 ACMI Productions are only made possible with your support. Visit patreon.com slash ACMI to learn how you can help. Good evening friends. This is now the regular meeting of the Arlington School Committee. It is now 6.33 p.m. on Thursday, April 11th, 2024. We are all live and in person. There is no person signed up for public comment. We have the chorus. Asra, I didn't rehearse this enough. Asra Nurawahi, who is a student rep today, do you have anything to speak to the committee about? Yes, so far we've had our inclusion workshops and AHS, which have been going pretty well. And we also had three AHS courses, one at the MICCA, which is the Massachusetts Instrumental and Choral Conductor Association. And we also saw the solar eclipse in the front lawn, which was pretty exciting. And the science teachers provided solar glasses so we can see it safely, so it was very good. That's great. Any questions for Asra? Seeing none, let's move on to the, oh, go ahead, question. Asra, you're on a working group, correct? You wanna tell everybody which working group you're on, which working on? We're on the, yeah, the communications one. And we are working on the, we have the thing. The guidebook. Yeah, the guidebook. So we're still working on that. Sorry, I totally just put you on the spot. Oh, geez. So yeah, just like editing that. We appreciate your work on our behalf. Next item is a field trip discussion and possible approval, Dr. Homan. So we do have Magistra Me on the Zoom. Thank you. Who can speak to any questions that you might have about this trip and we can have some discussion and go from there. You wanna give a little bit of an overview first? Absolutely. Hello. My name is Cassandra Mea and I teach Latin at the high school. This is my 13th, I think, year in the district and this will be my second potential trip to Italy. We went in 2018 with a group of students and we had a wonderful time. Seeing as we have such a small department and we don't really get to do many things locally, I've been really looking forward to trying to get my students to literally walk where the Romans that they're studying got to walk. So we're proposing a trip to Italy for next April. It is a nine day trip. Ideally, it will be first offered to Latin students but because it will be a trip in Italy, I would also be more than welcome to take any Italian students that would be interested as well. Comments or questions from the committee? Ms. Morgan. Yeah, I didn't recognize the name of the organization, the tour group. Have we used this company before to do a trip? Yes, we have. We've used them for several years. Previous teachers have used them. They have a parent forum is kind of a branch of their company. The main company is called Prometor. We have used them for previous exchange trips to France in several years past and we just used them for another colleague in my department when they took students to Quebec. Super, thank you. No problem. Dr. Allison Ampe. My question is more, so first, I didn't have a problem looking at the stuff from the trip. It looks like it's organized well, but I had one question. The only information I could find was from a year ago about Italy's current COVID quarantine requirements and what, more, okay. I'll repeat. The only information I could find from Italy's current COVID quarantine requirements was from a year ago and at that point they were required, if someone tested positive for COVID, they were requiring quarantine for five days or, yeah, it was five days and then you could leave if you had a positive test and I just wanted to be sure that you'll have enough adults with you that, well, first, that may change and I understand, but if that was still enforced because it looks like they have been running more strict than other countries that you have enough adults that you would be able to handle if a student was to test positive during the trip. Absolutely, in speaking to Dr. Janger, he recommends and prefers three chaperones for international trips, so I have potentially four lined up depending on, four in total including myself, apologies, three additional people lined up who have agreed to come if they are needed and the minimum that is on that quote is for three chaperones, so myself and two additional people. Great, thank you, good question. Dr. Homan. Cassandra, I'm sorry, I'm not seeing it in the materials. Did you all fill out the High School's International Trip application online? Yes, I did, I filled it out on the 2nd of April. Okay, I wanna make sure we have that in addition to the materials that are posted to Novus because I don't see it here, so. Oh, absolutely, I can certainly, I believe I got a digital copy of it, I can certainly print it and put it into that folder. That would be great, or you can just forward me the sort of receipt that it sends you and we can include that in the material. Since we use that for lots of our other international trips. Sure, absolutely. Ms. Morgan. So I'm gonna abstain from this trip. I've been asking for a long time for a strategy around international travel that I would like, this isn't about Latin or this trip, it looks great. So I've been asking the district for a long time to provide some kind of strategy around what we're doing, how we're ensuring access, some guidance around, this one is great because it's coming to us a year before the trip is happening, which is fantastic, but there's no uniformity around that, we just kind of get them across, they always get approved, so I can understand why there's no desire to change practice, but I would really like to see a strategy around this that's clearly articulated that provides clear guidance around how we support students who can go, who wanna go, who can't afford to pay, how we offer trips around languages to students who don't take that language, all of those kind of things, it's just there's no articulation around it anywhere and I would like to see that and I keep asking for it, so I'll just keep asking. So I'm gonna abstain from this one, but thank you for doing this, I think it's really important to have these opportunities available to kids, my concern is around how the administration manages these, so thank you. Does somebody would like to make a motion to approve? I move approval of the trip. Second. Okay, motion by Mr. Thielman, seconded by Ms. Exton as we have, I'll do this by roll call. Ms. Exton. