Welcome to the school committee meeting December 18th.

We're gonna start as usual with roll call Ms. Flats. Here.

Ms. Brunell. Here. Mr. Brand Present. Ms. McDonough? Yes.

Ms. Gors? Yes. And Ms. Collins

Here participating remotely.

Great. And I'm here as well.

I'd like to ask everyone now

to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance.

In a moment of silence,

I pledge alle

Allegiance to the flag, the flag

of the United States of America,

and to the republic for which it stands

for One Nation under God, indivisible, with the liberty

and justice for all.

Thank you everyone for joining us.

In a moment of silence, we take the moment

to honor those who've sacrificed for our country.

We're gonna do one of the announcements now

and then some others later just

because we have the soccer team, the girls soccer team here.

So I'll turn things to Ms. Wong.

So this is my privilege to recognize our guests

that are here tonight representing the

Natick Girls Soccer team.

So one of the best things about high school is being able

to be on a team, being able to be in a club, being able

to participate in an ensemble is just really some

of the best things that you get to do in high school.

There are very few things

that are better than being on a team and winning the state.

So congratulations to the girls who are here

for the winning, the Massachusetts Division One

State Champions.

Being the state champions, that's such a huge honor

and quite an achievement to, to be able to do that.

I wanna acknowledge the varsity coaches, our varsity coach,

David Wa Wright, and our assistant varsity coaches,

Haley Murphy and Ashley Siba, junior Varsity coach,

Carrie Ann Daley.

And our ninth grade coach, Kim Morrissey.

We have one of our captains here, Kaitlyn LeBron,

the other captain, wasn't able to attend Maya Schwab.

And then Kaitlyn's gonna go ahead

and introduce everyone that's here with her.

So we have Emma,

Sorry, I can use the a microphone.

Okay.

Okay. So all the way on the left is Emma, Ruthie, Lily,

Stella, Kira, and Kendall, a mix of freshmen and juniors.

And they have all been a really important part of this team.

That's great. Congratulations.

And I understand the team,

the soccer team also won state championship in 2021.

Are any of you that were on that team as well? Wow.

Which one of you? Wow, that's pretty, that's pretty amazing.

Anyway, thank you so much for coming.

It's again, I'm privileged to honor you

and I'm so glad we are so proud of you.

Congratulations.

And congratulations on behalf of the school committee.

Wonderful job. How many of you're graduating this year?

Just me. Just you. Well, that's a great way

to end your high school career

and congratulations to you all

and hopefully you'll be able

to win more championships in the next

couple years. No pressure.

No

Pressure. No pressure. No pressure.

But if you do, you're welcome to come again.

Actually, you can come whenever you want. So I'm,

if it's okay with the committee, I'm going to go ahead

and make a motion to go into executive session.

I know we have several items. I know there's people coming

for at six 30, so we can do that first.

So I'm gonna read the motion.

So I moved to, moved to executive session

to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations

with non-represented personnel, waste reduction coordinator,

supplementary theater positions, teacher co covering class,

and to comply with or act under the authority of any general

or special law, specifically chapter 30 a, section 21 G one.

The public body or its chair

or designee shall add reasonable intervals.

Review the minutes of executive sessions

to determine if the provisions

of this subsection warrant continued non-disclosure

and to discuss strategy with respect

to collective bargaining.

EAN, unit B, if an open meeting may have a detrimental

effect on the bargaining position

of the public body and the chair.

So declares, which I do,

and to discuss strategy with respect to litigation,

if an open meeting may have

In

Suspense detrimental effect on the allegation

position of the public body and the chair.

So declares, which I do second.

Thanks.

And we have to do roll call Ms. Flats. Yes. Ms.

Brunell? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Ms. McDonough? Yes. Ms. Goeth?

Yes. Ms. Collins?

Yes. If assuming I can get the signing information.

Oh, can we? I just, there it is. Okay.

Tim just sent Mr. L just sent it to you.

Yep. I just got it. Thank you.

So with that, we'll go into executive session turning

at 6 35 hopefully.

Okay. Good evening everyone.

We'll restart our open meeting, the school committee meeting

for December 18th.

So prior to us going to executive session, we did roll call,

pledge of Allegiance, a moment of silence.

We're gonna skip around the agenda a little bit today

and we're gonna start with our student representative

providing her update.

So Kendall Hacker, you're the floor is yours.

So there's not a lot of update.

Okay. I don't know if there's not a lot of updates

for student council right now

'cause we're in a bit of a break before winter break.

But we do have the winter concert this Friday,

which I think a lot of people are looking forward to

and concerts gonna put on a great show.

And yeah, that's about it coming on right now. But yeah.

Great. Thank you. And congrats

for the soccer Thank you Championship.

So let's move on now to announcements.

Do you wanna start yours and then we'll go to Catherine?

Sure. I, you see such a nice note from Chief Hicks

and I thought it'd be nice to read it too.

Oh, thank you again.

I A nice note from Chief Hicks for the police department.

So it says, on behalf of the Natick Service Council

and the Natick Police Department, I would like

to thank the Natick Public Schools

for their continued support of the Marsha Kelly Giving Tree.

The Giving Tree was established in loving memory of Mrs.

Marsha Kelly, a Natick Police Department records clerk

who passed away suddenly a march of 2009.

The Giving Tree provides over 100 Natick families

with their holiday needs.

This endeavor would not be possible without the support

of the Natick Public schools.

In particular, Ms. Becky, Thank you Sni Cloth

of Kennedy Middle School

and her students in their community service club

who made over 600 construction paper ornaments.

Each one of these ornaments represents one

wishlist gift per child.

So you go to the tree and you take an ornament

and then you fulfill that child's wish.

Our goal is to provide six gifts

to each Natick child in need.

Their efforts will truly make an impact on many Natick

children this holiday season.

Thank you for your continued support.

I just thought it was such a nice note to mark the season

and also the community spirit altogether with our students.

Okay, thank you. So we have another announcement,

actually two more announcements that that Ms.

Pernell will make. I just wanted,

before she reads a statement, I just wanted

to provide the context for the statement that Ms.

Pernell is gonna read. In the past,

the school committee has made statements to condemn acts

of hatred in our community, in our broader society.

And unfortunately we felt the need again to do so tonight.

Given the recent acts of antisemitism in our community,

I know that we live in very tense times these days

with events thousands of miles away from us

that affect us in various ways.

However, it is important for us to condemn any act of hatred

that takes place in our community

because those are never justified.

And just also to provide additional context per open meeting

law, just to let the public know neither the committee

as a whole nor a quorum of the committee developed

or deliberate on the statement.

Rather, Ms. Brunell and I, according to the statement,

and it was also reviewed by Ms.

Goeth and Ms. Wong, who's not a member of the commi

of the committee, but all members were

provided were alerted that the statement was coming.

I just wanted to let people know where the committee stands.

And with that, I wanna thank Mr.

Brunell for taking the lead in writing the statement.

And with that, I'll turn things to you.

And thank you Ms. Wong for the juxtaposition

of the Giving True tree.

With this statement, I wanted to also mention

that the North Star program was there delivering the gifts

to the boxes for each one of the children.

So it was really amazing to see the high school

students involved in that as well.

So thank you shy for your work on this

and for Elise the review.

And this is what we'd like to share.

As you're elected officials, we are aware

of and grieve with you.

When hateful incidents occur in our schools,

when any type of hate related incident,

whether it involves racism, anti LGBTQ plus sentiments,

antisemitism, Islamophobia,

or any other type of hate, they impact the most marginalized

among us, which in turn impacts us all.

When one or any student

or staff member is made to feel unsafe, our community

as a whole is diminished.

Hateful actions are beneath us

because we are a community that values each member.

Most recently, our committee is emed.

Our committee is emboldened

by the steadfast convi conviction

of our student superintendent, administrators, teachers,

and staff who respond with compassion

and as educators to any event.

We also applaud the brave student voices

who report hate when they see it.

And we are encouraged by the symbols

of peace created at one school

and the intentional conversations

that were facilitated at another.

All of these actions and many others, are reminders

that hate has no room in our school because of our,

because our faculty and staff

and students serve as both the reason for

and the protectors of the sense of belonging.

That is at the very core of Natick's mission.

For every member of this community, we are a community

that deeply values each and every member.

Our committee wholeheartedly reaffirms the district's

commitment to provide an education

and work environment for our school community members

that is free from all forms of discrimination,

including harassment and retaliation.

And that can be found in our policy ac.

Further, we are committed to providing a safe

and positive, productive educational environment

where students can achieve the highest academic standards

policy, J-I-C-F-B.

As such, we stand strongly against any efforts

to bring hatred into our community,

including denouncing in the strongest terms,

the recent anti-Semitic symbols

that were found in our schools.

We make this statement in gratitude for the work

that is being done and with the belief that

through education, our future is better.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Brunell.

Any other announcements from the administration

or the school committee?

So with that, we'll move to public speak.

I think I know who the people are who wrote,

Yeah, if you don't mind, bring it.

So let me just read the Public Speak policy.

Public speak is scheduled for a period of 15 minutes.

Each speaker will be permitted a maximum thank you maximum

of three minutes during which time they can speak about

topics within the scope

of responsibility of the school committee.

All remarks will be addressed to the school committee chair.

Public speak is not a time for debate

or response to comm comments by the school committee.

With that, we have five people who signed up for school

for public Speak tonight.

Again, you each have three minutes, which I'll,

I'll give you a ten second warning.

When I call your name, please go to the podium,

say your name, where you live, and your remarks.

We'll start with Farrah Rubenstein.

Hi, Farrah Rubenstein Precinct seven.

Thank you everyone for welcoming me

and many fellow members of the Jewish community,

not exclusively, but many of us here tonight.

And I'm here with hopes

that we really are talking about safety for our kids.

I'm wondering if you've ever experienced thousands

of people marching to celebrate sexual violence against you

or chant for your murder

or chant for ending your religion, your culture,

your race, and your ethnicity.

And if you've heard deafening silence from the allies you

thought would defend your right to just exist, I have.

And so of my children here in Natick, when members

of your family speak out about ableism, sexism, homophobia,

racism, they experience

or they trusted, has anyone in your family been told

that their ability, gender, sexuality, religion, race,

ethnicity, culture was acceptable

depending upon the context?

And have they been told this

and has this context been determined by people

who don't even share that identity

and don't have the same lived experience I have.

And so have my kids in 2023 in Natick.

And if you participate in a Sunday school religious

education program, was it canceled

or put on high alert just yesterday

because of targeted threats against your house of worship

as verified by local police, ours in Natick

and in multiple surrounding towns, including Wellesley,

which serves many, many Natick Jewish families.

Those two synagogues were,

but I should note we're not special.

