 Welcome to the first school committee meeting of the academic year 2016-17. Cindy Starks will not be with us today. She has unfortunately broken her wrist and we wish her a speedy recovery. Miss Johnson is also not with us today which means we will defer our discussion of monthly reports and financial issues until another meeting. We have some artwork today. We have over here we have we're going to the zoo preschool one had a roaring good time with our zoo theme. The preschoolers enjoyed reading books such as Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathman and Going to the Zoo by Tom Paxton. This display represents several animals that we incorporate throughout our zoo unit. We use different art mediums such as sand, marble paint and feathers to complete each of the art projects. Moving over here we have the group of strawberries. It's artwork by PS2, Miss Ferranti's class. This lesson is designed to introduce predicting as a reading strategy to primary students using the book The Little Mouse, the Red Rite Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood. In this lesson students make and refine predictions. Students should have some experience making guesses and making predictions about events that are not story-related. As students develop their skills in making predictions they learn to modify or change their predictions based on information from the text. Then the students made puffy paint strawberries. A lot of fun all around. Over in the back wall we have layers of spring colors preschool 4. All the students in my class did this project. It was a group effort. We used acrylic paint, a white easel and spider rings to create this piece. Each student chose a few different colors, dabbed the spider ring in the paint and made impressions of the ring on to the easel. After several days they covered the entire easel with all these beautiful colors. Enjoy. In the back as well preschool 3. We read the book A Color of His Own by Leo Leone. The story begins by introducing familiar animals and illustrating their color. Elephants are gray, goldfish are red, parrots are green, et cetera. It states that all animals have colors of their own except for the chameleon. On the lemon they are yellow and the heather they are purple and on the tiger they are striped. One day the chameleon has an idea. If I stand a green leaf forever I will have a color of my own. This is a fun preschool book but it also deals with some very adult themes. In the end the chameleon meets up with another chameleon and decide to travel and change together and thus living happily ever after. Our art is a children's interpretation of the story. And over here preschool 5, fireworks. The children showed their fourth of July excitement in this art project. They used finger paints with paint scrapers. They added glitter and confetti to make the background sky. The shooting rockets firecrackers were added with beads, spin art and magic noodles for a fun 3D effect. Enjoy. So it's always great to see the amazing output of our students, our young students. So we're first, let me just actually give a quick overview of what's going to happen today. Most of the meeting today is updates and that seems completely fitting for our first meeting. But our next thing is public participation and I didn't see any names. Is there any public participation? There isn't. Okay. Okay, so actually, so we have a slight change in for the report about the building projects. I'll turn the server to Dr. Brody. We're going to go into the superintendent's report. Okay. Were we going to do? I was planning to start out with just an opening day. But this evening, Rob Yusula, who is our onus project manager for the Stratton project, for the Thompson modulars and now for the Gibbs project offered to come and give you an update. And I said to him that while I was planning to do the update, you're going to get a lot much more in depth overview of what's going on with those projects. It's been a very intense last month in particular as we've tried to get everything completed. And I want to compliment Rob because he's really stayed on it to make sure that everything was done in order that we were going to be able to open. And so I would like to invite Rob up to the microphone and he could just give the report and then I'll go I'll defer to talking about opening day and all the other opening activities till after that. That way you can go home. That'd be great. Welcome, Rob. And then we'll go to questions on those issues. Good evening. My name is Rob Yusula. I'm a senior project manager with NV5 company where the owner's project manager, as Kathy just said, for the Stratton project, the Thompson modulars and now the Gibbs school project. An update on the Stratton school project. The modulars are open on August 29th. A certificate of occupancy was issued by the building department. Prior to that, the fire department walked through all the different town departments signed off. And so they got their occupancy permit on the 23rd of August. All the materials that were being temporarily held in the gymnasium, the cafeteria and the kindergarten rooms up at Stratton were moved into the new modular classrooms, along with all the furniture. And then the next day on the 24th, the teachers were allowed in to set up their classrooms and be ready for school. I want to thank the Arlington Department of Public Works as well, who built the temporary staff parking lot adjacent to the new modulars, as well as striped that lot and did a last minute striping of a new drop off area for parents and special education students in the existing parking lot in front of the Stratton school. In terms of the renovation of the school itself, the contractor GNR Construction is finishing up demolition inside the building. They've installed a new boiler. They're installing new hot water heaters. The new roofing has started. They're finishing up some abatement of some asbestos pipe fittings and some miscellaneous work inside the building. And right now they're working on underground and underslav utilities for the new kitchen and all the new bathrooms and all the new plumbing throughout the building. Right now they're approximately 25% through construction scheduled to finish up next August. The Thompson modulars, we kind of sweated out waiting for ever source to arrive to connect power. They did arrive last Monday on the 29th. They tied in power, which was good because the fire department came out the next day to check the fire alarm system and all of that. The building inspector came out that day to did a final inspection issued a certificate of occupancy. The mods were clean. The floors were waxed and it was up and open for the opening of school. In terms of the Gibbs project, the designer selection committee of the Permanent Town Building Committee interviewed four firms on August 11th and narrowed that down to two firms, DRA and Fine Gold Alexander Architects. After a second round of interviews, Fine Gold Alexander was selected to be the architect for the Gibbs School Project. We actually had a kickoff meeting yesterday with Kathy and the Fine Gold Alexander team, their educational planner, and Eileen Wood, the interim principal of the middle school was there in attendance too. And we'll be scheduling some additional meetings with department heads, some teachers and parents to let them know as the design progresses what's going to be happening. The Permanent Town Building Committee on Tuesday night also approved proceeding, procuring the construction part of the project as a what's called CMIT risk project. In 2004, the state legislature under construction reform approved using CMIT risk a process where you hire a contractor early in the design phase instead of waiting, finishing the design, putting it out to bid, going with the lowest bidder. In this case, you bring a pre-qualify contractors, bring them on board early so you get the benefit of their input reviewing the plans before they go into construction. They will do construction cost estimates as well as we will do check estimates to make sure the numbers all agree. They will contribute things like constructability. I have an easier way to build this. I have a quicker way to build this. So you take advantage of the architect's input, the contractor's input, and our input to get a, generally a project that's done in less amount of time than a general design bid-build project. So part of that process is we file an application with the office of the inspector general who has to review on behalf of the town, do we have the capability between the town and the owner's project manager and the architect to do this process? And Fine Gold Alexander has done multiple projects with this. My office has done, I think, over 25 projects like this over the last 10 years. I had personally done about four projects in the last five years using CM at risk. So we all have a lot of experience using this and we all frankly endorse this as a better way to do public construction. So that application is going in and today I submitted to the central register an advertisement for the request for qualifications for contractors. So that will come out next Wednesday in the central register. In meantime, we will be calling contractors to let them know this is coming out because we want to get as much participation on the pre-qualification side as we can. And then we'll go from there. Any questions? Questions? Mr. Caden? So under that framework, when will the actual project go out for bid? Probably, well, it's technically not the same as a regular bid. They will bid what they call trade contracts, which is subcontractors contracts, probably in next March or April. And then after that, the contractor will sign with the town what's called the GMP, a guaranteed maximum price, which will include those numbers as well as his side of the construction. And again, that's all open book budgeting. We get to see his numbers. We get to see how he broke his numbers down, how he arrived at those numbers and stuff too. Yeah, I just have a question. So do you then use more than one contractor during this sort of pre-qualification? Or is it... When you do pre-qualification, they like you to have at least three. Three, okay. And then based on that, there's a pre-qualification kind of committee that will decide who's the best fit for the contractor. And after that, that's basically the only person you deal with. It's not like public, like design bid build, it's not open to any contractor. You have to be pre-qualified to go to the best phase. There's one of those. Got it. Yes, Mr. Devin. Could you just give us the sequencing of the projects when the construction actually begins? I just want to make them clear. The construction for the Gibbs will begin probably next June. Okay. And then the Thompson, do we have a plan? Thompson has to go before a town meeting for a vote of appropriation, even though there was the override vote in June, that money now has to be appropriated. But even before that, the school enrollment task force needs to meet and endorse that recommendation. So that meeting, I think, the first meeting of that committee is scheduled October 5th. And then special town meeting is the 19th. And then so that project? Then, well, in anticipation, as you know, we went ahead with having a designer do the design on the project. We have selected an owner project manager, which is the same company that did the original Thompson. But in addition to that, I think permanent town building also endorsed going forward with putting the bids out for the construction. And so, assuming that town meeting approved, assuming we have an endorsement from the task force and then assuming that town meeting votes for it, we will be ready to go. In October. No, probably October 20th. Right. No, we may not have all the selections done, I think, on the Thompson construction. It's not, I'm not clear on that, but I think our operative goal was November 1st to be able to go. And everything is based on being able to, when I say everything based on it means opening in September is based on being able to start November 1st. