8.7.2024 Fall River School Committee - Technology Subcommittee

they going to call together the technology subcommittee meeting of August 7th 2024 please call the rooll Mr here Mr Bailey m l here can we please rise we salute to the Flor congratulations United States of America to the stands na God indivisible Justice for All you have any citizen in time first to the meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the

meeting through any medium attend these are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible we'll jump right into the first item on the agenda is a discussion and vote to refer core business technology contracts Madam superintendent or your designate so these were referred back

just because the committee the full committee had some questions on them there are three different uh contracts here the first one is our overall yearly contract the coverage dates for the next three years um this contract uh includes all parts labor toner and developer for all of our Fleet and the desktop printers unlimited Pages includes paper includes Staples um and it also includes

something that we rolled out last year called paper cut where um if you're an end user in a district and you're in this building you create a document and you decided to go to dery you could log into the printer at dery and print your device there so it's just something to make everyone's life a little easier um it has gone up about $4,000 this year um so that that contract is$

26800 um and that brings us through um 2026 each year it will be the same amount and then our contract with core will be over because those next two contracts represent the only that we have left with core um that being dery high school and the uh copy production Center um where we have two large uh Kingo FedEx style machines and and a large color um machine as well as a

large plotter um I can say just just to give some other information last year when we talk about having this plan um they were on 573 service calls throughout the year for us and of those 5 73 321 were called in when school either opened or within the first two hours of the day and were Rectify day of within 3 to four hours um I have worked with other um copy machine

companies in the past and in former districts um and the turnaround time is just it's not there um also what is very um reassuring to us here in the for public schools is um they've worked with us um we had a machine go down at talit um we didn't at the time have funding this is years ago when I was a director um they actually trucked in a laner for

us to use for the rest of the year free of charge it was a larger machine um so they've done some um excellent work with us um at the end of these three years again this will you know this is State contract pricing which does make it easier in procurement for us um but at the end of the threee contract here um we will go back out to B research and see what's out there because again

you'll see in the technology plan stuff is changing ever so quickly in 3 years I couldn't even begin to tell you what a copying machine is going to look like or cost any questions no can you tell me what the you said paper cut is part of this what does that cost is that um so paper cut last when we purchased it initially was about $29,000 and it included 90 licenses so they only for a

large scale production machine so um a little desktop laser printer is not going to have paper cut on it it's going to be go into a teacher room go into a main office you can go in you can run a copy job and you can pause the copy job and then you can go to the third floor teachers room and rerun it um paper cut lives on the big production machines in

the buildings how many people have used it um I can pull numbers but it's it's it's how everyone prints in the district um so I can p do some numbers we get it in the Friday email or for the next committee I just as you're talking about it functionally I don't understand yeah I I can p numbers for you because if I print I'm I I want to print it in my

printer in my office like I don't understand so for the the boots on the ground that think that it does this make any sense to how often am I going to be at working at this school print something and then have to run the dery to print it like I just don't wouldn't you save it as a file in your computer anyway and yeah I just don't know the other the other

piece is Chrome Chromebook printing is not we're in the world of Chromebooks with the kids a lot of Staff members have them as well the other piece that paper cut allows us to do with something called the universal print driver so it installs onto this machine and it can be printed from any machine so it on the back end side takes away the need for a large print server at the cost of 75 to

80 grand it runs all the printers on the cloud it also saves those um print jobs so you as a principal if you had an IEP that you printed last month you could go back into your history pull back up that IEP print it again um it's a depository um and it's just something to make people you said I think it just begs more questions there probably more to it than having print from another school

like your first answer because that to me isn't worth 30 grand to to do but maybe you can have some anecdotal evidence from teachers you know see who uses it and one of the reason why I asked to hold this was because I think we need to take a good look at what we do for copers uh you just mentioned that we purchase some which I think is smart

so that we're not paying leases but as a Committee Member I don't I don't know whether it's a good deal or not I don't know if the state bid lless is a good deal or not State bid lless is just convenient more than anything but I don't necessarily think it's the greatest deal automatically and when I look at these who're spending half a million dollars on copies or whatever the we're spending good money um my

question would be to see what is it are we getting a good deal is it uh are there needs that the principales Departments need that are not being met based on the current structure and then if we could even look into um the color copies versus not what's the policy for color copies in the district as right now there isn't one if there's a color machine in each building that they need to print the

color copy they are allowed to um and then all the sped uh ASD rooms do the using uh board maker software have them in the locations and they per but I think we it begs the it's a lot more expensive to I know it's part of this contract but if they're giving you cop launch to say we're going to give you all the toner and everything for color copies as part of this then there's no

reason to sacrifice and say just if it's free just give it every you know but if they're given you that kind of thing to say we're going to pay for it all that means that they're increasing the price in my Layman's opinion the only it's for me on my Ed is technically a color machine is going to cost more because of the finisher the black and white machine is going to cost less so

typically historically we've always loaded the buildings because we didn't have that extra money we put black and white machines in the schools um over the past four or five years through some different administrations and school committee they've seen the need that we need that color in the schools and we've slowly been rolling out more and more color um as a matter of fact I have um

three more color units on order for the new West doall School um so I can pull some of that information for you so that you can see um and then uh we will look at this as a senior staff um as we near the end of the contract to um send out a request for proposal um the one last piece I will say on core is they use Rico Savin machines which um very

durable we've used some other machines in the past as far as kuk Manola and Canon and they are down historically more times than they're able to be used by sta um so we've had very good luck with the RICO sine that's core yeah I think you I think you're on it just a closer look at it as we go we're locked into these couple of like is this a new

lease that we're going to do for three years or is this just this is a locket it's just a renewal it's just a renewal so we couldn't cancel anyway if we wanted to no when we opened up the new building these were the leases on the new building and then this is the fleet charge that we do um through the end of the lease but it corporates the whole District so when you when I'm looking

here it says uh the first one 26,000 it said starts July 1 of 2024 does it show was this correct I could pull out in July 2 of 2025 and not renew this contract but then we would be responsible internally for all the machines that we own for toner for supplies for repairs this is we're only um this is only for the first year of the 216 800 um we could pull out in

consequent years however we would be responsible for all of those devices and I can tell you right now I don't have anyone on staff that would be able to take them apart the way that they would need to be but where in it does it say we can get out with my I have is another contract this was just um because we do so much business with core most of the

time it's just a one sheet mou uh and then they send the contract when they sign and fulfill the contract that this city level which I can get once they Supply it it just looks like we're getting into 2027 on the second page so yeah that was just that's again that's theou agreement because we still we are going to have all these machines um and the one thing

that I've been able to do with Mr uh Al throughout the years is we been able to put newer machines in the schools there are a few schools that we will look to replace and purchase and not lease um however we are going to need a way to keep and maintain those that F so right now that's our plan it's complicated it is it's not simple but I appreciate you

looking at it so can we get a motion to refer motion to refer in second all in favor I so thank you I just clarify is that the three next up is uh discussion in vter refer updated technology plan okay so we have not had an updated technology plan in quite some time um now that I've had a full year you know year and a half under my belt as the CIO

I've been able to take a look structurally at our department as well as the district as a whole um the one thing that I do not like and we will not do further as a school district is strategically planned in the area of technology in 5year segments um technology is Ever Changing you buy a cell phone the cell phone changes the next day you buy it um so with this plan this incompasses 2425 school year it

will be reviewed annually um if the subcommittee refers it for a first read we will then create a um subcommittee of our own that will look at this and take AP part as we go new school year what worked what did not work what we see as upcoming technology that we' like to implement in the district um policies that didn't work and or did work so that we can always have a working document

something that my team can also have goals towards because when you look at a technology department bottom line is the goal is everybody wants their technology to work but what they don't understand and there are a lot of moving pieces behind running a department such as this so this document outlines um some important stuff there's some goals in there um you know the importance of the

rapidly changing Tech environment um and now something that's big is you know the role of AI artificial intelligence um so when you read through this um we have some key I want to say parts of the plan which would be rapid technological advancements flexibility adaptability the one thing that I've learned in this department and in this district is we have to be able to Pivot I think the

whole senior staff can say that we're we're very good at pivoting uh our old plans were not they locked us into a 5-year Highway and if you look back at our last plan the highway was there but we missed exits because we were behind um the last four years with Co and extra Esser funding we've been able to come into our Century now we want to go that far beyond um changing education needs

