School Committee - Grafton Public Schools - Regular Meeting

All right. I will call the meeting to order at 7 o'clock. We will start with public comment. Is there any public comment?

I have some.

There isn't. Our first order of business will be school committee reorganization, and we will start with the role of school committee chair.

Mr. Chairperson?

Yes.

I don't think I've ever had a male chair that I didn't call Peter. I would like to nominate Leora Abram again. And I can tell why, if anybody wants to make a second.

Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?

Yeah, I just, I'm currently vice chair. I am not really up for being the chair this year. I think Leora did a good job. I think consistency after a tough year is something we've done in the past with both me and aforementioned Mr. Carlson have done it in a couple years in a row. It's sometimes good to have some stability. And... I'd love to see Leora get to have to build on her experience.

So that's my rationale.

All right. Any further discussion?

Yeah. So I was just thinking, so rotating leadership is kind of a widely recognized best practice for school committees in Massachusetts because it ensures that no single member accumulates disproportionate control over the agenda and the process. Well, Leora was a great chair. I think that it would behoove us in the committee and the community. To keep the same leadership in the same roles 2 years in a row.

So, um, that's funny that you mentioned that it was the best practice because I see in most in a lot of the committees I work with, um, on, they actually have, um. So my friend Michelle from Marlboro, she's vice chair because they are a city and they have a mayor, and she has been chair for like decades. My friend Barbara from Holbrook, same thing. Grafton is unique because we often have people that want to be chair, which is amazing. So I mean, it's fine. I wouldn't want to see someone be chair if there was somebody who really wanted to step up years and years. And I think this year maybe develop a better path for training, I guess. I wanted to be vice chair last year because I knew it was going to be a difficult year. And I thought I could offer my experience, which I'm always happy to offer.

So anyway, motion is made.

And we can vote, I guess, unless there's more.

Yeah, I just feel like every year is going to be a difficult year. Like this year, we have teacher contract negotiations. The following year is most likely probably your last year as superintendent. At that point, your contract is up and you'll put in 30 years at that point. So I think every year is going to be a big year. Yeah. And so I think changing up leadership, being a team means that everybody has a different role, different times. So I just worry you Laura do not want to be chair. Obviously the next person I would recommend would be Rebecca as chair.

That's thoughtful. I, having been on the school committee for three years, I feel like the learning curve is very great and I would really love Lior to get two years of sort of ramping up and I would love to watch that happen so that I can hopefully take over at some point in the future. So I support Lior for second year of chair.

I also support Leora for a second year of chair. I thought she did a phenomenal job last year guiding us through a tough budget cycle. And I think that, you know, with her leadership and experience, um, she's, you know, the woman at the helm to, you know, get us through another difficult year. And I'd love to learn more about her, her leadership and steering us. I am super uncomfortable.

Any additional comments?

Well, yes, I do. I just think again that without changing leadership, this becomes more of a. Monarchy, and we are no Kings, and I think that we don't want to keep the same person in the same roles year after year after year. We've seen this happen. Like, for instance. With policy risk where it's hard to then transfer over to different people if not if not everybody experiences every role, then we don't work as a team and we don't all know every role and our terms on this board are typically three years so. it's good to have change it fosters growth.

I'd also just like to remind everybody that chair isn't actually a queen or a king position or a president. It's somebody that should be leading our meeting well and being the public face when needed and working directly with the superintendent. But we should all always have a voice on what gets on the agenda. And we're all equal roles. Everybody has one vote, and everybody has one role. So if you do act like a queen, I will be sure to call you out on that, because that is not an appropriate way

And I don't have I will I don't like a queen or a king We've got a motion and a second on the table I'll ask for a vote all those in favor of Leora as chair for the coming year

All those against all right before one passes Passing the torch and I will take a motion for vice chair Yeah, I would like to nominate myself for vice chair I Put a lot of work into this committee. Oh, well, there's no discussion unless you guys second. Okay, I'll make a second Yeah, so I put a lot of work into this committee. I read the entire policy book with Laura. We did 10 years worth of work in one year. I'm heading up the fee subcommittee. I've done an extreme amount of work. I know every policy on this committee inside and out. And I think I would make a good vice chair.

Okay, I had hoped to nominate Rebecca for Vice Chair. So I don't know if you have an interest as well, Rebecca.

I do have an interest if we're open to that conversation.

Do you want to share?

I mean, I would like to. move on to be chair in the future, and this is my fourth year, so I feel like it would be a really good learning experience for me to be vice chair for a very strong chair, and so that was my hope, yes.

I probably should have gotten a second before I had to speak, so I apologize. Yeah, so we have to vote on the first nomination.

Christie's motion, and then if that passes, move forward, if not, move to another motion.

Anyone have further comment?

I would just like to also add that I also have aspirations to be chair of the committee at some point. And that's why rotating roles is kind of good so we all get chances at things. Like I said, I've done an extreme amount of work in the policy, in fee, in budget, in a lot of things on this committee. So I would like to be vice chair. Any further discussion?

Okay. I'll take a vote. All in favor of Christy as vice chair? Opposed? Okay. Then I'll make a motion that Rebecca be vice chair. Second. Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion?

I'd like to have some discussion on that. I worry about this chair vice chair dynamic as the two of you were in charge of doing the operational goals and that still has not been completed. I think that that it might be better a different dynamic. And for that I'd like Stella as vice chair.

We have to deal with the motion we have. Any further discussion on Rebecca as vice chair?

Well, I would think that the vice chair and chair position, actually, while it's a supportive role, it would be more of the Rebecca would serve when Leora wasn't on. So while I would love to see those norms come, and we can talk about that later, I agree. Do you have concerns working together if needed? Do not.

And I appreciate the confidence in vice chair, but I definitely would like to see Rebecca in this role. I think she's stepped up her voice, and I think she would be a great second hand to Leora and to lead when she's not available.

Thank you.

All right, if there's no further discussion, I'll take a vote. All in favor of Rebecca as vice chair? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Christy, I'm hoping you'll have interest in being clerk.

No, I do not. Okay.

Then I'll take a motion.

I'm happy to, unless you want to. I've actually never been clerk, but I'm happy if you would like to be, Stella. I have no concerns, so it's up to you. Great. Madam Chair, I'd like to nominate Stella as clerk.

Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Great. All right. I would like to call up and recognize Logan Lee. So Logan Lee if you don't know it's a fantastic young man a few months back

Logan was recognized by the Worcester County Superintendent Association for being an exemplary scholar and human being. Ms. Calo and I had the opportunity and the pleasure of attending a luncheon at Holy Cross with Logan. And it was great. So Logan's the, this will only be like the tip of the iceberg, but Logan is the valedictorian of the senior class. He's an AP scholar with distinction. He's a superstar participant on the robotic team and the math team. And he recently participated, he's participated in tennis throughout his high school career, but recently won the Rising Star Award in tennis. He's known for being an exceptionally hard worker and a great all-around young man. He represents Grafton High School and the district as a whole just incredibly well. So we wanted to recognize his recognition, if you will, tonight in front of all of you.

Amazing, amazing.

Did I miss any big things, Logan? Have you decided what you're doing next year?

Yes, I will be attending Purdue University. And my chosen major right now is computer engineering. However, Purdue works a little differently in the way that you don't actually have to pick your engineering major until after your first year. So I will definitely be exploring other options while I'm there.

That's great. That's a great tool.

Congratulations.

Logan, you know I'm your biggest fan. I've loved you during robotics for the last two years. I've loved doing ice cream sales with you. You're amazing and I am so excited for you for going to Purdue and computer engineering and everything and we cannot wait to hear all that you accomplish in the years ahead because I know it's going to be above and beyond anything. It's amazing. I'm so proud of you, Logan.

Thank you. And they have robotics at Purdue, weren't you talking about maybe? A lot of them. Yeah. Awesome. So is that your plan to continue? Definitely some type of robotics. I'm not sure which type yet.

There are types.

I learned a lot about robotics. It was great. Amazing.

