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We need the service. Got it. Okay. Now, there's additional information that I don't have. Okay. Made a motion. Is there a second to allow him to change his vote? I'll second it. There's a second by All in favor or all against? Roll call. He wants to change his vote. So, I just want to abstain. That's all. Specifically on what item 9.14 is 9.14 just okay Mr. Munos I Mr. Fourino I Mr. Gaba hi Dr. Mr. Roek. Hi, Mr. Mo. Hi, Mr. Keles. Hi, Mr. Ramos. Hi, the record. An abstension, please. Abstension. Yes. Okay. Any other guess? It's the technology 9.14 MindsEye Technology LLC. Okay. All right. Uh, any other board member comments? I do have comments. First, I want to congratulate the Taekwond do athletes. They did a fantastic job. Congratulations to the student of the month. And I also want to recognize the four retirees and two resignations.

I want to thank them for their service and I appreciate uh what they've done for the district during their tenure. Thank you. Thank you. Any other board member comments? Mr. Yes. I um Mr. Gornto, uh yes, that facility should be open and as soon as there's safety protocols put in place, I totally agree with you and that's going to happen sooner than later. Hopefully, uh sooner than later, but that is on the works. We want to make sure that there's a safety protocols in place. As you heard, to Danielle's point, she wanted to hear committees. We did have the security guards give a explanation of what they do and what goes on. Uh we do have committee meetings. Sometimes the uh uh the secretary announce them or already mentions it and sometimes that's why we don't mention it because we don't have committee meetings every month.

So I just want to respond to Miss Danielle. We don't have meetings unless it's an emergency and we are informed about that. uh to Miss uh Capzy. Well, you asked about committees and I just wanted to let you know we don't meet every month unless there's something going on because we got to give them time. No, it depends. It depends. Like for example, you know, we we we talked about the the boilers. This everybody knows that the schools are old and you know things happen in this system and we they were damaged, they got fixed. And to her point, yeah, this was fixed 30, 40 years ago and somebody put it on. But things happen in the school system and as we go forward, we be proactive in trying to fix things and that's what we're doing. To miss uh cuts up, yes, I agree with you with themies.

I am for it and I hope that we can continue and that's the vision that this board has to continue with themies. Uh to Mr. Mo, I went to the show to the frozen show and I got to tell you, everyone that's listening to the community, this was an amazing show. Kudos to everyone that participated from the teacher to the student to the to the stage. I got it was 300 people there about 250 300 people. What an amazing show. Please continue that. That that was an example what Garfield can provide, what can we do, what our students can strive for. It was amazing. I'm sorry I wasn't able to go to that show. We had a board meeting. It was I mean uh a committee meetings and it was almost 5 hours there to 9 something at night. So I want to I want to let you know why I wasn't there.

I am a proponent for music because I think it's important uh because music is another language and I think everybody it you know if you're not good at sports then music is an opportunity. Um, I do I do uh build relationships with my assemblymen and um uh Mr. Wimbley or the as the congresswoman. So when I see issues here, I do talk to them. So I just don't want you to think as a board member here, you know, we already volunteers here doing what we can for the our community, doing the best we can, but I go beyond that. I try to communicate with the congressman. I try to communicate with the state assemblyman, which is Mr. Wimbley. uh and uh we we want to make sure that we can get all the help for Garfield. That is what we strive for. That's what we want, you know.

So, I mean it we there is people that are are are curious and and and and capable and communicating with the outside. We're 35th district and uh we have a we have a responsibility to to at least reach out to them for all the help we can get from state aid. So, that's important to Mr. uh Delaney's point and I I'm glad he br it up because I do I do talk to him. Um congratulations to the Taipondo. Uh that is amazing. Continue that. That's that's great for the community. And uh once again, thank you for coming. We are listening to your concerns. Uh we are the board. Mr. Tomco is not the board. We vote according to what we we read here. He doesn't tell us what to do. We we are we are the board and we vote according to what we got.

No one's telling anybody what to do here. So, I do want to make sure that's clear. Uh I want to thank uh the mayor for being here and council members because it's important that we do work together and as we can see there's some issues going on and hopefully we can solve them for the betterment of this community. So hopefully we can take that uh and and solve those issues and continue to move the district forward. Thank you for your time. Is there anyone else that would like to I want to say something if I may. Um this is probably my last meeting. Uh it's because I have family issues help from my mom. But with that I wanted to acknowledge uh Mr. Derek uh who I thought came up with a very good suggestion regarding the guardrail. I think it's paramount student safety is absolutely important.

That should be done. In addition, Mr. Toronto, if what you're saying is correct about students from other areas coming to our field, I think that needs to be rectified. So, thank you for bringing that up to this board. I just hope that it in closing that there's going to be more harmony between the board and the council and that you guys can work together because you know we're not going to have progress either as a community andor as a uh school district unless there's harmony and I just hope that that happens. Thank you for letting me be on the council. Board, excuse me. Sorry. Anyone else? Thank you. No other comments. All right, I see that everybody's tired, so I'm not going to say much. Um, thank you everybody for coming out. Uh, hopefully you guys can get home, get some rest, and not stay stressed out about all this stuff.

