School Committee - Regular Meeting

meeting for Monday, June 9th, 2025. And I'll call to order this meeting. Um, this meeting is being recorded. I almost always forget to say that. Um, and if you are able, please stand and join us for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Yeah. Okay. So, next up is our consent agenda. Um, typically things are there um that are expected to have low um discussion, but um we can certainly pull things out um if there are any. I wanted to preemptively add in case this addresses any concerns um that the student enrollment request from NAMNAS assistant principal is a benefit that we offer um all of our union employees. And so um we have in the past had a a request a similar request from another principal at a different school and also approved that. So um there is also we also have the DEI committee co-chairs um on Zoom if there are any questions about the um uh the DEI memo to appoint Lisa Kilpatrick to the DEI committee. Was there any discussion or um questions on the consent agenda? I just went on 08. Uh if I can just clarify is that similar that um the name would be put into the lottery and if pulled that would become one of the Oh, not necess not necessarily. Okay. Sometimes we will do that but that it

isn't an automatic Okay. Can we just clarify because you skipped a couple words there. the school choice lottery for the assistant principal student enrollment. Got it. Okay. And the answer was we don't necessarily do that automatically. Okay. Um I mean I'll just say for for one reason the the school choice when when a when a student is accepted into school choice then they are allowed to be a member of school choice for the their entire career. Gotcha. And so, um, it isn't always the first thing that we do when we look at the You're correct that sometimes when we've looked at different, um, staff children, if they if there was an opening, then we would we might put them in that grade level, but if there isn't necessarily an opening, we wouldn't necessarily put them in the lottery. Okay. Yeah. Um, thank you for that beat. So, I was able to think about um another point I wanted to make on an item in the consent agenda was the special education reserve transfers. Um you if you remember from Jenny's last presentation to us about a budget update, there will also be a proposed withdrawal from that account and that will be on our agenda for the tri board meeting on Thursday. So, the this tonight in the consent agenda is an acceptance of deposits, not a withdrawal. Um, I also want to take a minute to think of to um speak to the DEI appointment that's in the consent agenda. We did receive public comment about that. Like I said, um, we do have the co-chairs on Zoom if anyone has questions about that process and about that um, appointment. There's a memo in our packet that explains some of that. And so if there are um questions or feedback uh concerns, you can speak up. We can vote as a whole or pull something out.

Anybody questions? Okay, I'll take a motion then. So moved. Second to approve the entire consent agenda. Yeah. And bill. Okay. All in favor? 70. Thanks. Okay, next up is public comment. A reminder that public comment for any item or topic on or off the agenda is always available near the top of the agenda for individuals to share their thoughts. Speakers will be limited to two minutes per person. Please use public comment even if you refer to something later on the agenda. Virtual public comment is available through Zoom. Raise your hand and you'll be promoted to panelist and unmuted or in person at the microphone. Please start by uh introducing yourself and your address. So, we'll give that a minute. Nobody online. Oh, okay. You just want to introduce yourself for the record, Megan. Thanks. Megan O'Connell, 44 South Shster Road. Um, I just want to speak to the DEI appointment that was just voted on. Um, and just to point out, I think you're all aware, I sent you a comment last week, um, that it's unfortunate that the DEI committee does the poorest job of vetting people that volunteer for the committee. Um, now I submitted one of those forms, one of several people that did. um never got any response from either of the co-chairs even when I reached out to them to volunteer to answer questions or have any conversation. And I again I think it's very unfortunate that the DEI committee of all committees would move to recommend someone be seated whether they're qualified or not without talking with everyone interested. And I think it's a shame that the school committee just did the same. That's not what diversity, equity, inclusion is about. And I thought you all knew that.

Thank you. Thanks, Megan. Any hands on Zoom? Nope. Okay. Anyone else in the room? Oh, we got a presenter. Okay. All right. We're going to move on toformational updates and start with our graduated student alumni. Graduate graduate updates. Go ahead, Daniel. Uh, yeah. So, I don't have much um as we're approaching the end of the school year, but we did have graduation yesterday, and it was great seeing a lot of you guys there, so it's pretty nice. Um, this week we have junior, sophomore, and freshman awards where uh many students will be um I guess celebrated and uh I I can't think of the word right now, but I guess just rewarded for the hard work. Um and also finals start this Friday with FG Block. Next Monday is END and Tuesday CNB. And finally, Wednesday is a block final as well as the makeup. And then there's no school on Thursday. And then the last day of school, which is a half day, is on the 20th. And then one last thing is that the WA girls lacrosse advanced from the Elite 8 to the Final Four. And they're going to be playing, I believe, Welsley High School tomorrow. Good luck to them. Great. Thanks, Daniel. And updates from administration. Um, I met with um Jeff Goodwin, our director of facilities to try to figure out when we could um establish that short window of time for those sustainability tours that we had talked about. And so I want to put these on your calendars and see if if you have availability for Friday, June 13th from 9 to 11 or Monday, June 16th from 2 to 4. So those are the two windows. What our goal is if the weather is cooperating, we'd love to get you up on the roof at uh Blanchard and talk about Blanchard kind of being the the the the main spot where Jeff wants to talk about

a bunch of the different weatherization efforts that are taking place in multiple buildings, but he feels like he can talk about them at at Plantard. And then if we have time, we would go and visit um WA to see the garden there and kind of talk about that. But uh that's kind of the focus. So, um, if I'll send this to you an email, too. But if you can put that on your calendar if you're available, either one of those windows, I one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Hopefully, that would kind of meet everybody's needs. And we'll do an interesting little facilities tour, especially of that really vast white roof as they prepare to see what it would look like with solar on it in the future, too. So, bring your sunglasses. Bring your sunglasses. That's right. You've done this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is bright. So, we everybody should just RSVP with their availability or interest. Um, and we'll try to just have less than three or less members at on time. Yeah. Yep. Anything else? No. Okay. School committee updates. Nothing. I went to the financial literacy fair that the uh student senate and the Rotary Club put on and I think Valerie, you made it, too. That was excellent. Um, I thought the kids were really engaged. The setup was fantastic. It was really organized and I thought the students on it did a really great job with that and I look forward to being able to volunteer there again next year. Were you able to participate, Daniel? Yes, I I believe I saw one of you. No, I I saw you. I was in the morning session. So, what was your um reality check? Did you spin the wheel that was like surprises or something? Yeah, I think I lost like 10 grand something like that. There were it was just really really well done because one of the spins of the wheel was like you've been surprised with twins. If you have if you have health insurance it's this much. If you don't have health insurance it's this much. And then I was at the clothing booth and someone came over and we were talking about how to make a budget for your clothing allowance based

on your personal style and your um career choice. And the individual said, "Uh, you know, I I think I would like to choose this, but my dog just fell down the stairs and it cost $10,000," which was something you spin on the sort of surprise wheel. So, they had it was really fun. fun. Yeah. The SRO was out like I I just spotted over handing out tickets and they all got fined. So, it was it was great. I thought the kids were really engaged and it was really well done. Loads of fun losing $10,000. Yeah. But like I mean so so they were like I have to come back in other areas and I was like yep yep that's great. Yeah. Prepares you for life. Yeah. Any other updates along that way? I just want to um thank the administration for what I felt was really good communication and good good decision- making um for the weekend as much of a challenge as it was moving graduation to Sunday. It it turned out to be 100% the right choice. Um yeah, and it was just well communicated and I it was better to not have it. Oh, we'll try it tomorrow and you know just go right to the the better the best option. So that is a lot of stress for principal. Yes, he he he was uh he was shouldering all of that. So yes, we appreciate all of the research he was doing and communication. He was in constant communication with meteorologists. You have to have a degree in meteorology. Well, when you become a principal and superintendent. Yeah. Um, so much for crisp updates. Anybody else? That's okay. Um, I know CPAC is here tonight and they might, but I'll still also put a reminder out that the CPAC are having a parents caregivers night get together on Wednesday at Fui at 700 p.m. Is it is it what? Six. Six or seven? We'll double check. Um, go at

600. stays. Well, exactly. You can start early and stay late. Um, but no, for anyone who hasn't come, it's a great opportunity to meet other parents and connect with them um and ask questions and just find other families who may be in similar situations as you have. So, it's a fun night. Did you have an update? Oh, just that the Westford community is invited to the second annual Junth celebration on Thursday, June 19th at 10:00 a.m. on the Town Common. Yeah, I I think it's going to be really cool because there's a flag raising, but then inside the PAC is a speaker and a reception. So, that's at 10:30. So, it was seems like really great. Yeah. Um, I'll jump onto that and add that there is a Pride Month flag raising on Saturday, June 21st at 10 a.m. Um, I think there's more to that event or it takes moves over to actin. So, once I get those details from the DEI committee, I'll share them. Um, it was mentioned earlier, but it's worth repeating. There is a tri board meeting on Thursday, June 12th in this room, also hybrid. Um, for anyone who has wondered what the impacts of the override had failed override had been or how next year's budget is looking or how some of the work that's happening um at in the department's uh uh budget level conversations, that's the place to go and ask them. So, if you've heard anybody ask you those questions, please remind them that um showing up asking those questions is important and here is a great opportunity to do so. um with the and for if you don't know the tri board means finance committee, school committee, and select board all in one place. So, one-stop shopping for compliments or complaints. Um it's been a busy end of year. I would was going to list these, but so just well done to all the organizers and the volunteers that help make things like

adventure days, WA last night, um the financial literacy fair, all of that happening is is really great for our community. Um the cap the senior capstone exhibit was also a lot of um a really great opportunity to walk around and get to know the seniors. And finally, I have a MSBA update from the Robinson School Building Committee. Um we had originally been so eager to get going. Um, and that our hope had been to uh get the request for services like the RFQ out and hire an OPM, maybe over the summer, start off the fall with some forums. However, um, we have been recently educated on the timeline that the MSBA follows and the earliest at which we will be able to bring on an OPM is November or December. You're joking. I'm not joking. Holy moly. And that's only like the first step. And then we do a separate designer review panel to bring on the designer because of all of the different applications that are going to them. It's first come first serve. And so even though we're following the projected timeline, they're like, "Oh, no. If you didn't have X done by a certain date, which is not mentioned on the timeline." So So it's not that it's not connected to because I think we have to go up on their agenda. Yeah. I mean, we can still meet all of the timelines that are that are publicized. And they're still saying, "Oh, but that meeting agenda is full." Oh. So, you now have to wait until the next or next two meetings in order to get your Yeah. Hang on. There's like a lag built into the system. I think it's just that we weren't really aware of that. And so, our enthusiasm was really, right? And I will say, I mean, again, we're following what the publicized dates are and what they showed us. We just didn't know that, oh,