um budgetary constraints I have to now develop an end of life plan for our Chromebooks because every couple of years we're going to have to replace some of the fleet um implementation challenges budgetary Staffing challenges and then one of the big pieces of this plan is going to be stakeholder input not just internally within the Faller Public Schools but with input from the subtech you know committee from the

school committee from parents teachers Alik we want technology is driving Life as we know it we want the input to be from the people that are using it on a daily basis in the classroom and in the schools uh I can read through the goals for you if you'd like and then answer any questions I did not know how you wanted you know this to go um I'm looking for it just to be referred as a

first read and if there are any changes or anything that we would like to discuss you know more in depth we could do either at the full committee or here any questions yeah so it sounds like a heavy lift going through all the action steps uh first question is do you have the appropriate staff to cover all these these action steps do you think you are fully staffed to address everything that

you have in here so as of right now at this moment I am currently staed properly in to get this this work completed again we pivot so quickly I may come back at next budget season and say I need a security expert to secure a network I I don't know I will be doing that pivoting as well however I will try in in my power to be financially responsible to keep my team intact so

that we're not you know tasking the budget with extra staff but as of this moment we can produce uh results with the Staffing that we have um 1.3 the promote digital literacy you have the action steps uh a couple of one of them is incorporate digital citizenship lessons into curriculum can you give me a little bit so we used to do this before Co um and um it was also part of

the bills program where the kids really just had it was a 20-minute video that they watched about how important it is to be good digital citizens by which you go on social media you know bad so it's a safety correct and then what we would do there was we would piggyback those lessons in the schools to a more we did a couple of workshops through Pace this year um I'm looking at bringing in u the

mass State Police um they have a more in-depth program that they work with the parents on um that would make your eyes spin um but it's something that the parents need to see and that's more geared towards day-to-day internet use and social media uh use so that's something that we would um just to promote in this school year now what about the coding in the computer science cuz that hasn't really come up on so

that is something that instructional that is something that I'd like to S again this is a a rough draft this is something I'd like to sit down with um you know Mr Roso the new CEO with u Dr Curley so that we can develop some of those because if you look at the industry standards now if you know how to code and you know how to program there are kids out there that struggle

to do Bas oh I'm not disagreeing with I think it's a great idea I was just wondering as as far as the instructional um subcommittee and and and getting the program of studies is already out there so that I anticipate as a roll out to be an afternoon thing we're going to bring back tech Tuesdays for staff and students um so that I anticipate being an after school enrichment to begin and then once we feel

comfortable with how it looks and how do um Mr farot feels about the program we actually start to roll it out as a a force in middle and high get some financial literacy got be sold oh got some more I'm sorry um blah blah blah sure also upgrade network and internet connectivity uh ensure all schools have highspeed internet access I didn't know there were schools that did not so we every school does have

highspeed internet access and um we have a doc fiber Network throughout the city that we lease through crown castle throughout eBay every year so we pay 20% of that cost the 80% paid by E however what we do right now is a building that needs more what's called bandwidth like the high school because of the number of students they get 10 GS worth of internet connectivity while some of our

smaller schools the Watson get one to two so what's going to happen there is there won't be any infrastructure upgrades as far as wiring in the city but there'll be some infrastructure upgrades as far as equipment that receives that bandwidth um what it's called is a load balancer and we'd be coming to you probably in the next few months to purchase a load balancer so that way when mcast is in season I can

ship bandwidth where it's needed um so that there are no hiccups and then shift it back to the schools as okay established Technology support systems Implement ticketing ticketing system for reporting and tracking that that little BL so where I'm sorry the uh established Technology support systems 2.3 2.3 the last the second vll sorry so we have started to implement incident IQ um and now what we're going to start to

do now is we're going to stop to enroll assets into it so last year um student Chromebooks were enrolled in as assets so now this year staff devices are being enrolled as well so it is my hope that by mid year I can come to you with a report of everything that we have technology in the district and put it in front of you and say this is our inventory of everything that we own

technology and that's the T I'm talking about the ticketing system so the ticketing system but I thought we had one in place we do have one in place but we're expanding on it we're going to now open that Asset Management piece that we have with it we started to use it on the student Chromebook side and we saw how well it worked with that that I said I wanted everything that goes around

technology access points I want it all in the same place so that's what we're working on now a couple of things oh so the uh support staff in technology integration um the the three ftte instructional technology specialist splitting their time between elementary schools and one FTE um in the middle and three for the the high school level I guess I my question is the amount of students in each like is it

close is comparable for um elementary schools and the high school as far as students so because was what 26 and dery 26 so when you look at the instructional tech support model um the teachers are doing pull outs and PCs they were before Co they haven't in the past few years we're looking to get back to the model where they are more involved in the plc's they're more involved in the

buildings with student staff the way it's broken down currently we are able to cover and give each building different diligence with the people um there are two Bill you'll notice on the um when we talk about um Mr agar asked for a breakdown of instructional Tech staff we had the bills program which sunsetted we lost two of those technicians um buildings decided to use um those positions to fill an in

elsewhere which I was okay with because we retained two of those positions so now what will happen is they'll share two buildings each and then that extra District Middle School person will push it to both of those so there'll be a team of three for the middle schools okay so there will be there will be enough now again I do Envision at some point and U Mr faras the director of instructional Tech

um Envision a position down the line sometime in funding is there as almost like a professional development specialist that can create these things behind the scenes kind of like the wizard of bar that's creating these professional developments that the instructional Texs are then going out there and pushing out and doing because they're out in the building so much we envision seeing that type of decision in

the future but we're not ready for it yet because the individuals haven't been out in the building doing the work that they did preo they've been trying to keep ahead of all of the software platforms that we've been using how do we track data on that so all of the stuff uh all of the software that we use we have what was once called catch on is now called digital insights um so a

listening agent is put on student Chromebooks and every time a student either uses Leia math it'll just you know come back to us at the end of the school year um Mr fares and I were having a hiccup with getting the Chromebooks to talk but we've since gotten the Chromebooks to talk correctly with light speed so this year in the initial run once the Chromebooks are out and the classrooms

and the kids are using within 30 days I'd be able to provide a report monthly to the school committee of usage thank you I think I'm good for now I'm good thank you Mr I don't know if I misheard this but did you say that the Verizon people didn't get filled or whatever and then you were okay with cutting them no so um when the Verizon people came in they weren't initially part of Technology they were

part of the Bill's Grant um and then when the technology department was built because we built this technology department under the past superintendent um they decided that those people would now report to Mr barious um what we did and I did agree because of the workload and what we saw two of those positions were transferred to the superintendent can speak to the need in those two other

buildings however two of the buildings would like to continue to have someone there so what we've done is come up with the model of the two we'll split coverage and we'll have that other Middle School person for a total of three in the middle school which I think is is pretty suffice in talking with Mr bar is um moving forward at the middle school so we'll talk more about that with the positions but that doesn't sit

well with me personally because it sounds like as if we had the Verizon people and then we just did away with them almost like we didn't miss a beat and we had these people so that begs the question were we just wasting money on the variety I'm not saying we were but it begs the question that if we had so under your department we might have had let's say 10 people counting the Verizon

people and now we have eight and that's what I'm trying to figure out when did that happen how much was in the budget we had this discussion in budget time where are the positions it was like of Verizon here Verizon everybody was like trying to figure it out I'm trying to get it to be more clear so he said if you have 10 instructional tech people across that now the prior superintendent

disagreed with me and the committee I think didn't get involved in that but I still maintain that those positions need to be District positions not at a school because schools use them for different different things and then people transfer well I don't need that I want to convert that to this so I convert it to that but then I'm going to have you or your people go it's just eity when I

was trying to say we'll talk more about it but I did hear you say that you agreed to cut two positions and I was like a little shocked team player yeah the incident IQ that you talked about yes is that can you explain what that is and what are that what is the capacity we're paying for software right so incident IQ is something that I found that mass CU two years ago that this tool is just

phenomenal it allows us to do a ticketing system with students and staff parents as well um it also allows us to do inventory on student staff devices anything basically um it allows us to create a knowledge base which is something that we're working on now that we've done the um minutia pieces of getting devices in so let's say a teacher constantly comes in every morning and she can't get into her

