Good evening, ladies and gentlemen It is Thursday, February 26, 2015. It's the Allington school committee's public hearing on the FY 16 school budget I'm looking out at the audience. I am now going to ask the is there anyone here in the audience that would like to Talk on the school committee's Proposed budget at this time Seeing no one at this time. I'm going to adjourn the public hearing Public hearing meeting is now adjourned. I am now going to open the regular school committee meeting and Would invite I would just like to make a couple of announcements Welcome to the committee Mr. Pierce is not here tonight and Dr. Ampe is not here tonight both personal reasons will not be here The rest of the committee is present Farmer Allington public school secretary Patricia M. Boone passed away today Thursday, February 19th Excuse me on last Thursday, February 19th Pat Boone was a secretary at the Bishop elementary school And is the odd of Connie Russell at the payroll department At this time, we will not have public participation. I would invite Marie Big fear. Thank you. I apologize Hi, I'm Marie material and I'm here on behalf of the Arlington education foundation And in particular our technology initiative and I'm here to invite you all to a really exciting event We're having in honor of the math sciences and computer sciences, and that is pie day So 3.14 March 14th Saturday March 14th Point one five so with 2015. This is super pie day We are going to have a gathering at the common ground from Three to five Yeah, my husband told me My husband told me that if we'd have it at nine in the morning we would get several more digits in pie and I said Because we are we will have a cash bar beer at nine in the morning and and pies donated from local bakeries and stores This is to raise funds for the technology initiative. We're raising funds for additional Computer labs at the middle school for both of the sixth grade and for all grades for the engineering program And so that the at the high school the sciences Will have the technology they need to do modeling They had hoped to share with computer sciences, but the success of computer science means the sciences haven't had the equipment They need we are looking to raise Well over a hundred thousand dollars on this campaign. We are charging forward We're hoping getting everybody together for pie day Where you'll see some science and math and computer science in action and learn lots of ways to calculate pie from the math club And so it will raise awareness. So please We hope you can make it and we hope you'll pass this on to all the people You know who want to raise a toast to science math and engineering at Arlington schools Any questions that leave anything out pie day, how could you forget the date? Three to five common ground. Yes. Thank you very much appreciate Mr. Lever I Apologize if I mispronounce your name both. Oh, I'm sorry and Amy McMillan. Yeah, we'll come up together I'll start actually with a note of deeply felt thanks to superintendent Bodie and and and Bill and Paul to you For all attending the dedication of the big Sweeney Center at Edco a couple months back that was very meaningful and Eileen was very thankful for for everyone who is there and of course You represented Arlington very well. So thank you for that We're here to speak together about an issue that is Maybe one that's not fully within the committee's control, but but is something that we wanted to raise here and that is the challenges with the bus route a bus bus one and bus two in in the in the Bishop district and the challenges recently that have been experienced around getting around and traveling through the streets and I know Amy has written a note and has spoken to the head of DPW About the challenges, but there have been some incidents just this week and I'm sure you're all aware of them but the parents in the neighborhood have some pretty significant concerns about safety and We wanted to make sure that we raised them here Just in the event that someone's not aware there have been at least three incidents with the bus To where it's been in contact with another car once stuck at a snowbank No one's been hurt and obviously we're all grateful for that You know, we all deal with the challenges of the narrow streets. We're all familiar with that We have a keen awareness of budgetary limitations I think we just want to feel like that there is some sense of that this is Something that's important that matters and it's going to be addressed that that someone is taught in the bus driver We all hasten to say Steve has done a fabulous job dealing with a nearly impossible situation But it's our sense that perhaps it's in coordination with DPW and the message the reason we're here is the message I got from the director of DPW was was that he needed kind of a direct request from the school committee from the superintendent to be able to Prioritize in any way making the bus routes safer and you know, there's several options. Obviously You know plowing the entire snow removal along the entire bus route is probably not feasible at this juncture But if anyone's consulted with the bus driver He may my guess is have a very good sense of what few key areas are particularly problematic for him Also, all the incidents that have occurred to my knowledge have all been on the morning runs none of them in the afternoon runs So I imagine it's a combination of school plus regular rush hour traffic You know even something as a temporary solution of having a police cruiser run in front of the bus for the 45 minute That it takes to do the two runs might be a low-cost low marginal cost highly effective Solution until the streets are able to be widened in the intersections can be dealt with in a way where he can operate the bus And a safe manner on a day-to-day basis I'll add that I exchanged notes with with Adam town town manager and he's been in direct touch with the head of DPW He was very responsive and I know there's some dialogue there But again, I don't think that we've seen any Actual change in the situation. So while everyone's maybe aware of it. We still haven't seen any action And as you know the school buses don't have seatbelts and these are elementary school kids Right and our kids both ride the bus and we can make the choice to have not ride the bus But then we contribute to the congestion around the Bishop school, right? So that's we all made that choice That's kind of counterproductive as well So we just feel like some quick targeted action would have some measurable safety results in the very near term And we appreciate you considering that Thank you very much. I'd just like to let you know that the superintendent as soon as she's made aware of anything Quickly informs everyone on the committee We've been kept abreast of all these things that we are as you are Very glad no one has got hurt and we do appreciate the bus driver and everything that's going and Yes, very aware of it and I do Appreciate your recognizing Steve Angelo because he has done a terrific job These streets right now are not designed for buses the size that we're driving and I know there was a suggestion to perhaps change the the bus stops but that That probably is going to pose more difficulty. I know that there's We've been in communication with DPW and by the way, I was gonna applaud them They have just done a fantastic job as as have our custodians and maintenance people Trying to deal with these large Mounds of snow. I have to say the big priority Recently has been to get the snow off the roof and To eliminate icicles so they don't fall on any children and it's just a it's a question of Some prioritization but believe me. We're definitely working on that the other thing that we're we're also want to improve and we're I don't know if it'll be active tomorrow, but it very soon is that we're creating an alert now for both bus buses because you could be out there waiting and You wouldn't know that there was going to be a delay and so we want to create an alert now list for both buses So that we can immediately communicate any Any concerns or any lateness So we are working on it and we do understand the problem and we we knew this was going to be a problem and Anticipated that even a couple weeks ago and trying to in the bus routes giving them the giving them the stops that the buses made and DPW did everything they could to to clear those out So there would be an indentation and they wouldn't be students wouldn't be standing on the street. So I Appreciate you bringing this to all of us our attention, but I can assure you it is definitely on our Radar screen. I appreciate that. I will say the principal McEnany's been great about sending out emails And so if you you know if you're kind of standing out there and it's 810 and you're freezing if you check your smartphone Like he has sent stuff out the text. It's an excellent improvement If there's been removal at bus stop intersections I'm unaware of it and would almost attest that that has not happened at the bus stops What has happened in generally you've probably seen this in your driveways you shoveled them out And then there's another storm and the but and the plows come down and so We can we can talk with DPW about clearing those out again It's just that you know every time another plot goes down the street. It put it it pushes in to the banks So in terms of problem-solving They're the experts, but but certainly the bus seems to have the most trouble with the corners And in particular the turn on Irving is is one I'm familiar with that's near the bus stop Seems to be pretty problematic And and I you know, I will note that you know in terms of specific actions for example Matt Matt Dolan at at ACC has taken taken it on himself and on their budget to Remove snow along Irving to make it safer, but I haven't seen the DPW out there doing it so And the other thing I would say is that when I spoke to To the head of DPW. I believe now it was two days ago He he was unaware that there had been any incident with us like it was not on his radar at all Now principal McEnany said he had contacted DPW and I fully believe that he had But whatever and obviously that's not your you know jurisdiction Whatever internal communication chain within DPW was not getting it to the right person The safety of the children is all our concern We'll