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The Framingham School Committee consists of nine members elected from each city district for a two year term. The mayor serves as an ex-officio member by virtue of office, and only votes to break a tie vote. The School Committee adopts and oversees the administration of an annual operating budget for the school department, appoints a superintendent of the schools, and works to make all reasonable rules and regulations for the management of the public school system. The following School Committee meeting coverage is brought to you by the Government Channel, a service of the City of Framingham.

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Framingham School Committee meeting. I call this meeting to order at 7:00 on Wednesday, June 17th, 2026. School committee meetings provide American Sign Language, Spanish and Portuguese interpretation via zoom. You can find the instructions on how to access live interpretation on the agenda on the school website and when you register for zoom, a reminder to all members in attendance to speak slowly, to allow time for interpretation as well as speak into the microphones. Otherwise, those on zoom can't hear you. In attendance tonight we have district one Rich Robles. District three Jennifer Moccia. District four Adam Friedberg. District five Judy Steyer. District six Brent Lewis. District seven Kyle Sheppard. District eight Jessica Barnhill. District nine William LaBarge, ex-officio mayor Charlie Um will be joining in progress. District two. Lorena Tovar will be joining in progress. Student Advisory Committee member Jolene Zhang is joining us from the district. We have Superintendent Doctor Tremblay, executive director of finance and operations, Lincoln Lynch, and the assistant superintendent of pre-K to 12 Education and Lutece. This meeting is live on the government channel and can be viewed live on Facebook on the Framingham Public Schools Facebook page. A recording of this meeting will be archived on the City of Framingham and School Committee's website as soon as possible. Meeting materials can be accessed on the committee's website page with tonight's meeting date. Members of the public can participate via zoom, specifically during the public comment portion. To join, uh, join through zoom or by calling this number, it's on the agenda. (305) 224-1968

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and the webinar ID is 84286399495.

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Tonight's agenda includes public comment announcements from the chair. Mayor's update vote on the superintendent's annual summative evaluation. Superintendents of schools Update. Vote on the athletics Handbook. Assistant superintendent for pre-K to 12 education update. Annual report on the Condition of Schools. Updates on appointments to Sy Foxx, executive director of Finance and Operations update subcommittee reports, including finance and operations and policy approval of gifts and minutes, followed by adjournment. We'll start with public comment at every regularly scheduled school committee meeting, we reserve 15 minutes for members of the public who may wish to speak on a topic within the School Committee's purview. Guidelines for public comment are located on the School Committee's website. All comments will be accepted as advice to the School Committee, but may not be responded to tonight. If you request follow up, provide your contact information and indicate in your remarks if you'd like. Follow up. The matter is in the School Committee's purview. We will respond if in the superintendent's he or his office will. If you're participating via zoom, use the raise hand feature and participate via audio if by phone. Press star nine if you'd like to speak during the public comment portion when you're recognized again, the call in number (305) 224-1968

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and the webinar ID again is 84286399495.

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Remarks including any personal attacks, anyone, including members of the administration or members of the School Committee, will not be tolerated. We'll have additional public comment at the end of the meeting. Okay. Anyone in person? I didn't see anyone sign up.

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Okay. We'll go to zoom.

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Uh, one attendee. No hand. Okay.

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All right. We'll go to announcements from the chair, the school committee. We're moving our meetings to Farley's scheduled for July 15th. Logistical pieces are being discussed along with an informative press release and announcement with access information that will go out. Okay. That's all the announcements. Um, move on to we're going to take things a little bit out of order. Um, we have athletic director Paul Speer here, so he's going to go first. We're going to start with vote on the Athletics Handbook. So the athletics handbook was reviewed at the Teaching and Learning Subcommittee on May 4th, 2026. At that meeting, members requested attorney review to ensure accuracy. Attorney Phil Benjamin reviewed the handbook, and the changes are included in a document in the packet as well, and they're also updated in the updated handbook. Okay, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to open it up for discussion and questions. Jen, do you want to take anything else on there or. Judy was that something that you wanted to add more to? No. Okay. Any discussion or questions on the Athletic handbook?

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Awesome. I did a good job.

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Awesome. You did a good job.

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We did go through it. Yeah. Do you want a learning?

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So I know you went through it in depth during Teaching and Learning subcommittee, but if you'd like to speak on it or it doesn't seem like there are many questions.

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Yeah, no. If there's no questions, I'm happy to. Okay, go back out there.

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Go ahead. Brent? Nope. Brent, we got some.

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Not a question. I just noticed a typo in the footer. And normally I would email this before, but do not discriminate instead of do not discrimination. Beyond that, I think we're ready to approve. And I'll make a motion.

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All right. Motion accepted. Is there a second? Second. Second. Moved by Brent. Second. By Willie. Any further discussion? All right. Seeing none. We'll go. All those in favor, raise your hand. Approving the handbook. We are 800. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

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All right, we'll go back to the top. We're going to start with. We'll go to the vote on the superintendent's annual summative evaluation. Consistent with state law and the superintendent's contract. His evaluation is completed every June. all school committee voting members participated and voted on. The process of the superintendents recommendation was used. All responses were first released to the public and the City Clerk and then the School Committee, with the overall summative performance rating of proficient. Having said that, I'll open it up for discussion.

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All right, I'll go.

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Go ahead. Go ahead. Jen.

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Um, overall, I think you're doing a great job. And like I put in your evaluation, I would really like to see data driven results for next year as some of your goals. I think it would be helpful for us to see how we're really progressing with those types of goals. Please. Thank you.

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All right.

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Kyle go.

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Ahead.

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Thank you. And and I agree with everything Jen said. One thing I would add about data driven results is I would like to see with with the goals for next year to have not only data driven but also equity driven, so that the goals are intentionally written in a way that that show that we are we are achieving them by achieving them equitably.

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Adam.

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Thank you, Madam Chair.

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I think that everyone's comments were very much in a lot of themes around being proficient. Couple areas need improvement, couple areas of exemplary. So that's also consistent with your past few years. So just want to thank you for the consistency and your striving for continuous improvement. This is a very difficult budget year, but there's also some great opportunity. And with everything going on with the budget, I want to make sure and I know you get it, that there's still $187 million of amazing effort in this community and the work of the educators and things go on. And that event last week in the Chris Walsh Auditorium to celebrate the years of service and praise the retirements was really inspiring and you're the leader behind that and so keep it up. At the same time, you know, when it comes to continuous improvement, I think communication is a theme, communicating what the outcomes have been. There's so many successes that I feel get only put in newsletters, but then there's not the press release, there's not the social media, there's not the public forum. One quick example. You know how much busing matters to all of us, but to me in particular as well. And Lincoln reported out a few weeks ago that for the first time since way before the town days, that the early morning routes were practically on time at every school like that just doesn't happen, even with traffic and weather. And it's happening, but there's no communication about that beyond a very lowly rated watched meeting here in the room. And so like, those are the type of things when I talk about continuous improvement that I think would really help our community better understand what is happening and why. Both good things, bad things and everything in between. So glad you're here for the long term and thank you for your leadership, especially during this rough budget cycle.

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All right, Rich.

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Thank you, Madam Chair. We're very lucky to have a leader like you leading our district the way you do it with the heart that you have, the vision that you have, and the way you build relationships. Our seventh grader, our youngest daughter, knows your name. Not because I'm on the school committee. Because she knew your name before I even got in the school committee. Because you show up where the families are, you show up with students, you spend time with them almost on a daily basis. You're either at a building or a function. So I recognize that. I recognize that very uniqueness about you. And I will say for your current goals, don't stop where they are, especially this piece are on absenteeism because we've got to keep working on that. That is one thing that we cannot get our eyes off of it because, you know, even the examples that I hear from Harmony Grove. They're getting creative. They're getting used to using a lot of just different ways and contacting families. That's one way to do it. What else could we be doing so that our students continue to show up at school? So keep going with the goals that you have. And you know, I can't wait to see the next set of goals. I think, like everyone else said, we're going to, you know, put more metrics around them. But yeah, good job overall.

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I'm just happy to echo everyone else's comments. And just as, especially as a new member to say publicly, thank you for all the work that you've done, uh, onboarding and providing access to resources. Uh, even before I began that just made this transition so much easier. Um, one thing that I look forward to do in my professional work world. Uh, annual evaluations are a time for conversation, and so I really look forward to working with you on next year's goals and conversations on the way that the school committee can help support your leadership, because we are in this work collaboratively. Um, I'm really grateful for the way the school committee works together. With your office, I feel like we have an excellent relationship. Um, and I look forward to that continuing. So thank you.

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I will echo the. Thanks. I think it's great having the superintendent having you be involved in the community. Um, I always like reading this document because it's nice to have the perspective of the nine different members, each kind of engaging in different ways in this document. There is just one thing that I'm flagging that it does look like there are two boxes checked on professional practice goal, and I think if there is a motion to approve this, significant progress should not be checked in there. So there's that one error. I'm on page one of the document where it should be met, because that totals 3.56 out of five. Um, did anybody else see that? Thank you, Rich, for bringing that to my attention. Yeah. So just that box. Sorry. It's a lot of work to put this thing together. And I appreciate, um, the feedback. Um.

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Having said that, I do just want to also publicly say that the busing is, is just a nice relief that some people that are newer on the committee don't remember what a nightmare it was. And I felt like it was very important to note that in our evaluation that you continue built a bus company and you have got us out of this problem that has plagued the district, and I just can't thank you enough for that, that this is real change. And, you know, when the complaints go away, sometimes people think, oh, it's fine. But like, there's a lot of work that went into that. And I think just I needed to recognize that in my evaluation as well. So thank you. Anybody else? Judy. Go ahead.

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Having worked with you for many years, what I really appreciate so much is the focus that you have maintained over all these many years on the idea that each and every one of our students feels like they belong here. So I really appreciate that focus, and I appreciate your strategic plan. I mean, we've learned that not everybody has strategic plans, but we do. And I feel like it has really been, um, kind of the North Star for the work that's going on. So I really appreciate that. And I appreciate you, Bob.

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All right. Um, is there a motion to approve the superintendent summative evaluation?

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So moved.

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Moved by Miss Moshe? Second. Second by Rich. And is that with changing? Page one to met? So it'll only have one box checked? Yes. Yes. Okay. Go ahead.

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Just checking the math scale. Wouldn't it be significant progress with 3.5? Or is the is the cutoff 3.5 and 3.49?

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We had it as both because it was kind of in between.

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Okay. I don't mind either. I just wouldn't.

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Have. Okay.

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Curious. Thank you.

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Okay.

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Maybe that's why it was double checked.

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Right.

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I feel like it should just be one box check, though. So unless there's any objection, I feel like we'll go with it. Okay. All those in favor, raise your hand. 800. Thank you. Thank you.

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All right. So I did that.

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Did you want to comment? Sure.

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Sure.

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Okay. Yeah. Sure. I was just. I know I skipped around a little bit, so I wanted to make sure that I was. I was just taking extra time to find my place, but. Okay. Um, we're going to assistant superintendent for a week.

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Oh. Can I do my.

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Yes. Yeah. Sorry, sorry. No, no. Oh, I skipped that one. That's when I skipped. Thank you. Sorry.

