10.9.2024 FRPS Special/Alternative Education and Early Childhood Subcommittee

okay we're going to call together the special ed alternative Ed and early childhood subcommittee Wednesday October 9th 2024 call Ro Mr here Mr Cory here M here everyone rise and salute the flag to the flag United States of America to the for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all first one to the open meeting wall any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting 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 do we have any citizen input time we have no citizen input time I want to ask that we take a couple of items out of the order so that the staff that is here can present what they need to and then they

can head home to their families so the first one is going to be this last uh 3.08 update on special education Staffing um assistant superintendent Oben sure so to the at the start of the year we had 65 open special education position um we have filled 12 of those positions out of the 53 positions that remained open 11 of them are inclusion teachers 14 of them are Subs substantially separate classroom

teachers 18 of them are power professionals that work in our substantially separate classrooms and then seven others are non-classroom staff so two team chairs um some slps and a psychologist so those types of we also have a few staff on leave that are not represented in our in our vacancies um we have started to transition our annual meetings from our teachers to our team chairs um and we

are monitoring on a monthly basis um what those meetings are looking like and to make sure that we have Equity amongst everyone for how cases are assigned any any questions specifically U just want to know the overall health of of the department you guys getting it done I know I know there's still some vacancies you know so trying to fill in those gaps I realize how's it all how's it all F I mean I

think that everybody is doing the best they can every day right so um every day there are challenges when it comes to Staffing for you know students in their needs and but again I think that we have a great team of people that are committed to doing the work and supporting our students and help helping each other so um I think that we there have just layers of support in each building for special education had

enough support with the adjustment councils the adjustment counsels are a big part of the support that you're working hard for it yeah of course of course um they don't work directly for me but they are you know working with our students daily as far as recruiting new Talent are you guys actively trying to recruit you got like I'm not talking about job phas I'm talking about maybe

some PR work with the colleges around or anything like that yep so um we do have Mr L isn't here but we do have a couple options to try to even um recruit and retain staff so we have some um cour work through Bridgewater I can't remember which one it is or UMass UMass stas um some cour workk that our own staff can take if they're working in um our their special education population

and they want to gain their skills we also have regular um kind of communication with colleges in the area to try to send them uh send us candidates we also I've offered on several occasions to go out and speak to potential special education candidates um but it's been rough even the agencies I mean we're very fortunate that the committee you know authorized us to um reach out to some agencies and even the

agencies struggle with the teaching population we only been able to recruit probably three or four teachers from the agencies and the rest of the staffing has been from par professionals um but we are looking at the Paras that we are getting that have bachelor's degrees and seeing if they're interested in kind of you know pursuing um special education so that we can help them get their

certification they can stay with us if you move par into a teacher position of course their payers W up right there's um the contract language I think talks about yes something uh per period yes $10 per period yes and they do have um one of the things we are working on now is a supervision plan for those Paris and that way they understand how what support they're going to get so who is

the special certified special education um teacher that is going to support them with lesson planning um just classroom management just questions on IEPs um and then we do have some of our current specialized teachers supporting IEP writing PR reports but they're collecting all the data just one more question as a result of all of this are the class sizes slightly larger in Especial at classroom whether it be

inclusion what sub that so I mean all of the classes across the district honestly are pretty full but yes so are um substantially separate classrooms across the district tend to be at the highest number they can be um which is around 12 students between 10 and 12 on average um we are working really hard with our elementary school and need some of our middle school kids to give them more

opportunities to participate in the general education setting um but the general education classrooms are very large across the district thank you the 14 sub separate classrooms if those are being filled by a par then does that mean we short 30 something Paris with those numbers sort of add up so I'm sorry so 14 11 inclusion 14 substantially separate teachers and are they all filled by par

professionals yes but those the 18 par professional positions are outside of the positions that move to teaching rules right so that there's more openings in Paris than here because there creating yeah because can't count it twice so yeah we're not counting it twice yes it's just that's a concerning number obviously um and and honestly we started the year off with 65 and we were able to fill a bunch and then people

just keep leaving on us so um agencies I've had a conversation with the agencies I needed to be very transparent on you know the types of students they're going to work with the expectations when they're there you know like we do have students that require toileting and that's just part of the job and then they get here they say say yes they get here and they don't want to do that so that's been um a challenge

too is when you approved the staff even from the agencies and then they say the the par prot test is uh you know to be El power I wonder if we when you look at trying to find that they're all over the place and you had to drive to whever is there a way that we can help facilitate that internally because y actually y actually um I think that Brian Roso and Brian l we're looking to

do a like a train the trainer so go getting getting some of our staff trained to be Trainers for ready to get the kid uh the St ready to take the parro test and then from there seeing what we need um seeing if we can become a host site for the test of course we want to train we want not train we want to give um pars the confidence to take

the test and so this you know I people literally have to drive to Lake to get the test which is something that doesn't make sense Mr C so one more question l so back in the day we had a program called the jet program Madam superintendent is that still active so we we're trying to draw within the ranks of power professionals to maybe become certified do yeah I don't have a number

on it this year to know how many people we have enrolled but we have we've had we have we've had gears with more people we've had gears with less people um I don't have a account for this year we can put that for you yeah I'm not so concerned about the count course I I just want to know that the effort still being made for recruiting so we can build our R so that's where I'm coming

from thank you very much I the question I had on the annual meetings I thank you for the information that were transitioning to have that be done all by the team chairs and I know the committee added several team chairs there a few vacancies but I think you're working on filling those as activ and the and the two vacancies for those meetings the supervisors are running those so they're not putting we're not

putting additional meetings onto our current team shairs the supervisors have taken over so this has been an ongoing thing that we hear about over and over and in a public meeting I want to St for the record that we have said all along that team ch's job is to do the meetings we also believe that if there's 180 days in the school year and let's say two meetings per day is 360 meetings per

year so I want to set for the public public to he the TV to hear and anybody else to hear that at the end of the day the team chairs need to do the work that's here we expect them to do it the right way and we don't need to keep hearing at every regular meeting that the numbers are unsustainable and we just keep doing it so this is the

meeting that I wanted to check on that process has been in place for over a year it's it's time and I appreciate your support superintendent support on that and the other assistant superintendent we have to just move move on from this but we can't have every single meeting have somebody get up to the podium on citizen input time and and tell us that they can't do two meetings a day it's unacceptable so as far as I'm

concerned we want to set the record any other questions for as we said you're free to go and have a great supper thank you the next one I'd like to move is the RBA discussion from Mr Riley and we did receive a two-pager if anybody uh you know has it uh is it all right to just pass it on or do you have anything to say ahead of time or just right to

um canar you yes yeah

mind so thanks for having us uh definitely a good start of the year for us at RPA this year uh after that discussion we came into the year last year 13 positions unfilled we are completely filled with all oppositions that out Day this year um maybe think as I was listening to it that I didn't go into the budget season this past year saying just give me more position I'm

not even sure what we knew what we needed at that point um because we were short so much so we had culinary uh culinary par but didn't ask for much after that now we're getting to the point of really seeing what the need is the building um we're seeing a pretty good rise in attendance uh um but it's gradual not significant so we're going to keep working on that uh the support

from Dr brard on Tuesday Mornings we talk about kids directly how do we support kids directly uh it's the ongoing work that we do five days a week um but we really been pointed out Tuesday morning with our staff so um we about 172 students right now if you see the numbers on your page that I provided for you seventh grade very small it starts flying from there uh we ended up