they only take so many things for each meeting, which means you get kicked to the next meeting. Yeah. So, we think it's what, August? The earliest the earliest that would be November in which they would be reviewing for the OPM. Our choice of OPM. Yeah. Okay. So, we're we're our timeline is, you know, we're still anticipating the next week the board will invite us in officially invite us into the feasibility process. So, we're on the June agenda for being invited to the feasibility study, but then all these these um RFQ RFS, right? Whichever the last initial letter is. Um so, we can start that process. Yeah. But we but they have to also approve y our OPM and so the whole piece of it go gets delayed. Yeah. So a little disappointing. We'll keep everybody updated. Hopefully that just a a little bit of a longer process means we can be a lot more thorough, thoughtful. Um maybe even still have some outreach or education as we go. So okay, I think that's it. Right. So, we're going to move on to our business items and start with the CPAC annual survey review. And we welcome up chair, president, chair, chair, chair of the CPAC, Melissa Mackey, my co-chair right here. It's a nice chair. Busy time of year. It is. Um, well, thank you for having me. I'm Melissa Mackey. I'm a parent here in the district and the chair for our CPAC. um not with me this evening is um unfortunately they couldn't make it uh Lisa Stutter who is the vice chair and then Danielle Thompson who is our secretary treasurer and tonight I'm here to talk about our annual parent

caregiver survey. So this survey we've been doing for the last five years. We um conduct it and um analyze all the information from it. And so I'm really grateful for the opportunity to come this evening and sort of share that information with you and our parents, you know, experience and their child's experience in the special education program here in Westford. Next slide. So very briefly, you know, what is a CPAC? So we are special education parent advisory council. Every school district in Massachusetts is required to have a CPAC. Ideally, they are parentled and parent driven. However, if you don't have parents available to run the CPAC, then the district themselves must establish one. CPACs have both an advisory and a participatory role. Um, those are defined by our state statute and regulation. We advise the school committee because I I'm here tonight on matters pertaining to the education and safety of students with disabilities. And we meet regularly with district officials to help plan, develop, and evaluate our special education program. Our mission, we are self-governed and we have established bylaws. Our mission is to foster understanding, respect, and of course support for students with disabilities in our community. We aim to be a resource for families that are navigating the often complex process that is special education. And we um hopefully serve as a bridge between families and the district to help drive systemic changes. The purpose of our survey um to fulfill this regulatory obligation to help evaluate and improve the special education program. We seek feedback from our families. And so the annual survey is one way that we do that. We also have u meetings throughout the school year where we invite families to attend and sort of share their perspective. We have a um an email list or an email that parents reach out to us directly when they have issues as well as a parent

Facebook forum that is fairly active. An effective CBACK wants to take our parents input, shape those into concrete issues and then offer those back to the district leadership with hope um with a goal of positive changes either into programs, policies or procedures. So this year's survey ran from March 18th through April 4th via Google form. Uh we promoted it through the school and district newsletters as well as our social media and our email list. And truly the goal of this uh survey is just to provide an opportunity for reflection um to see what's working, what our challenges are and um also help guide future CPAC initiatives. Just briefly on the demographics. Um there are additional slides at the end of the slide deck. I tried to move some to the end for timing of course. Shorten it up a little bit this time. Um we did have fewer responses this year in comparison to previous years. Of those 88% of our families were Westford public school students. Uh 10% were out of district. 2% were private school. We did have distribution or um uh respondents from all grades. However, we didn't get any in our 18 to 22 program this year. The majority of our respondents were through grades 6 through 8. 80% of those were children who are on IEPs or families who have students on IEPs and 12% were on 504s. Next slide. So, we do um ask a lot of questions around communication as a CPAC. We think the foundation of a strong IEP team is solid communication. And so we ask our parents what is their perspective of how that communication is going. Um so first question we ask is when you think about your child's special education team how they communicate with you about your child's progress. How do you feel about that? We have five responses. This year only three um were chosen. So 40% of families

surveyed said that the communication from the school was just right. 28% of families said that it was okay but they feel they could provide more updates. And 33% of families said that there's rarely or never communication from the school unless I ask for an update. Next slide. And so now that we've been asking um we asked the same question for the last five years, we can really start looking at trends over time. And so this is a trend over time chart. Um horizontally we see the the last five years that we've asked this question. And then vertically that's the percent respondents. And so each colored line represents one of those answers. So the red line on the bottom is that there's rarely or never communication from the school even when I ask for an update. That was not selected this year. And the blue line is that the school overcommunicates. We didn't get any u that response this year either. The green line is that the communication from the school is just right. And as you notice that did kind of decrease this year in comparison to the last two. And then the orange line is there's rarely or never communication from the school unless I ask for an update. And that increased just slightly this year. Excuse me. I just have like There she is. Come on. Danielle Thompson's in the house. No problem, Daniel. Thank you. Um, so then we asked our families, uh, what is your comfort level when voicing concerns regarding your child's progress to your teachers and staff? Most families, 64% um were comfortable voicing their concerns, although we said 23% were uncomfortable. They either chose somewhat uncomfortable or very uncomfortable. And so this year we asked families to expand on that if they chose uncomfortable or somewhat uncomfortable, what they felt those barriers were for communication. Next slide. And so the family's comments were um I feel dismissed or ignored. They

felt their needs were minimized. they felt maybe there was a lack of follow-through. Some said they just don't have great communication with their child's teacher. They uh feared retaliation. Um maybe when they ask for support that it just backfires. And then staff burnout. Parents are very aware that our staff is struggling to meet all the needs that our students have at this time. Um we asked, "What's your comfort when requesting additional support?" 66% of families feel comfortable when they feel their child needs additional support of asking for that while another 16% chose, you know, very uncomfortable or somewhat uncomfortable. And so again, we ask families to expand on that if they chose the uncomfortable just so we can get a little bit more perspective on what that experiences. Uh here concerns include requests being dismissed or denied. There is a fear of judgment maybe being labeled like the difficult parent uh staff capacity issues of course and then supports being delayed until a child is in crisis. And then the special education process it's very um you know vast and somewhat um confusing. And so we ask our families what is their comfort regarding their knowledge of the special education process. So 63% of families felt comfortable with their knowledge while an additional 29% selected either somewhat uncomfortable or very uncomfortable. And so we we uh go into that and dive in a little bit deeper to those responses. The next slide please. Um the uh parents concerns uh discomfort stems from lack of knowledge. Some saying that it's like a foreign language. It is really a foreign language. Um unclear roles. So the the terms and the lingos that we're using is somewhat different. Feeling like they need an advocate in order to obtain services. One more

slide. And then they had frustrations with the system. Feeling that it's very complex. They have a fear of missing out on services because they don't know what to ask for. And then that power imbalance is you know without an advocate with me am I really getting what my child needs? So, one of our duties outlined in that state law and regulation is that we coordinate a basic rights workshop with the district. And this basic rights workshop is what your rights, you and your child's rights are under state and federal uh laws regarding special education. And so, we want to know if our parents are or families are aware of this. Um, so we've asked this question the last three years. We see those numbers are going up in the terms of yes. So, it sort of helps us uh gauge whether or not this outreach is is working. We as a CPAC try to uh create opportunities for parents to learn more about topics of interest for them. And so we ask what are you interested in learning about? And we see for the last four years our parents are staying very consistent. Um executive functioning issues and I lost my plate of thoughts. Uh mental health and supports, the IEP and 504 compliance, staff training, and I'm sorry, I'm on the wrong page for that. Yes. Uh the IEP, mental health, and then this year we did see an increase in uh dyslexia, wanting to learn more about dyslexia, having um informal chats with the director, and as well as behavioral issues and supports. Can I jump in for a quick question there, Melissa? Is that like a bulleted list that people rank? Like how what's the format for that type of question? They can select um any of those topics. So they can select multiple ones. I see. Okay. So they might they might not choose like you're only choosing your top. No, they can choose as many as they want. Oh, okay. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. And then we get into what are our

parents saying? So we ask our parents to um we have some open-ended questions. These are for families whose students do attend Westford public schools. And we ask um what is your greatest concern in the students education? What do you think the top priorities for Westford public school should be? And then we ask for additional feedback or suggestions for the CPAC. And so when you look at um the uh top parents concerns across all years, they center around common topics including the IEP and the 504 uh the implementation as well as compliance, mental health and SEAL supports, staff training, dyslexia, and then inclusive access. And this year when we're looking at our parents' concerns, they centered around services that are delayed or inconsistent and ones that require strong advocacy in order to be delivered. And when we ask parents, what is your priority for West Public Schools? Families want strengthened support for diverse learners, better communication, staff empowerment, helping support our staff, a culture of inclusion and empathy, and they also call for more transparency and then consistency across schools as well. Um, so part of our duties is to we um offer recommendations to the district to help um address some of our parents' concerns. And so this slide is to acknowledge the district's efforts in response to prior CPAC feedback. Some has been spoken about here in previous meetings. So the Wayfinder SEAL curriculum pilot at the Miller and Day School with restorative practice training, UDL and behavioral training, co-eing pilots, IEP system, the new digitization, expanded reach and sale programs, and then updated program descriptions and parent engagement policies.

And so that'll bring us to the recommendations for this year. And we wanted to align our recommendations this year with the equity audit because it makes sure that what we're asking for connects with what the district already knows and may be also working on. And so the equity audit gave um solid recommendations and a look at what's working and what could be improved upon to support all students fairly, including those with disabilities. And so you'll see in these recommendations, we did try to connect them back specifically to equity audit findings. So the first one is improve communication around UDL and MTSS. Why is this important? So parents are a vital member of the IEP team or the advocate for the child. But parents cannot advocate effectively for their children if they don't know what supports are available, when and how the supports are offered, and what is the difference between a general education support and special education services. When the system is unclear, parents can feel disempowered in meetings and they may not know what to ask for or they can wait too long before asking um for help or requesting evaluations. And so recommendation two is to ensure consistency across schools. So the equity audit had a finding that families and staff report inconsistent implementation of support across buildings. This means potentially that students with disabilities do not have access to the same service supports or opportunities depending on what school they attend here in Westford. So families have a concern. Is that the quality of communication? maybe the support inclusion and even the basic service delivery they can vary by building and vary by building to building and that means when they compare their experiences with other families they um have a fear that their child could be missing out. So this makes it harder for parents to know what

to advocate for and what to expect from the system. Uh recommendation three, this is from the equity audit too, is that they clarify entry and exit criteria for IEP and specialized programs. So the specialized programs of subsparate classrooms where our students are removed from general ed and they're being serviced in a different classroom. Um most families feel uncertain about how or why their child qualifies or doesn't qualify for services. And so lack of a clear criteria can lead to either perceived or actual disparities. And so while IEEP should be individualized because it's like in the name IEP is, we still want to try and and work for consistent standards for eligibility and placement because this does help reduce inequities. Um support within classrooms before pullouts. So if a child is on an IEP and they need services, often they're removed from the general education classroom in order to get those services. What we like to see is more support within classroom push in services. Why is this important? Because it reflects best practice and it responds directly to both the family concerns and equity gaps identified in the equity audit. Research has shown that when students with disabilities learn alongside their peers in the general education classroom, they do better socially, emotionally, and academically. Um, the UDL and the MTSS framework are designed to support diverse learners within the classroom, within the general education classroom. So, if pullouts are used too quickly, um, students may not be given the chance to benefit from those proactive, flexible strategies. And so while some pullouts are really appropriate, especially for intensive services, they should always be driven by data and not convenience or

tradition. Five is going to be give educators time to plan for inclusion. Effective inclusion education, it doesn't happen by accident. Co-eing doesn't happen by accident. It is um through intentional collaborative planning between general educators and special education staff. Um without this time even the best strategies and goals will fall apart in the day-to-day practice. We just really wanted to highlight that you know our our teachers need support if we want them to be able to implement these sort of things. And then six is address um program access barriers at the middle school level. So, now that you have all looked very extensively at the high school um start times as well as their credits, um is there an opportunity to start looking at the middle school and evaluating its schedule through the lens of inclusion and equity? Families have consistently reported that students with disabilities in middle school are missing out on certain opportunities, specifically foreign language, due to the way academic support is scheduled. Many of our families will say though case by case the uh teachers and their um their team work with them collaboratively to allow those students to access the foreign language if they really want to. This is a sort of systemic issue in place that maybe we could turn our attention to and look at is this practice still working in the middle schools or if there is a better solution um to to do this academic support. And then recommendations for ourselves for the CPAC. Um we want to strengthen our ability to serve families and partner effectively with the district. So first we're always going to be increasing our volunteer engagement. We are a parentled and parent driven organization. And so our ongoing goal is to increase our membership. Um the number of volunteers we want to create a culture of volunteering. This helps you know decrease some of the pressure and makes leadership roles more manageable.