continue to look into this. Thank you. And the last thing I would just say quickly is that We're not coming to you with a hypothetical the streets are narrow the corners are bad There could be an accident there's been at least three incidents So it's not hypothetical. It's it has happened. Thank you. Thank you At this time we're going into budget discussion Well, this is an opportunity this evening to further our discussion FY 16 budget, but I do want to Say before we begin that there was an observation the last meeting that perhaps we could take a look at the legal budget and We have done that and have decided to We can't looking at actuals and maybe project projections in terms of other possible settlements to reduce a Couple of line items and I'm gonna actually let Diane speak more specifically to that Okay, as you know that over the last several years. We've budgeted $200,000 in a legal settlement account $200,000 in special education legal expenses and $200,000 in general education legal expenses So that would include negotiations and employment and things like that Looking at what we've spent. I think I think it would be fine to reduce each of the special ed legal and the general ed legal by $50,000 and the settlement line by $98,000 and that would enable us to fund three more reserve positions Because we know there's already there's already existing pressures on the existing on the reserve positions So it'd be really good to have five true reserve positions as opposed to five reserve positions three of which are spoken for so I would support the idea of Moving the money into the reserves, but looking at and I on a monthly basis. I get things coming in we are Markedly down in all our legal expenses. I mean dramatically so I hesitate to use that word I Think the numbers that you're suggesting I'd like to be aware keep us aware of this during the year because if we Maintain this trend that we're in right now. I'd like to suggest to the committee to revisit this periodically that this money may be used in other areas of needs of Bolstering and putting back programs that we haven't had a chance yet to do. I think it's conservative. I applaud that I'm willing to spend money But I I will support this at this time going forward So there there for three reserve positions across the board or for Yes, or whatever make whatever we need and in fact for parts of what we may need because the half cluster at the Middle School will have a ripple effect in specials if we have to add more classrooms at the elementary that'll let ripple into specials High school scheduling may require a little bits and pieces. You know once you get out of a classroom It's rarely a whole teacher. It's little bits little bits little bits Thank you Actually, do we do we have a clear idea of what those ripples might be so if we add, you know three elementary school and It depends on where You know and what the capacity is in the building how many specials do we have to add another specialist? We have to move a specialist from another building It's really hard to know until we know exactly where the classroom is going to be added So what about the half cluster that we're adding at audits, and do we have a Res sufficiently staffed if that's all we added out to send No, what we have added in the budget explicitly was that the half cluster as well as the point for Additional technology the person is already there, but working part-time. We need to to have that as a full-time position But one of the things that happens whenever you add a classroom is that you have to add pieces of specials because otherwise You're gonna have really Large large classes at the elementary level every time you add a classroom You're adding another point six at least in terms of specials because you've got a Fiz actually it's more than point six because we had they have two special ed class I'm sorry physical education classes art and music and Clear idea of how many classrooms we're gonna have at the audits and and we know we're adding this half cluster So can we now say what we need to add to support those? Well, we will soon We have really accelerated the scheduling in the middle school Scheduled this year because we we want to see what the impact is going to be on specials. I think that I Think that we're gonna probably end up somewhere in the neighborhood of point six just simply based on the half cluster But we may find that there are other needs So when we were looking at reserve positions, we really didn't we know that they really didn't have five true reserve positions Because we knew that we were gonna have this effect at audits and we just don't know where the effect will be quite yet We also know that every time you add an elementary classroom You're adding specialist clothes. So when you when you have five reserve positions one classroom We really take up one point six in terms of the FTE's of it The other thing is that we've begun we will be beginning the high school scheduling and already We had one position remember in the budget But point four of that was for science. So You know, we're having an increase of students. Well, actually not that many But it just depends on the new courses and how that all plays itself out So we would probably be adding pieces here and there so I feel Much better that we've just made this decision with your support, of course because we we knew that we didn't have five going into the the This new enrollment time Yes, but we spoke at our last meeting about potentially taking of the five I think didn't you say something about possibly just saying that three of those were elementary is that still Well, we can do that What it has been what has been the case historically is that the elementary get the bulk of our reserve positions because We don't want classrooms of 30 35 and yet We have had those in specials at the middle school and we've had them here at the high school as well the older children, you know having larger classes, so That will probably still be the case whether we allocate three designate three elementary, you know that As we enroll students, that's going to be the first place we look quite honestly Questions on any more in the budget? Well, that's what I wanted to let you know I wanted to respond to we did take another look at that and this is our recommendation So we're open to if there's any other after you had a chance because last time you got it fairly late And do you really have a chance to dig into it? And we just wanted to know tonight What are the observations thoughts you have or questions? I? Just have one thing I have a couple of questions dealing with the budget and stuff But it ties to the technology, so do you feel comfortable that the technology plan that's going to be presented tonight? We is funded within the budget. Well, there's a lot of it that's been carried in the capital budget Okay, so that there are there are multiple funnels into our technology plan, right? There's some in this budget There's a bigger bite in the capital budget and then there's some from AEF funding that we have a funding stream from them But correct me if I'm wrong the AEF and the capital budget usually deals with the hardware and Maybe software not necessarily for courses and support materials and stuff like that Is that fair to say? Well capital would be hardware. Yeah, my specific question. I'll jump into it the t-21 grad courses That's something we would be paying for Now it goes back to the question do you feel oh Our budget can support that yeah, yeah, we had it last year in the year before and we just carried it forward I'll save my other question Yes, are there any in the past so two weeks ago we talked about Metco and the kindergarten grant Is there any other new news that we should be aware of in terms of state funding that should that could impact our revenue stream? Yeah, Metco has been cut another $20,000 on top of what we already knew We haven't yet made specific plans about how we're going to respond to that But we will okay, what we don't know right now is whether those will remain permanent cuts for next year And we also don't know whether the reduction permanent. I'm sorry interrupt. They're going to be they're going to remain there for Whether that becomes the baseline that they're going to fund next year right right that becomes the baseline now I know that the Metco budget in general is in the neighborhood of 18 million Representative Kaufman from Lexington has asked the committee To fund it at 21 million which would have been in fact I was going to start talking about the thing which would have been the What it would be at right now if they had had the same increases for the last 10 years as other parts of the budget or as As inflation would have had well not inflation, but the kind of increases that other parts of the budget it had Whether that happens or not remains to be seen it could well be that this becomes a new baseline and That's that's a sizable Reduction for it for the budget The other one of the concern which again goes to the whole issue of reserve positions is that we fund The vast majority of our kindergarten teaching assistance from the kindergarten grant and That has been reduced this year by 50,000 so we have to figure a way of Funding obviously we're not we're not laying off any of our kindergarten teaching assistance But I we don't know whether that will be in the new baseline Which means that if we're going to keep which we will a teaching assistant in every kindergarten We're going to have to dig into these reserve positions for for that Yeah, I the thing that I've mentioned on several occasions as being my source of concern is the half-cluster in terms of educator quality on Split positions between You say ELA and social studies or math science, so I'm wondering What steps we're going to take if we go to a half-cluster to ensure that The all four content areas have wonderful teachers who are able to do that work We have two wonderful teachers who are very interested in doing this both Have dual certifications Math science or social studies ELA So one of the things that we are also building into their schedules next year. It's an it's sort of a unique opportunity for us to look at in a interdisciplinary projects and We're going to be providing an extra period in the day for that so the whole Seventh grade will