Live reporting - Closing

5. Information Matters
Superintendent’s Report

Mock trial advanced to final 16 next on Thursday

Hockey made it to the Super 8 for the first time

Cheerleaders were competing at Sates today

Girls Basketball finished 19-6
Boys Basketball finished 18-6

Pisani in Wrestling advanced to second day at the New Englands


School Committee Sub-Committee Reports
May 12th - Training Room, training on communications

School Committee Liaison Reports

6. New Business
To discuss future business that may be brought before the School Committee.
Harlem Wizard's Nov 13th

O'Malley
Globe Scholastic Art
Writing awards, Franklin represented in both of this listing


7. Executive Session
Personnel Update - 
motion to executive session, seconded, passed 7-0 via roll call

Live reporting: Action Items

4. Action Items
a. I recommend the following dates be utilized, if needed, as school make-up dates in the event of school closures due to inclement weather. Dates:

1. April 3, 2015 as a half day
2. April 11, 2015
3. April 21, 2015.

motion to accept, seconded, passed 5-2

b. I recommend acceptance of a check for $361.52 from Target for In-house enrichment at FHS.
motion to accept, seconded, passed 7-0

c. I recommend acceptance of two checks totaling $1,255.75 for Keller Elementary School as detailed:

1. BOKS $500.00 – In-house enrichment 

2. Keller PCC $755.75 - Field Trips

motion to accept, seconded, passed 7-0

d. I recommend acceptance of a check for $6.86 from Schoola for in-house 
enrichment at JF Kennedy Elementary School.motion to accept, seconded, passed 7-0

e. I recommend acceptance of a check for $220.00 from the Franklin Music Boosters for district wide in-house enrichment.
motion to accept, seconded, passed 7-0

Live reporting - Discussion only (continued)

Staff Snow Day Survey 

548 responded and identified, 38 did not identify which unit they were with
good response rate overall

14 possible choices provided, were asked to rank order their top five
1st choice - Apr 3 - Good Friday
2nd - Apr 10
3rd - Apr 21

hopeful not having to need to use these but just in case
Apr 3 could be a half day, and meet date requirements

O'Malley - don't like the 3rd to put a religous holiday up against the school day requirements. Hundreds of folks have already made plans, this would make too speculative a venture, we would have time to revisit the dates. I would like to table this for a futher discussion

Clement - How does today impact the town?
This was a school day

Winslow - this is aligned with what is coming down from the DESE. This is what many districts are doing with the knowledge that many people will not come.

Douglas - I am not for this, people made plans a year ago. Teachers would also be affected by this. This is a short fuse for everbody this year.

Rohrbach - we do have to give notice, if we can do a half day on the 3rd.

Jewell - I am not changing my plans when there is a vacation being taken away like this. It is silly not to plan to have to make up one. Some kids will miss but the schools need to be open

Mullen - I actually agree with John and Kevin. The issue of religious holidays is one we have not discussed and need to. The T is still not working right. At least we are giving notification. It is up to the individual parents to make their choice. I would support this with a half day on Apr 3.

O'Malley - making motion to table the issue
failed 5-2 (O'Malley, Douglas to table)

State Budget Update

Goodman
preliminary budget numbers from Governor's House 1 budget
budget would eleminate the quality full day kindergarten grant
7.5 FTE are covered by the current grant
potential circuit breaker cuts
Charter school reimbursements also being cut (could be a net loss of $600K)
House and Senate still need to review the budget to come to a decision

Live reporting: Discussion only items

3. Discussion Only Items

School Safety Update 

Sally Winslow, Asst Superintendent
(Superintendent Sabolinski recovering from a broken ankle and while remote has been in regular contact)

actions of staff at Parmenter may have contributed to the incident
have been dealing with 'rumor' issues raised via social media
meeting held last Tuesday night with Parmenter parents

Q - can you state what did happen?
what occurred, someone came to the school, knocked to come in
buzzed in, was let in, but instead of checking in, proceeded down one of the corridors
intercepted by a teacher and custodian, secretary joined them
queried individual about his presence, he was asked to leave, he did
Central Office was called, Franklin Police was called 
photo shared and individual identified

Next day, a retired secretary was on site stationed by the door for check ins
school working on getting schedule of parent volunteers for check in, also looking for Senior Center volunteers

Notified other schools of incident, including photo of individual

Adding signage and consistent language around check in process at each school

Want to address 'tail gating', need to be checked in separately

Parmenter establishing a school wide committee for re-evaluation of school safety

School Dept will sit with the Police Dept to review the process, what worked, what could be improved

We did get questions on why we did not get into 'lock down'?
the individual did leave without threat, other schools were notified
concerned with physical and emotional safety for all the students
did confer with Police and Admin office before that decision was made

Met with vendor last Friday who had installed the security system for options and improvements

possible pilot program being explored for a software program for facial recognition

any renovations for the buildings would require Facilities which is part of the Town side of the budget

audience participating at the School Committee at Franklin High School

O'Malley - unfortunate, yes. I feel confident our schools are safe

Trahan - I felt I needed to review our policies, we did follow the policies and procedures. Steps are being taken to address where possible.

