8.19.2024 Fall River School Committee - Parent and Community Outreach

going to call this meeting of the parent community outreach subcommittee to order roll call Mr Bailey Mr Das here Mr Cory here salute to the flag i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay pursuant to the open meeting law 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 meetings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those presents are deemed acknowledged and permissible citizens input do we have anyone that signed up for Citizens input is there any any um anyone in the community that's not here for the P presentation that would like to give a citiz

input seeing none we're going to move on to 3-1 update parent teacher organizations um so we have a list of parent um teacher organizations here um we're going to call them one at a time if you like to come up when you're called um again go at your own pce go um you want to present talk about your scope of Works assesses um maybe if you want to get meeting times or how the

parents can get involved um that would be great if you want to come right up to the the front here um first we'll start with the

can did I make it in 10 minutes do we know um where um Emily the person on the TV is from fence board fence board okay um right there fine wherever you're comfortable but the microphone's right there if you want all right my name

is that at speaking so thank you so much for calling me first could you repeat your name again Courtney Smith Courtney Smith so I didn't have anybody to use as an example um so a couple things that we're doing at Dany Elementary this year just to try and continue this success of our PTO is we are making sure that we're offering virtual and in person meeting the same time so we encourage the

parents if they aren't able to come in if they are just want to drop in virtually we make sure that they have those links that access so that they can do that then we have someone reading any other comments questions and we have had success with that we've had parents join the meetings through that way or able to answer questions that way uh which has been helpful are you in the email Bank uh so

can you be reached in Parent Portal I can yes okay thanks um we are starting this this pass we're kind of bringing it up again this year is if parents attend the meetings we're going to be giving a dress down pass for the child of the parent who comes in to help encourage them to come to the meetings to help encourage the kids to encourage their parents to come and be involved with it and volunteer

and help uh and we're also making sure that we're having a consistent day for the meetings so that way we're not having to kind of tell them every single time next mon going to be say next time it's going to be this we have all of our meetings planned out for the entire school year so when we do have our ice cream social um next week we'll be able

to let them know the day is well in advance hopefully that'll help the teachers anyone who wants to become involved and a plan out what meetings might work best for their personal and work schedule and then the parents as well um so we have that full schedule listed out and it's going to be consistently the same time obviously but that same first Monday every um that way knows what to

expect other things that we make sure we're doing is when we're advertising we utilize parent Square we put flyers and we make sure to have them in all three languages English Spanish and Portuguese just to make it easier for all parents to be involved feel comfortable making sure that they're getting most of the information Courtney what's the date of the ice cream social August 27th so that'll be at

2m and sansy was lucky enough to be one of the top 10 schools in Massachusetts to have great attendance so we are also being awarded a signed basketball from the Celtics in a presentation so we'll have ass signed basketball in our entryway for last year's attendance we'll get it year and having soci and Sor will anyone Celtics be in attendance we are hoping we some of us have reached out don't know supposedly

someone from the organization but that person from the organization could just leave work someone will be handing it to using um and then this year we're also trying we created here for just to kind of get a little bit of interest from the parents who are coming some of them might never have known how to volunteer or they're afraid that if they sign up for the PTO that it's a year-long

commitment and we just want them to know you don't have to give everything all of the time but if you're able to help us with a FL if you're able to help us with a kindergarten ceremony if you're able to just kind of give us a little bit of time for one thing and you want to let us know that we'll reach out to you at that time so we parent interest

volunteer form to get all of their contact information the best way to contact them and what they want to do so those are some of the things that we're implementing or reimplementing this year to really help that engagement um we're really lucky we have a great parents at also teachers so just really thank you on that continue success if I can ask you a question because um I know some

members a few like two months ago came before the committee and has some concerns about the um integration with westall um have you received um within the last month um any more concerns over um transfers from tany to any other school we haven't heard anything yet um I know each of us on the PTO have different kind of contacts most of our kids are in different grades so as far

as I know I haven't heard any chatter from the fourth grade pars anything out I I think I can answer part of that question uh some of the demographic that was attending tany was from this school's was from fans's demographic and I think though the uh the the kids who are in the fonsica demographic had an opportunity to attend the West all School this year that's what I think is

going on so it's not going to detract from the tany base it's going to really help the fansa base um and there anything any suggestions you might have um maybe like how we as either a school committee or the school district can support support you your your organization anyone I think just by being open honest with us you know sometimes it's hard to hear some of the answers that you have to give us but

that doesn't mean that we don't want to hear them um we would like you to be accessible so we have questions or need further explanation or just the reasoning behind certain decisions as long as you're accessible to provide that it's a lot easier to understand as opposed to kind of finding out things you know through the gra Vine which always ends up being his side his side and then the truth in the middle so just

continuing to do that you guys have been coming to the meetings which has been really helpful we've enjoyed and having that contact um if you need to reach out for any um information you be reaching out for like a parent or um or in general who would be your main point of contact to get whatever you might need like for example when we had the the issues a few months ago I believe there were some

issues on like who's the point of contact to get the answers that you needed would be the point of contact now not even necessarily a question for you but for the administration um if a individual from a parent teacher organization has a question has a concern who would they reach out who would you recommend they reach out to to get the answer they might need yeah I I mean I think

depending on the concern it would be a classroom teacher it would be the school principal first um and then beyond that they generally reach out to one of the it could sometimes it's the parent and Community engagement Center it really depends on the nature of the concern but they're reaching out to a parent and Community engagement Center they're reaching out to an assistant superintendent they're reaching out to

me y um I have one more question m u Mr Bailey do you have any questions for the um PTO yeah I was just going to say just to add on to to the question that you just had

I'm that gu on the website I do think that's a question that a lot of families ask they struggle this like d question um I know for myself I I get a message on Facebook or you know my social my personal social media account asking questions and some time that direct people so I think that's just a question whether it's directed towards specif something like that were you able to hear that Courtney

I think so asking if um if a parent had a question who would they reach out to or um like a frequently Asked question spot just to know like the basic right Mr Bailey I apologize could you U repeat your question no I was I was just saying I don't know if it's on the website but I think that would definitely be helpful for families because the am contact I get on my personal social media um

people just asking questions whether it's a specific department or something like that I don't know if it's on the website but if not that be ex helpful no I understand what you're saying um and I I'll ask a question based off of that um you you uze any social media platforms we have a Facebook page that we utilize that we often share out um it's there is some engagement on there um but we try

and post everything on there a lot of our information goes out on parent Square which seems to be the best the best method um for contacting the direct parents at tansy and then the community engagement comes more from the Facebook because then our parents start sharing whatever posts or things that are happening can we access parents um thank you do you have any questions for any of

us I think so no um do anyone have any any further questions Mr cor no I'm very happy that's it seems like you're trying to reenergize the base there yeah we're all very excited to a whole new except for one I think all new officers on the board a lot of lot of ideas lot of fresh voices all good and a lot of parents who have already started voicing that they're really excited the direction

we're taking this year and are looking to involvement so best wishes on a on a Very Good Year thank you appreciate thank you for coming down of course thank you um next we'll move to the um syvia PTO anyone here from syia

PTO Hi how are you hello I know some faces here hi Rachel that's okay with you guys um I'm Rachel Silva I'm president of the frankm Sylvia school PTO and this is Maryann lefur she is on our executive board um going into this will be my third year as president and maran's third year being on board as well um we both have children obviously in the school we have uh we actually have

matching kids up we both have fifth graders this year and third graders so um we're excited to start a new school year with them um we just we kind of set up a little guide for ourselves yes if you guys don't mind oh yes pleas okay so um the Franken Sylvia school PTO plays a vital role in supporting the school's Mission and enhancing the educational experience of our students and we

concentrate on the following areas um our first one is definitely the one we push really hard is to promote parent and guardian involvement so we facilitate communication between parents teachers and the school administration through parents Square through our monthly meetings and our Facebook page so we do have a Facebook page um um we also hold our monthly PTO meetings to discuss our goals progress and new

initiatives um we do ours virtu we've been doing ours virtually since the pandemic and we have found that we actually get more people to come that way but we actually really like Tan's idea and we wrote that down to try to do both like we'll try to have some in person again I we always laugh and when people come on and um our vice principal most of homo is uh a big part of our

organization but we're always seeing people will run to their stove there's kids in the back like it's it's actually worked out for us to have it virtual because we found that people can still have their children there and be watching them but still be active in our meetings so it has worked out but that was a great idea they had to combine so maybe we'll try that this year because we we do miss the imperson aspect

sometimes too yeah so we'll be trying that um our second part of our scope is our community and social events so we plan social events like Family Fun Nights fun runs trunker Tre um we have dances we just started bringing dances back so that was exciting this year our first dance we had in a really long time the kids enjoyed that um we have game nights uh we also have holiday events

and we get involved in the for of a Christmas parade every year uh we do this of course to Foster our Sylvia star spirit because that's we just kind of want to keep promoting that um in line for the kids to constantly have school spirit and love coming to coming into the building every day um as far as our fundraising goes we plan an execute fundraising events like bake sales catalog sales and then some of our

events we do do a small cover chart and that helps us buy um Food Supplies yeah like anything we need maybe like if we're we're having like a guest come in that that the money can kind of go there as well so um it's an easy way to kind of support our event but at the same time make a little money for the next event so that's how we look at it um we

also try to get some business sponsorships throughout the city sometimes it's just stuff like donations a bakery would donate something um during um our staff appre ation week we always pull in and ask people for help with that and it comes from parents but also businesses as well so our sponsorships are big um our volunteer coordination is another part of our scope so we we say we like to assemble

parents and community members to assist with our school events classroom activities and other school needs I think for sure that's something that we this year we want to try to get a lot you new people involved we always try especially with kindergarten parents it's like you're starting fresh come on in and join us um and and it's it's great to have uh new voices in there so we'll we're going to try that again this

year to try to pull some new parents in we have a large school population and we do feel that we don't um get to see everyone at those meetings so it'll be a new year coming in of trying to pull in some new parents to our organization um and then teacher and staff support is huge we actually normally do have a few teachers that join our virtual meetings which is great