with um a pretty new middle school for us out of those 23 kids 21 of them were brand new to us we had our eighth graders going on up to ninth grade but we only had a few kids this um we're in seventh grade going to eighth grade so it's a new Bunch for us we've divided up the school in three different sections now as opposed to two in the Years pass

seventh and eighth grade are on the first floor with the nurses cafeteria gymnasium um they are be on the first floor all day everything they needs down there they have a team that supports them down there um and the good team and so we're seeing really good numbers with attendance and um progress with them uh on my floor third floor as you come in is the 11th and 12th graders really need

for them to be on that floor for guidance support if they going out to get jobs leaving early it's where they' access um the entrance exit and upstairs now just 9 to 10 before it was 789 um so as we group these Skittles together we meet their needs better uh and so it seems to be behaviorally working much better uh not that we don't still have our trials like you know we we still

have struggles here and there but I think we're just attacking in a better organized way we are um getting the kids what they need we move some people around to make sure that we do have special education support we are somewhere between 35 and 40 um end of last year like 41 were're dipped a little bit lower so we do have a lot of special head needs um that we're supporting kids through I know you

wanted to talk about that you have some questions in regards to uh culinary and people's Inc yes it's page two of it it talks about people link I think that would be um just a quick summary from you um culinary is one that I've been on since the start of the Year try to get an update on that uh so if you can get on at least those two and I have a couple more questions yeah

I'm going let Drew jump in with here because he's been sitting through some of those meetings U with reorganizational people Z we started off this year really talking about Job Readiness uh Workforce uh and having people in have their own classroom where we support um them with the guidance counselor for our class uh to be quite honest we realized it wasn't working in a few classes right away and we changed

the model a couple of times just because they need more behavioral support there from our staff um something that uh wasn't their will was more in our will to do so we support that can you speak a little bit to the yeah so our main goal for this year in our partnership with people link is uh tier one um support and services so uh reaching all the students at RPA these kind of like

foundational job Readiness or Workforce Development skills um so the way it's looking right now um principal Ry mentioned that ret toed a couple times um but in 11th and 12th grade it's a standalone class for the 11th and 12th graders and in small groups they're getting kind of individualized supports on building resumés applying for colleges or jobs so that's two periods a day um uh in the community engagement

Center and in 9th and 10th uh we started the year that way we we retooled and are now going to be pushing into the social studies classroom once a week or excuse me once five weekly the ninth graders um will get a lesson our Workshop we G the 10th graders will get a less Workshop what what do they what type of lessons are the ninth and 10th graders getting we we're working off a curriculum called

leadership 10 leadership you uh that a lot of life skills and Workforce Readiness skills communication resilience go setting is best are they being graded they're not being graded uh right now okay because they're not being graded do they hold it in in enough esteem to absorb the cost work or are they just blowing it off when we originally had them in the CC for the first you know

three weeks of the year uh we've had we had a lot of behavior challenges we had some disengagement we had about half the students who were interested in buying in but some of the other students were making it challenging um it's really what why um you know them to reach the model hopefully this will be you know better so as you retool the model you're going to continually monitor it and

refine it as needed correct yes have a bi-weekly meeting on Thursday mornings with people L uh just to talk about U you know the curriculum and supports also we're developing a speaker series um where um you know various professions are going to come into our PA to speak students the year seven and eight specific speaker series for seven and eight a separate speaker series for 910

and another separate speaker series for 112 we're also working getting students outside of RPA job visits for industry tours internships we haven't gotten to internships uh yet at this point uh at this point we're talking we're working with kids on the foundational skill building a rese intervie skills uh in the CC and also working on to get kids out to uh different Industries um

whether it's Toyota d whether it's you know a restaurant if they're interested in culinary or a firehouse how about the technical institutes UTI places like that yeah we just started having conversations uh with the electrical union to come in um and U typically in the fall we have a a career fair which is really a speaker series in different classrooms so students can sign up so on

setting that up either as a one- day event or a multi uh multi event where every couple weeks a people speakers come in in different is dery after do still hooked up with diamond dery after dark is not hooked up with diamond but in our new cohort um we have two RPA students uh who just enroll in the cosmetology program that just started um um so we have uh CT after d in cosmetology and construction cohorts

that just launched as a cosmetology just launched the new C of extruction will be launching soon and we're actively removing both dery

and just for Yeah couple of questions so right now the obviously the the kitchen is in done right so what's the hold up right now I mean obviously it's appliances have deliver is that us who paid for themid for what but appan we've had three appliances delivery one was a stove uh and two were F on refrigerator um I think there's a little base FL stove come in a couple of other

components come in before start they did complete uh fling well not complete pluming in that room so far that's about it okay so they're cooking in the classroom they're doing simple recipes we actually had an open house last week the kids made jams for a chy board they learn how to cut cheeses in different ways that kind of stuff because you don't have the capacity to do something bigger um but things like that

making don't you need to do that maybe a here there okay okay so the question about that maybe would be better to be asked by whoever puts in the stove so I'm just curious is it just me or it's been a while it's have been done right so I don't mean to just keep asking but I just maybe I'm asking the wrong person should I be asking K you who's responsible for cooking up that

kitchen I believe order to the order I believe we pay the bill okay and I believe that we've been told that it is literally like in a warehouse waiting to be delivered but that's been weeks right yeah okay we can just check I hate to see the missing out on that experience you know what I mean um and then you said speaker series we're talking about speaker series true um are

these just employers that are coming in like career speakers or is this text school or is it the plan is for it to be both it hasn't started yet for this school year um and our last meeting with people L you talked about um survey the students in different um career industries that they were interested in so they have a list and um People Incorporated uh started the reach out

process and mass hire as well to use them as a resource it continues to grow in the sense like we had United Way We Were lucky enough to be receiving to the teachers closet City and during that they had their first board meeting right way at our building and so I get to come in again talk to how much of mentors all those things and like three people from the board said we speaking to school so

it's going to grow us we got one of the best two of the best I think speakers speaking series that we had one was a minority female plumber so the kids really like okay I think we was too like see that off uh and the other one back eight previous students who graduated and G toon r that was sitting in the same seats of students were prior to so I think that was uh

get them deep those are always the best speakers for sure but I was just I guess my line of questioning was sort of about do we have not only technical schools like BCC somebody who represents a fouryear traditional colge we also have that as well correct I'm just yeah yeah there's um BCC specifically does onsite you know C onsite spot BCC where students can kind of cycle around apply the

financial account so that has happened yet but it typically happens you know the late winter early spring also getting the El graders set up fire the financial support they have Tex text based support umpire College affordability advisor is going in either to English or social studies classrooms to present some information uh on financial aid and also encourage students that F out the survey get the c space

support 31 students participated end last year B out of what 6 so good um yeah that was about it the only thing I think is maybe I'm hoping that maybe the kind of resistance to the sort of job job school training maybe perhaps to it's a little bit of summmer over on back at school to begin with situation what class you put me in I'm not going to it first maybe let's hope because it

is so important anyway thank you for the work yeah one more Mr Riley so it's a referral process looking like from the middle schools to RPA and from the high school to RPA I'm let me take that but only because she's done such a great job with it we have really streamlines um kids coming in and the plan for kids coming back on how attracting kids now on having good days

with weeks meeting with them in Fridays um and I think again I'll let Dr talk about it but really theer packet St that online and have shared we can get them in the blink now we don't have to go searching for the paper like we can get um put connect and on referral where they're from why they got there what we've done with them go after we' certainly strengthen the

