##VIDEO ID:FE4PttBU3xA## no you need help with any notes taking yes please that would be great I will do my best to take notes I send you like last um but if you could take some as well between the two of us we should get them on ready oh okay um let's see today is September 4th 2024 and we are gathering in the fan school committee room for the policies and procedure subcommittee meeting can we all stand to the flag the United States the stands indice in attendance today is myself Anthony kiano and fellow Committee Member Jacqueline monteroso also in attendance is uh Danielle makova and Dr Kelly anding oh Mr Kingston John Kingston my apologies John okay so the first item on the attend uh on the agenda is attendance and absenteeism this was an issue that was tabled from the last meeting that we wanted to address um yes would you like to start yeah so I think for me it's you know the reason to put it on there is for us all to have a conversation mostly directed around combating chronic absenteeism which I know is something that the district has been working on and it's a national issue to bring us back to preco levels but I think for me it's two folds so one it's as we continue to review our policies updating the school committee absenteeism policy because it's it hasn't been updated in 10 years and then the second part is having more of a larger discussion of how we as a committee can really help and this came about from concern and constituents but Salem was in the news because they've implemented a model by the committee in partnership with the superintendent and the entire community and they've been able to decrease her chronic absenteeism by almost 20% in two years and so um just seeing those models and I'm sure you know Dr st's work um so I think first I just wanted to start with the policy so I printed copies of current policy just so we can all actually see it Y and then I also printed copies of the Salem policy that you can just but I think is a good model that I would like to start to look at I thought we could maybe people want to read them first referring to JH yes yes so folks want to read through the Salem one in ours and then we can kind of discuss I can share things I liked from the Salem one and see how we would like to work through some changes this 5,000 this is Salem yes so I can get folks a few minutes to read through them and see and then you can share like your thoughts and we can go have you had a chance to read our handbook one handbook one okay good I think our handbook one summarizes in a very great like parent and student way our policy but I think our should you know be updated if it's been a decade agreed guys let know when you're all done looking then we'll can keep going um I guess Jackie do you happen to know off hand like I'm seeing similarities mostly similarities I don't see any distinctions between Salem and ours yes so the distinctions more that I liked is that they enunciate more their responsibilities of parenting caregivers and also the school committee so for example they have a whole section on chin Z really highlighting how the committee is aware that jistic can be a problem and they also have a whole section um citing the legal responsibilities of caregivers to ensure that their students are coming to school so I like that as well as they have a section about chronic absenteeism and their plan for reducing it so I think it'd be important for us as we explore as a committee how we're supporting our district to have that in our policy and then something I wanted to get all of your thoughts on and then Dr KY you'll have much more context here is I like how in Salem if a student misses school for a full day then they can't come and show up you know to the sport or the play after the end of the day yeah that's already so I know we have that but it's not in our policy unless I no I don't think it's in the in in especially the athletes know that for sure but I understand what you're saying I I agree with making the the policy the school committee's policy more reflective of yeah so I was thinking if you all are okay with that I could we could go through it now or I could just reflect that through the work myself and send you all the March changes of our policy that reflects our handbook and then a few things if we all like them here and then we can meet again to see what we think or you know keep going from there so that sounds great I guess my question is for Dr Kelly and um Dr MOBA are there are there any additional um policies or language that would help you to enforce or to to do what it is you guys have to do with respect to yeah I think we I mean we've definitely struggled like everybody has with uh chronic ABS anism since the pandemic um but we have mostly resolved it at our other schools other than the high school the high school is where it's still persist even at City lab our attendance chronic absenteeism rate is way down um so one thing that Mr Bowen and uh Miss Riley have done is create create a package I think it actually went out today they just told me today is uh attendance awareness month I'm sorry that September is attendance awareness month so they put together a whole packet including some data uh and National Trends and uh stuff about the law around um absenteeism it's a it's a little bit more of a challenge at the secondary level when kids are older we don't have the same leverage with the court that we have with young kids who aren't going to school because that's perceived as a a neglectful move by the parent but at the secondary level uh it's a little bit different in fact after the age of 16 the state won't even consider uh intervening um so that's one of our challenges but I know that part of Chris's work he was sending that message home to parents today they have um back to school night next Thursday and that was going to be part of the theme for next Thursday is helping engage parents in making sure that kids are in school more here at the high school level all I can get you cies that I looked it up I looked up the law it's literally a $20 fine if you take a kid to court in a parent a court it's $20 um what are your thoughts on chronic absenteeism I was speaking with somebody I want to say maybe in rington um and their policy is that if a student is um absent from school for like three weeks or more they unenroll them and they have to reenroll do we do that as well call dropping them we drop them from on the books and we have to go through how effective is that like do parents actually you know how often do we do that do parents actually yeah we don't have a huge return rate usually when the kids we try to reach out to them before we drop them so they get a letter from the whichever school they're at saying we haven't seen you where are you then we'll send uh one of the attendance officers to the house uh typically what we find is that the family has moved and just hasn't told us um and sometimes they're enrolled in another District which we ultimately find out because then that District claims them as a student um and we get notified that we have to release them because they're registering somewhere else but there are times when um kids move out of state or out of the country and there's no way for us to be notified if they enroll in Connecticut public schools or their intent and that's it correct yeah yeah there are sometimes when a kid drops and we continue to try to work with them and get them back in because we want all kids to be in school if they're not especially if they're under 18 right now the law the law says that we should be um using child find is what the law is called to find any kids who are under the age of 18 who aren't enrolled in school and so we do try to do that and it's typically typically through um Doug Goodwin and his program down at the parent information center um that then tries to get the kids back in school if they're not in school how about TI kids being yeah know a lot of in Facebook parents who C my child was late 50 times no one's saying anything and I was just wondering where we are with that is it is it still bad right now are we on top of it we are on top of it it's better than it was um now that we have the um engagement coordinators at the high school for each of the houses they are the ones who are tracking individual students who have excessive absenteeism um and them monitoring that and calling home and uh and checking on that the parents can check through the parent portal every single day to see if their kid was late to any class absent from any class or anything else and I think one of the things that we need parents to do is help us out with that um and reach back to the school if they're seeing things that they wouldn't expect like we've had parents who uh We've called and said they've been link to first period every day for 3 weeks and the parent says what are you talking about I dropped them off at the front door well they're walking away and they're going to meet their friends at Dunkin' Donuts or whatever having that communication between the school and the family is critical to stopping those things but it's definitely a two-way street and uh you know we have five people who are trying to monitor 2200 kids that's all we have for for doing that engagement coordination work um but the parents might have one or two three so we need them to reach back to us as well if they're seeing something that doesn't jive with what they think is happening then reach out to the assistant principal or the engagement coordinator or the social worker or uh whoever and try to connect and and but we are reaching out to the oh yeah y because like I said the most important thing is we try to be consistent with the policies and if it's if we don't consistent with this policy are they going to challenge this on this policy and on this one and I I do think that the message let me go let me see if I can oh Danielle can you um um go make copies of this is a packet that um Chris was sending to everybody today um yeah and I it's not really a well I mean it has the policy in it but it's more giving parents information on why they need to track their kids attendance