A lot of times parents will have a question uh that only the teachers can answer so it's great to have them there sometimes because we'll be like hold on and toss it over to them so that's been really great um we also like I had mentioned we plan and U their staff appreciation week with daily events and meals um just to show them gratitude for all they do for our students we also

provide funding and collect donations for classroom supplies and resources that the teachers may need throughout the school year uh let's see I think our biggest thing is that we just want all of our families to feel valued and engaged and I think that leads to a successful learning environment both socially and academically for the kids they love we love to see that parking lot full at

night basically to know that the kids want to come back and the parents want to come back so whatever we try to promote whatever event we're having that's one of our successes that we always we've never turned people away but sometimes it gets really close that we could be at capacity for some things and we we just can't have any more people join us so we always push like sign up early things like that uh we

have to say that parents square has been a big help to us right just getting the message me is out there the days of the flyers in the backpacks is kind of pass so some people still like it but we always say that I I I also push on our Facebook page that they need to join parents Square please join parents square and whatever we share on there it's also usually coming right from the

principle away from parents Square so uh just an important way for to get parents involved and make sure that they're on that app because as a teacher I know how important it is but we're try to push that to parents that they need to get on the app to get get all their messages from us uh let's see we definitely built a parent of network I mean a network of parent volunteers who regularly assist we're always

looking for new people to help and like I said we use parent square and our social media page to really push all of our information out there let's see any questions for us it just sounds like you got a very energized base going on there thank you you know and in that when schools and parents work together just proves successful you know that spells success so keep up the good work thank you thank you just um

piggybacking off what tany said um your virtual meetings are they held um once a month so we try to have them monthly um we don't have set meetings but that's is also a great idea that we could pull from tany um sometimes it just we'll get too busy during the holidays or we'll skip a month if we have to but we always make up for it somewhere if we have an

event coming along that we know we need to have a meeting for that's where the virtual meetings have really helped us to say okay next Tuesday 6 o' be there and even if it's short notice whoever can come it it helps to get spread the word out for us anyway okay and um sounds like you have like a lot of people in your organization give like a a number that's t one I mean a core we

have a probably a core group of about 30 parents that show up every time um but not and I mean show up to the meetings but show up to events there's you know over a 100 there there's plenty out there um it's just our meetings are still on that smaller level but um we're just we're just trying to get more people involved in that Core Group to really kind of spread the wealth and I

know some of you know I'm a full-time teacher myself so I I'm not available during the day and um and like most of us are working moms and dads so we're not available as much during the day as we'd like to be so that's where our staff really helps us out and they are connecting Partners to say we know you can't be here so we try to we bring

things to them at night and they help us out during the day if it's something that none of us can be there for um so it sounds like Paris sare is very helpful in getting information out there so you say it's very it's been very beneficial yes we just try to promote having people sign up for the app I I find that um I overheard parents talking once in a restaurant in the city

and they were frustrated by the amount of notifications they were getting and one person said I'm going to delete the app and I kind of but I was like I'm sorry I don't mean to cry but don't delete the app the app is that's our communication to you that's the important part and if you're if you're not on the app you're going to miss so many messages so whatever that's why we

always say whatever we share on our Facebook page I put all the time please see parents Square for more information I only only I put a teaser out there so that they'll jump back on parents square and read the whole thing I think it's really important Mr so in in in all of the business that you guys try to conduct you have a good relationship with school administrative staff for

sure and we couldn't do it without them I don't think yeah so maybe they can help push that that communication forward for you perhaps I think so I think they've been trying they really want parents Square to work for them too so it's kind of just a constant message that we put out there like make sure you're on the app make sure you're on the app because the days of the Flyers

and the school bags is pass so we need to get back we need to follow up on this digital world and make sure that they're paying attention to all of our notices yeah you guys got it going on that sounds great thank you m Mr Bailey do you have any comment hi Bobby how are you good congratulations thank you do you have any um questions for any of us no we just said like I think that

our we're we're in a good spot right now but if if there's anything that we need from the committee we will certainly reach out if you can be of any assistance great well thank you for coming

appreciate um next we'll go to Spencer bordon I believe um they're joining us virtually today there anyone else um Miss can't see Rob miss robud the floor is yours hi thank you my name is um um feel likey Andia have covered a lot of we do we do give we do them we also offer option Al to be

hon I believe that's um they said was a core um a core U membership okay that's I definitely thats and sta

but we don't getent engagement well our EV T of Engagement most of our events are very popular and go over well um we do the school dances the TRU or treat and holiday

events Rachel wouldn't sharing she so many people involved

so I have to be honest with you I was actually a member of the Spencer Borden um parent teacher with grou when my daughter was in kindergarten because we started at Spencer bordon and I actually was so impressed by the Spencer bordon PTO and that's what pushed me forward to join the Sylvia PTO when we transferred schools and we moved um I just so you know like 30 is like our Max number at

our meetings I wouldn't say that we have 30 that are involved in every single event I don't want to like so that sounds like a little over exaggeration but we definitely have at some meetings at least 30 parents that are there and I think that like what tany said though was important too I think there are parents who are um afraid to join there I mean afraid as in there uh my neighbor

was one of them she was like I'll go and listen but I don't want to say anything and I said that's okay please just come and listen to us and maybe you'll and now she's much more comfortable speaking out much more comfortable giving a tip or two or giving some advice so I think that's kind of the idea to promote the parents like we're welcoming please come and join us because we need fresh ideas

we need new people involved and you don't have to be afraid of us we want you to to come in right so I think that you guys probably are in that same situation sometimes I I was stunned to the fact that many people didn't know what the organization was all about and if we had one and I will still tell you our our Facebook numbers are nothing compared to Spen of wardens like you

guys have a large group on there um and and we're very selective of course like we're a private group and I only accept people that I can verify our parents of our students we don't like to have people um know kind of you know what's going on I guess to say uh for safety reasons you know what I mean so we I am very selective and I make sure that they

do have a child at that school or they a staff member in order to be in our group but um that I so I don't want you to think that it's like yes oh my gosh we have 30 people on every committee that's not what happens but in general if we can get that's like our Max at our meetings but like I told you the virtual part that helps

us not sure if you guys still do that I remember going to Spen Wen in person but um so that's just my piece to share okay thank you Miss Robo if I can um interject and just ask um some questions on that if I can offer maybe some assistance um can I ask um your meetings um is um reiterate are they in person or they virtual they're in but we offer the

optioned and um you use the Paris Square do you feel um so you believe your message is getting out there you don't think there's an issue with the message getting out there you think it's more receptive on lack of Interest the lack of Interest okay um okay no that's would you like to continue question Mr Cory no I feel you so I I just hope that you have a decent year

coming up and you know that you could reach out to us you know for any support you may need I will say that we have t of St that is great I'm just in the speaking on that just as maybe a suggestion for both you and maybe that maybe way Administration could assist maybe we could help you out with the district could help you out with marketing U maybe reaching out to

parents in other ways maybe not every parent has that ability um and can I just ask on when you're are your meetings also um going back to tany are your meetings like scheduled like at a certain time or they held at um at different times once a month we try to schedule them for right after school we have also done later in the day to see if we have a better

turnout but we don't so we've gone back to right after school which works best for a few of us who do

it' one mon in advance okay and and and this is mainly for your um but you said you you do hold meet like you would hold like um various events throughout the year and they're attended by parents but you're having an issue um getting assistance from parents correct okay um yeah I think um I love to follow back up on this at a future date um maybe we can um Reach Out privately maybe we can

have like a meeting maybe we can figure out some ways we can assist I I can reach out to Emily I've got some ideas in partnership with de Sardina that I think we could help support um there are some features to parents square that I think we could add Emily I this is Dr B assistant superintendent but I will make I will reach out to you just to have a separate conversation about some of the

addition for some of the additional features that are embedded within parent Square um I've got a few ideas around surveying families to generate an understanding of what times might work best and blending the virtual option with the in-person option might be a good way to go into this year thank you yeah for sure so I'll reach out to you um Mr Cory I'm cool I'm all oh you're sorry um Mr Bailey

okay um thank you Miss Robo thank you for joining us today I hope everything works out for you this year thank you um moving on we will move on to Turnal

P hello my name is Tanya gon yall know Sean principal Sean Simpson I didn't catch your name what's your name Tanya Kon hi Tanya um I've been running the theal PTO I'll be going into my eighth year um um I'll touch on some points that the other PTO that did um our meetings we do um they are the same time the same day every month usually last year was an exception because the dates

fell on like days that didn't work but what we did what we tried last year which didn't seem to help all we made magnets with all the PTO dates and we handed them out at open house didn't really see after doing this doing this for so long you get an influx at the beginning of the year and you I'm lucky if I get one or two people to stay but I

do have a good Core Group um I also have a great staff at this at lerno school that's always helpful and um so we make it work we do we do a lot um I mean I feel we do a lot um but um we do have a core we had um we had an incident a few years ago where a principal came in and um she she didn't like that she couldn't

control the PTO because as a PTO um it's run by the parents and it's not run by Administration and she didn't like that she couldn't run it um she actually filed a complaint with the attorney general against us and so I'm here to advocate for PTO to principal our old principal principal um before him one before him um and um I rp2 I think is the only one that's actually registered

we're registered no I think Watson might be also because I was friends with the Watson PTO when I was going through this she did the same thing um we are a registered 501c um we have our our raffle license so that we can legally run Raffles um we are registered with the attorney general we have we file our taxes every year um and I when this happened when she came

in like I said she didn't like that and actually Ken Pico was part of he was involved in this back a few years ago um she actually cost us thousands of dollars because we had to because of what she did even though I was trying to get us legit I was in the process of getting us a 501c because of what she did we had to back file so we had to F

we had to hire um an accountant to help us go back and file everything we had you know everything that we had to file and um so I want to focus on making other PTO aware that this can happen um it being a 501 seed is registered like it is tied to my Social Security and that's why I more than likely will be doing this my son is in my last trial is in third

grade um so I've got three more definite years um and then after that we'll have to see where it is because it does have to transfer over to someone um but even if you if you don't want to be a 501c i wanted us to be a 501c because when we we reach out cuz we do um a calendar fundraiser we do we did a fund run where we um we got over $3,000 from sponsors

um they pay for shirts for the kids for the event um but when we do stuff like that um because when I first started the PTO I was given I didn't realize that we did we did have our own tax ID but I didn't know at the time they gave us the cities which we're not supposed to because anything you raise under the city's number is supposed to be filed anything that you supposed to be filed

under that so I was trying to get away from that and that's why like I was starting to do that and then she came in and did what she did and so um we also we also carry our own insurance for if we have events if something happens we have insurance that covers Us um I'm sorry I didn't prepare you the it's okay I mean I partly why I'm here

is to have a public space where I can thank Tanya as president of the PTO at lerno all the board members all the volunteers because the fundraising that Tanya and everyone involved it continues to support both students through field trips uh shirts fun events um the top fundraiser in our last event the the class got to do a video game truck which was uh you know a a thrill um it's a

great organization they bring a lot of um support to our school I think t you know here to to really help Advocate other pto's that PTO really should be working together and we should be helping each other out because we may not know all the components that we we need to do at times I do have to say when I was going through everything with that old principal the assistant um

superintendent it was an an Dar dargan at the time she was very helpful um and so I like I've had to reach out to District before and I've never had had a problem getting help um and so like I feel like there is an open communication I've never really dealt with the committee but I um Mimi still part of Mimi still part of the committee right yeah she I had run into her at the Boys

and Girls Club a few years ago and I had talked to her about wanting to like do something to Advocate to other PTO so that they don't go through what I went through because I it was it was hell it really was hell and I can Sean has been amazing like he's always he's always there for me um and the only other thing I would wonder if there's a possibility