Thank you for coming out once again. Um, at this time, I'd like a motion to adjourn the meeting. So moved. Okay, let's try that again. Motion to adjurnn the meeting, one person at a time. So moved. Motion by Mr. Kelesz, seconded by Mr. I thank

e e e started the cron School District understands that our community of schools is located on the ancestral land of the oam doid and aimo people who descended from the hokam and have inhabited these lands since the time of Memorial theam whose name translates literally to people are a vibrant of culture and Community founding CET of generations into the past continue to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful Legacy for Generations into the future with this acknowledgement the cran School District formerly recognizes that the traditional care in keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with practices policy and human relations that brings us to 1B and Dr dupin do you mind leading Us in the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all thank you that brings us to 1C which is roll call it looks like all of us are here today Miss ER Miss Gibson McLean myself Mr Jones and Miss Marquez we want to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and remind the audience of the requests to address board cards that must be that must be completed and submitted to the board secretary if they wish to speak to an agenda item they're on our left side by Mr Ivan carbajal hi Mr Ivan carbajal um if anybody wants to do an agenda item board policy provides for two cards White cards to be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item and blue cards to be submitted in order to speak during public comments due to the open meeting law we have board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda and that's per our policy BH that brings us to 2A approval of agenda like to make a motion to move some items of course okay so I would like to amend that we U Move consent item 6h um to iMed follow U the board reports and superintendent report perfect second thank you I have a first and I have a second that item 6 h was it h yes be held right after 3B and before 4 a all those in favor um any nay I think they just want to be clear on what we're doing okay sorry so 6h is the approval of assistant superintendent of teaching learning so that would okay uh Mr Jones any questions no okay so all those in favor any nay hearing none motion passes thank you for that and that brings us through threea which is governing board reports and Miss sis I'll go ahead and get started with you hi good evening everyone um feels like forever since we got backround spring break even though it's only two weeks two weeks even and it's like Tuesday um one of my friends last week was so funny because she texted me and she was like hey Happy Spring and I was like yeah next week it'll be summer so here it is today summer um I just want to mention a couple um things that um I got to be a part of the U first one was the red event which um I'm sure Jay will share um and that was a lot of fun um and then uh Nicole invited me to um one of her Saturday what do you call it a dual language learning yeah dual language learning with community members um and we talked a little bit about the lgbtq plus um rights um policy that we're kind of starting to do um so we got a lot of input from that so um I really enjoyed that um I want to wish uh Fifth and eth grade teachers good luck on their AI are they taking it now yet yes this week starting I know we started this week and I got to Proctor today um so good luck on that and then um Good Luck on all the other testing thank you thank you so much Miss Gibson McLean um we're moving right along in terms of um the advisory committee we have three meetings left the 1 the 14th and the 28th um we will be prep I I say we they will be preparing I'll just be watching them prepare um for the Community Council on the 11 and then we'll take uh back the feedback from Community Council on the changes we've uh accomplished this year um talk about those at the meeting on the 14th and get finalized on the 28th for submission to the attorney so that then they can eventually be sent to the board um I do anticipate this committee needing to continue again just going to throw that out there as a possibility um because there's obviously the time is time is a thing that's elusive to us in this committee when it comes to getting into these conversations so um our last so the last meeting that we're having where we're actually going to be discussing any policy changes is going to be April 1 coming up quickly after that everything's going to be kind of prepping and finalizing everything to get submitted to the attorney and then to the board we did get through quite a few um policies this school year so I'm definitely happy with that as well um man yeah it's already I it's March you know when I moved out of Education I feel like it was all really easy to remember what time of year it was and now that I I mean it's been 10 years since I left education but I always forget what month it is or what day it is um and then I'm like oh yeah it's springtime I guess um but good luck to everybody done testing um and I'm just excited for um us to continue the work that we're doing and moving forward and we're going to have an even better school year next year I mean I just I feel like we have a lot of great momentum and I'm excited for what's coming up after our reports tonight as well so that's it thank you Miss Gibson McLean Mr Jones uh good evening everyone I have nothing to report this week thank you Miss Marquez hello everybody um like Heather said we had our dual language learning uh group Meetup so this is something that I've been leading for about a year ever since the first lawsuit came down on us from Tom Horn and myself and a couple other parents got really mad and we're like let's start meeting and it carried forward so um we've met we've had Educators researchers other school board members um elected officials parents uh all kinds of folks show up it's it seems like it's different every time but you know plenty of people in support of dual language learning um for Public public school students and keeping that in in the um Arizona public education system so that's been encouraging um we did at our last meeting discuss a little bit about an inclusionary policy that would you know be um for lgbtq students something and and and what that might look like and what that should include so that's that's exciting to see and something that that you know we'll be piecing together for our district um aside from that um I did get to have one-on-one meetings both with Dr pombo and with Miss Shapiro um to help myself just get a better understanding of of how our system works and it's just like mindblowing how much these women know and so you know I'm I'm so thrilled that they're in our district and that I get to work with them so and I'll be meeting with um Dr dupin in a few weeks and um you know hopefully get to meet some some more of the leadership here in the district so so I can you know understand what we're going through what everybody does and and to do my role serve in my capacity better um another thing coming up tomorrow there's going to be a round table of Schoolboard leaders and other folks in um in education whether you know from foundations and other organizations and we'll be discussing the impact of the dismantling of the Department of Education I'm excited to see what comes out of that who we'll get to meet and hopefully start co uh what is it like Coalition building with some other groups and you know because we we need to stand together to defend our our students and our schools and then the last thing is I've been invited to join the sav our schools Arizona Network Schoolboard Fellowship that'll be starting next month and again another um kind of opportunity for me to grow as a school board member and to like learn the ropes and you know see how we can defend public education here in Arizona so hopefully I'll have lots of good stuff to report back at some of our next meetings and that's it thank you thank you so much um I do have a couple of things um first of all happy women's um History Month I'm really excited for this month too especially given our one of our agenda items today on how we're increasing the women of color Force over here in kraton so I love that for us um I'm also really thankful for our partners with the soccer field that we did at Loma Linda that finally got built and that's a real true Testament to how we're going to hopefully start strategizing what Community Schools looks like because we do have Partnerships with the local Community Church that has so graciously offered their time and their volunteers to actually even have the field open sometimes after hours with the soccer program that they have so kids have a place safe place to be at it and that just melts my heart because that's what really it is is having all these organizations come together to make sure that our students and our kids in the community have a safe place to be at at all times so that's really awesome I know that the red events were mentioned um and I know Mr Man will talk a little bit more about that but big shout out to Larry C Kennedy and honestly that award was a project of the K through 12 every year I guess there's a big um Development Group that comes together together and they pick different projects to I mean we were up in one of the runners even with places like Mayo Mayo's getting rebuilt just some awesome construction um things that are going on around the valley and we were in the K through 12 sector and Larry C Kennedy got best project of the year for K through 12 and that really is a testament to our community members that approved our bond because without those Bond dollars that building would not have been able to be made and also the strenous vision of our students because I know that a lot of the stuff and incorporation of student voice was put in and reimagined thanks to having our contractors and having our Architects being open to having those conversations with our students so that award literally was to the community and to the students that make that happen so that was very awesome and just a quick legislative update um at the house there was HB 2213 which was a bill that would provide free um breakfast and lunch to individuals or families with low income and that did not make it out of house committee and as we're facing you know Federal fund cuts and all these different type of cuts it's very important that as budget season comes up that we really start thinking about where we can reimagine our dollars to make sure that they're invested back in our students as the