foxborough high school late night and overnight student travel goods services update district report card turfs field project update when this is finally mr you much we just had on november sixth our staff development day and we thought it was a good time to talk a little bit about the confessional garment that took place pacifically in light of the new educator evaluation system that's here just race to the top funds was a federal grant that massachusetts received and as part of that grant they have to devise a new evaluation system and it's one that's very different from the evaluation system that we kept in the past and specifically it really is a question of looking at teaching and learning and looking at students progress over time so when someone might ask why the change why did we need to make that change it was really to enforce effective teaching and leaders are so to take into account student growth in achievement and to promote teachers and leaders and growth and development over time and this is a evaluation and now they're in there much more frequently which is to provide feedback and coaching and to have really important pieces this collaborative dialogue that's taken place with teachers about students and in order to really be able to manage this new model to stomach a five step process we wanted to have something like the students you heard from kerry green at the last school committee meeting some web two point zero tools that students are using and different software programs that they use but we're not unlike them we are also are using technology tools to make our lives more efficient productive and at the same time really make it a collaborative process so we can most importantly impact students in the classroom because we know that research says there's nothing more important than turning in the teachers in the classroom so we were looking for a solution and that solution for ass is the baseline and that is a software web based program it is put out by a bottle of solutions but importantly baseline edge we trained all of our teachers on november sixth as part of our professional development day and it was our principals and myself and debbie that trained all of the teachers to implement this software program so i think that one of the things that's really important is the importance of trust and collaboration and having our own administration and people trained teachers i think that helps with that collaboration to really show we are in this together because it is a huge shift from what we've had in the past it's a big workload to be quite honest for our for the evaluator standpoint been it also puts onus on the educators to provide evidence towards for standards that we're looking at so baseline and it's the software program is basically electronic deposit for all of the forms all of the communication that takes place with teachers and principals can use i pads if they wish to go in for observations and take that information and then give feedback very quickly to teachers and they're able then to have that dialogue about what they're seeing in the classroom and the conversations about students and student learning over time so it's a program that's allowed us to be efficient it's a program that allows us to be collaborative and we're able to take that workload in a sense where there are so many different steps along the way and put them in one place that's going to manage it over time the training itself we spent about an hour  beginning of the model system all of the teachers in our and myself and debbie all of us as you know we set our goals by a soft reflection process and we put that into electronic forms and then can communicate back and forth based on those over time as were meeting working to meet those goals and the observations that take place we're able to collect evidence artifacts documents and upload that is to the system to be able to have conversations back and forth  regarding the different steps along the way of the process but it is a tool that we use and the most important part really and that communication and the dialogue that's taking place with teachers and those that come and serve them in their classroom so we can in fact students because the change really is teachers and student learning over time so it was it a great first start glitches you know at different times so i'm happy to say that we were able to launch that and we're going to continue to support the teachers with the software signing event by having technical support sessions before and after school for any of that want to come along just as we do for students but i really think it's going to be a great tool to promote dialogue and in fact student learning and professional growth on teachers and students so nothing to learn but it's basically like an online portfolio system so that teachers can upload their evidence and documentation to the same spot so it allows everybody to see everything that's in there so the big binder you were used to from my valuation wouldn't be occurring for all of our employees it's all an online system also at some point in the near future we should talk about whether how we're going to use that for me because i'm the only person and it was evaluators obviously aren't on staff so that's the last that would be the last to try to tie up so when i went acquired yes that through their goals they have to report on the progress toward their goals which isn't but yes we do have to increase collaboration time procedures i think we're trying to make sure everything is up and running with the basic features of the system but other features that are included in the system would be collaboration not just with our teachers the robot actually uploading examples of best practices for students or for teaching with all users of this across the country so that eventually will be almost like  spreadsheet could be a shared folder but we don't have one powerful data we have house type system to store it all up and operating yet so that that's one of articles for this year is to get that tied up so one  higher standard and i don't mind us doing the work but i think there comes a time when you have to draw a line in the sand and