AlphaBEST Update (10 minutes)

Transcript (~5 min @ 34:18)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 34:16 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: carries unanimously next on our agenda are our subcommittees first of which this evening is the educational programs and personnel subcommittee first on that agenda is the alpha bust update and i will invite the superintendent to speak to that item please thank you ms driscoll i will ask

▶ 34:30 Speaker 2: ms farrell to come forward on that as you all know approximately a year ago at this time we We had to make a decision about our summer program, and we went with a vendor, as Ed Stations would no longer be overseeing that program. We contracted with Alphabest, which has a good reputation, is in many school systems, including our neighbors in Malden, and I believe our neighbors in Revere, and they were able to accommodate us and quickly put together a program at short notice granted it was short notice but we're grateful that we were able to service approximately 85 children a week and I will allow miss Farrell to provide you with the report that reviews what happened last summer so as the

▶ 35:30 Speaker 5: superintendent said we had we're here I think at this time last year talking about the need to come up with some summer programming for our families and alpha best came in on short notice it was able to put a program together that ran for eight weeks as the superintendent said we had approximately 85 students participating in the program and the feedback that we've received has been positive it had similarities to the program that we had run in the past with different themes and activities in a wide variety of areas a lot of our own employees in the past also worked for them this summer so there was that familiarity with our children we have been in negotiations with them to provide the programming for this summer we are expanding it to a ten week program so it will pick up as soon as school is out and take us through the summer they are very excited to get started once we present it to you they are looking at no increases in the cost of the program and getting out ASAP with information to families so that they can get registered sooner this year they'll also do an information night as they did in the past and they are very willing to come forward at a meeting if you wish to speak more about the program but we are working with them later this week to finalize the agreement and hopefully to get it out to families by the end of this month so that they'll know the dates and the procedure and the signups and in all the information so I'm happy to answer anything you have a lot of details here regarding costs and enrollments and expectations superintendent did indicate that we were able to collect $10,000 in that short period of time and their expectation is that they would be able to double that for next year to $20,000 questions for

▶ 37:47 Speaker 4: Miss Farrell or superintendent Amar mr. O'Connell thank you through the chair to miss Farrell thank you for providing this information and maybe to the superintendent as well do we or they conduct any type of end of summer program review you mentioned feedback but is there a document is there a

▶ 38:07 Speaker 5: survey is there they did their own survey and again they're not working for us so but they did do a survey and I can say that over the summer we did not receive a single call at all and believe me we get the calls if there's something

▶ 38:23 Speaker 4: that's not and so surveys done is it was that shared with you with the superintendent yes okay is it appropriate to ask that that be shared with us as well because people of course are going to come to us with comments questions and undoubtedly complaints unfortunately not going to come to us and say it was great they're gonna come and say this program isn't great it would be great for us as elected officials to be able to talk with some

▶ 38:58 Speaker 5: degree of well I think the the issue is is you have a very short window here because there's only 85 students and not and you when you do a survey you know you don't get the full participation so sure I don't know exactly how many they got back but again whether we have their survey information or not I think the fact that we did not receive any phone calls with regard to any concerns through the whole summer and we were here we were in the building we ran two other programs in the building we were there on a daily basis we observed it you know like anything else they said you know the first day we did it it was not as great as the second day and the third day and once they got to know our students and our systems by the end they had a well-oiled machine that as they