10.13.2023 Special Education Alternative Education and Early Childhood Subcommittee

call to order the special ed alternative Ed and early childhood subcommittee please call the RO M agaga here M Pera here M rodri here please stand PL aliance to the the United States of America and to the repblic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all first to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting Mee or

may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible we'll jump right into the agenda um is there any citizen input no is not we are going to try to keep this meeting to around an hour an hour and a half so if there's things that are going

to go on longer we might just table them and get rid of the ones that we need to more importantly for the meeting uh 3.01 is it discussion and vote to refer people Incorporated contract superintendent or whoever you would like to present yep I will defer to Dr bronhard thank you so I am uh joined here by Meg sturk from People Inc um and Kyle Riley the principal of RPA um you

know we are looking to bring back another contract this year people in hasid had a contract down at RPA since 2015 um as you can see you know the contracts have ranged in what we have could you know paid out to people link as a third party consultant as we look at program opportunities and Workforce Development opportunities at RPA that is uh really where our main focus is with this relationship with People

Incorporated uh historically in meeting with staff at RPA particularly staff who've been at RPA over the years there has been an eban flow of um strength and outcomes and opportunities to serve the kids prior to coid uh where we did not have as many restrictions we did not have as many Staffing challenges program outcomes were really strong uh and were really Central to the climate and

culture of the community kids spoke very highly of their experiences in the programs um and we're really looking to replicate where we were a couple of years back um postco we've been able to do some decent work some good work uh down with people link as you can see uh there's been a range of different programs as it relates to some tutoring that was particularly in ela and math um

and as well as some Workforce and urban youth leveraging of opportunities as we look to move in we've given some historical data of outcomes of previous years particularly last year because I was questioning people in as it related to last year's contract what were the outcomes um based on what the projection projections versus outcomes by the end of the year um so with that I'm going to kind of

turn it over to Meg to speak to where people Inc has been um as you know I was not at RPA last year um so I've had to leverage my collaboration with Meg as well as the staff who were at RPA to be able to understand where the programs were and if there were any like limitations to being able to follow through with the contract what that looked like and what the reasons were

for that sure thank you uh so as Amy mentioned we've been doing this for many many years prior to the pandemic we had a big Workforce Development training program um trying to kick off culinary CNA programs um Human Services Workforce certificates uh pandemic obviously put a Slowdown on that and as of recently it's been primarily the math and Ela tutoring uh we also within the school building

itself we have an engagement Center room so we're also providing uh basic toiletry needs as well to the students as they come in as they need uh snacks snacks and water that's typically the most popular and then the math and Ela tutoring and in addition to that which is been strong and beneficial but really bringing back what we've done in terms of of Workforce and attracting these

kids to show up every day because at the end of the day there's something else waiting for them so whether it's a paid internship which is what we did last year um with great success in getting many of the students to um have an internship at one of people incorporated's residential group homes uh one of the students did uh an internship at our Early Education Center and to continue that track but also

additional tracks in terms of what those students want and need and so surveying the kids and and what would attract them right what's going to get them to show up every day so and in discussions that we've had whether that be culinary a CNA program continuing the the Human Service program uh we're we're looking to explore all that again and to bring it back to the programming level that it

was pre pandemic so and so we are also looking to take these Workforce Development programs and also to consider attaching High School Credit to them for our kids um that would be in alignment with the work development program that's up at dery although not a carbon copy but certainly more in alignment for an equitable experience that there is Workforce Development that kids um can earn some high school

credits to be able to be in a position to graduate at the end of the school year in addition to that we felt that people link was a really great place to build upon because of the fact that these opportunities are literally in the circumference of RPA as a building um and so as we look at you know what we do have control over for our kids Transportation getting them to RPA

getting them to this part of the city um having the opportunities for Our People Inc be within the circumference in the area of RPA um as well as as another extension you know the work that we've also been doing which isn't tied here but we've been really working with uh the youth violence prevention program they have been accessing RPA and they too are in the circumference and those

case managers will help support some of our kids to stay engaged in the program once it gets rolling um one of the things that I brought up with Meg um was the two tutors piece um I was questioning Meg around the rationale for tutors you know we as a school department hire tutors all the time um but one of the pieces that we really want to move into this year is leveraging the tutors beyond the school

day looking at a flex schedule so that the tutors are not there the traditional school day but using this as our first opportunity to extend the school day at RPA um but in addition to that mcast tutoring for kids who are have not yet passed mcast and in the program this can be an option because their schedules are full for graduation requirements outside of you know the current schedule is full

of graduation requirements but another component to this for the tutors is that our kids who are in the CNA program the culinary program or the direct service program they're going to need support in the tutoring that's related to the academic work for that career pathway so using the tutors to support the students ability to navigate the academic components to those career Pathways um

and so so our goal will be to build up the tutors in that lane as well as working with the school staff for the kids who need mcast but may not be able to put it during their school day because of other competing graduation requirements um and if I can just add so I certainly and Megan you know cuz we we met last year so um pre we've talked about prean pandemic where the

partnership was and and how we struggle to get the partnership up and running so and and that we struggled to get it up and running in regards to trying to fit it in and with our typical schedule Etc so um we certainly have to take responsibility for that and this is an opportunity for us to reset ourselves to really come back stronger and give our kids more opportunity I think that last

year we were um trying to get ourselves back in the door and trying to uh uh get some semblance of something it took a long time to get anything going and even then then it was um sparingly right uh um it's hard it was hard to build that consistency to get the kids back on board to get staff um uh on board to you know uh to let go and allow kids to uh

access the program as they should the the multiple programs so um all of that work uh needed to be reset right so that we can uh begin um in full force and that's what Dr B has been doing meeting with staff with with leadership as well as including the partners in and how do we leverage all these Partnerships and create opportunity because really people link any partnership that we can um uh

uh contract with is is an opportunity for our kids and they're going to be the the the ones that benefit from it but um I will say it it last year was not um an example of what what the opportunity was that that our kids uh had access to it was just like the the the very small beginning of a reset any any questions I have a lot of questions I'm trying first I got one quick

one I got one quick the tutoring you were talking about um because that's the first thing I thought to I'm like why are we getting Tor from them and then when you said after school I said okay that makes sense in my head but then you mentioned they're going to tutor in um you know Ela math mcast skills but then you mentioned the program like the CNA and culinary so I'm just wondering what

tutors are we getting cuz when I think of tutoring for a CNA that's to I mean do they have that science and nursing background because that to me doesn't I don't know if that if I'm wrong or if that's a fit or where that fits in so the the CNA program we'd consult out with that so on the CNA program in the past we've used BCC doesn't mean that that's who we would use but that's who

we're familiar um People Incorporated we have CNAs on staff so it's a process and a program that we are Beyond familiar with okay we have an entire room at for South Main Street that is set up for uh a nursing type structure so the medical beds the sinks um the Hoyer lifts we have all of that there so we have the equipment we have the training room um and then depending on whether we have a

nurse who is qualified through the Department of Public Health to provide the training we could do it in-house if we don't have those supports because it's very hard to get nurses um otherwise we'd have to consult all a lot of times we would consult out though okay and that would be the same I'm assuming with culinary correct we'd have to get a um I'm a good T but trust me I couldn't T

no no no no it's not me doing any of the com okay so we're making sure all right thank you that was my quick question I might have others Sarah Kevin you want to go I'm Sor so extending the tutoring beyond the school tag so if we're talking about Ela and math tutoring we've talked forever about extending supports with our own staff beyond the school day at RPA so I'm wondering why we wouldn't use our

own staff to do that because that's a piece that we've talked about for a long long time was extending past that 3:00 time in our own buildings I'm just looking at how do we fill some of these needs with our own capacity so I don't want to speak to the Staffing patterns at RPA but I would say right now um the opportunity to get staff on a reoccurring basis to work

beyond the school day is going to be a large challenge um the community at RPA is is working hard and tirelessly day in and day out it has been extremely challenging for the for that team um and so and not all C ances do we have people available and willing to work beyond the school day um as well as looking to build some case management for these kids connected to the tutors because we