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. We are going to have a parent night, and we've scheduled it tentatively for October 27th, but that, no, no, September 27th. In this process with Gibbs, while we have a diagram from our HMFH study that shows that we can put all of our programming into the Gibbs building because that was important to find out. That doesn't mean that it has to be the way that it is currently designed because it was what would they call a fit diagram. So we're going through a process this month of involving a lot of stakeholders in thoughts about this, which the designers are all going to be listening to. And then at the end of September, begin with putting together their designs. So we do have a parent form scheduled, and I will put that out to parents. It is a Tuesday night, I believe, the 27th, and week before that we're working on having something with teachers as well. And the educational consultant from Fine Gold and Alexander will be the facilitator of this, which is something he's done many, many times. We'll be on the mailing list as well. I will definitely send you maybe more than one reminder. We'll put it out there. For me, that's wonderful. That that's going to happen. Before I put it out, I wanted to confirm the teacher date because I think it's important that the teachers meet first and the board was meeting today. In fact, maybe even Miss Sarasen can tell me, did we have thumbs up going forward with the proposal? Yes. We did. Okay. Great. So the thumbs up means that we're going to do an early release day on the 20th, which is an early release day for Addison to do the, it's a voluntary meeting to do the visioning on the Gibbs. And then a week later, we'll have the evening meeting with parents. And I will put that out to Addison parents by Monday. Are we staying in contact with Needham in their sixth grade program just for bouncing ideas back and forth? Definitely. In the idea that we also are very positive about that building and the way things are being run over there? That was an existing building. Right. Just like Gibbs is an existing building. I think we, I had a couple, we had a lot of important ideas that came up from that meeting. And during this month, I'm going to, you know, go back with the principle just to, to talk about some takeaway ideas and some suggestions as we try to think of how to be creative with the space. Thank you. All right. So actually, so we have a lot to cover. And I know there'll be questions and some of the stuff. So if it's okay with you, I'd like to welcome questions sort of as we go along. Oh, sure. That's fine. Because we have lots of different topics. In fact, since we're on the topic of building, let me just keep that theme going for a second, if I could. And that is it. We're, we're also moving forward with this building, the high school. And there, we are in the first module and there's been a number of documents that have, are required. In fact, three big ones are due tomorrow. So we've been working very hard on this last couple of weeks. But we also had to submit in early August, as you know, the committee for the high school. And we had an extraordinary number of people who were interested in being on the committee. We had 49 people. And having read through all of their emails or resumes, we had an amazing array of talented professional people who really wanted to be part of this. So we selected through that process and it wasn't easy. I have to tell you, it took a couple of meetings to do this, 10 people that we interviewed. And as a result of that, we actually decided after further thought and actually some conversations with other districts to increase the number of community members on that committee to seven. So we have a committee now of 17, which is a lot. So the committee has been selected. The work of the committee probably really will not begin until after we get accepted in the feasibility study, which the earliest I think would be that meeting in January. But it's part of the process. And so we've had to complete a number of reports, an educational report, an enrollment report, and some reports and the enrollment one included building permits, housing permits. It was just a very extensive report in terms of all the activity in the town that might generate student enrollment. Mr. Hainar's question. Are we on time with all that to be ready for them? Well, you came in on us a couple of times today. We submitted to just before this meeting and we have the third one to go and it's going in tomorrow. So we're exactly on time. Thank you. Sorry for the interruption. That was alright. I didn't break a train of thought. Yeah, I'm sorry. If we're going to stay on building projects for one more minute. So if we're going to request modulars for either the Hardy or the Audison for next year, that's probably going to have to go to the school enrollment task force on October 5th, which means it has to come to us at our next meeting. Correct. And so, you know, a placeholder has been put into the warrant for this. And I'll tell you that the middle school has been working on this. In fact, really trying to think, you know, as creatively as possible, not that we want to have everyone squished in the building, but the fewer modules we can do with creative moving of classrooms is what we want to do because, I mean, the original thought about the number was simply a mathematical thought. It didn't take into consideration how you could, you know, create a puzzle there of how people would use the space. And the fewer modulars we can do, one would save them town money, but also would take up less space up there. How does some parents you know that parking lot is not enough? In fact, we don't really have, it's been a struggle even right now with parking. And we're looking into some ways that we can find some additional parking spaces. So to have fewer spaces taken up by modulars would be really tough for a year. So that's what we're working on. Opening. Well, opening day, I'll just save quickly and then I'm going to go back to let up to opening day. Opening day was so smooth this year. It was calm in every school. Everything just worked very well and I've had a number of teachers even tell me how great it was. You know, on one hand you liked a sunny day, but you know sometimes having a rainy day isn't so bad. Because it just adds a little bit of where we're ready to go back to school kind of feeling to it. But it went very well. We had no transportation glitches. We really had virtually no issues at the start of school, which was terrific. But you don't get there without an immense amount of preparation. And I can tell you haven't been in the schools over the last couple of weeks. Teachers were in the schools everywhere, setting up their rooms, and particularly it's strattened because all of their classroom materials were either in long term storage somewhere, or the boxes for opening were had to be unpacked. So they were there for almost a couple of weeks working on this and they did a wonderful job. But I think that's true all over the district. At any school you went into you saw teachers there preparing. The Permanent Town Building Committee had a tour about a week before the teacher started coming back in. And there was a lot of construction things. You were there that day earlier. They were walking around and it looked like a place, a little worry that it wasn't going to be there. I went back a week later talking to Mr. Hanner about the Mocktown meeting we're going to do with the third grade. It looked like a brand new school. They really looked nice and the teachers, the excitement of teachers coming back to that credit. I commend them and you for all the work. Well, there was a lot of work all around and I commend the teachers because they were such good sports about it too. I'm very happy. We have one more question. Dr. Allison Ampe. Actually it was also a comment. I got to do the walk-through for the families at Stratton and it's gorgeous. It was all set up. It looks nice. Both the rooms are very spacious. It's going to be hard to get them out of there next time. ACMI has a lovely video on that I'm sure you can find on their website. I sent you the link to the web to it and I want to compliment ACMI on that and also Nick did a great job in giving a preview of Stratton and ACMI did a nice video. I appreciate the advocates and the press on that. I think everybody was very there was a little nervousness I think out there about what is this really going to look like and it turned out and I think on the part of teachers too they were really pleasantly surprised to see what these rooms were and in fact they also were very surprised at the size of the rooms that they thought they were going to be much smaller and they were going to feel very cramped and I think the modular company has put in cabinets which wasn't in the original design but it made a big difference in there so it was terrific. The building at Thompson was already a building and pretty much that was ready to go except it was just touching go getting electrified. Robert didn't share this tonight there was an issue about getting the electrical connection and every source finally said that they would be out on the 31st two crews showed up on the 29th didn't know what they were supposed to do Ruthie Bennett at the town's facilities person told Karen and out of the principal go see them in front of the truck and don't let them move until I get down there when she got down there there was Karen out front they got it all connected and everything worked out well. Rob raced down to make sure that they knew exactly what to do so it worked out fine and then they came in and went a little bit closer to the edge than we would have liked to have been but it worked out fine. So all in all it was great but the other piece is when you're going to hear the report from Rob and how many new teachers we have this year it's a little bit more than we've had in the past and he'll talk about that but the week before last we, Marie Janiek is our mentor program coordinator and she and again this year just a terrific program for our new teachers primarily that week was our elementary teachers giving them a deep look as much as you can have a deep look in that amount of time of the curriculum in key areas and then we have an opening day meeting for new teachers and thank Jeff who both came to that meeting and also to the opening day on last Wednesday and he just did a terrific speech so thanks Jeff. He made me want to come back and teach, he was very welcoming he mixed a little humor with it and a lot of strength, it was well done. It was very well done so we had the opening for teachers and then as I said on Wednesday we had our usual opening ceremony and had a video Laura had heard the speaker Jamie Caseup who is the educational guru at Google and it really played into a lot of the themes that we've had but interestingly when we finished the opening day everyone went off to grade levels or to departments and special education had a guest this year and maybe you'd like to just talk a little bit about Tom Hare because he is really quite a very well known person in the world of education today. Right, we were lucky to have Tom Hare who's a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education but from a special ed perspective more importantly he used to be the director of the special ed programming under President Clinton so he had a unique perspective on both, he helped with the reauthorization of IDEA 1997 and so it was really great to hear him speak he spoke about ableism as a community we've done a lot of work around diversity and culturally sensitive practices and we haven't really addressed this idea of ableism so we talked to the staff about that as well as some of the research that really strongly supports the idea that the more time students spend in general education the greater their outcomes seems to be the pendulum swings back and forth but lately it seems they'll call for more sub-separate programming, out of disreplacements things like that but really the research doesn't support that the greater outcomes as far as graduation, secondary education, employment all those increase with more time spent in general. And he was a strong proponent too of using technology as an important UDL universal design for living and assistive technology to really you know it's not just putting kids in a general ed classroom that makes them have these greater outcomes it's how do you support them while they're in the general ed classroom so we talked about that and staff was really excited about it we'd love to maybe continue working with him in some capacity can you just briefly define ableism ableism so if you're thinking about racism, homophobia or anything you limit the expectations of a person who has disabilities based on their status as a person with a disability so that was a full department you had an idea of what went on with special education but each department also met to discuss curriculum changes or plans for the year and we also met by grade level at the elementary so that was a very productive day and teachers went back to their classrooms in the afternoon and the next day was full faculty meetings for the entire morning so it was a very good way to start I think that the feedback I've had from people when I've been around at schools was they thought