We um want to improve outreach and education to help families better understand the special education process. We want to build or establish liaison at each school to help foster relationships between CPAC and then each individual school building. Um this helps uh allow schools to see CPAC as a resource both for families as well as staff. And then um we want to offer more workshops or forums or else put families in contact with that. The CPACs from other districts, they'll often host um events and speaker opportunities which they share out to the community. So we try and put our families in in um in contact in that way as well if we're not hosting here in the district. And then we want to continue collecting our feedback regularly um through our annual survey um through our meetings throughout the year through our email communications. This ongoing feedback helps us to stay responsive to families throughout the year and of course fulfill our reg our advisory responsibilities. Um one of our core obligations under the Massachusetts law to advise the school committee on matters related to education and safety of students. So coming back here and presenting again um our annual survey and elevating parents concern is a key part of that mission. Good job. So, uh, I thought I give a lot of information out. There's always, um, opportunities if you want to reach out later if some of this like, you know, percolates in there for a while, but I'm happy to answer any questions at this time or or later, of course, too. Thank you. Y, first of all, thank you for the um, thoughtful presentation. Uh, one of the things I noticed right off the bat was the highlight of the drop in responses and I was just wondering if you had any sense as to what that may might be due to are you seeing the engagement still or is it just Okay. Yeah, we've had a lot of people show up at our meetings

this year, engage on our social media page, reach out to us directly. So, I don't think it has to do I mean there could be all kinds of reasons, you know, really I can chime in a little bit. I'll take some blame. Um I take some blame for that though really cuz we used to do like individual outreach um just to remind people cuz as CPAC parents we have a lot on the plate and we might see it and try to get back to it. Um, and yeah, I wasn't able to do the personal outreach that I had done in previous years to kind right at the end, right? We were always tracking, you know, as I got closer to the closing deadline and we do an extra push and we didn't do that extra push this year. So, that could have been a partial reason for the lower. Um, yeah, and that I certainly understand everyone has a lot on their plate and especially if you're just that could be one reason. It could be that. Yeah, it could be the timing. It could be that, you know, maybe people just responded last year and they didn't feel like responding again this year. Um, it could be that people are happy, right? I mean, really, it's it's hard to tell. Was it the same time of year? Like, are you always consistent? We were trying to do it at the same time like around the at the end of the year. We sort of use the survey results at the end of the year to drive our goals for the next year. So, we like to do it at the end when people have sort of like that March had their experience. Yeah. Said it was you said it was live like March to April or something. Yeah. the end of March, the beginning of April. Yes. Does that outreach have to come from you guys directly or are you able to collaborate with the school system and WPS on that? So, we um reach out directly to the principles of the schools and they'll usually include our CPAC updates in their newsletters. The district will also do it. Um we don't have an email list for all of the special education families in Westford. I feel like I have my daughter's on a 504, so I feel like when they changed the system, there was like an email that went to every parent that had a child

that would be involved with that change in the system. So, just thinking like could they use that email list that would broaden the scope of kids that are involved in the special education program? Then we come you're looking at me like no I'm just think I'm listen like I feel like there's a targeted email that went out and said like hey we're having this you're going to do this in private school now and I assume that went to people who only had children that were on some sort of a 504 or IEP. So it feels like somewhere there exists to be a list of parents that have children that fall into this bucket that maybe they could even they can't send themselves but maybe they could send something to the district to push out. I don't thank you. Um, and I just had one other question. How many do we have an idea? I'm sure you do, but maybe you don't have it off hand. How many students fall into this special education bucket? Because I was just trying to figure out the number of respondents to this survey versus the number of kids. Yeah. That receive the services. I know that. Yeah. So, it's about um when you count the IEPs and 504s and our response rate this year was about 2.5%. Melissa, you mentioned liaons in the buildings. Do you have um some of your members on the various school parent advisory councils right now? Do they help support? Like are they any of them tied into those packs as well at at programto program levels? Not at this time, but it's definitely something we've spoken about is that if we could have the people who are on the school advisory councils also be a CPAC leaison as well to have that sort of like overlap, it would be really great. Yeah. Yeah. I I like the tiein of those recommendations to the equity audit. Yes. And I think you know as the next year we're building out those school-based teams you know really being deliberate about you know you know those

discussions happening at each school site you know focusing on special education and 504s you know that as one branch of the many branches the multi-year process it's going to take that's what the equity audit had so much in it and so I really wanted to take that opportunity to use those and okay how does that tie in with spe special education and I hope that that this is somewhat highlighted where we would like to see some of the attention go to. Y I think that's really powerful because instead of feeling like here's this other list of more recommendations or something separate right instead of like all these lists that I'm sure you know are in people's minds when they're making goals and making you know creating PD and all that stuff. Now it's it circles back to the equity audit which I think is I thought your equity I thought the equity audit was very powerful. It has so much information in it that it can feel, I think, very overwhelming for sure. So, but if we as a district could really utilize that and leverage it, I think it would be really important and impactful for our districts. Yeah. Well, you saw patterns as well, which was, you know, between your survey. Yes. And the equity audit, which I think really is strong evidence that they support each other and the the information that they were both finding. So, I think that's really good outcome. Any other questions from the committee aside from our overwhelming gratitude? It's such it's always a thoughtful survey, a thoughtful presentation. Um you're you're a great timekeeper. It just very well done. We really appreciate what you bring to our district and your presence for families. Thank you. We really appreciate the collaboration. It's been really great working with Jerard Coughlin's office and the school committee. Um, love to hear who our new school committee lean's going to be. Oh, is it you? Okay, great. Thank you. Really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thanks you

guys. We are moving on to uh facility rental fee updates with a expected vote. So, any questions or follow-up discussion based on our um initial discussion at our last meeting? Um to recap for anyone watching or uh the public um or for anyone's memory that was um some inflation and contract driven um increases across the board. Also a renaming of that third column from forprofit to all other. Um and then there was an update in the guidelines um to align the uh that additional um custodial coverage to align with our our um tenative agreement with ASME. So any further discussion on there and I think I said this at the last meeting but it's that time of year. I'll just repeat myself. um that in in the conversations Jenny, Jeff and I acknowledged um more work more work and improvements that can happen in this area. Um we think that there's some um opportunity for consistency um and some sort of further further definitions that we can give to the guidelines. Um the process as a whole has sort of been new to us in like the last three years or so. So, I think all of that is up for um evaluation uh for lack of a better word and um it's kind of taking shape really. It's we're we're figuring what it looks like and it does tie into two or three specific policies in our policy manual. So, I think all of that will be um we're we're talk we talked about a working group. So, we'll see how that fleshes out with goals and stuff. So, essentially today we're just talking rates. We're not talking everything

else. It's like what it comes down to. Yes. And both or you know like this is what's in front of us. So that when FY26 requests start coming in for rentals that they have an updated fee to base to to work off of with the acknowledgement that there's more work to do. It's always more work to do. Yeah. Votes. Sure. Any other the updated rental fees? Great. I I have to keep keep track. No, Shane's made it like a You get points, right? Trying to get points in Valerie's book. Could be a meeting. Any po any points? Any seconds? Second. Thank you. Okay, last call for commentary. Okay. All in favor of the new facility rental fee? Unanimous. Thank you. I appreciate you making up some time there. We're going to move to student activity fund status and welcome director of finance Jenny Lynn to the microphone. [Music] Thank you for having me for student activity account updates. And uh first I would like to help you to refresh the memory. At the end of last school year, uh the school committee approved the closure of certain inactive student activity accounts and uh these included both the positive and negative account balances at the elementary school and uh middle school level and uh these actions have been completed by individual school for this fiscal year. and uh the school's financial assistance have provided us a summary of account balances by individual school including

class grade level and school systemwide accounts. We have compiled this information into a summary memo and uploaded for the school committee to review. According to Desi guideline has recommended that school committee annually approve the maximum checking account balances by the school level. So if Katherine you can pull out this memo. Yep. This memo includes the both uh saving holding account and the checking account balances for individual school. If you can just scroll down a little bit for this page, you can see the holding account and checking account balances. Uh just some background information for our new school committee member Jesse and Shaina. What's the difference between the holding account and checking accounts? So basically the holding account records on the receipt from all student activity clubs. uh this includes uh the receipt from like a field trip, student activity clubs or sports events. So when we need to pay for those expenditure, the town process a weekly warrant so we can transfer the fund from holding account into checking account. So checking account is used for uh paying those invoices. uh so essentially in the holding account is function as revenue account and uh checking account is used for the expenditure. So based on this year's account balances and uh also activity level we are still recommending the spending limit for each school level remains the same as last school year.

