e e e e e e e e e good evening calling to order the school committee meeting of Monday April 20 uh sorry Tuesday April 23rd 2024 we'll all rise flag Al to flag United States of America for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for [Music] all Dr Garcia would you call the roll Stacy here [Applause] Miss Anthony cajano here Mr John Kingston here Mr Anthony Mata here M uh Mr jacn monteroso here mayor Patrick ke here we have a quorum first item on today's agenda is recognition uh Mr chair I like to make a point of personal privilege please stage appointment so this morning our former colleague Susan gravi and her family said goodbye to their beautiful mom Joyce Adano um Susan always said that she was a tough cookie and would tell people if you don't like it there's the door but Joyce did some great things also like raising remarkable children so in Joyce's own words thanks for stopping by um and uh we just hope um Susan and family are doing well also on Friday the family of Linda Pasco said goodbye to her Linda's life was characterized by her work as a custodian for Riv Public Schools but she was so much more to our school Community Linda was courageous funny and humble who never complained and no matter what the day brought she approached it with love thoughts prayers and love go out to the families and friends of Joyce and Linda would please stand with me for a moment of silence for these beautiful strong women thank you thank you okay so um recognition is it oh that was it okay great uh we have the consent calendar motion to approve the consent calendar we have a second second roll call Mr stac Stacy BR yes M Anthony cajano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr an Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick keff yes motion passes so we have the student representative report Ryan good evening everyone um we're just going to jump right into the presentation once it loads up awesome thank you um we're just going to jump right into the club highlights to start off um it should be two slides down awesome and then slide after that um awesome so we have the rock Ensemble who will be hosting its uh Rush concerts on May 3rd and 4th uh fem participated in the Boston area Rape Crisis Center's annual Walk For Change on April 21st um speech and debate concluded its 2023 2024 season at Catholic Memorial on April 6th and Fatima boso brought home a state championship and radio broadcasting becoming the second ever in the club's history so congratulations to her um and then student Senate will'll be hosting uh student leaders from across the Greater Boston area through um its new annual leadership conference called Basics uh Boston area student Innovation conference on May 23rd um we'll be having a couple of speakers and also um M uh maer will be also there as well um moving on we have the model un participants will be attending the Westwood High School Conference this upcoming weekend drama club had a successful night concluding its Castle on the island Musical and the robotics team concluded their 2023 2024 season on Saturday at the world's competition in Houston Texas and the team is coming back home and then moving forward um a couple of the students from the Rivier high school and City lab I think it's the one before this one or is this not updated oh I don't think it was the right one sent then I guess I'll just go over it anyways um super fast um couple students from the Rivier high school and the city lab were elected to represent both schools from the uh from Rivier um and at the annual uh Student Government day hosted by our um State Rep Jim U Jessica ginino um where students um students were basically um giving speeches um representing the city and also acting as elected officials and the two bills that they were um considering were a bill on increasing transparency for colleges and also a bill about increasing School staff uh diversity um and then moving forward this is where I think we yes um so as we all know City lab has um you um we have City lab has taken a different direction and we also believe that because it's a another High School within the um same district uh we believe that they also um have the right to have representation on the school committee which is why I would like to present or um ask the school committee to allow a student representative from the city lab to um come before this uh come before this uh school committee as the student representatives from Rivier High School do and give their as perspective on um Student Life at City lab and also basically allow us to collaborate with them on many different uh issues that impact us here at Rivier high school and which might also impact them at City lab um so it will also be um consistent with the um Massachusetts General law section 38m as 38m as it says um so that's the um one thing that we would like to get permission on um and then the last thing that we're asking is support for the speech and debate and CFL um uh tournament that is upcoming uh on this upcoming Memorial Day where our teammate um endurance nay will be participating uh or competing in the ncfl um representing the Boston D dios at Chicago University of Chicago and um she'll be um performing poetry and POI and any donations made will go to directly um towards fund uh covering costs for the trip and any expenses and also Elevate the burden of the cost from the team so that we can continue to do our Outreach and also uh make speeching debate as accessible to any student in this and um who are interested in doing it next year so that's the student representative report thank you Miss monteroso uh ran for the suggestion of having a student from City lab my first question is do City lab have a student senate or student Council So currently the city lab has a student council it's uh a bit different from what we do in student Senate however because they have such a small student body they were not able to get a lot of active students or consistency um in their student council however there are a few dedicated students who uh consist consistently show up to student council and they were also here um participating with us at one of our student Senate meetings um so the goal moving forward would be that a couple of the students from the city lab come to the rhs for a couple hours and we basically discuss about how we can best uh go about issues that might arise at in different schools so is the request for you all to have that small group or to have someone else at the here the request is to have someone else here representing the city lab as a student so we will have a represent a representative from the Rivier High School presenting uh our aspect and then there will be someone else from City lab also providing their perspective and then and have both student council and student senate had a conversation about maybe possibly electing one to represent both or combining yep so we had that conversation and we decided that it would be best for both schools because Rivier high school has such a big um population that we have two represent representatives and um we have one from City lab and we already discussed that and we were we came to consensus on that number okay Mr Mayor Miss Rizzo so the law does say we are to have an Advisory Group at the high school and I think it's good that our students at the high school and City lab students are working together we now allow we changed this policy last year to include two students um that could be here anytime um so I mean it would just be a change in policy if that's what people want but we already do allow two the students um and it's always been five members of The Advisory because I know this when you put up that slide it looks like it changed but it didn't change am I correct or is did I miss some wording yep so the law is still the same the policy is still the same it's just we also want City lab because we didn't have City lab representation before um we just want to have them on here as well so I just wanted to point that um policy out to make sure that um it's does say like all high schools in the district so I wanted to include that in there as well so maybe we can talk to them because it's supposed to be student advisory but in rier we have student Senate um and just about two years ago it started you know you students have done a wonderful job at promoting this and having student voice so once we can get City lab included it's only going to get better yep May Mr Mata I think uh that's an excellent idea to have City lab representation the more students representation you have more information that you can bring us I think they're better informed we are and the uh The City is thank you very much thank you thank you Miss monteroso I just to clarify Miss bronze and Rizzo when you said that that would be a policy we Chang are you talking about a school committee specific policy yes okay so then um at this point I would love to refer this to the policy and procedure subcommittee we actually are scheduling a meeting soon this can be one of the items we discuss there to work to amend and then present to you all great favor just a quick question on that um I know that student represent uh representatives are not um allowed to be in executive sessions but can we um would would it be possible for student representatives to be in that meeting with the committee yeah so our subcommittees are public anyone can come to them it's um executive session is only for 10 different reasons and this isn't one so whenever we post it whoever wants to come to it can can come thank you so we're going to refer this to uh policy and procedure subcommittee all in favor okay great job ran is that uh is that your full report yes great great job thank you we have the public speak think sorry can't read today we didn't have any no one uh no one wish in public speak anyone in the audience anyone on Zoom participation no hearing and seeing none we're going to close public speak superintendent report thank you Mr Mayor um we have three I think relatively quick um presentations this evening and the first one is from the Paul rier school um and we're well we're very happy to welcome some of our teachers and students who are going to talk to the committee today about um performance portfolios um as most of you know we've been a member of the mcia districts for about 8 years now um and Paul Rivier being an innovation school um took the step of piloting uh performance portfolios as part of our mcia work and along with uh princial Coyle um his team is going to share some of that information with the committee so that you can um understand better what that work looks like so I'll toss it to principal Coyle perfect thank you so much for having me here tonight we're excited to share with you some of the work that we have embarked on over at the PA R school um it is called the mcia portfolios of performance it's a way of looking at assessing students in a different way outside of the way we typically would uh through a standardized test in mcass um you can see on the cover sheet that this is part of our district Improvement plan it's also part of our school Improvement plan um at the Paul R school so this is some work that we've been doing this year uh that we're excited to share with you today we're going to go to the next slide today we're going to be sharing um this information we have two students that we are starring tonight that is Grace airor Grace aborn and Dalia Martinez both are grade three student so they are here with us tonight um I can promise you that they're going to be the best part of your night tonight so can't wait to have them come up here they are assisted by myself and then grade three teacher Lena denzo and then our grade one and three special education inclusion teacher uh algar I'd also like to shout out that algra has been our mcia team lead she has taken the leadership on this work networked with the mcia um constituents and has done a really great job of leading our school forward through all this she's definitely our expert and she'll share some of that knowledge with you tonight the lead team is a broad representation of uh staff from across our school our goal was to look at Distributing the leadership and the knowledge and trying to touch as many different grade levels and content areas as we could looking through our list we did a great job and we have a strong representation of eight different staff that are involved the goal for next year is to try to get some of our fourth and fifth grade teachers to be involved a little bit more in this work and to have them to start to take a leadership role because the work that we're doing with the portfolios is going to expand to those grade levels starting next year he might be the best part too um so if we go to the next Slide the Consortium from mcia is uh made up of eight different districts that are throughout the state in Mass you can see they're pretty heavily um you know towards the Eastern side of Massachusetts um within those districts uh we're all working together we're sharing tasks we're sharing learning we've done some shared professional development I would say that every District espec especially um having gone through covid uh they're in a different position in a different space with what their expertise is and how fully entrenched they are in the work of performance assessment um I'm proud to say that the PA rier school has stayed pretty pretty well right up there and we did a really uh major focus on this work last year to build the capacity to be able to be ready to dive into this work wholeheartedly wholeheartedly like we have this year so the pilot is made up of 10 different components I'm not going to read all the components to you but the General ideas that you um select or create tasks you uh create a team of Educators that are going to lead this work you put you put those tasks into the hands of students you take the the work back that they do and you analyze that data to try to try to determine uh student skill level and proficiency with different standards we focus primarily on power standards uh and then from all of that try to make sense of what is this tell us about student learning and it always comes back down to that piece you can see on the right hand side of the slide that there are four different schools um from within the Consortium that have signed on to be part of the pilot program so Paul rier is one of two elementary schools from the entire state that is part participating in the pilot program and then there are two middle schools uh it does it is representative though of four different districts that