process to have it be more systemic I think for us also we're looking for stability in the start of the school year and so as part of our communication in the spring with the schools um was that we really want to refer students to start the year that if you're if if kids are in a place that they need a different setting we don't want to disrupt our PA when they get going and

we don't want to have kids being transferred in the first few months of school um so we did a lot of transfers at the end of last year we met with families um we had tours and we took care of all that work over the summer so that the first term of this year could be stable for all parties involved um and so we will come back to revisit the transfer at the markting periods which

is what you know has been our communication uh with both families and students who are looking to either return back to dery return back to their sending middle school and or the reverse if dery is looking to send students who are struggling and not making ends meet up at the high school um so at this point we're not really doing referrals currently right now unless it's a one-off situation to support um we're

really looking to have them be at the marking of terms or the progress report or ter period just so that it's also a grading window we can transfer grades at that time and have a time frame that everybody can work within and we don't have kids randomly showing up at the doors and we're not prepared to take them in um any new students to the district that's a different story you

know we have a process that we followed and that we have been following for the last year that any new students who come to the district that would be eligible to RPA those are the students that are being added to the team and into the school um but those are just you know oneof not a regular steady flow of kids at this time September I could ask Dr Stevens Dr Stevens what's in looking

like uh like in in a junior in the junior Vice principal's office the senior Vice any any kid that might need a referral for something like RPA what's what's it looking like there so there are there's a freshman office in there 3 times at well house office currently one of Mr Grandfield tasks if you will and our director of Support Services has meant to really work on refining a tier three

system of support does that working for students so um I wouldn't say there's a particular student screaming right now but this isn't working I mean there's a small handful uh that I would say he's initiating his efforts with if you will um but if you're asking if it looks like there's a high me right there right now thank you couple questions the two tties that people in C who were

they two Campell I'm not know last Nam they have two Eng they've been there all year service what I would ask is that um somebody on the team goes back and looks at the meeting that we had previously with people link and what the committee was told subcommittee was told and if there's anything that's the same or different we needs to just know so I don't want to ask a bunch of questions

about well they said at this meeting that this happen that happened because they presented to us at the subcommittee we have a contract we have a contract with them that has very clear objectives for the programmatic outcomes that was not in place prior to that so we are referring to the contract and all of our work with people link because it clearly spells out the goals and objectives as

it relates to the different grade levels in the T so that you're referring to no I was referring to the comment about that we had to move they had to do something different than what they originally said so at the subcommittee we were told the reason why they were getting 120,000 was because this person was going to have a full week case load they were going to be x amount of days

they were going to work in the classroom with the teacher things like that so just to if there's anything that's different and they changed for good reason just lay it out there so we're not well they said one thing and then we doing another that's my only I'm not suggesting that they're not doing it but clearly something needed to be tweaked and you should at least know about it I think the process change but people

have yeah that's fine yeah so when I talked about the 120,000 why I was admin about it because we have a variety of different uh Community projects and there's really I'll say in my opinion no Rhyme or Reason Why one gets 120,000 and one gets 40,000 so I personally feel like if they're getting 120,000 to service X we to drill that down to figure it out because we have another agency that's doing stuff that is worthy

of a lot more why do they get 40 and they get 120 so that's why I'm kind of being a Hound about the the one um the kitchen is a real problem for me uh I asked at the beginning this goes back as M Bar said over a year ago we were told they hired somebody and then we didn't have the kitchen ready that was over a year ago I find it totally unacceptable

and I'm not blaming anybody at the table or not all I know is it's unacceptable to have over one year of not getting this done then we were told we were going to get it done they were're going to deliver the stuff in the start of the year we were going to hire the teacher pay the teacher as a teacher hire an aid and get it done and then we still don't

have it this is unacceptable and I'm not sure that anybody thinks it's acceptable but there can be no excuse so I think we need a solid report on who's the issue when was it ordered including the backup because quite frankly I don't believe a word anybody says anymore when they say it's going to be here on Friday because if you told me it was going to be somebody told superintendent on Friday

before school started it was going to get delivered somebody superintendent to credit told me don't go for the interview don't go for the meeting until Friday it's coming in so then on Monday I said well the school year starting what are we going to do so she tried her best and somebody's given her false information or wrong information quite honestly I have no tolerance for her we

need to know where the money's coming from how much money it cost and who ordered because if you ordered something and it didn't come in for a year I'm not so sure we should do business with these people anymore but uh I I'm really frustrated with it but I appreciate being up front about it you can't lie it is what it is superintendent's been up front the same thing just it doesn't do

us any good but I'm glad that it seems going well the only two other requests I would make is I think there was gym equipment last year we said we was going to get moved into the RPA from some other place and if we get an update on that for the committee and at one point they were going to do doors windows and the big major project and I believe we

were told that we're supposed to start at the start of the year so now we're six weeks into the school year and you have any windows or doors any work over there about eight months ago they Tred a couple doors out see if that was working for us and that was lost do um in the sense of um how we can access them so we going to be swipe

cards that kind of thing so how to keep it safe how to sa security purposes and the windows around and the windows were all around and the doors work for you yeah so you still have them we have those two doors but we just don't have the other ones those work but we need we need I think they're originally going to be uh everywhere all replaced all replaced why they need to be reped okay

so we get an update just saying where that process is so we know and I thank you Mr Ry your first question gym equipment oh gym equipment yes um we got the gym equipment from der high school was host um for a little bit of time when a b dery at RPA uh sometime at the end of last year we asked him to up Mee some time um got a moving to move it up

it's full circuit in there have access to it maybe if you just take a picture something that is a good thing so let's give credit where it's do and I would say unless you want to stick around you're free to go to and go back to your family know it all right thank you uh Dr Brown so I give you um if you'd like to figure out which one maybe the ones that

are most important if we have guests here maybe do those first if we have internal things we could potentially kick those to the next meeting but I rely on you to if we could um start with the dery high school stuff if I know folks need to get to former superintendent Mia P's father's weake um so just have a courtesy for timing of that and we could you which one 3.01 all

right sounds good and then we'll go into 3.02 so that the dery vote so we are looking to expand upon our current Credit Recovery the mic is right yeah that's the

problem can you just is it this one with the pink on it all right go ahead so we are looking to expand upon our current credit recovery options at dery high school particularly related to a live teaching option um we're looking to do this by way of completing or creating an opportunity for comp to complete certain elective courses for recovered core content credit so that would be in L of the elective credit

that would otherwise be earned so hypothetically what you could picture is say a student fails ela1 or ela2 they could take an elective course Thrillers and chillers heroes and villains media studies where power standards from those original Ela courses would be embedded but instead of taking the elective for elective credit it would be taken to recover that course so the premise is

that we currently don't have a live teaching option what we realize is that we have a very diverse student population with a lot of diverse needs and that we need a live teaching option uity uh well it works for some students the online platform or the computer platform does not work for all students so the face tof face element is just kind of a critical element if you will that is um missing

so I guess I can pause there and see if there are any specific questions cor I know that you're facing a diverse population and when you say the life teaching model in in elective courses like Thrillers and chillers are the kids doing writing are they doing critical writing so they have to spell properly they have to punctuate properly all that kind of stuff yeah cuz cuz you know across the board writing skills have

suffer uh so that's what I'm concerned about their writing skills need to be a certain standard um is have you already instituted this or is this something that we want to move into no this is something that we want to move into the teachers on board with it early stages but definitely something that I feel strong teaching mind okay thanks did they already have it from that did we just haven't looked into it

no this option doesn't this any content what we're looking at initially is social studies in ela just as a vantage point to see what the impact question there a question Dr Stevens in social studies as a former social studies teacher I think it's so critical that the children especially the children of U certain minority groups that reside here uh have a handle on you the Bill of Rights in the US