it was a great opening last week too and then as I said starting Tuesday went very well do either one of you want to come in on the opening day because I know you were around at schools too the thing that I spent time at different schools but I just want to address the very first day of the teachers that were here one of the things that I think we do that's very unique is that the grade level presentations that were done at the elementary level were done by teachers they were not being done by outside people or administrators we have our lead teachers who have gone going through our lead teacher program and I think it adds a lot of credibility to the presentations it also makes teachers to feel comfortable to provide feedback to the person that's presenting there definitely is a very honest give and take and I was really impressed by that and we can we'll talk more about teacher leadership later on too alright so enrollment I guess one of the big surprises this summer was just how many how many students we were able to we are welcoming into the Allington Public Schools this year as you know last year our kindergarten numbers did not meet what we thought they would meet in terms of the forecast by Dr. McKibbin or for that matter even our own predictions but well made up for it this year last year we had 474 entering kindergarten students and this year it's down slightly it's 558 as of today so fortunately the number of students were across town but the tool of using buffer zones has helped so that one of the things when you see the report which was put into novus today it's fairly even across town with respect to the kindergarten which was an important goal this summer other class sizes have gone up as well because it wasn't just the kindergarten enrollment that went up I think the middle school saw a big jump just about an increase absolutely everywhere so the number of the chart that you have today those numbers could change over the next month or so because we have to go through and do some verification one of the things that does happen and I will remind parents next spring as we go into the summer that if you're going to move please let us know because what happens is if we don't get notification then we assume that the child is returning there's no reason why the child would not be in power school and they're on class list so over the next couple weeks we will be looking at all of that just to do some adjustments but I think that our process has gotten much much better over the last year and I don't expect to see a huge fluctuation already the change from if I was looking at October 1 numbers last year we had 5,252 students in the district we now have an increase of about 4.7% and the total number K-12 is 5,498 we're almost at 5,500 students that's a lot and of course actually one of the issues is it's also a lot in terms of just thinking about materials and deaths and so we have had to do a lot of quick ordering and adjustments to make sure that all of the students had a desk in our schools but I think we've succeeded in that I think we're okay Mr. Hayner I've talked to Dr. Bode about one of my concerns about the issue of full-time aids in the kindergarten I appreciate the economic factor in this and Dr. Bode has to look at balance both and I shared with her I'm more into the education aspect of it the kindergarten is a unique place it's where the diagonal you make the prescription for the next 12 years the kindergarten teacher spends most of his or her day assessing and it has to be on a one-on-one basis I really feel that the importance of having full-time aids, good people there to give the kindergarten teacher the opportunity to do that work successfully the investment there to me can show results in mitigating our dealing with special needs and issues coming on so I would ask the committee to consider it Dr. Bode has been very good in sharing the input and I again appreciate her need to balance both the educational and the economic aspects of it but I see this investment with a possibility of having to take something from Peter to pay Paul on this well worth it I'd like the committee to consider it and Dr. Bode as well thank you we have hired some full-time aids this depends on what the numbers are and in some schools you might have with four classrooms you might have two aids that are working full-time and they're shared in the afternoon one of the things that the teachers principals do with kindergarten is that they try very hard to schedule all the specials in the afternoon and they do that the morning when they have an aid the aid is there to help with the morning curriculum sometimes it's not helpful if a class is already out to art for the afternoon it's easy to share a teaching assistant because the teaching assistant doesn't go to art class so we have looked at this very carefully and we will continue to look at it we're still enrolling students so we will look at it very carefully and the principal I assure you are not shy in asking for support what they need but just to remind everybody last year our half-time kindergarten TAs were funded by the kindergarten grant and anticipating that this might go away and valuing having half-time TAs we made the decision to put those aids into our operating budget which in turn was a and you all supported that idea which was an important decision in terms of the effect it had on other things we could have done that we didn't do because we valued that so highly so we didn't even have you know when we the year before we didn't have full-time TAs either which would have been out of the operating budget so this time it would be not only the half-time out of the operating budget but if you add any others it's on the operating so we're up about 194 students from last year give or take obviously because this got loaded into Novus today you know I've just taken a quick glance at it the one thing that just catches my attention is the freshman class of the high school is that a little larger than we expected no no it's not I'm sort of doing the math here compared to last year's eighth grade and if we had kids go off to Minuteman we'd be off set by new kids coming in they had a big influx of students into the high school one of the deans I think told me that they had 80 80 new students that arrived in fact one of these classes and I think it was a junior class was in the 200s earlier this summer I think it was a junior class but no it's been a big a big change so we had 336 in the eighth grade last year and we're showing 383 and 338 in the freshman class this year so we have two more kids this year in grade nine and we had in grade eight last year and I'd assume we sent our usual 30 kids off to Minuteman we did we had a big increase it was across the whole district and today I came in the 11th grade girl who this was she just started and was lost she was new to the school too so I mean it's not even just the freshman class it's just across the board I know that they've had a number of new students but overall I would say that I'm pleased that we don't have any super large class and I think this year compared to what happened last year our highest one right now it did creep up a bit but it's not a class it down but overall it's not as bad as it could have been with the increases I just wanted to mention that 84 of those new students Mr. Schlickman are in the kindergarten alone and if I going forward could we have down at the bottom the capacity of the buildings what they're supposedly supposed to be building well it's what the building was supposedly built for I can do that but I'm not sure it's that helpful and the reason why is that when you talk about the design capacity of a building you're talking about your assumption of the number of students in a classroom and that's how MSBA does it they assume so for example when we get to the high school when we go through the enrollment process they will assume that I think it's 23 is that they would have for a homeroom so when you get the design number it's what the assumption was per classroom now does that mean if a classroom was designed for 22 that 24 is you see that therein lies the issue I'm just I think it's the autism it's very important we've exceeded MSBA our needs and everything else at autism right now oh we have and I take my hat off to the our new principal and the whole staff this summer and a lot of people at this table helping with this as well just thinking about how to redesign what we needed to do in order to get another half cluster of the eighth grade in we went through multiple draft plans and so lots of compliments into I was going to get to that but I'll say it right now to our maintenance department the number of projects we did this summer was astounding and they got them all done and autism is a really good example that the whole mezzanine area where art was where art is had to be reconfigured so that's where the half cluster is for the eighth grade and so we had to change what the lab was we had to get a sink in we had to redo the rooms move some programs downstairs we had to move special ed so there was a lot of moving parts there and trying to figure out where everybody was going to be placed every inch of that school is being used very thoughtfully I have to say but it was quite an effort to shake your hands involving lots of people Mr. Cardin has a question I just counter to what Mr. Hayner said I think we have to be very careful about when we put out numbers that they'd be good numbers and we've had so many different numbers about capacity of school design capacity there isn't for a lot of these schools there isn't one number that we can point to the design capacity and even if you do, if you take Dallin for example that was designed that school was designed with a computer room and a science room those have now been converted so is the design capacity considering that it's supposed to have a computer room and a science room or is the design capacity based on the number of rooms times 22 students so I think those numbers are so uncertain that I didn't really want to see them repeated an official document over and over again what I can get for everyone is the design capacity so you just have it as a reference and we could pull that out for them so actually I have a question about the new families I know we once talked about having sort of in a welcome packet to new families coming at the higher levels grades because they're often sort of more lost when they enter into, is that in place yet is that in production but because of the as you heard the number of new enrollments and having a new enrollment system this summer that took up the vast majority of their time but as that settles out we'll go back to it we have some information but I should say not what we'd like to have got it there was a prototype back at the beginning of the summer but one of the things that I guess we shouldn't have been surprised at is once we open the opportunity to do the same registration that's how people have registered their children and people are much more adept these days of scanning uploading all of the relevant documents so I would say the vast majority I would hesitate what the percent was but maybe I could say maybe close to 90% if not more done all electronically coming into the registration office to get packets we can send it out so yeah okay great so maybe it's a good time for Rob to talk about the hiring sure so we've had a very busy summer in my office and on the sixth floor and in all the schools the hiring starts when there's a vacancy position or a vacated position and we post the position hiring committees are formed at the schools or in departments and it started in the spring last year and continues through today where over the summer teachers would come in and do participate on committees to participate in hiring and the principals and all the special ed staff and coordinators and curriculum directors so it's been very busy so first we have some new administrators as you know we have an interim principal at Audison this year Eileen Woods is back in Arlington we have a new special education coordinator at the Audison because we did have a departure at the end of the past school year that person had been a team chair at the elementary level and has been in the district for several years we have two new elementary special ed coordinators who are new to the district and we have a new out of district special ed education coordinator who had, that's Chris Carlson who had been one of our elementary coordinators for the past several years as of today we have 57 new teachers, nurses team chair specialists these are positions covered by the AEA unit a bargaining unit it's a big number for this year I mean it's a little bit more I