[0:10] we have one of our new members diana
[0:12] read the mission statement
[0:13] okay
[0:15] public schools aspires to empower all
[0:17] students to be global citizens who are
[0:19] effective communicators analytical
[0:21] problem solvers and savvy consumers and
[0:24] information
[0:25] we propose to do this through an
[0:26] emphasis on communication critical
[0:28] thinking creativity self-management
[0:30] perseverance and collaboration
[0:32] students will be active partners in
[0:34] authentic learning offering voice and
[0:36] choice in demonstrating competency
[0:39] thanks
[0:41] so for announcements tonight the school
[0:42] committee retreat will be held on august
[0:44] 10th
[0:45] location and time are still to be
[0:47] determined
[0:48] all school and district offices will be
[0:50] closed on monday june 20th the last day
[0:52] of school for students is tuesday june
[0:54] 21st
[0:55] this will be an early release for all
[0:57] students the middle and high schools
[0:59] will dismiss at 11 20 a.m
[1:01] and the elementary schools will dim
[1:02] dismiss at 11 55 a.m
[1:05] grab and go lunches and transportation
[1:07] will be available the extended day
[1:09] program will also be running and the
[1:12] first round of community listening
[1:13] sessions on the future of the elementary
[1:15] school project will take place on july
[1:18] 26th and august 1st
[1:19] more information on the time and
[1:21] location of these meetings will be
[1:22] shared in the upcoming week
[1:25] um any special acknowledgements
[1:28] i'll start i'd just like to
[1:30] acknowledge and congratulate our middle
[1:32] school girls track team who won the
[1:34] state championship last weekend
[1:37] which is a great accomplishment
[1:39] obviously but it follows on our girls
[1:42] middle school basketball team winning
[1:43] the state championship over the winter
[1:45] so i think it's pretty exciting to have
[1:47] this great group of athletes coming up
[1:48] into the high school the next couple of
[1:50] years so we look forward to seeing them
[1:52] perform
[1:55] i'd like to just mention the pops
[1:57] concert last week which was spectacular
[2:00] and so much fun and hacked
[2:03] full auditorium for a great show
[2:06] it was great as well as streaming there
[2:08] were a lot of people that streamed as
[2:10] well
[2:12] middle school concert was pretty
[2:14] impressive too yeah with some pretty
[2:16] impressive eighth grade
[2:17] singers and that wrote their own song
[2:20] if you close your eyes you would never
[2:22] know that those were middle school
[2:24] students
[2:26] on in any of the ensembles no they were
[2:28] amazing
[2:32] all right i will have one
[2:34] the eighth grade civics project
[2:37] um was amazing to go to the display and
[2:40] have them
[2:42] present their issues
[2:44] um and a lot of them as
[2:47] uh i think brian and i acknowledged were
[2:50] about
[2:51] emotional learning and stress
[2:55] and depression and teens
[2:57] and a lot on the the river and the
[2:59] environment in ipswich so yeah we're
[3:02] talking about that
[3:07] so i've got a couple um one the entire
[3:10] staff who persevered through another
[3:13] difficult year
[3:15] um 138 graduates that we had walk across
[3:18] the stage last saturday onto a new adventure um all of our
[3:24] sports teams who made it into the into
[3:26] the preseason play we've had a number of
[3:29] them this spring
[3:31] um and then our retirees we wish them
[3:34] well-deserved retirement
[3:36] and finally i have to give another shout
[3:38] out to our incredible nursing staff who
[3:41] uh you know who are like the linchpins
[3:44] and getting us through yet another year
[3:47] in all of our schools
[3:49] as far as keeping everybody safe and healthy and you know keeping track
[3:54] of all the covet cases and stuff so
[3:58] shout out to them
[4:01] um anybody else or
[4:05] any citizens comments
[4:07] yes
[4:15] irene josephson 46 washington street um
[4:21] sorry
[4:22] i was in contact with the open meeting
[4:25] office
[4:26] of the
[4:27] state of massachusetts and i asked about
[4:30] having a group having their meeting in a
[4:32] restaurant
[4:33] oh that was kosher
[4:36] and so i'd like to be there applied
[4:37] that's okay
[4:40] sure the open meeting law applies when a
[4:44] forum of public body members meet and
[4:47] deliberate that is communicate about
[4:49] public body business regardless of where
[4:52] painting takes place
[4:54] when such communications occur they must
[4:56] be done improperly close to meetings
[4:59] even if such communications occur during
[5:02] a retreat meeting however if a public
[5:06] body it probably members
[5:08] sorry
[5:10] are not deliberating about public body
[5:13] business and technically the meeting as
[5:15] defined under the opening law has not
[5:18] occurred
[5:19] it's not a violation of the opening you
[5:27] want for public body members to be in
[5:30] the same place at the same time provided
[5:33] that no deliberation occurs
[5:35] if members simply want to socialize and
[5:37] not deliberate about board business and
[5:40] such communications would not be
[5:42] considered deliberation as it is defined
[5:45] in the open media
[5:47] if there's no deliberation then there's
[5:49] no meeting and the public body do not
[5:51] need to post or keep the nets
[5:54] please be advised that discussions
[5:56] regarding procedural or administrative
[5:58] matters may relate to public business
[6:01] with antibodies jurisdiction
[6:04] including whether the body should
[6:05] consider or take action on specific
[6:07] topics during meeting
[6:09] the open meeting law does not carve out
[6:11] an exception to the definition of
[6:14] deliberation
[6:15] for procedural decisions
[6:18] among the public members
[6:20] about how its meanings should be run and
[6:24] the discussion concerning the leadership
[6:27] of the public body
[6:29] is considered a matter of public
[6:31] business that should be reserved for an
[6:33] open meeting discussion of a public
[6:35] body's operation is public business
[6:38] within the body's jurisdiction
[6:40] all day
[6:42] and so i said well if they have their
[6:44] meeting in a restaurant and the room's
[6:46] too small not a problem
[6:54] and they said
[6:56] all meetings of public bodies must be
[6:58] open and accessible to the public unless
[7:01] an executive session is convened
[7:03] although the open meeting law does not
[7:05] specifically prohibit public bodies from
[7:08] building meetings in private buildings
[7:10] meeting in a room that is too small to
[7:11] accommodate the public would likely
[7:14] violate the open meeting laws public
[7:16] bodies must make reasoning efforts
[7:18] to accommodate antispin crowds
[7:21] for in-person meetings access to a
[7:23] meeting must include the opportunity to
[7:26] be physically present as well as see and
[7:29] hear what's being discussed by the
[7:30] members of the public body
[7:32] in addition for an in-person meeting to
[7:35] be truly open to the public it must be
[7:37] held at a location that is accessible to
[7:40] persons with disabilities
[7:42] thank you thanks very much
[7:47] so if if everybody is okay with us
[7:51] reversing order we're just going to
[7:52] quickly go to the second item on the
[7:55] agenda the reason i've been sharing so
[7:58] far is because i'm the senior school
[7:59] committee member and tonight's our
[8:00] reorganization meeting so we're going to
[8:02] be
[8:03] voting for
[8:04] uh new chair vice chair and secretary
[8:07] so are you guys all okay with just
[8:10] moving and we'll just do that and then
[8:11] we'll move on to the
[8:14] ell presentation
[8:17] okay
[8:18] so uh nominations for
[8:21] chair this year
[8:23] i nominate greg stevens for chair
[8:26] second second okay
[8:29] anyone
[8:30] have any comment anyone else want to
[8:32] nominate anyone
[8:39] shall we just vote
[8:41] does anyone is everyone sure
[8:48] i appreciate that greg has picked up
[8:51] this job and has
[8:52] taken it and has been
[8:56] proactive in engaging comments and
[8:58] feedback from other school committee
[9:00] members i think he has a great
[9:01] relationship with the superintendent and
[9:04] other committee members and i i support
[9:06] his
[9:09] appointment as chair
[9:11] here here
[9:14] all right all those in favor
[9:25] i'll nominate kate elliott for vice
[9:27] chair
[9:29] second second
[9:30] discussion
[9:32] i think craig kate has done a good job
[9:35] stepping in the role of vice chair um
[9:37] equally i think that she's got good
[9:38] really working relationships with
[9:40] members of the committee um she she
[9:42] works very hard and um i think that she
[9:44] will um do a good job if reappointed to
[9:46] the role of vice chair
[9:48] okay all in favor
[9:52] okay
[9:54] great
[9:57] oh um
[9:58] it's technically
[10:00] the superintendent tonight so i'll
[10:02] nominate dr blake for secretary
[10:06] all in favor
[10:09] and you can designate i designate laura
[10:13] no no i think laura has done a great job
[10:17] [Laughter]
[10:21] all right good all right
[10:22] so we will move on to our presentation
[10:25] of the english learner program it looks
[10:27] like we have our el program staff here
[10:29] we do tonight so one of the
[10:31] this came about because over the course
[10:33] of the year i've been
[10:35] seeing the praises of our
[10:36] dl staff um as you know we've seen a
[10:39] significant
[10:40] population increase
[10:42] in ipswich um so this evening we have
[10:45] three of our four el teachers with us
[10:48] we have lisa nylon who is the veteran
[10:52] member of the el team
[10:55] and we have gabby archambault
[10:58] and sarah trotsky uh
[11:00] sarah is at doyon
[11:04] gabby is at the middle high school lisa
[11:06] is at the winthrop school along with
[11:10] jane ducher
[11:12] dutcher who was not able to be with us
[11:14] this evening so um
[11:17] i i invited them to just talk about the
[11:20] changes that we're making to the program
[11:22] and what the work looks like this year
[11:24] and moving forward so i will turn it
[11:26] over to them
[11:35] is there somewhere i should stand right
[11:37] in front of that mic right there
[11:39] and that microphone's not for us it's
[11:41] more for the people at home but i feel
[11:43] sorry it's like it's not doing anything
[11:44] you are very important so just just
[11:47] before you start the anybody that's
[11:49] going to be speaking you need to speak
[11:50] right into that microphone so that the
[11:52] booth can pick it up um the rest of us
[11:54] we can hear you fine but
[11:56] out in tv land they won't be able to
[11:59] thousands watching at home
[12:03] [Laughter]
[12:15] all right
[12:16] um hi everyone um thank you for having
[12:18] us we're really excited to be here today
[12:21] um and give you a brief overview of the
[12:23] english learner education program here
[12:25] in ipswich
[12:28] in today's presentation first we will
[12:30] give a brief overview of who we are and
[12:33] some important definitions related to
[12:35] the work that we do
[12:36] then we will share with you our work and
[12:38] accomplishments from this past year
[12:41] finally we'll share with you our next
[12:43] steps and our goals as we plan for the
[12:45] upcoming year and at the end we'd love
[12:47] to take questions
[12:50] so starting with a brief overview
[12:52] welcome to our world
[12:55] um
[12:56] we already did introductions but just a
[12:58] review of who we are and um
[13:00] what schools that we're at
[13:04] um all right so before we really get
[13:06] into this we want to define what is a
[13:09] multilingual learner
[13:11] so
[13:12] massachusetts state law defines the term
[13:14] english learner as a student who does
[13:16] not speak english or whose native
[13:18] language is not english and who is
[13:20] currently
[13:21] not able to perform ordinary class work
[13:24] in english
[13:25] however although the state law still
[13:27] uses the term english learner the
[13:29] educational community is shifting to
[13:31] using the term multilingual learner to
[13:33] describe the same population of students
[13:35] because multilingual learner is asset
[13:37] based language and it also recognizes
[13:39] that many of our students come here
[13:41] already speaking more than one language
[13:44] in this presentation we'll use both
[13:46] terms interchangeably because when we
[13:48] talk about state laws and
[13:50] coding it just it's easier to go with
[13:52] what the state uses for terms
[13:55] but it's important to note that there
[13:57] are various
[13:58] profiles of a multilingual learner
[14:01] some are newcomers who have just arrived
[14:04] actually most multilingual learners were
[14:05] born in the united states
[14:08] and others come with limited
[14:11] schooling and might need
[14:12] unique extra supports
[14:15] and there's a bunch of different types
[14:17] of multilingual learners but overall on
[14:19] average it takes about five to seven
[14:21] years for a student to reach full
[14:23] language proficiency in english
[14:27] we also thought it might be helpful to
[14:29] identify how we
[14:31] identify a multilingual learner
[14:34] so as most of you know when a family
[14:36] registers their student
[14:38] in ipswich they go to central office and
[14:40] part of the registration process is a
[14:42] home language survey when a family
[14:44] indicates that a language other than
[14:46] english is spoken at home
[14:48] the esl teacher then analyzes the
[14:49] information from the home language
[14:51] survey and the enrollment packet and
[14:53] then may administer an english language
[14:55] assessment to determine the student's
[14:57] english language development level
[14:59] and then we use those screen results to
[15:00] determine whether or not the student
[15:02] should be coded as an english learner
[15:04] and receive services
[15:10] so we wanted to give you after that
[15:11] overlay we just wanted to give you a
[15:12] little bit more information about
[15:13] multi-label learners in ipswich um there
[15:16] are about 50 students across the
[15:17] district which makes up two percent of
[15:19] the population about half of those
[15:22] students speak brazilian portuguese as
[15:24] their first language um spanish is also
[15:27] fairly common as a native language for
[15:29] our students and then we put pashto on
[15:31] there as well too that's a language
[15:33] about afghanistan that has become more
[15:35] prevalent in the past couple of months
[15:38] along with numerous other languages as
[15:39] well
[15:42] so this graph just shows the progression
[15:44] of numbers of students
[15:46] from 2019 to today you can see across
[15:49] all grade levels a number of
[15:51] multilingual learners has increased in
[15:53] the district on the left-hand side those
[15:55] are our current numbers so doing there
[15:58] are 10 students 22 at once they're up
[16:00] and then 15 across the middle of the
[16:01] high school
[16:03] and we continue to get new students even
[16:05] lisa as a couple weeks ago yeah yeah
[16:11] so i don't want to go too much into the
[16:13] reads but i thought might be helpful
[16:15] just to get a sense of the landscape of
[16:16] english learner education programs in
[16:18] massachusetts
[16:19] there are many different programs
[16:21] bilingual programs dual language
[16:22] programs most districts
[16:25] employ the sheltered english immersion
[16:27] program which is what kid switch has
[16:28] which is when instruction is in english
[16:31] with supports for students
[16:34] and then you'll see there's basically
[16:35] kind of two components to sei
[16:38] which is the acronym for sheltered
[16:40] english immersion
[16:42] one of which is sheltered content
[16:44] instructions so our students spend the
[16:46] majority of their day with their
[16:48] teachers their content teachers right
[16:50] whether they're a second grade student
[16:51] they're in the second grade class or
[16:52] most of the day
[16:53] if they're in middle school they're with
[16:55] their content subject area teachers most
[16:57] of the day and those teachers are sei
[16:59] endorsed they employ different
[17:00] strategies to make sure that the content
[17:02] is accessible to those learners
[17:04] and then the esl instruction is where we
[17:06] come in as esl
[17:08] teachers and we
[17:10] work with students from one to three
[17:12] periods a day depending their
[17:13] proficiency level
[17:14] to really dedicate that time to sort of
[17:17] systematic explicit sustained
[17:19] instruction in the english language
[17:23] okay so what have we done this year
[17:27] um curriculum and instruction
[17:30] we've done a fair amount of this this
[17:31] past year um
[17:33] one of which has really been kind of
[17:35] purchasing and developing curriculum
[17:38] aligned to weda standards which is
[17:40] through our english language development
[17:42] standards so we purchased some newcomer
[17:44] curriculum
[17:45] we've developed our own curriculum both
[17:47] at the elementary middle and high school
[17:49] level
[17:50] that's differentiated to student levels
[17:52] we've done a lot of alignment at the
[17:53] elementary level around sort of how we
[17:55] deliver those services what the
[17:56] curriculum looks like and what our
[17:58] assessment looks like and then we've
[17:59] spent many many sessions um kind of
[18:03] unpacking this gigantic book of
[18:05] standards for our
[18:07] for esl which
[18:08] were released in 2020 in terms of the
[18:10] most updated version so trying to dive
[18:12] into those creating a user-friendly kind
[18:14] of dissected template
[18:16] and then an informational video that we
[18:18] plan to use with
[18:19] other teachers as well because it's
[18:21] really meant to be a collaborative
[18:27] me process
[18:30] um
[18:31] in the student engagement and leadership
[18:33] realm there have been some exciting new
[18:35] developments this past year including
[18:37] the formation of the multilingual
[18:39] leaders club
[18:40] which i'm super proud of um so this club
[18:43] was created by students with the mission
[18:45] to utilize the assets of being
[18:47] multilingual to better the community and
[18:49] bring together
[18:50] our diverse people and families in
[18:52] ipswich
[18:53] um and here you can see a picture of
[18:56] um the second showcase that we held june
[18:59] 3rd at high street studios where we had
[19:02] about a hundred ipswich students
[19:04] families and teachers that spoke all
[19:06] different languages
[19:08] come together to celebrate
[19:09] multilingualism by listening to these
[19:11] students
[19:12] um
[19:14] perform their work to their original poetry
[19:18] informative presentations um personal
[19:20] narratives we even had a student who
[19:23] arrived from brazil uh six weeks ago who
[19:26] spoke in english to the entire audience
[19:28] and that was really really powerful
[19:30] and we got to eat really good brazilian
[19:32] food
[19:33] which was
[19:34] made by two of our students families so
[19:37] good um and so this is one of the really
[19:40] great developments that we've seen through our students
[19:44] this year
[19:50] so one of the things that's very special
[19:53] about ipswich and their esl
[19:55] um teachers and program is that we
[19:58] provide a lot of wrap around services
[20:00] don't know what that is it means that
[20:02] we're more than teachers
[20:04] um
[20:05] we try to ensure that families who don't
[20:08] speak english get information from the
[20:11] schools in their native language
[20:13] um
[20:14] we have the
[20:16] s'more can be translated which is the
[20:19] weekly newsletter
[20:20] however some of us translate it and then
[20:23] send it through talking points
[20:26] just to be sure that the parents can
[20:28] read it
[20:29] we use talking points which is a free
[20:33] platform
[20:35] for teachers for educators
[20:38] that goes directly to their cell phones
[20:40] and they don't need to know ourselves we
[20:42] don't need a phone number we don't need
[20:44] a phone number to do that
[20:46] so it's been very handy
[20:48] i know our school nurse uses it as well
[20:51] many of the classroom teachers use it to
[20:54] communicate with families um
[20:57] so
[20:58] the other thing is is that we've upped
[20:59] um
[21:01] we have interpretation services for um
[21:05] conferences we use bay state right now
[21:08] and we have some other private
[21:10] interpreters that we've used
[21:12] and also we've connected families to
[21:15] open door
[21:17] which is
[21:18] the food pantry i'm sure
[21:20] you all know about that
[21:22] at winthrop we have the mobile mark come
[21:25] on thursday afternoons
[21:27] and i know that sarah trotsky is trying
[21:29] to get it to come to doyon one afternoon
[21:33] jane dutcher and myself
[21:35] actually take the kids who take buses
[21:38] to the mobile mart before they get on
[21:40] the bus so that they can bring the food
[21:42] home
[21:45] so what's next
[21:50] because we're tired
[21:52] um so
[21:53] we've developed actually sarah started
[21:56] but we've developed a
[21:59] website that's going to be printed
[22:01] predominantly for teachers to access
[22:04] it'll be a one-stop shop for resources
[22:07] we've already started uploading things
[22:09] like the standards dissection that we
[22:12] did this year
[22:13] informational videos about it
[22:17] and a lot of the
[22:18] accommodation
[22:20] things that we suggest that teachers use
[22:22] for different students
[22:25] um
[22:27] and
[22:28] gabby is going to highlight pilot sorry
[22:31] pilot
[22:32] a professional development program all
[22:35] teachers who are renewing their licenses
[22:38] have to have 15 pdps in ell
[22:42] in order to renew
[22:44] they have to have some instead too but
[22:46] 15 for ell
[22:48] so gabby is going to pilot a
[22:51] 15 out two at two sessions this summer
[22:54] of 15 hour professional development of
[22:57] plc
[22:59] around supporting multilingual learners
[23:01] which will provide them with those
[23:03] pdps the outcome it's going to be some
[23:06] reading pre-reading it's going to be
[23:10] sessions in person
[23:12] it's going to be projects and at the end
[23:14] they're going to come up with
[23:16] a tool of some sort that they plan to
[23:18] use in the following year which will
[23:20] also be posted to uh we have a padlet on
[23:23] our website
[23:25] so it will also be
[23:26] available to all teachers
[23:31] okay so is anybody having questions
[23:36] could you i'm interested in what a
[23:38] typical i'm sure there is no typical day
[23:40] but can you just describe when a student
[23:42] comes in
[23:43] to the district
[23:45] has no english
[23:46] knowledge at all
[23:48] how do you integrate with the teachers
[23:50] like how does that all work
[23:52] so we have the whole language survey we
[23:54] get we know ahead of time student is
[23:57] coming
[23:58] we uh placement is well i can speak to
[24:01] the elementary level so maybe gabby can
[24:03] speak to the middle high
[24:04] so we know
[24:06] we have a meeting with the principal
[24:08] we do and talk about placement for that
[24:11] child meet once that's determined we
[24:14] meet with that teacher
[24:16] and then this year we've been bringing
[24:19] the family in before the child actually