which is so good because we know that it's system level changes of come like involving the caregivers and the students and reminding them what that's important and I know that we're doing that and so I'm just wondering what is the next level that our committee can take for example if this existed with The divate Advisory board or the DI subcommittee I know some districts have data dashboards just for the committee to track attendance to just be on top of our responsibilities and see kind of like how it's moving so I just want us to maybe explore what are things and so I could I I was in the middle of kind of just typing up a report of my research that I can give to the full committee and then we can see what continues because of course we're not going to get to prep pandemic levels within a few years years in 2019 our croning gaps andth theism was 11% but we increased actually last year you know in 23 it was 19 last year it was 20% so I think seeing how we can support at a bigger level and so what I was thinking for myself we can do this as a committee or I can invite you all I want to have um just like some conversations with like our different ptas or English language parent councils to start that buy in like see what they think are some of the top problems and solutions so that when we present this to our community they've already been part of it from the beginning and they know we've met with them to just continue that engagement and it's not just falling on you or the high school principal um was it is there do we use that I can't remember the acronym it's like e ew something there's a dat do we use that yeah we do yeah datab we can see like um if there's a pattern with a particular student yes that's um if they're off program well y that's what the so we use um Power School is our student information system internally and that's the one that has the parent portal the parents can go in and look at in real time if a kid is in class or not uh and see if they relate to a class or not on abs for the day um and one of the things that is a little different at the secondary level is they get their attendance is separate for every class that they take right so if they're coming in late to first period every day they're going to end up uh more than likely failing first period if they're going to second third and fourth period they're likely going to pass those classes or they could be coming into school and then leaving correct right so they so their attendance will show that they're here but then so we know and the parents can see that yes yeah is there like is there is it an easy way to like print that information out for the Comm committee as you're like talking about this issue yeah we could totally do like a monthly summary of each Mee I was going to ask you like of quarterly something I think quarterly could be good it's not it doesn't overburden you but we that Trend where we're seeing how did we do last quarter to this quarter and then I think we'll start there but then uh disaggregating it by student subg groups because I know there's certain student groups you know like our male students at the high school are the ones who have way higher absente them rates um when we look at the deathy dashboard so just starting that practice for ourselves and then um what I'll do is I'll finish typing kind of all the research I've done and I'll present it to you all and then we can go some other districts have done is that they work with the 10 an organization called attendance works and that's the email essential about the webinar I'm going to join them so they have a Playbook that you can either take for free and see how we incorporate in our own strategic plans or they you know they work with us if we need it I think we're doing better than other districts I wouldn't want to say let's use money to bring in those vendors I think starting inhouse but I just wanted to really start that conversation with us and then take it to the full committee as well any other thoughts on this issue I I'll be honest I don't think might if I could it's I don't think it's so much what's on paper it's what's in practice and my concern at least at the high school level from this talking to people is the kids do scan in but going to every class is is not what's happening yeah so they're you know wherever they are they know where to hide better than we do that they're not hitting every class so they may scan in in the morning but after that but their attendance is entered by their teacher every period right but I think if we look at their periodic attendance like first and fourth it might be worse yes we'll be able to see that we can see it by that's what I'm concerned about I think you I think a lot of kids come to in my opinion a lot of kids that are coming here coming for social reasons some of them and I don't but I don't think they're hitting every class so they may be recorded as being in the building that they attend their four classes like they were supposed to and I granted they're being marked AB because the teacher sees them not in third period fourth period but I know I mean just drive down Broadway just drive down either Broadway or drive down School Street in the morning there's a there's a ton I mean not like one or two there's a ton of kids walking hanging around that aren't you know aren in the building yet and then um you know I've driven by in the afternoon going just doing work business coming from city hall or whatever and um you know you see a ton of kids way before school get out well don't forget that we have several hundred kids who are on internships but this is a group so they they not do an internship as a group like that me see 15 kids 10 kids they're not all going the same internship no inter one or two one or two you wouldn't even think of it because it's one or two kids that got a doctor's appointment but when you see a group of kids you know somebody you know somebody somebody didn't go to class for the you um I know that we now have the um forgive me I'm not a loss for the terminology but the hous is yeah and so we now have like somebody who's air marked to to to um observe the absenteeism do they maintain reports or like of of um their Communications with parents yeah and that's part that was part of what um Caitlyn and uh Chris presented last month was uh codifying and systematizing how they track everything across the houses to make sure that they're the same could we include I know that that's just getting started but can we include with the quarterly absentee reports also the engagement attempts or whatever record there they're maintaining just so just so we that to build that idea yeah where it's not just and so um I'll send you all abs and app what's it called attendance Works has like five key data metrics that should go if you're building a dashboard at a committee level and one of them isn't just like the attendance in that season but the engagement rates and how often like parents responds back and I think of course we're not going to have that built out by this next quarter which has been already in two in a few maybe we will have a better idea of what's going on and we'll start to track and and we can brainstorm ways to most efficiently like reach these parents yeah know it's been starting the since we're talking about when is to cell phones the pouches when are they going to they coming in I believe they have them already I can check with press on that pouches are lock boxes lock boxes sorry lock boxes yeah like we went with Yonder no we didn't just all right so that's that's good um we can we can unless something else comes up on this issue we can hold off and maybe schedule another meeting in a few months yeah after we've collected some data and we can all review it I'll and with that I'll have the some of the March changes on the policy so we can continue to do it because I think John brings up a good point it's our policy so we're updated there and then what we're doing with our community and students holistic lead to ensur that everyone and you did you send us the webinar or is that upcoming I it's upcoming I think it's next week so I just Eno the registration link and if you guys want to sign up there was webinars on the link that you sent I was watching I was watching one back in February the only I won't even say complaint the only observation is they're like an hour and a half so it's a bit of time to commit to watch well especially the one I was watching today yeah they they have like Sav library and they have like all their policy tool pits and like draft policies for school boards and committees that they want to take but the attendance Works webinars coming out yes there was one they had one in like February but I was watching it today it's pretty good information you know this is some strategies kind of similar to what's being done here an hour and a half to to make some you know effective changes is yeah no I'm just saying if it's on a quick it's on a quick yeah all right that's I'm gonna do in 10 minutes so let's move on to the second issue John do you wna lead us in this discussion unless someone I just don't agree with the stting the kids off with the 50 I think it should came here first I don't think it should have been started at the high school first that kind of bothered me number one number two if someone can give me a reasonable logical argument other than gee I had a bad day and a zero was demoralizing I know back in the day and I have been out of school a little while but even College you know dropping the lowest grade wasn't exactly a crime at the time or scaling grades or something I understand getting a zero can be demoralizing I get it but I don't think starting people off at the 50 is the way to go either I just don't agree with it I'm not an educator it's just goes up my back though um and again if someone can present a reasonable argument other than again if you say oh I got to zero and you know I'm not going to pass well then maybe the policy should be you know we allow the teachers to drop the lowest grade which they're probably doing any but I don't think given people so I I I can speak to it if you