think than we've had in the past couple years 43 are replacing teachers who resigned retired, moved to another position or on a full year leave we have had some shifting which has created some openings where vacancies occur and some people are moving from one position to another such as the team chair positions we had a couple team chair positions open up at the elementary and we had people already in the district move into those positions we have 14 new positions some are partial FTEs we mentioned the half cluster at Audison there's two new teachers here although both of those teachers had worked here last year as long term subs at the Audison and had experience at the school and were well known and performed well last year in their long term substitute positions and we had some grade level increases and other FTE needs again as always we have hired from within 18 of the people have been teaching assistants or building subs or substitutes in Arlington several had done student teaching and long term substitutes as we said Dr. Bodhi already mentioned the orientation and mentoring that Marie Janiac has put together so well and really it's Marie and all of the lead teachers and curriculum directors really work hard to make sure that our new teachers are trained well in everything that they need to be as much as they can be in a few days right before the school year starts and these teachers coming in have varying levels of experience some are new out of school out of grad school some have taught in other districts and have a little more experience I have a breakdown of new hires by school again this is changing a little bit and we still have a few open positions that haven't been filled yet in the AA bargaining unit we've also had a lot of new teaching assistants behavioral support personnel tutors this number is actually updated it's not updated on what you have but I think as of today it's 38 new people and the hiring process continues teaching assistants are always hired a little bit later just because it's a more volatile position a lot of the people in the teaching assistant positions have been studying to become teachers our licensed teachers are looking for teaching positions and as positions open up either in Arlington or in other districts it creates an effect that we create vacancies and have to replace them we have added a few full time kindergarten aids some class size needs and building substitutes as of this slide 7 that I counted had master's degree and others are in master's programs there might be some more who have master's degrees now that we've hired so we have very well educated teaching assistants in this district we also have a program for the past couple years our special education coordinators have worked with local colleges to have a combined internship hiring process and hiring TAs as interns so they're actually hired at a little bit lower salary because they're getting it's part of their program and they're getting a paid internship for the whole year to work in one of our schools and we have several in the district this year through Wheelock College and that's it I just want to also as always thank just to move back thank everyone again all the people at the schools all the hiring teams and the principals and curriculum directors and special ed coordinators who work so hard all summer to get people in the district the people on this floor who do a lot of work our payroll department has been very busy as you know we have right now an interim payroll manager an acting payroll manager Connie Russell who's been in the payroll department for several years from M. Glouceline retired at the end of the last fiscal year and we have two relatively new payroll people in our department Mike Troyano and Vicki Sousa they've all been working very hard long hours the superintendent's office Maria Lalicata has been typing letters like crazy every day it's been very busy Kelly Piggit in my office has been working with benefit enrollment and getting everyone set up on our system and in our on ASOP and all of the systems we need to have done and it's just taken it's a lot of time a lot of long hours that people are working in our business office and everyone it's just hard I don't want to leave anyone out but everyone's been working very hard. I also want to mention that we are still looking for certain positions we have postings on our website for any open positions we still have a few teaching assistant positions to fill so if anyone is watching and is those people who are interested the other thing we really are looking for this year are substitute teachers substitute traffic supervisors or substitute crossing guards we do have a need for some substitutes in that area as we're pretty much at capacity with our crossing guards all working in at the spots and we need some substitutes who would be willing to come in and work in those spots on relatively short notice and then we and those are just morning and afternoon positions and there would be some training that you would get from Cory Ratto in the police department and and substitute secretaries in our schools we have a need for that as well so if anyone knows anyone let me know I'd like to consider in the upcoming budget to investigate increasing substitute teacher compensation I think that may be part of the issue drawing substitutes we cannot compete with the city of Cambridge I know that but we need to we need to become competitive for my from just anecdotally my conversations with other HR directors and other school districts they all have an issue no matter what they're paying it's hard to find substitutes right now and I yes we we could raise our substitute rates that might help a little bit but I don't think it would solve every problem but I don't either but if the person has a choice to come here right get a considerable difference and there are people in many different districts and you know if we have an opening on a day that another district that pays more has an opening they'll take the disc we're in the same system that's part of the issue what we've found over the years is that it's a pretty telltale sign of the state of the economy when the economy wasn't doing well we had a plethora so that probably is good news at a macro level might want to mention a more about the traffic supervisors week because we we have it we've had to put two additional ones on this we've added one at the Stratton right on mountain right in front of the entrance to the modular there so there's that that there wasn't a traffic supervisor there the past couple years but now with the construction and with the change in the entrance there is one there and right now we have one at the Thompson right on Everett and University right near the entrance to the the Thompson and near where the modulars are there and I think the reaction to those have been have been favorable also the other thing I wanted to mention is thank the advocate for publishing I think in this week's paper there's a spread on some of our new teachers in town so if you want to look and get some information about just a few of the the newly hired teachers in the district you can get that's really fun look at that can they exit from the modular units at Stratton out on to pheasant street do they exit out in that side yes I'm just concerned the maybe a need for traffic supervisor there and I'm pretty sure it's a one-way street but I don't know if there's a need but with kids coming across they're very clear it doesn't have that big spans and it's very difficult to see now with the modular units there at a time of traffic coming up there's a module is a set back considerably from but there's also a chain link fence that wasn't there before well we'll see how I'm just concerned it may not be necessary we will see I was under the impression they were all exiting on to Mountain Street but they and that exit was only going to be used for emergencies so I get me well plans change over the summer in terms of the absolute a lot of things about the project but I just ask you to look at it believe me I'm sure that we'll hear if becomes an issue but the Stratton one or the Thompson one we were initially going to be putting the person on temporarily but it's so congested there and speaking of Thompson in terms of congestion and traffic Mr. Hayner and I talked about this a couple times this summer one of the concerns and this is probably one of the reasons we would also keep the traffic supervisor there at least for the time being when people are coming from the Medford area down River Street to avoid the stoplight they will take a left on one of the side streets and then come down come down Everett so it's a it's a little more congested and it would even be from the the parents that are there but one thing they were also seeing at Thompson and officer Bertot and I have talked about the summer in fact I sent you a copy of the letter that we sent to the Board of Selectment to have the Board of Selectment consider making Purcell which is a one-way street between Everett North Union one-way going east I think that that's how it probably should be anyway but as we potentially face all of this new construction at the back on the on the North Union Purcell corner I think to consider having it both ways would be just a log jam teachers have to park along Purcell and then if a parent parks along the opposite side you barely can get another car down the center and so that's a real problem so I think we're going to be on the agenda Monday that's my understanding anyway so we'll see how that goes hold on one time mr. Cotten just going back to the hiring report two questions one is I don't know if it's possible to get a breakdown of like the number of resignations versus retirements and whether that's whether that's I'm actually interested in the trend over the last few years is that something that we need as a district we should be looking at or is it just normal churn so I actually Nick sent me an email earlier this week asking me for the same same information I really was trying to hadn't had time to really do a deep dive into the the data and to this afternoon I spent a little bit of time looking at it I don't have heart it we had more resignations this year you know if you look from the past you know from the beginning of last school year until the end of the summer we're significantly higher in terms of resignations than we were in the same comparable time period a year before there are many reasons for that I've had exit interviews with a lot of the teachers most of the teachers departing not everyone but many of them there's multiple reasons for it it's kind of a coincidentally there's this year we've had several teachers who have moved out of town because they're either trailing a spouse who's being transferred or getting a different opportunity in another in another state so we've had several in that situation we've actually had several teachers who took jobs closer to where they live to cut down on very long communities we've had some teachers in this district who drive a long way to get here they've really liked working in Arlington but for many reasons for family reasons or other reasons they've decided to look for jobs closer to home and there are some people who've left for districts that pay more much pay more there may be some just set some who've had dissatisfaction with their jobs that they had here and we're looking for something different we've had a few people leave education altogether for different reasons so there's there is a there's a variety of reasons I can get you that the numbers I can't go into every specific about the reasons but it varies and then the retirements are pretty consistent the last couple years I think we had eight or nine seven to eight nine in the past couple years from the teachers side at the most I mean there haven't been a lot and I don't think in the next few years we're gonna see a lot big numbers of retirements we'll have a few each year but we don't have we're not in a position right now is a district where we have a lot of teachers ready to retire yeah the the second question was more specifically related to special education so out of the you know the administrators we've got three out of six coordinators that are new to the district one who's who changed positions of four out of six of at least three team chairs that I'm counting that are new out of seven or so so and a significant number of teachers as well throughout the district so is that is there any special reason for this churn or is the coordinators we added the out of district position so the need for three really was created by just adding a position one of the coordinators retired and is subsequently moving out of state and another coordinator