 Okay. Let's get started. I call this meeting to order. We are now in a special meeting for the purposes of holding a public hearing on school choice. Let me just remind everybody that we are required by law to vote on school choice every year. And our policy file JFBB is a policy of the school district not to admit non-resident students under the terms and conditions of the Inter-District School Choice Law. The decision must be reaffirmed annually prior to June 1st by a vote of the school committee following a public hearing. So right now we are doing the public hearing. Is there anybody here to speak with regards to the Arlington Public Schools participation in the Inter-District School Choice Program? Seeing none, I conclude the public hearing. Do I hear a motion? So moved. The motion would be to reaffirm our policy JFBB and not participate in school choice. Motion by Mr. Heiner, second by Ms. Starks. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? It's a unanimous vote. I need a motion to adjourn this special meeting. So moved. Moved by Mr. Heiner, second by Ms. Starks. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? I so declare it. It is now 635. We are going to open the regular meeting. The first item is public participation. Do we have a list? Ms. Fitzgerald, is there a first name on the list? Mariam Stein. Let me remind everybody that we allocate no more than three minutes per speaker and we do not customarily comment back to speakers in public participation. Ms. Stein. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm here representing the superintendent's diversity advisory committee. We meet with the superintendent every four to six weeks. We want to thank her for her openness and for her time. We collaborate with the superintendent in a variety of ways. One is to increase the number of applicants of color for professional positions and among other things that includes an annual diversity coffee social for interested candidates of color. We talk about retaining teachers and administrators of color in the school system about expanding cultural competence in the district and we discuss ways that the school experience for METCO students can be enhanced. The members of the superintendent's diversity advisory committee include nine community members, some of which are here tonight. Do you want to raise your hands? We have representatives from the vision 2020 diversity task group of which I'm one, the Arlington Human Rights Commission, Arlington's Equal Opportunity Commission, the Arlington Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee and our program of today's students and tomorrow's teachers known as TSTT. We also have two school committee members, Bill Hayner and Judd Pierce and Arlington Public School administrators Rob Spiegel and Margaret Cradle Thomas, the METCO director. Some of our members couldn't be here tonight but wanted to. We appreciate Dr. Brody's invitation to contribute our suggestions to the draft of the district goals for the upcoming school year and we thank her for including some of our thoughts in her proposal to you. I've given you all a sheet which includes in, I gave that out to everyone, which includes in bold and underlined Dr. Brody's suggestions in her draft and there are a few other things in caps that we were hoping would be included as well. The big item that we'd like to talk about tonight and Pearl Morrison would like to do that is the fact that METCO is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2016 and we think it would be really important for the school district to acknowledge that and Pearl will speak to that. Okay, okay. Next, let me just make an announcement before we go further. As school committee chairman I have, go ahead you can sit down. I have a double commitment and I need to go and represent the committee at the touchdown club Ostergren award so I'm going to pass the gavel on to our vice chair who will continue the meeting. I will return as soon as I am done conveying our best wishes to that group. Okay, so next on the list is Pearl Morrison. Good evening committee. Superintendent Brody thank you for allowing us to come before you. I think my major concern this evening I know it is in regards to METCO. I lived in Allington 50 years ago when METCO was invited to participate in the Allington public schools. The school committee voted to invite METCO to the Allington public schools so they may savor an exceptionally honorable outstanding education. So I want to bring to your attention at this 50th anniversary. My wish is that you would include this additional item, item 6 is my wish. Item 6 reads 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the Allington public school invitation to the METCO program to become a part of the educational community. We will continue to examine and improve the practices and procedures that guarantee unfettered access to all academic and extracurricular resources that ensure a school experience that fulfills, that fulfills the promises and expectations of these learners. We did give them promises. They come to us with expectations. My wish is that this become item 6. However, I understand there may be some pushback on that. But at least I would like for the school committee to do something this year across the board, across the grades, across curricula to acknowledge the program that the METCO students now at the same time saying that I know in our heart we want the METCO students to be considered Allington public school students. But perception is reality. We refer to them, I know as METCO students, we have a METCO co-ordinated, we have a METCO bus, we have these things. So therefore that's reality. So my desire is to include this as an item. But at the very least for those of us around this horseshoe and the citizens and residents of Allington to have some recognition now, you know, the superintendent knows that her committee, her advisory committee, we do not ask anything of her that we are not willing to help with. So we stand available to be of some assistance. I've asked Ms. Creel Thompson if she would help me to search out past students and the Martin Luther King program of 2017. Is it 2017? What is it? 16. I think I'm not that far ahead. 2016 I am working on a program just devoted to METCO. Now the other thing which I passed over, but on item two you'll see in caps our suggestion. It says we recommend additional wording indicated here in caps to the current goals that reads, students will receive increased support for their social emotional needs and recognition of the interconnection between the social emotional needs of students and academic challenges of the curriculum. And we are adding in particular, all students, including those in the METCO program will receive equal resources to support their participation in educational learning, academic support and extra curriculum activities. There are some things often that present present themselves and the students are not able to fully participate in those resources that we have in Allenton. So that is my participation in this evening. And I thank you in advance for any efforts that you're going to put forward. I know you will put it forward because it's the Allenton public school system way. Thank you, Ms. Morrison. Next on the list is Barbara Bolts. Hi, I think most of you know me. I'm Barbara Bolts. And in addition to being on the superintendent's diversity advisory committee, I am a member of the town manager's equal opportunity advisory committee. And while that committee cannot do anything to affect the schools, we do try to keep track of what each other are doing and make these goals for the town. Tonight I'd like to talk a little bit about goal two of the 2014, no, 15, 16 goals, the cultural competency. And you will see in item three, we are recommending that you add the words you will see underlined and capitalized so that it would read, teachers will be provided professional development in cultural competence to enhance their capacity to recognize, understand and address the emotional needs of our diverse student enrollment. Classrooms all across the country are becoming increasingly diverse. And National Education Association president, Dennis van Rookle, has noted that education with the educators, with the skills, knowledge and attitudes to value the diversity among students will contribute to an educational system designed to serve all students well. It's a key factor. This is not a quote from from the president. The previous sentence was it's a key factor in enabling educators to be effective and with students from cultures other than their own educators have to recognize their own cultural identity and then recognize the cultural identity of others and be able to interact with students at their level. And so I know that there is some cultural competency, at least I believe there is requirement in some of the recertification that teachers have to go through, but that's not enough. We need to have it written into our goals so that all the teachers receive this training and are able to interact with the students at this level. So again, I do, we all appreciate being able to come here for the public participation. And I thank all of you and we thank Dr. Bodie for her help in getting these things together. And I hope that you will approve the changes that that we are recommending. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Bolts. Next on the list is Alan Schwam. Is that okay? Okay, good. Okay. No problem. Okay. So next on the list is my can't my ability to read maybe begins with the C. Oh, okay. Molly Lyonson. Okay, I'll speak for both of us. My name's Neva Corbo Houdak and I am a stratton parent. My have a son who is currently in second grade and a daughter who is very enthusiastic about starting kindergarten in the fall. And I've communicated via email with some of you and I appreciate your time and your attention. I'm here tonight, particularly to thank the facilities subcommittee for scheduling school committee special meeting on Tuesday, May 26 that stratton that I and my fellow parents are looking forward to further discussion around the stratton renovation and the plans for the relocation of students during the 2016 2017 school year. And just mostly here to say thank you very much for your responsiveness and your attention to this issue. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Next on the list is Lenin Ramakantran. Thanks. Hey, good evening. I am learning Ramachantran. I am not sure whether I can talk about this or here or not. But anyway, we wanted to talk to the school committee. I am here for the kindergarten admission for my daughter, mega Ramasamy mega was born on October 17 2010. She will be just 47 days younger for kindergarten admission for the year 2015 and 16. My wife, Lakshmi Sundra Pandian have a PhD in nuclear physics and work as a scientist at RMD Incorporation Watertown. And I am learning Ramachantran have a master degree with engineering and works for GV aviation at Lynn as a engineer. We have been in the state of Massachusetts for last 10 years and live in Ellington for the past three years. Mega is our only child and we always spend considerable amount of time on her. Mega has been in daycare center since she turned one year old and attends pre K since September 2014. She speaks in complete sentences in English and also can understand our native language Tamil. Though she prefers to converse in English, she can speak simple sentences in Tamil too. She knows to read and write English alphabets, both cases. She can read and write numbers from 1 to 100. She can do simple addition in maths. Her motor skills are good. In addition to being a good listener, she is pretty tall girl for her age with her height being at 90 90th percentile. We seriously think that she is ready for kindergarten for the year 2015-16. And she may be bored if she stays in pre K for another year and waste her time in this pre see previous age. She is just 47 days younger for kindergarten admission. I don't understand. She is going to be just 47 days younger for this year. But for the next year, she is going to be 10 months older. So I already sent a mail to the committee, but the admission has been refused. But once again, I came here to talk this issue to you guys. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you. Thanks for your remarks. So the school committee doesn't make the policy, but we always welcome any. We don't make these kinds of decisions, but we always welcome anything that you want to talk to us about. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. And I think that is it for the public participation. Is there anyone? So you said you need it. Okay, I'm sorry. Oh, okay. Oh, the so public participation is allows any member of the public to come before us for three minutes and say anything they want, which is, you know, at the beginning of the meetings. But we don't generally engage in a sort of back and forth or any policymaking during that period, but we always welcome anything you want to say to us. So if I want some answer, what can I do? So actually, I'm actually not sure about the policy. What can we do? I think in previous years, I believe this has gone to a subcommittee, and I'm just not sure which subcommittee is a policy that would take this up. Yeah, we've taken this up. We've taken it up as a general policy or individual cases? Yes, individual cases. Oh, we have. Okay. I didn't realize that we did. So our suggestion is that we would probably have you go or contact the head of the policies and procedures subcommittees, Judson Pierce, right? And, and then we'll So do we need a motion to refer that? We need? Okay. Okay. So, Judson, maybe you can email me. Judson, maybe you can be in touch. Yeah, their information is information is on here, so you have a copy. So be in touch with him. Yep. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Okay, so there's anyone else here for public participation? Okay. So the next item on the agenda is Thompson third grade town meeting video. And this is our own Bill Hainer very generously donated his time to help some third graders at Thompson understand our town meeting in Arlington. It was great. They actually showed this at town meeting one night right before town meetings started and it got a rousing applause and it looks it's really cute. I just want to say it's the teachers and the kids that did this at our town hall, our mock town meetings. So this is the third time that we've done this. Bill and I planned this out a while ago and Laura McKinney has been doing this with me for all three years. She wanted to share with me that it was part of their curriculum and getting involved in this aspect of it. And I like history. And as the teacher, it very spontaneous, the more excitement the children present, the more excited that you get and the easier it is to do all the work. So first, Mr. Hainer came in and explained the different elements of a warrant article, and that we have to really think about different pieces. He kind of prepares them for what would a warrant article look like? And what kinds of issues are brought up in warrant articles? Ask them what types of things would you be think people should do in the town. So we put it up on the board, we brainstorm and little by little I asked them, do you think how much money would this cost? Do we have enough money? What would you like not to have? And little by little, they understand they learn and understand that although there are great ideas and things, it won't help everybody. And it might cost too much money. They were extremely excited. When we walked in, we had parents set up at tables so their children all knew their precinct number and they had to go in and they had to register at their precinct table. And so they were checked off and then they came in, got settled, sat down, you know, they're all in the middle of town hall. So this is for some of them their first opportunity to see town hall into beautiful buildings. And then Bill started the process off. I'm going to ask you to raise your right hand and you're going to repeat after me and sit down. And I invited the first person to present their article and they did it. We declare that our attention should have an animal's children. We the children of Arlington have seen animal that are hurt, neglected and hungry. We believe there should be a place in Arlington where these animals can be taken care of. We believe Arlington should provide money for staff and supplies and a building with several rooms and a yard for this animal shelter. Thank you. I asked them for the to be seconded. They did. And we went back and forth, those for and those against. My name is Yvonne Navarro. I'm from precinct two and I think there shouldn't be an animal shelter because my dad was once hurt by a wild wolf. Suddenly did not like that. Animal shelters because dogs need attention and they can need help crossing the streets because they will get run over. Thank you. When we finished, I asked if there were any new information. And when there wasn't any, we had a voice vote first, which wasn't clear and we had tellers just like we have a time meeting. I explained that and they counted the vote and the radical past. Other years, I felt like we had sat on opposite sides. So it was kind of already decided what side you were on for each argument. But the children really mixed in together, which I thought was great because you could be sitting next to somebody who had a completely different opinion than you or was from a different class and came up with a different idea. And that was okay. The thing that I've noticed with my kids is they have a lot of confidence in themselves with raising different issues and debating points with each other. And that's grown, I think, through this process. In the beginning, they were a little more reticent to share their opinions, some of them. And now they're they're all doing it because they realize that they can disagree with somebody else in the class and they can do it in a respectful way. Except for their age, I think every one of them could have qualified as a town meeting manager. I just want to add, a lot of them came prepared. The teachers did a phenomenal job in preparing them. They had a little support card and stuff. But once the debate got going, some of them got spontaneous. And this one particular question, I could see this little girl here, and I, I, I said, I called on her and she got up and she says, I want you all to know the cats and dogs are doing fine in this town. Don't vote for this article. She really got into it. It was good. So I mean, I really want to say this could not, I mean, it's an easy idea to come up, but without the teachers and the parents and the kids at all, it's just is a wonderful thing to do it in civics. So they were great. Thank you. Yeah, great. Thanks for sharing it. Okay, so I'm actually unclear about the next item agenda, the district goals. Are we presenting them? Let me talk. Okay, great. All right. Several years ago, just as some background information on this, the school committee worked in conjunction with the school department to define overarching goals for the Arlington Public Schools, and there are four of them, and they pretty much are sort of guiding goals that direct our activities in the district, and these goals are on our district website. Every year we identify some strategic initiatives to further us in achieving those goals. And as I said, there are four of them, and we have in the past years have taken this, had the process of developing the district goals, has been really more of a summer early fall initiative. On the other hand, that puts us of approving district goals much further into the actual school year, which actually probably doesn't make that much sense. And particularly now, when we have the new educator evaluation system in which everything has a tie back to these goals, it's important that we first say what the district goals are for the next year. From that, schools will look at their own goals, which tie back to those district goals, and then teachers, as well as administrators, define their goals for next year. And with our agreement with our teachers union, we have agreed to complete the district goals for next year by the close of school. So what we have done in the past, and this has just been a general practice even before we've sort of changed the timeline on this, is that we've looked, we've had some discussions with administrators and solicited opinions from other groups as well as the my committee has so eloquently expressed tonight for what the district goals will be for next year. We'll actually say the strategic initiatives. And generally there's been about three to five in each one of the goals. And so what you have tonight is the first draft of these goals, because as we move forward, we only have, right, unless we choose to have another committee, a school committee meeting, we have two more meetings. So tonight is the sort of the first discussion on these goals and a presentation of them. Get your thoughts, see if there's things that you would rather delete, add, and then what I would do is incorporate those, and we'll bring them back to the next meeting for further discussion. And then finally on the June 11th meeting, we would take a vote, or you would take a vote on the adoption of these strategic initiatives for next year. So are we having our treat like we did last year with school committee? We have not planned one yet. That's why I want to get this moving forward tonight. And just, we can, this is the first time you've seen them. They were in your packet on Novus earlier this week. You've heard the committee, the Superintendents' Advisory Committee talk about some additions, and actually in two instances they've already been incorporated into the goals. Now, what do you have at your place tonight? I think it's hard to, you know, you really can't do a split screen very well. I put a paper copy of last year's goals, so you can see the either the repetition or the extension of what we've had last year. Because one of the things that we have found with our strategic initiatives for this current year is that in living through with the initiatives, it's going to be necessary to continue them into another year. They're much more, they've proved to be a little bit more complex than first anticipated, and we will do that, which you'll see in a couple instances. We have put these up on the, since the people that are sitting here, are there was enough copies for people to have? Maybe not. At least we'll have them up here on the on the screen. Now, since our committee is here tonight and I've already asked for some additions, this may be a good place to start, even though it's a little out of order in terms of what we have here in the initiatives. What would be your preference? Do you want to just go through them each goal sequentially or take anything out of order? So, I mean, I sort of feel like we need more time to process it, but what, Mr. Haynor, what do you? I mean, the two ways we could do this, we could individually send you stuff, but I think if I personally value hearing what other people have to say and input like that, and we asked a little bit short in time, this happens every year because this has to be done at this time. Just a thought, if the body, that we take each strategic initiative. The goal itself, I think, is fairly solid from my perspective, but each strategic initiative, one at a time, and get input from each of us at that time. That's what I was thinking. Like that. I have to say that I hadn't thought that we'd be talking about it today, because I was assuming that we would be doing a retreat. I mean, I'm new to this, but that's what we did last year, so that we were just sort of being presented with it. I agree. Let me just go through each one. Why don't she just talk through each one? Well, talk through each one. You should just join in. Just your impressions. We can talk to a chair as to whether we're going to schedule a retreat to work on these specifically. And I'd be interested in, I'm sorry, I'd