want to be sure that the program outcomes are realized and not have that be a secondary outcome for those kids right um and so with the tutors being built into the program we we took the existing model um and looked to build upon the existing model for this year to see if this is going to meet our goals we also talked with Meg that this is where we've been in the past we're going

to continue to move forward if we feel moving forward for a more stable um program run by the for OFA Public Schools we want to be able to do that but that wasn't budgeted in last year's budget um and so we don't have those programs designed in the building now we don't want this year to be a planning year where we don't have opportunities for the kids that are there as Juniors and seniors more

specifically um so we too want to build a more sustainable model moving forward that was just not part of the budget process last year and as all of getting Kyle on board in early August getting the school year launched knowing we do have a relationship and historical partnership with people link we want to use that to move us into this year and then we'll look to reestablish if that's

the decision that we go we choose to propose to the committee and the committee agrees to go um but we want to make sure this year we've got something of stability to be able to present um and a number of Staff you know we still have a number of openings at RPA so even the staff pool with which we're looking to pull from is not there as you know we're struggling to fill the math

teacher positions right now at RPA so when we look at math tutors we don't even have Math teachers to be able to pull from on that front um and in working talking with people in they do have some capacity um that right now we just don't have as viable candidates to be able to offer those opportunities to but we have we asked the question of our folks if they were open and willing to

and and I'm not saying that you hav't I can answer a way no we didn't ask that question but we have asked some other questions we're trying to start up like a detention piece to really cut down our suspensions and start you know uh scaffolding that up and we couldn't get anybody to stay and so I think it they just burnt right now and it's I know it's beginning of the year but I think

it's a it's an intense position that they need to go and deal and be a seal product for the kid they need to be a a teacher for them and I I mean I know you know this game but they are walking out the door ready to go home at the end of the day they really are worries me but because it's October well what he's saying is like it's their day is enough

for them at this point however I think in moving forward as we plan forward uh we need to be creative and look at the structure you know um I know that we're going to be uh negotiating looking at contract and all that stuff and see if there's a way that we can be creative about uh Staffing and how we stagger staff Etc because that might be factor into it you know someone might teach a

different time you know it everybody doesn't have to work 8 to two right right this is that we've had for a really long time because don't end after absolutely I think that would be lot more likely to find people Stagg of the positions some who have children don't like I really do because when I look at this we're more than doubling that contract from last year we we're going

so yeah so we can we can have Meg speak to that piece of it for us sure absolutely so for for many many years um the agency we've absorbed losses um it's it's it was important to meet a community need and so with our board of directors we've always approved a loss in this program um and we continue to do so even with the the budget that's in front of you and so really the the

70,000 was covering the the cost of the tutors with a little bit of oversight and coordination um what is reflected there that might not be clear excuse me is through the Department of Developmental Services we hold an urban youth contract and we facilitate using that 50 that additional $50,000 to go towards the majority of the students at at the resiliency prep really that program could be open to any high school

students um in the last few years we've focused on that 50,000 going to to RPA and that 50,000 is that's where we're able to do the paid the paid internships so the the additional cost in the increase in funding that you're seeing there is truly for the most part covering the supervision of the program as well as the consultants for the CNA a course and The Culinary individual that

obviously we don't have identified yet um but just looking at costs from about 2017 which is when we had some culinary and and and medical programming in the building we kind of you know put a little bit for inflation but the costs are pretty pretty close to what it would be um and in in checking around with folks so the the additional cost is really for the additional tracks that you're saying we had in

2017 yes 2018 um around that time so that was still you know this is tripled since 2017 and 2018 so we're just saying a little bit for inflation we're talking about a lot for inflation the I'm sorry so we've never been reimbursed for any of the tracks that we have held so so we have been absorbing that those losses and that and we're at as we continue on with the relationship um and the cost the

increase in wages over those years the the in the loss that we are incurring has just grown substantially um which our organization is is proud to be part of this partnership but at the same time we have to be realistic and have a fiduciary responsibility so so we're still you know we're still going to be having I don't know roughly a $70,000 loss at the end of the day if we were to

go forward with all the tracks that's fine right we we've got we're we're it's it's what we're doing with these with these students um it's it's um doable but we have to at least start catch ourselves up to make us you know a little bit in the hole out of the hole I'm going hold for now but I have other questions I just take I'm just concerned about what where we've been what we've offered and how

was the money used because we've never I've been on this committee for a long time we've never gotten that to know okay we give 70,000 whatever the number is I think it was 70 what did that $70,000 get us so absent that I looked looked at it as let me try to figure this out so I go to the website for RPA on the website I click the button for the engagement Center it had a director

and two tutors is listed on the school department website for $70,000 so I think that's what we were getting for the $70,000 then last year halfway through the year the director left to come to work here nobody replaced that person at the RPA but we still had the 70,000 like we didn't get when that happened we didn't say the 70 it was now fiduciary wise 65 62 you know it never got affected and I

could only go by what we're told and what we look at now granted we got new people at the table but I don't feel comfortable going forward until we address what happened in the past and I don't know if that makes any sense but so just to to to clarify that that standpoint the the director left we brought in another director towards the end of the school year there was a bit

of a gap I don't know the time so I'm going to say about 2 months I'm not I'd have to go back and double check um I personally was a person that was at that school um during that during that time frame uh we have a ma math and Ela tutoring there supervision directly reported to me a couple of other folks we had a um in terms of we were doing

the Human Service uh direct care support uh Workforce track at that point so I had my HR team in there helping these kids apply to People Incorporated so so in terms of getting you any type of backup in terms of the tutoring hours and the and the payroll allocations I mean that's that's we have we just had our audited financial statements get complete by an external party um RPA our program at RPA is audited they're

looking at the payroll logs um which is reflecting uh a continuous loss in that program so any information that you want in terms of showing that money is is rightly available so by listening to what you're saying nothing changed then so we have at the RPA when I go to the website and I click the button and it says Community engagement Center we have a director and two tutors on staff we

have so we have the director there is who is allocated across other programs in our organization they are not our director and our coordinator are not 100% to RPA um the director I'm sorry the coordinator she is a person that will um really keep the tracks going the The Culinary um the CNA whatever we choose to do um a lot of it is a Hands-On being in the building making

sure the kids are where they need to be after school for their internship or whatnot and then the tutors are pretty much for the most part just purely tutors around 30 to 35 hours a week so who is it when I look on the website and I see staff and I click the button M if I went down there I'd see that those three individuals yes yes like with not

not not with fulltime um so anywhere um say 12 to 20 hours a week depending on a track that is going on um that could be very well what you would see down there the director themselves is there a couple of days a week for bits and bits of time an hour or two maybe three times a week so the person who left that come to the to a school what was their title

director director yes director of Workforce Development there's a person there's a second person somewhere our we have a a coordinator position which is the one always existed M it was Cory Silvia back at one point during the before the pandemic when we came back and a lot was scaled back we had to furlough him um and then we did not return him because the tracks weren't happening and we didn't have the funding

to support him so Cory is no longer with us um and we just replaced uh that position over the summer this person plays a role in our camp Jack which is for kids with type 1 diabetes so she has a summer role um and then during the school year she she she'll flush into this role but she is replacing someone who we had fulltime back pre pandemic and that's called supervisor correct and

the program director is yes who is the program director M ly and the supervisor new yes Emily Martins so when I'm looking at that I look at it and say there was some something we didn't do and superintendent admitted it that we didn't get our pot done or whatever but when we given the money I'm looking at it us not so much on you it's more on us to say what did we do to say

we didn't get the service that we thought we were going to get or as you were talking you said we had CNA before I wrote a note TOS like 181 19 whatever those years were when it came and similar to what M Rog said I said well we had it before for 60,000 and I know you're talking about our loss and a lot but you got to understand that for us it

would be like okay so we're doubling it now how did we do it before and then is there a mechanism for us to say what if nobody should what if we don't get anybody we still pay the whole thing or do we say you know if you don't get anybody to work or any kids to part any kids so like let's say for us like we go in and we say okay we're going to

take this Le and do this and we think we're going to get whatever kids then we don't get any but we still spend the money because of the way that it goes like the after do thing that we tried that didn't work but we either spent money or we're going to spend money and then if there's no kids to go in the program then how and I think that's where it really

