e e e e good evening calling to order the Tuesday May 21st meeting for the school committee will'll all rise and to the flag to the flag the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all thank you Dr maaba would you call the roll Mrs bronston Rizzo here Mr cajano here Mr Kingston here Mr Mata here Mrs milberry Ellis present miss monteroso here mayor Keef here first item of the agenda we have is recognition so I would uh ask I know a few of my colleagues wish to speak but we have a a very unique situation that happened at our Beachmont school and fortunately we had an amazing group of people surrounding um and support staff to really save someone's life and uh I know that um Dr Kelly uh knows a lot more of the specifics I'm fortunate to know a few of these individuals and we'll talk about all of them um tonight but um you know right place at the right time but it's it just goes to show you when when you have preparations in place and you have the safety devices in place uh all the things align and we we had a really beautiful moment at the school it could have been a very tragic moment so Dr Kelly would if you wish I if you want to me to give a little more detail on the incident so we had a um staff member who uh had a a critical cardiac incident um very unexpectedly in the cafeteria just before lunch was being served and the incredible incredible incredible staff at the Beachmont and City schools immediately stepped into action um people did things from run outside to uh direct the ambulance to the right entrance to ensure that they could get to the employee as quickly as possible um other staff members principales I know stepped in and actually served the lunch as our cafeteria staff were rightfully very upset by what they had seen and what had happened um we had other staff members who uh one who ran and got a defibrillator and then um some of us more certified staff who administered the defibrillator and saved the employees life so it was an incredible uh incredibly stressful and traumatic event that thanks to the incredible staff at the beach Mon City lab uh had a had a good outcome for our employee um but it was definitely uh harrowing experience for everybody involved and we were just fortunate to have a group of people in that building who all jumped in and did exactly what needed to happen and exactly what needed to be done in that moment and no one gave a second thought about who am I or what what should I be doing or it was what needs to be done and how can I do it um and so we're just really proud of of everybody there and I know that the committee has some recognition they want to do for that so I i' open it up to if any of the committee members wish to speak or have any offer any words and we'll bring them up I guess I'll start off with my big mouth I just you know sometimes we do things and we'll say oh it's part of the job and I had talk spoken to a couple um who were there that day and said well it's part of my job and it was like you know everything's part of our jobs in life but sometimes we hesitate to you know we don't know if we really know what we're doing but we hesitate and those hesitations make a big difference um in life and death um and so this family this Beachmont City lab family said we're going to do whatever we have to do and I can't commend them they're just phenomenal like everyone else in our district they're phenomenal when you have to do something you do it it's not part of your job it's part of your family that needs you and they do it so thank thank you to them and everyone um you know from our nursing staff to the cafeteria staff to the Educators to Nate did you find the defer cust Austin oh try to give you credit um but just thank you each and every day for what you do no I think it's just a matter of doing what you're supposed to do because because you're there and you care and that's what we're in the business of doing heing so congratulations to all of you you deserve a lot a lot of uh pets on the back thank you so much I'll just say thank you I appreciate all your efforts every day and especially in this circumstance so thank you again I just like to say thank you to all the employees who stepped up for that day because s didn't TR could have happened thank you all and and again just to kind of reiterate I I see a few names that are common thread and a lot of amazing things that happened in our state I don't want to single anyone out there's a large group and it took a it took a group effort so everyone as Dr Kelly mentioned had played a role um but it's it's noticeable that you see a lot of the same names around our city that do a lot of amazing things for people for our students for our adult population you name it and it's not a coincidence so I I think you know who you are but thank you very much for doing what you do this entire group um did unbelievable work so we have uh some certifications if you'd like to come up if anyone would like to speak on on on this we'd be happy to have you up and we invite each one of you individually uh John would you like to read the uh certifications great sure your V school committee certificate of recognition presented to for the professional manner and support provided during the medical emergency ofal WR mayor Pat mayor Patrick Keefe Junior chair Stacy Bronson Rizzo Anthony kiano Treasurer John Kingston secretary Anthony Mata Aisha Milbury Ellis Jacqueline monteroso Vice chair Dr Diane Kelly superintendent awarded the 21st day of May 2024 in no par in no particular order um Stacy Mulligan Chris fryzen and if you're here if you can come on up we'd love to have you up up here in front principal Friday come on up Joyce cus [Applause] we ask that you stay up here for a picture Don you're welc thank you very much [Applause] Austin sty Le Nate Dory I see Mr Dory L Pelton [Applause] L Karina Romero Kina [Applause] no you're fine I didn't for any not here our apologies angel [Applause] missing too sorry not my fault give what I get thank you yeah okay so I just I want to give you know um special credit to Nate and Angela who did a [Applause] unbelievable you know uh I am I am extremely proud of the two of them they jumped right into action um you know the rest rest of us were there but you two were Heroes and Austin as well um the three of you really just jumped right into action and it was probably one of the scariest moments of my career um but just just fortunate to have all three of you on staff so just thank you [Applause] Miss Cole is just to take a video of everyone to say hello to Ursula because lots of us have visited her and she's doing extremely well and going home on Friday so what I would love just a video and everyone just say hello the world on three everyone's gonna say hello Ursula get well Ursula okay one two [Applause] wonderful so the next item on our agenda is the consent calendar uh motion to approve motion to approve the consent calendar second okay discussion roll call please Mrs brunston Rizzo yes yes Mr cajano yes Mr Kingston yes Mr Mata Mrs milberry Ellis Mrs monteroso yes mayor keth yes we have the student representative report all right um first thing before I start off this report I just want to say that um as the 2023 2024 school year comes to a close uh my fellow student rep ryhan Ahmed uh although he was supposed to be here for uh his final meeting before going off to college and fortunately he could not be here today but uh it's been a great year um and excited for what's to come he is off to Stanford so not gone gone just yet not gone gone just yet we're going to bring him back we'll try to bring it back all right so now we can get started on the student rep report so we can begin with talking it do we have it screen y it should come up in one second okay Paul can we switch to the Paul can we switch to the shared screen there we go okay lovely unfortunately that's the best I can do I'm having some technical difficulties here no worries no worries um okay so going on to our first slide uh we have our club highlights um so now that we are approaching the end of the year a lot of clubs are finishing up for example fem the feminist empowerment movement H is hosting their end ofe party uh celebrating a very successful year of uh feminist empowerment and also having a senior send off uh Speech in the bit had their car fundraiser just uh a week or so ago and were formally recognized for their hard work for the speech and debate year at City Hall um model uh Model United Nations just uh concluded their Northeastern University uh trip for Rising leaders Model United Nations conference uh just Friday of the past week and uh our rhs is hosting our very own multi m Multicultural night um after our endof year award ceremony on May 29th so uh imploring everyone here to come and attend because there's going to be a lot of fun things that are going to be happening and get to learn about a ton of new cultures okay so moving on to voting of student Representatives uh now that this year has come to a close uh according to Massachusetts law um schools should have a student Advisory board that consists of five members we have the law quoted uh on one of the slides so essentially what that means is that in the previous year we have elected our student Representatives uh through student Senate within student Senate however this year we are changing that so that we are doing a full schoolwide election for uh our next student rep so any students at rier high and City Labs can run to be come uh uh to join the student Advisory Board uh which will be consisting of five members uh along with that we are looking to uh getting student reps from City lab High School to come and be a part of the school committee to make sure that all voices in rever count regardless of what school you go to so that is something that we will be working on by the end of the year um moving on to the last part of this presentation although uh although we have uh been doing a lot this year this presentation is going to be a little bit short um we simply just want updates on uh The Mention Of accessibility and subtitles any tours of accessibility AIDS um and stuff like that earlier a couple meetings ago we had asked if it was possible to get both translation and subtitles on um the school committee meetings transcripts on YouTube and what other um areas that it's being streamed on so we just would like to get an update on that from the committee M mon Roo uh so I'll answer your question first and then so we fixed one the live subtitles but we uh are working to schedule a policies and procedur subcommittee meeting where we can continue that conversation and that's uh so that we can kind of come up discuss this and maybe offer something up to continue the conversation for next school year and then when it comes to the changes to the student representation we'll also have that on the agenda for the poliy subc commmittee meeting so I'll let the student council know when we have that set in case you all want to come to that okay lovely any other members you excited for summer little summer break I'm so excited I finished everything I'm burnt out well good work and and if I can also give recognition to the student Senate in their um their unbelievable work and helping Champion for the in advocating for the new uh Rivier high school and as everyone is aware uh we had a very successful uh Bond authorization on Monday evening so congratulations to [Applause] all next up is the public speak portion uh so I'm going to go get the sign in and then what we do is we will call people on the order of the school committee signin sheet it's 15 minutes if there's more than six people you'll have 2 minutes so I can call people in that order and then Dr Kelly could you take um the timer for us okay sounds good or someone can let me grab the sheet so people have until the end of public speak to sign up we still left a copy in the back and then when the fth 15 minutes are over we will close public speak uh we remind you to please state your name uh and then just your address where you live and then if you want your affiliation before you begin speaking so first up is Michelle Irving um hi my name is Michelle Irvin I live in 21 Rolland Lyn Massachusetts I'm the co-president of the rier Teachers Association um we're here to present uh this petition Jane is going to are the my my other half Jane uh J the co other co-president is going to present we're presenting this presentation to you on the safe and healthy schools um on behalf of the over 700 RTA members and um over 2 200 community members that signed this petition uh we believe that the health and safety in our schools is out of hand our members in the community have been calling on you to solve this problem for a pretty long time and we're now we believe we are now at a Breaking Point and we can no longer ignore these issues um in a minute you're going to hear from some other members about specific issues that students and staff in the r Community face on a daily basis I ask that you listen to these this isn't hyperbole this isn't dramatic this is real stories from real members about what happens and what they face on a daily basis these issues include unfair sick Lea policies unmanageable case loads class sizes that are too large for for educators to effectively meet the needs of their students and elementary schools that quite literally have rodent feces in work areas we believe these issues can no longer be ignored we think that you the school committee can solve these problems to today you can solve them Thursday when we go to bargaining we brought these these issues up in bargaining and you rejected them um you can also set school committee policy on these issues you can solve them today with with a policy the health and the safety of our our Educators and our students cannot wait a minute longer before this crisis spirals completely out of control and in addition to that what's going to happen is that the teacher shortage that is already here is going to reach an unprecedented level we ask that you listen to our members and um solve these problems thank you thank you uh also if I mispronounced your name please correct me next is Jessica ganu my name is Jessica gagman my address is 20 F AV teris in Medford I am the Garfield Middle school nurse I've been a nurse and Rivier for 20 years and I am here just to discuss my concerns regarding the health and safety of our students and our staff from a nursing perspective the Massachusetts Department of Public Health recommends a nurse to student ratio of 1 to 500 for the past year we've had two vac taken full-time positions and we have not been fully staffed since the beginning of Co we need more nurses for coverage and assistance in larger schools the nursing department is a small group that does not have sufficient numbers to cover when a nurse is sick has a personal day or there are field trip needs in order to staff our schools the default has been floating nurses from two nurse buildings when necessary as the Garfield Middle school nurse I have been responsible for both the elementary and the middle school 12 times there are over 1,200 students at Garfield the West Rivier complex has had to cover the school with one nurse 10 times and they also have 1,200 students and the high school with a population of 2100 has been underst staff with two nurses 36 times thus far these numbers are more than double with the state recommends to provide some context to our workload in the month of April which had 17 school days the district had over 4,000 nurse office visits a school nurse sees students for a variety of issues but some of note include medication administration monitoring chronic health issues such as asthma and diabetes evaluating School injuries substance abuse assessments psychological issues that that have manifested into physical ailments and this month responding to a cardiac emergency as the health experts at our school we have other responsibilities which include being part of the school Emergency Response Team Jessica that's time 10 okay I'm sorry thank you next we have Brian McDonald [Applause] hi folks um my name is Brian McDonald I live at 33 Laurel Street in Somerville I've been a uh teacher in rever at the Garfield for the last 16 years I'm an intensive special education teacher um I'm here to talk about the fact that um talk about safety um long story short I've been hit kicked slapped scratched um bit um spit at and had my hair pulled more than the last three years than I have in my entire career of over 20 years um I'd love to say that this is just me maybe my personality just brings it out um maybe third to fifth graders that are in with intensive needs are really making a gun at me I don't know but it's not what's actually what's happening because it's happening all over um it's happening in all of the in all of the sped classes um I have friends that are teaching and that are pars that are getting attacked they're getting chairs thrown at them they've had tables thrown um one of my friends lost a fingernail because apparently you're not supposed to um be scratched and be hit on your your nail bed and had it um get infected so this is happening