seven and learning highlights arts and culture club with advisor sherry turkle and student members seven twenty five interview finalist for the position of director of special education dr sandra committee policy subcommittee fifteen monthly and my fourteen budget update history you cannot twenty m s p update thirty generator funding eight forty acceptance of donations and eight forty five other matters so before we start with perfect timing by the way i understand we have some new student representatives and do we are very happy to have new student representatives as you know our tuesday represented graduated this past june so we were waiting for the announcement of our new student representative names to the school committee and we have kali mcdonald make and it's an important contribution because everything that the committee does and that we try to do is a ministry is for the benefit of students so we welcome your input so far an agenda item that you have some interest in you want to contribute to raise your hand in the some meeting and recognizes different people and their input and sometimes i might look your way and if it looks like you might be interested in saying something might be shy i might ask you what you think so we really appreciate the commitment it's a really important part of what we do so welcome welcome thank you maybe you could tell us just a little bit about yourselves not to put you on the spot but we'd love to learn a little more oh you know what hold on scuse me get a microphone so i'm a sophomore i'm currently this year starting a student council i'm also a football player i am involved in music i mean i am in choir and i am in the alcohol group and i'm also in your book free time to ask ok so we really appreciate your time because we can tell you're both very busy individual so we really do appreciate it thank you ok so here on we're going to go to visitors do we have we will check yeah we'll check no thank you ok well i haven't already on third have improved approved either from i don't know about mrs gray she keeps track in the office but we don't bring all of our information to every meeting so we'll have to school which is an awesome class was there this morning but i've had stanley for a week he's been traveling around with me going to ministry of team meetings other places and i promised the kids this morning that he would be on t v and here he is and then he will be writing back to the class about his adventures spending the week with me so we have lots of different characters and another of the rooms characters left this morning with representative jay barrows to go on the hill and do some legislative work so i just want to make sure that our september sixteenth from our regular meeting if you have any additions or revisions on that i have no motion to approve second there any further discussion all those in favor in providence i'd like to invite mr cottony and five students who agreed to be here to talk about their project to the business tables with all it thank you so much for being here we know that it's not like you don't have homework to do or anything  indoor so thank you for being here we start every school committee meeting with the teaching learning highlight something great the kids are doing from any of the schools or something great the teachers are initiated that's good for kids so something that's really a highlight of what we're doing and  always have the kids who win the scholastic are towards here in the spring but this is different because you just have this going on and it's really about us really exciting projects so we wanted to have you come early so we appreciate you giving up your monday night to do it so i'll turn over to mr  explain what it was well i missed charcot this is my second year teaching here at foxboro high school and i was lucky enough to to become the advisor the arts and cultures and so to kick off the start of the  year the idea that we take part in the providence street painting festival and this was its fourteenth year and i participated this in this event when i was a senior in high school ten years ago so it was really neat to bring a group of students  back to that event that i had participated in so long so it's a full day of artistic expression and artistic appreciation where hundreds of artists come together in providence and it took place within the ice skating rink in downtown providence to create these chalk paintings on the floor of of that ice skating rink so leading up to the event we had designed for years so design drawings for  for the event so danny davis and murdoch name were the two designers of our of our two drawer our rights so they started off making their designs on you know small great about six inches by six inches in si had to sketch out the idea on to that large grid and then slowly but surely add color and bring it to life so it was a great way for all these students to work together to work with students that they may not have had the chance to work with and just to learn from each other while we are working on these how do you mimic someone's style and to make the piece look cohesive and so we were there from eleven thirty in the morning till five thirty at night working all day we were covered in chalk and loved it so that's our other design and other art that's just a you know a bigger view of what the festival look like there wasn't much room and there are a lot of visitors just coming to look at the artwork that's  providence and they would keep them up until you know they eventually worn away cars would drive over them and but because of the location now i guess they was just a value was in the day yes and there are so many people that come out  and check out the artwork and so on wondering if we could hear from each of the students like what was your favorite part of doing this or talking about this is a club this is an afterschool co curricular club so either talk about what that experience means to you and have an and i liked working with all the younger kids that i normally wouldn't have a chance to work alongside and then i was also excited that our old art teacher miss him came and showed her support and she surprised us ye me i'm a junior at the cia and facts are high and this year i learned a lot of new stuff in the arts and culture club it's kind of like a new invention you get to expand your friend you get to look and see what other people can do to make you want to do even better than you are you know how and then you're going to the street art competition was awesome because we were compared to a bunch of other artists too and just  absolutely love it it's one of a class i always with me in a good mood and just being with everyone else that is also so passionate about our it is really rewarding experience and going to breaking bad yet to cars every minox quest to fish swimming out of a city and there's just it is interesting to see everyone's different take on the same concept  i love the enthusiasm from everyone and i love the image the pit the the mermaid it's beautiful colors and i love the photos that you took that show the process of how you got to the completion of this so i want to open it up to the rest of the committee well i think it's excellent that the atmosphere and thanks to the advisor to we have somebody from did you have to do the test trying to sort of rehearse for the final product or that's that's quite a piece of work and it did did it come out to your expectations is it's really beautiful it exceeded my expectation is such a unique experience like that so i can only imagine what it is going to think up for the rest of the year and i know i guess that's my question is what are they going to do next right i do love the club zone we've talked about this before but they just extend opportunities for the kids and i think that's terrific they do it so i guess we should also thank sherry as a result for her time and participation  this is the public interview by the committee i've attached her resume so that you had a chance to look at that before tonight and as you can see i know that she'll learn a lot more about the position from her time with you tonight but i really want to first publicly think the initial interview and screening committee who reviewed the resumes with dr berto singh conducted the initial interview for each applicant so i think they did a really wonderful job so let me just say their names before forget at the end teacher and staff representatives pam anderson sue forest have tonight they have heard before i don't know with tina and steve i mean as well you know the first thing that i always think about is what brings someone to foxborough what is it about foxborough that you know attracts a particular candidate for a position so i would love to hear from you that i think one of the things that i've stated in my letter of introduction to superintend it is even though that this was a kind of in the middle of the year kind of position i didn't feel like i could really pass it up your leadership team is really well known in this area and it's an extraordinary team and i would like to be a part of that team i'm come from a good if not a great team but you know when you have an opportunity to be a part of this kind of leadership team i wanted to take that opportunity for you ladies quite a compliment i think the rest of them is sitting in the audience so there that's just the symbol i think to be here so i think i have a related follow on direction if i can the dove tails with i think i am bruce gardner nice to meet you thank you thank you for putting your name and one of the things that i've observed in my time on the committee is that the director of special education