lands on the staff down at RPA so just like at dery we have programs but it takes recruitment of kids to understand the benefits of those programs and how we support kids in being successful in the programs right so right now if we're really honest there is no programming outside of traditional academic and some Fine Arts programming down at RPA we have been working really hard to

leverage Community Partners and to take advantage of people link as a Workforce Development partner in the most immediate current steps right the fact that CNA and the CNA work in culinary these were programs that were very from what I was told I wasn't there at the time but were very not just um connected for by kids and kids getting excited about but it was it was a legitimate energy among the staff in the building

and kids understood it was going to yield them to employment right so for me I don't feel comfortable not offering our kids at RPA any employment opportunities and skill development and I and I believe look thinking about the jobs that we know in career Pathways that can then connect them to adults that will hopefully engage them to further their education um that was our plan right also because people link is

so connected to that downtown area um being connected back to RPA so that we can have these connections back and forth it feels like we can create a wraparound program and wraparound services that can yield job outcomes and Workforce Development outcomes for kids um ideally we would be surveying kids first getting all these these pieces up and running but all of this started after the school year started or right

when the school year was starting um and that we literally ran out of time between Kyle coming on board in August and getting principal the principal hired um to begin making these moves ideally we would have done this in August so we you know we would have other pieces to it um but being in October we want to be able to move so we can create something for kids that gets

them excited to come to school um and also gives our kids that are freshmen and sophomores that see themselves at RPA because that's where they want to be that there are going to be job related opportunities there for them on the other side of that we're also working with freshmen to identify I want to go back to dery what's my game plan to get back to dery so I can then have access

to all the opportunities that we know the high school offers um that are different but right now with the Juniors and seniors who we know we need to support to get across the stage and pass for graduation we wanted to give them something meaningful and if we can connect the dots to employment uh we felt as though this was the best route based on where we've been successful in

the past and where we do have job job opportunities that we know we can support kids in finding as a result of their their participation in the program and how do the toas get paid like is that a um yearly is it a they're what we consider on ourn seasonal employees so they're 10 months of the year um and we it's kind of like a temporary lay off over the summer but

they're on our books paid directly through payroll not as consultants yeah so when we say 75,000 for tutors that is two tutors so divided by two sa to say yes then I see 59,000 in additional Tu is that are on the other side so now that's the 59,000 is the what we pay the students who become internships those are the paid those are the PE those are the paid internships those are the students at RPA getting

paid by People Incorporated through a totally separate contract through the Department of Developmental Services okay it says tutors that's why I saying on on the sheet it's kind of let me just pull it out just look might be just the wrong wording okay um we had this it should be down one line it that should be on the direct Caroline items so I like this personally I've never seen this before not this one because

it's new but in the past years we don't get what I feel we need to get something to make us feel a little we pay a lot of money to Community Partners and we try to figure out why all this stuff and I just want you to know that was Central to my conversation with Megan people in which is why we were not before this commit in September because I needed to understand from the contract we've

already invested with you on and fully understanding as I'm growing into this position what did and did not happen down at RPA last year based on what we contracted for so that was Central to our discussion I said Meg I need this to be in a presentable way that the committee can understand where our investments were um and where we're going this year as it relates um because this wasn't how we originally started

either um and that was cenal to our conversation at the district level to be able to answer those questions for you guys as a committee the um when when you look at the uh outcomes like I I just I'm having a hard time with I think because we've been not burned but like it it hasn't been a good process in some ways where we give some money to people and we

don't like either followed up or like mid cycle so like we said we're going to try this for the first semester trimester whatever and then January comes and we have nobody we're not doing it anymore you know like the money would go with stop if we weren't successful with it what we've traditionally done is just it's all in and then nobody follows up so I'd be much more comfortable if

there was some sort of when this goes to the full committee to let's talk about we're going to try this for half the year and see what it is and then even if it's just an acknowledgement that we're not going to keep like you said they contracted or whatever what if we stopped it halfway if it wasn't working or we needed to Pivot and do something else we would be

able to if we didn't spend all of this money then we say Mr Riley what do you need for 30 can you do use $35 $40,000 in a different way that's better mid year January checkin would feel I mean certainly a January checkin I just want to bring to your attention that we that this is a it was a yearlong plan with the idea that the most immediate programs we would roll out for

recruiting of staff and getting the programs off the ground was going to be CNA by the term two November like grading time frame switch right then in January that's when we're planning to Launch the culinary program so all about the midyear split we just need to be able to plan forward for the but are they ending so when you do culinary you're not doing both no we are doing both but not culinary isn't starting

until January right but we're thinking before that we're thinking CNA and the Human Service Support the thinking of two programs come a month or so from now um and then culinary be second so we can do a January report out on where we are with those first two I just want to be able to plan forward for January as we're sitting here now planning for January we'll be hiring the cons also

report out on how many kids we've recruited culinary yeah it's a viable to see because by that point you should know if I'm going to have one kid interested in culinary and why why why would we invest that way AB when frankly we could bring that one kid over to dery and create a different plant that one particular kid absolutely so you know I know I'm throwing my two cents in turn

but turn no feel free to go I those are my questions I want to support it I think Partnerships are great when there's a benefit to the partnership of why and youve articulated some reasons why sometimes we do things that we could do ourselves and just hire the person ourselves and have them work but we go to a third party and to me that's not the best way to we don't disagree at all

this is a this is also a legitimate timing thing for us as well um and knowing the the concerns we've had with being able to hire a number of other positions um and also we've been in conversations there has been some recruitment already kind of underway with people link through some of the networking that they've got through just some sources so we do have a couple of bodies lined up um and not lined up as

in like hired but ideas of that like we don't feel as though we'll end up empty on the tutor side um but we don't disagree I think there's a number of these programs that we need to have much larger conversations about um and additional programs to not just stop here um as it relates to creating viable alternative options at our alternative school um and that is much more encompassing in a much larger

conversation but that is also not something we necessarily have to be third party Consultants on um who was I'm sorry was there anyone here in this room besides obviously because you guys didn't work at RPA that actually saw this functioning at the RPA when it was functioning at the RPA anybody do I count as one of those people yes you do okay so you're the only one I worked with those kids okay so my question then

would be was it successful it was yeah and I mean I think you know last year you know defining that level of success I think is important and so last year we had for the direct support professional certificate you know we had nine kids graduate I think the number started around 13 or 15 and only nine not only nine completed it and to us that was a success right and so I think sometimes

you say the number nine to people and they're like well out of 150 something kids why is that successful and and it's and to us it's wildly successful right and we had opportunities with other sources of funding we tried to get these kids to go to Driver's Ed um a few of them did and that and again that's nine kids one of which um to work full-time people in corporated you have to be 18

or older um but one of those kids is still with us so right now I have an employee at People Incorporated from RPA and that's that's like those are the statistics that might seem small to someone but I think it's I think it's amazing and you know I think what Kyle was saying is make them we got to make them want to show up and we got to make

them want to stay all day we want to make them to stay all day and have a good day um and I think as long as we find the right track to your point like if that one kid signs up that's not going to do it but we're willing to Pivot that if culinary isn't it or whatever we start going cosmetology or mechanic or or whatever whatever it might be ask what they're looking for

exactly and that's what we're we're doing um and just so the everyone here in the room knows we have an Ela tutor who has been there almost since in Inception I maybe she even has been there since we started I have to double check that I can't remember for some reason um we are struggling with the math tutor I want to get that out on the table that we don't have the math tutor in play but

we're we're working on it um by potentially talking about an extended day we're able to um we've shifted our job description a bit to make it um to just give us a little bit more flexibility in terms of those hours and be clear that it's not a full school day um and so maybe it's even going to be perm right maybe it'll be a couple of days regular school day and then maybe