And you hold the train while you're there on the campus. So, Logan, I've known you a long time as well. And, um, fun fact, I actually used to race you and your, your dad every day to school and he didn't know when I was dropping my oldest off. So I had a little, um, rivalry with your family that nobody knows. Now I'm publicly admitting it often. You guys would win. I would go one way, you guys would go the other, and you would drive by my house, and I was like, why won't they let me go? So anyway, I feel like that kind of drive that you had to get to school really propelled you into your success, and you're an amazing young man, and Purdue is lucky to have you, and we're lucky to have had you in Gretton. So congratulations, look forward to hearing your speech next week, and phenomenal work.

Thank you.

Dr. Cummings, I think you forgot, aren't you the president of the National Honor Society for Computer Science? Were you that this year as well?

Yes.

Yes, you were.

It's hard to list them all.

Yeah, no, I heard you're a wonderful president on that. And I know that Patty Keller is gonna miss you so much as well next year.

I'd love to know, Logan, like what's your favorite memory from sort of your Grafton school career?

That's a hard question. Sorry.

Obviously ice cream sales with Mrs. K. I think that was it, right, Logan?

Honestly, I would say any big moment with either of my teams from tennis or robotics, those two activities were the most important to me. And I made really great friendships and really great memories across the board in both activities, whether it was a big win for either of those activities, robotics or tennis, or even a loss that still wasn't a true loss because we knew we had improved significantly.

Amazing.

I have a question. Are you going to be playing tennis at Purdue?

Not for their team, unfortunately. Do they have intramurals?

Intramural, definitely. Awesome. I used to play varsity tennis in case you were wondering.

That's awesome. Congratulations. I was actually a computer major, so not declaring right away I think is an awesome step because you can go get used to college, feel the independence that you'll have, and then be able to learn your classes and select from there. So I like the fact that you can be undeclared for a little while. I think you'll grow in your personality and adult, and you might find that you like to do something else.

You're going to connect with Christian Riddle?

Yes, I already have.

Griffin Cooper?

Griffin Cooper. I didn't get to see him when I toured and visited. I did get to see Christian. He's actually who brought me around, showed me a lot of what it was on campus. So it was great.

That's wonderful. Very cool. We have a good Grafton group breaking in there. So go Boilermakers.

Congratulations, Logan. Just great work and enjoy the last week.

Yeah. Make good choices. Yeah.

I appreciate it.

Tell your dad. I said, I'll see him on the racetrack.

Madam chair. Yeah. Before we go on, we did not reassign the subcommittees.

Yeah. So we, I just want, I didn't want to wait for that. So it's definitely on the agenda. And what I was actually going to ask the group, whether we want to, um, do the high school and just sort of end with our subcommittees and stuff so that.

They don't have to watch us go through. Yeah, I don't care.

Yeah, but it's definitely, 100% we're doing this upcoming night. So yeah, let's do GHS updates.

Yeah, I think that's on my computer.

I'm just gonna stop fiddling.

Computer closed.

I need some Wi-Fi access.

Is your computer working?

Yeah. Thank you.

Hello. Hello, good evening. Thank you for having us. You're welcome. We're very excited to provide an overview of our fantastic year. We're going to break up that overview into three main parts. We're going to talk a little bit about academics and then student and staff well being and then our work toward building a stronger community in the building. And I'm gonna start with academics and I'm gonna take you back a year to remind you that last year, we spent a fair amount of time as a faculty developing a definition of what cognitive rigor is. And by the end of the year, we landed on this definition. We decided that a cognitively rigorous classroom, students build metacognitive skills through lessons that encourage critical thinking and productive struggle, regardless of the student's skill level. The instructor purposely designs instruction that develops student schema and provides authentic opportunities to transfer skills to new or more complex contexts. So that was our work during 2025. So what had to happen this year is we had to basically take the theory of what cognitive rigor is and put it into practice in the classroom. And we did that through depth of knowledge. Depth of knowledge is essentially a framework that helps teachers understand the cognitive demand of a task or how deeply students have to think to complete that task. So depth of knowledge is not necessarily about having more work, it's about the complexity of thinking required to complete the work. Depth of knowledge matters for three reasons. The first one is it helps teachers design tasks and content so that it's aligned to the learning standards. The second reason is it supports a balanced instruction. So when we're working with teachers, we're helping them to understand that students are going to engage in different types of thinking. It's not gonna be just recall and just heavy analysis, but it's going to be a mix of different types. And then last but not least, this balance of depth of knowledge leads to very strong assessment and classroom questioning. So I'm gonna give you a model of what depth of knowledge means. You have an understanding. So as you can see, there are four levels, and there is some very different complexity in terms of thinking with each level. So as you can see in the first level, it's recall or reproduction. Very, very little complexity in terms of thinking. When you get to the top of that matrix at level four, you're looking at very difficult and complex thinking, like synthesis and investigation over a long period of time. So essentially what we're going to be looking at, and I'm going to go into it in a second, is that we're going to look at lessons and assessments that capture all four levels. So what we did this year to get that started is we developed a shared understanding of depth of knowledge. It was brand new to the staff. They had never heard of it. So we spent a fair amount of time kind of working through what it meant. And then we took our understanding and we applied it by identifying and classifying depth of knowledge in current lessons and summative assessments. So what will happen next year is we're going to take our understanding of depth of knowledge and we're going to investigate the learning standards to see what is the complexity of thinking in that standard. Then we're going to look at our unit assessment and we're going to make sure that students are being assessed at that same level of thinking. We're going to adjust assessments if needed. And then if there is some adjustment to the assessment, we will be likely looking at changing instructional plans. In addition to that, we did a fair amount of work around AI. Our goal really was to help teachers use AI to improve student learning outcomes. And we started with kind of having large group discussions around how can students use AI to supplement their learning, not necessarily supplant it. So the first thing we did as a faculty is we determined appropriate student use, and we did that through the green, yellow, and red stoplights. Then we looked at investigating prompting. How do we adequately prompt an AI tool so that we get the information we're looking for? And then we started to just basically look at a superficial view of some of the more popular tools like Magic AI, Notebook LM, and Gemini Gems. And then during this work, I started a book group on Brave New Words by Khan. And we had 20 teachers. jump in and it was an interesting group. It was some that were all for AI and others who were very much against it and thought it was not a good idea. And so as part of our work together, in order to earn PDPs, teachers have to show a modification to their practice. So they had to change their practice using AI tools and they gleaned so much from changing their practice that they decided they wanted to teach their fellow peers. So the May faculty meeting was completely teacher led PD. We had a group of teachers working on presenting a workshop on differentiating instruction. Another couple were working on feedback. Some were talking about how AI can be used as a tutor. And then last but not least, we had a group talking about instructional plans. So next year what we're going to do is we're going to look at literacy for staff and students. We're going to make sure there's a clear understanding of the key terms, how do we ethically use AI tools, and how do we anticipate and manage any bias. And then we're going to kind of pair the work around cognitive rigor with our understanding of how to use AI, and we're going to use AI to develop cognitively rigorous common assessments. AI can help us make sure we're hitting every level of depth of knowledge. And last but not least, we're going to start planning for explicit instruction for students. And we're thinking about a twofold approach. We're looking at not only just in instruction in the classroom, but also during our gator gap sessions. We did a fair amount of work when it comes to academics on our vision of the graduate. This is actually, these are the skill sets and competencies of our vision of the graduate, but the actual graph was made by one of our NEASC visiting members, which I thought was fantastic. So what we had to do for the past two years to meet standards according to NEASC is we had to embed vision of the graduate skills and competencies in our curriculum and in our assessments. So last year, faculty spent time building in those competencies and skills and our learning outcomes. So what would be considered our stage one end outcomes of student learning. And then this year, they spent some time building it into our summative assessments. We were thrilled to find out and the teachers felt really proud that according to NEASC, we are one of the few high schools in Massachusetts rated as meeting the standard when it comes to curriculum. So that was great news. In addition to that, we increased elective offerings for students. We are offering an AP macro, AP computer science principles, love of reading, life after high school, which is actually a health offering, and financial math out of the math department. We've done a fair amount of work around well-being, student well-being, and expanding the opportunity for students to have a voice in the building. So you all know that my principal's advisory group has been expanded to nine through 12. We now have 20 students involved. They helped us plan reset day, our homecoming week, and the ever popular Mr. GHS. In addition to that, we created a brand new student culture committee. I have been doing a fair amount of work empowering teachers to move into leadership roles, so I asked Ryan Mercier, who's an English teacher, to help me with the committee, and he's been a great partner. We had 12 students join, and as you can see, we have a great diverse group who we began with really understanding and exploring what does it mean to belong. in a school, to a group, what does that mean? And then we transition that into, okay, so if this is what it means to belong, how do we build that in the high school? And so we started looking at building some school-wide events that everyone would be interested in coming to see. For example, like Mr. GHS, everybody loves Mr. GHS, it's fun. So our last meeting, we had decided that we were going to build a game night during homecoming week so that everybody would be interested in all different types of games. And so that's what we'll start with in the fall. And that will continue. We also heard very loud and clear from the students that they wanted a reset day. So Anthony and I met and discussed it and we decided to do it at the beginning, we decided to do it in March during the PD day. And here this picture is Anthony meeting with the class officers to plan the day. So we made sure they were an integral part of that experience. Student Handbook Committee, I believe you know from last year, every year in the spring, I pull a handbook committee that involves staff and students to help advise on the policies that are obviously not school committee based, but are more building based, and we wanna make sure that I'm hearing their voice, they're hearing our rationale for things, and we're coming together coherently. And with that, I'm gonna turn that over to Anthony, because Anthony's gonna take the lead on the changes to the handbook. And I'm gonna sure.

