good evening calling this foxborough school committee meeting to order tonight a regular meeting august twenty six seven o'clock here at the foxborough high school media center and our agenda for tonight is it's a revised agenda seven o'clock visitors seven hundred and ten approval of minutes seven hundred and fifteen teacher and learning highlight proposal for fhs senior project ms diana myerspachla laureen white and ellen pillsbury seven hundred and thirty timeline for special education director search seven hundred and forty summer facilities work and technology update seven hundred and fifty school committee vote to approve twenty million one hundred and thirty two thousand and fourteen school district goals eight o'clock other matters eight hundred and ten executive session we are going to be going into executive session for the purpose of discussing negotiating strategies for nonunion personnel superintendent of schools the committee will not return to open session we'd like to start off first oh i'm sorry just one moment i'm sorry just one moment i'd like to start off just by welcoming janet grass gracia gracia thank you for the pronunciation welcome to your first meeting glad to be here glad to have you here welcome janet so if the public doesn't know she's superintendent's new administrative assistant and the new secretary to the school committee so that's been great great to have on board for the last couple of weeks okay so now visitors please come forward and just state your name address for the record hello my name is joseph garrity and i'm a student at foxborough high school and i wanted to let the committee know that that the ahern middle school the three elementary schools received the salad bar and smoothie grant and the foxborough high school received that last jan and this year they received a new modern oven pizza and then i was gonna say to you guys that misty mike yang left okay we don't we don't talk about we don't need to announce personnel stuff though i was going to let the committee know that right he's not like a big director all right we don't need to talk about people who work here or don't sorry but that's okay those are good updates on the food service thank you for those updates are you looking forward to the new pizza oven yes i am good yes me too maybe maybe we could get some samples sometimes ooh maybe we can i don't know we already had some oh yeah that's right we did yes i was thinking more that brick oven or that the oven but no thank you so much anybody else for visitors okay seeing none we're going to go we're going to move to approval of minutes please look in your packets for the august 5th minutes are there any additions revisions changes that we want to make on that okay seeing none do i have a motion to accept the minutes as presented i have a motion to approve the minutes second any further discussion okay seeing none all those in favor or zero thank you okay we're going to move to teaching and learning highlights a highlight proposal for the fhs senior project ms benneli right so as you know the last two years we've had teaching learning highlight at the start of every school committee meeting and we're committed to continuing that as part of your school committee goals and our school district goals that we share together and it's just a great idea to start each meeting with something exciting that's happening for students or for staff or even if it's for staff it's for students so our proposal for august since we don't have kids back in school yet where we're able to bring some students to the meeting to showcase and highlight what they're doing i would like to bring forward mrs myerspachla the principal of foxborough high school laureen white who's the director of guidance ellen pillsbury school to career coordinator can not be here tonight and we have sue carle math department head and tom murray the social studies department head if you could all just bring chairs up so if you recall while they're doing that last spring when they were here for the guidance update mrs myerspachla briefly described an idea that they had that they were starting to work on about the senior project which involves a lot of experiences for students and the committee was interested in hearing more about that so we thought that they come back to you pretty early before the school year even starts and talk to you about their proposal so that if the committee if this is something that committee is interested in supporting then they can start moving forward with their plans no time like the present so i'll turn it over to them i'm just going to do a very brief intro and then i'm going to step back so that these three could really come to the microphone once we had presented this idea of a senior project here to the school committee the conversation quickly began and a team was put together this summer to explore this further and laureen white who's our director of guidance has been a part of it sue carle who's our math department head and tom murray who is our social studies department head along with ellen pillsbury who is our our career person here that we have in the building and i'll let them tell you a little bit about their process we did take a look at other schools and what other districts have done and are currently doing and from that they put together this particular draft plan for what we think would be very beneficial to the students here and very doable for our students here in foxborough giving our seniors that opportunity to go out into work in the community it is not for pay it is for experience and it might be in an area that they have a a very strong interest in it could be an area that they're hoping for a career in or it could just be an area that they'd like to do a little bit with so i'm going to just kind of sit back so that they can have the microphone a little bit closer and they'll explain to you a little bit more about this packet that they have put together feel free to move the microphone around a little bit it does sound a little clunky from home but we can deal with that so what we did was we looked at other school districts in the area including duxbury xaverian brothers catholic memorial amongst others to figure out how other schools are doing this currently how seniors are going out to the community and doing these externships so we're looking in and we hope to recruit about fifty students who might want to do this and might want to stop going to school around april 1st so at that point they're going to go out on an externship where they won't be paid for this but they're going to get real community do community service do something that they're giving back to the community it could be a mural that they're working on it could be a working in an automotive shop and getting the real life experiences because many times and we've done this in the past in terms of some of our students go to the classroom and they go on out for one period a day and they're having an incredible experience but do they really understand and walk the teacher's shoes okay and plan for a whole day it's very easy to plan for forty five minute lesson as opposed to a whole day somebody sees dead poets society and wants to become a teacher and it's awesome but at the same time it's a very different job than dead poets society so this gives them an opportunity from april 1st and there's a whole rigor that goes with this so we're really excited about this opportunity for our students and we really feel like it ties into our core values in terms of lifelong learning all right they're going to go out there and what were their takeaways what did they learn from this experience itself did anybody have any questions about the packet i know we were able to get the packets to you guys ahead of time and we're really excited about offering this to students with school committee approval that we'll be able to offer this to the students at the beginning of the school year have some meetings with our students and tell them that if you decide to do this there will be a commitment that goes with it it's not just showing up and i get to leave school and i'm done with school on april 1st that's not the case could you explain the process right the process and i think one of our questions one of my questions is who would be eligible to participate in this and who would not well there is some criteria in here and some things that are difficult to work around are the students who take several ap classes so we looked at that and students who take several ap classes might find it difficult to go out on this because they would be required to come to school for their ap class okay so that would limit their availability to do it if they take one or two ap classes it will probably be good but if more than that i think they would find it difficult so those would it so that's what we're answering who wouldn't be able to just so the other thing there's attendance and there's teacher approval so the attendance has to meet the criteria and the teachers that they currently have have to sign off that they are they can leave the class for starting april 1st so any senior in the school is able to apply and then they have to go through the different steps i just have a question about the classes so a student is taking five classes right and maybe two of those are ap so greater greater than two those students wouldn't be eligible how does that work with the absence from the classroom in relation to participation in this project in terms of the commitment to the courses that they're taking they would they would still need to go to their ap classes during the day so they can they're not stopping their ap classes until after the ap exams okay okay so if they have two ap classes they would be in the building for two hours a day then during those other hours they pop up and do this externship we would reduce maybe the hours that they used to spend in the externship because they need to study for the ap classes and stuff like that but they still will be required to do a certain amount of hours what if they weren't taking ap classes what if they were just taking honors essentially they're ending april 1st and that will count for their school year third quarter is when the grades would close we have many seniors who get this senioritis really i've never heard of that it's hard to convince them