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Ms. Giddelson. Yes. Ms. Morgan. I'm gonna abstain. And the chair votes in the affirmative, that's a 6-0-1 vote, thank you. Next item will be a discussion and a possible vote to move the June 6th school committee meeting. Dr. Holman. So on that first Thursday in June every year, the lab program holds its graduation and the board attends and I went last year and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It's an awesome event. And so I would like to be able to attend again. And if it's possible, I would suggest moving that meeting to the following week and with the anticipation that maybe we don't need the last meeting in June and can put June, all of our June agenda items in that meeting. So move. I believe June 13th is the award ceremony. Oh, is it the high school one? The AHS award ceremony? Oh, it is. Okay. We will postpone this decision to the next meeting and we'll try to work it out. Another option would be to cancel that meeting and have the last meeting in June. Okay, I'll be out of town on that last meeting date but Ms. Moore can certainly hold that award. When we ask Ms. Diggins to kind of look at other dates, if you want, I mean, I think Dr. Holman should go to that event and she'll just find another date. Just do a poll and see what else is available. We don't have to meet on Thursdays. We don't have to meet on Thursdays. So we can meet on a Wednesday of Tuesday. Okay, Superintendent update. We have had, as Asra told us, students participating in inclusion workshops and we had a keynote address from Reverend Matthew, help me. This is his last name. I meant to put it in there. His name is Matthew. He was fantastic and he had the students and I'll get the name in there and make sure that we upload it. But what you see in one of those pictures is that the students, Thompson, thank you. Thank you, Asra. He had the students. Do you actually, were you in one of the things where you had, okay, do you want to tell what you all did? Yeah, it was great. He talked about making us uncomfortable because we have to be uncomfortable to grow and he basically just gave us three words to make a poem on the spot and he picked like five random people to go up and share their poems with everyone. We were inspiring and silly and fun. Yeah, and it was very interesting and I think a lot of people in the class enjoyed it. A lot of people expected it to be kind of boring, I would say, but then after hearing it, they were very interested. It was really, it's a great set of workshops and something that I know the high school has done now for the second year and is intending to continue. Arlington High School had its musical performance of 12th night recently and it was the most student-produced performance in Arlington High School history with the students designing the set and helping work behind the scenes on the lighting and working with our new theater director to do all of those things and it's been really great to have that role in the system and to have students involved in the full production of the musical and it was just an absolutely spectacular performance. OMS students, I attended the Ideas Middle School Conference recently. There's a picture of them there at the bottom. This is a conference that engages students in conversations about racial equity and their experiences in schools and how to create environments where students, all students from all backgrounds can feel belonging. We had 17, we have and are very excited about and we'll be asking for your approval for a trip so that 17 OMS students and five AHS students can compete at National History Day at the competition in Maryland from June 9th through June 13th and I want to congratulate three new doctors in the Arlington Public Schools, Dr. Margaret Fiedel-Thomas, Dr. Matt Coleman and Dr. Michelle Crawford all defended their dissertations right, it was a couple of weeks ago now and they have graduated from, they will be graduating from the BC doctoral program with their EDDs, so congratulations to them on the successful conclusion of their doctoral work. We have several administrative hiring searches going right now. We've, as I've told you previously, completed the Hardy Principle search and are looking forward to welcoming Principal Saunders to Hardy. We have completed and hopefully we'll have an announcement coming soon. Our search for instance, Superintendent of Finance and Operations. We currently have underway our search for K-12 Mathematics Director Permanent. We had an interim in the role this year. A posting for our Autism Middle School Assistant Principal. We had our former Metco Director in that role as interim and she's decided to return to the Metco Director role so Rachelle Smith