internet well now here's a 30C video on how to resolve that issue yourself and if you can't you open up a ticket um it also offers other add-ons which we pay for we could throw maintenance in there and maintenance could do their ticketing in there um if other departments needed a ticketing system like let's say the cafeteria needed something where there was an event and they needed 300 plates

of chicken we could create a category for cafeteria um the possibilities with that software are endless because it's built off of um Microsoft technologies that uh sh it's called SharePoint um so you can build so it's not just a techn we're only using it for technology correct we could three months ago or actually probably five six months ago we sat at a meeting where we were going to do something similar with the a

were talking about but how is it possible that we built that school without having that top-of-the-line capacity we do so dery has 10 gigs right now so when you go out to um a business internet provider you're only going to get 10 gigs in so then what happens is it depends on what we're using for bandwidth as far as uploads and download speeds at the high school we have a 10

gig pipe at the middle schools we use between a six and an 8 gig p uh it's called pipe depending on what the usage is what I'd like to do what I had in a former District it's called a load balancer and it takes all of the gigs from everywhere and it basically creates one giant bank and the appliance is smart enough to know dery is calling for eight today they're going to get 8.5

more was calling for three but yesterday they only used one we're going to give them 2.8 it LO do there more than 10 is I guess absolutely not so it's not that they're insufficient it is not that they're insufficient it's more of a way for us technically to um move speeds where they're needed for events mcast testing and to spread that quite y my last question thank you for bringing

this forward to the committee if we want more changes anybody else can weigh in but the long-term short-term piece I think I agree with the premise that it's going to be have changing but I'd like to have some sort of piece of it that still talks to the Future so it can be reviewed annually but also acknowledged for us what's happening so I know it's budget constraints whatever but I think

having a a section of it to say future consideration whatever the terminology would be it's going to help us to like we might say that you cannot do your job in your department without having x amount of tax it a place like that is to say in the future that you can't cut that or some just to put the future so almost like a almost like having a staffing slash key projects that we're

looking to do that year right because if you look back at the old one that's where it had all of that and I agree with it and then we had years of like vacancy we had none so the year is going to help to not have us go dor without one but it'll also give us time to plan correct you know so if you add a section for the full committee that would make

sense okay motion to refer motion to refer second all in favor I post Ved thank you very much a question that absolutely are we referring um as a first read for the that would be the I think it's a policy that these things go first read okay I just wanted to make sure as just a general rule but I would research it and if the first read is going to be prohibitive to getting it

active before the start of the year at the next meeting I would recommend that based on the timing of this like we can't go to a second read if you want to implement it for September I would just articulate that to us that because of the timing of this meeting we you know if this happen in June we could have said the July meeting will be first read if you want it before

the start of the year I think you're going to have to just recommend that we do we wave the first read and go right to implementation okay we can talk about that I mean there might be committee members who say I just got in at more time okay okay all right next up is the technology positions okay so um in having conversations with you Mr agar you know this is broken down on the instructional

technology side because that's where you have you know the most questions so um on that side Department leadership Mr farus leads the department as the Director um then when we come into the elementary level we have three instructional technology uh Specialists and they're each responsible for a group of schools and you'll notice um they they all have also either a K8 or a middle school right now um because we

have not yet found the candidate for that Middle School open position so they've been helping um and job sharing with those schools um with the bill the bills people as well um the bills program has now sunsetting so now when that program sunsets we have two options we Sunset we've signed the document already that said the chromeworks were ours we could do whatever we wanted with them except sell

unfortunately to me those Chromebooks are end of life because we've had them close to six years now so we've already been in the process of replacing as you both know we started to do that last year um the only thing that the Chromebooks will not have is uh Wi-Fi data at home because that program is is stopped um two of the schools like we said decided that they wanted to keep their position as instructional Tech to

the knock um and we went back and forth on this for a while um and um just looking at bigger picture for me I had some discussions with Mr baras um I said we'd be a team player we'll we'll let them those transfer over and I can remember having the conversation multiple times um so those two positions gone we'll have three at the middle school level because you'll have the two

that remain and the one that's open so we'll have three to be able to go across the middle schools which I believe is more than suffice and then the high school level we currently have two individuals there full-time um and we have one open position um they are all posted on the website I will say um after speaking with you Mr Agia I did notice that the high school position had

not been posted yet but that was just due to the fact of the transition um between executive directors and the HR department uh it has since been posted and I actually did receive um an application um this afternoon before so as we start to open school we will be interviewing for those positions Mr farias will put together an interview committee um of six individuals principles a broad spectrum of people

one current um instructional technology person and then we will do the model that we have as senior staff and central office um then I will meet with the two finalists and um myself and Mr Baris will make the final decision on we bring a board to um further strengthen that team what you say yes you had one one applicant right now just came you just posted this just post this week um and I

can tell you the middle school one has been open for quite some time and it just we had one individual that I really fell in love with and they just did not want to take it because they could get paid more elsewhere and they went and they actually decided not take that job and now they're U an active Executive Board member from as so they right over that position and went it's just the it's um the

Massachusetts Consortium of Geeks for the future I don't think we need to know about the person why it's empty we can just you can just tell us it's an open position found that a little I'm I'm good I Yi so on that particular issue the positions as they were going that the high school one so this one position is open through the nonrenal like how did they get the job in the first place

and I'm not looking for you to say it here but I think that begs a question for how did the person get the job now I happen to know a little bit about the background so I would just do it a little bit of digging yourselves to figure out how did that happen so that we're not creating um like these new positions right we going to hire somebody and the certification requires

X Y and Z that person should get X Y and Z not because somebody hey that guy's a good guy I want to give him a and I'm not criticizing you you we part of it and I don't even think you were part of that but the thing is is if we're going to say these positions require a certain license we need to follow that for every person so that if it's a waiverable

thing you know just I think there's more to that issue than what is here the I said it before about the two Devils and that if you could please go back and try to make heads and tails of what we had how many we had and how many we even currently have in the budget because I don't believe at that budget time it was clear whether the positions were in the

budget not in the budget and maybe you know maybe you don't know I mean I will say generally speaking um positions were converted um Bill's positions were converted and you know they they do still show up as Bill's positions but they're not fill they are all over public schools there used to be um a cost share for the salaries and that no longer exists and in assuming the full salary for those positions we did some

of them to um ANL teacher out of school and so on and so on and so that became um you know that became a mechanism for you know staying within budget but could um yeah can just look at just try to trace it back and I and I will say in sitting with Dr Curley and Mr ala um they did say like if this is going to affect day-to-day business in Tech we'll

sit down and we'll find money if we need those techs that was adamant that right now currently the way we're set up we are set to you know be successful but the problem is is and I don't know you're going to get the the data but when you're at if you have three schools and three middle schools and one says I want to take my vills person and convert it to something else they therefore

don't have to ask for that other position because they're converting it's almost like yeah I do want to clarify it I don't needan to cut you up but those conversions necessar within the same school he had he converted a middle school bills I think to an elementary ESL teacher we did treat those positions as if they were District positions even though they were housed in individual

schools by Design um we did treat them as District positions when conversions were made they did in some cases move to other SCH yeah and the other F side of that is the one that said they want to keep it that we didn't convert either so that didn't convert that but that also whatever that PO pot of money is now stayed there it didn't you know so I just try to get it equal for everybody

said if we have them I also asked that the budget and in the prior meetings here we talked about the a chart which you gave a detailed a chart that these positions all need to go under you SL Mr farious you know so that they're in the right thing they're not part of the that school so we get out of the the thing we're talking about and you know I

started the year with 10 next year I got 10 I'm even money I it'll help us so um I don't know if this is just informational I think R so we'll move on to the next item District website okay so this is something that um I've been looking at for the last two years um I'm a parent of three of one that's in going to be an eighth grader

and I have two in college and when I look at follow schools.org while it is full of information I feel as a parent that it is overwhelming to say the least and I do this for live um so we're looking to do is um not go out to a different vendor um we're looking to stay with the same vendor because they've been great to us and their pricing model has not changed in the 10

plus years that that we've used them but we're looking to clean up and kind of Rebrand for the schools.org that it's going to be something where we get a bunch of stakeholders around the table um I'm already seeing one she's smiling I know that Dr brard is going to help Le the charge on that uh Debbie Sardinia who is um our communication specialist will be working with that as well as

well as U Mr Faris because he was the original author of for schools.org with final site back in the day um and again we're not I'm not saying that we're going to take a just get rid of everything that's there but there needs to be a more Evan flow to it so a parent can go to one area see all the forms that they need to register their child a