There were 199 threats reported in, verified in 17 states

and DC this weekend, including some arrests

where threats weren't just called in,

but people were standing in front

of synagogues in Washington DC yelling gas the Jews

or my friend's childhood synagogue in Toledo, Ohio,

saying he was a 13-year-old saying he was gonna burn the

place down and shoot it up.

So it hasn't gotten that bad yet her and Natick yet.

And we're still lucky, I guess.

And that's what I tell my kids.

You might've first met me in May of 2003 when you listened

to my wonderful Wilson eighth grader talk about her

leadership in No Place for Hate

or maybe when you remember us when she spoke at the

NPS faculty opening.

Thank you for that Ms. Wong about inclusivity in our schools

and her passion for that,

which I should note comes steeply from

within our Jewish identity.

And you've seen me here at every school committee meeting

since early September advocating for the safety

of my gay sixth grader in school.

And today I am asking you

to help keep my kids safe on another proud identity

access on their Judaism.

I'm begging you School committee leadership

and PS teachers make it clear

that when we say we welcome all kids in Natick,

we mean all marginalized communities.

And right now, that is us.

When we value inclusivity, please tell me.

You mean everyone, even Jews.

The sad truth is how people in organizations speak about

Israel affects Jews in America.

It affects whether our homes are targeted for vandalism

or were physically threatened

or assaulted when out in the world,

or whether our houses of worship are on the receiving end

of graffiti and bomb threats

and where we can admit to being Jewish.

And it directly correlates to increases in hateful speech

and graffiti as we've seen in many of our schools.

We're not safe in this world.

Please tell me that we're safe here.

Thank you Natick Schools for everything you're doing.

Thank you. Next, Joanna Edison.

Hi, I'm Johanna Edelson.

I don't know exactly what pre precinct

I'm in, but I'm a naic.

And of course I had to go after Farah. So forgive me.

For years, my family has talked to me about antisemitism,

but I couldn't relate, at least in this part of the country.

I never felt like anybody hated me for being Jewish.

I was much more comfortable talking about racism.

And since I've spent close

to 30 years educating myself about it, it's very easy for me

to identify in the news,

in people's comments and in things I witness.

However, when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th,

it took me a couple of weeks to catch up to

what many people in the Jewish community already knew.

Jewish people are in trouble.

The following Friday when there were terror threats,

I was scared to send my son to school

for the first time in my life.

I am also afraid still to put up a,

we stand with Israel sign

because I don't want anything to happen to him, especially

after having been a teacher in Massachusetts for 15 years.

I was shocked by the MTA statement about there being a

genocide in Gaza.

Though the MTA released additional language

that does not change the original decisions of their board

and the earlier motions still stands.

It made me think about the domestic violence

work I used to do.

We worked on reframing the narrative from

why does the victim stay

to why is the perpetrator being abusive?

Why isn't the MTA leadership able to reframe the narrative

to why doesn't Hamas surrender and release the hostages?

So the civilians and Gaza can live

since October 7th to learn more.

I've read books about the history of Israel,

follow different social media accounts

and ask many questions.

And I'm embarrassed to say that even though I'm Jewish,

I didn't recognize certain opinions

or types of speech as antisemitic.

For example, I didn't understand why calling

for a ceasefire only is considered anti-Semitic.

But I learned that much like racism, it's

because Jewish people are being held

to a different standard when it comes

to defending themselves.

Has the leadership of the MTA done this work?

Ask questions, read books, reframe the narrative work

to hold the dichotomies in their brains

that we're facing in the community.

I don't believe they have

and I don't believe they've had the

conversation with their children.

Please, if you see a swastika in school, tell a teacher,

and I'm sure they haven't wondered if upon hearing

that a child found a swastika, would the teacher care

or would they feel that Jewish students deserve it?

As many have been saying about the attacks

by Hamas, 10 seconds.

I read this speech to a Jewish friend and she responded.

The Jewish people don't know who they can trust.

Please say, we can trust the Natick public schools

to keep Jewish children safe.

Thank you. Next we'll go with Rabbi Ra Weis.

Good evening. My name is Rabbi Ra Weiss Precinct nine.

I'm about to deliver a letter written together

by our friends and colleagues, faith leaders in Natick.

We write to you as faith leaders in our town

who support Natick public schools

and their efforts to provide full inclusion affirmation

and celebration of lgbtqia plus children and youth.

We each represent houses of worship

and natick that preach love and acceptance towards all.

As we advocate for our neighbor, we celebrate the identity

and personhood of all people.

And we believe that sexuality

and gender are a part of that celebrated personhood.

The fundamental values that center our work, compassion,

empathy, and understanding are rooted in our belief

that every person is made in the image of God

and blessed by God as good.

All students have the right to be treated

with equality and respect.

It is our moral duty to ensure

that our schools are safe spaces

where every student feels welcome, valued, represented,

and supported, and

where they can learn about one another's identities,

thereby instilling empathy

and understanding the keys

to ending division and finding peace.

We know that love and peace must be taught at home.

And for many people, this means teaching the tenants

of a faith system to their children.

Therefore, we are also celebrating

and supporting parents as they endeavor

to instill in their children hope, faith, love and inquiring

and discerning hearts in the language

and tradition of their own religion.

As faith leaders, we support parents in the work

of bringing up the next generation in love.

And we support the Natick public school system in ensuring

that diversity and inclusion are values that continue

to be centered for future generations.

Sincerely, Reverend Becky Bins Rector St.

Paul Episcopal Church Natick, Reverend Katie Cole,

Hartford Street, Presbyterian Natick,

Reverend Christopher Gilbert, pastor Christ

Lutheran Church Natick.

Sarah Lynn Keller, director of Spiritual Vitality.

First Congregational Church Natick, Reverend D Dr.

Ian ak, common Street Spiritual Center.

Natick, Reverend Alicia Reeves, Freeman Fisk,

United Methodist Natick, rabbi Haan, Ken Richmond,

temple Israel of Natick.

Rabbi Robin s Spar Comb is the place. Natick Reverend Dr.

Adam. Attorney Elliot. Pastor the Elliot Church.

Natick Rabbi Dr. Weiss Temple, Israel of Natick.

Reverend Cindy Worthington Berry Pastor First

Congregational Church Natick.

On a separate note, personal to me as a Rabbi Cora

of Temple Israel of Natick, I want to share in a time

of rising antisemitism

and in light of the MTA statement of December 9th.

And in light of hearing from children in our community

who've reported direct incidents of antisemitism in the NPS,

I want to call on all staff, faculty

and board members of the NPS,

the denounce antisemitism in all of its forms

of discrimination so

that our community will be safe for all children.

And I thank you for all of your advocacy and your help

and support in doing so.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next we'll have Rebar Helper Halper.

My name is Dr. Mary Bar Halper in bin.

I'm a clinical psychologist

and a mother of a second grade student at Benham

and soon to be kindergarten in Benham.

First of all, I wanna thank you

for all that you do for our children.

In my opinion, you're have the most important jobs in the

world shaping our kids' mind.

I'm here to share with you my concerns about the

MTA one-sided statement.

It calls for creating a curriculum that'll focus on occupied

Palestine, the MTA stateman used language

that characterized Israel as engaging in genocide.

The double standard of the original statement is another

example of antisemitism in which there is a call for Israel

to cease fire without mentioning the atrocities

of October seven, condemning Hamas calling for the release

of hostages or calling for a ceasefire toward Hamas Israel.

You might say that it's not anti-Semitism,

but I will argue that

unless there is a similar statement about other words such

as Ukraine and Russia or Armenia

and Azer, it is singling out Israel and Jewish people.

My area of expertise, trauma,

and I specifically do work in the field

of trauma informed school.

Being safe and feeling safe is something we all deserve.

No matter who you are

or where you come from, safety is a

requirement to be able to thrive.

Even if you're Jewish, you cannot expect Jewish students

to listen to their teacher talking about the conflict using

words such as genocide, colonize, and Hyde.

The three big ones that I've been hearing misused

recently and feel safe.

You cannot expect them to study math

or English while worrying if their

classmates will start bullying them.

Not to mention that some of these students have families in

Israel, some were kidnapped,

some were raped, some were murdered.

Some were in immediate harm due to the war

since October 7th.

As a Jewish person, I had to choose

between hiding my identity and my family's safety.

I had to tell Son not to speak Hebrew in public.

I had to stop wearing my star of David Necklace.

And I had to explain to people why there's nothing political

about celebrating Hanukkah.

This is 2023 in America and it's not okay.

Now, some of you might think I'm overreacting,

but I was personally the victim of this type of harassment.

Just because I'm Jewish, I've seen

a hateful action for this.

Words can lead to. I have patient in my clinic

who suffer from secondary trauma, anxiety,

and panic attacks due

to being single out at schools for being Jewish.

Words matter. I'm an immigrant in this country.

I'm a minority just like the rest

of the Jewish people, by the way.

And it's your job to make sure my kids are protected at

school while I do my best to protect them outside of school.

When teaching about history, I expect schools

to be unbiased and well-informed.

I'm horrified by the call for action to create a curriculum

that will teach about occupied Palestine as the MDA Ask.

Teaching about the Middle East conflict is important,

but should be done in a manner

that is sensitive for both sides.

There is more nuanced than birth versus good,

and any teacher is talking about the conflict should be

mindful of doing so in an unbiased and caring way.

History taught us that if we stand aside

and do nothing, it will repeat itself.

Your voice matters.

Your voice matters to the

Jewish students and their families.

Your voice matters to me.

Your voice matters to my son, Noam, and to my daughter.

Aria. Thank you.

Thank you. And lastly, Dr. Donna Mackenzie.

Donna Mackenzie, precinct eight.

I just wanna preface what I'm going to say,

which is a different topic that my heart breaks listening

to all of these comments that some

of my Jewish classmates from Nat High are afraid

to be Jewish and afraid to post on social media

because the climate in this country is so bad

and the antisemitism is so high.

So the statement was beautiful that Ms.

Brunell read, and I implore all of you to keep working

to put that into practice.

I wanted to point out that last night was the 10th opioid

vigil and it was beautiful.

I don't know if any of you are able to be there. I was.

I in the past two weeks have buried

and eulogized a family member who died from addiction,

from alcoholism.

Brilliant. We buried him too early.

But I wanna say that my heart was so moved in so full

when I heard Josepha blocker, the principal

of our high school speak during the 15 minute open speak

the way she said it was so important for us

to be able to reach out, to speak, to

connect so that those who are

on the brink of trouble, that we can help them, right?

That we're a community, that we can help them.

It was everything

that you would want in an educational leader

and everything that you would want in a principal.

If you've seen Barbie, and I don't mean to be trite,

but you know, there's that scene

where the artificial fake Barbie says

to the woman on the bench, you're beautiful.

And the woman on the bench says, I know.

And I still think that if we could deal

with helping our kids know that they are in fact beautiful,

whether they're Jewish

or whatever their faith is,

whatever their background is, that's so important.

