##VIDEO ID:Cf-fV0OgSR8## we're a little late okay the uh financing and law subcommittee meeting should come to order uh roll call Mrs shavs present Mr Vieira present chairman Dello present uh first up we have bills payable for fy2 in the amount of $636,500 126 what are the wishes of the committee please uh motion to approve in the amount stated is there a second second uh second on discussion so um just a quick uh on page two Mrs uh Monahan hold on am I got the right one yes I do uh page two on the base State interpreters okay elll you know what I read Bas State the um no the uh sewage yeah my eyes are plain tricks on me no questions uh motion was seconded all in favor oh I'm sorry Mrs shvs sorry I had a couple of questions um I'm assuming that a lot of this um a lot of these things are um subscriptions that are renewed right now okay because I had looked at some of them looked like a little pricey like um paraphrase for 19,000 on page nine and I knew parent Square so are those those yearly subscription rates that are given now it's not we don't pay it throughout the year correct usually what we do is some of them will have a a yearly rate or some of them we will be able to um purchase ahead of time for a three-year rate but we always pay them once a year so this is usually very heavy Big Ticket items okay that was my question thank you sure okay motions on the floor it's been seconded all in favor I I opposed eyes have it next up we have the FY 24 bills payable in the amount of $1,248 motion to approving the amount of $1,248 seconded uh on discussion no discussion all in favor I opposed eyes haveit motion to adjourn second all in favor to adjourn I opposed eyes have it we are adjourned thank you right good evening everyone thank you for joining us I call the meeting to order if you could please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance aliance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all oh say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we held at the Twilight last gleaming who's BR stripes and bright stars through the perous fight or the r parts we watch were so gallantly streaming and the rockets R glare the bombs bursting in a gave proof through the that our flag was still there oh say that star spangled then I yet W or the land of the free and the home of the bra Mr span will lead us in the invocation Lord as we begin this session let us acknowledge your goodness and mercy and ask your blessings on all our deliberations we thank you for this opportunity to be of service to our community and to the young people entrusted to our care and we're also asking for a moment this um of Silence this evening for the uh shooting that took place in Georgia today at a school and oddly enough we're having a school safety in security presentation and it's sad to think that these things are still happening in this country so for the people that lost their lives I understand the last I heard there were four and there's several people in the hospital and for those that are in the hospital can we please say a prayer so that their families may be comforted during this difficult time thank thank you thank you Mr speak okay next we have approval of the minutes oh thank you Mrs fan roll call please Mr Reus present Mrs shs present Mr palowski present Mrs fagin present Miss Santos present Mr Vieira pres and on camera Mr Laura present Dr Dello pres and mayor OK president thank you uh now we have approval of the minutes from August 21 2024 motion to approve of the minutes from August uh 21st meeting 2024 second motion and second all those in favor I oppos I None opposed so voted there is no student advisory committee report this evening is there any public input this evening not any no no public input this evening we will go to E which is the school security update and we have some special guests with us this evening for that and I think it will be started by Stephanie Hoy director of student services and transportation thank you mayor oconnell thank you to school committee for once again inviting us up to talk about um school safety a very important topic I am here today and accompanied by some really special people you've probably heard me say this before and it won't be the last time you hear me say but Taunton is very unique we have an incredible relationship with our Taunton Police Department one I rely on them constantly an incredible SRO program that's overseen by Lieutenant Jackson and Captain Nichols so uh some of our sro's are here today and I know that Captain Nichols will be introducing them shortly we're also here with Kevin ham and Todd Castro and we're going to talk to you about a special project that we have excitedly just finished although it's probably been a little over a year year in the making so without further Ado I'm going to introduce Captain Nichols who will speak a little bit about the project and then we'll go into the PowerPoint in detail thank you thank so school safety school safety is obviously very important to us here in the school in the uh city of taon uh We've Just Started many many years ago um when we started the school safety and it's just progressed from there the thing to remember about school safety is it's important that we continually to move forward uh we always looking for different projects always looking for different things to improve our School Safety and Security and to improve things that we can identify some of these projects Identify some of our weaknesses and our weaknesses can always be worked on so we're always looking at it from a standpoint of improvement um so without any further Ado I'll introduce this is Kevin ham from serid and Todd Castro at the time worked for serid but he's now the uh our Emergency Management director here in the city of Taunton we kind of poached him from serid um probably poly food the project but thank you but they they brought they started this project in the first uh School District was down in Old Rochester school department brought it in so serpent had this plan to bring in they're obviously experts in planning um they brought this project in to basically redo all the schools in 3D mapping um so basically it's an active shooter and hostile event response toolkit um they brought in all their equipment they showed us the program that they did know Rochester and I said hey that would be awesome in t right so this would improve our Safety and Security in time this would make take our old maps that we have in our crisis go just the basic old school you know 1D printed maps and now create a different way to walk to move around the schools in 3D you can actually physically take these and move around the school in 3D as you'll be able to check it out later um the re the reason this is improves security is now we have an updated map there's all kind of links on here for fire safety so we sat and I brought this program to Stephanie and Stephanie Hoy said this is a great program so then we all brought it to the Super superintendent cab and everybody said this is a great program so we had many many planning meetings with the fire department I know the fire chief was here um the fire chief the police department the fire department the school department uh even the building department um everybody was involved in this planning process and we brought everybody in we said all right what what's important for you to have on the map because importance for us was like hyperlinking cameras and having hallways and be able to look at things that we have to go into for security reasons and then the fire department was important to have all the stand pipes and all the different things to mark all where where all the fire extinguishers are all the different things that we can Mark and then everybody else the fire the school the building department got to weigh in on something thing they might have to turn off some electrical stuff and things of that so we did that so then we didn't think we realize how really improved the program was going to be until Kevin stepped in with Todd and they started to actually map the schools and if you've not seen this before basically it's a 3D model of all of our schools it's very very high resolution we can now walk around the schools even from a a cell phone you can scan the QR code go through the school so what does that do for us it integrates our security so if we have to respond to a school the dispatchers can look at this the response officers can look at this we can look into what a classroom looks like so now we're not going around blind Corners looking at different things we can hyperlink the