attacks on public education continue as we start losing support from the federal government our own representatives are not willing to help us so really as public entities there's really not anybody that's going to come and save us we're going to have to really come to some hard decisions as a governing board together with Community input but at the end of the day what works best for our students there are some students and I say this all the time that will be okay and we'll manage to make it out of the system dep um regardless of what happens ferally state or locally and there are some students that are not they completely depend on the services that we give them as a public entity and it is our responsibility regardless of immigration status or what color they are or what they want to be called or how they want to be um identified as that we are giving all our resources to them so as these budget conversations come up and knowing that we do not have support from our legislators we do not have support from our federal government and we don't even have support from our local superintendence and education here in Arizona so these are real things that are happening and we're having these conversations I would hope that everybody keeps that in mind and that our ultimate goal at least for me myself is that our students are being looked at it and centered in all the decisions that we make with that I appreciate your guys's time and I'll turn it over to Mr Man thank you so much president kuo um I think I'm Gonna Change up the order in which I share things since we brought up the red Awards a few times so um I had the pleasure of having the stress of carrying a glass award to this meeting there was a couple of touch Ando moments it has made it here successfully um but as president kuo and and some of our other board members have mentioned um it's a it's a pretty big honor the the projects that were in the education um space for K12 education project of the Year this year were some pretty Heavy Hitters and um we were just blown away um to be selected but in talking with some of the other districts that were nominated one of the things I keep hearing from them is the more we learn about what your District did with Larry C Kennedy School the more we don't begrudge you having won this award so people are pretty Blown Away um and as president kuo mentioned it's our kraton kids Congress kids that really had a lot of input with the Architects and the construction firm um it's something that we do I think that's a best practice here in the kraton district uh Dr pombo talks about bright spots a lot it's one of our bright spots right um these these students have not only helped us create an award-winning school that has student input into it but they've also had impact on our U selections and recommendations to the governing board for curriculum they've been involved in you know a number of key processes we just had um a really cool piece of news come our way um as a lot of you know we're in the process of implementing the ruler method throughout our district to help students be able to identify their emotional state and help them develop better executive function skills um we went through an overview of the ruler method with those students at our last kids Congress and come to find out that at Gateway School we did not know that this was going to happen but the young ladies um that were representing Gateway School went back and did a PD for the teachers um based on what they learned during Kids Congress so we have some amazing Future Leaders in our district and so the work we do with student outcomes focused governance and all Focus that we put in on trying to raise student voice I think not only benefits our students and our community but ultimately um will benefit our whole society because we have the Futures leaders here Among Us and they are proving themselves um as we go I'd also like to give a shout out to um Chase Building team uh wed Gilmore Black Rock Studio Architects you know all the subcontractors the the the partners that worked on this we were told the project couldn't be built we can only build half a school with the budget we have um and uh Vanessa Shapiro our amazing CFO and in particular Mr Scott Wells our our brilliant uh facilities and transportation director found ways to braid together you know a number of Grants and Partnerships and and other types of opportunities in order to allow that school to be fully realized um even though at a slight delay some of the projects were were being built this year as the school was operating because they were dependent on some of those Grant funds coming through and we just barely beat the government to cutting off the tap to get that school built so um that's that's also kind of great too um in addition to being recognized for that um this week we received we did not know that we were in the running for this um but we received the 2025 edition of ranking Arizona um for those of you who watch the show regularly um you might remember last last year about this time we were surprised to discover that we were ranked number four amongst all elementary school districts in Arizona by ranking Arizona um we maintained our number four seed uh for this year which we did not know was gonna happen so I'm speaking as close to as as I can it keeps drifting away but thank you um so um we're in really good company with our neighbors at Osborne um Lichfield and Tempe Elementary School District um in the top four for the State of Arizona for elementary school District so and that's actually based on members of the public ranking US so that's not like we nominated ourselves for something or anything like so pretty pretty powerful honor and a pretty big surprise and then I see um for one of our future items uh Mr Isaiah Washington is here with us and I want to give him a big thank you he's our idak coordinator and was kind enough to share some news with us today um which was that from the tournament over the weekend for uh the IDC tournament um we had some amazing showings from a number of our schools but probably the biggest piece of news is that our district champions for girls basketball the builtmore Prep Academy um girls basketball team is now also the champion for the Phoenix City championship and so they actually and then I mean there's a mill like so many good things have been happening um but you know we have other things to do but I did also want to share that um Thursday we will be having um at the Craton Academy Gym um a career fair job fair um for the school district and so if you know anybody who wants to work in one of the top four districts in Arizona um go ahead and send them on down to the kraton Academy Gym on Thursday afternoon I think it starts at 3 o'clock Dr Lauren and um send them our way because we're always looking for the best talent it's how we get the best outcomes and I forgot to mention also the Family Resource Center is having a kindergarten um round up from 4 to six I believe that's awesome for our families too um and that's four to six tomorrow evening night I'm gonna be there with my kindergartener awesome um was that it Mr Man I I'm gonna stop there okay awesome thank you so much so now that brings us to what would be I guess 3C which was 6h and that is item approval of assistant superintendent of teaching and learning and Mr man I'll let you go ahead and take it off I appreciate that I'm super excited um for the recommendation that we're making and um prior to having the board vote on that recommendation I'd like to turn it over to Dr Lauren to share a little bit about um the process and the decision okay Madame President members of the board uh the kraton school district conducted an internal process to recruit and hire the ass assistant superintendent of teaching and learning the superintendent surveyed interest in screen candidates an interview was conducted by the superintendent the assistant superintendent of business and development uh and the Executive Director of Human Resources the candidate being Rec recommended this evening is Dr Lissa Pomo Dr Lissa Pomo is currently a m M of the cranon school district leadership team with 28 years of experience in education since July of 2023 she is served as the Director of curriculum instruction and assessment she has been instrumental in bringing the datawise process to our district has reorganized our coaching model oversaw the curriculum adoption process for Science and has been deeply involved in student outcome Focus governance work she has served as a director of Elementary initiatives for the Leona Group schools she holds a Bachelor of Arts masters of education and doctor of Education in educational leadership Innovation from Arizona State University she began her teaching career in 1997 as a fifth grade teacher at Peoria Unified School District where she was promoted to Improvement specialist assistant principal and then principal we are very proud to recommend Dr Lissa pombo as the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning [Music] yay I am super excited for this and I'm going to invite you over to the podium if you want to say a few words or if any of our board members want to say we might want to oh I I'm sorry you know being super you know I'm just so excited being superintendent you just get to be the killjoy all the time yes yeah I got to two kill Joys up here all right so I move the governing board approved cons agenda item H which is the approval of assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Dr Lissa pombo second all those in favor I I any nce hearing none motion passes while you're making your way up um if you want to go ahead and get started I'll give the floor to you and then we if any board members have anything awesome to say then they can well president Kio members of the board superintendent man the executive team and everybody here tonight I was thinking I didn't know if I'd have an opportunity to speak um and so I was thinking about what I wanted to say tonight and I'm just going to speak from my heart I very thankful for this opportunity um I feel very fortunate to be able to work for kraton and alongside everybody in this room everybody here is such a great team member and we all care about kids and I'm excited to continue the work with student outcome Focus governance that all of our students thrive in our classrooms have rigorous learning opportunities and they can do whatever they want when they graduate from kraton and compete with anybody anywhere anytime um and so I'm excited to continue this work I do want to introduce my family because I wouldn't be here without my family my friends and all the Educators in my life starting from Poria Leona Group and here in kraton but my um