want as an educator um one of the biggest challenges uh that I had and at the time when I was teaching at R high school we used to have uh yearlong grades so there would be the first semester grade the second semester grade and that would result in your end of year grade and what would happen is that there would be kids who maybe for three or four weeks were completely disengaged and maybe it was in October or November and they were failing so miserably that they had no hope of recovering and would spend every day uh in a classroom frustrated that they weren't going to get a parid and they were virtually impossible to re-engage and a lot of teachers will tell you that that's what the experience was and so one of the things that we want to do in moving to standards based grading is make sure the grades actually reflect what the kid knows and not just whether they had one good day or 10 good days or three good days whatever the case may be all of that lies in and if a kid has a 50 if they really do well for the ensuing couple of months they can pull that over the failure level and they're incentivized to do that because they want to get credit for that class if they don't have any hope of recovery it's impossible to re-engage them I had I had to do a thing for work and L they were Lin Tech teaches Lyn classical teaches and Lynn English now if you want to talk about Urban schools Lynn's probably right behind us or with us as far as the ethnicity and all the factors that go with an urban district and when I told them about the 50 they thought I was kidding and I said no I'm not John there's a lot of people who will have that reaction there's a lot of people who it was like 10 I'd say and I'm not exaggerating it was like maybe I think there was four from each it was a Civics day and the credit union I I do community stuff for the credit union that's my job so I was helping out at Civic stay at Lynn and there were the three Lynn high schools were all represented there and I was literally talking to teachers almost the whole day and it had to be you know it wasn't like a forum about it it was just you know there was probably 100 projects and I went around 100 project they was there all day so and I talk to teachers all day and they were like huh and then I've talked to and then we do business we do stuff with Salem High too and I talked to them as well and they gave me the same huh and I'm like yeah so I you know well no but if if if if I feel that way and then I talk to people especially you know Salem's not as Urban as us I get it I know we have Salem in front of us but I'm just saying but Lynn's just as Urban as we are yeah and they were like no but this is not about Urban on not Urban this is about good educational practice which I I can't speak for those individuals but I can tell you that um this policy that we have in place right now was devised by teachers at rier high school I know but it never came before us and we never voted on it that was another thing that bother me because grading is us as far as I know I don't know what you mean by that theyve never came before us to vote that we're going to do 50 is impulsive the start kids off with a 5050 does everybody get start off with a 50 is that what you're saying no one starts off at a 50 what happens is if a kid um doesn't pass some items um their lowest score could be a 50 okay so it doesn't and so I guess maybe you could consider it that they could start off at a 50 A teacher told me and not a relative I mean this sincerely that she spent a weekend last year changing all her grades because she was told to add a 50 to her student of schools enough that she told me she did weekend who is the teacher I'm going to say I'm not and I'm not lying but I'm say I I I it's not that I think that you're lying it's that if I I I realized John what you're saying but what I'm going to tell you is I think she was lying to me and I don't think she was mistaken can I finish yes okay what I imagine is that she's not one of the teachers that sat on the committee that developed policy and I do think that this is the kind of decision that belongs in the hands of the teachers who had teaching the classes and it was vetted through all of the teachers in the high school were there some who disagreed 100% there's always going to be something she wasn't really disagreeing or agreeing with it that wasn't her thing I said how's it going she said I spent the weekend changing grades and I said why is that because she got she didn't get it first day this was last year so it's almost a year ago around a little later a veteran teacher or a new teacher new teacher I mean this has been in place for years that the high school's been doing this this is not something that's new um I'm just trying just need some clarification on so if someone has a 30 and you add 50 to it and they get a be no if somebody has a 30 you write down 50 okay so they're not sunk they're still failing right because if they keep getting 50s they're going to fail if they don't show up to class they're going to fail so what's the failing like for example anything below 60 my question yeah so they so it doesn't mean it doesn't mean we're letting them pass it means that they're not completely sunk they have if they do the right thing and they do more work and they recover enough they can pull the grade up if they don't they don't that's on them but doesn't it seem like if if the the difference between the 50 and failing is a mere 10% that we're not requiring much of the students to to surpass that 60% in that F Well it has the same impact right when you think about it like the difference between a d and a c is 10 points between a c a b is 10 points being in an a is 10 points so now F and a d is 10 points yeah because didn't you sorry because they're still failing like if you get a 50 you fail just 30 you still fail yeah even if you get a 59 because you pulled it up some but not enough you still fail yeah it just leaves the kids in a place where they're not completely hopeless this practice has been going on yeah and how has how has has it been effective like have there been students who were in that category that have yeah yeah come back from that and done well or just enough no that has helped and then also there are a number of classes there are some classes especially freshman in sophomore is that are still year long classes like math and English and that's because we're prepping them for M but most of their classes Junior and Senior year are only a syester la so even if they don't recover cover in the first semester they start fresh second semester and that's because that's part of the block scheduling that gives them yeah yeah you had an example Danielle that I think that you gave to the school committee before I don't know if that's worth repeating around the 80 the 80 uh it was just an example of like the number of summit of Assessments and if you bomb one um for whatever and I use my son as an example if you got a 30 then you got an 80 and an 80 and an 80 you're still mathematically pretty close to doing well our 30 is 75 and it it's just the the hope for a a kid that gets a 30 and I've seen it as a teacher I've seen it as a parent um it there should be implicit motivation to do better and it just gives them the opportunity to mathematically recover but don't we have retakes that would eliminate with yeah those are other things that some that's my point I I'm just not getting the 50 it's not settling with me I guess just my opinion I gu well so I know a lot of people uh oppose the 50 because they think they given the kids something and they think of it in terms of kid who's not doing work and you're giving them something right but that's generally not the situation that's that's a unique kid that's not 85% of our student population that's a very small percentage of our student population and you know what if you have like zero right that are starting off at a zero and we'd be giving them a 50 right and if those kids get a 50 they're still going to fail you're not giving them anything but it helps the kid that Danielle just described who would have had a be except for that one test that they absolutely bombed and if they did revisions I don't know exactly what teachers do right now when when I had revisions in my class at the high school you got half credit for everything that you corrected so if you got a 30 the 70 points missing you could get that up to a 65 if you had a 20 you could get that up to a 60 you weren't like going all the way back up so if you think about the kid who's really trying with struggles and in in math classes that was not unusual then giving them that little bit of extra and you know making them stay after school and meet with me so we could go over the work again before they could do a retest which was what my policy was um I could ensure that they were learning more stuff and then and then they they would get it but if we only think about the very rare kid who is the kid who's not trying at all and use them to set our rules for everybody then all of those kids who really are trying but struggling a little bit are negatively impacted by that when they're the kids that we should be focused on because they're the ones that are really really trying so can you so I get that if you start with a zero you still fail but if I am at a 69 and I like had a family emergency so then I Dro My Grade before the grading period And I don't have enough time does it move like 69 plus 50 or no no no no so if you have a if you have a 69 you grade a 69 59 yes or if you have a if you have a 59 it's a 59 if you have a 49 it goes to 50 if you have anything under 50 balance back up anything anything oh I see because I was wondering how okay but I do want to point out the scenario you just gave if somebody uh was whether their average was a 69 or a 59 or a 49 and they had a family emergency and missed a couple of days of school and we can give them an extension on their grades we don't okay we don't lock them down if there's a real issue going on at home or with the child themselves we accommodate for that we just give them an incomplete give them time to make up