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Oh, no. No. Thanks so much. And just take me one minute here. Yeah. Okay. Um, I just want to thank everybody for the comments. I actually have come to the realization that I do better when people are mad at me than when they're happy with me. That's not a great place to be in life, I guess. But I'm so accustomed to people always coming and wanting better and more and answers and transparency. And so compliments are a hard place to sit. I've already decided that when I retire, I want it to be a roast, because I'm not sure I could deal with the other alternative to that. Uh, God willing, I make it to retirement. This has been quite a year. I just want the committee to know. And to our new members, welcome to you. And I read every single comment that you write, and I try to incorporate, even though there's always the push to have it in one voice. Everybody's voice matters to me. And if there's something that I can do better for you or for your constituents that you identified, I really do try to weave that into the goal setting. And that's why I didn't prepare goals. And some years I prepared goals in advance. So that would be approved in the same and same night. This year, I wanted to wait until the July meeting in our new space and so that I could present to you a really thoughtful, data driven, smart framed goals. And that feedback was really helpful. And I appreciate the comments as well, that we can lose our way. And when we're so we've been focused on budget as everybody here. Well, no, since October. And that persisted until now. I've never seen that. And it can overtake everything, you know. And the credit that was given about transportation and the talent recognition. I mean, of course, those are my colleagues, right? So there's that fine line. And I read in the evaluation around delegation and then being mindful of what's delegated, what I can be directly part of. Of course, I'm part of the transportation work. I spent as much time as I could with Lincoln at the bus yard, but not nearly the kind of time that Lincoln and Angela and others spent preparing the procurement of those buses. Which, by the way, if you haven't seen already, or many of them are already parked in the Farley parking lot and they're starting to arrive and we're now starting to position those buses. So I took a picture of it this morning. I was so excited. But to Mr. Friedberg point, you know, what I can in planning to do next year is I should have posted that picture, right? And say, hey everybody, our buses are here. Can't wait to start a new year with our own. And it says right on there, Framingham Public Schools at least. So there's opportunities now that we don't have. We've moved forward with the budget without a communications person. And I've been giving a lot of thought to that. One of the goals that I sort of presented in part last time was about building this relationship. And I do appreciate the comments that were made tonight about that 1 to 1 engaging with with students. I know many of our students. I try to get to as many events and to be present for them. I always have, I believe in that. But next year will be special for me because, as you know and members who are new may not know, I've been reading to the class of 2030 since they were five years old, or maybe six since they were in kindergarten. I remember reading the same book 26 times when they were in kindergarten, and now I'm at the point where I'll have a singular assembly of all the high school freshmen. It's hard to put an empirical measure on that, you know? So it's not necessarily a goal, but the relationship side of that is the engagement side. So I have to think about some creative ways to frame something measurable when it comes to a student feeling engagement and belonging with the superintendent. That's that's a tough one for me to sort of reckon with. But but I'll definitely get there. But I've reached out, as I mentioned before, to the high school, to say, how can I become involved in a way that's really useful? You know, we're we're dealing with grade nine retention rates, and we're dealing with high school graduation rates, which are important metrics for the community when it comes to what do we value and how do we value and support? Education to work with Suffolk in supporting. So we have a unified, not only a strategic plan, but a plan that the entire community gets excited about. So when there's budget meetings at City Council or in this space, we are all on the same page of what matters. And so that's really what I'm focused on. Next year, I'll be presenting that as part of my goals in this dashboard that I referenced, but also building that relationship with ninth graders and really digging into some of that relationship work, the chronic absenteeism. Absolutely. You know, parents care how we use that. We have a dashboard that shows metrics on that, getting all of our parents registered on there. And while there's other social media spaces, parents, where has that terrific space? That's a channel for us to communicate like a social media app. And families have a choice to either do nothing or to appreciate it. As many of you know from using the Parent Square app. And that keeps us away from all the negativity and some of these social media platforms. And why we moved away is because There's a lot of hate and hurt that exists in the world and in Framingham, and so people are reluctant to want to be out there. Not so much of me. I'm used to it, but there is a general feeling among many that they don't want their picture out there or a news announcement out there, because some people may think that's great and other people will find a way to hurt that individual. And we're living in a very interesting and difficult time with social media, and I'm mindful of that. I do think Parents Square is a safer channel for us than to be in the sort of wide open ocean of of using other social media platforms. But nonetheless, there's an opportunity for communicating to the broader community all the great things that are happening. So these are just some sort of foreshadowing to things. I'm thinking about whether they manifest as actual, measurable goals, which you will also get, that are driven by student achievement and expectations that we want to see for our district to move. And I'm so grateful to have an amazing team like Anne, who's leading the way in, Mary Beth, who you'll hear from here as well. And Evangelia and so many at Lauria, Bruce and our special education department, Lincoln and all the work he's done on busing that's happened. Tiago and Ina and all the work that the HR department has done to make that talent recognition. You know, that was a really hard decision in a budget situation. Do we go forward with that? And I absolutely insisted that we should do that because recognizing our staff, even in the face of what's happening, they deserve it. They truly, truly do. I remember probably, I think the only member of the school committee may remember this is Adam, when we had the sheet cake that the then chair of the school committee, Heather Connolly, would provide. I think it was in 2000 and end of the 1617 school year, maybe before your time. And they brought this beautiful sheet cake. They said, congratulations to our retirees. And not one retiree was in the room to cut the piece of cake. It was a sheet cake. I don't know what happened to it. I guess we all ate it, but nobody was there who was supposed to be recognized. And it was that moment we said, we have to find a different way to recognize our staff. And if you had that chance to see or hear about it was an amazing event. Not only recognize our staff, our current staff, our retiring staff, our longstanding educators, but also our community partners who are doing that work. So I really do appreciate these these accolades, not for me, but for the work that happens with so many other people behind that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all of is delegated, and I don't have a hand in it. And just because I'm not speaking at that event, I'm shaking hands. I don't speak at graduation. I never have, and I only will speak at one graduation, and that will be with the class of 2030. That will be the one exception in my career. And it's not because I don't care or I don't want to be talking to students and families, but I really put myself in a place where my goal is to have that handshake, the sweaty 610 handshakes with every single student to make eye contact with them, to know that they have a place here, and that I made a connection with them. That, to me is so much more meaningful than a speech. That's not to say that Mr. Blazer speech wasn't awesome. It was fantastic. And I love the returning Your Library book theme at the end. Everything about it was outstanding, but I just wanted to give some context because it can be viewed as if you're not out in front speaking or doing. It can be perceived as not involved or not caring or not being in the work. And I hope anybody you would ask would say that I'm sort of cheering from behind and and doing that. And that's my approach to it, right? Wrong or indifferent. I just wanted to give some public opportunity to share that, and also just to acknowledge everybody's feedback in the evaluation and and to thank you for that. We can all grow. We can all be better. And certainly I want to be and I'm committed to this community. I always have been. And I'll say one last thing, Judy. You know, I appreciate your comments as well. And I've said this before and I'll say it again, I'll never forget the first time I met you. And I was leaving Weston coming here. And we met at Regis College, and I heard an amazing things from the nursing leader there about you. And it's just been a joy to work with you all those years. And then to also have you on the school committee now, having lived that work on the inside together through the pandemic in all those years. So just know that your comments really are all of them are important. They land particularly well with me given our long history of working together. So thank you.

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Sorry you missed my whole my whole little soliloquy here, but thank you. It's one of the gifts I just wanted to give. Thank you to to the evaluation feedback and just to acknowledge the the goals that I'll be setting for next year and, and framing them as really measurable goals. And I hear everyone loud and clear. Okay. Thank you so much. You're welcome. No no no. It's okay. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. That's all I have for my report. I just want to say the end of the school year is coming quickly. We'll be done next Thursday. Unless there's. We're not going to have no school days because of heat that's come up before. And I know there's some upset around the hot classrooms. But you can understand if we cancel school because it's a hot day, it's probably going to be a hotter day when we have school reassigned. So you'll be getting some information from me about some staff who are requesting, uh, capital requests for air conditioning. Not surprisingly, it's hot. So I just wanted to acknowledge the last day of school is coming. Wishing everybody a safe summer. We won't be meeting again before the end of the school year. And just to wish our students, uh, wherever they're in families, wherever it is, whether it's camps or travel. Please be safe and have an amazing summer. So thank you very much.

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Oh, the student council is reminding me that we had a student council summit. That's right. I will share with you photos. So many things have happened, as you mentioned. My my very, very last comment. Now, thank you for the reminder. We had our fifth grade student council. Jordan Cohen came back. Uh, Deborah de Vitoria was there. They both spoke with our amazing student council and they our students, and did a fantastic job along with Courtney facilitating student conversations. Mary Beth was there, Siobhan and others from the team. Everyone had t shirts that we had for them. We provided lunch Thanks to the Food Nutrition department, and students were able to share with others about what their student councils were doing. Jordan was able to. I mean, he was so pleased to see that this work came to life from the vision of the Student Advisory Council. And then we put them to work and put them to work in small groups to brainstorm a cell phone policy. And what would that look like if we had to be mindful? What are the what are the things to be aware of? And as we think about language for something like that. So to get student voice and to get excitement in the room as sort of this contingency of all Framingham student councils together in one space was really pretty spectacular. So I'm not sure if I missed anything on that one. But thank you to Lincoln for and Angela for the buses. We so we also we also have we serve we did serve lunch Lincoln and I got back behind the table and serve the students. It was really a special, special moment. So I'll share the photos with the with the school committee. So you're aware of what what happened there. But thanks for the time. I appreciate the chance to give some commentary. I'll turn it back over now to you, Madam Chair.

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Thank you, sir, and we're going to turn it actually over to Anne for her update. Oh, sorry. Questions? Go ahead.

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Thank you very much. I don't want to prolong this, but since we're on the superintendent's update, what you said about the communications plan leads into my my one question, which is our communications plan and our next meeting space starting in July, for the first time in eight years, we're leaving this this space, right? And so I just want to take a moment on that, since the chair mentioned it in her announcement, but around the communication plan. Very glad to hear there's a press release planned around that. It's really important for after eight years of continuity that things are are communicated. And I hope it is just one of seven, eight, nine different ways of communication around that and around all of the different things that you just commented on about just improving communications. Um, for, for the long term in a consistent way, but specifically about the meeting room we're about to go in. Um, my feedback was something I think we might notice the biggest change beyond like physical location. I mean, this could be easier parking, great access, more space for the public. But when we're sitting at the table right now, last I saw it, they're all in one line. So we can't actually see each other unless you're sitting right next to someone. And so that to me is a is a challenge. It's going to be a change if there's a way to curve the tables and the camera angles. That's one of my biggest concerns, as well as just where the TVs are located for the people at the head table, because right now it's like nowhere in the field of vision. You have to go all the way left or all the way right, and then there's people blocking some of the angles. So I just want to flag that as well as my final, um, piece. When the school committee moved to this room from King in the summer of 2018, there was also a robust communications plan that included FCC TV on their website, putting a line that said transition. We no longer host school committee meeting video archives on our website. I feel like it's absolutely essential that you work directly with the government channel and or the mayor and the public information officer to have the government channel, not the city clerk's office, not the city website. The actual government channel website should have that traditional disclaimer for a few months, just to show people that for the last eight years you've been coming here for videos and now you go there. That's a big concern. It takes me as someone, as an insider, a long time to find where public meeting videos are posted of all the public bodies in Framingham. It still hasn't aligned with the charter rule yet. That has to happen on one central website. And so until that happens, I feel strongly that there should be a plan, just like on their website in 2018 listed that for many months. You may now find new videos on the government channel and they would link to them. So if you could help with all those things, that would be much appreciated. I want to be able to see all my colleagues when we're talking to each other. Sure, it might be blocked as well as have, you know, the public easily understand where the videos are.

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Yeah, and there'll be some growing pains into the space for sure. But you have provided me with a list of a number of maybe you mentioned 3 or 4, but there's actually 11 or 12 that I'm aware of. So you went late tonight? Thank you. Yeah, but I actually went through all of the remainder items to address them all. And so we have some new technology that's come to that space. We had one time grant funding for the accessibility of the, of that space that um, at Farley. And so we have we'll be having training on all of that. So multiple people will have training on how to use the AV systems there. The monitors that you mentioned, we can certainly adjust those tables to have a better arc to them without hopefully, you know, if it's just Mr. Bowles and Mr. Bloomfield tends to call in. So Mr. Bowles is in the room. We'll make sure he gets his own chair. So if it's one person or two people, you know. But we also want to be ready for the larger meetings. But we can certainly work with that space. Uh, for sure. And I've already reached out to, to both the government channel and Access Framingham about making sure we're all on the same page. We've met previously about having some sort of static idle link that says where to redirect to, and Joanna's been part of that as well on our website, because the Framingham Public Schools School Committee page does have very easy to navigate, you know, minutes and agendas. And why not have video links there as well? So we're working through all of those. There'll be room for improvement, but I just wanted to give some confirmation that those will all be addressed.

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Thank you so much for reviewing my my long list, and I'm very hopeful for this. I think it's a really good move for a lot of reasons. And, you know, as I mentioned, parking, but also the translation will be easier and other other aspects. So um, I also my last comment will be, you know, I'll probably be remote at one of our two next, next meetings. That'll be my first time in that room being remote. And so the government channel has been fantastic. And I will I will miss them. And they really created the model for hybrid meetings. And so just hopefully, as someone who has not yet been remote in that room for the other public meetings, that it will be, you know, perfection as well. Thank you.

