good evening everybody and welcome to the regular meeting of the school committee of the town of foxborough at today's january twenty fifth two thousand and sixteen apologize up front for suffering from the cold so i'll probably be able quieter and if i have to disappear to blow my nose alas the vice chair to take over we've got we've got a fair amount on the agenda tonight but i think you might get a reward for good behavior at the end when we talk about our meeting next week so i'll bring that up then but tonight we're going to start as always with visitors and then approval of minutes and then our teaching and learning highlight tonight is around a positive coaching alliance with ms caitlin brown the athletic director we have an eagle scout project from eva regarding the ahern y m c a path where they are going to look at the proposed twenty sixteen twenty seventeen foxborough high school program of studies updates and then we have the first reading of a policy j k which is with regard to physical restraint of students we then are going to make the decision on the twenty sixteen twenty seventeen school calendar and then we'll take up the f y seventeen budget public hearing and vote our recommendation on what we want to put forward for the the coming year budget we have to approve the five seventeen capital improvement plan we will then do a school committee vote on subcommittee appointments for upcoming teacher negotiations and educational assistant negotiations we then will look at this year's district report card that miss million dr bird osa put together once again we have a few donations that we're fortunate enough to accept and then other matters many visitors who want to be recognized seeing i want to welcome back mrs lord who's been away for a little while and i also understand from the superintendent that melissa you have some exciting for the third line down where it says just her field concession stand i'd just like to change that to the c m burns community field concession stand because we refer to it as the same burns community field public schools was one of the four hundred twenty five school districts in the united states and canada honored as selected as part of the sixth annual events placement a p district on a role for increasing access to a p course work while simultaneously maintaining or increasing the percentage of students earning scores of three or higher on the a p exams so i think this is very significant this year that we have that we are on that two years and roll four hundred twenty five school districts across the country last year there were there were five five hundred forty seven in there only for twenty five this year so there were even fewer that made it this year and we made it again this year so i think that's a wonderful achievement and congratulations to the high school and everything they're doing to expand access to a p why keeping the students right so i know if you want to see any further thoughts on it but i think that's that's a terrific thing to mention consideration whether you're expanding your offerings whether you're more kids to try to be courses and whether they're maintaining a higher standard upon completion do i have it right yes so it's kind of all those things together you know a great testament to what we've asked you know about being as instructional league challenging as we can to be recognised for continuing to add a p classes and encourage students to participate in them i think that is a nice tribute to the team so thank you and the great teaching that makes sure that they well what if we when we took up our first meeting a policy well we could do the eagle scout because ken even let me know over the weekend that he over this weekend he sent me an email saying that he has to participate what he he didn't realize he had a conflict he is in the grade eight and high school step up concert tonight so he just didn't realize his conflict we've been in touch with a few times he said this evening was fine so he's actually not going to be able to be here so maybe we could spend a minute or two talking about that right so as you know many  something in the community sometimes are on school property sometimes they're on community property and you tend to hear about the ones that are on school property this really isn't on school property the bulk of this work was in y m c a property so it's on the path that goes between the herne and the a that as you know if you've had students are widely used by students to go back and forth from the middle school to the y m c a both after school during the school year and in the summer when this program is going out of so that path had become a little bit overgrown and had some stumps going up in the middle a little new trees were twigs and so he had come to meet with mr you and i back in november and his eagle scout project was to clear the path to maintain its original with in bill was kind enough to work with the d p w to provide ground dr truck full of mulch for him to use on the y m c a side so it wasn't a program that came to you for approval because it's really y m c a property but they were great we met with them a couple times outside the very appreciative that the path was made a little bit safer and they'd have to work but say this is great so we want to thank ken for his terrific project making the pathway a little bit more nice and cushiony right now with all the mulch that they spr that really talks about a lot of different areas so but i just brought some highlights so thank you to karl for being my flicker here yes thank you so we had an instructor an instructor come in to speak to is about was over christmas vacation it's hard to find a time when i'm our student athletes are not busy so it was we found that christmas vacation was a great time to get them we had about twenty session and it was a lot of self reflection on what they have liked in their fellow athletes and what they have seen and also how their coaches and act how maybe they  doing already in the classroom in terms of effort giving your best every time the growth mindset that they mention in the book and they continue to mention in athletics that you can there's learning for improvement you know no matter what happens on the scoreboard you can always get yourself better and kind of how to back for mistakes and i think that's probably the hardest thing a athlete or a student can do is they focus on those mistakes and the trainer said if i can teach you one thing in this training it's finding that way to bounce back from those mistakes whether it's picking a monster they talked about doc rivers in the celtics and they had that word and i'm going to mispronounce it when they went to italy before but picking whatever it is for your team to say that happened i move on i'm sure th a goalie which is a very tough position to be in so it does take you know that mentality to be able to kind of bounce back and kind of work on and trying to improve so they spent a lot of time talking about that  and then the other thing was after and again i brought in a growth mindset because i know that's something we're focusing on is the district of hall which i totally something i believe