They are uh 7 7,000 for elementary school, 35,000 for the middle school and uh 150,000 for high school. Uh if you review this number, there's only one school nit on the checking account maximum balance exceed the 7,000. We will ask them to make a transfer from checking account back into holding account. So every school will be in compliance with this spending limit. So next topic is regarding the student activity account audit in accordance with desi guideline and uh any student activity account with the expenditure mode that more than $25,000 is required to go through a formal audit by the independent audit firm. So we contracted with Rosali Clark CPA firm last year. We conducted WA's student activity account audit last year and uh we are required to go through another formal audit for our elementary school and middle school. We have already scheduled the audit for this Wednesday and Thursday. Uh the only reason we schedule this audit so early because we have two financial school financial assistants. uh they handle four elementary schools audit uh student activity account. They will either retire or resign before the end of the school year. So we just want to get the audit completed before their departure so we can ensure continuality and uh consistency for the audit. Uh also uh in response to the audit finding from last year's WA student activity account, there has been some noticeable progress improvement we made throughout

this fiscal year. As you know, school committee established a new school committee uh student activity account policy last year. So for this year, we set up a new uh WA's high school debit card for those major expenditure such as travel expenses like uh hotel booking, uh air ticket purchasing. So our employee do not need to use their personal credit card to make those major purchase. So this not just owning help our staff to re relieve those financial burden on their shoulder but also individual wouldn't like uh benefit their like uh using their personal quality card. So we are making sure uh on the school level they follow the desi guideline. Uh in addition to that throughout this fiscal year, business office have provided the extensive support and uh guidance uh for every school to carry out the bank bank reconciliation process for this year. Especially our assistant finance director uh Irene Msoki. she has uh spended tremendous amount of time try to support each school for their bank reconciliation particularly for WA and uh I will discuss more more detail about WA uh later. So uh our goal is to maintain a sustainable and a consistency uh in the reconciliation routine all across the school level. Uh first let me just go through by individual school so you can see what's their request for this

year. Uh there is a individual school pages starting from Abbis school. Oh, I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Uh for Abby school, they have two requests. The first one, they have some zero balance in active account. Those highlighted in pink. So they are asking school committee's approval to close those accounts. The second request uh they are asking school committee's approval to close those inactive account for the total amount $1,031 into an systemwide uh school activity account. Uh in theory you see here there's a PTO scholarship. In theory PTO's money shouldn't be combined with student activity. But because this money was given to Abbott many years ago, so it's really hard and uh to contact the original PTO to send the money back. So they are trying to do a house cleaning just close out into this systemwide account. Uh next school is quilly. Can I clarify? Is that systemwide or schoolwide? Uh schoolwide. Sorry. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Schoolwide. Jenny, can I ask does the committee feel like we should take these school by school or do you want to vote on them as a Yeah, just so we don't get lost. Not that I expect it changes the outcome, but um just to honest honestly keep some of our brains straight so we can pause here on Abbott. Yeah. Yeah. We should go through by each school because they have different kind of requests. Yeah. So, can I ask then on the donations for students in need, why would that go back into a schoolwide account? Because I know like I know that

can often happen that you know families reach out to the principal looking for some support. So, is there a reason why that should go back into the schoolwide account rather than a separate pot? That's actually based on the auditor's suggestion because for elementary school we do not want to keep too many accounts. So even that's in the schoolwide uh student activity account you can still use the funding to pay for those student they have those same purpose intention. Perfect. So we don't have to keep so many account especially for elementary school. They don't have so much activity like a middle school or high school. Gotcha. Perfect. So the orange would be closed and the yellow would be closed and then moved into schoolwide. Yeah. The schoolwide. Any questions or concerns on there? Okay. Motion to approve the requested changes changes to the AVID school activities account. Second. All in favor? Thank you. Okay. Next one. Jenny. So, next one is Quissa Foley. Uh Quissa Fully is looking for establishment of two new school uh clubs. The first one is fifth uh fifth grade musical and the second one is Okconor studio because both of those clubs they have lots of transaction for revenue expenditure. So they want to set up like two account just for the checking purpose. Uh the second request is from the book fair uh in accordance with uh department of local service special revenue fund regulation. The book fair money should belong to the revolving account. I think

we discussed about that last year. So uh they are asking uh they should send a check cut a check and put this check deposit that into the revolving account which is library book sale. We already have a revolving account. So we don't have the book fair included in the student activity. Okay. And remind me so Chris fully would know. Oh yeah, we've got $1,153 in there. That's ours. It's just in this district-wide account versus Yes, they do. And uh there's no uh like activity for many years for this account because they already putting the money into the revolving account. So we just want to clean out this account in the student activity. Jenny, can I ask a question? Can you do we know why they want to establish an Okconor Studios? Is that a photography club? No, it's not a school picture. That's not a school picture because But it's not a club. That's my point. Because actually in the school I asked the same question. They said when student taking those pictures, school pictures, we actually getting a credit. Yeah. For those pictures. So need they need to keep account to check those credits. Yeah. All right. Right. Then that leads to a greater question on my part in consistency. You know, if we're doing that for one school, why are we not accounting for it the same way in other school? We are in one Rob. You'll see on the Robinson has it as well too, but we don't have it. They use OK Conors though either. It probably depends on what studio they're using. Uh, everyone uses different studio. Yeah. I'm just curious because again, I I used Okconor at Stonybrook forever. No, I've seen and we never had an OK Conor studio account. Okconors will they will make a donation to the school based

on um uh volume of sales volume of sales, right? Um but I just don't know. I guess my my question is again it's the it's the club aspect of it, right? Like I mean we're whether whether it's an account or not, it's it's just it's not a club. Yeah, it's not a clock, but that's sit down. That's not a like a revenue for the school's general ledger. That's for the students uh taking the school pictures. Uh I don't know if every school they all use Okconor studio some schools they have this account, some other school they don't. Maybe that's just their preference by the individual schools financial assistance. That could be a follow on use OKConor studios. Do you know that's something I'm not quite not everybody's using the same studio. Um I maybe that's that might be something we should just look into because again what I'm noticing is this is a request coming from two sister schools, Robinson and Chrissa Foley. And so it might be a practice that one individual set up as the financial admin between those two buildings and it made sense but let's before we actually establish it maybe we should just kind of verify is there are other schools doing it in a different way so that I think the bigger thing being that there's consistency even if people are using a different um photographer the practice is universal right so like if they're using life touch or okconor typically there is the donation that goes to the schools based on the volume of sales. So maybe that's something we should look to see how that's how that what what that looks like so that you're right there's consistency. So do we hold on the

Okconor Studio Club and but approve the fifth grade musical and book fair? Um I have one more followup question um before we but but I hear you. Um, one is in the interest of consistency on the Abbott one, we left alone a library/bookfare account, but here we're closing the bookf fair and moving it to the um districtwide one. Yeah. So I I personally would feel comfortable sort of stepping through these with the acknowledgement that administration could work towards consistency and kind of flush things out where where need be. Um I I think like the intention we're it's clear that the intention is to close inactive accounts, clean up, aim for consistency. I don't know that it's a best use of our time to kind of get lost in school by school. Um, and can I ask would this be a good place for finance subcommittee to really dive in a little bit more? And I mean, I'd be comfortable with that like task handed off, but maybe an update is given to the finance subcommittee in the fall. Like I I don't think I if they have plans with the audit and stuff and work over the summer, that makes sense to me to not hold up. Um but certainly I think any learnings or reflections could could be brought to the finance subcommittee in the fall. In that vein then does it make sense to talk about it more holistically instead of school by school if if the intention is like I said summarized to close inactive accounts and work towards consistency. Can we would a vote in that vein make more sense? Right. especially for the book fair account because we do notice some inconsistencies from the book fair because we don't know if that's just different practice for

especially school with some transitions if you're onboarding new individuals in those positions. How do you set that up for consistency? I think would would do you want to step through the rest of the schools to just see if anything else flushes fleshes out as specifics, but then we can lean towards a vote like that. Sure. Okay. So, after Chris Fully was Can I just ask this might be too specific, but I was just wondering if it should be called Okconor Studios versus something like school photos or something. Just I don't matter, right? In case it changes. It really doesn't matter. It's just uh accounting ledger in the quicken accounting software just for their own purpose for the reference. uh uh for day school uh any inactive account they don't have activity for 36 months. Uh they are seeking school committee's approval to close out those nine student activity clubs for the total amount $3,680. uh they are requesting to establish a new club that's called fifth grade play for their 5,319. Uh the last request is regarding a unclaimed check. Uh that check was payable to forgotten and donation uh was it initially uh issued on 2018 almost seven years ago. Uh so we did talk to our auditor how can we handle those unclaimed checks like uh was issued many years ago. In theory any check more than 90 days old so people cannot deposit that. So based on the suggestion we receive from the auditor we need to follow proper process and procedure. The first step we need to post those uh

unclaimed check uh to a local newspaper such as lower. In the meantime, we will need to create a web link uh for those all unclaimed checks. We don't just have one from uh the school, we have others from other school. And uh so the posting will be at least 60 days and uh during those 60 days the payee can contact us and uh file a claim. So we can uh void the original check weiss issue a new one. So after 60 days of posting and uh we will need to convert those fund into a liability account because they are subject to unclaimed property law and uh like for the town side for charger's office they already have a website uh just similar to this we can just mirror this process and uh do the posting uh starting from like uh next school year and uh hopefully some pay will contact has to claim those checks. Uhhuh. Danny, can you remind us um if you know it offhand how much it costs to post in the L sun? So, we can post everything, all the checks, like a couple hundred. Not extreme, not very expensive. Well, if the checks don't posting, then it's questionable. Is it going to be a negative? Yeah. I had no idea the town had a website. This is okay. Uh also for Nabnasset and there's a inactive account they are looking to close. Uh that's miscellaneous donation 46 and uh 32. They also have two unclaimed checks and uh they are asking uh if they can follow the process and

procedure. Uh for next school is Robinson. uh they are trying to close one inactive account for the amount $117 into the schoolwide student activity account. Uh next one is Miller Miller and Miller is pretty nice and clean. Uh they don't have too many requests and uh Blancher from the middle school. middle school. There's one account it's called uncatategorized $26,000 and uh they don't have any transaction for many years. They would like to close this one into the schoolwide activity account and uh for those unclaimed check they have 21 checks total amount 369 very minimum amount still sitting in our accounts. Uh, next one is Don Brook. Quick question on Blanchard. I understand wanting to clear out UNC on categories, but they also don't have Oh, schoolwide activities. I didn't see it there. Okay. Yep. Never mind. I was just wondering like where where does it go? Yeah. Right. Right. Or like a general one. Okay. Sorry about that. Yeah. Just lots of cleaning we need to do because um there's no action for many years. Yeah. As long as they all have like that schoolwide, you know. We are trying to clean everything so we can have a fresh start. I know it's so much work. We appreciate it. Uh for us, Daniel, weren't you in 8th grade in 2020? Yeah. Yeah. Because there's so many This is the senior class that we're looking at. Oh, wait. Actually, yes. Yes. The world shut down when you were in eighth grade. Yes. Enter. Yeah. Because it's all eighth grade. Yeah. Look at it. Yeah.