daughter here is Eva Luth pompo my niece uh Julieta Hernandez my husband Jose pombo my brother-in-law Isaac Hernandez my sister over there if you don't recognize she we we're um we have the same birthday but we're not twins um and then that's all my family but I do want to thank my team for being here and especially all the principes and coaches and assistant principles that I work with every day so thank you yay thank you board members Miss sis would you like to share anything yes I think it's a testament to how many people showed up tonight um from the schools and I was so thrilled um when I talked to Jay I was like we are hiring her right so I am so thrilled in the wake of losing um Eric I am so thrilled that you're joining um our team in this capacity um and I really appreciate you thank you thank you Miss Gibson um you're everybody's gonna make me cry um I you know um there's so many like in certain things right now and I think um like hearing you say that and then just how you show up and everything is so um it like instills a lot of confidence and um you make me feel confident about where we're going and safe and so thank you thank you beautiful Mr Jones uh I won't cry but I I just wanted to say like you know was a little downhearted when we heard about Dr tubin Moving on but excited for him as well but I just wanted to share uh when Mr Man Named the top candidate how relieved I was thank you congratulations yes just a little Misty eyed but no tears dropping yet but I am Echo whatever everybody said you I'm very very happy that that you're moving up in this capacity and and excited to see where you help lead us yeah thank you so much and I love that you're a Community member obviously that just shows how much you really do believe in cran believe in the community its students and its staff and I know these few last year working on S SOG and trying to be a little bit more student outcome Focus has been a struggle and it's amazing to be able to collaborate with direct administrators that are on the same path and vision to seeing what's possible for our students so I appreciate it I am an awe and I cannot wait to continue collaborating and working with you so thank you again and I'm so glad that you chose Kayon and for you to be here me too thank you so much flowers and then did you want to take any pictures or anything with your family or anything we can take like a small five minute recess and then we continue with the board meeting so you can get your time okay we'll go on like a five minute recess thank you e e e thank you hello all right everybody we could go ahead and take our seats we're going to go ahead and continue with the board meeting we are at item six which is approval of consent I move the governing board approv consent agenda items um Miss K we are actually on not focus we just moved sixh I'm so sorry I totally missed that thank you Miss htis I apologize that brings us to four a which is our student outcomes Focus governance update progress moning report three I mean report goal three we just want to remind everybody that in the fall of 2023 kraton School District adopted a student outcomes focused governance s SOG framework to ensure focusing on improving student outcomes a student outcomes focused governance framework is composed of six research and for competencies vision and goals monitoring and accountabil ility unity and Trust guard reals communication and collaboration and continuous Improvement and with that being said um we're going to go ahead and get started our progress REM report and also just for clarity what is our progress monitoring our progress monitoring is a conversation between the school board and superintendent that provides boards the opportunity to evaluate the alignment between the community's vision which is the goals toward the student outcomes and the school district's reality the current student performance or growth while student outcome goals and current student performance may not match perfectly it only becomes problematic when there is no evidence of student growth and progress and even if students aren't yet growing and making progress that's only catastrophic if the superintendent doesn't have sufficient aggressive Strate strategies in place for increasing growth and helping students make progress these are fun fundamental concerns of monitoring how is monitoring beneficial in addition to clarifying student and super internent performance monitoring when done well confers several other organizational benefits we lead by example what happens in the boardroom is more likely to be echoed in the classroom board Behavior sets the culture for an institution if board members want a culture where teachers are open and reflective in their craft they set the stage for that by demonstrating what it looks like for the board and superintendent to be open and reflective this is where aj cbl's words student outcomes don't change until adult Behavior change kind of leads the way and it's grounded in student outcomes data it clarifies strategies we communicate expectations and we do formative evaluation with all that we'll go ahead and get started with our progress Mar report and Dr dupin if you can go ahead and get us started thank you thank you president CIO governing board members uh fellow members of executive team and members of the Katon Community goal three is to increase increase English language proficiency for emerging multilingual Learners our goal is that the percent of emerging multilingual students that increase one or more levels on aella will increase from 25% in August of 2023 to 40% by August 2028 the annual Target for this year is that the percent of emerging multilingual students that increase one or more levels on the aella assessment will increase from 28% in August 2024 to 31% by August of 25 we were enthusiastic about this goal because we did perform well and met we seated our annual Target last year um and so as a result of that work and all the work that led up to that this goal and the development of inputs outputs and our monitoring of outcomes has really become a model for how we've been approaching the other goals and we'll talk about that more when we get deeper into the the inputs and the progress that we're seeing so we've learned a lot um as a result of focusing on on this group of students and particular and thinking about the assessments and the complexity of monitoring language development with tools that weren't necessarily built to do that uh at least initially so we have two current measure a current measure that we're focusing on for this year and that is that the percent of emerging multilingual students that increase one or more levels on the DNA English language arts Benchmark assessment will increase from 10% in May of 2024 to 20% by May of 2025 so using our existing for grades three through eight our existing U Benchmark assessment and in our measure 3.2 which looks at the percent of emerging multilingual students in grades 3 through five that increas in one or more levels on a Zella increasing from 33% in May of 2024 to 35% by May of 2025 the um this the these data we do anticipate sometime in May as we have completed our AEL testing for the year so far but we don't have new data to bring to bear tonight for interim measure 3.2 but we will go into depth on interim current measure 3.1 as always we welcome your questions dialogue throughout so please don't hesitate to jump in we also have the additional question and answer slides that are reflected in the presentation deck uh based on the feedback provided by governing board members and our conversations that have occurred since then um for current measure 3.1 as I stated we are looking at the DNA English language arts Benchmark assessment and an increase from 10 to 20% from last spring to this spring this is the breakdown if you follow the total column down on the far right or on your screen this is the percentage of students that have made that leveled growth on their DNA benchmark assessments by school and so when we look at this we are actually seeing some some bright spots that are starting to emerge uh at our schools of course we have different population sizes at each one of those campuses and so this time I'm going to invite the team to come forward and share a little bit more specificity um because it was wondered aloud Miss Marquez if I may one of the questions was how many kids what what how many kids are at each school who fit in the emerging multilingual category so Sarah Dr bombo I would like to introduce Sarah Beth George she's our coordinator for literacy and languages to talk about the numbers good evening Madam president superintendant man um governing board members thank you for this opportunity we did want to share the total number of multilingual Learners at each site um so that you can get an idea of how our multilingual Learners are represented across our district so specifically at bmore Preparatory Academy we have 52 multilingual Learners and so when you see that total of 18% that's 18% of the 52 students who grew one or more levels um at excellencia school we have 190 English Learners gateways 236 larcy Kennedy is 67 LMA Linda has 178 multilingual Learners Mont Vista is 247 Papago School has our largest number of multilingual Learners at 256 the kraton academy has 126 and Mack school has 239 and so and these numbers were actually taken uh this morning from our our ongoing active living document of our tracker for all of our multilingual Learners so that gives us a total of 1,591 as of today who are multilingual Learners in our school district and then for the remainder of this I would also like to introduce we have three of our four literacy and language instructional coaches or team teaching and learning coaches who have joined us tonight to help us in our presentation I'll introduce them each so Jessica soloro was unable to be here today but she um sends her her um Good Luck to all of us and she's very much involved in this as well so Clarissa Minon uh serves Larry C Kennedy lomma Linda and WT Mackin so she supports our English our targeted and integrated English language teachers of multilingual Learners and also our literacy teachers and then Amber Miss Amber mlan serves Pago and excellencia schools and um Mrs TAA Stanford serves Gateway and Mont Vista schools and then Jessica soloro serves the kraton academy and builtmore Preparatory Academy okay so the with current measure 3.1 again looking for that leveled growth this is the the percentage of students increasing performance or achievement one or more levels on The Benchmark assessment over the last three years so far so what we know at this point in time is that in the 2324 school year the percentage of students of emerging