[24:21] starts
[24:22] um i have a
[24:24] lovely community
[24:26] member who has helped me enormously this
[24:28] year with a trans translation um she's
[24:32] very connected to the community and she usually comes
[24:36] in and sits with us with the family um
[24:40] she's a mother
[24:41] of a winthrop student who's in fifth
[24:44] grade and i had both of her children so
[24:48] i know her um
[24:49] so she comes in and we talk to the
[24:51] family and we talk about what the
[24:53] schooling experiences were the teacher
[24:56] is there the classroom teacher is there
[24:59] then what i do is i provide this is if a
[25:02] newcomer comes if it's not a newcomer
[25:04] it's less of a
[25:07] challenge right
[25:08] so
[25:09] then i provide the teacher with
[25:12] materials in ipad
[25:16] that has an ipad that has apps loaded on
[25:19] it that the student can access
[25:24] and we have duolingo on that ipad we
[25:27] have beginning abcs on that ipad so that
[25:30] the child because i can't be with the
[25:32] child all day
[25:34] has
[25:35] things that they can be practicing
[25:38] when the teacher is teaching the other
[25:40] children or
[25:42] use it to translate we use google
[25:44] translate
[25:45] to help translate for them what's going
[25:48] on in the classroom
[25:50] yeah exactly and we integrate them and
[25:54] quite frankly if they're a newcomer and
[25:56] uh they're immersed in in english it
[25:59] comes pretty quickly
[26:00] they're verbal they're receptive and
[26:02] they're expressive the reading and the
[26:04] writing comes later
[26:06] um
[26:07] you think about how your own children
[26:10] develop language as toddlers and young
[26:12] they understood what you were saying to
[26:14] them before they could speak it's to say
[26:17] it's all the same and they learned to
[26:19] read before they learned to write right
[26:22] so it's it's exactly the same trajectory
[26:25] exactly great thanks
[26:28] yes
[26:29] um you guys do amazing work and just
[26:32] i've been looking at the traversal
[26:34] weatherall grants for a couple years now
[26:36] and oh my god you know that's really
[26:38] hard i keep asking them
[26:40] every single year no they're incredible
[26:43] and it's just like the creativity and
[26:45] the
[26:46] beauty of these programs is amazing but
[26:48] anyway my question is
[26:50] how do you balance in placing a child if
[26:53] you have a child with
[26:55] um
[26:56] no english and then they're
[26:59] i'm assuming they're doing more of the
[27:01] age appropriate placement
[27:03] not necessarily the curriculum because
[27:06] we're not yes because um
[27:08] it's frowned upon to keep them back because it's looked at
[27:12] as um
[27:14] tradition right how do you
[27:17] support i guess the
[27:19] social emotional piece of that but the
[27:22] frustration and the you know
[27:25] well gabby can probably speak to that
[27:26] more i don't see a lot of frustration
[27:29] they're happy to be in school
[27:31] they love being with their friends
[27:33] the social piece is very
[27:35] that's like the
[27:37] fun part of the day
[27:38] you know um i haven't seen any
[27:41] frustration in that way but gabby i
[27:44] don't know if you can speak yeah
[27:50] um i think that's a great question and i
[27:52] think that's something that like
[27:54] we're constantly trying to figure out um
[27:56] because it can be really hard for
[27:57] students when they first come here
[28:00] but
[28:01] we sort of do
[28:03] in the middle in high school at the
[28:04] middle and high school level like all of
[28:05] the things that you would normally do
[28:06] for any other student um it's just that
[28:09] i happen to be the person who's sort of
[28:10] the check-in person
[28:11] um i'm actually like located right in
[28:13] between my room is right in between the
[28:15] middle and high school which is perfect
[28:16] so
[28:18] they know that they can come to me
[28:19] whenever they're feeling frustrated
[28:21] i've also been working a lot with the
[28:23] counseling team to figure out how do we
[28:25] support
[28:26] our students
[28:28] with their mental health um in a
[28:30] different language i speak spanish so
[28:32] i'm able to help with the
[28:33] spanish-speaking students but i don't
[28:35] speak portuguese so that's something
[28:37] that we might write a grant for
[28:39] but it is like a constant you know
[28:42] a constant dilemma um i think what we're
[28:44] really lucky for is that we have um our
[28:47] club and we have other students who have
[28:48] been there and done that and our
[28:50] students are so empathetic and whenever
[28:53] we get a new kid they're like oh my gosh
[28:54] i got it i got it like i'll i'm gonna
[28:56] help him i'm gonna help her and um feel
[28:58] like i've been there before like you'll
[28:59] be okay and so they kind of like
[29:03] create this whole big family um but it
[29:05] is hard and it's something that we're
[29:07] trying to figure out
[29:09] i guess my only other question is um
[29:12] probably for elementary space issues i
[29:14] know they've been at such a premium
[29:17] um i'm a little more familiar with
[29:18] winthrop than joyam but i'm sure
[29:21] are do you guys feel like you have what
[29:23] you need
[29:25] so um i began the year in a similar
[29:29] situation as sarah where i had like a
[29:31] full out space
[29:33] within a room with title one
[29:36] and it became apparent
[29:39] right before we hired jane that
[29:41] we needed a classroom yeah
[29:43] so we got half half a room i don't know
[29:45] if you
[29:47] have been over there to see it but we
[29:48] got that's when i saw it we got third of
[29:50] her room
[29:51] well maybe it's a little
[29:54] yeah and next year we'll get like a half
[29:56] room because we're moving into the music
[29:58] room because music is moving to the
[30:00] white house back to the playhouse
[30:03] so um you know space is a challenge
[30:06] it's just the challenge um i'm i feel
[30:09] honored to be able to actually have a
[30:12] classroom now because
[30:14] i have so much stuff and the kids love
[30:15] coming and they own the space and they
[30:18] you know it's a big part of what helps
[30:21] them succeed
[30:22] so
[30:23] i don't
[30:24] feel that i don't know sarah
[30:26] yeah i share um with the reading room so
[30:28] i have like a third of the space i think
[30:30] to just
[30:32] the nature of like luck of the draw
[30:34] right i have kids who are spread out
[30:36] throughout grade levels so in terms of
[30:37] pulling students it's not like i have a
[30:39] big group you know if i were to have
[30:43] eight students on one grade level
[30:45] pulling them at the same time that's
[30:46] when i think there'd be a little bit
[30:47] more of a challenge but also teachers
[30:48] you know are really flexible too with
[30:51] figuring out space needs if i need to do
[30:53] something bigger i'll sometimes use
[30:54] someone else's room too
[30:59] so kind of on that vein
[31:02] you know we're supporting them socially
[31:04] and within it um how have we or how do
[31:06] you think we can
[31:09] um
[31:10] you know create a welcoming environment
[31:12] like how can we
[31:13] so for our
[31:15] english speaking students are are they
[31:19] attuned to
[31:20] okay we're having
[31:22] new students and we're going to
[31:23] appreciate their language and
[31:26] you know um i
[31:27] they're always excited i mean this
[31:30] district has been welcoming including
[31:33] all kinds of kids forever even when my
[31:36] kids went to the school and so
[31:39] they're excited to have someone from
[31:42] brazil or afghanistan or russia or
[31:45] belarus or you know they're excited it
[31:48] excites them
[31:50] that's been my
[31:52] you know experience
[31:54] it's the way our culture is i think
[31:57] you know
[31:58] yeah
[31:59] so um
[32:00] ryan i love she does really nice stuff
[32:02] every single morning in the morning
[32:03] evening is in a different language um as
[32:05] part of it and i think that like starts
[32:06] to foster an awareness of that we're all
[32:09] coming from different places um and then
[32:12] um
[32:14] students if they have a new student
[32:15] coming in like i'll talk to the teacher
[32:17] ahead of time we'll learn some key
[32:18] phrases in that student's native
[32:19] language we'll put you know labels in
[32:21] the classroom in their language um
[32:23] there's signs all over going on in
[32:25] multiple languages i'm sure it's the
[32:26] same in with two
[32:28] and just like any new student it's
[32:30] nerve-wracking coming in for the first
[32:31] time
[32:32] so just making sure that you feel alone
[32:35] yeah the sometimes we have our students
[32:38] trying to teach
[32:40] the native speaking students and some
[32:42] words and and that's fun they like to do
[32:45] that um
[32:46] you know
[32:47] they they love having new kids come in
[32:50] so it's never been really
[32:53] an issue at
[32:54] just didn't know if there all
[32:55] like something specific that they
[32:57] guessed like you're saying
[32:58] well we prepared the classroom that the
[33:00] students gonna come you know and they
[33:02] get excited
[33:07] i don't want you to undersell all the
[33:09] work that that you've been doing in the
[33:12] community though because it's not just
[33:13] what happens in the classroom with the
[33:15] child
[33:17] and their classmates or the teachers the
[33:19] outreach that that you're you're doing
[33:23] to the community in terms of
[33:25] you know providing the parents with
[33:27] resources um you know gabby with your
[33:31] the the uh the evenings that you're
[33:33] doing to to get families in and really
[33:36] focusing on making sure that not only
[33:39] are the kids connected but the families
[33:41] are connected as well i think that's a
[33:42] critical piece that's that hasn't always
[33:44] been
[33:47] right yeah we um actually we have a
[33:50] volunteer who actually talked to me at
[33:52] the beach today who's very excited to
[33:55] offer
[33:56] english
[33:57] lessons to
[33:59] parents
[34:00] and so
[34:03] that's
[34:03] going to be offered i just don't know
[34:05] what the timing is some of my family
[34:07] they work a lot
[34:10] also
[34:11] with
[34:12] our afghan family
[34:13] families family
[34:16] we have
[34:18] i have a volunteer from the middle
[34:20] school a special education teacher who's
[34:23] going to work with us children
[34:25] over the summer to try to help
[34:28] boost their english when i'm gonna
[34:31] give her materials and things like that
[34:34] we've also connected families with the
[34:36] library
[34:39] we've connected families
[34:42] with scholarships for summer camp for
[34:44] the kids so they can work
[34:47] we use mass child we've got clothing for
[34:50] the children
[34:52] um we got snow outfits for our newcomers
[34:56] who come from brazil and never seen snow
[34:58] before
[35:00] through ipswich caring i mean we're
[35:03] we take care of the families it's not
[35:05] just the kids
[35:10] i'm just going to say thank you very
[35:11] much for all of your hard work it's it's
[35:13] such important work and i know it's it's
[35:15] been a hard year um enrollment has gone
[35:18] up quite a bit i know my question is
[35:21] two questions one's very simple um so
[35:23] you said there's 50 about 50
[35:25] multilingual learners and that's up from
[35:27] what historically lisa like
[35:31] 35 or just a ballpark well i prepared
[35:34] for this question
[35:36] because that's my year
[35:38] um
[35:39] so i originally started with uh i was
[35:43] planning
[35:44] the
[35:45] largest amount of growth is at one point
[35:47] yeah i started with planning on having
[35:50] five students totally
[35:53] when you started in september
[35:56] so i got a call
[35:57] over the summer that there were going to
[35:59] be two new kids coming from belarus
[36:02] great
[36:03] and that they were going to be
[36:05] and then
[36:07] in september i got a call that there
[36:10] would be
[36:11] three more
[36:13] but the belarus kids had already been in
[36:15] danvers so they weren't newcomers okay
[36:19] so
[36:20] sorry those are the numbers oh those are
[36:22] the numbers so it just it just kept
[36:25] it went up a lot like
[36:30] so pre-k to five there were there are 32
[36:35] this year last year there were 23.
[36:38] that's at the elementary level
[36:41] so it went out
[36:42] and then it also includes preschool
[36:44] which is just something to keep in mind
[36:45] too so sometimes the numbers are like
[36:47] deflated or inflated right
[36:49] students also have english learners even
[36:51] though they're not required to have
[36:52] services
[36:56] um what can we do for you
[37:00] i'm good i love my job we all love our
[37:03] jobs that's why we do it was a challenging year for me this
[37:07] year personally um just if you can you
[37:10] show the slides the kids kept coming
[37:14] it was just can you put in a present
[37:17] thanks
[37:17] um
[37:20] what happens is it's not the fact that
[37:23] they're all newcomers it's that if they come so they're there and then i
[37:28] start teaching
[37:29] and then someone comes and then i gotta
[37:31] start over again with that person but
[37:32] keep those kids going yes it's like this
[37:35] whole like tag team kind of thing so
[37:38] that's kind of that was the experience
[37:40] at winthrop i ended up with five i
[37:43] started with five plus three pre-k
[37:46] no with no newcomers and newcomers
[37:48] require three
[37:50] two to three 45-minute sessions of
[37:52] direct eocel instruction a day so it's
[37:54] like half a day
[37:56] um
[37:57] september i got four non-speakers
[38:00] october i got three more
[38:02] november i one left the district and
[38:06] then in december
[38:07] um i got another one and one another one
[38:10] left and then january we got three
[38:12] in march i got
[38:14] one in preschool
[38:16] april i got one and then may i got two
[38:22] so so you're ready for summer vacation
[38:24] time yes
[38:28] well this was helpful for us i know so it's just and there's no control over
[38:32] it right right right so and and that's
[38:35] the thing and part of why we got jane
[38:38] was
[38:40] i couldn't
[38:41] it was i couldn't do it i was like
[38:46] because i couldn't teach the kids you
[38:49] know so it's great jane and i have a
[38:51] great rapport we work really well
[38:53] together we have the same mindset you
[38:55] know she wishes she were here today
[38:58] um but we have a plan for next year you
[39:02] know i mean she came in the end of
[39:03] january so it was just kind of like okay
[39:06] here you pick up this you pick up that
[39:08] we didn't have a lot of time to like
[39:10] congeal but we're going to over the
[39:13] summer and just have a much more
[39:16] a better plan but
[39:17] um and we'll probably get some more
[39:20] there'll be movement there always
[39:22] yeah
[39:23] well thank you for coming i know today's
[39:25] a long day after the beach
[39:27] on top of a long year so thank you
[39:29] i would love if if you could afford us
[39:32] the presentation i think it's helpful
[39:33] for me to yeah
[39:36] that's okay
[39:38] is it okay
[39:39] yes well thank you
[39:52] we're fortunate to have heather leonard
[39:54] with us tonight
[39:55] chair of our pain grant committee to
[39:58] talk to us about the approved pay grants
[40:01] and um
[40:02] we will then take a vote do we vote to
[40:04] approve each one as a committee or just
[40:06] all of them in total
[40:14] voted on each one
[40:34] all right so while heather is setting up
[40:38] jeff did you have any comments as our
[40:40] rep for the pain grant committee on the
[40:42] grants kind of how the process went yeah
[40:44] um so we had a kickoff call actually the
[40:48] committee first is comprised of of
[40:50] heather who's the chair representatives
[40:53] from
[40:54] um
[40:55] at least two i think two of the school
[40:56] buildings um or teachers from two of the
[40:58] school buildings as well as dr blake
[41:02] jonathan mitchell kathy was involved
[41:05] and then parents and um
[41:09] i think there's maybe one i guess there
[41:11] was a vacancy in the business community
[41:13] member at large position um so we met
[41:16] over uh four nights so we had an initial
[41:19] introduction we were able to review a
[41:21] synopsis and the written application for
[41:22] each of the grants
[41:24] and then over
[41:26] a second meeting we had
[41:28] presentations which were
[41:29] very tightly timed by heather to keep us
[41:32] on track and we did that via zoom and
[41:34] she was able to move people in and out
[41:35] and give like a seven or eight present
[41:37] minute presentation um it was great to
[41:39] see how the live presentation really
[41:42] kind of gave color and kind of developed
[41:45] what we had previously seen as far as
[41:46] the written application
[41:48] there were so many great you know ideas
[41:50] that were you know people got so jazzed
[41:52] and excited about and were inspiring
[41:54] then all the hard work came where we
[41:56] needed to
[41:57] kind of look and make you know decisions
[41:59] about does it really true to
[42:01] you know the wording of the trust
[42:04] i think the committee worked really
[42:06] diligently to be very thoughtful in in
[42:08] that and made very solid recommendations
[42:11] and
[42:13] hopefully that sets heather up without
[42:15] stealing too much thunder
[42:21] perfect um
[42:23] well thank you for the time to be here
[42:25] um and i think
[42:27] jeff did a great job giving an outline
[42:29] but i think understood the amount of
[42:31] time so while our committee
[42:34] meets in a relatively concentrated block
[42:36] there's a lot of work that goes in um
[42:38] and so i just want to pause and just
[42:40] shout out all of the different folks
[42:42] that have been involved in the
[42:44] especially this time of year it's a
[42:45] pretty significant commitment um and i
[42:48] see some not some from folks who've done
[42:50] it before so
[42:51] um i'm just so appreciative of
[42:53] all of the educators
[42:55] we actually have ted spinelli here with
[42:57] uh
[42:58] snuck in the back
[43:03] so chad was ted was new this year and
[43:05] hopefully he's willing to uh continue on
[43:07] in the next year but it's really
[43:09] um it is a commitment and of time um to
[43:13] do to do the work so it was a really
[43:15] great it's it's a beautiful thing right
[43:17] it's a great committee to be able to be
[43:18] allowed to be like yes we give money and
[43:20] it's wonderful um but it is a
[43:21] significant commitment so shout out to
[43:23] ted and to jeff and to dr lake and all
[43:25] those folks who um who were here
[43:28] during those different meeting times
[43:30] and laura who does a really wonderful
[43:32] job making sure everything is ready and
[43:35] accessible because
[43:37] you know there's a lot to work through
[43:38] with all of that
[43:41] you're going to see me
[43:42] remind at the end we are still looking
[43:44] for
[43:45] business community reps was we stole her
[43:47] and she's now a school committee member
[43:50] so
[43:51] we are looking to fill her seat
[43:53] and also another
[43:55] position for a community business rep as
[43:56] well as a select board member
[44:00] okay i do this as a reminder just for
[44:03] folks who might not know where the pain
[44:04] grant money comes from and this
[44:06] information is just helpful to remind us
[44:09] that it's not a random bucket of money
[44:11] and it's not a school it's not a part of
[44:13] the school operating budget
[44:15] but it was something that was
[44:17] that came from william payne and his
[44:19] family and the trust that maintains this
[44:22] money and invests this money um
[44:24] then does all of this work to make sure
[44:26] that those funds from this
[44:29] land that was donated
[44:31] and the funds from when that land was
[44:33] sold
[44:34] back in 2012
[44:36] now is continually
[44:38] provided to support enrichment and
[44:41] enhancement of the ipswich public
[44:44] schools which is very exciting so
[44:45] there's a lot of great information out
[44:46] there for anyone who's curious about
[44:48] where this money is even coming from and
[44:49] why
[44:51] um and i'll just
[44:52] put the mission statement up there um
[44:55] ted and jeff have had to sit through
[44:57] this about what 200 times in the last
[44:59] two months but it's important just to
[45:01] ground ourselves in the what is this for
[45:03] what is the purpose and the why we're
[45:04] here
[45:07] and this information is just shared
[45:08] again to remind us that it's not
[45:10] intended to replace
[45:11] the public financial support of
[45:13] education but the intent is to improve
[45:15] the quality and value of educational
[45:17] experiences and increase the scope of
[45:18] learning opportunities by the initiation
[45:21] and customization of creative
[45:22] educational practices so we keep that
[45:25] frame as the purpose and intent of the
[45:26] funds that's the work that drives the
[45:29] decisions so there's often amazing
[45:32] wonderful thoughtful things that are
[45:33] submitted um and we'd all love to say
[45:36] yes to everything but this is really our
[45:38] charge so when we go back to if we have
[45:40] to make challenging decisions and
[45:41] recommendations this is what we lead
[45:43] into that work with
[45:45] so here's where where we are for this
[45:47] year um we were provided with an
[45:50] incredible amount of almost 700 000
[45:52] which is phenomenal so thank you to the
[45:54] festes for their incredible work um and
[45:56] we had applications for
[45:59] 828 000 or so so we do have some
[46:02] critical decisions that have to go in uh
[46:05] i will let you know that the way the
[46:07] process went and jeff did a great job so
[46:08] i won't repeat um but what we don't do
[46:11] is we don't go dollar by dollar so what
[46:14] we really do when we're going into these
[46:15] is we decide do these different
[46:18] applications align with that mission
[46:20] statement and the purpose of the grant
[46:21] and should we recommend it because what
[46:24] we find is that if you start to do
[46:26] dollar by dollars that you'll get pieces
[46:28] of grants and think which thing do we
[46:30] want or not want or why and that's sort
[46:32] of beyond really what our purpose is so
[46:34] we've really shifted the process so
[46:36] we're not thinking about adding the
[46:38] money up all along but instead we're
[46:39] looking at each grant individually
[46:41] making our recommendations and then
[46:42] we'll give you our recommendations and
[46:44] you get to figure out the dollar by
[46:45] dollar
[46:46] so we're aware of it but we're really
[46:48] moving off of based on the
[46:49] recommendation the alignment to the
[46:50] purpose of the grant
[46:52] and i will let you know it isn't random
[46:54] a piece of the work that our committee
[46:56] members have done that's a significant
[46:58] dedication of time is that in between
[47:01] the understanding the meeting where we
[47:03] get trained and when we start to hear
[47:04] the presentations we read through every
[47:06] grant which are pages and pages of
[47:08] information to advocate for the
[47:11] grant that they're applying for um that