whatever work they missed add that into the grade and go from there is there I know that this I mean in my mind this seems like an a tough feat but is there a way to to gather any data on whether like how effective this policy has been like orid are taking advantage of it yeah so one of the tricky things is if we look at the data and we don't have a lot of assessment data for this year right now because the year just started but even if we looked at it right now I don't know that we know what's a 50 and what was made of 50 you know what I mean we could ask the teachers to track that I don't know how Thro about doing that no I get it um I mean but is there a I guess is it is it often that teachers are doing that or is this is this like kind of like a oneoff do you know what I mean let me ask if Chris if there's and Caitlyn if there's any way to track that where it's part of their discretion yeah like that's a different story as opposed to this is the practice that we this is our goto and we we've always given teachers some level of discretion and gr yeah and I'm not trying to take that away that's not my intent it's just it just seems like I don't know I just I guess I don't is policy or is it discretion it's it's what they request the require of the teachers to do now at the high school so we always give teachers some discretion but we have to be careful with that because what you don't want is to be in Diane Kelly's class where if you get a zero you get a zero right and you never have that chance to recover no matter how much better you start doing but if you in Danielle moab's class she's given the 50 as the minimum grade and so kids in her class can recover but kids in my class can't and that's where there has to be some level of consistency because that's Equity that's what's fear to kids it shouldn't matter whether you're in my geometry class or Danielle's geometry class you should have the same shot at passing or not passing or whatever uh and that's where uh Chris and the team have said you know we're going to be consistent with this this is something we're going to do consistently I think also at the end of the day you're still manually inputting grades for students at the end of each semester whether it's adjusting to the 50 or just adding in those last grades and especially when I was a first year teacher I was very guilty of making it until the last day and having to put everything at once because that was so new so they're still doing that I think going back to the point AA about miss about data is we could probably track the average of students who pass the class but before this was implemented and then compare it to now but this has been here for so while that data is probably just but maybe after the first semester the first turn yeah we can try look see how many people we really skill yeah and then take another look at it yeah I think that's good idea I mean just to to make sure that these efforts are working you know and if they're not working and need adjustment then then that's good too yeah yeah and I think that'll go into like my next thing about PD but just establishing our committee level oversight of student data as we should is good because like when desie comes in and reviews The District and they meet with us one of their questions is how often do you review student data how is it segregated what does the committee do with that and so it's important that with each of these subsections that we're we're doing yeah and most most committees will answer what we look at them yes and that not look well so it's good that we're all on top of this yeah okay although I will say that this committee has seen a lot of other data like the um enrollment in IND course work and everything you just gave us last Mr B gave us just last month all so the next steps with this issue is you're going to look into whether or not it's possible to track um and get back to us on that yep and then also um try to if if there's not something organic try to come up with something for the end of first semester that we can some some dat to we can look at at the end of her semester so that would probably be February meeting not to impos right can we go backwards a little bit because I'm confused on the attendance policy it says each principal or design shall meet with any student or any student parent guiding who has missed five or more excused school days I'm not worried about the half days in a school year that's Bale policy Ah that's just no it says reaction policy where are you so we uh it says student absence notification I see oh yeah they both have your question is each principal at design shall meet with the student that students parent guiding who has missed five or more school days or more class periods whatever in a school year yeah was there a question question I know this kids have been absent five days longer than a school year and I don't think well maybe I'm not saying they didn't call they definitely reach to them I didn't no no I didn't say we didn't tell we didn't tell them they weren't in school that day but they've had a meeting every kid that's atast every kid so what this is saying if we're following it this this is my problem with the what's not with on the paper is what we're doing so you're so you're telling us or telling me or telling whoever that every kid every student that was out five or more days has had a parent meeting unexcused is unexcused so if they didn't call in the parent didn't call in so the parent gets a call every time the kid is absent without a parent call in gotcha so they get that notification there I agree with that 100% um the meetings may not have necessarily be H been happening in person especially the last couple of years but they have been calling home and saying do you realize your kids been missing no that I'll give you I'll give you I know those happen because people have told me that but I don't think but I I think the meaning is is sh yeah that might be a little bit extreme at this point where we have such a high right absenteeism rate rate that would be hard for I think no that's my that's my whole point it's here and it's not a bad I mean I'm not saying it's a bad thing but it's not happening so my problem when we have a policy is and I'm not if you want to strike it I don't have a problem with it because you can't do it but it's here and we're not my problem is there policies in that book policies in we can't do it I don't think well but and there's going to be things like that right so this policy was written in 2014 no no 11 years ago I'm not asking you to do it it' be impossible I'm giv you being done probably it probably was before that I'm not crazy about the policy that we don't follow or do we do the I'm not crazy about not following a policy well we're not we're clearly not why not I mean I'm not looking to fight with anyone I'm not complaining I'm not saying we should You' need an army of people to call all the parents in but I hate to see something on paper that we're not following and I'm not complaining about not following but I'm reading it I'm saying to myself we're not doing that because we physically can't I know we call the parents when the kids are out I get it I used to get calls occasionally my kids were mostly in school but I remember getting a you know getting a text or something not text getting a phone call you know so and so's out yeah I know so I don't think that's a problem it's just my problem with the policies overall is we have something on paper but we don't follow it now I realize we can't with the chronic absenteeism I get it but then why why leave something in a policy if you're not going to follow it's like saying if you run a red light there's a law that you can't run a red light our our our task is to implement policies to to make things better right and so why would we lower the standards if at one time they they were able to have these meetings why is it that we we should be trying to have these meetings maybe we're not reaching every single kid but we should still be trying to get there like I definitely I agree with having a I agree with having a lofty goal but I also don't agree with having something in a policy that isn't follow and I'm not blaming anyone for not following it there's there's a part two to this I'm not saying we should have meetings with parents someone's kids out five times in a school year that's not a lot you get a cold or something you're own two three days easy yeah but the thing is that that meeting can deter The Chronic absentee if you're out if that's an excused AC right if if you if you bother to make you bother to make the call and if you don't then parents also responsibility we can go through we can go through every policy isn't that the point of breaking break isn't that one of the benefits of breaking up the school into houses and to have more adults in the building so that way we could have this engagement another question is so by next year we should be seeing some different I guess my question to the is to the subcommittee do you and maybe it's me maybe I have to change my thinking and that's fine I don't mind doing that so what you what I think you folks are telling me and that's fine if we have a policy but we don't follow it it's okay no that's not what what I'm saying at all I okay that's what I'm going back to John we're a subcommittee our job is not to enforce the policy I didn't say it was but I that's but if we're not following it why is it in it is a goal I don't think then change the wording to say our goal is to have par meeting no I don't think that's a question for the committee what do you mean and a question here is if it's not being implemented then how do we ensure it's being implemented well in this particular case I don't think it's humanly possible at this at this time but there are ways that we can't explore so we could revise it if there's more on excuse absences then that triggers a meeting or if it's not physically possible then do you need us to authorize more money so that we have more people calling families and that's what we we've done that we that's what one of the benefits to this ruring has been this