if we can if PTO can have their own parents Square I mean not that he's like he's great if I send out a message say here can you send this out but I feel like I feel like it's I don't want to keep bugging him to do it and if we had our own access to just send out our own messages we do have our um our PTO has a Facebook page we do our meetings in

person and then we do it rerun a live and then I Sav the live video so anybody can go back and watch that live video after if they want to if the meeting um but I mean as organized as we are we're unorganized as well like we try to make our meetings fun cuz I don't we're volunteers we don't get paid to do this and people don't seem to realize that we

don't get paid to do this and so like I try to make it as fun as possible and when everything happened with that principle I felt like it was work when we had when I had to go cuz like she made it like I had it it was a lot like I was actually to the point where I almost quit it and I'm glad I didn't I glad I stayed and I fought it and I

you know I got our PTO I mean we have a great cor I mean we have we were able to with our with our Fun Run we were able to give each grade level $800 for field trips um we've supplied uh teacher uh staff Appreciation Week we've you know we provide that um we run dances we run a trunk or treat um we run a holiday shop We Run The Book Fairs at the school

um I mean we do a lot and we do it for nothing and I was I got attacked and it's as someone who doesn't get paid it it I just I Tred to keep it fun in it she made it not fun in it was I'm trying I I would love to help people to not have ever have to go through what I went through if I can um I have a few

questions um but first on the um you have to you have to you get insurance for for your events yes is that is that a requirement through um District No so so a PTO we are a separate entity we have our own entity um like we are not affiliated um Administration can't hold we we do have a set of bylaws and I'm more than happy to send them to I didn't get a chance to

P them out I'm more than happy to send you a copy of our bylaws um we haven't gone through them I don't think much is going to change this year but um because during the summer I try to stay away from the PTO stuff so we haven't met yet um but um admin admin so like the Sachs the vice principales all them they have an advisory position on a watch they can

advise but they cannot a regular position because they are school and it's a conflict of interest teachers can be on our board but admin can't because they already have a advisory position um so that's you know we have we have rules about our bank account we have you know there's I had I had to get it in line because of everything that happened Mr C I just want to take a moment to say

thank you it's it's clear how effervescent you are as like nervous my like being 8year president of a PTO is quite admirable and I admire what you're doing thank and when you said you do it for nothing no you're doing it for great amounts I do it for my kids my kids love it you're doing it for great amounts of Love cu the love is in your heart clearly you know it's not and it's on

behalf of the the children of the school and the other parents and I also want to thank Mr sipson for giving you the support here this emotional support is so so necessary for success and as far as going back to your past forget about that that's an episode that I I'll tell you as long as we're around that should never happen again but I remember when Mr Simpson came aboard and how excited

we were because he came from another District I believe Somerville right Sean Chelsea yeah Chelsea he came from Chelsea another real struggling District you know and so we we were very hopeful when Sean joined ball River know that things were going to now here his living proof of that turnaround thank you to you both really thank you very he's he's my third I had Brian Raposa was my first

was my first one he was he was so great to work with and then we had the one come in and I had all the problems and you got no more problems no because I haven't and I you know if any if any other the p is interested in finding out what to do you know please let me know cuz I I would hate to see what went what happened to us happened to anybody else

state that clearly to all the PTO people here I am around I'm the Lal PTO we have a Facebook page you can reach out um I'm more than happy to answer any questions that anybody has um you don't necessarily have to be a 501c but I highly recommend at least filing with the attorney general with this with the state because if we had been and I would if she had just let me do what I was

doing I would have been able to do it without it costing us thousands of dollars it cost it cost our families thousands of dollars if I could throw an idea as well and I was actually thinking about it when when you mentioned it if we can get a away that there's some sort of exchanging of ideas between all the all the PTO organizations I think we can all help each other out help each other

throughout the year um so one of the first years I want to sayate it might have even been the very first year that I was the PTO president um the superintendent at the time uh Dr Malone was it Dr Malone I Malone um he held a a Citywide PTO meeting um it was held at spener Borden and only like half of them showed up but it was it having like one

one a year even one or two a year really would it would get everybody together and get ideas going and you know you never know what another PTO might have that you you're not utilizing I agree um so you're you're good so communication is good now obviously oh yeah he's great I mean I just I um I also um we talk me and the the PTO we actually having done this for

seven years I have found a decline since we switched over to non-f Flyers um I know that we are in a digital age but I have found that Flyers actually help more because so many EX well I don't know if this might be our school we do have we do have a third of our population is the El Community um so I I know like a lot of them don't really follow that I I don't

they if it's they're not following it but I find not everybody has the parent Square app and I feel like flyers do help um so we are looking because I know we used to be able we used to be able to go in and go into the copy your room and print papers but I know now you need to have like a code to print um so we as the PTO we looking into getting our own

Laser Printers so that we can print our own flyers for like certain things because we did when we do the calendar fundraising for the month of May we had to pay Staples to print them because that's something that you have to send out so we're looking it's more cost efficient to buy our own printer unless we can have our own code to print in the printers CU I know like I know you have

to put a coding so I know I don't and I don't like to bother any of the staff like that's always been my thing is I you know I don't like to bother the staff because I know they're working um so we are we are looking to get our own Laser Printers that we can have we can send Flyers out again because I feel like Flyers Flyers work a little bit better I

mean we post on Facebook he shares it on parents Square he sends the emails um but I just I feel like flyers help are an added advertisement you know and I do have to ask you how do you feel going into this year school year um with the the with the mold oh um I mean I'm not in the classroom um I just so my my I'm not upset that the school has mold my

problem is that they try to hide it like it wasn't like originally just put out there hey we have this problem we're working on it it was there were excuses that were given and I just I think it should have been upfront hey that we have a problem we're take we're working on it and I just um because I know several parents who were concerned about it and they were like what's going on

what's going on and then it's the non- honesty is I think where the biggest problem was because I I'm sure all schools have mold in them like I'm sure like I I think I think I've read that green it was founding green and as long as you're upfront about it and you say hey we're working on this you know don't lie about it like that's my that's my big the fact that it that was lied

about is the biggest problem but for me I still love lerno like to be honest lerno is not my district school I was fortunate that my oldest was still um she still had School of Choice when we signed her up um and I was lucky enough to be able to stay at lerno um and I love the lnal community I mean if I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't you

know what I mean I I've made several friends I've I love the teachers for the for the most part I think but I mean I just when there's a problem I just think it you know my my SK my kids did go to the summer program they had to be busted toor because they couldn't go into the turno I had no problem with that whatsoever uh as long as it's being

taken care of and it gets done properly you agree but and I would agree with you I I you know when it comes to like getting the information out there it could have definitely been a better job at it's important that because the health it's a health issue your kids go there we have teachers in the class but um but as long as you feel do you feel now is the information you're getting

the most up to information going into this year I mean as far as I know it's being worked on I mean I I have a friend who Liv on the street so I drive by the school I've seen the Vans there so I'm assuming it's being taken care of you know um I know tests have been ordered and you know as long as it's taken care of I mean I'm not surprised that the

school has molden it I mean our school flooded a few years back like it was like the very beginning of the school year we had a really heavy rainstorm and the school flooded like it ruined our gym floor so like I'm not surprised that the school has mold like it's just it should have been handled differently in the beginning do do you have any questions for any of us or any anyone the district

committee I mean other than if there's a possibility to give us a a parent Square option and maybe a printing option you know we when we did print we supplied our own paper like we didn't use the school's paper we we would buy our own paper and we would Supply our own paper so it's not the only thing is I mean obviously we use the school's toner but

I mean I would love to be able to print to the school again if not then we are working on getting our own our own printer you know we did we did set some funds aside for it so I'm superintendent Dr brard can we get um an update on that to the committee the next few weeks okay um any other um questions or comments for my colleagues thank you thank you thank you for coming

down next we have the Morton p

St to wor about this

good afternoon uh committee um superintendent uh thanks for having us my name is Joseph Sharps people call me Joe this is this is Allison nooski I am the President of marttin p and Allison is my vice president along with um Bob Maddie we are uh you can call us like the officers of our of our group um and uh we're happy to be here today uh our plan is to talk about the

scope of what we do some successes and share with you some challenges um with that said I'll start who who are we we're a small group of parents in uh School administration and faculty who are interested in our school commit committee community and willing to to share our time and knowledge to support and assist and positively positively contribute to Morton Middle School and the mor experience the experience of our

students because that's what it's all about I'm not here for a popularity contest it's not about me I had my time in the sun this is about our students um the our future actually um because what we put into them is what we'll see hopefully in years to come uh we function we're a function of Morton Middle School we're a function of Morton's middle school students and its faculty we are not an independent

organization that does what we want to do when we want to do it and if Dr b or Dr G or whoever the doctor is that's there this week doesn't is not on board then we don't move forward it's about having Synergy as a group to conduct activities and events that are going to positively influence our school community at Mor um and and that's how we function uh again it's not about what

we want to do it's about what Dr B his predecessor uh and the students come up with and how can we help how can we mobilize um uh add our uh uh before I get too crazy um we're committed and continue to work this is important we're committed and and to continue the work that and the foundation that was set before us okay I started here in 20121 um I have two boys um I'm the

proud dat of two great students and uh I love the school things have been great love the school system so far um we're forward re residents obviously but we're committed to continue what was done before us um this PTO from what I stand was um I wasn't around at the school but it was it was a foundation the foundation was set back in like 2016 when the when the morning opened up

again and when that did there was some parents that said hey we want to get involved help you exactly what we're doing right contribute to the experience in whatever way that is and it's usually a couple ways and I'll get into that and and and that's what we keep in mind it's like what did the Lisa hogr of the world what did what did the Michelle fleets of the world what did these people do prior

to us being there learn luckily we learned from Lisa because I was on in the the tail end of her uh experience so she was fantastic in showing us and and and bringing us in to what they were doing so we could learn how to move forward properly and we learned um the wonderful uh Synergy she had and the relationship she had uh with Patterson and um you learn that with those type of relationships you're

able to hyperfocus in One Direction and make it happen as opposed to scattering and and fragmented and and everybody doing their own thing and nothing get getting done because everybody's doing their own thing and um it really uh creates a sense of unity because we kind of know where we came from and where we all want to go so that's something we we we we keep in as we as we work uh and as

one of my so counterpart in another school mentioned we're volunteers okay we volunteer our time our expertise to what's happening at that school um and it's a lot of time that's why you have your meetings in September and everybody's there and as the year goes on and you have to show up yeah I appreciate your virtualness but we actually have a book fair we have to do we need it's going to be 2 weeks

it's all week long it's from 8:00 a.m.