[47:13] is a significant amount of time and then
[47:14] for every grant we complete a rubric
[47:17] which rates the different components
[47:19] and you'll see there's a teeny tiny
[47:20] graphic in there because i want to
[47:22] maintain the confidentiality of the
[47:23] scores but i do want to share that we
[47:25] then rank order the grants and we look
[47:26] at what those mean scores are so we can
[47:28] see both in the presentations and that
[47:31] information but also quantitatively how
[47:33] did we score the different
[47:35] considerations while we're making those
[47:36] decisions
[47:39] okay so i'm i'm gonna go through the
[47:42] process and go each group um at a time
[47:45] but um stevens did you decide if you're
[47:47] gonna vote after each one or at the end
[47:49] i think we'll vote after each one okay
[47:50] all right perfect um so there was one
[47:52] application that was in that initial
[47:54] request that was actually able to be
[47:56] funded through an alternative source so
[47:57] that was a wonderful thing that will be
[47:59] new track record boards that will be
[48:01] replaced but not funded through this
[48:02] source
[48:04] so the first grant i'm going to share
[48:06] about is the 21st century music
[48:08] classroom
[48:09] um so this grant was really focused on
[48:11] diversifying the opportunities in the
[48:13] music education
[48:14] and i think the the thing that miss
[48:16] hallmeyer shared when she was presenting
[48:19] was the idea that
[48:20] well ipswich has the incredible
[48:23] numbers of 25 of our students as
[48:25] compared to most other districts having
[48:27] 10 percent participate that also means
[48:29] 75 might not be actively involved in the
[48:31] music department so there are
[48:33] alternative ways and methods for
[48:35] students to engage in the music
[48:36] classroom so this is looking to
[48:39] diversify options for in allowing
[48:41] students to opt in to music through both
[48:43] a current sorry a modern band
[48:46] opportunity which includes some
[48:48] different specific skills within
[48:50] waterband and connects also with
[48:51] production and technology integration
[48:53] within the music classroom
[48:55] so the exciting piece here is that it
[48:57] would include both ways that you shift
[48:59] to that that modern bandwidth includes
[49:02] some of the work that's really happening
[49:03] in that technology lens with that
[49:05] production and it includes learning
[49:07] about how do you use that skill set
[49:10] so it's a pretty exciting
[49:12] framing it is something that will be up
[49:14] is being framed as an option for
[49:16] students to take during a related arts
[49:17] time so it would be something that could
[49:19] be during the general education
[49:21] school day um it would be open to middle
[49:23] school students that's her goal is to
[49:25] start with the minister
[49:27] and that was that was voted for
[49:29] recommendation by the paying grant with
[49:31] unanimous support
[49:33] there's no questions got to get a motion
[49:35] to accept
[49:37] second
[49:38] any discussion
[49:39] is this for equipment
[49:41] it's a combination so this will actually
[49:43] include specific instruments to support
[49:44] this but it will also include technology
[49:46] equipment that allows you to run some of
[49:48] these like hefty programs and
[49:50] additionally actually acquire the
[49:51] programs that allow you to do some of
[49:52] the music production
[49:56] is it a club or class or it would be a
[49:58] class so it would be um like like my
[50:00] daughter's in orchestra somebody might
[50:02] have modern band okay all in favor
[50:07] opposed
[50:09] great mediums
[50:10] sort a logistics question so if we
[50:12] approve
[50:14] all these
[50:15] we'll go over
[50:16] the allotted amount i'll just worry
[50:18] about that later i won't let you get
[50:19] there don't worry i'll take care of you
[50:21] make sure
[50:27] um so the next grade that i want to
[50:28] share about is the elementary library
[50:30] technology enhancement grant this grant
[50:32] was submitted by both of the uh library
[50:34] media specialists i'm not sure if that's
[50:36] the term we use here um from doyon and
[50:38] winthrop elementary schools
[50:40] and they're seeking funding to support
[50:42] the
[50:43] continued integration of the digital
[50:45] literacy and computer science standards
[50:47] within their instruction
[50:49] primarily they're seeking these funds to
[50:51] access digital tools to help students
[50:53] integrate
[50:54] and move from that idea and i've heard
[50:56] it that term use a lot moving towards
[50:59] that idea of digital creators instead of
[51:01] just using technology that they're
[51:03] actually creating using it so
[51:05] specifically they're looking for
[51:06] resources that include ipads
[51:09] and the benefit of an ipad that has a
[51:10] two-sided camera so they can they can
[51:12] watch and film while filming something
[51:14] else
[51:15] and also those work to support the
[51:17] coding with specific robots that they
[51:19] have access to already so will allow
[51:21] students to engage in that coding
[51:23] activity they're also looking to support
[51:26] a particular coding program with grades
[51:27] three four and five and also thinking
[51:29] about some video creation that'll
[51:31] support
[51:32] me integrated in so it allows students
[51:34] to actually integrate and collaborate
[51:36] the technology with peers
[51:38] and create artifacts through the use of
[51:40] technology with having these tools the
[51:42] other piece they mentioned is that
[51:43] acquiring these tools that allows
[51:45] teachers in the building to then sort of
[51:47] borrow them from that library as well so
[51:48] that teachers can integrate that use of
[51:50] the technology resource into their
[51:51] classroom
[51:54] and that was uh recommended from the
[51:56] painter committee with unanimous support
[51:59] you get a motion
[52:01] so moved
[52:02] second second what's the motion
[52:04] to accept you know sleep
[52:08] any discussion
[52:11] all right all in favor
[52:15] this is good stuff look at all the good
[52:17] stuff we're already doing all right
[52:19] these are big things i can't wait to see
[52:21] them in process this is a i mean it's
[52:23] fun to imagine what this will look like
[52:25] next year
[52:26] okay so the next grand i'm going to
[52:28] share is the place based learning grant
[52:30] this was a grant that was applied for by
[52:32] all of the building uh principals in the
[52:34] district um and this sprint is a
[52:37] reoccurring grant it has come up before
[52:38] the paying grant committee i believe as
[52:40] long as i've been on it yeah i mean so
[52:43] it's been it's been a repeating grant
[52:44] that is reoccurring the idea here with
[52:46] place grant place based learning is sort
[52:48] of what we used to term field trips that
[52:50] idea that that learning is happening in
[52:53] those places where you can see it you
[52:54] can experience it you can have hands-on
[52:56] learning experiences
[52:58] specifically this grant really does a
[53:00] lot of work to support that equity and
[53:02] access to make sure we're doing some
[53:03] cost control so that all of our students
[53:05] and families have a chance to
[53:07] participate and engage
[53:08] so this depending on the school's plans
[53:11] for the use it is
[53:13] broken up across the different schools
[53:15] and also there's some dedicated to the
[53:17] arts department and to special education
[53:19] summer but the goal is that it allows
[53:22] either a subsidized access or full
[53:24] access and full funded to different
[53:26] opportunities to learn outside of
[53:28] classroom setting or apply their
[53:30] learning
[53:31] out in local or even some further
[53:33] distance learning spaces and this was
[53:36] approved with unanimous support from the
[53:37] committee
[53:39] moved to accept second
[53:42] any discussion
[53:44] all in favor
[53:47] so far so good all right
[53:50] dual enrollment so this grant is again
[53:52] it's another repeating this is the
[53:54] second year that this grant has been
[53:56] applied for from the high school with
[53:58] claire powers
[54:00] and this grant is offering high
[54:01] education and career pathways during the
[54:04] school day that allows students to be
[54:06] duly enrolled in both
[54:08] ipswich high school class and a local
[54:10] college class so by doing that they're
[54:12] really targeting students who need the
[54:14] opportunity to open up some doors to
[54:16] consider some post-secondary
[54:17] opportunities that may be out there
[54:19] specifically for first-generation
[54:21] college students or students or families
[54:23] that may receive free reduced lunch
[54:26] and that the goal of this is that by
[54:28] starting that process of what does a
[54:29] college class look like feel like sound
[54:31] like and that additional benefit of
[54:33] going in to thinking about beyond high
[54:36] school having some credits already in
[54:38] the bank per se really sets students up
[54:40] for that bridge and that opportunity for
[54:41] success um there was significant success
[54:44] this year actually all students got to
[54:46] see or above and so had passed
[54:48] with success this year
[54:50] their goal is that this is going to be
[54:52] the last year that this grant is sought
[54:54] because they're hoping to integrate it
[54:55] into the school budget
[54:57] additionally one of the committee
[54:59] members asked about expansion
[55:01] and in which claire did share that north
[55:03] shore would love to expand to offer that
[55:05] idea of dual enrollment across content
[55:08] areas
[55:09] but
[55:10] they would need an on-site teacher so
[55:11] maybe some potential groundwork to be
[55:14] laid for some opportunities for all of
[55:15] our students in the future
[55:17] so how did they come up with that number
[55:19] is that just an estimate based on
[55:21] previous year
[55:22] that's a specific number that that
[55:24] covers the enrollment cost for the
[55:26] credit it covers the payment for those
[55:29] students to like be enrolled at north
[55:30] shore and it also covers the cost of the staff member here who does that
[55:34] bridge and that teaching of the course
[55:36] because the course is a shared top
[55:38] between north shore faculty and then so
[55:41] it's not a per student cost it's
[55:42] actually paying for the this is included
[55:45] the student's enrollment is included in
[55:46] that yes so it's for the for the staff
[55:48] member for the credit and for the high
[55:50] school okay yeah great question
[55:54] just as an aside some some of the
[55:57] well-developed programs where
[56:00] high schools have done this a lot
[56:02] you can actually earn an associate's
[56:04] degree by the time you graduate high
[56:06] school
[56:08] and thinking about the rising costs
[56:10] especially for families who might not
[56:11] have done this before
[56:13] this is a really powerful thing so this
[56:14] was uh voted to be recommended by the
[56:16] committee with unanimous yeah
[56:19] you get a motion to support
[56:21] move to support second
[56:23] any discussion
[56:25] all in favor
[56:28] great
[56:37] uh the next project and grant that was
[56:39] uh considered was the doyon playground
[56:41] project so this grant was applied for by
[56:44] principal goodell o'brien from doing
[56:46] representing it on behalf of the
[56:48] playground committee actor
[56:50] um so this is targeting the uh playground project that's that
[56:54] work you may have heard is underway it's
[56:56] work worked they're doing a lot of work
[56:58] to get outside vendors and bids they're
[57:00] doing fundraising within the dwyane
[57:02] school community
[57:03] the the grant that's being sought would
[57:05] help to fund what it is being called
[57:07] phase one so there are multiple phases
[57:10] to this project
[57:11] specifically this grid that they're
[57:13] seeking funding for would cover
[57:15] replace the ground cover so when you
[57:17] think about sort of the old-school wood
[57:18] chips
[57:19] it's going to be a replacement for that
[57:22] it would provide a walking path that
[57:23] connects the different areas of the
[57:24] playground and also acts as an
[57:26] integration with that local ecosystem to
[57:28] allow students to walk and engage
[57:31] and is ada compliant so it would allow
[57:33] anyone who might have mobility
[57:34] challenges to also engage in that path
[57:36] it also includes the phase one of figure
[57:38] and equipment which includes some
[57:40] specific climbing structures um and
[57:42] other other aspects of it
[57:44] um specifically this
[57:47] the reason for this request is that the
[57:49] current
[57:50] playground that is out there has far
[57:51] outlived its its projected life and
[57:54] they're actually having parts of it that
[57:56] have they've had to take them or close
[57:58] due to safety or aging of those
[57:59] different pieces and components
[58:01] one thing i did want to make the
[58:02] committee aware is that knowing that
[58:04] there's potential changes happening or
[58:07] being even considered one of the big
[58:09] pieces that this group did consider was
[58:11] an option of mobility so the playground
[58:13] could be moved or relocated at any time
[58:15] that was a key component that they did
[58:17] look for when they were getting their
[58:18] different
[58:19] vendor bids as well
[58:22] and that was voted uh for support with
[58:24] unanimous support for the community
[58:27] any sense of what how much this is in
[58:29] terms of the entire project like i
[58:31] believe that uh principal o'brien
[58:33] mentioned that they were they would then
[58:35] have to aim for an additional 100 to 150
[58:37] thousand dollars and they are doing work
[58:39] you know i know my daughter brought in a
[58:40] big bag of change of doing different
[58:42] like coins and different grade levels so
[58:44] um they're doing some not that the
[58:45] pennies will pay but you know they're
[58:46] getting involved but they are doing some
[58:48] other active
[58:49] fundraising and sourcing that's
[58:51] happening concurrently within the school
[58:53] community
[58:54] has there been any talk about
[58:56] sort of doing
[58:58] a community type build that yes a bunch
[59:00] of us did
[59:02] yes that is the one that they're
[59:03] planning for though that is part of the
[59:05] plan okay
[59:07] good
[59:09] i'm glad you're excited you're signing
[59:10] up
[59:12] i'm happy to all right
[59:13] i'll be there
[59:14] i'll drag helped with the last one so he
[59:16] can go too i killed the last one 20
[59:18] years ago
[59:22] that playground is long overdue for a
[59:24] replacement
[59:25] and it
[59:26] i think the winthrop fun has really
[59:28] turned into a community playground and
[59:29] so to have one you know in a different
[59:32] area of town would be
[59:33] great
[59:35] a good a good one
[59:36] [Music]
[59:38] i have a question about the community
[59:40] build
[59:41] so this
[59:42] the photo that's included
[59:45] it's not a like that that needs to be
[59:47] installed so there's aspects of it that
[59:49] would be but there's components that are part of a computer community
[59:52] built as well so there's these um the
[59:54] group that they
[59:55] it's uniplay
[59:57] is that right
[59:58] um so they actually so they sort of
[1:00:01] oversee and do it so when you get to the
[1:00:03] point of like they the ground cover the
[1:00:05] replacement of the ground cover and the
[1:00:06] walking path are those are going to be
[1:00:08] something that are actually going to be
[1:00:09] um
[1:00:10] they have
[1:00:11] people that are doing that but the
[1:00:13] actual building of the pieces of
[1:00:14] equipment is something that the folks
[1:00:15] from that organization come and they
[1:00:16] oversee but then community members
[1:00:18] actually help to hold and do the install
[1:00:19] but it's all supervised by
[1:00:22] folks from the company
[1:00:26] okay can i get a motion to support
[1:00:28] move to support second
[1:00:30] any further discussion
[1:00:32] all in favor
[1:00:36] okay
[1:00:39] so the next grant for uh that was
[1:00:41] proposed is a visualizing and
[1:00:42] verbalizing grant and i just have to
[1:00:44] shout out colleen harrington who um our
[1:00:47] committee had a question i emailed her
[1:00:48] and she's like oh i'm so sorry i didn't
[1:00:49] get back to you sooner it was like two
[1:00:50] days later she's like i happened to i
[1:00:52] think she had a baby like the week
[1:00:53] before i was like oh i'm so her communication skills are amazing
[1:00:58] i just want to show her
[1:01:00] um but this this grant was being
[1:01:01] proposed to provide um the primary
[1:01:04] funding is going to professional
[1:01:05] development so it's targeting in
[1:01:07] training
[1:01:10] special education and speech language
[1:01:12] pathologists to teach
[1:01:14] explicit and targeted comprehension
[1:01:16] skills and strategies using the
[1:01:18] visualizing and verbalizing techniques
[1:01:20] the idea is that this would both support
[1:01:23] direct support for students that require
[1:01:26] it but also that the integration of
[1:01:28] those strategies would help
[1:01:30] those staff that have been trained to
[1:01:32] collaborate and connect with their
[1:01:33] colleagues to support the integration of
[1:01:35] those comprehension strategies into
[1:01:37] general education classrooms
[1:01:39] she estimated that would support
[1:01:41] approximately 60 students and those
[1:01:43] might be students who will be receiving
[1:01:44] that direct support
[1:01:46] through those trained staff members
[1:01:48] with the potential for those graphic
[1:01:50] organizers and other strategies to be
[1:01:52] integrated within other classroom areas
[1:01:55] and this grant was also recommended for
[1:01:57] support with unanimous support from the
[1:01:58] committee
[1:02:01] you get emotional support
[1:02:06] any discussion
[1:02:09] all in favor
[1:02:12] unanimous
[1:02:14] good applications this year that is what
[1:02:16] i do want to just take a i promise i'll
[1:02:18] take too long but just a shout out for
[1:02:20] every one of these applications i i've
[1:02:22] shouted out the committee members who gave a great deal of their time but
[1:02:25] to even complete an application is a
[1:02:27] significant lift and for our educators
[1:02:28] to take time out of their schedules that
[1:02:30] are already so overly burdened to submit
[1:02:32] for this is a real commitment to their
[1:02:35] work and their dedication to their
[1:02:36] students so i just want to show all of
[1:02:37] them out um not only with the
[1:02:39] presentation but just the completion of
[1:02:41] the paperwork to submit can you see a
[1:02:42] question just about this last one yes
[1:02:45] real quick um
[1:02:46] i don't know colleen she's a special
[1:02:48] education teacher
[1:02:50] yes yes
[1:02:52] and so
[1:02:54] i'm just i'm just curious in reading through the
[1:02:57] seems this is for all students
[1:03:00] so
[1:03:01] if the actual explicit program the video
[1:03:04] program that could potentially support
[1:03:06] students who require that level of
[1:03:08] targeted targeted training which might
[1:03:10] be through an iep through a 504 or
[1:03:14] through support but the shift she talked
[1:03:16] about a bit or she she proposed in the
[1:03:18] grant was that those explicit strategies
[1:03:21] some really specific graphic organizers
[1:03:22] or other comprehension strategies can
[1:03:24] then be integrated so that it can
[1:03:25] support and benefit you know general
[1:03:28] education teachers doing it in their
[1:03:29] classroom with all students and then
[1:03:30] strategies that can be integrated across
[1:03:35] i don't know if that answered your
[1:03:36] question it does
[1:03:38] i like it all right
[1:03:41] oh and that would be supporting for both
[1:03:43] uh doyon and winthrop
[1:03:45] as well
[1:03:46] okay so the next grant that was
[1:03:48] submitted is to target joy on third
[1:03:51] grade learning experience in plymouth
[1:03:53] and patoxin
[1:03:55] so this grant was seeking the
[1:03:56] opportunity to have an extended date not
[1:03:59] an extended day the program um but have
[1:04:02] an extended school day
[1:04:04] field trip to plymouth and patuxent
[1:04:06] museums and then mayflower
[1:04:08] so specifically they're looking to take students down to that area to
[1:04:14] experience those different museums in
[1:04:15] return the extended part is that if you
[1:04:18] think about traveling to that area we
[1:04:20] know and anything traveling near around
[1:04:22] boston is just going to increase your
[1:04:23] day or you're only there for like half
[1:04:25] an hour um so they're really looking to
[1:04:27] allow students to go there to experience
[1:04:29] those different components
[1:04:30] and this is really
[1:04:32] deeply connected to the standards at
[1:04:34] grade three
[1:04:35] it is an experience that some students
[1:04:37] may have had in the past winthrop used
[1:04:39] to do the when it was the plymouth
[1:04:42] plantation students from winthrop did
[1:04:44] have that experience to go
[1:04:46] my our understanding is that that was
[1:04:47] actually a trip that was sponsored by a
[1:04:49] private sponsor and was funded from a
[1:04:51] private person in the past
[1:04:54] winthrop was offered to see if they
[1:04:56] wanted to join in on this and they
[1:04:57] wanted to wait and see how
[1:04:59] it went for doyon i think both potential
[1:05:02] grand approval and also to see were they
[1:05:04] able to get down travel experience and
[1:05:06] come back successfully
[1:05:08] and they're potentially considering
[1:05:10] joining to participate in that in the following
[1:05:14] year
[1:05:15] the reason they're applying for this
[1:05:16] grant is because the cost for both for
[1:05:18] the buses to travel for the extended
[1:05:20] time for staffing and for any sort of
[1:05:22] subsidizing of that trip for any
[1:05:24] students who need it would be cost
[1:05:25] prohibitive it would be almost 100 a
[1:05:27] student
[1:05:28] which is far beyond what they would feel
[1:05:29] reasonable asking so they would not do
[1:05:31] the experience otherwise if they weren't
[1:05:33] able to find external funding
[1:05:35] and this grant was recommended with
[1:05:36] unanimous support from the committee
[1:05:39] any questions i have a question
[1:05:41] why wouldn't this be under the play
[1:05:44] space grant that was a question that we
[1:05:45] had as well it might be because it is a
[1:05:47] brand new grant but also additionally
[1:05:50] because the place-based grant from most
[1:05:52] of what's in there it's a subsidy for
[1:05:54] students or families that might not
[1:05:56] otherwise be able to participate whereas
[1:05:58] this funding is including the bus
[1:06:00] transportation the extended time for the
[1:06:03] any staff that's going beyond that
[1:06:04] working day um and supporting that so i
[1:06:07] think it was above and beyond um that
[1:06:09] was a question that we did have
[1:06:12] in first with general practices but um i
[1:06:14] don't know if that had been entertained
[1:06:17] or not
[1:06:21] um
[1:06:23] why didn't winter join in this grant
