the school committee of the town of foxborough a regular meeting scheduled at seven tonight on september seventeenth two thousand and twelve the agenda is as follows visitors approval of minutes teaching and learning day of school update superintendent performance evaluation acceptance of donation then other matters after which i will take a roll call vote to go into the executive session for the purpose of discussing and approving executive session minutes the committee will not return to open session after that and this is our first official school committee m with everybody on board staff faculty students so i'd like to formally thank tina for stepping up to the plate and filling in the position for the rest of the years welcome thank you please let me know what i can do this program here to foxboro and i'm sure that as it continues to go on and there's more input from students and more input from the faculty will continue to all of this program in a lot of ways i would like to do a little sidebar i talked about  and having a twitter account to one point which i will be doing the shear just to be able to get information out to the stanford and to students and to the community as a whole but it seems that there's already a twitter account that's out there that's going like mad that's talking about all kinds of things that i have been very busy supposedly doing in my first two weeks of school so i do want to dispel rumors and i was in talking to a couple of classes today actually no uniforms are not coming in that was one of the rumors that i was bringing uniforms that this one was a new one today that i was going to be checking all the cell phones at the front entrance of the doors the students came in that will not be happening i'm a firm believer that those cell phones are actually computers in the palm of our students hands so how can we use them even more and to study halls that won't be happening at this point i cannot promise that for forever we do have to always take a look at time on learning in the number of hours the nine ninety that we need to to meet by the state to see what we're going to do with those but we don't have large numbers of students in study halls as it is right now so that's a that's a rumor as well what else do they have and hero that seniors were not going to be out until some time at the end of june but i also found out that that was because whatever calendar was being looked at so meghan will be added to decent time graduation but the students  understanding is that on the website there was one of the calendars that students were looking at somehow didn't have listed what the seniors last day for school was so it was an assumption right away that things i think we're going to be choppy and that there were going to be no pepper ell so that's another one so i did want to get you there was a great start i was very busy as i said but as far as pep rallies are concerned i know we do too right now in the building and actually when i was here teen years ago we went to three into four pep rallies so if anything i'm a real i think supporter of rallies when they're all done in the positive sense of really celebrating what we have here so there may even be a few surprises that i might have up my sleeve for the students this year regarding all of that so account with some of these students i said you know what if you want to put it out there and let them know what is accurate what is not but my office door is always open i've had students asking me things and lunch and all of that so i just wanted to put that to bed for right now and it's a great idea because i've been amused conversation about it or at least to to try explain where something may have come in in a roundabout way but that aside i was very very pleased to be able to introduce to our students into our faculty at the start of the school year for our faculty the introduction took place on our convocation day which was the week before students came back and for our students we had our class meetings held on the tuesday and the wednesday and so our seniors were the first class meeting because our seniors are are leaders of the school for this coming school year so as far as i was concerned they really deserve to have this introduce to them first our juniors were second and then on the following day our sophomore and our freshman to finish strong program it's not a can't program from anywhere it actually grew out of lafayette high school in st joseph missouri and a woman there by the name of terry johnson who has been a student council divisor for a very long time and very active in her particular school in three years ago they took a look at their own situation and said how can we raise some things within our building expectations within our building for our students and for her particular high school it was graduation in really wanting to increase the graduation rates among their students but from that evolved a program that i actually saw her do the presentation for and one of my one of the assistant principals i should say when i was in middleborough had also seen it and came to me last year and said what do you think they've done it for a year do you think we could how could we adapt to what's happening in middleborough i said absolutely let's go with it so leaving middleborough this year it's a program that i think just flies for any school who would like to do this and so that's what this program is all  about and it's all about our students starting an entry near us freshman and for our other students who haven't had this program it's wherever they're at in the process of of here and being here but really coming in with an attitude of i'm going to really pursue excellence i'm going to do all that i can do and everything that i do academics personal growth the community here and i'm going to work really hard all the way through to graduation so whether it's one year for our seniors two years for juniors three years we're four years for our freshman as they go through how can they continue to always kind of have that in the forefront so one of the pieces of that are the t shirts which i know that a lot of people have seen around town in our students have them and they were those were distributed on the first day and i'll share those with you folks so it's how can we do that constant reminder so the hope is maybe it's once a week maybe for foxborough it's a better thing to do every other week we don't know what kind of feel that out as we go along but right now the staff is committed to to thursday's as being finished strong thursdays and it's why thursday as well because friday is coming along i don't want anybody to drop the ball we want to continue their pursuit pursuit through and then for me and i just think that it's awesome here because there's a ton of school spirit but it's school spirit fridays you know and so how can we really promote our clubs or organizations our sport so show that and wear a shirt this past friday the band was the first organization or sports team or group in the school to present a t shirt to me so on friday of this week i wore the marching band which is really pretty cool because they're doing sergeant pepper's it's all a beatles piece this week and will be premiering that this friday night so it's wearing that and showing that pride in maybe just wearing blue and gold you know it doesn't necessarily need to be a t shirt but how we can continue to promote that so what i'd like to do is i'd like to show you the video that we use it's called finish strong it's the eye of the tiger which many of you will be familiar with maybe some of you even remember the movie that made that so popular i'm one of those people from way back in the day but it's a very good message that sent here and it comes from simple truths which is a website but this applies certainly to what we're asking for everybody to do here in our building and then from there all awesome and show you the slide show that i presented to the students as well so mr newton if you'd be so kind and it's going to be on i know what