can act somewhat autonomously from the superintendent and the assistant superintendent and i think that's based on perhaps the nature of the work or the i don't know if it's the funding or the reporting structures or hierarchies with the state department of education and the procedures could you just comment on your view of how that position will and should work with the rest of the leadership to take a look at my resume  and some of the letters every recommendation you can see that i'm a very much a team player i think that in in terms of special education it was always meant to be in a part of regular education and over the years as it first started out in the seventy's and eighty's that became really a sub separate culture and really weren't really trying during my career i really tried to really focus on bringing those two cultures back together and again that that's because you have to work closely with regular education if you're a regular education is really strong your special education is going to be as strong as well so it's a team approach thank you yeah yes what you started down the definitely continue this fan or is there a student that you work with students that i worked at the boston college campus school had called social motion issues so that kind of led me into the social motional realm of the counseling in school psychology that kind of made me want to work with them like alternative high school students so it's really kind of just where i was at that point in time in my life and really the students really are the you know the reason that i continue to do it i really enjoy  as our challenges here in this district or opportunities for growth within the special education program i actually took notes when i met with each of the day each time i sat and talked with them with people i think that one of the things i don't come in with a do and gender i think that is certainly i would be working with the leadership team in and as well as the path of the special education package about what they think their their challenges are and then really going from there because i understand from my from my research that the the system is in very good shape and so i really have to defer to to kind of what people are thinking of they think are challenges you for the people at home who don't have your background and will get it out to them but you have a very proud and distinguished i think history and i commend you for your experience and thank you we're fortunate to have you come to foxborough but most recently you had some similar positions and i was a referee resume you were the director pupil services and walpole and then i think you had a but looks like a very similar position holliston correct just curious made you know why you made the change and why the change now to this i think that they had the position over in walpole it was a it's a fairly large district and we were we had down and done extraordinary things in terms of working with bringing students back from around the district developing programs and then i think that we went through some pretty difficult economic hardships and i think that time that became a little stressful so i went to a smaller system with a little less of those kind of hardships of doing similar things in terms of building the programs really making sure that continuum of services from pre k all the way through age twenty two and the variety of programs that existed there and went through this c p r and the mid cycle so  if this all works out well be leaving them in very good shape so it was a change in walpole in an opportunity to go to something similar and post them a smaller smaller district about a thousand students smaller yes and then the transition here would be how would you compare that in those saying it's really the leadership team like i was saying so maria what are you looking for you're looking for a similar role or are you looking for a similar role and also trying to find what what kind of different things that the knowledge the leadership team would like to see different but also the parents in terms of what are the strengths what do they see the areas of various challenges for them and then work together to kind of tweak existing things or really i really work with a team of the principals teachers and really trying to meet the needs of students both regular and in special ed so well in walpole we did a response to intervention so we would work with both special ed  regular ed students and we started with the reading street because we saw a lot of the increases in special education and some of these social issues were coming from the fact that students really were having difficulty learning to read so we started that respons intervention which really works with students that are at high risk or they might be in special education and we were able to really address those students needs at the elementary level and we were really proud of the fact that we were able to bring our special ed population from twenty two percent down to fifteen percent in almost three years because we were really looking at the data they were more curriculum casualties rather than special ed students so we really were able to address those on the reading  also the social emotional needs because if you can't read the schools pretty difficult so we also at that point in time started to look at our social emotional concerns and we worked with walker school and i understand that  consult on the consult with and we developed a continuum of programs for students with social emotional needs from from elementary all the way through the high school setting and again we were able at that point in time we were many of our students were leaving the high school in you know maybe four or five a year which can be pretty expensive and there wasn't really a need for that we could really meet the needs of students in the high school or we had a program next to the high school without them having to leave the teachers it can't be just the principal it has to be regular educate education teachers paraprofessionals really understanding what the needs are so we did a variety of professional development opportunities not only in reading street and u nderstanding behavior management understanding how to bring a student down who might be really starting to have an unfortunate situation and be sent to the principal's office how come we teacher or our regular special ed  or professional can really previews those kinds of incidents and keep a student in the classroom we also trained regular ed teachers about how to also deescalate situations within within the regular classroom as well as the special educators w also attending to that so i kind of took that on the road when holliston and kind of continue that professional development with the paraprofessionals regular and special ed also developing programs for students with social emotional issues and really streamlining the the programs preschool to through high school so that they're so as they move from building to building the transition isn't so difficult because many times students with especially as do have difficulties with transitions so i don't have really any questions i want to congratulate the daughter for making it through with the people at home might not know is  from all over the place but we're consistent in the questions that we've asked as a group i can't speak for the whole group but i'm one hundred percent confident that we've we've picked the right  just wanted you to with if you will saying that we get in about you we're talking about you know how you have granted experience and your your family and parental availability i think that's important for people with whom to s would see me very often as well as classroom teachers and staff and special ed teachers and special ed students and regulated students and i got to know but i really think that the it's imperium porton and i think that a lot of times when there are difficulties with families or with families and schools it is about communication so if the first time the communication isn't clear or there's there's a conflict i always tend to go back to the table and sit down and say are we understanding each other or do we just have to agree to disagree or is there a situation where we really are just not understanding each other and i think that most times it is a situation where people aren't communicating and are not understanding each other and it's always been very it's paid off for me as a professional to really be able to see down and talk to two families and understand what their concerns are and do our best to resolve it within the system thank you very much you had a nervous when you and i hope other people find the same way i'm sure thank you thank you thank you dr i will definitely i feel that way i think that's really important because you know we talk about students but you know their families are you know is an critical and i know from my own experience hearing from family members that's often a concern of theirs so i'm delighted to hear that and we as a committee have been talking for a long time about social emotional issues and the impact that that has on any student in the classroom and so i'm very delighted to hear your viewpoint on that as well because that affects learning and if we don't address those issues we're we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing so i think that we as a i mean i have a lot of emphasis on that so i don't know if anybody else has any other comments or question was one of the area that was well all of the areas were important that we discussed it during the interview process but one other area was the transition from high school post