certainly benefit in the years to come from the work that they're going to do and Pilot in this half-cluster and they're both excellent teachers. I have no concern in that regard that's whenever you have people teaching to Entirely different content areas I think that the people who can do both and do both well are very rare and if we've got two rare wonderful teachers there Then I'll support your half-cluster. Yeah, we do Anyone else Unless you have more I'm easily pleased tonight Moving on to the Thank you Do you have a click okay? Thank you As she's bringing up the Presentation I wanted to let you know that Last evening we had a form for parents of secondary school students So middle school in high school I think given the weather and the cold and You know conflicting I heard there was a girls varsity Hockey game last night and they won an overtime So it was a small group, but very interested group and we'll be rescheduling the one for the elementary school that we Did not have Doesn't want to seem to work from here. Can I ask you to? I'll point at the thing. I'm just maybe the stick. Oh, sorry. Oh, did it work? Thanks Diane's gonna be my technical. She's gonna be my Vanna White. Thank you So we'll be rescheduling the meeting for the elementary school So so we have time for parents to also I sort of want to get a handle on one I think the parking lots are gonna support people coming in so it will be shortly Tonight I want to just tell you that when we started our technology plan We don't start with an idea like we want iPads or we want Chromebooks or we want laptops what we start with is our educational vision and This is a statement of what the overarching vision is and any decisions that we make regarding technology and how it's used in the Instruction how it's used to support instruction are based on this overarching vision next slide, please Again, we just wanted to emphasize that too often people think of technology Is sort of like an electronic? Substitution and we are really looking for technology to assist us in Redefining how we do school so that we can raise on the level of critical thinking that we're asking students to do The project-based learning that we're asking students to do all together I'm not going to show this video tonight But if you would like to at another time you can take a look at this video that talks more in detail about the framework that we use But it's referred to as the SAMR model S stands for substitution a for augmentation M stands for modification and R stays stands for redefinition and it's very similar to The Bloom's taxonomy where you go from just recall at the bottom all the way up to creation and using evaluation skills, so Let's let's talk about what this looks like in in Arlington. What does it really mean to have to use technology to Define how we do things in the classroom So at an elementary school in Arlington students read a book They then read wrote their own book in the same style as the author using an application called book creator They published and shared these books with their families using kid blog So not just the parents could read the story that comes home on a piece of paper, but Relatives grandparents aunts and uncles throughout the country and actually and throughout the world can share in these books And the families can also comment on these books They then used Skype to share with the author in real time their books They read some of their books aloud the author was so impressed that she scheduled a visit to the classroom when she came to Boston on a Book tour students then went one step further and they recorded themselves reading their books aloud and Using a QR code when other students come in with their iPads. They're able to hear them and see them read the books Allowed so this is a way where we really making teaching and learning public and we find that by making This work public the students become more engaged in writing more and doing a better quality work Because it's not just going to go up on the refrigerator, but it's now given to the world Technology as we've talked about before is deeply embedded into the common core and It requires students as young as kindergarten to be able to use it for researching and collaborating and publishing and Truly when we get to the end of the K-12 experience, we're looking for a high school graduate that is truly digital proficient Again the common core state standard really calls for students to be able to employ technology Across their educational experience and to be able to select tools thoughtfully They knew use it not only in literacy, but also in numeracy there and and also in science as well They need to be able to create digital models to analyze data To pose problems post solution to those problems And to make it part of the educational experience So the context for our technology plan is sort of driven by These parameters and technology is changing rapidly and I know that I'm not telling you something that you don't already know So specific hardware choices on the close in years are much easier to make than those on the outer years And so therefore that's why we tie all our decisions to that educational vision. So it's not tied to a specific piece of hardware or software But rather to those capabilities that we want to have our students to do But one of the trends that we do see is moving more From what used to be the computer lab model where students would go in maybe once a week or once every two weeks or every three weeks To use a computer and then get marched back to the classroom And now we're looking at much more mobile devices and our secondary students need to experience online and blended learning Experiences blended learning would be those classes that have some face-to-face classroom experience And then some assignments that are done online Because that's the way many colleges and universities are going and we need to prepare our students to be able to handle that It requires a student to be much more self-motivated and be able to work independently and So that's an experience that we really want to have for all of our secondary students and hopefully starting as young as middle school We've made some Recent investments in technology and we generally do this by the pilot evaluate and expand model So we will pilot something in a cluster or in a classroom or in a school And then based on that we'll evaluate whether we have the results from that experience that we wanted to have I try to get the bugs out with as little people as possible And then expand that model and we've been doing that across the district for the past three years We've seen our need for professional development to increase And we want to make sure that technology not only is used during instruction But it's also in support instruction and finally the security of our data whether it just be a student's piece of work or something is more Confidential as students grades etc. The security of our student data is paramount and is something that we mom care about deeply So just to give you an overview of what happened during the 2014 2015 school year These are the hardware purchases that we made Primarily this year we focused on upgrading teachers while we did upgrade some student machines We really wanted to upgrade the teachers so that they would be able to utilize all the tools that we have necessary To analyze data to impact student achievement We also as we talked about are having some parent forums We'll be having some separate parent outreach for middle and high school parents that are interested in what we call bring your own device And we'll talk more about that as we go along We've met with local companies to talk about what kind of STEM skills Programming skills what languages to our students need to have in order to get internships and to go Successfully into college careers in the in the STEM areas and and we will be having a technology showcase This is our third annual technology showcase at the high school on 4 1315 As I said technology is woven deeply into our curriculum and and STEM also the STEM Curriculum so we not only use it in all curriculum areas That's the teaching with technology But we also have teaching of technology and so we start as young as Programming as young as using scratch junior at several of the classrooms in Thompson to digital modeling Which we expanded this year at the middle school and we've expanded computer science at the high school our ultimate goal Would be that students would have the skills that when they came into high school They would have the first year of computer science and then would be able to take AP computer science as they get into their sophomore year These are some of the professional development experiences and the support that we've done We have a task force that's working on policies for if we allow students to bring their own device into the school Those won't those devices. I just want to add will not be everything under the sun We'll have a fairly short list of devices that students will be able to bring in the school And we'll have parameters in terms of the kinds of filters and the safety software and virus protection that students would be able to have because we're going to be putting those devices on our network right now that students are only allowed to get on the Guest network Next year we'll in very limited cases will be allowing students to bring devices in and put them on our network We're working with the staff at both the audison and the high school And we've provided PD to both groups to try to get a better picture about what the appropriate devices would be And the appropriate utilization and curriculum at the middle school in high school As I said, we don't just use technology in the instruction, but also in support of learning Right now we have a piece of student analytics software that we're using primarily at the elementary school And we've given a lot of training to the elementary teachers and we're going to continue to do so When we look towards next year in terms of hardware We'll be looking more at student devices and the vast majority of the purchases Next year will be to replace machines that are greater than four years old that are being used by students and in some cases In in three years old We are not really looking to provide new devices In the sense that