will be back in the Metco Director role. We're very excited to have her back in that role. She's doing a spectacular job with programming and we've posted for a replacement for OMS Assistant Principal and we are currently in the process of searching for a new Bishop Assistant Principal as well. The new playgrounds at Monotomy Pre-K will be ready after break. Our daycare students there and our students will, our Monotomy students will use that playground. They were using it to some extent but they needed to rubber the surface and they couldn't do that because of the timing of the move and the cold weather and so we're excited for them to have full run of the completed playground when we come back from the break. Enrollments are attached. I wanna note that the K numbers are approved enrollments including assigned buffer zones. So the buffer zones have been assigned. That's approved enrollments does not include pending enrollments. So we do have packets that are still awaiting information to come in and so those are not included in those totals. I wanna preview a few things that are coming up at future meetings. We will be talking about inclusive grouping either at the next meeting or the one after that we were going to do it at the next meeting but I will not be present at the next meeting. Dr. Ford Walker will be so I just wanna make sure that if we talk about HGI and inclusive grouping that we feel like we're ready to do that. And if Dr. Ford Walker is taking that that she's had a conversation with Dr. Janker but we will have a recommendation for that. It's looking like the recommendation will be to continue with ninth grade inclusive grouping the way it is currently structured but to have ongoing conversations about how our leveling practices and deeper learning play out at the high school more broadly as well as conversations about how we structure schedules and other such things to support the work that the high school wants to do. I think there's a desire to do have a broader conversation with more of the faculty before we enact further change on an initiative that has shown some success in having more students have access to higher level coursework but has been relatively isolated to a small group of teachers in ninth grade and in one discipline. So we'll have more to say about that at the next meeting but if there are specific things you're looking for and a recommendation or in that presentation I'd be happy to take those and pass them along to Dr. Janker in the next couple of weeks. We will have a draft of district goals to the committee in early May. We're working on those now that will be the earliest we've been managed to get them to the committee which we're excited about. We have our working group facilitators taking a look at sort of an update on where we're at with the 23-24 goals now. So with the goals for next year we will also have a status report on where we are on the goals for this year. And we are also, I also want to preview that we will need to have a conversation at some point as we head into the summer and as we open next fall about an exploration of buffer zone and boundary adjustments. We do have more students at Thompson and a never increasing number of students at Thompson that has created space constraints and also creates challenges around providing support and having additional service providers at the school that we really want to try to alleviate. And so we want to take a look at and we have space in some other elementary schools. So we want to take a look at how we're assigning geographically students to schools I think with MBTA communities being passed we should also think about what the long-term impact of that's going to be. And we've started drawing up some options and doing some data analysis to determine what the impact of different adjustments might be to maybe expanding buffer zones or adjusting where the buffer zone boundaries are. So I want to preview for the community and the community that that is going to happen. And I'm looking forward to lots of conversation about it because I think it'll be necessary for us to make sure the community is fully aware of any adjustments we're going to make and what the impact might be. I do want to note that any changes we would make would be slow. They would impact incoming kindergarten students and families with students currently in schools who would otherwise go to another school would be able to remain in the school that they're currently at. So that would be a slow shift over time. And for now, that is my updates. I'm happy to take any questions. Any questions from the committee? Seeing none, we move to the consent agenda. All items listed with an asterisk are considered to be routine and will be enacted in one motion. There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee so requests in which the event, in which event the item will be considered in this normal sequence. Warrant number two, four, two, one, eight, and the amount of $1,873,563.11, dated 319. Warrant number two, four, two, four, six, in the amount of $780,873.44, dated 4-3. And draft school committee meeting minutes, March 21st, 2024. So moved. Okay, moved by Ms. Ekston. Second. Second, Ms. Dr. Allison Ampey. I think this is a point of information question. There is a trip approval that's listed under the subcommittee and liaison report. That's, that will not be done tonight. It's just that for future agenda. Oh, okay, okay. Sorry, I think maybe it was supposed to be in consent agenda, never mind. Okay, that's okay. No, that's where we're at. It's been