daily things are happening daily and if it's not in my classroom it's in someone else's classroom and in the special needs classrooms it's happening why is this happening we're just a couple years out of covid we have a lot of trauma we have trauma in regular education we have trauma in special education and we don't have what we need um teachers and Par professionals are getting hurt I think everyone can agree that no one goes to work to be hurt I think everyone can agree that if you are going to work and you know you're going to be hurt you should be somehow paid for that that should be part of the deal that me okay thank you next next is Marissa don't worry about it okay great thank you to the school committee Dr Kelly and the RTA for the opportunity to speak this evening my name is Marissa lanquist oh I live at Four brayman Street in Danvers and I have been the art teacher at the Lincoln School for 8 years I have maintained good attendance throughout my earlier years in Riv in fact I often came to school kind of sick and for took taking personal days because I knew that my husband and I wanted to start a family and I would need my sick time for maternity leaves and to care for my children when they get sick my son was born in January 2020 and due to covid he did not get exposed to much in his first few years my daughter was born a year ago this year Big Brother started preschool and predictively has brought home every bug imaginable this year my this school year my family has endured three rounds of covid two rounds of flua RSV and norovirus by March of this year I had taken 15 sick days more than my previous time in R combined my husband who is a principal in another district has also taken 15 days when my son was sick with norovirus I was docked a personal day because I had already used my allotted six family sick days when I got covid last week I came to school because I did not have a fever and I so desperately wanted to avoid taking more sick time eventually I got too sick to come to work I called out and immediately made an appointment with my doctor's office because I understood I would need a note for my 16th day only an hour into the school day I received an email from Central stating that I had been docked a day pay for the absence I was not even given an opportunity to present my doctor's note I'm a career changer who started teaching at 33 and I can't afford to take unpaid days and risk the retirement system not counting it as a full year of service after all this when my one-year-old daughter then contracted covid I the breastfeeding parent could not take time off to care for her because I have no more family days it seems there was no point in me not coming to work for or coming to work when I was sick for all those years because even though I have the sick time according to the current policies I am not allowed to use it to care for a family member I don't disit that I did meet with Dr Kelly today and she did remove the uh unpaid day but the policies should be revised so that I can take care of my own family when they get [Applause] sick next we have Katie font hello my name is Katie font I live at seven Preston Street in Malon this is my first year was an ESL teacher at Rivier High School I've been an ESL educator for 9 years working across multiple grade levels with experience teaching in China Thailand and Boston based on my experience I'm here to urge the riv school committee to commit to our Union's proposals to ensure we have healthy safe schools in the reever Community I've seen my fair share of disregulated students in my 9-year teaching career however with confidence I can say I've never experienced the sheer amount of disregulation I've seen during my time here at rhs at first these behavior issues were m phone's not put away back talk refusal to work but as time went on behaviors continued to escalate I had gum pencils papers thrown at me and other students I've had students swear at insult and harass me and other students I've seen a student try to attack another student with a stapler I've had a student rip down the pride in class claiming it was a Nazi flag and another used homophobic slurs one student made sexually suggested motions in class twice all these experiences are from my co-taught English class class with two adults in the room and still behavior is nigh unmanageable obviously these behaviors are not conducive to a productive healthy learning environment in some ways though instances like these are here and there to be expected what I did not expect was the administration's lack of response to set clear Behavior expectations and boundaries those homophobic incidents administrators told me the students claim they didn't happen apparently teenagers are incapable of lying when they get caught no cons quences arose from them to my knowledge sexual aggression in class the student was back in the room 5 minutes later instead of heing much needed support admin seemed Keen to pass the blame back to me whenever possible uh they'd tell me my instruction was the problem or I wasn't building relationships if I gave tough love I was too tough and I was exacerbating the behavior if I was patient and understanding I wasn't controlling the classroom request for support went unanswered over and over again in the more I requested the more administrators were dismissive my cries for help it felt like if the problem could not be solved within a five-minute Hall conversation a piece of candy administrators wanted the problem to be mine and mine alone rhs students and teachers myself include deserve to feel safe at school I stand Here proudly to say that rever must accept the Union's propos to ensure our schools are healthy and safe thank you [Applause] [Music] am I calling the next person okay Holly [Applause] my name is Holly karea uh I live at 37 Prospect Dev and winr I been teaching in the rear verer schools for 25 years I teach fifth grade I'm here to talk about Rodin sewage and Facilities whether it's rodent feces in the Beachmont rats around high school or sewer jet Garfield our students learning conditions and our Educators working conditions need to be the top priority of the school committee time and time again our members bring these problems to the union from across the district we hear them all the time and we often remind our members that they are not isolated incidents we tell our members that they should not feel alone with this massive health and safety problems they are facing in their schools because this uh is not singular problems these are not singular problems these are serious institutional problems in RPS that require Investments resources systematic problem solving I want to just describe a few problems with health and safety at just a few of our 11 work sites across RPS at Beachmont City lab during one incident the stench of a dead some undetermined rodent underneath the building was so debilitating it was talked about for weeks on end and is still remarked upon to this day mice running through Elementary School classrooms while students present and actively having instructional time dead mice found underneath student uh kids chairs during school it has um interrupted our learning time with our classrooms mice feces have been found throughout the HVAC system grass outside the school is often left uncut um cause students to be bitten by bugs during recess which then brings their frustration and discomfort back into the classroom the list goes on at the Garfield complex the issue of sewage has become such an epidemic endemic problem it has occurred year after year this year on more than one occasion we've had raw sewage seeping into the hallways on the first floor and garage the stench was horrific and on one occasion we all had to be dismissed early because it was unhealthy and unsafe to remain in the building we regularly have mouse droppings in our classroom closets in addition to rodents the issue of cockroaches has become a major problem at the Garfield complex is that my time we also have birds and uh mice running around the [Music] [Applause] classroom next we have Liz wman [Applause] [Music] [Applause] my name is Liz Walman I live at 14 armore Drive in danverse I'm a fourth grade teacher at the Lincoln School I've taught here for the last seven years and I used to say all the time that Landing in R is one of the best things that has ever happened to me I used to say that this District encourage teachers to thrive not just survive and I still believe that this is a great place to work and learn but that doesn't mean we can't do better the Lincoln School is severely outdated and is lacking space for our 600 plus students we don't have enough classrooms our special education teachers lost their room in favor of a new teachers room and now hold meetings in our conference room if it's available if not they often try the library but the only problem is that our family liaison has her desk there but that's okay she can take the etls office and we can move her to one of the closets that we're currently trying to repurpose but that might conflict with the teacher who lost her classroom so that window repairs can start early so her group will be using the library as a classroom until further notice however kindergarten screenings are happening there teachers lose their room for prep times often as interventionists work out of their rooms add an mcast testing and mcast makeups and you get the idea as an English teacher it pains me to use cliches but we are simply bursting at the seams I believed in R when I started to work here and I still do I tell my students all the time to hand in work that they are proud of and they would want to show off I encourage you to do the same make our buildings the safe and clean spaces to learn that they should be make these buildings worthy of the incredible students and staff who come here each day who want to be here each day who love working here and want to continue to do so make this the public school system that I believe in thank you for your time [Applause] uh we have two more and then we're already a little bit over the 15 minutes so we'll allow these two more and then we'll close public speak next is [Applause] Jane hi my name is Jane chapen I live at 15 Guild Street Boston Mass um and I'm here to talk about the health and safety proposals that we have um at the Rivier High School um so specifically talking about rodents and the buildings that are unsafe and um for students and teachers the rodents at the high school are a much bigger problem they're not just seeing mice but R rhs staff are seeing rats as well the staff have seen rats in locker rooms in vents and even all the way up to the third floor of the building rhs also has no air conditioning at the high school there are no fans although the um Michelle and I the union co-presidents have requested fans on a couple of occasions temperatures have gone up to above 80s daily for about two months out of the school year in the warmer months these are just the buildings buildings worth of examples but there are more even some of the newer buildings experience facilities problems like elevators breaking lack of functioning HVAC systems or health and safety problems that do not just impact us as Educators but our students and community members who enter the schools every day we are asking you not just hear us but to act this crisis has gone on far too long you cannot look Us in the eyes anymore and tell us that to respect the work that we're doing as Educators while failing to make the steps to remedy these proposals you cannot flat out reject every single one of our proposals on health and safety to fix these health and safety problems in our schools there is no and say there is no crisis in the schools you heard our members speak today and the pain they are experiencing not just for themselves but for their students because our members know they can sacrifice life and limb for their students and will still not be enough in the RPS if our RPS system are not enough to catch students when they are in crisis we are far past the point of Crisis this is an emergency we need you to act to stop rejecting our Solutions and to start helping us solve these problems and then is it Michaela yes [Applause] okay um Michaela serone 66 London Street East Boston I'm a teacher here here at rhs um I wasn't going to speak today at all because I'm only a second-year teacher I do not have tenure um I'm very nervous right now um but I think it's worth being a little uncomfortable to advocate for my students and other people here at R rhs specifically um so I started as a full-time teacher at Rivier High School in Fall 2022 but prior to that I was at the Department of Youth Services teaching at a juvenile detention center for youth offenders in Massachusetts in my almost two full school years at Rivier High School I can say with confidence that I felt safer coming into work every day at juie that being said I just wanted to point out two incidents in the past week in the past week here at rhs that people in this room may not be aware of last Tuesday while teaching my history class glass was thrown from the third floor staircase down to the first floor shattering all over the staircase this was not only putting my students at risk but was incredibly distracting and concerning to the lesson because we have no idea what's going on and we just hear glass being thrown um later that day a fight broke out in the hallway um outside the teacher's lounge I was shoved by a student um I ended up with marks I can I don't need to but I can show you the pictures um and the student bragged to his friends about how um he was able to put his hands on a teacher and face no consequences um so sends the message that putting your hands on a teacher is totally okay totally fine to do at rhs um finally I just wanted to add that how I run the 10th grade Civic Action Project Fair um most of you will be invited I mean all of you will be invited most of you hopefully will be able to attend um we have at least 20 students doing their project on student Behavior at rhs including fights and drug use so I can tell you with certainty that this is on their mind too um I love this community so much I I've did America work here I've been here since 2020 I love rhs I love my students but I do not and these students do not deserve this level of [Applause] violence motion to close public participation please second roll call no mon Roo uh just I know we don't have all our members aren't at the negotiation table so I just want to provide context that we have not flat out rejected every safety proposal we're even offering uh negotiations are still ongoing and we've even offered up a seat at the safety subcommittee so just letting you all know that we haven't rejected we're moving forward sir please let her speak we let you speak I interrupted please thank you don't that was on Mr Mayor I was just providing context to everyone who's not at the table thank you very much next next item on the agenda superintendent report thank you Mr Mayor um the first item on the superintendent report is a presentation from our friends at uh Garfield elementary school I'd like to invite um Dr Percy Napier up who's going to give us a little bit of context and invite his team to talk about their presentation give me one second par I'll get it I want to you it it'll be it'll come up on the screen they're just showing you first so that you can introduce and then all right so good evening uh my name is Percy nap and I'm principal at the Garfield Elementary School um over the past three years the Garfield school has had the fortune of having three amazing counselors who have been working um to support our students on a number of issues um and one of these issues um that they have noticed is that sometimes students have not yet developed the skills to accurately recognize the magnitude of the social problems they encounter in their interactions with others and as a result they may not necessarily respond respond appropriately so um the team uh work to develop a Common Language and common structure for problem identification taught through a series of structured lessons tailored to the developmental levels of each grade so that means that students in kindergarten through fifth grade have a Common Language and a reference point for problem identification and this is the first year of implementation but we would eventually like to roll this out to our preschool and our small learning groups as well so this work helps to support self-re ation it improves emotional intelligence and helps them to build healthy relationships with others so now I will turn it over to our counselors um Miss Kate Kelly Miss Bianca jinuo and our third counselor who's not here today but is um is very integral in this work is um Nancy defilippo um and they're going to give you some more information about this initiative great thank you Dr neier my name is Kate Kelly and I'm one of the School adjustment counselors here and this is Bianca I'm Bianca I'm School adjustment counselor as well as the Garfield so this really came from our work uh last year hearing from teachers our observations