Constitution and matters as such are they getting those foundational studies in the social studies classes you on that sure um relative to this proposal no no no just off I'm I'm being off the cup yeah so there's a Civics project that we invested with resources into but we're very committed as you are to making sure that the students need the ability to properly engage society which their voice Valu

and they can contri in posi so I feel very confident so I know I'm going to go back many years and No Child Left Behind was instituted I know that when social studies wasn't part of the mcast regimen I know that student interest in social studies across the board dropped down because students themselves reasoned I don't need this to graduate so there was Les emphasis as a former social studies

teacher I just think it's very important to reinstitute the emphasis of social studies in our curriculum work because of what's going on in our country and and to develop that national pride of what is an American who is an American and what can we do to be better Americans and I think that starts in a really good social studies curriculum that's why I ask these questions thank you so the only person I have

I'm assuming that this looks like uh students already going to be registered for Drillers and chillers and you're just going to give them credit but then did they double credit did they get credit for the other class so how does that so in this chart right here what it would be changed to is a p or F for the core content class that they need but they won't get the other so they technically it's still deficient

free credit if it's a free credit you're going to be deficient that credit for Thrill Is to something else just like students they can't take more than the regular classes say so if they were recovering credit you could earn a full day of classes and earn seven credits and this was the eighth credit you still only can earn seven so some point have to do something but as we know the total

number of credits that kids can earn over four school years is over the number of credits that are needed for graduation as we know most kids if they pass all their classes they could technically almost selling credits by senior year because they don't need the credits right so for these kiddos particularly it's not so much a credit need but it's a course need and in some cases it might be a credit need and

they'll have to figure out where those credits get made up down the road but we don't want to be putting Juniors and seniors into freshman classes and if the online platform isn't working for them leveraging some of these junior senior electives um for the credit for the core will help support those kids and still Mak progress towards graduation and if you someone in here talking about summer

school I think that's a bigger discussion of what summer school is and what it's not I I happen to agree with what you're saying that it doesn't duplicate well but you keep on saying some scho so I think as the A on I think we should rehap that too because this to me this makes sense um you know doing it this way the only thing I would ask is that this says 12424 that mistake at the

top that was just the date that the proposal is initially it's just the copy of what was we have been talking about it since last winter but it wasn't something that was included in the program of studies at that time that was already you understand my question like in my mindset on timing when I see this I'm like well we just did a program of studies and sto the school year might

have make sense to do this now instead of six weeks into the school year but it is what it is I think part of what happens is you know when certain issues arise you come up with a solution you propose it does it necessarily fit at that time and my speculation is that that's what this but I that's fine so can uh we get a motion can thr this yeah motion seconded all in favor iOS vot

thank you very much and do you have another one well not necessarily another one but they are the leaders of dery high school and evolve right now is at dery high school so I think we can just move on to that next agenda item just all the same perfect 3 so just moving on yep so in your packet you'll notice a couple of documents um as it relates to the evolved Competency Based rating um

Jan swier our program lead is not with us tonight she has pneumonia so unfortunately we be pit hitting without her um but this has been in discussion in Evol over the last school year and Brian melac who is our district Tech Le with Aspen X2 our Tex Brian wiard Brian's been helping Take the Lead through X2 with figuring out how we can help bring our report cards and our progress reports to be aligned with the

grading that takes place in evolve as we know evolve is a competency based grading system the students take the transformative learning experiences 45% of their grade is calculated through the assignments that they do as they navigate through the module do Nows are 5% and then the final project which is the culmination of their learning in the Competency Based program is really worth the most for

their grading but right now they are they are still in the process of being graded with A's B's C's and D's on the traditional dery progress report and report card and so the team took Time with Brian to really call out what are those competencies but also what are the entertainments that kids are working towards within each competency and which ones go with each course because not

every course measures every competency or attainment and so Brian has done some work with Aspen as well as with evolve to be able to bring us to a place that we're bringing before you with our sample report cards where we can really drill down to the skills that kids are developing as well as recognizing that in evolve kids don't fail their tle if they are not completed by an end of a

term they receive a not yet grade so that they continue to make progress each term until that tle is completed and so so we've captured away and Brian can speak to the specifics of the documentation in report cards so that even if kids are not yet in that not yet place that will be able to be captured in the report card as well as kids that are passing the courses and moving on uh

we've come up with a way to be able to grade aligned with competencies and attainments can you just summarize quickly have enough time um because this would have to be something that the whole committee would have't seen anyway so just trying to condense the time but what exactly are you looking for here just to switch to company cp's grading period that's the difference for the for the scho pr report and report card

that's basically what you're asking for so I mean I don't have many questions for now both it up pretty clearly I always thought that that's what was happening anyway because they do tle and then they say well you did this and you got to whether it was an HC or D we didn't really even know about that to be honest well the report they been getting is been the regular walk on now we will

be able to report out to the parents the Ada app which is required for d for wading the state but also the competencies the attainments and going to get the you're addition so high school is the ad F which chocolate Sofer the been doing R which is vanilla Sofer the Bob now has a Twist home both that's you can't do without the other one because of the state regulations correct

so we if they're taking coures in the regular dery pot like they're taking say appliation course or say language they'll have the regular inter after then there four or five coures they may take the year andol will have the compes as well as the question Mr Question Dr um course workor involve fits the rubrics of our standards right so it's all within that so the kids are being embedded in those

rubrics and have to progress you know from level to level to level yes and I can speak to this firsthand after attending um a professional development session over the summer where I was able to take part in the tle work uh I spent about four or five hours with Jen um up at a session and I went to participate so that I could really understand it and I was really really blown away at the

level of rigor um but also relevance that the courses brought out of and was were expecting of the students the work was not at all easy um and quite honestly I felt the reverse that I was I was very impressed with the level of rigor and expectation but could definitely see the independence you know an independent opportunity also kids being able to make progress on their own time which is a big piece of the ball as

well um and then looking at some of the life skills we talked about earlier where kids have to present and they have to Advocate and they have to argue their points um leveraging real factual information in the research that they've done on the projects and so I I was really excited about the model and so much so is that um you know a little bit separate to this we are exploring the ex

we are exploring how we can expand evolve I think there's an opportunity as you know last year we started looking and researching about a virtual high school we paused in our movement on that last spring there was too much other stuff going on and we weren't in a position to recommend it forward but as we looked at the tle and we looked at some of the work that evolved did over