in is that you're always putting that effort to get yourself better and instead of saying i can't it's how do i improve myself what do i do to make get better kind of how can i put effort goals and so their specific and their their effort goals not necessarily i need to get in nine out of ten of my free throws and so that was you know we discussed that with the student athletes as well and then learning improving they talk about you know watching asking and getting some watching t v what do they do if you see someone that you like out there what do they do to get themselves  better ask for help don't be afraid to ask their coaches or teammates about how to improve and then if you can't get that from watching and asking then go get that whether it's lessons and you know again i see the correlation into the classroom it's watching students how how they prepare for a t k asking teachers for help and then also if you're not getting it from the classroom do you need to go out and get outside sources to help you with whatever subject area so the correlation between athletic field classroom was great and then i talked a little bit about  embracing mistakes to you know you can never be a fast if you're feeling mistake so do not be afraid to make mistakes you play tentative lee and i would say that as a teacher a former teacher and that was the one thing that as a teaching that you had to learn is that you embrace that mistakes because some of your best classes will happen when you embrace take on a challenge and so that's what you know they encourage the kids to do is to and then to make that mistake critical things don't go exactly the way you into the pit how do you handle that so you know that was that was something they really focused on with the kids and then we were all kept in so we talked to a little bit about your role as a leader and it's really it could be for anyone and it was funny a few kids came up and i won't name the sports but said can we do this for my sports team you know some of the things they thought their whole entire team would get out something out of that besides just the leaders we will be doing something for the coaches as well but it's not a role it's not a title  and it's really anyone who's committed to being successful so again you may not some student athlete may not get the role as captain doesn't mean they're not a leader on that field and it is it's not yelling at people it's not telling people what to do it's you it to encourage kids that is doesn't have to be rude and forceful and they spoke about some of the leaders they remember and i was fortunate enough to have many of them as students and and they like them not because they were the best on the field because they remembered everyone's name that when they were a freshman they got on the bus and cheered on the whole freshman team and wanted to know how they were doing and i saw us one of the individuals mentioned at a girls basketball game and i said i just have to tell you you were mentioning when we were doing this training as someone that they remembered and she was a senior and they were a freshman and they remembered her and i said because used to go in ask the freshman team how they did and she started actually i did do that and they said well that was the impact he made it wasn't necessarily she was in a very incredible athlete and still playing at the collegiate level but you know those are the memories that they made so it was fun to listen to those stories and then honoring the game and i think this could be for anyone they use a lot of acronyms but roots the rules you know you want to win the way the game is supposed to be played and not by cheating are finding ways around the rules on opponents that a good opponent is a gift you know it shouldn't be i want to avoid playing that team that this is a gift that you have to play against the best of the best officials sometimes they're going to make mistak i think we're who but that they bring fairness to the game and they're supposed to be the equal in point and you have to respect them even if you if they are wrong even if you know they're wrong you know they are wrong but you respect it in teammates and you know never do anything on and off the field to let your teammates down and your team down and i think that really hit home for them too because not just about what you do on the field it's how you treat yourself how you treat your body your actions off the field that also help your teammates and self you are the foundation and sometimes i think it's hard because especially a student leaders they move away from you know they want to help their team and they forget that they need to take care of themselves first whether it's nutrition are getting enough sleep to hear you know having the grades and it's really not a problem for our student athletes but those are all really important to making sure that you are successful and honoring the game at that time so that it's not says what was in the book and what they talked about but i just wanted to highlight some of the things  came away with by just watching them and i did get to sit in some groups with them they let me i feel like these are real world skills yet these are just this isn't just about smores this is life skills this is real world skills and as you say correlated with their education  it it covers it all yeah i really does you know i will say over and over again i really don't believe anything outside athletics like a co curricular and the skills that you learned there can really translate into life and i think some of it and it's hard i to i read an article about a individual who got a c plus and how devastating it was and they didn't get into college of their choice and how she was grateful for that opportunity to not fail and she got a c plus which isn't failing but to not do what she expected to do because then it helped her later on in life as she grows and i you know and that's where i think the athletic field helps you because you have sometimes you envision what's going to happen and it doesn't always happen the way you envision and it's frustrating and then you can kind of you know look at yourself and what could have you done better but also sometimes it is what it is and i was because most of here i use the girl that has you lost to a very strong medfield team and that was a no that they you know they had an incredible season and you know very good like my coach or she does like you're saying like she doesn't put us against teams that she knows we're going to win to she puts us against teams that are hard like a competitive league game because we're playing medfield again during the regular season not just in playoff year partnership with them so then it is really a reevaluating which areas of need we have within the athletic department and it will be interesting to see how the coaches say you know i haven't seen the coach of remembering it is just a game but you can still be very competitive and still strive to win yeah i was really my monterey's character first and then the wins should come and i think we see that with our teams know that's where we're going to see i think you know the parent line it's hard you want to