be interested in knowing what's the rationale behind why these, because a school district this size has hundreds of goals, dozens of goals, so why are these five, why, so just tell us why these five are the ones you picked. Well, I'm glad you pointed that out. There are a lot of things that we do as initiatives next, we're doing this year and we'll certainly do next year that are not represented on here. Right. So the question is why these and not other goals. Alright. Okay. All right. The first one here is actually sort of a continuation of an emphasis we've had this year, which is continue to make progress toward action plans and outcomes that emphasize inquiry and experiential learning in order to promote student engagement and a deeper understanding of the curriculum. That is, as you can see with one of our strategic initiatives this year, and we have done a number of initiatives toward achieving this, but it is something that is not a year goal. This is something that's going to need many years. In fact, the idea of this particular initiative is that this is something that we would always be striving toward. So whether we keep it as a particular initiative beyond next year is something we would need to talk about. You know, for example, in the high school this year we have, we call it, it used to be called the wood shop, but now we call it the maker lab, which is where we do a lot of project based works that has, that's interdisciplinary, where students have the opportunity to make things. We certainly have a lot of initiatives where students participate using technology to be creative in developing their own learning. There are, and this is something that we've talked about at different times this year of examples of where we're doing this, but this is, this is a strong, strongly supported initiative by administrators and to move forward, and I don't know if Dr. Cheson would like to add any comments on this one. This is certainly an initiative that we also is echoed in our tech program at the middle school, and something we hope to expand to the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade at the middle school all build rockets. They, you know, do other kinds of engineering and, and it also is echoed in our engineering as elementary program at the middle, at the elementary school. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What you've just done is clarified this particular thing. Right now it's, it's, to me, I have an idea, you've talked about it and stuff, and we've heard about it, but putting examples of those with this in parentheses maybe at the end, because this is going to be on our webpage for other people to see what our goals are. So an example of what you, what you just shared with us, Timmy would be good for beneficial as promoting our programs and stuff and our goals. Okay. Thank you. Hey, one question. So is, and is this, goal one, did you call me? I'll call you, Dr. Alessandro is next. Okay. So my question is as much to my fellow members as it is to the superintendent. So I'm confused again our different goals and aren't some of these supposed to be SMART goals, which means they have measurable outcomes, and I kind of thought this was where we're supposed to be seeing the measurable outcomes, and this is actually an umbrella question. I, there's a number of these that I don't really see measurable outcomes on, and so I'm wondering about that. What you're, what you're asking is, can these be put into more of a SMART goal model? So the, the issue is, and this is something we have done to retreat, is what, what would constitute evidence for accomplishment of this particular initiative, or if not accomplishment, because I don't see this as a particular initiative that has a beginning and an end. It's, it's really an emphasis in terms of what we're doing, generally speaking, in, in education in this district. But I think that it's important if it's a SMART goal that we have a chance to talk about what would be the evidence you would be looking for, and these are the kinds of things that I would like to have feedback on. Okay, Mr. Thiemann? I was, I was going to ask two things. One is what Kersi asked, which is about, you know, measuring the goal, and then the second thing is, do each of these apply to every level of the district, or are they, okay, they do, okay, so they're K through 12, so, okay, it's not more of a high school goal or a secondary school goal. No, it's, it's a K-12, pre, say pre-K-12, actually it's not, yeah. Because it might, it might be good for us to see, you know, how it's going to, how the goal is going to be played out at each, at each of our levels. K-12, or pre-K-5, middle school, high school. How's it going to happen? Yes. This year, let me just, this might help a little bit too. When we invited the, one of the clusters, the one-to-one cluster at the, at Addison Middle School to come and present, I think that would be a, a good example of the kind of work that was done this year to further this initiative. Okay, yeah, and that was a good presentation. It's really taking, what we're, taking education in a, in a, really changing it and having the students be creators and, and deeply involved in their own, in, in inquiry to, for their own learning. Okay, Mr. Pierce. Thank you. While I like the spirit behind the old one and I like that it's a continuation of our efforts in previous years, I don't think it necessarily can be or should be a strategic initiative if it's something that we're going to be doing every year. In fact, I'd love to see the district goals pared down because I think in conversations I've had anecdotally with staff, principals, I, I think the sense is that we're, our goals are, are too, too much for a district that's, is changing in a lot of ways through state and federal mandate. In other words, I would like to see these pared down and if these things are seemingly continuations, they're not strategic initiatives for that given year. They're more or less overarching, part of our overarching plan, our overarching goals. So that's just my general response to the, to the draft. What I would say to that is, by having a strategic initiative, at least for the two years, and maybe what we do going forward is to incorporate it, add in the overall, but it gives of some emphasis to the fact that for professional development, for school improvement goals that are aligned with this. But I don't disagree with you that if this is going to be something that is going to be core to our work, then going forward, maybe even next year, I don't know, but going forward having it as part of the overarching. But I'd like for, I think this would be generally felt by all the administrators who would discuss this. In fact, we had a lot of discussion on this, that they would like to see this actually in language in the strategic initiatives next year. So I'm just before getting to Bill, I'm conscious about timing. So we have half an hour devoted to this, of which 15 minutes has taken up, and I'm wondering what people feel, do we want to continue? So going by them line by line, or is there another sort of way that we should go? Should we do a meeting to it? Yeah, that's why I was going to ask, since the committee is here, if we would like to discuss, there are three things that basically had been their suggestions. And the issue of cultural competency has been included in the type of professional development that we would be offering going forward next year. Also change the language on and goal four. This is, it's a it's a little bit more descriptive of what we're going to do in, this would be in goal. This is the operations communication. Right, number one. So it's dedicated to enhancing and expanding action plans for recruiting, hiring, and retaining. So it's a lot stronger statement than we had last year. But what is certainly measurable in this is whether we are going to be able to increase the number of hires from this year's baseline next year. So there's something very measurable here, and you had a report on that in the fall. Mr. Heiner. Because time is restricted, but also time as far as the amount of meetings we have. I agree with what Mr. Pierce said as far as collaborating. A lot of these things in here are definitely important. They should be laid out for everybody. But a lot of them are mandates. And we're going forward. The professional development is something we need to do. We've done, we've done it well. We always add more. Later on, we're going to be talking about the 2020 survey and part of it is questions about the communication with the community and stuff. On goal number four, we've been talking about the dashboard and this year we've been talking about the web page and stuff. I think they're both related in that communication part. I would like to see smart goals, specific goals that can be done within a year. And this is a full discussion that may require a retreat. But all the strategic initiatives, they're important too. I appreciate that. But they, and you do them and you do them well with your staff, with the staff and everything. But specific goals that go with our, that can be done within a year that we select and that are defined as smart goals because we spent that whole day learning what smart goals were, we worked them out and we've seemed to have forgotten that collectively. That's not, we own that responsibility as well in the long run. With few exceptions. Speak for yourself. Thank you. Yeah, I know. I'm speaking for myself. Thank you. So I'm actually just had a proceed in the next few minutes. Should we focus right now on the goals that relate to what was presented by the subcommittee and then table the discussion of the other goals at this point? Because we won't get through everything. There's just no way. So there's just a question of what to sort of do tonight versus what to just do another time. Could we do feedback to Dr. Bodie and through Karen communicate to us to prepare a document for our next meeting? In other words, individually give feedback. So it's your suggestion. We give feedback but there's no group discussion necessarily. And whatever you back through Karen to us as individuals. I don't know. These are district goals that impact 5,000 kids. So the school committee has to have some discussion. I think I would I would value it frankly. I think just general sense comments of the committee. We don't have to go line by line. Yes. Okay. So right. Maybe maybe Kathy can present for five or six minutes. Okay. And then every single person can just comment. Sounds great. Okay. Let's do that. All right. Let's talk. Let's talk about goal one. Well, the goal one is about student achievement for those that are listening and talking about whether we have rigorous comprehensive data driven. Those are it's a very broad statement. But what are the kinds of particular things we're really trying to emphasize? And honestly working on this kind of inquiry experiential learning is really important to us moving forward. That's why I want to call it out. We also feel this very important. It was actually brought up this evening that we we need to support our students in the social emotional needs. And because it is because that can be a real impediment to learning. And so what kinds of things that we're going to be putting in place? And in fact, I originally took this out. Be perfect. They canned it here. And when we brought it to the administrators, they said no, no, no. We really need that back in there because they themselves at the building level are planning and this planning some initiatives next year which this particular strategic initiative gives a little bit more gravitas to. So you have to think about it in terms of the school improvement plans in terms of this is what we're some of were saying this really important to focus on. And if you're going to have some initiatives, this is links to the district goals. So keep in mind we got these threads that are going through all that and we're trying to have everything link up. So the other one is in gaining college