are participating in this work so the big question if we can go to the next slide that came up um that we started to talk about is why now so mcia has been around since 2016 they've done a lot of work um we've done a lot of professional development a lot of task sharing U I think that um the work has been great I mean the the learning and the collaboration that we've seen teachers do and the way that that's transferred down to our students uh to get our students with much higher engagement um and excitement for what they're learning while still actually being assessed in that learning uh has been outstanding but where they are right now with mcia is in order to sustain funding and in order to be able to really continue to move the for work forward and show that performance assessment that can naturally be embedded into the daily work of classrooms uh that it that can be just as accurate of a measure as uh mcast assessment would be which is very inorganic it stops the learning we we shut everything down we put bags on the walls to cover all of our things like it's just not necessarily uh it doesn't feel right to the kids it doesn't feel right to the teachers it's so different from the way the school really should be uh can we take and create these more engaging assessments that can be administered directly during class time and show that these uh assessments are equally as valid of a measure of student learning uh as mcast is and so right now mcia is in the position that during this year and next year they need to show that this works to be able to sustain that funding and so we're one of the schools that's trying to help do that so I'm excited to now welcome up you alra  she's our team lead and she's going to take you through the rest thank you Mr Coyle uh so this is a 2-year pilot with our work starting last November from November to June our teams of teachers have worked together to create tasks that were submitted to the mcia task bank and then administered to our students once all the tasks are completed they will be scored by the Paul rier teams and then in June they will go through a dumble blind scoring with that other Elementary School in the Consortium um in the fall we will then start this process again with the hope of adding in grades four and grades five um so that the scores can be compared to mcast proficiencies we can go to the next slide so performance assessments are meant to appeal to a wider range of Learners when a performance assessment is created the educators are thinking about how any student of any ability can access it and what the end result could look like the objective is to get a student to get the student um to be engaged and show off their knowledge of the content in a way that feels genuine to them for example a student who has trouble writing might create an oral presentation instead of a written essay the end result could and should be unique for each student yet they are graded on the same standards based on a rubric go to the next Slide the school year um wait what I don't even know what I wrote sorry friends um so this school year that was the word I was missing grades two and three participated um in this pilot and next year grades four and five will join each team identified power standards with the help of our math and literacy coaches bless you bless you thank you which guide our task creation this year both grade levels focused on math and the tasks covered all of the foundational skills that are needed for the next grade level the tasks are not supposed to take a long time to complete which both students and teachers alike appreciate you can go to the next slide So within this pilot there are three tasks that were implemented um that have set the students up to be prepared for the next grade level and show the range of abilities within our student body each final produ product shows uh showcases what a student can do and that they are proud of because they had the authority to choose their journey within the task the data reflects a more detailed view of what the student can can actually do rather than a cut and dry numerical score that was derived of whether or not the answer was right or wrong now we get to see some of that work in some of our students my name is Grace abor first I thought of a question I wanted to ask the other third graders my question I asked the other third graders was what is your favorite color then I came up with my categories which were green purple red and orange and I then surveyed the other three graders to see what their favorite color is then I created my picture graph where I added a key that equals two if you can go to the next slide please [Applause] job next slide please one mhm oh well yeah this one Dalia Martinez first I designed my circle pizza and partitioned it into eights after that I decided what toppings I wanted on my pizza I put 28 olives 1/4 pepperoni and 48 ham m so just trying to pull that together a little bit for you what you were able to just see is a little bit of um just examples of student work that still were attached to the major standards of the grade level but they were interesting in fun ways for the kids to work on it they were able to show their knowledge independently uh and create something that they they enjoyed they had a lot of communication with their peers they were able to come up and present it with pride today and show you what they learned uh and that's that's kind of the energy behind this whole mcia work and when we talk a lot about deeper learning um it's about being able to have the kids show themselves in that work and have some independent Choice um in the ways that they're going to show that knowledge so that was a an example for you uh those two assignments so hats off to the girls they did a great job the last I can I just add one thing there so just looking specifically at um doll's work I know that typically we could ask students in the third grade to add fractions and that's the kind of task that normally a teacher would put in front of kids it might be 1/2 plus 1/3 plus 1/4 or whatever the case may be but that's very different and doesn't necessarily teach the student how to understand the fraction the way saying you show me a problem that comes out to one whole using three different fractions and that's where the student Choice comes in and it's where the deeper learning shows that this child actually has an understanding of different kinds of fractions and how they can be combined to make a whole whereas many of us probably learned just the routine involved in adding 1/2 plus 1/3 plus 1/4 or whatever the case may be uh and never really understood why we were finding in common denominator and what it meant to add the numerators to get the total and what a mixed number was instead of an improper fraction um and all of these kinds of mathematical terms um that aot lot of kids struggle to demonstrate they might understand but in this kind of a deeper learning experience they can demonstrate that they really do understand the concept quick question for Dalia Dalia when you look at pizza now do you think of fractions yeah I thought so see so it's she's seeing it in real life and around her too so it's not just the abstractions that we're used to of a pie chart that's drawn and it's just a circle she's she's seeing it in life and she's connecting that uh every time she sees Pizza she's going to know about her fractions it's great and if I can just look at Grace's work at the same time we talk a lot about surveys especially now and we're going through different kinds of Elections and things like that and really being able to demonstrate how you understand what a survey is and how you can identify a maximum and a minimum and um different pieces like that we could just say to a student he has a data set and this is what it means but when you say what are you interested in what do you want to know more about and then they actually go through the exercise of collecting the data and then showing the data the way that Grace did with her work that she showed us she's showing again a deeper understanding of that knowledge and it's going to translate into when she sees a graph in a newspaper understanding better what that graph is showing um than if we just said here's a fake graph about information that you don't care about is that do you think that's right Grace that's okay you don't have to agree it's all right yeah I mean and essentially two think about it it's a little bit more work for teachers too because you're you're you're giving that open Reign for the kids to do these different things and every every you can't just there's not just one answer key you have to really look deeply into each person's work but then the kids have so much more investment and excitement in it uh that we're really enjoying ourselves so it's wonderful Miss montoso I think my first thing was I was not talking about surveys or how I partition Pizza when I was in third grade so that level of high vocabulary also shows the great job that our educators are doing to bring a holistic approach even when it is mathematics I think the other thing is bringing in the student interest shows the emphasis that our district has on that culturally responsive and sustaining practices because we're bringing in our students priorities and their interests and so that they can make it applicable to what they're doing so just great job thank you thank you kids would you would you like to thank your Educators your teachers they did a good job helping you yeah were you guys excited to come here tonight yeah great job you're very lucky the only two from the whole power beer we appreciate you um the last thing I wanted to just shout out and you can see that it's on the last slide which we don't have to really put the slide back up but we're giving you a save the date we have a deeper learning showcase coming up it's going to be on June 12th um it starts at 12:40 at the Paul rier school and our goal with this one is going to be a combined event with the PTO um PTO was talking about putting on a culture night last year we didn't quite get there they were going to do it again this year and we have the idea of trying to combine the two events to make it like a really big open house at the school to Showcase student work the um focus of the work is going to be celebrating student identity and choice so you'll see more things like this uh every student's work might look different and that's kind of what we hope for but we want to make sure that when you come into our school and when you look at the work that students are doing you're seeing the students represented in the work uh and it's a very exciting thing so we're going to be putting that on at 12:40 on the 12th of June uh with the PTO it might be I don't have the end time yet but once I do I'll share that with you so we can share with the committee so thank you very much for having us and just one other plug is the districtwide deeper learning showcase is going to be remind me of the date do you remember from today I don't remember 522 522 if you say so I'll believe you oh no that's five district partnership okay the 29th 29 the 29th the 29th um and there'll be more information coming out about that but at that every school will have demonstrations of their projects that kids are working on around deeper learning not just in math because we know that we do deeper learning across the board but um so we can look forward to that as well thank you Mr Coyle thank you team job thank you everyone great job thank you um the second item on um the superintendent report is actually uh an update on the Middle School honors program um and so Dr mokaba worked with the Middle School principles um to put together for the committee um the list of needs and the list of challenges that they anticipate um from the Mandate they received to um go back to having differentiated honors classes separate from other students and um so the first one is really a budget item there are there's need for four additional teachers at each of the three schools um and what they're weighing as they work through the contract sorry through the scheduling is whether or not they will need to have four specific content Area Teachers like one English one math one social studies one science or if they might need to um move one of those into an additional special education inclusion teacher um or something of that nature they'll they're still trying to work out the schedule so that'll take them a little bit more time to figure out but they anticipate with four additional teachers at each School school they would be able to staff the change and then um the other request they had was $330,000 to to get a power school consultant to help them do these schedules over the next couple of months and that's $10,000 per school um to redo their schedules um they wanted to highlight some challenges that they anticipate which you can see follow in the next section and I won't read through them all but just briefly um um right now the Susan banthony and the rney mara structured that they have teams so there's a set group of teachers that have a set group of students and then those teachers have common planning time and they have PGT time and uh and all of that they don't they're not sure if they'll still be able to maintain that their their hope is with the four additional spots they'll be able to but they won't know that until they get deeper into the scheduling process um the they're worried that the loss of the team model if they're not able to maintain it will um have repercussions because you won't have the same five teachers dealing with the same group of kids um you know and there are there are other pieces I identified there the second major worry they have is about Encore and theme classes because the restrictions that'll be placed on if a student is in a particular honest section they may be unable to um select their preferred elective um in which case they they would be assigned into something else so they just wanted to bring that to the committee's attention um and they they just would like to know if they can move forward with those four positions so they can move forward with the scheduling and and that way they can notify families and students of exactly how everything's going to play out and get that process moving so even though the budget is not yet approved they hoping the committee will consider at least those new positions sooner than later um so they're not waiting to hire on those Miss MOS miss m uh so a few questions others might also have so I guess this is more maybe a question for our chair of