try to get how do you get the most parents and what avenue is the way to kind of reach them and you tend to get the parents who are already probably doing the skills that they need yeah how do you reach everyone and try to get them on board in kind of buying into it and i think i'm a parent when i use my father as the example when he left my soccer game because i wasn't doing well enough and i knew he left because i wasn't doing well and we had a conversation after unfortunately an affidavit great relationship with my father so i was able to have that but you know i think he realized that the game suddenly became took more meaning over our relationship that he didn't make the same mistake you are with me ever again and i'm very fortunate to have him you know in my life is a positive role model that sometimes you know parents need to hear that because it does i see these games these kids work very very hard and there's a lot of disappointment they put themselves out there and a situation where for ridicule you know and that's not what it should be is to be a positive experience and sometimes as a parent you think you're helping ye you know i just love watching you play and i my my say that's my husband all the time and i actually brought home a book for him and i took that away from your presentation the last night myself yeah thank you for that this was great very well know trying to get athletics and you know keep working on that to you know it's it's great to have that our kids and it's great to share student athletes who are in the music department who then come into athletics and we share and share students which you know is wonderful so i know our students the leadership stuff it's great and it's really something i've wanted to continue to work on and will continue to work on here at the school and i remember kate when you came in the fall saying thank you for these extra things you're doing so i wasn't aware of them and it is need to try to take some of these join in so walk of everyone this is always interesting to hear what you have planned for high school students so i'll turn it back right back over today as well as usual we would like to do the best for us to constantly so from what you have biology taking their biology and cats in grey nine is going to cause a bit of a moving law g m because we're going to have all the ninth graders and most of the tenth graders all taking biology next  year fortunately we have most of us staff is licensed to teach biology to be able to handle that but this is going to roll right through because the year after that that bubble as we're calling it will be in chemistry and physics and we'll we'll deal with those that we get to them but you know we're ok so next year by moving biology down the grade nine means that all sophomores lend up taking chemistry and as a result we have to warm think again of the needs of our students so next year we would like to pilot a section of a cost of a call that can see conceptual chemistry we have it is still a college prep co still have all the rigor that a high school can cause should you know we took the curriculum from the standards sci fi chemistry course and when that eliminating math but let's say with the emphasizing it and stressing the concepts for those students who for whom math is a real challenge and and that's primarily going to be a sophomore course the year after next but at least to get it rolling again we'd like to run a pilot next year of one section and we'll have mostly juniors in there but that will primarily become a sophomore course and we also  three years of science but with deep but with the elimination of physical science we don't want to be sure that our students are well rounded and are exposed to all areas of science so we are specifying that all their three years one needs to be a life science that one needs to be a physical science needs and in the course and in the science section of the document we have listed which courses are life sciences and which course is a physical sciences just to be clear again i don't see that being much of a problem but it would be possible for somebody to take all biology courses and satisfy their requirement so we'd like them to be again a bit more rounded than that you know and just to make sure people who do care for that wouldn't take effect until the class of two thousand and twenty which is like four years from now will be plenty of notice that and by then you would have switched over to the new sequence anyway so it shouldn't be hard for kids to meet that requirement just want to say that case it was watching at home saying oh my goodness against the statistics class as well and about two years ago i had a couple of teachers come to me and talk about the need they felt for a calculus class offered at the college you have level and now again with all of the students starting  which one has freshman we feel that this is the right time to put that class in there too or calling it foundations of calculus those students will get some more review on some of the pre calculus topics that they didn't go as in training so we feel appropriately informed as of today we're pretty excited about it it's a great opportunity to professional development be right here in massachusetts has cemented many high schools and their goal is to really make it more of a statewide statewide effort but this is a course that has been taught for the last year or two in some places where piloting it so it's deliverable this of this of course number that the president recognizes your science course so we were able to ask all the questions that we had about cost of which there's very little food and other things related to it what you know and i know if you want to talk a little bit about what your perceptions were and where we are this morning i'm very excited about it i'm sorry to  of computer science and that's what i'm excited about for the students because who knows what spark that might trigger in somebody that they can never thought about that i had not thought about it in years and so that's what we're very excited about and you already have interest by staff as well the things we also like to have as this is as you can imagine this fine we will chasing after this for a while as is probably a really high school but finally this seems to be some movement on it so initially we thought we'd offer this exploring computer science and then we go to a second course they've emphasis where they'll still offer the a course for java but they're offering another course called computer science principles which will be new we implemented this temper which we're not going to but so what's happening is if you go after this one that we've gotten into the program  studies now they can go from disk right to that a p college board i'm calling it b but it's really the one about computer science principles not specific to java so we could have kids going from discourse right to a p computer science so that's ok i just wanna make sure that i'm clear on what we're about to get and i think you can do you know i read through this in this this two pieces i really like about this this program and that's the focus on computational thinking i