cameras now we can see in real time and lifetime what the actual problem is and I know everybody's thinking because the program's called active shooter and hostile event but when we approach school safety we really approach it that's the greatest thing that we have to worry about right as as Mrs Fagan said today what would happen in Georgia this morning however this also improves of our all types of response for the fire department we have medical emergencies in the schools every day that's an everyday occurrence that we can improve now the fire department can look at where they're going where is the emergency is it a structure problem is it different types of things we also use this on the planning side if you've been to the graduation the last two years the graduations here could be kind of hectic but we've used some of these planning tools to do the graduations to better look at what we can do how do we control people will coming in and out and I think it's been a lot better the last two years in the graduation so this is a very um widespread program that we can use it for I don't think we've even touch the surface of what we're going to use in the future when we start to use integration and different AI things in the police world but I think Todd and Kevin if you want to say a couple things about it that I probably missed yeah thank you and thanks for letting me come to speak and thanks for uh helping me do this entire project the the real key here I'm Eric at a lot of the big points but the the idea is that the first 10 20 30 minutes of of of a response whether it's active shooter or medical or or chaos and we're never going to get chaos to zero but this tool will help bring some order to that if it helps an officer realize I've got 10 doors on this building I know they're all numbered I need 10 officers one at each door if it helps somebody realize oh I can land a helicopter on that field so I don't want to put anyone else over there if I have to use medflight all those little decisions if it helps the fire department realize that the alarm panels over there the KNX box with the keys is over there just take some of those easy decisions off of their plate so they can focus on the hard parts of the of a response that's really all we wanted to do and as Eric mentioned obviously there's a lot of uses for all sorts of things and I hope this thing be is a living document going forward and we're certainly here to support you guys going forward whether that's with exercising this planning for graduation all those kinds of things you know this sits on a shelf and gathers dust and then I think we've all we've all kind of failed at our jobs if this is used every day every week every month that kind of thing people get to know it really really use the tool then it'll be a success and hopefully we can save some lives and be safer at it happy to answer any questions if folks have questions or I'll stick around after if people want to see something or have specific questions otherwise I'm just really glad it's all rolled out and you guys have your final documents thank you Todd did you want to add anything I just just wanted to briefly say that this has been a truly a collaborative effort and I want to thank mayor Connell for your support Chief Walsh Chief LaVine and the school department the building department um Captain Nichols this has been a fantastic Pro program that I think we truly benefit Public Safety thank you very much all right thank you Todd thank you and it sounds like Kevin will hang out a little bit later in case anyone has more specific questions that they'd like to ask um so back to our our PowerPoint just want to update some of our school safety practices some that you are familiar with and some that may not necessarily be familiar to you as of yet so we obviously do our safety drills um all our staff are are fobbed or getting fob so that they make sure that we use our ID and fob to access our buildings we have What's called the Raptor system in all our schools that are being utilized raptor is if you're coming in to either dismiss or coming in for any reason you show your ID it goes into a machine and UPC comes any type of warnings that we should know about the person that's coming into the building um that is utilized at every school and we actually have a dashboard that tells us what the use is at every school so we can monitor the usage of of of the Raptor machine um one another really exciting new thing that we' started is two-way emergency radios in all our schools so each one of our schools including extended day offices as well as taunt Police Headquarters and dispatch all have a base radio this radio is a radio that connects to Taunton Police Headquarters to dispatch directly from a school principes have the same slim walkie-talkie that offers them the same best benefit so let's say there was some level of an emergency here at Elizabeth pole School the base radio is located in the office of course principal Jones walks around with it on a daily basis as well the the handheld and you'd get on to the base radio and you would say State the emergency there's an emergency at Elizabeth pole directly goes right to the headquarters of police it goes right to dispatch but it also you can hear it at every single school so now every School knows that there's an emergency going on at Elizabeth pole and also our police are it's just one way of communicating with our police I can say that um there was one particular school last year that used it for a medical emergency it was just the first thing that they could get their hands on and they used it really quick and the response time was within seconds so that has also offered us another opportunity to to basically communicate with our Police Department other than our 911 calls but it's direct communication we test it every Tuesday morning at 9:30 starting here at the Elizabeth pole with base and we go through every single school to make sure it's in operation so that if there was a real emergency we know it would be working so that's also some new and exciting information that um we started you may have heard a little bit about crisis go we've been using it for a few few years now every drill that we do for a uh lockdown drill we initiate a crisis go so crisis go is an app that is on everyone's desktop uh people can download it on their phone that's completely optional and it's a way for us to notify the police that we are in an emergency it also is able to do two-way communication to the people in that group so again using Elizabeth pole as an example if a teacher said oh there's an intruder here I'm going to press crisis go they press crisis go that entire Elizabeth poll staff gets a communication that there should be a lock down at that moment the superintendent's office also gets that direct message and then the taunt police gets the direct message that Elizabeth pole is currently in a lockdown situation again one other way of communicating there's also a way of communicating to teachers directly through the crisis Go app so if you needed to evacuate a certain part of the building or if you needed to evacuate certain classrooms and you needed to find a location of where you're evacuating that all can be done by pushing one button and being able to communicate through the crisis Go app this past year we also purchased crisis go buttons so every school has crisis go buttons um more than just one depending on the size of your building principles were given the opportunity to work with their SRO and to identify where those crisis buttons should go the crisis button uh button works exactly like the app works with the exception of you don't have to open up as many windows so if there is some level of emergency they would press the button the but the buttons already identified at Elizabeth pole school and you would get the same type of uh interaction that you do with the crisis Go app through the button it's just a quicker way of engaging um emergency response teams you heard me last year talk a little bit about the emergency operation plans I did drop just a few on your table if you want to take a look those emergency operation plans were completed in conjunction and collaboration with our Tom Police Department our fire department um and they've all been updated the smaller version of them are located in every classroom in our district and it literally goes step by step some of them have flowcharts the larger ones have flowcharts for our building administrators that basically go through every emergency planning um that we need for many different scenarios so that