we will be replacing whole computer labs With the same kind of equipment that's already there But rather that we'll be going to more of those mobile labs that we talked about In terms of curriculum, we'll be continuing to expand the STEM curriculum at the elementary school We want to make sure that all audison students get at least One-quarter of digital modeling and that class students learn sequential thinking they learn programming. They learn how to create Websites and learn a little bit about gaming and animation These are skills that all students Can benefit from we'll also be expanding the AP computer science classes again at the high school In terms of technology to support learning, we hope that we'll be moving more to some Electronic assessments a lot of teachers are using these on their own right now. They create little Google Forms or other types of formative assessments Explain everything is something that teachers use for formative assessment and some of the assessment We will hopefully be expanding our baseline Analytics software to the middle school will continue to use Edwin analytics Which is provided by the state for us to analyze our MCAS data And the one thing that we're most excited about is that we've asked some of our teachers that are our lead teachers our mentor teachers our teachers who provide professional development across the district if we can come in and Videotape their classroom and we'll be creating a library of exemplars for our teachers to use across the district Which eventually in the next year after that will hopefully go to blended learning Experiences and we sort of have one going on right now But we really want to tap into blended learning and online learning for our teachers because many times teachers want to participate in something But due to family commitments or a longer commute. They're not able to Participate in that and you know as we say a picture is worth a thousand words And so in seeing someone do something and the feet that's with the feedback that we're getting now seeing someone actually Implementing a Lucy caulk and lesson goes a long way We will continue to have our lead technology teachers at each of the schools as I said we've run already to 21 courses, which is a graduate level blended learning course for our teachers And we'll be running one again at the middle and high school and we'll be continuing to implement and revise our bring-your-own-device policies and We will increase our instructional technology Support people and I don't mean people who actually support the device, but those people who work with Teachers in the classroom to better understand how they might use it over time and To look at the 2016 2017 school year again, we're talking about You know we're expanding our Mobile model That we're going to continue to offer as long as we have a demand for that Technology class will continue to refine our BYOD policies Right now. It's our plan. It looks like that would be a right about the time period to Perhaps come back to the committee to talk about creating a graduation requirement that students would take at least one blended Learning or online learning class for all graduates We really want to emphasize the the expansion of tech and engineering and digital modeling at the middle school and create Expanded STEM opportunities for all elementary students And that's it Questions yes, so I was at the presentation last night and I am excited about what's happening I think it's a nice balance between both leaping ahead But being cautious and doing some studies and and figuring out what works That and I was wondering What sort of feedback we've gotten or plan to get from teachers about both that what works or what their ideas are or you know their suggestions How we reach out to those takeout the lead technology teachers meet once a month part of their Role is to bring forward suggestions problems concerns ideas from the schools that they are Resident in in addition to that I've been meeting with focus groups at the middle school And also at the high school to talk to teachers about you know their ideas their concerns their problems It really has helped us to understand that the biggest problem with our network wasn't the network It was really the access points So if you imagine the highway was just fine with the number of lanes that it had but the on ramps were too skinny So now we have better on ramps and we're getting much better feedback from teachers regarding the internet and I just have one more question I know one of the things that the elementary Level teachers came to us with In their budget requests was to ask for software to do better analysis of MCAS scores And I was wondering do we feel that base line edge analytics and the Edwin analytics is Efficient for our needs or do we still think that you know later on there's Another thing that we should be using that we may not be able to afford right now Well both those tools I think will allow us to look at MCAS data as well as local formative assessment data I think what they were asking for was whether there was possible another tool out there And we're we are continuing to investigate that that would allow us to actually do the measurement So it's not the analyzing of the data But actually some kind of online assessment tool perhaps that can speed up the feedback process and we're constantly looking at that But if it's out there someone's gonna make a lot of money off it because it's not as easy to find as you might think Oh, I thought they'd identified something that they know they had they had not okay They were hoping we'd find something and we were looking constantly This starts I wondered if CIA had reviewed this This ever did this go through that subcommittee? This Tan it's it's what we've been trying to do us is solicit solicit comments And I think that once we have comments from here from parents We can you know bring this to the bring this to the committee This is just a draft plan at this point, and we're really getting people's feedback on it This is not the final plan It's very similar to what we've discussed in the past There's not any major ground-breaking changes from what we've discussed last year in the year before But we had not had a formalized process for people to provide input So we really wanted to do that the plan is that the draft version of the plan has actually been on the district website I think at least three weeks if not longer than that right now Cool um and my other question was like on a scale of one to ten one We can easily achieve this and ten there is no way we can achieve this How in terms of funding is that we're realistic is this? Just in general anything What obstacle I guess that maybe the question is what are the obstacles to making this happen at all like whether it's funding Whether it's the existence of what we want or I think the existence of what we want is is certainly there I think that that we did the right Plan or the right expansion plan by as as A missus said that we you know went fast but went slow in the sense that we built momentum and but we Were very cautious about what we did Certainly funding is all always a concern When I met with the capital committee last year we actually asked for a four or five year plan Which I came to them with they've generously funded last year. They also generously funded this year I think you know it's always going to depend on what the capital committee has available I mean we're talking about the vast the big monies being capital I have to say that It's getting technology is getting to the point that it's Not a nice to have anymore. It's it's it's a definite got to have in terms of education And so we look at those other things for example, we've been going to digital textbooks Or you know we can find Simulators for graphing calculators. So if we were going to buy I mean most students at the high school level now bring their own graphing calculator So that's just one example But wherever possible we look at where we can cut back and other things in order to To be able to afford our expansion of technology So I would say funding is probably the biggest thing and to a small amount I would you know would be nice to have We have somebody at the high school that helps teachers in their classrooms We have a person that works with the elementary school. She also does the middle school It would be nice to have somebody that might part might do some work at the middle school We we have someone who's graciously given a lot of her time after school and on her prep periods of volunteer to work with teachers I don't think it's it's holding us back right now But there if we really want to get everybody on board that might be something that we look at down the line It wouldn't be a full-time. It would be a piece of a person Assuming a positive vote of Tom meeting on the capital budget Next year will be a 10 in terms of whether we can achieve this The year is out depends upon again the amount of money I think one of the things that we are seeing is an appetite and an interest and in teachers using the devices But the if you have one iPad card shared at a grade that that is That is that can be a little bit of a struggle in terms of how you you use it So I think that is the one thing that will increase is the interest in it the wanting to do it But perhaps the limitation The other issue That dr. Cheson had just alluded to is the support we have When you think of the number of devices that exist in the district today, it has just grown So much thanks to the generosity a f and capital That we have very relatively few Support people that exist and we and we even have less in the terms of instructional technology We have really half a person that is dealing with all of our elementary. Thank goodness. We have our Teachers who have become teacher leaders in this field because otherwise this would be untenable Will we need more support in the years to come most likely? So that will be things we'll have to consider as a committee and then it's weighed against all the other Needs that we have right. No, I know as a teacher I mean someone we were just having this conversation at my school and they said well, you know What would you need to why don't you use the computers of the iPads in your classes more? And I said because they're not in my class. I have to