is supposed to be one of the benefits that there's going to be they'll be able to re-engage and to have these meetings and to make these calls so I mean that was my understanding unless I'm wrong no you're right and I think John it sounds like um a huge lift especially because right now we have a a 20% chronic absente is the rate so we probably have like a 35 or 40% rate of kids who have been abs are going to be absent more than five times even by December right so this doesn't work is what I'm saying yeah no I know I'm saying Dr Kelly you're not enforcing the policy I'm not going there yeah I know paper that's not we have I don't want to I'm done after this I don't agree with having a policy in place that we're not going to follow to me it doesn't make any sense if you have a rule follow it this is impossible to that logic is it defeats the purpose of the school committee and our subcommittees and the work that we're tasked to perform why make any any policy if they're not going to be to a point but I I think what John's trying to say and correct me if I'm wrong um is that this policy was written a long time ago when kids came to school every day and parents made sure the kids were coming to school every day and there wasn't the level of chronic absenteeism like Jackie said in 2019 our chronic ABM R only 11% now we're over 20% so when it was 11% it might have made more sense to say you're going to have a meeting with with every kid on their fifth absence I don't know that it is right now but I agree with you also that let's aspire to it and see where we get especially after so this year we're going to have much more structure around the houses people's roles are better defined there are people in place who's full job is to call home and maybe and maybe what we end up doing at the end of this year is um modifying it and say the bill be at least a phone call and they'll meet with as many parents as they can or something like that but I but I think it's too early to that to make that change where we just re restructured and we haven't even allowed that to play out to see how effective the new houses are and unfortunately for me in my background if something's in a policy I have to follow it because what in the in the banking World examiner comes in reads your policies first thing they do then they go look to see if you're actually following what's in the policy and and believe they are following it we're not I would say we're not right now they're not having a meeting with faulted but they should be starting that with this new structuring right yeah they should be paying more attention to that yeah and the good thing is that we review these because then if something's not being implemented then we're doing our job to provide that oversight and if polic is not being implemented to this level then we have this conversation and say okay how do how can we support you to ensure that to Ure that this policy is exactly and I don't expect you to I want that to be clear John isn't saying how come you're not following this it' be impossible standards we we're also coming out of a space where even at the beginning we're into the policy change midway last year but even at the beginning of last year if somebody had Co they had to stay home for 10 days right we're still we're down to five days now but that means if somebody calls and says Diane's going to be out because she has Co okay there's no need for me to have a meeting with that parent because I know why it's excuse you know so there's all of those it is important that we do work towards actually acting out this policy because then that just increases our efforts to combat chronic absenteeism and it goes back to you know we'll talk about this at tomorrow's safety sub commmittee meeting but when parents know that the expectation and accountability from the district is there for their duties and that can help us holistically so I think you know the Salem one what they do is that they say that they're referred to the student support team so if we want to revise this to where you know we have student support teams like someone else is meeting with them not just one individual which is the principal we can work on that language but do right finally in Middle Ground we are not lowering our standards but we are also ensuring that it's being implemented yeah and maybe maybe once again keeping track of of these efforts yeah to see how the parent engagement you know how effective we we've been and and how we've been able to make some head right yeah and if not then it's time for us to re-evaluate I definitely don't agree with lowering standards I think we have an issue with chronic absenteeism and the only way to combat that is going to be through the parents and the sooner we we make that contact with the parents for un excuse absences the better I I just don't I think by doing away with it and not having that contact is we might as well just forget about even trying to combat it yeah you know and we bring this all to the full committee and then we can all vote to make this one of our top priorities for this year we create a districtwide initiative that involves the committee in tackling this like and that's that's how we build all those bridgs that come together where you know in Salem even the city got involved so like the mayor's office was involved like meeting with families encouraging them like that whole effort starts if we make this a priority for us to tackle this school un and we make it one of the things that we focus on okay well John I'm glad that you did bring that back up because it just reinforced the need to for us to um you know shine a light on this issue and to stay focused on it all right so moving along unless there's any more statements on attendance or grading we'll move on to three the professional development yes it actually goes right in line so I shared this last month where I I haven't found a committee yet in the Commonwealth that has a policy on this and I think it would be important that we do so that we're that model continuous learning because we if we expect PD from our Educators from our superintendent level there should be that learning from us as a committee as a whole and so starting it off simple so that we can see how we develop it but what I was thinking is our the policy is just you know statements on our commitment to continuously learn and engage in PD and we just uh we can start by just setting up two things so one every fall we have a retreat where we meet for more than just two hours we engage in reviewing our ncast data our attendance data we set our goals as a committee so for example if this was a half day Retreat that we all came together and said chronic absm is one of our top priorities as a committee and then we work through that like I think it's important as any organization as company Retreats once a year for us to reflect on what happened the past year look at the data and then draft our two or three goals for this committee for the year and then and the spring or summer we could have another just a one and a half hour or two hour PD on a topic of our choosing that we need and come together to do and just starting it with that and I thought of making it a policy so that we're also setting high standards for whoever comes after us right because if whoever is VI turn next year may have a different opinion but if it's a policy then we're setting high standards for ourselves to continuously learn to have those Retreats and set those goals okay yeah question uh will the superintendent be had of those Retreats yes we need you to okay yes so the I know um another places the Retreats involveed the superintendent and her team because it's all together it's the data presentation and making so I can draft something up and share it with you all next time we meet or we can draft it together whatever you prefer I don't mind starting us off something sure do you want to take a stab at it and just um circulate what you what you've um put together and for input y okay and then the next item is the discussion of the r school committee on boarding handbook Jackie this was something you started working on yes and now and I think we all have probably our own cheat sheets yes so I think that would be good what I started to think of is we can make this all together whatever we prefer um but I was starting so this came from as Vice chair it was very difficult to start off and kind of navigate what is a vice chair do and what are our duties and so making something things that no one has to start over with us and so a lot of it would just be putting like our um operating handbook like our sub committee duties all those documents we already have into kind of a digital and physical binder but also uh rolling out more kind of like our role description so what does it mean to serve on a subcommittee what does it mean to be on a committee uh maybe an annual schedule of things so I know like between July and August it's pretty low so if I wanted to take a break or vacation during that time I know everyone's so just things we all have learned so that we can pass on to anyone El that's coming on and I also thought of this because with the change in having more seats we're going to have more people coming so just creating something like that transition yeah I agree and and it takes up less time as a committee like if people are educating themselves on their own on their own anyone new right just creating an onboarding handbook which is like welcome to the committee here because people can take the associations like charting the course thing but that's just so big like here's are cheat cheats on Robert's Rules you don't have to Google what that looks like here's a handbook on Robert's Rules these are our procedures instead of just sending I know when I came on Stacy did a great job of just sending me everything we have but it was like 10,000 PDF so what if we just had a binder and anyone who comes on you is like here you go with an explanation of life there's the policies in the handbook there's policies that you know are established by the masc there's policies that we have District policies yes so