PTI a person can go to one area and all the athletic information is there so that they're not having to dig into a school then that Loops back to a dead Loop that Loops back to a dead page because it's just so hard to keep up on some of those things so that we can clean this all up and the schools are all structured in the same way whereas

when we do a training if you want to change this cell this is how you change this cell and give the school the authority to change certain cells but the other pieces are the district side so we can get some continuity across the pages as well because if you click through the site there's a lot of stuff that just totally the continuity is not there um what this also does for

us is it will make it easier for any of us to pull up foris schools.org on our cell phone it'll condense it into a webbased you know a phone looking website right now when you pull up hours it's very difficult it's small you have to zoom to get this stuff this will create the version of the website where you can actually see it'll give you the you know the quick like some elementary

schools do um I know Westport Mr they cleaned up their website Somerset has cleaned up there so that's what we're looking to do we're looking for ease of use we're looking for um continuity and we're looking to be able to get the word out there events parent events um events for students we're looking to become a community the part of public schools community Through the website to share that

information questions yeah how does does parent Square work at all with with what would be coming up with this new website no so parent Square totally separate and I will say Dr cro will back me up on this in my 20 plus years here that has been one of the best purchases that we have ever made right prodct like we're not giving up parents s to put everything on on the web can you talk to

me about w so wgla is something that will actually translate so in our old website at the top it will say translate and that's actually Google translate and Google will do its best with AI to translate as close as possible WLA is actually AI for foreign languages they have up to 282 in there right now and it will format in the page directly as if it was English Spanish Portuguese because a lot of

times what'll happen is it'll shift off the cells and then somebody that's speaking a different language can't even comprehend what's there cuz it jumbles all over the place what weglot will do is it'll take whatever language and it'll keep it on the page and make it look exactly alike by the click of that button right so I did I read somewhere that we were only getting five languages

is that accurate so we've initially discussed five languages but we that number can be flexible up to 20 in in the pricing plan um I have to sit down with Cindy kud that was my question who going to we thought of five right off the bat um and they were very good because we've been using them for so long they said listen we can do up to 2025 we just need a list

so that's cost though there would be no cost at that point it doesn't matter how many language that we can correct okay I think it's time I think we've been talking about this for for quite a while I think we've talk about fixing our website um and just to give you um apples to oranges um the former superintendent and I over the last 6 months have been looking at some other

companies to come in and just do it themselves like the city did we're looking $68,000 for fees this is the 16194 is what we would pay this year to renew flaschools.org whether or not we were going to Rebrand and clean it up at all the 12,750 is what we're going to pay um to get their Engineers to clean up um Mrs sardini will be taking all the pictures because we have her in house um

she will um take over the RS as updating day to day um virtual Web Master hours I'm confused on that so so what happens there is it's part of every contract let's say um Dr PE says Scott we need to put up a no school announcement so I get in there and I put up a no school announcement but it freezes the page so it frees the page to the point where no

one is going to see that there's no school so the virtual Web Master is something it's almost like a tech support or I have a a Lifeline that I can call and say we don't have this now we don't have this currently now currently if I have a problem I have to put in the ticket and then they'll give us basically an estimate of how much it's going to cost to fix whatever is

broken um so we've been doing that on our own so explain to me about the blocks of 20 hours though what what so that what does that mean so that means I can so I can buy it in Block so instead of spending $25,000 for year I don't know that I'm going to need that we may not need anything I can buy blocks of 12 hours so for the start of the project

for the first few months I'm going to buy a block of 12 hours just to get us through to learn the new system but then after that we're in software all the time we'll be comfortable with it I won't buy the block of ours I'll just have that regular Tex support okay that I would use with any other product okay I understand thank you you I yield so the uh you were mentioned about the current

I I do think we need to upgrade it but who is responsible for now right now updating things on their site if it's the school department who who is school and departments have someone that is the authorized user to update their spaces we I can provide you the list um they've been trained um last year Mrs S went out and trained um and then Debbie and myself and Mr varus have been taking um

turns just because there have been quite a few projects going on updating the district side of things um what this Rebrand will do it'll make it a lot easier so that Mrs sardini will be able to take care of that all on her own because this does the workflow where it will remind her to take post number one down because Dr be event is over make sure we apply to post number two um it's

also going to allow us it will allow us to take that parent Square same post and then put it on the page it'll allow us to connect in our social media the one big really liked about it is if Mrs Sardinia puts a um a post on for schools.org it's automatically going to send it to our social media accounts real time right now we don't have that we had it at one point um but the costs

got a little high um so we stopped using it um but that'll help streamline our information across the board so if you if I went to the site and we shouldn't see outdated things on school sites or Department sites if the person in the department has been trained to take it off correct but we see it consider consistently over and over and over and there have been memos that have

gone out over and over and over and what we've tried to do um Dr C is really good at it because I think we sit there and look at the site the most she'll email me and say hey found something can we fix this we fix it right away um I need people to buy in that are out there doing this because this is their information um and we also have to come

up with a better uh standard oper procedure internally that if a staff member leaves and it's a principle there some type of notification so that something somebody can go in there and update that information um we have been better at it I do anticipate with the new executive director of HR that we will have better Sops and procedures for that um it will make life easier and it it's our goal to make sure that we're

100% updated all the time right now I would say there are probably still pockets on that current site that could use a good update yeah and then communication specialist that you mentioned in the job description doesn't it say something about managing the website or something it does and and she currently does yeah she she lives inside the final site uh portal right now uh she also goes out takes pictures of

event she does all the social media posts um something that um I'm thrilled about is she has been doing more with the press releases um because that's her background um not only that she is just a team player um she great to have with us at the senior leadership she's been able to help many people she does translations for us in Portuguese and Spanish if needed um but we see her role

this first year as more of a learning how are we going to make this position fited to the Grand picture and now we know where she's going to be and it's going to be between parent square and the website and and being out there getting the information I just raise it because I remember when we voted for the position the website was keeping it updated website was one of the most

important things and then when we hear we still don't have an updated website so we got to do this and spend more money it just begs the question of the spending the more money is not because of the updated website the spending the more money is because we want to streamline what it looks like we want to make it E no I get it but at the end of the day we all admit that still not

updated correct and that's part of my frustration is that we PID for a position that was going to make sure this stuff was updated now if you're telling me that she or you tell directors and principal need to update the website and it doesn't happen that's a management issue so not looking to get into just the point is that we shouldn't have an un not an updated website period that includes us I've mentioned it over

and over our own site school committee isn't functional for the right it's it's confusing things aren't lined up properly it shouldn't happen so I'm all in favor of it just know that it it's we would it was you brought it to us to say we're going to get this position we're going to fix it it's not fixed and and just as a counter not to to be the dead horse um when you look at

the school committee page they what they call a theme the theme that we're using right now on Final site only allows certain places to put that information so that's why some of the stuff looks a little bit different on the sites because the theme only allows the mayor's picture to be on that site and and me's picture to be there this will allow us to and edit every picture in

the same size it'll make it a 2024 website while you're on that site go to the meetings and the minutes and try to tell me what kind of organization they're in you don't need to answer I already know just that's what I'm talking about when you go to the thing if you're member of the community me myself anybody and you go to all of our minutes it should say chronologically

the top one is the most recent and it should go right now the same thing that's the kind of things I'm talking about which is probably more a person name the things in a certain way so that it's organized and and if I may just just quickly um and I just did it real quickly what it does is it brings us to our district Google Drive and um something that I can do and maybe this

is on me that I I trained our users but um you can click on name of the file last modified um and then also on the top you can click on last you know last put in file so um I can I can work on cleaning that up but there is a way for it to be put those directions together so a member of the public that looks at it I was just kidding cuz that they

shouldn't have to a member of the public shouldn't say go to the thing s and they like when a member of the public clicks on a button on a website that says go to the minutes of the meeting they shouldn't have to click anything else other than see the most recent meeting right below they shouldn't have to click Google do they don't know what a Google Drive is they don't but you should be

able to see it it's my point and I think that's more of a logistical thing that we can control separate from this proposal okay um and so May's got I think setting this up so that it looks more like the um like the list of uh agendas you can click on any meeting in an agenda it might make sense again assuming the template allows it to put the minutes when they come in as the