high school for our special ed students and i wonder if you could give us your thoughts on that sure i think that transition is is very large not only in the state that nationally and i think again we as a community would have to sit down and talk about what that looks like and what it means for the community for individual families and then we would have to take a look at making sure that our students our staff first are understand what is expected to come by by the regulations what is what is kind of the current practice and what is how is that fit into to  public schools and then work closely with families in developing what what is a transition process would be so thank you this is why we have representation on the search committee because it's important for the school committee to have a voice and then for us to have feedback from the process so thank you both for that appreciate it that's definitely helpful for me as we're sitting here about ready to take a vote at administrative leave i'd like to thank  for a lot of the help she did keeping a large group together focused on point to help us find him really what i think is an excellent candidate it's a lot of work and it's very important so thank you for your help with that and your oversight with a lot of what we what we did definitely talking about team it's a team and we have a great team and i want to talk about coming to a good team you won't be disappointed i really do have a great team and i know them very fortunate to be a part of it myself thank you it's hard to sit here because it's not my my interview and i'm wow i have to remind myself don't say anything but we really would like to pick up on bruce's question because you really hit on something that i would say i would put on my top few reasons for thinking that dr until is exactly the perfect match at the right time which is she has such a vast experience and depth of experience in every aspect of education specifically special education  general and having served as in a broader role is director of student services she really does bring more than we've ever had in terms of someone who is going to connect with regular read and and has lots of ideas for how to do so that we talked about in her interview with me and and bill you know who was the second we were the second round of interviews after you guys sent us files so semifinalists or candidates so we would really like to tap into that and that broader definition of what it means to be in special education but broader how does it connect with regular read and maybe we've talked about some concrete ways that she could bring to the table to connect that so i put that in my top couple of reasons why so i think that was a great question because it really spoke to something that i in her that i thought could really bring us to a little bit of a different place that you have any questions for us and i think i asked her quite a few this well if you have a good  mellower director and trials here for her report but we have lots of people here to greet you so i'm sure they can do a wonderful escort out if they're not the next person on the job we'll be talking in the next day or two is the final step which has to be passed so i will be speaking to him again in the next couple of days to work out a transition plan as you know this type of position does require a fairly lengthy transition so we want to be cognizant of that on the part of the district is currently and now as you know we have an interim special director in place this morning and she's also very experienced so she's going to hold down the fort for another couple of months until we can work out a transition date so that will be occurring and then your vote tonight actually gives me permission to enter into a contract and go sheesh ns with dr so will be doing that in the next few days and working out the terms of her contract so that that usually takes you know a week or so thank you know the date so thank you  u ok we're going to move on to twenty twelve twenty thirteen math curriculum review a final report card to on one of our biggest recommendations that came out of that review back in june and so this is a follow up to give more of a summary of the different things that came out as areas of strength areas of need our priorities in recommendations for professional development curriculum instruction and assessment so in june we came with our biggest priority which was with the alignment of the new massachusetts curriculum frameworks which incorporates a common core state standards a new textbooks was warranted for middle school and high school but this evening we wanted to talk a little bit more there was eighteen people that were on that committee that worked all year long last year collecting both qualitative and quantitative data from teacher surveys to taking every single standard and teasing it out to look next to where we currently are with our own curriculum document our pacing our assessments and how it would align so there was a lot of work that went into it so the couple of pages that you have within your packet really are just that summary and it goes through what were our positive findings what are our current needs that we've already started to address  over the summer and in full force this year and also what our recommendations and the direction that we're heading as a result of that extensive curriculum revealed so i'm going to turn it over to sue and allison to kind of still go back and forth talking about the k to eight and the high school and discuss some of those positive findings and our needs and how they connect to curriculum structure and development great well thanks for having us here a any said we did an extensive comprehensive process of data analysis looking at both qualitative and quantitative data we surveyed our teachers we looked at our test scores we look at our alignment to standards and we found that there's a lot going on that's very positive and that we were doing yeah we were doing very well the the biggest catalyst for change was really the implementation of the new massa chase in massachusetts frameworks that incorporate the common core standards so we're going to go through this chart and sort of we're going to talk about our positive findings our needs our recommendations and then what we are doing and where we are on our timeline for the things that we're doing so in terms of curriculum one of the positive findings is that we have very detailed curriculum documents in place for grades k through eight and those were a goal of ours for the last couple of years in order to create consistency across the elementary schools and the middle school really important for us to get a consistent student coming out of three different elementary schools in addition to that we had implemented pacing guides that are only guides but they really serve as a model to help teachers be really close to each other in terms of pace of instruction if one student was to move from one teacher to another teacher for example it wouldn't be giant gaps and that ties into our common assessment so that we're getting the common assessments around the same time so that everybody is sort of on par with each other we're a little bit behind but still on track with all of that when me ask came through we had already started looking at our curriculum guides in our pacing guides and trying to get them up to date we've actually spent the past couple of summers now trying to get them aligned with the new set of frameworks and along with that we've also been working towards kind of jumping ahead a little bit but the common assessments and what does that look like in the high school what does that look like across an honors level in a c p level is it the same question for both of them so we've had some very spirited discussions over the past couple of years and we feel beta and we're just going to summarize it the needs when we were looking at our curriculum documents we've been talking a lot about the twenty first century skills and that's something that we would like to really explicitly outline within our curriculum documents so that teachers can be more cognizant of when they're hitting those twenty first century skills within their instruction we believe that's happening already right but we'd like to document it so that we can say we are countable for that curriculum got in some cases is just putting the name on something that we've already been doing and again like alison was talking we want to make that that's occurring across all of the teachers now i'm speaking for just the high school for say same k to twelve you know you want to make sure that in all the different classrooms that are teaching the same thing that the skills are all there it is the same types of struction is happening so that it is consistent from classroom to classroom moving into instruction there were a lot of survey questions about teachers and the support that they felt that they had and some of our positive findings were that our middle school and elementary math specialists are very well received and well use not just for the student groups because they are heavily used with the students but also as a resource for teachers for supporting their own math content their pedagogy and it's great that they have that go to person who's close by not always there because we have two for three buildings but who is close by and then with sue having the department head well we are always go into each other we're pretty cohesive group and we don't have a math specialist but within the department you know you've had some teachers that have been teaching the same courses for a couple of years and then they have become the expert and