PERMANENT MINUTES MIDDLETON SCHOOL COMMITTEE FULLER MEADOW SCHOOL - NATHAN MEDIA CENTER AUGUST 2, 2017 5:00 PM MEMBERS PRESENT: Amy Karas, Chairperson, Mark Moreschi, Christine Carroll, Fred Clapp MEMBERS ABSENT: Kristen Richardson OTHERS PRESENT:
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Steve Guditus, Director of Educational Technology, James Sforza, Principal, Howe Manning School, Jeff Bryson, Assistant Principal, Howe Manning School, Matthew LaCava, Assistant Superintendent of Student Support Services, Steven Greenberg, Assistant Superintendent of Operations
ROUTINES: 5:08 1. Pledge of Allegiance 2. Recognition/Introduction of Audience Members - George Dow, Fin Com 3. Remarks from the Public - Eagle Scout Project Presentation - J. Sforza. For September we intend to propose a gaga pit at Howe Manning. It’s shaped like a hexagon and kids roll a ball around a pit until last man standing. It’s a big hit with the kids. This is just a proposal and has to be funded. - Introduction of Jeff Bryson (Asst. Principal) - Howe Manning. J. Sforza. This is a .5 position. We posted it on Schoolspring and had a good response. Four candidates were interviewed. We chose Jeff as the clear match from his support of the values we have in the school district and his experience. He has 22 years of experience working at the elementary level. - Jeff stated that he is happy to be here. He believes in the innovation at Howe Manning. He is also local to the area. He left Chelsea after 22 years as principal of the elementary school there. Scott said that Jeff was highly recommended. There will be a nice transference of background knowledge and skills. Jeff’s philosophy on education is based upon building relationships with families and teachers. The first time he met with Scott and looked at the vision statement he knew he would make a good fit. So much of the work is problem solving. He stated that for kids to try something and to not be successful the first time is ok and to keep on trying. What we do in the classroom needs to be applicable outside these four walls. - Jeff will be at the new student orientation tentatively scheduled for August 21 to meet and greet new students. 4. Reports from Other Committees - S. Morrison - STAC has been disbanded. Communication subcommittee was born out of TTU committee. We have amazing reps Mark Moreschi, Katrina Frere and Dave Rivers. We had our first subcommittee meeting today and talked about our goals of keeping people abreast of what’s happening. Our website is in dire need of a revamp. Our focus is to work on a student information system. At the Principal’s meeting next week we will ask for volunteers to join us in the subcommittee. Once we get everyone on board we will meet in late August.
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REPORTS: 5:20 1. Report of the Superintendent - S. Morrison i. Central Office Staffing Update - Mary Farley is retiring from Central Office. Her last day is August 11. We (Steve, Antonette Valcourt, Judy Durkee) did an extensive search to find a replacement. Eleven candidates were interviewed. There were five finalists. We did 1-on-1 interviews. One person kept emerging as a top candidate - Donna Ruccolo from Howe Manning. Just to be clear, we did not recruit her - she applied on her own. Donna and Mary have started the transition. Mary is going into a 15 hour per week job as secretarial support. J. Sforza will start meeting candidates on Monday to replace Donna. The 96 applicants have a huge variety of backgrounds. ii. TTU Leadership Meetings - We had a TTU leadership meeting in June to close out the school year. In the past the coordinators have attended these meetings along with directors and principals. This year, on the first day, we had everyone from all three towns there. On day 2 only principals and central office staff attended. We set the stage for our vision. The ideas presented in these Leadership meetings were set up by the entry plan process. All three towns had a similar vision of this model of public education - we want to prepare kids for their future and not our past. All literature talks about the next decade of public education as transformational and an awesome responsibility. If we think of our kids a decade from now, our younger students will still be in public education. The focus of the two days was how to build a model of public education for the future and how to attend to the social/emotional needs of our kids. Some comments from Steve Greenberg, Steve Guditis, and James Sforza were that we will often be very excited in the beginning of the year but then everything else happens and we lose our rhythm. It’s taking some exciting ideas and sustaining the work that we do when things start to happen. Regardless of what role we’re in, it’s