had left for some of the reasons you described you know so it was really kind of a one and really in that regard and as far as the team chairs one of them became a coordinator so that created that issue we had another one leave for a higher paying district and the close vicinity to us and you know some were other personnel decisions that we made that we can't really speak to so there was kind of a trickle effect so when person left it created a vacancy in that one you know in one particular elementary school did have a bit of turnover but similarly individuals either went to other positions in the district or moved up in a position which created the vacancy so yeah I'm sorry mr. Schlippen has a question as well see you know I you know what I heard a couple of key things moving to other districts for a higher salary and moving to closer to home districts which raises the question of is it way too expensive for our teachers to live anywhere near Arlington which I think is one of the prime issues and if and if our teachers are priced out of the housing market anywheres within a reasonable distance they they become susceptible to jobs closer to home that may be part of it it also may be that they don't I mean they don't want to live in Arlington or they want maybe they are living closer to where they grew up or where they have other family I don't know for sure every every detail I just think and I think there are several of these people who have worked in Arlington worked in Arlington for several years because they liked it here they liked working here and because of where their families are in terms of if they have young kids or whatever they've decided that now it's just it's become too much for them and they are set they live where they live and they're comfortable I think there's been multiple reasons it might also be that there are some people who would like to live in Arlington who can't I mean that's probably valid you because I wonder how much of an affordable housing effort we need to to direct to people who work for the school department right because you know if this is hurting our chance to recruit or retain staff you know it becomes an additional problem that goes across the street right I yeah that's probably true I think a lot of our anecdotally I don't know for sure but I think a lot of our younger staff who don't have families yet tend to live in Somerville and Brighton and places like where other younger people who don't have families yet live and then when they move out and sometimes people are moving a little bit farther away where housing might be a little more affordable a few towns over then and are still commuting to Arlington I think and then some people are finding places in Arlington it's just it varies and we do work with the town when they do have affordable housing opportunities and we send notices out to our staff when there are opportunities for bidding on or lotteries sometimes because those are competitive for people to get some of the affordable housing in Arlington but our staff is informed of it. Dr. Allison Ampe. I just want to comment that I'm really glad to hear that you're doing the exit interviews and everything I know when I started we didn't even have an HR person and I feel we were losing information as people left and not knowing why and I think just what you're doing is the sense that I get is that that's the sign of a fairly healthy workforce that you know yeah there's always going to be people coming and going but we're not hearing they're waving because they're strong job to satisfaction or I mean maybe they're not talking about that but I will say I mean there it's you know obviously we have a big staff we have a big district not every person who works here is going to you know it's either going to be the right fit or they're going to love and there are some people honestly who have said that it is job dissatisfaction but I don't think that's the majority I think that's a few and I think there's multiple reasons that people leave leave the district. Mr. Tillman. It might be helpful to get some comparative data from some of the other HR directors to work with to see what the trends are. You know one of the things that struck me when I met the new teachers is that a lot of younger people we hire and you know younger people tend to join a district and then they get married and their spouse moves to you know wherever and they go with them or they have a child they want to take time off so I don't know I think it's a lot of life events that in my own experience in management that they they cause turnover that are really no fault of the school of the school district and about it so it'd be good to have just have some comparative data just like other districts to see what they're doing. I bet you we're about the same is a lot of our comparative districts that's my sense. And then but then I think if you look at some schools and it varies every year some schools we didn't hire any new teachers or very few and then other schools for you know just were a little bit more active in the hiring and have several new teachers so it really varies and we do have some teachers who've moved grade levels in different schools I know a couple schools had a few shifts throughout the summer and so yeah there's always something changing that open tends to open up other positions. Mr. Heiner. The education today when I started teaching teachers found a good job they stayed there no matter what the distance was or anything today it's can be very transient right and they become if they're in a good field my son is a chemistry teacher six different districts over the past 12 years because different opportunities and different programs and he was able to do it. Yeah I think people are more open to changing careers even and we have as I said we've had a few people either leave stay in their overall profession like some of some of our related a couple of our related service type of providers might be using education but still doing you know they're basic you know what they've been trained to do and other people are leaving changing careers so great just cognizant of the time so we want to we have a bunch more things to hear about from Dr. Buddy. All right the next on the list is the middle school principal search update. We're very pleased that Dr. Arlene Woods is returning to Arlington to lead Audison this year but we will be planning for a full search for principal. I believe that we'll probably do some posting before the holidays because it'd be nice to be able to begin the process of interviewing later and then if we if need be we could always open it again so I have in mind the idea that you potentially could open it again but we'll see. I think we're in a very strong position in attracting a great candidate but having said that I could not be more delighted to have Dr. Woods here. It was just a seamless start to the year so it was terrific. Dr. Chesson do you want to talk a little bit about summer professional development. Thank you. We had in total about 611 days the teachers worked over the summer. That's about 384 participants. The district spent about $80,000 in summer professional development. We are very lucky that over half of that came through grants and so the district operational budget paid for about $37.6 which is about usually what we spend. I know that I signed some green sheets today so we'll probably come $40.50 is about what we budget for out of the operational budget. Some professional development of note is we have 14 teachers that began a teacher leadership program and that will be a graduate level course that will go throughout the year for teachers that are looking to be remain in the classroom but still be leaders in curriculum areas. We also had a beginning of a safe and supportive schools task force that started this summer that will also be planning all throughout the year and looking as how we create a cohesive plan K through 12 for safe and supportive schools and we also had the leadership teams of each of the elementary schools came and varying numbers in some schools they only had like two teachers that were available to come but there were several other schools that had five and six teachers who came and they worked as a team and went through a workshop on how to create collaborative teams that can move a school forward and we'll be working with the consultant to various degrees throughout the year so I feel like between the new curriculum we have and we have a new math curriculum for K-1 we have new science curriculum four and five we have redoing the reading and social studies to have integrated units at all the grades that there was a quite a substantial amount of work that was done this summer. And the administrative team also went through professional development this summer we began our 10-hour workshop on cultural competency and I think everyone agrees that it was this it's been terrific terrific program so that is it was it was a very busy summer there was activity everywhere not to mention the activity of professional development just the use of our schools it is every year there's more more and more activity that's going on and in the activity column there was just so many projects I don't think I'm going to read them all because there's just so many but you I think this was put into novice wasn't you've seen all those projects it was a substantial amount of work this was our first full summer with the facilities department and I have to say it has gone very well everything was so organized and and and laid out in a very planned planful way and projects got done it was quite quite an amazing project one of in this building is the preschool we were able to convert one of the classrooms downstairs which actually one of the areas which have been offices into another classroom which is something we've needed for a while and also the new I'm just gonna hit a couple highlights the new track was installed and unlike our experience with putting the the other turf down people were pretty good about not walking on it because that was a little bit more sensitive and again at Doddison there was just an enormous amount of work that was done in terms of getting the school retrofitted for using having more classrooms one thing that has always been an issue at Bishop is the drainage and we've really made some headway in that and that's actually sort of a combination of facilities and DPW so there's just been a lot of things that have done and you know green activities as well in order to improve the the energy efficiency of the buildings so I think it went well and I think in part it went well that was we began the planning of it in January and really had a schedule that we we held to from the very start I see that there were there's an item mentioned remove trees and tree walls that were an obstruction the hardy playground has the equipment been repaired at the hardy playground yes I have a question at hearty are we now done with the envelope repair I mean I know that this been a big issue yes with things leaking through the last last it's the last of it is done okay yeah all right so we talked a little quite a bit about all the other building projects so to technology and then I actually have some things that are not in here that I wanted to mention so August 24th was a very exciting night at Otterson sort of if you build it they will come I think we were all quite surprised about how many students showed up for the BYOD night we had hoped that we would get at least the same number that we had last year which was between 60 and 75 and actually the first night we had 160 people at one at point there was a line going out the door but what's even more impressive is that we're up to 325 students who have made their choice at Otterson to bring their own device and we have more being added every single day so that was really exciting I think the way we did it where we started out with one cluster at Otterson and then expanded that to the 6th grade and then expanded that to 6th grade BYOD and now have added BYOD for the entire school has really helped parents to see the benefit that technology can have for their students and we also opened up BYOD at the high school because high schools we're not filtering the kids coming in as much because they can get on the guest network we know we found out that which I didn't know as we were in the process of doing this that last year we had about 450 students that access the guest network on a regular basis at the high school so what what was happening is they were coming in with wireless devices some phones some ipad some laptops and they were accessing the guest network we know it did yeah I was just gonna say doesn't that limit them to be involved in the classwork