that academics is still important at the end of the year so this is another opportunity for them and we've seen successes at so many different school systems who are currently doing this and kids who are coming back from these externships and saying wow that was awesome and then have to do a presentation so there will be a blog there's going to be a blog or a journal writing that they're going to have to do on a daily basis about what did they do at work and it could be somebody who works at a bank and customer relations and how did they use how to win friends and influence people and how did they do these different things and again it's really we look at it as an opportunity for that lifelong learning that they're gonna have these different skills that they're learning in a different way from april 1st till the end of the year they'll have to give a presentation to a core panel of us and could be a kid who was an atrisk student who wants to get on the auto body and he's going to go out there or she's going to go out there and work at a garage not get paid for this but at the same time take away a lot of different skills and how to deal with people and how to work with different types of machinery i thought this booklet was great i thought it was just so explained all of the different questions that you might have i like the way it's every page has got like a different title thank you it's concise and pillsbury who's not here today she was instrumental within this whole process i just had a few questions about the student the classes and all that but it sounds great i love the idea too of them having this oral evaluation or presentation yeah right which speaks to the high school schoolwide rubrics actually and gives them an opportunity to demonstrate that in a larger forum rather than with each teacher actually i agree with you the booklet is very well thought out and i thought it lays everything out so clearly and you can tell you've all put a lot of thought into this and also i mean i know you said grades would close at the end of the third term but i think that it's clear from this that this is not a frivolous month that they'll be spending and it's a very serious academic or work experience that they will have to take away significant knowledge from their experience and show that they've learned something in the process i think it's fabulous i think it's a great opportunity and they will have a grade that goes for that senior project as well and colleges are very amenable to this i mean if anything i think in some ways it's almost that in the workplace too because you've got that experience you're already building a resume behind you but gives i think in many instances kind of that one up what sets you apart we know that the competition between colleges and jobs is so difficult right now that you can say yes i've learned a bit from especially if it's an area that you want to continue in and if it isn't then that's also a great learning experience it's a great takeaway for our students as well it just it speaks to again i think in so many different levels that we talk about from elementary level up the real handson experience of education and learning and reminds me also of the internships now that a lot of colleges are going towards so that students do have a chance to really experience what a particular profession is and to do that at the high school level is wonder i think just a great opportunity for them it's an opportunity for enrichment and challenge in an area that the student is seeking knowledge about that might be their passion that might not be an area that we cover at the high school which i think is fabulous i did have one question have you talked to businesses within the community or do we have people within the community who are excited and eager to participate in this opportunity absolutely ms ellen pillsbury she's our goto person with this and we have such a plethora of resources right here from the stadium right down the street to working within the town how they can help within the town itself the mural that's being painted over in mansfield currently that something like that could happen here and that person has this and they look back and i remember when i was in high school i worked on that project so it could be really something that can build from year to year as well that's great so if a student is interested in doing this and has a particular interest in a particular profession but may not know exactly where they should go for this internship not internship for this project will you be able to assist students who express an interest but may not know exactly or is it really going to be up to the student to kind of seek this no we'll be there working with them and again ellen that's really one of her specialties right i know and if she doesn't have that person she knows that there's other people who are willing to help out too including this group we're really excited about this they're going to have a member of the staff as a mentor as well to help them that they can go to as a point person to try to provide guidance if they're running into difficulties when we talk about college and career readiness and this is really a concrete example of an experience that would really boost that exposure yeah great great program i read through the whole book and wished i was back in high school two questions do you need any pilot tools or monies that you don't have yet to get this thing off the runway and then my other question was if you could just explain to me cause i'm not very bright how the senior project grade is not factored into the gpa but if you drop out you get an f is it factored i just want to know what the risk is for the students either on an upside or a downside well we have applied for a grant i'll start out by saying that there is a department of education grant that is out there we're not sure how many schools are in competition or what amount of that we may have i think we'll have a little bit better of an idea as this plays out for us in some cases and this was one of the pieces i've been involved in senior projects in some of my past experiences and in some cases students had some very interesting ideas that they wanted to paint or create and we said to them okay how are you going to then raise the funds to be able to get the materials that you need so that is something that we're going to need to see how that plays out in my particular experience the students were responsible for that in our experience we may say no we've got some money that may be available i don't have that right now but i'm just saying that that might be something that would play out we want to take a look at what this is going to look like and depending again upon what the grant does we're not holding to the grant the grant i think will just allow us to do some things that to expand this a little bit more than what we were initially perhaps thinking that we could do and we'll go from there a little bit more training because there's some other things that that the state can provide as well so we're not looking like this is going to be anything huge or any large budgetary item for this year i do know that i probably will be putting in for some funding for this to be able to continue as we go along with it and i would say especially for whoever the person is that's going to be coordinating this the facilitator the facilitator this will be taking time on their part i mean right now it's kind of a collaborative effort but you really do need we really need to have that point person to be that particular individual to do that and so that may mean some money somewhere down the road because it's hard to tell how this is going to take off this is part of our budgetary proposal for next year assuming this goes i think one of the benefits of being here so early for your questions and consideration is that they will then have time as we go through the fall to really figure out if there are budgetary implications in the first year and what those would be and to answer to your grades yes the grades will close quarter three and the gpa will be configured at that point then if they do the senior project let's say they get an a it's still will not alter their gpa but it will show on the transcripts so the college will see that if they don't do it and get the f it's still not gonna go into their gpa but it will be shown right there on the transcript where again colleges will see it but gpa will close at the end of third quarter for these students thank you so just point of clarification you talk about the facilitator so are you talking about an identified educator on the on the staff of foxborough high school that will be paid like a stipend is that what your i don't know what we're going to do for this year cause we we want to see what happens tonight what your questions are okay i'm just going to say this this is only me and my head this is not a conversation that we've had but you know in the summer we were talking at our goals meeting that we almost want to sort of revamp how we approach school to career services and how valuable they are here and how much she does so you know currently under the attleboro partnership she's really employed four days a week so it's sort of part of our plan and conversation to say can we expand the available time for the school to career coordinator and maybe that's a solution so there's just some ideas out there that that might be part of what you might see in the future but that's a start and whether there would be whether it's too much for one person which maybe someone else involved we haven't gotten to that point yet in planning and we don't we also don't know our numbers either we don't know if there's going to be four kids who are really excited or one hundred and forty which really scares us the latter we think kids will we think kids are going to want to do this but some of them because of academics and because of the ap and because of other commitments they're not going to be able to do it and add something else to their plate well other ones might start it and then we have a certain cutoff date and they're going to say look it's not for me i'm going to finish off the academic year and that's okay too first i want to applaud you guys for bringing forward this kind of a program i am a big big fan of maybe what i'll call nontraditional classroom