so that's where the communication goes in the collaboration really begins so we find a very positive that people are comfortable to go to each other and have those conversations in terms of the needs we're looking for how can we maybe build in a more structured time for that to happen so that we're not doing that at lunch before school in the four minutes of passing time that kind of a thing that was on the big things that came out of it right that was one of the recommendations but one of the positive findings was that we do have our department had meetings and we have ongoing meetings on at the middle school cycle meetings so there are built in times right now they would like a little bit and teachers would like a little bit more high school meets once a month so that there are other things that get put on you know into that meeting i mean not just curriculum talk or instruction talk that kind of a word we're trying to figure out how can we carve out some more time so in terms of the needs want to piggyback on that one of the bullets says expand opportunities for collaboration to enhance instructional practices because now that we have our content set now we have to start looking at how we deliver that content and the park and the common core has different demands for rigor in the way that we're questioning students in the way that we're delivering instruction more conceptually so that's something that does require quite a bit of collaborate well and i can give an example from last year that came out of some smart goals that some teachers had they actually and the administration was great to allow them some some flexibility to actually go in and observe other teachers in the department so even if we couldn't all get together at the same time teachers were going out and going into another classroom how was this lesson being present you know present or what kind of activity were you doing how were you handling that material so  that was something that those that did it really enjoyed it and i think we're going to see some continuation of that well and i think it speaks to one of the most positive things that may not even be explicitly outlined here is what we found is we have a tremendous community of learners on our faculty and it's really exciting i can't tell you how many teachers have come to me and said oh you're going to teach a graduate course in math that's not something you hear every day from every teacher and i think it's really exciting that everybody wants to continue to push so that we can have the best curriculum the best possible instruction for students and i applaud them for that yeah yeah you know it is it's very exciting to hear the conversation as people are you know diving into this curriculum now in the new standards and you know as the conversations blossom about how are you teaching  what is this about and the excitement the excitement that people come with based on what the kids are now doing in the conversations that the students are having in class and the questions in the higher order thinking questions that are are now popping up in classes it's there's just a lot of excitement going on right now for example to e mailed us down at the middle school to say how excited the high school staff was with the caliber of freshman student they had and the types of skills and conceptual understanding as they were bringing we were all very excited about that because working hard in one direction if you can see the results of that or other people can make you want to carter absolutely i mean keep going so and great for the kids absolute confidence they must feel moving into the area of assessment assessment has been something we have been working intensely on at the elementary level because there are just so many implications when you have three going on and at the middle school level they've really been leaders with the galileo standards based assessment so we one of the positive findings we found with that we have our common assessment in line from k through eight we spent the summer and i'll talk a little bit more about that later a light realigning them to the common core to make sure that everything not only the content standards are represented but the practice standards and how the kids are being questioned and answering questions we also have a widespread use of diagnostic assessments across the district with almost every teacher in the district being trained in the first steps in mathematics and we have developed if you have a student who's in grades k through four you know a lot about our fact fluency plan that we have in place where we're testing kids four times a year and teaching them strategies for that we also have our common mid year and end of year benchmarks for k through eight so i was talking a little bit before about the fact that we're working hard to establish a set of core questions for media and finals to be used again across the different levels of a course for college prep and honors so if you take geometry college prep and honors in both your mid term and final you expect to see you know a set of questions that are the same for both groups so that we can start to establish some norms there the other thing that happens throughout the year that again we've been building on over the past couple of years we've had some teachers take the john collins writing class there would be one that all of the algebra teachers would give and have the students write explain something it really is about their writing in the communication and then as we have time we try to sit down and again get a norm for how do we grade that and how do we give the points to that so that's something also coming from another middle school and coming from another high school on top of that for me transitioning to here was very difficult especially with the math because the math you know i thought back to my old p and still struggling i was wondering what you're doing for those students that are coming from another schooling system and it is a good question you know i would hope that your teachers sort of sat down to sort of investigate where the problem lie in terms of your transition i know that my experience has been in the past that it's about that writing it's about the fact that we're not just doing the skill in the drill that we're really trying to get the understanding of the concepts and really getting you to talk about it would you say that that's what was some of the problems in terms of your struggles in terms of being able to really explain or do you remember for me i would say most most of my strengths were in  algebra coming from you know starting geometry at my old school i was in honors geometry was doing fairly well known coming here i just travelled a lot with consoles just like i don't know the rules the way maybe was being teachers were teaching it or it was just the way i was taught my whole high school years here is probably a learning curve but i think that what all teachers try to do when they see anybody that's struggling is i really think that they try to get in to you know some differentiated instruction in terms of some different activities or some different questions that they might ask you to try to really pinpoint where your struggles and then what can they do to help you with that and with any luck if you had some sort of a dialogue or you maybe felt some of that over the course of of the year in your skills hopefully improved  but i think in general we're really looking for the for the teacher to to work with the students and see what can be done there and try to pull un and i know we've got a lot of discussion in the department about also with peers and getting students to work together to do a lot of communication it's a struggle it's been a struggle over the past year or so students ask a question and they want an immediate answer and what they're finding in the classroom is that we're not giving  immediate answer where we're hoping that another student might be able to help you out or give you an explanation and that takes a little bit of time to sort of you know change that mindset that the teachers are going to keep telling telling telling so that some of what we've seen a shift as that has begun to happen you know all the way down that the expectation is that the students will help each other and will be able to do that explaining as well and i would say the process is slightly different at the middle school where we get a new student we give them an assessment that's based on their previous  and we really look to see where their strengths and weaknesses are and we really try to place them in the club the course that will allow them to be most successful so just because it said honor is maybe on your previous transcript if the evidence on the assessment is maybe that you would benefit from an honest course that you maybe would be better in the regular level course that's where we want to put you so that you can be the most successful so we're really cognizant of that because it's every school is different and you're exposed to things in a different way and even certain math programs teach things a certain way and so we want to make sure that we can accommodate you so that you don't lose your momentum in your confidence in math because that's really important to us we have a lot of those conversations perhaps at a later on as you know we see that that struggle is occurring and the conversation begins also with the guidance counselor in terms of where were you when you know again hopefully the teacher was having a conversation with you as well to try to figure out if that was a good place and what else you needed for some support we have a question i'm a little curious you said