[1:06:27] um i think they what was shared with us
[1:06:29] is that they want to wait to see how it
[1:06:31] goes
[1:06:33] traditionally i think that was a field
[1:06:35] trip but it was a fifth grade if only
[1:06:38] oh really yeah right
[1:06:41] that's too bad that they're not
[1:06:43] all getting the experience but maybe
[1:06:46] they will eventually not all the
[1:06:49] students are going to miss it right and
[1:06:50] so i think that's the piece i think the
[1:06:51] interesting piece is that winthrop did
[1:06:53] have that opportunity before where
[1:06:54] dwyane did it because of that private
[1:06:56] sponsor so leaning towards equity is
[1:06:58] this something that we can explore what
[1:07:00] it what would that cost be and what what
[1:07:02] would that require to do on a more
[1:07:04] equitable level of price as well so i
[1:07:06] think it's something that you know
[1:07:07] they're estimating that cost for for
[1:07:09] buses for the additional hours of
[1:07:11] staffing and for subsidizing any
[1:07:12] students who need to attend um but they
[1:07:14] haven't done it and it hasn't been done
[1:07:16] since pre-covered so
[1:07:18] i think a piece that will be trying to
[1:07:19] understand like you know what is that
[1:07:22] cost is this how much it would cost for
[1:07:23] each school
[1:07:25] but that i can't speak on on why
[1:07:27] somebody chose not to
[1:07:29] it's too good
[1:07:32] uh do we get a motion and support
[1:07:35] the support
[1:07:36] second
[1:07:38] give me a second
[1:07:39] any further
[1:07:40] discussion all in favor
[1:07:44] great
[1:07:45] i love that we're hoping to expand
[1:07:47] opportunity that's a that's a wonderful
[1:07:49] thing too so if any of these grants can
[1:07:51] launch
[1:07:52] expanded opportunities i think anyone on
[1:07:54] our
[1:07:57] your question janet if this grant were
[1:07:59] to come back next year it would likely
[1:08:02] be put in with the place based learning
[1:08:05] okay
[1:08:09] so the next grant i'm going to share
[1:08:10] that was um requested is uh the
[1:08:12] grandchild for cardio room this grant
[1:08:14] was submitted by principal mitchell for
[1:08:16] the high school middle school um so this
[1:08:18] grant is looking to seek funds to shift
[1:08:21] the what is currently known as the
[1:08:22] aerobics room in the middle school high
[1:08:24] school area to shift it to a space
[1:08:26] called the cardio room
[1:08:28] specifically funding was sought for
[1:08:30] equipment including treadmills rowers
[1:08:33] exercise bikes and ellipticals
[1:08:36] chairs with flip up desk things and
[1:08:40] a technology uh promethean board that
[1:08:43] was sought um specifically this this
[1:08:46] grant was looking for
[1:08:48] to
[1:08:49] re-re-energize and renovate a space that
[1:08:51] currently exists
[1:08:53] another piece of the funding also
[1:08:54] included refinishing the floors and
[1:08:56] electrical work and finally written in
[1:08:58] the grant but i don't know that it was
[1:09:00] captured in the money was a stipend that
[1:09:02] would provide
[1:09:03] an hour after school three days a week
[1:09:07] to seek opportunity for some supervision
[1:09:10] for the space
[1:09:11] the grant noted having students have a
[1:09:13] place to go after school to provide sort
[1:09:16] of a place to engage with cardio
[1:09:18] equipment and hang out um also it was
[1:09:21] mentioned to support um a place for
[1:09:23] teams that could the team's sporting
[1:09:24] teams could use to integrate and also
[1:09:26] was mentioned
[1:09:27] the high school health teacher who i
[1:09:29] guess at this point actually doesn't
[1:09:30] have a classroom so it tends to move
[1:09:31] around that this could also be a space
[1:09:33] that could be used for that
[1:09:35] the committee did not vote to recommend
[1:09:37] this grant um it
[1:09:39] the grant sorry the vote was one in
[1:09:41] favor with five opposed
[1:09:43] the areas of concern included it seemed
[1:09:46] unclear of like how many students would
[1:09:49] actually be impacted how who would
[1:09:50] actually get to use it middle school or
[1:09:52] high school students and how the
[1:09:53] logistics of the timing were um there
[1:09:55] were questions about is this goal to
[1:09:57] like outfit a health classroom is it
[1:10:00] equipment for sports teams so there was
[1:10:01] a
[1:10:02] some confusion about the goals of the of
[1:10:04] the grant um but there was a scene of
[1:10:07] the opportunity for a benefit for
[1:10:08] students that have having a space so
[1:10:10] there's definitely some positive scene
[1:10:11] to it but the uh the areas of concern
[1:10:13] sort of lay in the confusion about sort
[1:10:15] of that that vision and goal of the
[1:10:17] space and the usage for students
[1:10:20] could you describe what the current
[1:10:22] space is like
[1:10:23] dr blake
[1:10:25] i'm not familiar
[1:10:28] you know
[1:10:29] i i can't you don't okay
[1:10:31] can you
[1:10:32] i can't okay it's not it's not the
[1:10:34] weight room
[1:10:35] it's a separate space than the than the
[1:10:37] weight room with all the oh we have away
[1:10:40] from yes it's different yeah
[1:10:44] apparently is more of a catch-all for
[1:10:46] all the outdated equipment that have
[1:10:48] been replaced over the years
[1:10:49] okay it's kind of become a
[1:10:52] junk room
[1:10:54] like you'd like to juggle
[1:10:56] right now okay
[1:10:58] yeah i guess i'm a little disappointed
[1:11:00] it wasn't recommended i mean i think we
[1:11:03] from from what i hear
[1:11:06] a lot of kids would like to stick around
[1:11:09] and use the weight room and have a room
[1:11:11] like this to use
[1:11:13] but we don't have a cardio room we don't
[1:11:15] have staffing for the weight room
[1:11:17] so they all end up going to the y and
[1:11:20] you go to the y in the afternoon and
[1:11:21] it's packed with
[1:11:22] our kids it seems to me like it would be
[1:11:24] better to have them here
[1:11:27] at school
[1:11:28] for an hour or two hours or whatever the
[1:11:30] time frame is so
[1:11:33] yeah i guess i'm a little disappointed
[1:11:34] that we didn't the committee didn't see
[1:11:36] that i think part of the concern was
[1:11:38] that the staffing request was like one
[1:11:40] additional hour three days a week
[1:11:42] and so it's not a big room so it didn't
[1:11:45] seem like there was really an
[1:11:46] opportunity for many users given that
[1:11:49] it would only be so open for that
[1:11:51] additional time
[1:11:52] so i think it there was part of a
[1:11:54] concern there i think there was also a
[1:11:55] concern with capital you know
[1:11:57] expenditures versus you know enrichment
[1:11:59] and whether this should be something
[1:12:00] that should be absorbed eventually in
[1:12:01] the budget as far as making improvements
[1:12:04] i think i've got to agree with greg i am
[1:12:07] just listening
[1:12:09] to john mitchell talking this year and
[1:12:11] listening to
[1:12:12] the presentation by
[1:12:14] the
[1:12:16] school mental health team that came i
[1:12:18] think anything we can give our kids that
[1:12:21] support something healthy for them to be
[1:12:24] doing is enrichment is needed enrichment
[1:12:28] it's not video games it's not
[1:12:32] you know
[1:12:33] needing to get
[1:12:35] to be able to commute over to the y it's
[1:12:37] it is
[1:12:38] um
[1:12:39] and i feel like the logistics questions
[1:12:41] are
[1:12:42] could be easily answered and easily
[1:12:44] fleshed out
[1:12:48] and so i guess i'd like to see this go
[1:12:50] back to the committee for fleshing out
[1:12:52] the questions that the committee had
[1:12:54] um if possible
[1:12:58] to answer those questions
[1:13:00] i think we've done that before and i'd
[1:13:01] like to see that happen with this would
[1:13:03] bringing like a tom gallagher to that
[1:13:05] meeting to help
[1:13:07] answer any questions i mean who would
[1:13:09] make those decisions on staffing and and accessibility and
[1:13:15] ironing out that programming with the
[1:13:16] grant
[1:13:20] that's just an idea yeah i agree with
[1:13:21] emily i'd like to see i'd like to see
[1:13:23] the logistics fleshed out and then maybe
[1:13:25] be able to make a
[1:13:27] more educated decision on that
[1:13:29] it seemed like small questions that can
[1:13:30] be answered versus like big overarching
[1:13:33] concerns yeah i think the overarching
[1:13:35] concern is that the if the ask was an
[1:13:37] enrichment program for after school to
[1:13:38] allow students not to go to the y here's
[1:13:40] how we would do it i think that was what
[1:13:42] the committee was hoping for but it was
[1:13:44] a lot more about here's the cost of the technology board refinishing floors
[1:13:49] electricity and the equipment
[1:13:51] and then there was the mention of the
[1:13:53] hour after school piece but that wasn't
[1:13:55] clear and then it got confusing when it
[1:13:56] was like mentioning the health class
[1:13:58] being housed there sports teams having
[1:14:00] access to it and maybe students after
[1:14:03] school we didn't see that it was an
[1:14:05] enrichment per se it sounded like a
[1:14:07] redesign of a room that was in place
[1:14:09] that had lots of potential uses but a
[1:14:12] lack of a clear plan for this is being
[1:14:14] done for this group with this plan with
[1:14:16] this staffing so that was the hesitation
[1:14:18] was that the ask in the presentation and
[1:14:20] when we do the grants please know
[1:14:23] the committee reads the grants we submit
[1:14:25] all of our questions to the presenters
[1:14:26] before the presentations so it's also
[1:14:28] not something that we haven't had a
[1:14:29] chance to ask some questions and get
[1:14:31] clarity and i don't know that the plan
[1:14:33] was fully fleshed out to the point the
[1:14:35] committee felt supporting it rather than
[1:14:37] not having had a chance to ask questions
[1:14:40] the other the other possibility
[1:14:43] is that the
[1:14:45] school committee can take it under
[1:14:47] advisement
[1:14:48] and based when we finish
[1:14:51] at the end of the evening here this
[1:14:53] discussion
[1:14:55] we have a discussion about
[1:14:57] what's been funded versus what's
[1:15:00] not been funded if it's something that
[1:15:02] the school committee still wants to
[1:15:03] pursue
[1:15:04] we can
[1:15:06] have that
[1:15:07] discussion
[1:15:13] i support that i mean
[1:15:14] i agree if we can get it
[1:15:19] i like the idea of what emily said and
[1:15:21] having an enrichment opportunity and
[1:15:23] places for kids to go i feel similarly
[1:15:25] about the library my daughter's
[1:15:27] forever frustrated that the library
[1:15:28] closes the second school ends and she's
[1:15:30] like why can't i stay and study she just
[1:15:32] wants to stay and have a place to go and
[1:15:35] this room could be seems like it could
[1:15:37] be a similar place for kids that want to
[1:15:39] stay and do something
[1:15:40] active and healthy and you know with
[1:15:42] their peers at school and to give them
[1:15:45] the opportunity if we have a space
[1:15:48] i mean i think we should investigate it
[1:15:50] but i agree it seems like the focus
[1:15:51] should be more on
[1:15:53] giving the kids an opportunity to
[1:15:56] stay and have that experience not so
[1:15:58] much
[1:15:59] the equipment
[1:16:00] and that's that piece so our job as a
[1:16:02] committee is to take the lens of what
[1:16:04] the purpose of the grant is
[1:16:06] given the thoughtful reading and the
[1:16:08] questions in the presentation make a
[1:16:09] decision based on the information that
[1:16:10] we have it's not our job to go back and
[1:16:12] say well you asked for money we wish you
[1:16:14] had asked for this instead right can you
[1:16:16] remember that's not our role right i do
[1:16:18] want to just emphasize there's a lot of
[1:16:20] um
[1:16:21] there's a lot of thought that goes into
[1:16:23] that vote so i don't want to diminish
[1:16:25] like there was every member of the
[1:16:27] committee loved the idea of students
[1:16:28] having a place to go after school and a
[1:16:30] healthy safe place that they could
[1:16:31] connect with each other and do something
[1:16:33] that was an alternative to maybe some
[1:16:35] students just going home so please know
[1:16:36] that that that was not a lack of support
[1:16:38] from the committee yeah we've our job is
[1:16:41] to make sure we're being good stewards
[1:16:42] of that grant and following what that
[1:16:44] said and the piece we were missing was
[1:16:46] that clarity of the purpose yeah and i
[1:16:48] fully respect your vote so maybe my
[1:16:49] feedback's more for mr mitchell than for
[1:16:51] you but i think that is the challenge of
[1:16:53] the application is it's it's it's no
[1:16:56] joke and it's it's challenging to
[1:16:57] complete as well um so i hope that as a
[1:17:01] as committee chair i can help to make
[1:17:02] some recommendations that might help
[1:17:03] make it so that we're not in a weird
[1:17:05] spot that it's sort of a lack of clarity
[1:17:07] about what things are aligned with
[1:17:08] funding purposes as well so let's hold
[1:17:11] on this one and go on
[1:17:13] exactly
[1:17:14] sure okay
[1:17:17] the next grant that was proposed is the
[1:17:19] improving student achievement through
[1:17:21] adult learning this grant was
[1:17:23] the application was submitted by
[1:17:26] principal mitchell on behalf of all of
[1:17:28] the principals across district so this
[1:17:30] was an ask for
[1:17:32] all the building leaders
[1:17:34] this grant is a repeating grant has been
[1:17:36] asked for in previous years um and the
[1:17:38] goal is that it's funding some
[1:17:40] specific professional development
[1:17:42] learning areas
[1:17:44] each each school or each building leader
[1:17:46] has a different plan for what they would
[1:17:47] use that funding for the idea being if
[1:17:50] high school is recommending
[1:17:52] sending a student support team to the
[1:17:53] american school counselor association
[1:17:55] conference the middle school would like
[1:17:57] to send ela teachers to the ncte
[1:17:59] convention uh winthrop has a few lists
[1:18:02] of a variety of professional development
[1:18:03] areas that they want
[1:18:04] to engage in to support vulnerable
[1:18:06] students um and deuteron was looking
[1:18:08] specifically at a few different
[1:18:09] methodologies of the responsive
[1:18:11] classroom training
[1:18:13] the committee as a whole was
[1:18:16] in support of the work and supporting
[1:18:18] our educators to be effectively trained
[1:18:19] the one area of question or concern is
[1:18:22] are there more localized options that
[1:18:24] would allow us to be more efficient with
[1:18:25] spending the money on professional
[1:18:27] learning and training and less on things
[1:18:29] like travel to texas or other locations
[1:18:31] so are there equally powerfully and
[1:18:34] engaging opportunities to participate in
[1:18:37] professional learning that are more
[1:18:38] local so that was the one
[1:18:40] area of feedback from the committee did vote to support this
[1:18:45] grant with unanimous support
[1:18:47] any questions
[1:18:51] what was the end result of that question
[1:18:54] yeah uh so there was a question for
[1:18:56] example like is there is something more
[1:18:57] local than texas for the council
[1:18:59] association and uh principal mitchell's
[1:19:01] like that's a good question there might
[1:19:02] be a more local one that is the national
[1:19:04] conference um i don't but i don't want
[1:19:06] to speak on behalf of all of the
[1:19:07] principals he happened to be the
[1:19:08] presenter on behalf of them
[1:19:11] some of the feedback that was shared is
[1:19:12] how valuable it can be to get out of
[1:19:15] your normal day-to-day and to go and
[1:19:16] engage in conferences to be in that
[1:19:18] professional learning space the
[1:19:19] opportunity to network the learning that
[1:19:21] happens when you leave a presentation
[1:19:23] and you're engaging with each other in a
[1:19:24] shared common area
[1:19:26] and seeing some presenters that you
[1:19:27] might not have on a local scale so that
[1:19:29] there's some positives to it but
[1:19:31] there was also sort of the not knowing
[1:19:34] if there are the same things available
[1:19:35] in local spaces with the possibility
[1:19:37] that they may be
[1:19:39] pre coveted this was not it was not
[1:19:42] unusual to send
[1:19:44] folks to conferences
[1:19:46] you know wherever the national was that
[1:19:49] tried to keep it close but
[1:19:51] it wasn't always possible
[1:19:55] to get a motion to support
[1:19:59] the support second
[1:20:01] further discussion
[1:20:03] in favor
[1:20:09] the next grant application is uh it is
[1:20:12] also a repeat grant application it is
[1:20:15] the college application bootcamp
[1:20:17] this grant is seeking to provide a free
[1:20:20] opportunity for rising seniors so
[1:20:22] students in the summer before their
[1:20:24] senior year
[1:20:26] and specifically provides
[1:20:28] support for students who are considering
[1:20:30] applying for post-secondary education
[1:20:33] and provides a targeted training in
[1:20:36] areas that can be incredibly challenging
[1:20:38] including supporting students through
[1:20:39] the financial aid application process
[1:20:42] interviewing skills and thinking about
[1:20:43] what does that look like sound like how
[1:20:44] does it feel in practicing that
[1:20:47] and
[1:20:47] completion of an essay so as sats are
[1:20:50] becoming more optional for many schools
[1:20:53] the increased value of the essays
[1:20:55] component of the application is is
[1:20:56] becoming more and more critical so that
[1:20:59] is something that the plans for this
[1:21:00] year is actually to increase their
[1:21:03] support and targeting that essay
[1:21:04] development in our essay writing over
[1:21:06] the summer
[1:21:07] it is something that has been asked if
[1:21:10] is it something that we can charge a fee
[1:21:11] for for students to participate and the
[1:21:13] feedback they've received is that
[1:21:15] of the students that participate only 25
[1:21:17] percent would would participate if it
[1:21:19] was a
[1:21:20] fee based versus if it was grant funded
[1:21:22] and free that many students that were
[1:21:23] able to engage
[1:21:26] it was recommended to be funded with
[1:21:28] unanimous support
[1:21:30] so it's my question on this is similar
[1:21:32] to the question i had on the
[1:21:33] one previously in terms of how they come
[1:21:35] up with that number and if demand
[1:21:38] exceeds what we've had in the past
[1:21:40] how do we account for that um
[1:21:42] that number is coming from um the
[1:21:44] stipends that for the uh staff that host okay so regardless of the
[1:21:50] number of kids it doesn't matter it's
[1:21:52] just yeah okay got it okay good
[1:21:55] and their numbers of engagement have
[1:21:57] increased over the years um they
[1:21:58] actually even added a day i believe um
[1:22:00] the students still came in that summer
[1:22:02] to have that support in that option yeah
[1:22:03] that's great
[1:22:05] well as a parent whose younger son went
[1:22:07] through this program it was awesome and
[1:22:10] i am delighted to see that they've added
[1:22:12] the interview skills because i as you
[1:22:14] say especially with
[1:22:16] what the kids have been through and the
[1:22:17] increasing anxiety i think it's great to
[1:22:19] get that chance to practice those
[1:22:20] interview skills i think it's going to
[1:22:22] be a really good experience man
[1:22:25] okay can i get a motion to support
[1:22:28] disappoint
[1:22:29] second second
[1:22:31] further discussion
[1:22:33] all in favor
[1:22:38] a few more from me the next grant
[1:22:39] application is the high school music
[1:22:41] department england trip um this grant is
[1:22:44] a grant that is seeking to provide
[1:22:46] support for students to engage in the
[1:22:49] high school england music trip this trip
[1:22:51] has apparently been in place since 1998
[1:22:54] and occurs every four years from the
[1:22:56] high school
[1:22:57] and it allows students in the
[1:23:00] music department to
[1:23:01] travel over to england and actually
[1:23:03] perform and travel around and perform at
[1:23:05] different sites and actually engage with
[1:23:07] folks in
[1:23:08] abroad as they get to chance to learn
[1:23:10] and
[1:23:12] connect with different folks in
[1:23:13] different cultures so they might be
[1:23:14] performing at a
[1:23:16] local church one day maybe performing at
[1:23:18] the street side another day and actually
[1:23:19] getting a chance to engage in local
[1:23:21] communities
[1:23:23] the ask specifically the money that is being asked for um is focusing on
[1:23:27] three particular areas one would be to
[1:23:29] seek a 50 production in the cost of the
[1:23:31] trip for students or families who
[1:23:34] receive a free and reduced lunch
[1:23:36] one would be seeking a 50 reduction for
[1:23:38] families that have multiple children
[1:23:40] because the trip is offered once every
[1:23:42] four years it is students essentially
[1:23:44] through their freshman through senior
[1:23:46] year that have the opportunity to go so
[1:23:48] if there are families that have multiple
[1:23:50] children within that band they'd like to
[1:23:52] provide support
[1:23:53] for a reduction of that
[1:23:55] and finally there's a cost to actually
[1:23:57] send over rental of certain equipment so
[1:23:59] if you can imagine the cost of sending
[1:24:01] over a timpani drum or a tuba are
[1:24:04] incredibly expensive so some of those
[1:24:06] costs would include shipping of certain
[1:24:08] things but also the rental of larger
[1:24:11] instruments that might otherwise not
[1:24:12] travel so well
[1:24:14] this was recommended from the committee
[1:24:16] um with one abstention
[1:24:18] yeah so the cost per student for those
[1:24:20] that don't have kids going is thirty
[1:24:21] four hundred dollars
[1:24:23] so it's pretty substantial cost
[1:24:25] and as a result i'll be selling raffle
[1:24:27] tickets
[1:24:36] any questions
[1:24:38] uh i had a question about um
[1:24:41] the free and reduced lunch criteria
[1:24:44] it's my understanding that that's a hard
[1:24:48] group to
[1:24:49] target net right now because we've been
[1:24:51] giving free lunch for
[1:24:52] several years and so maybe people
[1:24:54] haven't applied that might be eligible
[1:24:56] and so i want to
[1:24:59] that program
[1:25:01] federal program is ending coming july
[1:25:03] one so as of july 1 new applications
[1:25:07] a new application process will be going
[1:25:09] out to families
[1:25:11] there's also some different ways that we
[1:25:12] can pick up those those families if they
[1:25:15] don't necessarily apply in district we have
[1:25:19] opportunities to identify them in other
[1:25:22] ways okay so
[1:25:23] and the
[1:25:24] program is first spring of 2023. so
[1:25:27] there is a bit of a window from when the
[1:25:29] access to free lunch ends and
[1:25:32] when the trip will be taking place
[1:25:34] i suppose we already have to have made a
[1:25:36] commitment by
[1:25:38] now though i'm trying to remember for
[1:25:39] the trip not yet okay
[1:25:42] if you want the discount the deadline
[1:25:43] was last night