here is just a list of the emergency oper a plan scenarios and and incidences that are located in the book but you have it in front of you too if you want to peruse through it uh we also started with more security guards at Totton high school so we actually were able to hire with Essa funding and then thank thank you for your uh support we were able to keep those security guards in place so we also have an increased number of security guards and of course I can't um I'd be remissed if I wasn't going to mention our SRO we have four SRO and three of them are with us today one is actually from BP so I guess we're five in total um I'll ask Captain Nichols to come back up and introduce his team so here today is the direct supervisor for the SRO program uh Lieutenant Glenn Jackson Glenn's here uh school resource officer Casey Holmes Casey's primary responsibility is the middle schools school resource officer Brian shavs Brian is assigned to taon high school and school resource officer Jason llant he's assigned right currently to Bristol Plymouth um school resource officer Leo alme is not here tonight and the only reason he's not here is he just had his first child a few days ago so yes so I say thank you if Leo I don't know if he's watching but everybody W welcome Oliver to the new world so he had a young Oliver so um that these guys are the day-to-day every every day so all right thank you they are all I have to say the amount of I think it's important to note and I'm sure Captain Nicholas might want to mention this too there's such a there's a difference between our school school police and school SRO so our sro's here in Taunton their main purpose is school safety and relationships with kids I could tell you stories about our sro's and the dynamic relationships that they have with children and I'm sure it would bring a tear to your eye but they are incredible with making those relationships with kids that may not necessarily have a lot of relationships with other adults so having them is pivotal for not only our safety but also the emotional growth of our kids so um I just want to say how much I appreciate all of them because I really do so annual safety drills is something we do uh consistently every year so right now we're doing fire drills you'll hear us do three lock down drills a year um we've really have grown as far as our lockdown drills are concerned this year we'll probably be doing an evacuation drill too just so that our teachers our staff our kids know exactly where to go in case there wasn't an emergency where they needed to evacuate their buildings um and of course our bus evacuations because you can't forget that it's just important for us to practice bus safety and that anything can happen at any point in time I'll ask officer Nichols to talk uh captain to talk a little bit about emergency operation planning and trainings so recently as we um redid All the emergency plans um a project um that Stephanie headed up basically and so when we looked at that we realized there was one deficiency the one deficiency is these plans are all developed in What's called the IC World incident command system incident command system is a general command system that used every police and fire department in the entire country it's very well trained in us and as you go up and rank you train at a higher level of command what we realized is our school administrators our principls our APS our School Administration staff had never had any of that type of training they've had much more training than us on the education side but on the actual emergency response side they they lack that so what we did was we collaborated again and last year we brought in for the first time all the APS and all the principles into an IC 100 classes the basic incident command class so now they kind of understood what their role is what the role of the fire department what the role of the police department is in an actual emergency um so that was the first first step of this program the second step of doing these emergency plans we've now developed um with the partners that we worked with with preparedness LLC um all kind of tabletop exercises so basically a tabletop exercise is something we use in the police world all the time it's a very quick way to do training we can sit down and we can put a scenario in front of people at a table we don't have to act it out it's very short term and then we can say what would you do what is your responsibility so everybody's very clear-cut defined roles everybody understands what their responsib abilities are when it comes down to the active you know chaos type emergency situation and God forbid like an active shooter or something like that everybody knows what to do but these operation plans go from anything medical Again Medical emergencies happen every day so how do we better do that when we did some of these plans I know I think Todd picked it up on a few times um we did these plans and we identified some of the doors we had numbered were wrong just because we've picked this up with the stuff so we improved on that so that's the next step of this is to have all these Round Table discussions and Roundtable trainings and there's a lot of benefit of training from that and again it's just one more step so thank you so every every school year principls identify an emergency response team out of their building um this year we were able to secure a grant of $60,000 that's going to help us train our staff our emergency response teams so that not only are they doing tabletop exercise and they know exactly how to follow our protocols as far as emergency operation planning and the books in front of you but they can also take that with their principles and break them up into staff meetings and also discuss what they are learning in our training so I'm excited that we were granted that um opportunity for uh having a funding source that's actually going to support the training of Emergency Response teams which is very important so technology um all our you'll notice that if you walk through eole you'll notice that there's a lot more cameras in the hallways lately and that's because our tech department has been doing a really wonderful job increasing the cameras within our building so cameras within and outside our building at the middle school level um and speaking to Jennifer Ashley our technology director she feels secure in saying that there are very little areas that are not on camera at both the middle and at the at Taunton High School where we need to focus our next steps are at the elementary levels although we've increased the the camera footage uh we still have some work to do at the Elementary level our cameras are also a very uh as far as being digit digitalized and being able to view them with high definition uh we use them all the time I know our SRO use them for any type of situation that has come up principles use them for monitoring safety or any concerns that they may have so in the and Jennifer Ashley has been working in conjunction with my department and all our principles to make sure that we have all cameras that are an operation and if there is an area that is of concern she's happy to discuss that with us and add the cameras so I must say over the past year we really have increased our cameras quite u a great deal also um when we as you know when we come in you should be greeted by your person opening the door is stating your name making sure you're telling everybody why they're there and they check that and make sure that you're coming right into the into the office and we want to make sure that you're always looking at the camera that's outside so these are just everyday things that we're doing but we're asking our principles to hold people accountable to make sure that we're using those cameras on a daily basis to identify people not only by voice or by them greeting them or but also using the cameras to make sure that visibly there's nothing that seems unusual about the person standing in front of the camera that's about to enter our buildings some future consideration in planning so school safety is continuously ongoing um especially with AI and lots of other things coming up there's always improvements so these are just some future considerations so we had started the vestibule process as you can see here at Elizabeth pole Parker school also has it we're currently right now working with Architects to design other um vestibules in other schools so you'll probably be seeing a lot more vest vules in the future as you visit our buildings we understand the importance of making sure that all our