All right, it's seven o'clock.

Welcome to the, what is today, the 28th, August 28th, 2024, meeting of the Sharon School Committee.

This meeting will be conducted remotely over Zoom. Attendance by board and commission members will be remote, and remote attendance shall count towards a quorum.

The meeting will be broadcast live and recorded by Sharon TV.

If you elect to enable your webcam, your image, and background, maybe broadcast with or without sound.

First up, as always, we have public comments.

Reminder that public comments can be really anything members of the public feel like sharing at that moment.

It is, we do ask that you limit your comments to two minutes.

Is there anybody on the committee who's willing to keep time? I know that's been Adam recently, but I don't see him on here.

Super helpful, I see.

Was that a hand from Alan?

No?

Sure, I'll do it.

Okay, appreciate it, Alan.

All right, great.

So without further ado, anybody whose full name is not showing, just please start with your full name.

I see Mrs. Frost.

Thank you.

I just wanted to say to the public that DESE has ruled that the district has been noncompliant over adult to child retaliation and bullying issues.

These issues have occurred for five years. All school committee members are aware of the issue.

However, the situation continues despite many suffering families.

I have a petition with over 170 signatures that show support.

However, Dr. Botello, we have urged you to stop this situation and take immediate action to remedy it before the 2024 to 2025 school year.

You still have not. Children are unsafe and we need you to take immediate action to create a safe environment for our students and families.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mira Balinky.

Hi.

Thank you, members of the school committee. So I'm also here calling in about a safety issue and I'm really concerned that parents have to start the school year calling in about concern about safety.

So my concern is I am really worried about the start of school surveys that teachers give out.

It seems like a great idea. They don't get to know the kids.

But instead of asking kids like, hey, what books have you read? What are you excited about school? They start asking, what's your gender identity? Basically saying, do you want to have a secret gender identity at school, which is separate than one at home?

And we've talked about this before.

And we've gotten a commitment from the administration that the school will not be keeping secrets from parents.

But what I didn't see is any action to control these surveys to tell teachers that this is not appropriate. Because let's face it, if a teacher is asking a kid at school when the parents aren't present, hey, what is your pronouns?

It's not about being nice. It's about establishing a secret between the school and the child, which is cutting the parents out.

You know, the school wouldn't be asking, hey, are you concerned about your weight?

Do you have an eating disorder?

Do you need special accommodations for your learning disability?

These are all things that should be discussed with the parents. And I hope that parents of kids who do have these issues are coming to the school and discussing it.

But it really bothers me that I have to tell my kids, instead of, you know, listen to your teachers, they're a trusted adult. I have to say, this is an untrusted adult that could ask you probing questions, which are inappropriate.

So don't answer the surveys.

Tell your mom if your teacher is behaving inappropriately.

This is not how I want to start the school year, especially with my elementary school age kids.

I don't want to have my kids, you know, especially middle school and high school, class after class being given these probing questions.

So I would love to see some actual policies or reminders, because it's too close to the start of the year, that maybe the principals or the superintendent will remind the teachers that you can't just ask questions which are probing like this.

I don't want to have to start to file PPRA complaints with the federal government, because actually you're not supposed to be asking about mental health issues without my permission. You're a ton.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Judy Crogby. Thanks, Avi.

So first, a quick request for the school committee, which is you have the handbooks on the agenda tonight.

You also have them on as a possible vote.

Given potential policy changes, particularly with the high school handbook and the fact that this is the first time the public is going to hear about them, I would request that you do not vote them tonight, that you discuss and then allow the public a chance to see the proposed policies and comment on them.

There's no screaming rush that says that they have to be voted tonight.

Secondly, I'd like to reiterate what Mrs. Frost talked about.

I am familiar with the case.

I'm very concerned with what I have seen and heard, and that is not a good situation, and it requires immediate attention.

Lastly, when you talk about the calendar tonight, I'm hoping that we can all avoid the type of conversation that took place at the calendar subcommittee meeting where essentially the district made a recommendation to engage in fraud.