Good evening. Everybody. How are you doing? Um, to be honest, we, there aren't a lot of substantial changes to the handbook. It's more formatting than anything else. And I'll explain that. So, the 1st edition really was adding a sentence to our, uh. referencing AI to our plagiarism and strike sentence system. We wanted to make it clear, we did a lot of work with AI with the students and the staff this year. And so we wanted to add the line that the instructor will clearly communicate to students what the acceptable AI use policy is regarding that particular assignment. That way the students, you know, right from the start know what they can and can't do. And that goes back to referencing that red, yellow and the green, yellow and red stoplights of like always good, you know what this will be good maybe for this one but not this one and then the red is you know the never. So we just wanted to add that and update that to the handbook. The second addition to the handbook is when I was looking at the handbook something that I deal with more often on a daily basis are kind of the consequence systems. And what was in place was a category system where here's a category one offense and that might be being tardy to class, a minor disruption. And it went up to five and six categories. And the categories looked like they'd been expanded over a number of years with different consequences added in. And that's not unusual because just about every consequence that's in the handbook is because something happened that wasn't necessarily predicted and we throw it into the handbook for next year. I found that the consequence systems got a little cumbersome because like large categories of things that I would never necessarily put together were grouped together and would be considered large offenses. So what I proposed was kind of an appendix where I took our category system added a few other offenses of things that I thought that we were experiencing this year and that Grathen has experienced in the past and kind of made it into an appendix where it's very clear as to what the offense is, what's gonna happen on the first time you get caught, what's gonna happen on the second time you're gonna get caught and what's gonna happen third or fourth times. And so rather than kind of categorizing like, oh, this is the worst offense, or this is a minor offense, I just did it by offensive. Like, here's what happens when you get a class cut. Here's what happens when you're too tardy. Here's what happens if you get caught with a nicotine device. And so honestly, these are all pretty much the same offenses and consequences that were in as part of the category system. with the exception of tardies. So tardies to school, we were experimenting with this year where there wasn't really a disciplinary consequence to a student to be tardy to class. Instead, it was a academic consequence where so many tardies would come to absences, so many absences would come to the attendance policy. And it didn't appear to have a deterrent effect on students because there wasn't an immediate consequence for being tardy to class. So one of the only offenses really that I added was that if you're tardy to class, you're going to get, you know, within so many minutes, so many times you're gonna get a detention. Some of the other things that I added that were, we had been actively pursuing, but wasn't explicit in the handbook were things like loitering in the bathroom or loitering in the hallways where They're not necessarily tardy, maybe they asked to go to the bathroom and they've been gone for 15 minutes because they decided to hang out with a friend, yet that's lost instructional time that we want to make sure that we recoup. So all of the additions are really designed to keep students in class and keep them in class for as long as possible so that they can receive the maximum amount of instruction. But for the most part, everything is the same, just looks different and is just categorized differently.

Any questions on the handbook before I go back to the presentation?

Yeah, just on the handbook. So I had sent Dr. Cummings the list of the policies that would be needed in the handbook or ones that we had adjusted for your knowledge. Um, so competency determination, I think that that should belong in the handbook because that's new. Um, And then on page 16, you need to remove policy JICB. We've removed that policy from the school committee.

Okay.

On page 27, you referenced policy JICA in regards to the student dress code. Under that, you write students shall not wear clothing that causes disruption to the learning environment. We've removed that from the school committee policy. And then other policies that should be added that I told Dr. Cummings was the cell phone policy, JICJA. And with the whole artificial intelligence, we had ensured that it was done, especially for the handbook, JNDB, that should be referenced.

And

We never had it in the handbook, but I feel like it should be in it, JKAA. I told you about this physical restraint of students. We put it in the staff rights and responsibilities, but students might wanna also, that's it.

Those are all easy changes.

Yeah, it should be an easy fix.

Any other questions about the handbook? Okay, so I'm gonna go back to wellbeing. I don't know, I can't get it bigger, I'm sorry, Jay. So, wait.

View full screen on the top left. What happened? No, where it says, oh, network.

Wow. So I mentioned the reset day, that went very well. Kids enjoyed it, we did a survey after, they said we should do it again in March. So couples that we should do it in April to make it a monthly. Can you just give an overview of what the reset? Sure. So the students felt like they needed a break. So what we did, we almost did like a mini G term. We allowed them to choose 2 activities. That they felt would be a good reset for them. So the 1st activity was an hour. The 2nd activity was another hour. And then the 3rd activity is they had a mini pep rally, which I'm going to talk about. And so they came together to celebrate the spring sports. They came together to play games and compete with their teachers and play other kinds of games and listen to music. And so it was a very well received day. So we'll do it again next March during the half day.

Okay, thank you.

So in terms of well-being, we have some anticipated outcomes for next year. We're going to reinstitute our Gator Gab. I want to look at refining some transition programming from middle school to high school. I'd like to expand the student culture committee. I'd like to make it a little bit bigger than 12. And I think that will happen based on some of the events we start planning. They're going to have some more interest in it. I want to increase the community building events. And as I said, we'll maintain the March Reset Day. So we also worked pretty hard to help and support the staff well-being. What we did, well, the pictures I'll speak to first, we had a student-led teacher appreciation week. This is a picture on the bottom left of our students wheeling around a breakfast cart one morning to all of the teachers, which was very well received. We had a holiday gathering and then in the beginning of the year, we had a pretty big welcome back breakfast. Um, to continue to improve the staff culture committee, I asked Jason Jennings to help me run a committee. Um, and so we started the staff culture committee and, um, that committee has done a fantastic job. They've come up with great ideas to kind of, um, bring us together. We have mailbox buddies. My favorite is charcoal to read Wednesdays. Um, there's a music league, there's a walking club. So we're going to continue with that next year as well. I'm also trying to foster teacher leadership. You're looking at a picture of Amanda Ren and Sarah Bruns who are English teachers. They took the lead on a new program I started this year for our new staff. So I found that the staff coming into the district are not as well versed in certain professional learning that the Grafton teachers are. And I thought it was important for us to kind of teach new staff the way we do business in Grafton. So I started the new staff support, but thought it would be really good for that, that learning to come from the teachers themselves who are really in it every day. So this is a picture of Amanda and Sarah doing a workshop with them. And as you know, Jason and Ryan are helping me with committees. So next year, we're gonna continue our work. We're gonna revitalize the Sunshine Society. I'd like to expand the staff culture committee and teacher leadership. We'll continue with the student-led teacher appreciation. Staff was very, very appreciative of that. And as well, they are very appreciative of our unified admin team. As you know, we created... a community engagement team with a staff of beat reporters. The beat reporters have really done an unbelievable job. Facebook went from zero to over 600, I think I'm at 630. Instagram went from zero to I think it's about 650. You may know they were interviewed by the community advocate and I sat in on that interview and I started to tear up when they said they felt like they were more connected to their school and they knew people and things they would not otherwise know. And that to me was an unintended but fantastic outcome. So what's going to happen next year? Oh, I'm going to get into it in a slide. Just give me one second. The other thing I changed this year to build and support our community is the weekly newsletter. I changed the format of it. I think it's really hard to parent teens. And I made it 20 year olds, but it was not easy. And I thought, you know what? Maybe we help parents. We support parents with tips and ideas in the worth sharing section to support their, their children at home. And in addition to that, I started the Gator spotlight so that we are focusing on 1 main fantastic happening in the building. Um, we also did a homecoming pep rally. Um, we are going to move toward a pep rally during homecoming because we want to increase belonging, inclusivity and collective identity in the building. This is just a picture of our small pilot. Um, pep rally, and it went very well. It was a lot of fun. So our anticipated outcomes is I'm going to have a community engagement assistant. So at the prom, the young lady that is on my left is Kaylin Banks. She came to me and asked if she could do an independent study with me next year. And I said, I know exactly what you can do. Um, that community engagement team is fantastic, but it's become a full time job. So she's gonna be my assistant, which I'm very excited about. She's already made it a 100% better. She's got a school group going. She's already sent a form out from, um, for more reporters. It's gonna be fabulous. Um, I'd like to change the worst sharing section in my newsletter. to be a series or a theme. I played around a little bit with that this year. Patty Champy helped me put together a series on supporting students' anxiety. I'd like to continue to do that. I've had three or four emails come in from parents thanking me for that. And then last but not least, we're very interested in expanding the community building experiences throughout the school. So essentially next year, what we're looking for, our vision is to foster academic excellence through cognitively rigorous learning experiences and ethical staff student use of AI while cultivating an environment where student voice and staff well-being drive a unified, connected school culture.

