Name: FPS School Committee Meeting - 07/15/26
Duration: 2 h 39 min 13 s
Description: Is it random or reaching out to certain groups of kids because it seems like the more kids who are different walks of life different experiences of school we have.

[1:02] Local committee meeting of Wednesday, July 15, 20, 26, I call this the meeting to order at 705 p.m.

[1:10] School committee meetings provide American sign language, Spanish, Portuguese, interpretation by

[1:14] Azume, confining instructions on how to access live interpretation on the agenda on the school

[1:19] place website and when you register for Zoom.

[1:22] Reminder to members and all in attendance to speak slowly to allow time for interpretation,

[1:27] as well as to speak into the microphones, otherwise those on Zoom cannot hear those in the room.

[1:32] In attendance tonight, we have District 1, Rich Robles attending remotely.

[1:38] District 2, the right of tomorrow, District 3, Jen Moshe, District 4, Adam Fordberg attending remotely.

[1:45] District 5, Judy Sire, District 6, Brent Lewis, District 7, Kyle Shepard, District 8, Jessica Barnhill, District 9, William LeBarge.

[1:57] Exifcio, mayor, Charlie, Sysitsky will not be in attendance tonight.

[2:01] Our student advisor, welcome, Jolene.

[2:03] Jolene Zengens, our student advisory committee member joining us.

[2:07] From the district, we have superintendent, Dr. Trumbly, executive director,

[2:10] finance, and operations, Lincoln Lynch, and the assistant superintendent

[2:13] pre-cated 12 education analysts.

[2:16] The meeting is live on the government channel and can be viewed live on Facebook

[2:19] on the framing him public school, Facebook page.

[2:21] A recording of this meeting will be archived on access, framing him,

[2:24] school committee website as soon as possible.

[2:27] Meeting materials can be accessed on the school committee's website page with tonight's

[2:31] meeting date.

[2:32] Members of the public can participate by a Zoom specifically during public comment to join

[2:36] the meeting for the public comment portion, join through Zoom, or by calling the number

[2:42] looking on the agenda.

[2:43] That number is 305, 224, 196, 8, and the webinar ID is 862, 8134, 7776.

[2:56] Today's agenda includes public comment.

[2:58] And now since from the chair, student advisory will forego,

[3:02] mayors update, student advisory committee remarks,

[3:06] sci-foc appointments vote for the vacant local business seat,

[3:09] and at large seat. We'll vote on the superintendent's proposed 2026, 2027 school year goals.

[3:17] Following that, we have superintendents of schools update, followed by the Blue Ribbon Commission

[3:22] appointments discussion and vote, assistance superintendent for pre-cated 12 education update,

[3:29] executive director of finance and operations update, discussion and vote on unit EMOA,

[3:35] Consideration of the recognition of a union for family and community support and engagement.

[3:39] We asons school building committee of state subcommittee reports including finance and

[3:44] operations and policy approval of gifts and minutes followed by adjournment.

[3:49] Okay. We will start with public comment at every regularly scheduled school committee meeting.

[3:53] We reserve 15 minutes for members of the public who may wish to speak on a topic within the school

[3:57] committee's purview. Guidelines for public comment are located on the school committee's website.

[4:03] All comments will be accepted as advice to the school committee, but may not be responded to tonight.

[4:08] If you request follow-up, provide your contact information and indicate your remarks if you would like follow-up.

[4:13] The matter is in the school committee's purview, we will respond if in the superintendents here as office will.

[4:19] If you're participating via Zoom, you can use the utilize the raise hand feature and participate via audio.

[4:25] If by phone press star 9, if you'd like to speak during the public comment portion.

[4:28] column number again three zero five two two four one nine six eight and the webinar

[4:37] A.D. eight six two eight one three four seven seven seven six remarks including

[4:44] any personal tax anyone including members of the administration or members of the

[4:48] school committee will not be tolerated we will have additional public comment at

[4:51] the end of the screening so welcome Chris I think you're up but I actually didn't

[4:55] take the sheet, so if there's any other names, there are two, feel free to relay.

[5:00] We'll do three minutes.

[5:04] Okay, thank you.

[5:06] Everybody, here's to be on.

[5:11] Good evening.

[5:11] I'd like to share some exciting news.

[5:20] First of all, it's welcome to our new facility.

[5:23] Bear with us if there's any technology issues that are, thank you.

[5:27] I'd like to share some exciting news.

[5:30] the organization you have long known as the Framingham Teachers Association has officially adopted

[5:37] a new name, the Education Association of Framingham. While our new name has changed, our

[5:42] mission has not. In fact, our new name better reflects who we are today. We proudly represent

[5:49] educators and education professionals across many roles who work every day to support the

[5:55] students and families of framing him.

[5:59] This name recognizes the contribution of our entire membership while reaffirming our commitment

[6:04] to strong public schools, collaboration, and advocacy for the resources our students deserve.

[6:12] Over the course of the 2627 school year, you'll see us gradually transition to our new name

[6:18] on our new communications,

[6:20] publications and materials.

[6:23] During this transition,

[6:24] you may see both names used interchangeably,

[6:27] as we make the change thoughtfully and seamlessly.

[6:31] It's a new name,

[6:32] but the same passionate advocates you've come to know,

[6:35] the same trusted partners at the table,

[6:38] and the same unwavering champions for our students,

[6:41] our members, and our public schools.

[6:44] We look forward to continuing our work together

[6:46] as the Education Association of Framingham.

[6:51] I also hope everyone is enjoying a well-deserved summer,

[6:55] while school may be out, educators, and school staff

[6:58] are already preparing for the year ahead, planning lessons,

[7:03] participating in professional learning,

[7:04] and getting ready to welcome students back in a few weeks.

[7:08] This summer also marks the beginning of bargaining

[7:11] for a successor agreement between the Education Association

[7:15] of framing him and the school committee.

[7:18] A year ago, our community faced difficult budget conversations that reminded us how important

[7:24] it is to invest in our public schools and the people who make them successful.

[7:30] We appreciate our community's commitment to moving forward together and looking forward to productive negotiations grounded in respect, collaboration, and our shared commitment to students.

[7:42] Our members are asking for what is fair, competitive compensation, professional respect, and the resources needed to help every student succeed.

[7:52] Because, at the end of the day, the best way to demonstrate that we value public education

[7:57] is to value the people who make it possible.

[8:00] Thank you.

[8:04] All right,

[8:09] seeing those Zoom attendees raising their hand up, we'll go back to in-person, anybody

[8:14] else to speak in-person?

[8:23] All right.

[8:24] This concludes public comment.

[8:25] We'll go to analysis from the chair.

[8:26] I have a few of them.

[8:27] The school committee met earlier tonight in an executive session to conduct strategy in sessions

[8:32] in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining

[8:37] sessions or contracting negotiations with non-union personnel, specifically to consider

[8:42] the recognition of a union for a family and community support and engagement liaison.

[8:47] To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining because an open meeting law, open

[8:51] meeting might have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public

[8:55] and the chair so declares pursuant to general law chapter 30, a section 21, a3,

[9:02] specifically for unit E to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining,

[9:07] because an open meeting might have an detrimental effect on bargaining or litigating

[9:10] position of the public body and the chair so declares pursuant to general law chapter 30, a section 21, a3,

[9:18] specifically for unit A, B, E, S, and T for approval of executive session minutes pursuant

[9:23] to general law chapter 30, A, Section 21, A, 7, and general law chapter 30, A, Section 22, G, L,

[9:32] Specifically, September 17th, 2025, January 14th, 2026, April 15th, 2026, May 6th, 2026,

[9:40] and May 20th, 2026, and Executive session minutes review updates to previously made redactions.

[9:46] Move forward for open session approvals, pursuant to MGLs, the community, the committee.

[9:52] is in the process of periodically reviewing previously

[9:55] redacted minutes from 2012 to 2025 and 2017

[9:59] school committee superintendent search committee.

[10:02] That was announcement one.

[10:04] An announcement two.

[10:05] August 5th is tentative meeting will remain a

[10:08] hold for emergencies however there are no current topics

[10:10] therefore it's expected that we will not meet.

[10:12] That's August 5th.

[10:14] Next is as included in the vote on

[10:16] school committee budget so when we voted on the

[10:18] budget. Subcommittee meetings will also now include Spanish and Portuguese interpretation,

[10:24] so just in an announcement for everybody in order to arrange this subcommittee should be

[10:28] scheduled well in advance, so a interpretation can be arranged. As recommended in the rules report,

[10:33] a long-term agenda for each subcommittee would also be helpful to have dates ahead of time

[10:38] to arrange interpretation. So, shut up to all the chairs. I'd like to also, my last announcement,

[10:44] and thank you, Brent, for sending this along as well. I'd like to recognize and thank everyone

[10:48] involved in Framingham's annual disability pride flag raising ceremony and the Framingham Disability

[10:55] Commission for their continued work to promote inclusion, accessibility and belonging in

[10:59] our community were grateful for the advocacy of so many individuals and organizations including

[11:04] our CPAC families and volunteers who voices help ensure that students with disabilities are

[11:09] seen, supported and valued and thank you all for what you do to make Framingham more inclusive

[11:14] place for every student. Thank you. All right, next up on the turn over to Joly and Zank for her student advisory

[11:20] remarks. Welcome, happy summer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I hope everyone here had a great summer so far

[11:28] and as far as school updates goes, I have really quick remarks.

[11:34] So fall school registrations are available

[11:36] to students who are interested in understanding that for fall sports, they are available until August

[11:42] 24th and Triads are which are also starting the week of August 24th.

[11:48] Rising seniors can also sign up to help the incoming freshmen tours and orientations.

[11:55] And as right now for SAC, we don't have much updates.

[12:01] We are currently working on helping the new members getting settled for the incoming school

[12:06] year and me and the current members are just coming up with ideas and steps on what to

[12:11] for the fall. And that's all we've got for updates. Thank you.

[12:19] All right. Are there questions or comments?

[12:23] Okay. Seeing none, we'll go to

[12:25] SyFAC. So strategic initiatives and financial oversight committee.

[12:29] Appointments vote for the vacant local business community seat at large.

[12:33] Judy, forever grateful for you for her. It's your heading this committee. I will turn it over to you as

[12:38] this chair of the subcommittee. Just report out a little bit and then I can take it from there.

[12:44] Thank you Madam Chair. On behalf of the School Committee Syphox Subcommittee, I'd like to briefly summarize our work and thank everyone who applied to serve on the strategic initiatives and financial oversight committee.

[12:57] The Subcommittee reviewed applications and interviewed six outstanding candidates.

[13:02] We were impressed by the experience and knowledge and commitment to public service that each person brought to this process.

[13:08] So as we chose our recommendations, we look beyond resumes and professional accomplishments and

[13:13] focused on each candidate's understanding of CIFOX role, their ability to think strategically,

[13:20] work collaboratively, and help the committee address the long-term opportunities and challenges

[13:24] facing our cities.

[13:27] City, the candidates we are putting forward were Fredo DeLon for the local business seat and

[13:31] Donna Oothaford, Todd Parr, and John Rally for the at-large seat each bring different strengths

[13:37] and perspectives, and we believe each would be a valuable addition to CIFOC.

[13:42] So we'd like you to have the opportunity to hear directly from them, and about why they would

[13:47] like to serve in what they hope to contribute. After their comments, I believe there'll be an

[13:51] opportunity for school committee members to ask questions. Sure, thank you.

[13:56] All right, so welcome. We'll go in order as listed on my agenda. So we'll

[14:01] with you join us at the mic please we want to hear a little bit about why you're interested in serving on

[14:07] sci-foc. Welcome.

[14:11] It doesn't have to be a full interview. We've had the video. We've had it available for us and

[14:16] if you want to tell us a little bit about yourself. Sure and sweet. Sure.

[14:22] Well, my name is thank you for having me here today.

[14:26] My name is Will Froly and I'm very interested to serve as a sci-foc member of the committee

[14:34] In the role in the local business, I'm happy and experienced as an accountant for 25 years.

[14:40] I work for the federal government for a couple of years, 15 years.

[14:45] I'm a retired veteran, so I'm also a combabettering.

[14:48] The reason that I'm doing this without always like to serve.

[14:52] I have 22 years of in the research to come towards an Iraq,

[14:56] in which I always, the serving.

[15:00] Is in my veins, I guess. I serve Asadikon in the Catholic Church too. And I will love to offer my, on the board at

[15:12] expertise to the city of Firmahan and as a kind of advisor in the CIFO committee for the local business.

[15:22] Thank you.

[15:23] And correct me if I'm wrong, you're open for the local business seat as well. Thank you.

[15:28] All right, next up is we have Donna or the fur on line, she on line,

[15:38] hi, Donna, I'm just going to promote you to speak and I should be enable your camera as well.

[15:46] Can you hear me?

[15:47] We can, yes.

[15:49] Yeah, so thank you for the opportunity to speak about why I'm interested in SIPOC.

[15:55] I've been interested in framing him as a total city for a while.

[16:01] I've been interested in the schools and the betterment of schools, many years ago I got involved

[16:10] with the Fuller School and went to meetings about what the building was going to look like,

[16:17] kind of what the layout and what we'd hoped for Fuller and then I worked on the S for Fuller

[16:25] campaign and I think that a part of that was going out and meeting people around the city

[16:33] and finding out what was important to them and it gave me really good insight to what people

[16:41] felt was important and recently I've been attending city council meetings for different issues,

[16:51] budgets, zoning, and so I feel like I have a good kind of picture of Birmingham from the school

[17:02] perspective and also from the city's perspective. I think the site focus is being a piece of

[17:10] the puzzle to help move for any hemp forward so that we have a good strategic plan so that we don't

[17:27] I think we're losing the audio a little bit.

[17:33] Are you still with us?

[17:38] Did you hear the last part of it?

[17:39] We did not. Do you mind just restating that last part?

[17:45] I just wanted to say that I was interested in this insight

[17:50] because I felt like it's a piece of the puzzle

[17:53] as far as when we have those.

[17:57] And I see that we really do need a strong strategic plan to move the city forward

[18:03] and to help with the schools, budget, and, you know, just quality of life.

[18:11] So thank you.

[18:12] Thank you.

[18:15] All right.

[18:15] Next up we have Todd Paray.

[18:17] We are Todd.

[18:17] You all come on.

[18:18] Join us.

[18:22] Welcome.

[18:24] Thank you.

[18:24] I've got some brief prepared statements.

[18:28] And this is the part I like to list about getting old.

[18:31] This is reading glasses or new.

[18:33] All right.

[18:34] Good evening.

[18:35] Chair Barnhill.

[18:36] The rest of the city council members, school committee members, thank you for having me.

[18:41] For the record and for a quick refresher, my name is Todd Paray.

[18:44] My wife and I have lived in framing him for over 10 years.

[18:47] We have two kids in our public schools, it is 10 and 12.

[18:51] They'll be going into 8th and 6th, so both in middle school.

[18:57] So I have both a long-term and a very immediate stake in framing him in schools.

[19:03] First, I simply want to say thank you.

[19:05] Three years ago, you're giving the opportunity to serve on the Sifak Committee and it has

[19:10] been a genuinely rewarding experience.

[19:12] In full transparency, at the outset of that, I did not know what I was signing up for,

[19:17] or what to expect.

[19:18] But it has been a great three-year experience.

[19:21] I'm proud of what Sifak accomplished over that term, especially this last year or so.

[19:26] When the committee focused on developing a shared vision for framing him and advocating for

[19:30] a formal strategic plan, I'll credit Charlie Kiefer with really getting us

[19:35] started with the shared vision work, and it's still bald quickly and really excited I think

[19:40] all of the sci-foc members to really engage around this idea of a strategic plan.

[19:46] Very happy to have had the privilege of creating and presenting that resulting proposal,

[19:50] asking this committee to formally endorse the recommendation and thank you very much for doing so.

[19:56] That work was truly a team effort and it reflects the best of what this committee can do.

[20:00] Of course, endorsing that idea was the easy part there's still a great deal of important work ahead to make it real.

[20:07] Before I get to that, I want to acknowledge that the other candidates here tonight, I've seen the qualifications.

[20:12] This group brings and honestly, any one of us would serve you well.

[20:16] You have a very difficult choice ahead of you, and that is a great thing for framing him.

[20:21] For my part, what I believe I bring in what three years of working alongside the other South Lock members has let me validate.

[20:27] As a well-informed view of how strategic planning is done in industry, how a vision becomes

[20:33] a specific initiative and how transparent metrics, both leading and lagging, are what actually

[20:39] bring a plan to fruition.

[20:41] In my day job, I lead products strategy for a $100 million business unit within software

[20:45] and the discipline translates directly.

[20:48] Looking ahead, I see two big bodies of work for Sci-Fi.

[20:51] First, continuing to partner with the City Council, the mayor and the CFO on creating that

[20:55] citywide shared vision and strategic plan, likely with the support of outside consultants

[21:01] who do this professionally.

[21:02] Second, engaging with the city's various departments to guide adoption of an alignment

[21:07] with such a plan.

[21:08] Sci-Fi can help ensure that each department's goals are tied to specific initiatives with

[21:13] financial metrics attached so that our committee can see our community can see real progress.

[21:18] Thank you very much for the opportunity.

[21:21] Thank you so much, John Riley, are we... we have you on Zoom. Great. Welcome. Thanks for coming.

[21:32] Thank you for having me. Appreciate the opportunity. Tough act to follow Todd.

[21:36] I've read the report in the output from the white paper that's I thought put up.

[21:40] It's actually one of the things that inspired me to want to join the committee.

[21:46] I'm at 22 year resident in a Framingham,

[21:48] have three kids in the public schools.

[21:50] Okay, one kid just graduated from my school

[21:52] and is off to college and fall.

[21:54] So two kids were waiting in the public schools,

[21:56] one in middle school, one in high school.