multilinguals who increased one or more proficiency levels from the preest to interim Benchmark two that's this one here increased by 3% from so from prto 1 PR 2 that was a 3% change in 2024 2025 the prto interim Benchmark one starting point was actually um 3% lower than the prior year so we had seven in 23 24 4% meaning this year we you know we raised appropriately we raised our um our current measure and the kids at the beginning started out from a little bit of a lower Place based on the prior three years so we know some things um likely affected that what we're encouraged by is the fact that the the gain of the 5% jump from pre ibm1 to pre ibm2 that 5% means although they came in at the at the lowest amount of kids growing that much in the beginning they actually grew faster than the cohorts of students in the prior two years so what that means is the jump from this column to this column is greater faster or as superintendent man pointed out the trajectory of increase is farther faster so that that does give us encouragement so we're we're we have c um because the current measure is quite high and does exceed where we were last year and there's 11% yet to go and as a reminder interim Benchmark 2 was taken in by the students in December so these data are you know now they've got a couple months on them a couple months of additional instruction have occurred that's still still a big jump and so to reach current measure 3.1 by may we need to see an 11% increase in the percentage of students uh growing one or more levels and so because we haven't had that that 11% jump in the past we are not able to say that we are on track at this time however we are encouraged by the by the rapid rate of growth that was shown between uh the beginning of the year and IBM too if I could share Dr dupin one of the conversations we've had was kind of triggered by some of the questions that the board provided and just us wrestling with this data is that there's there's different ways you can interpret this data set so you could look and you could see that over the course of the prior two years from pre ibm1 to the post we are our two levels of increase were 6% and 10% right so if if you assume that that's going to be the same maximum level of growth than our best case scenario is 19 which does quite get us to 20 but if you look at these as percentages what you'll see year-over-year is an improvement in percentage of growth so if you look at um if you look at the 2223 school year you see a 100% increase over that time period if you look at the 2324 school year um where our team and our teachers and our classrooms started implementing some of the strategies that we've really enhanced and um added on to for this school year you'll notice that that increase was more than a 100% increase because 100% increase would have taken us to 14 but we went all the way to 17 um and and likewise if you look at the 7 to 10% from beginning of the year um to pre ibm2 that's really a um you know 40 something % increase um and then the increase from the mid year to the end of the year is a 70% increase but when we look at this year we literally had 125% increase from pre-test one to pre-test two so I think that's why we're really kind of we don't want to rely on hope we're going to rely on hard work but we are hopeful because if we're a if if we're seeing that 125% increase because of some of the strategies that have been put in place there's no reason to believe that those strategies won't have had a greater impact throughout the course of the year as more PD takes place more coaching takes place and put us in a position to have a significantly higher increase from mid to post than we've had in Prior years just like we've had a significantly higher increase from P pre to Mid this year and if that were to Bear out then it is very possible that that we are very much on track to hit that that 20 so I'm not not trying to poly it make excuses any of that we're taking a very conservative realistic approach with showing us is not on track based on mathematical progression but if you look at the geometric progression um in these numbers then that may actually be telling us a different story and predicting a different outcome so again just real quickly in measure 3.2 focuses on emerging multilingual Learners specifically those students in grades three through five so this is not new data this is where the students finished aella last year and the percentage of students in grades through through five who increased um by one or more Levels by school so again we see u a large range but many students um able to make that growth and this is where we're going to bring additional data once it's available in May and we probably will have to bring like a preliminary result in May once the data are fresh we anticipate the mid mid Monon uh but then all of the final goal and guard rail data is based on cleaned uh you know full Academic Year once we've gone through and really vetted out the data to ensure accuracy usually there's not a big change but then we'll do an update um once it's been fully uh verified so at this time we'll talk about the inputs and the progression that has been made okay so these are the same inputs that we reported on before just the progress where we are on these inputs so the professional learning we have 40 targeted um seci program teachers are completing a professional development so as of March three of the four sessions have been completed um and then the 10 seci targeted teachers the teachers that are receiving the training from our consultant um as of March 18th 11 teachers are included and all the training days have been completed um which we do have one day left with one-on-one coaching with our consultant and our consultant's going to guide us with our pacing guides and look at because currently our teachers um look at the the literacy units and then look at the FCI standards from there is that correct right we want to do it the other way where they look at the seci standards and what order for our teachers that are teaching um the targeted instruction so we're going to have our consultant help us with that in this spring um the instructional coaching all four language and literacy coaches have been um a part of that professional development and they've completed all of the training and they're going to be part of that one-on-one coaching with the consultant um and all four liter literacy coaches literacy and language coaches have completed four the five days through the Ariza Department of Education and our instructional materials uh we as of March we have eight teachers implementing language power and then our seci family nights um you could see that in quarter 1 we had 135 families quarter 2 189 and this last quarter students I'm sorry students oh students students yeah oh by students yes sorry um 99 and the 99 were uh obviously we disappointed by that number but it was during the time that the immigration um things came out and we did have lower attendance at other family events so we think we attributed to that but um we're continuing for quarter four to promote it for our families to come to our um seci nights and some teachers have some ideas of how to increase the intendance and as as just to help out with the acronym for those who aren't familiar SEI stands for Structured English emersion yes thank you um then we also decided to gra uh get some Street data and talk to the teachers and the students and our families so this first slide is where we talk to our teachers that are going through the explicit language instruction training with our consultant and you could see in the survey results um wait is it all our teachers or just the the ones participating in the four Wednesdays yeah okay the four Wednesdays um so a rating of five is strongly agree so you could see that most of them strongly agree that what I learned in today's session will positively impact student learning and then on the side I'll give you a second to read but there's quotes from the teachers after the training when I when I've sat in the trainings with um Heidi kosy I've talked to the teachers and they say things to me like this is a game changer I can't wait to try this in my classroom um they are confident in the strategies that they're learning and then they're also um the teachers that are in the cohort are getting that coaching in the classroom Miss George is going to talk about the feedback um from our students right okay yes okay so for this for this particular survey we collected responses from students in the middle of February and so 197 total students were surveyed and these students are in the classrooms of the teachers who are participating that cohort of 11 teachers with our consultant Mrs Heidi kosy and the the survey feedback that we just showed from the teachers is from the 40 teachers who are participating in those four days when we come back um and present our final progress monitoring report we'll have the teacher data from that group of 11 teachers in the cohort since we have one additional day we wanted to wait on providing you with that feedback but what we do have is what their students have said so so we asked several questions and we really wanted to highlight two of them so one is oh so we did also survey students from kindergarten through sixth grade as those are the grade levels that are represented in our cohort of teachers so we asked the students how often do you practice Reading Writing listening and speaking in English and so you can see that the vast majority of them said always they practice each of those things so you'll see the reading in purple writing in blue listening in pink and speaking in that teal color and very few said never a little bit more than never said I'm not sure um we did give the survey completely in English um and then we also were just interested in that street data of the students experiences so not only experiences in what they do how often but how they feel about it and so 73% indicated that they do enjoy their lessons about reading and writing in English 23% said kind of and we did have 3% share that they do not enjoy them I want to add to this slide so in previous presentations we talked about when we do learning walks we're looking in the classroom that the students are doing most of the Reading Writing listening and speaking and we share that uh typically we see mostly listening and we're trying to work towards more the students being more involved in the lessons and the students doing the work so we're finding that in our classrooms that the teachers have received this training that kids have more opportunities to read write and speak in those classrooms so um so we obviously want to replicate that in our other content areas in