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We'll do our best. We just ask for a little grace as we as we transition. But the June 15th, we are planning to be hybrid, and we've tested that space before in both. There's always room for improvement, but we'll we'll give it a go. We have to start somewhere. So we think that maybe a July meeting will be a lighter way to get off the ground. So thanks for your patience in advance.

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And it'll be the same space planned for executive session as well. So we'll work out some of that. All right. And I think we're over to you.

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All right.

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Thank you. Superintendent.

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Thank you. Good evening. Before I call up my colleague, doctor O'Brien, I'm just I have a couple of fairly important and timely updates. The first being that just last week, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education notified districts that they will be launching the MCAS family portal sometime. Their goal is sometime between June 26th and June 30th. The family portal was an effort that they attempted to implement this past fall when MCAS scores were released, but due to some student privacy concerns. That was strategically abandoned, and we found out just last week that their plan is now to open up those that portal again sometime before the end of the month, but no sooner than June 26th. It's a very short turnaround time. We have some concerns about that, because what that requires is for every family to get a registration and unique registration code for each child and log into a portal that none of us have any experience with. It's never existed before. And so we anticipate that this will cause some challenges. Also, school will be out of session by then. So again the timing is a little a little challenging. But our we also don't have the registration codes yet. Many of the resources are not yet translated on the D.C. website. They're working on it. We've seen an improvement. We've seen some of that kind of turning over. And some of those translated Materials appearing, but even the portal itself will only be in English, and we hope, Spanish by the time it is available. It will not be available in other languages at this time. We recognise the challenges that this creates, but again, this is coming from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. I say all of this because we have a plan, and our plan is to as long as we have the student registration codes to release that information, hopefully by Tuesday of next week. The end of the day on Tuesday, so that families that are that want to get that up and running before the end of the school year will have a couple of days to do that. Again, this all depends on the Department of Ed releasing those registration codes to us for all students so that we can send out that communication. That communication will go out through Parents Square so that every family gets that information. It will also include information about how to seek help. If you are struggling with accessing the portal. They'll reach out to the help desk in the help desk, if they have questions about their MCAS data, then they can of course contact their schools. Will also be available, but I know they don't have the relationship with us that they they do with schools every according to DC. Every family or every child that has taken MCAS this spring, any MCAS test this spring will have a registration code that we should be able to send. However, again, this is brand new. This is we will only have access to claimed students, which we believe what they're referring to is from the March Sims data, which means that any students who have transferred into our district, say in April or May or June, we may not have their results. We may have to work with the family on contacting their their prior school to get that registration code. So we will work with individual families, but we expect that this will create some challenges for some people. We don't really know. We can't even test the website ourselves to see how complicated the portal will be. We've seen a little demo. We did a small pilot with a small number of people, so they have tested this out, but not as robustly as that. That I can say with confidence how this is going to roll out. Um, all of the timing and plan that I've shared with you is contingent upon the Department of Ed being, um, you know, being able to meet their deadlines that they have shared with us. There's a possibility that this portal will not be available by the end of June. We're just going off of the information that we received late last week. Additionally, and this is another one that's a little bit awkward. They're releasing in the portal. Families will have access to the last up to three years worth of mixed results, but they will also be releasing preliminary results. Mixed results? We've never heard of them releasing preliminary results. Preliminary results can change. They're not official. And we anticipate that may cause some questions for families, but they plan on releasing the preliminary Ela results when they open the portal. So again, this may cause some confusion. We are aware of it. There isn't much we can do about it, but we wanted to to kind of give you a heads up in case you have any questions or hear anything about it. Yes.

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Well, families continue to receive paper versions once things are finalized. Or is this a digital transition?

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No, this is their digital transition. Yeah. We will do what we can to help families that are trying to access paper copies, but they're they're transitioning to a digital model. Doctor O'Brien, will there be one year where schools can request paper copies?

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They originally said yes. I'm not sure if that changed that in the fall.

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In the fall? Yeah. They didn't say anything in the most recent webinar, so we don't know if paper option is even available for this coming fall report. If if it is, we'll do what we can to order those as well for one more year. Any other questions about the MCAS portal?

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How are parents going to be notified to sign up for this?

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They don't have to sign up. We'll be sending the individual student registration codes to them through Parents Square. And so it will include information, a link directly to the MCAS portal site, as well as instructions. And the student registration code will be there as well.

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And how will you get to parents that are not on Parents Square?

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I believe we have 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll we'll identify which families are. Yeah. We also in parents where we can see which messages were undeliverable. So we'll be able to to follow up on those as well and work with the schools on getting that information to them.

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You also see which messages have been like open read or something like that. Just because schools are really they're not really that important. As far as you know, my kids doing great. My kid's not doing great. It's more a measure for me at least. But I still think parents, even if they don't, um, you know, people get those in the mail and, you know, kids are harder on themselves when they actually see the paper copy and go, oh my God, I can't believe they did really bad. Or oh, I'm really smart. I did above the average. Um, but I, I want to make sure that parents are actually getting the information. Yeah.

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That's a that's a great point. And so the other thing is that we are actually adding the student registration code to the to their Aspen account so that even if a family quite honestly, if a family did nothing with this right now, like in June or July or even early August, I'd say that's fine, because right now all of the bugs have to be ironed out. There's no official results in there, but when the official results are released in September, we can do another push and make sure at that point we have and then we'll have updated, um, records, hopefully for students that transferred in later as well.

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I was going to say, because typically we didn't get the mail until October. Correct. District got in September and we would get it in October. Correct.

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And I would rather families are looking at the results when they are their official. They have all of the results. Um, so yeah, so we we probably won't be doing a heavy lift to try and chase families down over the summer. We'll wait until the start of the school year when it's more timely and relevant.

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Thank you.

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Yeah.

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All right. I'll move on a couple of other quick updates. The first being Mandarin. I wanted to give an update on how Mandarin at Walsh Middle School will be served and provided for students next year. The great news is that we have come up with a plan to provide Mandarin instruction for the students who are currently at Walsh Middle School and enrolled in the Mandarin course, so that would be the current sixth and seventh graders, who next year will be the seventh and eighth graders at Walsh Middle School. So we have a high school Mandarin teacher, and so that teacher will be assigned one of their classes to be teaching asynchronously, meaning that it will be not live in real time, but teaching asynchronously. The eighth grade students at Walsh. Um, so the students will be able to continue taking the course. The course will be in canvas, which is our on our student learning platform. They will provide the lessons in there. And then we have recommended that when the high school teachers Mandarin class schedule, which is on a seven day rotating schedule, aligns with the eighth grade class schedule, which is a six day rotating schedule. When those times align that the classes are able to meet virtually and converse with each other and practice having dialogues with each other and practice the oral language. It's not ideal, but it certainly does provide students with the opportunity to continue learning Mandarin. And with the online program, there's opportunities for videos and games and interactive components. So it's it's interactive for the students when they are continuing on with their their course. For families or students that do not want an asynchronous language course, they will have the option of enrolling in French or Spanish. And for those that are worried about the grade, they can audit the course until they have gained enough comfort in the course to to be able to, to participate fully. So they can either continue with Mandarin in an asynchronous model or enroll in French or Spanish with their peers, with their classmates, and audit the course until they feel comfortable. It's also in terms of supervision. The library media specialist will be the teacher supervising the students while they're taking the asynchronous course and that. But the Mandarin teacher at the high school will be responsible for grading parent conferences and so on. Communication with families. As far as the next year's seventh grade class, we don't have room in the teacher's schedule in order for the teacher to take on both the seventh grade and the eighth grade course. The teacher's schedule will be full. So instead we are going to use Edmonton, which actually has middle school Mandarin classes that has a live teacher behind it, even though it's also asynchronous, so students move at their own pace. Those seventh grade students will enroll in Mandarin through Edmonton, which again online course live. Teacher who's available to meet with them if they schedule an appointment or to answer emails. And of course, there's a class that that's associated with that that will, um, there's coursework that will allow them to move at their own pace, and that teacher will be the one grading them, which then, of course, the Walsh administration will be responsible for transferring into their report cards. And again, that teacher would be or that course those students would be supervised by the library media specialists in the library as well. Those students also have the option of, if they want a live, face to face, in-person class transferring into French or Spanish next year.

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Jen has a question.

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I'm sorry. Um, I think it's great that there's an alternative for the Mandarin students to continue what they've started in middle school so they can go on to high school. Question, though, is there a cost associated with having this program?

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The momentum course. This is what's worked. You're talking about the so for the eighth grade. No for the seventh grade. What's great about Edmonton is we actually have in our contract in our license. We have a portion of that contract that is for this Ed options course, which is done per pupil, per course that they take with a live teacher. That's what the Ed options courses are. And we actually have a bundle in our contract. And that money carries over from year to year. So even though we lowered the cost that portion for next year's contract, it was because we didn't spend all of this year's. So we're using money that's rolled over from the FY 26 contract into FY 27. So it will not add to the budget that has already been presented.

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Excellent. Thank you.

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You're welcome.

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Which is up next.

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All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for this update. This is. This is good. A couple of questions. How many eighth grade students and how many seventh grade students are we talking about?

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15 and 15.

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15 and 15. Okay. My next question is this live teacher through the program will always be the same teacher. Or will they? They get what they get?

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That's a great question. I believe it's oh, thank you, doctor O'Brien. Always the same teacher.

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Always the same. Okay. Yeah, that will make a difference. Thank you. All right. Thanks. Thank you.

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Any further.

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Questions? Madam.

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Could you elaborate on.

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What the students know? We actually heard from a few by email during the budget process advocating, like.

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Yeah. So this this all has been worked out in the last few days. Um, so we just, um. Uh. Evangelia Anthopoulos met the director of multilingual education, met with the high school teacher just Yesterday or the day before. So that's why there wasn't a memo. We were still working out these details. And so I wanted to be able to provide to you what I could with as much detail as possible. In fact, the families haven't received a communication yet that was refined yesterday, in the day before. So that will be going out to families in the next day or so, allowing them to choose their their options for their student for next year. So know that your this is hot off the presses okay.

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Well obviously that's really key. I know that this meeting just happens to be first. So thanks for being on it having those messages ready to go. Um, I also there's probably not much room here to tweak anything, but, you know, just engaging with the students, very impressed with their, you know, governmental affairs advocacy and reaching out to to us and the council as part of the budget decisions. And if there's a way for them to kind of help shape this new iteration, it's not preferred versus the status quo, but at least there's something to shape. Thank you.

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Anything further?

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Okay.

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Okay. I just have one more quick update before we move on to sage, and that is to just, um, just give a quick update on the five day working group for the the pre-K program in July. I'll be giving a more comprehensive kind of year in review of where we started and where we've been and how we got there, but we actually had two meetings in the month of June. The first one was a bonus meeting on June 3rd, and that meeting was scheduled after the May meeting, when we actually thought we might need additional time to get through all of the decisions that needed to be made, but it was an incredibly productive meeting. Uh, we that the team reviewed and refined, uh, collaboration schedules, team time schedules, dismissal routines. Um, when initial and annual IEP meetings would occur and how they'd be covered when what the luncheon recess schedule would be. How the after school Little Explorers program was going to be situated within the building. The PD schedule, screening dates and so on and so forth. So lots and lots of details were reviewed at the June 3rd meeting. Also on June 3rd, uh, the, uh, the school ran a simulation of the new dismissal routines. There were no students in the building, so they used popsicle sticks as the students and got them to their locations. Um, so every staff member knew exactly where they had to be. And it worked out really, really well. And I think it really helped the staff see how they could streamline their, uh, dismissal routines and provide time for collaboration so that not every staff member needed to be involved in the dismissal routine. Um, every day kind of allow them to have some rotation in that, uh, the meeting was so successful that it was determined we didn't need to have the previously scheduled meeting, which was today. Um, everything had been resolved that they needed to resolve. So instead, they decided to turn it into a faculty meeting. So members of the working group presented all of these schedules and all of these details to the rest of the faculty. And that happened earlier today. And it it was remarkably well received. I was I was just thinking about where we started this process and where we've ended. I'm just really, really proud of the working group. I'm proud of the staff for being open minded and collaborative and, you know, thinking outside the box and being problem solvers. So, um, I just wanted to give that update. Like I said at the July meeting, I'll give more detail. Um, but we'll just kind of take it from there. We do plan on having meetings again in the fall. We just have not yet established those dates. We'll give everybody a chance to settle in and get used to their new schedule, and then we'll pick the dates for for monthly meetings in the fall to make sure things are moving along as planned.