We can do better than that.

You know, saying you're going to add two days back, but you're pretty certain they'll have to be canceled because there won't be sufficient staff.

That's bad faith.

That's fraud.

Let's try not to have that discussion and to find a different solution.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Seeing those further comments, I'm going to throw it over to Shauna Blinky.

Oh, I saw Shauna enter.

Now she's entering again.

I think we have Shauna with us for correspondence.

Otherwise, I could read correspondence.

Hi.

Sorry.

It's all right. Are you good with correspondence, or do you want me to take it? I am.

30 seconds.

I was just dealing with a minor flood.

It's always something.

Correspondence, correspondence.

All right.

So, August 28, 2024.

The school committee has received 27 pieces of correspondence between June 26, 2024, and August 28, 2024.

Several community members wrote to request that the school committee assure that DESE has provided written information of their approval of the 24-25 school year calendar, with specific focus on the graduation date.

A community member wrote to inquire about a meeting with a school committee member or members regarding the Sharon Public Schools special education program.

A community member wrote to express their concerns about the new town and school committee members and the extent to which some new members are committed to the goals of DEI and belonging, advocacy, and representation of all students.

The school committee received several letters concerning information that had been shared within the Sharon community regarding bullying and outstanding issues that needed to be addressed at East Elementary School.

This included a public records request for information on matters related to issues at East Elementary School.

A community member shared an article with the Sharon with the school committee related to gender-affirming care for children. A parent wrote to request an investigation into bullying at Sharon High School.

A parent of a former SHS student wrote to inquire about matters related to the cross-country team and specifically related postings made in coaches' insights on the cross-country and track and field website.

A parent wrote to share information related to Title IX regulations.

A community member wrote to express their dissatisfaction with a committee member's recent reaction to a hate incident in the town of Sharon.

A parent wrote to inquire about the condition of the playground at Cottage Elementary School in preparation for the school opening in September.

These inquiries included a suggested list of quote-unquote band-aid fixes to be made before students return to school.

A parent wrote to offer suggestions on the use of smartphones, watches, and earpods in the middle and high school. A parent wrote to share their feedback on the Sharon High School sports night that was held on August 22, 2024.

We received several pieces of correspondence from Fred Turkington, town administrator, to provide a schedule of the FY26 budget calendar and to share information on the tri-board meeting of August 29, 2024.

That's it.

All right.

Thanks, Jonna.

I was given a heads up by Ms. Jollica over at the high school that the student reps were tied up with some school-related stuff actually tonight.

And so we're not going to have a student rep update.

I'm sure we will at our next meeting. I will throw it over to Superintendent Dr. Patello for his updates.

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So it's been an incredibly busy summer, kind of preparing for the beginning of the school year. We're people, you know, both administrators, teachers, hard at work.

We just earlier this week had an awesome new teacher orientation with approximately 35 new staff members.

They were energetic and excited to join the Sharon public schools community.

This event is held, you know, in collaboration with administrators, both at central office and building level, as well as tons of teacher leaders, especially our mentor leaders.

Kathy Turner being, you know, one that really works with all of us to kind of have this event be awesome. We have opening days coming up next third and fourth for staff with a district-wide day in the morning and then a day and a half of building-based preparation.

First day of school, we know for grade one through 12 is next Thursday, September 5th, and then September 6th for kindergartners.

And then pre-K starts the next week on September 9th. So we're really excited.

I've seen kids around, and they're excited.

My kiddos started this morning, so I know our Sharon kids will be ready to get back.

We have open houses coming up, so please check your newsletters from your schools.

For elementary, it's going to be on September 26th for the middle school, September 11th and 12th.

High school, September 19th. And the ECC will hold theirs at the middle of October and October 15th.

These are really important ways to kind of get to know about the programs and curriculum at your classes prior to the school year.

So I'm just getting prepared for this school.

We've got some new schedules going on at Sharon High that our high school kids will be utilizing Please be patient for the first few days with bus twists and timing.