Wednesday Thursday it's more towards the afternoon so we're we're we're trying to do our best to Pivot and any way to best suit you know Kyle in the school yeah so principal Riley You' only been there a couple months I didn't see you when I walked in by the way I know my last I recognize you I hope you're well um how do you do you think it's going to be hard recruiting kids into these programs

do you think if we give you these programs we're only going to have one kid who wants to do it is that what do you think I know you've only been there two months you don't know every but what do you get from the vibe I think kids are hungry to have something okay um my experience in New Bedford an alter of school was we had a culinary department

and it was everybody going to be in it because not only do you produce food and most of our kids are going to get uh some kind of job and either retail or in food service right so give them a real skill we'll use it as part of our Behavior program quite frankly that we'll have um kids who make their points be able to access food off the regular

menu here and there um but we ran a pretty um was really struggling with that it'll be helpful MH no not even behavor I got yeah food as an incentive yeah I'm struggling so different kids different incentive needs I think but still food is a basic right so again like I struggle with that idea it's extra it's not that's a different conversation right U but it was a very Stout program that really um I think

it's going to be the one that kids like the most so it's almost good that it's the second one you'll see the results of the who's getting in the first couple programs knowing that col will be full I think it'll be full yeah that's my back my experience and that's what I believe so I mean I I understand that maybe last year things didn't go the way they should have I'm kind of remissed cuz I just

realized that these programs weren't in the RPA um I wasn't aware of I wasn't aware of that I guess that's my fault um I don't know why they're not in my opinion these are the students that needed the most if we're going to try to set them up for any kind of success in life they definitely need some life skills because we can do this but when when they graduate and they're out there they they're going

to have some hard lessons that they should be learning while they have adults like Megan that care about them and like you and and everybody at the table that cares about them so I I'm not like a Monday Morning Quarterback here I'm not going to go what happened last year cuz I I don't know I wasn't on this committee I don't know if it was bad then it has to stop now we have to make

sure we're getting our bang for a buck we want to know everything that's going on and make sure that all of this money is getting spent appropriately I feel comfortable in that I think people Incorporated is a is um they're trustworthy they're reliable like you said you've been audited this isn't just some you know uh I don't want to use the wrong word but this is a real facility that's been doing this real

important work for a very long time and they're grounded in this community and obviously taking a hit to help these kids out um and yeah I see that the cost is up I mean 70,000 for two tutors doesn't seem like a lot to me 35 a year for a tutor that $50,000 potentially going back to our students pockets in paid of in way of paid internships so to me that's awesome

um getting them out there I am 100% fully in support of this and I think you guys need to push the heck out of it and then don't stop come back with more because there is in my opinion there's Absol no reason that there shouldn't be more training programs or more job life skills at the RPA so these kids and it's not and I understand what Sarah is saying about the food as a reward but I

look I look at it but this is what I'm saying I didn't when you said it I didn't hear it the way she heard it cuz whatever I heard it as Ooh if I behave and I do everything I need to do and I make sure I I I check off all the boxes of the responsibility list I have then I get to go do something cool like cook or create something so I'm looking at that

as somebody not just just stuffing their face but like an opportunity to like create food um because I work in a program where I work with low-income people to manage a very small budget to create food as opposed to just buying stuff you put in your mouth because the process of creating is really awesome and it makes people feel good I mean I'm not a cook but once in a while if I make

something good I like want to Pat myself on the back and it makes me feel really good when normally everybody tells me I'm really bad at cooking and normally they're right right so it's nice to sort of be validated and that's just not the culinary program that's the CNA program too right being able to have compassion and understand how to care for people not just the science aspect of it but

the actual compassion and care that goes into being a nurse or a nursing assistant um I think I just want to see more so I'm in fully support of it I can't imagine what would change my mind but you never know um so I don't know if you guys have any yeah add one thing to what you said um we've already been some of our students that graduated with our um certificate program um many are have

are graduated um but there's a few who are now you know are still in the school um they've already expressed interest and some of them worked in our medical homes and so they saw some of the CNAs so that just so you know like they they saw some of our CNAs in action um a little bit more money so again we've already got a few of the kids who went

through and they can go through it again um so we're you know we have some returning students and it's an incentive and you may get five kids who graduate from the CNA program four of them may go on to be CNAs two of them may go on to nursing school one of them may end up getting her nurse practitioner license so doesn't matter if it's five every every every kid you know we all know

that but I understand financially we can't have one kid in a program I get it but you know anyway with that I yield I don't know if we want or can we make a motion to refer this to committee or you more no just to clarify my concerns are not related to whether or not this is a good idea to put in the building that is not whatsoever the question because of

of course it's a good idea because I think all of our kids every single one of them from middle school on need to have access to these types of program my son is in a vocational program right it's fully support all of that the qu I don't think it's playing Monday Morning Quarterback though when we're asking questions about what we did in the past with that money because it is a significant jump and so if our

responsibility is to look at the finances here then we've got to look at what are we doing with it what's going to be different this time how can this be better right I've worked with Emily for a long time and I adore Emily and I have no doubt that Emily will go in there and do a tremendous job I know that she's already been doing a tremendous job so my question my

questioning does not come from I'm worried about you know giving kids access to these things of course they need way more than this and if we have one kid in culinary yeah we're not going to pay for a full program at at RPA for culinary I doubt you're only going to get one kid in culinary but you're we're going to figure out how to move that kid somewhere else to be able to still give

them what it is that they're looking for because they're excited they're motivated and we want these kids here right that's the bottom line but I do think it's really important that we look at what didn't work because we've said from the beginning that we've really struggled to get this into a good flow and so if we've really struggled to get this into a good flow for the last eight

years I think it's important even if we weren't all sitting here to look at what didn't go well before and what can we fix moving forward I think we had great momentum right I think we had great flow right you know up and then and then you know we had to Furlow a staff that staff was key in getting those kids to to show up to to attend their whatever track

they were in um but then we weren't doing tracks right so um you know we really you know all the all the funding that we have gotten since day one um has been for those tutors and it's and up until this year I think all every school year we've had no problem getting math and Ela tutors uh they have been there and so that's that's what the funding has entirely covered out of all those

years um People Incorporated we were fortunate that during the time and and you know I think at different points back then we were able to utilize other sources of funding outside the the school department to to help offset a little bit of the culinary and and some of the other programs but just and we have you know we have of course have the records on that um but just so everyone

knows that the all the funding that the fer school department has given us since we started in school year 145 um has been entirely focused on on the tutors and then we've just grown up on that um and and that's what we're looking to do to get the momentum back we've got great teams um I really I would love you to meet an the ELA tutor down there she's incredible to watch she's incredible to

see with those with those kids um and and again she's been doing it I think since we started and and we've got the basis um you know we've got some ground workor from the People Incorporated side down there maybe saying Monday morning quarterbacking wasn't the word I need to use obviously we have to learn from mistakes but I also know that some of this dishevel had to do with coid

because it existed it had to do with shutting down and it had to do with all this so what I'm hearing from over here in Maybe I'm Wrong so you guys can correct me but what I'm hearing some of the issues are is that you'd prefer that we had our teachers doing this job so would I so do I but we don't I mean I prefer we do it I prefer absolutely it's

absolutely makes sense but from what I understand we definitely don't have that I understand that your teachers are are you know not wanting to stay and I don't want that to be interpreted by anybody watching like they hate working there cuz I'll tell you what the teachers that work there are the ones that come up to me in the community and like I love what I do and they're so pumped and

passionate they really are all of our all of our educators are great but I'm saying those those people are passionate but they at some point you have to just stop and check out and if they're working in classrooms where you know we don't have a math teacher in a school that we're teaching math that might be stressful to whoever's teaching that math class who maybe isn't and again and

again so I look at this as not only like a real support for our students but also for our staff right now so yeah I would rather see all this done inh house I would but that's not the reality of what's happening and I I really I would like to see it function better than it has apparently in the past right um I understand the increase I'm okay with the increase in money because I'm

believing what you're saying because we could obviously find that out if you lie to us right and guess who's going to find it out if you lie to us he's going to find it out before I even check so there's no point so I believe you I believe what you're saying I believe you're coming to us with the truth this is my thing if we if we sit here and and

and don't just push this forward then we're tying his hands behind his back because this has to get going so I understand we don't want to rush when when we choose things and I understand the program was not run as efficiently as it should have that's what I'm gathering from all the information I've got here today right and nobody has seemed to disagree with that and everybody seems to know that we need to