[21:58] So I've invested in trust in seeing the school's flourish

[22:01] within Framingham.

[22:02] And over my time here, I've sort of felt like I've seen the opposite

[22:06] as reflected in some of the good schools,

[22:07] ratings and other things like that.

[22:09] And it's for me an opportunity to give back.

[22:12] you know, I personally run a biotech company, you know, I make strategic decisions on a

[22:17] daily basis, I deal with budgets on a daily basis, those sorts of things. So I think the

[22:21] experience is there to translate that into, you know, beneficial advice for the city for

[22:25] aiming at them and for the school district. But I do think it's an opportunity for me to give.

[22:30] And I do think I could contribute in a variety of ways in terms of realizing that being not been involved in a transformative change in large pharma, a couple of large pharma that I've worked in that are often ongoing on transitions within those large companies.

[22:44] And it's really about engaging folks in a productive and collaborative way and bringing people together to push a vision forward.

[22:52] So I appreciate that the vision has been articulated, I think, you know, as with all vision statements it gets refined midstream and then when the rubber hits the road

[23:00] It's about translating that video into reality and so I'm I'm hopeful to have the opportunity to do that within framing him

[23:07] Thank you

[23:11] All right, thank you so much

[23:27] All right, since so it seems like it's just vetting the paperwork. Well, Fredo's the only person only candidate who is eligible for the local business seat

[23:35] Is there a motion to a point?

[23:37] Will Fredo DeLan as a school committee appointed local business seat to

[23:40] say a fuck before we go through the other one?

[23:42] So moved.

[23:43] Who by Jen?

[23:44] Seconded.

[23:45] Seconded.

[23:45] Okay.

[23:46] Any discussion?

[23:51] Go ahead.

[23:52] I just have one thing to say that, you know, and looking through the candidates, we'll

[23:59] Fredo will be an excellent addition to sci-foc, and I think you for putting yourself forward.

[24:04] Yeah, and I'll just echo that to all the candidates, like, thank you all for putting

[24:07] yourself forward to serve publicly,

[24:13] unfortunately, we can't take everybody. Okay.

[24:18] So Wilfredo

[24:19] Dilan is the motion to approve for the local business seat, local roll call vote. District 1.

[24:27] Yes, I don't know. Yes. Oh, and District 2? Yes. District 3? Sorry. District 2?

[24:36] Yes. District 3.

[24:40] District 4.

[24:42] Yes.

[24:43] District 5.

[24:45] Yes.

[24:46] District 6.

[24:47] Yes.

[24:48] District 7.

[24:49] Yes.

[24:50] District 8.

[24:51] Yes.

[24:51] District 9.

[24:52] Yes.

[24:53] All right.

[24:54] You need to have a welcome.

[24:55] Congratulations.

[24:56] Thank you so much for your service.

[24:57] And you're willing to serve the sci-fi.

[25:01] Okay.

[25:02] So next up we'll go.

[25:05] We'll go around.

[25:06] We will.

[25:07] say the name of the individual that you would like to vote for. So the third of the three remaining are

[25:14] Donna, or the fourth of her, Todd, per A and John Riley. Okay, so you'll say the name of the person that you're going to go for.

[25:23] Any objection to that? Are we going in district order? We're going to district order, yeah. Let me just write down.

[25:43] Let me know if you want me to come back to you. We'll start with district one.

[25:45] He said, all right, district two.

[25:52] John Riley, district three.

[25:55] John, Pierre.

[25:57] Sorry.

[25:58] Sorry.

[26:00] So it's district four.

[26:03] Odd, hooray.

[26:06] District five.

[26:08] Todd, hooray.

[26:09] District six.

[26:10] Todd, hooray.

[26:12] District seven.

[26:13] John Riley.

[26:15] district eight, Todd, per A, district nine.

[26:20] All right, welcome.

[26:22] Thank you so much.

[26:24] Congratulations.

[26:25] And it much appreciated to all of the

[26:26] contestants, all the candidates for a

[26:28] sci-foc.

[26:29] Appreciate it.

[26:31] All right.

[26:32] Yes, please.

[26:32] I would just encourage the candidates

[26:34] that we didn't select to consider applying

[26:36] for other open sci-foc seats or other

[26:39] positions within our community.

[26:41] You all bring such tremendous skills

[26:43] and clearly a passion to support framing him,

[26:46] Nicole, our community participation officer,

[26:48] I'm sure it would be happy to recommend a position for you.

[26:52] Thank you.

[26:57] Just for those of you not listening remotely,

[27:01] he said there's a vacancy on city council.

[27:04] Just relaying that into the mic.

[27:07] All right,

[27:09] we're moving on to Superintendent's proposed goals,

[27:12] 2020, 6, 20, 27 school year goals, turn it over to Dr. Tremblay.

[27:17] Thank you, Madam Chair, good evening everyone, and thank you for working with us, your

[27:21] patience for our new space to see things, so I like to thank first just by way of

[27:25] announcement that it's okay with the chair, just to acknowledge Access Framingham, the team

[27:30] who's here tonight, and then for our entire Framingham Public Schools team who made this

[27:35] possible.

[27:35] So far, I think it seems to be going pretty well, and hopefully that will continue.

[27:40] So thank you again for your patience with us, and for accommodating the new location.

[27:44] This evening I'll begin with just going through the proposed goals for the school year.

[27:50] Normally I propose these in tandem with the end of the year evaluation.

[27:54] This year I intentionally waited on that evaluation feedback so they can incorporate that into these goals.

[28:00] Another committee has had a chance to already have this as part of your packets.

[28:04] Of course I'm happy to go through it and answer questions.

[28:07] I just want to go through the slides and I thank Joanna for sharing those on the screen.

[28:11] And so first is just a reminder of framing of who we are.

[28:17] So this is, I'm going to read this aloud and I think it's just important as a centering activity.

[28:23] The framing and public schools and all of us within it represent a learning organization that is committed to improving our practices

[28:29] and ensuring students their valued, loved, and celebrated.

[28:33] The vision of FPS is to be a place of belonging, where our students, their families, and

[28:39] our staff have voice, participation, and agency.

[28:43] Indeed, we aspire to embrace differences in inspire futures.

[28:47] Through a comprehensive education is our mission to create and empower free thinking, responsible

[28:52] citizens, who can participate equally in our rich and diverse community.

[28:57] In fulfilling our mission, we hold true to our core values, and it's probably not often enough

[29:01] that we come back and center ourself around our mission.

[29:06] I'm not going to reach at the strategic priorities.

[29:08] These are well captured in our long-range strategic plan,

[29:12] but just highlight the major topics of this

[29:15] and where we base all of our educational priorities

[29:18] and spending.

[29:19] The first of which is to strengthen standards-based,

[29:22] grade-level instruction to meet the needs of all students.

[29:25] And I've heard the committee loud and clear on this

[29:27] and as you'll see tonight in the goals presentation

[29:29] That many of the goals tonight that are specified in there that are intended to be written as smart goals as requested to be measurable

[29:38] Should reflect this more than previous goals submissions that I've had for this committee get them where we are with our performance metrics

[29:45] The next priority is to deepen relationships and to develop partnerships to benefit all students again

[29:52] This is work that's ongoing, but it's another one of our strategic priorities

[29:55] So everything you hear at these meetings or what you see in our budget book

[30:00] Should be tied back to these priorities. And the third strategic priority that we have is the create opportunities for expansion and innovation to benefit all students.

[30:11] Again, there's a lot of more details in each of the slides, of course, in our strategic plan that has annotations for every year from 2023 until 2030 that shows the progress for making, or where we've been stalled, or where we haven't made the kind of progress that we had hoped.

[30:28] and we need to reprioritize over the seven-year plan.

[30:32] So again, this reference to that on our website

[30:35] and our transparency center, I'm going to move now

[30:38] to more specifically the goals for the school year.

[30:41] I appreciate the sci-fi candidates who are here,

[30:44] and I want to thank you for staying in the room.

[30:46] I really do appreciate that.

[30:48] This next slide is a district priorities dashboard.

[30:51] I've talked about this at previous meetings,

[30:54] and frankly, it's the running increase

[30:55] the accountability for student achievement.

[30:56] This has been a subject that's come in many of the evaluations, certainly in public commentary,

[31:02] certainly everybody at this table from the administration and from our staff, from the FTA.

[31:09] We all want to see our students succeed. We want to see our achievement as a district improve.

[31:14] If that is an opportunity to spend some time talking with the leadership of SiFoc in their strategic

[31:20] of planning conversations, and also most recently, and Lewis and I had an opportunity to visit

[31:26] the Callahan Center and hear from our seniors in the community around what their feelings

[31:30] are around a quality education system for their grandchildren as an example.

[31:36] And so I want to talk quickly about this slide.

[31:40] This is in collaboration with the city's Strategic Initiatives and Financial Oversight Committee,

[31:44] sci-foc, our building principles, district leaders, and the Fremium School Committee, our FPS priorities

[31:51] dashboard is aimed to do the following things. And I'll speak a little bit more in a moment

[31:55] about the dashboard specifically. But we're looking for a public facing measure, illustration,

[32:03] that illustrates district accountability measures as they relate to expectations around

[32:07] improved student achievement, and measuring progress in the Fremium Public Schools that the

[32:14] do, we don't articulate to a broader community.

[32:18] We talk to our families through parents where

[32:20] we're trying to find more and more ways to do that.

[32:23] And we're hopeful that CIFOC is another mechanism

[32:26] in our community to do so.

[32:28] But if we can agree on what are these things

[32:31] that we're paying attention to in a community?

[32:33] And among them, for example, is high school graduation rate.

[32:35] We'll talk more about that as one of the goals.

[32:38] Our pre-K expansion effort is another example

[32:41] of where we've invested a lot of money.

[32:43] But one of those difficult areas to illustrate the return on investment, because it will take

[32:48] 13 or 14 years before we see the long term benefit of a pre-K effort, but when they

[32:54] graduate from high school, where they go on to post secondary education.

[32:57] So these are works in progress, but these conversations have been really rich with our leadership

[33:02] team in the school, with Sci-Fock and others to say, what is it we're all paying attention

[33:08] to, so when we are sitting before a city council meeting and prioritizing our spending, everybody

[33:13] in the room, the city council, the school committee, the citizen re-affirming him,

[33:17] all say, yes, this is important. We have to invest these dollars because it directly impacts

[33:22] the ability of our students to graduate from fremylim high school in four years. We need to have

[33:28] that level of engagement. There's a universal agreement on what matters, and that's what this

[33:33] is striving to do. There are certainly things that we're doing in the district, and I have

[33:37] great feedback from Sci-Fock as an example with we've been working to expand theater programming

[33:43] as an example at the elementary level.

[33:45] Some of our elementary schools as you know offer, you know, through PTO's theater programs,

[33:50] but not all of them do.

[33:52] It was a strategic priority of ours and we've tracked it year over year, but not necessarily

[33:56] everybody in the city of Frammyham is looking at that metrics.

[33:59] So we can still track those important metrics, but we all want to see that our kids are graduating.

[34:04] We also want to see how we're spending our money on our pre-K investment as two examples.

[34:09] We also want to see how our grade three reading scores are improving or not.

[34:14] These are tied directly also to the work that this committee did in my contract

[34:18] of time specific performance metrics to my role as a leader in the district.

[34:24] And I recognize that I'm not the one that's necessarily teaching all students,

[34:27] but we're all in the same boat rolling together.

[34:29] And so this goal's presentation serves to do a few things.

[34:35] It serves to double down on our transparency and some of the criticism around what we can do better as a district and how we can broaden that messaging.

[34:43] It serves to tie to my own performance metrics, my own accountability, and it also shows this community how we're spending our dollars and how we're tying that spending directly back to educational outcomes.

[34:55] Among some of the topics of debate, however, around rankings, rankings are very particular,

[35:01] depending on what you're using US News and World Report.

[35:04] Think about any educator who uses right-might teacher.

[35:06] You'll have opinions on that.

[35:08] So the public discourse around rankings is real.

[35:12] We have to figure out how to capture that and how to show it because it is not necessarily

[35:16] something that everybody uses the same lever because for one family's experience and education,

[35:22] may be very different as to how they would rank that overall experience.

[35:25] But the goal here is to show something to the entire community as to how we're making this investment especially in these very difficult budget times.

[35:34] Second is garnering community supporters I mentioned for district improvement efforts so that everyone across the city can have a shared understanding and commitment to district priorities.

[35:42] Number three, aligning with the 2020-2023-2030 FPS strategic plan and progress tracker that is available with real-time progress monitoring on the district's transparency page on the FPS website.

[35:56] I mentioned this earlier, but it's just worth underscoring again, that while these goals are specific to certain areas of focus, that's not to say we're not paying attention to anything else.

[36:06] But we just can't continue to show all that.

[36:08] This is just too overwhelming.

[36:10] And so we are narrowing these priorities.

[36:12] But in this ongoing, attracting mechanism on our website,

[36:16] there is real time data that shows our progress

[36:18] in all of those areas.

[36:20] And then number four, defining, measuring,

[36:22] and communicating outcomes, including year over year

[36:24] illustrations of student achievement outcomes,

[36:27] to strengthen public confidence and allow community members

[36:30] to better understand the impact of the city's

[36:33] financial investments.

[36:33] It seems to me that it's not been a time ever before than this, what we've experienced, and I would be remissed in not acknowledging the reduction of 112 positions in our district through this budget process.

[36:46] That is extraordinary, and that is difficult, and our educators and our administrators will have to do more with less.

[36:52] But we worked in cooperation with the city to get where we are, but now we need to prove that we can do it.

[36:58] And so this is a very timely and important.

[37:01] So this is a dashboard that will come more to life.

[37:04] This is overarching as a goal.

[37:06] But I wanted to show that there's a tremendous synergy here.

[37:08] And I think the members of SciFlock

[37:10] who've been watching this would agree.

[37:12] This has been an ongoing iterative conversation.

[37:14] And I look forward to continuing that discussion with SciFlock.

[37:18] When I pause there on this slide, just to see

[37:20] if there are any specific questions around this,

[37:23] dashboard concept, I know you haven't seen,

[37:25] you don't see yet the data, well we'll be looking at.

[37:27] We're still refining that process.

[37:30] But what this will ultimately look like is what were the four or five areas that were watching, I named one of them, for example, is the graduation rate.

[37:38] And then showing how we can allocate the actual dollar costs to each of these priority areas.

[37:44] So you can see how much we're spending and what the outcomes are on that spending. Let me pause there in case there are any questions on the dashboard concept.

[37:51] All right, we're going to kick it off the chin first.

[37:55] Thank you.

[37:57] The accountability metrics of the data metrics is there.

[38:02] It would be the best way to kind of measure us against, like,

[38:07] what Dessie is versus what we are as a district besides just going

[38:12] to the Dessie website and looking it up that way.

[38:14] Is there a way to put that information on

[38:19] in the transparency center area just so it's kind of right there without having a really

[38:25] look for it to see kind of where we stand as a district.

[38:30] Yeah, it's an excellent question.

[38:31] The answer is yes and so there's two things we can do.

[38:34] One is to make direct length to the profiles information that's publicly available.

[38:39] And then also in this dashboard working with our data team is to say,

[38:42] how can we use that data from the state to drive the actual representation of that?

[38:47] Because some of it would want it I would want to go and reconcile that right if you're auditing your books

[38:52] You want to make sure what's posted on the desi page matches what's on the framing him page

[38:56] So so yes to both that information can be more easily available and we want to make sure that it is is a cross check of itself

[39:04] So that is part of the plan and and comparing it against the state is what we've agreed for now

[39:09] And some competitions with sci-flock and within our leadership team as opposed to comparing there's there's options

[39:14] right. We could compare ourselves to what's called dart districts. These are districts across

[39:19] the Commonwealth that I've been identified as comparable to framing and premiums in many ways,

[39:24] a very unique city for unique demographic. It's difficult to find comps for that. If you're in

[39:30] the real estate business, right, you're looking for comps. And this is one of those unique houses.

[39:34] That being said, we can at least compare ourselves to state averages. To compare ourselves to our

[39:44] comparing apples to apples, but I do think it's a starting point comparing a state

[39:49] average is where we'll begin.

[39:55] Oh, I'm sorry. And it's reminding me it's, or Amy,

[39:59] Amy, Candice, reminding us that it's actually already linked in the transparency center.

[40:03] It's just in the back of the room. Thanks, Amy.

[40:05] I've already done. Check.

[40:09] All right, more discussion, superintendent schools.

[40:12] Okay, Lorena.

[40:15] I have a question about the dashboard and I think you'd touch it on this a

[40:18] a little bit, but I'm just curious about the specific metrics that will be publicly reported and how

[40:25] if you have a plan for how often to report on those on the metrics.

[40:32] Yeah, it really kind of depends on the back end of that.

[40:35] Well, it depends on certain things that are reported.

[40:37] So for example, the grant is, I'll get it to this in a moment around the graduation rate.

[40:41] So even for now, we don't have the 26 graduation rate finalized because of summer school.

[40:46] And so some of that's depending on when the data is actually released from the state.

[40:51] Right? So sometimes if we have data, by last goal, presentation, we're using chronic absenteeism data from March as an example.

[40:58] So some of it is predicated when you try to reconcile, but we have our own internal data that we can use.

[41:04] So the goal is to have a back end that keeps it in real time, updating, as opposed to being in quarterly or by semester.

[41:11] But that's something we're working through right now to see how we can create a back-end so that we don't have to manually update that

[41:16] Okay, great, then I just want to have I just have a follow-up question

[41:21] To the whole presentation

[41:26] So the fuzzy framework typically has three goals and so I appreciate how thorough this document was and how much information you provided

[41:36] But how do these proposed goals map to the three categories that are part of your evaluation?

[41:45] Sure.