and stuff like that no I mean I didn't mean they're doing it during class when I'm not using stuff I meant to use the device for classwork and stuff on the guest network limit it limits some of the things they can get at and it's actually getting more limited so this way they have to be want to go on the airplay network which we can then control and sort of monitor and know we've cut out video totally from the guest network so if a teacher is having students watch a video on YouTube or something like that they can't do that on their own device unless they use their phone and they use 3g which totally goes around the network so at the high school level things are you know I think that we don't have a real good handle yet on exactly how many students are bringing in but we'll we'll know within the next couple weeks as this committee found out tonight we now have what's called Safe Connect when you came in tonight and it requires the devices that are on the airplay and eventually on guest as well to be registered with the network so we'll have a better handle on exactly how much we've actually also doubled our wireless capability and over the next year we'll be looking at redoing what's called our network topography in order to develop backup systems so if one section of the network goes down then another section will kick in but that hopefully that'll be done by the end of the year or the beginning of the next school year. And a lot of compliments to our IT staff it's another group that just was working long hours even weekends to make sure that we were up and running and of course the big issue is just the what's behind the scenes is all of the infrastructure the the broadband and getting enough the routers there's just a lot behind that you don't see but they work very hard on this not to mention all the devices we were we also were purchasing through capital or even grants from AFS so they had to do a lot of work just to get those ready too. I have a question do we have an idea of how many teachers are intensively using technology in the classroom or you know how many are may choose not to. We're you know we're constantly assessing that I think teachers are all in different places of development I'm one of the great things that we had a professional development this summer is that we had an an ed camp for technology so folks could come there and sort of decide oh these 10 people want to learn about X and we had about a hundred people that came for that so I think that we'll have a better handle as the year goes on and we teachers are going to be more inclined to use technology if they think that kids have it on a regular basis and I think BYOD will help help with that and also the number of devices that we've been putting into the schools. Another thank you is to High Rock church they they had I think about a hundred people come in August to do a cleanup around the high school but in addition to their volunteer work that they've done now that's a second year I think or maybe third year in a row they've done this they've also dedicated some of their office space for our meal book program which we don't have capacity in the building for but unfortunately this year they've they're going to need need that and so we work this summer with the planning board to be able to use some of the space vacated by one of the agencies over at the over at the senior center and so our meal book program is going to be there for the year because ACA which has entered into an agreement with with the board will be after they after the lease ends in at Gibbs they will be taking up a lease there but meanwhile we had a year where we're going to be able to have our programs in that space and it's wonderful it's air-conditioned but we'll have to be thinking this year as to what will happen after that and of course that's one of the things that even when I was filling out these forms you know you know one of the questions I asked you are there programs that you have that you can't even house in your school and the answer is yes there is and so I'm not sure we can we certainly aren't going to be able to house it here but we have to think about where we're going to house it so you know one of the things that I think that you're also aware about it and the high school is very proud is that all the different high rankings they've they've had in the last last couple of weeks but I think you know the rankings can vary from whatever you know newspaper or magazine or is doing it but the fact the matter is no matter which one it is Arlington High School is being ranked very high in fact we had a request today from a magazine to have another interview about what what we do so what we're doing so well that's it's really about the teachers and the students of what we're doing well so I want to congratulate the high school but it's really a K-12 the kids come prepared to the high school and are just excelling after that so just a couple of other things speaking of our excelling students and our excelling teachers one of the middle school teachers Juliana Keys sent me an interesting little note I told I just have to share this with you today is actually sharing it with the community one of her students went to Japan this summer and one of the places they were visiting was the Osaka Castle and this is a castle that happened to be commissioned by Toyota told me hi to Yoshi I think it's how you say his name but at any rate when they arrived there was an interview team from one of the news channels they're up there who are targeting foreigners to ask them questions about what about the particular person I do you know how do you ask I think it's how do you ask she for the Japanese TV and they asked her lots of questions and she knew the answer and so I'm sure that they were she said she would they were amazed but then that speaks to the fact that we do teach geography and we teach more than geography this so she was she was telling her teacher how proud she felt that she was able to do that and and you know we had as I was talking about opening one every every every principal does something through goes through some kind of opening activity we did it with our ministry of teams everybody does that and one of the things they were doing at Odyssey this year and I just want to share a few things they did this what do you hope for this year and and teachers wrote down on these pieces of paper what they wanted to do and they're on display in the lobby I don't know if they're on display tonight but I was reading some of them and I just pulled a few off there were every every faculty member do this but it gives you an idea of who our faculty are and so let me just read a couple of what they hope for to listen and not just and not to to listen not just here all kids feel comfortable here to really get to know the students that all students feel part of a positive and caring community have students be excited to inspire creativity and passion for learning and and there was just more and more of this type of comment so this is what our teachers are hoping for this year and you know they starting this and I'm quite confident that they will see the success in all of this as they go through the year so I think we're off to a wonderful start and it's really through a whole network of teaming I mean you just can't do this without everybody doing a part of it and you've heard some of it tonight but it's it's more than it's more than just those of us sitting here at this table so anyway that's the report great thank you only about 12 minutes over so not bad next thing on our agenda is the time limit in the process of the superintendent evaluation and actually the reason I put this on is just have a discussion with you guys but what we want things to look like September 30th is a deadline according to our bylaws or whatever you know policies for a superintendent to give us the material for us to look at then last spring we had discussed that we wanted to have some sort of retreat now that can be a weekend retreat or it could actually even be one of things we've discussed is having the early part of a meeting in a retreat mode not in this room to discuss sort of what we've seen what we're looking for I think last year there was a sense that we were we wanted to request certain documents and we it was hurt maybe too late and so I wanted to get your feeling but when what when you'd like to do that what we have is we have the entire month of October to sort of digest what the superintendent has given us and request more you know before we do our evaluation so the 13th and 27th are meetings so I guess let me just throw it out to you what do you feel like we should do something beginning of a meeting do you want something longer and a weekend something like that Dr. Allison I'm a little confused was the retreat weren't we thinking that was for what not this evaluation that's the September 30th but the next one my you mean for the next year yeah for figuring out what we want for the next year is that we were since I thought that and establishing the goals and everything yeah okay well we certainly have retreated the spring or we talked about the goals and what we're looking for and there was a feeling that we wanted to retreat in the fall as well some sort of that's what I get sense of yeah mr. in descent right after we do the evaluation in the past there was a sit-down with the superintendent to establish the goals adjusted from the district goals and stuff and I think for me part of the confusion is that melding they should be the same but for specifics and then bring them to the committee for approval okay so I'm actually really confused now that's right so so you're saying that after we do the evaluation in November we'd like to then revisit that was my understanding I could be wrong okay anyone else have a sense because I well my memory is that this I should have done a little more research but I think we talked about the fact that we want to just make sure we got interim report or regular reports on the goals right focus I wanted to make sure that you know every couple of months Kathy was conscious of giving us information on the progress towards the goals okay so we should I don't know a couple of months I remember we should probably talk about that with the calendar because right now we just have two days yeah okay two days maybe sufficient okay one of the one of the aspects originally Dr. Buddy was setting up a drop box yeah to do exactly that as the things come we're going to the drop box right that's still being worked on I mean my feeling is as soon as something happens at a meeting a school if we have a meeting say in December about budget it relates to a goal just using an example at the end of that meeting she gives wink to Karen and Karen puts it in the drop box and it becomes cumulative and we have a chance to either look at it on an ongoing basis or wait till September like some members have indicated and ask the questions as we go along okay going on but there's also as I'll wait for the calendar part okay okay so let's I mean I guess then so it sounds like we're not looking to do any sort of retreat free thing in October why don't we then the least in October we will have had a chance to look at the evidence that's been presented and make requests yeah in the regular public meeting if there's something else that we'd like to see that yeah okay Mr. Slickman one of the things that I noted last year is we did have a little bit of confusion as to yes which parts of the goals we were targeting within the evaluation so that one thing we should be doing is making sure that that portion of the the tool has the the specific goals to be evaluated because last year that was blank and when I did the concatenation last year there was a wide range and the big note I made to myself to improve things for this year is to make sure that it within those boxes we put in the specific goals and areas that we were evaluating right okay saying that that might mean a meeting of the minds to make sure we're on the same page okay well why an hour and a half hour or something I don't know that I can go to the CIA subcommittee as well okay just to just to arrange the form and pre-populated okay yeah that's all we're doing is pre-populating so one of the things that we talked about last spring is having some more chances for informal meetings retreat like meetings if we need it so we'll leave that as an open possibility for but but it may not you know may not be necessary okay okay that's clarity for me is anybody else want to talk to the goals anything else that we're missing but the timing is trainer I get two areas that I'd like to add to the calendar okay so let's yeah let's move on to discussion of the calendar so let's