mean there's a real bind set that has to be established there to go anywhere from here and then there's another piece in there that i think is really important to students get  young aside from the nuts and bolts part but it's the ethical component i mean this is such a powerful body of knowledge and with cybercrime and those sorts of things the opportunities remarkable but it has to be for good and not for evil you know and and i like that there's an ethical component in that and that can be cross curricular if they need it with this i think it's impressive and i students or offerings classes for the new english electives in the computer science  have maybe one or two sections in their schedule to put that class and so it's going to really be where their interests or those interests lie and we just started the whole a scantron process redound the her and last couple weeks getting the freshman well soon to be freshman  don't know i mean we had two sections of engineering the first year we had one this year as a bounce back to to next year i mean i feel like some of this comes in waves and we talk about how it is the same group of kids and they can pick her back right so already in college prep chemistry but because math challenges that it's not working no very well for them and i'm kind of again imagining that will be kind of drawing to three here to three did there i'm to me this is really what is the lifeblood or the heartbeat of our school you know having having these offerings so you guys continually refresh and update i mean this is this is just such a nice and really for our students it is very enriching that's a great other discussion i was in favor of your past thank you subcommittee working with doctrines on myself on this policy doctrines of contacted us to let us know that the regulations in the area of physical restraint of students had been changed and went into effect as a january first two thousand and sixteen so we need to bring our policy regarding restraint of students into compliance with current law in massachusetts doctrines will give you a little background and she's the expert sure and that will lead think one of the reasons the department of elementary and secondary education changed the regulations is because there's been a cultural change nationwide that restraint is really not good and it's only used in and then emergency situation so that's see that's the department of elementary and secondary education to make these changes in the law and as you'll see here we're also asking for a name change so instead of restraint policy we're doing a restraint prevention policy again that just reflects the cultural change that we're it's nationwide but certainly in this state and three that it really reflects the best practices that you don't restrain students who do other things to deescalate students so you don't have to use restraints changes to change the title of the policy to restrain prevention maintaining at this is file j k a restraint prevention maintaining an orderly safe environment conducive to learning is an expectation of all staff members of the foxboro school district further students of the foxboro public school are protected by law from unreasonable use of physical restraint physical restraint shall be used only in emergency situations as  resort after other less intrusive alternatives have been have failed or been deemed inappropriate and with extreme caution the use of physical restraint in a manner inconsistent with six o three  six is prohibited school personnel shall use physical restraint with two goals in mind one to administer administer a physical restraint only when needed to protect a student or a member of the school community from immediate serious physical harm and to to prevent or minimize any harm to the student as a result of the use of physical restraint the following definitions appear at six o three c m r forty six point zero two and are hereby incorporated into this policy manual one mechanical restraint the use of any device or equipment to restrict the student's freedom of movement this does not include a device that has been prescribed by an appropriate medical or related services professional that is being used for its specific and approved positioning or protective purpose to medication restrain the administration of medication for the purpose of temporarily controlling behavior three physical escort a temporary touching or holding a student without the use of force of the hand wrist arm shoulder or back for the purpose of inducing a student was agitated to walk to a safe place for physical restraint direct physical contact that prevents or significantly restricts a student's freedom of movement five prone restraint a physical restraint in which a student is placed face down on the floor or another surface and physical pressure is applied to the student's body to keep the student in the face down position six seclusion in voluntary confinement of a student alone in a room or area from which the student is conditions are met and documented the student has a documented history of repeatedly causing serious injuries and or injuries to other students or staff to all other forms of physical restraint have failed to ensure the safety of the student and or others three there are no medical contra indications as documented by a licensed physician for there is a logical or behavioral justification for the use of  approved in writing by the principal and six the program has documented all of the above before using prone restraint and maintains the documentation the only staff authorized to administer in progress train our staff who have received in depth restraint training in accordance with six zero three forty six point zero four three physical restraint is prohibited as a means of punishment or as a response to destruction of property disruption disruption of school  refusal to comply with the school or staff directive or verbal threats that do not constitute a threat of imminent serious physical harm to the or others physical restraint is prohibited as a standard response for any student including in any individual behavior plan or individual ised education plan physical restraint is prohibited when medically contraindicated the next three paragraphs are struck the superintendent will develop written procedures identifying appropriate responses to student behavior that may require immediate intervention methods of preventing student violence self injurious behavior and suicide including individual crisis planning and escalation of potentially dangerous behavior occurring among groups of students or with an individual student descriptions and explanations of the school's alternatives to physical restraint and method of physical restraint in emergency situations description of training requirements procedures to comply with reporting requirements of six o three c m r forty six point zero six including but not limited to a procedure to make reasonable efforts to orally notify a parent of the use of restraint within twenty four hours and by mail or email within three school days description of restraint follow up procedures procedures for saving and investigating complaints methods for