We'll make adjustments, as we always do, as we learn from those first few days.

And also, hopefully, we'll be hitting fall weather pretty soon. But until then, please, you know, dress for warm weather and have students, especially in, you know, the elementary and middle school places that are not air conditioned.

Your handbooks will be coming home after their approval.

So please review those carefully before signing off.

And also, the middle school and high school open up their power school on August 29th.

Got some feedback.

In the future, we will make that communication about, so typically, it's going to be the week before school starts where it's where we have, you know, full understanding of all our enrollment except for a couple kiddos.

So we'll make sure that that in the future people know at the beginning of the summer and throughout the summer when exactly the middle school and high school power school portal will be open and elementary open last week.

And we have a final facility walkthrough occurring this week.

We're working hard on making sure our facilities, our buildings are really ready. We're also working with DPW as far as the outside of buildings and weeding.

You know, there's been a little bit of a challenge in some of the buildings to get that outdoor stuff done.

And the DPW has been helping us and we'll also be working hard to get that done prior to school.

As far as enrollment, we'll get some more detailed numbers after the first few days where we have we'll have some kiddos that we expected who don't, who have moved over the summer but have not informed us and also have some, you know, kids who are enrolling at the very last minute.

So we'll give you particular numbers at our next meeting.

But right now we have class sizes within our ranges and enrollment similar to last year, a little bit up from last year.

But we'll share exactly where that is at our next meeting.

And then we have our central office group, including Ellen Whittemore, Dr. Joel Jocelyn, Jessica Murphy, Hina Trivedi, and Carla Hands, as well as Molly and Fran, who are other point people that parents as well as staff members interact with.

And I want to give Dr. Jocelyn an opportunity to just introduce himself a little bit as our kind of newest member of the group.

It's been great working with him.

He's been working incredibly hard and thoughtfully throughout the summer.

So I just want to give, we'll finish this slide, but then I'll turn it over to him to just say hi and tell a little bit about himself.

Is there any more slides?

Okay, yes. And then we have our building-based leadership, our both principals and assistant principals, again, who took some time off but worked, you know, a good amount of the summer getting things ready and definitely are excited, have greeted their new staff members, and also have tons of teachers this week have been in throughout all the buildings, really getting prepared.

We appreciate that, you know, a bunch we're in during the summer, but especially this week, people have been hard at work getting ready for the school year.

All right, good evening, everyone.

As Dr. Botello mentioned, my name is, I'm really, I started over the, on July 15th, and it's been running, and it's been truly fun working with Dr. Botello, Alan Woodlemore, and the rest of the team. I've had a chance to visit every school, meet with every principal.

I've had meetings with the curriculum coordinators, getting to know, and we're also working on some, doing some good work, planning the professional development landscape for the, for all the early release days. So that was a good, easy win to make sure that we build capacity for all our educators.

So it's an absolute pleasure for me to be part of the Sharon Public School.

I've also had the privilege to meet with, I would say, most of the school community members, and they've been very supportive, very welcoming.

So I'm really looking forward to a wonderful, productive, and fruitful tenure with the Sharon Public Schools.

Great.

Oh, you got more slides. Yeah, so then we had, again, at that new teacher, new staff orientation, which included teachers, but also other positions, IAs and other positions.

We had 34 staff in various capacities.

We're still completing the hiring process for 14 staff where they're in the midst of it, and then have a number of positions that were still open, predominantly instructional aid, school assistants, cafeteria and transportation workers. So we're working really, really hard to get all those filled for next week. And we just, again, when you work in schools, if people don't work in schools, don't kind of get this same full feeling.

They get it a little bit because they're feeling the excitement of their kids. But we certainly get excited about this time of year to have a new start.

Our Sharon Public Schools team, in collaboration with our families, we're really trying to make sure that we can provide the very best educational experience that we can for each student.

It's a complex job.

We've got kiddos who have all different needs, but they're all awesome.