[1:25:47] okay we're about to get another discount
[1:25:48] in
[1:25:50] can we get a motion to support
[1:25:52] move to support
[1:25:55] second
[1:25:57] further discussion
[1:25:58] all in favor
[1:26:00] i think i need to abstain from this
[1:26:04] do you guys need to i only have one kid
[1:26:17] the next grant that i'll review is the
[1:26:19] creating innovators part two as the
[1:26:21] title implies this is a repeat uh
[1:26:23] request or a connected request it's not
[1:26:26] a repeat for the same thing but it is a
[1:26:27] grant that was requested last year that
[1:26:29] part leading into this request
[1:26:32] this grant is seeking to
[1:26:34] continue to bring in the work of
[1:26:36] computer science standards and content
[1:26:38] across the secondary schools but
[1:26:39] particularly at the middle school the
[1:26:41] grant itself would be targeted to fund
[1:26:44] the bulk of the funding would actually
[1:26:46] fund the computer science teacher for
[1:26:48] grades six through eight um to integrate
[1:26:50] computer science curriculum
[1:26:53] access for all students in the middle
[1:26:54] school
[1:26:55] which um the plan was that actually
[1:26:57] students would start to take a course so
[1:26:58] that by the end of eighth grade they
[1:27:00] will have completed that full trajectory
[1:27:01] of that computer science course
[1:27:04] the
[1:27:05] final steps of equipping a zoom room or
[1:27:08] a technology enhanced room that could
[1:27:10] the middle school high school can both
[1:27:11] use
[1:27:12] and additional
[1:27:13] licenses that includes
[1:27:15] subscriptions to support virtual field
[1:27:17] trips zoom subscriptions and other
[1:27:19] access to streaming services for this
[1:27:20] point
[1:27:21] the committee um in general had some
[1:27:24] questions about this grant being that um
[1:27:28] the the grant itself last year actually
[1:27:30] had us was framed uh differently and
[1:27:33] that the ask itself was looking for a
[1:27:35] coach and then the the components of the
[1:27:37] grant that were asked for included like
[1:27:39] an esports component and some other
[1:27:41] components that
[1:27:42] when the grant was actually spent it was
[1:27:44] shifted significantly and ended up not
[1:27:46] including excuse me not including the
[1:27:48] esports or some of that coaching lens of
[1:27:50] it and was went more towards the teacher
[1:27:51] piece of it
[1:27:52] um and some of the components for the
[1:27:54] room weren't purchased last year and we
[1:27:57] know that there's a lot of insulated
[1:27:58] costs that have occurred so there were
[1:28:00] questions about um
[1:28:03] the change from the that part one
[1:28:05] towards this piece if you if you look at
[1:28:07] the two applications there's a
[1:28:08] significant shift in that funding
[1:28:10] from from that coaching and the esports
[1:28:12] pieces and everything to primarily being
[1:28:14] supporting the teacher's salary um
[1:28:16] leading that work at the middle school
[1:28:18] rather than sort of that high school
[1:28:20] middle school bridge
[1:28:22] and
[1:28:24] another question that was raised is that
[1:28:26] by dedicating this room is that a
[1:28:28] instructional space that is then lost to
[1:28:30] other things that is critically needed
[1:28:32] for so it was just a question that that
[1:28:33] came up from the committee
[1:28:35] um the
[1:28:36] and finally when students would take it
[1:28:38] so is it something that when students
[1:28:41] would be taking this course as compared
[1:28:42] to others and it was mentioned that this
[1:28:44] might be taking the place of
[1:28:47] some music spaces within eighth grade
[1:28:49] having a computer science course that
[1:28:51] all students will be taking as well
[1:28:53] this was
[1:28:54] recommended to be approved with one
[1:28:56] opposed and one obsession from the
[1:28:58] committee
[1:29:00] can i say general question
[1:29:02] so
[1:29:03] i guess what i'm thinking of these i'm
[1:29:04] thinking about enrichment if this is
[1:29:06] integrating computer science standards
[1:29:10] how's that enrichment that is good
[1:29:15] it is something that isn't currently
[1:29:18] wouldn't otherwise be there but that it
[1:29:20] is there's teachers and courses that
[1:29:21] have taken the code.org course but there
[1:29:23] is not a dedicated space within the
[1:29:25] schedule or dedicated aspect of a
[1:29:26] different curriculum that is teaching it
[1:29:28] was the piece um the piece that the
[1:29:31] committee did also talk about that this
[1:29:32] gives more of a continuation of that
[1:29:34] computer science access from the
[1:29:35] elementary which is primarily done
[1:29:36] within by the library media specialists
[1:29:39] um and up through their other
[1:29:40] opportunities and selections within high
[1:29:42] school that they're it's not otherwise
[1:29:43] pulled out in the middle school
[1:29:46] and so they didn't get the enrichment
[1:29:49] piece the
[1:29:51] esports piece
[1:29:54] that was done but it was funded from
[1:29:56] the high school budget
[1:30:00] but it was not fun to fund the grant
[1:30:02] so we wouldn't be hitting our computer
[1:30:04] science standards if we didn't do this
[1:30:06] grant i'm sorry we wouldn't be hitting
[1:30:09] our comp we wouldn't be integrating our
[1:30:11] computers not to this degree science
[1:30:13] standards
[1:30:15] to any kathy wrote this grant last year
[1:30:19] i remember bringing in the computer
[1:30:21] science standards but we didn't have
[1:30:24] no this would continue that
[1:30:29] so i have a question we've always talked
[1:30:32] about using the paint grants for a new position for a trial run for a
[1:30:38] year maybe two years
[1:30:39] so
[1:30:41] has the position from last year which
[1:30:44] ended up being funded as opposed to
[1:30:45] coach been integrated into the budget
[1:30:48] for the computer science position i
[1:30:51] don't believe is in the budget that's
[1:30:52] why that's in here so in the proposal it
[1:30:55] was said that um so this is asking for a repeat of the
[1:30:59] position that
[1:31:00] wasn't asked for the grand last year but
[1:31:01] didn't come from the grant last year so
[1:31:03] last year they were thinking it was
[1:31:04] going to be more of a cultural and
[1:31:05] non-certified teacher they ended up
[1:31:07] hiring a certified teacher so that but
[1:31:10] yet that position itself
[1:31:12] because it was a different shift than
[1:31:13] maybe what they had originally applied
[1:31:15] for their plan is now that this person
[1:31:17] would be teaching sort of a full deck of
[1:31:19] courses which wasn't the case this year
[1:31:21] that
[1:31:22] proposed is that actually teaching those
[1:31:24] full digital literacy courses and that
[1:31:26] it would be like when that world
[1:31:28] language program was originally
[1:31:29] implemented and the those world
[1:31:31] languages were integrated that then that
[1:31:33] goal would be that following year that
[1:31:34] would be a part built within the budget
[1:31:36] all right
[1:31:41] so the level of programming that we're
[1:31:43] looking to do with this
[1:31:45] is
[1:31:46] above and beyond so there's where the
[1:31:48] enrichment piece comes in it's not just
[1:31:50] meeting the computer science standards
[1:31:51] it's teaching the code.org
[1:31:55] piece that then allows kids
[1:31:58] to get into the computer
[1:32:01] science classes at the high school at a
[1:32:03] higher level
[1:32:07] any other questions
[1:32:11] i'm going to get a motion to support
[1:32:14] move to support
[1:32:16] second second
[1:32:21] further discussion all in
[1:32:24] favor great um one piece i would
[1:32:27] recommend from this and i i was trying
[1:32:29] to think of all the things we could do
[1:32:30] to make this process smooth and better
[1:32:32] for the future um i do think it would be
[1:32:34] worthwhile for you as a committee to
[1:32:36] consider that if a grant is approved by
[1:32:38] the school committee and then if like 20
[1:32:40] or more of a line has changed from the
[1:32:42] original intent to what it is i do think
[1:32:44] there should be a public
[1:32:46] some sort of public step um this this
[1:32:48] work is really intended to be really
[1:32:49] transparent with what the money is what
[1:32:51] is intended to do and what it is
[1:32:52] approved to do in a really public
[1:32:53] setting so it would just be a
[1:32:55] recommendation for you to consider what
[1:32:56] does that look like if substantially
[1:32:58] different lines are spent than what was
[1:33:00] approved in that kind of form yeah
[1:33:03] something for the workshop yeah
[1:33:06] okay uh the final um grant that i will
[1:33:08] share tonight is the middle school high
[1:33:10] school steam innovation learning spaces
[1:33:12] and kate your question about what
[1:33:14] happens if we meet that fiscal cliff
[1:33:16] we're a little bit here
[1:33:21] um so this grant is a a continuation of
[1:33:25] a grant that was asked for last year
[1:33:26] there was a small event that was asked
[1:33:27] for last year to have somebody come in
[1:33:30] and evaluate the steam learning spaces
[1:33:33] in the middle school high school so it
[1:33:34] was somebody an external person who's an
[1:33:36] expert in the um common course and
[1:33:39] excuse me the massachusetts science
[1:33:40] technology engineering standards came
[1:33:42] and evaluated the spaces and wrote a
[1:33:44] report making recommendations they made
[1:33:45] three levels of recommendations a basic
[1:33:48] an interim and then sort of the high
[1:33:51] level or level three
[1:33:53] recommendations for the space
[1:33:55] the objective of this grant would be to
[1:33:57] bring learning spaces up to health and
[1:33:59] safety compliance
[1:34:00] and also integrate recommendations from
[1:34:02] the steam report so that students and
[1:34:04] teachers have some flexibility within
[1:34:06] their learning spaces
[1:34:08] the grant funding that's being asked for
[1:34:10] would fund renovations to two seventh
[1:34:12] grade math courses
[1:34:15] electricity plumbing water access
[1:34:17] flooring two seventh grade science
[1:34:19] classrooms for electricity and so on
[1:34:21] in the current high school marine
[1:34:23] biology room as well as an investment in
[1:34:25] flexible furniture to remove the fixed
[1:34:27] lab stations
[1:34:28] so within this grant really specifically
[1:34:31] they were looking to take the current
[1:34:33] spaces that are relatively set that have
[1:34:35] sort of permanently installed spaces and
[1:34:37] allow for more flexibility the funding
[1:34:39] from the grant does include things like
[1:34:41] plumbing and electricity it includes
[1:34:43] furnishment
[1:34:45] some of the questions and concerns that
[1:34:47] came up for the committee are
[1:34:49] this is a little bit where some of our
[1:34:50] confusions lay in like how is this not
[1:34:53] capital request or why wouldn't it have
[1:34:55] maybe be considered one of those
[1:34:57] um
[1:34:58] why the decision was made to request
[1:35:00] that middle so if really a big bulk of
[1:35:02] this is safety health and safety that
[1:35:04] doesn't feel like enrichment and
[1:35:06] supports we were wondering if that's
[1:35:07] level one how much of it really was
[1:35:09] innovative or enrichment um versus
[1:35:12] and then why not if that if that level
[1:35:15] three is really going to take you to
[1:35:16] beyond why wouldn't we go for that and
[1:35:18] was the reason we didn't go for it was
[1:35:19] paying right couldn't fund it or because
[1:35:21] we didn't know if we could
[1:35:23] um
[1:35:24] there was a little bit of questions of
[1:35:25] who went through the process of maybe
[1:35:27] you know taking that report in and
[1:35:28] thinking about what does that support
[1:35:30] need and why
[1:35:31] um and we were a little bit again sort
[1:35:33] of that alignment with purpose of the
[1:35:35] paint grant
[1:35:36] so we were at a point with our approvals
[1:35:38] that we were really torn on this and
[1:35:39] there was definitely a lot of confidence
[1:35:42] confusion and questions about whether or
[1:35:43] not this fell
[1:35:44] penguin appropriate um and there was a
[1:35:46] perspective that um fingcon
[1:35:50] vidcon perspective was really thinking
[1:35:51] that like this would feel very
[1:35:52] appropriate for a capital
[1:35:54] request and also that they have been
[1:35:56] wondering if there would be some for the
[1:35:57] middle school high school and if we
[1:35:59] partially do this
[1:36:01] um
[1:36:02] would that actually be duplicating or
[1:36:04] wasting money that could otherwise go to
[1:36:05] sort of that tier three for some of the
[1:36:07] conversations and questions so we did
[1:36:09] end up taking two two votes based on how
[1:36:12] much money we had approved this was our
[1:36:14] final grant that we were sort of still
[1:36:16] torn over um so we took a vote to
[1:36:19] partially fund the grant and that
[1:36:20] partial number is purely how much money
[1:36:23] would have been left based on what we
[1:36:24] had approved otherwise we did not go
[1:36:26] through and say we want to fund the
[1:36:27] furniture we don't want to fund the
[1:36:28] plumbing um so that number is the number
[1:36:31] that was based on how much was the
[1:36:33] disbursement for
[1:36:34] the grant um so that was approved by the
[1:36:37] committee with five in favor and one
[1:36:39] extension um and then we took a second
[1:36:41] vote and that vote is to recommend fully
[1:36:43] funding the grant with an additional 165
[1:36:47] plus thousand dollars from this year's
[1:36:49] current allocation and the leftover fund
[1:36:52] bucket
[1:36:53] for those who are new the paying grant i
[1:36:56] think it was two years ago or maybe
[1:36:57] three made that recommendation that any
[1:36:59] unspent funds from previous years can be
[1:37:02] considered and you can go through a
[1:37:04] process to approve and recommend funding
[1:37:07] other pieces in addition
[1:37:08] that vote fell with three in favor two
[1:37:11] opposed and one abstention
[1:37:16] thoughts
[1:37:18] i
[1:37:20] agree with the idea of as if this is
[1:37:22] supposed to be enrichment why aren't we
[1:37:24] going for
[1:37:26] number three yeah so level three was um
[1:37:30] the second floor on
[1:37:32] that wing
[1:37:33] oh okay
[1:37:35] that was that was it literally was it was the it was the pie the pie in
[1:37:39] the sky level three would be a second
[1:37:42] story on that wing over there
[1:37:44] um that would have brand new um
[1:37:49] marine biology type spaces and more
[1:37:53] uh you know
[1:37:55] more lab space for for different things
[1:37:57] that we're looking to do
[1:37:58] as a result of that report i believe i gave the report to the
[1:38:03] school committee
[1:38:05] from jake i don't think we received it
[1:38:08] no
[1:38:09] okay i got that
[1:38:11] as the steam representative the
[1:38:12] gentleman who was doing the study came
[1:38:14] and spoke to steve yeah yeah but i don't
[1:38:16] think we've had that okay here
[1:38:19] all right
[1:38:21] i have why are we
[1:38:24] funding health and safety through a pain
[1:38:26] grant yeah that's
[1:38:28] so so so that
[1:38:30] um
[1:38:36] i think the
[1:38:39] most concise answer without getting into
[1:38:41] the weeds is that
[1:38:44] we funded the pain grant last year
[1:38:46] for
[1:38:47] the
[1:38:48] subject area expert to come in and look
[1:38:50] at our our science programs
[1:38:53] the building's 20 plus years old the
[1:38:55] equipment is
[1:38:57] 20 plus years old and you know either
[1:39:00] not working or in disrepair
[1:39:04] and and
[1:39:05] you know the
[1:39:07] teaching methods have changed equipment
[1:39:09] has changed you know the technology has
[1:39:12] changed
[1:39:13] and so we we wrote the grant last year
[1:39:15] to have jake come in
[1:39:17] and and do that study he met with
[1:39:19] all the science teachers middle and high
[1:39:21] school met with the math departments
[1:39:23] middle and high school met with the
[1:39:25] steam team met with the administrators
[1:39:27] um
[1:39:29] looked at all of the spaces in in the
[1:39:31] middle in high school
[1:39:33] and then you know
[1:39:35] took that and and
[1:39:37] you know based on our conversations came
[1:39:39] up with the three levels the you know
[1:39:41] level one is just the the bare bones to bring us into
[1:39:46] safety and health compliance
[1:39:48] why aren't we there because we weren't
[1:39:51] um
[1:39:52] i don't think that we realized that that
[1:39:54] we weren't there you know when i say
[1:39:56] safety and health compliance you know
[1:39:59] it's it's
[1:40:00] new new equipment um new lab equipment
[1:40:04] in the spaces we have um we have
[1:40:08] um so like so for example like this so
[1:40:11] when they're doing labs that require
[1:40:13] electricity they're running power strips
[1:40:14] and there's cords on the floor so one of
[1:40:16] the sort of safety pieces with that you
[1:40:18] have that electrical piece be able to
[1:40:19] come from the ceiling so you're not
[1:40:20] doing the ports along the floor that was
[1:40:22] one of the sort of safety examples that
[1:40:24] was
[1:40:25] included in us
[1:40:27] it's not like we're currently out of
[1:40:29] health and safety
[1:40:30] compliance we're not up to current
[1:40:34] standards right right and so we're
[1:40:36] trying to we're trying to correct that
[1:40:38] you know in in terms of answering the capital request you know we have a
[1:40:42] five-year capital plan
[1:40:44] we'd rather not wait five years to put
[1:40:46] this and you know
[1:40:48] get this into the plan and have it
[1:40:50] happen five years down the line and so
[1:40:53] you know there's
[1:40:56] that was the thinking was we can do a
[1:40:57] lot with with a pain grant to get this
[1:41:00] process started and get us
[1:41:02] down the road so understanding that the um
[1:41:07] second story on the technology wing um
[1:41:11] is
[1:41:13] out of reach right now
[1:41:15] i guess it was my other more practical
[1:41:18] question
[1:41:19] i mean if there's health and safety
[1:41:21] concerns i feel like the school needs to
[1:41:22] be budgeting for that that shouldn't be
[1:41:24] something that we're relying on a pain
[1:41:25] grant to bring something up to code if
[1:41:28] that's what we're talking about
[1:41:30] but then
[1:41:31] also keeping in mind
[1:41:33] the general
[1:41:35] atmosphere we're living in right now and
[1:41:37] inflation and how much supplies are
[1:41:39] costing and supply chain issues is this
[1:41:42] the time
[1:41:43] to be doing a heavy plumbing electricity
[1:41:48] remodel of
[1:41:50] because this is financially the most
[1:41:52] responsible i i mean obviously this is
[1:41:56] i'd love to see all this happen but is
[1:41:58] this the financially responsible time in
[1:42:00] our economy in our current situation to
[1:42:02] be doing this
[1:42:06] do we have a sense of how the money
[1:42:08] breaks down like if the 264 thousand
[1:42:10] dollars
[1:42:12] how much is
[1:42:14] bringing things up to health and safety
[1:42:15] compliance versus
[1:42:18] the good stuff we actually there was a
[1:42:20] combination right so there's sort of the
[1:42:22] plumbing um and the electrical
[1:42:24] that was part of the grant um then there
[1:42:26] was sort of like the remote removal and
[1:42:28] disposal is another big piece so sort of
[1:42:30] the the lab tables that are like built
[1:42:32] into the wall or any other furniture
[1:42:34] that would be so that's a big piece of
[1:42:35] it and then that third big bucket is
[1:42:37] sort of that flexible furniture so
[1:42:38] investing in that flexible furniture
[1:42:40] that they could then move and relocate
[1:42:42] so whether they're doing sort of a
[1:42:43] hands-on lab or more of a lecture style
[1:42:45] that can be flexed so those are the
[1:42:46] three big buckets um
[1:42:49] i didn't pull up each of the specific
[1:42:52] money reports so i can't tell you off
[1:42:53] the top of my head
[1:42:55] you know so my thought is i'm a capital
[1:42:57] piece um in a perfect world i think that
[1:42:59] this this would certainly be a capital
[1:43:00] project but we're also facing some
[1:43:03] pretty significant capital projects
[1:43:05] coming
[1:43:06] down the road that we've already sort of
[1:43:08] put on our five-year capital plan but
[1:43:10] also other capital things that will be
[1:43:11] popping up with our elementary schools
[1:43:13] that we'll need to address sooner rather
[1:43:14] than later
[1:43:18] i think that this is a good way to
[1:43:20] improve and enhance the existing
[1:43:22] facilities we have to bring our science
[1:43:25] rooms up to a level that is
[1:43:28] needed for our programs to be
[1:43:30] competitive and give the kids the
[1:43:31] education they need
[1:43:34] so i mean i would support fully funding
[1:43:36] it and i think to your point emily i
[1:43:38] agree with you
[1:43:40] on one hand but this is also something
[1:43:41] if approved really have a year to do it has to go out for a bid it has to
[1:43:46] you know so it's not i think from a cost
[1:43:49] standpoint
[1:43:51] i think you know inflation's obviously
[1:43:52] an issue but i think we're at a point in
[1:43:54] time where
[1:43:55] our economy is starting to
[1:43:57] hit that tipping point and go down we're
[1:44:00] seeing material costs come down we're
[1:44:01] seeing demand for projects like this
[1:44:04] come down
[1:44:05] but i think it'll continue to so i don't
[1:44:07] necessarily
[1:44:08] think that the cost issue will be a huge
[1:44:12] problem
[1:44:13] i see like a remodel that's like any
[1:44:15] other remodel that once you start you're
[1:44:18] in and then
[1:44:19] what's
[1:44:20] 263 thousand dollars
[1:44:23] quickly becomes well it's actually 300
[1:44:26] and then oh once we start it and i just
[1:44:28] i mean i agree with you i think this is
[1:44:31] awesome and i think it's needed and it's
[1:44:34] um
[1:44:35] but
[1:44:36] that piece of it
[1:44:37] in this economy worries me because then
[1:44:40] once you're started
[1:44:42] what happens if
[1:44:44] it goes over
[1:44:45] significant i mean even if it goes 50
[1:44:47] 000 over
[1:44:50] what does that look like
[1:44:53] yeah how i think they're going to have
[1:44:55] to be cognizant of the work and how they orchestrate it so that we don't
[1:45:00] have
[1:45:01] so you can't control that right now
[1:45:03] there's supply chain issues there's
[1:45:04] labor shortage there's but that's what
[1:45:07] i'm saying like you know organize it in
[1:45:09] such a way that you know they're doing a
[1:45:11] number of different spaces so not
[1:45:13] ripping apart all
[1:45:15] six spaces say at once but rather
[1:45:19] we
[1:45:20] can do these two classrooms right now
[1:45:22] get them done
[1:45:23] move on to the next two
[1:45:26] things like that
[1:45:27] is that maybe the way to break it down
[1:45:29] then is to
[1:45:32] do it piece by piece as opposed to
[1:45:36] do the funding all at once i mean i i
[1:45:38] don't i guess i'm just trying to
[1:45:40] think practically about something
[1:45:42] but if this is the budget they can't
[1:45:44] exceed it
[1:45:46] so
[1:45:47] to brian's point if they're kind of
[1:45:49] doing it
[1:45:50] room by room rather than gutting the