to to the end of the day who wants to show up and work it crickets okay that's the kind of activity that makes us who we are um what is it what do we assist support and and what do we contribute how do we do that we do that through events and activities we do that through supporting academics right cuz they they're there for reason they're not there for the party they're there to

learn uh we support our teacher and staff um and we assist in the administration uh and management of like School groups right cheerleaders they want to raise they're going to do a little fundraiser for themselves he they raise some money well we help with them writing the check for the vendor or will hold on to it for them so there's a keep account of it you know that's another thing we keep

accounting of those things so we manage and administer those for those groups uh because they're business they're kids right we're the adults that help them out that's what we're kind of like their their counterpart in the adult world and help help them do the things that they're not able to do because they're middle schoolers they're not adults yet and that's kind of where we come into

play um and we assist and support School fundraising fundraising activity uh and in Middle School development Community Development and I'll get into how we do that the what events and activities there are over 20 activities and events happening at Morton Middle School over the course of the Year okay pretty active um this is what they look like I know you probably can't see it from here but you

know um we have an annual spirit wear campaign that we have going on we have an annual um papaginos uh promotion night that we do on the first Thursday of every month um we do an annual um so it's spirit wear it's and then we have we just started this this this year this summer which we're going to hopefully be an annual thing is uh we get donations for um Uniforms over the course of the

summer and in orientation we're going to sell the slightly used uh uniforms like a dollar a dollar it's a one 123 of a PTO a dollar for shirt uh $2 for pants and for three for sweatshirt uh we live in a low-income School District okay whatever we can do to help the community be more involved whether it's sending your kid to school with a uniform having access to a cheap uniform we're we're we're just trying to

make those things happen um and again when I overlaid the color those are the events the PTR was involved with so of the 20 plus events we're involved in some way shape or form with with most of them um if you know uh some that I like to highlight that are a little different than um you know I I'll highlight that later how do we do it uh and as I mentioned supporting academics we host

two Scholastic Book Fairs a year they last a week okay it's not like one day it's a week we give kids access to books and I know everything's on digital no it's not they need a page they need a book books need to be accessible our future depends on it literacy it needs to improve well how you going to read if you're always in front of your phone looking at nonsense how you going to keep your

attention how you going to discipline yourself to learn how you going to fight distraction spend time reading so we want to make Give Kids the access to do that for really inexpensive uh access to books so we do that twice a year once in the fall and once in the in um in the spring we man it okay I'm lucky enough God thank you I have a slight I have a flexible schedule

so I'm able to be there with some of our core and I'll I'll address that whole how many people do you have in your group whoever wants to show up okay our core is about five or six people and that's the way it is with everything that's not like a a secret everybody wants to be involved but when it comes down to show time to show up you get the

you get the do the doers right and we have plenty of doers because we're getting it done as I showed you in in that last uh that last slide with with the events that we're able to do so um we do our school Book Fairs we uh that's a key we have uh you were involved with getting the Free Library front of the school we have a free library in front of our school uh you

know buy get a book trade a book um we are uh we were involved with bringing back the Morton Ms uh we helped fund the P the Morton Ms as well as the um the pin that goes along with it um student of the month um we use our Scholastic Book Fair dollars to get Awards so when student of the month is awarded they get a little couple of chachis they get a

MAG that says I'm I was a student of the month this week this month you know put on their fridge or their car so that's how we're involved with that um supporting teachers and staff as I mentioned we work as a function of what happens at that school it it's about them 100% so miss Aruda is putting together a earbook and she needs help with uh account accounting of the collections the deposits all that stuff

um DJs at events you know all of that type of coordination and management that uh a teacher or a faculty doesn't have the time to do that's kind of where we come in we're kind of like the the third the third hand type of thing um we're in follow with Teacher Appreciation Week um we uh try to make the whole week fun for for our staff uh whether it be continental breakfast that

we'll make uh and again picking up these things going to BJs getting the ice making sure the coolers are in making sure we put together something that the students well the faculty at that point is proud of they're proud of being a part of this community that we have and it's really important when you're looking at a school within the last three three years uh has a resignations of like 33 faculty you know we need to

do what we can to keep people happy at that school it's a challenging environment I understand that I'm there all the time uh so we try to help that along by participating and and recognizing the hard work that the faculty is doing and the challenges that they face um substantial I can't say that enough uh support student groups as I mentioned um cheerleaders whether it's a d eighth

grade is very active at the end of the year they have like their couple things they do they have a thing at whites they have a um they go on their field trip at the end of the year so we help with all that coordination and collection and and all those things now these events are funded by students how we help is we make sure that deposits are made so buses can be

booked so event uh destinations can be booked because they don't wait for you to get your money raised and then they they say okay yeah yeah we'll put the date down in pencil and when you have the money send it to us they want to be paid their deposits up front that money needs to be those funds need to be accessible so we try to stay ahead of it

we try to stay ahead of it knowing what is coming up we know that uh sixth grade seventh grade 8ighth grade going to have their field trips those uh that TR those those deposits are going to be X Y and Z so we need to make sure going into the year that we have that available to them so we're not running around trying to chase chase our tail to uh get these these students to experience these

things uh we assist in support and school fundraising I mentioned that school fundraising um we uh create a positive social environment uh where parents and students can enjoy and be being proud of what does that mean um we'll have an open house so for an open house we'll set up a free concession stand don't get me wrong it's it's nothing crazy but you'll be surprised what a couple of percolators

could do you have some coffee you have some hot chocolate right you get some cheap uh inexpensive treats and you simply put out a dish and say hey whatever you whatever you want to contribute you actually recognize more from doing it that way than trying to charge people a dollar for this and a dollar for that you couldn't you can't believe it I was I was totally surprised by that but

those are the things we do we try to add a little bit to the things that are happening at school so people are proud to be there um perception is reality uh we develop and sustain events um like for example we do every fall we do we do a uh fall raising campaign um the students and again the students participate they go and sell pies and baked goods the students generate a portion of their

sales that goes into their fund which is used for these activities um we do that's our big one that's that's like the big one however as time goes by and I'll get that in my kind of my last slide your result and the performance is slowly like like you know not going in the way you want to see it though okay um but we also try to develop new stuff

and that's about the other thing we were trying to do is instead of doing these things like make it more fun but make it more computer Community involved so we started doing um something around the holidays send a candy cane to a friend for a dollar so we we set up in front of the cafeteria right we promote it we promote it through all of our we have a Facebook page which um my my uh vice

president here is responsible for she's doing a great job we have about 267 members we were around 100 something but almost doubled but we promote it through that parent square is great it's the best way and we tell people hey look we're going to be PTO people are going to be outside of the calf on these days you want to send your friend a little candy came for the holidays and it's not there's no like

Christmas it's not about that it's just about giving or recognizing a friend and a Candy Cane's kind of the holiday thing so it and it worked it's not a big fundraiser and we didn't really do it for that what we did did it for is for Community Spirit school spirit and you don't believe how Psych the kids are when they send them to their friends they send them to themselves they send

them to teachers it's awesome so we've been doing that for the last couple years and then and we're like you know something let's pick it up cuz what's Valentine's Day why not so let's send a flower to a friend for a buck so we do that I go up to uh to Boston to the flower exchange I buy the flowers for like you know 75 cents we s sell them

for a buck again it's not a huge fundraiser but there's an economic value to things it's not always about an absolute you know monetary value it's about the economic value and what you can get from that and huge success uh it's just see the kids wanting to you know give and make a difference in a in in in another student's life and that they're with is just amazing so again those are the events

and the activities we're involved in um you know uh and in doing that in doing that uh I'll get to that in the in the successes uh School support events again we're volunteers uh again we're we keep detailed records of everything we do and like everything so um we've run this operation as as as the best we can we have our meetings once a once a month they're on the uh third Tuesday of the

month uh we follow the ru Robert's Rules of of of of meeting again loose but again if you don't it's a scatter brain and nothing gets done and and that's another thing that you you see the first meeting there's 60 people there and then when they see we're here for a real Mission like we're here not for us but for those guys that come here every day and it's not and that's another thing I

tell you what we're not we're not a place where people come together to complain if if that's what you want to do then go to the City Council meetings but we're here to make things happen first and foremost um and that's how we run um success successes a success that I feel and um you know being here this is going to be my fourth year as uh PTO president um I

happen to kind of I was involved with um that wonderful elementary school that will live in my heart forever tany and uh I was involved with that you know involved I did the parade stuff we W to we won to like best parade one year and was F with that but going over to Morton I was just kind of got into it uh and again I I I'm in place in my life where

I am uh charged with giving back um it's not about me it's about giving back my time my expertise my knowledge to my community that I live in and uh if this is one way I can do it then this is kind of what we're all in for um so to perpetuate that that's that's one of our successes that we were able to do this why why is that so well we

have a tremendous uh attrition at our school with faculty we've had three principles in the last three years there's a lot of uh change but we were able to keep these events going that happened way before us prior to us we're able to keep the events going keep the relationship with our faculty and administration going um and perpetuate these wonderful things that have been happening um and that's a success to me

uh and to us sorry um support student life through the events again it's not just about fundraising it's about the Student Life how can we add to that whether it's more dances making sure they're having their dances making sure they have these events where they can make each other feel good and recognize other students and and um you know those are things that we're involved with uh support

student growth by incorporating students that's the thing I was trying to do like like these kids get smart kids you got to give them the wheel once in a while I'm not saying go out drive but at least kind of like get them get them into it a little bit like like get them involved with running the event right collecting the money trusting them to collect the money and keep an account of of the

things that we do like the the um f flower for a friend or the Valentine um event that we do you know I'd like to see us have students man their own little like store at school especially at the middle school level because there's middle school students that have they have it and they want it and they want to be involved and have them man a store yeah here's here's a few