And maybe we could begin to erode some

of the horribleness of addiction.

I think of my cousin and I just wish he had had the

self-esteem and could have, could have recognized

that he was a beautiful, brilliant human being.

So I, I just hope that we can do a little bit better

because so many kids in this town right now need us

and depend on the schools.

Thanks.

Thank you. That

concludes our public speak

'cause we're out of time for public speak.

So thank you for those who spoke.

And we'll now move to, to the rest

of the agenda, starting with the teacher representative.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

When an issue arises that broadly concerns our profession

or offers an inaccurate view of our conduct,

we are compelled to speak on behalf of the teachers

and the school staff in Natick.

Otherwise, we respect the rights of our individual members

to have their own opinions

and to express them appropriately.

Recently, some members of the community have requested an

action or statement from our teacher's union, the EAN.

There are those in our union who feel

that a response is warranted as well as those who feel

that actions or statements by our union on certain issues.

However, well-intentioned are inappropriate.

Earlier this month, as you have heard, the MTA board

of directors passed a motion to support a petition sponsored

by a number of labor organizations calling on President

Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The wording, the announcements, the awarding

of the announcement raised concerns in our community.

And we do not take these concerns lightly.

I do wanna make it clear that while the Massachusetts

Teachers organization is the governing union

that the EAN is a part of it in no way dictates our actions,

our statements, or our views use.

However, the executive board of the EAN has not yet met

to discuss these concerns

or the broader issues raised by the MTAs motion.

And I feel that at this time it would be inappropriate

for me as an individual in my role

as a teacher representative to speak on the behalf of behalf

of a union that I have yet to speak to at this time.

However, I can say unequivocally that we condemn acts

of hate and that we work daily to create a safe

and supportive environment for our students in our

schools and our classrooms.

I also wanna state clearly that regardless

of the MTA statement or the response of the EAN,

that I believe our Jewish students are

safe in the Natick schools.

And that I am committed to make sure that they will be

and continue to feel that way.

And I would hope that any parent with specific concerns

for their own child feels empowered to speak

with their child's teacher.

A point that I have made before in other contexts.

Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Wood.

We've already heard from our student

representative earlier tonight.

So with that, we're gonna move to the consent agenda

and I'll take any motions

regarding the consent agenda at this

time. Yeah, I would like,

I would like to pull out the field trips

that are not out of state of the consent agenda,

which would include the trip to

town hall and metco Kennedy Institute.

Boston College and Boston College.

Does that require No.

Okay. No, I think I just pull 'em out.

Just pull 'em and then I'll make a motion

to approve the consent agenda. Then I can

Sure. Any

I I motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Any discussion? No. Nope.

So, because Ms. Collins is on line, we have to do roll call.

So Ms. flas? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Ms.

McDonough? Yes. Ms. Go. Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes.

And I'm a yes. So that,

that we approve the consent agenda. We can,

Yes.

So then I have a question about the ones I pulled out. Sure.

I don't actually have a question about the field trip.

I just have a question that, so thinking about the budget

for next year, we did fund field trips at the

elementary and middle school.

We allotted money and I, we did not allot money

to the high school for field trips.

It looked like the METCO

and Natick Town Hall is paid for by a grant.

But I just want to understand either

how those are being paid for

or if you don't have the answer to that.

Given that we are seeing field trips now at the high school,

do we want to build into our budget for FY 25 monies to go

to the high school to fund those field trips?

I don't know the answer about how they're paying

for the field trips at middle and high school.

Sorry. Okay. But we can, we can answer that.

But I did, I just wanted

to make sure while those field trips were pulled out, oh,

they consent agenda.

It doesn't mean they're not approved.

It just meant that they needed, didn't need

to be approved by the school committee.

Right. Sorry, I didn't So if anybody clear Didn't make that

Clear. Yes. They're just,

Yeah.

They just didn't need to be approved in

this, in this process.

Right. Only out of state field trips need

to be approved by the school committee.

So, but I I,

it would be helpful if we could get an answer on that,

the cost of those field trips, how it's being funded,

and if the school committee needs to consider

allocating funds to the high school next year in addition

to the middle and elementary schools.

Thank you.

Anything else before we move on

related to the consent agenda?

No. So the next item is deployment

of school committee member or designee

to net zero committee.

Just to provide some background, there used

to be a sustainability committee in town

where there was a school committee representative.

That committee has been disbanded.

I'm not sure when, but it was disbanded

and a new committee has now been formed

called the net zero committee.

This is a committee being led by our sy,

the NA sustainability director.

There are going to be six members of voting members

of the committee, including one person

who will be either a school committee representative

or designate designee from the school committee.

The other five are appointed by the select board

and there's also a non-voting student representative.

The other six members,

including the student, have already been selected.

So now it is our opportunity to do so.

We can either do so tonight to actually vote on someone,

or we can begin the, the deliberation tonight.

If we want more time, we can vote on it at a different time.

And, and I did discuss that with Ms. Wilson Martin.

So you know she's okay with us waiting till January if the

committee decides to do that.

So with that, I'll just open the floor. Yeah.

Oh, so I had a question. Are these like public meetings

where a quorum has to be present or is it

I believe so.

It is a committee of the select board. 'cause the, okay.

So I believe just like our committees need

to be open meeting or

by open meeting laws,

I believe this one will as well. Okay.

And you said there were five members appointed

by the select board and one,

one member of the school committee?

Yep. And then Ms. Wilson, Martin is coordinating,

is she chairing the committee?

I don't see her listed as a member.

So I think she's the staff person for it. Okay.

And I should say the composition, if I understand correctly,

the composition of this committee is, was informed partially

by a grant that the town is going to apply for.

They it requires,

and one of the requirements is having that select

that school committee representation, which is why, well,

one of the reasons why they invite us.

Do you know how often it's gonna meet?

Document says no less than 10 times a year.

Yeah, there they are.

Once a month.

Once a month is, yeah.

Who did we have as a representative on

the sustainability committee?

China?

Me.

Oh, I meant, sorry.

Oh, Ms. Collins was there

for the original sustainability committee.

When we discussed the goals for the committee,

we had appointed people, different people, different, those

of us on different goals.

And Ms. Flats

and I were the ones assigned to the sustainability goal.

So just to clarify that. Right.

But the committee, the sustainability committee

has not met in some kind.

And that was before we established goals.

Yeah. Yeah. So, and

that committee has been disbanded with that.

I'll take any nominations

or any discussion about, we can't, we,

it can be a school committee member

or it can be anyone from the community that we assign.

I would say I'm happy to do it

because we said we were, we signed up

For that goal.

And you may have a lot, you may have a lot on your plate.

The idea of it being another member

of the community is an interesting one.

'cause I am enthusiastic,

but I'm probably not the most educated on

the sustainability goals.

But I am happy to do it.

But I don't know if there's other interest,

Any other interests, including whether you wanna do it

or have someone else in the committee do it,

or a member of the community.

Would you like a nomination?

Would you take a formal nomination?

Sure.

I nominate Ms.

flas to represent the school committee on the net

zero committee. That's fine. Committee.

I mean, we may wanna, I I, it is interesting to,

I don't know what they're getting,

what they wanna get out of it.

The idea of it being a member of the community.

Who do we say the rest of the composition is?

So it's five members of the community

who are appointed by the select board.

So, and probably our other in the agenda, there's a link

to the website in case you want to know

more about the committee or who, including who the member,

who the current members are,

who the select board appointees are.

Hmm.

Second.

So you second nomination. So there's a nomination for Ms.

flas and it was seconded. No objections from Ms. flas?

No, we said we wanted to make, make progress on this.

And we,

And I said to Wilson Martin that I felt bad

that this fall has been very busy

and we've made insufficient progress.

So this is, you know, forced progress.

This is, so this is the perfect opportunity.

So with that roll call on the Yeah, Kathy has her hand.

Oh yeah. Ms. Ms. Collins.

Yeah. One of the reasons that, that I enthusiastically

nominated Kate, is that I think it's important,

at least at this point, that the person representing the

schools has some understanding of the school budget

and some of our limitations

or some of our areas that we can expand in.

And since most of the others are community members, I think,

I think it's important

that a school committee member serve on this.

So thank you Kate for stepping up.

Okay. Any other items of discussion before we vote?

So with that, Ms. Flats, Ms. Collins, Ms. Pronounced, sorry.

Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Ms. McDonna? Yes. Ms. Goeth? Yes.

Ms. Collins? Yes. And I a Yes. Thank you Ms.

flas. Next is the superintendent search update

on, and I'll hand the floor to MR.

Brand.

Okay. So we had our first superintendent

screening committee meeting last Thursday.

One of the best meetings I had all week.

It was our first meeting. It was great

to meet everybody in person.

We, one of the things that was announced in the public part

of that meeting, so I can say it here, is that we had 32

candidates apply, which according to nss,

EQ is above average.

The average number of applications is usually somewhere

between 20 and 25.

So we got 32, which is great.

We are now in the process

and we have our second meeting tomorrow.

We are now in the process of all of the committee members

of reading resumes

and trying to figure out who we are going

to interview for the next phase.

And so we will probably get to the bottom of that tomorrow.

The schedule as an update on the schedule is, is as follows.

Once we know who the preliminary interviews are going to be,

and let's just say it's probably somewhere between eight

to 12, but somewhere around there.

But it's flexible. We will figure out when those

interviews are happening.

We are motivated to do them as early as possible in January.

If, and it depends on the committee schedule

and it depends on the candidate schedules.

If we can get them done in the first week in January, which

is aggressive, but not out of the realm of possibility,

we just have to figure out who those who,

you know, all the different variables.

If that can happen, then we can in theory

deliberate on who the finalists would be shortly thereafter

and present them very, you know, if we're very optimistic

and, and all this get all the stars align, it's possible

that by January 8th we could present,

but probably not likely we could potentially present

to the full school committee on the eighth.

What's more likely to happen if I just have to,

if I was guessing, is that on the,

as we stated at the last meeting on the 22nd of January,

that's the more likely scenario we would present the

finalists to the full school committee at that point.

Probably that week is when we would have site visits.

Probably not the week

before, which I think is when midterms in the finals

are at the high school.

So pro con conservatively, probably the week

of January 22nd is when those visits would happen.

Once we knew all of those dates, we will schedule

the public interviews, which again, based on

what we said at the last meeting,

might end up being like the 29th of January conservatively.

Now this is all, we are motivated and, and Ms.

Brunell and I have talked about this

and we actually talked about it at the meeting last week.

Everybody is interested in doing it as early as possible.

There's just a lot of variables.

Let's just to, to throw a number out.

Let's say, well eight to 12 people that we interview, all

of their schedules would have to line up

with the times that we're all available.

It's, there's a lot of moving parts.

So we are still on schedule.