there  the middle school but not at the high school they're different where they have courses at the high school so it's sort of apples and oranges is a little bit different but is there a way to assess a student who's coming into a particular mathematics course ample i'm i'm hopeful that they'll be less of a need for that now that we're going to the common core and so that an algebra one class isn't the same algebra one class every where that's not always the  case so when a student comes in and comes through guidance unfortunately we can't have a situation like this where it's the process has started and he's in a class and we realize that something's not quite right we're playing catch up on that so that would be a good point to try to investigate is there something ahead of time that we could do to maybe see where you know where the strengths lie moving on to professional development to say it was really exciting to sit here and listen to the interview that was going on because a lot of our work has been trying to create opportunities for special education teachers and regular education teachers and paraprofessionals to really work together especially in the realm of our professional development in math because we realize that all of those stakeholders really need to be exposed to great content training and great pedagogy training because they're all invested in the student so we were looking at some of our positive findings and what we found were over ninety percent of our regular and special education teachers from here through five are trained in the first step diagnostic assessment and we've done a professional development for the educational assistance on the interventions so that they can support the intervention side we've also offered from k to twelve multiple opportunities for onsite graduate courses and i think part of our role is to communicate additional opportunities that go on outside of the district that people do take advantage of well and i was going to add in that special education teachers that teach in mathematics they are available to come to our department meetings and at the end of the week they're going to be in our professional development classes i can think of better word one that i know workshops that's the one i'm looking for they'll be in our workshops on friday during the staff development day and they were participating in the workshops back at the very beginning of the school year before  the students actually arrive so we've been working really hard in paddy's been great about that to try to give them that opportunity to join us during those staff development days and workshop times so that they are up to speed with what's going on within the department both of the teachers participated in the summer workshops this summer working on the curriculum and being you know up to speed on what that curriculum looks like in and how they might implemented in their classroom as well so some of the needs that we thought or things that we could maybe do a little bit better were embed more professional math professional development opportunities during the day be there amongst colleagues with that collaboration time we talked about leveraging the math specialist a little bit more in that domain myself sue as a leadership people on the team to support and embed that in our meetings and in our interactions with our teachers if we move to the next there you go on this is just an overview we've spoken a lot about this already so we're not going to go through it excruciating detail but the recommendations of the committee are on the left side and the right side sort of tells you what actions we've taken and what our timeline is just to go through it quickly when we were here in june we really focused on recommendation one which was the implementation of the new common core aligned textbooks and program materials the print textbooks were for six through  eleven eleven and then they supplemental materials were for k through five so that was all done this summer and fully implemented this fall there's ongoing training for those resources some of that will be happening on friday so the second recommendation so in terms of the next recommendation the revision to the curriculum for a line into the c c s s a lot of the content has moved around it's not in the same courses that it used to be it's not in the same grades and as we  as we make these adjustments it also matters of pacing because of the depths of what we're covering so this past summer i think it looks like across the board we were all involved in curriculum writing trying to realign those i know we are not completely done but we're really really close to john here at the high school because we're waiting until everything sort of rolls through so this year ninth graders all the ninth graders are in algebra one and everything is aligned to those new standards and then as is it a process well it's a process the ninth graders here are fully fully invested in the new standards at this point the soft moore's there's one group of sophomores that are there the ones who are currently taking geometry to enter college for one last year the other group of sophomores is taking algebra two and to the best of our ability we're trying to be as true as we can to the standards however because they did not go through previous courses that were all you know aligned with the standards there are things that we have to make sure we include to that they don't have gaps someplace else so it's really a hybrid now and then the same thing with what is happening with the juniors that are taking algebra two they're in a hybrid as have some hybrid courses running as that last group goes through and finishes up based on the old standards and then like i said starting this freshman class they are all in new standards courses and as they move forward it will again be everything will be aligned to the current standards and i don't want to speak to high school that isn't one of the biggest reasons because the new algebra one course really has a lot of a lot of algebra two in it right right it's very very interesting right now as you walk around and you hear the conversations because the algebra one and the algebra two teachers are all talking about the same they're all talking about quadratics and everybody's about to be on that topic some have started already and that's due to the shift in this in the new standards so yes thank you so well that we had that conversation a while ago about the algebra one is not what we all took her own cause i know my son is doing in eighth grade and it seems like in a couple more years it'll be a little bit easier because we don't have these hybrid groups anymore and everybody does that mean that the flow that's been set up by the standards but we're really still in a little bit of a transition time in the in the upper grades and in the lower grades  we did our alignment we did not there was no justification for abandoning think math which we talked about in june but we did incorporate a new resource called hands on standards that meets all the standards that we were meeting in think math and it has been really embraced by the teachers the students are loving it it's just as it implies it's very hands on the kids are conceptualizing and they're really learning the material so i've gotten several emails from teachers saying this is really great it's meeting the standards in the kids are enjoying the learning so happy to hear that and that really affected our pacing and our rewriting of our curriculum documents because to their credit the teachers are toggling between think math and then adding in this lesson where they need to and making it all seamless so that the kids have no idea that there's anything different it's all nice continuity moving down to number three sure ok so i thought you talked a little bit about at here at the high school in terms of what we're trying to do to make sure that the special education teachers are included they're included a regular departmental e mails there of course leaders for each of the courses here at the high school and as they send out an email to the other teachers they're making sure that they also include the special education teachers i mentioned earlier about their availability now come to the department meetings and be in the conversation departments and the professional development training as well so we're trying to make sure that that communication is open and remains open and that they're also part of the dialogue  that wasn't being done before some of it was we're trying to strengthen it a little bit ok yeah so it's not that it's all brand new but we're really trying to strength and really make it a little bit more inclusive i want to say that in terms of the course leader and sometimes the course e mails that wasn't always as great as it as it should have been but with part coming down the pike for the assessment and you know doesn't really matter which version of algebra one you're going to take you're going to take exam we really feel that it's it's important to make sure that the instructional practices are very similar no matter which level of the algebra one you are in sounds like the new special education director shares your your viewpoint you know i would assume that this would be strengthened even more so when i head when i had asked for some summer time to have like all the algebra one teacher sit down and talk about the curriculum and what was new and what needed to change i made sure to include  scott morrison betsy dunham to make sure that they were part of those conversations so that they too understood for sure what the ships were and knew what the expectations were going to be in the