sign up for them I have to that means that I have to find the cart in the morning Which is never where it's supposed to be and then you know I have to hope that they're all working and that someone left it plugged in You know if it were in my room and I had it and I owned it I would have them I would have the kids on them every day I said but you know, it's it's a hassle when you don't have enough and I understand that problem But I also know that we do have we have a full-time Technology support person just for teachers not not for the hard We have sick technology support people for the hardware and we have technology support people for the teachers Like there's a full-time person Just in our building for our school. So I know that that's yeah, we have a half a person for K8 right and we have to Hardware support people for all of our elementary schools. Yeah, it's true. Yeah I mean one of the things that we've had to do because of that first of all We're very lucky and that between the generosity of the AF and Years that it didn't snow We're getting very close at the elementary to have one cart per every two teachers or every three teachers Which makes a difference and last night it also alluded to the fact that there's a huge difference in the students respect for the equipment When they utilize it more often than if they use it on a on a rare basis And we are very lucky in this district. We've seen very little breakage But one of the things that we found that works out really well is in the schools that don't have one-to-one Is that we put somebody sort of in the charge of the care and feeding of the cart and they get to keep it in their Room if they volunteer to care and feed it and so that that person is very motivated To make sure things are plugged in etc because they get to keep it in the room So if nobody comes to look for it, they got it for that day, right, right, right? That's worked out really well for us That's great Has there been any thought to do bulk purchasing for computers on the secondary level like universities and colleges do and offer them It at a bulk purchase rate. We already buy them off the state contract So we're taking advantage of the price you leverage to the state. Okay, I guess what I mean about reselling In other words when my daughter Tell you how old she was when she went to Syracuse 20 years ago almost she she was required to buy a computer at that time And but it was a fraction of the cost it would have cost us on our own Well, I don't know about a fraction of the cost, but we met with 50% Oh, well, I don't know of any company that does that now. Maybe the maybe Syracuse was getting a deal then Apple will provide it to higher education parents who buy a Computer for their students who are going to college get an an educational discount But that's not allowed to be purchased for K through 12 right now, but they're in the process of educators Yes, but first students not so much. So We met with them this week and they're in the process of taking a look at that They're also looking at their leasing structure, which is what a lot of districts have gone to The Apple does not provide leases to individual people But many districts have started to go to leasing structures Okay, and Looking at the the other document you provided us talked about an aging Chromebook to me a Chromebook is just How does it age? Is it the physical aging or are you yeah, it's been around it's one of the few it's breaking down Yes, it's breaking down physically breaking down So the quality of the software that's involved because it's very limited software on a Chromebook, right? It's really the fact that The Chromebooks that are breaking down our districts are the ones that they gave us Planned obsolescence with them. I think that the ones that we purchased are doing Usually when you when you think about aging and computers you're talking about the the ability for it to function in today's world And the because the Chromebook is it has limited Well, the operating system might not be able to be updated my I have a very the bring your own device and with the and I don't want to overemphasize it to give anybody ideas, but the the adaptability of students to Circumvent Securities and things of this nature. I'm very concerned about security on devices. We do not control directly Coming in bring well, we would be controlling them because they in order to go on our network They have to go in our active directory. So in an effect we monitor while they're in the building. What's going on? Okay, so they they sign a document in the building when they leave the building that teach the student can do whatever The parent allows, but we have we have to control and You may have already answered this do we lease or we purchase all our equipment at this time right now We purchase all our equipment work. We're looking into some lease options about maintenance Is that done in-house? So do we purchase maintenance agreements? We are self-indemnified Which means that we right do our own however the the for example on an Apple care on On a iPad the cost of an iPad is $379 well the Apple care is a hundred dollars so per device per device So we made the decision three years ago that we could take that money that we would have spent on Apple care and buy extra Devices and then just swap them out if a kid has a problem with the device So just to clarify the you're not looking for a vote tonight Okay, and you'll be coming back at a later date We at a later date. We would probably Want you to endorse approve this plan and we need to go through the elementary Forum and we can also go to the subcommittee and have them take a look at it as well, but we will probably Certainly will be a month out at least before it's ready for your approval. I this comes from the capital Some comes from the capital budget or all of our what percentage about what percentage we get from the capital budget Well AF is their goal is to raise a hundred and fifty thousand they've raised equal to that over the last two years So, you know, we may not be spending it all next year. So it's a five hundred twenty five thousand dollar Isn't that the city five in the five hundred power? I just want to make sure that I'm clear that to replace the devices that we currently have in place on the three to four year cycle Just to replace is in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty thousand four hundred thousand dollars. Okay, and how much are we budgeting beyond those two In our budget. We're not budgeting for we have a little dribs and drabs for hardware We have software costs in the budget And PD Thank you very much Proposed new elementary schedule. Dr. Bode Tonight I want to present to you a proposal That the negotiating team has been discussing for the last couple of months Normally when you're in negotiations, you don't go public with any of the Aspects of discussion, but the reason why we are right now is that this Potent this potential proposal and it's really just right now in that at that level Would have an effect on neck could potentially have an effect on next year that I think that is important for the committee as well as parents to understand in fact We've already done a presentation for elementary teachers and are gathering their feedback on The the some of the points of the the of this proposal. So tonight is really just a very high level Discussion of what is being considered We're not getting into much of the detail of it as I said This is still very much a part of the negotiation session But trying to find to get some comments on it one of the things that we will be looking for as we gather information from Teachers we also want to be gathering information from parents and there'll be two Mechanisms for how that can happen one of course is through public participation at the school committee meetings over the next The next meeting or even potentially the the second meeting in March Another is that I'm going to create a drop box and I will send that information out to parents with a One-sheet summary of the key points of this next week sometime so that They are aware that they can give us some feedback as well And I and I think that some feedback that I've already heard will help us try to develop the very best plan that we can But let me let me just give you the the rationale and some of the key ideas here in this plan The the core reasons for considering this is Is something that we've been hearing from teachers for the last for many years actually and that is that they They really do need more time to plan with each other and as much as elementary Principals work to To have teachers scheduled at the same time for their common for their preparation time It's it's really very difficult to always achieve that and certainly They are able to do it a couple times a week But it's what makes it difficult is in terms of our black schedule, but even more importantly the way we schedule specialists But but even when we're able to provide common planning times through the teachers prep period It's very difficult for them to collaborate with special education teachers because they may be teaching at that time or ELL teachers Reading teachers literacy and math coaches So the way we're doing it right now provides very limited opportunities for teachers to collaborate The other issue is that for example this year We listening to this need and we've recognized it as well. We have provided a traveling group of three Substitutes that go from school to school on a rotating basis so that we can provide time for teachers at a grade level To meet together to look at data and to do common planning, but it while it's achieving That goal at the same time it means that Teachers are out of the classroom They're having to create sub plans if they if they don't use the plans that the substitutes bring and it's just a disruption to the day So what we're looking for are fewer disruptions in the school day the year And we're looking for more consistency in being able to schedule So these are a lot of the core reasons here and so when When we talk about teachers coming together to do common planning time, it's really essential in fact It's extremely important that teachers have this time for collaboration They need time to plan the curriculum to plan flexible groups They need time to be able to integrate literacy