engaging parents in discussions about restraint prevention and the use of restraint solely as an emergency procedure procedure for conducting periodic review of data and documentation on the use of physical restraints in accordance with six o three c m r forty six point zero six five and six and procedures for obtaining principal approval for use of timeout for more than thirty minutes and for the extension of a physical restraint beyond twenty minutes each building principal identify staff members to serve as school wide as a school wide resource to assist in ensuring proper administration of physical restraint these staff members will participate in an in depth training program in the use of physical restraint which the department of elementary and secondary education recommends be at least sixteen hours in length in addition each staff member will be trained regarding the school physical restraint policy the principal will arrange training to occur in the first month of each school year or for staff hired after the beginning of the school year with in a month of their own plan only training pursuant to six zero three samar forty six zero four shell administer physical restraint on students whenever possible the administration of physical restraint shall be administered in the presence of at least one adult who does not participate in the restraint a person administering physical restraint shall use only the amount of force necessary to protect the student or others from physical injury or harm any teacher employees or agent of the fox public schools shall not be precluded from using such reasonable force as is necessary to protect students other persons or themselves from an assault or imminent serious physical harm the program staff shall report a use of all physical restraint the staff member shell verbal e inform the administration of the physical restraint as soon as possible and by written report no later than the next school day the principal or director or his her designee shall maintain an ongoing record of all reported instances of physical restraint which upon request shall be made available to the department of elementary and secondary education when a restraint has resulted in an injury to a student or program staff member the program shall provide a copy of the required report to the department of elementary and secondary education within the rescore working days of the administration there are strang people references six o three states are forty six gas generalized seventy one point seventy one thirty seven g very comprehensive i ask you can see from all the red underline that a lot of this is is new material from the new regulations that just went into effect and we're incorporating it into our regulations to make sure that we're in compliance that's right yeah i think that one of the things i do want to point out that and so it's been my boss world's best practice not to restrain students and only to do so for safety reasons so a lot of this is not anything new the recording is is something that we're going to have to train staff on but other than that i think that as a culture and we really don't stream students unless there's a safety issue that's been our practice and now they're putting it into law that's right required by law that we have a video record of any such restraint in there ok that's thank you that's an answer to these policies overlap or or cease to be used if law enforcement becomes an issue in such a situation where one may need to be restrained they may have different methods of engagement i don't know i don't know if we're covered on those things again i apologize for not policies cover government govern how we care for students in any official school sponsored setting and and so my third question and then i promise i'll be quiet  this policy then blanket a visitor from say out of state into our district you know so our laws apply to people visiting us and this is how we follow the rules i thought maybe i'll ask  special olympics event i don't know something that may have an increase in the possibility of needing to use physical restraint or not do does our policy blanket that visitor by could because it's state  much they i mean with this the extremes that you read here really happens i think you are right i asked a great read about it but if it were to be necessary these are the the parameters that we are allowed to operate under when a student requires  is appropriate so no we haven't any outreach to parents or guardians because if you asked around the table to what extent do you think it's proper to go with my child out until you might have slightly different opinions the stable local individual or group or local opinions don't matter when we just have to meet the law so people can have all the opinions they want but this is what we must do want to and i think that if a student if they think that this might be a possibility those kind of discussions happen thank you i think one things and one thing i like to see in this too is that it does clearly differentiate between what they're calling physical escort and restraint because they're you know if you often not necessarily with us but other places with there's been an incident where a child or to protect peers from them that is that restraining or is it and so this more clearly defines what restraint is and what physical escort is if that's appropriate for a child so a light touch on the back i'm over here isn't restrained so they can't say you restrain my child it's not the a p so i think they did a really good job in the in the policy guidance to try to define all possible scenarios  particular type of area with a where the student where one might be isolated meadows do we have to have a certain type of area for them to be and so everybody's safety is guarantee any a any adaptations we may need to do to our physical play in any way i think those of the certain procedures who have talked about a little bit about that we are going to we will develop our own and we can share that with you but it's basically practices they may have manana we're maybe on best practices but i think what we've been doing by conversation cmdr for the last several years are exactly what the new law is recommending so for us it's a real education and a validation school committee meeting so it is time to approve next year's school calendar it is so just to remind people of my i think it's my duty to present you with a couple of thoughts  options which i didn't just number in which i had a brief discussion about the first meeting this month of january and now here we are back at the second meeting in january where this pretty much gold in the calendar and a lot has happened in the five weeks since we were first considering options so i just want say upfront as i always said i think it's my duty to provide the committee with some options for your consideration but we always can make anything work so and i will say this this year particularly it was a little bit different from last year was still late labor and let you know how people felt and as you can see others felt the same way the pros and cons to the traditional don't bring students back until the tuesday after