And so we thank you for trusting us with your children as we try to teach them, get to know them, care for them, and nurture their development.

And so we look forward to a partnership with all of our families and look forward to a great year. All right.

Thank you, Dr. Botello.

Does anybody have any questions at the table?

All right.

Seeing no questions, I will move to our discussion items.

First up, we've got our 2024-2025 calendar updates.

We've got a discussion and a policy. We'll vote to approve.

I'll turn it over to Julie Rowe, the chair of our calendar subcommittee, to discuss how the calendar subcommittee meeting went, make a recommendation, and then I'll take the floor back for the discussion.

Go ahead, Julie.

Okay. The calendar subcommittee.

The calendar subcommittee met last week.

And I think we had a really great discussion.

I think that we heard from a lot of teachers, which was really great.

And I think that the consensus of the group was that the right thing to do is to move the date of graduation by at least two days to accommodate for those extra two days that were missed in the original version of the calendar.

And that would be the simplest and probably least intrusive.

I'm sure it will be intrusive and unproductive for some people, but every option that we have is a problem for somebody.

So, unfortunately, we have to kind of look at the least bad option.

So, there was a question as to which night or day would be the most appropriate.

So, Peter, can I cold call you to talk about your survey?

Go ahead and ask about our survey.

Throughout the commentary in the survey, the most preferable date when making a change would be to change it a week until June 8th.

I think a lot of families had greater concern about the ability for some of their family members as well as them to attend on a weekday.

And also, we got some feedback from administration at the high school.

There's really an all-hands-on-deck approach when you go towards MCAS testing, and those are dates designated by the states for MCASing.

But so, 44% of respondents, we had 170 who responded preferred Sunday, June 8th.

25% preferred Wednesday, June 4th.

14% improved other.

And some of those actually were calling out for June 8th because initially I did not have that in the survey.

But when I saw several comments asking for it, I put it into it. So, about half of that 14% is also part of the June 8th. So, that's more of a, like a 51% now that I think about it as far as the June 8th. And then 16% Thursday, June 5th.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peter. Yeah.

Thank you.

that if you weren't able to see it, we had a student representative, I can't remember what his position is on the high school board, but he seemed to think that moving the date of the graduation was something that they could work with in terms of prom and senior week and other activities.

I do believe, so if we're okay with that idea, then the next decision is, should it be Wednesday, Thursday, or the following Sunday?

So the Monday and Tuesday are, I think Shavuot, if I'm not mistaken, a Jewish holiday, so we can't have it on those days.

I appreciate hearing this information that about half of the respondents are happy with moving it to the Sunday.

And I think that it would be, I would be interested to hear from the committee, if I hand it back to Avi, I would be interested in what people think about moving the graduation dates, and then what date they would like to move it to. And if I may just add my personal opinion, my personal opinion is this is the easiest.

I just learned about what the admins have said, and I would need to think about it, but I would actually be in favor of it as early as possible.

So Wednesday or Thursday, to me, seem the most reasonable, but I'm not stuck on that.

So back to Avi.

All right, thanks, Julie. So real quick, before I start going around the table and asking folks for their stance, I just want to hear if Kristen Keenan, our high school principal, wants to weigh in, I think it's appropriate for us to hear from the person that plans graduation.

Kristen, if you've got anything, Ms. Keenan.

Thank you, Avi. I appreciate that. Thank you all. I know you spent a lot of time on this, and it's important to all of you. It's important to us as well. I think that if you were able to participate and see the graduation that we had outside last year, you get a sense of how much time and effort goes into planning that event. It's a beautiful, beautiful event. One of the big issues with having it in the middle of the week this year is that MCAS testing is taking place on that Wednesday and Thursday.

So you'd essentially be asking us, our custodial staff who have students in the building with lunches and cleaning the building to also set up an enormous amount of, you know, 900 chairs outside a stage, all of Sharon TV and all the work we do with them to make this happen, the radio club, as well as, you know, making sure we have graduation rehearsal and that we can pronounce every student's name accurately.