type learning and i was the one pushing at our summer retreat about career and just continuing to enhance our career offerings so i thank you guys for bringing this forward number two i'm delighted that laureen and tom and sue are big proponents of this and been involved because i do have a lot of confidence as i know we all do in our department chairs so that gives me a real great feeling of trust my questions are around implementation and i have three questions just based on your comments so far and maybe you can just expand first of all why fifty how the number of fifty students we don't know where to start so are we willing to take more to our conversation we're just having we're willing to take more okay so we're not capping we're not capping anything we just don't know what the what kids are going to want to do cause there are certain deadlines that they're going to have to follow and so like i said we don't know if so fifty is just a placeholder yes okay all right my second question tom you talked about whole day versus one period have we thought about flexibility in that i mean i'm still confused personally about the comment about the ap kids how they might have a hard time do we have flexibility in models if some of the ap kids for example wanna participate it's hard with a rotating schedule but not impossible and especially because of technology and education where the teachers and sue teaches ap and she can speak to what she can do it's going to be a really case by case and it might be teacher by teacher course by course in terms of what kind of flexibility there may be days i've got ap statistics so there may be days where a student might not need to be in the classroom could make up the work and that would still be okay but maybe in ap chemistry they need to be there for all the labs and missing it really isn't an option i'm sitting here with a school committee hat on of course and i can picture parents saying i want my kid to be able to participate and i wish there was a more flexible model so the more you can think about that i think would be valuable for us well i think it also depends sorry on the position they decided to take for their externship because if their position allows them flexibility during the day where they can come to classes and they don't start their externship till two in the afternoon or three in the afternoon we're fine they have to put in the hours and get approved for the externship but it doesn't have to be from seven to three so that's an important clarification we're flexible they don't have to do their externship during school hours they have to get the hours in but yes we are flexible with that we were just saying with the ap cause they're the classes are so rigorous and intense and that a lot of them have other commitments and some may choose out and that's great but i think for those who want to if we offer them things like if they can find an externship that's after hours my last implementation concern is around if i heard you say right the way that we would choose the kids or review the kids who want to participate is attendance and teacher recommendation not really teacher recommendation it's more teacher signing off that it's okay that they leave the class on april 1st teachers don't have to recommend the student we'll go through the whole process as long as their attendance okay and their teacher's okay with them leaving the class then that's what gets signed on usually about a c average that teachers take a look at and say yes i'm comfortable with this student signing off so that's one piece of it you have to show that you have that really that commitment to be in school so that you can also continue with us outside of school when there's perhaps less of the more formal constraints like we have and you've got to get yourself to work and back or wherever this place happens to be so you need to show good standing in academics and good standing in your attendance but then the students also have several steps that they also need to fulfill as well finding their mentor outside of school and again with help if they need it being able to make their project make a presentation as far as what they're going to be doing and what they leave behind is going to be and how that's how they're going to work toward that and so in some cases some students as tom has said will get to a point and say i don't want to go through it i'm just not going to i will stay in classes but i do know just in my own experience i have yet to have or have had the experience of a student receiving an f because they chose not to do the senior project once they got into the senior project they were into it and i have not had any person ever come back to say that this was the worst thing i could've ever done they've all come back to say that this was the best thing i could have ever done whether they truly enjoy the experience or this was a decision that i don't want to go in this direction and i'm really glad that i did this or that this is the best thing since sliced bread and i want to go in this direction so that they all really enjoyed that time and came back and said if i could tell seniors one thing it's to do this yeah once again i'm a huge advocate i say let's go forward right away more kids the better i'm just trying to think through potential hiccups or pitfalls and as you were going through the description the one that just the last one that gave me pause for thought was this teacher recommendation part and i don't know if it would make sense maybe i didn't read it as a teacher recommendation because i think the important detail in that conversation based on the question you asked was that this is initiated by the student who applies so if a student is motivated to apply for it then if their attendance is fine and the teacher is okay with it based on the student's ability to demonstrate that they are doing okay in the classroom then it would go forward so i see the teacher not really as recommending that a student do this but as almost a little one of the two gatekeeper stops along the way but it starts really with the students initiating on their own to go ahead and apply so that's why we're not sure of the numbers the first year because without this having been tried how many students are going to go forward into the unknown and apply to do this i would imagine after the first year when there's so much positive buzz about the experience next year you'll probably experience more kids willing to go ahead and meet that application deadline so i think that that's what would happen and really relying on diana's past experience with this in another community i think is important that the positive notes that came from it really outweigh any of the glitches that we could overcome so it isn't as some of our other initiatives are where teach us to recommend it's really initiated by the student which it should be on your way out of high school so i think that's one of the important details the other thing we haven't discussed is students who play a spring sport who are spring athletes may not be able to participate unless they can figure out how to do it during the day so if you have to be at ap courses during the day and you're playing a spring sport it starts right after two that may sandwich you in too much so i think sue's point that it really has to be case by case is probably the way it's going to play out not only the first year but in years after that depending on what they what extra curricular last last question for me do you think there's any reason that why we should maybe review a list similar to how we do field trips or anything or do you think it's something that we should just leave with diana and you i think we just have to leave it to see how they proceed you know diana has done that at another high school so i'm pretty confident when she first said last year i give a lot of credit firstly she said i'd like to do a senior project like great i love it bring it forward very good thank you so i think we just have to wait and see steve so this is a draft i understand that and item eight on the parental signature form talks about the fhs cannot directly supervise each student and that etc etc we're not liable for any injury sustained as a result of the project so my assumption would be there would have a go no go during the qualification process of the project so that we make sure they're not testing bungee jumping courses right right or something like that we'll have all that in order i would imagine and it had one parent's signature name as opposed to multiple parents that might have to sign it or or guardians or something like that i just wanted to make sure that the students and the families and the district are all safe from liability exposure and that we are keeping an eye on safety and can veto the project if it seems too dangerous at the outset absolutely thanks so what is it that you need from the committee this evening to proceed we need a vote that you would like the high school to proceed with planning for our senior project and then they'll go ahead and do it like we do everything else so they come back to we would come back when probably closer to the application time when to let you know how many kids have applied and where we are maybe a midyear application point checkin i think that would be great i think the other thing to note too is that sometimes when you hear that it starts on april 1st given that we ended solely in june this past year it feels like they're going to miss three months of school but in actuality the seniors get out a lot earlier so the what do you estimate the length of year six weeks six weeks so if that feels a little bit better to people it does feel like april 1st they're going to be gone three months they're really are not april vacation you have there too so that's just the right time i think to get into it so i'd like i'd like to make a motion that we approve the senior project as presented with a second review with the school committee may be in the march timeframe or february timeframe whatever the committee thinks is second further discussion seeing none all those in favor or zero thank you thank you very much good job putting the proposal together and so early it's not like i have anything else to do this summer ellen is incredible with this too thank ellen i'm going to be meeting with her next