[41:45] Well, this is professional practice goals.

[41:47] And it's there.

[41:48] They're listed that way as we get to the goals document around professional practice for myself.

[41:54] Student achievement goals.

[41:57] So we can frame them.

[41:58] Usually I just take them and plug them into the respective sections of the three.

[42:02] It doesn't have to be three, could be four, and some years has been five.

[42:05] There's more than three in this.

[42:07] I would say that this presentation is less about professional practice for me, where it's

[42:14] more student achievement driven.

[42:15] So there's probably doubling, if not tripling, the number of goals focused on student achievement,

[42:21] because that's what I distilled from the evaluations and the commentary from this committee.

[42:26] So, when we take the goals, once they're approved, we'll plug them into the respective

[42:31] desi structure.

[42:33] I'll work with Joanna on that and we just plug them in where they belong, but predominantly

[42:36] they would be student learning goals.

[42:38] Okay.

[42:39] Thank you.

[42:39] This is my first time.

[42:41] No, no, it's okay.

[42:41] It's my first time presenting it this way also because I wanted to really show a real reflection

[42:50] on the feedback and to tie this into what it's been asked and to really be really intentional

[42:55] around reporting outcomes in accountability, which is entirely different.

[43:01] So it's supposed to be saying I'm going to make a profession development goal to better

[43:05] understand whatever the, you know, a practice in education.

[43:11] That's not to say that I couldn't learn and benefit from that, but it seems to me right now

[43:14] the time is to double down on that effort of student achievement outcomes to the extent that I

[43:19] can, which is why there's many, many more goals in that particular category.

[43:22] Yeah, wonderful, my last thing.

[43:24] I will give the floor to someone else after this.

[43:28] Tied directly to student achievement.

[43:30] I would have loved to see a little bit of focus

[43:32] on special education or a special education component

[43:36] included in the student achievement goal.

[43:38] And I wonder if it's something I know that we are set to book.

[43:42] Tonight, et cetera, but if it's something

[43:44] that can be included more broadly or part of communications,

[43:50] etc.

[43:54] Sure, do you have that? Well, I want to go through the specific goals next.

[43:58] So maybe as I go through it.

[44:01] Yeah, as we go through it.

[44:01] That's what I was wondering.

[44:03] Yeah, sure. And this is again, this is a proposal tonight.

[44:06] So I'm going to ask, and if I came down and I have a hard time talking and writing

[44:12] at the same time, but if animal takes some notes from me, we can modify those.

[44:15] To show if we want to include a subgroup.

[44:18] For example, this year we looked at Dulli identified students

[44:21] was a primary focus, right?

[44:23] So students who are identified as students with disabilities

[44:26] and students who are multilingual learners.

[44:29] So that had been.

[44:30] This one's looking at some of our other categories,

[44:33] based on some of the feedback,

[44:34] but we can certainly add a metric in for special education

[44:36] as a subcategory of these.

[44:38] My constituents would be happy.

[44:40] Sure, absolutely.

[44:41] Again, this is a starting point for a conversation,

[44:43] hopefully framed up for a good conversation,

[44:46] but it's helpful feedback.

[44:48] And this means to be voted by the last day of September.

[44:52] So this we do have time.

[44:54] So if it's helpful, I can take after tonight.

[44:56] I can take the feedback.

[44:57] I can frame it into the desi tool.

[44:59] And then.

[45:00] Just share that back with the committee for a final vote at the next meeting that would be fine.

[45:04] We have time. There's a meeting that's not going to start working on these.

[45:07] Like, I'm not going to be sitting down waiting for the vote to happen.

[45:10] I'm going to read the room correctly here.

[45:13] Are there any other questions or discussion before we move on?

[45:15] Okay. Right. Go ahead.

[45:17] Todd During has interviewed with subcommittee, said something that I thought was important, and that I wanted to highlight.

[45:23] He asked, how do we make data meaningful?

[45:25] The Dessey website is such a warren and plethora of information that I continually start

[45:31] all the find the same piece of information again.

[45:34] What I also think that the Dessey website doesn't do as well as track data year over

[45:38] a year.

[45:38] I would love to see some graphs included in our dashboard.

[45:42] But I would also encourage more than just presenting metrics.

[45:46] As we do in our budget book, we provide sort of a summary about what some of that work

[45:51] has been happening.

[45:52] And I think the more that we can provide a narrative as well that explains some of the work that's

[45:56] happening at the district for each of these metrics, the more information that we can

[46:00] provide to folks beyond just numbers.

[46:03] Sure, that's a great, great suggestion, thank you, Anne, for taking some notes on that.

[46:10] And we agree.

[46:11] Part of the challenge has been, what is the best way to illustrate this?

[46:13] I was thinking in my first iteration of this as a gauge, like a red degree, you know, people

[46:18] and generally understand that if it's green, it's probably a good thing except that when you

[46:23] then you have to invert some of the data because you actually wanted to go the other way,

[46:26] but if you show it as red, it's now a problem, right? But it's really not. So we've been wrestling with

[46:31] this and we can, after some discussions, we came back with showing some sort of graphs that compare

[46:36] progress over time and against a state metric, as you mentioned, is an illustration. I also think

[46:42] the anecdotal information is important. Not only here's how it looks, here's how the dollars

[46:47] are allocated, but here are some of the soft things that we need to know because not all of

[46:51] those skills, not all of those efforts are measured in the same way as you pointed out.

[46:59] I'll move on, Madam Chair, let's say, okay.

[47:01] So just going through each of these, again, I know the committee has had a chance to see these

[47:05] in advance, but first, again, these are all be framed under the student achievements,

[47:10] student learning goals.

[47:12] So specific to the instructional goals to be highlighted in the district priorities dashboard

[47:16] and consistent with the FPS strategic plan, individual school improvement plans, which have been considered here as well,

[47:22] from each of the principles and you'll be hearing from that in subcommittees coming in the fall.

[47:27] And performance benchmarks identified in my own contract, I proposed the following goals at the secondary level.

[47:33] By June 2027, the promotion rate of grade 9 students to grade 10 will increase by 8 percentage points.

[47:41] By June 2027, at least 85 percent of students in grades 9 through 11 will complete their four-year

[47:49] course plan as part of their MyCap, which is a highly high-quality individualized career

[47:53] and academic planner, aligned to post-secondary goals, and number 3 by June 2027, the four-year

[48:00] graduation rate will be at least 80 percent overall, and then subcategory here where we can

[48:05] to build in special education as well, 52% of English learners, students, and 62% of Hispanic

[48:11] Latino, so these are students that were identified in our group as underperforming in those

[48:15] areas.

[48:16] So just to put a few anecdotal notes on these, number one, the promotion of grade 9 students

[48:22] were seeing that our grade 9 is one of our greatest challenge areas, students have a minimum

[48:27] threshold of credits to reach before they're promoted to grade 10.

[48:31] And so unlike a student who'd be retained in grade, say, in first grade, they would be held

[48:36] back in school.

[48:37] They're back in first grade again.

[48:38] We would sort of all live that and know somebody or work with those people.

[48:42] In high school it's a bit different because you can be in these multi grade classrooms, but

[48:49] first students who achieve going from grade 9 to grade 10 have to meet a certain credit threshold,

[48:54] subsequently grade 10 to 11 and so forth.

[48:56] One of our areas of struggle is our grade 9 student retention rate of being under accredited.

[49:01] Some of that could be a combination of factors, some of which we now are students who aren't coming to school, which ties back to the absenteeism, all these things have root cause, so again, the goal is to increase this by 8 percentage points on this particular goal, and I'm working in tandem with, of course, principal, all right, and the high school administration with Amlutus, of course, on this, so that I'm helping to support in working in tandem with the high school around there, also working toward these same outcomes for students.

[49:30] The my cap is important on goal number two or sub-gold number two on this.

[49:35] This is an online platform that students use to plot their longer term interest, post-secondary

[49:40] career, and this helps them to sort of map what they need to do what they ultimately

[49:45] aspire to do along their journey.

[49:47] So this is important work, and we want to get more students, of course, participating in

[49:53] this.

[49:53] And then the third goal, which is with some conversation with Zyfak as well, and I've been wrestling with this one.

[50:01] Because, you know, it's one of those things where it's going to look worse before it's better, is our graduation rate.

[50:06] So we have used in the past our four-year adjusted, and there's also a five-year graduation rate.

[50:14] But for the general, we're going back to Mr. Lewis's point earlier around sort of like the simplicity of the general public.

[50:21] When people think of the graduation rate, they're thinking grades 9 through 12 without being retained in finishing high school.

[50:28] That's what most people arguably think of as the graduation rate.

[50:32] If you were to look at an adjusted graduation rate, you would look at students that were in the Framingham schools starting in grade 9 through grade 12, which is a higher rate.

[50:42] So if a student coming from another state or another country, where to join us mid-cycle, they would be removed from that adjusted for your adjusted rate.

[50:51] So, the optics of that look like we're having a higher performing school district in terms of overall graduation rate.

[50:59] But the truth is, where their student came to us from Michigan in grade 11,

[51:04] or started with us in framing him since they were in pre-K,

[51:07] they're still a framing him high school student, and they need to finish high school in four years.

[51:12] And so this is going to be a really important measure for us to be honest with ourselves about and to have an honest baseline.

[51:19] And so this is a really important goal for us to set and it was through these conversations that originally was going to show three separate metrics four year four year adjusted in five year, and that just proved to be confusing.

[51:32] So let's use the data point as an example that everybody in the community can get behind everybody in the community wants to be behind a four year graduation rate, I would hope, and not a four year adjusted or a five year.

[51:43] So, that's an example of taking a really assertive action on a goal, being very, very specific on this,

[51:50] knowing well that it's going to create a lot of room for judgment.

[51:54] But that's what it's about.

[51:54] We're going to be honest about our accountability, so we can show when we're making growth.

[51:58] We can be truly proud of it and not try to hide behind some perceptions that we can alter through language

[52:04] if I'm being 100% frank.

[52:06] Any questions on that before I move on?

[52:09] Mr.yer.

[52:11] I'm wondering about if there'd be a way to include a little more information about what the data

[52:18] look like now, for example, and will increase by 8 percentage points.

[52:22] What does that mean?

[52:24] What's the context for that?

[52:31] Sorry, I'm just, I'm looking at a different slide than what's right here.

[52:39] You mean you want that for, right now, or for the, in that point?

[52:41] Yeah, what are we, what are we, what are with our starting point? Right, so for, for example, so the baseline for this for the promotion rate for example, let's think the first one, the promotion rate of grade nine to grade 10.

[52:53] So right now we are at 82.6% of our students, right? We with the goal here with this number by eight percentage points of increase that to 90.6.

[53:01] Yeah, so what I'm thinking is it would be helpful to know what the starting point is.

[53:06] Sure, so we can build that into the yeah.

[53:07] And that would probably be true for the four-year graduation rate as well.

[53:13] Yeah, yeah, you want to comment on that.

[53:14] It's not available yet as I understand it from from Anne on this one, but yeah, I have the reason

[53:18] that those that goal one or sub goal one and sub goal three were written that way is that

[53:24] at the time that he prepared these those that data was not available from the Department

[53:28] of that, just recently they released the data for the retention rate, which allowed us to figure

[53:35] out the promotion rate.

[53:36] So now he has that data.

[53:38] We don't yet have the graduation rate for the high school, and that's because we have

[53:45] summer school.

[53:46] All of that has to get calculated out of district students have to be incorporated into that.

[53:50] But the 2025 rate was 74.3%, which is where overall, 47.9% for English

[53:58] learners and 57.9% for Hispanic Latino students, and we can certainly adjust those if it

[54:06] turns out that this year's graduation rate is higher and it already exceeds these,

[54:11] then we'll we can certainly revisit what the goals are. And the reason we did not include

[54:17] students with disabilities in this category was because we looked at where the discrepancies were

[54:23] between the overall graduation rate and for 20, 25 students with disabilities were it.

[54:29] I believe it was 70.5% so they were very close to the overall graduation rate.

[54:34] So we didn't feel we needed to single them out, but we're more than happy to do that.

[54:39] We looked for where the huge gaps were.

[54:46] Move on to the next slide here.

[54:55] Continue on, specific to the instructional goals to be highlighted in the dashboard.

[54:58] Again, I propose the following goals at the elementary levels.

[55:01] That was the secondary.

[55:03] These are two additional sub-goals on their student performance.

[55:07] So by June 2027, at least 30% of grade three students,

[55:12] and 10% of English learner students, 12% students with disabilities,

[55:16] meet or exceed expectations on the English language arts MCAS.

[55:20] Another committee has taken a position on MCAS and a previous statement.

[55:25] But we also know that the reality is people are looking at MCAS,

[55:28] as a measure. And so as much as we don't it's like rankings, as much as we don't want

[55:32] to have to look at it, or even agree in this facility that every student is a test taker

[55:36] and that one snapshot in time tells us everything we need to know about a student's performance.

[55:41] Nonetheless, it's how people are looking at for MIM's performance. So, there we are. And by spring

[55:49] 2027, 75% of grade two students will demonstrate proficiency in foundational literacy skills,

[55:54] enabling them to independently make meaning from grade level text as measured by a mid or above grade level score in the phonics domain on iready diagnostic assessment.

[56:05] So you may know that whether you love it or hate it, iready has been around for some time and has proven to be a strong predictor of MCAS outcomes.

[56:15] We don't use all the features of that. We're really using a diagnostic tool and have specific benchmarking throughout the year,

[56:21] which is just how we'll use that to report out on our progress.

[56:24] But what we do know is that grade 2, grade 3 is really going to be important markers for us in terms of the longer term achievement that we want to see for our students.

[56:35] Again, so we'll include the base lines.

[56:38] As you mentioned on the previous slide for these, so we know we're comparing it.

[56:42] So at least 30% we like to know where we are.

[56:44] So I'm saying that right now we're at 29% it would be an easy goal to hit.

[56:49] the point you were making. So in this case, for example, 24 percent overall of our students

[56:56] in grade three, our meeting are exceeding those as opposed to the goal of 30. And for example,

[57:01] the goal of 75 percent of grade two students will demonstrate proficiency right now our baseline goal

[57:07] is 43 percent. So that's a significant climb from 43 percent to 75 percent. But I also believe in

[57:14] work we've been doing, I believe in the work that Anne is doing, that Mary Beth, Vanessa

[57:19] our team, our office and teaching learning, our educators of course, we're still new into

[57:24] this, we're still new into rolling out high quality instructional materials, but I really believe

[57:28] is going to pay these dividends, which is why I'm putting my own sort of stake in this in terms

[57:34] of overall achievement.

[57:36] Please pause for a second and see which has to stand up.

[57:39] Oh, sure.

[57:41] Glad Richard.

[57:42] So yeah.

[57:43] Thank you.

[57:43] So Bob, for the first one, if you know, you just mentioned that the baseline is 24 percent,

[57:48] and they went up to 30, you're going up to 30 percent.

[57:51] How did you happen to choose 30 percent?

[57:53] What's the formula here?

[57:54] I suppose to like the second one, it is 75 percent.

[57:57] And it has a greater, you know, jump based on the baseline.

[58:02] I'm going to, and I work collaboratively on the data side of this if you didn't know.

[58:07] Thanks so much.

[58:08] I think that's a great question, Mr. Robless.

[58:10] And so for the 24 percent, the MCAS is a tougher metric to exceed, right?

[58:23] to really get that growth because it's this isolated state-determined assessment that is based

[58:33] on the standards, of course, but not aligned to our curriculum necessarily, you know,

[58:37] it's not specifically tied to our curriculum.

[58:40] And so, and it's a once-a-year measure.

[58:43] And so, we've wanted to kind of, we looked at 24 percent, we said, well, a quarter of that

[58:48] is 6 percent.

[58:49] So if we can get a quarter more students, right?

[58:52] Getting to that meter exceed, then we'll be at 30%.

[58:57] So we kind of looked at that 24% and said,

[58:59] well, if we can increase that by a quarter more

[59:02] from where we're starting,

[59:03] that would be another 6% of students.

[59:05] I'd love to see this number at 100%, 80%, 90%,

[59:09] but to be realistic, we felt that that was

[59:11] a safe and achievable measure.

[59:13] And it also aligns with the types of targets

[59:16] that the Department of Educate Elementary and Secondary Education sets for the district when

[59:21] they're determining our accountability targets.

[59:23] So we felt that that was a reasonable measure.

[59:27] As far as the phonics domain on the I ready assessment, that is that assessment is given

[59:36] administered three times per year.

[59:39] So we can target students early on in the year that need tier two or tier three interventions

[59:44] and really start to work with them more closely.

[59:48] And we've made the connections between the I ready assessment and our curriculum in terms of the HMH curriculum for literacy for ELA.

[1:00:00] So again, we feel that's an ambitious school, but it's one that we want to achieve, because we just, we know that

[1:00:07] phonics is a gateway skill toward early literacy, and so we really want to push that needle as far as we can.

[1:00:18] Thank you, and I get it now. I see what you are saying that the second one is an ambitious school. The first one you refer to it as a

[1:00:27] We need to go higher than 30 percent to make it an efficient goal, or I might just wear out here.

[1:00:34] That's a great question.

[1:00:35] And again, we said, well, when we look historically at what our accountability performance

[1:00:42] across the district, across our elementary schools, we're not hitting our targets in the L.A. now.

[1:00:48] And so to align our target with desi targets, we do feel,

[1:00:52] is would be an improvement for us as a district.

[1:00:56] So I feel like, I mean, I'm happy to make it higher.

[1:01:00] But I also want to be able to show that we're making progress,

[1:01:07] too, and so I'd love that goal to be 40%,

[1:01:10] but is it realistic in one year to go from 24% to 40%.

[1:01:14] I don't think it's realistic.

[1:01:18] Don't you?

[1:01:18] I understand.