I'm looking at the names and I'm like, "Huh?" And it's all for $11. That must be in the check we issue for students, but they never deposit those checks. Yeah. That's probably ended up at the bottom of the drawer somewhere. Yeah. Refunded field trip or something. Would it be cheaper to reach out directly if we can? Yeah. Then go to the web, not go to the newspaper. We are trying to ask their school's financial assistant to reach out to those pay not like uh three years later they need to reach out to them by the end of the school year if they haven't deposited those checks. I mean some I've seen staff names on here. I'm sure there there can be some cleanup done right before we go post all of them. Yeah. Uh the next middle school is Stony Brook and uh there's a one zero balance account SS mission 14. There's no balance and uh next request is they are hoping to change the name for the Washington DC club to field trip scholarship fund because uh the DC chip is no longer available. So they are trying to convert this account as a scholarship fund for those students and uh they might need those financial assistance. Uh the next one is bookf fair and uh that's the same request. We will cut a check from student activity and uh move that into revolving account. Okay. So when we go through the audit, we wouldn't have this account included in student activity. that's not in compliance with the regulation. And uh for unclaimed checks, there are 13 for Stonybrook. We don't have a total. Probably it's around like

$1,000 for WA's student activity account. Uh so for WA there's student activity account. uh uh just want to give you more background information. We did not receive any information or update from WA last year. So we are very pleased to see some progress has been made for this fiscal year as you know and uh WA student activity account has been particularly challenging due to a longstanding backlog of bank reconciliation uh originated uh prior to September 23 that's before our team's involvement. So this issue has been compounded by the high volume and complexity of the transaction level at high school and uh so to address this challenge uh Irene uh has been working with the high school's financial assistance every single month trying to support what's on the best practice for conducting and uh timely and accurate reconciliation. So this year uh principal tumi and uh the financial assistance uh they compile a whole list for those inactive account total amount 13,359. Uh they are requesting if those account they can clean out those account into school uh wide student activity account. Uh there's also first request for 3D printing. uh they are hoping they can move that to robotics uh if that's possible because that's very similar for student

activity. Uh flip to next page. Uh during our review process, we notice something uh doesn't make sense for Disney 2011. there's a negative account balance for $75,000 and uh because how could a club with like a negative balance 75 and we checked down the record that was on April 6, 2011. the fund was transferred into a CD account that should never be allowed for student activity but uh that happened like uh 14 years ago and uh WA class created a CD account we after we confirm with the town's treasure on 2011's cashbook uh it's verified 76,163 was transferred into a CD and then that CD was closed out to student activity. Essentially, there's a wash. So, we only need to recall $1,163 for interest. So we already asked Hana the financial assistant to make that adjusting journal entry and uh we asked her to keep all the you know supporting document just for the the audit purpose and I'm sure there's some other similar issue in the past and uh that's some major one we found over here that's why I want to list out here and they also have some outstanding check more than one year old uh they will need to go through the process and procedure. So during this whole review process for WA student activity account we identify several areas that require uh attention and improvement. The first one is the

bank reconciliation uh practice because we notice some checks some checks they have been marked as reconciled in the accounting system. However, those check has not been cleared by the bank. So that's a not that's not a proper accounting practice. So to correct this error, I ring assisted high school's financial assistant uh making the adjusting general entry for the total amount 7,498 covering 16 checks. uh that was made from period from September 2023 to November 23. So we are making sure fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25 they are fully reconciled but there's still some carryover accumulated issue. We still need to spend more time to make correction. So we just make as much as we can. So our recommendation for the high school is they need to ensure bank reconciliation are completed in a timely and accurate manner for any outstanding check uh beyond a reasonable period they need to contact the payee and follow up with them ask them to deposit the check instead of click that as reconcile in the system that's not the right way to do that. Uh and the second thing uh we recommend is for those negative balance uh in those active accounts for those uh green highlights you can see in this document uh they have negative balance for those active account as per DESI guideline negative balances are not allowed. So the principal should immediately

investigate and resolve those deficits and determine whether they are due to a temporary timing issue or actual shortfall if that's a true deficit. So the school must either reallocate the fund from the accounts with advisor's approval or they should use the schoolwide student activity account to cover the deficit with school committee's approval. Uh the last recommendation is we notice uh there is some delayed deposit and uh turnover for a water theater uh club because those turnover was not submitted to business office in a timely manner and we are confirmed there's no receipt or online ticket details provided to the principal and financial assistance. So we are recommending the advisor need to turn over the fund within a reasonable time frame. Uh so they need to maintain a real time receipt log for those receipts. So that's the report I have today and uh we hope that WA uh can continue to make those improvements and uh we will provide uh the support as needed and uh thank you so much and uh I probably go over in the 15 minutes time frame. No, no, this is good. Um can I ask a quick followup on the um Wada um wasn't the receipt um recommendation out of the guideline work last summer? Yes. Uh for WA should have been happening all year. Water they have a online ticketing sale platform. It's called show show or something. Yeah. So they should be able to print out a list of those receipt and provide those receipt when they send the money send a check to

student activity. We are hoping they can do that for next school year. Thanks. I have any other questions? Quick question on class of accounts. Um 21, 22, 23, and 24. Obviously, we're keeping them open for a set period of time, but do we expect expenditures out of those going forward or uh is that a normal thing that there's lingering expenditures two, three, four? So principal Tumi told me for those account based on student uh activity policy we have a 180 days after student graduate they need to contact the student body if they want to close out this account that money should be transfer transfer out to student body so that fund doesn't belong to student activity anymore but principal tumi would still like to keep the class 21 to class 24 as a open account because probably they still need to do some follow-up work because they close out, you know, they just close out Disney account. Yeah. So, they they just don't have time to contact those students yet probably. Okay. That's my assumption. Okay. Any other clarifying questions or there's a really sizable uncatategorized account is liquid. That's really good question. I asked them the same question. Do they have any activity for those uncatategorized account? They have a systemwide account with a negative balance. So they should do some research and checking those detail transaction. Do they want to combine account or what's going on with those accounts? Like for there's one middle school they

have like a three interest account like a interest earned interest transfer interest included they should be all combined into like a Yin interest account that's some additional work we still need to do work with school because we have lots of work on our play sometimes we we just don't have the bandwidth for we are we're trying our Well, you've done an incredible amount already. Yeah, I I I think it it does need to be said that it is a lot of work, but at the same time, a lot of this can also lead to mistakes, right? That all of a sudden it's a a bigger issue than just cleaning things. So, so having that detail is going to be really important going forward. So, um, why don't we get the maximum account balances vote out of the way because that would that more specific that's very sort of clearcut. Yes, that was on the very page one of the memo. Yep. And for the book fair, I think there's only one school for Abbott has book fair account. We can check with Abbott. Okay. Because no other school has book fair. Any bookf fair money should be should belong to revolving account. The the districtwide one. Yes. Okay. So, um looking for a motion on what's on the screen. Um the recommended maximum checking account balances for the uh I think I is that a typo to move to next year for the 2526 school year. Oh, on the memo. Yep. That's for this year, but we're recommending it for next year. Uh we always get approval for this year. Okay. That's our um okay practice

for many years. We get approval by the end of the year for this fiscal year not next fiscal year. Is it best Jenny to change this? It's not best practice. We that's why if you guys want to change that for next year we can do that for next year. We should actually at this point, you know, getting approval for fiscal year 26, not getting approval for this fiscal year. We already ended the school year. Can I can I go ahead and make the motion that we make these recommendations for school year 2425 and 2526 at this time? I think so. Yeah. Second. Any final uh commentary there? Okay. All in favor? Unanimous? Um I the only other thing I was going to add was does that make more sense in the fall then or do you think the spring still makes sense and then with the vote the balance is set? So like next year you would come and set the balance for the following year. I think it makes more sense at the beginning of the year for for the fall because we can close out this fiscal year. We have a ending balance as of June 30 instead of we pull this balance as as of May. Yeah. Because we always need to report that. Okay. In May. So what if we put down this as one of our fall finance subcommittee agenda items to say, you know, we could get an update maybe on the consistency things that we're seeing. um the the Okconor Studios, the book fairs, those type of accounts. Um and then check in on maybe starting a new process of a fall maximum account balance. That's a great suggestion. Everybody good with that? Yeah.

Um, so with that said, I do think it makes sense to kind of tie up the other school um specific recommendations about accounts opening or closing and and um in inactive ones. So, if we're comfortable with acknowledging all of this work, acknowledging the intentions of where this is going towards consistency towards reducing the inactive accounts, I think that makes more sense to me as a vote instead of in the weeds of each school. Yeah. Um and gives administration that and staff that um direction and and that trust. So yeah, my only comment on that is I I would like to see true consistency across grade specific schools um for the fact of if one financial person needs to go and help cover for a long-term absence or something, it will make it a lot easier for for for that. um knowing where what account should be where as opposed to like I'm just seeing like specific field trips as opposed to one big field trip account, you know, how should it be handled going forward, but I think that's something I I will leave I would leave to administration's best and we could check in on that in the fall, right? Like so um Okay. So, I guess I'll make a motion to um to authorize administration and staff to close in active accounts that they have recommended closing closing and look towards um consistency in the accounts that are remaining for element. Yeah, for sorry for all grades. Second. Okay, any other commentary? All in favor? Unanimous.

Please thank Irene for us. We know how much work this is. It's clear that um definitely a team work not just Irene and also on the financial assistance they'll help. Yeah, it's important. Great. Thank you. One one final um clarifying question. You mentioned the town ACL unclaimed property check. Is the schools ones going to be incorporated into that list or a separate list? Uh we can do a separate list that's we already check with our auditor. we can just uh create a link in the business office website and uh just posting all those checks together. Okay. Because it sounds like they're like if we can leverage their existing website. We want it to be a a separate thing is kind of what you're asking, right? I guess now their checks they're for the general ledger. Yeah. But these checks they are student activity. Okay. So you don't want to mix them. But yeah, we probably want to separate them. I guess I'm just thinking from like a backend website point of view if it's easy for them to just say I don't know you know or like here's another like mirror that yeah instead of trying to create it on ours or even if ord have an efficiency of split that cost of between town and school that would seem to make a lot more sense. Uh I checked town's website. All those checks were dated like a 2016. Okay. So they probably already followed through the process. Okay. For all those checks for 2016. We have check from 2020 2009 to 2020. It's a long time span, right? I would just see if they're about to do the process. And if they are in a reasonable amount of time, maybe we hold off until it matches. Okay. Sure. Yes.