Everything is going the way it should thus far.

We'll keep you updated as we know,

more information, but so far so good.

Did I miss anything?

No, I would just say though that potentially

that the public interviews could, are,

would very likely take place the week of the 22nd.

I think it's, it'll we'll be on a condensed schedule if we

can get them to happen the week of the eighth.

But it's more likely

that we would announce on the 22nd of January

and then have the visits and the public interviews that week

because we are, there's other school committees

that are interviewing candidates

and so the faster we can finish the process. So

Yeah, and part of that is, I mean, again,

to the same it part of that is, let's say we're aiming

for let's say three to five finalists.

If it's three finalists, that's fewer site visits,

shorter interview public.

And so there's more room in that week.

It all sort of depends.

Again, we are all motivated to get that,

get this all done as quickly as possible.

But we just have to sort of be nimble and,

and do the best that we can to make the schedules line up.

But if it was going to happen the week of the 22nd,

which would be great, we have our normal school committee

meeting on the 22nd.

The site visits would happen presumably within the

next couple of days.

So it's possible I don't, you know,

those two weeks are gonna be pretty busy weeks, let's put it

that way, one way or another.

So, so far so good.

And as the committee, as the screen committee

identifies those dates, you'll let us know.

Obviously we'll make it public.

We'll let the public know the specifics, especially the open

parts of the interviews.

Yeah, yeah, we will.

And I would assume that in the Engage newsletter there'll be

updates even though as a committee we are

not meeting again until the eighth.

Right. So there'll be updates between now and then.

We should frankly have a much better sense of all

of this within by the end of this week.

Hopefully.

Ms. Ano, you're on the committee too.

I dunno if there's anything else you want to add

before we go to questions from the committee.

I think just to piggyback off what Mr.

Brand said and what Ms.

Brunell said, the biggest issue right now is identifying

how many people of the 32 we're going to bring in

for initial screening interviews

because that will determine how quickly we can get it done

and how condensed we can be.

Great. But everyone on the committee was motivated

for the first week of January, including the Friday, so

that we could get in as many as possible. Great.

Some saw Ms. Goeth

and then Ms. Collins has a question as well.

Yes, I had two questions.

Are you, will the screening interviews be done in

person or by zoom?

The, the screening interviews will happen in person. It'll

Happen in person.

Okay. And then the second question was,

But not publicly. Sorry, not

Publicly.

Not publicly, right. But, but face-to-face.

Yes, that's what I meant. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

And then the second question was for that potential week

of January 22nd, where you would

announce the candidates at the school committee meeting,

presumably you would've already had to schedule them

for their visits that week.

Is it possible that some

of them would have site visits on the 22nd

before you were able to announce them to us? No,

Probably not, because they won't be.

So while they would likely, they'll know as soon

as we deliberate as a screening committee,

there'll be some sort of outreach to those folks.

Presumably they will want to tell whomever is appropriate

that they are finalists.

But it won't be announced publicly until the,

whenever the next public school committee meeting is. Okay,

Thank

You.

My understanding is that the school committee also has

to accept the nominations that come

to the school committee at the meeting.

So in first, you know, that's uncommon,

but for some reason if you weren't to accept one

of the finalists or you know,

or the group of finalists,

we wouldn't have meetings scheduled.

Do you know what I mean? That's, that's another reason why

it can't happen on the 22nd.

Okay. Thank you Ms. Collins.

Yeah, I've been thinking about the public part of this,

the, the open interviews

and day by day I become more convinced

that we should do them on a full slate on Saturday,

whatever, Saturday that is where we know the information.

Speaking for myself, one of the things that I wanna be sure

of is that the individuals that we're considering

can deal in a little bit of pressure

because as evidenced by the number

of people we've had at public speak in the last six months,

there's always some pressure going on.

And I think that spreading them out,

however well intentioned we are does a disservice

to both us and to them.

So I would like to consider

and have the committee consider doing a full date

of full slate of a Saturday, whether that's the 20th

because we find out on the eighth only

'cause the 13th is part of a holiday weekend or the 27th

because we find out on the 22nd.

I just, I think it will give us a better

peak into the individuals.

Ms. Brunell,

Just so I'm understanding Kathy,

you're thinking that on a Saturday

the candidate would be able to meet

with more people than were it to happen on a school day?

I think that the, in the interview part, if I may, Mr.

Chair yeah, the interview part, they,

there may be more people in the audience, there may not, but

otherwise we're gonna be tying up at least two,

probably three nights besides the 22nd in that week.

Assuming it's the 22nd.

I think when you interview, having done a lot

of interviewing in my life,

when you don't have a fresh remembrance of the individual,

I think it makes it that much harder.

I think we get to see where they don't have any idea

what we're gonna go to them with

and how they respond is important for me to know, know,

And just to clarify, so there's,

'cause you mentioned site visits.

So there's is the order first you announce the,

in January 22nd, who the finalists are

and we're talking about only three to five finalists.

We vote on that as you just mentioned on January 22nd is,

is the site visits next and then the final interviews?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I don't know how that changes.

One of the things, just one of the things

that we talked about in the meeting last week,

and we've talked about the sort

of doing things as early as possible.

We did also discuss condensing those final interviews

and as close, you know, proximity to each other as possible

for exactly what Ms. Collins was saying.

So we, we had that discussion.

I am sure we'll have more of

that discussion tomorrow night once we have a better sense

of who the people are that we're dealing with

and what their schedules are gonna be.

So I would, I guess I would say to Ms. Collins,

like noted it has been part of the conversation.

We will, we are all invested in having the interviews not

only happen as quickly as possible,

but as close to each other as possible for, you know, so

that everybody has everybody fresh in their minds

and we can do it as efficiently as we can

Before I go to the public.

Any other questions or comments from the committee?

So I would, I would not support doing it on the weekend

just because I think that it's a little disrespectful

to either pick a Saturday

or a Sunday where you're asking people, you know,

for a full day it would be a full day of interviewing,

which would conflict with religious services on both days.

So I just think that that seems kind of disrespectful

and that we should stick to a weekday. That's my thought.

Ms. Brunell, just

To follow up on that, I think we can thread the needle

here and get both things done.

I've, I've quickly become a scholar of a lot of these

processes across the state

and what I see most often is three people interviewed at

night and then the school committee meets

either the next night or a few nights

after that so that all of the interviews happen,

you know, on the same evening.

And some committees even coordinate if there's less than if

there's three or fewer, they even coordinate the site visit

to happen on that same day too.

So there's, I think the, the goal that Ms. Collins has

to really give them a full experience of natick, all sides

of natick is I think we can achieve that by not

meeting on the weekend,

Ms. Collins,

With all due

respect, it can be Friday.

I just want it all on one day.

And if you go beyond three people then you can't do four

and five interviews in one evening

and have a substantive interview.

I, I just don't believe that.

So I don't care what day of the week it is,

I just want them all on a single

Day.

Okay. Any other questions

or comments from the committee, Dr.

Mackenzie?

I think it's great to have 'em all together,

but I just wanna be mindful

that having it on Saturday morning, the Jewish Sabbath,

we've just had this conversation about antisemitism,

it's not a good thing to do.

It would be less objectionable to do it on Sunday.

'cause some religious services are,

you know, Saturday or Sunday.

But I get the point of wanting to do it altogether.

But I think Ms.

Goeth rightly pointed out

and wisely that we do need to be sensitive

to people's religious traditions.

Town meeting would never meet on a Saturday

morning, for example.

Okay, thank you. Any other comments

or questions about the search process?

So with that, we can move

to the superintendent's report and I'll move things.

I'll hand the floor to Ms. Wong. Okay,

Great.

So at this point we welcome Erin Miller, who is our director

of student services and she has a presentation

to you on special education.

And the slides have been shared with you previously.

This is just really, pardon? Do I need to move?

You can,

Oh, do you want me to project

Or they have them You don't know for projecting

We can get it, I'll get it on the screen

through Pegasus here in just two

Seconds.

Okay. Okay. Thanks Tim.

And this is a overview, again

of special education services, so not all

of student services, but special education.

We have a little everything, a little everything

but just a quick, a quick update on, on,

on all aspects of student services.

So hi everybody. Thank you for having me.

I'm Erin Miller, I'm the director of student services.

So I was asked to kind of do an overview

of everything from our continuum of services to our,

our data, how we look right now with our in, in the areas

of the student services.

And it's also kind of a little of a kickoff

to maybe some budget conversations down the road.

So student services is made up of special education,

English language learners, health services,

5 0 4 accommodations and our McKinney-Vento students.

So we're a busy office,

but you'll see here there's a lot of great people who,

who do this work alongside me.

So I wanna give,

make sure people got credit for the work they did.

So you'll see some highlights of some folks as we go on.

So first, rather than go into the naac student services,

the special education continuum of services,

I'm gonna do a couple highlights of that in a couple slides.

We had an opportunity a couple weeks ago with cpac, one

of our shared evening presentations we shared with a,

a group of of of people came

and we talked about our continuum services from pre-K

to 22 years old.

So you will see

that slideshow in there if

anybody's interested in looking at that.

But I will highlight a couple things as we go.

So here's our special education leadership team.

I dunno if you can see it. These are all of our coordinators

and evaluation team leaders.

And then the next slide just has a breakdown of

who these folks are and,

and how we kind of are represented across

the district at different buildings.

So we're fortunate

to have coordin special education coordinators

who are ultimately the special education administrators at

every building and oversee special ed process

and procedure at every, at each building.

So we're very fortunate to have that at the middle school,

at the pre-K to, we have a pre-K to elementary,

someone who's working as a evaluation team leader

to support that transition.

And we also have ETLs excuse evaluation team leaders.

We have evaluation team leaders that are supporting

the IEP process, IEP facilitation at the middle schools,

the high school in a shared position between eighth

and ninth grade, which has been really nice as well.

So we have that transition of one person who's able

to transition students

and families from middle school to high school.

So a couple quick highlights just to share with you.

So we now have

specialized programming at all of our schools except

for one memorial.

And if Memorial folks were sitting here right now,

they'd say to you, we want a program

and we're working on that.

They too wanna have specialized programming

so their neighborhood students can stay

in their, their neighborhood.

We're working on that. We, we gotta work on space and staff

and all those things, but it's definitely something

that we have on our horizons.

So, but over the last year we did build,

previously we had had specialized special ed programs at

the, at the elementary level in particular where it was kind

of, you know, we had a, a benham program,

we had a a brown program, we had a LILJA program.

What we said was, let's redefine these programs a little bit

so that we can meet the needs

of all the students in their home school.

So now what's happening is we're seeing more students

who are still getting the same level

of service in the programs with the same level of, of,

of teaching and,

and specialized instruction that they might need.

But they're also getting it now in their neighborhood school

so they're able to stay with their siblings

and neighbors and so forth.