give you some background during our retreat in the spring I think the committee reformed its desire which I think it had before but hadn't sort of yet been done to have a standard year-long flexible calendar but but just an idea of what does the year look like in the school committee with of course some flexibility so dr. Rowdy and I worked this summer we met a couple times on on just really the preliminary first draft of what that might look like and what I thought makes sense is to do it by month in that way just to give us a little bit more flexibility it wasn't by meeting so but it's just a first glance and I knew there be changes so let's let's actually talk about what we'd like to add or delete or you know new insights yes I'd actually like to speak to the concept of the year-long calendar because I think so this is good and I think it's good for us to be thinking ahead in that way but this is actually kind of not quite what when we had talked about in the governance meetings what the year-long calendar was meant to be okay my understanding from having had to hash it out with Nancy Walzer and try and under really get it down and put it on paper is that what the year-long calendar is trying to do is actually take our goals the current goals and then from them figure out what we want the kind of product to show that the goals have been completed is going to be whether it's going to be a report a presentation or something so you need to know what that is and then when is that going to happen and then that's like that's kind of the really important parts to put in the calendar and then everything else gets kind of fit in around those things okay and it you're going back to the retreat that maybe isn't a tree yeah yeah that figuring out what those products or whatever you deliverables yeah whatever you want to call them figuring out what those are and when they should be done either could be something just done by the chair with incomes consultation with the superintendent or it could be something that we could discuss at a retreat okay but so when I look at this this is good but this is actually much more in the weeds than than Nancy would have us be she was really looking for us hitting making sure we're getting their goals done and that we're learning about them and then you try and spread them out so everything isn't all due in June right because then it's just crazy right actually I did actually pass this by Nance well there and she had she actually only had a small tweak to it but that doesn't mean that that you're not absolutely right that her initial vision was something yeah that's this is how she was conveying it that I think this thing is helpful for chairs right so this we can still create a document like this that is sort of you know we since we have a rotating chair and there's new chairs every time to serve here sort of basically what we do as a committee but this other thing I think actually just we take more conversation but what we want to look like and maybe that conversation happens in a sub committee meeting or under in a retreat I mean it seems like we need to start being an agreement about what that vision is I think yeah I think some of this may come out of a subcommittee or something like of that nature but it could be even fit in here at different periods of the time it keeps the goals we're not creating them in the late spring evaluating them from the year before in November and then it keeps us constantly thinking of the goals during the year and things of that nature doesn't have to be a long thing but it might out of a subcommittee so this has to get done each year I mean this is this can be a standard document that we sort of refer to but but what you're talking about sounds like it should be something that we are really each year thinking afresh about yes okay any suggestion for a subcommittee that would be the appropriate would be curriculum okay so why don't we task curriculum subcommittee to begin that process and then and I and I guess make a decision about whether it needs to go to maybe a retreat level at a full committee meeting or just be discussed yeah I just I like the structure of this and I think it's a nice outline of the things we normally do with these points it's a roadmap of where we intend to go it doesn't seem very I want to use the word controversial but it just seems to flow with right with with past practice so that I think it's sort of you know reminder what what we do yeah so I think this is fine okay but you want CIA to to come up with I guess we need to then talk about the process of what this year's right this is I think the suggestion that this year's goals what's what we need to see from this year's goal to understand how we're making progress in this year's goals yeah I think that's something that's so we should sort of okay come up with the process yeah it's what the things you know is you look at each goal is this one going to be a report and when is it good yeah yeah and it's just it's a way of making sure that those things are in the calendar and then that they come up and we can go okay it's time to talk about you know whatever and once it's codified yeah we all know that it's coming at a certain time so those people that also the any of the staff or the superintendent or anybody it needs to make reports think it's it's not oh by the way Kathy we need this next Thursday they know it's coming so actually let me make a suggestion to this calendar that we add something this calendar for each year coming up with that schedule of what you know yeah that makes sense yeah and and then but then we keep this we don't throw this away no no I also want to add one thing that mr. Hainer had suggested actually Nancy suggested as well which is to add in March with as our as our practice and our in our procedures the superintendent progress on goals that we get a report media media report so you put in the policy to put it yeah well so we put this is I think this becomes part of policy yeah but this is also it it's in line with the the state's evaluation process that it's an informant of how's things gone it I may need something I need no more time or whatever it's in for it's informative but at the same time informal right right okay so that would be then we have that mid-year and then we have the the one in September is that does that seem like that's according with the practice we've done so far but that seemed like what we want okay and I also suggested in November the new goals for the next year developed after the evaluation by the end of November this flexibility in it I only stuck it there because we get December packed with budget the new goals for the next year developing in November after we have the evaluation yeah in November this is the issue that I've always had with November yeah so you're finishing one you said the they will be attached to the goals the district goals that we've had before personal goals not the superintendent not the exactly they may or may not be right but we state them we're clear and it's that conversation that we have together the one you and I have had individually about not the substance but how it's communicated and aspects of things like that you know but I would you know the school year started so you've probably already identified you I mean you've already probably identified your goals for the right so you identify the district goals right back in June for the next year actually this is for but this is the issue of having an evaluation in November yeah if we had the evaluation in June yeah we would have the new goals for the next year yeah the superintendent could set his or her why are we back here again we don't have accountability data in June you know yeah I know it's it's a strange someday we can hope we're one of so I don't I also I think it's a little no it's it's it's a little bit odd to kind of you know for the school committee to tell an administrator in November in the middle of school year the we're going to evaluate you on these goals but no I think I think the suggestion is these are the goals then for the after yeah I appreciate that you know there's a lot but you're a third of the way through the year but we're we're in September yeah we're evaluating the superintendent on last year's goals we're halfway through the year starting this year's goals so there has to be some to see either move them so that they're together yeah which there's been resistance since for six five years I've been on the committee or understand that the individual there has to be some difference the lineation between the district goals and the superintendents process whatever it is something okay mr. Slickman of course there's the lineation but I mean we have to be cyclical and there are two things two points that we need to always have in mind as a school committee point number one is if we're evaluating the the school year the previous school year we can't do that while we're in the middle of the school year especially because the accountability data that we want to look at comes after the conclusion of the school year so that to evaluate the superintendent or to come to a final conclusion on the goals in June puts us in a position where we'd be doing it without all the requisite information now let let me finish point number two in terms of evaluating any superintendent specifically and this is nothing to do with the current superintendent it is a structural thing in that the way almost all superintendent contracts are written that you normally have a decision point on a renewal year that falls around the end of December so that we're structuring around those two usual landmarks that impact everybody so that to so that to have a final about we know where we're trying to go and there are a lot of things that we'll know about in June and we can plot out some of the goals but to do to close the book on it and have anything final on this before we look at accountability data and have all the data we have from the previous school year does a disservice to us does a serve a disservice to the community and and throws out important data that we should be using analytically now fortunately we're a high performing district so we haven't had any evil surprises over the past couple of years coming through the accountability measures things you know and I don't expect to spend a lot of time looking at testing data this year especially because we're held harmless with the switch over to park so we do want to monitor how we're doing visa v second language learners we want to make sure that the high needs population is being served well it's always been a concern of this committee to our credit and we won't really know those results till we get the accountability scores in so we've landed on sort of this wacky structure it is not neat it is not clean we're doing evaluation of the prior school year in September and October but it's just the nature of the beast we're going to be in this situation as long as and I don't see why we keep bumping up against it let's just realize what we are as a publicly governed district and go with the flow so actually can I get clarity from Mr. Heiner about your suggestion what your suggestion is my suggestion is is there a change or my suggestion is one of two things I'll get to that okay Mr. Schlichman we evaluate all our teachers by the end of June yeah we do not wait for state's performance and it's dealing with their and they still are in their evaluation subsequent years is reflected on the state's performance which is makes me a little shaky we should not be judging our superintendent just on statistical state performance alone I agree with that now getting back to your question that you asked yeah one of two things has to happen we have to make a distinction a delineation between the district goals they may be somewhat and the superintendent's personal goals they may be reflective the problem is we're six months into one district goal and six months left over a prior district goal by the time we get into five months into November it it that's what's caused confusion to this old man each year of which goals I'm evaluating so are you suggesting that there there be a change in the the the magic time that the superintendent goals are being evaluated and the and mad time that the district goals are being evaluated the majority of districts in the Commonwealth do a regular school year evaluation okay so they don't what I'm saying is I have no problem with the district goals they're in a good place okay they're in a good place for the upcoming year I'm all I'm saying is if we're going to continue to evaluate the superintendent in November to allow for the state data I think it's important for us for the superintendent's personal goals which