function here this will be a little light here so from this particular video we can just a little bit of food for thought for our students and i think we could probably take anything in the noose on the tap and then we could take our own women's gymnastics team and what they did and when you were with them one lady never got her name but she was out of contention and then comes right back into it again or just most recently on the news the young woman who wound up with the flesh eating whatever and lost her you know her limbs really to the disease and yet his comeback and so very very positive and those are the extremes but then it's ok so this was the slide show which i then animated so that's what i'm going to do here but it for folks from high school were let's grow different relationships we hope are going to grow strong but the focus of this program as we said to the students it's for recognition up an incentive for academic excellence and personal growth for all students from the start of the school year until graduation and as i said to seniors we oftentimes think of commencement you know that it's an end game what isn't to commence really means to continue where to begin and so the same thing here that this is not dropping off senior year but it's being able to still put forth everything you know taking those challenges sitting down to take those a piece of those honor courses remain and wanted to have done them in the past the steps to finish strong when you have to believe the cost of regret far exceeds the price of discipline we know that you need to put that hard work in and it's much better to to try and to fail than to never have tried and regret that possibility can you ever recover this moment in time did you make the most of it while you sleep at night with a feeling of satisfaction or regret it's up to you and again it's just have i done the best that i could possibly do today whether that's in relationships or in classes or on the playing field or on the on the marching band or with the marching band whatever it might be and the choice of course the choice is up to each individual and each individual student and all of us are responsible for our own actions and once we set a goal we have to make sure that we don't let other things influence us or get in our way as long as of course that's positive goals and it's not what happens to you as this was in the in the video but it's how you choose to respond that manders and you need to be accountable to you resolve to be your own best coach or cheerleader and set realistic goals and then work toward them one step at a time and although it's a little cliche but inch by inch life's essential by yard it can be very hard so it's making realistic goal setting those and moving one step at a time toward moving one step at a time toward those schools and improve the averages to finish strong control your emotions you know sometimes you let those get the best of us choose to finish strong take a breath think about the options and then make a good choice and some might some of those ideas might be that for as i said to the student you might be a person the never opened up a textbook you know you might have gained everything from your class reading over your notes but put those assignments aside w make that commitment that you are going to read whatever those texts assignments happen to be maybe you're always rushing out the door and you can't get breakfast stanwell make of our commitment that you're going to get up five minutes earlier to be able to grab some brain food before you leave that day or you're not you know running in the door l we don't have too many students the do that maybe it's a commitment to make it to the wellness center one day a week to start in that direction maybe it's just to take time to study each day whether or not you have those written assignments but whatever you may need to do to reach your goal you need to start off in those small steps and you just keep improving every day and just a quote that i really liked that i came across is that if you want to succeed you must commit to three things first of all it's personal responsibility you can get a lot of support but in the end it's all about you when you really wanting to do that everybody else can monitor for you but unless you're going to put forth effort it can be difficult second you need to set high goals and then do whatever it takes to achieve it and third i think we all know this stuff happens along the way and as you go through life you may encounter a lot of problems you may encounter set backs but it's all about how you react to them and if you can react positively take it as a learning experience and move forward you're going to make it to your goals and those of you that are football fans will remember and know jerry rice and he said an awful lot of bulls along the way and a quote from him of today i will do what others won't so tomorrow i can accomplish what others can't so again coming up with some class mottos for all of this so for the freshmen they're starting strong in the building we hope they'll continue that for our soft moore's they're going to be strong having already come in made it through that freshman year into their sophomore year so juniors it's a tough year we all know that oftentimes between classes and deciding what direction is next and s a t's and p s a t's and they've got it all over the place and sophomores too we can also say with the m cas that they've got quite a bit resting on that sophomore year but for juniors to stay strong and for our seniors not to give up the race but to finish strong this was a difficult one we were trying to come up with some class colors for the t shirts the end is i said to the students it was stay away from one stay away from green stay away from red which were all the rival colors and so we tried to stay with some more neutral not really true colors in the mix of all but we didn't wind up with the hock school in their unbeknownst but we should thought a little bit more about it but it's kind of a lesser one that we we don't question it's a lesser school but just one that we don't oftentimes play white as much as the others so in these may change again i'm going to be asking the students for input but once we establish it we want to keep them from year to year so right now the freshmen are yellow and they have three t shirts with the motto on it  you notice as i'm saying with some of those other colors that we're doing our juniors are in a room our seniors are in gold and our staff is also a part in there we're in the blue and then we also or i also talked about what does it mean to be a warrior strong and coming right from what came out of our core values and our expectations for students to really it boils down to two things and it's respect and responsibility and so it's respect for one's self others this building the same vironment the community and its responsibility in your everyday actions and how well you do your school work being accountable to yourself and to your teachers to your families and to others and to commit to the goals that you do  have also presented to staff so we hear what are some of the things that our staff can do and the packet they gave you tonight has some more ideas in it and our faculty is meeting this wednesday for the first time regarding this to be able to sit down and to brainstorm how it is that we want to be to promote these ideas within the school and that will be wednesday after school and just to leave it with this quote that to accomplish great things we must not only act but also dream and only plan but also believe so the fact that you have the slide show which i but unfortunately they weren't ready for the juniors and seniors to sign and tuesday when they came and they were able to sign here in the in the media center when they had the class photos on the following day which was wednesday they were here on wednesday for our software engineer so they actually signed at the end of the presentation the program is already out here the faculty and staff focus