[1:01:21] Yeah, thanks so much, Jan.

[1:01:22] So again, we considered a lot of the data in this, and it was a great point around the

[1:01:27] I-ready data.

[1:01:28] As I mentioned, the diagnostic, we have more periods of which to measure, so we can move

[1:01:32] that standard up because we can recalibrate in real time with MCAS, it's sort of one and

[1:01:37] done and we'll miss that mark.

[1:01:40] But again, it's also calibrated against the work we've been doing with instructional

[1:01:43] leadership team work at the district level and at the school level.

[1:01:46] So there's a lot of thought that was put into setting those metrics and I'm grateful for

[1:01:49] and for really helping me to frame those in ways that are realistic.

[1:01:53] I think that's part of the smart goal framing.

[1:01:56] We believe those are realistic.

[1:01:57] Of course, they could always be better.

[1:01:58] We want to see 100% of our students graduate,

[1:02:01] but realistically, we need to make progress toward that.

[1:02:04] And that's actually achieved in year one.

[1:02:06] But the points are well taken.

[1:02:09] And Kyle has the question?

[1:02:11] Yes, thank you.

[1:02:13] That 30% goal and a fully understand.

[1:02:15] That's a more difficult metric

[1:02:17] who are making progress there, and that's a great thing.

[1:02:21] But when we look at that 30% number,

[1:02:23] I'm concerned a little about the incentives

[1:02:26] that this might put on teachers,

[1:02:29] where if I'm trying to get to 30%, maybe I find the 40%

[1:02:33] of my classroom that is most likely to be able to get there,

[1:02:38] so that I've got the goal, and I've got the 18

[1:02:41] and a couple of subs, and I try to get them across the line.

[1:02:46] How are we preventing that sort of incentive structure for our teachers?

[1:02:50] I don't think teachers are trying to hit a 30 or 40%.

[1:02:53] We have the most dedicated committed caring teachers.

[1:02:57] They want every student to be successful.

[1:02:59] So I don't think any of them are saying,

[1:03:00] Well, this is good enough if I even hit 30 or 40%.

[1:03:04] I certainly believe that about our teachers.

[1:03:07] I'm not casting this version on our teachers at all.

[1:03:11] I just want when you see professional pressures being put on on people, you know, it becomes

[1:03:18] it becomes difficult not to follow in a sense structure and I just want to be sure that

[1:03:22] we aren't creating incentive structures and sort of difficult types of pressures for our

[1:03:28] teachers with these goals.

[1:03:29] And we're doing it in a way that actually benefits.

[1:03:32] That brings every kid up to bring, you know, 30% over the threshold.

[1:03:37] Well, the way that MCAS is actually used with teachers is in particularly in data teams

[1:03:45] at the start of the year after the data is released with the grade level teams, for example.

[1:03:50] So the third grade team at a particular school will look at the students they had last year

[1:04:00] who were in third grade and now in fourth grade and they'll look at that data because they know the students

[1:04:05] writing, or they know their math skills, and they know the students' literacy skills, and

[1:04:09] they'll analyze the results about the individual test questions and the different standards

[1:04:16] to identify the strengths overall of the team, or their individual students from the prior

[1:04:20] year.

[1:04:21] Because that helps them identify areas of strength through weakness in the curriculum and helps

[1:04:26] them kind of plan better for how they're going to teach moving forward.

[1:04:31] There's I would be I have not I have not heard of any principle and we certainly don't say your goal is to make sure 30% of your students

[1:04:40] Meet or exceed the target. So we're not incentivizing motivating in that way. We're all about looking at the data and looking about it

[1:04:46] Best instructional practices in general.

[1:04:49] Thank you. Yeah, and that's that.

[1:04:50] Thank you for that clarification because I I do always get concerned when you start having these and you know goals and metrics are very important, but

[1:04:57] But goals in metrics also have the tendency to create incentive structure.

[1:05:02] Do you want to make sure it's the right ones and not the wrong ones?

[1:05:05] We do look at the I ready data because that informs instruction.

[1:05:08] So all of the data we're looking at isn't about, are you hitting your target?

[1:05:12] It's about informing instruction to improve the experience it's for students.

[1:05:17] Thank you.

[1:05:22] Thanks very much to the questions.

[1:05:24] The next is around engagement and empowering students, staff and caregiver voice.

[1:05:31] So, as I prepared to close up my final four years,

[1:05:34] a superintendent of the frame of up with schools,

[1:05:36] and in an effort to fully embrace our district priority

[1:05:38] around student belonging, it's my personal goal.

[1:05:41] Beginning in 2016, 2007, to immerse myself

[1:05:43] more deeply and meaningful in the life of our students

[1:05:45] in the class of 2030 through their next four years of high school.

[1:05:49] And as I said to the committee before,

[1:05:51] I've been following this class since they started in kindergarten.

[1:05:54] eager to spend time at the high school.

[1:05:56] I've worked with this and shared these goals of principle all bright.

[1:05:59] And so here are just some examples of specific engagement activities.

[1:06:04] For example, the Framingham High School Open House, which is a plus side live event.

[1:06:07] This is a brilliant idea from the high school from Principal Albright in the administration.

[1:06:11] It's an evening provided for welcoming families,

[1:06:14] reinforced the importance of the home school partnership,

[1:06:17] and to connect directly with students and caregivers as they learn more about FHS expectations,

[1:06:22] which were in support.

[1:06:24] So while I have had opportunity to talk with students every year of their journey, apart from the COVID year when a room was at home,

[1:06:34] this is a chance for me to interface at the high school specifically, and also with families of students there.

[1:06:41] So the specific to this goal is honor before my mid-year report to the Framium School Committee on these goals.

[1:06:46] I'll have presented my participation in outcomes from that participation in the Framium High School Open House.

[1:06:53] related as the next slide is the grade nine student advisory group. This is a new concept

[1:06:59] beginning at the high school. I am familiar with this working in a previous district of student advisory groups

[1:07:04] but beginning in the 2627 school year, framing him high school implement a new advisory model

[1:07:10] that will meet for full class period once per month rather than a few minutes each morning.

[1:07:15] In working with principal Albright I will facilitate a ninth rated advisory group throughout the year

[1:07:20] which will provide meaningful way for me to engage directly with students,

[1:07:24] cure their experiences, reinforce key messages about attendance,

[1:07:28] belonging, responsibility.

[1:07:32] So I'm going to pause there on the specific engagement with the Class of 2030, and again, by my

[1:07:35] mid-year report on our before, I'll present an update on my facilitation of the 9th-braided

[1:07:40] advisory group, including the number of students, number of sessions, and the discussion

[1:07:45] themes and topics that I've emerged. So I'm grateful to the High School and Tire High School

[1:07:49] of Administration within my spoken about this goal and being part of the High School culture. So I'm

[1:07:56] pause there on the specific engagement with the class of 20, 30, before I talk finally about the

[1:08:01] some policy work. Because any questions on that?

[1:08:09] Seeing no hand.

[1:08:12] I just have a question

[1:08:14] about how you will measure the success of the sessions and the discussions on certain themes and

[1:08:23] topics. I think the success question is a good one. I think it's going to be simply around engagement,

[1:08:28] And, you know, it depends on what the topics are for the advisory conversations, whether or

[1:08:34] not there's measurable outcomes of those conversations.

[1:08:37] But for me, this is the student voice, hearing that, reporting back what I'm hearing, not

[1:08:42] dissimilar from what we'd hear from a student advisory representative at a meeting.

[1:08:46] And then there may be action of items that come from that.

[1:08:49] But to go into this, I want to go into this with an open ears to hear what's on students'

[1:08:54] minds.

[1:08:54] What the discussions are in the framework of the new advisory at the high school to learn a little bit more how it can be part of that and because it's such a new structure

[1:09:02] I can't really define what those success measures look like yet

[1:09:05] So I haven't seen what the model looks like. I just know I want to be in on this at the point of entry

[1:09:09] So I'll report back to the committee on those but for now to go would be just frequency how many times did I show up at the high school?

[1:09:16] Did I meet with students did I hear them if so how do you know and what did they talk about?

[1:09:22] Then we can go from there. Yeah

[1:09:25] It's selfishly with the goal about the ninth grade promotion rate, grade 9 to grade 10.

[1:09:31] I'm thrilled that Dr. Trembley is going to have this captive audience once a month that

[1:09:36] he's going to be able to hear from because I think the student's learning experience

[1:09:40] like what is their experience in high school? What is it like to be a ninth grader?

[1:09:44] Since we're focusing on that ninth grade, it's going to really inform the work that we're

[1:09:48] doing in the office of teaching and learning. And certainly the office of student supports as

[1:09:52] and so I think it's going to really help us to have that student voice directly from the work

[1:09:57] that he's getting, and what I'm going to assume is going to become, be, feel over time,

[1:10:02] like a really comfortable, you know, safe space to have those conversations.

[1:10:08] Okay, let's put more questions, Luria.

[1:10:11] Um, my question was kind of the same as duties.

[1:10:16] I'm just, I think there should be some clear evidence on the impact that this will have.

[1:10:22] I'm kind of the broken record of data and having tangible things that we can actually look at.

[1:10:30] And I just don't know if this will have an impact.

[1:10:34] And I think that you are the ones who can tell us whether or not this will be impactful and how it will positively impact.

[1:10:41] And I think, I think I see this more as a personal goal, the focus on this particular class.

[1:10:49] I think that there are other areas of focus that could use your attention as well.

[1:10:57] So I just wanted to mention that as a comment that I would like to see the tangible impact that this will have.

[1:11:09] Sure, and I did frame this as a, it is my personal goal.

[1:11:12] That's one of the, that's he measures.

[1:11:15] So in addition to professional practice goal or student improvement goal,

[1:11:18] decision improvement, this is a personal personal goal.

[1:11:21] So that's exactly what it's frame to be.

[1:11:24] This is one of those areas where it's anecdotal, you know,

[1:11:27] to say, yeah, I can put some thought into,

[1:11:30] when I see the structure and report back,

[1:11:32] if there's specific ideas you have,

[1:11:34] I mean, to build a relationship with anybody,

[1:11:37] if the goal is to build that trusting space

[1:11:39] and to find out what are some of the challenges

[1:11:41] of a ninth grader moving on to grade 10,

[1:11:44] I mean, that would be related, right?

[1:11:46] But the current students that are struggling in ninth grade

[1:11:49] won't be this cohort.

[1:11:50] This is a different cohort coming in.

[1:11:52] We can learn lessons from them.

[1:11:53] I can give some thought as to what the specific measurable here,

[1:11:57] but this is about, this is why I frame the presentation

[1:12:00] around belonging and making connections with students.

[1:12:02] So it's a little bit different than a kind of ability

[1:12:05] of student performance.

[1:12:06] This is about, did I connect with a student in a way

[1:12:09] where they felt heard and valued and belonging?

[1:12:12] That could be done, I suppose, to a survey.

[1:12:14] That could be a metric.

[1:12:15] But it's going to be an anecdotal, more

[1:12:18] than it is going to be, sort of, quantifiable

[1:12:20] through an empirical measure of data, right?

[1:12:23] It's different in that regard.

[1:12:24] But I'm open to how you'd like to see that measured.

[1:12:30] OK, I'll give some more thoughts to it.

[1:12:31] But I think maybe a student survey that shows

[1:12:33] whether or not I students felt her or something like that would show, so it's not just my opinion on it, right?

[1:12:38] It's something that the student's voice is also captured, so I'll give some thought.

[1:12:42] I'll just add to that.

[1:12:43] I like the school a lot.

[1:12:44] I would like to really hear the anecdotal data of reports to come out with the kids are saying and the impact it's having.

[1:12:50] And I know that it might not fit neatly into a graph or a data composed memo.

[1:12:56] I do like this school.

[1:12:57] I do support the school.

[1:12:59] Kyle's question, then we can keep going.

[1:13:01] Sure, and I appreciate this goal too because I think before you take data you have to know what you need to take data about and it seems like this achieves that goal.

[1:13:11] I would like to know more about how we're, you know, what the selection process for ninth graders for this is about are we.

[1:13:20] Is it random or reaching out to certain groups of kids because it seems like the more kids who are different walks of life different experiences of school we have.

[1:13:29] that's the better the information is going to be, you know, at the top of the class will have

[1:13:34] easier problems than some other kids.

[1:13:40] Yeah, I appreciate all these points and they're good thought, right?

[1:13:44] So in terms of the specific advisory engagement, I'm really working with the high school administration

[1:13:49] is that why we're a member of the high school faculty.

[1:13:51] It's principal, all bright as signs, the advisories, I'll be assigned and would work with an advisory

[1:13:56] and hopefully it's representative across, right?

[1:13:58] So it's not just the top or I do hear that point.

[1:14:02] But again, I've also spent the last, now,

[1:14:05] coming into my 10th year, the last nine years building

[1:14:07] relationships with every single student in grade nine.

[1:14:11] I mean, maybe not home visits to that level,

[1:14:13] but engaging with them when they were in first grade

[1:14:15] and second grade in their classrooms was meaningful.

[1:14:17] So I'm going to deepen that engagement with them.

[1:14:20] So the next part of this around the policy,

[1:14:22] I think gets to something where student voice has another layer

[1:14:26] of engagement, but I want to acknowledge that I do hear you, and I'll make sure that I'm not

[1:14:30] just working, for example, with the top 2% of the high school class, right? And I'm working

[1:14:35] to have a broad sampling of everybody to hear what those challenges are between, I hear that

[1:14:41] loud and clear.

[1:14:51] So one of my favorite educational books is called Street Data,

[1:14:55] next generation model for equity, pedagogy, and school transformation by Seth.

[1:15:00] And I believe. And one of the things that those authors talk about is when they're talking about street data, they're talking about that, like on the ground data, rather than the lofty data that you see, like in terms of spreadsheets and assessment scores and whatnot. And one of the things they do is they talk about, they say, talk to students, shadow, students, and engage in those conversations. So I do think that in terms of really being able to do that,

[1:15:29] and informed instructional leader, this is critical data, and it's also something that the

[1:15:34] high school administration is going to be taking on. They're going to be shadowing students

[1:15:38] through classes, so that they understand the students experience more fully than just the interactions

[1:15:45] that they have in discussions through their current like their everyday roles. So I think any type

[1:15:50] of street data, the way it's defined this way, is critical, and I think it can really inform a lot

[1:15:58] of the work that happens in the district.

[1:16:03] And then finally, this is also around empowering students,

[1:16:07] staff, and caregiver voice, around policy development.

[1:16:10] So another significant part of my role, professionally,

[1:16:13] is around informing policy.

[1:16:15] And there are two that are fairly significant right now

[1:16:18] for our school department, for other school departments.

[1:16:21] One is around AI policy, and the other is around

[1:16:23] a cell phone policy, knowing what we have this belt

[1:16:26] bell and pending legislation, what that looks like.

[1:16:29] So this is a great opportunity to have

[1:16:31] high school voice informing policy work as we've done before and so just briefly

[1:16:35] articulate the goal here and what I expect to do with this. So the Artificial

[1:16:40] Intelligence as the committee knows last year I started with this one of my own

[1:16:45] professional practice goals was to have my own understanding of how AI looks in

[1:16:51] behaves in schools. Not just in terms of students using this as a tool for writing

[1:16:57] or for learning, but also how we can use this as a lever for and forming operations.

[1:17:03] This specifically now is to work with, for example, the Student Advisory Council with

[1:17:07] each department at Fermium High School as a starting point to get input on student and staff

[1:17:13] voice included in a policy procedure that I would eventually bring to the policy subcommittee

[1:17:17] and then ultimately to the full committee as we put some parameters around artificial intelligence,

[1:17:23] A.I. specifically policy considering that evolves literally by the minute.

[1:17:28] The other is around the cell phone policy and procedures which are important to consider

[1:17:33] if we are adopting a no-phone or ultimately having to adopt the belt-to-bell legislation

[1:17:40] if and when enacted we would need some procedures around how we're going to do that.

[1:17:44] What better way than to collect student voice staff voice on that and that builds on work

[1:17:49] that was started last school year,

[1:17:51] where I was having conversations with the student advisory council.

[1:17:54] So specifically to that,

[1:17:56] of those two who's honored before my media report to the school committee,

[1:18:00] I will have presented draft policies to the policy subcommittee,

[1:18:03] which will include as detailed above.

[1:18:05] At that time, I'll also share specific details regarding how stakeholder input was solicited,

[1:18:10] including the frequency of engagement and the total number of participants involved.

[1:18:13] This is also a chance to involve community voice, student voice,

[1:18:17] care-giver voice, staff voice, and so forth.

[1:18:21] And so that is the ambitious 13-12 slide goals that I can then take with the feedback tonight

[1:18:29] and any additional questions you may have at this point and then formulate these into the

[1:18:33] department's template and then get to work.

[1:18:36] I'll turn it to the committee for questions on these specific goals.

[1:18:39] Yeah, so we have Jen, a first follow-by-brun.

[1:18:42] Thank you.

[1:18:43] So, I want to say what I like about these goals, that even though you're setting the

[1:18:47] for your evaluation at the end of the year.

[1:18:50] It's also helping to form goals for people like Anne,

[1:18:54] people like Courtney and other departments.

[1:18:57] And I think that's important, because I know you and I

[1:18:59] have had that conversation where you're here

[1:19:01] and everything you do trickles down,

[1:19:03] or whatever they do kind of trickles up, too.

[1:19:05] And I think this is a really great way

[1:19:08] to bring that all together under Monabralla.

[1:19:12] One thing that I would like to see is to make sure

[1:19:15] that pre-K through 8 doesn't get lost in this,

[1:19:20] because there's a lot of attention on high school

[1:19:23] with these evaluation goals.

[1:19:26] So I just want to make sure that we

[1:19:28] don't lose that pre-K through 8, upward direction.