classroom so that they would be able to support the students and yes for thank you really about strengthening that that dialogue and i would say that's the same from k through eight where we include the special education teachers in our grade level meetings and in our professional development as we mentioned in our summer curriculum work we've had the special education teacher working alongside the regular education teacher on things like modified assessments and revisions to curriculum documents that they really learn the curriculum from inside out and this summer in particular there was one project proposed by a special education teacher to work in collaboration with the elementary math specialists to create a menu of goals that will really help special education teachers as they're writing their i p's and thinking about goals for math so that it has the math perspective as well as the special education perspective and we're really so again you know we're doing what we can to try to find some of that time in a department meeting i've started sending out e mails with just some of the factual information so that we can free up some of that time to you know look at student work or you know look at some pedagogy around around instruction practice that kind of thing that's where we are right now in terms of trying to find some time along with professional development days in what we need for a workshop on that day in terms of more time on math which was also part of that review at the middle school principal abrams has been great about working collaboratively to carve out some additional times from math there are some specific times and each grade level using the flex time or the b corps block on to expand those so that making sure  the twenty minutes for example that that's really being used to target math and the elementary the principals there have instituted one additional grade level meeting per month which gives teachers that extra opportunity so the middle school just  r clear and i'm still clear on the middle school wasn't about the collaboration time so much it was about students who had time on my math correct very very comprehensive a lot of work you know and i just had a quick question as far as budgeting can you state your name just for the record so thank you to friends budgeting i know you have to keep up with math in the current half and all that but is there any thought to like who makes the decisions as far as materials between last year and this year there were two different calculators that we needed and they get  and we've been requesting the same calculator for many many years now right and i handed in you have to keep up with the curriculum and everything much as far as i'm just thinking of you know parents single parents towns that maybe are a little strapped right is there a way that the committee or someone can maybe reach out to a company and buy them in bulk and maybe help people a little bit if a student approaches a teacher and talks about a need and or whatever we've always been able to provide  saying that if you had any questions or anything like your concerns it was included in the foxworthy that came home at the very end of august there my e mail was on there and you could if that were even a perfect time for you to you know have responded and we would have been able to address that need help right we didn't know at the time we're going to major in something else that wouldn't require that level of math in college so i think it's probably a good idea into because we've been doing that business certainly my kids are older but we've been doing it that way for a long time and maybe it's a good time to take a separate look at that and even as far as supplies in the supplies from year to year is just getting interesting and i can only speak for elementary and middle but as part of our materials adoption we did purchase just basic calculators not the graphing calculator that bicycle but so that the classroom teachers i provision with calculator at the middle school and we have some there for use in the classroom and like i said we have some that do get signed out like a book like a textbook to students that they ha so exactly what nancy just said about the calculator specifically but in general about the school supplies so maybe we need to take a look at what the lists are and what we're asking of people and what we can do i'm wondering if if that's something  can look into you know just in terms of buying in bulk because you know even at a reduced cost it really how much the law is we are actually by we we could basically set up a purchasing agreement we can't by itself because we're tax exempt and we can't pass you know directly to individuals unfortunately so but there is a possibility that we could contract and say that we're going to you know through the group they're going to buy x amount and maybe get a and your s a t s so it's really important that the students have them in the car for fish and with them so when they are taking these high stakes exams that they are familiar with them and know how to use them so it definitely is an investment it is something even if you don't use it outside of college you will use them for all four years here so as it is now obviously we'll look into it but as it is now there if if any parent my view watching sends an email to a teacher or to you saying this is a hardship we have them available that we already been loaned out this year all right thank you any any other comments thank you with this great presentation a lot of your mind racing i'd like to add if that's ok as far as the recommendations and the outcomes we on our professional development day this friday will for the middle school and high school we'll be having the support of the publisher to come and work on the multitude of technology resources that with our new program transformed the way the instruction is happening in the classroom and really allow people to leverage their interactive whiteboards and there is a parent component to that so i know at the eighth grade are going to be the first penguins eighth grade teachers and they're going to bring the parents in to try to show them how everything works and we'll see how that goes and we'll let you know and we'll look at our six is that yes that that's coming up i think the first week of november so that it will be a forum for parents to come in and there are things like i tutor an electronic tutor and there that might not only help the so what  more support besides time we always hear time and we work on that oh no we know that you know that i feel we've had a lot of conversations around it so i think that we're definitely moving towards that in that direction certainly we have the math curriculum that  component we've had some discussions about engineering pieces and what we might be able to bring in into that we have an engineering club that is just started that was brought about by some students that had a need so as the needs arise were really trying to fill that fill those gaps and make sure you know that they were meeting those needs we actually met last week with crackle and several department heads to further detail in our outline plans to expand st addition to that i'm i'm part of the tri town stem initiative and we are planning a tri town stem expo for june fifth it will be held that we in college and it will be mansfield foxborough and nor and and i  taking our entire sixth grade for a day of stem activities next which was really a function of getting that venue so that we could accommodate all of these students because in the past it was at bridgewater we can only take thirty students so we are actively planning it's quite a big make undertaking but i think it's going to be incredible and one of the things that's exciting is our eighth grade robotics team will be one of the presenters presenting really younger students and i know paul shop and here is also involved and he'll be having some of his high school kids doing some of the presentations for the sixth graders as well so it's definitely actively on our radar as the new science standards prepare to be released we've been talking a lot about the engineering and design process and last week when i met with sixth grade we were talking actively about how to incorporate some of these math concepts into the science classroom as a way to reinforce them because we know that they go together in the new standards they're called cross cutting concepts and they overlap so yes we are talking about it a lot and making plans to look forward to hearing more about june fifth as an editor host and being that you just want to thank them for being so proactive in the me as well but just to be proactive in trying to realign to the common core because it's pretty complex and it's in the shift core and so you know without these two working at it we would be very slow on their proactive approach you get a jump right on it and we have a lot of stuff going on in the summer leadership so we're in better shape than most although there's a boatload of work in front of us but i know some others are really in not such a hot position to to to get realigned and it's going to come around when  with park where we've been elected to expand the park in the spring so either you take in geometry you ok good so you have to it will be one of the test cases for the future national assessments because just some of our geometry classes or so were selected by the government for that so there's a lot of work that's coming around but they're very proactive in this is amy so i want to just thank you for that question i'm always very thankful of all the support from all of you so i can't say that i know we haven't gotten