I mean, there's so much work that goes into it that, in all honesty, we really would prefer this on the 8th. That is a collective decision by almost every person at the high school that takes part in helping us out. And I know that's not necessarily convenient for everybody.

Ideally, we wish that it could have been held on the original set day. But if we had our preference, it certainly would be the 8th. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. So just in an effort to do this in the most efficient way possible, and also to respect the process of having had a subcommittee that undertook this, had a meeting, had a lot of comments from the public, as well as our educators.

I think the first, the most appropriate thing to do is go around the table and sort of a straw poll on who's open to accepting the recommendation of the subcommittee.

There will be a discussion after that before there is a vote, for sure. I just would, I'd like to sort of create the parameters of that discussion ahead of time. If accepting that recommendation isn't on the table, then I think we start from what all our options are. If accepting that recommendation is going to be met by a majority, then I think we can have a discussion more focused on what that day would be and where we're moving it to. So let me just, by a call of names, let me just hear if you'd be open to accepting the recommendation of the subcommittee or not. I'll start with you, Dan. Yeah. So I'm understanding correctly.

This is the general recommendation to move the graduation date, right? But we're not talking about specific dates yet. Okay. Correct.

I would like to accept the recommendation.

Okay. Adam. Okay.

Jeremy?

Yes.

Alan?

Yes.

Shauna?

Yes.

Okay.

And not that my opinion, I mean, we have a very clear majority, but it seems, I also felt like the subcommittee was managed to get the community sort of coalescing around this as the best bad option.

All right.

So then let me open the floor to discussion around when that date would be moved to. And Adam, I saw your hand up first.

Actually, I was just curious, Dr. Patel, if you could give us a little more information about the survey and the survey responses.

In particular, student attendance, do we have any information about whether students will or will not be able to attend on any of the dates, the kind of Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday, or Sunday?

Because I would hate to move graduation.

I know it's an imposition regardless of what we do, but I would hate for a student not to be able to walk and kind of celebrate the culmination of their high school career.

I do not believe, I would need to double check.

I do not believe we had any written narratives that a student would not be able to attend.

I think we had, you know, a couple specifics that a parent or a family member would have hard time attending.

And we had lots of that on the weekday options.

But there was nothing that said, a student would be unable to attend on June 8th.

Okay. I asked only because a parent had told me that their students would not be able to attend on the 8th, but I didn't know if there were students who wouldn't be able to attend on the Wednesday or Thursday.

I don't know if that was reflected in the survey or not. I do not believe that was reflected in the survey.

No.

Alan? Oh, sorry, Adam. Are you done?

Yeah, I guess I'll say my preference, I guess, is for the earliest date. I know it's less convenient for administration, but it was what the students expressed a clear preference for. And like I said, I personally had families reach out to me saying that their student would not be able to walk in graduation or attend on Sunday the 8th.

And I would say, as I'm looking at this over more, there was two comments together and they might have been related.

One was, I will not be able to attend my child's graduation.

And right after that, please do not put graduation on June 8th. If graduation on June 8th, I will not be able to attend my own graduation.

So there was one person who, and I think they were back to back, I think it was a parent and then the child.

So there was one of those.

Chuck Allen?

I asked a similar question, I guess, to Adam.

Can you share more about the population that you surveyed, just so everyone's on the same page? Who did this go to? And I think you said there's about 170 responses.

What was the total universe of potential responses versus what you got?

Please?

Chris, did you know our total high school seniors?

We have approximately 260 or 70 students.

Yeah, so we had 177 responses.

It was sent out to all senior students and all senior parents.

And 80% of the respondents were parent guardians and 20% were students.

And I have the floor, I guess, in the collective memory of those on the call.

Have we encountered a situation in the past when graduation held on the day which was normally scheduled, where we've had students who've been unable to attend for reasons unrelated, let's say, to academic or disciplinary reasons?

I mean, I think, Alan, from a historical perspective, yes.