classrooms and this really while this is a smaller section of our students it really does show that they are listening and speaking consistently and I know that is something that we have really been working on for years in this district and so this was reassuring um and really positive to see so on the next slide these are just a few of the quotes that we pulled out from the survey so these were actually oral prompt questions where we had students record their voices to answer the questions so they did not write these they they spoke the answers and uh we scripted them and so I wanted to highlight the first grade student who said I love to write sentences about what I like and don't like really shows that relevancy really matters to kids we'll give you a second to read the additional responses that we've highlighted perfect I really like that we're having all this feedback on students because at the end of the day we need to get their perspective and seeing what they're hearing and what their I guess analysis is of what's being taught to them so I really appreciate that you guys take on the added on um task on on doing that also impressive from the sixth grader I'm just be real I got the high school from this district and I don't know that I could tell you anything about subject verb agreement and I'm not an English language learner so just an interesting thing to see there that's great reflecting on our progress with this work this year and superintendent man has has been really a leader in this we we've really recognize that the students perceptions about their learning and about their position as the center point for the learning is is really a GameChanger and it's 100% an output so if we can help ensure that the kids understand the purpose for the learning and are given regular opportunities to reflect in how that process is going them it puts them more in charge of the learning puts them more in the driver's seat and then that ultimately our expectation is that it really shows up in our outcomes at the end of the [Music] game and then in addition to asking them what they like we also wanted to hear about what they would like to see changed or different and so on this slide I would like to highlight the third grade student who would change learning to write more and read more which is a great problem to have right we can absolutely work with that so I'll give you a second to read the rest of the responses I like that student feedback of the sixth grader because I kind of go back to a previous meeting where we were saying that we started noticing that um there was a lot of teaching or talking to teach versus having this two-way conversation and vaguely based off of this one coat I would change the way they learn even though they didn't fully express it that's what I'm getting the hand of it right that the way that they're being taught right now is probably not as as effective as if it was more of a collaborative maybe I'm thinking based off of feedback that we've had on other board meetings I was interpreting it the same way absolutely this triangulates with I big piece of feedback that has come from our team of principles so is throughout the year one of the things we've been collaborating on is the need that the principles have really identified for more frequent opportunities for formative assessment but not just formative assessment that's you know casual for lack of a better term but consistent and systematic so one of the things that we'll will'll begin having more doing more work on and and we anticipate bringing you updates about is the development of our common fora assessments and the making that the priority for this Summer's curriculum design work uh because if we are using formative assessment effectively we shouldn't be in a position to give kids the same content over and over again or content that they feel is repetitive we also wanted to share feedback that we've received from our family nights so we've had three of our four we have another one coming up next month our final one and when we look at the feedback from all three nights so far at all nine campuses 98% of the participants indicated that they felt welcomed and encouraged and that they can use the ideas shared with them at home and I do want to provide a little anecdotal information where the 2% that did not indicate that had indicated strongly disagree however when you look at their narrative respon responses one of them said everything was perfect and another one is the one that we've highlighted here that said very good and productive talk and so when we look at that on our end we're thinking they just mixed up the order of the strongly agreed disagree we also though want to accurately represent the data that we collected which is that 98% indicated they've had positive experiences and learned things that they're going to be able to use at home and then uh we did so the response the survey is given in English and Spanish the responses are in Spanish so we gave you specifically what the family said and then the translation and I'll give you a second to read those okay so the next slide is what is working which we've talked about the language and literacy coaches becoming expert in explicit English language instruction and using their knowledge to co- plan lesson uh modeling coaching reflection activities with teachers strategies learned during the Intensive professional development sessions are being observed in classrooms and of the eight teachers who have been implementing our new language po storyour resources all have expressed positive feedback regarding the materials and student learning experience is um what needs more attention what we've been working on this quarter and um our assistant superintendent business and Development I've been working closely with um M Shapiro about funding for sofg goal and part of that is um to secure some funding for another cohort for next year so we have one cohort and then adding another cohort so we have more teachers that are getting this training and coaching um and then also explore options for increasing our coaching and coord capacity by um splitting the coaches from literacy and language um from literacy coaches to language coaches so they can concentrate on our K3 literacy and concentrate on on um language development so they're not focused on both um content areas um we're also exploring how to use the aella mimic in the fast Bridge screeners as a new interim measure for next year and um once a new interim measured is adopted it will be crucial to maintain a balanced assessment strategy like we don't want to do excessive testing of our students that are emerging multilinguals that's what we're looking at right now and if I could elaborate on the mimic for just a second so Renaissance would that be a formative assessment if you guys came into a mimic that's part of the conversation is how to fit where to fit it properly so that we're not over testing right because if we give our emerging multilinguals the regular Benchmark and a bunch of additional assessments that mimic Zella you know that's a that's a sign ific amount of it's too much right um just being honest that's too much and and at the same time we also don't want to deny the students the opportunity to show what they know on the content test of DNA so it's that's the the grappling that we're kind of dealing with and and the the people that make our benchmarks they you know they really hurt our feedback so they've been very urgent around creating these tools so that we have access to better land language assessments not content English language arts assessments so we're excited so puzzled by how best to to balance out the the different sources of assessment and I was just going to add that ironically while Dr dupin and I were looking at the progress monitoring um the representatives from Renaissance had come in because they were going to be working with Mr Tyson Meyers to get him up to speed on this mimic and so they shared with us you know that this is coming forward um and we I I can't blame Dr dup and at all it was probably largely me that kidnapped them but we pulled them into the room and showed them what we were doing with our student outcomes focused governance goals and what our progress monitoring reports looked like and and really tried to give them a sense of what we were trying to accomplish and they were very excited by that um one of our neighbor districts is actually looking at moving to this tool set as well and that neighbor district is one of our partners in sofg work so we had a really great conversation about how them as a partner and our districts that are kind of moving in this direction could work together to ensure that their tool sets are not only informing our instruction like we would like them to but they're they're also providing us with the things we need to really dig in deep and monitor um for our progress reporting you know accurately are we on track for our student outcomes focused governance goal so it was serendipitous but it was a really great conversation with them um the next the next slide is thank you for the questions in advance we are going to go over the the questions that we received um we have held many family events what steps can be can we take to clearly measure how these events help students become better at English um I do want to share that we have some ideas how to look at it but nothing is actually directly aligned because when we think of the kids improve on the AEL we don't know if it was the teaching if it was the family nights if it was all the different inputs that were doing and so this could be something that is one of our adult outcomes or adult behaviors that could be affecting it but we don't know for sure but these are some things we could do um when we look at the family nights and I do want to thank Mr Carvajal he's here he helps organize and plan these is he still here he just stepped out for one okay he knew you were gonna call him out yeah um so uh one idea is that identify the trends of the children of the participants um so look at the aella growth with the children that their parents came to the family nights uh we also which we just shared administer pre- and post surveys of the event to get the parents feedback and then another step we could take is do Focus interviews and talk to the parents about um the participating parents and understand their perceived impact um on the students improvement with English so those are some ideas that we could um explore to to see the impact of the lording kns but it might not directly measure how Improvement on aella um any other questions on that one I you saying that made me wonder um if there's any way to tie it to another and I was pulling up