And with that, we can take questions.

Yeah, thank you both for this great presentation. It's good to see you. And I love hearing all about the interaction and getting student voice. I think that's so important throughout our whole district, but especially at the high school level. And I think for this is a question for both of you as you're both newer to your roles this year. I mean, Tracy, you've been many roles throughout the district, but this was your first year kind of leading. What was something that you learned this year surprised you most when taking on the role?

That's a great question.

That's very good.

Honestly, what comes to mind is how much I missed working with teens. Um, I think 1 of the for many years, I was asked to be a principal and go back in time many years. I was asked to be the principal in the show for regional high school. And I would say, no. Because I didn't, I love the kid part. I love the kid part and the instructional leadership part and I could do both. Um. And so when. I decided to step into the role. I was a little afraid about how am I going to stay connected with kids? Um, but then I figured out pretty quickly, you know, I'm going to start a principal advisor group and, you know, very quickly I have learned how to stay very connected to kids. And it's been. I've really missed them. I've enjoyed being back in a high school with teenagers.

Yeah, they're great. Yeah.

I have been very impressed by the parents here at Crafted. I came from the Wachusett School District, a much larger school. We had a lot of parental involvement, but it was very siloed. So if your student was in the theater, you were with the theater boosters. If your student was in football, you were with the football boosters. Here, I've been amazed at how much the parents do for the students here, be it homecoming, Prom the breakfast, the seniors, all of that stuff in my past experience was previously handled by advisors and through the class. And every time that I heard that this was. Parents doing it all from start to finish has just absolutely floored me. And I think that's a dedication to that that these parents have.

to grafton and to their students and it's just it's absolutely amazing yes and we're very appreciative of liz binney for yeah really i don't think she sleeps i and she's just now she could have been a designer like she's got so many talents it's she's very impressive big shoes to fill

She is very impressive. And also, though, kind of piggybacking on that, it was nice to I liked that the teacher appreciation was run by students as somebody who used to do that. It's, it's nice. And the and the students can can take that on. I'm sure they had parental help with things for sure. But it was nice. I like that change. Because they're the, they can do it. So that's nice. And it's, it's, it's a great community graft. And we're very lucky to have them. We're lucky to have both of you. Thank you.

Yeah, Tracy. Well, you missed working with teens, do you miss living with them? I've got three. And they're boys, so you're used to that. Three boys. That's a great question. Yeah, well, 20 year olds come with their own challenges, for sure. No, but seriously, when we're looking at the AI, I know that DESE has a course now for AI in regards to teachers. Are the teachers taking that course?

So we're gonna look at potentially having them take it as background knowledge before we dive in deeper. So one of the things I always have to worry about is timing around that. So I might have them do it during department meeting time and then piggyback into some faculty meeting time to kind of digest that and then move forward.

Okay. Another question, and you said you love it, Mr. GHS, that was started by my graduating class. Oh, wow. As a joke.

Yeah.

Um, and over the years, as graft and kind of years away from he, him, her, she has there been thought and getting rid of the Mr.

Yes, we talked on this about doing Mr or Ms. And the principal's advisory group did some discussion among their peers, and they felt that there no girl was going to be willing to get up on that stage. And. fool around for lack of a better word. So they dropped it. They wouldn't do it.

Even like changing it to like Top Gator or something like that, totally rebrand it.

Yeah, we can absolutely talk about that.

Yeah, because I just feel like with the amount of students at the high school, I think that it would be good the way that our committee has kind of led to get away from that. I think that's a great idea.

Absolutely bring that to the principal's advisory group.

Would be good. And then the other question I have is in regards to, So we know we talk a lot about homework, I guess, and the policies for homework. Is that being expressed to the teachers The homework policy, because as we've heard for years and years and years, there's a no homework policy, which was never actually the case. Right, Laura. Yeah, correct. But what has been happened is over the years and years and years is you hear there's no homework. There's no homework. There's no homework policy and that's not even. remotely the case. And Laura and I worked this year on changing that policy. So we just like to make sure that that that it's ensured that teachers are well aware that there's not a no homework policy and that homework can be graded should like should be used to help support students. Laura. Right.

I have a comment.

I really liked many things about what you're working on, but I really liked the focus on the professional culture and the culture within the teachers, because I know how easy it is. It's like, you know all the people in your math department and those are the people you talk to. And it's like going on a walking group with other people and just getting to know them. The connection would be amazing. I just, you know, it's those simple things where belonging is 90% of the battle, right? We all work harder if we feel like we belong. And I just, I just loved that. So, and the students, I obviously want them to feel like they're belonging as well, but to remember that the teachers need to feel that as well. It felt really good. Absolutely.

I mean I was kind of thinking along the same like you know what are we doing to reach children or not children teenagers who like may not have like a robust friend group maybe they have like one or two you know peers that they that they like or you know can hang around with so are we doing anything to like encourage them to be like more social yeah

That was the intention of the game night during homecoming. Um, so we were going to set it up and if I'm hoping I'm saying this correctly, it's been a little bit, but we're going to set it up so that you, there could be only a certain number of each grade level at a game. So you couldn't like, I couldn't take my friend Anthony with me and go from every game. If you know what I mean, we, you can only have 1 or 2 at each and that would kind of force their hand to get to know other people. Yes.

So what about the kid who's like, I have no one to go with, so I'm just not gonna go? Is the faculty kind of watching and what's happening in the friend groups, et cetera, to see who's falling through the cracks because they're just kind of standing alone? Yeah, I imagine you can speak to that.

Yes. So that's I mean, that a lot of that is the daily work that I do. So one of the things that I love and I hate is cafeteria duty. I hate it because it all of a sudden takes me out of something that I was in the middle of doing. But I love it because I can see everybody who is there at those lunches. So who is sitting alone? who is not sitting alone anymore, who appears to be fighting with a significant other that they just had. What I usually do with each of the lunches is I usually spend time with the students that are the ones who aren't having a large social friend group. So I'm talking to the students that are sitting maybe over by the auditorium. I'm talking to the students that are sitting alone. We have one student that perpetually is playing by himself on his iPad every day. That's my job is to check in with those students on a daily basis to see how are they doing. And it pays dividends because then when they're having issues, they know that I'm a safe person. I'm another person that they can seek out besides their counselor, besides a trusted teacher. The teachers really are kind of, they're fantastic. And they are who the students go to first for most of their issues. And it's been good. It's been able to build strong relationships with the students that don't have a robust friend group that maybe aren't on a large athletic team.

Great. Beyond that, how are we doing with students being bullied? I mean, that's a bit of an issue, correct? Like how is bullying at the high school currently?