Q - what was the decision on not telling the parents of the other schools. I have been in frequently and while buzzed in, was not checked in but maybe once in all the time
A - Winslow - we felt it was a Parmenter issue. It became apparent after the Tuesday meeting that we needed to do more.
A - Mullen - we do have to say how lucky we were that nothing did happen. We are re-visiting the policy. we do need to look at how the schools work.

Q - I would respectfully disagree with the decision to not go with a town-wide lockdown. My kids are at Jefferson but the guy could have tried one, and could go elsewhere.
Winslow - we relied on input from the Police

Police Officer - We had an incident today for a couple of different reasons. I did not see it required that under the circumstances. If it was a breach, i.e. he had run through. He had been immediately addressed upon his entrance. The way it played out, there was not lock down called. Really not necessary.

I have the same amount of interest. I have a family member in every level of the school district. I understand where you are coming from but it was not required.

This guy is at a facility now. We have been busy but we want to get out to the older schools to see how we can harden the entrance. The newer schools have that entry where you can get in the first door but not the second.

Dave Nee - I understand that it was what it was. Sandy Hook took only 7 minutes. It may not have been a threat, ere on the side of caution.  I am a roofer, I go to different schools, the others have a better system than we do. I go to Parmenter and it is an honor system, I'll admit I don't always check in. there was a failure last Monday. I am glad to see solutions being put together. 

I think the town as a whole needs to embrace social media. There needs to be better communications.

Trahan - there needs to be some discussion on what is posted. I don't know why people don't get the connectED message. If they can't, they should and we need to figure that out. I got the messages today. I don't want that on Facebook so someone could know what was going on and endanger our children.

Nee - Don't discount it, embrace it. Control it and send it yourself

Mullen - there isn't any one person who could keep up with it. 

Winslow - the struggle we have is we need to get our info correct before sending out. Kids are tweeting out so kids at Tri-County are finding out before I can get to send out the right info

Selena Cousins - I would beg you as a parent to ere on the side of safety. Layers of security make it harder and harder to get into the building. While Parmenter is doing stuff, this needs to be a district wide effort. Not the most effective way to address the issue. I got the notice today and appreciated it. When you ask people to honestly sign in, you could check in later and find Mickey Mouse signed in. Do we test trying to get in? We should try that as part of the evaluation. I was a school principal for 8 years. if upsets someone in the short run, so be it. We should be partners in this. We can use social media to help.

Winslow - custodians do a sweep of the building after events, but it raises questions about the music and other evening events

Parent teacher at Tri-County - my students knew before I did and my phone did blow up with notifications. The younger kids had no idea of the administrative lockdown today. The admin lockdown should always be an option. That little bit of safety is worth it. It was a brilliant call today. There were some bad comments on Facebook. It finallly shut down with the good ConnectEd notifications. 

Q - how is a volunteer going to help if the person has a weapon?
A - the volunteers would be a work in progress to getting something better at the doorways

Peter Light - FHS incident

during the lunch block the Franklin Police received a call with a threat
Sgt Spillane was notified, based upon the nature of the threat we did not lockdown, we did evacuate, as the evacuation occured, the piolice and fire were arriving and secured the campus. Horace Mann/Oak St were notified and went it lockdown. The Asst Superintendent put the district into lockdown

Police needed to sweep the building, it was about 90 mins before dismissal but we expedited the busses to arrive early. Students who drove and had keys with them, were allowed to leave. After the State Police completed the sweep, faculty and then student were allowed back into the building for their belongings. We wanted to return to normalcy as soon as possible. We had evening events, performance, as well as this School Committee meeting.

Some things from the fall incident were incorporated into the ConnectED messages. Parents were told not to leave their vehicles when students were dismissed. Parent night will go into more detail Wednesday night.

Investigation is still underway. Students are updated via the faculty. it wil be short and brief Wednesday morning. 

Schools were dismissed at normal times, after school events went on as scheduled.

Parents who did attempt to get their students were turned away. During lockdown, no one is allowed to leave.