Buck buy your pads buy your paper buy your pencils buy your erasers and at the end of the day you open up your store for the kids to sell supplies maybe school supplies or light Refreshments nothing crazy bottle of prime or something like that have them go through inventory Inventory management accounting they this could be a precursor for when they get into high school and following business

dve there's a lot we can do in that regard and we started it with little bit and that Dr B is is uh is on that is on that one and uh we're fortunate to have to have him um maintaining and grow growing our social media presence um is obviously a key component keeping people informed but also everybody you know the the place they go first before they'll call you is going

to go to Facebook or they go to your Facebook page the first place you go if you have a question regarding your child's school is the principal and if for some reason you're not getting a hold of the principal then you maybe escalate things but he's or she is the person that knows everything that's going on they're the CEO of that building they know what's going on and they can answer your

questions but you have to reach out to them so where does everybody go first they go on Facebook why because it's on their phone right now and they're doing their business they're doing all their stuff so they reach out to all these people who are not involved and it creates a like creates stander uncertainty when it doesn't need to be so what we do is we use our Facebook page to direct them to the school and

what we use our Facebook page as an as a secondary information communication guide to what's happening in school it's not our little private line that we're you know planting seeds and you know descent and all those other things that happen on social media right very few positive things happen there um continue our fundraising and yes this is an important thing and this goes back

to um some things that were raised what what what we have done and um what we have done is make sure we codify what we've been doing and I showed you a little bit about that it might look simple but you know that menu of events we didn't never had one of those it's key because somebody comes in goes what do you guys do oh well we do

this we do that h no no this is what we do we do 25 events some of some are ours and some aren't some we kind of help out but some of other ones we actually Champion right plan execute and and and uh you know respond to those things right uh but we're codifying that so we're not going to be here forever okay um and when we leave I want to transition the next

regime the proper way so they know what's going on so they don't miss a beat okay so they know when to call who to call who's your rep that uh this this this is that right do you have like a manual of like policies or yeah I have everything yes yeah uh pictures worth a thousand words so um these are some of the promotions that like different promotions we've run

this is for our book fair you know this goes out in all of the parent Square we send this out you know uh this is will be on our PTO page on our school um events um this is a picture of our teacher appreciation we set out a little like lunch spread one day for him um again nothing crazy everybody loves my ziles right right everybody loves my ziles um especially the pizza

exactly uh congratulations of PTO winner open house so we had one of our PTO members uh Andrea she she does all that um creative uh stuff on stuff right she puts shirts and drink bottles and everything she does uh so what we did is we um for open house we have people who everybody opens they come in and we who do these guys where the PTO you want to be part of the PTO well everybody that

gives us their information and again we're not we're not forcing anybody all we do is acquire the information we catalog it so we can send everybody a reminder hey next week is our is our meeting you want to join us join us but everybody that enters will had a chance to win this nice little gift pack and had all Morton stuff Morton dad Morton mom Morton stuff um PTO sign um you know

we go to Staples ask Staples hey do you mind printing a sign and they make a big poster for it we design it we give them camera ready our work you know um and we have that when you walk in anybody just capture the we try to make it as easy as possible for anybody remotely who wants to be involved to be involved and and that's just that's the poster we use

again you want to be involved and you want to know what's going on you have to be visible so we're visible here's candy can candy cane event we're not there but um that was the table we set up so um the students for our uh Scholastic book faes they come up with a theme and we'll uh try to make sure that theme becomes a reality so we decorate the inside of that hallway that we use

as our bookstore which is great um into was the theme was stranger things so we did like the stranger things you can't really see it but we figured we try students voted on that yeah the students vote on that so it's not like oh we have a theme and we're going to do this theme no students tell us what theme they want their book fa to be again it's about

them uh here are more um examples of uh order order pickup so so you know our cookie dough uh you know we don't just sell them for two two weeks we got to be there to get the truck before all defrosts we have to you know separate all them into individual orders be there at 6 o'clock for everybody to come pick them up you know once you say hey who wants to be

there hands go down so so my friends and other pto's there's always going to be a core of doers do never give up okay just keep going and hopefully your work will inspire others to be part of that Core group right it's like everything else how many hearts do we have in our bodies we have one we don't have 10 we have one okay and that keeps us alive so as long as you have

Emily you have one you're still there so there's a lot of Hope for you so again keep that in mind keep that in mind uh this is our uh spirit Weare where anybody can go and order order something for their student or for themselves and it's it's I mean it's great and it's it allows that it's like everything else right you want to have school spirit you want to wear the gear

you want to have a cool sweatshirt you want to have a cool pair of pants whatever it is this allows us to do that okay again you don't make a ton of money but it allows people a choice instead of working a deal with some guy who does t-shirts locally and then I only can sell t-shirts I get enough t-shirts somebody else wants something different so if you have onesies and twozies you

have to use a company like this and I found that this company is very good um it's called uh what's it what's the name of first place first place first place we do that all year um and again this is a picture of the the flowers that red carnations and I included that picture because uh again gu 25 what are you going to do with them well you get bulk you have to

come back and make the orders and put everybody's message we put everybody's message on each flower so they know that this is coming from Johnny and their little message on it and it's just it's it's a it's great that's great uh um where are we where are next is challenges okay challenges and and this is going to this has been a this Echoes overall participation both with parents students and the faculty everybody

overall I going to say everybody actually I'll say it there needs to be more parti that's what I would like to see that's the challenge is to seeing the participation and I'm not saying come to a meeting you can't come to a meeting that's fine but when Johnny comes home with his flyer and he says we're doing a fundraiser for our school so we can offset more of the field trip so you're

not coming here with a $10 cost to send the kids to to Boston's museum of science or to wherever else it might be or having a field day a proper field day where everybody gets a free t-shirt uh or another thing we do is Halloween we do 700 700 plus candy bags for every student so on the 31st at the end of the day when they're leaving school the first treat they get is from their

school we go and by the candy we make all the bags we do the math to make sure everybody gets the right amount of candy in each bag so there's no you got this you got that you know and it's all good stuff no Squirrel Nuts in our bags okay no candy cones in our bags but we need more participation if you don't want to come to the meetings

that's fine if you don't want to be part of uh you know the events that's fine but when Johnny and Cindy come home be active help students uh from a student standpoint I can't blame them because it's what you learn and um you know what we try to do is show them from what we do that you can participate you can be active I get it all the time what are you doing here

Mr sh what are you doing here like giving back you can't always take you got to give um cuz I know a lot of the a lot of the kids because I'm active in other things in the city and I've known them since they've been really small and faculty okay I've been here for a while now we have us meaning the officers and maybe a few parents and then the principal where's the

and the only faculty that shows up are the ones that have to because they're they've been elected to be on the committee for the sixth grade field trip and they have to be there because they want to talk to us about a sixth grade field trip or whatever the case is and all those that kind of thing it's like a have to instead of want to I don't have

to be here I want to and I'm sure there are other faculty members that perhaps want to it would be great to see them involved and not just one or two but several so they are aware of what we have and what we don't have so there's no preconceived notions of oh the PTO has money we don't have anything it's not our money the kids raised it the students raised it it's

theirs so those are the challenges we have uh another challenge um is consistency consistency across the board like I said said since September 2022 33 resignations for Morton have hit this have hit your desks okay I can compare it to the other schools cus 12 Henry Lord 13 same time frame how can you have participation with parents and with students if they're not involved because they don't

have they don't see any of ownership on the other side because there's a new person in social studies or there's no social studies teacher or what happens to the principal we have a new one again I know it's not you can't control the world right we don't have a crystal ball but these are challenges that are we face and thank God we've been around because if there's been changes of PTO members whether

you're whether you're incorporated or not not going to make any difference because you don't have the same people you're working with they don't know what you're doing what you're so you spend your whole time training retraining you know right cost more time and money to train a new person than to keep the people you have um so the consistency across the board I think is a is is a is

a challenge and um in in the original email it was you know and what how can we benefit how can the how can the committee and the school district benefit well that's the big question for me and I can't even begin to answer that because I don't know truly what your capabilities are what do the capabilities what are the capabilities of the school district to help or assist a PTO in what their mission or what their

goals are what their goals are you know um so so that's kind of where I'm at and I wanted to at least show you exactly what we do um our our scope out obviously um and uh our successes and some challenges that we have and um I Mr cor you want start I just want to praise your efforts um it's not easy remind me of um my tenure at Morton was back in 2005

2006 back then and I was a counselor at the school for three years and I readily joined so many events I helped run Multicultural nights there I helped organize a teacher student jam session in the old Auditorium I'm talking about the old building before the new one got built right and we had a lot of fun and U I remember that the spirit in the school was was pretty cool and that um

you know school was vared together so I praise your efforts it's not easy I think it's the nature of Education today that a lot of teachers do not live in the district that they work in and and so there's a certain sense of community to PTO work that may not be present um amongst the faculty because they don't all live in Fall River uh at the end of the school day they all Retreat back to

the suburbs or wherever else where that that they live um so in order to get more participation it's it's wishful at this point um what we can do for you is um you let us know what your agenda is and we can you know Mr Das myself uh uh Mr Bailey we can be the voices for you at the big school committee meetings and get it out there on Fred TV so that it's

out there for the community to hear you know anything like that you want to forward us any any of your Advanced messages be happy to voice over for it you know and and to support your efforts but I want to allow both of you and I want to I want to allow all of the PTO uh leaders that are here today for the great work that you're doing and try to

develop Community I think it's one of the greatest attributes of a community is for the stakeholders within the community to contribute to that and contribute to the growth of the overall community and we're talking about the community for the for River Public Schools so I want to thank you both very much thank you thank you I have um a few questions actually I'll start with um a

comment and some ideas you actually gave um when I went to Bishop Conelly we actually ran a the school store out of um out of our lunch out of our cafeteria so maybe we can look into that as well finding ways we can get more students directly involved in their schools I think would be very beneficial um I do have a question on the field trips um you mentioned about

um so the PTO really covers most a lot of field trips like how how many field trips would you say you cover so here's what we do we don't cover the field trip what we cover is the deposits for the field trip okay so when the when when the when the class says we're going to go to a field trip in January January 29th we're going to Boston Museum Science Amaral wants a

$600 deposit okay we make sure they get the deposit then we also make sure they get paid the rest of the money but this that class is responsible for raising the amount of money to cover that that's how it works so so they take the responsibility to cover that expense we have three classes so if three classes are going on a field trip at the same time you that's why you have to be ready

for that that that expense because it all happens at the same time so you H you can't well we did it for sixth grade we can't do it for you because we're waiting for sixth grade to raise their money we can't cut you a deposit check or pay the balance so that's how it works and that happens with every grade which is great because it teaches them responsibility but also you can't you

don't have a crystal ball and say well how how much we going to need how many people going to come they need to have access to those funds so we make sure that we are we the cookie dough you know the Val 's day thing we're kind of we try to stay ahead of it and it might not always work that way we've been lucky because we've been we we we have that

sense we're looking before it happens we we anticipating right we're anticipating what next year's going to be what we're going to need so we're kind of there we might be a little short but we try not to be we that's what we try to do we try to make sure we're able there to cover those initial expenses prior to the the kids um you know spending it on those type of things so

uh sixth grade eighth grade their thing at whites I mean those are those tend to be that's an expensive night you know whites does not want to wait till the end of the night for you to write a check no the DJs are going to wait for the end of the night for you'd ready to check you know the the photo booth wants it up front so we make sure that we have

enough to do that and then we try to replenish it so we can do it again and we can do it again and we like to grow it but there's only so much you can do and you don't want to have again this is not a profit organization we're just a informal group of people trying to again help the school out and function work as a function of the school right so I think um I noticed

like the the trend with all the PTO it's really just like the participation like with all like across the board so do you see any issues with like marketing your events out to like um your your fundraisers oriented out to to the parents it has to come from within okay it has to come from within what do I mean by that I mean the best the best microphone you can have is the

principal because the principal has a direct connect with all of the students and all of his faculty or her faculty or her students okay and they're the boss so when it comes from them people tend to at least read open up respond okay and it looks it's incredible me me and Allison said something like who are who are these weirdos how did they get our how did they get our information right