groups are putting together but here's are some things that are listed and i just think some of these are to highlight but looking at perfect attendance each quarter and to kno that by some kind of again i don't want to say award some kind of recognition for students that maybe were one hundred percent hundred percent in homework as a possibility an academic properly for those students that make the honor roll having an n b a shirts eventually which are nothing but days for those students and maybe this could be a superintendent's award event where n b a shirts are given out to our students who received all in whatever the marking periods happened to be and we could give those maybe twice a year  you know that mid grade in january and then again at the end of the eight at the end of the year for them an a p pep rally to get just recognition for students who are willing to take that chance again go that extra mile for continuing on a wall with fame which we are going to be doing for the students strong each teacher every month is going to have the opportunity to nominate one person from their classes because i have to keep it manageable but the plan is that we're going to have framed pictures with the students name the grade that they were selected from will be taking their photograph i mean that in my thought right now because we don't have two stories here there are two story four years to be able to do this but i was really thinking that first and we're all kind of figuring this one out to put those pictures up along with great in this hallway here so that they all be framed so that whenever anybody comes in it tends to be a role hub this point in the folks will be able to see those will hang for a month and then we'll do that for another month the banners again we're kind of thinking about that one it may be down the sky in this hallway here they could be up in the cafeteria but i'll show you those in a minute too so those are just again that recognition that's a constant kind of recognition of recognition that's out there a couple of maybe special things a little bit more special  for our seniors to bring in but a finished strong pen for them ideally i would love to be able to have at the end of every year a student who did pass did go on which would be everybody is that they would each receive a pin that year for whatever it happens to be so a start strong for fresh n the finish strong for seniors and by the time a senior graduated they could be wearing these pins on their graduation robes as a recognition so you know everybody has that piece of it and also too for seniors warrior excellence banners i'm a firm believer that we need to really recognize our students and have them there and i think that they need to be up in so academic academic banners not only do we have that recognition of seniors but to have those banner somewhere here in the building so that those students that receive that recognition is the outstanding social studies history or the outstanding english student and by the time of your graduation that we would have those banners for a series of years and we'd be able to see those names as they were brought down the same thing for a piece perhaps it'll be a matter of anybody  p who took it they're going to receive some special recognition as well and that maybe to people almost you know that spirit award kind of thing where it's two students out of the senior class who are recognize for the most improvement and again they're recognized by being put up on the wall and that we have it now on a small plaques complex are nice and i certainly think the students deserve that recognition to be able to have something tangible for themselves but i think really to be out and in display for everybody we do that for sports in the gymnasium i really am and probably for that we need to do that recognition for our idea of different levels so those are just some of the ideas that are there going that we have the kind of strong thursdays as i mentioned in the warrior pride fridays but the other piece eventual i haven't spoken to the other principals about this or to the community yet but a finish up community whereby perhaps we're moving this program to the elementary where they're going to learn strong and they're going to start out and again maybe it's those t shirts that the p t a is getting for the students or somehow that we're able to do something along that line and maybe for the middle school it's growing stronger as we continue to nurture them and then they're coming to the high school for the strong piece of it but for families family strong and their families they make that commitment as well so i hope is to get a beginner here into th in and then i don't know if anybody has any questions or if there's anything else that i can answer any of the about that i think is really a statement about what you bring to our district and i'm excited about what i couldn't help but think if you're going through this is what you're doing i think is making a statement i think you're making a statement that we encourage and expect excellence and i like what you said i wrote it down pursue excellence in all that i do and everything i do so i just want to say thank you and i support your approach i don't know everything about the high school or i'm learning a lot but i like what i hear so thank you thank you and again i can't take all the credit i do have to give credit to lafayette high school i also need to give credit to help really get his down the current principal of middleborough who is the sister principal one of the assistant principals with me last year on and it was really a team effort you know for the two of us at least here in the state so were the second school in the state to be to be doing this some were very excited about it some were really hoping that it's going to spread turn around but it's simple in many ways but again i really do think that i thank you for your kind words but i do think it really goes to the heart of what we're all about and that's for excellence and this has been  them to do well and they're good and you're giving them a focus and some real just i think great great ideas to really kind of attach themselves to help them propel them into that direction and of course recognition of academic excellence and academic achievement in trying is just i think i like how you've mapped it out of looking forward to seeing how it kind of plays out so thank you thank you i want to thank you very much going in and finish strong it doesn't really matter what happens on the way it's what you do about it so i didn't know if i personally like the old t shirt idea i think your bills one of culture everybody in the same message of the same boat i don't know if the i really like the you know i often find myself sitting here saying we want to have higher expectations great to greater excellence but clearly that doesn't just happen and the way it happens is by learning from your mistakes or your challenges or and then excellence can take a lot of different forms depending on who you are and which are objectives so it's all about that learning process and you're right what i heard diana go through is it's a process of two reactions it's expectation of learning it's thinking so you're i think there's a lot of that that's built into this which is great and one of the pieces to just i know i'm always pushing the academics at least that's you know what i was at the forefront and it's always is it good for kids and that's my other bottom line but it is about th growth and for some of our students and this is what i trying to say to all of the classes that that striving might be that you really striving for that see you really striving for that be seen before because for some of maybe it's a personal growth because for some of our students it's not going to always be there in the classroom but because they've really tried and they've been prepared every day and that's what i talk to the staff about that you know it's that nomination for that student who's gone the extra mile and or maybe it's