say look you know it's great that you're mandating this but you need to back it up with something and i think maybe some of the other communities teachers for students whose first language is not english and down you know a little bit scary can cope with the e mail from the department head because they're requiring us to train so many teachers and it's multiple multiple hours we are what's called a little incidence district but now they just threw that baby out with the bathwater and we're starting with a new type of training which i don't understand so just to show you a little bit about how first any of this  and the department of it because this this new evaluation system is required a lot of districts over the summer since it's all very new start saying the same thing you're quietness to at some of our training for teachers which is good and not help other things right now that there's probably i mean anticipated that you know the cost will be ending that we don't even know about like you said we didn't know about this and it's just it's keeps evolving and i think that you know that's  what people have to understand that this does cost money and as much as we can we fight for the reimbursement said we we go back and make the arguments but there are things that are around the corner that we just don't know about  bit shorter than last year's when reviewing but this is an off year for our exchanges so those are trips exchange to france and exchange to spain are not included in this because this is not a year of travel for us to be traveling boys and they'll be heading to florida the twenty seventh through january first where they will be playing with other teams doing clinics and also able to enjoy some of the sights and sounds of really india and disney world so  they're excited about that and our track team with them dartmouth college in january we have a trip to london that is going out through the english department over february break they're currently scheduled to leave the fifteenth is a friday but  again they could wind up being shifted and they could go a day or two in either direction it just happens sometimes when you're using the travel companies so just those are the approximate data those are the dates that they have right now those are net firm hopefully those will be firm within about the next month or so we have the annual i'm student council conference in hyannis that will be taking place march sixth through the eighth that's a wednesday through friday the all state music festival at the seaport hotel in boston  our festival of music that our music department will be traveling to philadelphia to spirit in february excuse me in april and if we qualify the essentially ellington festival in new york city in may and are more familiar with what actually is offered in the schools and what we look like so specifically a strategy as outlined in this teacher plan we leave to the goal and objective is to create it to work hard to share regularly with stakeholders so i think th to have something to share in you only with the community and so what we did was we actually modeled the format after medfield and we liked the way that they presented the format so what we have for you tonight is really a draft of what we grandson and you know when he came in he said i can't be at the meeting his he's away i'm travelling this week but he had some really good suggestions for formatting and for example when you open up we have lots of choices with the formatting and we wanted to flip because we wanted to open up so one of the suggestions he had that other than the cover letter that i wrote that this really becomes a book that we we chose to do and so the point to this is there are some some data points in my problem that if people throw away the letter but keep the booklet that you would want to have some of those small tidbits of information in the booklet so that was really good feedback so if people are going to not get the letter but keep the booklet then we need to move some of the things in the letter and make that little bit shorter more of just an introduction to what this concept is explain a little bit about the district workers and take some of the facts and figures here so what i hope to do tonight is to get your feedback on it both the content and the format and we will come back at the next m young proved very this is the first time that we have attempted anything like the schools never had a distinct report card before so it's really important that we take our time and get some input from you in the zone come back with another here i think it might be helpful to put like maybe all of them a one sided maybe because your eyes go to the district open you you know the pubs and activities make it more it's just the data about you know the whole district all in one place i don't have to go looking for it and then i'm going to look at it ok then if everything is like clubs and activities childcare whatever you know what applies to me and i don't know whether you'd make maybe the technology highlights you are saying so if you break things up sometimes it makes people read the whole thing and you really want them to be above the whole process so i think that this im advantages and disadvantages to comping things together and then people ignoring something and saying i don't know about that what was in there definitely been a busy couple of months she goes to her to school lunches been a hot topic in the news cast the country here included of course death got some good things going for us there we got a salad bar here at the high school we started that beginning of october definitely getting a lot of great feedback from the teachers and students included it's been filled to the brim with stuff from over delphi and every week we've been mixing up the salad bar every day we change up pretty much what goes out there there's a lot of fresh stuff in there got local carrots local lettuce q cumbers cherry tomatoes a little bit different every week but it's been a lot of fun and the kids are really happy about it you know just been enjoying it a lot behind us it's always got the best looking plane of the whole this we must discussion about portion