readiness for experiences outside the traditional classroom. The high school, this is actually a much more of a high school strategic initiative in they've made a lot of strides and want to keep this front and center in terms of the kinds of work that they're doing, whether it's the internship program, the dual enrollment programs, the Coursera types of programs that we have that again it links to what they want to do as a school. Now the other two are things that I think we do have to have some discussion about. You'll notice that there's some language changes here. Maybe didn't pick it up but I'll point it out for you. That before it was a very rigid goal. You make the 75 for your PPI, you make the 51 or higher for your SGP. What we're suggesting is that we really put that as a making progress toward. Now there was some discussion at the table last year whether we even have this in here and there was discussion was centered on whether that's something we want to do if in fact we're changing to park next year because that equivalency to MCAS may not exist. So that's something to think about going forward. So those are the main ideas of goal one. In goal two as a district we're very committed to professional development and we're committed in different areas. And one of the areas of course is providing time to teachers and administrators to for the education system. We've been taking this in steps over the last couple years and we're still going to devote time toward this endeavor. But we also have professional development. Excuse me for a second. I thought we were going to respond at the end of each goal presentation. No no I think I think we want to find the presentation of everything. And then we'll all respond. Thank you. Yes. Okay. We want to provide more explicit instruction and modeling of how you use data to improve instruction. And it's not to say that we haven't done that and we have been doing it. Again it's this is the tension between what is a smart goal which is something that's you can wrap up in a red bow. You've done it for the year. It's done. And there's some things in here that might fall into that category. But the truth of the matter for a school system is that it doesn't really quite work like that because you really it's an iterative process and a growth process. Just like we think about us as educators and what's happening we are in a growth mentality. So some of so by putting these in as strategic initiatives what we're saying is these still remain things that we want to focus on and we're going to we're going to sort of up the game or up the initiative in terms of more work a more emphasis on it next year. So there's certainly in professional development there is one particular initiative that is we've talked about this table but I think that holds a tremendous amount of promise for this district and that is professional development around teacher leadership. We're growing the leadership capabilities of our staff and doing it in a number of ways. In fact one way we've been doing it for years is our mentoring program. It's important but I think we're calling it out a little bit more even next year. In fact Dr. Cheson has written a grant for this purpose. I don't know if you want to just mention a little bit about that. It's been funded by the Arlington Educational Foundation and we already had one meeting and we'll be having two follow-up meetings Monday and June 4th. There'll be very specific things that will be undertaken next year that we did not do this year. All right. Then we also have to have again professional development for a whole lot of different competencies whether it's technology competencies, students, social, emotional needs, cultural competency which was mentioned tonight and ability to differentiate instruction. Those remain important. We also have the sheltered English immersion and we also next year thanks to the connections Dr. Cheson made with Leslie and our director of ELL, Carla Bruzezzi. We are going to offer a course next year through Leslie. Actually it's multiple courses so that is that a teacher who took this these courses that will be offered on weekends upon completion would be able to be certified in ELL. So it's going to be a great opportunity and that now there is an example of one that we're going to do it and at the end of the year it'll be done. So that's a good example of that one. All right. So that and then of course we have we're going to continue continuing while it's a state mandate about retail it is something that we have financially committed to as well as a district in terms of supporting our teachers in that effort. So that's goal two and in our resources in infrastructure and educational environment we are going to help support the town in the implementation of this facility department and there will be growth pains with it and we're finding our way but let's call it let's let's identify that this is going to take energy, time and commitment out from the school department. Clearly the whole relocation of Stratton is going to be very time intensive and involve quite a bit of thinking, planning and meetings. We also are going to come back to you in the fall with the study on space usage because I think next year we need to have some very very serious discussions not that they haven't been serious so far but really there are some space issues excuse me that are going to be that they're going to need some attention even following year. So we have the technology plan is continuing all the aspects of that and then we have to we want to keep again front and center that what we want to do is focus on the high school and so if we are fortunate to be invited into the next stage with MSBA we will do that and that will again require a lot of effort and focus from the district and if we're not then we've got to cry cry but that will do too good response but we have to we have to redo the SOI and then the last goal which is operations communication stakeholder engagement we talked about the first goal already it has to do with our diversity hiring and improving what we where we are from this year the dashboard of metrics I think we've done some work this year but we really need to get that completed next year now that would be one that I'd like to see completed as is the next one which is a redesign of our website you will see some improvements this June but it's not the whole sale change that it's going to need more time to be done and then lastly this is sort of an interesting one which actually when we have this brazil talk tonight I wonder whether we want to move forward on this one I'm not quite sure yet because it was interesting to see in the vision 2020 survey how do people want to have their get information about the school district and it wasn't as high a percentage as I thought from about tweets and Facebook but we were thinking next year of having more of a digital presence so this is something we might want to think about so that's sort of a quick overview of where we're looking to go next year and I'm here your comments okay great Mr. Hinner going back to goal one I'd like you to consider putting in the under number two strategic the info the diversity committee supported us and consider I think number six just amplifies what they want in number two but either one will cover going on to goal two the first strategic initiative just specifics again rather than vague language on that one I think would help on two and three specifics and on three on the goal two a date possibly goal two this is goal one point two or goal two pardon me pardon me goal two initiative two initiative three thank you in consulate will develop a district a date for that plan to be completed honor about something like that number five and number six we're doing it I don't I mean a goal I don't see the need for it to be there there's no requirement to force you to do it or remind you to do it we're going to be doing that just the thought to drop it under goal three numbers one three one we're going to be doing that the develop develop and implement plans for again these things we're going to be doing I don't know whether we need to have them in goals to remind them and as far as goal four number four you hesitated and I appreciate that what exactly would we going to the media and I I think it'd be good for us to hear the plan before we initiate it which is this I'm sorry on goal four as far as four four four four the district will expand the social media presence I'd like I mean I don't know how to do it I hear it from my kids I hear it from everybody it's very important to people that's how they communicate and I appreciate that but I guess I'd like to see it and test it out on us I think we have a wide variety right here on the board on how to receive it and how to deal with it and I will be glad to send this to you what I said I know I'll give you a lot real quick thank you Mr. Pierce yeah my initial impressions were that of Mr. Heyners in terms of limiting the things that we're already supposed to do anyway to hone in on the things that we want to do for this coming year continuations and you know again those are things that perhaps should be somewhere already in our overarching goals I think when we met in retreat fashion a year or two ago it was emphasized to us that these should be specific so people know how they're going to achieve them to make them too vague and too general I think this is also a problem too because you don't know what evidence to give right so in other words you with social media presence I know it's just a placeholder but like what evidence are we going to show like oh we have a Facebook page I guess exactly yeah but like by when you know how how many users are going to like it how many you know so we need to have some sort of measures I think built into some of these that that aren't there yet and it's just a draft so I would love to meet in the retreat and again make this instead of three pages make this two pages instead of six sub goals under goal two to make it three I'm all for consolidation here and trying to eliminate the things that we're already supposed to be doing Dr. Alcinetti I had a couple things I agree with the comments that I would like to see things be made more measurable specifically on goals one one one dash four and one dash five I'm concerned that Mr. Schwickman is not here and he was the one who was the special proponent of these numbers so I'm reluctant to say well they are drafts yeah I know it's a draft but still I'm pointing out that his opinion is I think especially important here and we don't have it right now but one I've been trying to think about this because I hear Dr. Bodie's concerns that she wants to highlight the things that are important that we're doing that maybe don't fit as well into measurable smart goals and stuff I'm wondering there might be a way of splitting it into two things and we have instead of saying strategic initiatives and having all these different things we have areas of attention which are kind of the important things that maybe we're just progressing on or something and then we have objectives and those are very specific measurable number things and I don't know we've had many discussions of how to present these but I'm just feeling like there's kind of a part of the reason this ends up kind of messy is because we're really trying to do two different things in the same document and it's not working really well and I wonder if we want to split them up somehow so great thanks and the Starks oh and I like the idea or retreat too yes or retreat retreat yes I'll bake brownies again obviously I think that one thing that might help is if we break this up into two parts because if I compare these to what we did last year we have a lot of continuing ones so it might be possible just to have a list at the end of these goals that say we are also continuing to work on because according to mine the only new goals on here under one is three under two is three and six under three is one two and five and under four is four all the rest are