do better but I would hate to hold off a program that wasn't running 100% perfect when it still helped a significant amount of kids could help more if it was run more efficiently right you could say so I would hate to hold this back because we want it to r i instead I would say you know what let's push this forward let's go quick let's get it done while everybody's passionate about it while everybody's up and

running and we're going to come back and check and make sure things are going the way they should be going and we're going to be paying attention to that and there's going to be some serious accountability but I think everybody wants that right so I I just would hate to see this hold up because these kids need this they they've been without it for too long this probably should have

been done last year weren't we in school last year so I don't know I wasn't I don't know I was on the committee last year I wasn't sitting in this on this subcommittee so I'm not really sure if the RPA didn't want it back or what the deal I think it's really fair to say we had some real challenges in school leadership last year very and those challenges also did not support the

ability for this program to potentially be where it needed to be and that was the last couple of years of just all things between Co and just School leadership so so for the sake of you know pointing any fingers to any individual specifically I think the school leadership piece could have done more um we now have people at the district level that can help support this work where that was also not in

place over last year at all either um so I am fully committed to RPA and I have been very committed to the work down there um I will be working with Kyle very directly to ensure that this work goes off and working with the support staff to ensure that kids are getting recruited and making sure that we are following through on our ends and I look forward to a January report out um as

well as projected en for culinary and what that can look like come January yeah my line of questioning has nothing to do with holding anything up I don't want to hold anything up these kids I didn't say you lot of question holding it up I was just saying I have a question I don't want it to be held up so the issue that I have now is just we got 151 where's the money coming from

where it wasn't in the budget at this rate so where is it coming from and how much money we have left and that's way you come in wait not you Kevin yeah I I'm going to report out on Monday night so we had a placeholder for all of these yes and this isn't included in it no so you're going to have to come up with something else to tell us and I and

I want you to know we've sorry we've included Kevin along the way to be able to speak to that so he understood where we were looking for and that's why you know we wanted to make sure he was here with us too because I know we need him to make this you know support this move so he was looped in with our conversations particularly once Megan and I and Kyle um got to a place of

understanding where we were for the financial number yep no I I get it and I want to I want to move it forward but I do think we need a a checking we need to be able to have the ability to say hey time out this isn't working but along the way with this conversation you talk about the alternative school they need after school after hours you need wraparound services and all that stuff

at the budget time at the budget time I personally said to the principal of the school superintendent the assistant superintendent the finance people that when you're creating all these new positions they need to be stagged hours before we start to do this I said that in a public meeting and you know what it fell on it was crickets because we got the same that thing that wasn't working an

alternative school needs to have alternative options how you pay people when you pay them and the like we got nothing through the budget related to that so when I come at it like well where's this I've asked for this stuff for years we were going positive 3 4 years ago with these programs with a different direction we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in Grants that we received and to to be moving forward and

you know what we went backwards I said it she said it at the subcommittee that we've had over and over we're going backwards and we were allowing it that's why I'm a little less wan to just jump here because we've asked this so I trust the people that have in play now I just think that we need to we need to all get on the same page but with that being

said I'd also like on Monday for a presentation of how much money is in in the budget for RPA for schoool staff to be tutoring counseling anything else after school uh including home visit hours for administrators for counselors for whoever I want all of that information for what's specifically to the alternative school and if it's and if it's nothing just be honest because we have some money to put in but we need

to be able to say this is what was going on when I worked down there we did uh after hours we used to go knock on doors it was very successful so if we're going to give money to everybody else agencies and the like because we need to do this we need to give the money there and I don't want to hear somebody say oh those people get paid enough already they got to work 18

hours a day no if he needs some money to put some people out to go and do what we need to do we need to give him the money and I my gut tells me there's not a chunk of money in that budget so I'd like on Monday to have at least something to say 50 Grand 75 grand let the principal make the decisions on who we can give the extra hours to with that

I'm looking for a motion to move forward motion to refer motion made seconded all in favor I both so voted thank you for the presentation thank you everyone byeone thank you your week so um so Youth Court the youth court is the other one that's like time sensitive yes so um I did did you happen to get the supp I apologize that those did not get LinkedIn last night they were on my kitchen table and they

were not readily available um I can't read them if they're on the kitchen table I know and I I was literally thinking about it this morning when I was working out oh my God I didn't Lo those in and fop um so I just want to speak a little bit about youth Corp um I shared with you um 2009 through 2023 Youth Court program totals I had a hard copy and now I can't find my hard

cop or maybe I didn't have a hard copy you that that or this one I didn't have that I sent it I emailed it this printed it it was confusing oh you printed it sorry I don't have a fancy printer okay sorry I apologize Bo problem just go through and let us know the summary so the summary is this um Youth Court I'm speaking now as a former principal I'm speaking um as someone who's worked with

youth court um both as a guidance counselor and as a former principal um that when the contract for Youth Court historically has come forward it has been a $445,000 contract here in the city for the last one 2 three four four four years it's been a $45,000 contract uh when we look at students served the thing about youth Corp as I've come to learn now at the district level uh they're funded through a number of

different funding sources um but they support all students as it relates to Bristol County right um Fall River because we refer a number of students as a an alternative to suspension which is now part of the state law we have been given a $445,000 contract with youth court because of the number of students that we serve through the program when I asked about Bristol counties uh towns

like Westport Somerset Dartmouth they do not pay an additional amount to youth court because they do not use the services in the number in the amount with which Fall River does right across our public school system so if you when you do notice the data you'll notice there's going to be a column total youth served Fall River that is the number of students across all of the schools in Fall River chter

Argy and or any students that get referred through the court system because the court system can also refer to Youth Court if you look at the second column the total for of a public schools students served those numbers you know last year specifically we served 58 students the year prior they served 83 students and keep in mind those are the successful completions of the program that is not the referrals

that the foral public schools make and then some students are not successful upon completion right so when we look at the programs uh youth court has grown in their program offerings originally they were in eighth grade like a middle school and high school program and really when you start getting to high school you're really only looking at your freshman maybe sophomores because

then kids Bland old enough that they can be charged by the courts right um always an option for all kids depending upon what the incident is but in many cases as kids get older youth Corp is less effective based on the nature of the program model right that being said they've also added a brighter Futures program that really supports predominantly our fourth and fifth graders as another mode to the vehicle

right because youth Corp is a program when you complete it once you're not allowed to repeat the program so as we needed something for our Upper Elementary School Youth Court Rose to the challenge they created brighter Futures in addition to that as we move forward youth court has just developed a vaping cessation program um this will work in conjunction with what we are currently developing within the

department of where we're looking to create um essentially diversion programs in house so that for kids that get caught with firsttime offenses in certain categories will put them through an educational cycle um of professional development and knowledge building and really really building kids understanding of how they're hurting themselves based on for this case we'll use vaping as an example right but youth

court now has a tier 2 intervention program that will give our schools another leg of an opportunity to avert suspension by using this program so I'm very very confident that our numbers are going to continue to Rise um because of the fact that they've got this vaping program in in addition to that going into this year in addition to that when I met with youth court uh one of the

pieces that was written into the program in black and white which was a little shocking to me was that RPA students were not eligible for Youth Court I understood their rationale for where there was some hesitation around program successfulness however I told um Terry when I was meeting with her that I could not support and ask for a further contract if we were not going to be open

for conversation for students from every school within the for of public schools to have access I said furthermore I really think we need to be looking at our middle schools making sure that every student goes through youth Corp before they're even referred to RPA um as another step Factor along the way but again I'm learning about some of these pieces of how things have have been

navigated over the years and so we're going to put some of these things in place that being said originally back in I don't know if it was July or August to be completely honest with you but when the original contract came forward we had budgeted for the 45,000 as we always had historically we just paid the $45,000 contract when we received it in if you notice on the back of this kind

of hardto read contract it you can note in the fine print that it was they were requesting the 108,000 of an increase so I'm bringing this before the committee because the request of 45 was asked for an additional amount of funding I know firsthand how effective these programs are for our schools and for us to be able to really meet the demands of the law also create viable options that I

have also seen firsthand truly be effective for our kids right um so I am asking the committee um to refer this to the lodger committee to increase the funding to the offset to the 108 um to be able to meet the demands of the contract I told Terry you know every year annually we would have to come back to the table take a look at the numbers make sure that we're serving the number