So that's been really nice to see that.

We also have some tiered programs like for example, lilja.

So LILJA has our sub-separate programs,

but it also has a tiered approach so that students

who are are more complex students rather

than going out of district.

We have a tiered program that is more complex

to meet the more complex needs in a

more restrictive environment.

So if we do have a student from BEHE

who needs a more restrictive environment,

they can still stay in the district

before we have to look at that out of district option.

Our therapeutic learning programs.

So at the middle school

and high school level, we call those our compass programs

and our elementary schools, we still call 'em our TLC

Therapeutic Learning Centers.

We're working on that, that naming those a little bit.

So we are really working on aligning those programs.

We now have a program at both middle schools, so

that's exciting where we, where our students

and we also also have an access program,

which is our substantially separate programming for students

with intellectual disabilities

or more significant autism at Kennedy and Wilson as well.

So we are, we are now at a place

where kids can stay in their home schools

and then go in that trajectory

in their home schools as well.

We also have, like I said, the Compass programs

and then that feeds into our high school programs

where we have a tiered approach as well,

where we have everything from a Compass program,

which is more of an inclusion program

to our sub-separate North Star program for our students

with social emotional needs at the high school.

And middle school models. We have a robust

co-teaching model.

So I think that's really where a lot

of our students are educated

with their specialized instruction.

I often say, I think now as we've been doing co-teaching,

I think this is maybe our sixth year

that we've been doing it with Fidelity.

I think when we started this,

we had two co-taught classes at Natick High School.

We are now upwards somewhere

of 36 co-taught sections at Natick High School.

So that's pretty exceptional.

And we are at the elementary and middle schools.

We have, I'm proud to say all of our elementary

and middle school staff are either trained in Wilson

or Orton-Gillingham are teachers engaged in a program

this summer that people

that got really great reviews on Orton-Gillingham,

and people are using it,

and our literacy specialists as well.

So that's some, some great work happening there.

And so, but one thing I will say, we are continuing

to look at our language-based needs.

We're continuing to look at building social emotional

programs, maybe at another elementary school.

So there's some, this, this representation in both kind

of sides of town that filter into Wilson and Kennedy.

So those are things that we're looking at.

So this slide is a little, you know, it,

it's a little alarming to look at it to see

what our enrollment, our special

education enrollment looks like.

I wanna give a little context to this slide, though.

So if you look at every year up to FY 23,

this is our October one report.

So this is what we report at the beginning

of the year to the state.

That is our number that, that, that goes

for our special ed reporting this year.

This number reflects today. Okay?

So we're gonna, I'm gonna get into some slides

and talk about our initial evaluation numbers,

special education, you're gonna find all

of our student services numbers

are on the increase right now.

There's no other way to say it.

The reality is that we are, we have a lot

of rigorous RTI work happening, which is also

years ago there was questions about,

are we letting kids fall through the cracks?

I don't think that's happening anymore.

We're evaluating them,

but we are also identifying

more students with special needs.

So you'll see this number,

this number 1024 is, is indicative of today.

Now keep in mind, this number will continue

to rise this year, but it also will have our, our students

who are graduating at the end of the year.

So that number will level out AER a little bit,

but that our numbers are increasing.

So I just wanna put that into context. Student placement.

So every year I kind of talk about 87%

of our students are in some sort of inclusion environment.

7% of our students are in a sub-separate environment,

meaning they get predominantly special

education services throughout their day.

And 6% of our students are out of district.

That has stayed pretty commensurate over the years

special ed population, just to give you a snapshot of kind

of how our, our special education popula population is

represented across the district.

Obviously NHS is our, our biggest number.

But you'll see Wilson and Kennedy.

Years ago you saw Wilson was the higher population.

By far, you're seeing Kennedy now has a larger

population also.

They also have a LAR larger student population.

So just a snapshot disability types.

So you'll see, you'll, the trend right now is the con,

the most common disability types

and initial evaluation,

suspected disability types we are seeing right now

are under the categories of emotional disabilities health,

which encompasses A DHD predominantly

and specific learning disabilities.

So this is, I'm gonna do a little comparison of last year

to this year, so you get an understanding

of where we are right now.

So last year we had 315 initial evaluations.

That is a large number out of those

164 kids qualified.

So we are at about, we are at about a 50% rate of students

who are evaluated or qualifying.

So I just, and this is a trend that we're,

we continue to see happen.

This is just the breakdown of the schools.

Obviously preschool is higher, it's always higher

with our early intervention referrals, so that's normal.

So to see a number like that.

But I just, just to give a sense of where we are kind

of right now with our numbers.

We are, well, I'll get to that in a second.

So, just a snapshot.

So what I did here was I took our total

number of students last year.

I subtracted the students who were on already on IEPs,

and I looked at that when that means we are evaluating 7.1

of our, of our native public schools population.

That's a big number. So I just wanna put that out there.

That, that's, that's the, the level of evaluation

that's happening in the district right now that,

that we are, and, and the numbers continue to rise.

Our population was, we added 3.7% population last year.

This is this year. So to date, as of today,

we have 155 evaluations, initial evaluations to date,

we are on track just as we were last year.

You'll see, just, again,

you can ask me any questions if you want about that.

But what I did, what the, what the data was just for people

who, if anyone's watching,

the blue is the total initial referrals.

The red is from a parent referral.

So the parent requests an evaluation. Yellow is the school.

Someone in the school requested an evaluation.

Green is the, excuse me, the total evaluations and

or how, excuse me, how many students had an RTI gap plan?

So that question is how many students engaged in some sort

of tiered intervention prior to

receiving an evaluation?

And then the orange is the number of students who qualified.

So as of to date, 24% of our students

who have already been evaluated have qualified.

Again, the information is still the same.

We're still seeing emotional health

and specific learning disability as our major categories

for initial evaluation.

So as of today, we have evaluated 3.5 of our student

population and 24% of our students evaluated to have

to date, have been have qualified.

Now I have the numbers here, just it's important

to keep in mind that 106

of those students are still in process.

So we haven't even met on them.

So 37 have qualified, 12 have not qualified,

and six were referred for a 5 0 4

or some sort of a other intervention plan.

106 students are still in process.

So that number could, is, is going to change rapidly.

Those were at the timeframe when those evaluations are

all starting to happen right now.

And those meetings are happening.

This is just a snapshot of our teaching staff to see

what our numbers look like.

So, you know, when we get to questions,

I'll welcome any questions you have about that,

but that might have a,

some conversations about budget in the future.

You know, and I just wanna kind of put

that out there about the,

when you're looking at these numbers, it's important

to understand complexity

of special education caseloads per grade and per level.

So for example, if you have an elementary school teacher,

they're doing far more pullout services

where they're doing one-to-one or small group services

and have doing far more direct instruction with students,

whether it's reading or math

or executive function, whatever it might be.

Middle school, you're starting to see teachers shift

to a little bit of everything.

Teachers are doing a lot of specialized reading instruction,

but they're also co-teaching.

They're teaching small group academic classes

where it might be a history or, or a math

or an English class where it's all the students all are,

are are students on IEPs in that classroom.

And they're also, you know, they're,

and they're providing the individual instruction as well.

So the middle school role is a little bit different.

And then the high school role, it really depends on

what your teaching load looks like,

but it could be anywhere from,

there are some teachers at the high school

who have five co-teaching blocks, blocks to

a couple co-teaching.

And then they have some small groups

and some do some skills development.

So the complexities of the roles are very different.

So it's hard to kind of compare them.

When we look at the caseloads to apples

and orange, they are apples and oranges.

So when we get to that, I'm happy

to explain that a little bit more.

Special ed takeaways. So you'll see the numbers here.

1920, we had 179 initial evals all year,

20 21, 2 54, 21, 22, 2 77, 22, 23, 3 15.

And I anticipate we'll have well over 300 this year.

Significantly more parent referrals than school referrals.

So, you know, and,

and we understand that coming out of COD, there's a,

there's a difference in what school

readiness skills look like.

And I fully understand from a parent perspective

that parents are worried

and they wanna see what type of things are available.

Supports are out there for them

and see, look at what their child's learning needs might be.

And they have every right to do that.

Historically, what we find is that the eligibility rate

for parent referrals are about 40%,

whereas the eligibility rate for school referrals is 76%

elig finding eligibility for special needs.

So again, on average in the last couple years,

about 150 students, we're adding about 150 students

to our caseload, to our overall number every year.

Okay. And we also have significant move-ins every year.

I think we have, in the last three years,

we've had an on average about 40

special ed move-ins per year.

So just wanna give the full picture of

what that, that all looks like.

Alright, so move on to English language learners.

So here are English language learners.

This is Caitlin O'Neill, Jamie Mussey, and Lauren Adams.

So quick snapshots, happy to answer more,

more detailed questions.

But basically what I have here is that,

so you'll see active EL students in 2 22 23.

We had 210 active students,

and I can go over what the different

numbers look like for that.

But you'll see most of our students in the elementary,

were attending Brown.

Most of our, Kennedy is our only school

that services students with,

with EL students at this time is our only middle school.

And Kent Brown Lilja and Ben Ham service EL students

and Kennedy in the high school.

So you'll, that's why the discrepancy in the numbers

compared to this year, where as of to date,

we're already at 259 active students.

Now, the active number includes our, our newcomer students

and our transitional students.

So our newcomers are our, our our, our one through

one through 2.5

and our new, our transitional, our on the WIDA levels.

They take, we, we have an assessment every year.

Students who are, who, who are new to our district, who

identify that they speak a second,

second language automatically get flagged

to do our WIDA screening at the start of the school year.

And then all students, except our, our FLE students who are,

who are students that we monitor for el who have been,

who have transitioned out of EL

or tested out, they are not retested.

But all of our students who are active ELs either,

like I said, newcomers

or transitional, are, they're,

we are gonna begin our access

testing in the next couple weeks.

We're engaging in our access testing.

So they will be, that's like a summative almost,

it's like a formative to, to determine what their now,

their new WIDA level might be.

So when I say active students, that's who I'm talking about.

It is not our formally English language learner students.

They, they're still monitored,

but they are not counted in this number.

So that is another number, number,

another significant number in there.

And then we have opt-outs as well.

So our EL population is significantly rising.

And I talked to our EL coordinator today

and I asked her a little bit about, tell me what, tell me

what the kind of the, the story is.

Tell me the, the what's happening.

She said, oh, the,

what they're seeing is they're seeing a lot

of students come from other countries,

and it's not isolated countries.

It's, you know, we're getting students from Egypt,

we're getting students from everywhere.

And she said that those students typically come with, with,

with no English.

They, they're speaking no English, little to no English,

which makes sense, right?

The kids who are coming from other towns are typically our

transitional students who are,

who have better language acquisition.

So, so right now

we have grown in one year, 23% in our, in our EL population.