[1:45:51] whole thing and doing it all at once and
[1:45:53] running the risk that it's going to go
[1:45:54] over by 50 grand that's
[1:45:56] you know right and then you hit the last
[1:45:58] room and you're like oh sorry we ran out
[1:45:59] of money
[1:46:02] yeah i don't i don't know how these
[1:46:03] things work when it comes to a grant for
[1:46:05] something like this like i sort of get
[1:46:08] it for the equipment and i get it for
[1:46:10] and maybe i'm overthinking the whole
[1:46:12] thing which well it's a very specific
[1:46:14] number too where how did they come up
[1:46:15] with that
[1:46:17] uh they did have
[1:46:18] uh quotes or generalizations for some
[1:46:21] parts of it so some parts it looks like
[1:46:23] they had costed out like the furniture
[1:46:24] whereas otherwise it looked like they
[1:46:25] had more generalization of numbers of
[1:46:27] estimated costs for
[1:46:29] plumbing or electrical or disabled
[1:46:32] this i have a i have a issue with the
[1:46:35] slippery slope
[1:46:37] of the pain grants
[1:46:38] and
[1:46:39] in the parentheses
[1:46:41] in the paragraph electricity plumbing
[1:46:43] water access and flexible furniture and
[1:46:46] flooring repair are all in the same
[1:46:48] parenthesis
[1:46:50] and flexible furniture i know that we've
[1:46:52] supported through pain grants
[1:46:55] in elementary schools and
[1:46:58] but to couple that in with flooring
[1:47:00] repair and water access
[1:47:04] we've had elementary school
[1:47:06] issues in the past that haven't been
[1:47:09] fixed like this just doesn't feel like a
[1:47:11] pain grant and if we're gonna do this
[1:47:13] like how are we historically
[1:47:15] are we gonna go back and say well you
[1:47:17] know what there's a terrible plumbing issue in
[1:47:22] elementary schools and they need more
[1:47:25] you know better sinks okay well then
[1:47:27] let's apply for pain grant like i just
[1:47:29] think there's a slippery slope we're
[1:47:31] creating
[1:47:33] something that i don't think has been
[1:47:35] done before but plumbing and water
[1:47:37] access and flooring as enrichment
[1:47:42] yeah i would think of at least the way i
[1:47:43] would think of it as your example of
[1:47:45] plumbing issues at the elementaries
[1:47:47] would be a capital project because it's
[1:47:49] in this it's upgrading the stuff that's
[1:47:51] already there
[1:47:52] versus this project it's it's basically
[1:47:55] redesigning the rooms to bring them up
[1:47:57] to standards that are in place now that
[1:47:59] weren't 20 years ago and in order to do
[1:48:01] that the infrastructure needs to be
[1:48:03] redesigned
[1:48:04] you know so it's not necessarily saying
[1:48:06] let's take a
[1:48:07] you know
[1:48:08] take a locker room and redesign it and
[1:48:11] get a pain grant to cover that we just
[1:48:13] redid the boys locker room two years ago
[1:48:15] and that was a capital
[1:48:16] project that's in my mind that's the way
[1:48:19] i look at the difference between those
[1:48:21] others have thoughts
[1:48:22] [Music]
[1:48:25] sure so i struggled with that as well
[1:48:28] in the beginning
[1:48:30] what i longed up wrapping my head around
[1:48:32] was that
[1:48:34] we're taking it kind of beyond ted you
[1:48:37] want to come up to the microphone
[1:48:39] just people state your name and watch
[1:48:40] who you are
[1:48:42] for the record
[1:48:44] thank you
[1:48:46] ted spinelli um so i struggled with that
[1:48:48] as well in the beginning whether this
[1:48:50] was even appropriate to be spoken about
[1:48:52] um but after digging into it
[1:48:54] what i felt was that
[1:48:56] again i'm only speaking for myself
[1:48:58] um that this was taking us beyond
[1:49:02] bare bones minimum
[1:49:04] and up to the next level granted it's
[1:49:06] not the third way
[1:49:08] pie in the sky that we would all love to
[1:49:10] be able to do
[1:49:11] but we were able to get stem of steam
[1:49:14] which is clearly
[1:49:16] a growing side of this and make sure
[1:49:18] that our kids
[1:49:20] are in the at least in the upper echelon
[1:49:22] if not the best
[1:49:25] just to bring it beyond if we look like
[1:49:27] you could do plumbing electricity and
[1:49:29] that's bringing you up to bare bones
[1:49:30] minimal that's how i wrapped my head
[1:49:32] around how this became enrichment versus
[1:49:34] just a capital improvement is there a
[1:49:36] capital improvement aspect to it to make
[1:49:38] that happen
[1:49:39] yes there is
[1:49:41] but i think it's wrapped up in
[1:49:43] part of the flooring is going to be when
[1:49:44] you remove
[1:49:46] the old
[1:49:47] stationary tables something's going to
[1:49:49] have to get put back in there so part of
[1:49:51] it is just when you're removing out that
[1:49:53] to put in the flexible furniture
[1:49:55] so that the kids can gather around the
[1:49:56] teacher as they do their displays that flow that you've now just removed
[1:50:00] is just going to be a hole so that has
[1:50:02] to get replaced one way or the other
[1:50:05] i guess i i get that and i wish there was a way to fund the
[1:50:11] capital piece of it
[1:50:13] differently because all i'm thinking is
[1:50:15] this is fantastic
[1:50:18] our kids are getting rained down in the
[1:50:19] elementary schools every time it rains
[1:50:21] and how are we ripping up a perfectly
[1:50:24] good floor right there
[1:50:26] yeah right
[1:50:29] i don't i guess
[1:50:30] that's the piece i'm having a really
[1:50:32] hard time i totally understand i love
[1:50:34] this i
[1:50:35] put the third
[1:50:36] floor on the site whatever i think
[1:50:38] that's
[1:50:39] amazing i'm just the it's the capital
[1:50:42] piece if there was some way to well that
[1:50:44] kind of gets behind my question of you
[1:50:46] know the capital piece twenty thousand
[1:50:47] or is it the hundreds
[1:50:49] yeah twenty thousand or two hundred
[1:50:51] twenty thousand like what portion of it
[1:50:53] is and i know you don't know i i can't quote that no i know and i'm not
[1:50:58] asking too i'm just yeah and i think it
[1:51:00] turns out
[1:51:00] i think it's sort of this one is like
[1:51:02] all of the above where it feels like
[1:51:04] it's enrichment enhancement it feels
[1:51:05] like it's basic you know operational
[1:51:07] facilities and it feels like it could be
[1:51:09] capital because depending on the lens
[1:51:11] you look at it so we really struggled
[1:51:12] that's why you see such a distribution
[1:51:14] of where we fell because it was this was
[1:51:16] really hard for us to process it it was
[1:51:17] really big um yeah yeah we struggle with
[1:51:20] this
[1:51:22] so if we you know option one or vote
[1:51:24] number one
[1:51:25] to partially fund the grant
[1:51:29] what does that really get us i think
[1:51:31] that doesn't help us if that's less than
[1:51:33] the amount of the capital improvement i
[1:51:35] wonder would we benefit from seeing what
[1:51:37] tier one
[1:51:38] of the consultant's report entailed if
[1:51:40] that was bringing us up just to
[1:51:43] life safety
[1:51:44] you know those issues and seeing what
[1:51:46] that cost was and then maybe revisiting
[1:51:48] this once we have the benefit of seeing
[1:51:50] what the difference between tier one and
[1:51:52] your two words that's a good point
[1:51:55] why don't we just defer this we'll table
[1:51:57] this till our next
[1:51:58] meeting we can get some more information
[1:52:00] on what each of these options looks like
[1:52:01] broken out and then we can vote at them
[1:52:04] i don't have access to any event other
[1:52:06] than this share but i'm happy to share
[1:52:08] what this budget breakdown was for the
[1:52:09] proposal we weren't provided with the
[1:52:11] tier one over there yeah i can get that
[1:52:13] okay yeah okay great good thank you
[1:52:18] so um
[1:52:19] i know you all still have cardio room
[1:52:21] conversation to still have um so i don't
[1:52:24] know if you want to do that now or if
[1:52:25] you want me to wrap
[1:52:26] yeah why don't we circle back on the
[1:52:28] cardio room discussion
[1:52:30] um
[1:52:31] so i guess kind of thinking this through
[1:52:33] since we just we talked about it
[1:52:36] i would tend to defer to the committee i
[1:52:39] know what i would like there and i know
[1:52:41] what we need um
[1:52:44] but i would defer to the pain grant
[1:52:46] committee and how they voted because
[1:52:48] they did dig into the questions and they
[1:52:51] i think it is on the applicant in the
[1:52:53] future to maybe make things a little
[1:52:55] more clear
[1:52:58] and you know since it was
[1:53:01] you know voted five to one to oppose it
[1:53:03] um i feel like
[1:53:05] i don't have enough information here to
[1:53:08] determine or to sort of go against that
[1:53:10] vote
[1:53:12] but again i would encourage the
[1:53:14] applicant in the future to maybe come
[1:53:16] back with a little more detailed plan as
[1:53:17] to how this could work next year
[1:53:20] i don't know what anyone else's thoughts
[1:53:21] are
[1:53:22] feels the same way man i think in the
[1:53:24] past i think more with traversal weather
[1:53:26] all grants but
[1:53:27] we have basically said
[1:53:29] can you
[1:53:30] rewrite this and
[1:53:32] this isn't you know this isn't clear
[1:53:34] enough we aren't fully understanding
[1:53:36] this and maybe it just needs to come
[1:53:37] back next year
[1:53:39] rewritten more clear
[1:53:41] with a clearer intention and plan
[1:53:44] i thought we had sent grants back and
[1:53:46] said we have questions before we can
[1:53:48] vote one way or the other i just think
[1:53:51] emily the only one that i've experienced
[1:53:53] has been the only one that was sent back um in
[1:53:57] i'm in year four i think um was the
[1:54:00] website which
[1:54:02] did not actually get met on the website
[1:54:04] and there was a couple
[1:54:06] there was um
[1:54:09] one with like
[1:54:12] it's like a gym thing with watches and
[1:54:14] tracking kids and yeah that was that
[1:54:17] were my time so i can't no you were
[1:54:18] there
[1:54:39] the only issue i have with that is that
[1:54:42] correcting me from wrong heather i think
[1:54:43] your committee already asked you already
[1:54:45] sent it back for further clarification
[1:54:47] and didn't the response didn't get you
[1:54:49] to a point where you felt then that it
[1:54:51] was yes so the process that we go
[1:54:52] through we read the grant we we build
[1:54:54] our questions those questions are shared
[1:54:56] with the applicant before their
[1:54:58] presentation they present we meet and
[1:55:01] talk based on all the information that
[1:55:02] we have yes
[1:55:04] so the questions that we had were
[1:55:06] answered i think there's um
[1:55:08] i think there's maybe questions about
[1:55:10] the framing of it
[1:55:13] that
[1:55:14] it might be that it hadn't it wasn't
[1:55:16] there yet at that point yeah yeah again
[1:55:18] i you know i respect all the work and
[1:55:19] time your group puts in
[1:55:22] and you know
[1:55:23] i i'd rather see a maybe a better
[1:55:25] application next year for a project like
[1:55:27] this that's intense
[1:55:31] the i i think part of i'm sorry
[1:55:33] well i just realized that i have the
[1:55:36] budget request for the steam
[1:55:38] room as part of the grant like i have
[1:55:40] the breakdown of what's capital and
[1:55:41] what's
[1:55:42] furniture
[1:55:44] what is
[1:55:47] let me provide that the report the
[1:55:49] report though so you so you have it in
[1:55:51] context
[1:55:53] as well yeah that'd be good okay um in
[1:55:55] terms of um
[1:56:02] in terms of the
[1:56:04] this grant and we saw the other grant
[1:56:07] earlier that didn't get funded because
[1:56:09] as an alternative funding source there
[1:56:11] may be you know an opportunity to fund
[1:56:14] this in some other way i think part of
[1:56:16] the
[1:56:18] one of the nice things about the grants
[1:56:21] in general
[1:56:22] is that it gives folks the opportunity
[1:56:25] to write about things that they're
[1:56:27] interested in or or identify
[1:56:30] things they feel could be enhanced or
[1:56:34] enriching or just you know novel ideas
[1:56:37] and so
[1:56:38] um
[1:56:40] you know the the one grant was was
[1:56:42] written
[1:56:43] nobody's looked at those record boards
[1:56:46] in the
[1:56:48] in
[1:56:49] the lower gym
[1:56:51] for years but
[1:56:52] one of the coaches said you know what
[1:56:54] these are really outdated they're almost impossible to change out the the records when when
[1:57:01] kids break records half of the events
[1:57:03] that are up there we don't even
[1:57:04] participate anymore let's fix it and so
[1:57:08] he wrote a grant
[1:57:10] submitted it but then we when we saw it
[1:57:12] we said well that we have other funding
[1:57:15] sources so so ief is stepping up to
[1:57:18] replace that so i think one of the nice
[1:57:20] things about this grant process is
[1:57:24] first of all folks are taking a lot of
[1:57:26] time to write the grants so
[1:57:28] to just
[1:57:30] say no is isn't
[1:57:32] doesn't feel good
[1:57:34] but
[1:57:35] it also raises
[1:57:37] the awareness that there's an issue or a
[1:57:39] concern or
[1:57:41] a desire to do something different so
[1:57:43] this this grant is a perfect example you
[1:57:46] know maybe we can't do it through
[1:57:48] the pain grant process for one reason or
[1:57:51] another but
[1:57:52] oh okay so it's thirty thousand dollars
[1:57:55] is there is there
[1:57:56] another opportunity somewhere to do that
[1:57:59] i don't know what protocol is or has
[1:58:03] been but i'm more than happy to meet
[1:58:06] with any other so when the after the
[1:58:08] committee does me i do let the
[1:58:11] applicants know this is what the
[1:58:12] committee decided here were some of our
[1:58:13] questions or concerns this is the
[1:58:14] recommendation we'll make to school
[1:58:15] committee i'm always happy to follow
[1:58:17] back up as well if there are any that
[1:58:18] aren't to give feedback about this is
[1:58:20] what we thought was missing if you were
[1:58:21] considering reapplying here's the
[1:58:22] components that
[1:58:24] maybe didn't score as well on rubrics
[1:58:26] that the committee was seeking so i'm
[1:58:27] also happy if that feels appropriate for
[1:58:29] the school committee to provide that
[1:58:30] bridge as well for folks who might be
[1:58:32] interested
[1:58:37] any other comments
[1:58:39] all right could i get a motion
[1:58:42] what are we putting in how do we have
[1:58:43] the cardio or cardio running
[1:58:46] no oh
[1:58:57] anyone
[1:59:00] motion to support the vote of the pain
[1:59:08] grant committee
[1:59:11] salute
[1:59:12] second
[1:59:14] discussion
[1:59:15] all in favor
[1:59:17] a post
[1:59:20] okay
[1:59:22] great
[1:59:24] so that sort of leads into um and i'm
[1:59:26] just gonna
[1:59:27] wait i do have a question sorry i know
[1:59:30] we just voted
[1:59:31] can we i know andisley how much money is
[1:59:34] in the the residual account that we can
[1:59:37] draw from which might be 40
[1:59:40] 370 000
[1:59:42] is in the residual account it's in the
[1:59:44] bucket it's in the bucket
[1:59:46] 90 something that we can draw on right
[1:59:48] now
[1:59:49] what about
[1:59:50] it's next on the agenda if you need it
[1:59:52] because we haven't eric
[1:59:53] well
[1:59:54] so we have 90 000 left
[1:59:56] hundred thousand dollars sitting there
[1:59:58] and we have we're not funding it so we
[2:00:00] have ninety thousand dollars left from
[2:00:02] last year's grants that on the website
[2:00:04] that's been spent and then we used
[2:00:07] 3000
[2:00:24] don't have that much in the
[2:00:26] residual
[2:00:29] so we have i'm trying to think of we
[2:00:31] have about 90 thousand okay that's what
[2:00:33] that's an hour in our account
[2:00:36] okay okay thanks
[2:00:46] i'll be really brief on this but um
[2:00:48] since there was a chance i want to share
[2:00:49] some recommendations there's a lot of
[2:00:52] pieces that i think
[2:00:53] as a commissioner i want to do better
[2:00:56] and supporting folks in the future and
[2:00:57] so i just wanted to propose some of
[2:00:59] these thoughts for you all um one being
[2:01:01] that applications and community
[2:01:02] recommendations occur earlier in the
[2:01:03] year you've all just experienced if
[2:01:05] there is a question if there is a need
[2:01:06] to go back if there is a wandering about
[2:01:09] um we don't really have a whole lot of
[2:01:10] time left um so
[2:01:13] knowing that we are really triggered by
[2:01:14] when the thefties provide their
[2:01:16] dispersant of the money um we were
[2:01:18] hoping to be considered if there's an
[2:01:20] earlier space that we can begin this
[2:01:22] process begin the applications um
[2:01:24] because as i mentioned we do evaluate
[2:01:26] them based on the rubric that was
[2:01:28] provided to us and the vision and goals
[2:01:30] not necessarily
[2:01:32] the the money that is left because
[2:01:33] that's our our job is to make the
[2:01:34] recommendations you all have to make the
[2:01:36] tricky decision about that um so that's
[2:01:39] a piece is starting the process earlier
[2:01:41] in the year so that you get the
[2:01:42] information earlier and it's also not up
[2:01:43] against crunch time um i have to shout
[2:01:46] out principal mitchell who literally
[2:01:47] attended a two-hour meeting um
[2:01:50] from a boat on the cruise in boston
[2:01:51] harbor and he was in this meeting
[2:01:54] so i mean you just and i'm sure it was
[2:01:56] not nearly as fun as some of the music
[2:01:59] we heard in the background so um
[2:02:01] kudos for him to really be such a
[2:02:03] dedicated member of the committee but he
[2:02:04] shouldn't have to be that time of year
[2:02:06] so that that's one recommendation um
[2:02:08] another recommendation is that some
[2:02:10] clarity on the grants and dr blake you
[2:02:12] just sort of provided a great pun for
[2:02:13] this to to leave off of what grades are
[2:02:15] there in ipswich um what is the purpose
[2:02:18] of each of the grants and if we had more
[2:02:20] transparency or clarity for applicants
[2:02:21] who knew which grant might be the right
[2:02:23] place to apply it wouldn't feel this
[2:02:25] like challenging piece of
[2:02:27] we did spend a lot of time like is this
[2:02:29] the right place for this we actually had
[2:02:31] that conversation during our ief meeting
[2:02:33] earlier in the week and that's something
[2:02:34] that the leadership team is going to
[2:02:36] take up
[2:02:37] over the summer is identifying each
[2:02:40] grant
[2:02:41] opportunity
[2:02:42] as well as
[2:02:44] additional funding sources that we have
[2:02:46] in town for different that would be
[2:02:49] incredible they're not always
[2:02:52] formal brands but
[2:02:53] folks that we can call but i think that
[2:02:55] would support a lot of making sure that
[2:02:56] when when folks have applied they
[2:02:58] already know this is the right place to
[2:02:59] apply
[2:03:01] and that's maybe a piece as well within
[2:03:03] the application so we would recommend
[2:03:05] that you consider adding in a piece of
[2:03:07] the applications of knowing is it a
[2:03:08] repeat grant or do you expect it to be a
[2:03:10] repeat grant because there's a lot of
[2:03:11] conversation about that
[2:03:13] if we get to the point that we have all
[2:03:14] repeat grants then essentially we're not
[2:03:16] ever evaluating them um and then you
[2:03:18] essentially block off money that can't
[2:03:20] be spent otherwise
[2:03:21] and including that that approval ensures
[2:03:23] alignment to the grant purposes that we really are being tight so that
[2:03:27] the committee knows if it's there it
[2:03:29] really is not
[2:03:30] is it capital or is it
[2:03:32] pieces
[2:03:33] um and then my final advocacy is is i
[2:03:36] want to work hard to encourage more
[2:03:38] abroad applications this year 71 of the
[2:03:40] grant money was requested from
[2:03:42] administration 29 from teachers um and i
[2:03:45] did the breakdown of the last three
[2:03:46] years
[2:03:47] and there's been a vast majority of the
[2:03:48] grants that are applied for my
[2:03:50] administration part of that is because
[2:03:52] they're serving larger numbers in
[2:03:54] serving wider school so i want to
[2:03:55] recognize that their numbers are
[2:03:57] naturally going to be larger
[2:03:58] however administration does have access
[2:04:00] to district budget and building budget
[2:04:02] where teachers don't necessarily and so
[2:04:04] one of the pieces that i'm hoping that
[2:04:06] we can do
[2:04:07] i'd like to do like a how do you apply
[2:04:09] for a grant tutorial in the fall so
[2:04:10] that's supporting folks out so that when
[2:04:12] they apply it's not a matter of it might
[2:04:14] be a good idea but this brand doesn't
[2:04:16] show us but really it's sort of helping
[2:04:18] people understand what does that grant
[2:04:19] application process look like what do
[2:04:21] you have to do
[2:04:22] what are those components that are
[2:04:23] evaluated on the rubric is public so you
[2:04:25] should know what those pieces are um to
[2:04:27] help both hopefully encourage some folks
[2:04:29] who might not otherwise apply and and
[2:04:31] we'd love to see a 50 50. i i won't say
[2:04:34] i'd love to see a 50 50 of teacher and
[2:04:35] administrator um requests but also to
[2:04:38] make sure that again that the approval
[2:04:40] of the grant is is more a matter of
[2:04:43] making sure that we're doing that sort
[2:04:44] of uh work rather than is this the right
[2:04:47] place or
[2:04:48] it might be good we can't tell from the
[2:04:49] applications
[2:04:51] those were just recommendations that
[2:04:52] will be considered so as we move forward
[2:04:53] we
[2:04:54] can continue to support the amazing
[2:04:56] things that are happening
[2:04:59] thank you heather
[2:05:00] yeah great job thank you thank you thank
[2:05:02] you very much
[2:05:07] okay
[2:05:09] celtics started six minutes ago let's
[2:05:10] move on to the finance update
[2:05:15] keep this incredibly short and sweet um
[2:05:19] so we're looking to close out the fiscal
[2:05:21] year um
[2:05:23] just a couple weeks left now
[2:05:25] i've typed up a little quick memo just
[2:05:27] to give you guys a brief summary i'll
[2:05:29] just highlight some of those really
[2:05:30] quickly
[2:05:32] when i ran this initially we were about
[2:05:34] 97 or almost 98 expended since then when
[2:05:38] i'm running it today we're actually at
[2:05:40] 99 expended so that's how kind of
[2:05:43] quickly you can see
[2:05:44] as we do the remaining payrolls and
[2:05:47] some of the last bills come in that the
[2:05:49] budget will get fully expended um s are
[2:05:52] funding sr-1 is fully expended sr2 75
[2:05:56] expended
[2:05:58] and then we have about 10 expended of
[2:06:00] sr3 which
[2:06:02] we expect because that's really mainly
[2:06:04] used to support 23
[2:06:07] and beyond
[2:06:09] we have 4.2 million in our gift and
[2:06:11] revolving funds
[2:06:13] with a large chunk of that being our
[2:06:14] choice
[2:06:16] and then our stabilization funds have
[2:06:19] 4.6 million in them
[2:06:21] that includes the 1.3 that we
[2:06:25] transfer back from the 22 unexpended and
[2:06:28] does not account for the drawdown yet
[2:06:31] for 23.