Nowhere being an issue at the high school. So it's, honestly, I have far less reports of bullying than I've had in past schools and in past areas. Usually, and especially as I deal primarily with the 11th and 12th graders, they're mostly peer issues rather than necessarily bullying. So somebody is upset with somebody else, they say things, the other student is actively says things back, and we end up with multiple exchanges between the students. And that's where I spend a lot of my time is either trying to mediate with the students, determining can we get past this? Are we friends? Are we former friends? What do we want going forward? I'll be honest, I've dealt with maybe one or two things this year that I had classified kind of in power school as bullying, where we really had a power differential where one person was repeatedly going after or picking on somebody else. Most of my issues are peer conflicts. And I'm not using that as a euphemism instead of bullying. It really is a two-way street where people are not getting along for a variety of reasons. And then we're trying to teach them, this is real life, what do we do now? Do you want to keep the friendship. Here's what we need to do. Do you not want to keep the friendship. Now let's talk about what that loss feels like and what we're doing next. So that's that is a lot of the work that I do on a daily basis.

One more question in regards to classes. So with the override going through it's every intention right that we're gonna be keeping French at the high school. Right. Yeah. Yes. OK.

were you thinking of adding any other languages i mean that'd be great yeah we can get a giant over mandarin um just to kind of piggyback off um what christy had said about the bullying like art is anybody bringing you like any like um social media like pictures or anything that they experience on social media, like Instagram, about any type of bullying with students from Grafton?

Almost none. Any of the parts of social media that are getting brought in are existing. conflicts that two peers are having and then they are taking it from the school to social media back to the school back to social media and it's not what i'm not seeing that i have seen in other places is kind of that group gang up where somebody's on social media and then six or seven people like you know chime in saying oh yes and they add things i have not encountered that this year i've encountered the same people going at each other repeatedly but not that Not that peer group that then all chimes in where we have, like, a large group of people against 1 person where they're being isolated or ostracized. At least it hasn't been brought to me.

Sure. Yeah, thank you.

I wanted to just pivot and I know we talked about kind of the consequences and I definitely don't think it's all on you guys but we were talking I think I don't know who came but we've been talking about kind of the increase in absenteeism with students kind of the students are of English as a second language and talking about how some of the federal may have been working with that but how are we and some of our our special ed students and how are we working with absenteeism beyond consequences, right? Because it's kind of a double edged sword.

So that's a really good question. So absenteeism is something I and the counselors work on. So the counselors are usually the first round letting me know that why a student is out. Many times we have students out for a variety of very legitimate reasons. I swear our students are getting injured more on like any of the sporting events that I've ever seen. I've seen so many kids taped up. But we have also a number of students that are well, not a number. We have a small amount of students that are school appointed with the students when they're kind of a 9th and 10th grade. I've worked with Mr. he's very good about working with the counselors and then following up with several family conferences. And when those aren't successful, then having unfortunately to follow up through the court system with the file with the filing of a. When we get to 11th and 12th graders, it's a different story. So they, a lot of them have already aged out of what would qualify for a CRA and they're not coming for different reasons. Some of them are because of they're working. Some of them are because they are supporting their families or some of their families are demanding that they have, they have other demands of them. So that is a similar strategy where our first go-to is always conferencing with the family and seeing if we can meet their needs. and then trying to figure out what the underlying causes of why they're not there. And then being able to support their decisions. When dealing with an 18 year old that has decided, my job right now is more important to me than finishing high school, We have those conversations with them about why a high school diploma is of primary importance, but then we're also supporting them saying, okay, there's other things for us to do. So let's talk about what is the best course for you? Do you want to take a high center GED? Let's take some practice tests, which we were offering through our library through Miss Keller to actually say, you think that this is going to be a better option? Let's try this. Let's practice this. For some it is, for some it isn't. So each intervention for a student that's not coming to school really has to be tailored to them and their situation because they're all different. They are, and we've used, I think, every approach that we've had available to us.

Great, thank you. That's a great answer. Good answer. Appreciate your work. Thank you.

We've gotten some messages from folks in the community concerned about achievement and scores and things. So I'd love to hear how, as we think about cognitive rigor and depth of knowledge, how the way we're sort of assessing students is changing and is, Are those assessments, are these new types of assessments sort of giving us a better or a fuller picture than a number might?

I would say so. Yes. You know, I think I think the concern, I don't know if they're referring to scores or something along those lines, but the concern with now is that doesn't count. So it's not very motivating for a team to really do their best. So that's 1 of the reasons why I want to move toward a common assessment because. that's really gonna be benchmark data that we can use to look at, is our instruction working? Because the common assessment will count toward their average, toward their grade, so they'll be very much invested in it. and it will be created together by the team of teachers. So if you have a biology common assessment, it's the biology teachers creating it based on the power standards in the curriculum. And they will look at the different depth of knowledge. And then that will give us information. I think that's really valid that we could then look at our instructional practices and our scope and sequence.

That's great. I just think those are questions we're gonna get a lot. So it's helpful to sort of hear the evolving thinking on how we're gonna assess the students. That's great.

Go ahead. Do you really think that kids think it doesn't count? I mean, the Abigail Adams Award is based still on MCAS.

Do you feel that the students just don't care when they're taking the MCAS, really, at this point? I think now that they know that it is not a condition for their graduation, their feeling about doing well on it has changed. Even those going for like the Abigail Adams? I don't know if all of them are going for the Abigail Adams.

OK. Do you think that that award is going to change over time? I would imagine so. That I don't know.

kind of piggybacking more on and I know we don't know anything yet and we talked about the portrait of the graduate which I loved seeing that that it was a great image and I love thinking about that as a district thinking about what might be coming from the state about graduation requirements and I know we still don't have anything but one I think of the things that's being recommended is that final kind of capstone project is that something or you're gonna just wait until you have real instructions or have you been thinking or discussing about any kind of how things might change so we actually are gonna wait yes I don't want to get too smart I think that's very smart yeah yes I'm still waiting for the cell phone policy to be decided exactly the last I heard it might not be until November yeah so I

Yeah, so we're going to wait. Definitely going to wait. Yeah. Great. Thanks. Thank you.

Anyone have anything else?

Thank you both. This was great. Thank you. Always good to hear what's happening. I love sort of wrapping up the school year with you guys. Yeah.

Congratulations. I know this is a difficult, not difficult, but a lot goes on. Busy. Busy. Very busy. Yeah. Factful. Congratulations. And we're looking forward to your first graduation.

Oh, yeah.

I know. It's exciting.

Can't wait to see what you wear.

Oh, yeah.

Should we do subcommittees? Yeah, you were no, no, we weren't the track on things. No, that was 2 years ago.

2 years. Yeah, we were not on this last year. We didn't even have it last year committee.

You were put on it. It didn't happen. Did you were you?

Yeah, she was. Yeah. No, because I remember because I got insulted online about that committee that I specifically said I would not be on it.

Yeah, she wasn't on tape on that.

I just don't like being because we didn't meet and I would have met if I was on a committee.

Yeah, I think that it had been pulled last year. So maybe it was just a carryover from the year. Maybe there was nothing last year for that. Yeah. Okay.

Let's talk about CIPC. Let's just go in order. CIPC, I was invited to a meeting next week. I'm happy to continue to do it unless I would like to see it be more, that's Capital Improvement Planning Committee. I'd like to see it be more active. I'd like to stay involved in it unless somebody has a burning desire to be involved. But I feel like the town and the schools have capital needs, so, okay. I can do it with you.

It's one person. Oh, it's one?

Yeah. Oh, sorry. I was happy to, if somebody's been interested in capital, I'm happy to pass it along, but if not, I'm happy to do it. Okay, I'll keep doing it. Policy, are you both wanting to continue?

I think that we should change up policy. Laura and I are both up for reelection next year. Okay. I think it would be ideal if we didn't...

I'm happy to draw policy. I did say it would be my last year, and as Christine noted earlier in the meeting, I've been on it a long time, so I would never want to be accused of not giving others opportunity, although I've worked with many people over the years on policy, so I don't think I've held anyone back, but if I have, I apologize. So I'm happy to step off.

I'm definitely, it is a CAPS, you know, kind of a big part of what we do. So I'd like other people to know it. But I also, Christy, I know it's something that's very important.