size so we really can't say it too often that is the federal government had a nice chat with some students actually down here last week about it and it's very it is something to this movie blinders for the high school we applied for grant money for the other schools as well to get salad bars the other ones didn't go through so but we can reapply in january but luckily i just found another grant for us that specifically for salad bar so i thought that out today i got that in the mail  find it so they didn't say exactly when the find out but i'm assuming maybe another month or so hopefully before the other grant has another deadline so i'll know what we can write for for the next round for the council grants me the money to redo some of the cafeterias maybe some more equipment lots of options honestly the middle school has been doing really well having our chef down there she's really pushing some great stuff on the kids the assistant principals mr  creighton and sue abrams have been really really helpful and promoting our new foods they even stand there at the mikes every launch you know encouraging the kids to try stuff and we had our thanksgiving dinner last week there again over the next if you guys got chicken patties today you made a big mistake buddy there was some great food out there so it's been really helping the support it's really really essential right now and the kids listen to them they get excited to hear over the microphone what's going to be new today what they've got to try today and they're getting used to the fact that they can come up to i brought my lunch but this looks cool and they're like to try it and they're really getting used to that and it's becoming a really good atmosphere there at the middle school got your kids that are maybe never going to china thing while they're there but we're definitely working on one by one we're getting i've been there a bunch of times during lunch going around and trying to get the kids to sample him you know just myself and get some people back from the kids and they're happy you know the kids definitely say that they have a hard time with the portion size at the high school  school but they are excited about a lot of this new stuff they're getting to try so it has been a really great couple of months honestly amongst all the chaos and the elementary schools we did some taste testing at all the open houses the kids got to try yogurt parfaits they got to try out hummus and our son butter that we offer every day and all the different fruits and vegetables that we put out the parents could see what the lunch just looked like it was a way for us to get other kids used to trying yogurt with different types of fruit or cereal on top so give them your good all the time but don't necessarily you know mix things together for the kids like they're things separate and nothing can touch them at the open house they are about to take they had choices of different fruits and different cereals they could put on their yogurt and they were really excited to try new things and now parents in the community could try some of the things that are being whipped up in the cafeteria now and it was really wonderful and fresh and just to help explain the complexity of it i was just really impressed that both the mashed potatoes and the stuffing were made gluten free if you think about it it's not just the healthy portion size and story but it's also those types of things so you know i certainly enjoyed it my food my plate but i think that it's it's just really you know all the regulations are really difficult to adhere to and you know that portions a problem so but i think that was a really creative way to have some parents experience what we really are serving in the food in the school cafeteria is supposed to you know with scripture you might hear  number side of it is that one of the things we have fun and i think you guys were great last year in supporting when we brought in media again a little bit different for two districts in frame somebody who has you know a connard background and actually i day to day every day showing them how to do that stuff do these recipes hands on it's not just about writing recipes now asking them to do it or teaching them nice skills it's about working every single day with the staff and they are they have come so far in the last couple of months i'm extremely impressed with the skills that they've acquired just in two and a half months and i'd love to see that for the other four schools as well i mean if you end of the few that did get a chance to dissipate thanksgiving i mean that was the whole staff doing as much as he did they've got so again they've all had to kind of come know that we're cooking or we're serving in september we're down to about fourteen percent behind in october the reason we're not seeing it financially is fortunately we did make the adjustment last year to go up the water and basically that's keeping us almost even or about three thousand dollars behind the last year's total revenue so i think from that perspective you know we're we're ok we do realize that we're spending for those fewer meals we're still spending about the same cost in our labor know that this is the students who say they're not buying as much as it's because of how much they're getting so that could you know it's not you know for some kids it might be that they don't try new things and we've all had children who are more reluctant to try to do things and some other children but you know hypothetically listening but you know i think that that's the dual challenge that we face with the new federal regulations is when you get students it's their it's a little bit more well the same time they're going to be a little bit cautious to do it and the other  the other time given the things that they normally would have eaten the portions are small so they've got a big balance from home so i think we've got a couple of challenges all swirling around the scene at the same time so seen much in the way of waits to this point in trying to figure out what to buy and what not to buy and who's going to buy it at the end of the week not to bet honestly i mean maybe the first couple of weeks a little