continuations which is fine I I totally love goals that take a long time to do but we might just want to say that like you know in addition to these new things we have this is the list of things that we're continuing to work on from last year and I think it's valid to have those somewhere but I also I think it also helps to get to what other people are saying which is to reduce what we have in this document so then that kind of combines both of those so that's just my suggestion I mean I think that all of these are important I think it's always the hard part is that you know we're working on a hundred important things and you have to pick out some for the goals and I think that that's what makes it difficult but so I would just break them up that way and then and I'm also in on a retreat yeah Mr. Damon so a few thoughts you know most schools and school districts have multi-year goals so I think it's the question of figuring out what you can accomplish by June 30th 2016 and defining it in some of these I in goal two I like what I see in one two three five and six and I also think it says something about the district to highlight in the goals that we're gonna you know have more teachers taking retail training making the statement publicly in order to better meet the language acquisition needs of ELL students while maintaining their access to the general education curriculum we will implement a program so that elementary teachers can attain dual certification in the teaching of ELL students in addition to their primary certification I think it's a great I think it should be in our goals and I like the fact that that stated publicly you know the one I also really like the teacher leadership goal that's a huge thing I mean it's a huge I mean we went through a two year search for principal the high school because the you know have enough people that want to go into leadership positions and and there's other issues but they don't want to go to leadership position so if we can contribute to the training of educators to become leaders that's a good contribution to the district and to the profession goal four under number two the district will support its administrators and teachers through professional development opportunities that are aligned to the needs of its staff including instructional support and content knowledge coaching technology competence it's kind of like everything you're already doing so I don't know my own reaction to that is I'm not sure how necessary that is because I don't know how distinct it is it's not that distinct it's what you're doing in which it's kind of unless it's unless something within that is new and different and unusual unless you're something specific new and unique and different you're gonna do in PD that you haven't done in the past it's gonna change the way teachers teach then that's should be in there that's specific I see the same thing under goal three number four continue to support technology implementation as outlining the technology plan is there a way could we we could be more specific is there's something unique and different in technology we're gonna do that's gonna impact the classroom that's gonna impact teaching and learning the other thing that I have been kind of pushing at my own work is trying to make sure that somewhere in the goals of an organization there's a program evaluation goal that you're gonna evaluate I don't know something it's a lot of effort to evaluate programs and you can't just say you're gonna evaluate all programs and sometimes you do well if you can evaluate one or two things I don't know what they are I really don't know I know it's the same but but that's a really good goal to say we're gonna evaluate you don't even have to be specific I don't I don't what in my own opinion is you know we're gonna evaluate one or two programs within the school district and give a report to the school committee by June 30th 2016 I think it's really good to do for any organization and I'd like him in the goals myself and then the final thing is we have under goal one the that's in our policy you know that's enshrined in policy the online public schools will ensure that every graduate is prepared to enter and complete a post secondary degree program which we all push for it's a great thing is there any way to measure that I mean do we we signed up for like the national student clearing house do we have data that shows what our graduates are doing you know we have not signed up for that program it's not it's probably to cause money we ever looked into that we's pardon have you ever looked into that and it's to the guidance department has looked down to you can it's it's really expensive yeah it's only money I don't know I've used that I use that we use that so I and I don't know I don't know I don't know what we pay for yes that it does exist and you could you can get data from that and I can I would look into that I don't remember exactly what I meant but I do remember talking about this and it's like well I don't know if we want to spend you know what it measures it measures where the student where your graduates are six years after graduation class by class by class well no I know I yeah yeah and it's really good it'd be great data for the the district to have and it informs the curriculum it informs what you teach it's it also gives you a sense tells the community where our graduates are going yeah anyway so I added goals sorry we do know they're going but but I mean but I mean where they where they where they stay and get a ten a degree right whether they meet the meet the meet the overall what percentage that start in their first choice stay there and graduate right but all that stuff is in that data it is I'll explore how much that costs yeah well thank you there you go so so it's just oh um got your house happy can I make one more yeah please comment I'm looking at this that the diversity advisory committee gave to us and I think all of us are it's just hard to you're not you need to much because we can't read this and that and this and I'll put it and we're not ignoring you yeah I agree I agree that's all great thanks let me just add my own thoughts on this I actually think I disagree with the the desire to shorten it and partly but I think that what should be in here should be aspirational should be something that we're reaching for so to the extent that things are we're that we're doing anyway are things that we're still pushing ourselves it should be there to the extent that we're just doing it and it's not necessarily reach I would say maybe not but in a way this is both a aspirational document and also a snapshot of the kind of efforts that are going on in the district so that so that we want so that if we really are making a huge effort in something for example technology there should be some sort of representation of that effort I think in this document even if we would do it anyway if we weren't there that's sort of how I just to give a snapshot of sort of what's going on in the district so yes I agree that it's difficult to make particular line item changes in this kind of context given right it's very hard to do so we yeah I think it's also important for the for the people listening to have a sense of what we're doing with the district goals and then understand that we're probably going to need a more informal situation to really talk about some of these but I think it's I think it gives people a good idea of what are where our efforts are so actually I just want to add one more thing and then I'll get to Hayner so what one thing I'd be interested in is to hear from the school committee to see if there are any particular goals that the school committee has and especially I mean obviously we don't there are certain things that we can't achieve but things like communication we can be much more intricately involved and I'd love to see to have some sort of way that we can pass on our aspirational goals to somehow get into corporate into the conversation so Mr. Hayner I heard three other members beside myself in support of the idea of a retreat therefore I make a motion to direct the superintendent to send out a doodle for dates for a possible retreat great thanks do I have a second a second I can invite Alison Ampe all those in favor please say aye all those opposed okay thank you it's an anonymous vote so declare it so our next item on our agenda is superintendent report do we want to Mr. Hayner you wanted to well I'll okay let's go talk about you to give me my moment of the sun or do you want me to do it upfront yes okay I would like to to differ to Mr. Hayner okay so part of superintendent report that Dr. Bodie was going to address is about Arlington Eats and their initiative this weekend and Mr. Hayner we'll dress it down I want to remind you and the community that a community dinner and fundraiser to benefit Arlington Eats is happening at the Thompson School this Saturday May 16th there will be music craft stands food and fun for the entire family from 4 to 8 p.m the first 400 people to purchase tickets will receive one of the beautiful handmade pottery bowls that the students have been creating there is a direct link in the superintendent's most recent newsletter or you can go to www Arlington Eats dot org slash bowls thank you great thank you Dr. Buddy yes and actually oh thank you that's how I'll let there be light that's right so actually the first report I would like to also defer this time to Dr. Chesson to talk about the tech plan for next year sort of very specifically I believe around Ottison thank you Dr. Bodie in February I presented to the committee of the tech plan and through the generosity of the Arlington town and the capital committee we received funding for those items that we were intending to do this year so I just want to briefly bring you up to date on that I will go into more detail on Ottison but just to let you know that at the elementary schools we'll be replacing the oldest iPads that we have in the district and those are right now at Bishop and Dallen and we'll be shifting those older devices which are still in working order to the youngest grades where the highest functionality is not necessary so it's not like we're opening the door and throw them and actually we're adding another cart at bracket due to the higher enrollment at bracket for special education we'll be replacing the oldest iPads that are being used for assistive technology for special education students it's our plan to do half of those this year and half of those next year should we receive the same generous amount of funding that we have this year I also just want to talk briefly about the high school we actually had a competitive grant process for the high school based on the amount of money that we knew that we had allocated for the high school for next year and as a result there are going to be classroom sets of devices to six pairs of teachers who are selected by a competitive grant process we are lucky that they're across all subject areas so we have teachers at world language social studies math language arts and science the grant process was open to all of the teachers in the high school and these are the teachers that had the clearest vision of what they would how they would transform their education of their students I should say that there's a combination of both iPad usage and Chromebook usage at the high school and finally at Audison and that's where the largest amount of money will go this year we'll be expanding the number of carts that we currently have in the 620 630s and 640s they currently only have one cart a piece to expand our one-to-one pilot this was based on as we talked about in February the detail that we got back from the pilot that we've been running for almost two years in the 610 cluster that they presented to you some some weeks ago and we'll also be allowing 6th grade students to bring their own device if it matches the devices purchased by the 6th grade and the reason we're doing for the 6th grade the reason we're doing that is because we don't want teachers to