schools have VES vestibules the other school that has a formal an informal vestibule but it is this Taunton High School when you walk in now to Taunton High uh those doors uh up on top are all mechanically um closed you can't get in you have to be buzzed in so we've done it's more of a secure location so we are really looking at making sure that when people are coming into our buildings they're in a vestibule we're screeing them appropriately before they're coming in so we are also looking to restructure Taunton High School and the security booth that we have there um there's some up up to-date things that we want to do to make sure our security guards have everything that they need to to feel safe and welcome people into the building we talked about the Emergency Response Team trainings we talked about adding more security cameras um and our technology department is also working with the taunt Police Department Department in order to secure school camera footage too for our police depart to be able to enter our cameras and actually view cameras live on site at schools and of course um they are also our it Department's also updating them on cyber security because that's also a big topic um in making sure that we are practicing the latest in cyber security so those were just a few things uh we've had a lot of real excitement with many new things with uh Community with Safety and Security primarily the active shooter and hostile um mapping the 3D mapping we also wanted to emphasize the crisis go buttons that were something that we've been working really diligently with and then we'll continue to work with our Police Department our fire department to make sure that we are collaborating and updating our emergency operation plans as they feel fit thank you we can take any questions okay thank you Stephanie um that was a great presentation and it's so important to all of us here and to the parents at home to know all the precautions that are being taken taken and you know the technology the integration the communication the Partnerships we're really grateful for everything that everyone does um and I think we're very fortunate to have that here in the city of Taun and we really seem um you know to be very proactive in everything that you guys are doing and I think it's very impressive um the plans you have the safety emergency procedures at a glance um it's uh a wonderful thing here in the city for our kids for our parents and um we're you know pleased that you were all able to come in today and the relationships that the sro's have with the kids we do hear about that all the time and um the the Deep connections and making kids want to come to school and be here it just it means a real lot to the kids and the parents and it will tell you that even if you have an appointment at a school to maybe go read to kids or something they are checking you know they're checking who you are and you know if you say who you are making you sign in the books so um I've experienced that and I'm sure a lot of you on school committee have as well uh so um anyway thanks for everyone coming in tonight thanks for all the work you're doing and I will open it up to school committee if they have any comments um or questions so excellent Dr deal thank you mayor uh so yeah absolutely um I commend the entire partnership that's going on within our schools uh of course uh the safety of our students our staff is is Paramount and uh feel very comfortable that we're in great great hands uh the 3D imaging when I scanned my phone earlier is this a public information I mean does it's not like so we're not necessarily leasing to the public at this time but most of the information on there almost all of it other than an active hyperlink camera um we're not going to release it necessarily to the public right now but we can modify versions of it that can be released to the public if we so choose in the future it's a base program right now we can build off it and we've even talked about possibly building out one from this that we could actually have like teacher orientation they could actually walk around or maybe eighth grade orientation at the high school because again if you talk about generational again you know I'm a little bit older in the group um maybe I don't do everything on my phone but um Brian stand up so I'm G to pick on Brian for a minute because only because he's I think you're younger than Casey right yeah so you're a youngest SRO again Brian's generation and then the generation behind Brian that's in high school right now is definitely more he's a lot better with this technology than I would be right so that's what we have to forecast and that's why we're doing programs like this what are we forecasting in the future of what is actually usable to people in the future not just us dinosaurs now so as a followup would would it warrant to share this at a at a public display with our students to show them Hey listen we know every nook and cran of every building so don't do anything stupid or you know because we're going to find you you know what I mean I mean giving them that advanced notice that there's nothing unseen so maybe that's a good recommendation and just to talk about our SRO I know that when Mrs and I go to the football and basketball game she always bums a ride for me she's too cheap for gas but uh we we are always we are always seeing the presence of the SRO and interaction with the students whether they're the basketball football players parents other students it's just amazing you know that they're all part of the same family they're not looked upon as a police officer they're looked at as a fellow colleague or someone that they're going to look up to and appreciate that they're there so uh thank you to our SRO and uh Jason llant whenever you want to come back we're we're ready for you thank you mayor thank you for all your work superintendent so I I'll be brief in my comments so one I just want to commend the school committee again for approving this recommendation from the administration to authorize us to use onetime funding from the federal government to complete this project and Stephanie Hoy when she was appointed to the position was told that she was going to be the director of student services and that 90% of her job would focus on student services however as you can tell a large percentage of our time is spent on you know the safety of our buildings and working and developing these very thoughtful and meaningful relationships with our Police Department our fire department and all our First Responders and as you know in many communities that's not the case so I feel very blessed as a superintendent uh to have the relationship that Stephanie has fostered with our First Responders and I really do appreciate the fact that they have brought the neighborhood policing model into to our schools cuz that's where you see the relationships with our with our kids and I I just will share with the school committee our next school committee Retreat is going to be January 29th and January 29th is going to focus on school safety we'll we'll hold it in executive session so you can really see get to see behind the scenes what a First Response look looks like in a school uh similar to what we did six years ago so again we will model that with the police department and also provide you with the training you spend a lot of time in our schools so you need to know as as well know what is some of the procedure with some protocol so that'll be the emphasis on our January 29th we stre so I commend the committee and I commend um our staff assistant superintendent moan on the facility side Mr Bara Mar frus you know it really was a u a community that came together and we're just scratching the surface because we want to do more we want to make sure that we have the safest and most upto-date plans for our students and for our community so thank you all right well I will just add superintendent it does start at the top so uh your leadership is also been instrumental in uh us getting to where we are now all right anything else yeah I'm going to end with three little things I promise they're short so first thing of all these things that you heard tonight there's only one thing that's torily required and that's a fire drill none of this is mandatory this is all voluntary by the school the school district all voluntary without the support from the mayor's office obviously all the way down to the superintendent's office and all the way down to us police officers and through Stephanie none of this is mandatory that's that's the biggest thing to remember it's all