Into social studies and science they need time to develop many of the activities that go into the flexible groupings So if you have three kindergarten teachers at grade two that want to do flexible grouping once or twice a week You have to have time to be able to figure out who's going to be an age group because that's going to change from week to week and What the activities are going to be in those flexible groups for mathematics or for that matter for ELA for English, so it's essential and we just simply don't have enough time for for teachers to have that so But in this proposal Let me just mention sort of what the proposal is because I keep talking about the proposal proposal is to have a Early release day every week and we'll talk more about what it will look like in a second, but that is the idea For teachers it would also mean more opportunities to work with math coaches as a group It could provide more opportunities for vertical planning in the school because even though right now teachers may be able to plan together at a grade level there is Very little opportunity except for maybe one hour after school for PLC to do vertical planning We also want to want to make sure that we are going to be able to maintain our content PD over the last number of years we have We recognize how important this is if you're going to have a consistent curriculum across the whole district you need to be able to have a whole grade level meet together and to Work with Have professional development the content well We have taken whole classes out during the school day but but one of the challenges of doing that is substitutes and Sometimes we can't get enough substitutes in a particular school Maybe have a lot of people absent so teachers aren't able to come So there are a lot of problems in trying to provide this We do do it on the early release days and in fact we have as you've seen the schedule for the year We had the eight content days Well, this is just this year in January and February we've lost two content days And there's no way to make them up in this particular proposal We would be able to make them up by doing some shifting around so The other thing is that again as I said that we've had these data meetings, but they They're on a rotating basis, but we like to have you know a set amount of time that also We can have ELL teachers attend special education teachers the nurse if necessary so it gives us more of an opportunity to have a bigger group administrators They they don't Well, they make every effort to attend the data meetings and to attend if necessary common planning if they're at the if that It seems appropriate. They need more an opportunity to be able to attend These grade-level meetings and they need to be able to attend data meetings, but just the normal flow of the Issues that could come up in school could prevent that We also Need more flexibility in scheduling specials. I cannot begin to tell you how much time is spent Every year trying to schedule specials it's It's a huge effort and of course one of the things that happens in the summer you add one more class and it totally disrupts the entire Scheduling because we share specialists among schools So we we I won't go into the details of why this is going to make it easier But I I know we all know that are involved in scheduling that this will be make it much easier The other thing that sometimes Does not happen is monthly building meetings and this would also ensure that as well So what would this proposed new schedule look like? We would have a new Bell schedule from 810 to 230 so the school day would be technically about 15 minutes longer We we on our website. You'll notice you'll it'll see the school day starts at 815 But the fact of the matter is bells at all the schools that are 810 We would have an early release day at 1 o'clock in all of elementary schools and teachers then would be meeting until about 3 o'clock and We have a proposed schedule for what that would look like so everybody can sort of see Graphically how things could be put together common planning time with data meetings with building meetings with content and Have been very careful about it, but it's not a final schedule yet. Just basically an idea So the reason for bringing this up tonight is I think that if this were to be implemented next year And again, this is part of negotiations has to go through ratification process with teachers as well as the school committee We all felt that it's such a it's such a major change in how we have organized our elementary day That we do want Parents to be aware of it early on and have an opportunity to give us some feedback. I will say that I have been in contact We should say administration has been in contact with our after-school programs and this will work fine It's a little bit of a wash in time in terms of how it's distributed in the week because the days are longer Some days of the week, but you know, they're shorter on the one release day I've also Looked talked with our daycare providers and this will work as well So we're looking at all the different aspects of that might be of issue here, but certainly one of them and why we're talking about tonight is communication with with the committee as well as with the community the parents of the community So this is just of the overview at some point we will go into more, but but that's where we are at this point Anyone on the committee have anything they'd like to say at this time I'd like to just Mention as the old man on the committee 42 years ago when I did my student teaching here in Ellington There was this exact same program in effect Lexington has maintained that and as a retired teacher And an elementary level I see tremendous benefits Serving this I appreciate this will be an adjustment for parents, but it's a scheduled time. It's it's there May take a little few bumps to get get used to but I Personally think this will be something very beneficial to the system Chris Where where I teach in Lexington. They have this on Thursdays And I was talking to some of the elementary teachers about what they thought about it and also parents because you know I know that it is a change and They actually said that once you get used to it knowing that you have that the nice thing is that you can you know You deal you get your daycare down or whatever, but also that you know that way they can Make appointments, but the teachers in particular Makes us middle school teachers jealous because it gives them time. They really do have time to meet with all of those People that don't typically have time together, you know when I'm teaching that means that the specialists are off And when the specialists are teaching I'm off and so you know We rarely get to meet and yet they have this time in the afternoon and they feel like it's really been beneficial To the kids to the curriculum to kind of just making it much more cohesive There and so I think There are definitely a lot of precedents in other districts for this as well No, yeah, not only that but this the choreography of doing this Just rearranges things so that you can do so much more in terms of getting teachers together And to do the common planning time and to do the reflect reflective practice that you want to achieve You know having had to put together elementary Schedules it's always so difficult to get it in a way that that it's going to work for the Specialists and for the teachers and to get the common planning time in this design packages the common planning time and will also Sounds like it's going to result in more coherent instructional time with fewer interruptions It will also keep we're still significantly above the requirement for hours of instruction I just want to mention and You look at this the actual four days a week the day has been extended to offset the early release time So it's time-wise. It's a it's a wash The each four days. Yeah, I think it's 20 20 minutes added to the current time and then the early release on Tuesday So actual classroom time has not been diminished. I want to make that clear It's it's sitting there, but It's been rearranged and I I have to say when I've talked to what we actually talked to the after-school programs They liked it because it's consistent. I think one of the things that's been Challenging for parents is that one month you have an early release day on this day But then the other day other days of the month This is just consistent, and it would be from the first Tuesday of the school year to the end And I think that in some ways at least that's the feedback we have from our after-school programs that they actually Will prefer this in terms of their staffing One more question and there will be no other half days No, and it's need to also understand the only other half days Well, there's no other half days, but there'll be two half days in In late November December we haven't just worked this out where the the early release will be at 1115 As we've always done for conferences We have to we have to be able to provide the elementary level which has been our what we've always done is 20 minutes for Conferences, so we have to actually create 20 minutes worth of time now In this new model one of the things that will change is it will give teachers a lot more flexibility when they want to schedule Conferences, but in terms of providing the time we have to provide the time Correct me. There's still a curriculum day at the secondary level a full another release day There is a professional day. It's an all-day professional day. That is It's Monday first Monday in November I do want to emphasize what we are showing and discussing tonight is at the elementary level only not at the middle school at the high school It's been said, but I just want to make that clear Yes, just that I I suspect this will be good for some parents and not as good for others Any changes? I Just hope that people appreciate that by giving teachers more opportunity to meet with each other that that will increase Teaching and learning for their kids and that that's a really valuable thing that we all I think appreciate it I think that it I think I'm glad you said that because I think that it will be a significant change in terms of of The effect for our students and that's really what is honestly that's really what's motivating this What is the best way that