our main sheet to tie it to like a guard rail or something but I I don't know that's just where my brain was going and then also to maybe expand it Beyond just this like if we could tie that concept to a guard rail and expand it Beyond English language Learners we could still maybe accomplish something with it but I don't know that's just my brain's just moving I I I do think it ties to that one of the guardrails is that the superintendent will yeah you know conditions that are insufficient for students and so you know this is actually very tightly aligned to that um particularly if we expand it even Beyond this group but this is a good group to test with because this is a group that is highly affected by INE equitability of resources right and and given some of the things um you know that dealing with with you know what's happening with some of our funding sources that particularly support those inequities because if you keep in mind things like our federal dollars that we receive are mostly based around some of those inequitable starting points um and so the fact that we have a focus on this group of students I think is really important to the work that we're doing but in addition to that um I think we could we could if we find that this is helpful in being able to triangulate being being able to do a better job in supporting those students and those families we could then easily translate it to some of the other areas where we're working which I think um Dr pombo and her team are already like considering because one of the things you heard them say at the beginning of of this progress monitoring report is there are a lot of things that are happening that have led to projected success with this particular goal and um and then those act for us as sort of those bright spots we can Target in on and say well this this is effective for language development could it also be effective for mathematics development how do we translate from one place to the other that's imedi what I was thinking about parents being maybe insecure about their math skills feeling like they can't assist or same thing with I mean there's crossover obviously with the reading stuff too yeah in terms of like reading at home and just in terms of making this go across the goals essentially and it was a small sample group but I don't know if he's made it back in the room or not if not his years will burn but Mr Carvajal one of the things that um he worked with with his team to do last year and again it affected only a small sample size because it was our community council group you know which is typically about a hundred people that show up and not all of them are are parents but they brought some of those math games to play we got great feedback on that and you know the input he built that off of was can we please have something that will help families help their kids right and they came back with this this great set of activities to provide the families so we certainly have you know some component pieces that we could build off of in order to be able to replicate some of the things that we're doing around language development in some of the other subject areas and I think all of it again goes back to making sure that there aren't insufficient conditions because sometimes the insufficient conditions because we know that adult or that student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change we don't want to get into the position of saying well the kids aren't getting enough support at home but I think it's okay for us to say that we're not supporting the families enough to help them provide those supports at home and that's what you're seeing reflected um in some of this information and that can be extended to other areas of learning so I've droned on way too long and I stop same page like how we replicate this in other other areas right um I had a question in regards to the the family events that you've had have it been has it been mostly primarily like Spanish-speaking families that have shown up or have any of our other families that speak other languages besides Spanish shown up so specifically I don't know without looking at all of the names of the families what I can say is that the vast majority of our responses on the surveys are in Spanish there are some that are in English um we don't have any in other languages um one thing that I would like to share is I actually uh last week and this week trained our Ed secret our educational secretaries at each campus who support uh enrollment of students and today uh or yesterday I don't even know it was today today thank you um I did the same training with our office managers and that training was specifically on using the correspondence language in Synergy and so there's a field in Synergy which is our student um information system when we have families enroll there's an option to put what language they prefer written Communication in and we haven't been using that and so one of the things that we know um that we tried to remedy this year is that all the what we sent home is in English and Spanish any written communication or the majority of the written communication is in English and Spanish that goes home and we it was really it is very important that we provide written communication in the language that makes the most sense and is the most accessible to our families and so we did try to do that this year and what happened was the only data that I had in this that we had available was students home language and so when we pulled that we had 28 home languages and when we I went to translate all only not only the required forms for my two programs which are language and literacy there are four letters for literacy that are required by the state and one for our English language program so just those legislatively required um letters if we were to translate those in all 28 languages it would have cost us over $660,000 and we did not have enough money available in our line for translation and when I started to dig a little bit deeper we uncovered the reality that many of those home languages were not representative representative of the actual written language that families needed so for example we have um several with three three different Native American languages that were listed as a home language we know those families and they do read and write in English and so they can access the information in English which means that we don't need to that translation right and so I we were not willing to make that decision without communicating directly with the fames so the end of the story is very exciting our Ed secretaries are undertaking a massive project to contact all of our families who have a home language other than English in our information system and find out what respondence language they need so then they'll finish that by the end of June so this summer we will have an accurate number and an accurate list of languages so that we can strategize how to be financially responsible and meet those needs of our families so all of that to say is that we we very honestly have not reached out in written or oral language to our families that speak languages other than Spanish and English and we are actively working to change that for this coming year so I hope to be able to provide you next year with a more definitive answer that says yes we have more other languages thank you so much for that um do we know was there like a generally a third most like spoken language that was pretty obvious or off the top of my head I don't remember but we can I I have the image of all the languages and the numbers so I can provide that oh we got okay so the second question second question um our reports have mentioned limited resources for Teacher coaching what can we do differently to make sure teachers get the coaching and support they need to help students grow and I talked about this a little bit before um increasing our funding for sofg is increased content coaches so specific areas of expertise language acquisition coaches and literacy coaches four of each continue our work with the consultant and add another um cohort and more PD um develop content expertise and I already said this add another cohort and then the last bullet is align coaching case load prioritize the teachers at directly align with the goals for example literacy coaches work with K3 teachers language acquisition coaches primarily work with targeted teachers and solely incorporate integrated and language coaches support um SEI cohorts so those are some of ways to help with our resources and Dr pombo I'm just going to take a moment to add some stuff to this because I think it is is important that these questions are asked to see how we're going to give that ultimate support because we always hear that if the teachers don't have since they're they're the number one asset closest to our students if they don't have that support then really nothing gets done and as we're having budget talks and all these things I think it's important for us to realize um there's some reports out there there's done a whole bunch of research and they say that uccessful boards recognize the need to support High priorities even during times of fiscal uncertainty um to this end the successful board supported extensive professional development programs for administrators and teachers even during times of fiscal restraint so this report that was conducted in 1993 on the effect of a school boards they were looking at how school boards align their budgets to to goals right um another part of this research based um says that research-based professional development for staff is one of seven conditions for improvement typically evident in high achiev districts from the board's perspective members did not simply provide funding for such professional development but they could articulate specific examples and this is the board members of activities in their link to Improvement plans in high achieving districts board members described staff development activities in the district and could describe the link between those activities and the teacher training and board or the district goals for students um it shows that an analysis of high and low achieving districts in high achieving districts the board and superintendent support uniform professional development built on curriculum in lower achieving districts professional development may vary extensively from school to school one example is new teachers also is teachers received 18 hours of inservice training per year based on uniform curricula new teachers also received six full days of instructional training and teachers had common planning periods to encourage collaboration on lesson plans and strategies to address student needs um so basically this