ways and means if we provide the four teachers to start those positions now does that come from this fiscal Year's budget or next or where does this align to where we are right now with budget yeah it would be this would be out of next year's bu budet it would not we wouldn't be hiring these people to start right now we would be looking to hire them to start in the fall um so it would 100% fall into next year's budget and um I know the Ways and Means Committee has a meeting scheduled on May 2nd um that it might come to the point especially if we don't know what the Senate budget is just yet that we have to look at um there might be some requests that we can approve and some that we can't I would urge the committee to put these in the grouping of requests that we can approve so they can move forward with that process and then there'll be other requests that if it comes out that we don't have enough money um the committee would need to make a decision about whether they want to pull some money from the reserves or do they want to not allow some of the other requests that we have in order to balance the budget like that decision- making would have to happen but um hopefully we could approve these 12 positions even with without a full budget approval Mr mat bottom line will there be honors classes grade 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 so I think what we're talking about right now is Middle School 6 seven and 8 and yes that was the that was what they heard was the command of the committee yeah um that there be honest classes 6 78 in the four content areas of English math science and social studies and so that's what they focused on in crafting this because at the high school we have um so many more teachers and and a much broader schedule I don't anticipate that we'll need additional Staffing there it's there's not the same kind of limitations what might happen at the high school is that we see larger class size either in that honor section or in the non-honors sections in order to make things work but at the high school where we might have 17 Math teachers we can isolate a section or two for honors whereas at the middle school we might only have four Math teachers so it becomes a lot more complicated in doing the schedule if that makes sense when when I taught Middle School 8th grade we had honors an honors class I had four classes one of which was honors science same thing so I really don't see any problem here if you have four classes in each of the subjects you designate one as an honors sorry can you turn on your microphone the audio is not there you you if you have four classes you designate one as an honors class so I don't see where the logistics are out of whack here so I'll just say that we've made a lot of changes in the number in the last number of years and we've prioritized not hiring um social workers and school psychologists and and other staff positions that are helping kids social emotionally so our staffing is not the same as it was if we even go back 10 years um from where we are right now and in terms of scheduling that creates more of a restriction within what the kids are able to take and I'll say the same thing about um the previous school committee the last two School committees um have supported the increasing of Encore subject area classes so music uh art things of that nature and so we've as part of our strategy moved and changed our positioning and Staffing and that's what we have to go back to because we're changing from how we had prioritized our work like you saw the presentation that the Paul Riva school just gave it's the kind of work that we want all students doing and that's why we were moving away from a tracked system but if we're going to track and still try to engage kids in that kind of work which is what we should do it's going to require more staff so that's where we are right now and I do want to just correct myself um because principal wette just sent me um a text message clarifying that it's seventh and eighth grade for the implementation next year and she said the committee approved that at the last meeting if that's correct I have to apologize that I was not present at that meeting we didn't approve that that was talked about but it was never voted on someone brought it up oh so exactly but as far as what the motion was is in January was 678 and the high school and that was voted on and also over 60 parents and students came before us and expressed that they wanted their honest program back so thank you Miss montoso I was just going to say so that is what was voted on then we asked last time what do you need to make it happen you need 12 teachers and 30k for power school so I just want to know how we can make that happen for you today so that we can actually implement it cuz otherwise that would be great so I guess that's my this is my first budget season I know it's the first for a few others who just got elected so just my question is if the budget is not done how do we make this happen while also being um good stewards of what's to come if the budget isn't finalized I I I also have just just want to deal in reality here you know I'm I think I'm not such a Hardline person when it comes to I'm I'm happy that we're going to have this implemented in the high school and you feel confident in that I got calls from a lot of the Educators including uh some of the administrators and the buildings principles I'm not going to use their names but if you if we want to in a different session it be happy to but I'm I'm sure that you'll start hearing from them is a lot of what I'm seeing here is they don't feel that it's attainable as quickly as we'd like to see it happen and I think we need to understand that sometimes compromise needs to happen so if we're able to get it in the high school and if we're able to get it partially in the middle schools we have to accept that because we can't just force this if we if if we can't get the staff we can't do it and we're going to be forcing a round peg into a square hole well and if if I can just add to that right it's it's about the Staffing but it's about all of the other work that's been put into place over 10 years that we don't want to see go away entirely I I I don't disagree with you at all and I I but I I do I it's it's there's a middle ground here and I think that we all have to be reasonable and rational and and I understand that we all want it we we all voted on it including myself but we also have to be able to accept the reality if we we struggle to hire staff right now never mind if we if if I'm being told by an educator that has a lot more qualifications than me that they need 12 additional staff members that's unrealistic they ain't going to get it we we need to know right now today that's not going to happen they're not going to get 12 additional staff members of the SBA next year it ain't going to happen so we have to live in reality right now we have to St wrapping our heads around what we want and what is reasonable and that's just we have to take the emotions out of it and if we have to take if we have to ask for give a little B more time I think that that's reasonable thank you if I may uh before we took this up in January I met with a lot of administration too I'm not saying it's here but in other locations also with other school committee and when I spoke about introducing it in January would it be you know is it not being fair that we can introduce it in September they all each one that I've asked they've said Administration that shouldn't be an issue and that's where I'm coming from and we voted on it there's 60 parents and students that feel that we should have it in September so I'm not going to flip-flop on this this is what we voted on and we'll see where we are by September so can I speak to that for a minute sure so I I just want to clarify that the parents we heard from in February were all high school parents nobody from the Middle School came no teachers from the Middle School came um and I have three Middle School principles right now who are feverishly texting me as we have this meeting trying to express how impossible they feel the position is that you've placed them in and I I don't know who the administrators are that you've spoken to in other districts I don't know what size their district is or how many middle schools they have or how many high schools they have or what experiences I don't know what what work they've done in those districts um to help support students in the ways that we have around deeper learning and around social emotional learning and uh all of the other initiatives that we've had that have resulted in uh as the data I showed you in January um closing the achievement gap for our special populations some of them by 10 20 30 40 percentage points um sign significant Improvement in data for our high school students that has resulted from Decades of work in this District uh I don't know how to compare that to other districts that you might have spoken to but I've got principles who are right here in this District who are trying to articulate to this school committee that they feel it's going to be a real Challenge and I respect the committee's idea that we need to do things traditionally I know that's often um a favor way to do things because people naturally reject change um and we're trying to meet the Mandate that the committee has made about going back to and honors and not honors and all these principles are trying to articulate is what they feel in their experience I'll name Joan wette who's been in her position for over a decade who actually schedules buildings every year what she's telling you is doable and capable and I I would just implore the committee to listen to the people who are actually doing the work here in R and try to make this manageable as they try to meet what you have requested they do and and and in terms of the middle schools that is as they're texting me grades seven and8 for next year looking at expanding beyond that the year after one of the things Joanne sent me is that they don't have the data on sixth graders to determine placement um and to also allow for the four additional positions at each of the middle schools so that they can get moving on the hiring process in order to facilitate the scheduling sorry M Rizzo thank you again I've always believed that we need to um go according to what our professional said the needs in the district are I understand that this committee has made um a vote to implement it for 6 7th and 8th but first question is is this according to seven six and no seventh and e8th grade are the challenges bigger if we include sixth this is seventh and e8th grade so if we include six then I would expect these numbers would go up I don't want to say that for certain I would need to check with the Middle School princip schools again but I have to imagine you know if they're saying they need four teachers for what they thought was seventh and eighth grade they would probably each need six teachers to do sixth seventh and eighth grade so I I just I don't understand I've said it before I'm going to say it again and then I'm going to zip my lips why are we not listening to the professionals and the experts in this field in doing this work Miss montoso so I I have two things that I want to talk about but one is first this so sixth grade I have something that I'll save but first I want to know how we can make this happen for at least 7th and 8th and then we can continue the conversation about six so my question again to those few who have been here for past budget Cycles how can we prioritize this happening before the budget is finalized so they can start posting these prisions does someone on this committee have an answer for me Miss bronze and Rizzo you've been here a few more years I am not I've never been on the ways of Means Committee um but I will say if this committee wanted to take a vote to prioritize the seventh and eth grade as given to us I don't see why we can't have that um a priority in the budget and sent to ways and means right away okay so for just for this at this moment then I'd love for us to re continue the sixth grade conversation I would like to make a motion to prioritize the addition of 12 additional teachers for grades seven and8 core content and a the 30,000 in cost for power school to be prioritized for the fiscal year 2025 budget second is there post it pardon isn't this an open meeting violation where it is we're not here to make a a priority to a motion on it no you you can bring up motions whenever you want as long as the agenda item was in the agenda and it is this is so to refer it to the subcommittee so it's a priority okay any other discussions or questions on that I I totally agree that there would probably need some more positions I I understand that we've hired more um social worker type folks and maybe less teacher type folks I guess um but my only problem with the whole thing is it's not like we never had honors in middle school and it's not like it was 20 years ago it was only four so I would think the scheduling and things like that would be in a draw somewhere and while I'm not against the 30,000 I get it you know we need some help with some things and setting power school back up I don't have a problem with it all but it's just I just want people to understand we did this four years ago it's not like it's Reinventing we're not going to Mars we're bringing back an honors program that was sheld four years ago I understand you might need some more staff because have been rearranged in the last four years I get it I don't have a problem with it but I do have a problem with the tremendous push back in my opinion about this because we just did it four years ago it's it's not that it's never been in the district before so that's the part that's the part that I'm having trouble with I understand you need more people I get it um I understand it and we can make it a priority I don't have a problem with that um but I do feel I don't I the push back part's the part I don't get because we did it before so I'll I'll give you you uh one example Mr Kingston to speak to that in the last four years our El population has risen by almost 25% so the the students that have requirements in their schedule that are unique and different even in the last four years is is very very different and that puts limitations on the scheduling which forces the additional Staffing again I I didn't say a word about the additional Staffing wasn't wasn't what I said at all to lose their so can I and I I just wanted to add to that Miss monteroso if I couldn't and again uh I I I was supportive