moved and seconded, all in favor. Yes. Opposed, that's unanimous. Subcommittee liaison reports and announcements, which should be short because we've reshuffled budget. Budget will eventually meet. Thank you. The last one. Oh, okay. We met yesterday. Okay. No, that's right. We met yesterday. We met with the candidate for assistant superintendent. We met, we, what else did we do? I don't remember any of them. We met with community ad. All right, community ad, yes. Community ad. With community ad to go over, their financial operations and their revolving fund balance. We've proved lots of minutes. Sorry, now your turn. Off to you. I am done. Community relations, Ms. Exton. Nothing to report. Curriculum instruction assessment and accountability, Ms. Morgan. We need to schedule a meeting. Facilities, Mr. Thielman. We need to schedule a meeting. Policies and procedures, Mr. Cardin. The same. Early high school building committee, Mr. Thielman. We're having productive meetings with the conservation commission. Stay tuned. Liaison reports. We all have new Liaison assignments. I hope we all enjoy them. Is there anybody who has anything to say under this agenda item? Any, now? I didn't go to the wellness meeting though. I'm excited to keep doing that. And what did we talk, Ms. Elmer was there. So that was great. She's not here tonight, but anyway. We're in good hands. Well, good. Dr. Allison Ampe particularly appreciates your work on the wellness committee. Future agenda items, including one thing to note, the trip to the National History Day competition. We'll bring that up in the future. Anything else for future agenda items? Can I just note on the History Day competition, we've almost got everything. We didn't quite have all of the documentation together yet. We're asking school, I couldn't remember if we had voted this or not, but we have so many students going that we wanted to make sure we were very thorough in sending the kids this time and did all of the requisite paperwork for it. But we'll have that for your vote next time, but they have to register today. So part of why I wanted it on here was to inform you all that they're registering for it. This is moving forward. There are concerns. It'd be good to know about that sooner than later, but we'll have all of the documentation for an official approval for them to go at the next meeting. So in other words, if there's something that might preclude your vote of approval, please let the superintendent know. I engage in a discussion. Dr. Allison Ampe. I don't have any concerns. I wanted to say the superintendent and I had discussed it as I was outgoing chair and I felt that it was reasonable to bring forward to the committee because the number of students it's out of state and it's overnight. But I would think it can go under the consent agenda next time. Ms. Diggins, please note that we can put this trip under consent agenda for the next meeting. Any other announcements, future agenda items? Two things that have come to my attention. One, we appoint two members of the Permanent Town Building Committee whose terms expire at the end of June. Our normal procedure is to run them past community relations. So I'm gonna ask the members, current members, if they want to continue in service and then pass that information through community relations and bring it back before the board. We need to do that by the end of the school year. So we've just received that notification. The other thing is, Dr. Allison Ampe, your hand is half raised. I don't think we usually run Permanent Town Building Committee through community relations. Well, it's our appointment. We run our appointments through. Now if community relations chooses to look at it and send it back and say, not a problem, not a problem but I think that is a matter of process. Okay. Yeah, we've seen things go through community relations. We have done appointments through community relations but not Permanent Town Building Committee. But that's, I'm just clarifying that this is not our usual procedure for this position. I'm looking to be consistent. Okay. And community relations can just pass along, but I just want everybody to have consistency in the process that anything we're pointing makes it through that way. I'd also like to ask policies to take a look at JH, student absences and excuses as we've had correspondents in the past pertaining to absences on trips. That's policy JH. Any other things for future agenda items? Seeing none. I think the next step here is to go to executive session. The executive session would be to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union and or non-union personnel or contract negotiations with union and or non-union in which you've held in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect. To conduct strategy with respective collective bargaining or litigation in which you've held in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect. Collective bargaining may also be conducted. We'd be dealing with AEA unit A negotiations and we will not return to public session after the conclusion of the executive session. We'll go straight to adjournment. So a motion by Mr. Thielman. Second. Second by Dr. Allison Appie to go to executive session. This is a roll call. Ms. Eksten. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Ms. Giddelson. Yes. Ms. Morgan. Yes. And the chair votes in the affirmative. That's a seven nothing vote. We are now in executive session. ACMI productions are only made possible with your support. Visit patreon.com slash ACMI to learn how you can help.