coming from guidance that they know that the student has really stepped up to the plate for somebody that maybe the rest of us don't know about but between that individual and that student they will know and that's we want to see it there on the wall yes the academic piece absolutely but also for the personal growth piece too because that's very important as well and so i love the idea of extending it throughout the community and i hope that the elementary and middle schools will pick this ball up and run with that because it's really a continuum from kindergarten through three twelve i mean building rich you know one of the things that as a parent i think we struggle with it you can help us with this program is not only how do you pursue excellence but how do you focus you know in this technology crazy world where the students have so many devices distractions and their head is and you got something right or wrong but their heads fall of by two years and they're all all over there's so much going on it's multitasking and it's i think learning how to focus and learning how to set your sight on an objective and sorting out the noise and being able if you can help i think our students grapple with that to me that's a challenge that they face it's resonated all that you guys are now and i think programs like this night some of them some of the middle schoolers you know come to school with a lot of things in their in their mind so i think a program like this to the extent it can also help our children focus i think it's a great accomplishment about what are your priorities what do you really want to do the rest of your life and you might have to say well you know what academics first so you can't be coming in late at night and trying to do your homework in this type of thing so it's all about priorities and it's not just for thank you all i appreciate  a little mortified in having to be here publicly but those of us who are less mortified with having mike appear publicly really would not let this opportunity go without acknowledging mike's tremendous accomplishments in the school district over the past many years since he arrived it's honestly as a parent before you misread it now i want to teach or be foreign ministry now to me some of the things that mike has done in the situations he's created like night and day so i can say words to describe this man's contribution and i really don't even have the words so i know bill is known for a long time to the building committee as well so i'm going to turn over to bill there are some just a little bit  i think probably one of the best you know comments that can come out for someone like mike and again i know he's embarrassed by these type of things but you're about to after this you know that we have obviously heard a replacement  mike as best we can but having that individual shadow him for about a week now and he meant to deploy office when i was there that was this morning actually his comments was looking around this district and he's worked in another district that was in tough shape and saying that looking at the condition of this district from a facility point of view from the way things have been managed in the process point of view he can honestly say he's just you know thankful that he's walking into such a well run operation and i think that's a that's a good tribute to mike because again he's done this you know you've got a staff you have to have for maintenance people who think the world them and have done pretty much anything he's ever asked them to  do and he's got a whole base of custodians eighteen thousand of them across the district which again when you walk into the building i can say as a parent and i both had kids in the system at the same time but i remember before my came walking through some of these buildings and  just feeling that there had to be a better way things had to be able to be better than what they are and i can honestly say walking buildings now i'm proud that they are and that's you know what mike has a great staff it's really a tribute to michael but that's why we are where we are  tremendous support from the administration and tremendous support from the school committee we could have accomplished all this so i do appreciate you all for making my job my cheese year then and then making it easy for me to accomplish what i have with my facility people thank you job is anything but easy so i it's kind of amusing if you see mike do his job every day but honestly it's no different from what we're just talking about with the students the expectations are high and you work yourself and send that message that's how things get done so it does all go back to you even though it is a team i probably know my point of than anybody because he moved  in a few doors down from me built a house we watched him build a house it was absolutely incredible a pool a tennis court in the backyard his kids my kids grew up together surprisingly enough i sat on the school committee we talked about this and i said i've never seen anybody can rip a wall down and put it back up and admit that this man can and can surround himself with good people who do an incredible job i think we owe all his wife a debt of gratitude for putting up with was that he's had to put in that you know if something happens he's on call he's out the door he's whatever i used to say behind every good man is a strong woman but i think beside every good man is an incredible woman and for anybody who values that this couple have and i think this community is better for it mike has probably been one of the biggest cheerleaders for the football team that i've ever seen he's committed to this community and it shows that he wants the best for all of us and he brought up the best so i can't thank you enough for applying for the drop the way you did and vinny after you apply and so your resume is that you weren't kidding that's when i wasn't getting so he was hired and he's done an incredible job for us and we are all the better for it because of your money and you know he's the type of guy that you might walk around with a shirt and tie on but if he doesn't like the way jobs go he'd take that time to shirt off and get his work clothes and he'd be working right beside these guys to work with the crew and so on but i don't think i could stand another winter with my wife in florida and be  to us at least in the recent years when i've been around and that is we're able to talk about programs like what i and i just talked about like what sue brings to us on the shell of the other administrators and what a doing what you did i mean all of these programs we can talk about because we have the foundation that you establish and maintain and i think i'm glad bill i wasn't here when before mike based on the way you and and debbie private so so mike from a school committee perspective enable us to focus on the really important stuff because you handle the bass so thank you thank you and i will see you all before i leave that week from  i had the pleasure of sitting on the original pirate committee that hired my oh so he was well aware of the standard which had to be recreated and yet again so i do want to thank from the town building who you know we have great partners in the town this is a great example someone volunteered at a time with expertise construction in that industry and maintenance and all that stuff to be able to volunteer to sit with our to screen and search for the next one so i want to thank the three of them i'll turn it over to bill to tell you a bit about the process and our new my thinks well first of all again i think fox was privileged to work and it was proven by this position opening we had ninety two resumes come in for the position itself in going through the resumes obviously you always have some that are are striving above maybe what their qualifications are we had a very good pool about twenty four that really met the standards for what we were looking for we were able to as a group the committee met on the twenty fourth and your dinner ranking through the resumes