of Mr Kingston I was supportive of your motion but I also want to put it out there that you know a lot does change in four years but it's also more of the the timeline and they being realistic to you know I'm willing to get halfway and then try to get further along in another year if if this hasn't existed in four years and we get it partially in place in the fifth year and then we get it fully in place or even a little bit more partially in place and it it's fully in place within a couple years I think that it's very reasonable I think it's it gives everyone a time to adjust the the school system as we know has changed dramatically over the last four years it's wild we know that uh there's so many different changes there's so many different changes to the education policy there's so many different changes to the environment to be able to just sit there and I don't think that anyone's doing this maliciously but to just sit there and pound our Fist and I I I can't be that person and say you're going to do do it and tell a superintendent that quite frankly wasn't for this but she is willing to to bend and buckle with us and work with us and to have Educators be able to do the same I feel that that's the more reasonable rational way to go and uh that's just my point and I'll just say the last pieces quite frankly and I don't want to please don't say this Dr Kelly she could tell us no no she has every right to We Can't dictate this policy as a school committee we are it's way out of our jurisdiction we we we have expressed our wishes I think that she's been amenable to even allowing us to or to listening to us and understanding that there were 60 parents here and there were people that had concerns I think that that was already a good sign a good gesture of understanding where we're coming from representing people and representing parents and and and and the student population and that's as far as we really can take it we can't force her to do this we can't force the schools to do it it's way outside of our jurisdiction thank you Mr CH I just think excuse me I just think it's a crime to deny a student that has worked his or her tail off over the years a crime to deny them an an upper level class it's a shame can I speak to that why do you work hard at school why do you study why do you go home and spend those hours for what to be thrown into the homogeneous mix no I completely disagree I think they deserve an upper level course and everything should be done to accommodate that thank you very much so there is a motion on the table for the 7th and eth so I just want to know if there's any more thoughts specifically just on that motion so that we can vote and then continue the conversation no discussion no I just like to say one more thing when we go to the vote we did seek out legal council and as far as Council said is the school committee is in charge of curriculum policy and standard and that was that was told to us by legal counsel thank you thank you for the clarification I'm I'm not quite sure that I interpret it that way but I'm but I listen I I I respect everyone's opinion we're all here for the right reasons I I totally agree with that Miss uh mon Roso we're good on the roll call okay roll call please roll call on the motion by um miss monteroso Mr Stacy Bron Rizo yes Miss Anthony cajano no Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick ke yes motion passes Miss monos Miss Pont Roo because we are on this topic I would also like to make a separate motion to postpone the implementation of the honors program in the sixth grade for the 2024 25 school year until we see the success of reintroducing the program um for the 7th and 8th do I have a second to postpone for sixth second for discussion any further discussion uh if none then we can do a roll call Mr Stacy Bron Rizo yes Mr Anthony kajo no m Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick Kei yes motion passes thank you so the Mr Kelly you have one more item there you go um the last item on the superintendent report is a review of The District um Improvement plan and the goals for the 23 24 school year um what I've done is given you all a copy of the district Improvement plan with uh annotation notes on each of the different areas that we've been working on and then there are also a couple of um examples of work that I've included um and so the first couple of pages are exactly the same as the district Improvement plan that you that the previous school committee voted last summer and that um you all have seen I imagine in the course of your work um but if you go to the third page of the packet that I just gave you um it's strategic objective 1.4 oh sorry yes so Al just remember to please use the note taker I gave in the 500 PM meeting because this is the beginning as she goes through each one Dr Kell if you could go through one goal at a time so then we can ask questions and engage in that formative evaluation and then um yeah so just I you all have the note catcher ask questions as we go through each goal and then I ask that you please write down your thoughts and your evidence and progress noted or not noted because I'm going to use all that to make that summative evaluation feedback form at the end of this that's all sure um so our first um goal was to ensure all families feel supported and included in our diverse community and you can read through the process benchmarks and the early evidence of change bench box that are identified there um if you look under status that's where I've put some notes and um the first one uh references a survey to go out the first week in May and we have a number of our departments that are working on that survey right now um that will go out to all families the first week in May and we will ask that um caregivers give us some feedback within the first two weeks of May so that we're able to present that data to you at the main meeting um it's exactly what I had mentioned at the 5:00 meeting um um we did hold our first training for our front office staff all of our secretaries translators security people everybody who's in the in the main lobby of of our schools completed a business etiquette and professional conduct professional development back on November 7th um and the next item you see is increasing family engagement at school and District events and it says attached number one so if you move to the back of the packet um and you come back from the last page you'll eventually come to a document that has a number one in a circle in the upper right hand corner corner and that just refers to the first attachment and that goes into more detail on a number of um the different goals this will make more sense when you have time to sit down and digest it in the coming weeks um but it gives specific examples of how we worked on different objectives um and in some cases they're differentiated by grade span so we might be doing something different at the high school than we're doing at the middle school level and and that's identified there um but going back to strategic objective 1.4 and for those at home these goals are on the website so anybody's welcome to pull those up and look at them um you can see the information that's listed in the right hand column on how we've progressed on each of those items moving on to um the next page which is uh objective 2.2 review existing and create new student support practices to ensure alignment with student needs and make changes when necessary uh sorry Dr Kelly so are there any questions on that oh sorry any questions that to be honest with you just match up to be honest with you there's so much information so yeah just I understand I just want I'm happy we'll have three uh different meetings really process I'm also trying to scramble all the papers I'm still looking for the video video might be better yeah uh Dr Kelly when you name each goal um just let me then tell them where it is in the note catcher so we can find it sure okay I think they go in order no they don't so oh okay all right good to know um and and I'll just say that anybody can email me at any time if there's something that isn't clear or that you have a question on I'm happy to talk to you individually um about whatever is unclear um but on so on this second object the second objective uh 2.2 review existing create new student support practices to ensure alignment with student needs and uh make changes when necessary there's just a few things that I want to highlight on here um and the first is if you look under early evidence of change Benchmark the third item down um we have student engagement coordinators track and re-engage absent students and this was specifically referencing work that we're doing at the high school we've had 31 students who have uh returned to school after some nature of a hospitalization and um we've been able to support them through the bright Grant which principal Bowen spoke to you about earlier this year um that's a whole new piece of support that we never used to have before and then um the next item tier one and two academic supports you'll see on the right it says C attached number one so again that's where if you go when you get through this whole thing if you look at that document that has the one with the circle in the right hand corner that will give you more specific information by grade level or grade span on progress that we've made in those areas um the next one I want to highlight is uh if you go to down from there it says bbst restructuring demonstrates decreased special education referrals and this goes back to pot of the special education redesign that we implemented last year with the support of the school committee so thank you very much um we expanded our bbst we created the special ed coordinators at each one of the schools and we really worked to support teachers as they implemented um tier one and tier 2 interventions for kids who are struggling before they got referred special education services and what we've seen in just this one year is a 38% decrease in the number of referrals coming out of the bbst so last year we had 104 referrals that turned into special education testing um for students and this year that number is down to 65 now I want to note we're not quite at the end of the year and there are still a handful of kids across the district that are engaged in the bbst process so the 65 might go up a little bit but it's going to be nowhere near the 104 that we had last year and so we're already seeing dividends from that um restructuring I'm going to move on to the oh sorry go ahead no I have questions so I think another good example of evidence here would be the restructuring of the high school how you put everyone kind of in like uh groups uh so could you talk a little bit more about how that's going and if there's any evidence there uh that you could tie to this goal sure and we're we're waiting on collecting some of that evidence it's related to some of the other goals that we have identified as well um but what we are tracking right now and what we'll have data for the committee on um either at the May meeting or at the June meeting is what impact has it had on um student attendance and engagement which we expect to be improved from the student engagement coordinators some of the data that you do have here if you look at that attachment number one is um the number of students that have been engaged in the stem Center and The Writing Center has significantly increased because the student support Specialists that were part of the high school restructuring are actually engaging those kids and and moving them into those different programs thank you um if I go on to the next goal um objective 4.1 was to increase the district's capacity to provide social emotional and mental Behavioral Health interventions um and this is along the lines of what we we've already talked about um this evening but you can see um all of the pieces that have been put into place for um each one of these initiatives one of them the very first one was to ensure adequate Specialists are available to meet student needs in all areas related to seal and mental health um and we still have a couple of open positions um specifically school um psychologists that we've been unable to um so we've been using contracted service providers in order to fill that Gap but that's something that we still hope to continue with [Applause] um other other um highlights I'll point out um we wanted to make space in our schools to support the outside Partners who um help us students that might have some um significant need and we've been able to do that uh with the home for little Wanderers North suff mental health and also Haven um so that's been a a huge Improvement uh in order to meet the needs of all kids um what was the second one wonders and uh North Copic mental health and Haven and those are um in the notes yeah just so you know um there's some other information there but any questions or I'll go on to the next goal um our next goal um objective 5.1 was to provide more internship and early college dual enrollment opportunities so more students can participate um I can tell you that we've been largely successful in this but it's all part of Diana Finn's presentation to the school committee um next month at the May meeting uh and she will have all of the data that you need um one point that I did want to highlight uh is the third item down under early evidence of change Benchmark and that is to create the plumbing exploratory course in partnership with Northeast voke which you all know that we did um and we had 25 students participate in that this year our goal is to at least double for next year um and we have scheduled a meeting with um superintendent dearry from the voke and his staff to talk about um what options might be in play for September and principal Bowen and Mrs Finn will be part of that conversation so that we can include it in the scheduling I can tell you that there were nearly a hundred or me I think she said actually a little over hundred uh requests to engage in that kind of programming so one of the things we're going to talk to the staff of the voke about is is there a way to increase in the per section like right now they're doing a double block um for the plumbing course is there a way to have more of an introductory course that's maybe only one block but then we can double the number of kids so instead of going from 25 to 50 we might be able to go from 25 to 100 between first semester and second semester um and we're going to talk through all of those iterations to try to extend that program to more students but there'll be more on that coming