have the overwhelming nests of having kids with one-to-one devices and then having three different kinds in the same room and I always draw it akin to when I first started working in teaching mathematics and graphing calculators became common it was fine if the kid had a TI-83 but if they brought an 84, 85 or 86 it was difficult for me to deal with that in the classroom initially so we've been having ongoing professional development the 610 cluster is taking everything that they know and sharing it with their teachers there will be a meeting on Monday evening at 7 o'clock at oddison and all 5th grade parents were informed by emails that came directly from the principles of the elementary school as well as something from the superintendent's office today and it was also out on the website as of last week for parents of incoming 6th graders who would like to hear more about the pilot and more about the BYOD program and then based on teacher input met with all of the 7th and 8th grade teachers a number of times this spring and they have asked and we will be receiving a set of classroom set of Chromebooks for each 7th and 8th grade clusters so each grade will have a set of Chromebooks in addition they wanted to have one iPad cart for 7th grade and one iPad cart for 8th grade they would like to have this variety of devices because they want to begin to introduce students to both platforms and it seemed like a logical way to go particularly because of the variety of devices that are used at the high school and it gives students a broader technological background and finally we'll be replacing the oldest teacher devices in the district and those are at Dallin and the Stratton School and those teachers will also be providing devices we have money set aside for those teachers that will be taking new teaching positions and FTEs Mr. Hiner What's the determination of defining old? Does it does it lack capability? Usually what happens well I know with mine is that you press the button to turn it on and it doesn't and then it you press it again and then it might come on or it might wait till you press it that there we're not talking about an outdated operating system we're talking about the the physical aspect right now no but we met with the Apple technical people about a week ago and we probably have a year to two years they will never cut us off on the operating system but you would they will there will be updates that you would not be able to be put be able to put on so you know the physical aspect is right now yeah our students have done yeah have done an excellent job taking care of items so we have a a greater number left than maybe other districts do then the level of damage that we've had is less than one percent I mean it's just amazing the kids are taking really good care of this stuff yeah how I think students use these far more than adults do and they wear out earlier I appreciate that I was just concerned that the software we have you've said it it won't be there to support be supported thank you the one I'm sorry the one other thing that I forgot is that we'll be starting to replace the some of them at Thompson the one to one at Thompson they are getting the highest level of usage so we'll be starting to replace starting with fifth grade and the plan would be that we were replace a certain amount every year so that we would always continue to keep our investment at Thompson thank you anyone else oh sorry I have a couple of things yes oh no I mean anyone us but unnecessary okay well actually this is is something about technology just this May edition for those of you in education probably familiar with ASCD which is the premier organization in the country for curriculum and in May they had an article on how to transform teaching with tablets and it was written by two people actually I think one or two it's an ed tech which is a local organ a local company but what was very interesting about this article first of all talked about how you implement tablets and technology into schools and the question posed was when you before you purchase iPads how well these are the kinds of questions a district needs to answer how will learning be different how will teach how will students improve as learners as scholars as citizens and what will they be able to do two or three years from now three or four years from now after your iPad adoption and basically said if you can't answer these questions basically you probably should not go forward in making purchases so they said that the this is a long article and I already sent you a link to it the best technological integration tends to take place in schools created around a focus pedagogical vision and then they point out that they are only to public schools is is a great example of how you best you begin and implement a technology program and and I give a lot of credit to Dr. Chesson in fact they they quote her in here and I'll read it to Dr. Chesson explained to us the school shared vision in the elementary schools we are focused on preparing students for learning self-regulation and collaboration using the tools of the mind curriculum in the secondary schools we're focused on discourse reasoning from evidence self-regulated learning and reasoning from evidence are fantastic focused areas for improvement with these kinds of clearly established learning goals it is much easier to define and measure how technology can support learning Arlington's goals are good grain size as well capacious enough to rally a community but focused enough to see measurable improvement for several years and so I think it's really we've done a lot of work it's been a very strong collaborative and Laura has done a terrific job of leading this but I do think the pace at which we've done this how we've involved teachers and I think if you heard the plan we put out these opportunities for teachers to talk about their vision and how they would use them before we give them these new the tablets or the Chromebooks or whatever it would be so the the implementation of our technology plan is firmly grounded in the vision for how we want to see learning in our district and I and I I couldn't have been we were so surprised but it's really it's great so compliments thank you the other piece of very good news we had this week is that um in the annual rating of high schools us news and world report came out and Arlington high school was listed among the top 20 in Massachusetts and I think that it's important to understand this isn't just simply about metrics about standardized test so that is certainly component but their us news and world reports findings are based on student proficiency in English and mathematics as well as college resident readiness student teacher ratios are also in consideration but what the quote is what I think is really important a great high school must serve all of the students well not just those who are college bound it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show it is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators so it's a I I could not be more pleased for the high school but the thing that I would also say is that when a high school is performing well it is not just the high school it is the whole K-12 district because this is a collective effort to really improve teaching and learning and it's it's really it really shows now nationally this has gone up to I think it's 288 out of over 19,000 schools they looked at so that's in the top 2% of all high schools in the country which is great so wanted to share that with you and just two other things one is there has been a little bit of we've heard speaker tonight talking about Stratton and there was a little bit of confusion about the RFP but I I don't know if you saw my email regarding this is that apparently the RFP went out with an early version of the plan mainly so that the designer would be able to understand that this is something that's going to be in their scope of work they're gonna have to finally design design the plan and do the bid documents and so to give them a sense of the complexity of what we're looking at that's why it was sent out but the plan and discussion of capital planning was that all of the students at Stratton other than the SLC program are going to be in modulars so that we don't have to repurpose music and art rooms in the different elementary schools now is the plan final no and we've I've said that you know there might be it may it may end up being the plan but it's certainly going to be reevaluated once the designer is selected the RFP went out in April the proposals are due I think the 21st very next week and then there's a process by which the design will be selected and then that's the point when we start and that's like the first order of business in the project is we've got to get the design accomplished so I just want to point that out if I may sir um yes I sent this asked for this document to be sent out to you you just said that this piece of the RFP was a prior document it didn't belong with this no I I talked with the the deputy town manager today about the process they wanted they really sent it out to give the designers an idea of what the scope of the work would be well in the RFP itself when you go to the town web page and you ask for RFP specific one on on Stratton has both these documents in the one PDF in the RFP document under scope and services number nine it specifically says designed it to assist with specifications and bidding for modular classrooms as described in appendix A option C so these people are going to be coming into a bid for an option C that is different from what we're talking about but not very much though well the the problem comes that what we're we're talking about is often the design in the the document of the layouts is these maps here and the specifics on it on the pricing page is the option A it's directing the bid maker to look at option C option C in its cost is four hundred thousand dollars where option A is two million option C I mean option B option C is one point eight and there's about four five hundred thousand dollars difference my concern is that we never saw this if it was something that was never going to be used this is what the the bid people are using as part of their bidding they're using this document combined with this as the bid unless the town itself has made a mistake and to make a change a little bit I've learned on the permanent town building committee you can always make changes but it costs more once you've accepted a bid the people at a bidding are using these two documents right now and that's my concern and we never this was dated January 20th 2015 and it talks about three options I'm just concerned about communication and once again I find out about this from a parent this document was for the capital planning committee as part of their discussions I confirmed with the deputy town manager today that there was some discussions whether to include it or not but they made the decision this was a town decision and they don't they don't see that the the problems you presented are going to actually be a concern for the person making the proposals well the if this went alone without this as you said it belonged to capital planning this specifically references this the attached document that's my concern and the other part of my concern is that we should have at least seen this I understand it's capital planning but it deals with the cost one of our purviews which is budgetary and our cost it's a major cost I know the town is dealing with it it's not coming out of our specific budget it's not it's not ours I understand that but we actively supported capital planning in in in this and in the good communication and the good report that we need we have to be there I hear what you're saying I'm just nervous because when you change specs the people at a bidding are looking at this the the responsibility of the designer is is really more at the organizational level in terms of helping the design and also to do the bids so what whether you're looking at different options