I mean, there are certain things that come up that families have planned trips where people haven't gone and they've chosen not to attend.

You know, they've gotten their diploma after.

So that is certainly something that has happened in the past in my experience.

Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Alan. Jeremy?

I just wanted to clarify.

The results of the survey, did they favor the Wednesday or the Sunday?

I was a little confused by Adam's comment. 50% preferred the Sunday.

Okay. Then the second choice was 25% for the Wednesday and 16% for the Thursday.

And aside from a handful of potentially a couple parents or students not being able to attend then, which might be the case on Wednesday as well, are there any cons or what are the cons to Sunday beyond that?

I think that's the only con is, you know, with all these choices is the potential of a student or a family member not being able to attend.

And there was only, you know, there was only a handful of people who gave, you know, kind of specific reasons.

Except for, again, the weekdays, there was a lot of rationale about, you know, people who, family members who work and such. And, you know, especially not necessarily parents, though, in some cases it was them, but other extended family members who want to celebrate with the kids having difficulty attending on a weekday.

Traveling and working.

All right. Thank you, Peter.

Yep.

All right. Julie? Thanks, Avi.

So I just wanted to say that I think that some of this might be reflected in the comments, but there's conflicts every night.

So there's Norfolk Aggie, I think, has graduation on Wednesday.

And I know that affects at least one family.

And I heard Southeastern is Thursday.

So I think that, you know, we're dealing with a situation where someone.

So I just think we have to pick the overall best situation for the most people because somebody is going to be really angry.

And I feel really bad about that.

But, you know, we have to move forward.

So that's just my two cents. And also I respect what the administration and Kristen have said.

So if the committee is if the committee thinks that Sunday is the best day, then that makes sense to me.

So let me ask this. Does anybody on the committee want to make a motion and take the first shot at a day? We can certainly vote it and we can have more discussion.

It feels to me like what I'm hearing is Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday are all on the table.

There's good reasons for.

And again, I want to be clear that the language I think we're using, I don't want anybody to hear good.

I mean it within the context of where we're at right now. It very clearly these are all bad solutions.

It's just a question of what's the least bad solution.

For me, it sounds like it's just a question for the committee of which of those three days is the day that makes the most people the least inconvenienced.

I'm hearing that admin is interested in Sunday and for lots of good reasons. I think the survey, although, you know, again, I think we can probably know no disrespect or fault to admin question how important a survey that has 100 and something responses when 1100 people, it sounds like, give or take, could have responded.

I don't know what to do necessarily with that. But if somebody on the committee wants to make time, wants to take a shot at a day and we can vote it.

Julie, is your hand up meaning you'd like to take a shot at a day? Oh, I just wanted to say that I think Peter said he sent the survey out to 200 people.

Is that 200 and change like just the seniors?

I said all seniors and all senior parent guardians.

Okay. So and then we got about 170.

So that is probably about, I think it's 270.

It's like way more than half of that.

That's like a really good. That's a lot.

How many seniors are there?

There's 270. Is that what you said?

Oh, 260.

Yeah.

260. All right. Sorry. I thought it was 360.

So yeah, give or take 780.

I mean, I'm sure that it's a little bit less than that, but give or take.

And we got 170 of that.

So I'd say I don't want to quibble over percentages.

My math says it's something like 23% is who we heard from.

Either way, if somebody wants to take a shot at a day, I think we can go from there.

Adam. Adam. I'll move to change the date of graduation to Wednesday.

I can find the right date on my calendar.

Oh, this is a Wednesday, June 4th at night.

Is there anybody that wants to second that?

All right. Seems like we're not going to get a second on that, Adam.

Valiant effort.

Go ahead, Alan.

I'm not going to make a motion. I did have one additional question for Dr. But I hope it's instructive.

Dr. Botella, do you know or do you recall that anybody who selected a weeknight graduation give an explanation as to why they were selecting that over, let's say, a week end date?

Did they say that they were anxious to see an evening graduation?

Did they say that they thought it would be easiest for parents to attend? Was there any themes that emerged among those that wanted a weeknight graduation?