[1:19:34] Yeah, if I may, I don't know if you had two points

[1:19:36] if that was the...

[1:19:37] Oh, that was it.

[1:19:38] OK, I want to thank you for that.

[1:19:40] Because, you know, when you hear

[1:19:41] and who interjects in a goal around data points and percentages,

[1:19:45] is, that's exactly right.

[1:19:47] So as much as I want to believe that I'm going to somehow single-handedly improve grade 2 reading

[1:19:52] scores.

[1:19:52] It's not going to happen, right?

[1:19:53] It's everybody together.

[1:19:55] So having a shape goals together with the team as you, and I really appreciate you acknowledging

[1:19:59] that, that's what we do, right?

[1:20:01] So then I can set goals as you pointed out for my own leadership team and then as we set goals

[1:20:05] for principals.

[1:20:06] So that everybody is, it's reciprocal.

[1:20:08] The success of students is the success of our principals, the success of our central

[1:20:13] office is the success of the school committees, is the success of me, right? So I do hear you and I thank you for that.

[1:20:21] And you're right. So a part of this is to not be, I can't, I can't develop goals that address every single grade level every discipline.

[1:20:28] So we've targeted some really key areas based on a lot of community input and our own discoveries and our own data analysis.

[1:20:35] That's not to say we're not paying attention to middle school science.

[1:20:38] Not to say we're not paying attention to financial literacy or graduation, you know, requirements that are changing through Dessie.

[1:20:45] There's so much more than what these goals are that we are attending to and tracking and we can report out on or and we report out on.

[1:20:53] But I'm picking these specific ones as I think they're the biggest levers to graduation rate grade nine.

[1:21:00] We know these are the big problems that we have, which is why they've been identified here.

[1:21:05] That's fair. Thank you.

[1:21:06] Yeah. Thank you.

[1:21:07] All right, friends up next.

[1:21:09] Specifically just the policy selections that you've selected to explore with these students.

[1:21:14] I love the idea of students being involved in policy decision making.

[1:21:19] My only concern with these two is that this is something that I feel that the state is paying attention to and

[1:21:24] made dictate a solution to us ahead of time.

[1:21:27] And I'd hate for the students to be involved in participating in policy development only for the state law to

[1:21:33] to proceed their work.

[1:21:35] So I might encourage you to think about either some other policies

[1:21:38] suggestions that they could explore as a mile or just framing

[1:21:41] this very cautiously that this sometimes happens in policy

[1:21:45] development, the state does what they do,

[1:21:47] or the federal government does what they do.

[1:21:49] Yeah, thank you for that, Mr. Lewis.

[1:21:51] I'm going to push back just a little bit on that only

[1:21:53] because I do think that this, maybe I can make this clearer.

[1:21:57] I think the student voice in this may be more

[1:21:59] around the procedure side of it.

[1:22:01] Given our experience with what the state has done in the past, take COVID as an example,

[1:22:06] there was no particular rule, it was more like, here's what you need to do, legislatively,

[1:22:11] and now you figure it out. That's kind of been the my experience with the state,

[1:22:17] no disrespect to any of our state legislators. But I live through that experience, but I do think

[1:22:23] it's important, and why I pick these two. I think these are among the most relevant policies

[1:22:28] that have...

[1:22:30] Meaning to our kids. Whether they're not, they can use their phone for six or seven hours a day. They're going to want to have voice on that. And if, if the law says you can't have your phone, okay, we'll have to accept the law. But what do we do with that phone? What are the procedures? Where's it going? Is it on me? Does somebody else have it? Do I have to shut it off? Are you locking down Wi-Fi? I think that's where we can have some student voice, maybe around around the procedural piece. Also with AI, right? We know our students are using that, hopefully not to write their papers.

[1:23:00] but hopefully it has brainstorming partners.

[1:23:02] So I think as we set specific policy around copyright

[1:23:06] and intellectual property and all those kinds of things,

[1:23:10] where can we say, you know, where can we learn from our students

[1:23:13] who are much more adept than probably any of us at the table are

[1:23:16] using AI as a tool.

[1:23:17] So I do think there is space where I do agree with you.

[1:23:20] I think it's likely more around the procedural side

[1:23:23] than it is around the policy, specifically

[1:23:25] with if it's self-owned legislation.

[1:23:27] When it's legislative, it doesn't have to really be a policy, because the law is the law.

[1:23:32] So I do think around the procedural side of that is where there's space, but also be open-minded to additional policies.

[1:23:38] I've had student and staff voice, for example, on an EV charging policy where that didn't exist, and that seems to be working really well across the district,

[1:23:46] because it enlisted the voice of so many interested in that.

[1:23:51] So it's a great point.

[1:23:52] So thank you, and I'll give some thought to additional policies that, but I really do believe

[1:23:56] these two are really tangible for our kids that will make a difference long after they graduate

[1:24:00] in four years from primary and high school.

[1:24:02] I appreciate that framing and I'm supportive.

[1:24:05] You will certainly get a lot of passion at students and mental health on both of these.

[1:24:08] I'm sure.

[1:24:09] Thank you so much.

[1:24:11] Now, let's do any other questions on that.

[1:24:13] I'm going to stop there and take an additional questions.

[1:24:15] Otherwise, I'll reframe some of this with additional feedback from tonight and then present

[1:24:19] that to the soul committee at your next meeting for a for a final vote

[1:24:27] so thank you so much

[1:24:28] for your attention to that and I guess I'll move on to the next update if that's all right.

[1:24:35] Yeah, it's your update.

[1:24:36] Sure.

[1:24:36] Thank you.

[1:24:37] Thank you.

[1:24:38] I wanted to thank everybody for that.

[1:24:39] It was a lot.

[1:24:40] I know and it took a long time to go through that and I read things to you that I don't normally

[1:24:44] like to read but that really wasn't so much for the benefit obviously of the soul committee.

[1:24:48] But for the public, for the members of SIFOC, for the members of the Callahan Center, who are

[1:24:53] hopefully watching and paying attention to know and to validate that I do hear you, and I

[1:24:58] do want to do this work together in community.

[1:25:01] So thank you for your time and attention on hearing those report this evening.

[1:25:06] The update I have, I'll try to be very brief on this.

[1:25:08] I provided a memo in your packets around the school calendar.

[1:25:12] The school committee has already voted the calendar.

[1:25:14] However, I have to ask for your support

[1:25:16] and making some corrections to that.

[1:25:18] Does not change the start date for school or vacations

[1:25:21] to any significant level, so it's nothing

[1:25:23] that people have to undo vacation plans

[1:25:25] for the spring of 27, which is it would be a concern.

[1:25:30] But there is a change in a lot for us

[1:25:32] to have to meet the National School Lunch Program guidelines.

[1:25:37] In the past, we would not have to necessarily

[1:25:38] provide meals for students on early release days

[1:25:42] or half days, the lot does now require that we do that.

[1:25:45] Nutritional guidelines require that.

[1:25:47] In order to do that, we need more time to do that.

[1:25:50] So I'm proposing here, we've provided notification

[1:25:52] to the various bargaining units about shifting half days.

[1:25:58] Now, early release days to meet

[1:26:00] destiny, national school lunch program guidelines.

[1:26:04] So there was only two half days that existed.

[1:26:05] There was a day before Thanksgiving

[1:26:07] I believe in the last day of school.

[1:26:09] Those are just shifting by a few minutes.

[1:26:11] It's some levels to be early release days instead that gives us a little bit more of a margin to make sure our students are fed

[1:26:18] We can't simply send them with to go bags because of the food restrictions. We have on school buses

[1:26:23] So we've got to build that time into the school day

[1:26:25] So the principles are working on how to manage that on those early release days in the calendar

[1:26:30] But we want to obviously have this reflected on the updated school calendar

[1:26:35] Second to that is updates on the frame m high school fair campus school hours that mislead

[1:26:40] is presented in a previous presentation around the student learning time waiver and the changes

[1:26:45] to the school campus hours.

[1:26:47] The third is the correction on report card dates.

[1:26:50] The middle level we had those dates were incorrect and we've since verified that with

[1:26:54] the principles to correct those.

[1:26:56] Again none of this is significant to the calendar so much but they are reported on the approved

[1:27:01] calendar so we want to correct it where it's been approved.

[1:27:04] And then finally, the last day of school is the 180th day, still the 180th day, but this reflects a change to the 180 fifth day.

[1:27:15] Should we need those additional days for inclement weather, as we had not accounted for the Juneteenth holiday?

[1:27:23] So again, none of this really changes the start date, the end date, technically, on a typical school year.

[1:27:33] It's been published already and voted upon, it requires a vote of the school committee, so I would ask for your favorable approval to make those updates on the school calendar, which we can push out and update on our website.

[1:27:46] Okay, we have one question first.

[1:27:48] Jen go ahead.

[1:27:48] Thank you.

[1:27:49] with changing him from a early release to a half day,

[1:27:54] or the other way around.

[1:27:56] Other way.

[1:27:57] I know that there was, I've heard about this in the past,

[1:28:01] that so many hours a day is considered actual full day.

[1:28:05] Instead of a half day, do we have to make stuff

[1:28:08] can you explain that a little bit?

[1:28:10] Because I have questions on that.

[1:28:11] OK, so the short answer is this only helps

[1:28:15] to ensure that we have enough hours.

[1:28:17] It doesn't go the other way.

[1:28:18] So the early release day is longer than the half day.

[1:28:22] And so it meets the time on learning requirements

[1:28:25] and the required sort of what counts as a school day threshold.

[1:28:30] So can we take a day off on the other side?

[1:28:32] No, you still have 180 days.

[1:28:34] All right.

[1:28:35] So you have to meet both that I 100 to 990 hours and 180 days

[1:28:40] and state the 185th day.

[1:28:43] Sorry, God I saw that.

[1:28:45] That a try.

[1:28:47] Any other questions or comments for discussion?

[1:28:50] Right.

[1:28:50] The only concern that I have is switching from a half day to an early release day before

[1:28:55] the Thanksgiving and winter holiday break.

[1:28:57] I'd like for us to pay attention to our enrollment on this couple days, especially as we work

[1:29:02] for the next school calendar year.

[1:29:04] We may want to consider a shift if we have a significant number of students absent.

[1:29:09] But with that I'd make a motion that we approve the changes.

[1:29:13] All right.

[1:29:13] Motion to approve.

[1:29:14] Second, by Mr. LeBarge, any further discussion.

[1:29:21] Okay, we'll roll, we'll call vote, District 1.

[1:29:25] Yes.

[1:29:25] 2. Yes.

[1:29:27] 3. Yes. Yes.

[1:29:30] 4. Yes.

[1:29:33] District 5. Yes.

[1:29:34] 6. Yes.

[1:29:37] 7. Yes.

[1:29:38] 8. Yes. 9. Yes.

[1:29:41] unanimous.

[1:29:44] That concludes my lengthy report this evening. Thank you very much.

[1:29:47] Thank you and thank you for your updates on your goals as well.

[1:29:51] Appreciate it.

[1:29:53] We'll go to, okay, so we are joined by Councilor Stephanie,

[1:29:58] Councilor Stephanie, I'm going to promote you too.

[1:30:00] The panelist, right now, to speak on the Blue Ribbon Commission, appointments, discussion and vote. This was in your packet. It was after the agenda for feedback went out. There was a memo. This was referred to be by Councillor Stephanie. We have seats. So I'll let him speak to it a little bit before we take questions and comments. Welcome, John.

[1:30:21] Good evening, thank you for a lot of time for this.

[1:30:26] So over the last few years, as you may know, it's been four years since our community

[1:30:30] pool at Keith closed.

[1:30:32] It was the last of a series of pools that closed.

[1:30:35] We've been searching for on the appropriate location.

[1:30:38] The council trying to advance this conversation, created a 13 member Blue Ribbon panel

[1:30:45] chaired by the chair of the school committee, the chair of the council, and the mayor, or their respective

[1:30:50] designese, and a series of other members, including two members appointed by the school committee, a current or former swim coach, and a current or former swim swimming parent.

[1:31:05] And the goal, which I know you have a copy of the resolution, which was passed 11, nothing

[1:31:10] on June 2nd, is to thrash out locations, means, timeline so that we can get to a point

[1:31:21] where we have a community pool for people to learn to swim, to compete, to get exercise.

[1:31:29] And I'm happy to answer any questions, but I'll leave it at that.

[1:31:32] And I would we're hoping to have our first meeting sometime in September.

[1:31:37] All right. So just for timeline you said in December is your.

[1:31:42] September.

[1:31:43] September. So we would need to appoint two members by September.

[1:31:49] And the chair would have to decide whether you wish to take that seat or whether

[1:31:55] he doesn't need someone else to be co-chair of this group.

[1:31:59] Okay. Thank you for reporting. I appreciate.

[1:32:01] Are there any questions or comments for Councilor Stephanie Newell is here?

[1:32:07] Well, interested parties go through the normal application process of the city.

[1:32:14] Yes, for purposes of the mayor has appointments to this, but for purposes of the school committee appointments, that's for you to figure out.

[1:32:23] There's been at least one person who is written to the mayor and the council who is a swim coach expressing an interest.

[1:32:32] Another is expressed in interest, but the person is not afraid of me in resident.

[1:32:37] Yeah, we're starting to see a little bit of email traffic on this one.

[1:32:41] Okay, so as far as school committee seats go, we need to discuss how we're going to,

[1:32:46] if we're ready to advertise for this process to accept people that are interested,

[1:32:51] deadline, timeline, and have that conversation right now.

[1:33:00] If there's no objection, I would say that we would have the applicants in here,

[1:33:03] rather than have a subcommittee like we did for a sci-fi.

[1:33:12] If there's no objection, I would say also let's put out an announcement after this meeting

[1:33:17] to advertise and accept applicants and all accept any suggestions for a deadline on the

[1:33:24] application process.

[1:33:26] Go ahead, Jen.

[1:33:27] John, when did you say that the committee needs to be formed by?

[1:33:33] September. There's no deadline but we're hoping to have the first meeting sometime in

[1:33:38] September. So I was to just an August 15th meeting. So applicants hopefully here.

[1:33:48] So unless there's any objection we'll add this to the agenda for August 19th and then we will

[1:33:59] do we want to cut off applicants the week before? So we'll advertise and this is the objection we can

[1:34:04] advertise to receive applicants up until August 12th. Which gives us a little more time for

[1:34:11] applicants because we're already in the middle of. I'm just thinking about how to get deadlines so

[1:34:16] because the packet deadlines are the things that get us caught up that we need to make sure that

[1:34:20] these materials are available before and usually we close it out in that 14th. We would close that

[1:34:25] packet materials before, are 19th meeting,

[1:34:30] so you're saying, yeah, so we'll see a little a couple

[1:34:32] more days to get that information and everything's always kind of less than in any way. So it's always

[1:34:39] all right, recommendations, discussion, any hands.

[1:34:49] All right, so unless there's any objection,

[1:34:51] we will do an announcement,

[1:34:56] press release through parents square, seeking applicants,

[1:35:01] do August 12 and we'll have the candidates for our 19th meeting and we'll have a

[1:35:12] similar interview process and we'll vote on them on the 19th. So it'll be

[1:35:18] ready for the September meeting. Okay, all right. Seeing no objection we'll go

[1:35:24] with that and I think we're going to close out this topic John. Thank you for being

[1:35:27] with us in for your explanations tonight.

[1:35:29] Thank you very much.

[1:35:30] I appreciate it.

[1:35:31] We appreciate your work on this.

[1:35:32] Bye.

[1:35:33] Bye.

[1:35:43] All right.

[1:35:44] We'll go to Assistant Superintendent for Precated 12 Education Update.

[1:35:48] Thank you very much.

[1:35:50] I have two items to tonight.

[1:35:53] The first is regarding the memo in your packet

[1:35:55] for the about the governor's K through 12 state right statewide graduation council final recommendation.

[1:36:03] The Healy Driscoll Administration, you've heard me talk about this a couple of times in the past,

[1:36:08] but the Healy Driscoll Administration has released its final recommendations for a new framework

[1:36:13] for the statewide graduation requirements, following, it's part of a phase out of the graduation

[1:36:18] requirement following the 2024 ballot initiative. The new requirement still needs legislative action

[1:36:26] before it becomes official, that's very important for people to be aware of this is not enacted

[1:36:31] at this point it still needs legislative action. The major shifts though that we are preparing for

[1:36:38] the first is about testing and capstone projects. The goal, the state's goal is to replace

[1:36:43] the 10th grade MCAS with a subject specific end-of-course assessment in multiple subjects. Additionally,

[1:36:51] all seniors will eventually need to complete a culminating experience that's the language in the

[1:37:01] portfolio of some form. Details are not yet included. Everything is pretty general in terms of how things are described.

[1:37:11] There will be some new curricula mandates. All students will be required to complete mask war in addition to instruction and civics.

[1:37:21] Artificial intelligence, digital literacy and financial literacy. Those last few, the artificial intelligence, digital literacy and financial literacy.

[1:37:43] We're pretty close to requiring mass core for our students. The biggest lift will be that fourth year of math as a requirement for all students to graduate.

[1:37:53] And finally, college and career planning and financial aid. Students will be expected to complete

[1:37:59] on my cap and that framework will also include a work-based learning experience such as an internship

[1:38:07] or apprenticeship and families will be required to complete the FAFSA or FAFSA or formally opt-out.

[1:38:15] As for a timeline next year, the 2627 school year will be a planning year,

[1:38:20] Department of Ed will need to give us more information and guidance in terms of planning,

[1:38:26] So that planning for implementation, the requirements will not take effect until the first cohort of students for whom this will take effect is our current rising eighth grade class.

[1:38:39] So the students entering ninth grade in the 27 28 school year and what will be required for them will be the mass core requirements.