voluntary so everything that we're doing is voluntary um we've tried four times or five times somebody's brought a bill in front of Beacon um Beacon Hill to try to make lockdown drills or safety drills mandatory as a fire department and it it's never made it through for some reason um but again it doesn't matter we still do it the second thing is is Todd's going to pass out a quick sheet just out of curiosity coming here tonight I ran some numbers and I guess this is me bragging about the sro's a little bit um when you look at our program if you look at the sro's but then if you look at their program um as opposed to school police it's a difference right school police are there as traditional police officers they are not acting as traditional police officers they're by statutory by Statute cannot act as disciplinarians that's why their relationships are so good with the students so as a result of that and I think a lot of it's got to do with the mental health system that we have in place in the district we have the access center we have the the just go on and on the assessment yeah you can go on and on about the mental health resources available when you put that all together we arrested no students in this District last year zero zero yeah I think that's amazing and I and again I'm bragging because these gentlemen do a great job day in and day out um and they work really hard at that they but so that's a tough number to quantify because a zero is a nothing right but how many incidences how many arrests did they stop by interaction with students you can't quantify the number of interactions they've had um we did a a backpack Drive last week or two weeks ago and we had had 100 ice cream sunday well like who in my day when I first started policing and Lieutenant Jackson will tell you we wouldn't have done 100 foot Sunday right but this is what they're doing so because of their work because of their hard work look at the numbers the numbers are staggering the only two arrests we made on school grounds had nothing to do with students um one was you know they're enumerated in here but but even the calls for service I just kind of ran them up um but what's doesn't show here is all the things that they stop from happening there's students go in their rsro offices every day and said hey you know you might want to know about this you might want to know about that you might want to know about this and sometimes it's just a student that's having a tough day and maybe that student didn't eat today is hungry so they feed the student so again all this collaboration it works it absolutely works and it's voluntary but so I you know thank the support if you go to a lot of police departments a lot of School departments they don't work together and very close to us it's they don't have this relationship so that's the second thing is you know kind of boasting about them and then the third thing is a challenge for you so I challenge you um to take some of this information this PowerPoint and talk to your colleagues and other School departments talk to your school committee members and find us stuff that they're doing that we're not and then we'll do it that's as simple as that we want to see what other people are doing that we may have not been not doing and maybe it's a money reason maybe it's not but I don't think we we've really seen no roadblocks that we always seem to get the money and I think that's you know probably some creative spending on the mayor's office and the superintendent's office but we seem to get it because they know this is important right so that's my challenge to you go out and find something so we meet again at that Summit and was it January January you have some ideas for us instead of us always having ideas for you and I must say I think if we were to talk to staff if you go into any of our abilities and talk to staff and speak of the the things that we do have I think majority of Staff will say to you they feel better know knowing I have a crisis Go Button I feel better knowing I have access to the app I feel better knowing that my main office has a direct line to the police department at all times so I do think that our staff when they recognize all that we do have do feel better that we are putting their safety and student Safety First every day that's what we're trying to do empower the staff empower the staff to make great decisions under pressure and and that's what we work out at so that's my challenge to you nice job Captain thank you any other questions Mrs I just have a question a question um off S Nichols these the the material in this book really has to stay somewhat private doesn't it and which the the yes right now yes that's what I thought the version that you have is the full version that should stay confidential so we aren't going to be taking these home and showing them to everybody I I think that's the way that we go with this yeah they're confidential yeah my concern with that is if somebody gets hold of something like this somebody can always find a weakness somewhere we can just change the QR code I I understand but I you know given what happened today when I when I saw that and lately there's every time you turn on the news people are getting threatened all over the place so I I think people really have to be aware of you know how dangerous our society's become and I I wish people would get along a lot better than what they do it's not that hard to be kind to other people but it just seems today everybody's at one another's throats and uh I feel safer I I don't have um any grandchildren in the district right now I mean mine are are often going to college or they live in other communities but uh as a parent and having a lot of friends that have have you know students in there and grandchildren I feel really good when I see something like this and I can say to people most assuredly that we're doing the best we can to make sure people stay safe so I want to thank you for that thank you all right thank you all thank you for keeping our kids foring so much about our kids and thank you for joining us this evening you mayor a motion to recess for 5 minutes would be in order someone wants to make that motion recess five minutes can we get a motion recess motion recess far five minutes motion second all those in favor not oppos so voted thank you a motion will be in order to return to the regular order of business I'm so moved is there a second all in favor I I oppos I have it next up we have item F superintendent report uh the governance Corp School Board superintendent and schools working together by Davis Campbell and Michael Fulon superintendent yep so I think it's only appropriate now that our kids are back in school that the school committee is given homework again so uh we're going to pick up with our book study which is chapter five uh from the text governing and coherence and the I think the first paragraph does a really nice job of summarizing what was the intent of the of the chapter which was what it means to be a unified school committee versus a uniform school committee and a uniform school committee is not a committee where everyone thinks the same way or committee where members have the same style instead it's about a school committee bringing together their different views on issues and working together towards a common goal grounded in a shared moral purpose so at that I'll just leave it for discussion if any board members want to either one utilize the questions that were Prov through the book study or just discuss their thoughts and feelings regarding the book study and what their takeaways were Mrs F would like to start Mrs Fagan please I know you were you told me this morning yes you told me [Music] please want to turn on always sorry you know that you that's more bring it closer okay so some of that stuff to me was that's a little bit over the top you know you can just say so and so said this or that but when you start assigning things you start to wonder if that's their opinion it might not be everybody because I don't know if everybody thinks we're all brilliant all of the time but a lot of us try to be but I thought there was just a lot of things about when people get on boards too and they talk about people that are one isue people and that doesn't get you anywhere because when you when you go after one thing that's that it's hard to get that F you know get away from that Focus I also thought it was good too about people that oh this was interesting trustees professional experience does not provide licenses to insert themselves into the operation of the district I've