third piece of information assigned to that particular meeting okay so you've got the date and then it's just the agenda okay so motion to refer yes motion to refer Second District web all in favor I post so V the only thing I would ask is that when we go to the full committee we have Mr farious present for the website discussion in case anyone has questions for him I would recommend you be there okay and

maybe be prepared to uh have somebody on the screen you know if there's questions about what does it look like it might make more sense for you to say see how this looks so that we can say this is how we want to fix it okay there's something like that and the last item the shortest item on the agenda 304 discussion and vote to approve the public school cell phone bre policy 3.05

thanks it's not the shortest but we will move it along all right sounds good I'm going to bring it up there Dr B Scott you want to just control the thank you thank you that thank you um I want to start off just by thanking the secondary team here in the district um I I also want to start off by noting that this project has not been a quick project we

have been working on this project as a district leadership team I have taken the lead on this work and partnering with um the secondary principales so Dr Jay um Dr Jessica Stevens the now principal of dery high school came to me in late April really looking for some help and support as it relates to the distraction that cell phones play in our school communities but also the negative

influence that cell phones have across our school communities and we'll get into that throughout the presentation um in addition to that in speaking with our Middle School principles when we began to explore the opportunity we really felt that this was an opportunity for all of us as a community to come together and address the impact that cell phones are having um across a three

prong tier right looking at the mental health and the implications on across our students Mental Health their academic performance and student behavior all through the influence of cell phones across our school in addition I just want to note um Mr Drew Woodward who was our director of counseling along with Victoria Amaral who is oural integration specialist they were Central and helping me um put

together and really you know culminate all the data that we were able to collect to design this presentation and create a thoughtful presentation to really justify our request here so we're going to start by looking at the national challenge that I don't think is new to anybody um a three-year longitudinal study conducted among adolescence found that using cell phones to be a significant predictor of depression in

emerging young adults it's important to recognize that nomophobia is a thing and it is the anxiety surrounding cell phone use it can increase due to negative feedback cyber bullying awareness of others stressful events and pressure to maintain social network updates cell phone addiction can be equated to substance addiction and this is all a fact that has been proven across a number of different studies over the

course of the last 10 to 20 years when we look at academic behaviors standardized test scores have a potential to increase from 6 to 14% when phones are banned from classrooms 92% of students study admitted that they used cell phones during class to text and even admitted to using cell phones to cheat in schools yandra case study in California found that students earned 30% more credits when cell phones were

banned from schools it's important to note that there are you know this is not a new trend there are schools across the country um that have begun to ban schools span cell phones in schools either at a state level a district level or a school level so there's a ton of research out there to show these Trends as we look at online bullying in a study of cyber bullying it was found

that cell phones can be considered potentially a potentially offensive weapon in in a banial support uh survey in 2021 the CDC found that 15% of students reported being bullied on school property 15.9 reported electronic bullying and 22% reported bullying during 12 months before the survey and we all know that bullying plays a plays a role in in all of our schools we are actively addressing it and working with

our students and staff but this is an issue that does impact our students but now let's look at Fall River because I think that's the most important piece we recognize the national challenge but let's look at Fall River I'd like to note that this year um as part of our annual bullying prevention plan we had to conduct The Bullying needs assessment across all of our schools and in pulling out some of

the needs assessment implications particularly at the middle school level we are looking at 60% of the student po first of all 60% of our students were surveyed in March so this started back in March and as we we were digging into some of the data we noticed that of the six grade 6 through 12 students 61% excuse me of the 6 to 12 students 61.5 state that the students are often bullied in their school highest

responses were noted in middle school and among our ninth and 10th grade students and this is relative to the Fall River survey and our was students direct response and it was Anonymous survey so we do not know who these responses are connected to but thought that that was important in addition to that when we looked at key data from the 6 through 12 students 3,445 total students were surveyed 3842

report that bullying occurs online 3541 report that bullying occurs via text 28.820934

of others or themselves via social media and text and all of these numbers are trending above the state averages in all categories as we look at our academic implications and we know this is not the only impact on academics however 34 fewer students in our Ela 10th grade mcast are meeting expectations for mcast achievement compared to the state average as we continue to just pull um

additional data 48% fewer students are meeting expectations for mcast ELA achievement in with our eighth graders as we continue to explore to look at our current conduct implications there were, 1500 cell phone related infractions in 23 24 across all of our schools and predominantly in the secondary schools I think it's also important to note as I get into the other pieces of data is that our

incident codes as it relates to electronic violation and and how Vice principles our coding incidences has really been all over the place so it was very difficult for us to be able to just go in and look at cell phone violations we had to look at a number of different codes and I'll get into that in a later slide of how they were coded in addition to having to look at the descriptions

that teachers and vice principles used when writing up what exactly was going on between and among students so as we look at the 60 incidents of physical altercations and physical aggression that was very much connected to physical altercation and physical aggression and cell phone was in the description of that incident as we look at other incidences five incidences of significant electronic threats five of

electronic theft and two of sexual harassment we're just providing the data that we currently have available simultaneously we are working with Brian Michael AAC in Aspen now that we're back in Aspen this year um to really clean up our incident codes we spent a significant amount of time this week with our admin rators taking feedback around what incident codes do they need access to to ensure that we are able to

really code at a granular level the things that are happening in our schools so that our reporting out ability can be more in depth um so while these are what we can report on we all as a secondary Community voiced it even yesterday that we believe that there are higher numbers that we would be able to report out in a future years simply just because our codes are going to be cleaned up for reporting purposes

at the end of the day 1,500 cell phone incidences in a school year is a lot and we know the manpow that that takes across all of our support staff to respond to that we also um took some time to collect stakeholder feedback because we know this is not something that just School administrators can take on um we started with our staff because we needed to be able to survey our staff there were

451 staff members who responded again in Anonymous survey across grade 6 through 12 here in Fall River just one question y all staff members or classroom staff members teachers teachers teachers thank you for clarifying so teachers 88% of Staff teachers report that students use their cell phones sometimes or always during class time 95.5 report that phone usage negatively affects learning and engagement and 98%

of Staff surveyed and responded would support a phone free school we also surveyed parents and through our parent cell phone survey we received 692 parent responses and we were very very happy with that feedback keeping in mind that was individual parent responses and some parents have students at multiple schools so we could have families that have middle school students and high school students taking

that into consideration with the total number set of those parents who respond 72.9 of parents would support a phone free school 69.1 agree that a phone free classroom would boost learning and 51% report that their students have been Cyber Bullied through cell phone usage over the summer we also took an opportunity to conduct focus groups with students so our surveying really took us through early uh early June as we

started to um collect all of this data and we didn't feel that was a good time for us to try to start holding focus groups as kids were already kind of putting themselves on the beach and preparing for summer work um so we took some time with our students in summer school and we thought that was a really great use of time to meet with our students who are currently sitting in

summer school classes um at the secondary level we met with a 100 students across the secondary schools the key feedback from our middle school students and I must say we were overwhelmingly impressed with the self-awareness that our middle school students were able to convey um some of the quotes specifically you would perform better academically because you would work better and not

get distracted by your phone um students made comments my friends and I would be closer uh some other comments that were made some students have phones for reasons and some just for fun it can be negative because of cyber bullying other quotes it would be because kids would not have to worry about social media or who is texting them they would be able to focus on their work instead of what's going on on

social as we looked at our students in high school including our young adult program the special education young adult program um students commented this year I failed every class except for history and that was the one class where I was not allowed to use my phone I wouldn't look forward to it at all but my teacher made sure I always had my phone away it would be good to have a phone

free school because then you'll learn different things the phones don't go don't do anything good they don't teach you how to do math it would distract you from learning other comments I don't use my phone much I wait until I'm done with my schoolwork it motivates me to get my schoolwork done so that I can use my phone which is some of our student feedback um some other feedback from our

high school students as well um some students were resistant to the idea of being without their phone and we would expect that we we are anticipating that um some students are worried about communication and safety protocols during an evacuation or an emergency situation and I would say that is not a concern that we too would not be concerned about and also came up across families and some of the family concerns

that did were risen um and then many students some students commented about inconsistent implementation as a challenge um based on previous enforcement in schools and so we'll talk about um even some pieces that we looked at as that goes and many students were concerned about communication with their parents for after school transportation and child care so as we look at what is the current