[1:38:47] And it will be the current rising seventh graders who will be expected to complete all of the components of these proposed requirements.

[1:38:58] The Office of Teaching and Learning is working with Framingham High School Leadership on two main fronts at this point.

[1:39:04] The first is to be proactively thinking about the significant lift of the additional fourth year of math.

[1:39:12] So I've worked with bringing him high school administration and based on historical data, we estimate

[1:39:17] 150 to 180 students will need that extra full year or maybe an extra half year of math to meet the requirements.

[1:39:27] This will perhaps necessitate additional staffing eventually, but the fiscal impact will be delayed because

[1:39:35] Students typically take math courses in 9th grade, 10th grade, and 11th grade, and if they choose

[1:39:40] not to take a fourth year of math, it's in 12th grade, and so we're really looking at our

[1:39:45] rising eighth graders when they will be in 11th and 12th grade when that impact is really,

[1:39:50] it really hits us. The other piece, the second piece, is the delivery models for those

[1:39:55] those additional competencies in AI, digital literacy, and financial literacy, as well as the

[1:40:01] based learning requirements.

[1:40:03] This academic year will be all about kind of figuring these things out as the Department

[1:40:07] of Ed provides us with more information in guidance.

[1:40:11] We don't have any funding models.

[1:40:14] There's nothing coming from the state yet in terms of how this is going to be funded by the

[1:40:19] school districts.

[1:40:20] So more to come as we learn and I plan on presenting this in a more robust way,

[1:40:30] more

[1:40:30] of a school year or after the school year starts I just want to make sure that families are tuned back

[1:40:35] in after the summer to hear all of these updates but at this point if you have any preliminary

[1:40:39] questions I'm happy to answer them now.

[1:40:45] I have lots of questions but they're not for you so I'll just

[1:40:48] put it that way.

[1:40:53] Okay and with that then I will move on so Joanna if you wouldn't mind presenting my slides

[1:40:57] you can go right to slide three. I wanted to give an update on the incredible work that was done by the

[1:41:04] working group for the five-day preschool and pre-K model.

[1:41:07] It was really just a professionally rewarding experience

[1:41:13] to work with so many collaborative and just knowledgeable

[1:41:19] and skilled in caring educators in the pre-school

[1:41:24] and pre-K program.

[1:41:25] So I'm just going to dive right in here.

[1:41:28] As a reminder, the purpose of this group was

[1:41:30] to work out the operational challenges

[1:41:32] and changes resulting from a five day, but shortened school day model, as a reminder, the original

[1:41:39] school hours for Pre-K were shortened by 45 minutes per day, which still yielded an overall

[1:41:45] gain of two and a quarter hours per week. So it's still an increase in instructional time,

[1:41:50] but the school day got shortened, and so there were a lot of operational logistical questions

[1:41:56] that needed to be answered. And in the past educators had no built-in prep time into

[1:42:02] their work day on the days that school was in session, the Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday,

[1:42:08] and all of their planning time took place on Wednesdays, but that also included staff meetings,

[1:42:13] a significant number of IEP meetings and screenings of community screenings for incoming

[1:42:18] students.

[1:42:19] So, that's a lot, right, that needed to be worked out.

[1:42:23] On the committee, there were 19 members, there were school and district administrators, including

[1:42:28] Christina Shay and Laurie Bruce, preschool and pre-K educators, the Spanish Immersion teacher,

[1:42:34] special educators, paraprofessionals related service providers.

[1:42:37] We really had a really well-represented group and the meetings were facilitated in the

[1:42:44] beginning by Christina Shay, and then later by the school leadership, Kelly Napiersky,

[1:42:48] the coordinator of early education and Chelsea Colvin, the assistant coordinator.

[1:42:52] But other roles were shared among other members of the group in terms of note-taking and

[1:42:58] communicating out. So we really did try to, the whole group really tried to really work collaboratively

[1:43:06] and share the responsibilities. Next slide, please.

[1:43:11] The very beginning, it was important to the group to establish norms and some of them

[1:43:16] were the typical norms about respecting time, and voice, and not perseverating on something

[1:43:22] to not making progress, knowing when it was time to move on and come back to something later.

[1:43:25] But, too, that I just wanted to call out that we're really particularly helpful and influential in our working and conversations where the empty chair and the empty chair is think about a student or a parent of one of your students or parents that you work with, imagine that they're in this room sitting in that empty chair and how are you going to make sure you're making decisions that are in their best interests and really supporting them.

[1:43:50] And then the bathrooms in Boots rule, and that is that with preschoolers everything takes longer to do.

[1:43:57] Putting on Boots takes a lot longer, going to the bathroom takes a lot longer.

[1:44:01] So that was a nice one to just remind us to be realistic about what can be accomplished in a school day for these little kids.

[1:44:08] Next slide please.

[1:44:10] There were seven meetings, starting in January with the full working group.

[1:44:14] We had planned for six meetings, but at the May meeting, we added in an extra meeting on June 3rd, which was kind of in between the May meeting in the last scheduled June meeting.

[1:44:26] Just to make sure we had enough time, turns out we didn't need that extra meeting, so instead we turned that final scheduled meeting on June 17th into a full staff presentation that was led by the staff members that were part of the working group.

[1:44:40] They all presented different components of the decisions that were made by the group.

[1:44:46] Next slide, please.

[1:44:48] In addition to those seven meetings, there were also four meetings specifically focusing

[1:44:52] on special education roles.

[1:44:55] These were facilitated by Lori Bruce, the director of special education, and each of them

[1:45:00] The meetings were the specialized staff that were for whom the meetings were relevant and it addressed issues of inefficiency, including the evaluation process and tools that are used.

[1:45:11] Collaboration needs across disciplines and changes to ABA programming as well as the importance of increasing push in services with related service providers.

[1:45:21] Next slide, please. So that's what's that. That's 11 meetings in total.

[1:45:26] The main areas of focus for the majority of the meetings were logistical.

[1:45:32] It was about scheduling time for collaborations, IEP meetings, consultations, prep time,

[1:45:38] the school day structure when would lunch occur for all of these classes with a short

[1:45:41] and school day, when would the recess occur, and then also special education related efficiencies.

[1:45:48] Where would evaluations take place, what resources were needed, how would they manage?

[1:45:52] We manage case loads or how would the administration of the school manage the case loads and then daily operations dismissal duties protocols after school programming and the likes.

[1:46:04] Next slide.

[1:46:06] So some examples of what some of those resolutions were for IEP meetings.

[1:46:10] Some of these things are going to sound very obvious.

[1:46:13] But they were, you know, there are things that needed to actually be said and then, you know,

[1:46:17] oh yeah, we can do it that way because they were just things that hadn't been happening.

[1:46:21] So, for IEP meetings, ensuring a consistent, reliable, ensuring consistent and reliable coverage

[1:46:29] for the classroom teachers to attend the meetings, and then coming up with a consistent

[1:46:34] schedule for when different teachers would be able to schedule meetings so that they wouldn't

[1:46:38] overlap, and you wouldn't end up with these conflicts that resulted in a lack of sufficient

[1:46:44] coverage for those classrooms.

[1:46:46] So, that involved not only having a part-time designated person for coverage, who is a

[1:46:51] or pre-cate educator, but also having that set schedule to avoid those conflicts and overlaps.

[1:47:00] And also streamlining communication and coordination, pairing each teacher with a particular

[1:47:05] speech and language pathologist. Again, avoiding conflicts just through very careful scheduling.

[1:47:11] And that scheduling has already been laid out and presented to the full faculty so that

[1:47:16] can see that all of those conflicts will be avoided next year using that schedule.

[1:47:21] And again, some of these things seem small, but they're actually quite significant.

[1:47:25] We heard from the educators that they have some resources that are used for our screenings,

[1:47:31] for example, but they're stored in one place and people have to retrieve them and then take

[1:47:36] them to the room where they're doing the screening.

[1:47:39] But if we had multiple sets of them, just three instead of one, then they could be stored

[1:47:44] the rooms where that screening is taking place and then you save those precious minutes where

[1:47:49] you have to go get the materials, take them to the right location and set them up.

[1:47:53] So now they're just going to be in the right place at the right time, so we were able to accommodate

[1:47:56] that. Spaces being identified that are designated for specific things like IEP meetings so

[1:48:02] you don't have to find a vacant room to have that meeting. These are just tiny little things that

[1:48:08] make jobs so much easier. And then built into the 2627 school year calendar, our four community

[1:48:16] screening days. These are days where students who are not current school students get screened

[1:48:22] for services and screen for eligibility. And those right now happen on those Wednesdays where

[1:48:29] there's no school which cuts into their prep time. And now instead of that now they're built into

[1:48:35] school year calendar that's already been voted on and approved and that's going to just make their

[1:48:41] lives easier because those days aren't going to, they're not going to need classroom coverage.

[1:48:45] They're going to be able to preserve their prep time and they're going to be able to meet the

[1:48:49] screening needs of the community. Next slide, please.

[1:48:56] What should not come as a surprise is that

[1:48:58] collaboration is at the foundation of high quality instruction and high quality education and so

[1:49:03] and the Juniper Hill and preschool administration understand that and they identified ways

[1:49:11] to not just protect collaboration time but also to increase collaboration time.

[1:49:17] So school dismissal is at 130 in the afternoon. That's when students are dismissed.

[1:49:23] The paraprofessionals are scheduled to remain until 2 o'clock.

[1:49:28] Unit A members, teachers, educators are required to stay until three o'clock, that's when their work day ends.

[1:49:35] The dismissal duties typically dismissal duties take about 15 minutes, so from 130 to 145.

[1:49:42] Staff members are working with the kids supervising kids getting them to buses or to parent pickup.

[1:49:48] What, that last 15 minutes, then, is available for para professionals and classroom teachers.

[1:49:54] Teaching teacher and aid and assistant teacher pairs or trios to meet and collaborate at the end of every day to make sure that they're prepared for the next day.

[1:50:04] What the administration did was they worked out a dismissal schedule that freed up teacher and para professional teams once per week.

[1:50:13] So they're not part of the dismissal routine.

[1:50:15] So as soon as students are the student dismissal process begins,

[1:50:21] they immediately get to start having that collaboration time.

[1:50:26] So this means that in addition to teachers' prep time and team time,

[1:50:31] they'll have 25 minutes one day a week and 15 minutes

[1:50:34] those other days a week, so that's an hour and 25 minutes of collaboration time a week,

[1:50:39] above and beyond their prep time and team time.

[1:50:41] So I thought that was a really creative use of the schedule in the work day to ensure that

[1:50:47] that important time is available for them.

[1:50:50] Team time is scheduled once per week after school, the remaining days after school are the prep

[1:50:56] time for teachers.

[1:50:58] Again, students are dismissed at 1.30.

[1:51:00] The teachers work day doesn't end until 3 o'clock, so after dismissal they collaborate with

[1:51:05] other classroom staff members, and then from 205 until 3 o'clock is either their prep time

[1:51:12] or their once a week team meeting. And then no IEP meetings, team meetings, or screenings

[1:51:18] will occur during prep time, again preserving that prep time for for teachers. Next slide, please.

[1:51:26] Again, just in terms of special education, some efficiencies were created or established

[1:51:32] including the, again, restructuring of staff. So this is not an additional FTE, but, and this was already built in in the spring.

[1:51:42] But having a .5 FTE that is completely dedicated to managing IEPs to reduce the strain on teachers to manage some of those IEPs,

[1:51:52] just reduces that case load for them, and then Lori Bruce worked with the special educators

[1:51:59] on the KABC2 is a cognitive ability measurement tool in talking about improved observation

[1:52:07] methods to streamline evaluation processes. And again, just trying to make sure that

[1:52:12] they're using the tools that will be most efficient and not duplicating their efforts

[1:52:17] or doing more than they need to. And improving the meeting time calendar with the goal

[1:52:22] improving IEP writing and paperwork time so rather than having smaller chunks of time giving them it.

[1:52:30] More like larger dedicated chunks of time to get that worked on.

[1:52:35] And next slide.

[1:52:38] This one I asked Christina Shay to give me some data. I said, tell me about the pre-K registration process

[1:52:44] for this coming year. Did we see a change in the demand for the seats at our school-based sites?

[1:52:54] because you might recall the partner sites all had five-day programming to begin with.

[1:53:01] And it was the school-based sites that was where this came from.

[1:53:04] The school-based sites did not.

[1:53:07] And students who had IEPs and required services,

[1:53:10] significant services, most of them could not have the option.

[1:53:14] They would not be able to get the services they needed outside of the school-based sites.

[1:53:18] So this was really to try and create that equity for all.

[1:53:22] And what we he discovered was that it really did the parents spoke loud and clear.

[1:53:29] If you look at the school year 2425 and 2526 data there was no lottery needed for the district's four day pre-K programming.

[1:53:40] And this year we had to have a lottery.

[1:53:43] There's a wait list for families who want pre-K public in our public school seats pre-K.

[1:53:51] And that has not happened in the past.

[1:53:55] Right now, the hold on.

[1:53:58] I thought I have somewhere in my notes, how many?

[1:54:02] Oh, it's in the slide.

[1:54:03] That's why I don't have it in my notes.

[1:54:04] We have, and I just shrunk that too small, is it 23?

[1:54:09] Yes, 23 students on the weight list as of June 15th.

[1:54:12] So there's more demand for those in-person

[1:54:15] seats for the public schools than there ever has been.

[1:54:21] And there was, I will say, for the partner sites,

[1:54:24] there was a little bit of a decline in interest at first.

[1:54:29] And what we found was that families wanted the school day model,

[1:54:33] instead of a full day from 7 to 5 or 7 to 6,

[1:54:36] that the partner sites were offering.

[1:54:38] And so Christina worked with the Framingham State University

[1:54:42] and offered a school day version at that site,

[1:54:45] which is now filling up in filling that need that families had

[1:54:49] us as well. So I think that's really, really great. Next slide. Next steps. We've already

[1:54:58] shared the finalized schedules with the full staff. We will continue working with TNTP,

[1:55:05] the new teacher project, for professional development. They have a great partnership with the

[1:55:10] pre-K program. We will be strategically implementing what has been planned by the working group

[1:55:17] by the school administration, and we know it's not going to be perfect.

[1:55:20] So beginning in September, we will be having meetings to say how's it going, what's

[1:55:26] not working, and troubleshoot, and problem solved.

[1:55:28] And what I will say about the full faculty, when the meeting on June 17th, when all of

[1:55:36] this information was presented to the full faculty, it was just an incredible experience.

[1:55:41] because I know that this was stressful for them.

[1:55:45] I know that this was created anxiety,

[1:55:49] and they had a lot of questions.

[1:55:51] And that was what the feeling was like

[1:55:54] in the early winter when these conversations were happening.

[1:55:58] And by the time the working group presented

[1:56:00] to the full staff on June 17th,

[1:56:05] there weren't that many questions.

[1:56:06] The questions that they asked though,

[1:56:08] if it was like, well, how is that gonna work?

[1:56:10] could you consider doing this? Any questions that were raised? There was a potential resolution

[1:56:15] that was included and to me that just goes to speak volumes about the professionalism of the

[1:56:23] team, the working group and how they shared the results with the full staff and just the way

[1:56:29] that they came into this with an open mind and willing to do what needed to be done to make sure

[1:56:35] students had what they needed. So I'm really excited about what the future holds. The dates

[1:56:42] have not yet been set for the meetings that will begin again in the fall. We wanted to wait

[1:56:47] and give the staff a chance to live the school day experience for a couple of weeks and then set

[1:56:53] those meeting dates based on their availability. But with that, I believe that is the end of my slide,

[1:56:59] So I'll take any questions if you have them.

[1:57:01] All right.

[1:57:02] Raise your hand for in.

[1:57:04] Questions, comments?

[1:57:05] Good, Jen.

[1:57:07] Thank you.

[1:57:08] Thank you for all the work that you have done with the five-day model.

[1:57:12] Even the updates through the inception when you guys decided to go to the five-day

[1:57:17] model, you heard us, you create that working group, and I love to see the updates.

[1:57:23] Has they been more buy-in from staff, because I know that there was kind of like that

[1:57:28] if he, you know, our teachers

[1:57:30] don't want to do this and they weren't

[1:57:31] very happy about it.

[1:57:33] Yeah, I mean, it seemed like it, right?

[1:57:35] So that goes back to the June 17th full staff meeting.

[1:57:38] The, everything about that meeting was just so positive.

[1:57:44] The comments were either was laughter.

[1:57:47] As their colleagues were getting up,

[1:57:49] the colleagues who were part of the working group

[1:57:51] were getting up and presenting there was laughter.

[1:57:53] The questions were framed very respectfully,

[1:57:55] suggestions were framed very respectfully. So I definitely felt that everybody had come together.

[1:58:04] We'll see how it plays out. I really think one of the pivotal

[1:58:09] turning points was when the staff got to see a potential change in action. And I believe I referenced this

[1:58:15] very briefly at a previous meeting.

[1:58:18] There was maybe in, I think it was in May, but maybe it was, I don't know, it was towards

[1:58:26] the end.

[1:58:26] Maybe it was June.

[1:58:29] The staff actually, they simulated the dismissal procedures that they were going to do where,

[1:58:36] you know, again, I mentioned earlier that staff would be on a rotation for the dismissal

[1:58:41] procedures so that the classroom teams, teacher and paras, would have more time to collaborate,

[1:58:49] which meant fewer staff members participating in dismissal procedures.