is a piece of her the the superintendent's evaluation not the whole thing that they be delineated clear I'm having confusion I am still be evaluating November so this yes yes I'm not suggesting changing you're just suggesting clarity with respect yes no time change absolutely that sounds like no problem with that as long as we have the serpent and it's personal goals personal goals are clear the exact same amount of period of time it would be a 12 month period are being evaluated so the previous year yes okay does that seem I mean you know it is what it is I mean if we if we're doing this in a peaceful piecemeal basis where there are things we can evaluate in June fine I'm saying doing it in November or or to document or whatever but the one thing is I've evaluated teachers I've evaluated superintendent I've evaluated I've done district evaluations and looked at our goals they're all different animals the way I look at a teacher is very different than the way I'm looking at a superintendent because I've got access to a lot more data I'm watching a teacher on a day-to-day basis I know who they are and generally speaking the data coming from a classroom is fairly consistent and if there's something that I'm really interested in I'm monitoring that across the school year in a much more intimate way than we can as a school committee so just so it sounds like Mr. Hayner's suggestion is that we do both evaluations in November both the district goals and the superintendent's personal goals and that we value them both in November and that the evaluation period be for the previous year yes yes okay so that sounds good so okay that that clarity I thought that's what we do yeah that's what we do I think we do not I have not seen for me a delineation between the district goals and the personal what you want just some to be spelled out the personal goals will run from December 1st to the evaluation the district goals run we're looking at 2015-16 district goals for this evaluation right yeah right okay that's right we should be looking at December 1st to November personal goals I do not have a personal goal clear in my mind personal goals delineated from district goals and that's and I'll accept this year going forward I just want to have that delineation that's all so okay so yeah Dr. Alasambia I'm sorry I'm still confused yes it's I think maybe we could bring a copy of the form okay and talk I mean and preferably fill it in what the different things are so we all know what we're talking about what what I would like is to have a copy of the district goals and the personal goals okay well that's but the form I'd like the form because the form is pre-populated and yes that's fine that might add some clarity with the district goals then I'd like to see those two because that way I know where everything fits in on the one yeah and then I can look at the other two okay okay Saturday morning so if refresh my memory have we ever had a process by which we select personal goals for the superintendent I thought the superintendent I thought I thought she selected her yeah I thought that was part of the whole process right that's what I understand the state says that that is to be the superintendent can offer them to us a discussion we have to agree to them right I'm the probability of accepting what the superintendent presents to me is very high and just for my clarity I the superintendent offers them to us in at the end of September or after the the evaluation after the evaluation that's why I picked the end of November wait we're talking two different years here we're years confused that's you're talking about the year that we're evaluating yeah right right and you're talking about the next year I'm talking to aren't the the personal goals should be from December to November of the same year that the district goals ran from July through June yeah that's the confusion okay yeah I think I don't necessarily agree with what Mr. Hayner is saying except to say that I think we need to have the personal goals clearly identified yeah and I think his idea of the timing is good yeah to make a statement about what time period they cover right now I'm not willing to go there um why don't we send this to CIA curriculum assessment um to have a meeting to sort of um hash out some of this and see if we can get something that makes sense to bring back to us um okay so let's do that so you have a lot of work to do well that seems to fit into that calendar the year long calendar thing it's the same discussion it's the same discussion okay so let's do that let's come back and look at the calendar again um in October after we've had some of those meetings for hopefully a final thing is there any any other additions subtractions comments of the calendar that we'd want to come with it okay okay just yes I can understand the budget so what you've I'm sorry I lost the form for a moment yeah budget um so what you've got is how budgets done it the last couple years but that's subject to chain you know it gets moved around a little bit right um so I'm fine with this being on here now but it once we pass the budget calendar which we'll need to do fairly soon we can update this okay I would prefer not to see this go into policy because I think this gets I mean the this the I think there can be a reference to your wrong calendar yeah but I don't think it should actually be in policy because like at least the budget part's going to change year to year I mean the exact timing of the different right you might want to use in policy just say the current calendar well yeah I mean my my feeling was that we could send this to policy with a strong caveat saying of course this is subject to sort of shifting around but if that's not something that we're comfortable with then we can just I mean one of the things we want to do is create a school committee handbook this kind of thing should be in that yeah I think but with the caveat you know it's flexible this this is something that we want to have for the public too I mean this is really useful it's just I don't want it to be put in a place like policy where it's this is what it will be this year right you know we have to change it by we want this is the 2015 or two I don't know what the date 16 17 16 17 great okay okay perfect and then and then the next year they okay that's that sounds great I like that idea okay yes no I think we're done I think I think we got it all I think this is okay so on to consent agenda all items listed within asterisks are considered to be routine and will be enacted in one motion there'll be no separate discussion of any of these items unless a member of the committee so requests in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence approval of warrant number 16188 dated June 9th 16 in the amount of $592,323.75 approval warrant number 16194 dated June 23rd 16 in the amount of $1,175,592.69 approval of warrant 16199 dated June 30th 16 in the amount of $145,837.75 approval of warrant 16200 dated July 14th 16 in the amount of $44,386.42 approval of warrant 17023 dated August 11th 16 in the amount of $427,972.61 approval of warrant 17029 dated August 25th 16 in the amount of $561,249.04 and approval of minutes regular minutes for June 9th 2016 so move hold on sorry Dr. Allison Ampe I said so move oh so much great okay so moved by Dr. Allison Ampe seconded by Mr. Hayner all those in favor and I that's unanimous okay subcommittee liaison reports and announcements and I suspect there will only be a couple of announcements but let's see budget budget has nothing to report we will need to be scheduling a meeting sometime soon to start working on the calendar great community relations is Cindy right so she's not here and I'm on that committee and we haven't met so okay district accountability curriculum instruction and assessment looks like we've got some agenda items facilities no report policies and procedures it's my intent to have at least one meeting a month you've already given me some stuff some stuff to work on yes do you want to talk to that well just briefly we have a document with us tonight on an audit that was done and it is my intent to meet with the superintendent to develop part of a policy and a staff committee to work on the recommendations from that audit report it's my hope to have that farce for the next meeting um school enrollment task force 630 in the lion's room 630 lion's room okay great um the warrant committee everyone was paid on time throughout the summer great uh any liaison reports any additional announcements um that I don't know if the superintendent was going to talk to it uh bill bridges there's a conference coming up you all received uh an invite I would like to go I'd ask the committee uh if they would sponsor me and anyone else that would like to go I think it's a it looks something it's something good that sounds great do just mr swigel do you want to talk to that the conference so yeah um the mpde is uh sponsoring a conference this year called building bridges with a uh the keynote speaker is claud steele who's the author of whistling vivaldi and among other books um we are also um john safe here is going to be at the conference and um on a panel and do a lunch presentation and dr bowdie is going to be a panelist uh it's going to be an all day conference at in randolph at uh bombardos um and uh we're trying to uh it's october 7th um which is the friday before uh columbus day weekend um but looks to be a good conference we're planning it that book by the way is the book that all administrators are reading right now oh great that's part of the cultural competency yeah great um so i guess so mr heiners has requested that he um serve as our representative from the school committee um do i have a motion so moved okay dr ellison if he makes made the motion second second second by mr slickman um all those in favor hi hi yeah see you guys if i mean uh just like to remind everyone town night is september 16th donald uh in the field across from the boys and girls club fireworks at the end of the night and town day is september 17th which is each year it gets bigger and better i invite everyone to come another reminder we have a bunch of uh we have an election today we have another election on the 20th uh for the minute man um and uh that election is odd by state law we're only allowed to be open the polls are only allowed to be open for eight hours so they're open from 12 to 8 at for the most part at people's regular polling places with the exception of stratton which i know you know it's been under construction do you know if i can vote absentee in that can we actually yes you can yes okay great okay um any request for future agenda items at this stage yes mr i would hope that we can talk about the impacts of uh the possibility of a of an unlimited expansion of charter schools uh between now and in november okay um we will we can maybe invite somebody into or i mean i i know you're you know a lot about things so maybe we can have you talk to that matter um i know i mean it's unfortunate that mr johnson isn't here i know that there are some other sort of just reports that we need on um stuff that's happened at the state house over the summer and and spending this happened over the summer so hopefully we can get that information soon um we very soon we'll have something um by eileen woods we'll meet eileen woods um we'll also um miss elmer uh we missed her this spring um and so hopefully we will um we'll have we'll meet with you soon so we'll bring on that as well okay um okay so now we have an executive session to go into we will not be coming out of the executive session um you know for the public meetings so um 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 in which if held in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect to conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation in which if held in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect collective bargaining may also be conducted and as i understand only one of the items on this agenda we'll be discussing right now which is the assistant superintendents contract okay okay so we will wait a couple minutes till we're we'll call the vote okay make a motion i'm sorry so the so move we're gonna also vote on the moa aren't we what i understand is that we're pushing that to the next meeting i see um for timing reasons yeah so we'll we'll have we have to have an executive session next meeting in fact we have a couple things i think we'll be bringing in um okay so uh so move it's a motion by mr. hainer to move into executive session i know we have to seconded by a dr. alson ampey i know we have to take a roll call um mr. pardon yes got your house nancy yes mr. clickman yes mr. hainer yes mr. fieldman and i say yes okay