So our takeaways that we already,

last year we had talked about expanding our EL program

to the Wilson, to Wilson Middle School.

That is the plan. We are going to be adding EL support,

teaching support to Wilson Middle School so that students,

again can stay in their own neighborhood schools.

And we can now have students

attending both Wilson and Kennedy.

We are looking at some additional leadership positions.

So right now, currently we have a K to eight director,

coordinator, excuse me.

And she's fantastic.

But it's, it's, we need some, and,

and our high school has a department head.

We are looking at now having some more middle school

administrative support around our English language learners.

I'm excited to say that we have just kind of kicked off.

We know that we need to work on our family engagement in

this area, our translation services.

We need to have some more, some more clear process

and everything from registration

to athletics to health forms.

We know that and we're working on that.

And it's a very much a goal of ours this year.

I'm excited to say that Thur, this past Thursday night, we,

Caitlin O'Neill, our coordinator, kicked off the,

the first LPAC conversation.

We had 16 parents attend, which I think is great.

And we have two parents who are already hoping

to be on the board for that work.

So we're, we're making some big strides already.

So Caitlyn's done wonderful work with that.

Health services. So this is our fantastic nursing staff.

Again, quick snapshot.

So you'll see the numbers, you know, from the, the, the,

the, the health, the health services staff,

they facilitate all

of the medical five oh fours in this office.

So already last year they had a total

of 47 medical five oh fours already this

year they're up to 54.

They have 24 initials this year.

I don't have the data for last year

they have 62 individual healthcare plans.

That's down a little bit.

And then their average visits per month is 415.

But I think, you know, that's just been, you know, I think

that's actually a good number to see that those visits are,

are slowing down a little bit.

They're not seeing the, the volume of kids coming

to the health service office on a regular basis.

5 0 4 plans.

So again, this number is, just to give you a comparison,

last year we had 285 students on 5 0 4 plans total,

excuse me, 200 did I say 285.

And this year we're already at 281.

So, and last year we had

63 initials

and already we're at 32 initial evaluation requests

for 5 0 4 plans.

So I anticipate we'll be somewhere in

that 60 range again by the end of the year.

And lastly, our McKinney-Vento, this is Natalia Dimi,

Dimitrova Toof, I, I always say just Natalia,

so I never say her last name that much,

but, so Natalia's our district social worker.

She works with our students

who McKinney-Vento is our students

who fall under the category of homeless

or our, our students who are engaged

with DCF or foster care.

So you can just see the numbers already.

So looking four years ago,

we had 41 students that she oversaw.

She's already at 65 to date.

So this includes our Brandon students

that we typically have at least 10, 10, 12 students per year

who are, who are coming from our Brandon schools

that we are, that, that, that are participating in our,

in our school district.

You know, and we're just, and,

and we're just seeing needs are really increasing.

So just something to, to notice there. Alright.

And lastly, I just wanna tell you a couple exciting things

that are happening in the off in the office right now.

So we are, you know, last year we heard a lot about

making sure that we are including when we talk about equity,

that we are making sure

that we include our special education population as well.

We have a neurodiversity committee right now

that has been underway

and is working on some great presentations that we are,

and then some resources for our staff.

We're gonna be meeting with every school,

we're gonna be going into every school

and meeting with staff to talk about our NEURODIVERSE

learners, and that's our students with autism,

A DHD and dyslexia.

And then we are also going

to be doing some shared CPAC events

where we're gonna have some presentations

and we're gonna have a panel of, of families, of, of parents

with neuro with who either are,

or people who are neurodiverse

or parents of students who are neurodiverse

or students who are neurodiverse.

And we're gonna be doing a parent evening on that.

We are, well, we are, we would love to come back

and share our presentation

with you in the spring if you'd like to have us.

You know, it's really a fantastic group

and we're, we're partnering

with our instructional learning coaches right now

and it's just, it's really pairing so well with our,

our work on universal design.

And it's just our project-based learning.

It's just some real incredible work

we're really excited to see happen.

We're working with, Dr. Ferguson

and I are working with a group of clinicians

to look at our crisis management plans that we have,

that we across the district.

So those are aligned and what

that looks like when a student is in a, in a need

of emergency and how do we,

what do those processes look like

and what are those procedures?

So we're all consistent in working with our town partners,

the Natick Fire, Natick police as well.

The new IEP is coming along.

So we've been engaging in pro in, in training on the new IEP

that is set to be fully implemented.

Districts are fully implementing come September of 2024.

We have a small group of people

who have been doing some ongoing

training this coming January.

We're training our entire student services staff

and then we're hoping to get going on writing on,

on starting, everyone's starting to, to practice that

and start to begin writing some IEPs on the new IEP form

creation of the el I already talked about that a little bit,

some program reviews.

So we've had some programs in the district who have,

who have identified that they would like to have some

almost do like an internal program review

or an audit of their program

and get some expertise to come in and support them.

So for example, our our RA program was, was said, you know,

we'd really love to come someone to come in from one

of our out out of district programs who we've,

we've partnered with to come in

and say, help us out a little bit in how we're going

to support our, you know,

our most complex learners in elementary level

and we need some help on just structuring our

day and creating our program.

And that was all driven by them

identifying some needs that they wanted to look at.

And so we've done a program review with them

and then the behem Therapeutic Learning Center program is

also gonna be engaging in a program review.

We're, we're talking to a few consultants right now,

but they are, everyone's really excited about that work too.

And having someone come in with that fresh set of eyes

to really help kind of guide and look at our practices

and just improve upon what we're already doing really well.

And then we have, last year, like I said, we had a lot

of staff who engaged in the,

or Orton-Gillingham training people have asked for more.

So we have people who are doing some initial,

some initial trainings,

but also some people who are looking to do the next phase of

that training that we are do this year as well.

And we're looking at our language-based

programming and how we do that.

Does that look, you know, is that going

to be a program per se

or is it going to be us engaging

with consultancies like a landmark school

or someone to come in and help us and engage in that work?

But we're looking at all those different things as well.

So that's it. Let me know what questions you have. Great.

Okay. Thank you for that presentation. Yeah, Ms. Won,

I just, I can just provide a little bit of umbrella.

So, so Erin Miller, she talks really fast

and so I'm just, so, I just, I'm just like,

I'm getting, I'm used to her.

I don't know how used to that you are,

but for every bit that she says it, she actually knows

so much more that she says.

And so I, I just wanna say how impressed I am Erin,

in her second year, in the middle of her second year, right?

Yeah, yeah. Second year as your director

of student services, it's probably one

of the most challenging administrative

positions that are out there.

And it's probably one of the most challenging to fill

with someone who's highly qualified

because they're required to really understand all kinds

of learners at, at quite an intense level.

And so there's, there's all this breadth and depth,

and they also happen

to be our most vulnerable learners in the district.

So it's quite a responsibility when you look at anything

that is an intervention beyond general education qualifies

as being under the umbrella of student services.

Special education means that you have a learning disability

and it's impeding your progress.

And so, but every, all these other services, ELL

and counseling, which will be another presentation

with Art Ferguson McKinney-Vento on, and,

and just listening to her, describe the breadth

that's happening at across the elementary schools, preschool

and middle school and the high school.

I think we are gearing up for tiered invention.

Tiered intervention supports another one.

I I think you're gearing up for it. Yes.

Another presentation.

No, no, I think you're,

you're gearing up to be reviewed by Desi. Oh,

Desi. Oh, yes, yes,

Yes.

So that's actually a major, major piece that's coming. And

The English Lang language learners were, were due for our,

our inter our tiered intervention for that.

Right. So, so that actually requires a lot of prep. Yeah.

The other is, Erin mentioned a letter,

Orton-Gillingham and Wilson training.

When is the year that we're mandated to monitor, to

evaluate for dyslexia?

When

Does that come into,

are we doing it now? Where are I

Thought it was Yeah, we're,

I thought the mandate was in another year, but maybe,

So the requirements are that we have screening protocols

in place for our kids, especially at the lower grade levels.

And we have those, so we've been in place

with those at screening levels.

Okay. Actually, so the Orton-Gillingham refers

to a way of teaching.

It's a, it's a, it's a systematic reading

instructional program.

So the broad training that's,

that's happening cross staff is relevant

to, to this mandate.

But it's also really important

because the more we learn about learners, the more

everything under what Aaron oversees required

for training and implementation.

So it's sort of like every,

it actually gets more complicated and not less complicated,

but it's actually more fruitful in the long run

as the more we understand how everyone learns

and what we can do to support that.

Erin exudes this positivity

that I think is reflected across all the staff in across the

schools, this positivity in terms of

what they do in working with our students.

So I just feel like Erin's a great ambassador for that,

but also when going into the schools,

how dedicated staff are, who are working

to provide student services on,

on behalf of all the students.

So I just wanted to thank you to share that

and quite remarkable thank you in your second year

to be able to do all that you're doing and overseeing.

The other part of Erin's title is equity,

and as she was talking, sort of embedded

in everything she says is this eye to inclusivity,

which she didn't say,

but everything she does is really an eye to inclusivity

and just the work on the, on just working

with neurodiversity, she

is impressively really on the cutting edge of everything.

So she's definitely staying up to date, make sure

that she organizes a lot of training for all the staff.

And so I just just wanted to highlight

that you have a very strong director here

and then, and so

Thank you Ms. Wong.

I agree with everything Ms.

Swg said I'll take questions, my luck.

Any questions from the committee?

Yeah, Ms. Perell,

Thank you for this.

And this is less of a question,

but maybe I'll get to a question.

I'm not sure. But the two things

that I was interested in this presentation, most

two specific things I was interested in are our EL numbers

definitely increasing

and it's, it's great to see

that there's gonna be supports hopefully at Wilson

because obviously students are gonna need

that support all the way through.

So I just really appreciate that you have an eye to that.

I've always wanted to have

at the school committee level some sort of understanding of

how, how our EL learners move from the levels that you spoke

of, how frequently that that movement happens.

I obviously, we don't have to do it tonight,

but just in general, I think that that would be beneficial

to us in a budget ask when we are showing like

how successful our EL educators are

and how we are able to move students across levels.

So that's just one comment about the EL population.

I'm also always curious about, you know,

you said they're not all coming from one co country.

I do think from a family engagement process,

it would be helpful to know what are our largest languages

where we really need to be supporting families.

Although I know that there's great services like Ms.

Balone found for the superintendent search

where you could translate it into

hundreds of different languages.

So I appreciate that you have that in your, in your scope

of influence or, you know.

Sure. And then,

and feel free to comment on any of this. Yeah,

I will tell you, I do have some information on that.

Our, our top languages in, in order of, of, you know, one

through five is Spanish, first Portuguese, Russian,

Japanese, Korean, and then close by we have Arabic

and then Hindi, Tamil,

and I gotta, I can't read my writing.