keeping the vision and goal in the forefront. Other questions include what conversations are we having to promote this? What will we do with the grant money coming in? J. Sforza - we want to teach students to embrace failure. You never want to leave a workshop and let those great things we learned get away from us. We want the art program to expand into new, exciting art plus innovation. Art teachers are very excited about this second art course. We did a big redesign of exploration day. Our goal is to not live on a single day of creativity. We should keep on embedding. Social/emotional learning for all students was talked about along with tolerance and respect for each other. Both schools Fuller Meadow and Howe Manning will have joint social curriculum committee meetings this year. Howe Manning learning center classroom is peeling off to two programs - social/emotional learning and special education. It’s designed for very specific needs - academic and/or social/emotional level. We’ve got a new science curriculum. We’re expanding our reading workshop. Other remarks were that we have a fantastic group of leaders and are very lucky to have this leadership team. Additionally, the superintendent is doing a wonderful job. A comment was made that it would be good to have updates on how we’re tracking our students’ progress and how it interplays with curriculum changes. A reply was that we do screenings multiple times a year. We use a number of tools to help track student progress. iii. M.A.S.S. Conference - The Superintendent Workshop was this summer. It lasted three days. There were a lot of great ideas and networking. We had excellent keynote speakers especially a mom of a child that was killed in Newtown. She told her moving story. We had meetings this summer and looked at agenda topics. It was great and in November MASS always joins with MASC to do joint
conferencing. You don’t have to commit to four days but we like to have one rep from each committee attend. We hope to have some volunteers. November 1-4 is the MASS joint conference multi-day conference to be held at the Hyannis Conference Center. Hiring (candidate pool) - we have gotten feedback from principals that we have very talented people applying for our positions. There are 3-4 candidates per job opening. People want to come here because they’re excited about our message and mission. M. Lacava - we get to meet candidates and what was to be a 20 minute meeting goes on for an hour. Start Time Feasibility - Update - STAC has been disbanded. We are drafting a scope of work for screening consultants on the phone. John McCarthy from NRT has expressed his eagerness to work with us. There’s an understanding that if school districts decide to do this we need to change the model. We’ve spoken to national transportation groups to be included in an RFP. Susan Givens and Pete Delani have been developing the RFP. John was flexible and wants to be part of the conversation. I want to thank MASCO school committee for offering to pay for for a transportation consultant with Tri Town not paying anything at all. We are working on the RFP and possibly changing routes if we change start times. Some questions arose - Is there some way to get rid of boundaries around TTU schools? Can we have more flexibility for busing? There is more to come in determining the feasibility of Option Y. A question was raised as to how much time it will take. Once the RFP is written and we decide on a vendor, it’s their responsibility to provide feedback and input to help the Superintendents determine feasibility. We’ll be talking about different ideas; i.e., possibly running bus routes on the Monday of the Columbus Day weekend, or do it on a Saturday. Scott is determined that this will not take away from teaching and learning.
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2. i.
Report of the Assistant Superintendent of Operations
-S. Greenberg 5:40 pm
Financial Report -
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FY17 Close-out - We made the closeout memo with backup detail. We are not able to take all of the offsets that we were thinking about. We want to work with the town to keep everything transparent. We’re looking to turn $631,000 back to the town. We’ve encumbered a quarter’s worth of special education tuition ($110,000). $15,000 goes into the music account and a higher balance in food service. You can see our revolving accounts and grants. You may not see a financial report till September. Steve will try to give us a memo each month. Documents are in the drive - two PDFs entitled FY 17 Closeout and 2017 Financial Report . A special town meeting is coming up in November. There was a question from A. Karas if we would be able to put an agenda item on there. S. Greenberg will follow up.