it's knowing those different forums as to you know where to go to look for things and I think the biggest thing was just creating an annual schedule with key mileston so like when is the superintendent supposed to be evaluated when is her contract over when are union contracts over so that like I didn't know we were going to have all the bargaining units this year and the superintendent renewal so just we don't have an actual schedule of what we do cyclically I think would be really beneficial to all of us yeah if we just had that on paper absolutely so I think that's something that we could work on this year and hopefully have it done by next fall because it will take a little longer we could um we could either have like a sub a policy subcommittee meeting and dedicate that time towards working on this if there's nothing else on the agenda you know if you want to do it that way that way we make that we're pushing forward that's gooda good and we can in that meeting we can set timelines for ourselves because it it might take a lot of work it might not but with everything else we're doing like we can just aim to have first draft done by I don't know April share it with everyone and just keep working okay sounds good when is the when is the next election is it next next year yeah they wouldn't be seated J some information on the for the next people yeah well honestly I'll tell you I like the idea because in my mind it generates some consistency like one of the struggles for a superintendent is uh when new people come on they often come on with their own impression of what the school department is and and that becomes a real challenge because you're being pulled in all of these different directions especially when there's multiple new people so and just like I didn't know how to put something on the agenda like I I we've updated our operating protocols so that's a little bit more updated but still like where's the te cheap for how do you introduce a motion or just having that again set examp like you know the order of issues are going to subcommittee then to the full committee yeah you're right or even like I mean I still struggle with what goes under old business what's new business what's goes under motions yeah sometimes it's things that could fit all of those categories and we have a lot of those policies already but if we just put it all in a digital binder and in a physical for anyone who wants it then we are I think I always think about like how do we set an example for other committees because we are so far ahead now in just this past year from other districts and so continuing to set that bar is great yeah no it's it's great in fact if you want to get started and we could start with like a Google doc that we can all access and and make our comments and things on yeah maybe that's a good way for people to be able to do it on their own time okay I that's great maybe it'll be more efficient that way because what I started was just like a list of all the things I think should go on there so I could just start that and we can all kind of come up together with what are things we wish we knew when we came on what are things I have that I wish someone else would know and then we can start to build out the content sounds good okay can I make another suggestion um if you're all amenable to it I think that anybody who's elected in November should be fully engaged between November and January when they actually take office so they're not missing out on I wish we had worked more together between November when when you and Tony um came on board and and Jackie when you came on board and not wait until January right to start doing that work together right and and attending the meetings yeah that's just by like extend an an invitation out yeah the committee also yeah and it we are in a little bit of a fishy situation because technically like we're not the committee so it should be the I think it should be the vice chair the chair should invite any newly elected not yet seated members to participate well maybe we should make it known that in this handbook or or beforehand that the expectation is that you know upon upon being elected that you immediately start your I love that idea service attending meetings that that's the expectation I think setting our expectations in our code of cond which can be difficult because we're elected officials right at the end of the day if I don't want to come to any of your optional stuff I wouldn't come right but if we already set a code of conduct where we're saying like this is what we expect of elected officials I think that e what our community expects as well and it just shows the level that we take this job seriously and it's already setting it up for whoever comes after like I know Stacy reached that to you um when we when you all won and came on and you attended a few of those like Retreats we had had before you were sworn in and so you were starting to get acclimated and anything that's a model that anyone knew should replicat so they also know that when they run this is something theories like it's not you know I get a lot of comments from folks like well it's school committee it's not Cate Council like that should be an easy race like the work we do is so intense nobody has no clue work and the number of hours so we many of us put into it we start to set the part people on say you don't just run for this because you want elected office like there's so much work it's not just a monthly meeting people who got no absolutely not I think I say that by myself saying that quite often okay so the onboarding hand workk we'll do that in like a Google doc or some type of Doc that we can all access yes um okay so the next thing is um issue of the minutes so when we last spoke um we had an agreement about the minutes that um we discussed we discussed what the expectation was with respect to minutes that it's not you know that during our meetings we're not to maintain we're not to keep minutes of everything that's said but more so the action and the things that occurred during that meeting it should be separated discussion but it should be accurate as possible right as accurate as possible but and the and there are specifically um um in the event that there are moments when a Committee Member requests to be on the record um then they should make that known to Robin or whoever's sitting in and taking minutes that they wish to be on the record with respect to their particular position on an issue and that's when they would get named it would say even if they're not named they don't have to be named but if they difference right yeah I guess so yeah exactly I'm fine with for me I'm fine with being named and I'm fine with not being named as long as the position is made known and it's only usually going to be when there's a disparity or I have a disagreement with everybody else on the committee or most people on the committee exactly that I just want my feelings or thoughts reflected um and in the event that it becomes an issue if I'm doing that every meeting then the expectation is that during one of our meetings we're going to re-evaluate this policy it shouldn't be about everything especially in election exactly exactly no if somebody's abusing it then during one of these subcommittee will'll address that abuse and and deal with it right then you know also I wanted to touch on ministering of executive session we do ministering executive session if you go if you go into executive session according to open meeting law you do not take minutes but it says here it's including executive session unless do it wrong I think keep minutes you just don't publish no I you do keep minutes them have to vote on them vote on the minutes yeah in executive session yes the minutes usually show like a roll call vote to go into executive session and then same like we will or we're not return to open session and then the time it concluded in just like the subject so you still have to have the discussion it's a public meeting yes so whenever um you've had executive session Nick is present and he keeps the minutes for you as your attorney okay but we usually should be voting on approval of the minutes during the executive session also do you mean we should be voting on approval of the minutes that were taken during the executive session at the next meeting at the next meeting whenever yeah we when we have our next executive session yeah open meeting law says that it should be two me you should vote on them either within 30 days or within the next two meetings of that right but like I said but we should have to minutes but we should be voting on them also yes in exective session all right let meure that let's ensure that we're voting on any exec it has to be done in executive session but you can clarify that with n come sure make sure he knows that um and I think that I'm wondering and I'll check with him if you know how typically at the end of one of those meetings he'll do a rundown if he has going on here's what we're going to do these next steps I wonder if that's the approval of the minutes but I'll ask them for Clarity on that okay but also too but in our packet we should have like the minutes included I asked Rob this myself and everything so this way when we vote we should be voting on I didn't know we voted on the minutes as instead of out of the calendar it's in that con sense which I didn't know because I wouldn't have voted in favor of it but the point I'm trying to make is if we have the minutes as a separate vote so we we know we're voting on the minutes but if we could have the minutes in the packet we don't even have to discuss the minutes we just so you'd like to vote on the consent calendar and then underneath that vote on the minutes approval of the for clarity when you vote on a consent calendar you are saying yes to everything that's under that section agre and that's why people are approving the minut I didn't realize how we set up that but what he's saying is that if he dis like for instance he disagreed with the minutes um at one of our our last meeting so if he wanted to vote against the minutes but not against everything else in the