and if it comes from somebody else they're not expecting it might not open it up so as far as the promotion goes it's been great it's it's been a lot better than it's been it's been very good it's been I don't want to say it's a lot better than it ever has been but it's because of the technology we have parent square is great and uh again there's issues with certain demographics

not not downloading the app I think uh as far as adoption that's another issue uh that we could do a better job from maybe from a school district to make sure we're getting to that community in a in a better way like oh we translated it put it in Spanish and Portuguese so what if I didn't open it if I don't think it's important then what do I care what language it's in so

those are things that need to be kind of uh addressed I think to make that happen but as far as Dr B being our full point and being our conduit to our community that's where it's got to go uh and that's where it's got to be um that's where has to come from the other thing that will help with the promotion of these things is the staff if the staff owns it we're doing a fundraiser this

this this fall we're going to you know our home room wants to have the pizza party like if if if the teacher isn't excited about it then why is student going to be right excitement breeds excitement um so if I hope I you know answer your question no no you did and honestly gave a very thorough presentation so I I want to thank you and you seem to really um be really involved in your organization

um so I I really don't have any questions just really just continue what you're doing really I I hope you u i really and I really hope um your ideas really resonate um your ideas can um trans form to maybe other PTO that may have not thought of some things you may have done and in general I and I hope it helps them as well but no thank you I'm sorry I just well I think it's

important because parent square has come up a lot today that Deb sardino who's our communication specialist she is tracking that platform daily the district has 98% of parents connected to the parents Square app we can drill down to see exactly who even has a phone number change and becomes disconnected because of a phone number change and then we are in contact with school staff to make sure that the community

facilitators in the office and the clerks in the office are making that Outreach to get families re-engaged so I just want folks to know that we are doing everything we can to make sure on a daily basis across the district that if we notice parents are falling off that we do reconnect them and re up them so please continue to use the parents Square app we we we're we're on it I

mean anything we get We R do a PDF we're sending it to Dr B to get it to get it uploaded on parent Square for his next communication Dr B does an awesome weekly uh Friday finale which is a just a you know everybody talks about I'm going to do a newsletter I'm going to do a newsletter he actually did a newsletter and he stuck with it for the entire year it's called the Friday

finale It's a Wonderful uh and it's you know he uses technology he doesn't reinvent the wheel he uses something that was already out there you know he he customized it for what his his kind of feel and his what he puts in but he does a nice little synopsis of what's going on what's going on in the classroom what's coming up up and it's just a wonderful thing and he includes

it in that and if that would come from anybody but him it wouldn't be taken so seriously or credible and um we're grateful for that I mean we're grateful for the things that we have and and that's you know and I and I think it's important to note too that one of our initiatives too coming out of the joint Labor Management committee last year foral our objective was really to focus on the adults across

our community really reinforcing in exactly what you're saying right how are we taking care of the teachers and the Educators because they are the ones that are taking care of our kids and when the adults feel connected when the adults feel that their Community is their second home I think that's where you get the transformative outcomes from PTO and involvement right exactly so the

secondary levels are certainly hard we have seen turnover at our secondary level that is no you know mystery for us but we are working diligently we are also very optimistic that this new contract when we finalize the contct cont going to be in a different place for our staff in addition to that and so I I truly believe that Fall River is about to be on The Cutting Edge in a few

different places and a few different Lanes um but putting our adults at the center of this work because when we take care of the adults they will take care of our kids um so just getting back out you have a better shot you have a better chance and you have a better chance with success and that and and that goes Way Beyond like what like the PTO and other things that you're trying to do within

the district especially with this this big change that's happening with everybody and and and everybody's like oh no no no well if the adults were more educated in the reason why what is being done needs to be done there wouldn't be so much backlash in maybe questions about why is it happening why are we doing what we're doing and that's what the the mobile the mobile handset issue um but yes starts with the parents

starts with the adults faculty and parents definitely I just hope you can understand that what the work that you're doing is very positive you're your positive role models and that's going to wash you off onto the kids they're going to feel you believe me yes and that's what I'm that's what keeps me involved because you can't win over everybody it's it's it's the small wins that mean a lot and and and uh our

future depends on it I I can't I can't say that enough like it's a really big deal well positive role modeling and um caring adults will equal Success With Children and I know Dr B is really pushing theal initiatives heavily and we've embraced it and we've we've improved our seal delivery services phenomenally within the school district so I'm hopeful and keep up the good work thank you thank you if I can just throw

one more idea out there I think we in a way we could help the pto's like if you have like a fundraiser or an event like that you know let's share it on social media let's share it on Facebook let us know give us advanced notice yeah yeah let the district know I don't think there would be an issue with that sharing it on on social Med like our Facebook the district Facebook page

where I'm sure that the parents that see the information that maybe want to help out but no thank you for coming Mr sh than thank you thank for having us problem I hope we were uh helpful very helpful on the next PTO we have will be

the good evening everybody you some of you know me I what you do schools I did switch schools yeah I was going to start that so I did run tany for two years what are you running for office let's go what office you want me in um so I did run tany tany um got you have a two-year thing so I ran it for two years and then we handed it over to

the new board which I'm hoping runs everything great the ideas that she came up would sound awesome to me so um I am taking over Watson but I'm starting fores too so Watson when I got there last year I transferred working there their PTO was in shambles I have started it back up but it's going to take time to get back where it was so I now have myself as the President we did finally

get a um parent as a vice president who will be taking over for me hopefully in the middle of this year so it's more of a co-president so that I can back out of it and just help them reorganize um to fall back on what lerno said the idea of having a districtwide PTO is a great idea it's a great way for everybody introduce yourself so I'm sorry I'm Andrew McIntyre um you know a districtwide at

least just communication where people can talk to each other so the PTO can reach out if they need help um need help getting resources or stuff like that so most everything's been covered the thing I will go back on is parents Square for people that so we can send our own stuff out or at least get messages back in because what I run into when we were at tany we ran through the community

facilitator she would send them out and then she would get messages back questions and then it would take a little time to get back to us so if there was some way where we could get the direct questions to us I just started Watson's Facebook there's like 10 followers so I don't know if that's a way that we'll get it but maybe some way where they can direct the question

strictly to the PTO and not have to go through the administrat is what I would suggest just to go back on the field trips you would ask Morton if they did field trips so at the ele level at least for tany and Watson we cover I know at tany last year we covered $100 per grade and then anything over that we would ask the parents like a small donation of $10

or whatever to cover the rest of that so Watson they you be doing the same idea this year I don't know how much but you do a set amount and then whatever we can't cover we would pass down to the parents of you know it would be a $10 for the field trip or something like that um as a quick question um because you're mentioning um the Comm what was the issue you were having um I'm

assuming you're having this when you were at tany um you're what issue were you having with the PTO like with the community facilitator what so he would she would post everything up from us and then she would get the questions now I don't know if you understand tany shares their Community facility with Watson too so on the days that she wasn't there it would take a while like it would be a

two or three days before we would get the questions that were asked and then we general questions yeah we'd post something and they'd have a question about what was posted or whatever so it was just that communication took a little longer to get back to us and um so in general questions but um and I know I was um I mentioned it to the superintendent just at the beginning of the meeting um if there are any

general questions there would be a different person you would want to speak to but um but I to I forgot um what organization it was but um to their point um direct line of communication should be the Principal um so maybe um principles can have the extra responsibility if there's um direct line of question they will have all the answers I'm any question so maybe because again I was just going to

mention that the way parent Square works is whoever posts a message um someone can appreciate someone can ask make a comment those comments go directly to whoever posted and you can add a collaborator after the fact but I don't believe we can add somebody who's not a like an administrate doesn't have an administrative role so I don't know that we could identify a parent to receive questions I think what happens is

you I'll say run the risk yeah just for lack of better words that you then have a an individual who is using follower Public Schools communication who may have a misstep they miscommunicate something they but they're using our so there's a little bit of a risk in there because then who's responsible for misinformation that goes out using the district's platform so I think we we

just have to figure out you know another way to close that Loop in a way that's much more efficient nobody wants to wait three days to find out that the money for the field trip is due on Tuesday um but I'm not sure that we have even a mechanism for making a parent one of the like someone who's not an employee as part of that like collaborative group that can answer

messages I I think for um yeah at least my own I won't speak for the commit but at least for my own edification if maybe we could get a tutorial or some sort of maybe from um director cabal on how parents word is um it's function and how it was able to function I think that would help myself and be able to understand how it worked so if I ever

get a question or we ever come to another meeting and we hear um the functions of parents where we'd be educated and could give more ideas suggestions going question Mr um do does each school have an all call we we use parent Square for for it but yes we that that's our mechanism for reaching out to all of the families yeah the only thing that i' say you said if the principal had a straight line and

that 90% of the time he would know or she would know what's going on but she may not have all the details to a event which is sometimes what we send the Flyers out for like the parade you know so those questions are stuff like that may not want to go to the principal and that's why we try to not really work through the principal he knows everything that's going on speaking of

tany but most of the stuff will go out through the community facilitator so that the principal isn't getting barbarity with questions that he may not know and the only other thing I brought up I know you guys in your technology said you were going to change the website um every school has a PTO button and I know chany gave us access we could change it around a little so that we

could add the um when the meetings were and events and stuff like that if we could look into a way to make it a little easier for PTO to be able to customize that so that we could put up our meetings or this day our events or this day because I know each school has one I just don't know who has access to and I and I agree with you and I've had

um before uh having before scheduling this meeting I had some conversations about that if we can look into um we I don't know if we've done it already but as you said we we're going to be put placing new website if we could place like basic like contact information or meeting times um if um the PTO are able and willing on on the website I think that would be helpful and again if

they're um able and also willing that I understand there would be questions in regards to um safety and wanting to make sure that only parents May to attend their events but I think it's something to work look into um you have any do you have any questions for the district thank you Mr app so I have all the these are all the PTO um I've listed that responded to our secretary and thank you um secretary for

um planning all this and putting in a lot of effort into getting everyone here is there in the building that we'll move on to the next item so um superintendent requested that the um 3-3 um be moved ahead of 3-2 for a scheduling conflict so I like to at this time entertain a motion to um move up 3-3 so moved is there a second second all those we take a roll

call or all those in favor all those opposed pass okay now we're moving on to 3-3 update on caregiver Outreach and communication I'll pass it on to um Dr rehard or superintendent I think that uh Dr ronard and um M Kudo have put something together very well thanks so this is a summary from the district level we started with the district and then each school has their own individual slide

that we can certainly post on the website as well um but to really go through some of the engagement efforts that we've had this year and that we've taken like anything else when you start listing out all the things you do you realize holy wow did we get a lot done this year um and we made some real strategic um shifts and adjustments to some new approaches to trying to engage