Yeah, I'm happy also to step off. I don't, whatever, if Laura wants to stay on, it doesn't matter to me.

I like some continuity if one of you stays.

We've cleaned it all up.

I assume, Christy, you want to be on the budget subcommittee?

Yes.

But I mean, that's also a big, you know, part of our charge.

So right policy at this point is, is not what it once was. I don't mind staying. That's fine. I can stay on it.

I mean, I'm happy to stay on it, but again, I was just, again, called out for it. So I, and you, I mean, clearly I've been overstaying my welcome on many committees. That's how I feel right now.

I did not mean to call, I wasn't calling you out at all. I was asking if you both planned to stay because I assumed that you both would. So if you misinterpreted anything I said, I apologize.

If Laura wants to give it up, I'll be happy to.

I thought you were both going to stay on. So there you go.

Great, Stella.

I'd like to learn more about policies all your work go ahead it's a very organized I just want to say I feel like I mean I'm sure Christy could handle both policy and budget subcommittee simultaneously but I don't necessarily think you should be on both of them so I wanted to give you the opportunity to sort of like where would you prefer to be. And that's not a hard and fast rule. That's just sort of my impression that those are both big time commitments. And they're sort of our our big charge. So it would be nice if the those responsibilities are spread out a little bit lower can fix the policy.

She wants it.

Oh, whatever you want. All right. I might I might just tap you for some really organized it. Well, that's not my strength, but I do feel where my strength lies on policy is looking at the policies and thinking about them and I would love to bring you on Stella. But again. I don't want to.

Sounds like Laura and Stella.

That sounds pretty beautiful. Perfect.

Oh, for me.

Okay. Christy, I hope you'll be okay working together with me on budget. Yeah, that's fine. Subcommittee, great.

Yeah, I was looking at the charge though on that. Do we have to approve that right now? Because I just saw that. We're gonna talk about it. Just an hour ago.

Yes, I thought it was posted. I thought I posted it in the folder. I just posted it in my own drive. So we can also review the charge at the next meeting.

Yeah, that would be good. I haven't even looked at it, honestly. Okay. Fee subcommittee?

I think you guys are in the middle of your work. I wouldn't want to change that at all. Stella? CPAC liaison? Yeah. Continue on that? Sure. Okay.

Are you enjoying signing the warrants? I love signing the warrants in a really weird way. I really like it.

I'm wondering if that should change over to either Leora or myself because that would kind of go hand in hand with the budget.

I would say when we establish a subcommittee and it's not in the rules. So absolutely. We didn't want the chair to be the one doing the, I don't remember why. So I'll do that. You should do it.

I think that makes sense. I just think the chair. Yeah.

I remember how it was and maybe we just kind of add that into the description.

Yep, great idea. Okay. Health and wellness. Rebecca, do you want to?

I would like to stay on health and wellness and I've spoken to Jay about where I'm hoping that's going to go. So I'm excited to be on that next year, hopefully.

Does somebody else want to be involved in that? I feel like if I take a budget.

I wouldn't mind being on it unless somebody else wants to.

I think it would be great if you would.

Yeah, I've been on it. I like it a lot.

I think I have thoughts too. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Before we get into negotiations, I noticed that the operating thing is not on here.

I know. I'm aware. It should be. It should be. Let's bring something back to the next meeting, the updates, and then we'll review it and see. It may be finished at that point, and if not, we can take new people to be on it if you like.

So also, Madam chair, I had put, I, maybe I didn't put it in. Did you guys see my school committee? I did not. So I saw that one here. What you did, I put it in, you put it in several days ago.

You did. Yes. I'm looking in the folder right now and I don't even see it. Oh yes, I do. Okay.

So I can talk about it next.

Um, can we do that in the budget one next?

Yeah, absolutely. Let's do that. I have, um, yeah. Um, Can I just, is it okay if I give a quick thought behind it? Sure. So my thought was, I kind of changed my thinking about it. I did a lot of digging. Grafton, again, we're just out on our island. It looks like a lot of school committees have communication subcommittees. It's not helping the superintendent, which was kind of, I think, our original thought, because that's obviously not our job. But it's communicating the good work that we do as a committee. And you'll see it's in the scope and we can edit next week or whatever. And it's not meant to take over the chair as being a spokesperson or anything like that. But like Franklin, Sudbury, they do newsletters, highlighting the And I think 1 of the challenges is kind of getting that information out beyond the school committee or not submitting school. Community, because we could do emails, but, like, how do we, if we wanted to talk about budget to the larger community, where those challenges are lying beyond social because that. It's tricky, but we can talk about that. So that was just my thought about what we do, and it can certainly grow. But at the very least, I think I put in something like a newsletter to put out just quarterly, nothing crazy, but just, hey, here's our new AI policy. Here's our new things like that. So I'm excited to talk it through with you guys and get your feedback and hopefully get that started this year would be a great thing.

Great. Okay, so we'll talk operating principles and communications subcommittees at the next meeting.

And budget, I guess. And budget. And the budget, yep. Okay, great.

Okay. Perfect. All right, so negotiations subcommittees. I would like to stay on teachers again if I could.

I would love to be on teachers. I also would love to be on teachers.

Okay. So two teacher, two people on teachers.

No, since Rebecca and I haven't done it, maybe. Yeah.

Rebecca and Christy. Still want to do paras with me? Okay. It's a little hard. Yeah. It's really hard for us to be- Are you sure you want to do that? I do not.

I did paras last time.

Yeah. So I'm happy to do whatever. One of my really good roles is I don't have any skin in the game. So I can bring, I mean, as much as I can, because that's not my strength, but I can come in with just a, you know, a non-personal.

Right.

Yeah. And I think it was difficult.

It was difficult. I actually was originally on it and chose not to just because I want to give the paraprofessionals who work with my child everything in the world.

Well, as we should. And they deserve it, right?

Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, but it's a different...

I think it's harder when you're looking. I mean, it's just hard. It's not an easy any of these.

No, right. Because we appreciate all of these people.

I'm happy to be a utility player on any of these that is needed.

So I'm happy I could Paris last time. So if you Rebecca wants it, that's fine. Okay.

Okay.

Laura and Rebecca are on paras. I'm happy to do custodians or nurses.

I'm happy to do custodians. I would bow out of nurses just because of personal relationship with one of the nurses. I don't, again, too much skin in the game. Okay.

I'm happy to take nurses. Do you want to do nurses with me?

Oh, sure. Yeah, I mean, nurses usually, I think they follow teachers pretty much. Yeah. I did custodian. Remember, didn't you and I do custodians?

We did custodians last year.

You're already on two. I'll do custodians. Okay.

And then Dr. Cummings, we just did that. Oh, right. Yeah, it's done. He's not on. He's not up.

Oh, wow. I only have one. All right. So custodians are Christy and Laura?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Okay.

Do you want another one? yeah i mean you're you have a lot on your yeah laura and i love working together we do we do yeah okay awesome

All right. What's next for us? I think it might be policy. I think it's policy. Oh, policy.

I'm going to let Christy take it one last time.

Well, do we need to talk about the future agenda at all?

Oh, yes.

We just added a couple subcommittees to that.

Yeah. I have something I would like to add. Yeah. And that would be, I'd like to do a post-mortem override a little bit. I want to make sure that we're in line on what is, if there's anything expected of us. I know the select board published some sort of, I don't know, letter idea or something. A letter of commitment. I don't know if that's been shared to us directly. And I would also really like to bring up, stealing from Victoria Duckworth, I would like to bring up working with other school committees in Central Mass to try to form a coalition. And we can talk about it again. I would really like to be a big part of that. I have that work and those relationships with a lot of people from my work on MASC. And I think that it would be really important. I've watched what the rural communities have done. I'm very concerned that this next round of funding, I know Senator Moore was online talking about it. is going to go to rural and I definitely know they need it. But just like we saw go to city, I just don't know who is advocating for us and there's stronger numbers. So Northbridge Upton, we all passed our override, thank goodness. Sutton, I know is talking, I don't know about it, maybe next year and obviously other communities, but like even starting with the four of us and checking in, I don't, you know, I mean, Westboro's hard. Shrewsbury's had overrides though. Seeing how we can maybe move this forward. Um, maybe we don't I mean, I just talked about it, but it wasn't on the agenda.