Feedback from the Police was positive about the reaction of the students and faculty. Holmes Bus company stepped up to work with us. Had busses on the scene within 10 minutes. Really outstanding response by them!

Custodians came into the school when it was safe. When you dismiss students from the cafeteria and library when they are eating lunch, it does leave a mess behind.

5 minute recess

Live reporting: FHS Update (continued)

Peter Light continues the agenda (and we return to the first presentation document)

FHS School Committee Update - Mar 10, 2015 from Franklin Matters

Nicole Haberman - Assistant Principal for Student Services

Tutoring Center picks up on page 5

photo of slide not in the published presentation

Tutoring Center rebranded as "Academic Center"

additional slide reflecting the change to Academic Center

5 teachers, Mon-Tue-Thu serving students after school

tracking to over 1,000 student visits to the Center for this school year

Peter Light

Graduation and Dropout Rate definitions on page 7
current numbers just released on Page 8

Commencement Planning - June 5th
conducted a dry run of the event in January
the new gym will accomodate the students, guests, etc. outlined on page 11

6 tickets total per student for graduation
no additional tickets available
some standing room only space available on first come first served basis
gym and auditorium both fully air conditioned
ceremony will also be simulcast via local cable channel as well

Live reporting: School Committee - Mar 10, 2015

Present: O'Malley, Rohrbach, Clement, Mullen, Trahan, Douglas, Jewell
Absent: none


1. Routine Business
Citizen’s Comments - none

Review of Agenda


Minutes: I recommend approval of the minutes from the February 24, 2015
School Committee Meeting. 
motion to accept, seconded, passed 7-0


Payment of Bills Mr. Clement
Payroll Mrs. Douglas
FHS Student Representatives (skipped due to presentation schedule)
Correspondence: Budget to Actual – Miriam Goodman

2. Guests/Presentations
a. FHS Update – Peter Light

FHS School Committee Update - Mar 10, 2015 from Franklin Matters

or
http://www.slideshare.net/shersteve/fhs-school-committeeupdate20150310



Heather Moreau - TV Studio

presentation by FHS during the School Committee meeting

The video clip in the FHS update can be viewed here
School Committee Update 1-27-15 http://mediacast.franklinps.net/mediaPortal/?channelID=100000

The new media channel can be found here
http://mediacast.franklinps.net/mediaPortal/?channelID=100004


Kristen Cerce - Health and Physical Ed

FPS School Committee Presentation - Mar 10, 2015 from Franklin Matters

or
http://www.slideshare.net/shersteve/fps-school-committeepresentationcerce20150310


STEM Update – Brenda Redding

FPS STEM School Committee - 2015 - updated Mar 10, 2015 from Franklin Matters

or
http://www.slideshare.net/shersteve/fps-stem-schoolcommittee2015updated20150310



increase of approx 30% in selection of science related electives over the last 4 years at FHS (slide #6)

Franklin Public Schools: Follow up to today's incident

A message from FRANKLIN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT

March 10, 2015

Dear Franklin Families and Staff,

Early this afternoon, the Franklin Police notified school administration that there had been a bomb threat made to Franklin High School.  The Franklin Police and Fire Departments arrived on the scene quickly and assisted school administration and staff in the evacuation process to ensure that all high school students and staff were safe.  

Because of the proximity to the high school, the Oak/Horace Mann and ECDC Complex were immediately placed in administrative lockdown. As an additional safety precaution, all other schools in the district were also placed on Administrative Lock Down shortly thereafter.  Administrative lockdown means that students and staff remain inside the building while continuing with their school day and that no individuals are allowed to enter or exit the building during this time. 

Parents were provided with both written and verbal communications regarding the situation via the district's emergency Blackboard Connect system. High school students were safely evacuated to the designated evacuation area.  At that time, they were dismissed early to allow police, fire, and safety personnel to respond to the threat and ensure that the area was secured.  Administrative lockdown was lifted in time for dismissal to proceed as usual in all the other schools. 

In speaking with the Franklin Police, it is our understanding that the call came in to the business line at the police department.  The Police are conducting a thorough investigation into the matter. Police report that both the evacuation and lock down went smoothly as expected. Additionally, students and staff proceeded in an orderly manner, which was further facilitated by parent cooperation with police and administrative requests.

As always, the safety of our students and staff is our number one priority.  We plan to debrief with the police to review our implementation of our safety protocols.

Thank you for your continued understanding and support. 

This e-mail has been sent to you by FRANKLIN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT. To maximize their communication with you, you may be receiving this e-mail in addition to a phone call with the same message.