week anyway we have a lot to talk about but thank her this is great so nice job yes so this gives the seniors the earliest look at it as well so i give them credit cause they just said we would like to do ours early as possible and that doesn't always happen with people ready to go with something before school's even started so that just goes to show you the energy these people have when would be the right time to come back do you think and just tell us a little bit more march or february yeah february i'm thinking february because then we should know which students are going to be part of it yeah i think that'd be great thank you for all your hard work with this this is awesome thank you for your support thank you all very much we're going to move on to the timeline for special education director search yes benelli we talked about this briefly at another meeting as you know arlene gruber on october 1st will become the executive director of the bible collaborative of which foxborough is a member so she'll still be bringing good things and programs to foxborough students as the executive director of our area special education collaborative so that means we will be we are in the process of a director of special education search and so you see the timeline in front of us we advertised the position on july 24th it's been great that we had a lot of notification for her transition she's still here working very hard and we posted on our professional association websites as well the applications just closed last friday when i looked before they completely closed we had about thirty three applicants which is actually pretty good for director of special education search we were happy with that how many did you say thirty four thirty three i'm not sure that's entirely accurate i think that was the morning of because i knew it was closing and i was briefly taking a quick peak so as all of our administrative searches the very capable dr amy burtos our assistant superintendent will be chairing the initial screening and search i do not chair that the candidate will come to me afterwards so amy will be conducting the initial screening and interview team convening that team selecting candidates talking about interview questions on september 18th our tentative dates for candidate interviews would be september twenty three and twenty five within the same week timeframe and hopefully by the end of that week there will be semifinalist's names sent to me i would then conduct a second interview with those candidates and as you know this is one of the school committee hires under massachusetts regulations so this is one of those if you remember our workshop we just had a few weeks ago this is one of the positions that you hire at my recommendation so we'll be bringing a candidate hopefully to you as a school committee in the first week of october on october 7th we do have an interim candidate in place for however long it takes because we don't know the notification of whoever might be the final candidate so i do have experienced special education director who's retired who is willing to come when arlene is leaving and she will stay as long as we need her to she was the former director of special education in medfield and other places okay so i know the last time i had actually served on this search committee and we had two school committee member representatives so i guess i'm looking for some feedback from people this evening if they have an interest in participating in the survey that's great okay i'd be happy to help out that's fine okay great so perfect we've got our two representatives amy we'll be in touch and if you could let her know if the if these dates work for you and she can go from there and if i remember correctly from glen kocher we do not need a vote this is not one of your subcommittees this is actually you don't need a vote because this is actually a superintendent's committee and you're sitting to assist me in the search so as such under the law those meetings are not your meetings and don't have to be posted so that's the way we'll go but it's good to be open and transparent about what we're doing it seems like we have a consensus so great if i could ask a question so first of all i think it's nice for our district that our people continue to be wanted elsewhere and do well elsewhere good for arlene i know this position of special ed director is so important to so many of our parents sure is do parents have an opportunity in the process are they can they be part of the committee yes they are part of the committee so that's another reason i'm so glad you asked me that question that's another reason why we did not want even though we've known this since june we didn't want to conduct the search in the summer because parents aren't widely available staff so we would have on this not only the school committee members but we'll have a few administrators as we do we'll have a few teachers and we will have parents from the special education pack so we're assuming this timeline is good for the committee then i will then reach out to the special ed pack and invite them to participate so if parents are interested who are listening or reading they should talk to the special ed pack or talk to dr burtos no i would i would certainly just call the superintendent's office or the assistant superintendent and call the central office and indicate you'd like to have your name put on the list of people of parents who are interested in serving in the search and then sometimes we get just the right amount but sometimes we get too many people and we usually just draw names out of a hat and try to have everybody's representation at the table great thank you joe i think you've got a question her name is mrs mcardle okay all right i think we can move on right looks great thank you thank you thank you for volunteering we're going to move on to summer facilities work and technology update let's turn it over to bill you've now got quite the busy summer and instead of at first we were just going to have bill give you an update of what's happened this summer but there was so many things that i asked him if he wouldn't mind putting it all down on paper and he has willingly done so there is the sheets that i handed out to you doublesided but the basically we from the technology side while there's only about a half dozen bullets they're pretty substantial in in volume of work that was required as you know the math department requested that we move from the eno board technology which we have throughout the district for our whiteboard technology to a smart board which is really has more value in the math classrooms with its technology and its software so we have effectively taking all of the white boards out of those ten classes and reallocated them into other classes that didn't have them so number one we're not wasting anything we were also able to buy additional projectors for those ten classrooms so now we have ten fully outfitted classrooms in the high school that we didn't have previously we've also installed the ten smart boards right at the beginning of the year here the math teachers will have this as a new resource within their classrooms the as you know faces last year one of the grants that they supported which was a fairly expensive one was the imac video lab which is right upstairs here the lab really consists of it's a three room setup one is the control room and thanks very much to cable access who has done a tremendous amount of work redeveloping how that room will actually control there's a room behind that which is actually a video production room and part of the grant was to acquire video cameras and editing equipment that goes along with it and then the classroom side of it there are ten imacs that are also brand new with all the software that allows the children or the students to basically do video editing with the work projects that they do so they have cameras that can go out not just within that lab but they can go outside of the lab actually trying to produce things and as you saw last year we have a lot of talented kids within the district that can do these things and now we're giving some resources to do it too so it's a next step beyond we've had a minor version of this over at the ahern from number of years so it's actually been kind of a shame that it started there and then stops and now again it's back in place here so that was a major upgrade that's just been completed the last late last spring we started and they they've effectively completed at this point changing all of the computers throughout the district from xp operating system to windows it's about eight hundred computers that were done the only reason that your ahern is not done at this point is that we what we've done is we first of all used any of the new ones that we were deploying we bought with the windows seven on it other ones that we had just recently done in the last couple of years we bought new licenses for at the time when we bought those units we knew we were going to windows so we already had bought the licenses so we were able to basically reuse those and on the ahern we would have to go out and buy all new licenses for them those are the next computers being targeted for replacement so we are looking to basically do that in a large swoop in this next level hopefully if we don't make the decision to do it during the school year we'll do it at the end of this school year and do all those same time so the entire district will be windows seven at that point you do recall you have three ahern parents sitting at the table right now just a friendly reminder good progress good progress one of the things that we've also done was as we had committed to at the end of last year is is the high school now basically is a wireless environment we were able to deploy that capability throughout the entire school now so every classroom has it every major location will have it the auditorium the gym the cafeteria and they're fine tuning and working on that right now i'm sorry to keep interrupting but to me that is just huge i mean to have a wireless campus up here that's great that's great but one of the things that we'll be going along with that and we will actually be having discussions on the administration level very quickly here is two to complete all of our policies on how we're going to allow that deployment to work there