[1:58:54] So to simulate that experience to show everybody that it would actually work,

[1:58:58] the administration used snack boxes like those cardboard boxes, you get it like the warehouse

[1:59:07] stores and made them buses and line them up like on the curb and each

[1:59:13] popsicle stick represented a student and they actually practiced carefully

[1:59:18] walking their popsicle sticks out like taking them from the classroom to the

[1:59:22] room they were going to wait in for parent pickup and then you know or out to

[1:59:27] the bus or whatever it happens to be so the fact that they got a chance to see it

[1:59:31] and live it even though it wasn't with real children I think gave them like open

[1:59:36] to maybe let let let's try these these ideas and these these these

[1:59:42] recommended changes so I think we're going to be in good shape but again I

[1:59:47] don't expect everything to work perfectly I expect that there's going to be

[1:59:50] a need to make some adjustments and we'll deal with those next year. That was

[1:59:54] my next question so thank you.

[2:00:00] Any other questions or comments?

[2:00:05] Okay.

[2:00:08] All right. Thanks so much for your presentation.

[2:00:13] All right. We'll go to

[2:00:17] Executive Director of Finance and Operations, update and link and feel free to take it any of

[2:00:21] a vendor on the line that. Yes. So feel free to go out of order. Okay. Yeah. I think we'll do just that.

[2:00:27] Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe Matt Abrams is on areas from the Abrams group. So join if you can

[2:00:36] put the presentation up, not if it's right with you, I think I'll let you go first and let you get out of here tonight.

[2:00:44] Yeah, sure. It's perfectly fine in the beginning. Good evening everyone. This is Matt Heberham's from the Heberham

[2:00:49] Group. Here to talk with you about student activities, specifically the result of the audit that we recently completed on

[2:00:59] student activities for the school years 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2022 to 2023.

[2:01:10] So happy to be back

[2:01:11] before the school committee this evening.

[2:01:15] A few years back we were before school committee

[2:01:17] present the results of the out of fiscal years 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021.

[2:01:23] Like we did for that audit for this audit which is for school years I just mentioned 2021 to 2022

[2:01:29] in 2223, we were asked to review and comment on each of the requirements and DSUs to

[2:01:34] next to these guidelines document, regardless of whether the district satisfies the requirement

[2:01:39] or not.

[2:01:40] The report on this audit was issued a few weeks back, and I believe was included in your

[2:01:45] packet for this evening's meeting.

[2:01:47] It needs to wait a locate and review each of the requirements and the report is to look

[2:01:50] for yellow highlights.

[2:01:52] There's an X that's highlighting yellow for each of the requirements and they'll show

[2:01:56] either yes or requirement was satisfied or no or requirement was not satisfied. For tonight's discussion,

[2:02:03] we're not covering all of that. We're just going to focus on the nose and talk about those just a

[2:02:08] little bit. And as we move to the presentation, we'll also cover some high-level comments about

[2:02:13] the district's administering of student activities. So yes, now on to the overview slide. Again, we're

[2:02:20] talking about 21 and 22 and 22 and 23.

[2:02:24] Other audits that were recently completed by the district,

[2:02:28] the 2019 school year, the 2020 school year,

[2:02:31] and 2021 school year, and we were involved in,

[2:02:35] like I said, the 2019, 2020 and 2021 audit,

[2:02:41] and since then, and just in general,

[2:02:43] we've noticed that the district has made

[2:02:45] some considerable improvements

[2:02:47] to how it administered student activities.

[2:02:48] Some of the ways are the student activities policy has been revamped in the recent past and

[2:02:56] it much better aligns with the ESC skydelines.

[2:03:00] The district did have a policy manual prior to that, but it did not align nearly as well

[2:03:07] with the ESC skydelines of Prudos to the district for the efforts to get to that point.

[2:03:14] We've noticed improved internal controls, including the following, all disbursements now go through the warm process through City Hall.

[2:03:23] And if you do that, if you do disbursements via the warm process, then there's no need for checking accounts because there's no need to do disbursements through the checking accounts.

[2:03:33] So even though the checking account I believe still exists, it's not being used.

[2:03:38] The district strongly discourages reimbursements and that's a

[2:03:43] encouragement has definitely led to a decrease in reimbursement

[2:03:46] requests. There's also improved procedure documents and the

[2:03:53] high school design and the business office strongly enforces the use of

[2:03:58] those procedure documents and despite improvements there's still more

[2:04:04] to be done. So basically because there are many guidelines, many requirements for by DEC, some

[2:04:12] of them are tough to achieve, and you'll see as we move forward here that the district is not fully

[2:04:16] in compliant, but it's definitely more in compliant than the last audit that was complete.

[2:04:24] Next slide, please.

[2:04:27] So now we're getting to some of the results of this audit,

[2:04:29] the student activities policy, which is JJF, is now outdated and it needs updating. So

[2:04:36] It does really align with the ESC skylines and I think that's great, but what I mean by

[2:04:44] needing updating, it's more about how the district does its practices today.

[2:04:51] So for example, the policy itself has many mentions of the checking account, because back

[2:04:56] when it was adopted in June 2019, the checking account was widely used, it's no longer being

[2:05:02] So there are a lot of mentions of the checking account and other things that could be cleaned up just to make the policy better.

[2:05:11] Or I should say more in line with what the district currently does.

[2:05:17] And then we have a little bullet point list for you here on how the different guidelines themselves, how well they were satisfied by section.

[2:05:27] So I'll quickly cover these for administration section.

[2:05:30] Five guesses, two knows for stewardship and facility responsibility.

[2:05:35] Five guesses and one know for general operating procedures.

[2:05:38] Five guesses, three knows for revenue receipts and deposits.

[2:05:42] Nine guesses, two knows for purchasing and disbursements.

[2:05:45] Ten guesses, three knows for class and active accounts and deficits.

[2:05:49] One, yes, and two knows and for student travel, two guesses and one know.

[2:05:55] And again, we'll cover the nose tonight and I'll try and get through

[2:05:57] as quickly as possible. If you want to refer to any of those other ones, the Ss, then again,

[2:06:03] you can go back to that report that was issued on the Trilogy Yellow Highlights.

[2:06:09] Okay, next slide, please.

[2:06:12] So now we're getting into a little bit more detail. The individual sections themselves. This is

[2:06:15] the administration section. Again, five Ss is two nodes. So we'll focus quickly on the nodes.

[2:06:22] So what guidelines were not satisfied? We reviewed the funds deposit into student activity accounts.

[2:06:29] and whether they're for a true student activities.

[2:06:32] And we noticed that there were a few cases where perhaps

[2:06:34] that was not the case.

[2:06:36] But this is more just clean up type stuff

[2:06:38] from past practices.

[2:06:40] It's not a major concern, but because the guidelines

[2:06:44] ask that we review them, we do review them,

[2:06:46] and then we comment on them.

[2:06:48] So the district, one of the things that it's done

[2:06:49] over the past few years is it's

[2:06:52] strive to move any athletics-related funds out of student activities

[2:06:57] into the athletics revolving fund and district has on a great job with that. There was just a few

[2:07:02] stragglers that were remaining. That's still needed to be cleaned up. So we made a comment on that.

[2:07:07] But the plan is to move all of those funds. The commissions and gifts accounts, which are

[2:07:11] going to control a bit of high school principal, have funded non-student activity to disbursements

[2:07:16] in the past but no longer. They seem to regularly benefit students now. But again, the original funds

[2:07:23] that we didn't really know the purpose for that.

[2:07:25] So that's why we have this comment in there

[2:07:28] and the district plans to close.

[2:07:30] All of those funds once their fully exhausted and those should be exhausted in the near future.

[2:07:35] The other now has to do a training and this is one that we see regularly when we do audits.

[2:07:41] The ESE requires that there's an ongoing training in place.

[2:07:45] So those that administer student activities are required by ESE to have some form ongoing training, a regular training that

[2:07:56] Reminds them to focus on certain things for the administration of student activities and also it's a good idea that

[2:08:04] the people who within the district to the staff that work on this

[2:08:08] Also train the advisors to on some of those practices

[2:08:13] So district knows about this and plans to have ongoing training and

[2:08:20] We did look at the policy as part of the section and we do have

[2:08:24] In the report itself, how we feel like the policy could be updated to better align with the district's current practices.

[2:08:34] Next slide, please.

[2:08:37] This section's stewardship and custodial responsibility.

[2:08:41] Just one, and has to do with annual audits.

[2:08:44] DSC requires annual audits.

[2:08:47] That is not happening yet for the district, but it is not for lack of trying.

[2:08:51] There has definitely been a concerted effort to get caught up on audits over the past few years.

[2:08:58] And even though the district's not there yet, the district is getting close.

[2:09:01] As you know, we're focused on the 2022-23 school years for this audit,

[2:09:07] so that's somewhat in the recent past.

[2:09:09] So hopefully soon, the district will be fully caught up.

[2:09:12] Just so you're aware, DEC recommends an outside independent firm,

[2:09:17] audits, student activities, at least once every three years.

[2:09:19] and those in between years can be done by someone internal to the district or to the city.

[2:09:29] Next slide, please.

[2:09:32] General operating procedures, the three nose are being, after being reconcilations, they should be done regularly.

[2:09:39] They were being done by the city treasurer's office at one point in the recent past,

[2:09:44] but they are no longer being done.

[2:09:47] And this is something that's important and district knows that it needs to get going on this again

[2:09:52] by working with City Hall on having reconciliation

[2:09:55] complete on a regular basis.

[2:09:58] It has to be at least quarterly.

[2:09:59] The district's plan is to do it monthly,

[2:10:02] and another piece of this is that it needs to be sign-offs.

[2:10:04] The prepare of the reconciliation needs to sign-off on it.

[2:10:08] Someone needs to review it, and also needs to sign-off on it

[2:10:11] in order to satisfy the ESC guidelines.

[2:10:14] Financial reporting requirements are not in place.

[2:10:17] The ESC requires that policies and procedures

[2:10:20] are in place for financial support, reporting, multiple parties, including school committee and

[2:10:26] the business office should receive reports regularly.

[2:10:30] Regularly could mean annual, it doesn't have to be anything more regular than that, but

[2:10:36] the district understands this and plans to issue reports on a regular basis going forward just

[2:10:43] so that those parties understand the current finances related to student activities.

[2:10:47] And there's another reconciliation piece,

[2:10:50] reconciling the subsidiaries,

[2:10:52] student activity details which are maintained

[2:10:53] by the high school design need to the control account,

[2:10:57] which is maintained by city hall.

[2:11:00] So that's two things related to reconciliation

[2:11:03] that are important and needs to take place.

[2:11:08] Next slide, please.

[2:11:11] For revenues, receipts and deposits,

[2:11:13] we only found two nodes here.

[2:11:17] Funds received are supposed to be turned over

[2:11:19] to the principal's office within 24 hours.

[2:11:21] So let's say there's some type of event takes place.

[2:11:24] This money collected at the door.

[2:11:27] The requirement has that that money is turned over to the principal's office

[2:11:31] within 24 hours.

[2:11:33] There was some, there weren't guarantees that that was happening.

[2:11:38] And we talked about that with district staff.

[2:11:42] And district staff is aware of that requirement

[2:11:44] and is planning on improving measures to make sure that that does happen.

[2:11:49] Additionally, this one is technically a no, but it really is there's no fault of anyone here

[2:11:57] But we do have to note it

[2:12:00] City Hall is supposed to receive deposits within one week from the principal's office. That's not happening and that

[2:12:06] The reason why it's not happening always is because donations sometimes are made and

[2:12:11] local community policy requires that donations are needed to be accepted as

[2:12:14] local community meeting and those so often satisfy the one requirements.

[2:12:18] So we did note that again, no fault of anyone at all, but that is part of the audit

[2:12:24] requirements and part of the audit finance.

[2:12:28] Also, just some very minor things, we just checked for things like signatures and dates

[2:12:32] on deposits.

[2:12:33] We noticed that there were very minor few cases where they weren't there.

[2:12:37] We noticed one posting to an aircraft student activity account by the high school destiny that was

[2:12:41] cleaned up. But again, we're supposed to note these things. So we did and overall, not a major concern.

[2:12:48] We want to stress that that these are not major concerns because they are consistent.

[2:12:53] We satisfied. Those are just some minor things that we found. Thanks a lot.

[2:13:01] And purchasing in this

[2:13:07] and personally benefit from purchases

[2:13:09] because of credit card benefits when reimbursed for purchases.

[2:13:12] So this gets back to reimbursement requests.

[2:13:15] DEC doesn't want anyone to benefit from this.

[2:13:18] Meaning staff and advisors and one way they could

[2:13:23] was if they put something on their credit card

[2:13:25] and they earned benefits for that.

[2:13:26] So DEC tries to limit that and they put it

[2:13:29] in the guidelines document themselves, itself.

[2:13:33] And the district is taking measures

[2:13:35] this strongly discourage it, but it is not able to fully avoid them and we have discussions

[2:13:42] on that.

[2:13:42] It seems unlikely that they can be fully avoided, but there may be some discussions on

[2:13:47] that in the future.

[2:13:49] Not all two activities funds are on choose two activities that gets back to the commissions

[2:13:53] and gifts accounts that we talked about earlier.

[2:13:57] Again, it's not really a concern, but we did need to note that because that's one of the

[2:14:00] requirements.

[2:14:01] Those funds will be closed out soon, so nothing to worry about going forward.

[2:14:07] And there's a check on mitigating controls.

[2:14:09] We just want to make sure that there are enough in place to limit risks.

[2:14:13] And because of the lack of reconciliation going on currently,

[2:14:18] we felt that we needed to know something along those lines.

[2:14:21] As soon as reconciliation are happening regularly,

[2:14:25] we believe the necessary controls would be in place and it would no longer be in the issue.

[2:14:31] And again, we just reviewed some things like disbursement slips.

[2:14:35] We saw that maybe there were a few lack of signatures on some,

[2:14:39] but again, overall the district is satisfying this,

[2:14:42] and it is not a major concern.

[2:14:46] Next slide, we're almost done.

[2:14:50] Class inactive accounts in deficit, accounts in deficit.

[2:14:55] One yes, which was on class accounts, the district is doing it.

[2:15:00] Excellent job with the requirements related to that. For inactive accounts, that was one of the

[2:15:05] nose. There is remedial action listed in the student activity policy for inactive accounts. I've

[2:15:13] listed him here. I'm not going to read them just in the interest of time, but just realize that the district is

[2:15:20] not currently performing those things related to inactive accounts, even though that is part of policy. And we did

[2:15:28] notice that there were five inactive accounts that had not yet been closed out, that the district

[2:15:35] is planning and closing out soon, and inactive account is deemed one that has not had any

[2:15:42] activity at all if it three years or more. So those five inactive accounts did not have the activity

[2:15:48] for three years or more, but was still sitting on the bus. And then the other note has to do with a

[2:15:53] deficit physician for one of the accounts. This is not a concern. It was just a timing thing.

[2:15:58] I think I've checked Bounce, yeah, I listed that here.

[2:16:00] I checked Bounce, and we just happened to look

[2:16:02] at the statement at that point in time.

[2:16:06] So we listed it, but not a concern overall.

[2:16:09] Generally, the district does not have any accounts

[2:16:11] and deficit positions, and I know that the design

[2:16:14] keeps a watchful eye over that.

[2:16:19] For student travel, two yeses, one no.

[2:16:23] And the no is that school community policies

[2:16:26] really just student travel are not adequate.

[2:16:28] to satisfy DEC guidelines and I've listed some of the ways and when we look at what policy

[2:16:36] that is, it's not the JJF student activities policy. There is a specific policy for student travel,

[2:16:42] which is JJH. In order to satisfy this requirement, that policy would need to be reviewed and

[2:16:50] data in order to satisfy what's in D.E.S.E's guidelines.

[2:16:55] So that can be reviewed and signed the guidelines themselves

[2:16:58] to fully align JJH with those requirements.

[2:17:04] And then the final slide is a conclusion, just a wrap-up slide.

[2:17:08] The district has come a long way in improving how it

[2:17:11] ministers student activities in just a few years.

[2:17:13] Again, if we think about the policy document

[2:17:15] that preceded JJF, it did not align at all with D.E.S.E.

[2:17:20] guidelines, and the one that is in place now aligns very well, but in addition to that,

[2:17:26] the practices that the district staff have these days is greatly improved over what it was just

[2:17:32] a few years ago. Most of the requirements that we're not satisfied are not major concerns as I

[2:17:38] spoke this evening. I tried to mention that as I was going through the details. Overall,

[2:17:44] the district is doing a great job in administering student activities, but there was always room

[2:17:48] improvement and that really comes in the form of the guidelines that are not yet satisfied,

[2:17:54] but also I think a major milestone would be to consider updating that JJF policy manual

[2:18:01] to align with current district practices. Again, because the disbursements are all going through

[2:18:06] the one process that checking accounts are not being used. So that policy can be updated in those ways,

[2:18:15] as well as other ways that are mentioned in the report.

[2:18:20] And with that, I will stop speaking for the moment and turn it back over to school committee

[2:18:24] and happy to take any questions or comments. Thank you.

[2:18:28] All right. Are there any questions or comments?

[2:18:36] Madam Chair, I agree with the findings of the district has come a long way and I thank the auditing

[2:18:41] team for their help. I'm wondering if the Desi process as we work on complying with the final items

[2:18:49] that you flag, does the justice process differentiate

[2:18:51] between the term policy and regulation?

[2:18:55] For example, we have a regulation on guilt trip policies,

[2:18:59] implementation, and that regulation,

[2:19:01] then is the administration's way of making sure

[2:19:05] that things are followed, but it's not something

[2:19:06] the school could use to micro-manage.

[2:19:08] Is that something that the district

[2:19:10] provides in their regulations on guilt trip management,

[2:19:13] and making sure that the principles

[2:19:14] or the appropriate staffer follows through at the end

[2:19:17] of a field trip by filing a report.

[2:19:19] Does that really need a school committee vote

[2:19:20] to amend that language?

[2:19:22] Or kind of a regulation change happened

[2:19:24] that the district does without a school committee vote?

[2:19:32] Well, the guidelines themselves,

[2:19:33] do you talk about policy?