it's it doesn't change the responsibilities it told them to specifically look at option C in their bid that's what my concern is so anyway we're gonna the designer will be chosen in the next couple of weeks certainly no later than mid-June and then we'll we'll see where we go with this so I am cognizant that I'm first time I'm running a meeting I'm already over scheduled but I want to hear quickly from Dr. Alison Ampe and then we'll we'll keep going I was just yeah Mr. Hiner did you say did I hear you say option B cost for 1.8 is what he said I may have got the numbers mixed up yeah that's because I'm seeing it C is 1.8 1.8 B is actually the cheaper C is one option C total estimated cost 1.8 okay I made a mistake okay you usually said 400 and then I went down yeah no that's okay thanks thanks for clarifying the record different options but capital planning has allocated 2 million for the relocation and there's an additional amount of money for transportation right I just 400 and last thing I just want thanks for clarifying that up thanks to invite you to come next week on the 21st school committee to our teacher appreciation reception which is an annual event in which we honor people who have made who are retiring who have reached certain milestones the 25th year 30th year 35th year as well as teachers who made professional status this year so you're all welcome it starts at three o'clock at Addison three o'clock at Addison yeah that's it great thank you okay so we have something quickly we have the approval of the Earlington High School and Audison Middle School student trip to Japan do we have a presentation on that or do what do we have sorry I would ask we table that until Dr. Mr. Schlickman gets back okay that sounds great idea okay so then right on timish we have a presentation of the vision 2020 survey results by Mike Stern and Julie Brazil thank you I'm Michael Stern a vision 2020 standing committee member who worked on the on drafting the survey questions Julie Brazil is the chair of the standing committee she is recovering from a bad cough and has pretty much lost her voice hence giving me the opportunity to steal the limelight the annual town survey was mailed to all households in Arlington in January out of the 18,910 surveys mailed we received 6,058 back or 32 percent you received the preliminary preliminary data we shared with town meeting and we're here to discuss your questions and a little more detail tonight we asked demographic questions and some questions that were conceived with input from Dr. school committee members the demographic questions include precinct length of residence ages of household members and whether they have children in the Arlington public schools your questions inform the public about both the increased enrollment and the need to update the high school building and asked how much people thought they knew about the issues and then asked how they preferred to get the information about the schools the report you got this week and submitted at town meeting is a summary of the basic information the next step is to dig a little deeper into the data for example the combined answer to the question about how people like to get information tells us what communication methods people like or use overall the top three answers for the town in total were town email town website and the advocate in the report we broke out the answers according to whether people have children in APS and the order changes folks who have kids the number one communication method would be school email second town email third school website a further step would be to study whether length of residence as we've had a big influx of new folks in Arlington and the schools in the past years whether that changes the answers that answer could help you focus on communication in ways that seem to work for the growing demographic of newcomers thanks to Mr. Schlickman for inviting us here tonight and we can answer questions if you want us to drill down into certain things or have ideas on what you would like for us to provide some more data on yes Mr. Heiner do you folks have an ability to be on the town census to determine how many new people and how long they've been here as yet I mean that might be something for us that would benefit us then a verdict when you arrived how long you've been here in town it might help other people too politically to find out what's going on we all give credence that the town's demographics are changing but it would nice to know when and how is it a continual change increase with newer people and stuff like that actually I've done some work on this and I know that there's a lot of information in new voter registrations even though people might wait a year to register they're you know it's not it's not accurate but there's there's some nice information there thank you anyone else well Mr. Pierce first you may have already addressed this and thank you for compiling this and presenting it it's very informative and it shows me that we have a lot of work to do in trying to share the story about the high school and about our increased enrollment pressures because it seems to be like a 75-25 split on the not aware side so is this a compilation of those with children in the schools and okay so everyone is it's within these numbers right we can break it all out yeah so that's really what we're here tonight we'll make recommendations for the final report but anything that would interest you it's helpful for us to start yeah because I I certainly don't want to be knocking on the same door three or four times to make the case right so all of us so you know whether or not people are more aware of these pressures with students enrolled in in the schools as opposed to not which I assume is the case I'd love to see the the breakout and they just get sorry Mr. Thamon well I saw some encouraging I think I saw some encouraging numbers in the data because you of the respondents if I'm reading this correctly only 20 percent had children in the Arlington Public Schools 80 percent did not but despite that it either over 50 percent were aware or somewhat aware of the increase in enrollment in the Arlington Public Schools and about 50 percent were aware or somewhat aware of the condition of the Arlington High School so you know somehow even though the majority of the respondents are not APS parents they they are they seem to be aware of what's you know the vast majority that's aware of what's going on in the Arlington Public Schools so they're reading the advocate they're hearing on the street they're in a neighborhood where there's lots of kids so I saw some encouraging I see some encouraging data in here in terms of our aware of the awareness the public has about the school system of course we need to do a better job we had a very good conversation earlier about social media superintendents going to be on Snapchat next year it's going to be very cool and uh you know I don't know I'm just kidding and so but you know I don't think we're doing too badly I really don't think we're doing too badly in terms of connecting with the public because a lot of non-parents seem to know what's going on at least the data that I'm seeing no what can I just wait Mr. Hannah are we just waiting for something I'd like to see a breakdown of the age demographics on the responses to this because obvious our message it's going to be the same message but it may be delivered in different vehicles or different ways in inviting if we if as Mr. Thielman said if somewhat aware are my age we're going to approach it a little different than not Twitter Mr. Pierce's age you're not on Twitter I am uh Mr. Pierce yeah I'm just curious about how many of these people actually vote because if if is that a question I didn't know I would love to know because they're going to eventually have to go to the ballot box and support some sort of money to dive you know to to help our school continue for another hundred years my my heart tells me that a lot of the people who've complete the survey probably do vote because that's I imagine an extra voluntary step but not in the last election right so but there's it's there's no way to know and I'm not sure we'd ask that question on the survey yeah you're also a voter is it do you vote is it too personal yeah it's the kind of thing that might turn them off plus you'd have to break it down by the kinds of elections there are people who vote in town elections right don't vote only or more than national because they're mad okay Dr. Allison Effie if we have any further question or further thoughts on analysis or something can we send them to you and just just suggestions not as decades or something great thanks so I say I am definitely interested in this the Facebook response which is smaller than I would have expected so from casual conversations I know that people I've met have been very interested in a Facebook page as a different way of giving information so more casual way less formal than the superintendent's newsletter is what I've heard so I'd definitely be interested in knowing are those people who do say yes to Facebook in sort of the parenting age because one thing that this doesn't maybe can't capture is there's a lot of parents who are really interested in what's going on in schools who don't yet have kids in the public school system because they have two-year-olds but they are on the playgrounds they know about the high school they're worried about it I keep actually reassuring them you got a two-year-old you're probably by the time that kid gets eyes on God willing we will get something done but but there is you know a lot of interest in town not just from people who have kids in the Arlington Public Schools I think it'll venture to guess the Facebook ones are are younger but it's just maybe but it'd be very interesting to know more about it Dr. Allison Ampe the other thing is that it may have had to do with how exactly how the question was phrased because it says please indicate your preferred methods to receive information from the APS and given that we don't have a Facebook page most people are not likely to put down I mean they have to kind of extrapolate right that's a good point or it may not be their first choice but it's their second they'd still go there yeah yeah that's a good point just that's a good point anyone else do you have any comments well I saw encouraging data but I also was a little bit surprised that is roughly in the 50 percent for people who know about enrollment growth or know about the needs of the high school and it just it just says that need to do more outreach and I guess that is the challenge for us how to do that so that's something I've been thinking about ever since I read it read the report but then but then as I mentioned earlier when I thought about what we were trying to do next year because a lot of districts now have Facebook pages and you know given all the things we've been doing it hasn't been a priority but that's something we're going to do next year and now I thought well is that effort worth the effort but maybe we'll try it and see I think that we can get some kind of I think we can get some some idea of how many people actually go to that page so that might be helpful too right thank you great thank you thank you thank you okay so are we on consent agenda or do we we can still go and then come back to and then come back to the okay so I might need help let's see if I can do this right um so I should read this read the whole thing okay so all items listed with an asterisk are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion there'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee so requests in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence okay so what do I do now I I should go through read all of them read through all the items okay thanks okay okay so first one approval of warrant one five one five seven dated for April 30th 2015 in the amount of one million is that one million 37,704 and 75 cents I believe approve of minutes none approve approval of Ida Robin scholarship to