of students to the same token of RPA I don't want to just we're not just going to cut a check every year we want to make sure the programs meet our needs um and so that was why we were coming back for a second we've already paid them the 45 so I want to be clear with the committee on that they've already they've already we assigned that contract in August that was approved

back in August um and we received that right after and we received and we received this right after that meeting or at least it landed in my desk right after that meeting which is where the difference came up from so we would like to to be able to support the request for that contract um knowing that we're in a place that we can support the request for that contract but talking about where our

funding is going as a district I made it very clarit ter that we need to be able to look forward and make sure that these additional programs are going to meet our needs and that we are serving the number of students that we anticipate being able to serve between The Vaping piece that we know has been a big issue at our secondary schools um as well as leveraging the brighter Futures program

that is also not widely accessed across all elementary schools so that will be a layer of education for elementary principles to make sure all principles are aware of this service youth courp for the middle schools has been widely used some schools use it more than others um but we are looking to push that out again speaking about some policies and and procedures as it relates to making sure that kids are

given this as an intervention any questions so the 45 was just that sorry sorry so the 45 was just I thought you saw me when I looked at you um the 45 was just for the Youth Court so they're saying that this increase is because they're bringing in the brighter Futures and The Vaping no they're speaking to the increase because they have not in they have not increased funding over the last few years right so

they decide to triple it so with minimum wage going up absolutely right the minimum wage going up the state funding that they've received has also not changed so their state funding light items has been consistent as well um and the services that they continue to provide as it relates to community service on Saturday the youth court jury and being part of the jury duty the folks that they need

to pay the kids that they pay because if we know how the jury duty works it's our floriva students that run the courts and whatnot um and so as a result of increasing cost of St so if you also notice the cost per student yeah um the program is about a four Monon commitment just so you understand too Youth Court is not like a drive-thru experience it takes about four months for the kids to

complete the program so after all the hours of case management after all the hours of you know supporting community service and navigating the elements of right you know all of the different interventions that become part of every kid's case File it was originally if you look back historically it started at around 1,200 student $1,200 per student as a case consult it then Rose to,500 per case

consult and now with the increase of inflation and minimum wage and other pieces it's up to about 1,800 so as a result of that and the increase in programming that they're looking to bring forward um it felt responsible it didn't and it felt as though it was in line with where other programs had been um and so I want to be able to bring this forward um and if the committee

does not feel that 108 uh 108 108 I'm sorry doesn't want to move to the 108 number I am just asking that we consider an increase from the 45 based on those other elements MRI so where are we at with the RPA conversation because I as we know I'm not very good at hiding my face so when you said they they will be they will be they all of our for of a public schools

will have opportunity to be part of they will okay because it sounded like were they open to a conversation and then that's sort of where it landed oh I'm sorry no they will they will cuz I was not coming before you without it being 100% of our schools that was a condition that was a condition for me to move for I the conversation was a condition the way that that was initially okay because

that and we will case consult on every student from Stone and RPA to make sure that it's not a you're doing this or because as we know youth you know Youth Court takes a particip a participatory agreement on both parties right um and so they want to be sure because they have not had success previously with students from those schools um that we are having conversation about supporting

the students to be successful and that families are involved with getting involved that being said I also feel we need to be working with our Middle School principles to ensure prior to an RPA referral that youth courp is part of that students Intervention Program before getting there whenever the opportunity presents itself if it's warranted correct there are some kids I think for a long time we've just used

RPA as you Behavior issue corre we had send them over but that's not what RPA was supposed to be so you know I feel a little bit more comfortable with that um my my other question it's not about youth court but it it is about youth court but not in terms of whether or not we should approve a contract with them it's more of what are the preventative pieces that we're doing before a kid

gets to the point where we're going to look at referring a kid to youth court so it is a voluntary piece for families families have to agree to participate in that program but I'd want to know what are we doing before we sit down with the family and say we suggest sending this kid over to youth court because I've been part of those conversations before with families where that's the first

time there's ever been a conversation about a kid's presentation in the building or it's been one particular incident and these are some of the littlest guys so I want to make sure that we're doing a really good preventative job and that this doesn't come out of nowhere for a family yeah I would agree with you I mean that's never been my experience personally as a building leader I don't know

specifically how every building functions at that level but I can tell you you know based on my own experience with using Youth Court as an alternative it becomes the fourth or fifth or sixth intervention um with a family and with a student depending upon what that incident is with a student right I think that's another caveat too right like there there's going to be one-offs with kids that occur and and and for some

kids a quick opportunity in youth cour is going to be just what they need to keep them straight and keep them moving right um and for our more repeat offenders um ensuring that we have intermittent interventions in place consistent interventions in place I should say and on and in in many many cases as we know those conversations with families are ongoing going weekly bi-weekly um and on a regular basis last

year I just sat with last school year I sat with three families whose kids had been referred at the elementary Lev fourth and fifth graders um that were referred to brighter Futures without any previous discussion about that kid's presentation and so you know as a outside provider as a clinician that's concerning so I just want to make sure that we're following through on those pieces that we're doing the prevent at

work I think you is a great option because it connects our kids to other resources in the community they get some of the supports and services they need and it's absolutely 100% better than sending our kids through you know the traditional legal system because not every kid needs that yeah I agree I would agree I think some of the answer I think on the it the charter or whatever if I recall from the youth court was

about had to be a firsttime offense had to be so I think some of those things fly in the face of what we're asking them to do so I'm okay if they're going to amend their rules in Charter or whatever but I my history with them was first time offense only like so sometimes if a kid's been at RPA they they've had four or five different things already happen and then

they got referred so then when they go and say how many times you've been in trouble kid and then the kid says oh 14 the Youth Court wouldn't take them for that reason so if they want to tweak it I think it's a good a good program to start with after all it is a diversionary program so you're right yeah they don't want to divert it it's like a first time diversion rather than

you've done some other stuff so all those things are are are well and good the one of my concerns is that when we were going through the budget process for these um allotments of money I asked at the time this is over a year ago before we just give money we need to know what it is why it is and I appreciate that we're here now but it's October we did the

budget in August so we need to do that what we're doing now before we agreed to that 45,000 I I was under the belief that after asking the administration to do that that that was checked out and that the you know what we were voting on was what they really wanted and what we could back up as administrators to say that's what it is so I'm a little upset

by looking at that and say even if it came in after so if we did it in August and we said 45,000 and that came to somebody afterwards saying we needed 120 well what happened August after we got that we haven't heard anything now for so just to yeah I think it's just a matter of like you know again stepping into this role of understanding what contracts do we even have out there what

are their fiscal years and if their fiscal years don't match up to our fiscal year then we that's where we need to start into those conversations right so as part of my work moving forward getting a handle on these contracts is there an anticipated increase what is that going to look like in preparation for our budget has to be part of the process because all of this really and there's a few there there is one other

that will come next not now but the Katy Brown ground contract that has not yet been finalized as I'm coming to understand these things need to be taken care of in July right because that way we're ready to go come all come August school committee and we're starting in September so that all of our contracts are ready to go and the services can be rendered to our kids and families and

schools can plan forward for them right it it's all these pieces together so I just want you to understand like you know again being responsible for I just wanted to speak to where I've been at with it it has been brought up for years and we now I think getting to the point of what we need to do some of them would get 45 Grand some of them get 90

grand some of them get this amount you know the CAC used to get zero you know like so there's really contract there's like a Rhyme or Reason on what we do and why so then we just being part time don't get into all this we need you guys to do it then you say this is why it makes sense this is not and it doesn't matter who's on the board or who's on

this and whatever pet projects you know to make people happy it's about what's the services for the kids and if the services are no longer yield the result and outcomes that we're looking for then maybe we need to part ways with some and reestablish with new ones correct and so that is also where I'm at in looking at wait a minute just because we've done this for 20 years does that make sense

and maybe not 20 might be an exaggeration but we just need to make sure we just need to make sure that the program especially as we move forward and looking at the way in which we're interpreting the alternative to suspension piece of the law to Sarah's Point making sure that there are interventions that lead up to these lodger interventions but I think it's also matter of we've added so many new