up and then um other pieces I'll get to in just a minute uh but Diana will have a logger presentation on that at the May meeting yeah another piece of evidence here I find is uh kind of like our unsaid apprenticeship where like high school students could go and teach and and tutor in the elementary so can you tell me a little bit more about how many high school students participate in that what the feedback has been sure and that's actually I mean uh Moa Bianca could probably speak to it I know they have a couple of interns at the Paul rier uh it's actually part of our formal internship program we have a grant from the Department of Education um in order to implement this program and it's meant to be a means to engage students in education so that they might decide to become teachers down the road but do you want to say anything about what it's been like to have the interns means iCal there yeah you do sorry I wouldn't have said I would say [Laughter] hi everybody I'm Bianca Quirk I'm the assistant principal at the Paul R we have had interns for a few years now we work closely with Megan and her last name escapes me unfortunately but she's wonderful um we currently have a couple of interns in um they work with us year round depending on their school schedule it might be morning and then classes classes and then come to us in the afternoon um Any teacher who has been blessed with an intern feels just that way um they are such an asset to our school and to our community um truly future teachers that um quickly become part of the fabric of our school and know the kids and get to know the families and work really um like a student teacher from a college program would so we're super grateful and hope that that does continue because you know we need teachers we need diverse teachers and these kids are coming right up through Rivier public schools and um we're definitely proponents of the program it's fabulous do we have any numbers on how many of these students have then chosen like an like an education track or have come back to teach here no is there a way we can track that we can talk about it later yeah okay I'll I'll put that in my notes and I'll just to give a shout out to Megan it was McBride but I know she has a married name now right something something anyway she's very nice and easy to work with so kudos to her Megan uh oversees our internship program she's a counselor at the high school uh moving on to our next goal um objective 5.3 was to enable students to exercise choice and how they Dem demonstrate the knowledge and learning you saw a little bit of that exemplified by the Paul Ria school tonight um you'll see more of it at the districtwide Showcase that's happening we now know May 29th um and then we also are going to have a data presentation as I mentioned um we've been doing a lot of classroom observations um with teams of teachers and administrators traveling together to collect data in classrooms and we'll have that um information ready to present to the school committee at the June meeting um there is one one part that I want to point out if you go about halfway down under the early evidence of change Benchmark under enable all students to access honors level coursework in each lesson or unit for all core classes um which would had been one of our goals um there is some data there from the high school um which is where we started this work this year and 81% of the classes offered honors there were 426 students from across all four grades who actually achieved the honors credit and one thing that we noticed in the data that we're curious about and want to look into a little bit more is that um we had higher percentages of sophomores and juniors who earned the honors credit compared to freshmen and seniors um and so that's something that we want to explore more one of the suppositions we have is that the freshmen don't know enough about whether or not they should do the honors work and the seniors might feel a little bit like I've got into my school and I've done what I need to do so maybe I don't want to do the honors work kind of thing but um we we really need to do a little bit more data mining in order to understand that better um anything on that goal that people one more on no okay um and then the last goal six point2 was to review our handbooks critically through the lens of equity and identify areas needing Improvement as the committee knows we completed that work on the student handbook last year uh we're actually looking to make some edits to that this year that's a living document um but we have been we've had a team of teachers and administrators engaged in the same process over this last school year with the faculty handbook um and that uh they're getting ready to go to review without the groups on and they'll have a presentation to the school committee at the June meeting um as well thank you any questions it's a lot to digest but this is a process thanks for putting that together so what I hear is June's going to be a long meeting I agree y I think I'm away well and I'll just for the last thing if it I mean take a look I'm not going to talk about them but um just to tell you what these different documents are these are the attachment one attachment two attachment three that you would have seen in um the documentation when you get a chance to look at that a little more carefully I already described the first one the second one is just a catalog of um the workshops and trainings that we did and who was trained in each one of them uh Who provided the training because that was one of the things we had committed to the third document is um from a a family engagement that we did with high school parents on how kids would earn the honors designation at Rivia High School for the school year um and you this will still inform even when we separate the kids out next year and have honors sections and non-honors sections the kids in the non- honor section will still have this option to earn honest credit um and this is just how we explained it to parents so just to give you a piece of evidence of how we talked to them about it and then um as I mentioned at the 5:00 meeting um this is attachment number four um we asked the administrators to reflect on where they saw good progress and where they thought we needed to focus our attention and that's what you see in attachment number four so that's not my evaluation of where we are on the goals that's kind of what's written in the goal sheets I just went through this is more of um the principals and directors assessment of where they think we are with the goals and then on the back of that second page where they think we need to pay closer attention going forward in order to get closer to the goals um and that's it I'll stop right there Mr Miss montoso uh so just voicing over so you all know I think a little bit more evidence that and I'll put this in an email uh for me would be I know that Miss Finn is going to present on the different types of internships but if I could just if we could have that on a piece of paper just so I can process that better and then um I know we have a lot of external supports that we provide students and families like little wanders and the other you mentioned but if we could have kind of a write up of what all those supports are so that we can kind of document that progress there's a lot so maybe just like a little sample of like maybe like topics that are cover I'll Think through this more and then provide it to you but just different things where it would be helpful for me to have that evidence so that I can use that when I'm writing the progress that I've seen uh would be really helpful and then to remind you for everyone else you'll process through this read through it send me any requests for additional evidence you need before the main meeting so that we can continue the conversation then as well so thank you thank you great place the file okay and that concludes superintendance report great the hearings uh report subcommittee personnel subcommittee I think I've I've given my updates it was mostly just the evaluation so no need to reiterate myself okay great thank you good night thank you health and health and hum health and service sorry health and special education subcommittee update yes just that we met Wednesday April 10th yeah April 10th um in attendance was myself I youa milberry Ellis also um assistant superintendent Dr kuchi Ed special um executive director for special education Sarah humis and directors of student services Lisa hannahan and Katie faen um also Dr Diane Kelly um and basically um at our last meeting it was um voted to send and have a discussion on the relocation of the Ascend program from Susan B Anthony to to Garfield Middle School um so I did start off the meeting um to remind everyone that we have no unless there's a budgetary impact we have no Authority about moving um a classroom um so unless there's a lease to house the program or if we have to hire more Educators is um we do not approve the relocation of classrooms although certainly may support it or not support it um Sarah hum humus um asked for a couple of different things um she was asked a few things about support for long-term vision and the 6 through eight life skills class um but those are all in my minutes I am just going to say that we did take a vote um to I made a motion to support it um Miss um Aisha milberry Ellis abstained so there was no second um I would have love to come before you and ask just to support it but um at this point I can't make any recommendation and that's it sorry thank you for your update so there's nothing to bring to the table no there's no okay no thank you uh anyone any comments on that health and special education subcommittee Mr Kingston I would just go like to go on the record as being opposed to it I'd like I just don't feel comfortable with the students being on the third or fourth floor um if they have mobility issues um I understand Dr Luchi said there's no one currently no one next year will be currently in a wheelchair but we have no guarantee that we wouldn't have a student or two come in during the school year and I just don't think it's a good idea to move those children um off the from where they are now and I just want to express that uh I realize it's out of our purview I'm just expressing my opinion thank you thank you Mr cajano I have to agree with my colleague uh as far as I'm concerned for the safety of the kids if something does happen and they're on that third floor I just uh I'm just concerned about them being on the third floor they were put in the first floor for a reason years and years ago but like I said I can't be in favor of something like this I wouldn't I mean when I look at any type of motion especially when it comes to something like this I ask myself would I want my kid on the third floor and the answer is no so that's how I feel thank you thank you okay any and the ways and means subcommittee uh yes the ways and the ways and mean subcommittee met on April 2nd 2024 in attendance was myself as chair Anthony cajano um Mr Mata Mr Anthony Mata was absent and Miss Bronson Rizzo was in attendance um we we basically just it was basically an overview of the budget the only things um that I was going to highlight um was we asked for an addition of a fourth SRO to be put in the budget we realized that the police department is constrained on numbers but the feeling was that if the money is leased in the budget if if if the chief was able to give us a fourth SRO that the money would be in the budget and we wouldn't have to worry about funding it at a later date um currently the high schools has an extra administrator due to two maternity leaves this year an extra administrator was granted to the high school um I would like to see that continue next year as a position um just to try to help um with Staffing the high schools um you know we're hope hopefully going to build a new high school and get it going going but in the meantime um I think uh we need as many um admins in the building as possible to help teachers and just help with uh keeping the building running and um that was uh again we talked about a i i there's a very long list but nothing that's uh um just some you know just some budgetary items um we are going to we are uh we did talk about um $600,000 as a possible cost for portable classrooms um to help alleviate some of the overcrowding and have some extra classrooms here at the high school uh those were the main points that I saw um of of the meeting thank you thank you Mr Kingston um I know oh M Miss mon Roo and then uh I just wanted to ask I know we've all talked about making it a priority to also prioritize funding for our V Tech expansion so just wanted to ask if that came up and if it's being prioritized yes it was part of the discussion um great thank you discussion of adding an additional vocational course at the cost of 75,000 okay thank you and if I can um Mr Kingston uh brought up the fact that he had talked about adding an administrative position at the high school and one of the requests I made to him was that he uh give us time to talk to the high school administration team and see what they think that they needed to prioritize um and I just want to share I was able to talk to Mr Bowen and to U Miss Riley and they felt like what they need is um somebody who can be in charge more of the operational stuff so that they can be freed up to do more of the classroom uh work with teachers so somebody who would be doing more of the day-to-day attendance coordination of teachers coordinating of substitutes all of that kind of stuff so I just wanted to share that that's where they saw a priority need um and the idea would be that this person would also oversee what has become almost like a constant in the high school is testing an assessment because we start off with the mcast retest in November so we're only eight weeks into school when we start with the retest and then we move into access testing and then we move right into the spring retest for mcast then we into actual mcast then we have the AP exams and so Diana Finn is really stretched tight um and and really spending a lot of time coordinating this testing whereas you know I mentioned earlier that our El population has increased significantly in the last four years we used to have maybe 35 kids who had to do an mcast retest each year that is up significantly so to coordinate that testing for the students takes a lot more work and that's pulling Diana away from her work with students and with guidance counselors um in doing things like career counseling and helping them help the