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Report of the Principals 6:05 ● Staffing - J. Sforza. In Fuller Meadow we have a new hire in grade 1 for 2016-17, Miss Elaina Higgins; an instructional assistant, Ms. Montefusco; Ms. Halecki in grade 2 and Ms. Racicot an instructional assistant in K-2. There are three other hires not confirmed yet. One is for kindergarten, one is ESL and the other is for a half special ed teacher and p/t behavioral specialist. You can view
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the whole staff lineup at Fuller Meadow here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hp9VJE6SaODcQi7BNzRaC_vpmeIy5ez 5lwbq07JiIq8/edit . At Howe Manning, Jeff Bryson is the new assistant principal; we have a special ed teacher of the social emotional learning program, Steven Douglas; a behavioral specialist, Martha Johnson. Marie Perkins is our nurse for five days a week. The art teacher position is shared between Fuller Meadow and Howe Manning, Catie Nasser will hold this post. . Kelli Smullin is a licensed art teacher who will take over the .5 position. Additionally, Erin Greenwood was hired as the .5 adjustment counselor. There are five instructional assistant openings. Three are finalized and we are working on the last two spots. Enrollment - We have six new students registered. See drive. There are three families who are unenrolling due to relocation. We have a new ELL coordinator working for TTU, K aren Pierog. She will be proactive about needs for the kids. M. LaCava would like to bring her to a meeting in the fall.
NEW BUSINESS: 6:10 1. Residency Requests (if any) - S. Morrison. A family that put an offer in on a home in Middleton is closing August 31. They have a purchase and sale agreement and received approval from the mortgage company. Their closing will be on August 31 and they would like to come in ahead of time. If we agree, we would send a letter to them outlining our expectations to see the deed and if for some reason they do not have a deed they would need to make restitution in the form of tuition. Their house in Saugus is sold. Scott recommends favorably on this. There were no objections. A motion was made by M. Moreschi to allow the family to come in ahead of time. C. Carroll seconded. All in favor- aye. 2. Elementary Handbook and AUP - Update - We are looking for members of the committee to work with the school administration to revise the handbook. We are working on the AUP, Acceptable Use Policy. M. LaCava and a team will work together. A. Karas is working on the handbook and S. Guditus is working on the AUP and Photo release. S. Guditus - The Acceptable Use Policy is standard fare for schools. It is an agreement by the students, staff, and visitors using network storage and devices. See handouts for information covering our policy. It explains unacceptable uses for devices and internet storage. There is also an opt out policy. Working with legal, they provided us with language that has been approved by our school attorney on how parents and guardians can opt their child out of the media. But our position here is to affirm all good things relating to opting in. We wanted to simplify the AUP policy for kids by using images and age appropriate language. Our approach is to have our kids be excited about technology and want to be included. Intermediate school students make a pledge to be respectful and kind. This packet would be in the handbook also. 3. Surplus Materials (Howe-Manning) Reviewing our current behavior matrix led to a conversation about us rethinking what we’re doing and what is our overall philosophy with behavioral and discipline needs. By the end of the year it may not look like what it did or it will. There are two behavior matrixes - in classroom and on the bus, and the second is consequences. We decided that if part of that committee would focus on the behavior matrix it would create a conversation as to what infractions and consequences look like. We should first define a real expectation. Right now it is very prescriptive and bulleted. It’s up to the principal’s discretion. But all bullets might
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not be checked depending on the context of the situation It may include certain types of consequences. There may be some modifications because of that. Parent concern is why it doesn’t look like what it says. We treat some children with special needs than we treat other kids that may have other things going on but for the kid who is the recipient of it they’re not getting it. It’s confusing for parents. A question was raised as to if there is a paragraph that talks about confidentiality of students. We need to look at that. It is in there already and quotes the law as well. S. Morrison stated that there are some things that need to be tweaked. Surplus Materials are in the drive for Howe Manning. There are two PDFs. There are some science curriculum and other old materials that need to be removed to make way for new materials. A motion to proceed was made by C. Carroll and seconded by M. Moreschi. All in favor-aye. Accepting Donations (monetary and an instrument) - There were two monetary donations and one donation of an instrument. A $500 donation to the Music Department was made by Ted Butler for the purpose of using it in any capacity related to the Music Department needs. A $1000 donation was from a parent for the Special Education Department. The third donation was of a saxophone to a music teacher. It appears to have a pretty good undetermined value. There was a concern as to whether she can accept it. Does an appraisal need to be done? M. Moreschi moved to accept gifts as presented. It was seconded by C. Carroll. All in favor-aye. A question was asked as to what will we do with the extra money going back in the budget. Another question was asked as to why tissues, wipes, sanitizers are not in the budget and why it’s the teacher’s responsibility to get them. Should we continue to ask for community help? Why do we have to ask for it? A possible explanation was that it has existed in public education for so long. But we’re open to a conversation about how to treat this in the future. We should have a budget meeting early looking at wish list items - add tissues and sanitizers to this. Let it go this year since the teachers’ letters might be ready to go out. Correspondence Folder - There is a lovely thank you note in the correspondence folder from Mary Farley for the retirement gifts. Other - in the drive there is a copy of the 17-18 school committee meetings. Middleton meetings for 17-18: September 13th falls on the middle school open house so we won’t have a quorum. Tentatively change it to September 14th. October 11th. November 8th at 5pm. December 13th. January 10th. Budget meeting on January 27th with an 8:30 am start. February 14th change to Tuesday, February 13th. March 14th. April 11th. May 9th. June 13th. All in favor-aye. The orientation of staff is August 22nd at 10:45 am. August 29th is the MASCO Welcome meeting.