Co we really recognized that this might be a nice way for us to extend some Al true alternative programming um to create a hybrid evolved program right now we've got about 15 to 16 students would would otherwise be kids that would land in our homebound or medically excused program and and or a few kids who formally dropped out of evolve that were looking to come back because of this hybrid approach and we're finding

some early success so we look forward to coming to the committee in future months with a potential proposal for extending evolve to be more inclusive of both an in school model like we currently have as well as the potential for a hybrid model as we look to and potentially recommend that AAL become their own school so that um we can continue to expand our alternative programming and offer programming that doesn't

necessarily live at RPA but could be an extension off of dery and off of the work of the Tes and the eval program one more brief question so just to me develop an image on what evolve looks like are they in separate classrooms are there classrooms with just evolve going on I'd like to maybe observe that class in action just to get a better idea you know to visualize it and see it

in action figure it out they occupy the whole Wing a whole wing of dery um where all of their resources are in that Wing but also close enough proximity wise that if students are taking classes in the traditional high school they walk through the gym and they're right back in the traditional community so so Dr J if I were to uh phone the school today according to my schedule which is pretty

busy but if I said want free on such and such would I be able to go visit the school and check the Evolve program out we would love for you to come okay thank you very much I believe the protocol in our policy manual is to contact the superintendent superintendent then just notify them superintendent aw when we're going in as a practice that's F so we're looking for a motion to refer

this ref so made second by Mr fing all in favor I would you like a a full presentation at the school committee meeting I would okay um and I think the um online um you know pilot or whatever you guys are doing with that at some point we need that maybe to come back to us yeah we will I think you know yeah we will they're doing a lot of different things

so I appreciate you coming back and just that I think it's it helps to get buying and everybody's going to be on the same page as it gets done so um but I think the whole committee should kind of see what's happening there and because the grading it could be more questions next item do you have a is the pastr is that a new gr we could we could shift that if we could take our

Community Partners next sure if we could go with Katie Brown Katy Brown educational programs so tonight um we are presenting two of our community partner programs and this will be the the the last of the two of the year we've heard from a number of them over the month of August and September and so Katie Brown and the Children's Advocacy Center are here with us this evening for us to take a look at the

work that we've done in the last school year with both organizations and as well recommending that we contract again with these organizations as we move into the 2025 school year and so with that um we would like to ask that our partners from Katie Brown share with some of the programmatic outcomes you know at for Katy Brown and a little bit about the organization and the work that

we've done this year in our schools and partnership great so my name iser I'm the executive directorul Mar and she is our program director so um thank you for the opportunity to invite us to this evening share more about the work that we've been doing in your schools um the Katy Brown educational program had was founded in 2001 uh shortly after the murder of Katie br and uh our mission is that we send our

Educators into schools and we deliver an evidence-based prevention education program um it helping to young people to navigate and have healthy relationships and just to raise awareness around unhealthy relationships to also talk a lot about abuse and violence in relationships so that they're aware of that in addition to that we um we connect them with Community Resources we make sure that young people have

additional information that does Need for like safety planning or some other other additional resources that they in a violent relationship so we've been in your schools for the last uh 22 years and we've been doing programming um with your students our Educators uh we have a team of four full-time Educators um who go into the schools and for example um when we're in your schools we go in on a

Monday we meet with each classroom uh every single day and we finish up on a Friday we are different than other agencies doing um domestic violence work or sexual violence prevention work um because we do our groups in small settings and so in classroom settings we don't go into an auditorium of 400 students and talk about dating because we know that the information is not going to get to them um or we know that

you know maybe there's a little bit of information but when we have young people in front of us in front of our Educators and we have 30 young people having conversations about relationships about violence about uh things that they see when they're watching their friends relationships things they see on TV um there is a lot of really important life skills that your students walk away with

Angela to talk a little bit more just about like our work last year and um kind of our numbers and then answer any questions yeah so believe we we reached um over 3,000 students last year we were in every single W Public School uh and again uh fourth grade through high school um something we had done uh two summers ago is we took evaluation feedback from students and teachers and we took those recommendations to make

our curriculum stronger so we took that input and uh added in topics that students were interested in learning about suggestions that teachers made in uh making our program more inclusive and uh just make it more interesting for their students and so our current curriculum as it is while it is still evidence-based is also informed by the experiences and interests of f public school students which is actually really

unique so our program has evolved a lot over the years so currently where it stands is uh with our four Educators this past summer we got them training on uh elll uh instruction so our for educators they're not formally trained necessarily um in teaching or education but have that professional background but the elll instruction is something that we were uh noticeably lacking just

as the Dynamics and um classrooms change and so our Educators have been given a professional development on how to make our program more inclusive for students who are learning English we've also received uh training on uh how to make our program more inclusive for neurod Divergent and students with uh disabilities and so we are planning on using all the information that we received and implementing that in our

program to make it a more inclusive experience for all students I would all out a few other things pieces of this too um last year we had an opportunity uh I think it was probably January last year to meet with the team from ktie Brown with Dan Fitzgerald the director of PE and health and myself um as we looked at the effectiveness of the work we were looking for for pre and post- test data

so that we could really generate an understanding of what are our kids learning as a result of this partnership and are they walking away with stronger insights and gains of knowledge recognizing just the challenging times that we live in and that you know Dating Violence lives all around our kids and so we really want to be certain that the the programs that we're providing are getting them the information that they

need and last I was really great to see that this year when we came back together at the table um late August early September in preparation for this year that the team at Katie Brown really did take a lot of our recommendations to heart and really moved on them over the summer two of them that the team just spoke about around U meeting our MLL students as well as our students with disabilities needs um in the

professional development that their Educators under underwent was really you know impactful for us as well as if you notice on some of the feedback slides we have begun to also generate some student um surveys at the end of every session and generated some data from that and beginning this year in planning with Dan Fitzgerald we are also going to be taking it one step further so that our

we will have the Katie Brown folks join our plc's and professional Learning Time prior to coming into the classroom so that our Educators who are there can be co- facilitators and be there to support in a more active way than they had in the past simply because they're now aware of what the lessons are going to look like and where there is an opportunity for them to to co- teach or

or co-s support if if whatever reason the topic um is too much for the teachers to step in and support you know everyone's got their own threshold and we want to be respectful of that um but we certainly want our teachers to know what is going to be delivered in the class and so through this collaboration we are excited and hopeful that this will just help bridge and build the program to another level but we were

happy to see the response that Katie Brown came back with this year so Dr B are they being taught in health classes it's a it's a staggered schedule at the high school it is through Health classes at our other schools it varies and it it really becomes build specific depending upon the class depending upon the schedule and building principles work with Katie Brown to set up that schedule

so uh so back so when you said elll so you have different languages being presented in some of these so our minority kids are are understanding what's going on that was part of our work that we just did this summer um was we were able to translate all of our curriculum and all of our our classroom materials and parent handout uh into Spanish and we're working on um finishing out our Portuguese

translations as well as far as the curriculum uh that you guys respond I'm I'm somewhat familiar with it from a long time ago um when I was counseling and I sat in on a few sessions and I know it was a small group setting and and it was really good discussion going on in the session so it begs the question to me that after you guys do your work in a school

if there's a presenting issue with a student or two is it then referred to a school adjustment counselor further you know further action on the schools part do you have a relationship with the sacks in our schools I have a relationship with some of the school adjustment counselors because those are the people that I schedule with uh but they do know that at the end of programming if there is further

information or if we can be a more assistance we we can help support a student that has um um or there's there's a concern that comes up um but we do not typically once we are done with our programming we typically wouldn't assist or touch base again unless we were asked or unless it was requested yeah yeah I I I get that I just want to know like like you're having some pretty heavy discussions

yeah about violence prevention and their behavior and and so it it it makes kids sensitive at that point you know sure and we trust that schools have those systems in place because before we schedule with any school we send out all of our information these are the topics that we are going to be discussing so teachers will have the heads up and know what will be and actually a lot of the

teachers that we see year to year have seen our program many many times um and so if there are issues that present themselves after we are there we do trust that there are systems in place to support those students okay thank you it just also Al for just recognizing is that Katie Brown also offers professional development and partners with us at all of our resource fairs and where we have tabling events to be out

there as a community partner um something I was just going to say oh and as of just even last week last month rather at our first Family Academy event of the Year where there were over a 100 families in attendance Katie Brown was the co- facilitator for us um where we looked at bullying prevention and educating our families around bullying prevention and ways that they can partner with schools and support their