[2:06:33] so once that drawdown occurs we'll have
[2:06:35] 2.7 million
[2:06:36] um and that's about it but any questions
[2:06:39] that i can answer for anyone as we close
[2:06:42] out the year i just wanted to mention
[2:06:43] the school lunch issues so i know that
[2:06:46] there is a pending bill that was in the
[2:06:48] house budget you know that would have
[2:06:49] universal free lunch for all uh k
[2:06:51] through 12 students in massachusetts um
[2:06:54] i know
[2:06:55] representative belcedo was a co-sponsor
[2:06:57] of that
[2:06:58] it does not seem that there's support of
[2:07:00] that right now in the senate so i don't
[2:07:01] think it's going to be part of the
[2:07:02] budget um then here there's just an
[2:07:04] indication of potential increases and i
[2:07:07] wonder what does that elevated
[2:07:10] surplus account that was about 400 and
[2:07:12] something thousand like is that enough
[2:07:14] to be able to
[2:07:15] kind of weigh through
[2:07:17] transitory inflation area costs and and
[2:07:21] what do we think about being able to
[2:07:22] absorb some of that money to reduce cost
[2:07:24] or keep cost level sure yeah so um the
[2:07:26] food service director and i've had a
[2:07:28] handful of conversations about this
[2:07:30] already
[2:07:32] and while that balance can help soften
[2:07:35] those increases
[2:07:37] and make them we're trying to make them
[2:07:39] as nominal
[2:07:40] as possible but even with that that we
[2:07:43] would the food service revolving fund
[2:07:45] would still lose money
[2:07:47] next year because things have just
[2:07:49] skyrocketed so much for them
[2:07:52] if we don't do at least some nominal
[2:07:54] increases so you know we're trying to
[2:07:56] hold out as long as we possibly could
[2:07:58] because obviously we don't want to come
[2:07:59] out with increases if we're going to
[2:08:01] have
[2:08:02] free lunch for everyone so once we get
[2:08:05] the final final word on that
[2:08:07] then we'll come forward to you with what
[2:08:10] those would look like and some some
[2:08:11] recommendations
[2:08:13] because you don't have to
[2:08:15] do
[2:08:16] sweeping price increases you can do it
[2:08:18] just on a la carte items if you want so
[2:08:21] you know whatever the committee has an
[2:08:23] appetite to do
[2:08:25] no pun intended
[2:08:29] my kids seem to buy a lot of ice creams
[2:08:31] so yeah
[2:08:33] [Laughter]
[2:08:36] i am i think subsidizing it myself
[2:08:39] any questions for cheryl
[2:08:43] okay
[2:08:44] um so we circulated and our email was
[2:08:47] circulated and i think kate and i did a
[2:08:50] follow-up email
[2:08:52] mentioning that there's two liaison
[2:08:53] positions open
[2:08:55] i'll mention the town manager interview
[2:08:57] committee liaison first
[2:09:00] jen responded and said she'd be
[2:09:02] interested would be
[2:09:05] didn't know if anyone else
[2:09:07] would be considered for that or if we're
[2:09:08] comfortable having jen do it i certainly
[2:09:10] am
[2:09:12] i'll just say that i am i saw that
[2:09:14] there's also a business owner or leader
[2:09:19] that they're looking for and i thought
[2:09:20] well i could try that one but it would
[2:09:22] be hard to take off the school committee
[2:09:23] hat but if i was
[2:09:25] the school committee member i could also
[2:09:27] just have the
[2:09:28] business owner
[2:09:30] in me for that purpose
[2:09:34] all right
[2:09:35] i get a motion to appoint jen is the
[2:09:38] town manager interview committee liaison
[2:09:40] for the school committee
[2:09:42] second all in favor
[2:09:47] um anyone interested in the climate's
[2:09:49] climate resiliency committee position
[2:09:51] chubb held this position previously
[2:09:55] um i know that they have i believe they
[2:09:57] have a meeting coming
[2:09:59] soon maybe next week i'll have to double
[2:10:01] check but
[2:10:03] any takers
[2:10:05] okay
[2:10:06] do they meet
[2:10:07] monthly
[2:10:09] weekly i believe it's monthly
[2:10:14] and it's not on thursdays
[2:10:17] no
[2:10:18] it's not on thursdays
[2:10:22] it's carl before chad i think
[2:10:24] yep hold on a second i'm just looking
[2:10:26] for mike johnson's email
[2:10:30] um
[2:10:34] how soon do we they want us to decide
[2:10:35] soon
[2:10:37] yeah we have to decide ideally tonight
[2:10:40] meetings every third tuesday of the
[2:10:42] month
[2:10:45] i mean i think the next meeting is june
[2:10:46] 21st
[2:10:49] you want to do that
[2:10:50] okay
[2:10:52] let's do a point
[2:10:54] second all in favor thank you thank you thanks bob
[2:11:01] okay listening session outreach planning
[2:11:04] um you want to talk a little bit about
[2:11:07] that
[2:11:08] um sure so
[2:11:10] um
[2:11:12] listening sessions are
[2:11:14] um
[2:11:16] scheduled for um july 26th and august
[2:11:20] 1st i believe
[2:11:22] um
[2:11:23] so we need to kind of discuss
[2:11:25] outreach planning um there's a flyer
[2:11:28] that was developed thank you
[2:11:31] laura
[2:11:32] for that um with some information pulled
[2:11:34] from our newsletter um so that is in
[2:11:36] your meeting packet
[2:11:38] um so we just wanted some
[2:11:41] i can't find it right now we wanted some
[2:11:43] feedback on that um
[2:11:45] and
[2:11:48] then some sort of discussion around you
[2:11:52] know outreach and getting the word out
[2:11:54] are these dates for the second round
[2:11:58] firm and locked in yes they are okay
[2:12:01] yeah
[2:12:02] oh and there are edits since i last
[2:12:04] looked at it so there's been a fifth um
[2:12:08] session for each round for a remote
[2:12:11] option
[2:12:13] which is exciting okay
[2:12:17] so round one so there's two two sessions
[2:12:19] on july 26th
[2:12:22] no that's it
[2:12:23] yeah
[2:12:24] sorry update since i last looked at it
[2:12:26] so two on the 26th two on the first and
[2:12:28] one on august 2nd that will be a remote
[2:12:30] um
[2:12:32] option so
[2:12:36] can i yeah feedback quick yeah um
[2:12:40] one is i'd like to see this
[2:12:42] highlighting
[2:12:43] bill is he's moderating and doing the
[2:12:46] listening sessions right this says the school committee is committed to
[2:12:51] facilitating and i don't think i
[2:12:55] think the importance of having a
[2:12:57] facilitator and using him is that he is
[2:12:59] facilitating we are listening
[2:13:02] um so maybe an eye towards or think
[2:13:05] about
[2:13:06] an eye towards that and then
[2:13:09] the other
[2:13:11] potential red flag that i see in this i
[2:13:13] mean i think it's phenomenal i think
[2:13:14] it's really well done um
[2:13:17] i
[2:13:18] would recommend avoiding the quick recap
[2:13:20] of some key facts from the last project
[2:13:22] because there are no key facts and i
[2:13:25] think that was one of the major problems
[2:13:27] is that everybody has a different
[2:13:29] version of what is the fact and what
[2:13:31] actually happened and what that fact
[2:13:33] really meant
[2:13:34] i think that begs for debate
[2:13:39] and that begs for
[2:13:41] um
[2:13:42] well they presented it this way and it
[2:13:44] really was that way and i would
[2:13:47] really
[2:13:48] strongly prefer to see bill
[2:13:52] take the lead on this
[2:13:54] um not include a quick recap unless he
[2:13:58] does a very sanitized recap but no key
[2:14:02] facts
[2:14:03] we're starting from scratch i think we
[2:14:06] want to avoid
[2:14:08] even
[2:14:09] debating
[2:14:12] history at this point like this is we're
[2:14:14] here to listen to the community we are
[2:14:16] here to have an independent person
[2:14:18] facilitate these sessions
[2:14:20] um so those would be those are the two
[2:14:22] things that really jump out to me is i
[2:14:24] thought that's why we were using bill
[2:14:28] so to answer your first
[2:14:30] question that paragraph in blue that
[2:14:32] says the school committee is committed
[2:14:34] to facilitating a transparent and
[2:14:36] inclusive process that was meant to
[2:14:38] be the whole process
[2:14:42] not i see your point i mean maybe
[2:14:44] language right so yep not these evenings
[2:14:48] particularly right so i agree that could
[2:14:51] be confusing so we can work on rewording
[2:14:53] that sentence um but i think the spirit
[2:14:56] of the sentence
[2:14:57] yep is
[2:14:59] dead on that great feedback so well i
[2:15:01] wonder is it just the school committee
[2:15:03] is committed to a transparent and
[2:15:04] inclusive process and take out
[2:15:05] facilitating and yeah that might be the
[2:15:08] easiest yeah yes good yeah okay see
[2:15:12] that's good okay so that was the easy
[2:15:13] one
[2:15:14] second comment um
[2:15:17] i mean i think the again the spirit of
[2:15:19] that
[2:15:20] recap was
[2:15:22] i think and correct me if if you have a
[2:15:25] different impression ryan but
[2:15:28] was that
[2:15:29] bill had bildo the facilitator had
[2:15:32] suggested having a
[2:15:34] recorded um
[2:15:38] kind of an intro
[2:15:40] of
[2:15:41] where we are now
[2:15:43] um
[2:15:44] including
[2:15:45] what works this is all up for discussion
[2:15:48] okay um essentially looking at um
[2:15:53] you know the state of the current
[2:15:54] buildings
[2:15:55] where they where they are now the
[2:15:57] conditions needed repairs etc
[2:16:00] um
[2:16:01] potential costs of repairs to simply
[2:16:04] maintain them which are increasing over
[2:16:06] time
[2:16:07] um and then just referencing the history
[2:16:09] of the unsuccessful vote
[2:16:12] yeah i would not do that
[2:16:15] well i don't think we can ignore the
[2:16:17] fact that we that a project came forward
[2:16:19] and it failed
[2:16:20] everybody knows nobody needs to have a
[2:16:23] recount i don't know if everybody does
[2:16:24] now there's a lot of new families in
[2:16:26] town
[2:16:26] there might be but i mean i mean we're
[2:16:29] talking about a whole new if you had a
[2:16:32] kid in first grade back then
[2:16:35] your child is now in the middle school
[2:16:37] and it's a whole different population
[2:16:39] for a large population of new parents
[2:16:43] delaware
[2:16:45] i don't know i would just see i feel
[2:16:47] like the opposite almost i feel like
[2:16:49] everybody's heard stuff that may or may
[2:16:51] not be true
[2:16:55] but there are some things that happened
[2:16:57] that are that so then keep it very
[2:17:00] straight like yeah there was a vote it
[2:17:03] failed to pass and moving forward i
[2:17:05] would not i would not spend a lot of
[2:17:07] time and energy in that space
[2:17:09] so so so continuing with that um you
[2:17:13] know identifying the issue
[2:17:16] why we need to
[2:17:17] have this conversation about
[2:17:19] you know new building buildings
[2:17:21] um what the challenge is and that msb a
[2:17:25] process
[2:17:26] what that looks like um and and the the
[2:17:29] fact that in order to bring anything
[2:17:31] forward we're going to have to have some high level of consensus before we
[2:17:35] do that
[2:17:36] um you know in order to enhance the
[2:17:38] likelihood that we're going to be
[2:17:40] accepted back into into the process
[2:17:42] and then give
[2:17:44] just a high level overview of the
[2:17:45] timelines for msba in terms of what that
[2:17:48] looks like for submitting an soi and if
[2:17:50] we were to get in what the what the
[2:17:53] process is so people so people are aware
[2:17:55] of you know where we're headed because
[2:17:57] this isn't a one-year
[2:18:00] process we're looking at all that's
[2:18:02] helpful it's the history piece that i
[2:18:04] would really like
[2:18:06] yeah it's enough to know that it
[2:18:08] happened that it failed and well and
[2:18:10] bill has experience with this he did
[2:18:12] this this
[2:18:14] similar thing in in amherst and that's
[2:18:16] why we brought him on so i'm confident
[2:18:18] that he'll be able to gauge what we
[2:18:21] yeah i would just in the wording of this
[2:18:23] when i'm reading it and seeing
[2:18:26] like
[2:18:27] which key facts who's picking the key
[2:18:29] facts where do those key feel like
[2:18:31] that that sentence is
[2:18:33] it hits a it strikes
[2:18:36] it's again it's just like
[2:18:38] so that it says the first round will
[2:18:40] include a quick recap of some key facts
[2:18:43] from the last project comma
[2:18:46] what about
[2:18:48] leaving that out yeah
[2:18:51] um because i think he
[2:18:54] yeah
[2:18:55] we do need consensus
[2:18:57] we do
[2:19:00] this is going to get people stirred up
[2:19:04] and i think
[2:19:06] there was a vote
[2:19:09] but everybody's key facts are different
[2:19:12] and their perception of
[2:19:14] facts
[2:19:15] are different
[2:19:18] an update on the current state of the
[2:19:20] elementary schools that's what you just
[2:19:22] read like that
[2:19:23] that's
[2:19:24] appropriate and yeah and relevant
[2:19:29] questions
[2:19:30] and then i i like what you said about
[2:19:31] the msba in the process like
[2:19:34] the goal of the listening session and
[2:19:36] this timeline i know last meeting you
[2:19:39] mentioned well town meeting is october
[2:19:42] so what what is the goal of coming out
[2:19:44] of the listening session
[2:19:47] to know what we wanted
[2:19:50] well is there something
[2:19:52] to know where the community stands on
[2:19:54] anything
[2:19:55] but
[2:19:57] what's first submitting an soi a town
[2:20:00] meeting vote like what is the sos no
[2:20:03] the soi would come out of these
[2:20:05] listening sessions as this is sort of
[2:20:07] the beginning to then help us frame an
[2:20:08] soi to submit next spring yeah so what was the
[2:20:15] at our last school committee meeting you
[2:20:17] mentioned an october town meeting and
[2:20:19] having
[2:20:20] september listening sessions
[2:20:24] prior to an october town meeting so i
[2:20:26] just wonder
[2:20:27] if there were anything that we needed to
[2:20:29] bring to town meaning we would have to
[2:20:32] have it prepared by that
[2:20:34] i'm not sure that we have to have a
[2:20:36] there was some discussion about
[2:20:39] throughout this process of potentially
[2:20:40] having
[2:20:41] some sort of a you know a non-binding
[2:20:46] vote a town meeting to give you know to
[2:20:48] get even more of a sense of
[2:20:50] something related to the project
[2:20:52] locations would have configuration
[2:20:54] whatever it may be
[2:20:56] we're not
[2:20:58] sure that that's a requirement to submit
[2:20:59] an soi
[2:21:01] okay um so
[2:21:02] again hopefully these listening sessions
[2:21:04] give us what we need as a committee to
[2:21:06] determine
[2:21:07] the proper path forward to get that soi
[2:21:09] submitted in the spring
[2:21:11] okay
[2:21:12] so i think that's a big data point
[2:21:18] for me if we're trying to
[2:21:21] have something voted on at october town
[2:21:23] meeting or not
[2:21:25] as a result of these listening sessions
[2:21:28] so i don't know if it needs to be put in
[2:21:32] this fire for communication
[2:21:34] about
[2:21:35] an soi timeline like maybe people need
[2:21:39] to be drawn right well and and if we go
[2:21:42] with this we we may
[2:21:45] the the fall town meeting may be a non
[2:21:49] issue because
[2:21:50] half of these meetings are going to
[2:21:52] occur
[2:21:53] right these are more dates yeah last
[2:21:55] time so
[2:21:59] i mean the process is the important
[2:22:01] piece
[2:22:03] yeah i think that's important
[2:22:06] yeah i would just a
[2:22:08] quick recap of keith baxter
[2:22:13] i think we need to show you know what's
[2:22:15] at stake like you have to kind of it's
[2:22:17] just like the 14 override didn't pass
[2:22:20] you know what was learned and then they
[2:22:21] said okay that was
[2:22:23] foreign it's kind of like the same
[2:22:25] idea i know the school building
[2:22:28] and i have to go there a little bit and
[2:22:29] say okay this time we really need to
[2:22:31] make it work because it's yeah
[2:22:33] and part of that's the condition of this
[2:22:34] yeah school making dude
[2:22:37] yeah the needs even bigger and
[2:22:41] but i think there is a big element of um
[2:22:44] we don't
[2:22:46] i don't think anyone wants to repeat
[2:22:48] the process we had right right
[2:22:51] um and we're not no nothing we've done
[2:22:53] with the outcome yeah so i like that i
[2:22:55] think even just to go there to say that
[2:22:58] you know
[2:23:01] we're learning from we're learning from
[2:23:04] past processes and
[2:23:06] trying to
[2:23:08] you know move forward with a
[2:23:11] in a different manner to not
[2:23:14] have a failed vote happen again i mean
[2:23:16] the issue i see obviously is we've got
[2:23:18] the first round of listening sessions
[2:23:19] july 26th it's coming up quick so we
[2:23:22] need to get the word out we need to talk
[2:23:23] about how we do that who's in charge of
[2:23:25] doing that
[2:23:26] and um
[2:23:28] you know ideally get it planned together
[2:23:30] or some volunteers to get a plan
[2:23:33] together tonight so that we can get this
[2:23:35] going
[2:23:36] because
[2:23:38] so if we make this few edits to the web
[2:23:39] to the flyer
[2:23:41] um
[2:23:43] can we send them out and backpacks
[2:23:48] yeah like printed not in this electronic
[2:23:51] s'mores that nobody knows how to print
[2:23:53] and you know we should stick them in the
[2:23:55] windows of all the stores downtown right
[2:23:57] yeah but if we can i mean it's the
[2:24:03] we've already lost the high school
[2:24:06] kids because tuesday is only a makeup
[2:24:08] day for exam so
[2:24:10] there's not
[2:24:11] you're not going to have many in the
[2:24:13] high school
[2:24:14] i don't know that
[2:24:16] we
[2:24:17] can get that flyer
[2:24:20] done
[2:24:22] and out
[2:24:23] by tuesday morning to all the schools to
[2:24:25] go in backpack to the elementaries yeah
[2:24:31] because you're you're you're off
[2:24:33] tomorrow yeah
[2:24:35] monday so it will be unless we have
[2:24:37] edits now
[2:24:39] it's
[2:24:40] tough
[2:24:45] well then we're going to have to email
[2:24:46] them
[2:24:47] will people be watching the mail for
[2:24:49] those little letters saying your child's
[2:24:51] library book is overdue
[2:24:52] yes i did
[2:24:54] yeah
[2:24:55] is it's already going out in my
[2:24:56] messaging tomorrow i already have my
[2:24:59] message queued up so
[2:25:00] there's a paragraph in there about the
[2:25:02] first sessions and um the dates for
[2:25:07] you know and to be on the lookout for
[2:25:08] this
[2:25:09] pamphlet okay more information
[2:25:12] so what else do we do
[2:25:16] that's all right no okay i got from that
[2:25:17] shot here um i love the content on this
[2:25:20] but if we're thinking we're gonna like