that our students were really taking a lot of academic class time trying to solve problems with teachers who are already attempting to do the academic work and the problems are really saturating the classroom so and then the problems become behaviors and we are identifying that a lot of time students are spending with us or taking up teacher time to identify problems that they could actually solve themselves so we started our if we could go to the next slide we started this um problem solving initiative from kindergarten to first grade U Miss Bianca focuses on uh third and four uh second and third grade is uh Nancy and then I work with fourth and fifth so the objective is that by the end of fifth grade when students are leaving Garfield they'll be able to distinguish between different problem sizes and then they'll also know when do I need to speak to an adult about this when is it appropriate to interrupt class when is it appropriate to grab my teacher in the hallway when is it appropriate to meet with a counselor so the aim is really to increase students ability to accurately identify the size of the problem increase their ability to identify and utilize problem solving skills and then also establish a Common Language among our staff and students so that it's a common message um throughout the building and as I said we've developmentally um appropriately scaffolded based off of the age of the student so these are two of our fifth graders this is their first this is their first go um at the different problem sty sizes so we can just let them I think so yeah it should be the slide on the slide it'll play it off of a the drive maybe you can send it to us okay I can send it to you so this is watch all right this is Jordan and Steven um they were bribed so they did get a little treat for their performance um but they were very excited about sharing the different problem sizes um so what they did in their video is they just went through what the what we're teaching in class so what the windy sizes the Rainy stormy and our tornado [Music] different oh for chist sake I can send it to you it's adorable no no give me another second sorry this is my lack of Technology skills hi my name is Stephen hi my name is Jordan and today and we're a student from the go elementary school and we're going to talk to you about the um the levels of a problem yeah so the first level of problem is windy so windy is like a problem you know a small small problem something can easily fix on your like you don't need teacher you don't need anything something like yeah in a Wy problem sometimes like whenever like people are like maybe for an example like let's say that like let's like someone steals like your like an orange as a joke and then you go on to tell them them and then you can handle that you can just ask for them to give it back um that can also escalate to them at giving it back and so that oh sorry I'm going to I was going to try to share it with them minute it's a bit higher like let's say let's go back to if they take the orange they don't give it back you can try doing more strategies saying please give it back that I really want that orange and if you don't then I'll be forced that stuff like that not like a gous it's still something yeah um our next one's stormy that's a higher a little bit it's not extreme but it's a it's a not big problem a problem like sometimes sometimes it's fixable but other times you may have to tell yeah um and stormy to me it's kind of like when someone I I know it's similar to the orange but like let someone say like you're trying to play like with your soccer ball for an example they keep just taking it away from you and then laughing at you because they took it away and you can't get it back and stuff and then the last and the and then the last and the stest problem is tornado tornadoes like you're in danger like someone's going to hurt you going get jumped anything like that like if you're in mid danger then that's yeah and like it's kind of like when people like start like try to like want to fight because you they think you they because they always like escalate stuff that small little things like they end it up into like to fight or like St something and also and also tornado I'll get your principal assistant principal counselor anyone any really adult involved and that can also get led to some getting hurt HT calls suspension even exposion sometimes depending on how big it is and in conclusion of this in conclusion of this those are the four different levels of problem and that's it signing off signing off so in short the four problem sizes if you go to the next slide it it's windy rainy stormy and tornado so windy is a tiny problem a kid knows if I have a tiny problem and it's not tied to emotion and that's like the big piece I could be super sad about losing my elastic it can still be a tiny problem so working on a tiny problem I can solve on my own if I feel like I want to share it with my teacher it would be appropriate to share at recess it would be appropriate to share maybe after school but it's not something I need support on rainy is a small problem this is really where we focus specifically because this requires problem solving skills so when we talk about common language it's the teacher asking the student how big is this problem what is the size of this problem if it's a rainy problem you need to pull out your umbrella stormy the umbrella has swept away this the skill did not work so now I need to bring an adult tornado is I go straight to an adult and I think there's been opportunities at school this year unfortunately in our fourth grade class we lost a student and it was a great example to the kids that this is a tornado and it gave kids permission to say I don't need to have a problem solving skill for this because this is too big for me this so it gave them also permission to say okay adults you do your thing because this is too big and so it also helps in those situations where in a tornado you are just looking at the adult we don't expect you to solve this problem and we would hope that you would rely on us for this so um we Implement our schoolwide initiative through staff development through our our PGT meetings so that we can create common language also coaching and addressing students within the moment education and activities for students such as a classroom lessons small group support individual support involvement of care caregivers so we use Class Dojo as a school to communicate with families especially because it has a translation feature so we can share content that's covered in class through Class Dojo and also we encourage caregivers to use the common language at home as well our whole school V visuals we also use such as hallways hallway bulletin boards and also posters in the hallway classrooms and in offices such as Administration or counselor offices so the next slide well this is one of the examples of our bulletin boards that is in the hallway with our fourth and fifth graders and then on the next slide these are some smaller visuals that are bilingual that we have in classrooms and offices so for kindergarten and first grade imp implementation so I'm the kindergarten first grade counselor and just some background I'm adding in now um the last two years doing size of the problem with students in kindergarten first grade I've seen that when taking data just focusing on two problems smaller and bigger problems have been they've been more successful with so I really first teach the fundamental seal skills that they need so that we can lead into talk about problem solving then we focus on rainy problems and stormy problems so our first lesson about the problem sizes is how big is the problem we talk about how rainy problems is a problem where we can be a problem solver and a stormy problem is bigger and that's when we need to ask an adult for help then we talk about flexible thinking we'll get into problem solving tools and then we also talk about expected behaviors and unexpected behaviors so we can learn positive behavior choices and we also use common language such as bucket filler bucket Dipper so we're learning how to be kind to ourselves and others we use a tiered approach um when addressing throughout all um inflation ofal skills we us a shared approach but with the problem sizes we start with um grade level for all students to be able to access the curriculum of classroom lessons and then we identify students that will need small group support and individual supports for more T tier two and tier three students so for second and third grade we start to introduce more problem sizes um so this is what Miss D Filippo is working on with her second and third grade students and you'll see that this really starts to emphasize what skills can we develop so that we can start to solve these problems so in this moment what can I do when I have identified it's a rainy problem and a lot of our problems are rainy what is the expectation of myself that what can I pull outside of my toolbox to be able to utilize a tool or strategy to solve my own problem and the goal is is that in the few years by the time they get to fourth and fifth grade it's just they are used to it and it starts to take some pressure off of teachers and it starts to make us um have the opportunity to provide some more deeper um social emotional supports for students who need them so for fourth and fifth grade implementation is um very much talking about communication Styles so aggressive assertive and passive talking about types of conflict disagreement is not a problem disagreement is a disagreement so how do we disagree how do we hear both sides and keep it at that we talk about rude moments um bullying is a very big topic of conversations for students and families so really identifying what is bullying what is the difference between a mean moment when someone is being unkind and mean to you and what is the difference between bullying um and so this is where we can bring in feelings of mean is when you feel angry upset frustrated irritated bullying is when you feel scared so the feeling with bullying is scared and so it's just helping students and parents identify what is bullying and what is a mean moment and then the little um print out over there every time someone comes into my office I put that on the table and they have to identify what the size of the problem is now that we are in May if it is a rainy problem they exit um if they cannot give me a problem solving skill that they've already tried and I also encourage the teachers go try it what are you going to do go try it if it's unsuccessful come back and then again small group and individual support as well so we're also trying to collect data um on what are our students through our whole group lessons where are students um having challenges and it's really between the rainy and stormy problems I think we go to adults very quickly so we're really trying to identify what is rainy what is stormy what skills do I have to develop some sense of empowerment um so these are just two examples of data collection in nine of the 10 um fourth and fifth grade classrooms and so it's both open response to be able to identify can I give you an example of size of problem um and then what do I who do I go to if I have a stormy uh problem or a tornado and then just a survey and so a lot of our kids provided feedback um in their B lingual the surveys and the open responses um and 77% or above of our students were able to identify uh correctly what their problem sizes were we might not be using the skills yet but we can ident we can ident we can identify yeah um so another example of data collection that we've used with the kindergarten first grade students that were identified to participate in small group counseling sessions um they were asked a series of questions the first questions was if I need to ask an adult for help is problem rainy or stormy um the second question is if I need to try to solve the problem my own is the problem rainy or stormy so the students that were selected for the small groups for the kindergarten and first graders all were able to successfully respond that if a problem is stormy you need to ask an adult for help if the problem is rainy then you need to try to solve the problem on your own first then students were given scenarios um this was a little more abstract for my kindergarten first graders but they were we were using visuals a lot of the students were English languish Learners so we had um bilingual visuals up for them and it took a couple tries but for I tried to take dat on their first try and when they were given a scenario and asked if the problem was rainy or stormy then for kindergarteners um an average score for their um total accuracy of being able to correctly label the problem was 68% um my goal was to start small and I was hoping for more than 60% so we almost there and then for first graders they were able to respond to those scenarios with 77% accuracy and that's [Applause] it thank you I can also add oh miss miss Milbury Ellis sure I just had a quick question about the last slide was the breakdown where it said S1 S2 S3 were those individual classrooms so sorry those were individual students so um I I take that data as well during my classroom lessons in my observations but that was Data I specifically took for small um counseling groups which were students I identified to be taking like more TI 2 tier3 students okay I get it thank you thank you I just think it was very very easy to understand great with the four different Le patterns there I think it was excellent idea thank you love it I'm going to use it in cabinet talk to Kelly and I short of the cabinet we're going to use Cinema it's there's definitely a need right so it's like we're seeing you know the different behavioral issues that we're dealing with throughout the district so I think that this gives me hope to think that there's some solutions being offered to to get these these kids to understand you know problem solving at such an early age that will carry through you know into their into their um more senior grades and and throughout their life so this is good work thank you thank you so I'd like to add seeing that someone's not paying attention to me down here that's you um I am still in the kindergarten and first grade one um they started my son and his wife started doing the weather scenario with um my 5-year-olds and she has decided her sister is just the tornado all the time so we're going to cut I'm going to bring it down and cut it down to two so I learned a lot and I really appreciate the work that you put into this thank you all thank you next we have the guidance Department update Jesse Miss mon Roo uh so Ju Just for framing for our committee remember this is part two of that uh formative evaluation for the superintendent so I we printed extra copies of the notaker in case you didn't bring yours so if anyone would want one and then after this week I'll send a follow-up email on how I'll collect your valuations so that I can start to form that summary for us all to present to the superintendent next month so I know you got you have one I do okay anyone need an actual okay can you pass no worries we'll pass it down two yeah um so today's presentation is specifically for goal 5.1 which is about or uh goodness my words okay that's no that's all right you know what I was thinking it was going to be yes fine okay okay um thank you for that I just wanted to introduce uh Miss Diana Finn who's our director of guidance I think most of you have met her before um but if not she does a phenomenal job um coordinating with all of our guid counselors throughout the district but in particular up here at the high school and in addition to that she's uh overseeing all of the testing which as we discussed at previous meetings has become quite burdensome in the last few years where the number of students taking access and repeating mcast and all of that has uh really increased quite a bit um so without further Ado I'll introduce uh Mrs Finn to share some information with us thank you Dr Kelly so so today I'm going to focus this presentation on progress towards our district goals and guidance so we can go to the next slide Dian these are what you all have our district Improvement goals for counseling for this year um providing more robust internship opportunities for students increasing early college and dual enrollment participation and enrollment fostering a partnership with the voke for increased trade opportunities and increasing opportunities for students to to explore careers and future professions sorry for the grammar error there the next slide highlights our four external learning opportunities coordinators um so in addition to our 10 counselors at the high school within the student support structure um created this year we're proud to have these four professionals focus on specific parts of external learning to work towards these goals so our internship coord coordinator our early college coordinator our Career Development coordinator new this year and then our Early College academic counselor and some highlights regarding College and Career um