Write that down as a shared efficiency. Yeah. Um it also makes me curious since they all have a the same date maybe how recent the townside batch has happened, but okay. Great. Thanks, Jenny. Really appreciate it. Mhm. Thank you so much for your time. Oh man, I've messed up my screen. Thanks, Daniel. Take care. Thanks. Have a great summer. Life. Uh, be late. Yeah. All right. Now I'm all off. Okay, so field trips. Next up. Yes, thank you. Field trips. There is a list of 40 something in the packet and obviously this builds off of last meeting's discussion um from the presentation we had from the officers the class of 2026 officers about instituting a new overnight field trip according to our policy P5404. Our vote is required for any overnight or foreign country um trip. So out of state. Yeah. Great. Nope. Overnight or foreign? Oh well, I looked that up just the other day and I thought it's also Oh, no, no, no. Because up here, this is where it gets that it's not in the list, but uh Well, okay. Oh, yeah. Note that out of state travel requires school approval regardless. Okay. So, right. It should be in the I was going to say the list for policy long list. It's in the narrative but it's not in the list. That's weird. Out of state overnight and foreign. Wouldn't foreign be considered out of state anyway? It says a visit to a foreign country, but now it's out of state, too. So, okay. So, we have a comprehensive

list in the packet. Um, they all had Rs next to them. Do you want to speak to that repeat in the far column? new versus repeat. You can see that there are lots of opportunities for our students to travel based on their interests, clubs, activities, or um participation in a program, language. So, some of some of them that said that they were repeats. I'll just say like the Japan trip. I'm like, I've been here for 11 years and I don't ever remember WA going to self-reported. It is all self-reported. Yes, thank you. So, I'm like, uh, is it a is it a repeat as in it's an international trip with the same organization, just a different location is kind of the way that I might be thinking that they looked at it. Um, but when you get to the international trips, I'm like, the same continent. Yeah. Okay. Well, even the the uh the one that was presented to us yesterday, not yesterday, last night. um is in as a repeat and right so I think that might I think that R might have just been an oversight of like fill fill all yes right uh but ask what the yellow highlights were the ones are they ones are they new highlight highlights sure those yellow highlights are the ones that are going international I believe right no mind there's one that's not maybe they're the newish. They I think they're newish. There might be the new Japan. Yeah, Japan. London. Okay. Back to Italy. Yeah, those are the Germany is not a new one. Germany is however we are waiting for more details on that one. So, that one should have been we we that was one we're going to me mention because the others are all using um a um a company and so we directed the

advisors to in the future if they wanted to do this trip again to use a um a travel company specifically and so we need them to get that information to us. They have not provided that updated information to us. Okay. Um so in that case it was a new version of that trip is what we were anticipating. Okay. Um, so that's what I think the highlights would be. So I would recommend any vote there is dependent on that further information and administration um, approval. So I I will say that that German trip is very well organized as it was. So however, no, I I the issue is is that we had this was the beginning of the debit card. Gotcha. So, the idea that an individual staff member was putting things on their own cards andor needing to use, you know, take cash with them to travel because they did an excellent job organizing the trip all by themselves. But what we have we've made it very clear that in order for this trip to continue, you really need to work with a company where everything is going through a company and the company is paying the people in Europe so that that honestly that stress and responsibility doesn't fall on the shoulders of a staff member. Or the liability for public schools renting a car. Right. Right. Okay. Okay. So any other sort maybe we could kind of separate any other questions or or um feedback on the trips that we didn't get the presentation on like the German trip or any others that were okay. So then I I guess I would open it up to the conversation building off of our the presentation we received last meeting um for the next year's senior class to go to Mount Washington during their senior week. Um the you know they gave us a handout

with some information and I open it up to a discussion. I know there's going to be a discussion. So I I think you know I'll just kind of say um first of all it was an amazing presentation and I think so thoughtful and very well um thought out. I um remembering some of our conversations around the DC um the idea of calling them class trips, you know, I and I know it's middle school versus high school is also a different age. I just you know and I don't know have a has have a particular opinion one way or the other but um I think you know if we're recommending in favor of doing this class trip you know that's overnight um maybe being mindful of some of the conversation and I can't remember who was on or on wasn't as part of those DC conversations but we were talking about kind of a you know some of those equity issues issues issues, staffing issues. And so I think, you know, it's something that if we go ahead and approve this, we're, you know, open to that idea of like an eighth grade trip coming back in in some shape or form or an overnight cuz, you know, I will say I think a big difference here and this is one of the things that we directed this the students on which they I think they presented to you is that this while it includes an overnight, it doesn't require an overnight. That's one of the reasons why they looked within a drivable distance, which I think is a major difference between this and even the eighth grade trip to DC. Yeah, I I I um I've put a lot of thought into this because, you know, Dr. and I were one of the first people to hear their um to

hear the original request to Busushch Gardens and I'm reflecting on that conversation we had with them and obviously I was part of the DC field trip conversation last fall. So, um you know what what how I'm approaching this vote tonight, this topic to us is that this is um sort of like a a Sorry, I gave myself some notes to look at like a like a pilot approval. You know, I think one of the things we talked about with Dan and with the students was how do you build in that reflection? How does it go? It doesn't it it doesn't feel like to me that this is a blanket authorization of class trips. Yeah. Reinstated across the board. You know, I do think that in the DC field trip conversation and even here, what's what's kind of underneath this is wrestling with this idea of is a class trip that's open and accessible to all a value of the district and how do you approach that in a way that makes the barriers low enough that as Dr. Chu said, students who want to participate can participate. Um, and I think that what we've seen from the students is an example of not using equity as um, a reason to say no to something, but they've built equity in. And so it's it's like a total difference of having something come to us and say that's not equitable and so we're going to say no, but they've built it into all of their thoughtful steps. And that's a to me a totally different animal to say um you know what would make students feel safe and and belonging? What supports are in place for cost and accessibility? And how can we ensure that um that students feel uh uh open to this opportunity? That makes

sense. I like that phrasing of building the equity in. Yeah. Does anyone have any other I agree with most of what you well with what you said. Um it definitely was a thoughtful presentation. I thought they definitely tried to address a lot of the different barriers. I'm still struggling with the cost versus the amount of time that they're going to be there. They're really there like a day and a half. Um, and a $750, you know, $7 to $750 to be there for a day and a half feels like a lot of money to me, especially given everything that's going on that time of year with money being flying out of parents' wallets like incessantly. Um, and I think there's again everything their presentation was awesome and it's definitely was very mindful, but I also think there's a lot of spending money that's not like incorporated into that presentation like the kids that want to go to the outlets to go shopping. Clearly, they're going to need money for that, right? they're going out on on these different excursions or on the you know going down the cog train and now everyone wants a $50 sweatshirt at the end to commemorate their so I think that that cost was a great guesstimate but I think that is a good likelihood that it's going to cost somebody more like850 you know so there's going to be more cost baked into it than just what was there um and I'm still really struggling with the like riskreward on that like that's a lot of money to go away for a day and a half um and I think it that is still a barrier to some of the accessibility for some of those kids and I'm I'm still struggling a little bit with that. The only thing is I understand the accessibility there there is you know scholarships you know available to for to relieve that. And I think one of our recommendations could be um like if it's not obvious, I'm leaning towards approving this. And I think one of the recommendations that or the points that I would impress to the class officers and WA staff is to

think about how to reduce that stigma like is there an online form or or like you know to kind of even lower that bar of how to request financial aid. um they they clearly have a strong commitment to offering it and planning for it and so how do you make sure that students feel like they can ask for it it's successful I would also look at the trend of those four classes that I called out that there's a significant amount of money left once these classes have gone you know if some of that can be applied to reduce you know even even more so that that's just something to think Yeah, I just feel like balances are a moment in time. We don't know like what's coming and going. But I for the cost, I I totally agree that senior year it it's it's not it's not a nominal amount of money. It is um a cost pressure that that is being introduced. Um I think the spending money is is built into all these 40 trips. Well, except maybe the hiking overnight, although I don't I don't know. Um, so like I don't want to penalize them for hidden costs or or extra costs that are built into all of the student travel, right? Um, uh, my one comment on the process, while I liked the the presentation was great, um, you know, the cost is still significantly less than, right? um was the fact that it wasn't presented to the class first. So to me just going forward I would recommend that they have some buy in from from um and this would be for any class presenting something like that. I I appreciate that. I would say this is a unique circumstance because they had clearly been told no, right? And so before having getting anybody's

hope up, they wanted to see what is something that the administration and the school committee might approve. Yeah. Before you know what I mean. So I I understand and I think they are very student centered and so I think they are thinking about the you know the the needs of their classmates and I think they've been very responsive to that. I think this specific scenario, they knew that previous trips had been cancelled and and changed and not approved, and so they were trying to figure out, okay, what what might we be able to do? So, I think they were being very cautious before they got people's hopes up. Do you know if they addressed or they have the ability to have staff coverage? Because I was also thinking that if the staff is going to be the chaperones that you have freshman, juniors, freshman, sophomores and juniors that are still in the building that may be taking classes with those staff. Do we foresee any issues with being able to get 20 substitutes in the building to cover courses? So assumes a lot of these people they teach across grade well and and but we also have some dedicated senior teachers as well too. So that was not a concern that was brought to us by WA. WA did not seem to think that there would be a concern to get the chaperons for I'm in favor of this trip because I feel that the students need to be having an experience together as a class that's really special and where they make memories and I think that's an important part of being in school as well. Yeah. I would I would definitely agree with that, but it's I think it's hard to make those memories when you're balancing financial pressures, right? Maybe you want to buy that sweatshirt at the end, but you can't and you laugh it off with your friends, but you know, you don't feel good about it. So, I just I I agree

with sort of Shaina's concerns around, you know, the cost piece. And I wonder if there's creative ways they can think about spreading the cost out or having students pay some at the beginning of the year to, you know, they can do fundraising. Sure. Yeah. and they can they have scholarships and it's usually not like a deposit would usually be due in advance like that you wouldn't actually be out of pocket in May for the I assume they want they would want a commitment and as as they have done with most trips they do have sort of a payment schedule to break things down that's not something that they normally present to us but I think that's a good point and I don't I don't want my support and I appreciate what you said Lori and I I don't want my support to um ignore or erase the very real cost pressures and even the social pressures that can come with an overnight class trip like this. Um but I think what I've taken away from the DC conversations and is to really think about you know um those pressures can be very real and it doesn't mean that we can we have to take the easy answer of not offering them. Yeah. And so when something like this comes to us that like I said has kind of equity baked into it um I think that's this is a great opportunity to give a pilot approval and reflect on it next spring and um and it doesn't it doesn't erase the chance that we can have as a committee to um sort of still have that conversation about this this sort of broader value of of a class trip. I think we can still decide to have that. Um, but that's where that's how I'm landing on it. And and I would also just add that uh while I agree it's important to to be able to have an opportunity to get away with class, the class is not necessarily their safe space, but some of these

other opportunities, you know, someone might choose to do German trip as opposed to the year end trip. And and that will still give them that community. And the uh you know my experience on some of these is it builds character and real life experience of being out there without mom and dad right there, right? You know, and one of the things we had heard too was that like these are all great like that those kind of club trips and and foreign language trips are are great um if you're part of that club and if you're not is there an opportunity to have that type of experience exactly elsewhere? So for any of these trips um what is the process for evaluating sort of the success of the trip? Like how does it make it back on this list you know the next year? What kind of review does it go through? I think that's an excellent question because I think I don't think there is a formal reflection process. I think that's something that we can kind of look into because one of the things we've seen is that there has been a change based on different circumstances. Right. Okay. So COVID changed everything for us and then we started being reflective as to what are we bringing back and then there were some things that were saying it was really one of the I think I think a fair and major criticism of the DC conversation was that the reflection about concerns about the DC trip didn't happen right when they came back from DC and so it was then when we were in the process of the next year after it had come to the school committee and been been approved that then we were learning that there were concerns about it so I think That's an excellent point that we should put back into this process. Um because it's kind of that same idea like as you're you're having this great conversation about this potential new trip for the class of 2026. Yeah. And all I keep thinking is wow for years there were just expectations that certain trips take place and you think that there were concerns that might happen that we would