Is it like more past like the division four?

Division four runs the entire from top to bottom and it's all different like Worcester's in division four.

So more towns that look like us.

I would say I mean I would open it up I'd be happy to talk like open it up to anybody. I was thinking of starting small just because of relationships. but yeah, I mean, that's a great, I mean, the more the merrier, right. We don't want to close it. We need a large, so all these little towns, I mean, maybe just even looking at everybody who either passed or failed an override this past and getting us together. Right. Because we can talk on the postmortem, but you know, I can see the messaging stock, I think in a lot of ways, but there was also, there's still a lot of just, thoughts from the community. And it's going to get harder and harder. And we still are override dependent unless something changes. So I'd love for us to take a lead as Grafton. I mean, we are, I think in a good position to do so.

I think that's great.

That's my, um, just and I'd like us just to, I don't know if this even, and it can go hand in hand with the communication subcommittee and all these things, but just think and budget subcommittee, like, just post override. Like, what can we do differently than we did 6 years ago? You know, and again, we were, I mean, I think we, everybody forgot, but cobit really did. turn us you know we're still catching up on achievement we're still catching up on things um but i would love to just think about that and see what we can do with anything right and i think maybe like reaching out like even somebody like sutton if they're you know thinking about an override like what helped us what messaging you know oh sure yeah and we yeah yeah so i met with a lot i met with them at um and they were wanting to work together too so yeah i mean it can be more than it doesn't have to just be me but i'd love like when we can be here

Yeah. Another subcommittee.

Another subcommittee or something. I'd love a subcommittee.

I just think you have those relationships across MASC and I do think that there has to be critical mass in order for things to change at the state level. So it makes a lot of sense.

I just was really inspired when Rebecca and I went to the hearing at UMass, I was really inspired by the rural. And then when I was at one of my MASC board of directors meetings, they again were talking rural and I raised my hand and I said, you know, I'm concerned about Grafton and I was advocating for Grafton and they were like, yeah, you know, Grafton's kind of rural though. And I was like, no, we're not. We're not considered rural and we're going to get,

I mean, I'm very concerned we're going to get left behind.

I don't want us and I know we can all do and it's not on me by any means because that would be silly.

it's also a great time for that because so many towns just passed an override so it's like let's capitalize now while we're still because it's so easy as we've all seen to forget like oh we've got that override and now let's think about it in five years and like let's do it now i think we can well yeah we need to at least demonstrate more than and i think we've done some but we can do more so anyway i agree that's my thought and i talked a lot about it so i'll try to think of new things to talk about when we have it on the agenda when you have it on the agenda

Okay, I'll take- I can put together a scope of work.

Maybe after that meeting we'll do a scope of work, right? Let's see what's in it. Yeah, okay. Or not, feel free, bring something to the meeting.

You're right, you're right, you're right. No, I can get input from others and make the scope work. That's a good way to do it.

I will take a motion to approve the minutes of May 13th.

No, wait, back to the future agenda.

I didn't know that we were done with- Oh, I'm sorry, Kristen. I apologize.

Go ahead. Could we get on the agenda? We haven't had a superintendent report in the last two meetings, the last meeting.

Report it on.

There's nothing to be reported on?

No, I said what would you like reported on? And you don't have to answer tonight necessarily, but if anybody wants, I'm happy to.

We can make an update on what's happening with HR. I noticed that that position's been taken offline, so I don't know what you're doing with that.

Over the next two weeks, if you can just, collectively, are there any things you want updates on? Thrilled to do that.

We'll pull them together. We'll pull together a list. I know it used to just be like a standard agenda item.

And then sometimes we were literally, I think, making up things to report on if it was a standing agenda item. Trip over the kids, but...

Whatever, yeah, I'm more than happy to do that.

All right, great. Want me to end it here?

Yeah, sure. That would be nice.

Maybe the GMS roof update? A what? The GMS roof update, that would be a nice thing.

Yeah. Okay, anything else on agenda before we do minutes? Okay. Are you still thinking?

Madam Chair. Yes. I move that the committee accept the May 13th, 2026 minutes as written.

Second.

Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Okay, great. That was easy. Warrants, we don't even have any this time, so we're good. Policy.

All right, so that's my last one doing policy. We'll go. IH. I wish I'd gotten a gift. Yeah. She owes me a drink from doing the whole book with her, remember? All right, so IHBB, Gifted and Talented Education. This is a second read. I'd like to make a motion to accept IHBB, Gifted and Talented Education as a second read. Second.

All in favor? Oh, any discussion? All in favor? Great.

I'd like to make a motion to accept policy IKB homework. It's updated as a second read. Second.

Motion made and seconded. All in favor?

So MASC has updated some policies. That's what we're going into at this point. I'd like to make a motion to accept policy JFBB school choice. Second. As a first read, yes.

Any discussion? All in favor? Okay.

I'd like to make a motion to accept the first read of policy JKAA, physical restraint on students. Second.

Do we have that? Is that in the? It is. It's on the drive. It's in the drive.

The tabs, if you go to tabs. Yep.

Amazing.

Laura loves the tabs now. I do love the tabs. I do. Doing 300 policies we needed.

You guys might, if we hold this, I just want to spend more time on it. I think it's an important one.

We did send it to Nicole.

Right. Yeah.

She has reviewed it and it's the MASC version.

Yeah. We're happy to hold.

I'm sure it's fine. Yeah. I would like to spend time on that one if we can hold. Yeah.

Thank you. Just so you know, we did send it to Nicole. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. Right away, we did.

And it's gonna require two reads, so just so you know, it probably won't get done then before summer, just so you're aware.

It's fine, I'm just letting you know how that works.

Okay, next policy. This policy was updated by MASC and this is policy JLCD, administering medicine to students before I even take a motion. Well, I guess I'll take a motion. I take a motion for a first read of JLCD administering medicine to students. Second.

Sounds like there's discussion.

So there's a little bit of discussion. The only discussion is that MASC has updated this policy. In addition to that, we had Jackie, who's the head nurse, review it. She added some language in here to meet with our practice as well. So she is very confident in this policy at this point.

Right.

Can I ask a question which isn't about this policy, but to clarify sort of the next policy and how they relate to each other? Is the next policy specifically, because there's medications that are directly mentioned in this policy, and this next policy is medications that would be outside of that?

The next one is policy of students administering their own medication.

This is this one also. But this one has like inhalers and things like EpiPens. So I'm assuming that this means that the JLC DC is things outside of that scope.

I would have Yeah, I mean, I'd imagine. So like I said, Jackie reviewed all of this. And this is okay. Okay. We had never had the following policy prior. So this is new to MASC and Jackie was confident in both of these policies now as written that they exemplify the practice that we have at the Grafton Public Schools.

They might overlap perhaps a little bit.

They overlap a little bit. Yep, I mean, it's no problem that they overlap. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Yeah, right. There's not overlap. Yeah, there's not inconsistencies. Okay.

So the motion on the floor right now is for JLCD. Correct. Okay.

Any other discussion on that one? So it even says it's meeting the criteria, like it is kind of redundant a little bit.

Right. We had even asked Jackie if we needed the second one, but she said yes.

Thought it was worth having.

Because we never had the second one for this.

But I'm sure there are cases where the student has insulin or whatever.

I trust with what Jackie says on this.

Yeah, I do too.

So no, but good question.

Okay. So let's take a vote on JLCD. All in favor? Great.

I'd like to make a motion to accept policy JLCDC, self-administration and self-carry of medications.

As a first read, yeah.

As a first read, second.

Okay, motion made and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor?

No, I was just saying this kind of looks like also just that it is like how you do it versus how you do it. Yeah, yeah.

Is this the how, which usually we don't- We don't usually do, right.

Like I said, MASC, this is new to them, this is new to us.

But I also feel like this is a case where you would want some parameters around the how. Right. Again, if the nursing staff is comfortable with it, I'm comfortable. All in favor? Great.

Next, I'd like to make a motion to accept KBG, Parent Advisory Councils. This is a first read. Sorry.

Any discussion? Do we know what they changed? Because this existed, right?

Yeah, well, if you scroll down, I have the original here.

Yeah.

I didn't do a red line on it.