progress this year um in comparison to other years we've taken a step further in trades and within career panels um we have had including one tomorrow we've had over 10 career and alumni panels this year 15 mini college career and trade fairs one is Thursday um in collaboration with the city um rather than one large 200 College college fair in the fall which is preco what we did we've broken it down so that the many college fairs there's one for all of the state schools there's one for specific Majors that our students have identified like business or education um there's a an arms Services Fair as well as a Trade Fair which we're extremely excited about so we've decided to tailor those um and those are open while Juniors and seniors are often the students that attend they are open to all students um we've had over 25 field trips to College and Career sites this year um we've partnered with minds matter and passport to college which work within the school day and outside of the school day with individual and small groups of students in preparation for making the decision for higher ed and one thing that they do and that we have modeled is the ability to help students with their financial aid um following the news this year financial aid has been all over the headlines because of the different platform that the federal government created this year and that colleges are working with um up through last week and even this week there are many seniors who are still undecided because their FAFSA has been needs to be corrected they're waiting for communication from higher ed um and so we're working with individual students and small groups of students we've presented in multiple languages to students as well as parents um during school and after school um and we are we're proud to be offering incentives through a grant provided through Desy I think yesterday we got the funds for that um to offer um some um rewards for students who have completed the FAFSA because we know looking at the data that when a student completes and submits the FAFSA they are much more likely to attend a college um and then lastly our plumbing class was a hit this year um we are working with the voke on our next steps whether that's an electrical class next year or a career exploratory so we are very excited about those opportunities one thing I did want to share one of my last slides is about students who are going off to two and foure schools and um how excited we are for them but we did um this year we uh one of the community members and business members um created a scholarship for a student going into a trade and when I reached out to counselors about who are your seniors that are going into trades typically I would get one or two responses I got 17 students who had concrete plans not just I want to be a plumber but has actual trade school um Union connection so obviously like one year of a plumbing program didn't do that but I do think it speaks to a shift in how we're advising students and not just pushing students to a two and four year school when maybe that's not their Niche so um I think the next slide's internship stay in yes so internships um we are back to our preco numbers which is up over 150 students enrolling in an internship this year um we have started an internship committee and have an internship handbook that has career standards and expectations for portfolios and presentations to make the program more robust um our internship coordinator has partnered with the Chamber of Commerce over the past year and a half or so to develop some more creative career centered um internships and while we have many students within our K to8 schools um we continue to look for Meaningful connections within the community outside of Education um and then we're proud this is our I think it's the fourth year since Co started that we um have the high school education grant through Desi where High School seniors are paid hourly to go out into the K to8 schools um and make some money while learning about education as well all right so early college and dual enrollment last year I came in here we were so excited to be awarded our early college partnership Grant with Northshore Community College and we were we had just recruited our first cohort of students and that cohort of students last week just finished their first um two college courses intro to higher ed and intro to speech here at the high school um and so for this first cohort they will be enrolled in 12 more credits next year cohort 2 which is current freshman so let me back up that first cohort right now they're finishing their sophomore year their junior year they'll take 12 credits cohort 2 those are ninth graders now um and so recruiting is about halfway done we recruit through first semester of sophomore year um to give students the opportunity to hear about it if they didn't hear about it from presentations and through um through their fresh advisory program our next steps are really to celebrate cohort 1 recruit cohort 2 and build out supports at the high school as well as Northshore to support students as they take higher level classes next year students are taking intro to comp and world history first semester so we know as the rigor of these courses amp up we have to also support students um as that happens and I did just want to highlight the cost saving for students who who commit to Early College just as an example if a student goes through um our program they can earn up to 30 college credits by the time they graduate if they go to Salem State that's almost $155,000 they have saved all of the courses that students will are enrolled in are part of the math transfer block and so all of our state schools and new masses will accept those credits in addition there are now new online tools where you can put in where a student takes a course what the course is and you can select the college for example we went through all of our courses and we picked Buu and so we put through other than our first course in trro to H highed all of the other courses were accepted at Boston University and so that's some of the kind of back and forth of working with faculty to understand the benefits of this and that it's not um that early college and AP can exist and be opportunities for all of our students and so early college is a cohort model students take these these courses from sophore through senior year dual enrollment Partnerships have been ongoing since 2010 our current partners are Salem State Bunker Hill Ben Franklin UMass LEL um I'd like to highlight two of those one is Salem State every semester we offer a Salem State course either here or at winr high school and students go there after hours um to take a course through with a Salem State Professor this is our first semester with UMass LEL where we have four four um Health Sciences courses intro to exercise science Nutrition public policy and intro to Pharmaceuticals that students can take over the course of Junior and Senior year one block during their day it is taught by a UMass LEL professor in collaboration with a Riv High School teacher so the two days they meet with the professor via it's like Zoom but it's called an owl in the middle of the room um and then the the high school teacher supplements with work and additional support on the off days in our next steps we're proud to be moving towards a partnership with Syracuse University this is the oldest dual enrollment partnership I'm sorry dual enrollment program in the country and it's similar to AP where a teacher goes to Syracuse and is trained for a week or two over the summer and then the teacher Rivier High School teacher has um meetings in contact with that professor at Syracuse throughout the year as they teach the course students can elect into taking the college course or they can not take the college course they can be um concurrently enrolled in the course at the same time so we're very excited about that I'm okay no I'm okay I'm good what I had next and so um these are some of our highlights we also I didn't include any of the UMass as or state schools just because they come they would be six pages long um minus Mass College of Liberal Liberal Arts Old North Adam state in the top left corner of the state we've um seniors have been accepted into all of our state schools two and four years um so extremely excited about the future of these students as well as those that are going into the arm Sur Services those that are going to work those that are going into the trades um and we're excited to keep in touch with those students and bring them back to talk about their experiences so um thank you so much I know right May bis sure thank you Diana um two questions one do we have an idea um generally I I I recognize that um list but do we have an idea of how many of our students are going on to college whether it's 2 or 4 Years or or trade so I don't have an exact number yet um I would say between 50 55% have a plan to go to a 2 to a fouryear school how trades work into that how the armed services work into that where we're unsure once we have those numbers we students report those to us in a student survey to their counselors and then after first semester of their freshman year we get a report through Edwin where we can say oh okay this student actually landed there and is taken courses and so that's that's that's really it's hard cuz they're out of our control but that's really the number that we're interested and increasing okay and then um my other question was what's the difference between the Early College coordinator and the Early College academic counselor so the Early College coordinator is a new Grant funded position um and they will be the liaison in the face of the program with Northshore very little um student facing the The Early College academic specialist is figuring out is working with the students through their advisories preparing them for to make a decision for college right now when students are sophomores and there are 60 of them she's working to figure out who can take AP stats with their in a 4x4 block with their early college classes how we can make that work what makes the most sense for a course progression a course sequence so Northshore has been um very collaborative in that and saying like we put together a proposal for this is our course sequence what are your thoughts they have thoughts about where we're going to have the course and do they have professors to teach a course things like that um did I answer your question okay yeah you did thank you and you know this is great because I I mean just from last year all the growth that we're seeing in the various Pathways is just impressive so thank you thanks good stuff Miss monteroso and then I'll go to uh amazing I love it all just a reminder for if you have any students who receive the Gates Millennium or the Hispanic scholarship fund scholarship I'm I'm an alumni of both and I know that can be tricky once you're already in college so I'm always happy to connect with any High School alum that we have to navigate both of those big scholarships I know if you're 25 or older community colleges are free now is's a plan for community colleges for recent graduates to be free soon what do you I mean I think that that's the way the the state is moving um we try and push as many of our students to take their intro level courses to save them that money so that then if they take intro to comp they don't need to place into a course they don't need to take that acup Placer as a barrier they can move right into advanced level classes so they're not taking remedial courses when they do go to the community colleges or to the four-year schools um I can't speak to the you know the the higher decisions but it seems like that's the that's the way that um the state is moving um we feel you we partner with Bunker Hill they have a high school scholarship that pays for tuition for one of one high school student who has the highest GPA going to Bunker Hill they've had that for many years I've kind have been waiting for them to add more to that more students to that um but nothing as of yet thank you yeah uh I can add more context on the legislative side so free community college for all was included in the Senate budget version but not the house budget and this is a top priority for Senate leadership so it looks like this is going to be something that probably moves into a conference committee as they look for a compromise only because of how tight the budget is so I think that's the other side of what that that decision could land into thank you thank you thank you very much for your update thank you great job okay next up we have hearings we have the school choice want to give us a rundown Miss gizzo gizzo no Dr Kelly you want to give um an update or yeah just just by way of explanation for the folks at home um each year the Department of Education requires the school committee in each municipality to vote on whether or not um they will allow students from other communities to attend school in their Community it's called school choice um and so you're required to take that vote prior to June 1st each year and um so that is the vote that you're going to take tonight and I would advise the committee um to not adopt um the state option for school choice because we just don't have room as you heard from some of our colleagues tonight we don't have room in our schools uh for our own kids from rier hopefully that's going to be alleviated soon with the construction of the new high school which we're all incredibly excited about um but in the meantime I would encourage the school committee to uh vote to not adopt uh the school choice provision with desie and so the other thing I want to highlight is especially for new members is this is kind of a backwards vote so um the motion which I'm sure Mr Kingston is going to read um says is a motion that the school committee vote to not adopt the state option for school choice which would allow residents from other communities to come previous schools but you're going to vote Yes if you agree with that it's a double so it's a double negative um the the city the other City pays for the students to come through here yes if a student from another Community attends school in a in any Community attends school in a different Community um the sending Community pays the the per pupal tuition for that student in the receiving Community what is that solution uh it varies by district for us our average per pupil is around 177,000 um this is a provision that helps a lot of districts that have declining enrollments uh and so they're seeing their funding go down our funding of course is tied to our enrollment the money that we get from the state so a lot of communities when they're seeing dwindling enrollment will accept students from other communities in order to boost their budget um and prevent issues but we don't find ourselves in that situation right now thank you you have a motion on the floor I can I can make it or you want to make it I sorry that the school committee vote not to adopt iying to read before I was reading that the school committee vote not to adopt the state option for school choice which would allow non-residents to attend the r public schools to clarify a yes vote would indicate the school committee has voted not to accept not to participate in school choice second SEC we have a second before we go into that this is being a public hearing we would like to open up the floor to any uh proponents any proponents in the audience hearing seeing none we'll close that side of the hearing any oppon any opponents any opponents hearing seeing none we'll close that side of the hearing any discussion no all roll call please Mrs bronston Rizzo yes Mr cajano yes Mr Kingston yes Mr Mata yes Mrs milberry Ellis yes Miss monteroso yes mayor Keef yes thank you that is all we have for hearings correct okay next we have the reports of the subcommittees we have the ways and means subcommittee report Mr Kingston a ways and mean a W and mean subcommittee meeting was called to order on Thursday May 2nd 2024 at 4:00 in the fan school committee room members present were Mr John Kingston chair Mr Anthony cajano and Mr Anthony Mata Miss Stacy Bronson Rizzo was also present we discussed the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget version two the budget was discussed with the possible def deficit until all General leder accounts were studied for savings during the 2023 2024 school year Riv Public Schools Chief Financial officer Mr Matt Cruz provided an overview of the entire budget in the need for another meeting in June to finalize the numbers for the full committee which would be required in June Dr Kelly provided a list of new positions Mrs Joanne leet SBA principal was present at the meeting to discuss the need for additional teachers for Middle School honors and discussed at length the scheduling issues with implementing the honors program 12 new teachers will be needed Across The District 12 new teachers will be needed across the district at the middle school level Mr Mata brought up coaches teaching at least one class to help with Staffing Dr Kelly said this would be a change of work