children so we do see other ways that Katie Brown steps in to help support um through professional development in the community as well and in the schools so I I really I need one more question before you one more question for you guys so in in your active work on campuses uh are you affecting female or are you affecting the male or are you seeing some even AFF effect across that what who's who's being affected more

deeply more deeply uh that's a really good question I would actually say that across the board it's really even our program is inclusive in such that um students of of any gender uh can benefit and do benefit from it uh we don't necessarily Target uh just female students or male students and a lot of kind of like Antiquated programs do that they'll separate out uh males and females and you know give one talk to

one group and another we don't do that we've never done done that we'll never do that it's a safe haven for them to present 100% so the discussions that we have are really unique because we do create those spaces where students feel comfortable to share and discuss their relationships or even discuss stuff that's happening among uh you know friend groups or uh family and that's really powerful because we don't

necessarily see it be very lopsided where it's a lot of you know girls that are mostly talking about this stuff we do see a lot of our non-binary and male students discussing you know things that concern them as well and what is really satisfying is at the end of programs when the students are realizing that they are in relationships or friendships that are potentially toxic or unhealthy

and we've seen that across the board that it's not necessarily just girls who are having those realizations it's also uh boys as well and so I would say that it is probably um I would say girls are are uh kind of more conditioned to talk about relationships Club dating and stuff like that I've seen that yeah and so that is naturally kind of how it can skew but I would say

after a couple of days the discussions are open to everyone and the contributions are really really strong I would say in our system with the E grade uh classes the participation is very very even thank you sure I also say that a lot of times too have young young men or young boys who also will come up after the progr and just say like thank you nobody ever acknowledges that like

this happens to us too or you know my partner was you know really emotionally violent to me but a lot of times we're you know when we think about violence or Dating Violence you're just thinking of like physical or sexual violence so you know we may we do a really good job of making sure our kids have a a knowledge and a really good understanding of all the different types of violence yeah I

value the program I think it's a great program um I appreciate the fact that kids can present say you know and try to deal thank you very much motion right second all favor I V Ved thank you thank you very much thank you I can just ask at some point get a um one page about how does the all of these programs interact with the curriculum within the school because they're different but

they there's things that we should be implementing in our regular curriculum so maybe a future meeting with Mr FG come to next uh if we could speak with the Children's Advocacy

Center so the Children's Advocacy Center is a program of jri which is the justice justice Research Institute correct right um and we too have had a contract uh but not for as long since 2019 uh with the CAC and I will take this opportunity um as well to ask our partners here speak a little bit about our partnership um and the work that we do together to support the students and

families of the city of for River thank you so much for having us I'm Laura Stone and Kathy r and i co-direct the Children's advc Center um we appreciate committee members uh being here with us tonight and and allowing us to speak um Dr Curley thank you uh Dr rard he's been our connection in the last um couple months getting ready for this meeting and answering any questions you have

just in summary uh as Katie Brown shared about their mission we uh the children's efficacy Center is our Bristol County CAC is one of 900 across the country there's one in every County in Massachusetts we are first County's response we are W River resp resps were actually located here in Paul River we were founded in 2007 um PA river is among our most unfortunately um active jurisdictions and uh we partner in many

different ways but our mission is to provide um support to Children and Families who experience child sexual abuse physical abuse of witness to violence we have three proms to our mission the first is we provide the investigative process for um children or a family that is um referred by 51a to the CAC for interview response to service um we also do uh mental health Clinical Services on

site at the CAC and that's a bit newer for us that's started Happ 2018 students um and the third is we do Educational Services and so we have we go in and support young people in your District as well as um professional development for youth servy organizations for your teachers for your school adustment counselors for detectives in the qu District uh we do that for all 20 jurisdictions but

specifically for here tonight to talk about and answer any questions we have um our work and I split up a little bit of our content and I will just give you some I know there's a lot in front of you and you have our impact report um Dr Bron gave you an overview so we've been around for about 17 years about a third of our referrals come from and that's the DCF office that serves the greater

fall our area we don't break down our numbers by just fall public school students although we delv into it but a lot of time we probably could but we we do by jurisdiction by police department and we do it by the DCF office um so you have a shoot of data showing all the way back to 2 um fiscal year 2008 um how many referrals were made to follow over how many interviews were done you can

see as time has gone on we have every year almost 300 referrals that from schoolsa and we are conducting those Investigative Services on site at the CC we do that in partnership with

District every um every case receives a u teamed approach so that we're not retraumatization that they have to interview once everyone is sitting around and teaming that case around the table they're watching it on someone to a television behind you um and they can let the friends know what they need so we are for sure in deep partnership with you we work with your school adustment counselors to receive some of those

referrals with your SRO in every school um we team those classes and we feel really confident about the work that we're doing together um I like Kathy just say a bit about the education and Outreach piece yeah I think that part is probably the area that we've partnered um mostly I mean of course when kids have a report of child sexual abuse physical abuse violence they come into our Center but the work that we've

really done with B Public Schools is the work that we continue to do with Claudia and her amazing team um where we where we partner and we're doing PD development days we're training in lots of different um curriculums and recognizing and recording how to do that and how to do it affect ly and efficiently um we also have commercial sexual exploitation of every that's another area that we cover um so kids

who are um are being victimized um through child trafficking um we train we train our partners around those efforts uh digital responsibility how to help parents and teachers manage online and be safe and help help them understand what they should be watching for and looking for with their kids um and we also do those lessons for kids as well so we've done um a lot of partnering uh

the last not this year but the last two years we've done some work with Project R in Black at dery which was an amazing experience and um I hope that something like that comes back but um a service learning project where we had students come in and work with our team and um really understand and the mission of what we do and really got behind the idea of spreading awareness um around

how to keep Kids Safe in the community and they really embrace the opportunity and the feedback that we received from not only students but the teachers that we're partnering with them um was amazing um tabling events we're going to a number of um open houses this fall and we're going to set up shop and make sure we bring all our our gadgets our gizmos and get all of the um important

prevention material out into the hands of parents who need it um to help educate as best we can so the numbers continue to rise in Fall River um and so we're grateful for the increased support um and funding that helps us carry out um this important work um and so um I'll say just real quickly in addition to our education and Outreach we do do mental health counseling on site and um we're a

resource for B and public schools we get tons of calls we're always responding to teachers um or administrators or counselors asking about how they how we can help support a need that they have and so we recognize that um while kids may not always come through our door for a forensic interview they still might be victims and so we are going to do our best to help support those kids get

access to Mental Health Services in a timely fashion because we know weight lists and things like that are incredibly long in the community so happy to answer any Mr sure well that was that was a good summary of the report so I'm I'm concerned um I'm really glad you have a great relationship with Claudia and uh sack staff in B River I know it's an important Resource as far as your mental

health counseling piece is that um is that one in G or is that ongoing Clin clinical help because I know that was we're always looking for for other agencies to help us without counsel and so that's a really good question and counseling can never be one and done but I'll say this we're a small organization we're a small operation and the door doesn't close for us right there are kids coming through

our door every single day who need services and we're going to be one of those agencies that unless we put some really concrete goals and objectives to help support kids get the work that they need will become a program that has a long weight list so we try we really try to structure our work to be really trauma focused um we have some evidence-based treatment interventions some that are very shortterm and we do

that deliberately because they're effective and we know that if kids and families get the services they need sometimes they only need five to seven sessions to mitigate um ptsc for example right the onet of symptoms that could provide longterm um difficulties so never one Di and it it it would be it would but we we can't be the type of place where we have kids in therapy years that's question I know