and basically brought it down to eight resumes that we felt deserved a view first hand one to one interview process after going through that interview process you know to be honest with you one fellow really stood out based on his qualifications and again when we said it when i said on the first committee with looking for mike it was what really kind of struck me as a value in this community and in our our facilities was somebody who truly understood why buildings need to be clean and efficient and might came through as was just noted out of the hospital industry where obviously cleanliness is important it's number one  safety is number two probably after that if not one to themselves and so really i was kind of impressed with looking for people who were applying that maybe got some of that background to bring forward to us as well tony sally who we ended up bringing to the very top and after the final interview process with debbie was selected to take the position came to this search with about seventeen years in the medical trade he had worked for the  company for that many years in their hospital environment so he was extremely well grounded in the requirements on facilities like that he also has a master constructions license which allows him to boiler systems now that obviously they're getting more and more efficient they're getting smaller but still having somebody who has those technical skills were running five buildings you know with five hundred thousand square facilities and the ability to keep  cool and you know fishing is extremely important because again we don't want to spend our whole budget trying to just keep a building in that shape so having people really understand that skill set is very very important you know again the whole thing around you know electrical environments fire safety you know the here which is our whole environmental testing of lead certified in that area as well so his skill set and i said to the committee it kind of was very interesting to me because when i think back of what mike's resume looked like mike's resume looked very much like tony's and i said you know if we're fortunate enough that we come up with somebody who really does have that same presentation then you know well everything mike has done you know for the number of years he's been here will these continue forward when we interview tony to be honest with you again you know he's not my own person but i came across about a similar as i could imagine that somebody would come across he has you know again a very good and very background he's worked in a college level for a number of years and actually helped rebuild one of the  school facilities in austin which is really impressive building now if you have a chance to look at it and then he spent the last couple years in the hanover school district again walking into a situation that really needed some repair and has not a good job in that environment as well so when he threw his hat into the ring i think we were very fortunate to be able to basically say we've got a candidate that you know will be its own person but that can continue want we developed  town and and i think you know from my perspective you know i've been fortunate because in doing the process the way we did it we closed it out a couple weeks ago he did accept a job and gave us three weeks for him to work with  one really to get a good understanding of what our facilities are what the needs are what the issues are because we're not perfect we still have things that need to be advanced for we still have you know projects like the pearl that are coming at us and things that we need to deal with so you know last week you know i think mike actually wishes stater because mike also in his commentary after dealing with him for weeks if you know i think you really found somebody who can continue this process and he really gets it and it's and it's been very it's been fun to kind of watch because they've been like two twenty shadow each other going back and forth but they'll come back in and sit down and have a conversation and you can tell they're both very engaged and they both have you know the same kind of philosophies and the same experiences and they're drawing on it  so i think from their perspective you know it's it's good when you see that you don't always get that kind of click so i think within the next three weeks two more weeks at this point you know mike will also be able to impart a lot of knowledge into a new player in the in our town in our community and really kind of complete full circle for what might start so i think from from my perspective i feel we have a very good well so i think we again are just looking to build a good team and i think if we have to continue with somebody not being here on the best next we can come up with is really what we want to do and i think we have a right there it's free and i think just like  bill's point you know having somebody who's worked at the college level with a large campus facility and a hospital is no better training for how to maintain an environment that hospital it's the rules cleanliness and maintenance systems the importance of systems so for us you know we joke that you know sometimes when you have an opportunity for a star sonny was on you looking for something people are different to him he needs comically on exactly what they were years ago but in this case you know our job is out of ninety two people we got as close to my guess we could without a cane but so we're pretty excited his experience is almost exactly what mike's was when he came to us and you really can't treat that he i'm sure he did but what did he say it was his reason for being interested in coming possible well he was in a jump search he in hanover they had gone to a town why facilities management  that point he was going to get it however i think that also shows character on his side when they asked him to stay and train the new guy which he kind of got a kick out of he did and you know again i think that speaks volumes of somebody who can you know realize that the t kids and everybody worked really hard in the summer i know but that one went wonderfully on my first couple of days and we had opening day we had followed by two more professional development days which went very smoothly thanks to amy burrows and every teacher you know into evaluation system is the talk of the state so we had full days training for all of our professional staff so either they had it on wednesday for the middle high school staff or interesting for all the elementary staff so a full day about writing goals and what the new system is all about so that's a good start for us it is a complex system so we working on the year you bring updates about it but we had two full days of training from the staff on that we had a really smooth opening we had one small glitch with the student bussing in transportation and you know it's really wonderful that we have on site people because they can solve a problem in feeling short order and find out what's what so i want to complement our transportation people and really l compliment the charter school because you know we share we transport students to the charter schools that live in foxboro but they are dismissed time is dependent on whether afternoon elementary buses from time and they have been really great the last couple of years about sending  person along with the bus to each of the three schools and making sure that their students they have to get off the bus and reboard in the appropriate group that's going to there and they have sent a staff person the first couple days to each of the three sites that has helped tremendously they did again this year and they were well you know they were on time and one little glitch the first two were pretty much there on time and that really helped us a lot comparison to sometimes how it's done years ago so honestly just when i think everybody for their  and we have power and we close to the wire but we had lighting in the auditorium in the lighting to the students and i noticed it when they came in