seen that happen before too that you just well I know this and that and you you know and I think what the the point of all this was what my overall opinion of this whole chapter was about trying to get along understanding that we're not always going to agree but respect the fact that other people have opinions and they even said in this book sometimes those opinions kind of will have people move a little bit you know so we're not all stuck in this you know I'm not doing this because you said it and I don't like you and all this stuff it's like where can we where can we find the commonality of goals so I I thought I thought it was very inter interesting that's why I couldn't believe I went through it as quick as I did but I thought the things they were saying were was probably something that'd be nice to have in a class for people first coming on a committee so that you understand that but um they they talk about having trust in one another too as long as you can trust one another and you don't feel like somebody's not telling you as soon as somebody ve off and isn't honest with you it kind of tends to destroy relationships too so I try to keep that in mind all the time when I'm talking to people that's my take on it thank you Mrs Fagan sure anyone else Miss Santos I almost forgot my homework assignment because I Was preparing for my classroom assignment so um but I thought it was funny because I was in I agree with what you had said as far as one of the things that I thought of with myself being a teacher that it's sometimes hard not to push myself in as a teacher ese especially being on the curriculum subcommittee really really hard right and I'm like and I think when I got that I'm like great I love that because I'm a teacher but then it's like oh wait I had to Screech to myself like I'm not having input as far as the curriculum goes and that's my wheelhouse right so that was really hard for me to understand that no that's not my responsibility at this point right like I have to take off that teacher hat for a little bit and hear from the other teachers as well too so I thought of that especially that part about micromanagement I don't think I've done that and I hope I haven't done that but I knew that in my head that I had to be wary of that right um but the other thing I was thinking of because I read this after our conversation yesterday and I thought that was fitting too because it was this even if you don't agree that you have to have trust that each of us have the that moral imperative in mine right so even there were some things that I didn't necessarily agree with well I know you have the best interest in mind so I have to trust that right and even having that conversation with you it was like I didn't know how to start that conversation right um so I think that showed enough that I trusted you enough to be able to be open with you about that conversation that we had you know and I think that's really important and then the other thing the so you know when you see things on social media that you don't agree with that sometimes about the school I have to check myself like I can't just say it as myself anymore I now say it as a school committee member right so if I see something that I disagree with it's sometimes really hard for me to like not voice my opinion I'm like no I can't do that because then I'm speaking for everybody else you know and I think that's a really good thing for me to learn specifically that I am representing everybody and that you have to be a little bit more careful of thinking about everybody as a whole not just like it's saying like what con uh who do you represent kind of thing that you're actually representing the school committee more so than anybody else right if that makes sense so those are the things that to know great thank you Miss Santos Miss shvs Mrs shs see he goes right to the women I know I it's so nice I the tri I move next time that it's the men that have to come prepared for this conversation well yeah we'll second that so I agree with both of the ladies um I found that um really the underlying theme was trust and I think as new members it took us a while to get to know everybody on the committee you know because you know you you've heard people talk about different members and what their philosophies are and like so coming on in here and then working with you guys and developing a trust that I do think when I was reading it I thought about so many of the other school boards or School committees that don't get along and probably the main reason why they don't get along is because they don't trust each other and um and I have a big trust in in who we work with and um I trust John and his leadership team and I think that's important We can question it it did talk about like having differences and having Discord but once a decision has been made that we stand behind the decision as a group and I think that I think we've done that very well and and and um I know Melissa and I have learned a lot as we because we're the new members in here but um it's been a a good learning experience but I do think that the trust is the most important thing I think that that if we have the trust then we know we're making decisions that are best for our students thank you Mr F go ahead yeah but back to another thing you know we we had an interview with um people that looked at the jobs here and I at one point it was the principal's job and one of the people that was there I I told him that that was my hometown where he came from and I I mentioned the name name the year you know the year that I graduated and you know I I think it's it's the respect piece too and he waved his hand at me we don't teach anybody the way you learned anymore what was that you know it it's like yeah we all learn differently but that's I think when we do things differently sometimes we can Advocate that maybe we shouldn't have thrown everything out when we you know I know we keep trying to make education better but I I feel bad that kids spend a lot of times so much time on the phones and not so much time in a book you know so I wish there was a little bit more emphasis on that but I mean that's just from the experiences that I had and I never forgot a lot of the stuff I learned I still remember poems from when I was a little kid you know so that none of that stuff really bothers me and I think if we can respect the fact that we all like I I respect the fact back when we talk about math that Mrs shavs was teaching math you know and she knew what she was doing and did a great job with it so um you know I never had you as a teacher because I'm older than you but I mean I I know that my kids really learned different things from different people and that was something else I thought was kind of implied in there that you know we ought to listen to other people's experiences too and maybe we can blend some stuff together and not really be far apart on anything but I I really I really did enjoy this chapter and I'll second that motion on the gentleman X takes time chair will not entertain the motion I that's what I thought that's a big surprise motion yes superintendent please so I just again um I'm really proud of you all for engaging in the book study and for having the Deep conversations and I also just really appreciate the level of vulnerability that you are expressing because um you're right not all School committees function this way but you guys also put in a lot of work during the Retreats before the meetings during our subcommittee so we are able to build those relationships and build those trust in relationships and when things do go south or things get a little sour we do spend time and mend the relationships because that's what a family does so again I just commend you all and um know next October the first meeting in October we will cover chapter six and I'll do a better job of reminding you all thank you thank you if I could just add a comment uh referring back to Mrs Sha's what she said about uh other school committees probably not getting along as well as we get along well I can attest to that because all school committee meetings are public and a district right down the road is always at each other's throats and I kind of like wanted to hold back when Captain Nichols says you know reach out to other school committees to find out what we can learn from them uh no they can learn from us so I'm very proud that we know our school committee does does well and does the right thing the right work for the betterment of our Student Success so thank you all for your participation and uh no more comments we'll move