kids get ready for college and and do all of those aspects of her her position um when she's focused just on the testing so uh having an administrator who's kind of in charge of that uh day-to-day operational stuff and then doing a lot of the testing is where they feel they could uh benefit the most thank you Mr Kingston if if I can also add uh I know that you had brought up the SRO conversation and uh it raised my awareness to talk to the Chief and talk to some of the um the police Personnel regarding the uh needs um and the chief is not uh certainly I just want to make sure you everyone knows that anytime anything's going on with the schools the in your son's an officer and thank you for his service um they are they're they're on it and the ones that we do have are doing an unbelievable job uh he did bring up that U when they get to a full compliment I that he thinks he would be able to support it uh in the meantime just so everyone is aware of our safety protocols and the schools you know we do supplement uh the need with overtime for the current SRO they that they're at the events at night and they do tend to uh do what they can to make sure that the three do kind of do the work of four although having that extra body is will will be a priority as we continue to grow our Force um and also even the offer the chief had mentioned um there's a sergeant there's two sergeants a patrolman and um there's a there's a captain that kind of oversees that body uh as part of their responsibilities and he mentioned uh offering Services uh occasionally for um some continued work in the schools and if it's even just having more support in schools especially high school has 2,000 students and making sure that there's more presence um and a good balance but we I think that it's a good good uh good idea and it's something that we can continue to work on thank you if I can add one more thing to that I just want to thank the Ria Police Department because they have been tremendous Partners to us and there's no substitute as Mr Kingston said for having a fourth officer full-time in the school department um but in the meantime when we have had um an issue or two uh RPD has been tremendous Partners to us and they come and they help us and all of their officers are just amazing so I just I I wanted to make that clear as well okay and uh motions we have the uh motion to approve re would you want to read these Miss Kelly I thinking I apologize Mr Kingston you can walk on I'm not going to stop you no you please motion to approve rev Federation of par professionals memorandum of agreement so move second I second we have a second okay roll call Mr Stacy Bron Rizo yes Mr Anthony kiano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick Keef yes motions approved congratulations to the Riva Federation of power professionals it was a pleasure doing business I don't know if I can read my own motion uh would you like me to read it yes okay motion by secretary Kingston to provide all staff a beach at Beachmont Veterans Memorial School with an appreciation lunch for the estate State recognition on student growth um Mr Kingston would you like to elaborate um Beachmont school was only two in the state that only two in the state that were recognized by the state um a number of them were able to go to a conference but uh I would say the number was less than 10 might have been less than eight um and I just felt the rest of the building deserved a little something because they all had a hand in it um I think we can afford to do a lunch for them I think it would be a nice gesture and that's basically it thank you Mr Kingston if I can ask uh so I think they're doing a celebration with they're doing a photo opportunity or something soon with t-shirts U Mr um principal frazen has reached out to all of us I believe we were Al on email about having a day they're getting t-shirts and things like that but I still would like I think something else for the teachers is is you think it would be appropriate to maybe offer a lunch at that event and then after that was my that was my thought if if the cafeteria can provide that day I wasn't sure what their schedule look like but I think that would be a nice gesture that would be a great gesture yes sir if that if that's okay with you I think we could collaborate the whole event I think that would be excellent thank you sir was that so if you're okay with that I'd like to that would be be I think a good time to do it Amendment friendly amendment I guess well it's just intended amendment I guess right yes sure no well yes would would do we have a second on Mr Kingston's motion second second roll call Mr Stacy Bron Rizo not V him Mr Anthony cajano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick Keef yes so just to clarify the lunch will be um during the full celebration they already have planned so it adds to it is that what we're saying yes as long as the cafeteria can make great um so yeah I just I just wanted to thank uh secretary Kingston for asking for this you know as we work on the big things for Teacher morale there's also the little things that we can do so thank you for uh lifting this up for the teachers of the school thank you thank you I continue motion to incum 21,000 for invoice number 36 for left field LLC for January 2024 Professional Service so move second roll call Mr Stacy Bron orizo yes Mr Anthony kajo yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes M Jack moso yes may yes motion to approve motion to approve payment amount of 21,000 for invoice number 36 for leftfield LLC for January 20 2024 Professional Services second call Mr Stacy brono yes Mr Anthony kajo yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Mr John Kingston yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick e yes motion to approve payment in the amount of 42,69555 for invoice number 87970 z.0 d35 for perk's Eastman architect DPC for January 2024 Professional Services so moved second BR call Mr Stacy Bronson Rizzo yes Mr Anthony kajo yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick keff yes motion to encumber $ 42,69555 n70 d35 for Perkin Eastman architect DPC for January 202 for Professional Services so moved second roll call Mr Stacy Bronson Rizo yes Mr Anthony cajano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick ke yes motion to encumber $2,440 for invoice number 13 for consig construction company for pre-construction C services so moved second roll call Mr Stacy Bronson Rizo yes Mr Anthony cajano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick he yes motion to approve motion to approve payment in the amount of 2,440 for invoice number 13 for cons construction company for pre-construction services so moved second roll call Mr Stacy brono yes Mr Anthony cajano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick Keef yes motion to encumber $221,000 for invoice number 37 for leftfield LLC for February 20 24 Professional Services so moved second roll call Mr Stacy brono yes Mr Anthony cajano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick Kee yes motion to approve payment in the amount of 21,000 for invoice number 37 for leftfield LLC for February 2024 Professional Services so moved second roll call Mr Stacy Bronson Rizzo yes Mr Anthony K yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss jacqulyn monteroso yes mayor Patrick keff yes motion to approve payment the amount of $4,398 120 for invoice number 87970 0-36 for Perkin Eastman architect DPC for February 2024 Professional Services so moved second roll call Mr Stacy Bronson Rizo yes Mr Anthony cajano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick Keef yes motion to UNC $4,398 120 for invoice number 87970 z.0 d36 for Perman Eastman's architect DPC for February 24th Professional Services so moved second roll call Mr Stacy Bron Rizo yes Mr Anthony kajan yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss jacn mon Ro yes mayor Patrick yes motion to unumb $2,440 for invoice number 14 for conly construction company for pre-construction services so moved second roll call Mr Stacy Bronson Rizo yes Mr Anthony cajano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick keff yes motion to to approve payment in the amount of $2,440 for invoice number 14 for consig construction company for pre-construction services so moved second roll call Mr Stacy Bron Rizo yes Mr Anthony kiano yes Mr John Kingston yes Mr Anthony Mata yes Miss Jacqueline monteroso yes mayor Patrick keff yes let's see uh no one finished business any new business just miss montoso just a reminder that our first school committee Retreat of a three-part series is next Monday if you didn't get the calendar hold uh I will double check not you don't I didn't get anything okay so uh the mayor's office sent out a confirmation that that was the date and time and then separate that everyone was on so double check the calendar invite it's from 4:00 to 6:30 uh we just ask that those who can make this a priority attend 4:00 right yes 4:00 to 6:30 this first session will be on the division of superintendent and school committee responsibilities and what falls under whose purview uh and then if anyone cannot attend I'm very happy to deliver any printed materials so that you can be looped in I'm look she have your email she had John she fixed it she did good and then uh the session will be led by two guest speakers uh Dr Kelly do you want to mention who they are uh Meg mayo Brown who's a former superintendent and now does some Consulting work in this in the um city and that Jim better and Jim better from masc um the the school committee organization at the state level um are going to be coming to work with us thank you and uh also if I can take a point of personal privilege I know yesterday was Passover one of the highest H holidays for our uh friends that that celebrate and I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Passover um and hope you have a safe season filled with joy Miss Kelly and just one more piece of information for the committee um we will be attending the msba board meeting tomorrow where we anticipate hope fingers crossed they're going to to um approve our schematic design and um give us some information in the in the coming week on what a Project funding agreement will look like so um please keep us in your thoughts and prayers for that meeting so a motion to adjourn second roll call all in favor all in favor I all have a great evening have a great evening we'll see you at the next meeting thank you --------- and I'm not muting correct just don't pin any any four people's faces r that CH go spin the whole time at the 500m last time do the zoom participant and I'm not yeah delay I'm gonna mute the you we should be ready to go you can start mayor okay good evening uh calling order the committee of the whole meeting on April 24th 2024 will all rise and flit States stand liberty and justice Tri roll call okay if we just go left to right here stac Rizo here Johan Kingston here Anthony cajano here Anthony Matera here Jacqueline monteroso here Dr Keef is here and Aisha milbery Ellis is absent she has a personal engagement we have a quorum first item on the agenda we have the approval of minutes any questions on the minute any questions okay attach Wars any questions on the warrant yeah if I may please you already answer most of my questions this morning so I just have one more uh the last paid on the arach educational is that all reimbursement with the state yeah so when you see the the Food Services manag bills here you'll see there's no PO attached because there's a contract already in place okay we get billed monthly and we make that payment monthly so this is a a part of what we report to the state on our district claims for reimbursement but this is only showing the cost that the the Food Services management company is charging us it doesn't include labor costs for the program so this is just the costs for the management company doing their work right okay um any other questions on the ons Anthony can you say what your other questions were in case any of us had it in the back of your mind our minds but what that you said you cleared up this morning no no this morning it was just general questions on the ground I asked him about earlier there was other questions in there uh and uh he answer those questions for is uh would it be like uh what was it the other question I'm a homeless living outside the city and uh we once they move outside the city we are still involved with the transportation and so on and that was pretty much about it with the warrant that I had questions about no because there was something in my head this morning um last page so when you said last page I thought maybe it was what I was questioning also Financial reports so this is the quarterly financial report for the third quarter this is the report that answers the question are we overspending any of our Series in any way and if so how are we addressing that so the cover page shows two important things the first is that we are not overspending uh a series in total and the second thing goes hand inand with the budgeting process so we've been hoping to carry forward at least the $8 million of unspent funds from one fiscal year to the next to help support next year's budget so as of the end of this quarter our best guest with a million moving Parts but is that $8.4 Million number and we'll start now doing projections on this on a weekly basis just to make sure that the spending is tying very slightly to what our projection is and then we gave you the hundreds of account count if anybody has any um detailed questions any have any questions from that on the finals so there'll be a a ways and means meeting on May second we'll have that second version of the budget to be reviewed by that committee and depending how that conversation goes that night we may be ready to vote um at our M school committee meeting or if we have more work to dig into we can put step back to June so May 2nd is set for the Ways and Means Committee to meet on that would that include if it was passed was the paral professional but uh that would be that will be worked into the budget for the subcommittee to look at on May 2nd okay so it was approve I mean the union voted in favor they did yeah and that was one of the things that uh we were going to bring up tonight is that the par professionals did overwhelmingly approve the mo MOA um and so that's on the agenda for you all to approve tonight and then we can finalize it finalize the redrafting of their contract um and all of that math will be included in the version of the budget that the ways and mean subcommittee