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Take any questions about that. As doctor O'Brien joins me up here to talk about sage.

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Thank you.

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Okay, so doctor Marybeth O'Brien is the director of curriculum, instruction and Assessment, and she is just a rock star on all sorts of levels. And I cannot say enough wonderful things about her, but she works very, very closely with the sage teachers. You may or may not recall that during a public comment. Um, somewhere during the budget process, one of the sage teachers even praised her for being such an advocate and support for their team. And so I've invited her to come and speak because she's worked so closely with the sage teachers on the plan.

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Do you want me to just give an overview?

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So you do have a memo in your packet. I just want to start by saying. Of course, none of us wanted this. We do have an incredible team. Or this year of five elementary sage teachers and three middle school sage teachers. As a result of the reductions and trying to maintain programming as close to possible, um, we have lost two Sage teachers at the elementary level, giving us three to continue to operate within the Sage programming as close to possible as the current model, and it has reduced us to one sage teacher at the middle school level. I am happy to report that while not ideal, all of those sage teachers, the two at the middle school and the two at the elementary school have accepted positions as classroom Teachers in schools across the district, so they will continue to be on staff and doing the incredible work that they can infused in tier one instruction, which I really do think is a win for us because they are all incredible humans and they have done so much work with our curriculum and with our students over the several years I've worked with them. And of course, prior to that. Um, so with that said, uh, one of the things I want to start with, um, second grade all year long, one of the things that the elementary team has focused on is we have identified that our Sage programming does not model after really the microcosm of our schools, which basically means that our sage population is not mirroring what our greater school populations look like. So they have been really analyzing their student data along with our screening practices to determine what is not culturally and linguistically aligned with our student population. And they have really analyzed that, and we have reconfigured our approach to both screening identification in order to try and bring those numbers to reflect more of our student population. Um, so as a result of that year long work, they have come up with a really beautiful proposal to try and do better for our students. So regardless of budget reductions, we would have moved to this model. What it is, is we typically engage in universal screening at the first grade level, where we identify students using multiple measures. One of those eye measures is a typical screener that many districts who do have a sage or a talented and gifted program use. Um, it has its flaws. So after that analysis, we also brought in other measures where the Sage teachers go in for really 1 or 2 days and conduct additional an additional lesson, while a teacher uses what we call a talented and gifted rubric to really measure what different attributes students have that would meet the need for Sage services. Um, even in doing that, we did not see as much of a change in the student demographic. It was better, it was improved, but not at the rate we would have liked. So their recommendation is that really we need a little bit more time with students to make sure that we are really capturing culturally and linguistically better results, right? Because most of these screeners do not have that in mind. Um, so their proposal addressed going in for a series of about five five sessions once a week for five weeks, and really doing some talent development aligned to the Sage rubric, the talented gifted rubric through the National Association for Gifted Children and AGC to really try and build that among students in the second grade. So next year, all second graders for a five week period for one time's 45, one day, 45 minutes, um will receive this co-taught model with a sage teacher and their classroom teacher to bring that out. And it would happen in both the science slash social studies block. So it would be integrated with content. So we think that is a great improvement. And then by the end of second grade, students that demonstrate need for Sage services will receive an identification letter and then receive services in grades 345 moving forward. Therefore, with that shift, that was going to happen anyways. What Sage services would look like for grades three, four and five is that they will receive 145 minute block of Sage services. The sage teacher at elementary school formerly served two schools. They'll have to serve three schools now, which is why now we're uniform a one times 45 for every student that's identified in grades three, four and five. Um, and then we've worked it out so that caseloads are manageable among teachers, and the distribution of which schools they serve is also manageable. We did run this by our teachers most recently and contemplated like, what are the challenges with this? Where do you see that there might be flaws? And one of the things we're really trying to work out is how we can really maintain the language allocation plan for our dual language programs. I think we have a resolve for that, but we haven't firmed that up yet. I'm still waiting for one final meeting to get gather that feedback. So that's the elementary model at the middle school model. As you know, we went from a 1 to 1 model, one teacher for each school. And now it will be one teacher serving three schools. The one teacher has really worked incredibly collaboratively with myself. Last week we met for a whole day. We looked at data and we tried to manage how we would make this work with the complex middle school schedule. So at the middle school level, she'll serve two days at each school. It will be embedded into the model and really be brought in through the flex block. And we'll also leverage things like that. That really brings out student talents. And where once students are in middle school, you can really see where their niches are, and we'll build it into the flex model so that they're really being supported by the arts and being supported during that flex block in the content areas as well. In addition to that, she will provide tier three service for students who show need using the MTS model and the three windows. Some of that may be gibberish because of all the acronyms. So if there's anything particular in the memo or anything I said that you want clarity on, or anything more specific around scheduling, we can chat about that.

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Jen, just wanted to kick off with a question.

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Thank you. Um, so can we talk about sage testing and placement and how that whole process works? Yes. Um, I know when my child was in elementary school, um, she was not tested, went to middle school, was placed into sage, and did sage in middle school. I was not notified about it, but I thought that the process was that the parent is notified about it. There was testing or recommendation, then testing for placement if they got approved for testing. Can you talk a little more about how that process works and how you're changing it? Because it sounds like you're now starting it at a younger age.

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So for as long as I so I've been in the district for four years, once as a principal and now three years in this role. And the whole time I've been here, my is what I'll speak to because I know it has changed in the past. And following Covid, I think there were several other changes. But since then, for the last four years, the consistency around this has been students are universally screened. At the end of first grade, a letter goes out to all families notifying them that we're engaging in universal screening. The universal screener is assessed. The sage teacher and the classroom teacher provide give this assessment and it's over a series, so not every student takes it on exactly the same day. It's over the course of like from April vacation until mid-May, because the sage teacher is going in with the classroom teacher to give that assessment. And then typically at the end of actually right about now, we typically send out letters for any student based on the criteria of who shows need. We send out a letter saying you're now receiving Sage services throughout the school year. After first grade, a parent or a teacher can make a recommendation through, um, it was like a parent form. Or you could write to the teacher and say that you wanted testing, etc. and then they would engage in that screening process and there's a letter that goes home for consent, etc.. So that's really how that process typically goes. And then after the the additional assessments for students once they're in grades 2 to 8. Really? A parent is notified and then services begin. So the one recommended change and we already have a letter explaining this change to all second grade in order to capture more students. Is this shift to all second grade students receiving it for a series of five weeks once a week? Does that answer your question?

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That's helpful.

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Thank you.

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Okay, great. I'm next. Rich.

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Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for going over that. And I have a few questions just to capture some facts. More or less. How many students are we expecting in the program for elementary and middle and then middle school.

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Give me one second and I can give you all the numbers.

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So I don't know. That's not an exact number right now, but more or.

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Less.

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I have an exact number based on based on current enrollment for students that are currently in grades three four, 45. Presently, knowing that they're going to move up. No. I'm sorry. Second grade, second, third and fourth, based on what I did for numbers, for elementary caseloads. So it's.

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Two. I'm doing some math in my head because I didn't I didn't create my total here.

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Sorry I put you on the spot for a big.

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No, no, no, I have them. Don't worry.

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I'd like to, uh.

120
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Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There we go. There you go.

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306 students. Um, in terms of already identified at the elementary level for next year.

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If I were to look at. I just have to give me a second for my middle school numbers.

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So.

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Our grade five numbers were a little inflated this year, but students in grades six, seven and eight for next year total 343. Now that's give or take, if any students. Since I ran these numbers, if any students have been screened to your question Gen and accepted, those numbers may fluctuate, but not by more than maybe ten a number of ten students. Okay, because most.

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Of those numbers. Yeah. So I you know for elementary what worries me is one teacher, three schools. I know you said we're going to manage the caseloads. The schools are manageable. But I'm even thinking that travel between schools how we managing that. How is this affecting the teachers even just their commutes?

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So I drafted schedules off a five day schedule. Um, based on the student numbers in the ratio of groups, a group that doesn't. Dessie defines small group instruction as no more than 12 students. So we're going based on those parameters. Given the number of students identified at a given school in a given grade level, plus the teachers assigned to certain schools in a five day schedule, it is manageable and a teacher would spend a full day at a designated school. Um, for example, barberi is one of our largest schools, right? So given the the number of identified students there, a teacher would need to be there two days. But the other schools that that teacher is paired with would allow for this model to work so that they're only at the other schools one day. And then it gives an additional day that Thursday that we often have half days where that morning time could be used for caseload for either makeup groups or other things. And then it gives the teachers some time to calibrate as a sage team as well. So we did balance that. Now the schedules are by no means finalized until every school is able to finish their standard schedules, which, trust me, it's a puzzle. Some people enjoy those types of puzzles and do a great job with them. Some of it takes us a little bit more time to balance the time on learning. Schedule the blocks unique profiles of students what they can and cannot miss during pull out services. So as we finalize those, we'll know a little bit more and then it gets a little bit more complex, but I think we'll be all right. I went to Potter Road the other day so that we could balance the language allocation plan along with when, when and if we pull out third, fourth and fifth graders to make sure it would work and it wouldn't break the language allocation plan, which basically means students get their services in the language of instruction at that moment. And we we got the schedule to work.

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All right. We'll have to stay in touch with you and check in with you next year to see how this schedule is working. One last question here. You mentioned that the rubric that we were using was not identifying students in the program that was reflective of our student population. In what ways? I assume what the answer is here, but.

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It was less it was less the rubric and more the tools. So as you know, there are some communities and some states that are more progressive than others. Therefore, their tools and the the screeners.

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And.

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What is designed considers the cultural backgrounds, the family backgrounds, and the linguistic backgrounds of students in other spaces. It does not. Um, Massachusetts does not necessarily. Actually, it doesn't recognize talented and gifted programs through D.C., so D.C. does not have particular screeners. Massachusetts is a far more progressive state when it comes to recognizing the cultural linguistic backgrounds of our students. So we have analyzed several screeners to see which ones do. There are not an incredible amount that do that. So what we did last year is we brought in and did some work with a woman named Molly Kellogg. She is a professional development provider that actually does specialize in talented and gifted programs. She works directly with any GC, the National Association of Gifted Children, as well as the Massachusetts um, the magic. So there is an organization, but the organization does not have tools. Um, there is an organization in Massachusetts for gifted children. Um, so what we did was analyze those. And I am by no means an expert on talented and gifted. I really rely on this incredible team of teachers who are so incredibly passionate and know this work deeply. Um, so I just really need to emphasize that. So with Molly Kellogg's expertise as well as our team's expertise, they did a lot of work in analyzing these tools. Molly Kellogg offered us several rubrics that are aligned to iGCSE, um, standards or traits, and we're using those as our rubrics now, which our teachers were always using those, but we may not have had the right other metrics in place. So now we look at three different, um, documents or tools, if you will, to determine whether a student has need. One of those are a standardized screener, another the two other are more project and creative thinker and deep cognitive, um, analytical thinking tools. I'm not going to name them because naturally, um, that can create some, Some.

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Um. What's the word I'm looking for? Um. Well. Bias.

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It could create some bias in the test or in invalidity. So that's why I'm just not naming them. Um, but ultimately those tools are used, um, that really are, um, kind of geared towards finding that. And then at the middle school level, we did identify a screener. It's a one on one tool. So um, we'll be using that for the middle schools in particular through the screening process. That's developmentally appropriate.

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Well, doctor O'Brien, thank you for trying to make this process and especially identifying students even more equitable, because, like you said, pointing out that representing that program, representing a population of students gives all their hope to say, hey, somebody like me is in that group. I want to be part of this program as much as I can. So thank you for giving us this. Mhm.

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All right. Up next Lorena.