I'm taking another look.

I mean, there were some just comments of don't change it.

So those were some of those were lined up with the weekdays.

One person said either Wednesday or Thursday, doesn't matter at this point, should be June 1st. Some said preferring to keep the original date.

So there wasn't a lot of specifics on why they wanted a weekday.

And while Julie said, I believe she said that she is aware of a student that has a conflict with one of the other regional schools.

You're not aware of anybody that wrote? Yeah, someone wrote about Norfolk Aggie on the evening of June 5th. Yes.

And that that would conflict.

Are we not aware of this point of any conflicts for Thursday, June 6th?

Well, I think Julie just mentioned Southeastern.

I don't I do not believe Southeastern is mentioned in the survey, but she believes that there's a conflict there.

And we definitely have a couple of students at Southeastern, I believe.

OK, thanks.

Sean.

Go ahead, Alan. Would you like to not make a motion and ask more questions?

I'm going to make a motion, but I'll let Sean to go.

I was going to make a motion.

Alan, go for it. I'd like to make a motion to reschedule graduation to Sunday, June 8th, 2025.

A second.

All right, Julie.

You're muted.

Yes.

Jeremy.

Yes.

Alan.

Yes.

Adam.

No.

Dan.

Yes.

Shauna. Well, I made the motion.

Yes.

I hear you. I have to call the name, though.

I think in the end, and I hate that it's that there's a person who told us they can't make. I think it's the least bad of all the options.

I am a yes.

Motion carries six one.

Thank you guys for a discussion.

And again, I think we owe the public yet again another apology or certainly a handful of us that were here through the whole process do.

I know that doesn't help.

All right.

Next up, review and possible vote to approve student handbooks.

Elementary, middle, high school, and early childhood.

Dr. Botello, you can certainly pick the order.

Why don't we start with the early childhood?

I'm so excited to go first.

You want to highlight the changes in the handbook, Stasia?

Sure.

I don't see it up there, but.

Stasia, I wasn't planning on sharing all the graphs, but the school committee has seen them.

Okay. They've seen them all. If you'd like me to, I can. No, no, no. It's okay. The biggest change that we have is we've updated our health information to accommodate the immediate need and rules based on the mass CDC.

We have also changed our early dismissal time for early release days to 1045.

We have added new staff.

All new staff is updated.

We have added the option for families to receive their students to receive free breakfast on a daily basis that will be delivered to the classrooms at 9 a.m.

What else have we updated?

Dates of specific things.

Our open house is now in the middle of October to give students and teachers time to actually build relationships.

And so we as a staff can better inform the parents for open house for what needs and what procedures will be best to suit the students.

And that's basically all the updates that we've had.

Any questions?

Any questions from the table?

Jeremy? Jeremy? What was the prior early release time?

It was 1130.

But 1045 because our half day release time is 1115.

So our early release time was later than our half day, than our regular day release time.

And we couldn't go to 11 or 1115 because the middle school has to be released then.

And because of nap and lunch for those little ones, it was really confusing and disruptive to their routines to dismiss them later than they usually go home.

And it kind of contradicts the term early.

Anything else?

All right. No other questions?

All right.

Dr. Patel, next.

We'll go next to elementary and Darren Reynolds.

Dr. Reynolds, thank you for representing the elementary group today. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. We really had a few technical, just updating some language to reflect whether it's school committee policies and reflecting change in leadership in a few places, whether it's school committee or at heights.

And then we had just making sure there was some question around the Chromebook agreement.

And there's language in the middle high school handbook that differs from what we would have because we're not really sending kids home with Chromebooks where at the middle high school they are sending kids home with the Chromebook.

So that would be some changes, but for us really updating some language to be more reflective of whether it's school committee policies or just some names and whatnot for us at the elementary level. I can take any questions that you may have.

I see Dan's hand first.

Hi, this is a little awkward because I know Dr. Reynolds is here on behalf of all the principals, if I'm understanding correctly.