D. CONSENT AGENDA: M. Moreschi moved to enter into Consent Agenda; C. Carroll seconded. 1. Bills and Payrolls BW DATE/ BILL WARRANT # PAY DATE P/R WEEK ENDINGS AMOUNT PAYROLL 8/3/17 7/14/17 & 7/21/17 $162,669.48 BILL WARRANT 8/2/17 BW VOUCHER 1003 $51.11 BILL WARRANT 8/2/17 BW VOUCHER 1004 $947.55 BILL WARRANT 8/2/17 BW VOUCHER 1005 $8,454.07
7:15
BILL WARRANT BILL WARRANT PAYROLL PAYROLL PAYROLL BILL WARRANT BILL WARRANT
8/2/17 BW VOUCHER 1006 8/2/17 BW VOUCHER 1007 7/6/17 6/16/17 & 6/23/17 7/6/17 PAY #1 7/20/17 6/30/17 & 7/7/17 6/26/17 BW 1738/VOUCHER 1016 6/23/17 BW 1738 MEAL TAX/ VOUCHER 1016 BILL WARRANT 6/30/17 BW 1739/VOUCHER 1017 BILL WARRANT 6/30/17 BW 1739/VOUCHER 1023 BILL WARRANT 8/3/17 BW 1801 BILL WARRANT 8/3/17 BW 1802 *SIGNED BY F. CLAPP AND M. MORESCHI
$23,899.45 $9,450.88 $169,599.00* $37,981.39* $154,906.62 signed by F. Clapp $46,557.06* $20.22* $11,587.07 signed by F. Clapp $34,991.91* $31,198.45 signed by M. Moreschi $8,308.44 signed by M. Moreschi
Motion to accept made by C. Carroll; seconded by M. Moreschi. 2. Minutes of Previous Meetings - June 12 - to make suggested edits in the document, in upper right hand corner chose EDITING then choose SUGGESTING. Make your comments right inside the document. Motion to accept minutes with changes made by M. Moreschi; seconded by F. Clapp. All in favor - aye. EXECUTIVE SESSION 7:25 At. 7:25 pm, M. Moreschi moved to enter into Executive Session to conduct a strategy session in preparation for negotiation with nonunion personnel where discussion in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect as declared by the Chair of the School Committee. Seconded by C. Carroll. Motion carried on a 4-0 roll call vote (A. Karas-aye, M. Moreschi-aye, C. Carroll-aye, F. Clapp-aye).
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ADJOURNMENT
7:45
The listing of matters is those reasonably anticipated by the Chair which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. This meeting may be broadcast live and recorded for future broadcast on Middleton Cable Access Television. A motion to adjourn was made by M. Moreschi; seconded by C. Carroll. Respectfully submitted, Lorraine Jackson Recording Secretary As per the Open Meeting Law, listed below are the documents either distributed to School Committee before the meeting in a packet, or at the meeting: 1. Copy of 17-18 SC Meetings 2. FY 17 C loseout Report 3. FY 17 F inancial Report
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Howe Manning surplus MSC Agenda 8/2/17 New Staff at Fuller Meadow 17-18 Summer 2017 PD Overview