we can provide? The kind of resources that students will benefit from and the best resource We can give them is highly trained teachers who have done a lot of very good planning about instruction I'll say thank you. Thank you very much for that Dr. Bode so pretend this report Yes, actually I have a lot Mr. Heiner. I saw All right, we're taking advantage of our time. All right Well, first of all Our snow situation. I think I may be talking about that for a while I I do I do want to take every opportunity to thank our Custodians and maintenance people as well as DPW. It has been a quite a team effort To be able to keep our schools Clear for safety and One of the most important things we've done over the vacation was clear roofs. We had at 1.70 people That were hired Well in addition, I should say 70 total some were hired for that for this purpose with shoveling snow off roofs and Because you know that would be a danger if some of this first of all whether it would the weight with a bill would take it But I think structurally we'll be fine on that It was more really what would be happening if they the snow started sliding off the roofs around children Not to mention all the icicles had to be removed and some of them were quite Amounts because we didn't want anything falling. So that was really the focus last weekend and dr. Cheson was The point person for that as we as we work through it You know it remains a challenge is just to get good drop-off cycles at the school at the elementary schools in particular I think the high school and the middle school are going fairly well It doesn't take much for a Clog up to happen at the elementary though I was at one of our elementary in fact was Bishop to this morning and I was pleasantly surprised that the We must be getting in a better pattern because the lines were not as Significant as they've been for the first couple days So that is happening and well one of those things were also starting to see your leaks And you just need to be aware of that we we had we have some had a couple of as as what's happening on roofs is Where they hadn't been completely shoveled and water had gathered and they come seeping through so we've been having a few buckets at some schools, but I Think Shoveling the snow off the roofs will make a big difference when we start getting the melt And that was one of the things that safety was the concern But also the potential for weight and then thirdly what happens if we don't and there's all these puddles of water accumulate so I Know that The DPW would like to be able to get to intersections and and reduce these These mounds and that's certainly something that remains a priority for them and hopefully we have Some are pre from these bigger storms. It looks like anything we getters more dustings in the near future But I will we I again don't want to iterate about the Bishop bus We are concerned about that that these buses are just are having a are struggling and if somebody tries to pass them You they drive to the side it wasn't so much as it was a snowbank at Bishop But another car tried to get by it and it pulled over and then got stuck But fortunately it was right there. So we will we will address that as best as we can So the first thing Oh, I did want to mention one more thing about this because there has been some concern about Parking at the schools and the availability of play space for children and I'm not sure that this is gonna change anytime soon because these roads are so narrow if we have around the schools Teachers parking on the street. And first of all, it's a parking band still remaining in much of Arlington a Fire truck can't goodbye. That's the problem And so we have to keep teacher and staff cars off the streets around the schools And so we've had to use black tops at some of the schools and fire lanes as well But that's been with the actually the suggestion of our fire chief so what has happened though is that we've got cars parked on black tops and you have really deep snow in fields nearby and So, you know, it's it's been more depending on the elementary school It's been a little bit more of a struggle in terms of getting outside for recess and I and I know that people want that to happen and Are trying to have it happen But I think that one of the problems is of just having the safe space to do it In some schools they're having trying to take the kids on walks in which they know that there's a clear walkway to walk too So we're aware of that and I just we just have to all be patient about this I will say having been in some classrooms today kids are a little bit more nudgy Then I noticed earlier. So I and we have as fully here and she probably can speak to that as well So we'd like to get them out and siphon off some of this energy, but we want to have it be safe And my dog feels the same way. I think we all feel the same way on this. Yeah, yeah Okay, so moving on One of the we've already talked about some of the Metco post cuts and you know, they really do impact the services we can offer and Metco Inc and Metco board have been working Going through an iteration of a letter that they're asking Superintendents and school boards to sign and I sent that the the letter to you Basically asking the governor not to do not have the cuts that he's proposing But certainly I think the bigger message is about next year that this doesn't become a baseline For future funding for the Metco program Yesterday I attended a an event Sponsored by Jay Kauffman at the State House to into show Basically a show of support to other other legislators about the Metco program and So I offer this to you and I was wondering if as a committee you would like to Have the Arlington school committee be an added name on to the letter So moved Any further discussion all those in favor I Will I will get that out tonight in fact so that they know because tomorrow is going to be the last day for the signatures I Also want to remind the public and I will send out another reminder tomorrow that the Arlington public schools is Cosponsoring a forum on Saturday night I think that this this parking is going to be fine We keep holding our breath to know whether it would have to be canceled because of that of a more snow But I think we'll be we should be fine. It's The title of the forum is unequal justice the consequences of our race and class and our criminal justice system and We have a panel discussion Arlington's acting well We are chief Ryan who's who is now remaining our police chief Peniel Joseph who is a civil rights historian and activists and Don Perry a parole reform activists And this will be Saturday night This coming Saturday the 28th from 7 to 9 at Arlington Town Hall It's free Saturday night out, right Okay, I Want to there's a couple of really nice things. I want to acknowledge in the music department every year. There is an all-state Massachusetts music educator Association conference and They invite band they invite bands orchestras choral groups across the state to send tapes And and they choose from these tapes Different groups that they would invite because of their outstanding sound and performance We Arlington music has been represented at this conference multiple times in the last decade and in fact The Arlington High School Honors Orchestra has been invited this year to perform at the conference Which will be on March 20th So congratulations to Tina D'Agostino the whole department because it really this begins in the early grades And that's and these these students are mentored all the way through up through high school Additionally a congratulations goes out to Tina D'Agostino because his proposal for the 2015 National in-service conference a fund approach to jazz improvisation with strings has been accepted as a 60-minute session at the national conference So he will be going to Nashville, Tennessee next October to provide this Session so congratulations to mr. D'Agostino as well. I Also want to give you athletic update tonight because we are teams this year of doing extraordinarily well They're all in post-season right now not all but but number of them in post-season and So Girls hockey I guess is one again And so they're they're moving on to Saturday night playing in Reading The girls basketball team is going to be playing They won 7045 on Monday, and they'll be playing in Wuburn. It's On Saturday night the boys basketball team had a buy because their record was so good But they are going to be playing this at home Friday night against Marblehead the boys hockey team also got a buy because of their good record and They will be playing the winner of the st. Mary Winchester game Sunday at stona marina All of these by the way are on our athletic website if anybody would like to attend these The at the state wrestling tournament Two of our students Andrew Ellis and Nick Rose took first place in their weight class making them state champions And they will compete in the all-state wrestling competition this weekend at the division state Track meet the girls indoor track relay set a new school record for the four by two hundred Meter relay and the four by four hundred meter relay, so it's really been an absolutely outstanding season Last season we had a team go to the states, and it looks very likely well I shouldn't say that we'll look but doing very well, and we're very proud of all of their proud of their achievement and the last thing I want to bring up is Because we won't meet It's that because it's actually next week is the national school breakfast week Do you notice how there's a national there's always some kind of special But this where the national school breakfast weekend and our director of food service Denise Boucher has been planning for this for a while and She she has said that there are planning some very special breakfast entrees next week And maybe I'll give away the Monday one because it's one that maybe want to come in for its warm cinnamon mini-rolls There's quite a quite a selection She's also going to be doing a survey of our students that take the morning to see what they like and use that as Information for going forward. She's going to be having Some more outreach to the students. She's putting up posters and Posters such as such as this why school breakfast but one of the things they have found she has found in other Surveys similar to this is that one of