bit but you know not now i think you know he's got a good handle that for sure you know the goal is just to get one bite down that's that's considered success of the billions but now in general things have been really good and to waste well having raised five kids i can honestly tell you that there is hope for parents and their kids because my my worst eater is now my biggest health nut and it's amazing it's like why did you torture me with a can't believe what you're eating you know but it is amazing how they do finally grow up and get it i think it's it's a hassle you know when you talk and when you've made the comment about you know people kids not letting their food touch each other i know some adults of like that it's you know some things don't change but it's to get money my favorite li thirty two thousand on a surplus at this point still really early in the year to get excited about it but at least it's on the positive side factor on the expense side we're about twenty six i was in to the good and most of that i not all of it actually generated by the fact that our grants are the research and look up to the higher than what we had originally program for and again they believe there are forty six thousand which is fortunate over what we had budgeted for we do have had budgeted for for this year so overall so it's a positive report fifty eight thousand as our surplus it's way too early to get into the excited or any of the things that h are although i will say  up to this point where we are right on budget with those so obviously next three months of the critical months we have had some challenges in the heating areas in the past where kind of a difference in philosophy where temperature in the morning so you can come to the problem with that typically a large buildings it takes too long to bring the building back up so what works paramedic with and actually tony the new operations manager it was his idea i tend to agree with them because being in the building site the past one of the things that's actually very good for me it's very effective because of all jackson kept very good records of all the he uses of gas uses electric usage so now as i do it forward to be honest with you have a great track record you know the it's the walls everything is raining the same pool so again having to come up fifteen or twenty degrees is a lot easier than coming up thirty five yes and i think again if if we're right we're going to measure this very tightly to make the town is putting out there for all of us so just to call your attention to a few things in there that relate to the committee that a week from tomorrow on the school department members when you're a little over a year ago between all of the town hall public agency folks and a few other people so this is been a community going to me event i think it's looking at our revenue forecast based on all the new recurring revenues that we have identified from an innocent new growth taxes and the news levy from last year it appeared that the funding the revenue funding would be more than enough not only cover the town hall included debt service but also debt service for this project the amount of money that was being worked for for this project one quarter million dollars so the revenue look look good looks like you could handle it and not much has changed with the revenue picture but now there's been more time to look at the expense side of things not just for next year but going out for the next couple of years or for three more years juncture that the majority of all that revenue is going to be gobbled by increases in estimated expenses so it was great that the revenue was there to to handle that but i guess i wasn't  supporting about twenty five to thirty percent of the growth in expenditures that now looks like that you know that where we're heading for so given that there we needed to to change direction and the first direction we needed to change was that there was no way given that scenario that we were going to be able to afford the debt service for the town hall project and included that basis at this point in time so that that is off the table at this point in time for now the amount of funding the state is is one of the quarter million dollars and as you call know for sure you know this is approximately million dollars expected to be a remainder and a high school capital project count and those funds have always been available to this committee to use towards the renovation of existing assets on the high school property and given the current plan for the the artificial turf field and complex that it is now geared towards a renovation of the existing assets the ball fields and the football practice field it is within the four corners of the authorizing article a town meeting for this committee to affirm that you know that that's what that's the intention to use those funds similar to what was done for the part of the paving of the of the parking you know around this this complex you know that was something that was it was added on but it was only because of the positive project management and in the  savings but it still was within scope because it was renovation of existing assets so because of the way that this project is being proposed that the turf field gets around it it's a sports facilities after the facilities and it's a renovation of existing athletic facilities so it's a similar you know very analogous situation and so therefore you know that remainder of the high school a couple projects fund is available without further appropriation for this grant the grant funds actually i think it's two hundred two hundred thousand dollars actually with the project project estimate being refined a little bit and so you know bill has identified seventy five thousand dollars related operating and so there was intention always to use use of monies for the upcoming capital cycle so i'm recommending we use one hundred twenty five thousand from that with the seventy five thousand from school the accounting million needs to do is his two things you supported the project based on a desire to have this concept at the time we were supporting regionally was based on what was known  your point now we're