on to uh administrative business Staffing report see en closure any action on that or just uh receive and place on file motion receive and place on file seconded all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you I just like to note that I vote present if you can note that in the minutes that I vote um present on the Staffing report item one on the Staffing report okay so uh amend the motion to include Mrs Santos uh voting present was the relative on there so Soo who seconded that Mr sha seconded all in favor i i i o opposed eyes have it next up we have Tom Public School Staffing update see enclosure again any action on this or I just want to give a quick comment so the goal was to be at 90% over 90% Staffing to start the year you'll see where at 92% Staffing we have five schools that are 100% staffed and I'm happy to report that all our libraries are fully staffed wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful uh that Spanish position any any action on that yet superintendent I know that I I actually spoke to another colleague in another District that was also looking for a Spanish teacher I don't know what's going on uh I'll check tomorrow uh I'm not I'm not aware if that position has been filled yet because the Staffing report was completed last week but I'll check they were struggling too so hopefully we can get a great candidate all right uh so Wishes the committee on that motion receive and place on file second all in favor I opposed eyes have thank you next up we have subcommittee reports first up we have curriculum August 27 2024 and we have chair Santos uh thank you uh so the curriculum subcommittee met on Tuesday August 24th 2024 the meeting was called to order at 4 intendent were Mrs Donna Shaz Mrs Christine Fagan superintendent John cabal Mr Chris barata and Dr Elizabeth palowski I just want to preface this but it was a very active conversation um so I I did my best to kind of get the nature of it all together in out of four pages notes so I just want to say that it was very robust conversation I will say um and very informative um but the purpose specifically of the meeting was for Dr palowski to review the Mathematics Curriculum or illustrative math with the subcommittee which was requested due to concerns as we have discussed before um at to some taunt high students had brought up at the student advisory uh meeting at the end of the last school year uh the beginning of the meeting was very informational as Mr barata and Dr palowski provided us with a brief history of illustrative math or IM am as it's called Uh including how when and why it was implemented uh essentially there was a need for a baseline curriculum across the school system and the curriculum has been used for the past four years um Dr palowski highlighted in great detail the ins and outs of the curriculum showcasing specific content and assignments throughout different grade levels uh there were also discussions as to how to each teacher delivers the material and Dr palowski emphasized not only the importance of teachers learning to allow the students to lead the course content but equally the importance of providing all students with high quality education which was one of the reasons why IM was um utilized uh lastly she also emphasized the idea that I is is a conceptual curriculum and that teachers need to be more strategic and connecting the lessons to real world problems uh specific concerns not only with I am curriculum and open Sayed which Dr palowski briefly reviewed were discussed uh Mrs Fagan spoke specifically about teachers that struggled with the materials uh there are and just noted that there are scripts available through IM for teachers who may not be as familiar with certain areas um as attested by Dr palowski and Mrs shs as well um and parents some of the other issues were parents who struggle with helping their child um um did I just say did I repeat myself okay um helping their child with specific math homework um which I'm sure a lot of people can relate to as superintendent also pointed out though that you know education is constantly evolving as well too uh and one more specific issue about a long-term substitute that took over for a physical science class which was one of the concerns raised by the students at the student advisory committee Dr palowski admitted that it was an unfortunate but not regular situation but there arec concerns also echoed by Mrs Sha's about teachers absences the need for substitutes and often how teachers need to cover classes which also prevent them from using planning time efficiently uh Dr palowski made the point that at this time every student has experienced IM curriculum minus the fact that graduating seniors may not have had it in e8th grade this makes it clear that students should be somewhat adjusted to the curriculum at this point and a question posed by Mrs sha is wondered if struggle struggles were actually due to the curriculum or post effects of covid um while comprehensive data is not available Dr Kowski noted the Special Education data shows a marked improvement for students also in regards to mcast scores with math t uh to Public Schools was top 10 out of the list for 2023 out of urban schools meeting adjourned at 511 motion to accept second thank you for the very comprehensive report uh I don't know anybody wanted to say anything to her yet but I was gonna you know sure we can have it on discussion if you wish yeah I just wanted to say that she did an excellent job reporting out and that I I make a motion that we accept your report if any andless somebody else wants to jump in on anything seconded by Mrs shavs all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have a committee of the whole um chaired by myself Dr Dello uh the committee of the whole met earlier this evening uh all members were present uh I know that Mrs F just came in a few seconds late but she was here for the meeting uh to let the record show all members present and the only uh agenda item was meet to discuss the request for proposals for Legal Services uh superintendent cabal reminded us of our progress since May 1st how this all came to be of uh getting rfps out for legal counsel for the school committee and uh to date the leadership team uh has followed a uh grading system from a very comprehensive rubric uh then the uh finance and law subcommittee which consists of Mr Vier Mr shavs and myself uh also met at the prior meeting the last school committee meeting I believe it was uh and went through the four rfps and spent almost two hours uh creating the rubric also for a grading system and passed that on to uh Administration and now the EX order next order of business was a motion was made to uh move it on to the rules subcommittee which will take a look at it at the uh September 11th uh Rules subcommittee meeting at 3:30 p.m I believe superintendent and then there was a date certain established I believe for September 18th October no September yeah September 18th next school committee meeting yeah uh school committee uh school committee of the whole meeting to take place uh on September 18th and inv EV valuate all three of the rubrics that were established and make a recommendation uh to hire legal counsel for the school committee and that concludes uh my report motion to accept the report second all in favor I post eyes have it thank you next up we have the finance and law subcommittee also chaired by myself uh first up I can just look at my notes Here we had bills payable first item was uh bills payable for fy2 the amount of $636,500 amounts for various subscriptions which were uh just almost standard practice and that again was voted unanimously by the subcommittee which is the committee motion to accept the report and adopt the recommendations of the finance and law subcommittee second all in favor opposed eyes have it and the last item was the FY 24 bills payable in the amount of $1,248 once again that was voted unanimously in favor uh to pay bills payable uh for FY 24 there was no discussion on that any wishes of the committee motion to um accept and adopt the recommendations second great all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you so much next up on the agenda we have new business and uh item one fy2 high school advisory subcommittee meeting schedule discussion I think that's you chairman fski uh thank you Dr Dello so so um yeah we've got a pretty ambitious schedule uh trying to schedule quite a few high school subcommittee meetings uh this school year um the first one is tentatively scheduled to be on the 25th of September with uh both the Taunton