the first day of school because the auditorium as we saw looks lighter brighter i so i thought i would do this is all the committee members have been compilation using the massachusetts state forms and on top of that is a page and a half summary that i composed that i so i'd like to do especially for the public who doesn't have the benefit of the process or all the forms of like to read the narrative and then like to share some of the specific comments that i think provide a little bit more color on to how we feel as a committee and i'd like to invite my colleagues to make whatever comments they would like to so it's my pleasure to present the superintendent evaluation for the school year two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve as the school committee chaired during that time the framework for the evaluations year was new this was the first year that we were asked to use the new massachusetts department of education evaluation framework and this new assessment model assess two things first progress toward goals that we have established and second performance against for state determined standards and then looking at both of those we were asked each of the committee members to arrive at an overall summit of the valu so i'll take you through the results for each of those two areas and then i'll talk about the overall evaluation so regarding the progress toward established goals there were four established goals one in the area of professional practice three in the area of district improvement the professional practice goal was to conduct a self assessment using the new superintendent's evaluation model rubric in part designed to help focus the priorities for the next year the district improvement fulls were to present that identify school district areas for improvement to develop a system for evaluating district administrators that would be a transition to the new state framework and to provide opportunities for administrative professional development we were asked to evaluate these goals and arrive at one of the following ratings exceeded meant significant progress some progress or did not meet all five committee members rated mrs finale's performance as met for each of her four tolls the second area i mentioned was the performance then against for state determined standards for state determined standards are in the areas of instructional leadership management operations family and community engagement and professional culture each standard area has a number of indicators as my colleagues will recall which we were asked to individually assess and for each of which i should mention the superintendent had to prepare not only her own assessment but also document evidence that she had performed activities towards each of these areas the assessment ratings available for these areas as again supplied by the state were exemplary proficiency needs improvement and satisfactory and i should mention that we learned that the state's expectation is not that superintendents will necessarily be exemplary in fact quite often will not be exemplary but that the goal that the state is set out is that they hope the superintendents will achieve it proficient status so from these individual individual indicators in each of these assessment areas in overall assessment was arrived at by each of the committee members for each of these four standards and overall first for the area of instructional leadership all five of us assessed mrs finale as proficien for the area of management and operations all five of us assessed mrs fanelli as a profession for the area of family and community engagement all five of us assessed mrs spinelli as a profession and for the area of professional culture again all five members individually i should note it was not a collaboration but not surprisingly i suppose assessed mrs finale as professional i did want to note for the public record that mrs finale did receive several exemplary ratings across several individual indicators specifically this is a day or chose this rating of exemplary in the area of continuous learning i chose this writing in two areas the areas of communication and continuous learning mrs lord shows this writing in the areas of curriculum data informed decision making commitment to high standards communication and continuous learning and this is slattery chose this writing in the areas of commitment to high standards and continuous learning it should also be noted that mrs finale did not receive any assessments from any committee member in the areas of needs improvement or satisfactory so this is the summary of our work and from that as i mentioned we produced an overall summit of performance assessment and using the above assessments we determined that mrs spinelli will be assessed as proficiency in her first year as superintendent and we all provided a number of write in comments outstanding first year as superintendent and let me just go on as i said and share a little bit of our thoughts i'm only going to read for my colleagues i'm only going to read for sake of time the comments you wrote in in the overall assessment areas educator serves as a role model for other professionals her staff in the district mrs spinelli supports or staff professional development and fosters a collaborative team approach mrs spinelli is a forward thinker and  clearly articulated a vision for the district great to greater while mrs spinelli is a collaborator she is a decisive leader her focus is on the success of the student in the classroom she is visible accessible and open to ideas benelli is exemplary in providing instructional leadership during administrative team meetings constantly read and provides material for the teen emphasizes professional development and graduate courses focuses on teacher collaboration to improve student instruction supports school committees teaching and learning highlights the superintendent is a true professional she has the knowledge leadership skills and the ability to listen and make decisions that will benefit the school district this is also written down as the fourth member of our committee deborah spinelli has exceeded expectations as a first year superintendent she has worked diligently to master all facets of the job and has fully succeeded in achieving all benchmarks to earn a fully profession rating overall i fully expect her high trajectory of performance to continue as she leaves our school system in the years to come in the last crown which is my own as chair last year i wrote  spinelli had a very strong year in two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve which is even more impressive considering it was her first year as a superintendent clearly her years of educational experience exposure to strong superintendents and support of her community staff  school committee were helpful foundational elements upon which she could build she took advantage of these strengths and has set an exciting path for foxborough schools from the opening of school to managing through rare fall storms to leading her staff while building productive municipal relations to the hiring of strong new building level leaders in the development and passage of her first budget mrs spinelli had a number of highlights to the year as she enters  second year armed with the results of our culture and climate survey her superintendent's entry plan findings in three focused strategic objectives mrs spinelli truly has the opportunity to do some exemplary things in helping the district go for the great to greater so again on behalf of the committee i want to congratulate you and i want to personally thank you because you made it a very easy year to be chair and i thoroughly enjoyed it and i know the committee as superintendent it's always up for sure a little you know when to school when he takes a chance on someone who's new to the whole show you off of questions in your mind but i really feel the supportive of the committee when you take a chance on someone that you think has the potential to do the job it makes all the difference and i didn't know