and would require contract language funding for the fourth student SRO position was also discussed with the subcommittee leaving the position in the budget this is the minutes for the meeting of the subcommittee ways I mean subcommittee thank you thank you for your update Mr Kingston AC motion motion to accept those minutes as read y do we have a second second all in favor I okay thank you next we have uh motions Mr Kingston would you like to read the um really rather not but I will well I we may have some good we may have some good news when it comes to the uh future of the U school building uh invoices that can go probably directly to the council tell us well good Dr Kelly I I believe we uh by City Charter and by by our rules uh governing they don't have to go through both the school committee and then into the finance department at City Hall so we could probably exclude the school committee if you wish unless you want to really do this every time exactly so no sir if everyone's if everyone's amendable to that we won't have to put present these in front of the school committee uh any longer and and I'll just add that we did ask um solicitor capy to look into that and he said that there's nothing in the or ordinance um that requires a school committee vote this these these bills right now that we're paying are is school committee funds so you do have to vote these ones okay um after next month so next month there'll probably be some bills as well and after that the funding will be coming through the new funding agreement with the city and because that's not school department money you don't have to vote it and I don't know if Mrs Rizzo has any history on how I know that or even kle maybe he does I know that um for as long back as I've been part of the superintendent's office even when I was assistant superintendent the school committee has always voted all of the bills from the building committee and we can we this came up as something that was delaying the actual processing of the payment from City Hall to the vendors because um often a school building committee meeting would occur and there would be a vote to pay those bills but then the next school committee might not be till 3 weeks later and so we would have to wait for th that vote 3 weeks later and then things would go to City Hall and the usual week or two would take for something to get paid and we were talking about um how to expedite that process and that's how this conversation came up about why is the school committee voting on City funds and um we asked Mr capes to look into that and he said that he see he finds nothing that that means it has to happen and perhaps for political reasons it was a practice that was implemented in the past that we no longer need to adhere to I would just say we've always done it and we've questioned it because after this point it belongs to the city um and a former um attorney Council that represented us said we were supposed to do it um and even though we questioned it we just went along with it so yes it's music to my ears thank you could I could we just be kept informed for informational purposes as to the amount because I I am interested in the amount that that has to do with the schools that the city is providing to us so that was also discussed uh Miss uh Milbury Ellis is providing e even if it's quarterly or bonly updates on not just the progress but also the expenditures and we will over the over the period of time continue to have the school building committee meetings but update the school committee on the expenses that have been and the city council and the city council of course so this is going to be a standard process great great and actually if I can add one more thing there we did task our OPM with putting a calendar together of when even those meetings would be so the school committee will know when they can expect updates um across the length of the project okay great thank you thank you Mr Kingston thank you motion to encom 21,000 for invoice number 38 for left field LLC for March 2024 Professional Services so moved second roll call Mrs bronston Rizzo yes Mr cajano yes Mr Kingston yes Mr Mata yes Mrs milberry ell Miss monteroso yes mayor Keef yes motion to approve payment in the amount of 21,000 for invoice number 38 for left field LLC for March 224 Professional Services so moved second Mrs brunston Rizzo yes Mr cajano yes Mr Kingston yes Mr Mata Mrs milberry Ellis Miss monteroso mayor Keef yes motion to approved payment in the amount of 83,7 120 for invoice number 8797 7.0.0 d37 for peram eent architect DPC from March 24 March 202 for Professional Services so moved second Mrs bronston Rizzo yes Mr cajano yes Mr Kingston yes Mr Mata yes Mrs milberry Ellis Miss monteroso yes mayor Keith yes motion to uncom $836 720 for invoice number 87970 . z00.0 d37 for Perman Eastman architect DPC for March 24 Professional Services so moved second Mrs bronston Rizzo yes Mr cajano yes Mr Kingston yes Mr Mata yes Mrs Milbury Ellis Miss monteroso mayor Keef yes motion to unumb $2,440 for invoice number 15 for consigli construction company for March 2024 preconstruction services so moved second Mrs bronston Rizzo yes Mr cajano yes Mr Kingston yes Mr Mata yes Mrs Milbury Ellis Miss monteroso yes mayor Keef yes motion to approve payment in the amount of $2,440 for invoice number 15 for conly construction company for March 224 2024 pre-construction services so moved second Mrs bronston Rizzo yes Mr cajano yes Mr Kingston Mr Mata Mrs Milbury Ellis Miss monteroso yes mayor Keef yes motion by Mr cajano and that the school committee prioritize the expansion of the high school's collaboration with the Northeast vocational technical school and the fy2 budget second discussion please please um we know this is important we know our students really enjoyed having this um this past year we know we need to um gain more career technology um placements for our students but they also want to remind everyone as much as this is a great priority um we also heard how we have a shortage of nurses and we're supposed to be one one to every 500 by the state so I would also say that is also a strong priority here um I'm sure there's many priorities but we need to keep in mind when we're talking about safety we're talking about our students Wellness um and just every day today lives um let's not forget the priority of our nurses thank you Mr Kon thank you Mr chair uh I'm all in favor of this project when I first got elected in 2020 I had my first eye opener after the admissions process how many kids were on the waiting list it was amazing so that summer I sat down with the superintendent we had many meetings and I basically said we can't go through this we need a plan and so this this was about a year a year and a half in the making to have the plumbing program so it has gone very very well I sat down with the committee two weeks ago and they approved another an additional program if we you know if we very wants it it got so so much attention within the committee now all 11 communities want the same thing we have so it's a it's a great program and I want to thank Mr Mayor for giving everybody summer jobs so we can you know show these people what you know show everybody what they learned thank you thank you Mr kajan anyone else yeah I I would just briefly add that we all recognize the importance of of the trades and and it's in that same um breath that I would say that you know we also recognize Our obligation to teach students um in the way in which they deserve to be te taught and I think that goes hand inand that there are students that are definitely more um you know agreeable to to learning a trade than they are academically inclined and that is very much our priority and I think our responsibility as well to provide those opportunities so I I'm grateful that the plumbing program was as successful as it was and I fully support you know any and all trades that we we can establish in the school I mean uh Mr kiano said the the weight list I think of the applications from Rivier students not necess you know not necessarily um you know for an interest in trades but but clearly it's there was over 300 I mean it's just crazy so this is 360 okay so this is all good stuff that's all I'm just voicing my support for it may I I just as much expansion that we can to this program I'd like to see whether it be adding electrical whether it be adding more to the plumbing but the more the better because kids are not going to just go to college they need something and if sooner they get the experience or at least that bug that being in high school the better so that they can pursue it in the future thank you Mr kiano your hard work Mr Mata don't forget to turn on your microphone so that the public can also hear you so I I don't know if everybody heard uh when Mrs Finn gave her presentation because she kind of went through it quickly but we've already had conversation with um Mr debarry at the voke and with his team about an expansion for next school year and what we're trying to figure out now is based on his resources whether that's going to be an electrical an option for an electrical elective or if it's going to be um one of the things they had suggested was that we do a survey of disciplines where the kids might do one quarter of Plumbing one quarter of electrical one quarter of HVAC um and one quarter of um I don't know somebody helped me out another trade centry maybe um and that would be in addition to continuing the first year Plumbing program that we offered this year so we're definitely all fully invested in expanding um that program and I know Mrs Finn is um working with kids to identify their interest levels and telling them that we're not exactly sure what the course is going to be yet but let us know if you're interested in either one of these and and we'll go from there it might be a good time for us to um give up this room cuz you might need the space for it and I think we should really consider that going up to the city hall Chambers for our meetings so that way the students can utilize this space thank you okay unfinished business Mr Kingston oh sorry we didn't do a roll call on the motion oh on the motion can we do a roll call do we need to repeat the motion all in favor opposed so ordered okay okay unfinished business um on the grading practices um my understanding is that the I brought this up before and um but I want to bring it up again because I don't think we fully addressed it um basically at the high school um some teachers were told to um increase um the student scores by 50 by a point by 50 to um help them if they've failed or had issues um what I would like to see is that um that the practice will continue through the rest of the year I'm sure I I'm not questioning that what I would like to see is that go to the policy committee the policy committee work on that um and then bring it to the full school committee for us to vote we never voted on that um policy that grading practice grading policy um and I'd like to see um again the policy committee work on it and I'd like to see the school committee vote on it thank you so I I I think one of the things that we have to work on in our Retreats is what is school committee policy and what is a practice that we use in the schools um so the decision about having a minimum score of 50 actually came from teachers who were frustrated when kids would have such a low average that there was no hope of their recovery and their grade was so low that they became a nuisance in the classroom for the remainder of the semester or the remainder of the year and teams of teachers that did not include me got together and developed the grading practices that are now implemented there was one team for lower elementary one for Upper Elementary one for middle school and one for high school um and I believe that that decision belongs with that group and it's not the kind of policy that a school committee should be deciding anyone Mr K oh no good mellis yeah yeah I would I I mean I'd have to give that some more thought if this is a policy that affects the grading system then it's clearly within the school committee's purview school committee has say over the grading policies of a district if if get no no okay then we just disagree fundamentally on that and I'm sure that we could get an opinion as to that but I can tell you right now it's definitely within our purview thank you well I I think that you know Mr Kingston's request to put in front of policies and procedur subcommittee is is was worthy it can be discussed and that's where it should be discussed just one thing I just wanted to add is Mr K I heard about it but I really didn't know about it so whether it's not purview or not shouldn't we had any like heads up or discussion or email saying this is what we're doing it's been in place for about eight years oh we've been doing this for eight years yeah just everybody maybe longer I'm not sure so everybody gets a 50 is what you were saying Danielle do you want to speak to it um there is a a minimum so if a student has a 38 that is brought up to a 50 to make it mathematically possible for a child to pass over a given semester but a 50 is not passing so they have to counterbalance that in order to pass okay thank you so you saying a 38 get bumped up to a 50 and then they have to raise that 50 to pass yeah is is there such thing as is is there such thing as a a student having a zero getting bumped up to a 50 like does every student start at 50 no so there H there's and it's based on assignments and averages so and this has been a topic that we have discussed at length at the high school in their grading practices um this year uh in addition to when it started eight years ago so you're probably hearing about it because we did discuss it uh that team at the grading practice has discussed it this year as uh a policy that they wanted to talk about more in as their grading evolves over the course of the next few years that's like everyone gets a trophy Chang I think we need more information about about the practice and um in preparation for our subcommittee meeting thank Mr Kenna no I just wanted to uh I wanted to talk about something else in unfinished business or are we through with this sure we good I was just wondering what's the status on the uh the portable trailers um portable classrooms um I believe they they um offered to a design firm they have a design firm on board who's currently working on the design and as soon as that's done it'll go out to bid for a contractor to um actually do the construction K anything I'm missing there they H the city's architect yeah thank you any other unfished business any new business no new business no executive session we have a motion to adjourn so move moved we have a second second call in favor all in favor I order --------- good evening call to order of the um Monday I'm sorry Committee of the whole meeting meeting for the school committee May 21st 2024 will all rise and States na indivisible C would you call sure Mrs Bronson Rizzo here Mr K here Mr Kingston here Mr Mata here Mrs milber Ellis pres Mrs mon Roa present mayor Keith here okay minutes no questions on the minutes questions second don't need all in favor lawren attached any questions on the lawren I do Mr K on page one number 38 I wish doc would see do talk more it be funny but I was just curious Dr gcia had a big one typically you'll see those come in smaller but those are for events that he's doing with the community after hours whenever possible we have food services set up and cater those and then they bill us here so you'll see the payments here okay thank you and I I'll just add that it was more of a joke than I know it's in Lorenzo's name but we all use that one account no I'm sure yeah I was just if I apologize because we kid in on one day about sering lunch and I saw that and I said oh we must have taken us up on out thank you sorry any other questions on the war on the financial other the warrs okay so we had we just on finances will have a ways and means committee meeting at the very start of June M and then all else equal that will flow into a budget vote that happens at the next school committee meeting so um Matt since you mentioned that now I guess I'll open it up to the committee uh the budget hearing is on the third right Budget on the third committee uh the next W and me meeting is the third third the it's the first it's the first Monday I believe that's the third you're right Mr Mayor I apologize the third yes sir um so me I would just say that um Dr Kelly is presenting in front of the Council on the 10th um for the school budget which that's their they're doing their budget hearings all week but the budget will not be finalized by it won't be approved by the school committee by then so I wasn't sure if the school committee wanted to do a special meeting or an additional budget meeting try to get it approved before the 10th if not you know she's going to be presenting a potential budget I believe we should I mean other than that we'd be approving a budget after it was already approved by the council and it's that's what happened last time yeah do a special meeting that's we have reason