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Thank you. Thank you, doctor O'Brien, for this. I really appreciate the work that is going into this and that. You were already thinking of moving into this model prior to any budget discussions. I did want to go a little bit deeper in terms of the demographics. So Miss Lourdes kindly shared the demographics with me a few months back when we were having these these financial conversations, would you be able for constituents to to listen to, to, to you, would you be able to share, um, kind of the current demographics just very quickly, in a very summarized way, if that's easy enough. If not, that's okay.

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Sure.

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Hold on. I do have a table for that.

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So just to provide you, um, maybe if I do a comparison, it will, it will make a little bit more sense. So with a traditional screener, just like one simple screener at one particular school of 111 students that were screened, only two students demonstrated need within what they determine as the threshold, right? So that's fairly about 2% of the population if we look at simple numbers. Adam, don't don't give me like tenths. All right. Work with me on this.

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Um, when we piloted using a different tool or two other tools, the increase in the number of students that were able to demonstrate the need went up to 22%. So that's a 20% increase in that. So that while that doesn't get at the demographic itself when you're thinking about a school like Barbarie, it does address the multilingual component in large ways. Right. When I talked a little bit about why is it not culturally appropriate, one of the tools that we used was about a parent questionnaire. And some of the questions are about how would you describe your child as a student? What are their strengths? What are their areas of, um, you know, that you would celebrate, etc.? Some cultures do not believe in boasting or bragging or identifying strengths. So right out of that one simple question, a child's talents would not be identified, right? And that's not any anything. I'm not saying anything about a culture in particular, but what I'm saying is the system is flawed and it's not taking in the consideration around how different communities view education or what a talent or what an exception is, if that makes sense. If I were going to give you the actual raw values right now, I have to look at a different table for this. So, um, at that same school where only 2% were identified with a single screener and 22%, when we look at this more robust talent development model at that same school, 74 students were identified in like over this year, 22 students, 74 students across grades. Current grades two, three, four, and five are identified among that 74. Only 12 are considered multilingual or emergent bilingual students. So that's only 16% of the student population. Okay. Um, thinking a little bit deeper about that. It only represents 34. So that's approximately 45% of students are identified as Hispanic Latina. Only four students. That's approximately 5% are identified as multi race. 35 of those students are captured, which is 47% are captured as White or Caucasian. Um zero students identified Asian and zero students Black or African American. So that gives you a picture at one school. Um, what that demographic looks like.

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Great. Thank you.

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I can give you overall for the district, but I think like the small bites.

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I think I think I did get it from Miss Lewis, but I just I wanted our constituents to kind of understand what these numbers are and how these reductions for me, they make sense based on the access and that you are actually working to make it more equitable so that everybody or as many kids as possible can enjoy or have access to to safe services. So thank.

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You. Raising that.

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Thank you. Yeah. The other question I wanted to ask you was can you just for our constituents, just very quickly also talk about middle school and the model, which I think is wonderful to tie it in to, to sage. So if you can just very quickly just mtss and all the acronyms as you mentioned.

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So Mtss is the multi-tiered system of support. This is a nationwide, um, system. It's partially built off a response to intervention model, but it's a whole lot more than that. Sarah DeLuca leads this work and she is just absolutely incredible. She built these systems from the ground up with her team. And the middle school model is moving into its third year. And it's been quite a lift. And I credit this to the whole team of EMTs at each of the three middle schools as well. So in terms of what sage will look like, this is fairly new to sage. Cameron was already doing this. They were sort of piloting this model to say, would it work? And that was when, you know, they had a full time sage teacher. So she was monitoring all of this. So we know it works. Um, Walsh started parts of this this year. Part of that was because of the caseload at Walsh. Um, and what we were trying to also lift in the model. And Fuller had sort of a hybrid of starting to do this. So tier one is universal supports. So that is when the sage teacher, this is for the new model. The sage teacher will work with classroom teachers and or push into classrooms to really look at the tier one curriculum. We have high quality instructional materials in all four curriculum areas at the middle school. It is really, really exceptional. It's wonderful. I won't bore you with that, but please invite me back. I'd love to talk about it a little bit more. Very fun. But in that case, the sage teacher serves as a consult to the classroom teachers around how can they really enrich either the tier one curriculum, or create the correct scaffolds to allow that curriculum to really meet the needs of the unique profile? I want to make sure that I highlight the fact that Sage does not identify only academic acceleration for students. It's not just a high achieving student. It could also be a high achieving student who also has other talents and gifts and needs. Some of those may also be social emotional needs that incorporate when you have high expectations for yourself. That can come out as a lot of anxiety, where you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself. So that takes a lot of social emotional goals that need to be put in so that students know how to cope and manage with failure, or cope and manage when they have a lot on their plate and they don't know how to use their executive functioning skills to figure out, what should I do first? I'm so overwhelmed with everything that I have coming at me, so it's really complex. And it's not just about like this one linear way of looking at a student profile. So it would really be about the sage teacher consulting and developing those goals so that all of the classroom teachers have a clear sense of this student profile and how the tier one curriculum can support that. In terms of tier two extension opportunities that would really be designed based on the flex block. Every middle school has a 30 minute flex block built into the schedule six days out of the cycle. Some students receive intervention two days out of that cycle. One day of that cycle is social emotional learning, and then two days of that cycle or three days of that cycle could be something different in this case. Sage would be built in to that flex block, and students who either develop that grade level above grade level, that's that academically advanced student may receive access to extension classes or enrichment classes, while some students who identify that talent and that gift, that uniqueness around developing their linguistic ability, where they can capture languages and learn multiple languages at once, or a student who has a very gifted musical ear, like Doctor Tremblay, for example. Right. That student may receive a specific flex block around the arts, music, theater, etc. and we have, fortunately, teachers with availability in their schedule to provide that during the flex block. Um, and then the tier three enrichment, which again is identified. Who needs tier three based on their unique profile. Based on data based on those MTS meetings that are regularly scheduled. That would be academic referrals or Sage students that need that small group instruction directly from the Sage teacher, which could be additional writing lessons, for example, or specific social emotional lessons or specific academics. And that could happen in the flex block. It could happen as a push in model, or it could happen as a small group pull out model. And that is determined by the unique needs of students. So it's not like one size fits all, if that makes sense.

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Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. This is actually really helpful and digestible. I think sometimes it's difficult for oh.

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I've.

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Never heard caregivers to.

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Any of my presentations. So that's interesting.

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Yeah. Um, no. Thank you so much. This is really helpful. And I think this is also, um, giving me some kind of hope to think that this could also lead to better student outcomes and, you know, better scores, etc., um, when every single child's needs are being evaluated. So thank you. Thank you again for your work. That's all.

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All right. Up next we have Adam.

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Thank you very much, doctor O'Brien and everyone for your work here. This is the type of detailed program review we should be doing often, and I really appreciate it. And having the reoccurring assistant superintendent for pre-K through 12 education. Agenda item this term. It's a really good improvement. I first go back in time a little bit and talk about the universal screening and the impact that that's had since around 2019, and credit to to Miss Lucas at the time then and past school committee members, including Tracy Ryan and Beverly Hugo, who really helped push that that forward. I think that's helped get to some of the better stats that the stats given tonight were much, much worse many years ago. And so there's been some good progress and much more to do around equity. and consistent access to programming. For for the for those who are eligible. I also tonight I'm thinking a little bit more about why we're having this conversation around the budget cut aspect of it, which I see is connected, but really different than the continuous improvements that you're making. Like those are those to me are going to happen now that you're you're moving forward with a different type of plan. I also still worry about the specific impacts primarily. I mean, everywhere, but primarily at the elementary level that has not been hit by enrollment loss in comparison to to other schools. And I'm just wondering, you know, our kids who are currently used to having their teacher, their stage teacher, just like other services, they have the same teacher year after year after year, that continuity at the elementary level, is that being shaken up now because of this budget crisis and the reform? Like, are there some kids who are used to one teacher who are still going to get sage, but they're going to have a different teacher.

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So of course, because we've lost two teachers, two teachers that served two schools each. So the the three teachers that are remaining are able to remain at either one or both of their currently served schools in the in. It just so happens that when you the budget reductions we cannot select which teachers remain which schools get to keep their teacher. It's all based on seniority, right? So naturally, by the math, when you have nine schools being served by five teachers and two go away, naturally four schools are not going to have their same consistent sage teacher.

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Understood.

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And well, again, some of these reforms are good. And this is your your. You gave all the right disclaimers at the beginning. You're doing this because it's in a way forced not to use that exact term, but you know, this is not preferred. And so I wonder, in light of the fact that we're not getting any additional funding, and I appreciate the effort made last night by five city councilors to to try to restore the specific program. You know, of all the different cuts on our list of 31, this to me rises to to to the top understanding everything is important. And you know my my next question and it might be my last question, but I'll have a closing thought, is if there was a way to identify some funding to preserve the elementary level positions, is there a domino effect, like could you separate elementary sage staffing with middle school sage staffing? Like if you only had enough money to adjust in one area, could that work?

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Well, my wondering with that would be, um, we just went over caseload numbers. So right now we have one sage teacher to every 100 students at the elementary level. And when we're talking about middle school, we have one teacher for 300 plus students. So I think it would depend on what we're trying to preserve. Um, in terms of direct student service.

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Sure. And where I'm going with this is I mean, I still have a gap in my own mind, but I've identified $74,000 of $136,000 gap. So the elementary gap that I confirmed earlier tonight was of the the five current Sage positions, if there was an effort to restore two of them, it would cost 136,725. And I've gotten halfway there in my own brain of a concept. But I'm just wondering, like if that actually happened, like if the money was there. Is that the right area versus middle school and what would that actually mean to help you move forward on your implementation plan but keep students with their current teachers and keep the ratios as close to this year as possible at the elementary level.

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I understand the question.

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I totally understand your question, and I understand where you're going. I'm just going to elaborate a little bit on what doctor O'Brien just shared. So when we look at the number of students that each sage teacher would need to serve elementary, it would be 100 students, approximately 100 students per teacher. And at the middle school it would be 300 students for that one teacher. The one place where we have to get creative is I'm going to again, it all goes back to what is the caseload at each individual school. And at Walsh, they are the largest school. They also have the largest. My correct percentage of students that are identified as talented and gifted that receive sage services. So at Walsh, we've always I mentioned this before. None of our Sage teachers have a certificate or license in gifted and talented teaching, so it's not a requirement. As you heard doctor O'Brien say, this is not a kind of an identified program with the Department of Education. So there are no licensure requirements, which means any teacher can be trained and teach provide services in sage. Not ideal. You want teachers that have chosen this as their path, right? Chosen this as the direction they want to go with their career. But at Walsh, in order to ensure we're providing as much opportunity for as many students as possible, we do plan to utilize teachers that don't have full schedules. So if there's a teacher who's only teaching, say, 60 or 70% of their time, but they're paid as a full time teacher, they're going to work with a sage teacher, co teach with the sage teacher, be coached by the sage teacher so that they can take on some some of the sage services themselves. Not the tier three necessarily, but the tier one, maybe some tier two services, because we do see that. That's an incredible number of students for one teacher to see at the middle school level. So if kind of like if we were kind of forced to pick in terms of where the, the, um, caseload demand would be, I'd say I'd rather have a trained and skilled sage teacher working with sage students right out of the gate, rather than having to take somebody who maybe didn't choose that path, but is doing it because there's room in their schedule. And right now that would be at the middle school level. Now, the people that I have in mind will be incredible at this, but again, it isn't necessarily the path that they chose, if that makes sense.

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Yeah. So I.

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Had that stat.

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Of the elementary.

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Fiscal impact.

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Of 136,725. Do you know what the middle school fiscal impact would be?

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The middle school teachers are one is One is going to be teaching, has accepted a teaching position in a middle school. The other one was non pts.

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However is placed at an elementary school.

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Fabulous. Yes, the other one is placed at an elementary school. So again the sage teachers haven't. They're still being going to be working in the district, which means they've bumped other people. I just don't know the fact.

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They went into a vacancy. But as you know, classroom.

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Classes, I guess what I'm simply getting at.

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Is.

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Understanding.