support staff over the last couple of budget Seasons it's also and principles come and going in the last couple of years so there's an element to this also that needs to be educating the folks that are implementing these programs running these programs and referring to these programs I'm sure it's going to work out I would also ask on Monday that we find out where this is money is

coming from the same and with that um entertain a motion motion to refer motion to refer seconded all in favor I I appreciate that thank you for the additional all in favor the um you want table we're gonna um I want to see if we can we're going to have to table a few of these because so some of these are longer conversations but I recently asked the superintendent

to clar one of the things I put on wasn't necessarily clear so we had the Miss Oben Chain's curriculums from the sub separates or whatever so I'd like to skip around and just ask because she's here I want to get a quick update on that because it's probably quicker than some of the other discussions so the before you go there and I make a I just the the attendance policy piece um specifically the language piece

around the D4 is there possible that we can just attend to even if it's the first we're going to jump right to that so we're going to do her and then you the like the attendance F will have to table the other two okay so y so it's my understanding that this committee um approved the curriculum called attainment for Community Based um um which is a K12 curriculum focuses on more functional academics and some life

skills um that is being implemented in all of our community Bas programs they all have all the materials for it so expensive Warden cus and dery um we provided PD during the year last year for all of the teachers to get up to speed and get the curriculum rolling out the additional that worked fine um the feedback from the teachers was fine we didn't have a a great way to collect the

data on the kids um because it wasn't like an online component so different people did it differently teachers left all of that stuff that's one of the goals for this year is to collect the data on start like benchmarking the beginning of the year then collecting it over the year but um since last year we now have uh new teachers so we are currently working with the attainment company to bring more professional

development so the new teachers can get up to speed however I was able to assign some of our cluster coordinators who are special education teachers most of them have worked in substantially separate programs before um to work with the community based teachers on around using the curriculum that we have on lesson planning and implementation because they Haven gone through the formal training

with the vendor yet um so that's in the works uh let's see yeah any questions specifically on attainment any questions you said that there was no online tracking system not that there wasn't one but it wasn't used with Fidelity enough that we could rely on that okay that was part of the conversation that we had yeah they had the ability to do it but it wasn't and there wasn't the oversight in all of those pieces last

year any questions on the attainment PO no go ahead um the other one was I believe was Styer Fitzgerald which was really for our intensive autism um population and that was basically at Henry Lord K through 8 um so I'm not really sure how but the because I was not here but probably the end of the school year around June I was contacted by unique Learning Systems um which is a curriculum provider that

we've already had in the district we had 45 licenses at the end of last year some of which weren't even used and it was like 48,000 or something like that when I asked the vendor like wait a minute we already we already have this in the in the um District I wasn't sure where it was used who had it they actually sent me a list of teachers who were assigned to the

licenses it was primarily up at dery that they had the licenses for this also had the news to you component so it looked like some of the teachers were accessing um the news to you feature but not actually the curriculum as I went through the demo of what the curriculum looked like deciding if we were going to renew that contract for or the subscription not the cont review renew the

subscription I thought about Henry Lord and I wanted to get some more input on sty Fitzgerald so I pulled in the cluster coordinator who was part of making the decision of Styer Fitzgerald and then asked her the diff asked her to watch the demo with me look at the difference with Styler Fitzgerald I learned at that time Styler Fitzgerald's primarily instruct instructional modality is discreet trial

training which is not effective to do with a student six hours a day all day every day so we had this unique Learning System we had we had a sty fitgerald I brought the supervisor from last year the cluster coordinator um and showed them they had no idea that we even had this opportunity or had this um curriculum in the district to begin with so I had them go back talk to the

teachers about it again and I know I mean I'm just being transparent on kind of what unfolded right frustration is not when I look at unique Learning Systems it is um it provides not only support for teachers for Lessing plan has embedded Scaffolding in it and it's aligned to the state standards so students with our most significant needs are getting access to state standards it was a no-brainer for me on the sense

of like this is what we need not that discreet child training doesn't have a place in some capacity for some students it's just not a primary instruction modality that has been beneficial for our students nor do we have the Staffing it's basically oneto one um instructional uh modality and we don't have enough Staffing in all of these programs so what we are doing now is we so when I worked with unique Learning

Systems over the summer we had a a three-hour PD um through a webinar that was already from last year's subscription so we used that over the summer to start showing our staff and getting the teachers on board they absolutely loved it and felt much more confident in being able to work with the students because again it did that scaffolding you know even if you're in eighth grade reading at a third grade

level the content that you're getting is developmentally appropriate for an eighth grader right you're not going to get a nursery rhyme piece um so I went through with dery and a couple of the middle schools some of the teachers had access I went through and really looked at the hours the teacher actually logged on to Unique learning and I shuffled the licenses around so when we renewed the subscription it was

actually less licenses we didn't need to so we actually had a decrease in funding it went from like 40 I think it ended up to be like 34 or something that we already you know we would need the subscription and we kept kept it going having said that they're already on board so not only and the committee already approved the the subscription so it provides the ongoing professional development and the licenses for um

Henry Lord and it's going phenomenal over there they're coming in on November 7th to do the full PD so we still have the discret trial training they are using it as more of the um intervention supplemental if they feel like that would be beneficial based on bcba input custom coordinator input um for the students but over this year we will track how often they are using that versus unique learning systems and make

some decisions when that piece comes for review any questions M Rogers less question more comment this was the conversation that we had last June and you weren't here so I do not for one second want you to hear this as I'm frustrated with you because that is not the case at all what's frustrating is that we had this conversation and asked multiple times is this a purely DDT um type of program and

the answer was no we're not going to be providing this that's there's way more to it than that and in reality there wasn't and so you know for anyone who's not familiar with with what that looks like it's one toone drill Based Teaching and I don't know a student that can sit there for six hours a day in their school day one to one with a staff person being drilled on curricular Ms

that's not genuine learning and that was the coners ation that we had so unique Learning System sounds like it's much more appropriate developmentally um and then you know if we supplement with uh discret trials then so be it but this was the concern so when these questions came up there was a lot of push back we had two separate meetings about it there was a ton of push back on NOP this is

the best one I don't know why you're asking these questions but this is why because it's not appropriate for our kids and so we've got to make sure that we're doing things that are developmentally appropriate and it sounds like you found the thing that we were using but then that's also concerning because we had this and it seems like no one really knew yeah well we knew at the high school they knew they used at

right the people at Henry didn't have the opportunity to even look at it they didn't know it was an option but I don't know how those things were picked or anything like that but any questions on that no I share Sarah's concern because I was at the meeting I was criticized from Administration from staff from whoever trying to say we're not meeting quick enough we didn't do all all this nonsense and then to hear

what I'm hearing today it really gets me angry because how many how much more how many more times are we going to do the same thing over and over and nobody's held accountable to presenting false information poor information not sharing information and it has nothing to do with you either but go back I'm going to ask that by Monday I want a report that says go back and do the research I want to know who was

there I want to be able to tell all of the committee members what happen so that everybody can see this is how something like this happens we should not be paying for any kind of curriculum that everybody doesn't know that we shouldn't have it and we shouldn't have these kind of conversations that have to say we should have we had it in one place we didn't know we had licenses that we didn't

use i' I'm totally burnt out with these same ation happening so I was frustrated because we went and said we were going to I think we even met on multiple times to say no we're not trying to put a stop to this we're trying to make sure it's the right thing to do and got criticized for it and then it's like okay so now it comes out that what we were Waring about

was right but at some point somebody's got to be held accountable for not sharing the information we got levels of administration prior to you coming we had a director we had an assistant director we got high school we got Middle School we got this we got that they're all supposed to be talking to each other other in the department to hear this now is like we have a whole broken system of people that just don't

talk to each other and we just keep on spending money foolishly so I'm totally for it if you need more money for it I'll go for it but I think the I think the frustration is well warranted what do you need La I just think it's well warranted that this is just not right know that like I will continue to bring these things forward be transparent I'm happy to share any of that and we

appreciate it and totally that's how we're going to do that I think it's a great it's a good reason to have the quick meeting like this or that section we can put that behind us and move on but I really want to get some sort of background on what happened um lastly before we end Dr B you have a one piece of the attendance review is that what I mean at least the first piece the second