the reasons why some students do not come for the breakfast is that they They eat breakfast at home, which perfectly appropriate But there were she's particularly reaching out to our students that that qualify for free and reduced lunch and Encouraging them to come in for the breakfasts that are provided So that's it There's that one Yes, yes. Yes. Thank you. I'm gonna let Let's just speak or speak to this and that is the approval of a particular job description that we have for the data specialist Yeah, so this is the data specialist job description that you have in the in the Novus packet this is a new position that Really takes the place of the consultant that the district has used for Several years in doing our helping us do our state reporting our mandated state and federal reporting the data reporting Expectations and requirements of school districts have increased every year. We feel we need to bring this expertise in-house now We this Is part of a larger reorganization we'll talk about the other part at the next meeting but at this point we'd like to post for this job and be able to Seek to hire someone who's qualified in the areas that we need the expertise in technology and state and federal data Databases and and I don't know if if Dr. Chesner or Dr. Brody have anything to add I Think that's exactly where one of those things we have found with having a consultant who has been very good She's been a consultant for us for seven years in fact But it's it's it's much We've come to realize how important it is to have somebody in-house that you can work with and sit down and Talk about some of the some of the data rather than have it go by email and phone calls And and she has retired as of December this year and which gave us an opportunity to really rethink What how we are going to be? Organizing all of the different data needs that we have and so we're as mr. See speak I'll said we are in a reorganization, it's just that one other part of it still needs some discussion with one of the unions I'll entertain a motion to Prove the data specialist job description so moved second. Is there a second? Any further discussion Yeah, and looking at this, you know this position. I know well because I've Dealt with the person who does this in Lowell and I deal with that person on an extended basis My question is Why do we? State is a flat-out requirement of bachelors degree for this position because some of the people that we've Had in our district and also seen working in other districts don't have the Bachelors degree but have enough of a background in terms of doing this kind of database Manipulative stuff to be a very very strong candidate That's a consideration. I mean that is a consideration. Yeah, we could make that a Preferred or other relevance. Yeah, and also some of the tech now It's it's not so much a hardware kind of there's sort of a zen to this in terms of the Organizing and working with this and moving data back and forth between different applications It's not really a technology position. It's really something that's a niche so And we have trouble filling these kind of positions so that the more we have on this thing that's recommended vis-a-vis required I think the easier time you're going to have for finding this because sometimes the person who Really just has their head in the zone to do this Isn't somebody who has a traditional background and isn't somebody you completed a four-year degree That's good feedback Yes funding for this so the the pay is basically the same that we would have paid the consultant It also takes into account another something that was in the is in the proposed budget in terms of the In the reorganization Lines the restructuring there were there's a halftime assistant Who works? With data and registration and the thought in the reorganization is that position will no longer be needed and so that part of the Funds come from that position All those in favor I Thank you We all said We wanted the consent agenda all items listed are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee saw requests Which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence Approval of warrant number one five one zero nine dated February 12th 2015 Total warrant amount four hundred ninety six thousand two dollars and fifty four cents Approval of minutes school committee regular meeting minutes excuse me February 12th 2015 Some moved second Any discussion I excuse me there's no all those in favor. Hi. Hi. Thank you Subcommittee liaison reports is there any from policies and procedures they would like to share anything Okay, budget miss Starks Budget subcommittee will meet from five to six thirty on Wednesday March 4th. Our agenda so far includes the budget update in information From the BRTF which was held on Monday. I'll talk about that in a minute and Preparing for the FINCOM review of our budget which is coming up and preparing the town book for town meeting Also on Monday Several of us were there for the budget revenue task force meeting on Monday. That's the meeting of FINCOM and The select men and school committee and a whole bunch of other people Talking about the budget and there were no surprises having attended all of the long-term planning and prep meetings Adams proposed budget is what we saw at the last time so We do in fact see that reduction in our funds over the next couple of years down to three percent in general education funding but So the news is of course now that the long-term budget plan now has the shortfall in fiscal year 2021 it's a ten million dollar shortfall And I thought that the most interesting thing actually that came out of the evening was that select men Dan Dunn proposed an idea which was That given that the cliff is ten million dollars in 2021 he suggested that perhaps what we should do is do a smaller override Somewhere in the range of two to three million dollars around fiscal year 2018 and His idea behind that was that that way We can all kind of put right on the table if it passes We will continue with the services you have and we will You know start to bank this money so that we can kind of basically push out Needing another override and if we don't here's the list of things we're gonna cut and it's a smaller amount of cuts It's not a ten million cut which is really painful and kind of it's like losing a limb Versus a two or three million dollar cut which is easier to come back from if we have to kind of you know Do that if it doesn't pass so I like that idea I want to I want to support Dan in that thinking and planning. I think that that's just a better way to go about it than having a really big override I think that may be a smaller override and then people can kind of Decide, you know, do I want these services if I don't want these services then that's the way they can vote And that's what's gonna happen, and I just thought it was an interesting way to put it instead of you know Kind of waiting until the really big cliff. So I don't know it's something He's willing to bring up and I know the selectman will be discussing so there were two other things that were brought up There was a statement made that the Budget is being level funded and Ms. Stax brought to everyone's attention with some of the things that have already been cut this year They're kindergarten grant and the medco were basically not being level funded the other part was the presentation took into account that the It Didn't take an account but mentioned that Minute me at school renovation and our high school coming up renovation. I'm not part of these plans, too. So I Agree with Ms. Stax. I think Mr. Dunn's Suggestion is a positive is a good way to look at this and deal with it Had a time, but we still have those other two aspects on top of that Going forward Community relations, Mr. Schlickman, you know due to all that snow Things get bumped and bumped and bumped so the community relations subcommittee meeting we had for this week It will actually occur next Thursday at 6 30 in this very wonderful room Facilities, Mr. Tillman we meet March 19th. Okay The superintendent's evaluation group will be meeting on March 3rd at 5 p.m With the hope to report back to the full committee on March 12th on two areas And let me just bounce back was there another one. Let's see. Okay. Are there any announcements from the board any members? From the chair met co on the hill the Please let Karen off March 19th. They gathering to Ask members school committee members if you can go that day to speak to the different legislators in support of Preventing the cuts and just what Dr. Bode was talking about I would ask any member that thinks they may want to attend please contact Karen. She'll set it up and make the appointments It's similar to Going on the hill. It's a similar type thing to go up and speak to the different people. I will be going And hopefully that doesn't dissuade any of you from coming I'm looking for two of the members to review and negotiate Contracts we have two of our top administrative contracts. They're expiring on June 30th We have we are required by the contracts to notify him by April 1st if we're going to go for it So I probably one or two meetings Those that are interested you can either contact me to I will send you copies of the current contracts And we can set up a meeting if you want to volunteer now. It's up to you or we can talk Please I'd ask all members to look at policy BDAA reguiding planning for positions on the board the chair vice chair and Look at the policy contact Karen and Going forward I've never understood why members of the former chairs were so excited to vacate the chair, but I've enjoyed it Takes a lot of time things right anything else. Okay At this time We're going to enter executive session to conduct strategies in preparation for negotiations with union and our non-union personnel Our contract negotiations with union and our non-union in which if held an open meeting may have a detrimental effect To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if in an open meeting may have detrimental effect on the bargaining Or litigation position of the public body and the chair so declares. We will come back to Public session only for the purpose of adjournment Roll call to go. Yes. Yes. Yes I'm sorry a motion to go to a German so moved second. Is there a second second roll call? Yes, yes, yes