cell phone policy and protocol um there is no uniform cell phone policy across the Flor of the public schools um student cell phone use is currently not in the code of conduct um as a section that lives as a policy secondary schools are currently interpreting the existing technology policy to serve the needs of their student population and discipline structures so it's more through the lens

of uh protocols not in the set policy during last year as I looked um to take a deeper look at students who had multiple violations of cell phone use and how are Vice principles and principles awarding discipline to those students or interventions to those students to curb the behavior and we saw a wide range of how it was being handled um initially as I noted earlier the incident codes rang with rules violation

disorderly conduct disrespect and electronics violation um um and when we look at how the actions or interventions were assigned it was very inconsistent with admin um conference with admin detention restorative justice parent conference by phone and in a few instances we did see AOS school suspension we are looking to create a cohesive movement towards a Pham free school that also includes consistent

incident coding in addition to a discipline Matrix that will be embedded in our Pro our draft policy so that the way that we respond to cell phone incidences is consistent across all levels which leads us to that we are creating the discipline Matrix to be inclusive of I just I think it's important to note that we are right now with a draft of a discipline Matrix that is inclusive of all incident codes in

the district not just cell phones but inclusive of cell phones at the same time and so as we think about how do we accomplish this the Yonder program progr has been around for a number of years and you know I think it's it definitely started for concerts and different events where professionals did not want adults videotaping and then putting online the presentations and the events

I think many of us might have been to concerts or comedy shows and when you walk in they take your phone and you got to put it in the Yonder pouch um well school districts have also begun to adopt this and we'd like to take a look at this as an opportunity so Yonder program is a complete phone free solution that proactively addresses phone related challenges and improves students focus social connection and academic

performance so the idea is that students to the far left of the slide students receive their own Yonder pouch it's a personalized pouch the same way that we did with the Verizon Chromebooks where students will have their own pouch when they walk in the door in the morning they will be expected to put their phone in the pouch in front of adults that will be welcoming students to school as

we already typically have as protocol students will need to secure their pouch keep it secured throughout the course of the school day and as students exit the school at the end of the day the magnets which are used to open up the ma the the magnet which is what closes the pouch there are magnets for kids as they exit school that they are able to hit their pouch up against the magnet it opens the

pouch and students are able to then go off and function outside of school with their cell phone so that is the Young Yonder pouch and that is the functionability of the Yonder pouch Yonder as I noted has already been in schools and so they have data that speaks to the behavioral outcomes and student outcomes in a specific case study in Philadelphia as we look at the positive social

interaction the implementation of Yonder increase positive social action uh social interaction excuse me among students from um by 78.6% affirmatively noted as we look at minimizing disruption in schools 100% of schools involved recognize a decrease in student behavioral infractions as a result learning and engagement reported out um that yonder reduced distractions to student learning and engagement through this

implementation the impact on academic outcomes 65% of participating yandra schools across 21 countries saw an increase in academic performance and you can see down below they also begin working with students as early as sixth grade and then support students through high school as we can see the bar trends that that show that difference the previous year is the dark and the yellow is with one year of Yonder in

implementation in those schools and notably students preparing to make the transition to college in career and life are seeing the greatest impact on their overall academic success we thought it would be important to highlight the school districts um both in the United uh in Massachusetts but also across the country who are embarking upon cell phone free school policies um anyone who has linked to

this and we will post this online the blue highlights are links into those cell phone policies that support this plan um most notably of our neighboring communities the Brockton Public Schools will be engaging in Yonder coming this September and the Newton public schools have already been engaging in Yonder um previously and in some cases states have begun to put cell phone free schools into state

law and you'll notice that Ohio Indiana and Oklahoma currently are leading the charge on that and so as we think of the potential challenges you know we have talked about this at nauseum at the at the um at the administrator level both this week and periodically across our planning session as a matter of fact before we even seriously entertained this conversation we held a virtual meeting with all

support staff at our secondary schools Vice principls and principls because I was not going to put the leg work into this initiative if staff did not understand the role that they were going to play as it relates to supporting students and supporting teachers in the implementation of this policy and protocol so upholding policy consistently is at the Forefront of all of our school level designing as we

think about the operational planning and the implementation planning consistency consistency consistency the word consistency and consistently came up over 300 times in the teacher feedback survey and it was a predominant statement in the parent feedback and if you click into the links to those survey outcomes that I clicked into here as well you'll be able to see those outcomes as well we recognize that there

will be resistance from students and parents and Guardians we recognize that this will be a challenge and we are planning um you know with a school committee approval to begin going on a marketing tour um having forums at schools engaging with families who we know have identified um they are they are not in favor of this so that we can hold small group forums at schools and have principles Run town meetings at

their schools to really be able to answer the questions of our families the impact on emergency communication um I you know director of um security is also here John Ventura he has been Central I should have noted that early John has been really Central in connecting with other school districts and speaking with other school districts as it relates um I will go back to being very you know

optimistic around the use of parents Square which also came up in our parent survey parents sare is a widely utilized tool we continue to use that tool for all levels of communication whether it's emergency communication or general two-way communication um and when we really think about the true emergency situations that most of us would be most concerned we have to agree that cell

phones and kids having access to cell phones very likely could create more of a dis servants in a tier three emergency situation then actually help in in those instances um however we will continue to address those concerns as we continue to move forward in our stakeholder engagement sessions as we look at cell phone withdrawal and nomophobia we recognize that that is a that that is an

anxiety and that is a diagnosis and so how our support staff how our Partnerships like cartwheel that we have already partnered with to provide counseling and therapeutic support sports for kids who are truly exhibiting those behaviors as it relates to cell phones I would also say um as a as a school counselor myself and in working in the district in this capacity this past year if we have students that are

this um addicted to cell phones I am more concerned about a larger addictive personality and how are we supporting our kids to overcome um those Tendencies alongside partnering with their families and the resources we know we have available to us securing cell phones from student attempts to disabling and locking them we recognize hacking is a thing um and we recognize our kids are waking up

every day smarter and quicker at these things than we are however I do believe this is where the education around the why comes into play um explaining to our students and explaining the why behind this initiative and really you know supporting students and reflecting on their own cell phone usage and their own interactions with cell phone usage in school and how positive and negative

impacts that it does have on them as as Learners and as young adults so we will continue to work with our students and certainly I think it also just needs to be stated that for students who continue to refuse to comply that is also the reason that we have the discipline Matrix built into the policy because at some point we have to be on the same page that if we agree that it's a

non-negotiable then this is a non-negotiable policy for us as a former public schools community and so then I leave and I end the last statement with you know for me it's also about we need school committee support for this there cannot and we need District leadership support to be supporting principles when parents call complaining when constituents call complaining we need school committee to have our back we

need school committee to recognize where we're coming from we when we're if we're talking about inconsistency of the implementation of the policy then that is truly where evaluation and supervision comes into play because everybody has a stake in this game and everybody has a role to play the same way that we're going to need our teachers involved in this and one of the first steps you know with school

committee approval will be to include the frea in future planning because our teachers need to be Central in this as well but there is a role for everybody to play as it relates to the enforcing of this policy and accountability STS at the top so we will need the school committee to have our back and to support us particularly with constituents that get frustrated with the implementation of the policy and I

think it's important to recognize we may see actions along different Realms of Saturday school alternatives to suspension but for students who are absolutely not complying and refusing to comply we may have to land in a suspension from school situation albe it that would be our absolute Last Resort we also need to send the message that if this is what we are moving forward with as a committee and as a community then

that is where we are headed as a community and as a school full enforcement the same way that we have done with our highquality instructional materials we we cannot stray and we cannot waver and supporting one another in that work will be Central I think it's also important to note um through yonder there are special circumstances um so emergency evacuation which is not including in drills mobile

magnets would be deployed so that students are able to unlock in those drills practicing for a real drill right um when we look at students who have medical needs or for whatever reason their cell phone is written into their IEP or 504 plan they do have medical Yonder pouches that do not have the magnet but the pouches have a velcro strip so students will be expected to use their phones only for the purpose

that they are on a medical exemption or an exemption um and then otherwise students would be held accountable to the same discipline Matrix as it relates to the different just to the use of cell phone outside of those exemption reasons when we think about our students who use their cell phones for translation tools I have already been in communication with Frank faras um as it relates to the