High School advisory Council and the ton Alternative High School advisory Council uh as uh schedules permit uh with the different schools we're going to have subsequent meetings uh with the advisory councils at the three middle schools um and then also SO meetings uh at the high school and tentatively the middle schools to discuss uh space concerns in all the buildings excellent Mrs F Mr palowski what time on the 25th 1:00 for the uh ton high school and bear with me I believe 3:30 for the Alternative High School okay sorry it's my email wonderful Mrs Miss Santos sorry uh I just just to clarify under the upcoming meetings it says the 23rd so I just wanted to make sure doesn't so it's the 25th okay so September 25th 1M for the high school and 3:30 for the Chon Alternative High School Mr VI so a quick question just uh Point information it's just to discuss space it's not to discuss other things or other matters going on we we're specifically and only discussing space quotequote sorry I I I I'll repeat it um I have in front of me so on Wednesday September 25th there'll be a high school subcommittee meeting of the high school advisory Council uh at ton high school at 1:00 and then at ton Al turn of high school at 3:00 on Wednesday September 25th so these meetings are the meetings with the the school advisory Council okay there'll be future meetings that we've not yet scheduled because it'll be uh based on uh the availability of the uh the principles and staff those meetings will be focused on Space concerns at each School awesome thank you yep great thank you I know Mr palski sent a very um aggressive schedule of meetings uh I I appreciate that I I think we should actually put them on calendars and see going forward and if we need to adjust them we adjust them I think your recommendation is is great uh because I it can guide us going forward and I know the superintendent said it could be a little bit too much because sometimes there conflicts but at least we have a placeholder and if we need to adjust it then we adjust it or we cancel po postpone it so thank you for your recommendations any comments on that Mr bski uh yeah no thank you um I I think the most important thing is I mean the the the goal of these meetings is to be helpful and to be able to meet uh the representatives of the schools where they are here their concern so I mean we want to work around their schedule you know they're they're busy so we want to come to them hear their concerns so whatever time works for them I Know Myself Mr Vier Mrs Fagan will you know we'll make ourselves available great superintendent and just a quick comment uh because we really don't have Norms when it comes to how the subcommittees function and maybe something we could discuss or the subcommittees could discuss amongst themselves and we could possibly discuss that our retreat in the 29th but I think we should have the conversation sooner is do we schedule the meeting once we have at least two subcommittee board members because I think with the schedule that Mr palowski is is hoping to accomplish with five schools to have all three members there could be very difficult but if you have at least two of the three you have a majority and then other school board members typically attend I say go ahead my recommendation would we go ahead and schedule the meeting just so like Dr Dello said we have that placeholder we're respecting the time of our principles uh we respecting the time of the kids and if something happens we're B member can't attend at least we have two there and we hold a meeting that's just my recommendation yeah and I I think it's wise that we we we you know meet with these students during the Academic Year not at the you know winter intercession uh just before winter intercession then at the end of school year because it does us no good then right to fix problems if there are problems or to improve upon or you know listen to them uh the way we should so thank you for that Mr pulski and I'm sure you'll uh speak to superintendent share that schedule once again uh any action on on that or just receiveing place on [Music] file just an update okay great next up we have uh unfinished business action item updates action item updat see and closure unfortunately I don't have any updates at this time do the committee members see anything here that uh well we saw some photos of the food truck so that's positive uh that's uh really really cool it's gotten a lot of great reception in the public at least uh through social media that I've seen um any update on that superintendent on just awaiting final inspection uh I I don't want to say that the orning at the Alternative High School is done yet because I still see a boom lift uh at the Alternative High School but I think that's nearing completion and then once the school year and principal Harrison gets the start of the high school under his feet we'll schedule that uh traffic meeting I I do need to bring something up on this uh on this uh action item and it's uh not not nice to share but I have to uh the hopwell school is a voting location and I heard that the building is in deplorable condition and uh there were complaints um by citizens to the mayor's office uh so we need to uh I don't know what we need to do here but um it wasn't it wasn't good it wasn't good for any of us whether you're a city counselor a school Committee Member the mayor uh because it was a voting poll location and they were um wasn't good based on the perception of the public yeah I was concerned too because the the fence in the back was open so the whole playground this was more in inside inside I 100% agree because that's where I vote so oh you were there okay so you sorry okay yeah I didn't see I just so so I believe the appropriate action would be by the committee to refer this item to long range planning or uh to schedule a committee of the whole meeting to have a discussion well I I believe that uh we need to do this sooner than later uh I think we should follow our rules and go to long range planning first and then from there we can go to committee the whole who who chairs longrange plans that you Mr VI yeah do you are you okay with that Mr absolutely so you'll get together with your uh student superintendent to schedule a meeting ASAP yes great that's all I have Mr palowski please uh if it pleases the committee if this is the appropriate Mo moment uh I need to make uh a motion um at a previous meeting uh Mr Enos had placed had made a motion to schedule a meeting uh with representatives from the city to discuss the two Hamilton Street uh school on uh for for a meeting on 9:18 uh and the in the motion passed I'd like to make a motion if we could reschedule that meeting to October the 2nd due to scheduling conflicts so again this meeting was scheduled to be with um khabib the engineer Chris carmichel the building superintendent and Patrick deluso the CFO on uh September 18th to discuss the to Hamilton Street I'd like to make a motion to move that meeting to October 2nd if it pleases the committee is there a second second second second on discussion uh I I appreciate that there is going to be another member not present not myself I will be present there's a another member not present at that meeting so that means we'd have two members not present I think the motion is appro appropriate uh the motion has been seconded all in favor I I I opposed I have it superintendent could you please advise uh the city authorities that will postpone that till October 2nd we will contact them tomorrow thank you thank you Miss psky Mrs Fagan just want another comment Mr Vieira and I took a tour of Hall school last year when all that rain and it was a mess in there there was water getting pumped into sewer lines from the Third floor I mean dripping through all the floors that's that that was a beautiful building and I think it's a shame that we let that thing fall into that kind of disrepair we should never have done that we're going to address that at the next long range point that out when we discussed it then too we did urge them to address it right away and what they have or haven't done is out of our hands I mean we don't have the ability to to make that repair um here it's the city's the city maintains and repairs our building so we urge them in January what they did or didn't do um you know we don't know so we'll address that long range plan great thank you thank you uh next up press do we have any press in the audience I see no Press thank you Mr ler uh motion to adjourn be an order motion to adjourn second all in favor I opposed eyes have it good night thank you