being is we would have to advertise it in the paper starting Friday just to make sure we have the two weeks notice in advance okay which you know if if everyone's anable to a date that's where if we can get another date in line on that week that week of the third that would probably be beneficial obviously we have graduation the fifth so it's not okay could we have it the third the second have keep the four that's already stated typically what we have now is that final ways in means meeting is a final look at everything to say yes this is the budget that we want to put before this the entire committee what what time is that wave the means committee meeting right now four o' it's at four o'clock I'm just thinking another meeting that week left because graduation we have it right after that ways a means committee meeting if you trust way the needs committee to present you uh I think so the only the only thing is we would have we have to post it because it has to be a budget hearing right so um the journal are the journal is done right we can't get in the journal this week and The Advocate when is the deadline oh so we can get we can get the advocate this week and we only have to advertise in one correct okay so you could do this week and then next week for the journal so that gives us the two you wouldn't have to so we could advertise in The Advocate on the 24th and the 31st and then have the meeting on third right you'd have to give me a little bit of time between the meetings could we do the to move to you know we could do the fourth the next day and we could do it just on Zoom I don't know that we all have to be person if we could do it on Zoom then I could do another day but that week is going to be crazy the third the fifth was on the 5ifth and the 7th a graduation yeah the the real work is the four o'clock meeting on the 3 we'll look at it it'll be balanced any other tweaks we have to make that's what I will be presenting to be voted but you need some time to move from that conversation to so now here's here's what you're actually voting on yeah and we want to do this carefully I don't want you to feel like we're waiting for you on the other room for you to wrap it all up well let me ask you this if we did do the final meeting on the third could the ways and means subcommittee meet before that or do you still need uh we could meet before that the only thing we're waiting we want to get through this next this first conversation um that happens in a couple of nights and make sure there's no surprises there and then move forward into that but we don't have to wait until till June 3rd to do that meeting the subcomittee what first conversation do you mean you want to get through what first conversation collective bargaining conversation oh with the teachers yeah which the one that's this Thursday right we were we we we scheduled this meeting after that just so that the that team felt good about moving through that first conversation at least the first one could Mr kinginger the chair of that committee could you all meet on the 30th that Thursday before I can meet anytime yeah we have the scholarship awards at 5:30 if we could maybe do something before that yes3 um sure this would just be subc committing yeah yeah I guess so so if we met on the 30th going to the scholarship so I mean half an hour maybe yeah if we met for half hour on Thursday 5:00 4:30 whatever and I'm showing up with version 3.0 of balance budget and we're just reviewing it then on the Friday morning I can turn that document around to the committee and to Robin for posting vot on for the for a Monday Monday Zoom so Matt if you if we only need like half an hour do you want to say like 4:45 that way we can all go right to the awards at 5:30 and not be start standing around yeah yeah that's fine whatever I didn't know how long it would take so may3 at 4:45 yeah and then Friday no it's a Thursday so then we'll have Robin post that there's plenty of time for that and then we'll have her change the meeting on the 3 to get posted we can post it today we don't have to wait can we do zoom in and person because I'll definitely be physically here I'd rather be in person I like zo yeah I don't yeah is that all right with know as long certain parts I can't vote on so we need a full it can be a hybrid meeting that's and we're just just have to have the presence one way or another yes you're talking about sorry you're talking about for the actual vote of the budget or are you talking about the subcommittee meeting actual vote of the budget on the third on the third what time you plan on the third whatever they had scheduled already series or we can do later would you be available later I mean during like business hours would be that would be best yeah but whatever I mean I'm not going to be the only one that's I won't come at 4 I'm going to go to the flag raising that was already posted in supporting them yeah what I was going to say can we do 5:30 or we can leave it at for whatever whatever works for everybody everybody I think you all need to be present for the budget because only some of you can vote on certain sections the third yeah the third is that the day of the flag raising yep the flag raising at what time also at 4 so we were going to do this at at at 4: so that's how long is the flag raising an hour do at 3 or 5:30 I mean we do it at 3 no can can everyone do three on the fourth on the third sorry third can June 3D 3 o' I guess yes okay say yes maam okay Library we can do the school committee this is the point of these meetings this is great we can all this is good thank you for your uh thanks for everyone's cooperation and that makes me feel better that it'll be voted before I'm going up to city council I apologize One More you'll have a final document in that's already the hearing for folks for anyone who wants to do public comment that's for the third or for the subcommittee that is going to be on the third okay so yeah it's good to have it in person for anyone who great and the subcommittee would be May 30th 30th 445 get all that Rob very goodes on fin reports Mr Cruz oh that's the most important thing that happened to June so let's do it right all right yes great okay service no one second yeah I we had asked about you were going to have some numbers for us I thought for um like left we talked at the last budget meeting we were going to talk about what was like left over the carryover yeah we we you still no it's fine I just guess at plan for the sub committee at the June 3rd subcommittee meeting okay we were going to run the numbers through May okay so now I'll be able to run the numbers through most most of May yeah and bring that May 30 okay no okay just asking yeah we have uh we're working on cut off dates for requisitions being received so we'll know you know there's no more incoming requisitions thank you and then at the school committee meeting in June the balloon payroll will have hit so we'll have a much tighter beat on that but we'll present that the way thank thank you thank you so Food Service financials there are none Communications looks like we have one disposal of a damaged piano so this is you'll all recall that we had um the water damage at the Garfield School in the stage area uh and at that time the piano was soaked I don't know how I'll say it uh we've had people look at it um it's not repairable and so they want to get rid of it and um yep no just leave it there okay um can I ask you about about that I know that they was like they were file a claim and there was water damage do do we like move forward with that they did yeah and I can ask kle exactly what the details were of what they got for the claim but I know that they filed in I'm if they covered like any like mold remediation or anything it should have covered all of it and the rug replacement the um wood on the stage was replaced it should cover this piano too and the piano yes yeah minus the deductible one sure yeah okay enrollment update we do not have one personel so new High and resignations um so just a couple of things that I want to point out there um one is that um assistant principal of the high school um theoren Santos has resigned and um Caitlyn and Chris without doing a huge search decided that they wanted to put um C Pinsky into that job so you'll recall that he's a he had been a prin an assistant principal up here before he became principal of the Garfield and then um he was here temporarily this year on an interim basis and now they're moving him into that permanent position um so I just wanted to mention that one um we started the process of interviews for the Early Childhood director um and then I realized we never sent it out internal which is our practice uh to do so I did send that out to folks yesterday and asked if they knew of anybody who was interested just to make sure that we did the full complete search um and if anybody emerges from that process we may do more interviews um so I should have an update on that next time that we meet I have a silly question what's Loa leave Miss Harvey's retiring that's sad I thought there was another teacher I'm not gonna say her name because if she's there's a teacher retiring my son happens to have said this is your last year there were a couple retirements on last month's okay notice so that person might have been particular one I didn't see you know what I'm talking about you couldn't talk she's been around for a long time she wrote A Few books for me she announced her retirement in January like but I don't know if as soon as we get the notice of retirement yeah I just okay that's well was Miss yes get high regarding the Kei household that's right because she has to deal with my Edge okay the um acceptance of donations and gifts we don't have any this month field trips nothing to report regular meeting agenda items M okay it just is there a reason of moving the July one uh yeah that's the next item it's the superintendent what is it it's the um Paul Andrews superintendent executive Institute down the cape so we're not available that week okay I'll I'll be away on the 23rd so I we'll skip that one uh so then while we're on that these are just the meetings for the remainder so they're all on the third Tuesday as usual except for July which is which we just discussed but everything else is standard we don't have any holidays intervening during those that cover the of year July 23 we go up yeah because do we want to detain the time third please no I manage probably won't be much to talk about do we want to skip no no keep it oh if there's nothing to go over I thought you had to have something you don't have to um but there's always work to be done true it's quiet time so you can get other things done John you and I will do it all don't worry no I just if two members can't make it that's a lot to start and if someone's sick or something that week then you're down to three you just surviving in the cor you especially when you know something ahead of time two months ahead of time if somebody wants to entertain the ninth or whatever it's just the time anyone has change a little break a little well in order to cancel it would have to be a majority vote so it's yeah I think it's good you have to make sure you on the same page I think like Miss Bron and Roo said it's good to have it in case this is the time when if people want to talk about like changes they want to make instead of having to sustain the agendas we have throughout the school year I think it's good if people want to bring up things study things and all that good point and then we can always end early if there's nothing on the agenda if not the meeting's longer on August right exactly good speaking let's balance it out so if everyone's okay with it then we'll accept it when we accept the consent calendar in a little bit 23rd it is Robin will send out new invites for that right so um discussion items tonight we have the cell phone policy and the district attendance and Grading practices any updates on that those were items put forward by members I'd like to talk about a cell phone policy oh yes that yours cell phones have leave the classroom period and the conversation they are too disruptive way too disruptive these kids have had cell phones since they were three years old there's so much information going through these machines that it's almost impossible for them not to look at them if they have them on their person and there goes the classroom teachers have to put out fires they to talk with the kids it completely wrecks everything and if anyone is in disagreement think twice because I'm being very very realistic here I'm in tune with a lot of Middle School teachers I taught Middle School when I left it wasn't bad I never had a problem because I took the damn thing away from him and I brought him to the principal and that was that and I made sure that they didn't use him in the classroom there's too many teachers that are you know TCH feely with the kids and and and and don't want to hurt their feelings and won't take them away but they have to leave the classroom and this is an administrative decision of course the Mandate have to has to come from up above there has to be an assembly in the auditorium the law has to be laid down the consequences have to be laid down the state is going to do this is going to mandate this anyway within the next few years so we might as well be ahead of the curve do the teachers a favor and get them out of the classroom the question is how you can lock them in the teachers desk when the kids come in you can have a shoe tree in the front of the room that the kids put them in get them back five minutes before the end of the class and then look at it if you need to look at it five minutes before the end of the class you take it to the next class same thing but they have to get out of the classroom so what I with um I feel like we've been doing pretty well at the middle school level they actually report that the cell phones have been put away at that level um The Challenge remains for us at the high school yeah I agree and um I spoke with one of the high school members couple weeks ago we me just to brainstorm around this issue and one of the things that we were talking about and he actually did some research on this which was great um but we were talking about trying to enter some kind of a contract with parents and families um they can because the kids are on their cell phone plans they can shut their phones down except to call 911 or call their parent if their parent is their emergency contact and the kid doesn't have access to the internet they don't have access to their Snapchat and their Instagram and all of the social media that is so distracting to them they're not able to text with each other um the the parental controls on the plan can go in and give them that control over the between like certain hours between certain hours yeah and they still if there was Emer from what I understand and I don't know enough about this because I don't have kids on social media but um they would still from what I understand they would still have access if there was an emergency to call but other than that they can't use their cell phone between like whatever time school starts and whatever time school ends or maybe there's a gap in the middle when they have the lunch period that it's opened up I don't know how easy that is to reset or whatever but we were thinking about maybe trying to do some kind of a parent contract where parents would sign up and agree to do this um and that that would help us in school not have so many phones in the classroom like um Mr Mata was just talking about yeah but if parents aren't going to take a vested interest in their child's education they sure as hell not going to take a vested interest in their cell phone use was going to say what happen if if the parents don't comply or they have their own plan you know they have the plan but they decide not they won do it I mean that's I know in Wakefield and they got a grant I think it was the uh Elementary or the uh Wakefield High School where they got the locks when they first come in the Yonder pouches okay very expensive I could only imagine they're not super expensive the challenges but the challenges they're easy to break out of and so the kids just cut the bottom of them and take their phones back out and what other just what other schools have found is that they more often do that not just to break in and get their phone but because at the end of the day they have to queue up and scan their pouch in order to get the phone out and the kids don't want to wait in line for the scanner to get their phones out so they end up just leaving with the pouch and cutting it and that's a challenge but um so I'm going to say to Mr maera Mr Casiano who wasn't here last year we tried going this route um there was many for putting this away and to rest and not to have cell phones and I will say it's not just the students I see just as many adults on their cell phones that yeah oh c no way no it's good for one it's good for the other but it is it happens um and we had a handful of parents and students from the high school that came with backlash about not doing