that we triage a situation in the school and so you're triaging it again according to the trauma in that case and then do you have a referral base of other counselors that you could refer off to yes excellent question because before we before we ever had counseling on site ourselves we relied on that we relied on our our providers in our communi so we have lists of um providers in every County

and M um in every city and town in Mass um Cal County sorry um programs that we've work very closely with and some who will Elevate our kiddos to the top of their list because we've provided um training to their team um in the past and so we definitely will provide connections uh if it's not something that we can provide with the other question I had was based on the red and

black uh when the red and black program Drew is there any chance of that coming back at all were these what kind of work were were are the dery kids doing in CAC well they came in they they had to sort of Select an organization right they they kind of like were provided a bunch of Community Based organizations and had to sort of match up with um an organization that actually they related to and come up

with like a service project if you will like how they were going to learn what we did at the CAC and then take that learning and increase awareness um in their school system so um sometimes that was through like Community like uh School fairs or through um did they produce video oh they produce a beautiful video yep um and actually they they went through the CAC and did a mock like we conduct we

created a mock forensic interview so they could see what really happens when a child comes in um what they have to say um we have an a assistant dog now so they got to see what like the last got to see what the need assistant doob does and how he now participates in kinds of interviews and they met with police and the District Attorney's office and we're able to ask all kinds of questions yeah

think to question though is is this not existing anymore it does not currently exist um last year it did not exist there was some sta Staffing was reallocated in different um courses or department so we weren't able to run it last year or this current year but I I really believe in the value of the the program and Service Learning in general so will you please get us to one

page on that because quite frankly I we didn't know that it wasn't existing so if we don't get told things we just assume things are going to continue so it's a little disheartening to hear about that now and if we didn't know about it I apologize but like I thought it was existing just not necessarily at their site but you understanding it hasn't existed anywhere so I think that's the point it's it's a good

program we should figure out why why we're not doing it absolutely it's a great internship sh thing but could motivate kids to get into that as a career were they doing any forensic studies in your agency the blacks nothing that heavy no no of course not I was just curious yes just their own sort of take on how they could contribute to prevention and making their uh their class or the student body more aware of

this issue and the mission we do prevention we did quite a bit of sex um and that is some one of the we do is as Kathy was saying one of our education and is that digital responsibility component we are in and training thousands of students because we do these large Auditorium style presentations to talk about do and don'ts and the use of Technology okay thanks a lot just for the commit uh

knowledge there we are requesting a $110,000 increase to the contract with the CAC um in years past it was 45 um and we are requesting that it go up to 55,000 as we look across all of our contracts um as you can see very clearly the numbers in the need in our community are not going down if anything they're going up um and as it relates to just the increased partnership that we've

experienced with the CAC the amount of professional development that they have provided to both staff and families as well as the direct care to our students and families um we are making this request for this coming year of the commitment motion refer motion refer and seconded the only comment I would make it's the same one I made earlier I would like to see between now and the full meeting what's the

rationale for the 55 which I appreciate you know you're trying to make a incremental gains here but when we look at all of them I think we need to look at it and say well what why does one get 95 one gets 125 one gets 55 so I think they're all worthy programs I know this is a wey program but I struggle with why does one get 55 one gets 120 so whatever

you can do to try and clarify all in favor I voted thank you thank you do I see two job descriptions that are one item uh they no they're not one they're two different items but I think those could just hopefully move along pretty quickly um the the attendance officer job description in front of you is really um really just been created as a at at the request of the current attendance officers we have seven

attendance officers in the budget one of which spends all of his time at the courts Kevin Whiting is up in the courts and he is our courtly aison attendance officer and the purpose behind that is so that when we have kids that are taken to court that we don't have our current attendance officers being pulled off the work and being pulled out of schools to go sit in court and wait Court to happen

yeah that consolidates so this just really spells out the work of the Court liaison and one of the big reasons for this move is that Kevin graciously will be retiring the end of October and so as we look to replace him we want to be certain that there was a job description that spelled out the duties of the courtly aison that are different than that of the attendance officer yeah plus

our courtly aison develop a relationship with all on staff at the courthouse I think it helps the process move along even better so you'll see here um the changes in the edits that were made and we're sharing it here for your review but hoping that it can be referred to the full committee for approval um motion motion ref by Cory second byera yeah U just a question on why like so

this already existed so no it didn't not as a courtly a on position so why is there changes that because there was an attendance officer job description so we took the attendance officer job description and made edits and left the edits for you to see how we were making the changes basically one of the attendance officers job to Kevin is to sit in the courthouse all day like there's one attendance officer that they

need to assign that task to so instead of calling them an attendance officer she changed the name tomorrow I think accurately describe what the position would be because now Kevin's retiring we're hiring somebody we want them to know they're not going to be a traditional attendance officer in the school they're going to be a an attendance officer called Le aison and they will be reporting to court and

having to do that I just think that it's existed for a number of years so I think probably we're in error in not doing this earlier yeah probably so my thing is just when you go to the full committee make sure that it has all like required qualifications for instance it always says superintendent May wave one of the requirements long as they notify the school you know little this is in

the teachers union so what I'm saying it's any job description you want to be able to make sure that you've got the flexibility to say whether it's uh you know something needs to be waved or even just what was the rationale for some of these so full committee will be help get a quick one faser on why are these things ex out and along along those lines I was I was wondering Dr B if uh

the candidates the upcoming candidates uh Madam superintendent would they be from our own pool of attendance offices for this particular job yes that is our expectation we're not looking to hire from outside this would be an internal movement into this role because they already know that the district the systems and the work yes thank youm 3 says a minimum of two years that's new

because it's highlighted in yellow so a minimum of two years as an attendance officer that's so that's why corre that's why it's yellow yeah just uh before you get to the full committee sometimes these things don't go without questions you hear and just throw a paragraph together so the rest know all in favor I so thank you similarly you'll notice the next job description is for that of the community

facilitator translator position um as you know we have community facilitators in mostly all of our schools um as we look at the needs at PACE and as we look at the increased needs for both the written and the oral translation we we see an opportunity within the community facilitators themselves um to really build up a translation Department within the district we also have some community

facilitators um who would be very much skilled in this work and would love to be doing this work and be essentially like mo mobile translators to support schools so that if a need arises in a building we're not relying on lionbridge as the only translating tool but really being able to meet with the human element of it and so as we look at this job description again um looking to adjust some of the work but really

looking for us to enhance the translation work in the district by leveraging current ly funded positions um and so you'll you'll notice again the qualifications and responsibilities for this job description how does this Rel to the community facilitated job description we've adjusted the community facilitated job description to lead more heavily into translated translation services one position or all Comm one

position so the only thing I would ask is that whatever is added or different we mock it up so the same because people can have that question of what is different between this and other one can I get a motion to prer second I think this is great all right so voted thank you smart so now we have our I will say for me this is some of our our most exciting um additions

for the night so if I could ask Claudia to join the table as well as Sher Ellis and Mary Gustav um so why don't we start with the p program and then we will move into the um mobile Health band Pres can I just say uh I don't want to rush anybody but we want to be out here on time because we have some places to be so what I would think is that this would

be one that would go to the full committee for a presentation so just understanding that as we present so to give us a quick overview uh I'm sure that we're going to be supportive of it just that you're going to be able to present in a greater depth at the regular school by 65 we will go Slide by slide at the regular school committee meeting of the presentation that you have in