are a lot of issues because to give you an example one of the major ones a student walks in with an iphone an ipad and a laptop well those are three devices that will immediately want to grab onto the wireless if every kid did that we would crush the network so while we've got the wireless network out here the next concern is obviously the bottlenecks that will be within how our data can flow through so we're also looking at how to upgrade that to make that work as well but we did a lot of upgrades this summer to go to a higher platform we are now at one gig platform to pretty much every computer within the school and we're looking to obviously upgrade the the backbone for the wireless as well to do the same which will be key one of the other things we were able to accomplish because we got very aggressive pricing when we went out to the wireless is we actually have acquired already all of the ip address units that we're going to need for the seventh and eighth grade at the middle school and so we actually are working this week they're doing the wireless set up to get the units up in the classrooms so we don't disturb the classrooms down but the next step we will be doing and what we're looking for is obviously a little bit more money within our budget so we're going kind of going through some of the things that we have to actually do some of the switch gear that will be needed for that as well but our hope is that by sometime mid to late fall we will actually have the seventh and eighth grade up on a wireless network as well so a little bit further than we thought we'd make it this year but it's one of our goals the other thing is in our typical mode we upgrade about two hundred and fifty computers a year so this year was the a few of the administrative ones in our office the taylor school the bural school and also the high school cad lab so all of those have been upgraded with new computers and again obviously all on windows seven as we did it and then we did obviously move a number of class room whiteboards from depending on how classes had set up we had to change some a class might've moved like a first grade class might've moved down the hall art class might've moved so we had to do some changes within the elementary level and even in the middle school so that's all completed as well so that's technology again it's a pretty i think a pretty successful summer as far as the number of items that we tried to accomplish there are a couple of other large things that we are working on the technology side one is a new phone system we did upgrade the or put in what we as a group which was paul bortolagi myself and randy scones had chose a the new phone system we think is going to be what we want to deploy and because the library was at the right stage at the right time we put the new system in there as our test place it seems to be working extremely well it's doing everything we hoped it would do so if that deployment is completed it is completed and up and running but if we can kind of make sure we have everything the way we want it to that will be what we use as we move through each one of the buildings and we do have the funding already in place it's pretty ingenious so that's town and school obviously yes we will do all the town buildings as well as our school buildings at the same time but we'll probably do start with the schools because we have the most controllable environment right now that we can go through on tony's side with facilities he really didn't have much to do this summer so we threw a few things at him the tailor generator unfortunately did go out to bid early summer it came in but because it was right in the middle of the summer we really we didn't get any bids at all when we contacted the people that took them out was just that they just didn't have enough time so we've put that back out to bid and that we expect to be in september 11th we've gotten almost three times as many people already interested so we'll get a good bid on it this time it will just be a little bit interesting as far as the schedule and how i have to do it cause obviously there is a cutover at some point and so it would have to be on a weekend or holiday or something as part of our security system what we've gone through you'll see on all of the elementary levels is we've installed keyless entrance locks so that any place that a teacher has to come in or where they're going out to a recess area instead of having keys the teachers have their own codes each teacher has a separate single code for themselves and so now we don't have the fear of lost keys or issues that way and they're the only ones that can come back in that door the door locks immediately when they leave but they push their code and they come back in we know who comes in and who goes out it's a little bit like i said a part of our upgrades as far as all of our security side but that's been done on all three of the elementaries also the elementaries we're concerned about the in their playgrounds the level of mulch the mulch is actually sterilized mulch it's not the stuff that you'd use at your house that pads underneath all the equipment so we brought in actually one hundred and eighty yards of mulch and did all three elementaries and i think we did a fairly good job as far as really beefing that up so that again should be a little bit safer as far as the children are playing within those playgrounds on the igo we've really gone through the it's one of the older buildings relative to its heating and air conditioning systems and we went through every single unit within that building and cleaned them by taking them totally apart which was making a huge difference and we're doing that through each building now we've actually gone through the ahern and done most of that already and we'll be going through building by building the middle school one of the all these things that are bolded are the bigger items that are being done but we ran into a problem late last spring with the hot water system we noticed with one of our big tanks that was leaking thirteen years old ten years is usually kind of the lifespan of most of these so we actually have replaced the entire hot water system this summer with new boilers and new tanks and everything and they're just about complete actually they're wiring up the electrical tomorrow and so by the end of this week that should be up and running a one hundred very impressive system that tony kind of worked out it's the same manufacturer that manufactures all of our boilers that we go with now which is a higher end much more efficient unit we really kind of looked at all of our gym floors as you know we have three schools that have wooden gym floors the igo which we rent out quite a bit during the winter time to different organizations the high school which obviously has the large gym and the ahern has to fullsize wood gyms we had been doing the high school because we had only replaced it a couple of years ago we've been putting a couple of coats on it to try to build that up but these other two buildings hadn't been done in years and so this summer we went through and did all three buildings so all the gym floors really look fantastic they're about as bright and shiny and clean as you can possibly get them and they really have a nice surface to them again so that again when you're playing on these things with sneakers and stuff like that you want a certain level of grip and stuff and you really will have that back now with them on the middle school side there was a lot of safety issues that were brought up by one of the insurance companies one thing that kind of amazed me and i guess i should take blame for it cause i was involved when we built the ahern but none of the sprinklers in the gyms had any kind of safety covers and so i'm amazed in thirteen years that a kid hadn't figured out how to throw a ball and hit one of them so we put safety cages on all of those those are on protected we did safety straps on all of the baskets where the metal wires come down because again if one of those broke someone could obviously get hurt so we would put the new safety gear there in one of the inspections the board of health picked up an issue within our cafeteria freezer where the baked on enamel paint seemed to be starting to come apart so we emptied out that freezer this summer and we had new panels put in on the ceiling there and put that back together so that came up very good the actual track resurfacing was scheduled to start today but i think due to fears of rain that backed off but with a lot of issues obviously between football games and other things that are gonna happen over the next couple of weeks it's the intention is to have it done within the next two weeks and that would be a repair of all of the bad spots and then a double overlay of the entire track and then we paint it one of the issues that we are going to face there and one of the reasons i think the track even though it's lasted quite a while we really need to put some new policies in place because you know vehicles drive on it people are out there with bikes and stuff like that things that really damage one of these type of tracks so we're gonna get some new signage try to do some more you know teaching as far as what will maintain that track and how to keep it in good shape going forward the again major air compressors and stuff like that we went through and replaced a few of them to really kind of upgrade how the system works and i think on the ahern the final thing which is a pretty big item was the keyboarding lab that we are totally redoing all the equipment is in and they're expected to be here on september 3rd so probably that full week of installation and set up it's a music lab this is the music lab yup and so hopefully you know we'd hoped to have it done before school actually started but working with the music department they had no concerns about the fact that the first week really wouldn't be as something that they would normally use the lab for anyway so but when that's done are we going to christen it or a sort of announce to the world that here it is cause i know there's a lot of parents out there that were very happy about this well i think typically what they would do is probably one of the open the early open houses it would be something that everybody obviously does see i'm sure that the music department would