Te telegu telegu, am I saying that right? Yes, yes, yes.

So that, those are our, those are also,

those are emerging very much in the, into the top five.

But those are our top five languages right now.

And then my second comment is just

about the Orton-Gillingham.

I, that is like music to my ears.

I under my understanding is that

like a 40 hour a a training could be 40 hours over the

summer and it, it's, it's roughly

around $2,000 for an educator.

So if we had educators in the district that wanted that

to happen and we potentially had outside partners

that would, I, I don't know,

I'm always concerned about educators giving up summertime,

but I know how serious our,

especially our elementary teachers are about reading.

I'm just curious, like if, if a teacher wanted to do that,

would they be able to do that over the summer

with professional developed money?

Or is that something that would have to be funded?

So, so I will say that last year we were able to

just a little teaser, you might see something in my budget

for that again this year.

Last year we did, we did budget

for Orton-Gillingham training.

We were able to send 2022

educators, including a, a couple literacy specialists

to a week long course, just like you're describing.

We we're, we're going through an institute called the,

it's the Multisensory Language Institute.

It's actually a Dessi approved.

A couple of our teachers did it from a free course

that Dessi was offering.

They came back, they were like,

this is the best thing in the world.

It's a week long virtual course.

They send you all the materials

and you do the, you do the training with them

and they get certified from it and people are coming back.

So a lot of people did the first phonology piece,

now they're all saying, we want the morphology

one, we want this one.

So next year Sue

and I have already collaborated to make sure that we are,

we are planning to send another 20 pe we have another 20,

it's a voucher system where people get vouchers.

So we're, we're thinking about 20 more vouchers next year,

Roughly.

Like what's the percentage

of our reading teachers then our if 20 can go a year.

So we're really focused on our special educators

and our literacy specialists

and then our literacy specialists as they get more training.

So they're going into level two, they'll be able to coach

because they, their role is to be a coach.

They'll be able to coach into the classroom

to support those educators.

But like Ms. Miller said, we do a voucher system

and we get a discount for every 10.

So we're going to do 20

and open it up to educators to participate.

So obviously we really think about our K one two first

as well as our special educators so we can

move the needle on, on those students.

Okay, that's great. I pedagogically, I,

my understanding is that even

before we, we go down the, the place

of picking a new reading, reading curriculum, for example,

in the next couple of years, if we have a foundation of all

of our classroom teachers, special ed teachers

that have this found this like foundation in phonics

that they nec not necessarily we're taught in their

teachers' colleges, that that would make a smooth transition

to any curriculum easier.

Is is that the philosophy?

Yes. And I would say we also have, you know,

at the middle school level in particular,

we have reading specialists who are

actually special educators

who are providing specialized reading instruction per IEPs.

But they're also working

with their general education colleagues and going in

and talking about how can you use a, a, a, a Latin root word

to help students un understand, understand the meaning

of a word or to understand the morph, the morphology

of words like they're going in

and tell, helping their general ed peers work on some

of those reading strategies that they might just see

as like a general ed tiered one support when they're helping

students with through through reading materials.

Okay. And some general ed teachers may have

that opportunity, not just the coaching.

'cause that's, that's what I would be advocating for

that like all of our kindergarten

and first grade teachers, at least at the,

at a minimum would have that kind of training.

But thank you for having that on your radar.

And any other questions? Yeah, Ms. McDonough?

So I had a question on slide 14 where you have

a chart of the number of like the total of

IEPs at the school

and then the total number of students per the number

of teachers.

And so what I wanted to understand from this chart is,

are those ratios, like some numbers are bolded

and so I was trying to understand,

are those good ratios, are they bad?

Are you looking for more support?

So I think the bolded

or the higher, the higher of the numbers.

So this number, this chart is really helping us look at

if we need new staff in in the future, what would that,

how would we allocate that staff?

And again, though, I just wanna make sure I put out there

that caseloads aren't always the indicative number.

We look at a lot of different factors.

So for example, at the high school level, it is common

for teachers to have upwards a case caseload

of maybe 20 students.

What they're the IEP facilitator for that, that student,

they're the case manager

because high school teachers aren't providing specialized

reading instruction per se,

or pulling a student out for a math, for math instruction.

Whereas at the elementary level

and in the middle school a little bit more, you're,

you're seeing that, so the, the caseload number, so

for example, a student, a, a teacher at the high school,

they might actually work with, they could work

with 50 special education students

between the different classes they teach

and the skills development.

But they might only be the case manager,

which means they run the annual review, they write the IEP,

they contact parents on progress, they do progress reports.

That's very different than an elementary school case manager

who is actually the person who's delivering the

majority of the instruction.

So I just wanted to put this out there as a snapshot of kind

of to understand

what our program teachers caseloads look like.

For example, our program teachers might only have four

or five kids on their caseload,

but they're students with much more complex needs, right?

So this chart we continually update.

So that, and what we did this year was we actually asked

special ed teachers, actually all of our service providers,

our student services staff, we did a caseload analysis

and we said, we wanna look at your numbers.

Tell us about how many evals do you do a year,

how many meetings do you attend?

And that's where we're trying to figure out,

we're looking at all that information to say if

and when we need new special education staff or,

or clinicians or OTs

and PTs, whatever it might be, how are we going

to allocate those people?

It's very fluid, I have to say.

It's not like today's gonna, we're gonna be able to say

where, where, where people are gonna go.

Because like I said, we have 106 evaluations still in the

queue that we have to, that that could really ch vary

how, how our numbers look.

Okay, thank you.

And then my other comment is with regard

to EL instruction

and really communication with families, I just wanted

to urge the district to consider

a new tool that's called Parents Square.

I don't know if you've heard of it,

but it is, it is a, it is a tool, a communication tool

that takes, I know we use school messenger

and we use some more and we use Lingo at,

and we use probably use Talking Points.

And so it takes all of that and it puts it into one.

And the most amazing feature about Parents Square is

that any teacher, any staff member, any administrator can

write something in English

and the family will receive it in their home language.

And so this will,

and it can be in a text message, it can be in an email,

it can be in a phone message.

It it, I, I believe it to be like transformational

for our translation services so that families,

even if they ate their student moves out of our EL program,

that their family may still prefer to receive information in

that home language that they can.

And it makes it very easy for staff to do that.

So I just wanted to say

that many districts in Massachusetts are moving to this tool

and there may be other tools like it,

but it really, I think will make a huge

difference in access.

So I just wanted to put that on the radar as something

to consider for the budget either next

year or the following year.

But it's so important for people to under, you know,

families to understand rather than us trying

to constantly translate everything into the

language that you describe.

And so, yeah, that's my comment. I

Was just gonna add a little things to that.

No, we've, we've been talking about Parents Square, Erin

and I sit on an accessibility committee,

so we're reviewing all of these things.

So we meet monthly to talk about

what are the options out there.

And now that we have Corey on board,

we're having those convers, she joins us for those meetings.

And so we're talking about accessibility

for all within the district, whether it's students,

families, whatever our, our staff

and making sure that we're meeting

the accessibility needs of all of those.

So we are discussing Parent Square

and looking at all of those options.

Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Sure. Ms. Collins, thank you.

By way of apology, I wrote an email

with some quick questions

but I forgot to send it

so I wonder if I could just go over them quickly now.

Sure. Aaron, could you go back to the bar chart for 24

For special education?

Yes. That one. Yep.

This one here. Pie chart in 23.

If no, not the pie chart, the bar chart. Oh, that one.

It's slide 1224 though.

That one in 23, the red

and the yellow lines add up to the blue line.

But that's not the case in 23, 24.

And I don't know what I'm missing

'cause we're not done with

The valuation.

Yeah, we're we're still in the process of evaluation, so,

or it just might have been, let me Well, 23, 22 23.

You say it does in 2324. It does not,

Yes.

I'll have to look into it a little bit more

and see if, where I can find a discrepancy.

There might be a few numbers off here or there just

because we're, this is data

that we're just continually gathering

and that people were, is ever changing.

So the other thing is that I did ask our coordinators

to update the data dashboard

where I get these charts from in the lag the last week.

They could have added more to it since then.

So I'm not sure Ms. Collins, if it's a huge discrepancy or,

Well, like in the preschool we've got 58

total initial referrals.

Preschool, 30 of them were from parents, 12

of them were from school.

That's only 42.

There could be many from early intervention.

Those might come. So I might've,

we might've just broken it down by that. There's

Just, okay.

I just didn't know if I was missing the obvious,

which is entirely possible.

Right. The other question I had is,

I understand why,

I guess it's not the case, it's the parent referrals

that are below the green line.

Okay. So the next question then is on ELL,

but you don't need the chart for it.

Are we seeing, we're seeing an increase, is it an increase

solely in the number of students

or are we seeing a huge increase in the number

of languages as well?

Both. I'd say both. Both,

Okay.

So that, I mean that to me that makes it a little trickier

if you've got, you know, 40 kids

with one language is different than, you know, five kids

with each of eight languages.

So I just wanna make sure when we're looking at resources

that we keep that in mind.

Right. And we do have the data on,

on the languages spoken from when we, when we do,

when we ask, when we, when people register

or when we do that every year, we do have all the data.

I just don't have that put into a chart.

Right. That's fine. But yes, fine.

I didn't expect you to have it. I just wanted

to know is I consider budgets that come to us

and the last one is McKinney bento.

And this isn't really a question for you so much

as a question to the administration.

So in 21, 22

I can look at the budget book

and see how much we actually spent in 2223,

we show the budgeted amount,

which was higher.

And then in 2324, we zero that.

I mean, we didn't zero that budget. We, we flat funded it.

So it's the same for 24 as it is for FY 23.

But there's a huge increase in students.

So when we look at that piece in the transportation budget,

I'd just like to get a better idea, especially with the rate

of homelessness going up

and the state's inability to kind of land on a solution

to, because it's really important to me that

we get these kids to possibly the only support they have,

which is their former school and

or they're allowed to fit into our schools.

Either way it provides huge re support for them

and I just wanna make sure that we're funding it so

that we can do that, but not putting too much away in there

to the detriment of other budgets.

So it, again, that's sort of a preview of

where I'm gonna be going in the transportation budget.

I would just say, Kathy, that I know Matt has been doing a

deep dive and, and he's allocating appropriate

transportation amounts in the, in the projected budget

that you'll see shortly, including McKinney Vito.

Okay. It's always been a, a tough one to gauge though,

because you don't know who's gonna become homeless

and you don't know where they're gonna come from.

So I understand there's, it's not as exact

as we sold this many bus passes

and it's this much per student.

So thank you.

Any other questions for Ms. Miller?

I, I have a couple. Okay. I just wanted to wait

to see if anyone else did.

So the first one is on the special ed increase.

And it seems to me like it the increases both in the number

of kids who qualify for special ed,

but also the number of students who are referred and

therefore evaluated.