it um and I apologize I usually fight to the end and at this point I just said I'm done no I can't I can't be done it's too much of a distraction too much of a disruption within the classroom I agree wholeheartedly with you I mean the we didn't have the support on the school Comm to do it so we didn't passed a cell phone we it we have a cell phone policy it's a zero it's a zero cell phone policy meaning that they have to be put away they should never be taken out and if they're seen with their cell phone out it's to be addressed like right there on the spot I think the issue is coming with enforcement and like you know Miss Bronson Rell said if we have adults that are on their cell phones as well then first and the second but it's enforcement we have a policy so like last year we went through this it was it was a bit of a process it was and I think it was well intended and again we did adopt policy I think we all knew that it was as after the school year started or right as it it was a policy that was already in place we just moved it into the correct section under students but it was the same policy that we had what we wanted to try to do was a first second and a third level where at the third level you take that phone away that student we the just not being enforced that's the whole that's maybe for the next meeting we can ask you know because this is probably more of a dealing the high school has certainly the elementary school I think kids have a little more fear and understanding Elementary not isue and i' say I agree with the middle school I ask I I mean I do ask around it doesn't seem to be Middle School teachers it is at the middle school level from what I hear teachers are tell me maybe some principals or some administrators from the high school in schools that we feel that need let's get to them information from next meeting and see where they where the policy is if it's helped if it's gotten better I mean I know it's gotten a little bit better but it's certainly not where we want it to be and what we need to do to be prepared for September of 2024 yeah we like m m said we've passed it the problem is the implementation and enforcement at the high school right what is our I know it's difficult but it is a policy that our Administration in principle really has to enforce and if it's not being enforced on teachers what is the expectation for students as well so we because we do have the students walking around with their phones we all know it's there so the problem is what does implementation look like after the committee has passed the policy now it's been passed on to the school yeah and I I think as we think about what does it look like we have to be mindful of it's going to look different in this building with 2200 students than it is in another school that might have 600 kids those are those need two different kinds of solutions because it's a different scale of a problem um I do think that some parents would embrace the idea of taking that pledge the no cell phone during the school day pledge I'm down for anything I think I think any attempt to do it that's going to solve it I mean other responsible parents that will probably not let they can't any exactly that's say still do it but um it's a start it is a start and I and I and I think part of the challenge for the staff at the high school is um which Hill do you want to die on you know what I mean are we going to come to the point that we're suspending kids for being on cell phones when we're trying desperately to improve the attendance and and get kids here in the first place like how do those conflicting priorities um come together but no one used the word suspension no I know but But but so she's saying they have to choose their battles and and and I'm also saying when you have a 15 or 16 year old who's been told three times to stay off their phone and who knows what's happening in their life and now you go to take it from them there's going to be a fight and whether it's inappropriate words or hands thrown or whatever and then that results in a suspension right so that's the challenge that I think people are trying to navigate that's crazy that's like okay so so students kids children they're still children are really calling the shots because they know that this is the right is is that teachers don't want to deal with the aftermath they don't want to have to deal with the fact that if they take away their cell phone they can act out and so we're letting them we're letting the kids dictate run this run run this run this place and dictate what's allowable and what's not and then one of things I think we should do is have periodic when we have teacher parents conference or everything we you know we talk about the self policy again each and every time that we have parents available or have special meetings at the beginning of the year we should talk about self policy meetings I mean you know as far as our procedures go and uh one of the other things too is was brought to my attention is a lot of kids are just calling their parents say I'm not feeling good and don't even go to the nurse and that's I heard some issues about that too at the high school or where no the uh Elementary if the parent if the phones are taken away and the kids can only get it back if their parents or an adult at home comes to get it and that could sty it somewhat that's what we're doing because now you're you're you're disrupting the parents lives and they're going to have to come down on the kid and say you know what the ex com going on here with you I don't want to have to keep on coming to the school to bail you and get your phone for you and that was number two after number one and then third you have to drop it off but we had um and this was at a middle school last year of a parent that didn't want to be bothered to come pick up this phone and started trouble that way too it you have to stand up we have three months to figure out some more options better you continuous Improvement I can ask the um principals to come to the committee of the whole meeting for June that works and we can talk about it there great yeah for me it's important to hear from our our high school principal does he feel this is being implemented by his assistant principles by the teachers what's the disconnect between the policy being passed and students still using the phone and if he needs more support whether whatever that can look like whether it's like contracts or other ideas or reminding people of it I think we it would be good to have him here to have that conversation maybe they can present the plan to us and maybe include some teachers as well yeah because I mean it's the teachers who were feeling obviously that they um they're the ones being affected they don't and and they don't and they're not addressing issues that come up or they're choosing which issues they address and so but when we did have the Mee then the only teachers that came were the ones that were all for the phones in the classroom for some some of what did he need phone for using the timer he was using the timer in his classroom a for Christ Sak names out though it's not timers it's coding it's data it's software things but that's not the point of the conversation the point is if we're asking people to create a plan and present that's different from asking people to come to an optional voluntary Community night so maybe we'll have a different turnout if we plan A presid yeah well and that's what I was going to say I can't put on principles to put a presentation together between now and June 17th when they are literally just trying to get through the school year with all of the different events that we have going on I'd rather come and all have a discussion together we if we can have a discussion and and teachers and principls can give some input input as to what they think would be helpful yeah you know so could they be some type of survey to the teachers and the principles also with um a few you know whether there's suggestions whether they have how do they monitor in the class room yeah what we can do is just ask anybody who's not able to come to the meeting to complete a survey if they have any input to to give it and can put some guiding questions on there okay great um could you share that before are you making it are we making it I guess I'm making it right okay could you share it with us I can help you as V just craft it up and then we can share with everyone before it goes out sure but keep in mind that the teachers have 10 school days left yeah right 5 10 no 15 school days left you fin what trying to do with for them I know I know but I'm just saying that time is of the essence so yeah I don't think you need to I don't need to see it just just get it out something that says to offers them to provide us with some feack yeah I'll let them know that that's going to be the plan for the November meeting which is on the sorry the June November I don't know what's matter with my summer we get Thanksgiving please don't please don't BR back into the win one warm day one warm day it's over get some and then Tony surveys are hard to engage people in but maybe at the next staff meeting just give them joh has red to fill it out already have another so we'll just start with that Round Table conversation with our principles so that we can spend the summer making a plan with them so that we can fix this whether it's implementation or something else or we need a stricter policy we can figure it out together over the summer so that we start this school year fresh but Tony's right because even when we were exploring this last year the state was already talking about it like this is an issue everywhere so we don't need to sit back and wait for anyone to do anything we can we should be doing what whatever we need to do and if it's a combination of things then it's a combination going back to what Mr kajo said about Wakefield Dy now has a specific Grant to give District's funding just for cell phone policies or Yonder C or whatever because they understand this so this school year was the first time they kicked off that Grant so even the state is giving funding to help districts because they know how bad this is you know what I know um W's been very successful with the um five schools that they're doing right now with the Y PES with beond pouches and um I want to say it was PB great but P book's also smaller yeah even question W district is not small but the schools that they have the Y graduation and one more question on when we did the new cell policy did we send uh policy out to the parents and everything just and we had it translated as well in different languages so that okay okay and then the tendance and Grading policies that's me on the district attendance I know it gets reported to desie I understand that but I'm more worried about periodic attendance where a student scans in in the morning but then doesn't go to all his classes and kind of wanted the building um that's my concern I'm sure we you know if we wanted to figure it out we can but that's my concern the attendance isn't that great to begin with and then if they're not going on a class after that they off program they get in trouble for that so they're notified we had a well as far as happens say um a retired teacher reached out to me and said that his neighbor went to Columbia for a month it was three weeks before February vacation vacation he didn't see the family for a month was concerned about them saw the kid you know a couple days after they came back and said hey where you been he says oh the family we went to Columbia for a vacation so the first question I asked the person calling me was did you know was it a death in the family something like that no strictly a vacation so he missed 15 days days of school and when this is a retired teacher said to him you know didn't you get in trouble with school or something and he said no I just said you know I had to make up some work that was about it I mean so the teach retire teachers called me and saying you guys are allowing people to miss 15 days of school and there's no this kid is bad an ey and he's I guess he's a good kid his family you know good family whatever that's with the neor I I don't know you know again that's the phone call and I didn't know what to say yeah and this is some of the work that we've been doing over the last 10 years along with um you know the detracking in that of really trying to grade kids based on what they know know when they're able to do and not not grade them or um punish them based on Norms that some people have set so one of some of the work we've been doing with teachers is if a kid can be in your class and Miss 15 days then the rigor in that class is not where it should be because those kids aren't being challenged if they can miss 10% of the year and and not have any qualms with their grade whatsoever that's where there's a disconnect and if we want to get to a place where we're really challenging all kids all the time we have to start looking at pieces like that I think that is a very good point in addition I do think there's also that implementation of the absenteeism policy not to call out the mayor but you gave a good example where your son was gone many times from one class and you never found out because I think it's one it's our ISM policy but also the technology I know a lot there's always a lot of hiccups whether parents get that Robo call or the tech they get it or they don't get it so I think for me I also would like to see how we can address the technology laps that sometimes can happen and then also whether it's us revisiting that AB polic M monos just so you know that that was um three years ago and so I will say the technology I think the school had they whatever they changed uh we we we now if he does go Miss first period or second Peri any period uh that we do get a um the call and the email that goes to uh the alert so that is um we weren't getting that that sophomore fresh sophomore year right right after the pandemic it was I think it was across the board it was something it was a struggle for all um but it had that has gotten much better so I appreciate that and it also helped us as parents keep an eye on making sure our kids are where they're supposed to be um but no I think that you know similar to what John Kingston saying and I know that there needs to be the correlation of both the educator and the student you know I know it's we didn't want to have this Stern policy where we're failing kids because it is five days listen I dealt with it my we were you know cheerleading kids trying to go to Florida 10 years ago eight years ago Robin right um and it was you had to fly back you know not miss that fifth day otherwise you you know face the consequences so I'm not saying we got to go back to that but there could be somewhere in the middle that keeps again keeps families and children accountable that you have you should attend school the obligate you know we are obligated to want kids to come to school provide them an education provide them with sometimes Mals and safe hover I guess you would call it we don't want them missing 15 like no kid should have 15 days in the semester missed like that should never be normal we can't nor and we cannot normalize that even if they are geniuses with the exception of going back to Columbia for some for for maybe there's an immigration need maybe there's a family emergency those things happen but plan vacations trips to Florida trips to where trips to Medford it doesn't matter 15 days in a semester is not normal we should never be okay with it and I think that we need as we're getting more back to normal we should probably Institute a little bit more of a Stern policy that doesn't leave it in the hands of an educator that could be a freshman teacher could be a new teacher and it's too much on them clearly there is a lot that they're doing right now they're dealing with more issu than they ever have in the past and you know leaving it up to them and saying hey oh by the way if you feel that you're not you're not doing your doing right in your classroom because you have students failing now because they don't want to fail people we know that there's empathy well I also have a really hard time saying a kid fails a class when they know the content yes it's I that that's a that's a moral High Ground that I'm going to stand on top of I understand we we we might we have we have we don't totally disagree but it's just because they know the content then why they have them come to school at all at all just have them stay home they don't because I'll just say it creates it creates an imbalance when you could have a genius and you could have someone that's just going to close by and sometimes that person that's just clossing by is only showing up because they have to and and and and all of a sudden they're just coming going going as they please it does Create A disruption when a teacher is trying to educate 20 30 students or May right and I'm just going to say that if we go back to traditional education which is where we've been pushed for the last year that's exactly what kids have gotten since education was initiated in the