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There's no new money, but I do have 74,000 in my mind that I can explain if there's ever an appetite for. But that 74,000, like the entire sage cut, is 280 K. If there's a way to preserve a little bit of middle school or a little bit of elementary school, that's what I'm trying to get at, because I think that's where our conversation should be as a group. We should we should be praising your reforms, but separately, we should be trying to preserve teachers who are currently in front of students that the students want them to be at in front of next year. So I'm wondering what the fiscal impact would be of middle school. And then I'll pause and let others talk and maybe go back to this before we leave the agenda item. Thank you.

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Yes. So middle school is the same 136 725.

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Thank you.

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All right. Next up we have Brent.

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Thank you for the report. Much like our Mandarin program, we had tremendous parent and student turnout and advocacy for this program. Has this change been communicated with parents yet or will it be soon?

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I think we were waiting for everything to really be final before we sent out any notifications. So after tonight, now that you're all informed and if there was any comments from you or adjustments that needed to be made at that time, then we will communicate to families hopefully by the end of tomorrow, but if not early next week.

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Perfect. Um, I'm also curious, uh, when we made the transition to the five day preschool model, we had intentional conversations with folks. Obviously, we don't have the timeline to do the same thing with our sage teachers, but I would hope that conversations will happen with them in the fall to see how this program is going and that we could get some updates.

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Sure. I do want to note I met with every sage teacher, especially at the elementary level, multiple times, but one on one and then as a team. And that was of course difficult because as people sat at the table, they knew they weren't returning to that role. But again, they are such incredible professionals that they weighed in and they offered their advice and shared some things that they had hoped for. And of course, this proposal for the grade two model, in order to really make sure that, Um, again. What's always been at the center of their work is that we've recognized the inequities of our screening process, and then really looking to capture more students based on their culturally and linguistic, um, exceptions. These are also really important. And I will say, like, we're not there yet. We we have it at the center of our work. Um, but as you know, like we're not there. If we were, this would look our demographics would look much different. So we're trying and again, also making sure we're meeting the needs of our dual language program is something else that we really need to work on, right? We do have an incredible sage teacher who is bilingual. So she serves our Spanish schools dual language programs, but we don't yet have that for our Portuguese dual language program. So again, an mentioned that people need to like want this role. Um, and with that said, there are also unique nuances to our program, and that linguistic talent of speaking multiple languages is also something we constantly look for when we try and advertise for new teachers, when we when we have vacancies. But again, we have a great team who's been around for a long time, which is also great because then they are really passionate about the work and can bring that joy to every lesson that makes students really enjoy it. So, um, but we will continue to track data. We'll set a goal around some of the growth that we're looking for and, and can report that or invite me by all means to report that out to you on a regular basis.

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I appreciate that. Similarly, I think the restorative interventionist positions an update on Mandarin as we enter the fall and see how our adjustments are impacting our student body. I think it will be helpful for the committee to hear how these changes are going. From your perspective, I would also love for parents to reach back out. I know they're passionate folks. Um, just as we begin to craft an FY 28 budget, I know it will be similarly challenging, but there was appetite amongst the some of the city council, uh, to provide extra funding for this, uh, and for some of the other key positions that we've lost. And I think if those are priorities, that and we are seeing significant losses or gaps that, uh, this is something we should be mindful of as we craft our budget. The last thing I will just comment on quickly, um, some of the richness, some of my favorite events that I've gone to in this role have been the night programs. Uh, similarly, the Mandarin program at Walsh, they did a performance around the Chinese New Year. Uh, I know with budget cuts, some of these things will be difficult to replicate. But they are such gifts to our district and really showcase some of the skills of our teachers and our students. As much as possible, I would love for those things to continue.

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So, as you know, each night is remarkable. It's also an incredible amount of work, both for students and for the educators. So that is something that will investigate throughout the year of how closely we can come to making that happen. But that is one of the things that we may not be able to guarantee because of the amount of work both on the student behalf and the teacher behalf. I say that because the projects, the I stands for several things, right inquiry, investigation and independence. And what we mean by that is, uh, right now students do some of that work in school, and a lot of that work at home. And it requires the investment also of families to provide that additional support. Some students don't have the same access as others, so with not as much access to their teachers, um, for insight projects for that independent piece or that additional consult time. Um, we want to make sure again, when it comes to equity, that all children have access and opportunity, and we wouldn't want to create a situation where some students aren't able to engage as a result of not having the same resources. So we want to do some investigation before we make a promise or a falsehood of whether that will continue at the scale and scope. Because if we can't do it well, we don't want to, um, we just don't want to water something down. We want the depth and complexity that it's supposed to be, to be, if that makes sense.

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That's perfectly understandable. Thank you.

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Thanks.

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All right, Kyle, you're up.

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Thank you. Um, and you mentioned, um, at the middle school level, utilizing teachers who don't have full schedules to co teach sage. Is there a if you could talk a little bit about the curriculum, is there a standardized Sage curriculum for middle school or are they actually utilizing the specialties of those teachers?

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So the Sage teachers that are currently at the middle school, they collaborate and use similar projects, but there is not a Sage curriculum per se, in the same way that there is a reading, a math, a science, and a social studies curriculum. So it's largely project based. Um, and then both the the teacher sort of leans into the talents and uniqueness of that class to build in some of those projects. Um, at the middle school level. So when you talk about the other teachers that we would fill, again, I keep using this word talents, right? Because there are students that have unique talents or very have exceptions, right. In those exceptions. Let's say our music. So while there is no talented and gifted curriculum, if a student is showing a, um, you know, a musical talent, then by all means a music teacher is actually better to serve that student, right? A student who learns languages very quickly, right? Or has a linguistic sense or an interest in cultures and communities. A world language teacher might better serve that child based on their interests, because one of a feature of a talented and gifted student is that they're often very much connected or interested in abstract thinking or in, um, not always persevering over one particular topic, but perhaps on like population statistics, for example. Right. If I'm interested in demographics and population statistics, I'm probably better served by an economist or a humanities teacher. Right. Because they're going to be able to support that. So I think the benefits of the middle school program is that we can really tie in to specialties that students show interest in, and the specialties of teachers at a middle school who do have a precise specialization in a field or an area.

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That's really good. Thank you.

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Well, thank you so much for coming, and we really appreciate your update. And I think engaging on the interest of the committee, maybe we'll have you back again at some point to discuss more and to see how this is rolling out. And we appreciate all the work and the planning and preparation.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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As doctor O'Brien packs up, I'm going to say it's okay for her to leave and go home to her family.

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Thank you so much.

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For doing so much.

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Don't we all hope?

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And I will say I should have mentioned this earlier about Mandarin. The high school Mandarin teacher has expressed interest in running a club at Walsh after school, so there will be some enrichment there as well.

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Awesome. That's great. And with am I correct in saying that this closes out your report and we're going to go to the annual and okay. Thank you so much. We're going to go on to the annual report on the conditions of schools. Kyle, I didn't give you a heads up, but do you want to spearhead this one just as the building and grounds chair say a couple words and then we can turn it over to Lincoln if you want. No pressure.

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Sure. Um, when the building and Grounds subcommittee met, we went over the the condition of the schools in detail, and I'm not looking at that information right now, but link has it, and he can, uh, he can, uh, take it from here.

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Sure. No problem. Yeah. So in your packet is the actual presentation that we went through. The Bag subcommittee hopefully had a chance to take a look at it, but this is our annual report that we do every year. Just lists every school. What capital funding is there, what we've done in the past just to go through it again. Hopefully you had a chance to take a look, but just really wanted to point out we've got 17 buildings, over one point 7,000,000ft², plus the grounds that are custodians. Our maintenance crew take care of day in and day out for 12 months a year, and they do an amazing job. You know, they've got two months over the summer to get major projects done. And on top of that, keep the schools clean, have them ready for the first day of school. Just a couple projects to note that we'll be doing over the next couple of years. And this is all in the presentation. We'll be going through the paving stormwater and solar design at barberry this summer. We'll be replacing a lift at King. We will be going through phase two of a roof replacement at juniper, and then the following summer, uh, two roof replacements at Brophy and Potter. Uh, and again. Um, these are just the major projects that we have, uh, coming down the pike the next two summers or so. So I guess I'll take any questions on that report.

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Go ahead. Brent.

200
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I know Doctor Tremblay mentioned air conditioning in our buildings. And as we have a heating world. Um, I'm just wondering if air conditioning for some of our old buildings that do not have it as part of our capital investment plan.

201
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At this moment in the near future? No. Um, some of those projects we just did. McCarthy. It's a multi-million dollar. Um, so, you know, I think it's a good discussion that we have. You know, you spend $5 million on doing AC in a building for the beginning and the end of the school year. Or do we put money aside for a roof? So it's something we can definitely discuss as we go through the FY 28 process and for the long term capital project. But the goal is to make as many cool areas in every building as possible. So we do that in small phases. You know, we'll put AC units in windows, students that need it and things like that. But yeah, not every school is fully Asid.

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Okay. Thank you.

203
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You're welcome. Okay. Go ahead. Adam.

204
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So I'm I'm sorry. I just step back into water. And so just on the conditions report, right?

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Yeah, we just covered that, and we moved on.

206
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Are we completely done?

207
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Do you want to ask a question about the conditions?

208
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I'm sorry if I, if I could just two. Two follow up. I was on the subcommittee, which I appreciate the chance to do a deep dive then. So I'm not going to, you know, cover the specific topics I mentioned there. I'm wondering simply if there could be a report now that the budget season is over, maybe before the next school year on the Wi-Fi and self-service implementation plan. That continues to be something that clear communication would be helpful. It's not fair for my own impression that if my phone using one carrier isn't working at one time, but someone else is isn't too, and someone else is like, what is the actual impact of the $500,000 that was spent at the schools with the largest problems, I continue to feel that Walsh has something going on in that region, because it's not just inside the building, it's the parking lot. And I just want to encourage, like, I don't know if it's been done as part of that study, which is why I'd love us all to have a report of what is the actual problem and who needs to be involved to solve it, and what money beyond what was already given. Because remember, your department was limited. You asked for 2 million. We voted for it. The mayor approved it. City council cut 75%. Gave you 500 K, And so now, two years later, Wi-Fi service at multiple schools is still a struggle. But Walsh is the big one, and it's the one where you can't even use Venmo consistently at the snack bar. And so that's a revenue generator, and that's annoying. And people are missing out on school performances, right? And so this is my long way of simply saying we need to understand what the problem is outside the building and inside the building, and understand what can be done in future capital budgets or collaboration with outside providers, if that's what it takes to have an equity model at our middle schools where all three schools. If you want to make a phone call, if you want to use your WiFi, you can do it. And I'm talking mostly about after hours. I'm not talking about kids and cell phones. That's a different issue. I'm talking about schools as community hubs when we are having drama competitions and showing off our schools, and if it's at one school, everyone's fine with cell service, and if it's another school, it's miserable and family and embarrassing

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and it's not embarrassing because your department. It's embarrassing because of the technology gaps in the region and the budget cut that has not allowed you to fix it, in my opinion.

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Received. And yes, we'll put a report together, but I think there is something in the area around Walsh. Dunning. Edgell Brook there's you lose self service in that whole area. So I don't know if it's specific to the building. And I think out of the building it's out of our control. But we can certainly look into it and see what's going on.

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Yeah, absolutely.

212
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And again the funding for the for the project was meant for inside the building. Sometimes I can go through the bricks, but that's my focus. Right. But if there's something that's part of a comprehensive fix that if you're going to get new money and or do new things inside of a building, and some of these could be those boosters that cost 40 bucks at a store, like we're not talking millions of dollars in my mind. But if there's something outside those buildings that are going to make those boosters still not work, we need to know that. That's my point on that. So thank you for being open to it. Um, as well as kind of looking into what was already done. And, you know, is connecting to Wi-Fi something that just can be improved, too, because people can get cell service that way, and that could be the Venmo fix. But as you're logging in in the auditorium, when you leave the auditorium to go pay at the at the snack bar, you have to log in again and it might not work. And so that's not just me, but hearing the constant theme talk to the PTO president recently. You know others. It's happening. Costly. My last question is maybe it's a report, maybe it's a future agenda item. Let in the schools. I know that your team has done a lot with lead water issues. Monitoring closely, making sure things are safe. Are the filters being replaced quick enough? You know, are the test scores where they should be? I'd love to have a little bit more information on those.