[2:19:37] Whether there's something in the form of a regulation

[2:19:39] versus a policy,

[2:19:44] I mean, it sounds like you think

[2:19:45] that they're probably similar things, right?

[2:19:49] So I, I was assume that if the regulation is something

[2:19:54] that is being followed and applies to student travel. Then it could be used as a way to guide

[2:20:05] what needs to happen related to student travel. If I'm understanding your question properly.

[2:20:10] Yeah I know that's helpful. I know Jesse sometimes requires a school committee vote and sometimes

[2:20:14] does it and so a policy in our practices as well as the Massachusetts School Committee

[2:20:18] recommendations require a school committee vote while regulation most often does not need a vote.

[2:20:23] So I think it comes down to the semantics.

[2:20:25] Either way, I appreciate your findings

[2:20:26] and look forward to working with the committee

[2:20:28] on supporting your voting world ever we need to do to update.

[2:20:32] All of these regulations or practices.

[2:20:34] Thank you.

[2:20:37] All right, are there any other questions or comments?

[2:20:45] Thank you.

[2:20:45] Thank you, Matt.

[2:20:46] Appreciate you meeting you tonight.

[2:20:48] And just for the committee.

[2:20:49] Yeah, you're welcome.

[2:20:50] Yep, based on the audit, I'll be coming back

[2:20:53] at a future meeting with some recommendations.

[2:20:55] I'll talk to the policy, subcommittee,

[2:20:56] we'll change some policies.

[2:20:57] but we've made a huge progress over the past couple of years, so no questions on that.

[2:21:05] We'll move to capital budgets just a real quick update, just projects that we're working

[2:21:10] on this summer. The Geothermal Phase 2, the Farly Solar Design, Fire Alumni Design at Cameron,

[2:21:17] our three MSBA projects, elementary school and the two roofs, potter and broofy,

[2:21:22] to be replaced next summer. But we're working through the MSVA process now. We're

[2:21:30] replacing the King lift. We are in the middle of phase two roof replacement at

[2:21:37] Juniper. We're building two pre-K playgrounds at Harmony and McCarthy. We are

[2:21:42] resurfacing the back gym at the high school and replacing the HVAC

[2:21:49] some pump at Cameron. So we've got a lot going on this summer. Billings of grounds, departments

[2:21:55] doing a fantastic job and we're confident we were able to get all these completed and buildings

[2:22:00] ready for the starter school. FY27 we had that past for capital 2.2 million and now we're working

[2:22:11] on FY28 capital putting together a plan now to bring to the subcommittee over the next month or so

[2:22:18] maybe six weeks, we'll bring it to the full school committee for approval, and we'll submit it to the city

[2:22:24] round October. But we're already thinking ahead FY28.

[2:22:30] I'm both capital and operating, so any questions on capital tonight?

[2:22:36] Okay. Great. So next is just some updates on the operating budget. So FY26, we're still closing out

[2:22:44] purchasers, paying final invoices doing everything we can to avoid prior invoices. So we are on pace to end with at least the 500,000 that we budgeted to balance next year's budget.

[2:23:00] We might come in a little bit higher, we got some additional circuit breaker funding, so that will help us next year to actually have some funding in case anything comes up.

[2:23:13] FY27 is in full swing, we're proving, I think we approved about 300 plus wrecks this week.

[2:23:22] So we can convert them to purchase orders and then when staff come back in August they're purchase orders ready to go to place orders

[2:23:28] And we'll be ready for the start of school with all supplies and materials. So

[2:23:34] Work on FY2627 and we've already

[2:23:38] We're well into FY28 as well

[2:23:41] So we're going to expedite the process this year workbook should be done soon

[2:23:47] And we're already having discussions on what funding might look like and any actions that

[2:23:54] will have to take.

[2:23:55] But more on FY28, probably at the August meeting.

[2:23:59] Adam, this question.

[2:24:00] Adam.

[2:24:03] Thank you so much.

[2:24:04] Mr. Lynn, I just wanted to follow up on our email, Jean earlier today to let people know

[2:24:08] what a good news was filed by the governor today.

[2:24:14] There was a new funding request, it's specifically to support both the retention of

[2:24:18] teachers, professionals, mental health counselors,

[2:24:21] and other school staff while preserving

[2:24:23] important educational programming

[2:24:24] and community facing physical challenges.

[2:24:26] And quote, you know, that sums up

[2:24:28] exactly what we've seen ourselves in the last few months.

[2:24:31] And so if this new funding does come through,

[2:24:35] curious to get us thinking about as a group,

[2:24:37] what kind of a plan we can have understanding

[2:24:39] and it's late in the higher season,

[2:24:40] but other certain initiatives that were previously cut

[2:24:44] that again, pending the state legislative approval

[2:24:47] time for a real impact. This is new money that would come in to Framingham. I believe

[2:24:53] it's $112 per student. So that would be between $900K and a million based on the formula

[2:25:00] for Framingham. It's interesting to note that I couldn't tell just from the filing yet whether

[2:25:05] this would be one time or as part of our base for the future, or if this requires an appropriation

[2:25:12] request by us to the mayor and to the council or not make those districts, but either way,

[2:25:16] it's only good news and we should think about if this funding comes through what of the

[2:25:21] positions that were looked at last time or what one time cost, if this is not reoccurring

[2:25:26] revenue, can we use it for maximum impact or student achievement in our community?

[2:25:31] So Mr. Lynch, I welcome any thoughts you have on that tonight, understanding this is brand new,

[2:25:36] you know right before tonight's meeting and there's more to be found through our your

[2:25:40] contacts. Thank you for putting out and flagging that for us out of my understanding is

[2:25:45] just a one time payment rate that yeah I mean this just came out a couple hours ago so we've

[2:25:52] got some initial information on it but it seems like the funding will go directly to schools

[2:25:58] but it's a one time payment it's not in addition to chapter seven so I think we need to be very careful

[2:26:05] with how we spend the money. I know we cut hundred and twelve positions we want to take

[2:26:10] get positions back but if this is really a one-time payment and we say for instance

[2:26:16] higher a million dollars in staffing back we will not have that money next year so we will

[2:26:22] already be a million dollars in the whole so I would highly recommend you know we wait a little bit

[2:26:28] for details to come out hopefully the rest of this week we'll know and I'll send the email out

[2:26:33] all the committee members. Once we know, once we solidify what exactly this money is. But I think we need to be very careful with how we spend it and look to the future.

[2:26:45] Because I think the last thing we want is to start FY28 already a million in the whole if we're going to be spending these funds on something that's reoccurring when the money will not be there.

[2:26:55] So, it is really good news, not sure about the timing, you know, we're already in FY 27.

[2:27:02] But when I know more, I'll send it out, probably by the end of the week, I'll leave

[2:27:06] given update to the committee just so you guys know the facts and I'll just reiterate my recommendation.

[2:27:17] All right.

[2:27:21] I think that's it for me.

[2:27:21] That's it for you.

[2:27:22] Yes.

[2:27:22] Okay.

[2:27:23] Thank you so much.

[2:27:26] Next up, we have the discussion in vote on the unit E, framing him, campus A's, campus safety monitors, campus operations, liaison's, MOA.

[2:27:38] So this is the first, tonight, an executive session, a superintendent for human resources in a London provided the following summary on the negotiations.

[2:27:46] The district has been engaged in active negotiations with the framing him, teachers association, FCA to establish a new collective bargaining agreement for campus A's

[2:27:56] campus safety monitors in unit E. Negotiations began on Friday, February 4th, 226. The

[2:28:04] FCA voted to approve the MOA with an outstanding 97% ratification vote, attestment to the

[2:28:10] collaborative efforts between the Union and the District. Tonight the school committee voted

[2:28:14] to approve this MOA. This is a moment's occasion because it is the very first collective bargaining

[2:28:20] agreement for this unit, which will be known as the Unit E building support staff. In open

[2:28:25] Is there a motion to approve the unit EMOA as presented so move I will be seconded by Kyle and a discussion

[2:28:36] Okay, we'll roll call vote D1 district one

[2:28:41] District two yes district three yes district four

[2:28:46] Yes district five yes six yes seven yes eight yes nine yes, okay, it is approved

[2:28:55] The next one is consideration of the recognition of a union for family and community support and engagement liaisons.

[2:29:02] This was approved earlier tonight in an executive session.

[2:29:05] Is there a motion to approve the request for voluntary recognition of a family and community support and engagement liaisons unit?

[2:29:11] move by Willie second say by Larena any discussion roll call vote district one

[2:29:21] district two yes district three yes four yeah five yes yes six yes seven yes eight yes nine yes

[2:29:34] approved all right school building committee Adam would you like Brent and I are here ready to support you

[2:29:41] we'd like us to take the update or happy to turn it over to you too.

[2:29:46] Yep, I defer to you, and I thank you so much.

[2:29:48] All right, but we're going to tag to you.

[2:29:51] So school building committee net last Monday, we voted to approve the June 2026 vendor package

[2:29:57] invoice, that we voted to.

[2:30:00] We approve the tap A amendment for reimbursable costs, including involving the feasibility study. There was a schedule and milestone update, cost overview, estimate and total project costs.

[2:30:12] We're overviewed, however, there's still very much unknown with just isn't a certain level of precision available to us right now.

[2:30:21] We evaluated options, so school building committee members were given a matrix with various evaluation criteria.

[2:30:28] Some of the submissions we submitted were required by the MSBA.

[2:30:36] Ultimately, we voted to advance an ad-runnow at existing Hemingway.

[2:30:41] We advanced a rebuild option at Hemingway.

[2:30:44] We advanced two new constructions at Bethany.

[2:30:48] We voted to select those options to advance into the PSR phase.

[2:30:52] There was a report out from the community outreach subcommittee, which is scheduled to mean again on 722.

[2:31:00] And there are some other details I'm probably missing anything you'd like to add,

[2:31:03] Brent, please take it from here.

[2:31:05] No, I think that's quite you caught most.

[2:31:09] The other bit I would just mention is that the communication subcommittee,

[2:31:13] which has met previously before since we have met last will likely be having materials and talking points that I think will assist the full school committee and speaking with constituents about this so I don't have a timeline on that yet, but I think that's something you all can look forward to receiving hopefully in the next month or two.

[2:31:33] Yes and this is a regular schedule that agenda item for us to and we try to bring anything we do over there over here so that we have.

[2:31:42] just that level of transparency and advanced notice.

[2:31:49] Okay. Moving on, we'll go to subcommittee reports.

[2:31:53] We'll start with finance and operations.

[2:31:55] Will you wrap more?

[2:31:57] Thank you, Madam Chair.

[2:31:59] For the awards total for today,

[2:32:02] we have a total of 3,824,848,640,

[2:32:08] and a payroll total of $13,979,670,770,770 of the dates of June 22nd and June 29th.

[2:32:22] Thank you.

[2:32:24] Thank you, Willey.

[2:32:25] Policy in January.

[2:32:27] Thank you.

[2:32:27] The policy some committee met.

[2:32:29] On June 16th, the review of several policies based on recent updated DSEMASC guidance, including

[2:32:34] policy JKAA, timeout seclusion and physical restraint, which was approved at the last meeting

[2:32:40] for our first reading.

[2:32:41] This policy was previously reviewed and approved by the Health and Wellness Subcommittee

[2:32:46] on May 18th.

[2:32:47] It was drafted with Attorney Michael Joyce.

[2:32:49] This policy has a deadline of needing to be updated and submitted to Desi by August 16th.

[2:32:55] Two other policies were reviewed and are out for first reading, which include ECAB, access

[2:33:00] to buildings and grounds in JFBB Mass Inter-District School Choice Program.

[2:33:07] So I am looking for a motion to approve JKAA timeout seclusion and physical restraint for

[2:33:13] a second reading and policy ECAB access to buildings and grounds in JFBB Mass Inter-District

[2:33:19] School Choice Program for our first reading.

[2:33:22] So move to the barge second by Mr. Lewis.

[2:33:26] roll call vote will go district one.

[2:33:28] Oh, sorry, discussion.

[2:33:32] Sorry, discussion.

[2:33:34] Seeing no discussion, roll call vote, district one.

[2:33:38] District two?

[2:33:41] District three myself.

[2:33:42] Yes, district four.

[2:33:44] District five.

[2:33:45] Yes.

[2:33:46] District six.

[2:33:47] Yes.

[2:33:48] District seven.

[2:33:49] Yes.

[2:33:50] District eight.

[2:33:51] District nine.

[2:33:51] Good.

[2:33:53] Thank you very much.

[2:33:53] passes nine zero.

[2:34:01] All right.

[2:34:07] Any other subcommittees?

[2:34:12] Find us an operation. Subcommittee

[2:34:13] met. We have a draft goals. Still working on them. Any feedback you can send it to Joanna.

[2:34:21] I guess I give a report out on the goals.

[2:34:25] Obviously if there's any feedback related to the budget

[2:34:27] budget timeline, please send it in. We will be presenting these after another round of review

[2:34:36] in our second meeting with the agenda topic of goals.

[2:34:41] It's all I got right now.

[2:34:43] Any other stuff for me reports?

[2:34:48] Seeing that, we'll go to a approval of GIF's

[2:34:49] field trips and minutes.

[2:34:51] Let's keep an eye on it.

[2:34:52] Let's see what my family is raising their hand.

[2:34:54] Except GIFs for adult ESL plus high school health

[2:34:58] and wellness.

[2:34:59] McCarthy items include funds to support English classes,

[2:35:02] support of the cozy cart.

[2:35:04] Initiatives related to digital wellness and

[2:35:06] for students and families in need, is there a motion to accept?

[2:35:10] Who?

[2:35:11] Who by willy.

[2:35:12] Second by Jan.

[2:35:13] Any discussion?

[2:35:15] Seeing none, roll call vote, district one.

[2:35:19] Two.

[2:35:20] Yes.

[2:35:20] Three.

[2:35:21] Yes.

[2:35:21] Four.

[2:35:23] Yes.

[2:35:23] Five.

[2:35:25] Six.

[2:35:25] Yes.

[2:35:26] Yes.

[2:35:29] Minutes.

[2:35:30] Open session.

[2:35:31] The May 6, 2020, six minutes will be placed in the next agenda for approval.

[2:35:35] Is there a motion to approve the March 18th, 2026 April 15th, 2026 open session minutes?

[2:35:41] So most, move a gen.

[2:35:43] Second.

[2:35:43] Second, move a willy and discussion.

[2:35:46] Rokalvo, district 1,

[2:35:49] 2, yes.

[2:35:50] 3, yes.

[2:35:52] 4, yes.

[2:35:53] 5, yes.

[2:35:55] 6, yes.

[2:35:56] 7, yes.

[2:35:57] 8, yes.

[2:35:58] 9, yes.

[2:35:59] Executive session minutes to approve the September 17th, 2025 in January 14th, 2026 minutes as approved.

[2:36:06] in executive session. Motion to approve.

[2:36:09] So moved. Second.

[2:36:10] By Jen, say that by Willie, any discussion,

[2:36:16] roll,

[2:36:16] vote, district one,

[2:36:19] two, yes.

[2:36:20] Three, yes, four, five, six, five, six, seven, eight, yes, nine, yes.

[2:36:33] All right.

[2:36:39] Review of reductions on previously approved executive session minutes,

[2:36:41] Executive session minutes from 2012 to 2024,

[2:36:46] 2017, School Committee of Superintendents, Search Committee.

[2:36:50] 2020, four, switch, switch, switch, switch, switch.

[2:36:52] Do I have the right date?

[2:36:53] 2020, four.

[2:36:55] All right, is there a motion to approve updates

[2:36:57] through executive session minutes

[2:36:58] and redactions from 2012 to 2024

[2:37:01] and the 2017 School Committee

[2:37:04] Superintendent Search Committee

[2:37:05] as part of ongoing periodic review of redacted minutes?

[2:37:08] So good.

[2:37:09] by Kyle, seconded by Willie, any discussion?

[2:37:13] Seeing none, we'll call a vote, district one, two, now, three,

[2:37:21] abstain, four, five, yes, six, seven, yes, eight, eight,

[2:37:30] Eight, yes, nine, yes. Pass. Okay, additional public comment. So if you're on zoom in, you'd like to speak publicly. You can raise your virtual hand. We'll first go to the room. Anybody in the room speak publicly. Okay, guidelines again are located on the school police website. I'll comment so we accepted to his vice school committee may not be responded to in real time. If you request follow up contact information. I'll read the number 3052241968 webinar.

[2:38:00] ID 86281347776.

[2:38:08] All right, we have one hand-up who just put a stand-up.

[2:38:14] Okay, all right, looking again and again.

[2:38:16] I think this is top, all right.

[2:38:18] I just wanted to let you know, I've been following along.

[2:38:20] I just wanted to have a parting.

[2:38:21] Thank you for everybody's very warm welcome back to this.

[2:38:27] I thought, thank you very much.

[2:38:32] All right,

[2:38:36] all right, I will accept the motion to adjourn.

[2:38:39] So move.

[2:38:40] Second.

[2:38:40] Move by, will you second by Jen?

[2:38:43] Any discussion?

[2:38:45] Seeing none.

[2:38:46] Roll call vote.

[2:38:47] District 1.

[2:38:50] 2.

[2:38:51] Yes.

[2:38:51] 3.

[2:38:53] Yes.

[2:38:53] 4.

[2:38:55] Yes.

[2:38:56] 5.

[2:38:57] Yes.

[2:38:57] 6.

[2:39:00] Yes.

[2:39:01] 7.

[2:39:03] Yes.

[2:39:03] 8.

[2:39:04] Yes.

[2:39:04] 9.

[2:39:04] Yes, all right. The next school committee is August 19th, 2026 with a whole and August 5th if needed this meeting is adjourned at 9.43 p.m. Have a great night

FPS School Committee Meeting - 07/15/26

Transcript