know about that we just didn't necessarily always discuss and bring into the conversation. So, I think to to have a formal review of each trip, I think would be something that we should we should put into the process and and I think that could definitely play into like a review of the policy because one of the things, thank you for reminding me, was the DC conversation reminded us that the policy says they have to be brought to us the school year before, right? So it's like these endofear trips that opportunity for reflection is like crammed in here to be able to get back here for approval. And even when sometimes they were treated as like a placeholder that to start the approval process maybe that conver that part of the conversation wasn't always happening like in the public packet. If somebody looked at the packet, they thought that's a guarantee, not a placeholder or they were voted on as not necessarily a placeholder with the exception expectation that they were happening. Right. Right. Um we paid credence to grievances or concerns that were born after you know it is that pilot sort of process of right building something new. So, so does is there any interest in pulling that trip out separately? Okay. Um, I'll take a motion then to approve the slate of 2025 to 2026 field trips. Second. Oh, sorry. I need I worded it as a mo needing a motion. Oh, I would I'll make a motion to approve these the field trips. Thanks. And I will second. Okay. Okay. Any final commentary? Can I ask one question too because we did talk about line 42, the German piece. I mean the pending pending and but the other piece is it kind of kind of goes back to really what I think did upset some people with the DC decision

is that you're approving these to happen. It doesn't necessarily mean that they'll all happen because wasn't there one of the trips canled this year? Wasn't we could cancel it. They could cancel it. It doesn't mean that it that might be another thing to remind improve the planning of it. Yes. It depends on the interest level. You're saying in theory in theory. Yeah. Right. Here's the cap. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that commentary. Okay. Ready. Is it sort of with the understanding that we'll review the policy and look into Yeah. I think that's part of our discussion and um as a member of the policy subcommittee, you can uh take take that forward. Um Okay. So, that was a motion and a second. All those in favor? Okay. Thank you. Moving on to superintendent evaluation. So, for the benefit of the public and to give Katherine a minute to pull it up on the screen, this is a uh state li statewide state level practice of that aligns with educator evaluations to um provide a rubric with uh the goals and standards that align with Dr. choose um self-evaluation and his goals from the fall. Uh every member individually completes an evaluation that are then funneled to one or two people that are putting that together or one person or a subcommittee I guess would be the correct way to say that. Um so that has happened over the last couple weeks. I I can't remember the meeting in April I think where you presented your self-evaluation. So all of that evidence was shared with the committee. Um Lori and I I was stepping in for Shawn and Mari as part of the superintendent evaluation subcommittee. So Lori and I met to to carry on that

torch. Um and reviewed the process for compiling the composite. Um the superintendent does have one employer that is the committee as a whole. Um and so that's why it's really important that a composite evaluation is one document that stands for that entire um evaluation process. The way to that we have sort of in Westford agreed on that best practice is uh measuring all the metrics to look for the you know the majority and what makes sense in the ratings as well as looking at the long longer open-ended um narrative commentary and weaving together that into a single voice while trying to represent any um feedback that is rep that is mentioned at least once. I'm sorry, more than once. So, it has to um be a a theme or something that more than one person has said. Um so, with that said, this is the vote up for tonight. Um the draft has been shared with you at the same time that it was made public in the packet. Um and this is open for edits. We can walk through this. Um, please feel free to share your uh sort of personal take as you went through the evaluation process. If you have edits that you didn't feel like your voice was you can see your voice in certain areas. Um, please bring that up for for consideration of the committee to consider and edit real time. Um, and then we would take a vote accepting this evaluation and new members are welcome to abstain if you want to. and or upset. Well, I mean, I know what you're right. On the vote. You meant on the voting. Yeah. So, I'm done talking. I'm going to take a sip of water while other people weigh in.

Is it good to note that it was based on six evaluations? It was based on six evaluations. Um, but it was all really clear. And I think what's really important is there was a unanimous overall rating for proficient. So, um I I don't think I think a lot of this aligns with the self-evaluation. Um you know, the goals were met, significant progress and met, I guess I'll keep talking. The standards were all proficient. Um and then that really important, you know, overall is is also proficient. And while comments are optional, if you rate proficient, I doubt that we would ever take take that up. Um um you know I think this sort of summary commentary here is cap tries to capture what's cap what's written elsewhere in all of the standards um and speaks to the important work that we all know was happening this year with these really important foundational goals that align with the STIP that create some momentum um in a lot of these multi-year initiatives right um and really important work that align with our standards and our goals. I will say that this gave me a little bit of appreciation to our staff of how they're having to fill out report cards and and progress reports, you know, in their own evaluation evaluation. This is the the idea of, you know, when I grew up, you know, it was numeric and it numeric letter, right? Um, and very different. I I I would love to say exceeds on on some things, but I I know I personally hold a very high level for exceeds, right? Even for myself in evaluation and really when MA when MASC trains this,

they they impress upon that exceeds expectations is like proficient is a I forget how they word it, but standard. It's a Yes, thank you. It's a a rigorous expected level of performance. It is not just hoham. Yeah, that's what they tell educators as well. And exceeded is like, you know, national set. Yeah. Setting a a precedent region or statewide. So, um, you know, I just want to kind of set that that level of expectation in anyone that's looking at this for the first time as well. Great com met is is a very good right because these are not small goals. This is some of them are multi-year right. Yeah, we know that. Did anyone feel like edits were necessary in the long form narrative parts? Lori and I like I took a stab at drafting it. Lori gave a read over and then it went to you. So feel free to make suggestions or I'll take a motion. Any Sorry. Anything you'd like to add? No, I I I appreciate that. I I recognize the time and effort that goes into it. You know, I appreciate that you appreciate the time and effort that goes into preparing all that information for you and to have everybody do their own thing and then try to put it together. I also know how difficult that is. So, I appreciate Valerie and Lori what um you did to do that. And you know, I I do feel like it's it's on the same page as the self-evaluation. So, I mean, I feel like we're all speaking the same language, which is feel like the process as well, you know, from year one to where we are today is like a welloiled machine. I think we've really established, you know, a really good solid process. And I hope you you find it worthwhile in in that sense. I I find oh I find the goal

setting worthwhile the evaluation to be honest with you know um but that's it is it is that's piece of it right but it's it's one of those things where explaining this to most anybody there are very few people who have their evaluation discussed publicly sure the town manager doesn't even know and so I just feel like it's I'm just glad that it so far it's never been it's never been contentious Right. So like I'm I'm glad with that. I mean there I just want to point the public to like there are a couple things mentioned for you know suggestions for future goals or areas of opportunity. It's not just a glowing rubber stamp. You know there there is work identified um as suggestions. And to that end it has that's kind of what Katherine's saying is like we've been I think we've been using it effectively right. So then we're like, okay, well, let's look at that. And when we when we talk about the goals next year or just in a couple months, um, you know, we'll be looking to see, okay, are there things that that we can that we can continue to improve upon? And I truly believe that being a reflective practitioner is important. And so I want to model that for everybody, right? Model that for our entire staff as well. And and I would hope that if we ever reach a point that it was going to be contentious, you would know it's coming because we're having those discussions. Right. Right. There should be no surprises in Exactly. All right. Well, in order to move us along, Yes. I will make a motion to approve the composite evaluation for uh does it say oh FY25 um for Dr. Chris Chu. Second. Any last commentary? Well done. Another good year. And to all of staff. Yeah. That contribute to it is that's the other piece. It's the district, right? We talked about it being connected to the ISTIP. And I mean that

might be another conversation we have like as we move forward like do all these things need to be separate or are there ways to Yeah. Stream them. Yeah. Okay. All in favor? Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay. Thanks. I'm glad they didn't go with opposed. I thought about it. I saw you. You were thinking I hope you I hope you were paying attention because next May it's Yeah. Yeah. You're in there. That's right. I'll be ready. Okay. Next is a quick zip through our own goals. Um they also should not be a surprise. Um but open to feedback. I take a, as has been our practice, I take a stab at drafting this presentation and a selfreflection. Um, but they align pretty neatly with superintendent goals um and other work that we've heard from in our SIPs in the last couple weeks. Go ahead. So, you are you are all painfully aware of how many executive session minutes we have released this year. I am super duper proud of us. Um, we almost in our my I I I will take ownership for this in my focus on the backlog. I have sort of neglected that first vote on recent ones. So, I want to start off next year really kind of catching up on that first and then working back continuing to continuing to work on the backlog because as you'll notice we're about to start FY26 and yet we still just tied up FY21. So, maybe we do one one step forward. Um there I I think our school um committee page committee page on the district website looks looks a lot refreshed. um we can think about over the summer maybe it's a topic for a

retreat like what topics to update on there um you know I I really was proud that we had that in time for the start time information for families um and we can think about how to balance that um the the bandwidth of updating with what topics make sense to um the public that might find their way looking at it find their find their way to the page can Can I mention something right here? Just as we're talking website, um the Civic Plus website that we're currently um that we currently use um some aspect of it, the the technology that they use is going away. And so we've actually been um Kathy and Courtney and I we've met with three different companies to look at what another website might look like. So chances are we're I mean we are going to have something. It's going to look different because what we currently have is going away. So, um, so just that that's gonna actually support the content and different thing that you're talking about. Okay, great. Just keep flying through these. Goal two was um financial related policies. Obviously, the biggest um star of the show here is our NGFG. Um, we I had a bold vision of us tackling the 3000 series um policies in the spring. Um but but the conversation did trigger that facilities fee update. So I think that's good. And I think we're going to start the fall knowing sort of a priority basis of which ones to focus on first. So still good work but not met on the way. Yeah. Policies are not easy. Yeah. Goal three. Um the master plan work obviously aligns with Dr. Chu's goals. The ESTEP. So, the start time subcommittee presenting a recommendation, collaborating with the Robinson School Building Committee, um,

and creating that space usage analysis that you are all very aware of. And that's it. We only gave ourselves three goals, which I think is right. So, um, for new members and for anyone in the public watching, we will, um, sort of marinate on that and make proposals for next year's goals, um, in the next couple weeks. and bring back a proposed set of goals um when we start again in August. Can I ask you a question on progress here? Um some of these things are sort of uh related to the public's interpretation of how well they went, right? Like is it a user friendly website or things like that? Just curious if we solicited any public feedback on any of the goals. I have not solicited any public feedback, but I think that's a great recommendation moving forward. Yep. Um, anything else on there? Sorry, I didn't turn to commentary. Okay. Um, next up is school committee organization. So, as my last act, so for anyone in the public watching, we have we do have a policy that um recommends or dictates I guess um that a chair is serves as chair for two consecutive years before a change. um not before a change and then a change must happen I guess would be the right way to say that the term limit a term limit thank you so before we go through the chair vice chair secretary nomination process I want to first point everybody to the subcommittee assignments um so because that falls under our organization um so a lot of improvements I think as part of our onboarding for two new members um I've updated this list to have uh meeting schedules, day and evening um when the committee subcommittee or liaison's roles meet virtual or in person or both. Um and an

overview, a high level description or purpose. Um so it's all kind of in one place and and is in our packet for the public to see um you know what what we spend our time on in between these Monday night meetings or Tuesday if there's a holiday. So um there is a lot here. Um I I really try to be thoughtful about balancing people's bandwidth with their interest level with their um skills skills and with their um um eagerness to take on a lot in their new first year. I don't know why you're looking at me. I'm looking in that direction. And so I I I do feel good about this. I think there's a lot of continuity where continuity matters. there's fresh takes where that is helpful. Um, and that's any any final tweaks to be made. I'm happy I know you've the the staff DEI. Yeah, I had STBD until Yeah, we figure that out, but I'm happy to take that leazison again. Okay. Once we figure it out. Yep. And I have a TBD for calendar committee just to kind of see how everyone feels about their bandwidth in the fall. Um and we want it usually makes sense to have some overlap with negotiations. Yeah. Um that's pretty much it. All good. So I think we vote to accept our subcommittee assignments and liaison. Might as well. Doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. Okay. Great. Looking for a motion on the subcommittee assignments for 2025 2026. So moved. Second. Any last thoughts? Okay. All in favor? Great. Thank you. Okay. So, um now we hand this over to