consent calendar um some make a request to pull it out and do a separate motion for that but I so what would happen is in the committee at the whole way do the consent calendar um as you're going through you know how like they'll say number one is the minutes anybody have any questions on the minutes you can say then I want that removed from the consent calendar okay so then when you come into the main meeting and they vote on consent calendar it doesn't include minutes and that requires add to our list if yes if there's something that you don't agree with it's this is all based on facts because it's keeping record so the we're supposed to maintain that Clarity in the committee of the whole so then that there is if there's ever an issue where someone is voting against the minutes and there's something wrong with the minutes because and something's not factual now if there's a personal decision we could see that but I've never seen it come up there so I think what I'm summarizing is we need to you utilize our committee of the whole meeting well where if people don't agree with something or it's not capture we need to Hash it out there and come to an agreement so that they get approved and that and that's another strategy that you could use like if if I just think back to what happened last month um if you said I would approve these minutes with the addition of the quote that I asked to go in there and then amend them yeah to approve the minutes with Anthony's Amendment or and then also I think Robin doesn't print them just out of practice because people review them ahead of time but anyone can request that they're print yeah but I asked Robin anyway just to put in my package because I keep all my package so I can in set of online I just I can just back and I think what we also agreed on during our whole meeting was that if someone has a correction and they're emailing Robin ahead of time to save us time that everyone be included um so that we know like once I review it I cross it off my mental list like I already looked at it so yeah and I think but I think in my mind what I was change what I wanted added was my position and so it wasn't up for interpretation it was just for me that was it was factual do you know what I mean but I understand what you're saying and we'll make a note that everyone be included in those I so um Next Step moving forward with this I don't know whether our um District policies speak to the minutes there might be something in here I didn't have a chance to there's nothing big what I would suggest is that we add a section under operating y absolutely okay so we can at another meeting we can take back up our operating protocols and then a section on taking minutes or and just you know quote minutes must here to open meeting law and then add all our other things that we're agree on on set on paper just so it's memorialized somewhere okay and one thing I else I wanted to take up because we talked briefly at the last minute about one of the subcommittees having someone do the minutes so I was doing some research and there's a software out there like called a and basically basally it will transcribe the minutes from YouTube and basically so and it basically costs up to 6,000 minutes if we want like $240 a year oh yeah there's also free ones like if right now I could just have my otter Ai and they could transcribe everything or or or we can you know if we need it for more then we could pay for more but I'm saying going forward it's hard these type of meetings for you to take notes and to conduct the meeting I think these meetings going forward safety meeting is going to be the same thing test and we need them as like accurate as possible and if we could use like a instead of us taking the notes have a do the actual transcrip would anyone be opposed to that I think um we should maybe see which ones we would recommend to the full committee so maybe we need to like pick a system ourselves and then we make that recommendation there was also um I like maybe trying out like how the student intern do it we could pick someone who's a little older like a senior or a member of the student council who's taking them because that could also be like an internship opportunity for them and then we still have YouTube just in case we and if it doesn't work then we could try Ai and thinking of way we can integrate our students in it and when we stop that um if we all like it then we just give it to the full committee and if everyone approves to creating a student in on it today yeah let's do it today because we want to move on this and I like the idea subcommittee meetings it would be great great to have a transcription of everything right because this is the this is the rationale behind our policies right and so I think it gives a clear a clear clear evidence of our intent and the work that's put behind and the thought that's put behind these initiatives you know so what we can do is someone can make the motion and then we will we can create a once the whole committee approves that we can create a job description for a high school intern pass it over to you all and and maybe I'm forgetting her first name Flynn or whoever is in charge of internships Ohana and then we can recruit someone and then in the meantime we can pick a nii software that we want to use instead to continue soft I make a motion that we ask the U or we can't we try auto any other to transpose our notes for our subcommittee meetings second motion to create so motion to recommend to the full committee the creation of a student Inn and it doesn't even have to go to ways and me because they're talking it's just community service hours one [Music] suggestion you might to make it floral because if you have one student and they don't show up for some reason thens well I think the idea is is they don't have to be present at the actual meetings they can watch watch the meetings and do it on their own time yeah because then it's like we' imagine we'd have to create a system of only doing meetings during a certain time the job is we already W for transparency sakes we have our meetings live streamed the students are taking the time to transcribe that into a full but I agree with John have it multiple because we don't we have multiple subcommittee meetings that it might become overwhelming for one kid so absolutely yeah I I mean however many you think we would need pass it on to you once it gets approval from the full committee well and that might be something that would be helpful too if when you're doing the operating protocols if there's like a Cadence for the subcommittee meetings that we could plan out a year for how often each subcommittee meets do you know I me we'd have a sense of well we're required to meet so many five to eight times really but anytime first yeah it's in our subcommittee operating protocols but anytime someone requests a subcommittee meet they can so it's based on to so that could be like 40 meetings absolutely well two and a half years we 40 meetings here no but we should be so the goal is um to create so um an internship program we'll draft up the job description it's community service hours so we can cap students at so many hours and we could start with two to three interns and then we I like I'm happy to we can work on laying out all the responsibilities that they can take it on so if we need a call and then we can use to shut up on them anyways just for back up and just have it there okay roll call um Anthony yes Aisha yes and Miss mro yes and then uh could you email us that software that you did research on what was the name of it a oot t t e oh I think you're both talking about the same side okay okay and so um oh there was something else someone used today in a meeting maybe you all know it's called meet geek or something like that and that um how accurate is otter like would you need to have somebody actually review otter like the transcript it gives and make sure that's accurate you still do because you so it's going to give you a um first of all it's going to give you a Verbatim but it's going to mishar things because of accents and everything else so you have to clean it up to begin with but you also want to Crunch it down a little bit like you're going to have transcript of this be50 pages and it gives like time spam and you don't need like a minute this second this should we do this anyway should we do should we request like do the software in addition to the intern and have the intern clean up the software well they the intern would basically be cleaning up or YouTube meting anyway so they're already cleaning up no they're going to have to type up all the minutes they have to type I believe that you can and we can look at otter we can look I Believe YouTube now gives you a full transcription oh can you can you but can you export that transfer oh okay then all right I could I only go so far far as I was able to pull up portions but when I tried to like past it I think especially when you have the YouTube premium so the student would have to have could have access with all these rules to the back end of the live stream and then because we can pull our own live streams transcript when you're on YouTube premium so then we could give that to them and that's what they work off of okay that's what it is I don't have premium yeah I don't either but if you're setting up the meeting you have access to your own transcript to your own transcript okay that's great all right so there's a motion it's been passed to to recommend this to the full committee and we'll make sure that we do that next meeting is there anything else about that and we're going to add this to the the um the minutes discussion to our operating yes yeah um discuss Don yep donor's choice I think it is not choose actually should be another Z there John I got Europe when the teachers had their meetings with the principals the first day of school I got up literally a bunch of people reaching out to me about that they had to go to their principal to do the donor's choose and it wasn't um something that um came across favorably the other thing and I don't know who it was I'm not going in there one of the