piece you know maybe we can table for later for the time sake or we can include it now it's completely up to you guys leave it to the just the common language piece because I have other questions about D4 that I don't think that we don't have time for that and I don't want want to it's 6 o00 on a Friday night I'm not going to do that to people that's a really awful thing to do

so the part that I wanted to move forward was the the impact on the grade D that was the section we wanted to move forward and what is it the only change that we were looking to so this language has already been approved the only change that we were looking to make was connecting the D4 policy to daily attendance and not class attendance from a monitoring perspective up at the high

school particularly mainly it is a total Beast to navigate and manage the class attendance piece as it relates to the attendance policy it was piloted last year Drew you can speak to that maybe um where the daily absence was used as opposed to the class attendance as it relates to the D4 piece of the policy the the policy right now as it was approved in August speaks to class attendance and at the executive

meeting last week it came up because we were approaching progress report Court time around last year and piloting daily attendance as opposed to class attendance for the attendance policy we are working extremely hard right now across the district as it relates to daily attendance um just as just for you to know this week was an amazing week in the for of public schools we had upwards

of nine I think it was like nine schools that were above 94 and 95% attendance for the week and that is a count of four days because we run the weekly attendance from Friday Frid through Thursday so we can report out weekly um La yesterday alone the district had a 94% attendance rate um so we are working really really hard and we have attendance monitors and and really boots on the ground around daily attendance

and so we feel right now we can do a really great job and be accurate and articulate and collaborate with kids um around the de the daily and the doing the buyback and earning the buyback um in a way that we didn't have as many hands in the pie right now at dery specifically there's upwards of 30 attendance monitors um I've been working with Jess Stevens and the vice principls and the attendance monitors up there I

mean at every school but specifically up at the high school um and the middle schools so I just want to be able to request that we make the change to be that of daily and not class all can I just ask a question I'm looking at the first paragraph that's DA's uh bolded but it says you're going to use the buyback provision so if we had if I was when you using daily instead of

class what if I just cut her class all the time I don't get a D4 to 65 in her class and I show up to all your classes you do however we in speaking with principal dearis he felt as though we are addressing the class cutting through disciplinary procedures and following up on the class cut discipline side of the house working with kids and looking at each individual kid who are chronic

class Cutters to your point intervening on that intervening on that along the way but not having it tied to the policy specific specifically as it relates to the D4 so it's a management issue not reality it's more of of trying to manage it versus trying to manage it with Fidelity and trying to manage it in a way that we have equity in the way it's being managed right to your point there

are some classes that meet three days a week there's some classes that meet too right and so if I happen to miss on the Tuesday every single Tuesday right at this point now we have so many hands on attendance those things are going to get picked up in a way that I wouldn't have been as confident about in years past but I that was my exact question to principal dearis is well we don't not

every class runs Monday through Friday we don't have a static schedule so how do we work for those classes if kids are circumventing particular classes they don't want to go to and how does that work out and his response to me was as gr as as office teams we are on top of the class cutting piece and that conversation gets intercepted at at multiple points beyond the back beyond the buyback Point Mr but okay so

four unexcused daily absences so that means if I have an unexcused absence uh and it doesn't say consecutive does it in a term so if I have four unexcused absences in a term not related to the class then my grade gets so in every class in every class so let's say I'm showing up at biology every time and the only class to Mr aga's point that I'm missing is whatever I'm going to get a DM biology

and then I'm going to I'm going to buyback biology points when I was there how does that work do you understand what I'm saying cuz I kind of gut it when we were talking about absences of of a class right okay it's a buyback program you owe that teacher right you were supposed to show up and you didn't show up if this was a job and your teacher was your employer

you missed several days of work but that shouldn't mean like my other job that I am showing I don't know can you just kind of like rationalize it in my head for for me um so to try to uh clarify so if you're absent for the day you're absent in every single one of your classes so the policy request would be like I don't interrupt you but I'm sorry maybe I'm

not familiar then I thought if you were late and still shuted up you could still be considered like if you missed a certain amount of the day you could still be considered absent is that true or no depends on the amount of time how late you come in so it's it's possible that I do attend Dr brownan science class every time but yet have several unexcused absences right okay sorry goad

um yes uh you're correct so if it's more I think it's more if you're absent more than half the day you can still be marked absent um and really the the request for the change is to it's a management issue but it's also to align with the priorities there's such a focus on with the attendance Liaisons right now in the daily Adent and kind of helping students get on a path where they're not chronically absent from

school tool that this is a tool that can be used in conversations uh when um the Liaisons are meeting with the attendance officers and the students and families uh so we see it um really as an alignment of that work um in a tool in the toolkit to help students develop good habits so the BuyBacks are they have to be in school on time five days in a row with good

behavior um to earn that buyback um to make that absence uh excused and really uh to get um to help them kind of develop those those healthy habits that will sustain success so really speaking kids could kids could technically be absent upwards of six day SE well six you can buy back up to two absences so four plus the two six days kids could be absent up to six

days buy back the two and get the grade they earned in their class if that makes sense yes it does yes so the only way that the 6 the only way that the you don't earn the grade that you got in your class is if you don't come to school meet the buyback criteria and you have gone above the number of absences required allowed within the policy I got a 100 questions on this like Miss Rogers

I'm sure does so I would ask is this on the agenda on Monday is it currently on our agenda for I don't think so no so can we just I would say we we'll scheduled because we have a couple other ones before like between this meeting before the next regular meeting because then this change would have to go there anyway and then in the meantime we can shoot you emails to Madam superintendent

about the question because I've sat with many years of this the D4 this that and the other thing and I I got my some strong feelings about what it is one thing I can ask for as part of just giving us data is where we say class attendance and cutting is a disciplinary response I would like a report from the start of the school year of all of the the that exact thing what was the attendance

cutting class the disciplinary response and the result so that we can get to F feel like what is this is it we're talking 100 kids we're talking five kids did anybody ever do it with it so that's kind of the background I'm looking for I'd be interested in knowing too if if any kids have actually not graduated or failed because of this I just want yeah that we can get all that I just want you

to know right now the policy is currently already approved cuz we approved yeah we know that yeah you're looking for a change correct the change from class to daily that was it with that change that that change cuz the policy is in place that's my point we're just changing it to make it easier for you to stop doing it now okay I get what my question is as we because now first

term is going to come and go before we come back to the November school committee meeting so can we put it on October's so the question is you can't do that it's too late right Monday October's meeting the question though is based on everything you said we have an we have a policy that the dery administration recommended to us didn't come out of us well not the dery administration we recommend it as a as a

committee as a committee as the attendance committee we recommend it came before this committee the school committee to support we came before the policy subcommittee we approved it is my point so people had their bite at the Apple to say what they wanted or to go against it now I want to know is it being implemented as we have or is it just we don't agree with it so we're not

implementing it so if the first term's over and that was the policy then the high school should have the data on what they've been doing for every one of those kids not assuming that we were going to change it that so I when I ask for the data it should show a all slow kids that were missing x amount of classes have d4s and they likee so that's just how I um I think about it

but I do appreciate everybody on a Friday night coming I know nobody has anything so I just have one more question about this this this change here that before we leave this quick question so we there's no way to get this word changed before like nove this is my only thing I get that it should have it should it it should have been done whatever but the reality is Dr

Brad's coming to us saying hey and as as well as not just her saying hey we can't gather this data this is cumbersome it' be much easier if we could gather this data this way and if we can gather the data better it's going to be better for the students so I understand maybe we don't maybe we don't love the policy that's what I'm asking so how do we change it we we cannot have an agenda

item posted at this time because of the notice so that's the reason why if we had an agenda item here you know preemptively that would have said on Wednesday we want to have a potential for an attendance week but we didn't do that so now it's too late for us okay but it can go in November then I guess we're going to have a all subcommittee meeting between now and the November

we'll cash it out so that in November we don't talk about it for two hours we'll have it drilled down sounds good any other I wasn't sure any other new business anything can I get a table things there anything else that has to be T I would say we don't even need to we have to table we don't need to table them we'll just we're going to put them on the next agenda motion to seconded

all in favor I voted thank you all