Oh, no, I see, though. Okay, more detail. Get it. Any other discussion? All in favor? Great.

And then last, this is a policy we've had where updating it based on some How do you want to afford this more?

I just we realized something came up and we realized we had thought this was a part of the policy and it isn't. So just some of the major the last paragraph we added to it. We wanted. Building principals to have eyes on advertisers that are advertising to our students. And sponsorships. And sponsorships. So anything, and I know, so like things that go on signs just at big major events, just let the principals have a second set of eyes because I think we all get asked, we're so excited to get sponsorships and get the money and we're running a million miles an hour as parents. It's nice to just have that outside view be like.

Yeah, maybe not a beer ad on the field. Exactly, or maybe.

Right. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. And beyond that, it's like even just any sponsorship, even if they don't advertise at the school, because then once somebody sponsors you, then they can say like, proud sponsor of the graft in public schools. We don't really need.

So just running.

So sponsorships and fundraising like this, you sort of need building. Approval and then any larger structures would need school committee approval, which we thought we had had, I think, at 1 point. Yeah, we did. And I think that when all the policies get changed over the versions, that was changed. That was a, it was our own version, I believe, at 1 point. And then when we switched over to, they did not have that because permanent structures, if you recall, Dr Cummings used to send us emails.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when we had talked about that, just in general, it's not even yet. So I think it's just a best practice and we're not trying to add guardrails or anything.

Well, no, although guardrails aren't bad.

I mean, maybe not guardrails, but like speed bumps, I guess. We're not trying to make it more difficult. We just, at least for those internal, just getting that like, Hey, yeah, but I'm okay. Comfortable with that in my school.

At some point we're going to have to, I think define that a little, a little more for the principles. Okay, the way I play out, they would like with the advertising, I was sending initially every everything and then I might have just done this on my own. But with, um, the boosters club, I said, send everything to me, but Gilmore construction. I didn't think anybody would. Right. Nothing yet has come up. That's like, what do we do? But when that does happen, that's going to be. Right that's where we don't have any guidance and if we leave it to the principles and the principles are great, but you've got 6 different people.

Sure. I actually didn't think off the top of my head to me, which I think is absolutely fair. Appropriate. Right? Right.

And I'm waiting for you, which is okay.

I'm going, I mean, I think we want beyond you, but marijuana shops probably are not. But whatever that is, I think that or liquor stores or, you know, things that we wouldn't want.

I think the new subcommittee, we can maybe put some language around it and bring it back.

For the committee, well, I'm really it could be in the policy, but. To have some thought, like, behind the scenes, at least if the policy dictates that goes to the principle, which makes sense to me, giving the principles and even the superintendent to some degree, some kind of guidelines.

Right, well that, yeah, would be more, then that's hard. We don't typically define those things in the policy. That's a procedural thing and not a policy. The policy states that the district reserves the right to deny and prohibit sponsorship, advertisements, donations, and partnerships involving any company or organization. So that gives you the right to deny it. But stating how you wish to deny it, that's procedural and that's on kind of how you would define that out to the principals. As a, it's a operational thing, not a school committee. Could you have almost like a working document of, like, approved? Well, you'd have yeah, you have to have, like, we've approved these and so these are clearly approved.

Yeah, because we see the same ones over and over. If it's a bigger picture framework, that would be fine. If we know all liquor stores are all.

Right, that's what, I mean, so what would be helpful?

There are stores that sell liquor that you don't think of as liquor stores.

Right, like Wegmans, I think Wegmans is very, you know what I mean?

Right, but we don't, not like the townhouse, but you don't want the townhouse tavern being your sponsor on your kindergarten fun run.

I think that's the discussion.

Right, certainly Little League.

Right. Right. It is tough. It is tough. That's a tough one. Yeah. They allow kids in there, so. They definitely allow kids in there.

And definitely fundraisers have been there, you know, so I don't. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a tough one. I mean, typically what Laura and I discussed is like, if a child's not allowed to use it or touch it, maybe they shouldn't be sponsored by it. Right.

Yes, like we were doing, um, you know, the Washington D. C fundraising and the, the sponsors get to put their logo on a T shirt. So, you know, we all kind of like, let's not approach, um, you know, these types of establishments. Let's not go to our kids aren't walking around with a dispensary logo on their back.

I had a conversation with I was like, I know I talked about it with somebody not like outside the committee, but like,

Thank you. Driving me nuts. But I think that's more a procedural thing for Dr. Cummings than policy, per se.

But at one point, we did talk about us approving that for that reason.

Well, yeah, that's for permanent structures, and that's what's in this.

Yeah, fair. Yeah, I think it came up.

It only was for permanent structures.

Oh, was it around the, I thought it was for the. I remember seeing on the scoreboard.

Yeah, it was for permanent structures, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That's where I talked about that, but that, instead of everything going to you guys, it came to me. Yes, right. The big ones I said photo, remember that? Yeah, I remember, like the unibanks.

Yeah, so that's why we had added, it was kind of back towards the old policy. Major sponsorships or advertising displays, including but not limited to billboards, scoreboards, field signage, or other prominent installations still require the approval of the school committee. Okay.

I think this is fine.

yeah i'd kind of like to get this one done specifically before summer so that we can get this out to to ptos ptgs and such i also feel like if we approve it as is that stuff that is not in here that would be more procedural we can have infinite discussions about it if we want to and make make decisions later and then this is all set I don't want to put it in here anyway.

And this will be, as Laura knows, this now would be considered a Grafton-specific policy and would require annual review regardless. That's how policy works. Okay.

We should add that in. Yes, we should.

They have the list too. You can add it, yeah.

So where did we land? Because I feel like

Well, I feel like you guys all agreed.

So that is where this committee landed. How are you? Good. I mean, I guess the one thing I would say is what defines and I should have said this on the committee, but what defines a major sponsorship? Is there a definition? Is it above a certain amount of money?

Well, it kind of the way that I thought of it when we were putting it in was meaning like a large display, a permanent display.

Right.

Well, we can release that word if you want. Any advertising displays. So just, to me, it's more than a major sponsorship.

You want to just get rid of that word? So is it a $100,000 sponsorship by, you know what I mean? Well, yeah, I hear what you're saying. Or am I reading into it?

I mean, I have our PTT. I mean, there are examples here, right? Front fair flyer with our sponsors for this year.

Billboards, scoreboards, field signage are prominent installations.

Right. Yeah. Okay, okay.

So I think.

You feel good. Okay, cool.

I feel comfortable.

Great, awesome. great okay and also we're very grateful to anybody that donates or sponsors our schools and we're very appreciative of our ptos and ptgs and this is again not meant to um not meant to prohibit people no it's no no it's just meant to put in sometimes it's just that and i know like i remember when i was chair i used to get like god bless brent brenda plain who would call me at home and be like laura like maybe we shouldn't do this and i'd be like oh good

thought you know because what did I know so that's all I'll take a vote all in favor of approving this KHB All right, we do not have correspondence. We do not need executive session. I have been adjourning without a vote, but I think we should vote to adjourn. The other committees do it, and I would like to, so I would like a motion to adjourn.

Madam Chair, can we just, before we go, which is the class of 2026?

That's right, we won't have a meeting before the graduation. Happy trails? Yes. I thought you did, but yeah. So class of 2026, you have done amazing things and we're also proud of you and we wish you the best. Have a wonderful graduation. Have a wonderful Bon Voyage.

Be safe, make good choices.

Be safe, make good choices. I'm also gonna give a plug for the clickers from Groton that are lost still from the town meeting. If you have them, you can drop them in the red box outside. No questions asked. We wanna get those back to our friends in Groton, so.

And a shout out to Fun Fair.

And a shout out to Fun Fair this weekend. Saturday, 10 to three. Speaking of RPGs and their hard work.

Like if you could give a shout out to all the people that came out to vote.

Yeah, I think that's awesome. Please, Christy, give a shout out.

Oh no, you are the chair.

But we're a committee. Yes, it was an amazing turnout and obviously a result that we're very happy with as a committee and no matter how you voted, thank you for participating.

Yeah, but thanks for the support.

Yes.

We'll be good stewards.

All right. Madam Chair. Yes. I would like to make a motion that we adjourn this evening. Second.

Motion made and seconded. All in favor? All right. Good night, Grafton.