the community this year so we're excited to share out with some of those I'll go between myself um and Cindy Kudo who is our director of pace which is the parent engagement Center I know that most of the community knows Pace as the place to go to register your kids for school but Pace has grown to become much more than just the place for registration um it actually has turned into a hub for where

a lot of our parent engagement and Outreach and programming has begun to grow develop and we we've had a lot of success this past year so I'm going to turn it over to Mrs Kudo to speak to some of the engagement and activity based events um that pace has sponsored across the district with with in partnership with our schools so I have to say um from the beginning we have Community facilitators

throughout the district that are essential in this work and until we really you know got community of these facilitators this work was nearly impossible to get done so I have to you know give a shout out to that um so we start off the year with open houses all of our schol we always resources to these open houses but we started last year was this Hub of reaching out to our Community Partners

so that every school has um like a sign up sheet um where our Community Partners know when these are happening so they're able to come together to to have these community resource tables our SCH so when parents come in it's know it's an opportunity for them to really see what our Community Partners have accessible to them um in order to help their students and um so we our first fun event is our

annual chunk of treat at a and we partnered last year with the city so we also had a movie night so that was a great success we had over 6 to 700 people there last year so we're continuing that this year um that will be happening mid October so we're in communication with the city and U putting that together as we speak um JY High School had hidden and pl SES which was a collaboration with a

district attorney's office um and that was a great event where we were able to um educate our our parents in what to look for um with regards to substance abuse for students our annual holiday party so that's that's turned into a great success Through The Years this is going to be our fourth year um and last year we hit $20,000 that we raised and that went back to our students 100 with 100% so

whatever we ra um we divide it by $100 and that's what we spend on our need students so that they have um you know good speaking for books that's become really successful um at our elementary schools so what that entails is a fun night for students where uh we play Bingo um with with um words so they're learning to read during this event there's a dinner is served for families

and uh students win books uh that's the prizes and that's always you know a fun great event we're averaging over 200 participants at each of those events and those are done throughout the district in our elementary schools registration on the go so that has been uh something that we've built Through The Years this has been our third year doing it and what we do is we Outreach to any community events so

Community Partners will invite us to whatever event they're having um from um events at the park to the children's museum to um Highland Pediatrics and we'll set up a table with resources um and we're able to register students through so we've gone out to um you know like Sunset Hill clario any events they're having and we'll bring all of our supplies out there and families are able to register there um kick off to

Summer the back to school block party there we able to answer any questions families may have and students so in addition to that I I I think it's important to note that we also look to promote the other events of the community programs across the city um so as an example the four youth initiative was the offer funding that the city received to be able to enhance student opportunities and experiences across the

city um and so last year once we learned about the funding source being available we created a flyer and really got it out there promote across our schools and that had a huge impact on the number of families taking advantage of the funding that was available because they weren't aware that the funding was available um we were also able to customize and partner with the boys and girls club

this past summer um they opened up their doors to the students here at fonsica so that for families who needed a full day enrichment experience for their children it increased the number of kids who were participating in summer school because they would go over to the Boys and Girls Club in the afternoon to get an experience at the club and for many of these kids access to the club was a bit

of a barrier because of funding or resources and so we were able to enhance 30 student summer experience over at the Boys and Girls Club in partnership with the four youth initiative specifically um so that was a real success this past summer in addition to that the youth violence prevention program and the Shannon funding they promote a number of events across the community and this past year we we were able to get

ourselves involved and promote those experiences throughout the school district to raise awareness for our schools and our communities recognizing we need to be the promoters of some of these other organizations in the community I'm going to hold you to it I'm going to hold you to it amen um people link and RPA with our Workforce Development program the Youth Court program and and some of these are

contracts with the school department but at the same time it's also Our obligation to promote those programs and make sure that families are aware of the programs being available um so that we can leverage them when needed with families in addition to that last year we wrote a mental health Grant and we were able to build in some extracurricular activities that we brought into the school day recognizing

that many of our kids just don't have transportation after school families can't get kids to these experiences so we really Tred to embed these experiences during the school day or part of after school programs that were already up and running um and so we worked with Master Le the Senti and the taekwon doe uh we partnered this past year with gnome surf to bring them into our schools and support our neurodiverse

population more specifically we were then able to bring gnome surf to dery over the summer so we got our kids in the pool um and it was really just an unbelievable experience uh we also met with Jessica Howard from the Heron Educational Center for the human Spirit bringing in some meditation and yoga and and different experiences for kids that they otherwise would not have had access

to Dr brard do you prefer questions at the end or you ask questions while you're sure yeah um just a just a few um so if a community partner wants to get involved because um I've already received um a few individuals from different organizations that want to get involved with the school system in some capacity um they don't what would be the right the appropriate way to to do that

who should they reach out to I think reaching out to either myself or to Cindy Kudo and then depending upon the service that they provide and what they're looking to partner within we'll direct them to the right person okay and there um second question all these organizations um there's written there's contracts of all um for the most part some less formal than others but for everybody has some level of a

contract if we are if we are paying that yep I'm sorry continue sure um and then family Serv Services they were running some groups for US based on some mental health Grant um funding that we had and then after school activities mentioning that we already did here at FICA specifically and some of our other schools play like a girl are in mindfulness were some of the after school activities that folks

were able to partner with so again looking at some additional Community Partnerships Child and Family Services they are the provider of Clinical Services to students and families through a walk-in model school-based clinicians in most of our schools um also support but they are a huge contributor particularly when we're looking at the mental health supports that are provided to our kids and

families outside of school and in some cases in school in addition to that the family services Association is an integral partner um The Family Resource Center we make many of our referrals for our families to the Family Resource Center whenever you know tragedy hits or a need arises the Family Resource Center becomes our main source of a referral well and we work with them daily

especially with the homeless population so any family that's having any issue with uh housing we work daily during the school year with them so they've even actually trained some of my staff at pace so that we can help with the Overflow of that because we just had so many families to service um we didn't want them to wait like a week or two to get an appointment so we work very

closely with them on a daily basis to support our and do you partnership um and do you partner with um like like C CDA or um like like what organizations would you work with when um you would deal with a family that's um struggling with a housing issue we reach out to every single agency out there we you know whatever is needed um if we hit a wall with one for example if a family

you know we go through the whole uh process of applying for ort through one agency and they don't qualify we go on to the next uh when we run out of agencies and they been disqualified or or didn't qualify for any of them we're on the phone with Catholic Social Services Family Resource Center did we miss anything do you have any other ideas so we are in constant contact with all of these agencies we have contacts

at the state level that you know sometimes we're able to directly uh speak with the so that they can put their eyes on an application right away so you know we've even brought it up to the state reps um you know and have had conversations and meetings with them to address any housing issues so and then looking at some of the other organizations that serve as professional development even for our adults at times

for our students um we've got the CAC they support us partnering in the the city of Fall River when allegations of abuse or neglect arise but at the same time they have also become one of our key professional development Partners offering a wide range of resources for our teachers as it relates to navigating student trauma navigating secondary trauma just as a couple of examples um even the Riverside Trauma Center as

we've navigated some trauma in the district we've leveraged the team at Riverside trauma to come in and provide professional development for our adults as well as for our students um and then there's reoccurring monthly collaborative meetings I think that is the number one thing that is just amazing about our city is that we've got a very collaborative Community United neighbors is a is a leader of this

collaborative work for us hosting a number of monthly sessions and partnering as a lead coordinator for these monthly initiatives but there are monthly meetings that go on to really bring all of the Community Partners and agencies across the city together monthly um and there's representation for the most part monthly at the meetings so that we're all staying up to speed on where the needs are where the

resources are and how we can access them or contribute as a resource um as needed and we've seen continued growth in that partnership in our communication this past school year specifically if I I I just have a really um quick comment on the last slide in regards to um the crisis management um at my school bridgew um if there's ever a question or concern about the being of another student we there's a central

line and a team that's formed that can help um with any issues that may arise there maybe um mental health concern but that's usually what it's based around um do we have anything like that but another student has another has a concern of another student say to come in they're not acting themselves um what would be the point there any point of contact they would go to their school

counsel that that's usually um you know they go right to the adult I mean they can go to any adult in the building but whoever whatever adult they go to will bring it to the school adjustment counsel who will then most of our school adjustment counselors are licensed clinicians so they are trained to do the initial screening and then if it needs further screening we reach out we have a

partnership with our crisis team at our child and Family Services um so that that's the protocol I know dery has Kyle cares so Kyle cares is um an organization and I can't say too much detail about it I'm not I don't wanted to speak um but one of our school adjustment counselors uh works with students they get trained every year and it's all about mental health and Sude prvention thank you it's very very

adequate there's a whole protocol in place and relationships like she said with the outside agencies and carg and places like that with a very close relationship with all of them thank sorry continue um so our next slide is Our Family Academy so we we run monthly familyies um these the topics of these cies really are um based on what the needs are in the community so uh meeting with our community fa

with families and really identifying what are the needs you know where do uh where are the pockets of information that our our families need to better support our students um you know their children and really Foster the communication between families and um schools so I I just listed what last year's um familyies titles um they are monthly we have Community Partners here um in person with

community resource tables so that there's always supports for families when they come in these uh workshops are in person live streamed um through b River TV and our Facebook page and they are translated in three languages in real time who speak only speak Portuguese Spanish and French Creole when they come in they get receivers and I have staff that talk into the transmitters who translate

whatever is being presented in real time which is a lot of work um ahead of time so any presenter that comes in they send me their presentation at least a week in ahead of time and I have those translators translated into that langage ahead of time so that they have you know a quick reference of what the presenter is presenting so that it is done um you know with as much efficacy as possible

um so that's been you know an amazing um Edition this year that has taken a long time to get right and you know so we're very proud of that so family at PE um you know we I'm a social worker and I um really worked really hard in the last few years to build my staff to be able to be many social workers with families com in families come into our district um you

know we strive to not only welcome them into our schools but make sure that their children have everything they need to be successful and heal um so some of the things that we do uh you know we first of all we identify families who may have some housing needs um so those families um are able to if there's any kind of housing instabilities um I have staff that work with them one onone we also refer them

to the Family Resource Center as a secondary support um we refer them to any Community Partners to any have um I have staff that are trained and uh certified through Mass health so we are we have a direct access to Mass Health Website so not only do we help families in in applying for Mass Health but we're able to see in real time when they're approved um so um that that's been new

this year where we have the the access to their website my my staff work with families to apply for SNAP benefits vaccine clinics so vaccine needs were you know uh a struggle for for a lot of our students so we've actually um started a vaccine clinic at PA so every week on Thursday we have a vaccine clinic so we service you know sometimes students on a day uh to make sure

they're up to date when their vaccin so there's no uh you know wait for them to start vaccines talk about the housing application support set up students with doctor's appointment so we have u a lot of Partnerships with our community doctor's offices in order to have um to set up our our kids with appointments um before they have your Mr Cindy with the housing application supports is that for