Dr. Chu. Yes. So um because of this policy um we need to uh look to establish a change in leadership on the committee. I would like to say um you have done a phenomenal job for two years seeing as how I mean you became the chair when we were trying to deal with an override and then we moved right into um a building committee and all of the different aspects of that. And so I personally appreciate all of your leadership and your collaboration and I think you've done a great job um for the well for everybody for this committee and for um the staff and and students. That being said, uh I would ask if there is a nomination and or a volunteer to be considered for chair for the next well the the term would be for the next two years but we just do it for one year at a time. It just means that it has to change every two years. I think we do it one year at a time and then can always um Right. So for the so for the 25 well for the for the 2526 school year um I'm looking for uh a motion recommendation motion to change the law the policy on the 10ear limit. Is that suspended? We we could but I think Valerie deserves a break with everything everything she does. Very valid for a little rest. One year break. I would like to nominate Katherine. Um she has served as vice chair for two years and seen a lot of the you know one of the things we've talked about over the last two years really has been how do you make these roles more accessible to working families or to um just anyone in the community that may not have as much bandwidth. And I think we've made some really thoughtful changes but there is

still some work that happens during the workday to align with staff. Um, and so Katherine has seen, you know, that role as vice chair for the last two years, and I think she will make an excellent chair. So, I'll make that nomination. Second. Okay. Any discussion? Right. I don't know. This is where it all goes downhill. Uh, I guess I would have to say, would you accept that? I would accept it. Yes. Um, all in favor? Okay. Okay. Uh, with that, I will turn it over to the chair. Yeah, Katherine clear. Oh man, that's strange. Well, thank you very much. Um, and I just want to reiterate as well, I I think Valerie, you have been a fantastic chair the last two years. Um, I think your communication with the rest of the school committee and engagement and um really the public, but you know, that's that's aside the the school committee aspect is something the public doesn't see. And I think I it's important to acknowledge that. Um you know I know they're all on Facebook following you. Um but that other side of that school committee side is that you know so much happens behind behind the scenes. There's so many meetings and I think you really are thoughtful and work hard to um keep us all informed and to keep some guard rails on us. Guide rails I should say. Maybe maybe guardrails. Um and so it it's been very much appreciated. Um, and I don't even anticipate trying to follow your act, but we'll, you know, buckle up and we'll survive. Just wanted to make me Catherine's problem. All my SOS's of questions that I'm sending your way. Voice memo. So, go for it, Shaya. I'm going to send you the first voice memo. You better You better watch out. Okay. So with that, I I am going to open up the floor and look for nominations

for our vice chair for school committee for the F Y26 school year. Um well, since Valerie has so much experience, I think we should nominate her for vice chair. And I would second that if anybody else wants to. Nope. Stewardship. I am willing, but I just want to make sure that the public at least sees a discussion that you know there there are roles like we were just saying that that do take place during the workday and I think vice chair is a great um exposure to a to like the leadership of chair um and I see potential in many of our committee members. So I think it's just like a kind of transition year. Yeah, it yeah this this year in particular. So, but I I'm willing and happy to I delegate really well to Valerie. Not to me. Um, so do you accept the nomination then Valerie? Yes, I am willing. Okay. And so motion to was moved and seconded. All you see I'm already failing. There we go. It's after nine o'clock. So um so uh we'll take a vote. All in favor? There we go. Unanimous. Well, um and so then our next role that I think we have to look at filling and um is the role of our secretary clerk. It's always Larry, you've you've done a great job. It's often a a baptism of fire coming in figuring out how the minutes work follow you know not just reviewing our minutes as they come in um from our Monday meetings but any executive minutes that either need writing or reviewing and

keeping us on track like that. So thank you Lori for for your work this year. Um there is more to it than people think. Yeah. Um, but I will accept any nominations for the role of secretary for the FY25 school year. I would nominate Lori to continue as I as you've started started to hit your stride. Second. Seconded. Um, yeah, I think that's great. Some continuity, especially as we're still in that backlog with executive sessions is helpful. And um, so well, before she changes her mind. Yeah, it's not that bad. I did it for two years, too. Larry, you're good. Okay. Um, we want to get We don't want to burn anyone out when they first get here, you know. And so, Larry, do you accept the nomination? Yes, I do. Okay. So, all in favor to appoint Larry as our secretary for the next school year. There we go. Am I supposed to vote? You can go for it. Just to give yourself a unanimous Let's Yeah, let's put it down. Okay. And so, that's us all set for the next year. Thank you very much. Looking forward to order. Do we need to uh have a vote and it may not be may not be able to be tonight, but to approve Katherine to be the signer of warrants? No. Because I think it had to be a person, not a position. Didn't we keep it in the policy that it was the chair? We named it as chair, but at the charting the course that Tom and I and Jess were at, they actually said it should be a name. That it should be a name, not a position. Okay. So, so we may not be able to do it today because it's not on the agenda, but you know, it's just something that we need to we could add it to as a quick business item to our retreat. Yep. It I I would I I would disagree with you. You say that it's not on the agenda, but it says school committee organization vote expected and you did just change the

chair. So, okay. Yeah. There you didn't say exactly what votes would be taken. You're talking about your organization and that is very much an organizational thing. So rather than waiting till the 23rd, if you're comfortable doing it, it meets the the agenda. It meets the agenda. True. So then I would make a motion to have Katherine be the authorized signer for the school committee on warrants. Second. All in favor? There we go. Good call, Tom. Okay. Yeah, good call. Thank you for thinking of that. You didn't want to keep doing it for the It's really easy now. It's like E sign on Adobe. Thank you, Kathy. Awesome. Really great. Okay, so our last item on the agenda for this evening is um a new job description on the educational support professionals coordinate. So, um, as a result of the last negotiations with the educational support professionals, which is also known as unit E, um, we did collectively decide that we would update the job description for these um, individuals. Um, Jessica asked a great question this weekend of when was the last time this was updated and, you know, what are the major changes? Well, there's just a lot of changes to really highlight everything. It was um a job description that had been developed in 2016. At the time um our ESPs were known as teaching assistants. And so some of the things that you'll notice is that we kind of brought it into the format that we've been using all year as far as our job descriptions um kind of having the organizational scope, the position responsibilities, um and any kind of job qualifications or physical demands um that are necessary. um we kept although our we have several different types of ESPs, they're called

out within the same job description. So I think that this kind of is cohesive enough to be able to say this is in general what an educational support professional um does and is expected to do for the district. And then um where there are differences with the classroom ESP which right now take place at the preschool or kindergarten level or a library media uh ESP or the special education ESP. Those types of um responsibilities are called out a little bit further under their job descriptions. For the classroom, the library media and the special ed, are they responsible for everything above? Correct. Plus those. Correct. So the only suggestion I had just again these are my things are in my middle house. um is maybe just having a a line before those three that says something like in addition to the responsibilities listed above the um you know so the in addition to the spe to the core ESP responsibilities these specialized ESPs will include um have have additional duties as described below. So, it's stating that they're responsible for everything above and that you're calling them out as three specialized like subcategories. So, I would just maybe have like one transition line there that just says like you're responsible for everything that's listed above and then you have these specialized based on your or would like you may be responsible. Does that would that make a difference? because I you know sometimes it depends how how might you post would you be specifying classroom ESP special yeah right so when we do when we do post we don't necessarily post the job

description right because there could be very unique circumstances of that position that we're hiring so we're trying to um you know be as clear and concise um One other thing that I should have mentioned was this was a joint effort with WEA consult. So we did the shell of it and then we volunted it over to WA um for their feedback um which thankfully they just had a couple little tweaks to it and so they are in agreement to that as well but Shaina I don't see any it certainly implied so I think that that's just adding a little bit more clarity and your words were quite nice if you don't mind just emailing that to me. Sure. Yeah. Two two iterations. So that's why I got a little confused with my notes I wrote down here. But implied is never good when we deal with contracts. I just appreciate the district and uh WA's clarity on this. I think it's really vital for our parents and community members to understand all the responsibilities and there are many that our ESBs play um in the district and how valuable they are. So, thank you for bringing that. So, we'll be voting on this. Well, I mean, typically I mean, our practice has been that something comes up on an agenda and is a vote at the sec at the next at a second meeting. Um, you know, I think it could be considered a specific instance where the this was such a collaborative joint effort with WEA who would be the other major stakeholder um that that they have contributed to this product. Um, and I I know there I'm sure there are listings that are that are waiting or or plan to go up soon. Well, again, it doesn't impact the postings. the postings we can write. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Do you have a recommendation or a preference? I if if you would want to wave a second reading, then we could take a vote tonight and that would be great. Um we do have one more job description to bring and I anticipate doing that um at the early onset of next year. And that's the job descriptions for the administrative assistance which is unit C. and and we also um agreed to update the job description for them as well. So, do do we sorry, this is me completely blanking on the calendar at this point. Do we have another regular business meeting before next school year? No. Then I would I would be in favor of voting for this because you mean you mean um absent the retreat? Yes. Yes. Yes. a regular business. Yes. A recorded business. Um I I would be in favor of bringing this to a vote for the simple fact of then we go into the school year fresh with with everyone knowing their responsibility. Yeah. And any other question though is the the some of these save votes expected is that a courtesy or a requirement? It's a courtesy. Okay. Yep. And and I think um Oh, I just had a thought. It just that it's powerful that it's coming jointly. Yes. And I think that that that is a bit unique. You know, usually the the the cadence of it is to allow for, you know, additional feedback, but when we have when we know it came through a vetted process. Yeah. And be ready for the summer. I mean, there's there's going to be postings. I don't want to rush anyone. Right. So if um motion to approve the educational support professional job description with the amended inclusion of that line. Thank you to Shaina. Second. All in

favor. There you go. Awesome. And so I will take now a motion to motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Good night.