labor day and there are pros and cons about option two which is to bring kids back from the early return as you can see the vote was quite close a total of one hundred twelve staff members preferred the traditional calendar and a total of ninety seven staff members preferred the early return had no opinion so i think that's good for the committee to know that there wasn't this year a strong preference for one of over the other but a slight preference for traditional and check in with c n n she's on the board because the executive board of the teachers perhaps the educational benefits of the early return but perhaps the family calendar type benefits of the longer summer and it's only a few days so it's a good problem all over but i think whatever the committee decides that there are equal number of people who would have voted your way and equal number of people who might have gone the other way but i don't think anyone feels so strongly this year as passionately as they did last year perhaps  makes sense right because i think it does get the instructional requirement correct the preparation for testing there are in the secondary schools middle high school there are the little bit more cognizant of their preparation for students on the high stakes tests whether it's park or student so have them cast graduation requirements or the a p exam so all of that definitely weighs a little bit more heavily with the secondary staffing the read the early return getting more instructional days in or jumps out at earlier in the  any adamancy atomised see about that like where people adamant about option two with such numbers are right it's sort of like you know i thankfully no no no idea i was an informal but then again i don't know i wasn't there what we did be voting on january twenty fifth and rather than just a tally they had to go to the school secretary to weigh in with their choice so they were able to enter their own time that wasn't wasn't everybody together in a room where you had to look around you think you have to go  majority was anything like that and it also wasn't you get to see how many tallies of four against you had to go individually and put your vote in so that's what happened at the school there was a poster displaying the mailboxes for them to peruse and then i go and so numerically it's everyone happy with i think the most important thing is the superintendent made the comment repeatedly that she can make either one work so i don't think it's a you know a big crisis and as i said at this time last year in this discussion of this is our just you know i having been a former teacher i tend towards the instructional positivity of this you know i struggle with that too because i really think it's our job at this table to do what's best instructional and that's my opinion but i'm also reminded of last year when we did commit to the public that this would not become habit right you know we roll the dice on snow days you know with all due respect to tina's comment i don't think the days in june are quite as instructional the effect of that but i also i really value something something debbie says to which is you know there's educational value in a lot of things as educational value to kids being with their parents in the summer doing summer activit for me as well i think i read last year was a little bit more urgent is that and something maybe a little different is that you don't feel that way this year i might next year if you just put in the traditional because we've gone away from the years where it's just here's the callee what you think but i think when it's not as this was last year to betty's points going to live get the traditional after labor day starts going to get a little bit more friendly who that maybe next year will just look at that i do less my dear i think if i do think there's some value in consistency of our calendar for people for me i think there are people who make their vacation plans you know a whole year i think some some good consistency is helpful thank you very much everybody for the thoughtful discussion ok if my seventeen dollars budget public hearing and voted recommendation yes here's our third public meeting where we're discussing the school budget we didn't put your package is a change to the budget of about twenty just under twenty five thousand dollars the town side has decided based on fuel costs for the reduction in fuel cost that they're pulling down their budgets to basically equate to about a twenty five percent decrease over where we've been in past years as you know as an example in this particular year because we are running so well we did acquire a vehicle using some of the excess out of that fund i did you know in conversations with the town side i have you know comments about being concerned because no one has a crystal ball that says where these fuel prices are going to stay as we've gone from almost four dollars down to you know or a dollar eighty at the gas pumps but we also don't have the same outlet that the town side has and that is if their budgets top a sudden were strained because it went back up they can go for reserve on transfer it's not likely the school thirty two million dollars budget is going to get a reserve on transfer for fuel going up so you know that being said i think that as it may be there's a potential one year here a sign of good faith on our side and they know we're in the same bucket with them so obviously if things don't go well it will be an issue for us as well but i'm suggesting that we do drop it down we had already had a decrease in what i was across the district and that would reduce the overall school budget down to thirty two million nine hundred sixty nine thousand three hundred nine that comes from the general fund just read that number one more time to  i wish i could really have a true confort here but i've done about as much as i can do at this point based mud the base the ip budget with our buses and everything copiers that stays the same is allowing you into an eligibility period for two hundred seventy day period which you have to do a lot of documentation on part of that documentation timeframe though is also getting approval by the town that they we will fund the feasibility schematic design phase which is the second phase and so you have to basically in the first phase prove that you've already got that part done obviously if we don't get accepted beyond the first two hundred seventy that money never know there's no liability there and there is specific wording which i'll be handing out in one of the next meetings that will have to be voted at town meeting as an approval you know that they understand that's exactly what's going to happen here my concern is after looking at twenty different districts and their evaluation of their cost under this new program the feasibility side which again is very similar to what we're doing with the town hall  side so we're basically developing everything up front and then see if you get approval to go forward the only difference here is we're stopping short we're stopping at the point of just having a drawing if you will schematic design that says this is what we want to bring schools look like we're not