front of you um but this has been a longstanding project for our department um prior to my stepping into this role um the the team of Claudia and Drew and the former assistant superintendent for social emotional learning began to explore positive alternatives to school suspension and as a result um we were able to identify a program up the North Shore as well as a program on Cape Cod

that offers students an opportunity to receive Education and Training and support mental health support for in Li of being suspended from school and so I will turn this over to Claudia to give a brief summary on our proposal for a Pass Program um here in the city of Fall River um sure I'll be really brief um we are really excited when we saw what the NorthShore was doing and what the cap was doing and making sure

kids are when they're suspended are just not home or in the streets but yet connected with adults getting connected with resources is at is at the core of what gas is um so they're they're meeting with a with a with a licensed clinician um and and doing a lot of group work as well too the hope is really to connect with kids and figuring out what's going on with them how can we

support them and also getting them connected with resources if they're not already so with this program it's in in Le of them being home suspended they'll be going to this program where they'll be connected with with uh a clinician andle on and an ISL as well too we're also looking to partner with communities uh Partners as well too who been helping us with this work um as well too and a

lot of groups a lot of individual um but the biggest piece of it is really getting them connected with resources but then a lot of work with with with them when they're ready to return to the standing school so coming up with a plan so that way figuring out what was it that led you to get this suspension what can we do differently really having a service plan to support them when they

go back to that return in school as well too so so this project um will be funded we we are we are partnering with the boys and girls club as a location so for students at dery high school and in so we've applied for the opioid um funding Grant we've gone through the competitive process with star as our lead partner in this work um we've been able to partner

with star who will be able to provide a clinician for us to really get after some of the drug use recognizing we did a hard look at all of our suspensions from last year at dery high school specifically short-term suspensions and that is would constitute anywhere from 1 to 10 days of suspension and so the goal will be is working in partnership with dery high school and Diamond Regional

for year one that students will have an opportunity instead of being suspended they would go to the Boys and Girls Club for the day the program would run from 9:00 to 2: they'll be given breakfast and lunch lunch there will be no more than 12 students enrolled on any given day between dery and diamond and students will have the opportunity to attend therapeutic groups with the clinician will be um supported and

sponsored through star really looking to get after and support students with recognizing some of the root causes of their substance use as we looked at our suspension data we had a large number of students being suspended um in many cases even multiple times for bringing drugs or low-level drugs to School tobacco marijuana Vapes to school and getting caught in school and so right

now we don't have alternatives to school suspension so kids get sent home back into those environments where they're more likely to use and be connected and not connected to school and not connected to resources I think it's also critically important that we recognize that the city of Fall River does not have any youth services for substance abuse and substance use and our prevention tools within the city are

also very much non-existent so we are thrilled that through the competitive process the community and the stakeholders at the table that also had their own rfps at the table um supported our work and understood the you know the efforts that we're trying to to create here so that we can support and educate our kids and to Claudia's Point um also provide those wraparound Services as

well as um to the kids but also to the families and so we are grateful and we are excited to tell you that we have been awarded the grant we have come out on top and we've been awarded the grant by the city I believe it was just last night the city council I I believe voted to to to agree for the rfps to go through and those Awards to be rendered

and so what you'll also see is as we look forward to now begin making movement on this program um you've SE two job descriptions in front of you one is for the past social worker so we've written into our budget three positions a social worker in instructional support liaison which will be the person collaborating on the academic work that kids are doing in the program because it's not just therapy they will be

getting their academic work done as well in the program and so those two positions we needed to make some adjustments to the job description because the work that these folks will be doing is very different than the work that they do within the public schools themselves and so you'll see the two job descriptions one for the social worker who will be the administrator in the program as well as the instructional

support liaison and then the third position is that of the liaison but we did not feel we needed adjustments to that job description so we've now made some adjustments again we bring those before you we will need these adjustments in these positions so that we can post to be able to get the program off the ground ideally by the end of November beginning of December it is our goal to have a past program up

and running at the Boys and Girls Club here in Fall R that'll be downstairs that'll be downstairs downstairs at the Boys and Girls Club so that sounds really really good uh fully support I just wanted to know um let's say dery suspends a kid for a 3 days so that three days that child's going to go to the Pass Program in partnership with the parents parents have to agree but they would then attend the Pass Program

instead parents have to agree parents don't agree then that kids just and that just gets suspended so I don't believe most parents but we're very optimistic to think and based on our conversations with West the West excuse me the North Shore and Cape Cod very rarely our parents not agreeing to send their kids to the Past program so when in the past when a child was uh rep anded we got a

45 day out School uh placement would would have to send the kid to Brockton or elsewhere for a 45° period does past program support anything like that no this is a 10day shortterm suspension intervention 10day not a long-term sup so it's based on all our suspension stuff whether it be a 3-day or 5 day or a 10day suspension but not a 45 day yep I yes okay thanks yep need a motion to

approve job description motion first and description second all in favor iose thank you very much s to make you guys wait so but it is exciting mobile the mobile Health van my name is Sher Ellis I'm the CEO for star and really excited to be here both for the past program and for this initiative I'm going to give you the read of dig just version because I know you guys have had a long night so

Senator rodri called me a year ago and he said Sher I I want you to take this money and I want you to go in and create um a house center at dery high school and I've had this money he appropriated the money for two full years in the budget and it never come to fruition and he said I want you to make it happen now I I just want to make it really clear

that initially um I was aware that help first had wanted to put in a Health Center at derky and I I just want to say to you that I told them before IID accept the money I had to talk to help first to make sure they actually weren't going to touch that and help first us had decided to go with diamond I called back the senator he said the money's for

dery so um I again made another phone call to make sure that we were on the same page with our Community Partners and started to look at the space at dery but the space that was being offered was not really licensable we never would have gotten a license so we have a a brand new mobile help unit that was coming to us that was being funded by the state so we Ted about this and we

decided that this was a great alternative it could be parted right in front of dery the B is easy to license we could be up and operational we could accept the money that the senator was going to give us and the money lasts from um now until the end of June it's onetime funding and we can sta the Bas for all operations we spend that out by the end of June I do have a plan for

sustainability around looking at third party Revenue making sure that we can do that I believe that that this van is going to be something I could also get foundation and other grant money for to sustain in in future years I won't need as much as he's giving me now because I'll be able to roll in some third party Reven but it's it's a very exciting thing it's things that are happening all

over the place with dery is the perfect alternative Park we actually checked it the other day it can be parked right in front of the school which is adjacent to the school with the var's office we've been meeting to talk about this for several months now um I've already been able to secure uh a family practitioner who's interested in doing this work which is really exciting she is a woman

of the bipac community it's it's it's kind of up and moving to the point where we believe that we can get it activated relatively soon if we have everyone's permission if you look in here I put a list of the services we be providing I also put you know the in the details on funding there's a picture of the mobile unit it is a toly out fitted medical mobal unit they're doing them now in

16in box trucks 16in 16 fo box trucks so that they can come in and put everything in there including a full exam table a say it is fully um it has solar power so that we'll have full connectivity and it will basically function as though you had a clinic Park a true Clinic with all facilities parked right in front of your school so it's a very exciting proposition and I am thrilled especially after sitting here

tonight and hearing everything that you guys do in fall for your students it's pretty impressive thank you for the presentation how excited how you want somebody want to make a mo I'm excited Mo to approve second it all in favor you get a swap pH these things off for parents kids thank you especially in this community really does anybody have any new business motion to motion seconded all in favor I thank you all so

much for all