love to show it off sure and the music department has been very very involved in this whole process as far as working out the spec and going through process so they're i think very proud of it and the equipment that's coming out of there there are pieces of it that are still good that will be coming over to the high school that they're going to supplement some of the things that they use here so anything that's worth keeping will be kept obviously anything that's of a level that's not worth and again most of it's very old so there are only certain components that will be worth bringing forward on the high school as you all know and i've seen as you drive in the turf installation the turf field is in process right now they have pretty much removed all of the excess material which has been put out back so that will be used as part of the baseball field work and they're still targeted for october 15th to be completed we were very very fortunate the winner of the bid actually the carpet manufacturer themselves has come up with a new product that is actually it's a combination of the product that we picked and an another piece that's a little bit better in its fabric and how it will hold up and they've only got one installation on the western part of massachusetts they have number of them across the country but they only have one other one in western massachusetts and they have basically offered to us to upgrade our entire field which would be about a twenty thousand additional cost to us to do it for nothing so that they can use us as kind of a showplace or example of what this new turf would look like the advantage to us which i kind of remind everybody on our side is we did the same thing with viessmann boilers which we use throughout our district now and viessmann has been one of our best partners they work with us on everything if there's longer than extended warranties they've done everything this is something that we have no real knowledge on i mean i'll be the first one to tell you i know nothing about turf and i'm learning everything everyday tony has better knowledge than i do cause he was involved in hanover with their new turf field but having the manufacturer willing to stand with us and know that if they don't really work with us on this then it's not going to be the showplace they want it to be i think is going to be critical to being a successful installation that's true we're very excited about that one as joe already mentioned we were fortunate enough to pick up a double oven pizza oven and our manager here after thirty years says she thinks she can finally retire which we told her she can't now because this is the one thing that she's always wanted and it's actually we actually did do a small test thing with the manufacturer from original pizza and the quality of what comes out of this compared to what we were able to do in our old equipment is tremendous even the ones that are oh what's the glutenfree pizzas even those pizzas which typically people don't really like were tasted decent so i think it's really in the difference on how these ovens work that makes a difference so that's installed and actually original pizza will be coming in i believe in the end of the first week and they're going to do a thing for the students at the high school so there'll be samples of pizza and stuff like that so they're going to kind of reintroduce to the students what we are now capable of doing here nice the again as i said the gym floor has already been done here and then as you probably noticed or may not even notice because it just kind of blends nicely is we've repainted all the outside doors on the building and basically made them the same color as all the windows from the blue so that really kind of all ties in now instead of the bright blue which made it still look like the original building which it is but it really to me just spiffed up the envelope with the school and made it look like wow it really was i couldn't believe when i first drove up and noticed that and i didn't even know they were doing it but i'm who painted the doors so that's why they make a good team was bill's idea and tony's execution and bam it had happened overnight it's great the other thing thanks for your support we did pick up the pickup truck for the maintenance department which does have a full plough system so i think that's going to be very handy during the winter months when we do have the issues that way the forty two two way radios are already programmed they're outright now being engraved so those will be pushed out throughout the district so that we have internal communications that is better than what we had and when someone walks into this building if deb walks in with hers just switches the channel and anybody that she wants to talk to within the high school she'll have access to at that point as well huge part of our emergency plans that we went over last year eliminates the whole cell phone thing which don't work well within these buildings and then the final thing we actually also we've had some issues down at the bus yard and we were able to acquire a new shed from reeds ferry so we have a really nice little office shed down there now the old one was falling apart and it really gives the bus drivers a place to pick up their stuff in the morning and kind of meet and we're also going to be moving all the electrical services inside of that as well to make it a better down there so as i said tony really kind of took vacation during the summer but it was managed managed to get a lot of these things done so we're in good shape this is a great list but can you just distinguish the bold from the nonbold the bold are kind of the bigger items meaning cost well it's cost and effort to get them done what's the minimum of the cost is there one regarding no there was no real minimum but they were it was just as far as importance wise just moving classroom whiteboards is less important than actually doing the okay so it's not a real distinction okay all right great thank you thank you for that update that's important for the public to know and understand what what has been going on during the summer as all of these updates as students return to classrooms yeah and i would be kind of remiss to say this is on top of the normal work that's done so as you notice every single floor has been done the custodial maintenance staff has done a phenomenal job cleaning these buildings all back up a lot of painting has been done within different classrooms that needed to be touched back up or entire rooms that needed to be repainted you know every floor has been stripped waxed carpets have been cleaned so again they do a phenomenal job when you consider the fact that we've got pretty close to six hundred thousand square feet of space that has to be done that's all being done at the same time that obviously we're trying to do this is kind of above and beyond list well that was the word i was going to use i mean the longer you went through this this is phenomenal i mean i was sitting here thinking we're fortunate to have our press colleagues in the room i mean i'd love them to share with the public a summary of everything you guys have done i think to me it's a testament of you being here bill with your background and having picked a great maintenance leader and tony i mean this is i wrote down four words as you were going through it you've touched on technology security safety and facilities and it's not just cleaning the floors i mean this is significant i don't know if you guys feel the same oh definitely i agree totally i'm very impressed with this so excellent job though i think for me one of the things i'm going to say tomorrow when our staff comes back is that we talk about teaching and learning all the time but we also care to the same level of detail what the environment is like what the physical is it a good place to work is it as psychologically and physically an exciting place for kids to learn and for staff to work and all of these things matter when it comes to that and so we pay as much attention to detail in the area facilities than we do in instruction i agree with you i mean if we're going to continue to ask more of our staff and expect more of our kids then we owe it to them to have all of this there too you have to give them the right tools to both to teach and to learn and you can't teach and learn in an environment that is substandard and ours is fantastic so thanks to bill and his team it's great thank you so much all right we're going to move to school committee vote to approve the twenty million one hundred and thirty two thousand and fourteen school district goals that everybody has in their packet yes we spoke the other day i spoke with katie the other day because we these are this is the newest draft of the goals that you formulated in july with us as an administrative team but one thing that's come to light since then is that the department of ed now expects us to put in ratings five ratings for every professional staff member all teachers administrators and other people that come under the new massachusetts educator evaluation system and so it's a rating on each of the four broad standards and then an overall rating so what we discovered they now have decided on a mid august deadline so we had to put in ratings for all of our all of our teachers and our administrators by about a week to ten days ago because of their timeline the typical superintendent evaluation timeline is no longer going to work because i will be one of the few people that doesn't have any ratings this year in because if you don't put them in which i can't because my evaluation isn't until september then i forget whether i'm going to be listed as either not rated or not evaluated i think it's not rated at this time so the only suggestion i have which has come to light since we met in early july and i did think that maybe they would be they would take the majority of all of our ratings and then after the fact we could just say oh and by the way here's the five ratings for the superintendent but they are not flexible in that at this time whatever ratings you put in according to their deadline is that's it and you can't access it after that but this is the first time they've ever done that so they too are on a learning curve with the new evaluation system and how they're going to collect their data so if that