to the policy stuff committee but i know ben and tina have worked on it in the past i'm hoping that they will continue but i'm saying this is a you know in anticipation of this budget subcommittee wondering if five zero thank you and then the policy subcommittee tina and have you done such a great job on this like you know compared to last year so are you guys willing to take it on again i really want to make  perfect so thank you our let's move on to the monthly f y fourteen budget update mr you know yes you know typically at this part of the year the one thing that we get a little clarity to is these the salary side of it although i will say that as you can see we're still hiring position so you know some of the funding you see as a differential right now you know will change as we move forward here but i know i've got two positions on my side and obviously you know after a few other things so forty one thousand to the good really at this point with the budget on the salaries when you look at the actual budget statement you'll see obviously a real mix of numbers all the way through and as you know when we're in a year of negotiating salaries the funds don't get put into the right lines as we're doing it so that you're going to see a swing all year around what i can tell you though is based on what how we had budgeted we were virtually you know right on the number i think the differential was about six thousand dollars so you know who knows to the group for getting it done but it was it was very close in the end on that side of it as far as the expense side if again it's it's a very early stage  which it's to really get this from so we you know we're only showing a very small model one line that we know we've made you know a couple anderson and we've made some adjustments on both ways and so really forty three thousand very similar to last year at the same time we're about forty one thousand last year at the same time so i think we're kind of on track to you know have a good budget and no real big surprises that we're seeing at this point also you need to remember that in our budget process something that's been kind of baked into the budget for years now is that we have to make up under twenty five thousand dollars off of retirements and changes that we're hiring in and again that was very close but we were able to make that up as well through the process so overall that  worked out very well force a couple of the concerning areas that we're obviously watching if you will expense through something that we really didn't to support which was a tax increase you know that we were hit by and stayed on and obviously fuel costs about a little higher this year although we we kind of edged ourselves up in our budget so we're very close on that so we're hoping that that police will stay kind of neutral at this point the food service budget  you know when i wrote this just a little while ago i did have some information i'll be sharing with you today but one of the things i will say there is that the you know this this is an area that we took a very big hit last year on because of the participation within you know the food service program fortunately was certainly very different trend this year but it really pretty much wiped out all of our reserves so again we need to kind of move this thing forward and we do have you know expenses outside of just producing also all the equipment that we have to maintain so the new area for us to watch a few of our grants anything that has anything to do with federal and state grants is is you know under scrutiny right now and we were on the two forty gran about twenty three thousand less than last year and less than what we were burgeoning career kind of flat and on the two seventy four we're just under nine thousand short in the grants again we'll have to make that up with some of our budget moves this is the especially i was just going to ask you know that people at home can you tell here ok so i think overall i mean i'm very comfortable where we are with the budget no surprises and again having the majority of our staff in place right now is we we saw about sixty two thousand dollars in revenue and this year we're at about eighty three thousand for the same period time so i think a lot of the changes obviously that allison was made able to do with the program overall  bring salad bars into the entire district has made a huge change all the way down to the elementary level high school getting some of the things that they were looking for relative to the smoothies in the you know actual ability create real pizza things like that back within the program  you know has made a big difference as well and on the middle school again all that rolling out as well the smoothies and the salad bars and you know that the food choices that may be more consistent a little more program seems to be making a very big difference and i think you know if you walk in our i try to come through the building as regular as i can and i go through the different cafeteria things and you can really see that it's it's definitely gotten you know much better reviews i think from the the students and the staff that's very good news because i remember where we were a y you know it was tough so to give us an update a year ago the federal government as you may know put in a lot of strict guidelines that we had been used to so that's why the portions were so small and him back to school last year and they were it wasn't that we wanted that it's a sin we had to keep it that they loosened up a little bit that's why you see we've made a tremendous effort to try to provide food that you want to eat as well as well but i so how we doing so far i think i'm doing right here definitely it's like seeing the which to make so any feedback you have for us we're always willing to take because ultimately we want healthy food but that you actually eat and it tastes good you know everyone is really pleased with the new i'm very grateful keep us posted  ok yes i'm going to let bill give you the details but as as you know we have waited months and months for the final m s p a estimate signed off and it's been as you know we've had many updates it's been really really hard to get the final review in in to get their feedback and so we do want to thank before we forget bill's going to go over the details but we do want to thank representative j barrows because we had heard that they had a report that they would get to us and that's been a few months now and we were struggling to get it along with the final assessment and bill got in touch with jay to see if he could help us nudge intervene he did in here we have it so we want to thank him he's always very supportive he's tremendously and the old days they would award you a grant amount and pretty much if you did the program you got the green you know you know a few exceptions but nothing like this this round now and we were as you'll notice in the letter we're one of the first ones to go under the new provisions and and they kept morphing over three years as we were doing it because i think they're going to we're trying to figure out their way through the way this process should work so it was never a point where either paul jackson before me or myself could actually know what they were thinking and what they were doing and how they're going to change it in the end what we ended up doing is obviously fighting for every cent that we could and having to double triple document things and and i think although it was a struggle i think we did very well you know it's my taxpayers money well so the the thing here that i think you're really kind of reading the last you know second to last line in the third paragraph is that you know we executed about one point two million dollars in change orders that's part of the contingency money that we would carry in a project like this you know because there are things that were naturally going to happen one example was were very nervous about the pricing originally  on the overall project we were very fortunate that the the bid economy was excellent but one of the things we left out as an example was you know retiling the entire bathrooms of all the bathrooms we had done portions of them because again it's a big t item so there was about two hundred thousand dollars there a loan that we got the state to to agree that they would fund but there was a number of different situations like that throughout the thing and again i think the building committee in the school administration took the same tact all the way through whatever we could do to make the building as good as we possibly could to last the next twenty to twenty five years was the direction we want to go we'd like i said one point two million dollars we do equaled about nine percent of the overall funding we got about seven point zero seven percent of it and as they're saying most of the communities around us i've only gotten about three point seven percent of that so i think we did very well i had a range as a i said to our deb a while ago the minimum i knew we would get was or around two hundred thirty two thousand more from where we stood at that point in time i thought the maximum was about five hundred fifty thousand and in the end what this document tells you is we got five hundred four so we had very close to the maximum that we could have gotten out of it in that process so that one more time we had expected anywhere from two thirty two to five hundred to five hundred fifty and we ended up with five hundred four additional funding into the end here so  again within less than a couple hundred thousand dollars of the total possible that you could get on a project like this with the other content that is an