principals said it was something that was discussed at length at a school committee meeting um I haven't missed any regular meetings it may have been a subcommittee meeting that I wasn't here for because I don't you know I don't attend everybody else's I do my best to attend my own um but I don't think it was something that was discussed at length in front of me anyway so so but the thing was did you know about it and I said it must be in the handbook I did look at the handbook before we voted on it it's a you know it's like a sentence or two on page I think it was I guess page 48 or something I remember the page number I looked at it so it is there did I miss it when I was going through I did um but I got I did I got I was surprising push back and people that I don't usually hear from ever that were the ones complaining about it um I'm a big donor choose person I've given a lot of money to donor choose because I think it's a good organization and you know supporting the teachers and things that they want to get um but I don't recall at least in the discussion that I was in that you know we didn't include that um I was told that there was I won't say fraud but there was some potential somebody was doing something they shouldn't have been doing um but I think that's a vast minority and not the majority so um I just wasn't something that I thought was a point of emphasis in my mind and to be have someone say that in a meeting I thought it was a little odd in my in my estimation and again the people that reached out to me and it was more than one it was quite a few they're like what's up with that and I said I wasn't aware of it I said it must be in the handbook which it is and I looked at the handbook ReRe it found it but I just don't know why there that extra step well there's two well those two things and you probably speak to this I don't we we did not discuss it during a school committee meeting I remember it briefly coming up in the context of fundraising we were talking about um the booster clubs but we never came up with a new policy but we did not come up with a new policy for it um and the only thing that I wanted to address was you know what I don't even want to because it's a rumor and I just don't want to even ignite anything um so let's just stick with the policy so John has um brought up the issue of donor choose and the fact that the handbook reflects that um teachers and staff have to go through the principal for approval and want have some understanding of the rational behind that sure um I can't remember when this policy started it's not terribly old um but it came up for a couple of reasons one was was people were putting um projects up on donor's shos that maybe we didn't agree with for instance and this just happened this past summer somebody had um put up a request that people donate for a living room set that they wanted to have in their classroom so the kids could relax and have a chill space that's not something that we would approve having a bean bag chair fine having a couple of bean bag chairs and a reading Nook fine but a whole living room set and and that's what the person was requesting a couch and a recliner and we said no um they were have been other projects over the years that don't necessarily reflect what we think is needed and so the policy was that if if folks were going to put a request up there it had to be approved first by the administration so the administration could make sure that the request was in line with um what they would want to be in classroom and 99.9% of the projects that people want to put on donor's juice are awesome and wonderful and excellent um but you know just having that little bit of oversight can make sure that um everybody's doing things that are sound educationally you know and then there are some things like people would put up um requesting for example classroom sets of graphing calculators and that's something that we give to the teachers so they shouldn't be requesting that on donors choose um but there might be a teacher somewhere who's new to the district and doesn't know that they can go to the director and say I need new graphing calculators for my whatever class Advanced algebra and that they can do that and so it gives us that little bit of continuity that we're not putting projects out there that reflect Poly on the district or that don't align with what we what our expectations would be that's it so is is that determination made though at your level or is it made at the principal's level as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable yeah I mean they would it was a principal it was um actually Mrs Rizzo who found that project that I just described on um Don as choose and we reached out to the principal and they had no idea that the teacher had put that project up and um you know there were a couple of principls just spoke directly to the teachers and said we've just got to show this to us before you do it um so most of the time there shouldn't be an issue with any authorization correct yeah most of the time it just goes right through but something like that so what does the process look like is it cumbersome for teachers is it another layer it is another layer for teachers yeah they have to they have to submit something to their principal saying I want to go on donor's choose it can just be an email okay you know but they can submit and say that I'm GNA I'd like to put a project on donor's choose where I'm requesting a b and c and as long as that seems straightforward and helpful to kids and helpful to instruction the principal's going to say yes and what's like the response rate that's what I well I was going to ask what the response time is it would be pretty immediate we and we just went over this with um Administration again at our all admin meeting two weeks so it's mostly just if things so for example if I want a flexible an accessible seaing for my students in my classroom that's something that would be approved yeah okay so it's mostly just if someone's asking for something that the district already provides that will be given to them or if it's things that an entire living group at for a classroom yeah I guess the only issue that I could see is that if you know you have um and I'm not saying that this happens but if you have a principal who doesn't get back to the teacher and you know maybe there's a delay the unnecessary delay the teacher should go say what the heck it my email right yeah that's fa and the other piece that we talked about at the meeting was that it is property of the r so we just wanted to reiterate that they're using the name of their so you the way donors choose works is you put up a project and people contribute to it when it's fully funded um they ship whatever the thing is to you and then you have to take pictures of your students engaging with that that item whatever it was and send it back to them and that's how they um recruit other donors to the website so they are using images of the r Public Schools down student students as part of the project and that's why we need to make sure that they're it's property of our schools it's property of our schools but also that their request is appropriate and aligned with our mission and vision okay I I be honest I wish I had known I wish well I guess I wish that in all the respect for the principles I wish they had made that clearer when they were talking about it because that's I think that makes total sense hearing the explanation that that they didn't get that explanation the teach the teachers didn't get about the Liv room thing because when you said that to me I'm like yeah that makes sense but in the other way it didn't you know it doesn't yeah I mean I think someone asked for living said you know yeah that I'll agree totally it's just yeah I it was people that I would never heard from before I either got an email or you know Facebook message whatever and they like well because it's another thing right that you have to do that's exactly what they to have it's another thing yeah there was at least a single layer of accountability there was another project uh that was posted that um described our students is extremely poor um and requesting snaps to the classroom and well we don't want food in the classrooms right and we give every kid free breakfast and every kid free lunch and so we don't necessarily want to be out there with that image of our re Public Schools like we're not feeding the kids and they're too desperately poor to eat any any place else right so that's another do that with the F yeah I know that teacher didn't seek permission before posting that job and so the principal was able to go back to them and say it just you know the because people would assume that we're not needing them right of course thank you thank you okay there being no other items on the agenda um I will schedule a policy in subcommittee meeting for maybe three months out um I think we'll have the absentee some policy at least updated before that do you want to shoot for maybe like end of October or early November yeah sure yeah oh yeah the work we could do that we discussed today can be done in the meantime but as far as having the data and to review that data we'll give it at least three three months yeah so we'll have um we won't have the data on the 50s until the end of January right um but we can have some data on the attendance end of November end of November is the end of first quar for December I think also um should that be the the whole committee like should that be more something that goes to the full committee I mean I think I think the work anal you know reviewing it and analyzing it belongs in sub committee and then we can share our findings or you know we can share the information for the committee to look at on their own time but as far as the actual work and review the discussion yeah we'll have that yes okay I'm going to just note here um for shoot for a December meeting to review the data yes and then I'll clean these meils up and send them to you AA and you can you know add to them and we the next steps and stuff like that thank you so much a motion can I have a motion to adjourn motion to