turns out to continue to be true annually then that last bullet under superintendent's performance that really to be timely with the department of ed's reporting mechanism the overall composite would have to be done by june and the public evaluation would have to be by july or a month sooner either and so those two last months should either say junejuly or mayjune so i think i put it out there for that before you vote to vote on this with those changes otherwise and this is not unique because most superintendents are not the evaluation is not completed before school gets out but you're going to see all of us shifting in the future to accommodate the department's timeline so if we did june and then what by july 31st we'd be in compliance with yes going to be in august amy worked pretty hard with erica who does all of our data on the uploading of that but there were at the last minute there were a few things that they have said no they're not going to accept later i would suggest the junejuly i just think that there's a lot going on with the elections in may and the organization and if we don't really have this town meeting and i don't know but i'm open i just want to throw that out i would agree with you that june and july seem to be a workable timeframe there's a lot going on in may and june so my evaluation does have to be public so if you think about it we only meet in july for our goal setting retreat so we'd have to maybe shift that here and have the portion of the meeting televised that is my evaluation so there's a lot of gears that we'd have to think about could we do a late july evaluation and have it be a separate meeting from the goal setting meeting though it's up to you possibly think about that yeah because that would make it just separate yeah what do you think steve just a question to your point about the junejuly schedule deb as the superintendent what months are best for you administratively and your staff we're busy all year we all have vacations and staff has vacations we are here all year long i think that i just a little inter interruption to the administrative work i just was curious there is little i mean the end of july is is the best time for me i learned i waited until august to take a week it didn't work out quite great but i was thinking of doing a little bit earlier but it's up to you and we could set it for the third week of july there's plenty of flexible time it's really i think you as a committee have to decide the way the year runs how do you envision i like the idea of the entire school year being done and then i was thinking about how things have gone over the course of the school year it's just my opinion right because don't forget the composite is due by june which means everyone has to get those evaluations to me before june which means may or june one june three but i mean yeah yeah the work is incumbent on us to do a little sooner but i don't know why we couldn't and then maybe plan to present the composite toward the end of july that'd be fine consensus of the committee do we need to vote on that or motion to vote well you're going to be you're going to be moving to approve your the school district goals as amended so this will be one of the amendments does anybody have any other comments they want to make about the goals well if i may i think the edits that we've i mean just for the benefit of the public and i think i remember doing this in the past we sit here and we talk about our goals but the public doesn't have the access to the record so i think what we've done is just kind of a quick review so if i can just take a minute i would summarize by saying our goals have not changed a whole lot from year to year we're consistent we have five categories communication community relations student achievement financial management policy development and superintendents performance to me katie some of the highlights we're going to continue to maintain our annual school district report card plan which we instituted last year i think that's great if i recall the next one in mind that i remember we put a special emphasis on this year is looking at an updated technology plan and the implications for academic achievement generally speaking i think the rest of our student achievement results or goals stay the same i don't think i remember steve and tina and katie help me i don't think i remember a lot of changes in financial management or policy development and then we just talked about updated dates for superintendent performance so i guess i would kind of summarize for the public if it ain't broke don't fix it i think our i think our goals are pretty similar we've updated a couple of key areas of emphasis all right that's great bruce thank you i think that captures don't forget this will be posted on the website as well once it's approved right we always have our committee goals yep as soon as you've got them we'll put them right up they will be accessible to the public any other comments about just to clarification if i may on page one last bullet continue the curriculum review cycle to support student achievement and to ensure alignment with state and national standards progress report annually i'm really happy with the goals because when folks get to see this you'll see that we have a lot of either measurement goals and milestones written down right here or if they aren't definite milestones or measurements they're what we're calling updates so that that can be measured or be called out as being absent if for some reason that they're not updated i just didn't see a measurement or an update or don't understand when we do that that is i literally don't know when we do that maybe you can help me the curriculum review cycle that one bullet that you yeah does that happen usually it's january or february amy brings the review cycle that was voted previously and either recommends keeping with it if you remember you might not remember but people who are in last year there was a change last year that amy recommended flipflopping the science with the social studies because we're waiting for the science national standards to come out and social studies is ready for review so that was her recommendation this past year and that is much more timely so even though you vote the regular six year cycle every once in a while something comes from on high at the state national level or from where we are in the process and it just makes more sense to tweak it a little bit so usually that's january or february yeah perfect thanks good point steve though i think about the measurement of our goals yeah i marked them all i think i have like eight on the first page and they're all over the place here great okay so do i have a motion to accept the foxborough public schools school district goals for twenty million one hundred and thirty two thousand and fourteen as amended i'll make that motion move to accept our school district goals as amended and only because mr udon's having a drink of water i will second any further discussion all those in favor or zero okay and now we're going to move on to other matters oh i always have something on me i'm going to turn it over to amy in a minute because she has a really great overview of what's happening in the next few days for staff but our opening of school for all of our staff is tomorrow morning so we'll walk them all of our staff back here at the high school and the auditorium and we always look forward to opening day people come back kind of a lot of verve and refreshed for the most part it was a short summer though i will say and it's nice to see everyone again and start off a new exciting school year so we'll see everyone here tomorrow and the committee as always is invited to attend our opening day and last week on monday we had administrative retreat and that is a day where our we call it the full administrative team so it's not just the central office and the principals the assistant principals it's the department heads it's the curriculum directors it's the team facilitators of special education all of those all of those people which were about thirty actually we go offsite for the day and we engage in activities that engage us in collective thought and planning for the future what do we think what are we trying to do how can we best do it it's a day where we usually get a lot done and we did so for that that was a week ago monday i would like to thank the kraft organization jes stevenson who's their director of community outreach and new business dan murphy who's a vicepresident and mr kraft because we didn't budget for something like this before in the last couple of years we've had to and as you know we invest in our staff and salaries and we don't have a lot of budget for this type of thing so they really did step forward and allow us to use one of their suites for our ministry of retreat provided breakfast and lunch at a really very very low minimal charge for us so they really worked with us to help support that and i want to thank them for that we have done that in the past and we went back there again this year so thank you to them to the kraft organization and also to cbsc because we had a small budget for teachers new teacher orientation but they have worked with they really worked well with us to provide a really nice part of the professional development for the new teachers and orientation for them and it's nice that we're able to keep those activities in town because that's what defines us and many times in other communities they have to go outside i don't know a hotel give them a cheaper rate for some of these things and we're lucky enough to have the support within our own community to stay here so i want to thank those organizations so we had a great new teacher orientation and we welcome it we are welcoming nineteen new teachers which is our biggest crop in the six years i've been back and many more support staff educational assistants and other people so it's a nice refreshing time and they'll all be back for the next three days without children as the students arrive after labor day but we do spend these three days really preparing to welcome the students back being ready to go so three days of professional development and i'm going to turn it over to amy to tell you a little bit about what everybody's doing the next few days it's going to be busy to start with one of the things that all staff will