that i had your confidence it was a great year from my perspective a great wonderful first year thanks to all of you and all of our staff members  that elephant wasn't easy to digest but you all did it and you also all took the time to speak to me or meet with me individually about how you felt about my first year and that was also valuable to sit one on one in find out who you are individually  felt and in home felt so both the individual in the group paid back and been really very invaluable to me i will take to heart everything you said i don't disagree with anything anybody said on talk one on one about we were trying to go together and i think that it was great advice i thought it was a very informative process so we were all trying to get used to the new system but i did feel that this extended rubric let's call it was media first when you look at it i give this committee all the credit to tackle something new that was that large before you really had to i think there really is a leap of faith on your part as well but i think that the extensive rubric didn't define the job a little bit better publicly with how many different things how many different aspects there are to all the jobs in education because the report is just about as large for our principals and mysterious than in teachers so i found it very informative to talk together about all the aspects of the job that we don't really sometimes get a chance to talk about at these meetings and it will your feedback will really help me develop new goals you know we might be talking about them and it will be coming to you next month with the goals for next year but those are really based on your feedback tonight so i really appreciate that look forward to another great year to thank you all you know i think what's what's amazing sometimes is when you and i hate to harp on this when you've and i have to tell you i'm not disappointed in fact i'm a lady for you and i think it sends a very strong message and it should send a message to anybody within our system that there's always room for improvement there's always room for elevation you have to work hard for someone who believes in education as much as you do it so near and dear to your heart you breathe it you eat it you you you throw it out at us and you make us all want to do the best we can and i think that's what you get ministration that which you get from your teachers when i hear teachers say you know when she teaches a class i can immediately go back and take it to the classroom and this is from some of your former people from stoughton who i still have a relationship w want it might not have been surprised but i was so it's really been great and we have great kids here our students here are wonderful and some of the things to see i make sure i try to get out because you can really get project on in the day to day work so i try to get out once in a while and just see what kids are doing and know this morning a little girl was on her way to the girl's room like this and i said what are you doing any she said i'm sleepwalking to the bathroom let's look a little bit tired she said yes i soon make sure you sleep walk back and she said that because i mean those are the moments that made just like ok that's why we do this because we've got these you know wonderful little kids that are counting on us i think that's why we all do it so did spend a little time thinking about where would we suggest improvement you know we didn't give debbie all example reason any time you go through an evaluation and especially when you're least personally as a as a representative of the public i feel compelled to try to find areas we can suggest for improvement as we look to your two and we haven't spent a lot of time washington's talking about that but that's probably in part because we struggle and least speaking for myself i struggle with areas to to share ideas for challenging issues that are not easy to solve and so i think you know how you go forward addressing her rental concerns on policy issues is probably an area we will continue to grapple with but that isn't just on the superintendent it's on all of us  and then a second area that i could you know only be the only other i could think of was you know i said to debbie i think she probably has a continued growth in the area of how she interacts with the staff  and i can remember when she first the superintendent would be sitting at some of our earliest meetings and we talk about things and i would see debs immediate reaction to defend her staff which i think is a it's a positive trait as well but i think it must be a challenge and you would know better than i but it must be a challenge to go from the role where you had their back have their back still leave and they support you and i think that's one of the reasons why you're such a successful you print number two how do you leave them and i know you're doing that in many different ways but i think as you grow as a superintendent i would think that be an area of continued growth how you interact how you leave it how much can you do within the budget constraints of what we have and i think what isn't apparent publicly not even really to the committee is that yes i will always defend our staff we have great staff and people work hard every day so i think that comes with the job and i personally have experience with them going back a number of years so i actually appreciate them more than someone maybe coming in that has worked with them because you know i know most of the places and i know that we have something really good here in our staff so having another experience sometimes helps you appreciate you have even one however as we discussed i really don't have any problem giving people feedback there is that is direct need there are you know i'm going to say critical in the way that they need to have specific feedback not as you know anything that's that's interesting but i don't have any trouble i think the people i work with would say would agree with me that even though i am the greatest offender of the staff i have no trouble giving people specific feedback when it's required i think that if you value people they deserve that because just like the kids you don't want to just say well i'm a happy with that or you can do better or i'd like you to do something different unless someone tells you specifically what that is going to be able to achieve that so i definitely believe in that neutral feedback where you know they can hear sometimes what we call the honest bad news about something that could have been different or decisions could have been made differently or students in a way that they were into supporting i call them sometimes unintended consequences so i have no problem with that but it's not something that the public is going to see this i think i do regularly saw something you would see either because i don't go back and report on everything as if i shouldn't because that's my role so i don't want the committee of the public to think that that is something i am not good at because i actually think i've broken over the years and i've developed some skill in doing that but i do think it's as we talked in a few others of us spoke individually that really my my goals that you might want to encourage me on let's just say our were in the area of the areas that we have identified those three key strategies or at least two of them and you know one is on that idea of advanced learning and it doesn't mean you know advanced for you know a certain small percentage of students by as you know we went over the strategies in june and again in the summer and that really means providing the the greatest opportunities to challenge students across the curriculum and extracurricular co curricular activities so we want to expand the opportunities for vs learning and i think that you know i'm sure you will agree that's one of our strategies i certainly would probably include that one of my goals is one of my goals unless people have something else that they think is a higher priority the other thing is on that idea