[2:25:21] paste it somewhere i would not stop to
[2:25:23] look at this um
[2:25:25] i think we need like if you put a
[2:25:27] picture of each elementary school or
[2:25:30] something
[2:25:31] then it's people like
[2:25:33] what's going on here you know
[2:25:36] yeah that's a good idea
[2:25:39] i like that
[2:25:40] [Music]
[2:25:42] we could do a second graphic i mean this
[2:25:44] is the flyer that goes around to
[2:25:45] everybody and then something right for
[2:25:47] like
[2:25:48] dates and it's the
[2:25:50] bare bones that's easier to yeah so we
[2:25:52] just need people to
[2:25:55] start talking to do it to do that
[2:25:57] because i know i don't want to
[2:25:59] and i assume we're pushing it out on
[2:26:01] social media
[2:26:02] various tips facebook pages things like
[2:26:04] that so um if someone can volunteer to
[2:26:07] kind of manage that be great
[2:26:10] i'm happy to do the social media part of
[2:26:11] it or day in order to do it either
[2:26:16] or even if you know if we could get
[2:26:17] lauren opposed to
[2:26:19] if switch
[2:26:20] whatever
[2:26:21] pages forget if it's public schools or
[2:26:24] something we can cross share and that's easy would it be helpful
[2:26:30] if one of us went with you to rotary to
[2:26:32] talk with them about it in the next
[2:26:34] meeting or
[2:26:36] can you
[2:26:37] do it or i mean i'm happy to go yeah
[2:26:39] with you
[2:26:41] yeah two weeks
[2:26:42] okay
[2:26:49] do we have other ideas for getting this
[2:26:51] out
[2:26:53] um
[2:26:54] so the mailing of i know for elementary
[2:26:57] schools
[2:26:59] it comes in the mail your class list
[2:27:01] yeah i know that i asked amy sullivan
[2:27:04] last night
[2:27:05] um
[2:27:07] at a fries meeting when she said
[2:27:09] kindergartners probably won't get their
[2:27:11] list
[2:27:12] until august 1st
[2:27:14] but i think the every grade other than
[2:27:18] that elementary school gets something in
[2:27:20] the mail in july
[2:27:22] and if you can reach out to the
[2:27:23] principals and ask them if we could get
[2:27:26] them buyers if they could
[2:27:28] i can do that okay okay
[2:27:32] so you're doing that brian yeah okay
[2:27:35] that's a good idea
[2:27:38] uh get something in the paper
[2:27:40] yeah yeah
[2:27:48] something to any reporter who's
[2:27:50] reporting in this meeting
[2:27:54] [Laughter]
[2:27:57] we should we should see if we can get it
[2:27:59] into the ipswich paper too yeah yeah
[2:28:04] so
[2:28:05] i had birth to three and
[2:28:08] preschool directors
[2:28:16] yeah i'll do birth to three and
[2:28:19] three schools i can do counsel on aging
[2:28:21] okay and maybe say
[2:28:23] do birth to three i mean like reach out
[2:28:25] email them the flyer and they can email
[2:28:27] it to their
[2:28:28] or reach out
[2:28:31] yeah
[2:28:32] i can email it and then if they want it
[2:28:35] copied or something we can provide them
[2:28:37] with okay i have all the preschool
[2:28:38] directors emailed free addresses
[2:28:42] thank you too okay
[2:28:44] first class is tricky
[2:28:47] so
[2:28:48] can you send out that list if he was
[2:28:49] doing what just so we don't remember
[2:28:51] yeah
[2:28:52] um what about other towns
[2:28:54] i wrote down how can other town boards
[2:28:59] help us
[2:29:00] our other town
[2:29:01] how else because blackboard should
[2:29:03] announce it at their meeting
[2:29:05] or
[2:29:05] when's their next meeting i'm happy to
[2:29:07] go in
[2:29:09] at citizens comments yeah
[2:29:11] they are mondays every other monday
[2:29:15] yep you want to do that yeah when is the
[2:29:17] next one
[2:29:18] you'd have to look it up should we do
[2:29:20] the same with finco probably with fincom
[2:29:22] yeah
[2:29:23] i can't give you finn
[2:29:34] and then the only other thing i have is
[2:29:37] um again if we get a second
[2:29:41] um
[2:29:43] uh flyer that's more
[2:29:46] less words more graphic facts graphic um
[2:29:50] so someone to
[2:29:52] design that and then
[2:29:54] putting them up around town you know the
[2:29:56] y the
[2:29:57] post office the library the
[2:30:00] whatever we could make a lot of stuff
[2:30:02] yeah
[2:30:03] i'm happy to talk to the chamber as well
[2:30:05] um and then if such business roundtable
[2:30:08] meets um every couple of weeks and so i
[2:30:10] can speak to them just to spread the
[2:30:11] word and also try to see who's willing
[2:30:13] to put a sign up okay no windows
[2:30:19] you can maybe design a fire and
[2:30:21] circulate it to us and we can
[2:30:23] um
[2:30:24] yeah i agree i like this
[2:30:25] but i think another version that's just like
[2:30:30] boom boom
[2:30:39] okay so then we can all just kind of
[2:30:40] pitch in for
[2:30:42] distribution i think around town
[2:30:44] i'm happy to do that
[2:30:55] and then i was social media too
[2:31:02] um
[2:31:03] so the only other thing that i have
[2:31:05] about listening sessions is um
[2:31:08] a survey
[2:31:10] was that something that
[2:31:11] phil was going to help us i i think so
[2:31:15] i have not talked to him about that but
[2:31:17] that was something that we had
[2:31:18] considered earlier on
[2:31:20] that's another tricky one that
[2:31:22] how it's crafted
[2:31:24] what wording yeah so the survey is going
[2:31:27] to just it's going to be an opportunity
[2:31:29] for folks to
[2:31:32] um
[2:31:33] participate
[2:31:36] in the in a different way in the
[2:31:37] listening session so it'll be the same
[2:31:39] guiding questions
[2:31:48] so less survey and more of submissions
[2:31:51] yeah surveys maybe not a great word
[2:31:56] is there another word
[2:31:58] stay tuned for a survey in the next
[2:32:00] words
[2:32:01] um
[2:32:04] feedback
[2:32:07] i don't know
[2:32:09] i didn't hear what you said
[2:32:10] that was the word that bill used was to
[2:32:12] do a survey
[2:32:19] stay tuned for a request of your
[2:32:21] feedback
[2:32:25] please participate in coming or
[2:32:28] through written submissions
[2:32:31] and then if that's electronic how is
[2:32:33] that going to be
[2:32:35] dispersed
[2:32:37] all before
[2:32:38] the first one we would just have to
[2:32:39] provide links to it
[2:32:43] again on social media on i think the
[2:32:45] other place we need to put it that i
[2:32:46] didn't write down was our um
[2:32:49] school website like on the splash page
[2:32:52] you know the listening sessions and then
[2:32:53] the link to the survey too
[2:32:56] yeah
[2:32:58] um one other thing too could also reach
[2:33:00] out to the youth sports
[2:33:02] get access to
[2:33:03] their
[2:33:05] league directors potentially send this
[2:33:06] out to their database too that would be
[2:33:09] helpful if we can
[2:33:10] get a good group of parents there
[2:33:13] volunteering for that sure
[2:33:17] okay
[2:33:18] so i'll send out a summary who agreed to
[2:33:20] what
[2:33:21] okay okay great
[2:33:23] all right
[2:33:25] let's move on to overnight field trip
[2:33:26] requests
[2:33:28] yes
[2:33:29] in your packet this evening is the
[2:33:32] overnight field trip request for
[2:33:35] the close-up program that mr krieger
[2:33:38] runs
[2:33:40] this is a program that runs every year
[2:33:44] i told him he didn't need to come back
[2:33:46] yet again to the school committee for
[2:33:48] the same field trip
[2:33:50] um
[2:33:51] so you have all the information in your packets to review
[2:33:56] awesome trip my son went on in this time
[2:33:58] loved it great experience
[2:34:00] your daughter went off too right
[2:34:04] i think it's it's great every year they
[2:34:05] run it and this was the first year
[2:34:07] they've had in a couple of years due to
[2:34:08] covet it's not just a vacation to walk
[2:34:11] around dc it's very educationally
[2:34:13] focused and their days are jam-packed
[2:34:15] with things to do so it's definitely
[2:34:18] worthwhile
[2:34:22] we get a motion to support
[2:34:24] someone second all in favor
[2:34:27] unanimous
[2:34:35] okay superintendent administrative
[2:34:36] report
[2:34:42] here
[2:34:50] um it's been a whirlwind of events since
[2:34:53] our last meeting beginning with the
[2:34:54] graduation on saturday the 5th
[2:34:57] we had 138 students walk across the
[2:35:00] stage it was a great day beautiful day a
[2:35:03] little a little windy it was yeah it's
[2:35:05] hard to keep the plants on the stage
[2:35:08] it was a great day having it outside
[2:35:09] though it was perfect
[2:35:11] we also had the high school symphony
[2:35:13] orchestra performance underclassmen
[2:35:15] awards night and the middle school
[2:35:18] spring choral concert
[2:35:22] speaking of our music department
[2:35:25] i want to let folks know that uh jerry
[2:35:27] dolan
[2:35:28] has decided to
[2:35:30] actually retire this year
[2:35:32] um and focus his work at gordon focus
[2:35:35] more on his work at gordon college and
[2:35:37] his teaching there
[2:35:40] i posted and
[2:35:43] offered the position of the fine arts
[2:35:45] director
[2:35:46] to our very own michael coelho
[2:35:48] who has graciously accepted the position
[2:35:53] i think that given his experience and
[2:35:55] high level of respect in both the school
[2:35:57] and the community he'll do very well
[2:36:00] um
[2:36:01] you know there's this uh underlying
[2:36:04] fear or concern that we're going to lose
[2:36:06] michael at some point and i think that's
[2:36:08] a very real concern and i think
[2:36:10] you know my conversations with him
[2:36:12] um he's he's a teacher he's a teacher
[2:36:15] first
[2:36:16] above anything
[2:36:18] and so um
[2:36:19] when we talked it through
[2:36:21] he you know he said i i want to continue
[2:36:24] doing what i'm doing and you know expand
[2:36:26] on that so
[2:36:28] he uh
[2:36:29] he's looking forward to the position he
[2:36:32] has a flexible schedule as it is now
[2:36:34] because he teaches the the orchestra in
[2:36:36] the evening so his schedule during the
[2:36:39] day is more flexed
[2:36:41] so we're adding a 0.2 to michael's
[2:36:43] position it's the same situation that
[2:36:45] jerry was in
[2:36:47] making him a 1.2 employee similar to
[2:36:50] some other teachers that we have in the
[2:36:52] system so
[2:36:53] um
[2:36:55] looking forward to to working with him
[2:36:57] on a number of
[2:37:00] things
[2:37:02] i would say issues but the sound booth
[2:37:04] and
[2:37:05] some of the technology that we're
[2:37:07] working with i'm gonna
[2:37:09] look to move uh do some different things
[2:37:11] so i'm excited about that
[2:37:13] um over the
[2:37:15] past two weeks i've had the pleasure of
[2:37:17] attending two culminating events at the
[2:37:19] middle school
[2:37:20] uh you would
[2:37:21] alluded to them earlier jen and your
[2:37:24] some of your
[2:37:25] comments uh the civics fair last week
[2:37:27] and the miniature golf project
[2:37:29] put on by the seventh graders um simply
[2:37:33] amazed by the quality of the work of the
[2:37:34] middle school students um and
[2:37:36] that's across the board you know i
[2:37:38] mentioned earlier tonight the the middle
[2:37:39] school
[2:37:40] uh
[2:37:41] band and
[2:37:43] chorus if you closed your eyes you would
[2:37:45] never know that they were they were
[2:37:46] middle school kids they're just amazing
[2:37:49] the issues that they're tackling at the middle school
[2:37:54] uh the civics fair you know they tackled
[2:37:57] issues of sexuality
[2:37:59] suicide in student athletes hate crimes
[2:38:02] pollution
[2:38:03] the dredging of the ipswich river
[2:38:07] the the ipswich river project
[2:38:10] the young man who's pursuing that is
[2:38:12] actually taking it to the town and wants
[2:38:14] to pursue that
[2:38:16] project and see it to its fruition and
[2:38:18] the opportunity to talk with his mom and
[2:38:20] dad and he's pretty passionate about it
[2:38:22] so we'll see where that goes
[2:38:24] um
[2:38:25] the mini golf project that the
[2:38:28] seventh graders do
[2:38:30] focuses on pollution in our and our
[2:38:32] natural resources and the impact on the
[2:38:35] community
[2:38:37] students research different types of
[2:38:39] pollution
[2:38:40] in particular in our area
[2:38:42] they wrote letters to the editor of some
[2:38:45] of the big newspapers
[2:38:47] um offering potential solutions to the
[2:38:50] problems
[2:38:51] they're
[2:38:52] tackling real world problems and
[2:38:54] changing the world for the better even at the middle school level
[2:38:59] administratively we're trying to wind
[2:39:01] down the year close up shop so to speak
[2:39:03] and begin planning for next year
[2:39:06] principals and teachers have been
[2:39:08] actively interviewing candidates for our
[2:39:10] open positions
[2:39:12] in order to secure the best possible
[2:39:14] candidates
[2:39:16] for our elementary openings we had over
[2:39:18] a hundred applicants
[2:39:20] so there's no shortage of elementary
[2:39:23] school
[2:39:24] teachers
[2:39:25] out there
[2:39:27] so i'm confident that we'll have you
[2:39:29] know fantastic additions to our staff in
[2:39:32] particular at the elementary level
[2:39:34] not
[2:39:34] i'm confident that we're going to have
[2:39:36] great candidates at the middle and high
[2:39:38] school but there's not quite as many
[2:39:42] in terms of numbers we have six
[2:39:45] retirements this year
[2:39:47] we've had eight resignations and one
[2:39:50] non-renewal thus far
[2:39:55] and that's not that's not out of the
[2:39:57] ordinary for a school year and those are all positions they're not all teaching positions
[2:40:04] um happy to report that this week we
[2:40:07] were able to reach tentative agreements
[2:40:10] with both the custodial unit and the
[2:40:13] education assistants
[2:40:16] the para educators
[2:40:18] once ratified by their respective unions
[2:40:21] we're going to have to call a special
[2:40:22] meeting from the school committee so
[2:40:24] we're not quite off the hook after
[2:40:26] tonight
[2:40:27] um to ratify them with the school
[2:40:29] committee can we do that remotely
[2:40:36] yesterday yes
[2:40:37] [Laughter]
[2:40:40] okay
[2:40:42] i would love to do them remotely i'm
[2:40:43] just not sure what else is going to end
[2:40:45] up on the agenda that's what that's
[2:40:48] so
[2:40:49] i met with both keith our technology
[2:40:51] director and chris race this week
[2:40:53] um just to review the summer projects that
[2:40:57] they've got on on
[2:40:59] tap
[2:41:01] both of them both of those departments
[2:41:04] tend to be very busy over the summer and
[2:41:06] preparing for next year so we just went
[2:41:08] over the list of projects that they're
[2:41:10] working on
[2:41:12] this week
[2:41:13] this past week tracy once again sent out
[2:41:16] all the resources for juneteenth
[2:41:19] tomorrow morning each of the schools
[2:41:21] will be having uh we'll participate
[2:41:24] participating in recognition
[2:41:26] of juneteenth as well as the
[2:41:28] raising of the juneteen flags of each
[2:41:30] building
[2:41:33] tuesday is the last day of school it's a
[2:41:35] half day for students a full day for the
[2:41:37] staff
[2:41:40] and
[2:41:42] we're looking forward to just
[2:41:44] stepping away
[2:41:47] that's it
[2:41:49] good
[2:41:50] any questions for brian
[2:41:52] all right
[2:41:54] covered numbers we had 14 cases this
[2:41:56] week that i recorded
[2:42:03] um you know and 14 i guess is in
[2:42:06] somewhat misleading since we don't have
[2:42:08] most of the high schoolers aren't in
[2:42:10] school this week and we graduated a
[2:42:11] bunch and
[2:42:13] we've had different activities so
[2:42:15] there's like i don't think any cases
[2:42:16] were
[2:42:17] reported today
[2:42:19] because of
[2:42:20] [Music]
[2:42:22] spring beach day yeah so
[2:42:24] good
[2:42:26] okay so we're on to subcommittee working
[2:42:28] groups and liaison reports have we had
[2:42:30] any
[2:42:30] anyone meet since our last puff we met
[2:42:33] and we just we have one policy in here
[2:42:35] it's got tiny tiny adjustments
[2:42:38] basically it's uh it's policy ijr
[2:42:41] reconsideration of instructional
[2:42:42] resources and we literally changed
[2:42:45] in the in the first paragraph
[2:42:47] it used to say board policies and now it
[2:42:50] says district policies
[2:42:51] and in the last paragraph it used to say
[2:42:53] after the school committee has adopted
[2:42:55] new materials and now it says after the
[2:42:57] district has adopted new materials
[2:42:59] because we don't choose the materials
[2:43:01] okay so that's it all right
[2:43:03] can i get a motion to support the
[2:43:04] changes to policy ijr so moved
[2:43:12] no other meetings
[2:43:14] to report on
[2:43:17] okay
[2:43:18] let's see how about uh new business
[2:43:21] i have a question yes and i don't know
[2:43:23] if it's new business but when heather um
[2:43:26] leonard
[2:43:28] gave us that summary at the end about
[2:43:30] possibly changing timeline for pain when
[2:43:32] do we when can we
[2:43:35] talk about something like that we'll do
[2:43:36] that in our um our retreat in august and
[2:43:39] we set our goals for the next year we
[2:43:40] can we'll talk about that then okay
[2:43:43] so that
[2:43:44] the changing of the timeline is actually
[2:43:47] a policy
[2:43:48] function okay um there's school
[2:43:50] committee policy around
[2:43:52] the the faffi grant process
[2:43:55] um actually barry wrote that policy i
[2:43:58] think and we just revised it what two
[2:44:00] years ago right so that would we can
[2:44:03] certainly discuss it there but then to
[2:44:05] go to a policy for any
[2:44:08] changes
[2:44:09] okay we can certainly do that and
[2:44:14] move the dates
[2:44:16] i i certainly support moving the dates
[2:44:18] around a little bit because
[2:44:20] to try to do the meetings
[2:44:23] they just met the last three weeks and
[2:44:25] how busy have we all been yeah you know
[2:44:28] john's trying to do
[2:44:29] one of the meetings literally from the
[2:44:31] senior week crews
[2:44:34] in boston harbor
[2:44:35] so you know if we could do that earlier
[2:44:37] that would certainly be beneficial
[2:44:40] okay
[2:44:42] all right
[2:44:43] vouchers and bills are all set
[2:44:46] consent agenda moved the ipswich school
[2:44:48] committee to approve the following
[2:44:51] meeting minutes from march 17 2022
[2:44:54] and meeting minutes from june second
[2:44:56] 2022
[2:44:58] second all in favor
[2:45:02] approved
[2:45:04] okay did a motion to adjourn
[2:45:07] second all in favor
[2:45:09] okay good night switch
[2:45:25] it has been insane like they need you to
[2:45:28] come in yeah
[2:45:29] first they send you the love text yeah