Section 8 housing with the Housing Authority go through everything that a family might qualify for we apply so that they have um you know they could apply they could get it and you know if it's not the right fit that's fine but we offer them the opportunity to apply for everything that we know of that's available and have you developed a good relationship with the Housing Authority so we can call them and you know

whatever we may need you know are they missing anything AB good thank you I thank you and I'm just going back to um the translation of the meetings um I guess what would be besides English what would be like the top three languages in the district do we have that yeah it's Spanish Portuguese and French French okay um do we have a big number of population not anym but I have speak sta fores but thank you

I um so we have some basic support for for families especially those who are considered the Comm homeless um so that their student walks out of with all the essentials that they need to start school from backpacks to clothing to shoes to toiletries they walk out of there ready to start with all their basic needs um translation supports um all of my staff are at least bilingual many are trilingual um so

we're able to you know support families when they come in with live people we also have backup translation devices so all of my staff have a translation device that can translate in any language so um language capacity is not an issue um and they can translate right there with them we don't have to call any service that device will translate for them in real time um and the translation device will translate

back to my staff English so that's been um an amazing addition this year and then I've talked about registration on the go um just you know taking away the barrier of families having to come into case so we go out to any community events um you know that we're able to and we are able to register our no s that was a very thorough that was extremely thorough and uh I'm really

pleased to see that we reach out with so much of this service it's really good I'm especially pleased with the uh the live stream upgrade you know to your your department that's that's really cool that brings everybody like right into real time so that's cool sounds good um just a quick question on the live stream that is a great great program so and I have seen it on the far educational television could we possibly

expand that to um subcommittee meetings as well um like our normal school committee meetings are taped um can we expand sub committe me to be live as well we have a conversation with director sure I don't know I don't know where the where the difference lies or so why one is a live stream and why one is I I don't know what that is but I think it's something certainly that be discussed with the

committee sure and um secondly I'm going back to um the homelessness issue and so if um a family comes in um I I guess I just want to find out like how it begins so we identify a family as homeless um how do you find out yeah first how do you find that up so so there are some questions when families who register um but throughout the year you know in working with our school staff those

questions are asked um annually uh with families to identify so um typically during the school year it'll come to us through Community facilitators through school adjustment counselors I meet with the community facilitators um monthly so there's a lot of uh training around how to support our families around that um but they reach out to me you know anytime with families uh needs and we're able to connect them

okay with whatever service and we have a family um who might be struggling with housing coming from another Community to maybe a fall Ripper um homeless shelter would they be under our jurisdiction so they have a choice right so um under M to law it's a federal law so when you're homeless you so let's say the family came from uh Rockton right and they're in our shelter they have a

choice to either attend Brockton which is their school of origin and they would we would need to pay for transportation back and forth um or they could choose to register here in it's their choice under theal law so up to an hour they could be transported okay and um have you noticed within the last few years that number increasing absolutely I I have question was there um was that the end

of your present no just a couple more things just a couple more things if we could um this is last year in September we noticed that there were many competing events across the city with our Community Partners we were literally wanting to send some staff to some events but we were hosting our own events literally as a district and so in partnership with um the school to Career Community Partnership again United

neighbors was Central in helping us get this up off the ground in working with Deb Sardina we have now and Pace we have now created a community calendar right on the for OFA Public Schools website and so it is literally a running list by week and by month that shows all the events that are going on across the community so that families have like a One Stop Shop place to go to know what's

happening across the community but also here in the public schools so we've seen a lot of folks taking advantage of this over the last school year specifically we've done some promotion of this site but it's really gotten off off the ground and now our community agencies are in a good rhythm of sending us the Flyers we get them updated and it has become really a great resource in a hub

for anybody looking for what's going on in the city of Fall River so we are really proud of that effort last school year and then family empowerment so uh we have seen through the years an increased need for ESL classes for our families um so this year we have put on sessions for our families for our parents um es adult ESL classes so we started with two classes running two classes starting in

February um and we had 80 participants 40 per class these classrooms were packed we also off we had we host them here with adults adults yes but we also offered um child families so while the parents were in class we had uh staff and um JY student volunteers who needed community service we would um you know provide free child care to these families so they're 8 week sessions two days a week um so we

graduated 80 from Session One um after the first eight weeks and it was such a success and such a h so we doubled it to four classes the next session so we offered um session two to those initial 80 but then we added um you know another two classes U to that so the the initial 80 didn't do they didn't all do the second session um so we had some of

those du the second session and then we had uh new families uh who did Session One well part one in session two so we had four classes we again provided um child care to those so it was it was a huge amount at the end of each session we had um a huge party where families came and graduated and got certificates um and then this summer we added another two classes with no child

care just for have a quick question I'm pass it off to Mr Corey um what certificate do they um what do they get at the end of this program was well I mean it's it's really just you know a certificate of completion from Fall River schools you know they really worked hard and you know we just wanted to celebrate their commitment um you know so many of these families worked

all day and you know just came here right after with you know this real Um passion to learn our our language right we justed come together and celebrate them um so it's really just a certificate from all River schools you know congratulating them on their accomplishment but I think it's also to important to note that the piece that I took away from this was certainly all that Cindy just noted but it was the

community that was developed among the adults that were sharing something in common around learning the English language learning how to connect with the school department and there was so much power in that community of over 200 adults who have many competing PRI prorities but they put their interest and they put their time in um to join us to learn English so that they could survive in the community and be more

more literate in our community um so and actually you know we developed relationships with them because we were spending so much time with them so they actually you know really gave us some insight on what some of the needs were for our family Academy nights so we were able to bring in different resources from throughout the state to support them as well um so that that that was a great uh

addition to that the other piece that you know just naturally happened that we weren't planning for but were presently surprised was to see how they built Community within each other to support each other so they they actually um were taking turns bringing each other's children to school you know like just really working out like that that community that we're lacking sometimes right in helping each other

raise each other's kids um so yeah that was Mr Court yeah so as far as those adults are concerned Cindy uh in your sessions is there a waiting list to get in yeah so there there was a waiting list um there is a waiting list so that that speaks solely to the demographics and and the influx of what's coming in and what we're dealing with absolutely and we've actually had partnering cities

who have reached out um to to to try to merrow what we're doing here um actually the state has asked us to present what we're doing to districts throughout Massachusetts um because of the amount of families that you know we were able to service in such a short amount of time you know we really weren't we knew there was a need we didn't know how much of a need and how dedicated they would

be they were here every sing like the attendance blew me away I really didn't expect the attendance to remain the way it was yeah that's a great feature that's a great feat is is are there enough do you have enough staff to cover this need so you know that's the thing you know we reached out to our teachers to our ESL teachers and you know they it wasn't easy especially in the

summer you know we had to like kind of beg sometimes to teach all day and then come after school and teach you know for two hours again um but yeah we were able to they were amazing um and you know families just really connected with the teachers like it was just a great um Community every week I mean I think the other piece of this that um I hope to uh build

from this is to potentially build people that we can employ in our district right so want to employ people who are Bilal trial you know and and these are these are people that can you know potentially once they've learn enough English work for us and support our students um so that's an exciting good work there that's that's really exciting um Mr Bailey did you have any any comment I just didn't want

to forget about you I have to excuse myself for another meeting down the hall yes you're going yeah I have health and safety commit meeting and then just the last couple of slides and I'm not going to get into every individual school but obviously every individual school as all the PTO noted they're doing all of their own Outreach and connecting with families that obviously goes above and beyond

what we're doing at the district level um but then we've got the district the the city-wide events that we get involved in last may we partnered with our Community Partners to host the spring into Wellness Expo that was widely attended and then we were just recently participants at the back to school block party um where we were able to host the event in the park with the kids and families and you know for

anybody that showed up this past or a Saturday a week ago Saturday you know there were hundreds and thousands of people in the park it was really just a most amazing day with all of our schools represented and then we had a little block party at the end with our adults to build community among adults you know and then every slide there on will just show the different events that schools

are doing um and partnering with as a little bit of a sampling of what they've got going on to build community and parent engagement in their schools very nice very nice thank you thank you for your presentation definitely a lot that's going on right now in the schools definitely um so we'll move on to the next item on the agenda um which will be 3-2 um discussion votes to refer avenues

for for parent and Community engagement um I'll take the floor momentarily um I know Mr sorry so there was two items that were included in your board docs um we had a Citizens uh potential for an advisory committee to promote U Mr Cory we moved on to the next item on the agenda okay apologize um first we have a um potential of an advisory committee um for potentially citizens of our community to um give

input advice um on the on what we do as school committee members and secondly um we have a letter a potential letter that I would like to see pass from the C from the from our school committee to the city council to amend the potent potential item in 9-6 9-18 of the city Charter which deals with um public comment at meetings and um there's a section in the charter that says public comment at any special

meeting shall be limited to items on the meeting agenda um I think that's led to some issues we a few months ago we had a a meeting where we had individuals in the community speak on the mold issue and it was a special meeting and we ran into um some contention there I think we should any any possible way we can expand citizens input and I think um especially what what happened asking the

city council to to take a look into this I think would be a good thing and be something we could do that transparent um I would ask that the committee forward um both these items to the full committee to have debate and discussion if there's anything you'd like to see potentially changed or have any suggestions or comments um I'm I'm we could talk about it here potentially send it amended

however I'm looking to refer both these items to the full committee I just don't know enough about it uh Mr Das is to uh be able to recommend it to the full committee after I I would need to have due diligence in order to uh understand what it's uh in regard to this subcommittee's referral to the full committee um it doesn't have to do specifically with parents although it could improve

the overall scope of parent involvement as as one of the results of this but um I just don't know enough to say I'm going to refer to the full committee without having enough time to look at it myself so what do I do uh it's up that's up to you Mr Corey um again we are the paring and community outreach not just parent also Community um these items have to do with the over with the

commity community and also parents if they have a question or concern um I mean you can always vote no at the full committee if it's referred I I've I've seen it done before I I voted do that we'll do that I'll do that

so yes yes in in regards to the letters so um under our City's Charter if we have a school committee special meeting citizens input can only pertain to items that are on the agenda um nothing else yeah um I you were there when we had individuals that wanted to speak about um the issue with mold there but that's just one example there could be um any anything that can come in between

meetings at a special meeting that might be pertinent for the community to hear it's just to give the community the option to go to Citizens input and not be hampered down by an item by uh I I my personal opinion obscure rule in the charter this is just that the school Comm this isn't changing anything this is just a school committee taking the official stance okay we have a motion to and is

that referring to um both items okay we have a motion to refer both items to the full committee is there a second I'll second it there's a second um take a roll call on that sure Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes we have any um new business believe we're on new business now um do we have any new business to come before the full committee car none um can I entertain a

motion to adjourn so moved there a second all those in favor I all those opposed motion a meeting adjourned need get