of leadership growth and development which is the first strategy you know what are we doing for teachers what are we doing for ourselves as a mystery team to continue i do believe the power lies within us as a dozen students power lives and the human resources to make things better it's not something that's outside the system that we're going to purchase whatever the power really lies in us to improve in how well we do our jobs either with efficiency or with higher expectations just like it does as you saw tonight with students they have their own power to succeed and challenge themselves and move forward so that those two areas are what i was thinking of in terms of goals that i would develop and bring back to you with you know next month probably not the very next mean but probably after that and we have culture and climate goals we talked about that are building ministries a better summer retreat my original intention was to bring those to you tonight the building level goals and the district goals that i have in common with them but the majority of our schools have not had their september faculty meeting here so they want to be able to review individual building culture and climate goals and if you just remind people who you know it's a complicated process but we had those twelve insight survey so we starve eight students and six to twelve we surveyed all of the faculty and staff and we search and we surveyed parents pre k through twelve so all the staff all the parents and only the secondary students and to ask them what it was the needs in terms of culture and climate and we took that pretty seriously so what the and we also had the mass tells the statewide mass tell survey for educators and they put out there and any building any school building in the state that had fifty percent or more participation of the half of the staff you the individual building results back as well as your district results so we actually got results back for the district and for each for four schools out of five which is pretty impressive because there's no incentive to do it other than doing the survey for the greater individual building based culture climate goals and you'll see this some differences so it might have been something that really stood out in the student survey that they want to improve on it might have been something that stood out in the staff survey it might have been something that's sort of the parents surveyed so based on the feedback they hasn't really received them yet so a couple of our schools have but not all from house so that's why you didn't see them on the agenda tonight but you will see them on the october seventh school committee agenda and will have the opportunity to review their building based goals which will be solidified by then and will have the opportunity to look at proposed district culture and climate goals that you can that have been put on before we finalize them together so that's the plan for that so information is powerful because some of the things that students say are the staff so that's a have led us to how can we prove overall cultural climate not just by guessing but based on what people's actual experiences and perceptions of them so that's the pla so something around just a cultural climate will be my goal advance learning and leadership growth and development of the three areas i'm thinking about although i have a craft and i think  i echo the sentiments of all the committee members who filled out the evaluations i think it had a great year last year and i'm looking forward to this year with two our first parent leaders meeting this morning i will be there at nine o'clock so  has a leadership role in district could be old school council could be on p t o it could be another capacity we may have an open kind of broad definition of apparently either so we meet once a month on tuesday mornings from nine to eleven at the high school second floor so i have a pretty large e mail distribution list and we usually get a pretty good crew to sort every every month then actually the parents drive the agenda so tomorrow they'll be meeting the new high school principal and also  i think we're ready to move on to exam and donations and yes ok so tonight i'm asking you to accept it donation as they have for the past several years from the  time and money and effort you know we built this high school you know we built it with the funds that we had at that time and the field was not included and it's time to hopefully make this high school but i just want that misconception that was not what i was advocating concerned about just busing in one area and that if we were going to put in this type of a field that we should consider a track because the other track within a few years probably going to need some a true player that y which is we have ninety one loss of the area communities that there are of the nineteen community he's fifteen have an onsite field only four do not in the thirteen have turf and two more are in the process of turf so there would be ten i was thirteen to respond is that question have turf fields so just to know what's going on in the sites around you when there's a chart where they are in terms of on site off site in turf yes or no and then secondarily she put together some of the comparisons for when we have a game or batch off site forces across the transport students and as you know sometimes we're transporting twice site field hockey is at the high school itself lacrosse is off site and track is off site so of your five really major sports four of the five are off site so just to reiterate out of the nineteen and leaving kids in the right places and i'm not trying to over justify going to mean these are these are things that we need to take into consideration you know where we now where are we going what are we going to do you know and i just said i bet you anything we put it down run topic you know i think besides just the cost implications of having another field or turf field on site i think there's also the community aspect is there you know spoke about the community can you imagine what a nice and the answer would be to the unity of the high school to have that here i mean then it becomes a campus like then it becomes you know a rich environment for all types of learning and experience and so i i think if we're just encouraging you know if you could go outside and encourage your friends with their practice  want to sit as a patient or if more then just getting the team to where they need to be to practice the play is much more to high school athletics in their whole experience than that and we don't have the advantage of providing when we're not  school at this point we're we're seventy three quarters whatever but this would make us whole this would make this place or you know i didn't you probably told us this bill and i either forgot or didn't hear it but i pulled into the parking lot over here the staff of the student garden over here and look at these crazy yellow lines that separate all the white space alliance as anyone notice these yellow lines yes well if you look closely they've marked out which is brilliant but maybe makes a point they've advantages to having an on site facility and you would triple or quadruple the advantages if it were true and it goes so beyond the athletic teams that it's just hard to say i know i sound like a broken record but having worked in a district where kids could as i always say still outside of the schools at the bleachers watching friends or practice it is a whole aspect to the high school community and their culture that we are completely missing but i can honestly tell you that when i was in the high school high schools was two thousand and eight and we were optimistic top fifty and we are now so i think that is the thing to tell and it's based on more in rome and they give you believe three hundred districts but i don't you know some the districts are elementary only so i got to really figure out if i want if they stay here which is more than two hundred more than two hundred i should have highlighted