actually getting blueprints done we're not getting specs done we're stopping at that point to see if the m s b a so it's it's it's a very short process in a very short cost the biggest component to this is the owners project managers cost because they are from day one of that after two hundred seventy days they are basically going to be working with the architects to develop a plan of the building to evaluate the educational criteria we put forward for that building and to make sure that each of the components of the building beat that educational requirements so it's a lot more time and effort put in that being said i still find this number to be a very high number in my mind from everything i've seen in the last fourteen years i've done  you know if we actually go into the second stage so i'm recommending at this point and i hope if it gets clarified somehow there's a couple things that we need to go through ourselves where this number may come down before a town meeting then i'd  to do that but as you know we can't raise on town meeting floor so i would prefer to say that it says the six hundred thousand dollars that would be asking for seven hundred thousand dollars again if anything is close to where we've been in the past it's about a forty eight forty nine  the seven hundred thousand just because again i we have restraints on us as we move forward here and i'd rather feel a little more comfortably covered those without having full details of exactly what pieces something you know like i said we have done it before and i just i don't see these costs on this level but i really don't want to  is this one's going in the skiing and we'll find out when i decided by the end of the day so in a couple of things we're actually i think it's nice that they kind of informed us when they did because of our budget process so we're a little ahead of the game that some others might be we've already basically by getting you know pushing this funding forward obviously it has to happen by nato meeting but it's one of those phases as i said and also i'll be submitting to you for your review next time which will be then sent back to the town the war articles have to be done too so we've basically those two check marks on that two hundred seventy day thing that we have to accomplish and and but they're timely and they're timely to our you know report our annual town meetings so that as you know with those smaller groups together this does require or it is we would prefer having school committee representation on it and i think it's great for the committee to participate it is your collective bargaining agreements with all the associations and i think it goes a long way maybe i can just offer a couple of experience with thoughts and maybe if you want to do the same feel free but just for everyone's benefit i think these are great opportunities i've had the chance to to be on the teacher negotiation one the last two times if we go share the contract  it does take a little bit of time typically after school for several meetings but i think it's about this time he said i think it is a nice way for us to be involved with our our union and their leadership team  so please don't feel like you have to do one or the other but i really think if anyone would like to do either of these that they should volunteer for i am unable to serve in the t t negotiations just because i was a teacher that will can you help with the educational assistance one promote benefits of the district and i also want to make it known what we're proud of and what our chief vents are in this disagree for crowd as you know goes to every mailing address every folks will address in foxborough whether it's a whether it's a residence whether it's a perfume expenditure looking at the last five years and that planning line here and then the other difference here is the technology highlights is really looking at number one hundred percent wireless and hospitals which is really exciting and having incredible for this i'm seeing friends community memorial walkway and calling attention to that again the wireless internet access and then what we discussed earlier looking at the a p the second year in a row as me names of that honor rol pieces again we increase our scholastic our own words so each year we've been increasing which are really a tribute to their artist and what they've been doing the opportunities for student leadership and challenge looking at the ice core advocates and  was such a great opportunity and what our students were able to hear from here and they were just a year or two out but had had a little more experience than that but i think that's that's fantastic have you gotten feedback from our local real estate agent saying you know we talked that we get maybe one to three years saying it was really great good to know thanks for this for including us as well but not as much as we thought when we first started and i still love it though i mean i think  things we're proud of and let people know what the schools are up to two or three was it easier for math this time in my ear but you know the formats fine i just wondered two things one of course i think i think it's i like our average class size numbers i think that's a large number and something to kind of be proud of as a school that's just a comment but is there any room on this or is it appropriate on this report could there be a me to put some kind of birth that acknowledge s parental family and their participation in schools i'm not necessarily at a dollar level but like making these numbers up but we have fifty parents and caregivers who regularly volunteer to boost their programs in our schools to show the world when they see this like let's say our economic development committee that the town has now that we have a vibrant gauge met with not just the students in the community in the business community but also with the parents and families who are stakeholders in a school you know it's just the same mess that last paragraph to do you know we did put about generous parent groups but we did we do you two more games with him technology highlights a number of mobile devices when i think of a mobile device i think of a smartphone or something but you're thinking of a cow i believe her so i wonder if there's a different word than a device what if we call that our public report card beyond the call of duty i really think it's helpful to the public and if i agree it's free and we disseminated as you said every post office address in the town gets we have stacks of them of the schools or want to see it but in general that's really pretty well we give up some up to the school so they can leave it out for pick up and we'll keep some of the central office and that's been pretty helpful for any other comments or thoughts that is a donation of one thousand five hundred dollars to the high school for the credit fair for life so i'm very pleased for allan fels bring her team because as you know this is our first year without being a member of the end of our area school to create partnerships and it and one of the things we wanted to do was create our own credit fearful life so that we could have the maximum number on students participating