk about what are the critical skills that those students can recoup so rather than repeating uh sort of course in the summer it's trying to focus on the skills that you need to develop in order to move forward um in those classes and so that really is just a another process through SST um which is our student study team that really looks at um you know what those appropriate things are for that student in order to recover credit if they failed for the year and then fee adjustments um we're looking to raise dues um I don't we don't have anyone at school who knows when they last went up um that's how long long ago it was uh we had an adviser who was advising in 2005 who said they were 40 um so in order to you know the dues all go back to the student um they're just for Student Activities seed money for fundraisers help to offset ticket prices for prom yearbook all that kind of stuff um so we just with the expenses Rising um we're looking to raise those by $5 um this year and then um the last thing there just be fixing the pagination and table of contents based on some of the new additions as we go there so just a quick question that I have is it um is it possible to like the teacher portion that was in the middle school is that possible to adopt for all schools I don't know if you're familiar with what it says just read it but yeah we can uh yeah look I think that and I think the the filming of um so that's already it is okay all right I that's actually law you're not allowed to film anyone without their consent okay so do we have it written as anyone or okay okay that was all I had does anybody have anything else this one's touchy cuz I don't know how it actually all works here but like the bathroom yeah says like I'll just read it cuz I think it's EAS students may only access the bathroom or any other area with a valid staff approved pass this prevents students from using the bathroom during un structur time such as passing time students should report to the bathroom blah blah BL blah whatever my thing is is like I I'm assuming There's issues that happen during passing time that kids are either jammed into the bathroom doing who knows what in the bathroom um I guess my concern is makes a little bit more sense to go during passing time to get to class so you're not disrupted class to come out of class so I don't know I you just kind of talk about that a little bit what we kind of conceived of that is because of some of the traffic that's happening during passing times it's not and Telly they probably V for this um it's not it's not students who are going in there to use the bathroom for appropriate purposes um so since students who are trying to do that are unable to use the bathroom during passing time we chose to limit it for all students um and try to flush it out so that um you know again they're taking a pass from class um but with our e-hall pass system um what that also allows is you know we have some students who have conflicts and when they take a a pass um from their teacher um there's actually limitations like it'll say you can't have a pass right now because there's the hallway is unavailable for you because there's someone you have an issue with who's using the resturant right now so it helps with a lot of issues from social confence conflicts substance abuse all manner of things we're really kind of the Genesis of that and so that's also a hole in our supervision um the way that our bathroom Duty works is based on periods so we don't have anyone who like has a duty during that time um what has happened is that students who really need to use a bathroom go quickly to their class get a pass use the bathroom and go back so that the amount of time that they're missing from class time is diminished and they actually can use the bathroom because there's less people in there um and I think Mr shy and miss Ben for standing in front of a lot of bathroom doors during passing time tell you like if there are students who Express a need that they need to go in yeah sure like we're not going to a kid um for we don't lock the doors or anything they're there um and it's typically monitored by humans who can respond to what might be an emergency as well anything else is there a limit on how many bath and passes they can get four right now four per day and then we have a subsequent list of students who have medical issues or or other circumstances that might need a higher amount of passes and right now the way that we have our system is our we only open our cafeteria bathroom during lunch um and that's that's what allows students to use that so they can go at lunch as well for another time um they need wash hands do whatever else is necessary anything else I guess I'll bring up the cell phone how are we doing with cell phones not great I mean I would love to so I mean that's that's a constant battle um that's something that we hear we have a culture and climate committee and that's something actually we talked about today um as far as how we want to try to approach it next year um you know previously you we have the policy in place as far as off and Away um but talking about trying to You' be a bit of a unified front on how we're going to enforce that within classrooms is what we're thinking that was kind of a note there we're were going to try to investigate some other ways um to maybe do this as a schoolwide thing so again teachers can kind of support each other on what the expectation is and it's then it's more consistent for students so it's predictable as far as what the different classrooms are going to request for that um so that's definitely something we're going to kind of work with uh next year as far as schoolwide um you know expectations and then maybe work towards um an adjustment to our handbook based on cell phones there we feel a lot of Staff requests for us to pitch a cell phone policy to you all again um and and have that be approved um so that's something again we want to look at it in the future well we want to Pilot a few programs and see what we do y all right anything else on that this when was the last time Saturday school ever happened it's two years ago oh okay was yeah so yeah and that was really just the value added to it I mean it was basically as Mr Hayward was kind of saying a student would say oh if I don't go to Saturday school I then get suspended so a lot of Transportation issues and people not showing up but us paying a stien so we're going to cut back and things like and similarly we look for Creative times lunch detentions uh L detentions those types of things uh suspension Privileges and things as well okay are you guys ready to move to a vote I just had a quick question do we have any and this may not be part of today but um I had talk to Dr O'Neal too about just wanting some more information on our like District's overall attendance and how that looks cuz I noticed that obviously it's been added so maybe by school or like I said overall and then um same thing about like PBIS have we noticed decrease in referrals or you know how that whole thing is going and then in terms of just the high school the LLB block cuz that is also new like do we have any feedback on that like how has has it been this year is it being used is it a benefit is it not being used as it was intended to you know like that kind of piece so so just for the sake of time because we got to focus on the so we can like address this after and have and then set okay that's awesome thank you all right so do we have a motion to approve the 2425 Norton High School student handbook with the addition of the teacher that the teacher policy or whatever you want to call it that statement yeah was in the middle school that's to you guys oh looking for a motion if you're ready I just think there yeah I think there's a lot here going on I really don't want to rush anything and I feel bad but I feel like we should just table all of this okay so you have more questions on us or I just think there's a lot of things that we need to go through and like I said we got all of these handbooks in 48 hours to read everything go through everything like to me it needs to be a little bit more um so I would motion to table everything from here on out get into the select boards meeting and then figure out what we're doing can we we have to we have to introduce the principal to C he right yes we keep can we Mr Barett yeah we're going to have to yes we're going to have to all right so we're going to going to table this we table this we just ran out of time thank you guys for all your work on this so appreciate it no worries all right so let's just um go to the JCS so I would like to invite up Mr Paul Barrett um who has um recently agreed to um be the new principal at JCS um so Mr Barrett is currently an elementary principal in Smithfield Rhode Island um we've been there for six years and then previously was a technology director at the district level and then um started his career as a music teacher Elementary music teacher so I'll give you a minute to introduce yourself and sure um hi everybody I'm Paul Darren and as dril said I am um I'm thrilled to be selected as new principal of JCS I'm really really excited um I started my career as an elementary educator my wife and I went to school together she's still a music teacher I did something a little bit different um and I've been a principal at Old County Road Elementary School in Smithfield for the last six years K through five school so a little bit different um one of the reasons why I'm so excited is I think the values that Norton um really holds deer are very similar to my own and so I'm excited about that and also I I really um I think some of the things that Dr Marcus has done I really think fit with my skill set and I'm excited to kind of continue those things so um it's nice to be here welcome to Norton thank you I'm very excited I love purple I'm going to have to get some thank you so much for coming oh thank you for inviting all right so with that I think um we're gon have to table everything else we'll put we'll get back to it all right so I'll move so the um sled board can join you all and they'll have to open we have to we have to close this with no you have to it's just SP the last item on our agenda and the first item on their agenda okay perfect so you just stay stay open all right and then we will um close it once okay