tools that are available in our Chromebooks and how we can leverage the tools available through apps and other mediums that are available through the Chromebook that we would not be required to have students having cell phones and we have also begun to purchase the pocket talk device here in the district we are rolling that out with our adults to start but if we believe that that

device could serve as a tool in some of our classrooms we would then look to potentially purchase those devices for those classrooms when the need is shown to be um present so we've looked at Yonder and we are currently updating enrollment Trends because obviously you know we as of last year um we got a particular number based on the number of students we were serving I have asked most recently to

get updated numbers based on students who' left the district and our new registers just so that I can have um the most upto-date number we have talked with um Mr Al our CFO and we are able to pay for Yonder out of um expiring yes eser funds the end of September um and so as of right now the proposal if you clicked on here it would be $130,000 to launch for year one and I am

working with the gentleman from Yonder to get the best price possible in partnership with Frank farias and Brian Michael AAC so we can make sure we get the best price possible for the one to twoyear plan because there will be a replacement fee going into year two for broken pouches um but the PCH is recycle so it's not this idea where everything goes away and we stop fresh every year

we would be recycling pouches and only replacing pouches in the same way that we did the Verizon program as a point of reference keeping in mind too I think it's important to note that we want to just clear up the schools we are looking at dery high school Morton Middle School cus middle school talet middle school along with our two Community Schools Henry Lord and Dorne in speaking with

principal Shaw at Stone they already have a take at the door cell c phone policy that has been successful for stone so they did not feel that they needed to deviate from this plan similarly in speaking with principal Riley at RPA they too already take cell phones at the door so we would be cell phone free grades 6 through 12 but our Stone and resiliency Preparatory School would not be involved in this program

because of the other modes of taking cell phones they already have in place and they felt comfortable with sticking with that and so then we just roll into what is currently you know in motion and in process pending school committee approval we're looking at a communication for a roll out at the district level um beginning with staff communicating with parents and students creating videos leveraging the website

leveraging parents Square setting up info sessions at the North End at the south end and then supporting schools with their own information sessions at every School site um both prior to the start of the school year and then as school opens because uh one you'll notice at the very bottom of this slide we are not proposing to start this the very first day of school after speaking with um Yonder and meeting as a school

um of leaders a representative of school leaders yesterday we really discussed the need to get this right we also want to be certain that we have as many students enrolled and really in their routines before we come in with Yonder we also believe it gives us an opportunity to ensure that every single student hears the message prior to roll out every every single student will have the opportunity um to meet with

counselors and and navigate the cell phone policy prior to roll out and then we will have an opportunity for a full distribution prior to the rollout day um and so we believe you know we're looking at Monday September 16th or Monday September 23rd and that will all really lay out once we take a look at what schools implementation plans entail and how we can be the most productive to be as supportive and proactive and

inclusive in the next give or take month um pending school committee approval though August 12th and then the next slide speaks to the work that currently the principles and building based teams are doing at the school level as it relates to reviewing our cell phone policy giving us feedback to make sure that it was all inclusive a distribution plan a staff Outreach plan an operational plan

student info sessions parent info sessions and communication and then the rest is just um references and links to the research that we referenced um and just citing um where our information came from in addition uhu so I guess first I I should just I'll just one more piece I also put in the um folder for you a draft policy um and so this includes the purpose the policy statement procedures

as it relates to arriving at school during the school day and the end of the school day uh really spells out the exemptions and then speaks to unmet expectations um so the different scenarios that we can anticipate based on the research that we've done as it relates to um what we what could potentially land a student to be experiencing the discipline Matrix and the unmet expectations and so you'll

notice we have a first through sixth offense through a discipline Matrix very much spelled out um as well as an emergency protocol that is built in to the policy as well and then a response to some frequently asked questions that when we were really digging into other websites and other school districts who are already engaging in this work we wanted to bring upfront some of the commonly asked

questions that we saw universally across those sites and so with that you know I will yield on the presentation and any questions um I'd be happy to answer also you know Dr Jessica Stevens is here with me Mr ventur is here and a couple of other principles in the crowd crowd yes L well thank you Dr bronhard that was uh very informative um and this school Committee Member I just have a couple questions and it's mostly

systems in place and I'm going to support this 100% I think it's way overdue I think um few conversations have already happened but something was said about you know we have to stand up and take our schools back and and understand what's important and and the the kids at education is being disruptive their social emotional health is being disrupted uh we have to make a move and I think this is the move I

think this is this is great but let me uh so the system mostly at at Dy Dr J so I remember a little while back we were having you know some weapons issues and we we would check it before we got involved right so we were checking the backpacks before the kids got into school and it caused quite uh a burden because there lines out the door around the block and over wherever

but how are we going to I I don't know if you if it's too early to discuss that but the system to get these kids their pouches um it's not every day right that was mentioned they keep the pouch so they're paying $26 when they lose it that's accurate right there's going to be a fee um but is that going to be done before the 16th or like that's not going

to be done like the day of school that we're starting to implement get in line get your pouch it's not going to be a 2hour three-hour thing is going to be something in place where we're not disrupting the first day that we're rolling this out that's my question basically so one of the reasons that I think it's going to be beneficial to not start on this first de which yand has completely supported um is because not

only does the messaging does that allow for the messaging to be more efficient more thorough Etc but it also allows for those systemic type things to happen in a more practical way I mean if everybody's outside lined up for 3 Days on the first day of school waiting for pouch that's not going to come to life in a very good way so we are hopeful that by having that window

of time that short window of time in the beginning of the school year not only will we be able to message well to students and families this is coming very soon but we'll be able to use Avenues you potentially like advisory where most kids have a really strong relationship with that teacher to maybe deliver the pouches maybe discuss expectations with the coach maybe give them an opportunity to decorate or brand

or make it theirs all in a leadup to when this launch day is going to be and that has been a roll out that yonder has supported and says is essentially the way that you do it if you want it to be effective great so on the first one was the emergency of evacuate it wasn't on there so I had questions but the second one did like if there is an emergency

not everybody's going to have to go but that's on the second one so um lose pouch systems um the second P somewhere it says yeah what if a student uh needs that personal device for medical issues so right off the bat it comes uh type 1 diabetes comes to comes to my mind right so um a lot of these I don't know how many type 1 diabetics dery you probably

know so I'm I'm happy to see that I I bet that was a topic because type 1 diabetics need their their Dexcom and their readings and they have to be be able to want hear their phones and see their phones and have their phones so as long as that is being addressed um and the parents um are comfortable speaking to a nurse who is obviously very well versed in t1d um I I I think um I'm

going to be okay with that it kind of scared me a little bit until I I read that and and I think it's important to know for the medical student for the medical pouches students do not have to go to a magnet to open it they are able to open the pouch because it's a velpro script it's a velpro okay so if if there is an emergency for a student who has

the medical pouch and I would assume all students that have diabetes or even other diagnosises potentially um there will be a form that families will have to fill out students will still be held to the same expectation of phone is away and off other than to address the medical situation but they do have access to their phone to get all of what you are describing and there was a comment that came up yesterday with one

of our vice principles who is a diabetic herself and the pouch John you can speak to this maybe but the pouch it reads through the pouch the pouch is readable through it and you can hear it it's mostly the alarming the alarm that goes off if they re U uh reach a certain level of their you know close but okay um I'm going to yield for now and see where the conversation goes thank you

thank you somewhere in the presentation it was a question about music or kids can listen to music do we have a policy in the Flor of schools about listening to music because that's like a big thing and I it always gets me because you can't be paying for every reason we just talked about here instructional you can't be listening to music all day and learning so it just beged question of if we're going to go

and be a thorough policy I don't think music should be played unless it's something in the uh special circumstance with this child with a disability or some other rationale just kids saying I want to listen to music while my teachers teaching that's part of the reason why we're in this mess I think because they just think they can put the a buts in and not pay attention to anybody else so that was just something

to so the the pouch is big enough I mean right now for the biggest cell phone on the market plus the Apple watch and the Earp pods kids who have the big earphones I mean the the U the headphones I mean those won't fit inside um but if they don't have their cell phone then they shouldn't have their headphones on anyway there I think it said in here somewhere they can listen to it in their