looks at on May 2nd yeah okay and then one other thing on budget that I want to add is the house did come out with their version of the budget um it was not as favorable as we hoped but there are still uh and Stacy can speak to this too I know masc and Mas are both still uh working very hard with the Senate to try to uh make some changes around the uh inflation uh Gap that has resulted in the last couple of years um we did see a net increase in the governor's budget to the house budget but it was not worth talking about I think it was in the tens of thousands of dollars so not something that's going to be impactful to us Cityside was not as positive either sheet came out right me onk okay uh any other questions on financials so I will say in in regards to the state um coming out with their budget day on the hill is May 6 it's a perfect time to be at um the state house and to be pushing our local leaders into um some won't be there because she'll be out of country but um it's a perfect time to meet with any leers or any in the district anywhere in the state and really tell them how much we need that money um there are a few people like um Diane said from the Senate side working hard to push it but it's not really going anywhere so it's not looking positive second on a brighter note though our vocational schools serve lunch at the Senate house um and they do an exceptional job not only just the northeaster vocational but all of our um Regional Schools so it's perfect opportunity get to see the kids at work so no food service financials no Communications woman update in Personnel so we have new hires it's just a handful of updates um most of what you'll see on this list is under resignations uh but it can be a little bit deceptive we need people who are on a leave of absences are required tell us by April 1st if they intend to come back or not and so as we're getting responses from some of those folks they're not coming back we list them as a formal resignation um but it's not for the most part people who are currently in a classroom leaving they're people who are not with us anymore formally leaving how I describe it and um that's usually delineated in the previously on L OA that's what that means leave with absence thank you you any questions on personal no okay acceptance of gifts and grants so a few to speak up the first one uh we're really excited for the state has uh given us again the teacher diversification Grant this time it's for $334,000 good chunk of money and Lorenzo I have to thank him for his application to the Grant and he'll be um specifying exactly what we're going to spend it on we have um through all of next year to to work on that money uh to work with that money and part of it will be to um improve the pipeline of teachers going into the profession so working with our own high school kids to do that um and that'll link to some of the internship opportunities that we have for kids now we are our high schoolers are going into the elementary and middle school um to do educational internships and navigate nurturing programs like that to increase our the diversity of our staff to better represent our students the one um and it doesn't have the amount here it's actually $25,000 it's a design rant for the um Innovation Grant pathway we got a new um green energy pathway grant for City lab which is really exciting so they will spend a year um designing out that pathway and then there'll be a a larger Grant to actually Implement um so that's exciting and then our ESL Certification Grant a little bit less money but still $18,000 and that money is being used to um train some content certified teachers to get a second license in um ESL so that they can better serve our students who are English Learners and finally um The Early College support Grant $125,000 um and that's part of our early college partnership here at rier high school with Northshore community college and that helps pay for kids tuition um to be taken early college program yeah I have a question um Dr Kelly to Dr Garcia the um teacher diversification Grant is this for this entire school year and next entire school year or when is that when does that have to be utilized by yeah that's a good question there were the application encompassed two phases the first phase uh started back in October uh we were not contemplated as part of that first phase the second phase we were contemplated so um this money the way I see it we are basically about two month away from the school uh from the end of the school it's impossible to spend so what we going to do basically is to plan for the next year yeah so uh all the PDS all the you know getting troops ready for you know uh that's what's going to be I mean working with police working with um with the uh with u tiany carry who's responsible for establish connections with colleges universities to set up that pipeline uh there are other things that we can manage also you know in house which is like you know it's also designed for uh loan repayments uh reimbursements uh it's also relocation signing bonus there's a lot of things that to un back so this is the way I see it problem now the time for us to plan for next year so that's the the way I see right no it's I mean it's really nice it's very generous and I know and it has great intent I just want to make it you know put it out there that there was there was like there was backlash the last time um there was some social media um communication a year or two ago and there was a lot of public backlash and and I and and I don't understand why I think that there was a lot of misinformation and uh this is a really good program the city's really it's really uh it's great that the city's able to get this and to help you know make sure that this this teacher population reflects the student population and that's what it's intended for and it's quite frankly it's not coming out of the city's money it's coming out of a grant that's you know it has has its intentions rightfully so so I just think that we we and I know that everyone here supports that I just think that if if at some point in time there's there's a there's something out there in the world saying hey there's a $5,000 sign out bonus or this in tuition reimbursement uh for a staff population we we would all make sure that we support that with the right education thank you m um dror I have a couple of people um a couple young ladies I met from Chicago and um they were talking about they wor with deeper learning they've been in Cambridge now I think over a year doing them um Masters at have a graduate um one just sent me her resume I'm going to forward because I don't know exactly what's needed sure um so you don't send it to us we'll take a look at should I send it to H also or will you forward it yeah if you send it to me I'll make sure I'll yeah and I yeah I I would say copy lari made it on it she can get it out to the right people and yeah because she might need guidance on how we do things in Massachusetts too um I just know that the two young ladies I had spoken to were um exciting they were yeah when you want to see someone in front of your students they were kind of of course yeah or would it just delete yeah I must add one important information on this grant which is it's not just you know about bringing me Le the goal here is to build Shar understanding of what teacher diversification is all about why there's a need for us to increase an understanding of uh the importance of teaching diversification also do a mind shifting um um you know to ensure that teachers really understand the importance of of teacher diversification for uh working force so there will be training component PD training uh for all grade levels regardless of your race ethnicity background it really doesn't matter so yeah yeah thank you any other comments questions on donation gifts okay no no fail trips all right and uh regular meeting agenda items miscellaneous items and I think superintended evaluation overview Miss Monterosa yes okay so Dr K is gonna share the screen I just I made like a little this part of her evaluation too by the way can you pull up the PowerPoint technical assistance uh so just to run us through it the Personnel subcommittee met you all voted to amend the cycle last meeting so that we can catch up and do her midyear check-in so uh I know last November we had a mini training that Miss Bron and rizle was able to organize for us but it's been a while and we have new members on here so just a quick thing and then you have to move it from there yeah okay great um so I think it's important that we know we recognize that this will be the first time our committee does a midye check-in so there's going to be room for growth for improvements and feedback is always welcome as we improve this so it's just naming that this is our first time and with that we understand that there might be um a few areas that we can grow on so if you can go to the next slide for me so uh if you can just pass this down this is the first handout I'm going to give you all is the pendex spe from the desie guide book on evaluating super attendance that really breaks down the timeline of how things need to be done and so technically we are doing the formative evaluation right now which is the year one and so as you can see here and then you can go to the next slide to blew it up the midyear valuation is literally a midcycle public meeting or series of meetings there's a copy right there miss Bron R you can press it over um where the superintendent will report on her progress in the meetings verbally and then we'll review a report that she gives us we offer feedback and then discuss goals and so what this means is that unlike the summative evaluation there's no actual ratings that we give her we don't say if um she's you know meeting expectations above expectations it really is meant to be a check-in that we're supposed to do but because we want there to be growth out of this we're going to also give her a feedback summary at the end of this that compiles all of the information that we gather while she presents to us so if you can go to the next slide so so this is just an example timeline of what that looks like based on this cycle and what we voted on so in March we voted to amend the process so that we can catch up into the mid year now and April which is now our personal subcommittee Mets to discuss this and provide the recommendation to the full Committee of what we're going to start and so today's meeting at 6 PM will be the first meeting of three in which uh the superintendent will start to give us those updates and so I I will pass out the note catchers and explain what those look like but that will be the first meeting I do recognize we have a member absent so I I am working with that member to make sure that they have an opportunity to make up this first meeting so that we are all evaluating the superintendent and then between this meeting and the next you're all going to receive a copy of the report so that you can more fully review it on your own time you can see what additional evidence you would like to request from the superintendent and then in the main meeting we'll have a second conversation to continue discussing these goals any questions you all have and then in June as the vice chair I will bring back everybody's notes create an evaluation summary that I will give to you all if you all have questions or need to debate it any further then we'll have a meeting for that if everyone thinks that the summary form I create captures your feedback we will then present it to the superintendent but because this is a check-in again there's no ratings and there is no actual vote that we need to do we're just giving her a tangible feedback form that she can use to Bro on any I'll pause here any questions on the timeline I'm going to then move us to the not catcher okay so you can move so the next document I'm going to ask um that you all pass is the note catcher so on this we will we have six District Improvement goals which are the goals that she is reporting on because they're also her annual goals and um the boxes are small so I included Pages where you can write down evidence and questions for each goal and this is what we're going to be using at the 600 p.m meeting so she'll go through one goal we'll ask questions we'll engage in conversation and then she'll keep going if we don't finish at the 6 PM we'll continue this in May and then you also have a section here to write down if you need any additional evidence to truly be able to determine what type of progress has been made on each goal and so I just realized that we're missing another document but you go one more and these are all online if you need extra copies and so also I will send everyone an actual email summarizing all of this so that you have it in one place but I'm didn't we Robin do we have a printed copy of this while Robin checks um we'll have this printed for the 6 PM meeting this is just an example again from the Desi guide book that shows the type of evidence that you could ask for if you feel like you don't have enough information for one of the goals because when thinking about evidence we need to make sure that we're thinking of information that directly ties to each goal and that can speak to it so you can we'll have the sheet to take back with you as well and then if there's any request for further information or evidence I just ask that you email me before the May meeting so that I can compile all of those requests for the superintendent and provide them to her so she can bring us that information afterwards uh next okay so any questions on the not catcher no okay uh so so we'll print the evidence for you all and then the last thing I'm going to pass out is just kind of like PD for us it's a white paper on evaluating superintendence it's from I believe 2019 or 2010 but it's still very applicable so I just I'll pass these out because happy uh my only request for you all is that you take time to read this between now and the May meeting so that it can help frame our experience on conducting perfect a midcycle evaluation and also best practices for doing one and so with that uh great Dr Kelly so I think what's important I want to just really frame our minds going into this and remind ourselves that as a school committee it is our job to evaluate the superintendent we are per se her supervisor but when you're thinking about the education system a superintendent is the only one who's being evaluated by members who aren't content expert professionals or licensed in this right she supervises for principles but she has a group of electeds