I know some of the changes that you made this year may be minor or technical or just kind of updates, but I did read through this handbook.

There's much of it I really appreciate and I appreciate all the work that goes into it.

One section in particular I did want to ask about and that section is called homework.

It's on page 13 of the elementary handbook.

And I want to say I really like what I saw in there.

Something I have discussed with different members of the administration at different levels is what our philosophy around homework is as a district.

And if we have clear guidelines around roughly on average how much homework people can expect to have by grade level.

And if that and making how can we make sure that's a consistent experience, you know, across teachers, across schools, across grades.

So this is something I'm really interested in. And I when I read this, I was really heartened that this does contain a detailed breakdown of what you might call guidelines or what people can expect or what we encourage from teachers to assign in terms of like number of minutes per homework by grade.

So this is exactly what I was looking for.

I also loved that these seem to be high expectations.

You know, it starts off low in kindergarten and first grade, informal 10 minutes, two times per week in first grade.

And then it builds up in a logical way to grade four and grade five, 40 where you're talking about some serious homework.

40 minutes, four times a week for grade four, 50 minutes, four times a week for grade five.

So that all looks great for me. Where I'm really struggling, though, is I'm not sure that's accurately reflecting the experience on the ground for most of our families.

That certainly has not been my family's experience.

I've heard from many other parents that experience really varies.

There's a lot of variation between teachers, between schools in terms of homework specifically.

And I know for a fact that some teachers just don't give any homework at all, even in fourth grade or fifth grade.

So the number could be zero depending on what teacher you get.

And my understanding is that the schools allow that. So where I'm really struggling is we're putting this handbook out here, out there.

And these are what we're holding out as guidelines or what we encourage.

But then the reality, at least as I understand it, is very different in what people are actually experiencing.

Do you have any take on that or perspective?

Why? First, if you agree, but or why that might be the case and maybe how we can resolve this discrepancy.

I mean, for me, if that's the case, we could either amend this so that it's more reflective of what's actually going on.

Or we could double down and make a commitment to actually live up to what we're putting out there. So I don't know if Dr. Reynolds wants to speak to this or Dr. Patelow or if this is something, you know, the other principles should be involved in. But I'm just struggling with to reconcile.

That's a fantastic question, actually.

And you actually had the answer in some of your question there that when you're talking about that it's differentiated and it should be.

We never want to dictate to give your child 50 minutes of homework for the sake of giving 50 minutes of homework.

Well, that's not being authentic.

Right. And we want the homework to be connected to the learning experience.

So that should fluctuate during the year.

And you'll have teachers who are given a little bit more, a little bit less. You know, that will fluctuate as well.

The one thing that we do need, though, is everybody reading at home and parents.

That's partly on you as well. We want you reading or listen to your child read.

So that is certainly part of the homework every night should be. You know, we want our kids reading regularly and really enjoying their reading.

So when we get prescriptive and that guidance came from, I believe, before my time.

So about eight, nine years ago, we actually had a homework committee and people looked at that and came up with that guidance that you'll see laid out in the handbook.

And those are pretty general guidance that you'll see that are really about age appropriate, you know, developmentally appropriate.

So when it goes up 10 minutes for each grade or so, you know, I think that that's spot on. But what that homework might look like should be different all the time.

It shouldn't be a strict.

You have this amount of math or you have this amount because that's not connected to the learning that comes in school. So we want to make sure it's more reflective of that. So it will be it will vary and it should vary.

Matt?

I can comment a little bit, too.

I think, yeah, I think the wording, you know, there is kind of some particulars in the wording that are kind of making it a little, you know, less prescriptive.

Things like the guidelines.

These should not be seen as expectations.

I think one thing that we can commit to do is to, you know, really do some analysis of, you know, kind of both the purpose of homework and in what homework, you know, looks like, you know, at different grade levels across schools.

And, you know, continue to, you know, make this language, you know, as accurate as possible while providing opportunity for flexibility that makes sense for kids.