Chromebook something like that so that in here that was a translation piece I believe whatever it is the yeah cuz if you look at number two on the procedures of the policy it states that students will place their airpods earbuds and smartw watch inside the pouch so it's a it's the cell phone if you have a smartwatch that talks to that phone it goes in the pouch and if you have ear

earbuds ear pods so that kids are not connecting to their devices and listening to music sitting in the classroom I was referring to the second the frequently asked questions last line yeah Will students be able to listen to music students will be able to use headphones with cords to connect to their CL books so that implies to me that the students are listen to the music on that on

headphones on their com books so well no students will be able to use headphones oh it's it's questioning music so maybe maybe we should even rephrase that what we were also talking about is we may need to purchase some headphones that plug into the tech devices in some classes that they hav't for instructional correct not the music might just made it look yes um that's one thing I can address that y the um

you had mentioned Stone and RP having a policy having a procedure take it I think if we're going to implement this district wir for this grade level that needs to be implemented in a policy that says they're going to at those two schools the policy is that they're taking it because we don't want to be leaving it open to them to say oh I you know we relax the protocol if it's

going to be policy I think they need to meet with the same uh expectations added to the policy so that they are not exempt should the principal decide to change their mind correct that's what I'm okay plus it gives us an Avenue if a parent has a a student at here at cus and at RPA why is one different from the other well will have that answer right at the B and I'm

assuming maybe they don't need it but sneaking the phone like when you do the Matrix of you hide in the phone putting a fake phone in or whatever and it's going to address it all they'll be they'll be treated just like everybody else Mr vent's Point um the I appreciate the this is a big issue it's been an issue for a long time and I appreciate the willingness and honesty of that we haven't necessarily

with Fidelity been consistent with implementing not only this but all look the various conducts because I for one get calls all the time to say exactly what Mr Vendo just said student at one school did X and got this student at why did this they got that and they're not even in the same they're in the same grade it's not or something so that to me is a big issue across all of the uh

schools so being honest I think is is the best way to handle it to say but we need need everybody on board and I think too many times we've had people turn the other way because they don't want to take the fight and they don't know if the principal's going to back them up and then they don't know if the school committee is going to back them up they don't know if the superintendent is

going to back them up so your point of everybody being on the same page I think is important and we we need to know they need to know that there is an end game and we're not playing with this issue that might mean our suspensions are going to go up that might mean a student might drop out of school ultimately because some kids are so so stuck on it that they're not doing it if they're

failing anyway and the school is like a social call for them we have to be able to say we're going to give you all the support you want but if that's what your decision is then we're not bending because we feel that like I just think we need to be very transparent with the whole committee so when it's the drop out rate roads up and dese wants to criticize us or whatever we can all back

each other up and say yeah it might have went up because we are holding the line for the 99% of the kids that are following the rules so 1% is not following it there has to be sort of an end game so and I and I just want to say too you know I agree with you and at the same time you know that's also why in the next year I I will be coming back

with some alternative options because I truly believe as a district we need to continue to build the alternative options for kids because if we get to a point I think it's a much bigger concern for me that if we get to a point that a CH a student chooses to drop out of school in Le of turning in a cell phone I am way more concerned about that student's mental health and what support

that student needs for life if that's the response at that age right and if the student is supported in that action at that age um but that being said you know I've been working really hard this year with the secondary team and I will continue to work hard as we look at building out alternative options not just at RPA but separate from RPA we started having the virtual school conversation we paused in the spring of

this year because we weren't ready to come forward since then there's been some other really great conversations and and I look forward to the next week or so CU I'm going to continue to explore those conversations but Mr Woodward and myself are still moving forward with the virtual school um so that if a student really can't comply then maybe the virtual school needs to be their option down the road so we're

not just going to end with that Mantra but recognizing we're going to continue to build other options but to your point Mr agar we got to hold the line in support of everybody um and and navigate those outcomes as they come up hopefully we don't get there and we'll do everything we can to support kids and families to not get there but we can't make those decisions for folks once they

get there as individuals yeah and I think that well said and we get especially at the high school level at some point these students can't be dictating what they're going to do for us we have to dictate that you here to learn and we're not playing games so you're going to have a few cases I guarantee you have kids that are going to push this envelope and try to make a

point of it or whatever I for one say I have your back I'm not backing down but we all need to say it at the same time so that that kid parent says oh Dr Stevens took my thing and suspended me yeah well what it happen and as long as we're consistent we can we can I think get there with at least making the dent in what we have um the only other thing

I would say is the um which I think there issues about and you're in charge of both I think whether a student at the high school for instance has all these issues and we're trying to help them and whatever and they get to this point is there a way to just transfer them to another school if that's an option so separate discussion but legally is it option to be able to say if you don't

and is that maybe something that we put in The Matrix to say you know we've tried this we did this we suspended you now the next one could be you might have to go to school at a different place um against their work you know sometimes it's always like you have to ask for permission and all that um I just think it it's going to get there we've seen the committee has seen um

letters we saw comments from students about how bad the cell phones were at the high school how disrespectful to kids out to the security guards to the teachers to whoever like we've we've seen it all as far as that goes and so knowing that I can only imagine how it is to try to do that so you have my support I think it's a good program uh to implement and let's give it uh the

best shot we can and if we need change um you do need to get this I think before the committee for full vote oh that's why you know what I'm saying but not for to Dr pH was point about this needs to say we don't do the city council things like emergencies we just vote it and then you say it's got to be done so we can vote on it but I would entertain a motion to

one more question sure I'll make motion to refer question second question um I don't know if it's a question but more of a a suggestion and maybe I hope but I just don't want to I I'm reading through when I was reading the consequences of unmet uh expectations I just don't want to have these expectations right and not be able to follow through with them because of lack of staff I just would

like you to let the committee know if we're we need to add a position if we need to anything to support that that this is going to be successful I think we we we just want to be told I guess I think in a quick response to that I think launching and having a strong launch is going to be most important number one from there not having cell phones in our schools is going to change

the work of our administrators drastically okay so when we think about our principles who had to be the investigators of those 1,000 incidences how much time that takes from our staff to do other proactive work so we will come back if we feel the need I feel right now based on all the feedback we've received from principles and across the the network um that we are already in poised with the right

Staffing and proper Staffing you know we have not made any Cuts as a result of negotiations I think it's important to state that so we're going into this with the notion that you know we're going full budget based on what we've planned um um and staff situation has not come up as a concern with principal is there is there that's good to know is there uh currently Saturday school in the middle

schools in the high school there is what Thursday School in the high school Wes Saturday Wednesday so the high school has Wednesday yeah so currently we have Wednesday school um we've had Saturday school in kind of an inconsistent way with this year has gone to 100% right I I there as a teenager you know I I I watched a lot of my SCH when I was at my other job a lot of the students that

went to Diamond the worst thing ever is Saturday school and it it changed a lot of habits so you put that on there Saturday school and I actually enjoyed seeing it and that was the systems in place that was like I hope this can work but if you're going to be transitioning to another day so totally up to you guys we already have Saturday school in the middle schools okay Dr J is adding

Saturday school at the high school and we've already had Wednesday school um mainly for transportation purposes back in the day I mean it was it was at dery when I was there and that was over 8 years ago now right or 8 years ago now um and really the idea is extending the kids school day because they're already there where we recognize Transportation can be challenging on the weekends for

kids to get to dery from the south end and even neighboring town right so neighboring areas yeah and and you see it's not you know the first second or third or four it's it's later on it's it's okay you're not getting it so I I like that idea you're choosing not to get it so it is a it's it's a it's a good consequence in my in my book I yield made a motion one um question

would be if you can get us for the full committee the implementation of how we're going to hand them out like what daily just so we can get a feel for is it the principal's going to hand I'm not saying you're going to but like whatever that you're doing whatever the middle schools are going to do so we know when we ask a question like a staff how are we going to get these things handled

hand it out so what I would ask if it's okay um I can give a full update report like about a week after the school committee meeting um because schools are now planning for this work so I can give a complete plan of all of it um I don't know that I'll have exactly the nitty-gritty ready to go for Monday the 12 um but we will have the implementation plans and I can share

those with you even through I say just even if it said that the uh School administration was going to hand them out something like that so that would mean your P administrators or whoever like just a kind of give us a rough idea of who a school-based staff is going to be something like that is totally fine so on the motion all in favor I post so voted thank you very much um any new

business to come before us I no can I get a motion to ad to Second all in favor I oppos so voted we have Jour thank you all so much