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Yeah, I mean I think that's a large discussion we have. Our reports are public for anyone to see. We've shared it with many different people and any issues that we've seen. We've either taken them offline or replace them with filters or water filling stations. So at this time, as far as I know, we have addressed all of the issues we made most sinks, handwashing only. So we have signage in every school. Um, and you're right, we've done a lot of work, put a lot of funding into it to make our schools safe.

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Great. Thank you for everything. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to everyone on the grounds department who helps do this work. Custodians, HVAC, everyone. It's tremendous work and I want to help give them more resources. And it's a continuous struggle in many areas. Thank you.

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All right. Closing it out. Up next is Sy Fox. So updating the schools appointments to the two seats of the Strategic Initiatives and Financial Oversight Committee. Sy Foxx so it was voted to have a subcommittee to review the applicants, but nobody volunteered to be part of the subcommittee. Um, I put it on you. Um, so the agenda item was placed on the agenda just to have a discussion of how you want to move forward. Um, and we could do the interviews in open session. I'm going to open it up in a in a second. Um, we didn't list the names of the applicants on the agenda. Um, so I won't be bringing them up today, but there are four applications to new from the deadline extension for the school committee at large seat. An additional applicant was interested in either the mayor of the school committee or at large. Um, another was interested in the city council and mayor seats first, but then the school committee business or at large seat. And there are two new applicants who the city is waiting on hearing from which seat they are interested in. So, um, how do we want to proceed? Does anyone want to open it up for discussion?

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Any passionate sidewalk people?

217
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Didn't the last time that we had people who did the interview process and then brought the recommendation to us. Yes. With the subcommittee?

218
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Yes. We can also just do it in open session two. If no one wants to do a subcommittee.

219
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Anybody want to do subcommittee?

220
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No, I already asked.

221
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I'll do it.

222
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Subcommittee.

223
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Not by myself, but I'll do it.

224
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Judy.

225
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All right. Let's see who else wants to.

226
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See a little bit more about the timeline and when the subcommittee would need to meet to have these seats filled in time.

227
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Well, we were getting clarification from Kate Fallon on if the current seats would remain in place until they were, but I think this should be sooner than later. So I would say if we were able to get it in before July 15th, the subcommittee to have the recommendation for the 15th, I think that would be best.

228
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I'm happy to.

229
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Help. Okay, Brent, I have two.

230
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Don't we have the questions already?

231
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I already have the questions.

232
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Yes, we can just if you want to, we can send those over. And if you wanted to go through them or have the subcommittee decide, so we'll get all the applicants lined up. Kyle. You're into.

233
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Yeah, I can do it. I hope my wife's not watching.

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We have three. All right. Um, who wants to chair it? Rock, paper, scissors. Three way rock. You want to chair it? Okay. Any objection to Judy chairing the subcommittee? Okay. Awesome. Judy. All right. We have a subcommittee formed. Okay. So we'll get the applicants ready. You'll have a subcommittee, and then we'll also send you for packet materials. Two questions, maybe two meetings. We'll see. One to maybe read the questions. And I think last time we vetted the questions before we actually interviewed people. Okay. All right. Success. Counting that. We're moving on. Executive order. Anything else before I close that one out? Okay. Open meeting. You can't just. Could have been an email. I know, but I can't do it. Executive director of finance and operations. Back to you, Lincoln.

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Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, first up is capital. We kind of went over that with the annual condition of buildings. But just a reminder, $2.2 million was passed. Uh, a couple of weeks ago for FY 27 projects. Uh, so we'll be using that funding this summer to build playgrounds, pre-K, playgrounds at Harmony. McCarthy will be resurfacing the back gym at the high school, and we will be replacing the HVAC at Cameron. So a lot of, uh, capital projects going on over the two months, over the summer. Um, on top of, um, the other projects that we discussed a little bit earlier. Uh, FY 28 capital is being discussed now internally, and we'll be having discussions with the subcommittee and the full committee, probably at the end of the summer, uh, very early fall to submit. Uh, early on in that process. So more discussion to come on FY 28. Any questions on capital?

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Okay. All right. Next is, uh, FY 26 operating. There is a memo in your packet. Uh, and it does talks a little bit about, uh, projections where we are, where I think we're going to end. So if you remember, we took some risk for FY 27, and we included 500,000 in F of available balance in FY 26 that carried out FY 27. So the goal is to have a $500,000 surplus or available balance at the end of this fiscal year. I'm projecting that it that we will hit that number. Uh, we're a little bit under on our salary balance. If you remember, we need $5.75 million in turnover savings to balance. I think we're going to come up a little bit short. Uh, the biggest payroll of the year is happening, um, early next week. So I'll have a much, much better sense of what's happening after that payroll hits, but we have savings in other areas and expenses. We put the budget slowdown. So that helped tremendously to balance the budget. And then we have a little bit in circuit breaker. So my projection now is a $591,000 carryover from 26 to 27, which will allow for the balancing of FY 27. So we continue to work to close out purchase orders as fast as we can and then closed out 26, all while we're opening 27 and now putting together FY 28. So we've got three different fiscal years going on right now. Any questions on 20 FY 26 O there is a request for a motion. Uh, I do this every year. Anytime I need to transfer funds between expenses and salaries, I need to come to the committee. I rarely ever do that, but this motion, if passed, will allow me to transfer that just to close out the, the, um, FY 26, um, the fiscal year. So if Madam Chair, if there's.

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Yeah, we put it together. I have a great year. Do I read it? I'll read it for the record. Thank you. So the motion is to allow Mr. Lynch to make any transfers of funds between salaries and expenses of the operating budget as necessary to close out the 2025 2026 fiscal year. All remaining funds in the FY 26 balance column at fiscal year closeout are to be moved through journal entries to the FY 26 Circuit Breaker account to cover unanticipated FY 27 special education, tuition or transportation related costs to balance the FY 27 school budget, per the School Committee's June 3rd, 2027 vote.

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So moved.

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Second.

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Moved by Kyle. Seconded by Willie. Any discussion? Adam.

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Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, motion looks great, except for it should be June 3rd, 2026. And then my comment is the new CFO, Mr. Lynch is aware of this. When I had my introductory conversation with him, he was curious about a little bit of the history here and why this process exists. And I feel like it's a great model. And credit to Mr. Lynch and previous committees for putting this in place to have these monthly updates leading up to our budget vote, and then have this type of transparency on a budget analysis memo for this move. I would love the new CFO. While this is very much outside of my lane to project end of year available balance on city side departments as well because it really helps us know that insight before the budget process that just happened, if we had known that stat going forward, I actually think the conversation will change. I'm going to go out on a limb right now and say there's at least a $3 million surplus coming back to the city over the July and August timeline, and if memos like this were in place, then that would help. What just happened the last few days? Thank you.

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Motion on the floor will go. All those in favor? Any further discussion? All those in favor? Raise your hand. All right. 900 passes.

243
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That's great. Thank you for your support. Uh, next on the agenda is the FY 27 operating budget. So the council voted last night, six five, to approve the overall city operating budget for FY 27. Part of that, of course, is our budget. So it's $187,418,448.

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It's a 2.24% increase, or a $4.1 million addition to this current year's budget. So $187.4 million for next year. And we have talked at length about the FY 27 budget. So if there's any questions or not, we're on to FY 28.

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Are you okay?

246
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What? I asked the last meeting. I would ask again. Is there anything new? Since we met two weeks ago? When it comes to staff shifts, new retirements, new turn, new turnover. That helps any way. I know we just voted on on the the end of year balance that had 508,000 versus 500,000. So that's at least $8,000 change. Is there anything else in recent days that might be happening to help? In a good way?

247
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Yeah, I'm I'm sure there are some changes, but my recommendation is any changes like that need to contribute to the 5.75 million in turnover savings I show in my projections in FY 26. We're coming up a little short. So as the staff that are paid at a high level leave, we hire the lower paid staff. That's saving shrinks every year. And I think you're going to see that in my FY 28 budget proposal that that turnover savings is going to shrink. So my recommendation is any savings we see there contributes to that. Just so we end in the black for FY 27 and not in the red.

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I totally understand if it somehow gets to a higher number than expected, which again, I don't think it's going to happen. Don't create false hope. It has happened four years ago, in five years ago. And so yes, we should revisit some of the list of 31 if possible later on. Understanding planning for the school year already happened. I. I also will flag that. I think, you know, to my point earlier that there's some new changes year to year or month to month, day to day. I mean, is, you know, there was a new Hemmingway principle change and that comes with a $16,000 plus up versus one salary of a of a veteran educator and a new acting inter or interim. So those are the type of things that that can help Going forward. So thanks for that conversation.

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Understood.

250
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Okay.

251
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Okay.

252
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Alrighty.

253
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Last but not least, is the transition.

254
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Point of information on that conversation. What conversation? The transfer of the salary change. Can you clarify what you said? That conversation.

255
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Not sure which which aspect you mentioned.

256
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Hemingway principle. Leadership change. Oh, yeah. Cost savings. And I'm just wondering what the conversation was you're referring to.

257
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Yes. So my my question. Um, what I asked at the last meeting before our budget votes was about have any new staffers put in their retirement notice? And if so, that's where we have our budget line item of 5.75 million. And are there new staffers that if they're leaving at a higher salary and then being replaced by lower salary individuals while there's, you know, a loss of institutional knowledge and other aspects from a fiscal standpoint only that. Is money that we then have to repurpose for something else.

258
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I'm just wondering if I'm just looking back, and I didn't know if the Hemingway that made it to a form of formal number that was shared with the with the school committee.

259
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So that's new between meetings.

260
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Okay.

261
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Thank you. You can continue.

262
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Okay.

263
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So the transportation update, uh, before we get to the report, I just want to remind anyone watching out there that we do have the bus registration deadline. Uh, it is this Thursday, June 18th. June? Yeah. June 18th. Um, you can access the registration on the transportation page of the website. Um, just some stats. And we committed to, like, a strong push of, uh, reminders and information We've sent out a total of 61 messages through district and principal newsletters, reminders through Parent Square since April 26th. So we're really trying to get as many registrations as we can. June 18th, with a new deadline in the middle of August to get roots to families, we need to hold the deadline. So we pull, um, pull the registration early. Uh, what has been a little confusing, and we just recently sent out some messaging this week, and we've we've talked at length here. Uh, I'm not sure I did the best job of communicating to families, uh, about the automatic assigning of K to six students. So we've talked here about how instead of everyone signing up for the bus, K to six students that live over two miles, by law, we have to transport them. We are going to put them on buses. We have recently sent out an opt out form. So if Bob doesn't need a bus to Brophy but he lives over two miles, he's going to opt out. So I'm going to take him off the list. So we're we're getting a lot of families to fill that out. Now, over the next couple of days, we're going to continue to remind families to do that. Just so if you don't need a bus, you're automatically assigned. We can take you off and get someone who's ineligible on a bus. We have over 4100 registrations so far, and the registrations and opt outs continue to come in. So the communication will be much better next year. But we are we're getting the response that we want. And that's really good because we want to get as many students on buses as we can, especially with our new buses. That Doctor Tremblay mentioned earlier, we have 86 new buses coming. I think so far I think we have 19 delivered to the Farley Building. We're going to be running 21 buses this summer. For summer programs and camps. But all those buses will be here in the next week or two. I'm working with NRT. They will be removing their buses by June 30th. Out of the 185 Fountain Street, the bus lot. When that happens, we will be working with Nets New England Transit to move the new buses onto the the 185 Fountain Street location. So.

264
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Um, Lynn, can I ask you a question? Do we confirm that we're going to have the new fleet in place for the start of the school year?

265
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Absolutely, yes. Yep. They it's been it's been really great to work with this new vendor. They've communicated to us throughout the process. They built all the buses, I think down in South Carolina or North Carolina. And they've kept us updated, getting radios in our new web based system. So pulling video is going to be 100 x easier than it is now, where we have to physically wait for the bus to come back to the yard, pull out the tape. Now it is live. We can see every seat. Um, so it is going to be a drastic change. You can tell I'm very excited about these buses. Good. It's kind of our last. Our last step. But the next step for our in-house process to have our own buses. Um, and I think I think drivers are excited, too. Um, and I'm really confident at the driver count number that we're going to hit next year. I think we are going to hit our mark. Um, maybe not the first day, but within the first couple of months. Um, so things are moving in a positive direction in transportation compared to what they used to be.