excellent job building on your part from where we were where we thought we were going to be with jay's help and their body housman you know we owe you thanks for bird dog that did a great very persistent well and i think the you know from my perspective the fact that you know deb and you are supported the whole process is what makes it work because i could be out there shouting if i was getting people to agree and sign off on things we wouldn't gotten too far with so you know i think overall it was it was well worth it very frustrating at times but at least got this one stone well i think you know your example about the tiles in the back room was a way that we were trying to be conservative in our approach to this project and didn't really seem to make sense to have varying colors you know because it's so outdated and we couldn't get you know to  make a bathroom to really look the way it should so and that was you know also thanks to you bill so i think this is amazing of course this is what jumped out to me when i was reading this so i think that people at home you know it's important to understand and see that you know the team has been working very hard and you know the result is in these numbers which is awesome so i happy with the end result very much so that we've gone out through the r f p process had three bitters in the process to replace or action every place to install a generator to tell a school the only facility that we have that does not have a backup power and the  prices range pretty significantly from two hundred fifteen thousand down to one hundred thirty three thousand to be in this particular installation as i said before this would be the only building in the entire town that can run one hundred percent  in the case of an emergency and i think that's centrally located it's got a good distribution of space within it so from the town's point of view in those rare occasions when we really need it it's it's going to be a good location to have probably better than the borough because it is more centrally located and secondary to that really is that on that second primary actually is that you know it really is a life safety issue so when we're in school whether it's extended day all the way through the school day or you know you know in any kind of a need sense we now at least have that facility covered just like we have all the other schools so i think it's kind of an important step but again we had only put away about one hundred  thousand dollars on last year's budget process to do this we had obviously c f p approval through the process as well and the and anything over twenty five thousand have to go through that process and we'd already gone through all that one hundred  thirty three thousand while more than what we were hoping i've locked through all of our revolving accounts has been one of the issues that you know we've been trying to do i've been working with with you and to start to reduce down those revolving accounts to levels that that you know i think are reasonable to keep and and use them in an appropriate areas so far over the last two years we've helped fund the track renovation hundred percent out of our own side of it that was sixty two thousand dollars we have put up money towards a new camera systems about fifty thousand is coming directly out of our revolvers we've put up seventy five thousand to finish the turf and baseball fields side of things so this is another twenty seven thousand that we school is one of our our sites we have four sites for extended day and then obviously building rental probably at the most open capability in this particular case you know i'm going to suggest that we go out of the extended day program actually so if we if if the committee is able to do this i think our town emergency management group which we do meet with regularly would be very interested in shifting their plans from borough over to taylor as a more ideal location that we certainly have enough in the projected balance yes yes so just for folks at home hundred thirty two thousand three hundred seventy dollars all right so any other further discussion on that all those in favor thank you for bringing forth this additional information so that that school committee can make their decision and make their make their vote tonight ok acceptance of donation is always a great agenda i ask so we have one that you've heard before and one that you haven't actually so i'll do the one that you haven't first the river community church foreswear church of foxboro mechanic street has donated two hundred fifty dollars to the i go to school and as you know many of our religious organizations from social service community outreach so pastor justin campbell from the river community church would like to make the donation to the i go school in the amount of two hundred fifty dollars this is the first time that the community church has donated to the schools and they would like the funds to be used for supplies in the nurse's office including extra clothing items for children that are sometimes needed as well as miscellaneous medical supplies so it's a really nice on social service outreach to the schools and  the who is making the donation again please the river community church mechanic st he will thank you to the river community church for their generosity to have a motion to accept the donation a move to accept the donation of two hundred fifty dollars the second with gratitude with much gratitude and for the discussion all those in favor of zero thank you very many thanks to the river community church will be sending them as we do  confirming that the donation was accepted and thank him the second one you heard about last year and i'm going to turn over to bill because it's in one of his operational items but if you remember we had a donation of car seats from a company in your state this saves us from needs area that were transporting early early intervention programs and self at that and having the appropriate equipment while as well as obviously replacing and find a regular basis is very important so this group as you know thank you thank you lot of generous i know it's wonderful and companies out there absolutely wonderful right now we're going to move on to other matters as i always have and i only have one this time so  and a context i made last year we actually have four people who have stepped forward that would like to meet with us to have a meeting where we they look at our first draft to protect plants we have for people but also we are willing to have more people than the four so  lobby and i will be meeting with the community interest group on wednesday october sixteenth from seven to eight thirty pm in the school library media center and we'd like people to enter through the superintendent's office but we would like to know how many people to expect superintendent's office or just call the superintendent's office and put your name in a list and i'll send you the e mail a specific site also on the people the the draft plan to look at so we have four great people who are interested in coming and we're going to start with that this is not the group that is the on the text hearing committee that will be an ongoing input but this is our step as we outlined in the process last spring during the summer and last meeting where we've had the administrative team reviewed it last week at the m and a meeting and we're going to continue in our next meeting  texturing committee got a look at it today and i'll let me talk about what they're going to do in a minute and then our third step first step with school committee then administrative team next year in committee on october sixteenth in the evening will be our community big part of the sustainability part of the plan and that group takes this very seriously so we were looking at it today as far as what data can we go and collect that are things that are on the timeline for this year and depending on the grade level whether it's elementary middle or high different people in the committee are bringing that information back to the group so we can have baseline data on some of the things and more current up to date data so it was nice just hearing at the end we were  kind of dismissing the group around five fifteen one of the members came up to me and apologized for coming in for a few minutes late because he had to be two different meetings at the same time and he said but i just love this committee and i want to make sure that i'm able to stay on this one at the same time because i really think what we're doing is important and i think that that that really says a lot so you've got people that are really trying to go between a couple different places but they see that it's important and want to be a part of it but it's a great great maybe receive a thank you now with two cups of coffee on the outside and the inside says thanks i'm latte thank you so much for the gift certificate to the yarn sho you just survived last year because i saw you with so many events and so many activities last year that when you said this is your second year in fact i was amazed because i feel like i've seen you everywhere so you know you made quite an impact on the school and your participation in such a short time i was john and i we talked about it earlier in the search committee it was a lot of information in three very long evenings and i really appreciate you taking a part in it really shows when she was talking about the team when you have two school committee members  yes i can't speak for steve but i know i learned a lot from the educators that were on the committee about our special education programs it was a great experience for me so thank you for having me i mean my job a lot