the top two students of Arlington High School with the highest GPA approval of the E. Nelson Blake award to the top 10 students with the highest GPA the recipients will remain confidential until June 4th 2015 Arlington High School Awards night so moved so I got second all those in favor aye aye all those opposed this is an anonymous vote and I so declare it subcommittee and lays and reports uh so I'll just go through them special study group on superintendent evaluations Mr. Hayner I'm in the process of sending the survey and working with Mr. good to set up I asked Mr. Fitzgerald to just check with the superintendent of the ones that the superintendent supervises so we can get the list of Mr. Good and I'll report back the next meeting that should be accomplished great the warrant committee I signed the warrant everybody got paid I think great policy procedures Mr. Pierce we just had a meeting tonight and we got through the revised family medical leave act policy as well as a new policy on parental leave which the Commonwealth it's relatively new law we're going to have those ready for first read at our next meeting there are just a couple wording pieces that we need to attend to and we also discussed student discipline policies located in file J J I C and we talked about what we were going to do for the this coming school committee session we talked a little bit about the walk to school policy located in file E and addressing that inviting people on the safe safe walk to schools task force to come and join us at a meeting and discuss what they would like to see in revisions to that policy in addition I don't think we're ready to report exactly what we're going to do for school committee session 1516 but we're on that and we the policy says that we should report by our meeting in June so that is the plan we're going to meet on June what was the day that we selected the first week June 2nd at 5pm great budget Ms. Allison I'm sorry nothing to report okay great facilities Ms. Starks the facility subcommittee will have a special meeting at Stratton on Tuesday 26th that's 6 30 our focus for this discussion will be to get as much information about portable classrooms out to parents take their questions hopefully we might even have a modular vendor in attendance and the meeting is planned to run for an hour so hopefully we'll see a bunch of people there and we'll get a lot of people's questions answered great community relations that's me we had a meeting just trying to remember when it is sorry when was that a couple of days ago a couple of days ago what May 7th thank you actually just Ms. Starks and myself in attendance it was a very loose but I think productive meeting where we discussed the kinds of things that we'd like to see in the district some ideas about the dashboard some ideas about school website and who to reach out to one of the ideas was to reach out to the current website designers at each elementary school to sort of get their insight to see what's worked for them what hasn't some concern about who updates the information certainly things have to be updated at the administration level and the school level and we talked about the possibility of initiating public conversations so not not just a presentation but more of a open conversation about some important issues and two of the issues that were discussed were we thought we shouldn't have too many of these we have to have only a few and advertise them well in advance and with multiple modalities one possible one question is on class sizes and facilities seems to be a burning issue for people and something on testing but our next step is to have another meeting we were having a very informal meeting now but we definitely need to invite Dr. Bode to the next meeting too because we're throwing around a bunch of things that we need sort of more input on what accountability yes so that's actually not on here oh it is oh i skipped over you oh i'm so sorry well there may be a message though i got to think about that i'm sorry that's like weird no no i'm so sorry what's done then no i was reading through sorry i'm sorry you know i'm not i apologize i apologize i'm sure district accountability yeah thank you oh thank you Dr. Stace yes um so uh i have no report but but we're trying to schedule a meeting okay great to talk about an important an issue that's been raised so i just wanted to say that so okay great thank you before we go you know before we go to and now everything else here I do think even though Mr. Schlichman isn't here I think we have to address the trip to japan because i need a vote to go and they're going on a few weeks right so i move approval of the trip to japan second any discussion though is there any no okay it's a nice one thing yeah actually you could probably take the vote I just wanted to tell about people about the scholarship okay sure oh so oh that's let's do this first I think and then we'll go back to that any discussion about the field trip it's a big field trip do we do we is that the only question I just have I think I my annual concern if it's a school-sponsored activity I just wanted to how we have only one you know it there's a cost factor on scholarships and stuff like that but students that need to go we have activities and stuff like that we always provide we don't limit it and I I I'm just concerned about it I don't know a solution I don't have a solution 2300 yes I understand that I mean everyone in the world would go if we open it up to everybody but it's just something I think we need to be aware of that's all okay do we know how many are going 15 right so anything 15 maybe 16 now okay was there a number I thought there was what I can say is that it's sort of in a gray area of this trip it it is school-sponsored but it is also sponsored through the sister city committee this is part of that initiative we have the students coming from Japan here in the spring we had 25 of them coming and this is Arlington goes over there and they do home stays and you know get get a chance to spend time with the families and learn about the culture of Japan and I yeah I went I was a chaperone one year it was awesome my daughter went it's an all it's an everybody says it's an awesome trip it is I think that the best part is actually the fact that you stay with a family yes because that really I think you don't learn as much as you do just being part of every day life and that was really so it's a it's an amazing trip they do a great job they show them all over the place I was quite blown away by it and I think it's been spotty as to whether we've had this trip approved by the committee but the two the two main chaperones are Arlington public school teachers so I thought this would be important and I think all but one student on the trip is an Arlington public school student there is one that is a resident and I just want to well I won't say who the donor was because the they would prefer to be anonymous but we had a very generous offer of a complete scholarship for a student to participate on this trip and we went through a process to identify the scholarship recipient this person has been notified and everybody and of course is just thrilled so I think that the reason I'm bringing up is just such a generous thing for someone in Arlington to do and it's again talks a lot about who Arlington is and so we're going to have another participant that we wouldn't have had otherwise great um more comments? I'll wait till after the vote I'll wait till after the vote so there's motion on the table to approve the trip at the high school and the middle school level we've had a second all those in favor any opposed? Opposed? No Is there any round us vote? Okay I'd like to ask the committee to form a subcommittee real short to review executive session minutes we haven't done that I think for two years we have a backlog we have a responsibility to clear that log I'm willing to volunteer we just have the policies and procedures subcommittee look at it when they meet remind you that it we we spent the last time two or three meetings a couple of hours each time so unless you're willing it's trying to stick you with it okay I'm on the committee we get your way yeah I know accountability so I I would recommend I'd like to make a motion at this time to establish the subcommittee it's it's done an executive session and it's just sitting there going through volumes so if we have a subcommittee do we need to come up with members tonight or just to establish it I would ask to have volunteers do I I will volunteer okay okay so I should be at least one of the person motion to establish the subcommittee we need a second for the motion right yes we need a second second for the motion I'll second okay Mr. Stark seconds I guess all those in favor of establishing the subcommittee aye aye aye aye so enthusiastic about that yeah none of us alone here we get to since we're supposed to switch when it's signing ourselves up for more work I think people are interested should you know send their submissions to the chair yeah we yeah I don't understand yeah okay so we we're not going to choose tonight who's on the committee whoever's interested excuse me just to clarify Mr. Thielman are we giving the chair the authority to a point because this is something we need to get done and bring before this board to approve I should have mentioned this six months ago but I apologize for that so if so if you're interested send something to Paul we'll deal with it next meeting there's a policy on how you appoint subcommittees so you would have to come here and say that these are the three people right right yeah I mean how is he going to do it okay so so when Mr. Slickman comes back we'll tell him there's a new subcommittee created he's going to receive applications or or people submitting their names or other people's names yeah everybody sends somebody else's name okay and and and come back to us okay so at this point we have announcements there's a time for announcements any announcements miss start some announcements so this Saturday on the route two side of spy pond is the cleanup for that that's through Vision 2020 from nine to one o'clock on Saturday so if anybody is so inclined come and join me I'll be there along with the Vision 2020 people and I have a question my son is graduating and I know that it's Paul who gets to hand out the I was hoping I could talk to somebody about possibly giving my son his does he want that and I I don't know if he wants it or not it doesn't so moved approved so I don't know how we how we go about doing that he only gives us half of them so Dr. Jenkins can give you that slot too yeah it's done okay so if I show up I know I have to be up front so I think I sent you that right okay all right all right that's it I just want to make sure one other thing if I may I just remind the committee going along with graduation Karen Sonna notice if we're going to attend we need to let her know as part of it so just remind everyone right may I add to that main leads for caps and gowns yes we got to order caps and gowns right okay great are we ready to go into executive session okay so I should read this right okay to conduct strategy session and preparation for negotiating oh look at this union hey being as beautiful we formed a new subcommittee by the way uh-oh while you're the chair I figured I was in trouble subcommittee to review the minutes of the executive sessions oh okay people are going to email you if they want to be on so we're about to enter into executive session do you want to take it over okay great like to entertain a motion to enter executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union and or non-union personnel or contract negotiations with union and or non-union which is held in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect and to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares so move move by Mr. second by Mr. Thielman our roll call Mr. Hainan hi hi Pierce Dr. Allison Ampe hi Starks Mr. Thielman hi Dr. Seuss hi the chair votes aye it's unanimous vote thank you