be part in is a training on darkness to light which is darkness to light stewards of children and it's adults protecting children from sexual abuse that is a training that everyone from teachers to educational assistants to school bus drivers crossing guards everyone will be involved in that training and that is something that we have had five of our own staff members become trained and they are going to then provide that training for the district so that is part of our commitment to work in partnership with the community to reach the tipping point for the ymca and it really is a critically important program so every staff member will have a halfday training so out of the two days the other side of that half day will be pearson inform which you very generously supported which is an electronic platform for really looking at student over time and monitoring their progress as part of response to intervention and that is a huge implementation that will take place starting on that day and we had eighteen of our own staff members that were willing to be trained they've come in the summer and worked with me and in addition to that and they are working with me to provide that training to all of our staff members so it's really powerful when you have your own colleagues working with each other to provide that training because they're really the ones that know about all of the assessments that we use and how to drill down and look at student data in order to really change and do what's right for kids in classrooms so those are something that all staff will be taking part in in addition to that there was a ton of curriculum work that was done this summer so there's curriculum updates we're in full implementation of the new common core state standards for math and ela mcast reflects that now with that full transition in addition to the curriculum work that is going with just the state standards as you can recall we have the new maths textbook that was going to be implemented grade six through the high school in order to meet those standards so we have a lot of training that will take place starting in well this week with the math and then there really are lots of other things that kind of tie into either the new standards or even the educator evaluation system a lot going on but i think that with everything that's new it's exciting that we have so much of it that's provided by our own staff and that really is a testament to the work that they do over the summer it is enormous the amount of hours that they put in for curriculum work and to be able to also step up and take that leadership role in training the colleagues that's hard it's hard to learn something new and then also be willing to take that risk and say i'll step up and train my colleagues at the same time so i really appreciate them stepping up for that amy i have a question are they once the staff members who are trained to provide this professional development are they then available throughout the year sort of as a sounding board or as a resource for teachers if they have questions about that topic going forward yes so as an example to that the trainers that are doing the pearson inform which is the platform we will through the professional development committee as well as the technology steering committee talk about well how else can we support it starts with the evaluation on wednesday and thursday how can we the evaluation how can we support you in the next three months how can we support you over the course of the year we take that feedback from them and then we have what we call justintime workshops i'm going to staff meetings as well to provide updates but those people that are trainers are the goto people and then they'll also help with any justintime workshops that are after school hours that will provide training too great thank you that's wonderful i'm really impressed too with this darkness to light training i wonder how many other districts provide this kind of training because and to know that everyone all staff are going to be trained in this because this is not always recognized in the classroom and there's so many other areas that are our students are in i spoke to tony kelsey person at the ymca for this just two days ago and i don't think many i think some districts like us this we've been in partnership with them for two years in this issue but like us we train some key personnel the mental health services teams school nurses secretaries administrators but to commit to train all of your staff members is huge and i think we might be the first in this area but we're hoping that that helps other communities reach their tipping point because let's face it we see kids all the time so if anybody should be trained and you never know who's going to see a sign or symptom that we previously didn't have the expertise to recognize it's not always the teachers it could be somebody in aftercare who we have already trained by the way it could be the school bus driver so we really believe that we need to commit to that so it is you can imagine our time for professional development is tight but we felt it was that important that we should commit to it and we committed to that last fall that when we brought teachers back in august this year we would do that so that's we were pretty happy that we're finally able to achieve that i just need to commend amy because putting that schedule together is monstrous work and making sure everybody's covered into something really productive and meaningful to do especially in a year with that we have defined as the year of focus believe it or not i mean it sounds like we're exploding all over the place with things and we are but for our administrative retreat we actually read the book focus by mike schmoker which is elevating the essentials to improve to radically improve student learning and the essentials really are focusing on what we teach a consistent rigorous curriculum how we teach it our instructional strategies and authentic literacy just being able to read write speak and listen and communicate across all subject areas so it was we had a revelation during the administrative team retreat where we parsed through the book focus because everything there's so much going on now and most of the pressures are coming from outside our own organization so how are we going to focus in the age of more and more and more so we decided that this book was important enough by the end of the day they said do you really think we can do this you really think we can pare things down and really focus on these because there's so much research shows if you focus on those three sounds like simple things but the most important things that students really do well in an organization really a school organization really does better so believe it or not it's going to be the year of the focus and we're going to try very very hard to pare everything down so for example we talk about these new technologies but if a new technology is not in service of those three things those three areas of focus then they're not for us right now so we're going to use that focus to really make decisions about everything else so that's what we came to the conclusion that we can pare things down and if we have the will and the commitment which we do so we'll let you know how we do could be the year of a little bit more focus or could be the year a lot more focus we'll see but it's timely so wish us luck good luck i think i think the schedule looks terrific it's so impressive i think you guys really do a nice job kicking off the school year effectively and i think that sets the tone and having been at a few of these kickoff meetings and i will try to come tomorrow if i can wonderful i just think you do a nice job welcoming the staff back and when they look at the professionalism of the agenda and the thoughtfulness i think it's a it does set the tone so thank you amy if i recall a couple of years ago you started school with no power we did two years ago we grew way ahead knock on wood but it started with two days of no power it wasn't my best look last year we did have power so i'm hoping for two in a row it looks like the weather forecast is good so hopefully i haven't jinxed us thank you anything else under other matters for anybody i just had one idea katie and debbie brought up the krafts and how they've been such good partners of ours and i know the town has its own issues at us to work through but certainly from a school committee perspective and the school's perspective they have continued to be great partners and bill taken us through an update earlier of the turf field i just wonder if we might consider inviting them at some point to come and knowing that they help sponsor the nfl grant that's made this possible we were starting to talk about i don't know if you call it a ribbon cutting or an opening ceremony for the mini dedication there is no dedicated let's say it's a ribbon cutting and definitely to invite mr kraft so we'll be getting that out so when we have a better idea of when it would be but it'd be good to give him a little notice and people in talent trips up committee who works so hard to start that initiative four years ago and school committee has so generously supported the majority of the funding for it so i think we would like a public ribbon cutting for the new field if you are so inclined that's a great idea bruce i mean we can't do this alone we have to partner with so many different entities and we do certainly appreciate and are thankful for all those willing participants out in the community that do help us be a better district so thank you i think that's a great idea absolutely okay so good luck tomorrow thank you before we adjourn sounds like it's going to be an exciting time unfortunately i'm not going to be able to to be there but i know we'll have representation from the school committee and i'm a very excited very excited for our next meeting where we hear how the we'll let you know how the opening went okay so we are being eight hundred and twenty five we are going to be entering into executive session for the purpose of discussing negotiating strategies for nonunion personnel superintendent superintendent of schools the committee will not be returning to open session so we need a roll call to go into executive session bruce aye chair says aye steve aye tina aye okay thank you very much thank you