That's all increasing in a way just

because of my own experience.

That might be actually a good thing in that I remember one

of my first CPAC meetings, we went around the room, a bunch

of us parents talking about

what has been our biggest challenge as parents.

And it was getting our children, the services, you know,

like going to schools and saying my child has an issue

and feeling like there's no one there to listen

or that it took forever to get screened.

So this might be a good news that we're referring much more

and we're not, sorry, not referring more

that we're valuing more the more of these kids that parent,

you know, there's an increase in parent referral.

The reason I'm bringing this up, just

to provide context too, is I'm curious about

what are the implications of this for the budget.

If it is that, if the reason why this is increasing is

because we are identifying more students

that might have implications for special ed staffing.

You know, like if we're, if we're evaluating more students,

we're gonna find more students and

therefore the the the need is gonna be greater,

which requires more staff, which is again, all a good thing.

'cause that means more students are getting what they need.

Is that,

That's an accurate statement. Okay.

And so that is something to be thinking for us

to be thinking about is the special ed

staffing will have to be,

And I will say it's, it's not only just the,

it's obviously the services

that these students are gonna need.

That's the most important thing.

But the evaluations alone, you know, we, we,

it that's a major part of, especially our service providers,

you know, where we've been fortunate to add some evaluators

who do our, who are, who do our, our achievement testing

that so allows our special educators

to be more in the classroom and take

and give them more time to be with kids.

And we have people who are evaluating at the

elementary, middle, and high school level.

So that's been fantastic.

But our OTs and PTs

and BCBAs, they're the ones who still,

they're the only people who can do those evaluations.

Our psychologists. So,

and our psychologist, our our our clinicians are

doing upwards of 50 to 60 evaluations per year per person.

And they're servicing, they have IEP,

they're doing IP services,

they're doing crisis management calls all day long.

They're working with families.

So, you know, these jobs are really complex

and there's just, so I will be asking to see if,

I will be looking to see if there's a support

for additional student services staff.

And that's something good for us to know

as school committee members as we interact

with our colleagues in in town.

Just to explain that the reason why special ed

services are increasing is

because we're doing a better job identifying kids,

which is was a huge need, has always been a need to,

to make sure that we're identifying kids.

The other question that I had is the nurses visits

slide 22.

So because it's a per month, so first I was thinking,

well the reason why there's so many more in 22, 2 3 is

because we're only halfway through the year,

but that's a per month average.

Average, which means there's a huge decline.

I just put out a hypothesis

that I don't know if has any merit,

but one of the things I've learned from working

with districts on mental health issues is that kids

with mental health issues are not gonna come

and tell you I have a mental health issue.

They, they, they're gonna act up in other ways.

And one of the common ways that a, an anxious student,

a depressed student might address

that is going to nurse's office.

And I'm wondering is,

is this potentially also demonstrating like, well first

of all in general, what is any explanations for why

we are seeing such a huge decline?

And is that possibly

because last year post pandemic,

we were having a very difficult year, a lot of kids wanting

to go to the nurse's office, not

because of a physical health issue, but

because of a behavioral mental health issue.

And are we seeing a decline in that?

I think we're seeing, I think that number is, you know,

obviously when we, in the, I think in the,

we will see some increases in the winter months, right.

When students are, are when, you know, tend to have, be,

have the sick visits.

Right. That's something I'll have to ask Ms.

Maritz is that I'm wondering

'cause it's interesting when you I that question about

what do those visits pertain?

Like, so I do think that

every health office in our schools will say they

have frequent flyers.

'cause a lot of our nursing staff have really good

relationships with kids.

They're their trusted adult, they're their person. Right.

So it will be interesting to see though, how often

we're actually coding the quick visit to use the bathroom

or just stop in just to, I just needed a break.

Right. Versus I needed to get, you know, I have a medical,

I don't feel well or I, or I don't,

or I'm not, I'm social emotionally not feeling well.

The, I mean, so that's a good distinction.

I I will get clarification on

that 'cause it is a lower number.

But I will say I, they are dealing

with more acute health needs though that is something

that I do here that between our students

who have health plans for diabetes

or other, the, the regular students who are coming

to receive medications

or monitoring throughout their day,

they are very busy that way.

You know, I think like,

but I also think that, like I said,

I think our health services offices are a, a, a place

of refuge for kids sometimes throughout the day.

But on the other flip side of that,

we also have some really great programming

and our mental health clinic clinical staff

where kids are now finding more supports

and readily going to folks throughout their day to, to go

and just have a quick check-in.

And it's, and maybe it's not the nurse's office like

we saw a couple years ago.

We have these, you know, we have social workers

and school counselors throughout the district.

When Dr. Fer, Dr. Ferguson

and I work together, we kind of share the,

the clinical staff together.

So when he presents, we can certainly dig into

that a little bit more, but I think that's what might be

what you, we might be seeing.

So the other additional mental health programs might be,

I think they're, they're taking

Indication of, right? Yeah.

Also, Dr. Ferguson Art is scheduled to come one eight,

so he'll be at your next meeting.

And so he'll talk about social emotional learning

and mental health supports.

Great.

Well thank you. Those were the two questions I had. Okay.

Anything else for Ms. Miller?

Well, thank you for coming

and everything Ms. Wong said about you before.

I know it to be true too from our, from our experience.

So we really appreciate all your work

and your team's work, so thank you so much. Thank

You.

Just a couple quick things.

So January for CPAC nights we're having,

we're doing our transition nights, so every, so pre-K to K,

four to five, eight to nine,

we'll have our transition evenings

that we'll invite families to come

and talk about the transition from, from school to school.

And we also have, this year we have a new transition, a 14

to 22-year-old transition night with our Achieve program

on January 23rd that's gonna be at the church.

I'm pointing the wrong way at the church,

the first con congregational church.

And that is going to be a night just to talk about like,

what does transition services look like for kids?

What, what are some supports that are out there for students

and families as students get older

and start to enter that,

that time when they're thinking about

adult planning and so forth.

And then after that event, I'm really excited

to say we're really working on building some community

for our families of our, even like our preschool learners

who have students who might need some supplemental services.

Like that development department

of developmental services offers children's services

that many people never know about.

Right. And I,

and we always say that a lot

of families don't learn about the supports

that are out there for having students with special needs

until they get to like sometimes high school

and then all of a sudden they hear all, it's overwhelming

that you hear about guardianship and social security and,

and adult programming and it's a lot.

Right? And pe So we're really working with families.

We wanna start talking to our families early

and often about what supports are out there

for them and their children.

And so Katie Brown,

our transition coordinator is gonna lead that work with us.

So we'll we starting to have some series on that

and to really build a community for people to, to get

to know each other and we're thinking about parent mentors

and mentees and things like that for the,

for the special needs community.

So more to come on that, but,

So if Erin would stay, if I, if, if I could,

could I could just change the order, go directly

to the FY 25 budget preliminary update.

So skipping over two and three for now.

So I always feel traditionally it's important when

anticipating when you're gonna have the budget presentation

that you have a pretty thorough

presentation on student services.

How many students, percent wise do you think in the district

are receiving some sort of student service could be close

to 50%?

Well, it depends on, I mean our, our, our students

who identify with, with special education status through

EEPs three, I mean everything. Oh yeah,

Yeah.

I would say if, if they're getting any type

of tiered intervention.

And so when you look at the budget in terms of special,

how that's represented, it's a big part of your budget.

And so it's really important for you

to feel comfortable about the aspects

and everything that's being offered.

So for Natick, I would say that you are offering strands

of support from moderate to intensive

for all the major strands for behavioral, social,

emotional disabilities, for autism,

for non nonverbal language disabilities.

And then of course students with moderate needs.

So all, all the strands are being

offered at different levels across your schools,

middle and high school.

So what's being represented by Erin

who oversees all of that is, is important to understand

and how many students are actually receiving some sort

of service in the district.

And the other is some of, some of the,

I think referrals are related to post pandemic.

And so the, the district is also committed

to tiered tiered learning supports,

but some of the referrals are coming from that as well.

And so not everyone who's referred will end up

with being on a plan of some sort,

but it's all also related to, to pandemic.

The other two is this,

while Erin's describing all these programs

and the interventionists,

that helps you understand when people talk

about space needs.

So you might think like, well I don't understand it,

the enrollment isn't like jumping,

but why does it feel like more crowded?

Because it's the need to find places for, for,

for people to work and collaborate,

but also a place for students to receive intervention.

And so that helps understand that.

So as, as we build up toward understanding the parts

of the budget, Aaron is here today

for student services other than counseling.

And so art will come in January

and you'll hear counseling services, mental health support,

social emotional learning in January

you heard Matt present on enrollment,

that's the other driver.

And so I also want to let you know

that we don't anticipate putting a large budget presentation

to you until probably that 1, 2, 2 meeting in January.

We, one of the expenses that we're looking

to resolve is the transportation bid

and that is going out to bid

and we won't be able to open that bid until January 10th.

And so we have been communicating with our representatives

for the town administrator's office

and the town finance officers.

And so everyone is a little delayed in their timelines

and building toward the budget

because the town administrator has been

out for the last month.

And so just that we're all working toward that.

But just so you know that you'll have a budget presentation

of a large numbers on 1, 2 2

and then you will hear from art on the eighth sort

of building toward the understanding where a lot of

the expenses on the budget go to.

Yeah.

Anything else for the budget?

Not for the budget. And so I don't know if you have

questions about it, otherwise you can go back to the agenda.

Yeah. Any questions for the, about the budget update?

Just a quick Yes please.

Oh, oh, sorry Ms. Collins.

Oh, I didn't mean to cut somebody off.

It's okay.

Is it possible as we

get some, I don't wanna say finality

because the budget's seldom final, some better ideas

that we can get some general ideas of numbers as we go

through some of these presentations?

Or would you prefer to leave it all, not leave it,

but put it together as a, as

a holistic view on the 22nd?

So we'll put out a holistic view,

but as Aaron intimated, you know, at this point we,

we have a, we have a number that we're working on

that's way, way high, which is probably not atypical

for this stage of budget development even so there

we're also anticipating some improvements to program

that we'll try to fit in.

And so Aaron kind of intimated some places

where you'll see some, maybe not full FTE increases,

but partial FTE increases to reflect some of what

she was describing and meeting that need.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, and I agree about not trying to

get too far ahead on the transportation,

if we're getting bids in early January anyway,

we'd may wish well go with more confirmed numbers.

Ms. McDonough, just

Quickly in the past we've also had

presentations on from technology and curriculum.

Do you anticipate that same sort of thing

or just build it into the larger budget discussion and

Presentation?

I think most, we were gonna build it into the larger budget.

There'll be some specialized presentations on some

of the initiatives that for this year,

like on digital learning, personalized coaches,

and also the math initiative.