266
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Perfect. Thank you.

267
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All right. Anybody else for transportation? Adam.

268
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Go ahead.

269
02:04:27,000 --> 02:04:57,467
Thank you very much. Really exciting milestone to be moving away from that other contract to this new lease. Appreciate what you did there. Um, two quick things on those new buses that are coming in. Can you confirm the, uh, the camera related technology around the, you know, outside the buses for traffic safety as well as, uh, inside the buses for the tracking app? How are those hopefully going to be implemented? And then I have one quick follow up on a different aspect.

270
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Yep. So the tracking app will work exactly how it is working now. Hopefully it will be up and running a lot more than it has been in the last two months. But in the bid requirements, we required the new buses to tie into the system that the parents are using now. So it's we don't have to change the second piece, uh, exterior cameras. Right. So they are equipped for the cameras to be added. They are not on there now. It is a discussion with the police department that we still need to have whether we are going to implement those or not, because they're going to be the ones that are enforcing it. So in the bid process, the buses had to have been, um, able to add those cameras so they can be added at any time.

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So would that be a future school committee policy or regulation of the district decision that needs to be vetted as a new statewide state law initiative?

272
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Yeah, and I think the police department needs to be involved. Absolutely. From the beginning.

273
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Yeah. Agreed on that collaboration. Okay. And then my final question is around the, um, registration. Just a thank you for all the different dozens of communications. I finally listened to one and did over the weekend. Uh, and, um, I think the opt out is a really innovative idea. And so I'm just wondering if you can kind of get back to us on how how it went after the process. Um, and if there's a way for schools to remind people to. So it's kind of this multi-pronged approach to kind of go through that list and make sure that no one is missing that, and then they're assigned a route and that's a seat for someone else. And then finally, one of our colleagues, Lorena, was at the multilingual event night, and I walked in and she was like translating and helping people. And this came up and the follow up communication. I just want to give you some credit for having an impact on. So thank you.

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Thank you. All right. Next up, Brent followed by Lorena.

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I just wanted to follow up on seeing the bus registration support that's been at some of our parent facing events, I think has been terrific. I would love if we could do this at parent teacher conferences in April. Just more ways to provide in-person support for folks so they don't have to find their Aspen number, and they can have folks help navigate the system, I think would be helpful.

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Thank you. Up next, Lorena.

277
02:07:20,067 --> 02:08:29,100
Yeah, that's a great idea. Actually, yes. Huge shout out to the multilingual department. It was a great event. Very well attended. Um, my question is, is there any way to make registration easier? Because even though I have a phone, I know how to use the internet, I know my accounts, etc. it's it's just still not very user friendly. Is there an easier way for both you but also for caregivers to to register. So currently the instructions are you need your last number and your password. If you don't have it and you don't speak English well, or you don't have a phone with full access to the internet, that's kind of a problem. Um, and then if you do get in, there's an error message that you have to ignore, but then you. So it's not, like, super, um, intuitive, I think. Um, so I wonder if there's any an easier way to do it. And maybe it has to be done this way. So that's why I'm asking. Um, and then, uh, what was the other thing I was going to say? Um, I forgot, but I'll start with that.

278
02:08:29,100 --> 02:09:02,868
Yeah. So as far as the registration for now, we can't change it for this year. But it is something that yeah, we can look into for the FY 28 school year. I've received the feedback from some people similar to what you just described. So we want to make it as easy as possible and get as many students on the bus. So we'll work to make it easier. And if it's if it's changing the system and how we do it, there might be a cost associated with it. But if it creates a better user friendly experience for our families, then I think it's worth it. Yeah.

279
02:09:02,868 --> 02:09:32,267
So yes, that sounds great. I think it's there has to be a happy medium, right? Something that works for them and something that works for you all. I remembered my question. So tomorrow is the deadline to register for people who are not eligible for buses. What happens if people miss the deadline? Because again, these different barriers. Is there any wiggle room? Is there any other other like a plan B for somebody who's like, I actually missed it, but I got lost, but I really need the bus.

280
02:09:32,267 --> 02:10:10,567
So that's a tough one. Every year we do have a grace period, but that is why roots are so late to families. So I've tried to get ahead of this with this committee a year ago saying, I need your support to hold the line on the 18th. I think 61 reminders to our families is really helpful to get them to hit the deadline. We'll send another reminder out tomorrow, maybe two. Um, but there's always situations that we work with. Families. Yeah. You know.

281
02:10:10,567 --> 02:10:24,767
Yeah, I think improving the, the actual, um, platform to register might really help. So yes, definitely report back on the opt out. I am also interested.

282
02:10:24,767 --> 02:10:25,267
Thank you.

283
02:10:25,267 --> 02:10:25,567
Okay.

284
02:10:25,567 --> 02:10:30,200
Thanks.

285
02:10:30,200 --> 02:10:32,367
Okay. Okay.

286
02:10:32,367 --> 02:10:33,901
Transportation.

287
02:10:33,901 --> 02:10:34,801
Done.

288
02:10:34,801 --> 02:12:37,167
Oh, yeah. So. Yeah. The report that's in your packet. Uh, that's our the in and out report through, I believe, through June 10th. Um, so again, it's kind of a trend that's happening. Element elementary, middle and high school in the morning. We are on time which hasn't happened in previous years. So we are getting students to school on time. When you start looking in the afternoon, which we set the parameter of ten minutes after the last bell. Uh, might be something we should look at in the future if I have to continue these reports. Um, but it does show a high percentage of buses late to some certain schools. And the schools that are late are the ones that we double up. Uh, so you'll see, Hemmingway, uh, is late. Um, and, uh, what's the other high one? Dunning is is late because they go to a school before they pick up the students. King Dunning they go to King, pick up, go to Dunning, pick up. So what we're going to look to do next year is split those and give schools their own buses. That will dramatically change these percentages. It might be a two year phase in to get rid of the two doubled up schools. But Angela is working on that now, and the hope is at least one of those doubled up schools. We can split up and then we'll work on it throughout the year. But with more buses, more drivers, the flexibility is going to be there to drive these numbers down. But we are aware of the afternoon percentages and how they're not great. Another thing to note I mentioned a little bit earlier was the Edge Log app has been down for way too many days the past month or two, so we're working with the company on that. It. It pulls from the sonar system on the buses. So it's not an internal thing for us. It's an external. So we're working with those vendors. It's a little out of our hands, but they know the urgency link.

289
02:12:37,167 --> 02:12:43,701
Can I just ask you a quick question? With knowing that we should hit our target with the amount of buses.

290
02:12:43,701 --> 02:12:44,000
For.

291
02:12:44,000 --> 02:12:48,868
August. Is that the 72 buses?

292
02:12:48,868 --> 02:12:49,667
77.

293
02:12:49,667 --> 02:13:00,567
So if we're at 77 buses, how many buses do we need in order to break all of the doubled up buses?

294
02:13:00,567 --> 02:13:12,467
It's to be determined because it's really based on how many students are requesting it from every school. So I can't give you an exact number. Now, ideally it would be 77. We wouldn't have to add any more.

295
02:13:12,467 --> 02:13:13,100
Okay.

296
02:13:13,100 --> 02:13:17,000
Because knowing that we're down to 750 kids that we are.

297
02:13:17,000 --> 02:13:17,400
Yep.

298
02:13:17,400 --> 02:13:23,868
And at that 77, I would think that we'd be able to split all of those runs at 77 if we're at 77.

299
02:13:23,868 --> 02:13:39,167
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the hope. But even we're down 757 students, we're still transporting over 5000. Right. You know, so the need is still there and we're that number hasn't dropped significantly like enrollment has.

300
02:13:39,167 --> 02:13:44,000
So thank you.

301
02:13:44,000 --> 02:13:44,467
Okay.

302
02:13:44,467 --> 02:13:46,267
All right.

303
02:13:46,267 --> 02:13:48,367
Sounds great. I'm all set. Thank you for your support.

304
02:13:48,367 --> 02:13:49,567
Thank you.

305
02:13:49,567 --> 02:13:54,367
Subcommittee reports. I'll turn it over to Willie for report of the warrants.

306
02:13:54,367 --> 02:14:04,067
Thank you, Madam Chair, for the warrants. Total. We have a total of $2,331,652.38,

307
02:14:04,067 --> 02:14:12,267
and a payroll total of $6,625,274.72

308
02:14:12,267 --> 02:14:19,167
on the date of June 1st, in June 8th. Thank you.

309
02:14:19,167 --> 02:14:22,601
All right.

310
02:14:22,601 --> 02:14:28,167
Judy. You're up. Yeah. Tech quarterly report. School committee liaison update.

311
02:14:28,167 --> 02:14:37,467
Yeah. Just a reminder that that tech, the Education collaborative fourth quarter report is in your packets for you to review.

312
02:14:37,467 --> 02:14:39,667
Thank you. Policy, Jen.

313
02:14:39,667 --> 02:16:01,100
Thank you. Uh, the policy subcommittee met on June 16th and reviewed several policies based on recent updated DC mask guidance, including policy restraint of students in the Framingham Public Schools, which has a new proposed policy name of timeout, seclusion, and physical restraint. This policy was previously reviewed and approved by the Health and Wellness Subcommittee on May 18th, and was drafted with attorney Michael Joyce. The policy Subcommittee made one small change to the regulation, as well as adding one line to the policy itself. Once approved, the regulation will be linked in the policy. The policy has a deadline of needing to be updated and submitted to DC by August 16th, which is why the first reading on the policy is this evening. Two other policies were approved for updates and will be placed on the next agenda for the first reading and include policy ECB Access to Building and Ground and AFB Mass Interest Inter-District School Choice Program and two policies that were not currently in Framingham. Policy manual will be discussed further in the subcommittee, which are e a bus driver examination and training and CBJ parent advisory councils. I will look for a motion to approve policy JC for our first reading.

314
02:16:01,100 --> 02:16:02,167
So moved.

315
02:16:02,167 --> 02:16:03,067
Second.

316
02:16:03,067 --> 02:16:13,567
Move by Miss Barnhill. Second by Mr. Roberts. Any discussion?

317
02:16:13,567 --> 02:16:15,467
Take a roll call. Vote.

318
02:16:15,467 --> 02:16:16,667
All in. All in favor?

319
02:16:16,667 --> 02:16:20,667
All in favor.

320
02:16:20,667 --> 02:16:29,467
Passes nine zero. Thank you. Courtney. Thank you so much for being here. To answer any questions that some of our members may have had.

321
02:16:29,467 --> 02:16:31,467
No problem at all. Thank you.

322
02:16:31,467 --> 02:16:35,968
Are there any other subcommittee reports?

323
02:16:35,968 --> 02:16:45,000
Okay. Approval of gifts, field trips and minutes. Gifts. Uh, motion to accept the funds for the PHS boys basketball and student or staff report.

324
02:16:45,000 --> 02:16:46,367
So move.

325
02:16:46,367 --> 02:16:47,067
Move by Willie.

326
02:16:47,067 --> 02:16:47,601
Second.

327
02:16:47,601 --> 02:17:01,567
Seconded by Jen. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor, raise your hand. Nine zero zero minutes. March 18th minutes will be added to the next meeting. Motion to approve the March 4th, 2026 meeting minutes.

328
02:17:01,567 --> 02:17:02,467
So moved.

329
02:17:02,467 --> 02:17:18,100
By Jen. Second by Willie. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor, raise your hand. 900 additional public comment. I just checked the zoom and nobody has their hand up. Anybody in person?

330
02:17:18,100 --> 02:17:18,767
Nope.

331
02:17:18,767 --> 02:17:19,367
Last night.

332
02:17:19,367 --> 02:17:20,000
Okay.

333
02:17:20,000 --> 02:17:29,200
I will accept a motion. The next. This is our last meeting in this room. The next school committee is July 15th in Farley's Auditorium. I will accept a motion to adjourn.

334
02:17:29,200 --> 02:17:29,968
So move.

335
02:17:29,968 --> 02:17:29,968
Move. By Willie. Seconded by Jen. Any discussion? None. All those in favor of adjourn. Raise your hand. 900. This meeting is adjourned at 9:17 p.m..