asking you to consider and the seventy five thousand i'm suggesting would be coming out of our building rental account it's going to greatly reduce staff because we also took sixty two thousand out of the last frame for the you know at this point but it's it's the only way if in fact the committee wishes to move forward with this that we have an option to move forward to make up the body to get to the end result the other thing this article does and it will just be the hand out there or similar that will be going to tell meeting because it's at least my suggestion that what we're saying to the community is it's their right to vote on this although they're only even though we technically maybe could cut something else how it's script by getting to the field itself and i think that would be the wrong message i think you can it really is looking if they if they agree to this is fine if they don't agree to this and that spoken i think that's the way it's always going that's going to be and i think they'll send us a message one way or the other i think anybody who has walked through this building has watched this project because of the things that we've been able to do that we didn't think we could do because of what we thought were going to be the cost long as i have never been is did i think that the school will never be whole and it's not hope it's a three quarter high school because we don't have a feel to it you know i think sometimes we sit back and say well we can't we can't do it and then five years down the line it's going to cost us three times as much money so i think sometimes you do have to put one foot forward instead of project i think kind of a canvas awning perry you know we need more support to finish it obviously on the problem is you can't pull out buildings to deteriorate we didn't go this high school where we didn't ask for a new high school we just asked for the money to be able to fix it because it needed to be fixed so this is already taking at home we would want to take a different approach so this started as a community project obviously supported by the schools and school committee but it remains a community level joint project so we you know we do believe in our conversations that it should go pool you know from a pool to a town meeting to some other planet the other thing is we're going to need if people if this is approved we're going to need that community support to go forward in the coming years whatever that is with the other fees and so i think that's really important left from the high school and the twenty year had to be something like twenty one has that changed as that's the one remaining question ever my head what's changed about that no it hasn't changed at all that's you you're referencing on the law in terms of  bonded under a specific massachusetts general law statute and it's a twenty year purpose statute everything blondet foreign minister for world is bonded under a statute that gives the authority to bomb for it and it gives the the bond bondable purpose life and sort of on the purpose life for the money that we bar for this building was twenty year purpose life to construct that leg facilities which is what we're talking about being located in an area that was not on a sports complex i'm so in essence of the event of a new asset that created the issue where it was not within the four corners of  the warrant article that authorizes project and then it was discussed where we could just really appropriate the funds that are left over to the project and that's where the problem comes in is that it's for bo law to reappropriate bond funds for for certain purposes life to a lesser purpose like those funds have to be reproduced for a similar purpose life for hire so that's why we in the past we've done that building project those are all twenty year purpose life now we're talking about a fifteen year purpose so so the nuance here is that although the funds can't be reappropriated because of that law and because ok if there was a vote that was taken it cannot be reappropriated because you going twenty your purpose left a fifteen year or because you're operating within the before corners of the larger article that authorizes project renovation of existing has to go to town meeting in the absence you know that's a given and i i think i'm not christian i do have though is about the building rental revolving account so just going i don't know if you tuitions side that was because of the smoke program when it closed it was a very large balance that came over to the schools over the last two or three years in your budgets you've actually been using very large chunks of that two hundred fifty three town is much lower but we do have we do have a number of revolving accounts what we try to keep is enough to make sure that we have a cushion that if we had a bad year wonders and yes a lot of side you know or even replacement books and stuff like that th that they all basically have just not the cushions that can make it through that here and there go on to the next year in the end we do you just say you know in the building rental fund we do use a portion of that to offset our expenses  so we are renting it on a basis we're bringing in just under eighty thousand dollars with all the rentals we do cross the district for everything but as an example last year we spent one hundred nine thousand so we spent more than what we brought into it because we have a number of these pocket things that we are trying to fix this will probably bring the that revolver down to about twenty thousand because again we spent sixty two thousand of the track or more research that t and we'd be setting up seventy five so it will be the leanest that particular county has been but you know what i guess the way i look at it i'm not looking to increase rates or anything else in that area i just think to your point just have to build the back of it if it's truly something this committee you know raise or appropriate you know transfer transfer or whatever so it's like everything was covered in frank did review it and he seems to be comfortable with the summer no extra it's really a vote to approve going forward as we understand funding approach now