who have different experiences evaluating her so with that it's important next one to keep in mind that the evaluation we do of the superintendent is also directly tied to the outcomes for our students in our district and so our goal to evaluate her is to identify things that are being done well while also identify areas of growth for the sake of her Student Success and so that what I really want to hone in there is that when we're thinking of evidence making sure that the evidence that we are asking for considering when we're documenting the progress or lack of progress is directly tied to the goals that we're seeing and directly tied to how it could fall under her responsibilities I know sometimes I may have a parent who can come to me and share an unfortunate experience but I'm going to make sure that I'm not thinking only of that when I'm evaluating for example the goal about how families feel supported because one example should not be tied as the only form of evidence that I am using to eval the superintendent's performance on these goals and that kind of just summarizes again what type of data sources are we using so when you're thinking of why you're writing something down I ask that you please think of where is this data or evidence coming from is it directly tied to this goal and is it based on the data that's being presented to me or is it based maybe on a one-off comment from a constituent uh because that's very real we serve people and we're all humans and so it's really important to check ourselves on that um and I just summarized that there and then did I have one more and this is again these are all quotes from this article that I shared with you all so you'll read it but I really just wanted to emphasize that we are being mindful of the evidence we're using when we walk into this evaluation that if we need more evidence we ask for it it's your right it's your job to ask for evidence to ensure that you're documenting things and I ask that you can write in a way I can read it because I'm going to have to bring back everyone so I can formulate it into a written summary and we'll just we'll start at the 6:00 pm and then we'll keep going for two more meetings with this but my last Point here is this is a midye check-in but we are also in a year where we will have to pick up contract conversations with the superintendent and so I want to make it very clear that the midyear check-in is completely separate from what a contract conversation or negotiation looks like with our superintendent now the checkin evaluation summary that we'll all write up is part of what of the evidence we'll use for that contract negotiation but it's not the only source of data because I know there's some concerns that we're not able to do the full Summit of evaluation this year but there'll be other ways that we can collect data to have that conversation so that was the only clear distinction I wanted to make where the midye check-in is about the superintendent's progress on the district Improvement plans it'll wrap up by June and it is separate from contract conversations that will begin later in the summer so with that very quick crash course on what we're doing at 6 does anyone have questions or comments um do you feel like you're set up for success for 6m May the only question I really have I like I said this is my first time with the evaluation and coming from the private sector how do what data do you give us or will we receive to see if the goals are being obtained not yes so at the 6 p.m. she'll walk us she has reports that she'll give to us and she'll walk us through the data she is giving us at that point if the data that's being presented for example with family it could be surveys from family that she's giving or evidence of events if that's not enough then we take this next month for you to request additional information and evidence so that it's presented and you can make an informed conclusion after the main meeting okay and also just one more question too is on i' like I said I read through some of it and everything also too we can introduce or if anybody wants to introduce uh a m cycle adjustment too correct yes yes so as you can see here it says once we're done with the discussion the superintendent the school committee can discuss potential goals for year two determine if anything needs to be adjusted so we'll bring that all as part of that report that I'll write and we'll have that conversation in J okay yeah thank you any comments from Super um I don't think so um no I find that with uh every school committee this whole process changes uh and people have different priorities and things that they want to uh highlight and that can be a challenge for us because we've been working under one set of guidelines and now you know people might see different priorities or things like that and we are certainly not in a position where now we can undo everything that we spent the last year doing after the goals had been approved by the previous school committee so that makes it a little bit of a challenge um but you know as Jackie said uh one of the things that I'm going to do at the six o'clock meeting is take you through the the all of the district Improvement plan goals and um I put together just a short packet that has them annotated so there's like a little note on each of those little action steps so that you can get a sense of the goal and then um one one of the things that we do with our goals is regularly check in with administrators to see where they think we are on the goals and collect feedback from them so I have some of that to share and a couple of other you know small pieces of of evidence but the big pieces that we really want to link to is the student performance like um you know we had a goal about student engagement so we want to use our attendance data to really speak to that um that information we won't have until the end of the year um but once we have that we'll be sharing that data and then uh another big piece which I'll talk more about at six o'clock is the parent survey which doesn't go out until the beginning of May so we won't have that data back until probably your May meeting that we can talk about that and then another big chunk that I think informs what's really happening is the data that we collect when we do classroom observations so we did four major rounds of observations this year um one was focused on um Equity one was focused on um literacy in the classroom one was focused on how we're meeting the needs of our English learner students and the other one was how we're meeting the needs of the special education students we are almost done with those we still have a a few more that are going to happen in the first two weeks in May and then we have to bring all of that data together into one place to really talk about and describe what we're seeing in the classroom what practices we're seeing in the classroom so again that's more data that we we definitely won't have until the main meeting it might even be something that I have to send you in June before the June meeting because it's just going to take time to call all of that together um but yeah do classroom teachers evaluate this attendance no no why not so that's something that hadn't be had has not been agreed on before but it's some if it's something that someone would like to introduce that's a conversation we can have when we're designing and updating the summative evaluation cycle which happens next year and that that would also um just to be fair be a subject of bargaining with me so um it's something that we could talk to talk about in a contract negotiation also we were hired that's our job to do that's one of our responsibilities we're hired for policies budgeting and hiring the superintendent and evaluating [Music] them but the teachers are right there they're right there but they don't know what her job is dayto day they can see the ongoings of the school and how the administration is affecting the school I I can see like as far as the administration part of each school but the administration of school and what they're doing in central office is different responsibilities the people who report directly to me are the principls and the directors yeah and I've seen some districts have I think like surveys Tony right like I'm sorry Mr Mata some schools do surveys from the people that the superintendent directly evaluates some will even include some family surveys so I think that's a a good point to bring up when we enter into negotiations and redesigning the format of evaluation because there are updates that I want to make to that to align to this new committee and the new goals that we'll make uh and also just so that we actually have prophecies because there shouldn't be a one-time thing that we check off we did it should be an ongoing process where we're checking in we have actual policies and timelines to evaluate so that we don't end up in a situation like the one we're in right now so thank you for raising that Mr M and if I may uh I I don't I don't think um I don't necessarily disagree with Mr Mata although I understand the process uh it's kind of like um any it would be kind of like judging the um the general manager of of Ford Motor Company based on the assembly line workers but that doesn't mean that what they have to say is invalid uh or doesn't have doesn't uh add shouldn't add to the context but I do agree that that's something that should be negotiated upon and it's part you know it is part of context you are your job performance does directly relate to how every employee under your under your entire Administration uh feels about the the environment that they're in so there is a correlation but I think that there's a certain context that it comes into public yeah so um my only ask so we'll do this at six you'll spend a month between now and may diving into more of the report my only ask is that you read the the white page report that I sent you all because it's going to help us set up for what's to come next like I said the actual policies in timelines for this so that we don't end up in a situation like this and this uh research paper in my opinion helps us already start to think about what that can look like it gives examples from other states as well and I don't know why you chosen that National Association um when we have desie and we have to go by desie but there are four short videos if you're not a a reader and you're more of a visual learner there's four shot videos on desie if you want I can send it to you um I read I love reading but I like not I like the videos this is a lot would you they're doing in California right now I really don't care here yeah so this gives examples because we're in situation that we're not supposed to be in right now and we need to have ongoing PD and so we have the Massachusetts guidelines but once you read you'll realize it's not telling us how to design it it's helping us think on what a school Committee Member we're supposed to think of when doing our job and that's applicable Across the Nation but those videos will be great okay I think that's it Mr May it's great you still have time we do I'm gonna take up five minutes take it up take it up this so coming up I know this under the Motions that John put um asking for lunch for teachers at Beachmont school and we had discussed this before and we had spoken about how do you decide what school gets what for a reward um you know like I know it's Beachmont I know they had they did a great job but we have schools that are doing a great job jobs every single day we have teachers that are doing their work every single day and to specify one school in a set of teachers and not even including the children who did the work also I I don't understand Dr I I can sorry not Dr Mr Bowen um is planning a community event to celebrate sorry Mr fryzen I'm losing my mind Mr fryzen is planning a community event that will include families students and teachers to celebrate um their their uh award um I don't have the exact date on me but I can May 15 May 15 so I think that's a a sufficient celebration obviously I don't agree and um there were only two schools in the state with that were recognized and I think that is over and above and while I appreciate while I appreciate what everybody does every day um I think you know being one of two schools in the state deserves a little extra something and that's just how I feel well the school committee is paying for that celebration and for the t-shirts that they got and paid for the trip for the team to go out to the award ceremony I the team would when you say team it wasn't it was less than 10 so I mean there's more than 10 people on the building and I'm sure P right I wasn't aware the t-shirts were being paid by by us yeah that's news to me I think it's news to this committee because I I I reached out to principal frizen and I said you know I'd be happy to pay for the one you're going to give me he said no it's being taken care of it didn't take taken care of by who but Pi up a collection he said no but the I wasn't aware that the committee was paying for it and I don't I guess I don't know why that was because it was never brought to my attention are anybody else here I don't think did I miss that no I don't wouldn't we have had a vote on the expense of that loan no because there's some funding that you put into the budget that allows for discretionary SP and we used a grand total of $3,000 out of the $150 million that we managed to buy T-shirts not complaining about the cost of t-shirts I I think a lunch should be fair and that's why I put the motion and if some people don't want to vote for it fine if it fails it fails if it passes it passes but I that's why I put the motion so that we could have a vote and that's it if I lose on the vote that's fine I you know it is I agree with joh that is a special that is a special um um compation to the um Beach Mo school being one of only two schools I very special we even recognize the state of city state of the city that's right you did and I appreciate that and I thought it was very nice of you when I mean that sincerely thank you I just had a question on this which we're discussing now it also help us save time if uh this passes does the money come from that this uh where do the money come from the same place as the $3,000 we figure it out is it like from that discretionary funding F okay and we have funds in there yes okay yeah that's my only question I took my five minutes thank you right good thank you any any other anything else before we go into the journal meeting we have 15 20 minutes great motion to adjourn y second