United States hundreds of years ago right I don't think anyone saying to go back I think maybe we just want to see how we can support if it's something on the policy side to make sure that we don't have students who are going for not that that's the status quo but if there's we just I think just a starter of conversation of how is absenteeism being affecting students I guess yeah I I have to tell you that what I'm hearing and what I've been hearing since for some time now is we need to start doing things the way we always did things we need to fail kids when they absent too much I no Dr Kelly I think this was a a concern that gave an example it's not we're not going back to the discussion about honors or detracking or simply asking what can be done when there can be students that can be gone 15 20 days is there an intervention is there it doesn't mean that would boot them out of school in is there is there some form of like just like we're talking about any else parents need to know that that's not okay not okay it's not okay whe right they kids should be in school this is where they're going to learn this is going they're going to grow this is where they're going to uh prepare for the next level whether it's college or other employment you can't miss 15 days of work work days that's three that's almost a month right I know right some people think they can you can't miss 15 days of work and still be employed you know without you hey I'm G to just you have one week vacation no big deal I'm GNA go to Columbia I'm gonna go to Florida I'm GNA go to Kansas City I want to go I just take a take a month off and come back and think it's going to be normal so there is some form of intervention that might happen I know and sorry Stacy if I can say one more thing I I don't know that the conversation that the retired teacher had with this family laid bare what the family said to the school or what understanding they had or what the true meaning of the trip was if it was what the neighbor thought or not and did the kid get credit if the kid even got credit example but I could say that I've heard I've heard of other examples as well where kids have been gone on vacation left the country and it's fine there's no thought about missing school that seems to be the at least that seems to be the belief even if it's wrong this is C you can do whatever you want no um and I think this is the important part where you build a relationship with your parents with your Educators that they need to feel more comfortable in discussing like you said there was an issue you didn't know about your son's absentees and then now you work as a team you weren't finding out to John's issue I know talking about but sometimes we have to just sit there and it's all heay for the most part I don't know who your retired teacher is and I'm sure they're very very good it's not to but to me like I had a neighbor until three years ago I had a wonderful neighbor they went off to Colombia he was gone for three weeks I was panicking because I didn't know what was going on and I'm a very nosy neighbor um it's a te teer around the corner lived three houses up she reported it saying that they were gone or he was abducted and started a story I still didn't think it was good that the student was away for three weeks come to find out they don't have the wonderful insurance we have here he has Vision issues they had to take him there for surgery um and it did take 3 weeks and so we don't know the background of of all our families I'm not saying is anyone going on vacation absolutely I know when my kids were in school 5 days you were absent and you fed the quar you bet you sweet bippy when I got back from Florida I went to the doctors and said my kid was sick for five days and go to doctor's not it happens it is going to happen but hopefully if your parents at home are going to build a relationship with the educator you have more of an understanding what's going on in the household my problem too is it's not so much I'm not looking to fail anybody but I think and pat p alluded to a little bit Mr May it's about habits of work we have the lady from these fost in Neighborhood Health Center say she's hired kids today and they come in late don't think anything of it they don't show up for work don't think anything of it and I think in my opinion I think unfortunately and it's it's societal too so I'm not blaming this building I'm not blaming anyone in this building but it's a problem of work today people just they blow stuff off I don't know what other words to use and I think it happens a lot um or more than it should here I think there's a in my opinion there's a culture out there that going to school isn't the priority and when I drive leave my house at 8 o'clock most mornings are between 8 and 8:30 whatever it is and I see high school kids walking or I drive down School Street and I see kids walking they're late I know they are and you know there could be a myriad of reasons why they're late that's fine but it's not like one kid it's a bunch and I've driven and I've driven at one o'clock and seen a bunch of kids leaving the building heading across the field when I'm driving down American Legion Highway and I say where the heck are they going some well keep in mind we have 300 kids who are doing internships yeah but these are I mean this is like a well and some of them do it first period some of them do a fourth period we don't know what's behind it so we can't just assume that I mean I went to school I'm a 70 days during my junior year so I should zip it but you don't know if someone's going to the G on their own because at high school you can do that we don't know the background I think the bottom line is accountability and and everybody's in account we can't say that it's just the parents we can't say but we have to have standards here and we can't keep making excuses that there's all these there's always a possibility that something's going on in somebody's life that's where discretion comes in but there has to be standards there has we're doing these kids a disservice look at this crazy world and sometimes I look around and I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone of some of the things that like are happening and some of the things that we're allowing to happen I just think we need to do better these kids know they have to be in school they have to be in school they get used to that and it's just it's it's good for them this is not anything I'm not saying fail them I'm just saying teach them about accountability and showing up it means something yeah and that's what we're hoping to do through the advisory program and um other pieces like that we're struggling to get teachers to agree to teach the advisory and that's something I know there's a there's a whole bunch of there's a whole bunch of issues but we definitely can't dismantle you know in our standards and in no way do I want to go backwards and so um you know I kind of get offended because I feel like every time we talk about these types of things you Dr Kelly feel like we want to go back to the old ways like with the honest program for example in no way am I saying that I'm saying there there was some benefit that is direct DED from those things and and we should we should keep the good toss out the bad but always have like stability have a structure here and have expectations for these students that no you have to be in school like okay there are exceptions to the rule but the general rule is not willy-nilly yeah no I agree with you 100% on all of that I also think that we need to partner with the families and with the community to to make that expectation realistic you know I I one of the things that I know that we're struggling with and I'll say this is more about the the younger students and the older students um is when they have increased absenteeism it's often because their parents are working from home now so before if somebody uh if a child was you know just not feeling like going to school it would be go to school I got to go to work you got to go to school and now I think there's less of that because the parents are home they're keeping the kids home so to John's Point Mr Kingston's point attendance is lower than it was before covid it definitely is and uh we've been trying different things at different schools and I know we spoke before about the Paul R school and the great strides that they've made um with their attendance by making it a focus and making the phone calls home we need to be doing more of that and and and I'm not saying failing is the is the um is the consequence but maybe we do need we do need consequences maybe we do need to say to these parents if your kids don't come to school this is what's going to happen like you're they have to be in school nothing we have some leverage on that with the younger kids because we can yeah of course but the older kids we can't once they turn 15 the there is one sort of accountability piece that has come in that um as a result of co uh they're not able to just make up the course if they've got 40 absences they can't just make up the course repeat they have to repeat it so that is something that Mr the high school yeah at the high school only that Mr Bowen has instituted which is causing students to now say I I can't just take it on apex no you have to go back and take it again in a classroom or a semester because you have exceeded what we think is a reasonable number of absences you've missed too much class time you take it in summer school you have to repeat how many kids are there that an an estimate like that have to repeat courses or had to have repeat a course I can I can find out I don't know off hand I think also just two more points advisory is so great because it's that time that teachers can have that connection and check in and if a student isn't here first period there's that period where they can find out where they are and so if they're using that period I know for a fact that a lot of kids it's like a free period for some it's not for some there there guided curriculum but for others it's a free period and that's what we're trying to change that it can't it to follow a structure and follow a curriculum so all we can hope is that our teachers can see that benefit and I think another point is I forgot what school district did this but in their contract negotiations they added a an hour a week where it's just teachers for family engagement whether it's making calls making emails and text instead of doing a staff meeting or PD it's one hour just dedicated to teachers focusing on that family engagement that has helped them on a variety of issues because often times I don't want to call a parent at 7 p.m. when I've been at the school for already 10 hours right so I kind of would hope that I never had to call a parent because I wanted my own time so I know that that going back to the piece that you both talked about that engagement with families that has been very successful there I'd like to see The Advisory theod be like a Guidance the what we want it to be and even have a guidance counselor drop in now and then they do and what about the new adults in the building help with with some of these um connections with the parents and you know I know yeah the student engagement coordinators that's what they do is connect with families and students that are not coming to school or uh skipping first period or fourth period or whatever the case may be um they have their case loads that was the whole purpose of the redesign and then the student um so it's a student engagement coordinator the student support Specialists are focusing on the academic sides with kids who are failing classes and getting them connected with the stem Center and The Writing Center uh you know for peer tutoring or helping them tutoring them themselves you know um so we're working on it is it has advisory changed so it's no longer the first class yes it's after second period oh between first and second period do you think um didn't some of the schools the middle schools I think Chang it and put it in the middle of the day um do you think it's helpful to have it not the first period so that way you if yeah so they have first period class a regular class then they have advis advisory and then they have second period yeah and the reason it's done that way is because then we bump into lunch after that and that and is that helping yeah I think it helps but the problem is um as you described there are some classrooms where the kids know if they go to advisory nothing's going to be happening there um they're they may not feel even the the need to go there based on how things are articulated to them so um that can be a challenge there are other classes where advisory is phenomenal and I've spoken to teachers who have Incredibly Close relationships with the kids that have been in their advisory for a couple of years and I've spoken to kids who have said I've learned so much from advisory that it's made my grades better in every single one of my other classes so we know what the value is um so there teachers not doing their job there are some teachers that aren't doing their job and there are some teachers that certainly are yeah I think I think there it's a free period and I've had other I've spoken with other students who said that have echoed what Dr Kelly just you know expressed that I can understand that if I should so it's one of that's why it's one of the things we're trying to cify with the contract we're uh we're wrapping up we'll come up on time we got to get to the general meeting so so can can I make one statement deal grading I think by now you kind of know that I'm old school is a is a say if it ain't broke don't fix it um what happened to ABC DF I mean it's so cut and dry it's so easy to understand EC Co AC n y na a I mean you can't get any much vager than that uh these kids bring these acronyms home to their parents especially the ones that are deficient in English and the parents have no clue as to what their grade is whereas for hundreds of years or at least a 100 plus years ABC D and F or E worked fine why did we change that so um sounds good sounds Progressive but it's big the challenge with the um AB C D and F and we talked about this uh when we made the change um several years ago is that um that really doesn't give parents or anybody else the student a lot of information about where they are and their progress and what they're doing what they're what they're good at and what they need help with because a be in Geometry doesn't tell anybody um how to improve what areas they're succeeding in what areas they need help in or anything else and the report pads that we give out to kids now do have those designations that you just read Mr Mata but they're next to a description of each one of the standards the competence I mean whatever it is what is it what's confidence ex confidency yeah yeah usually when we have marcks like the olden days beside it used to be comments and what was your strength what you needed to be worked on and everything I understand what you I just think it it it throws parents off but they don't just get like math EC English there a number too oh whatever it it has the standards delineated that so so if I use geometry for an example uh it'll talk about calculates area perimeter of solids and it says whether they are exceeding the standard meeting the standard or need more work and then it'll talk about um I don't know I can't even think of an example the difference is if it says C for competent it means that they are understanding the standard whereas like meets competency means they're meeting the standards that they need based on what the state the curriculum Frameworks instead of just a BC means I'm passing but like where am I in between passing and understanding I don't know it doesn't make sense to me I just I think it's confuses people and we're not in the business of trying to confuse people we also did parent meetings and still do every time we do report cards uh and explained how to read the report cards actually we've been using standard space report cards at the elementary level for over 20 years now and what we did was just take that idea and expand it up um and Anthony I remember when they started at Lincoln Nick was in school and I was totally lost um but I have to say I did know more because each of my children were so different Jonathan worked his b off for every grade he got and he could have a c but understood everything just couldn't put it on paper and Adam should be able to I shouldn't even use my kids names they were writing their he should write his name on the paper and get an A+ right away so I mean when it came time for Nick I had a hard time changing but I did learn a lot by it I learned so much more what he did understand and what he chose not to understand I think this is a conversation that that requires more time I asked for this to be put on the agenda so I had something you want to move to unfinished business at 6 p.m. we can continue asking for definitely do you guys need to make a motion to yes motion to Second all in favor the M yes Mr cajano Mr Kingston Mr Mata yes Mrs milis yes M monteroso yes