in ellen because so many networks and partnerships over that we are building our own credit fer for life and so the partners in peaches i'm very generously are supporting the effort with a donation of one thousand five hundred dollars to school to career efforts which i have done before but again specifically along the same lines for the credit here for life and they are donating five hundred dollars to the fox for high school school to career efforts which as you know i've already said on by mrs bill's very very generous a great take and they have generously donated to each of the communities folks were being one to seven hundred seventy four dollars and eighty five cents earmarked for the fox were public schools initiatives related to stem so they're leaving it up to us to decide how we want to spend that money so when i speak to kara tomorrow that we were thinking about right now is that that how that's how we would support the robotics portion of the new explorer computer science course we need to know a little bit more about that afterwards but that's our accept a donation of one hundred fifty five dollars for the cme burns community feels can initiative the concession stand and i think this is just really i love this note because i think it really speaks to foxworth the community so it is gifts for the girls at the italian home for child and in jamaica plain which happens to be somewhere that my has been i've donated for two over the years this year we were blessed with a surplus and the girls voted to donate the balance to the scene birds community field so we were raising this community your parents are raising some pretty wonderful kids so i would be happy if there was a motion to accept one hundred fifty five dollars from the great elves to old school and i'd be happy to meet the most emotion thousand students and often many american sign language on the society for into the french on a society and eighteen into the spanish honor society so we have some outstanding achievement in the world language wednesday at seven seven o'clock and i go so that's great thirty students do a little bit of white thirty students were named to the two thousand and sixteen so feaster new district music festival and competed there this past weekend wednesday on saturdays that saturday was wonderful starting to their good time was had by all i will say and then the last thing is something i actually just i put in your packet we received a letter from knows who is actually doing the statistics and sometimes based on one data point in the will rank you based on whatever it could be anything and so some of them as you know sometimes i look at i don't know what they what it means but i'll tell you that this one particular i hadn't heard of before but it certainly has gotten out there as something that's public i've heard more about this particular one than others so i included senator state representative state representative jay barrows  letter to me in to you that says i'm writing today to congratulate and to thank you for your leadership and guidance as well as your entire staff in the fox for public school system for the efforts in earning the ranking of forty six in the recent public school district rankings it's important also to recognize the brakeman's buried students and their parents for creating a community to cultivate educational success this is a tremendous achievement by the dedicated and diligent members of the possible school system i want to offer my congratulations to appreciation  that you in the community recognizes for so i think it was great for president of barrow to take the time to reach out to them but i've also heard from other people in the community who have seen it and the reason this sort of stands out for us a little bit is because they do take multiple data points into consideration which you hope most people attempting to rank for whatever purposes do but one of the things that i think made this little bit different is a lot of the rankings are based on commentary people who took the time to go on and talk about the public school districts and rate them on such things as the quality of the education the teachers the diversity we're not that diverse so you'll see that there might you know been something we we didn't quite get the a for but also things like extra curricular that what exists culture right climate so things that matter to people and they included perception rankings will help people feel are saying about the schools so it's certainly to me was made it more interesting to  more people in the public about it so it's forty fifth in massachusetts school districts which was great so i never know sometimes what the significance is various rankings or whether they even mean anything or whether they're even specific research but that was a highlighted said there's no fights and very little boring the teachers care and do a good job preparing students for college so i think i did the same thing as over the moments and that matter that mattered more to me maybe than the numerical rank w so that's what i have great well debbie mentioned the southeastern district music festival and i just wanted to mention that at the end and then meeting last week mr massey made a point of telling us parents that our own mccalla hernandez get a third place award for the southeast district in the composition time test so she was there is a musician but she also got a special award i wish you were here so we did congratulate her but he  unless something's changed the deck a competition the first check the competition will be on thursday unless something's changed this first i have that written down and the blacklight dance was rescheduled for saturday night for the high school and the beth ball team this saturday are two weeks to sat going to be one of those people the presidential well when steve called a few days ago to let me into this decision as he was going out i was thinking about all the ways i was going to respond so you can't leave no you can't kno about so steve i just want to say publicly that i'm sorry that you'll be leaving the board i think you're very big you're great town official a great town volunteer and i'm staying to the bit of it so well and you are of your  my head off the bible and even though i think you bring fresh perspective but i think even the thoughtfulness of announcing this now so people who might be interested in serving on the school committee can give it some thought and i think even that is is a nice touch so  along with it but i think that the law always trumps your local policy anyway so we have been in compliance with the new law in our already now and the training has already occurred so i don't share your listing that same concern that something could go wrong because we're already following the law and the law trumps it ok so if it were a different type of policy maybe not superseded by the law right it seemed urgent i might feel differently as you would agree i'm sure but on this one i think i think we're ok out to me again conflict or actually a parent did too so i'm not going to be holding the coffee and i'll be sending out an email this week general saying another day that i'm trying to