whole report on alignment basically talks about how important it is to have effective strategies by District on improving the curriculum that are directly support supports either the teachers or the instructional coaches so as we're having these conversations and I'm really thankful that we are looking at ways that to me personally on hearing and reading all these studies on effective districts it's really prioritized on what the teachers and the admins are professional development is getting in order to align with the student goals um so I I think it's really important that we're having this conversations and how we are Al Ling but we also have to understand that sometimes in order to continue this work other things are going to have to be left behind other things are going to have to be rearranged in order to start targeting what we really need to move the needle for students and if I could build on that Madame President one of the things I think what you're shared is perfectly aligned with what's being recommended but one of the other things that I think is a best practice is rather than doing a broad implementation of something and hoping it's effective what we've seen the team do is do a limited implementation um to determine the effectiveness and it really from what we've seen has had two effects one is we've been able to actually measure the effectiveness of the implementation we see that it is having an impact which is why the request to add additional staff and add additional coaching is is included here because we can tie that directly back but I think the other thing that's also very important that I have seen um in other work that I've done in K12 education is that very often if you try to force on the system a broad implementation of a program the system pushes back and when you do a small pilot program what ends up happening is you may have some initial resistance but as those individuals who are in the pilot program start to find success they become your Advocates from within your staff and teaching ranks and then once they're your Advocates that actually allows for stronger adoption because now you have people lining up and saying oh you're opening a second cohort I want to be part of that because I talked to my friend and they were in the they were in last year's cohort and I think you can probably speak more eloquently to it than I can but um from things I've heard from the team it sounds like that's part of what we're seeing is that there was initial resistance with that small group and now there is demand for additional opportunities they could speak directly to do you guys want to share anything you share your teach yeah come in um putting you on the spot yeah um hi hello so just um an example would be I guess teachers not originally understanding what the cohort had to offer and who the consultant was and their coaches being alongside them doing the learning and being available um to really model the lessons and being in their rooms and doing the observations um because um at one of my schools specifically papao um I have four teachers I've had my kindergarten teacher Miss Martinez you should go see her in action um that's a huge huge win like if these kindergarteners can do it I'm I'm all game um for anyone but a lot of the teachers papao have heard or have seen people go in to these teachers who have participated in the cohort and they're the targeted teachers as well and they're like I didn't know that that's what that was oh when when when syvia approached me I didn't know that's what she meant and Sylvia's like that's exactly what I said and I'm like I know that's what you said because I said it too and so a lot of them were like is there going to be another one and they want to second chance at it so it's um been very rewarding to see that and then also see the teachers that have been part of the cohort that have really embraced it and get their feedback that like I need to be part of you know this next year when we make it to cohort 2 I have to do that part I need to keep my learning going and inviting um teachers from across the district into their classrooms um Miss Martinez is a seconde teacher in kindergarten at papao and she's had several teachers from across the districts come in and watch her Kinders um talk about different parts of speech and build sentences and write sentences it's it's very impressive so super super proud of what the teachers have accomplished and I love that you said the continuance part because at the end of the day this would this whole framework is based off as a continuous Improvement to making sure that we're moving the needle for students so just like us as a governing board member we go to continuous you know conferences and keep going back and forth and it sounds like it's redundant but it's not because every single time it's just a continuous Improvement that we have to continuously do to make sure that our students have the tools that they need to continue succeeding so thank you for sharing that I appreciate it yes thank you they're all gonna show up tell them Amber sent you if you tell your that Amber sent you she' be like thank you for sharing that okay the last question um we noticed that our current Benchmark tests DNA may not accurately predict student growth on aella how can we improve or add other tests to track student progress better and help students succeed I know we talked about this a little bit earlier um and I don't remember if if we talked about this and I know um superintendent man shared this but basically the DNA assessment measures the grade level standards just I don't know if I'd share this with our new board members um I think it's been a while and the uh the aella measures their um language acquisition and so my example from before is imagine you're learning Japanese and you're taking a test and I'm a I'm a eighth grader and I'm taking eighth grade tests in Japanese I'm not going to show my language acquisition on that test but if I take a test about how I'm acquiring the Japanese language and it would show where I am on there then that would um accurately measure my language acquisition so when we are looking at the DNA assessment it's not really a really good predictor for us right now of how they're going to do on the aala and so um some ideas is that we're going to analyze the look at the correlation between the Benchmark scale scores in the aella growth so like depending on how they do on The Benchmark how does that what does that look like on the aella um consider using a scale growth model instead of only measuring movement between proficiency levels so on the DNA assessment it's really hard for a person that is uh learning a new language to move from one proficiency level to another so just seeing do they grow on the DNA assessment like they scored this on the first assessment let's just say 10 and now they scored 15 even though it takes 30 to get to the next proficiency level are they improving within that level um we also put um expand the scope into grades um K8 because right now we're just looking at 35 um explore DNA Aela mimic which is um the fastbridge one or do DNA has one too yes so DNA AEL mimic is what Mr Man and Dr Dubin were talking about for the Renaissance product oh yeah you're you're right um I'm looking at the next one prioritize improving our current Benchmark system before adding more tests so that's why we were saying we we're trying to figure out how not to have too much tests for our students um then we talked about also considering using fast bridge but understands limitations and use it to supplement not replace other data and and consider common assessments for the seci cohort so we were uh thinking like if we're we're redoing the um pacing guide like if we could just test on what on what the teachers taught each quarter like a pre and post just just look at that and because since what they taught to see if they're improving based on the lessons they're receiving so there are some ideas we have to look at um for next year when we're looking at comparing um how they're doing on the DNA and and Aela yeah and one Epiphany that I had on this especially where you said expand the scope to include Kates through k through eight that already tells me that additional dollars are going to have to be fed in from somewhere to be able to have that goal or that interim measure met right so as we're having these conversations board members and as they're being told us I think that's something that has to lay the back of her head too on how they're strategizing all these new things but there's going to have to be a give and take as well we can't be everything to everybody and do everything all at once so I think because of the historic data that we have it tells a story and the Tory the story hasn't been very centered on students and it hasn't been on you know having them be successful for the next grade level let alone high school so as we're getting this feedback I just just hope it doesn't live in a board member question and answer but as we're going through the budgetary um revisions and going through all these things that we're really looking at what they're telling us and how much more resources that's going to take from what did you say third to fifth grade we're only look at third through fifth right now yeah for this specific major which is one of our five district goals which to me would be a high priority to make sure that our budget aligns to that right because it is a district goal so just being cognizant of that being aware and I'll move on from that and a lot of these things that we're talking about for um our language Learners we're also looking at what we can replicate in for Math and for literacy um because it was working with that small cohort and adding cohorts to those um content areas as well awesome thank you um board members do you guys have any other questions or any other comments yes yes Miss Marcus go ahead so if we pop back to inputs I believe that's page eight and I want to thank Dr dupin and Mr Man yesterday we had a conversation I had questions about the SEI and they tried to explain to me targeted versus integrated instruction um so going back I see here we've got the um 40 targeted um SEI program teachers will complete so my question is how many targeted SEI program teachers do we have in the district District do we I can I thank you for that question I absolutely can get that information to you I don't have it memorized on the top of my head but um I will absolutely give that information Okay cool so let me um and then kind of a followup to that is whether or not do we plan to increase or decrease that in the next um next school year um and then kind of along that same vein um for integrated um seia teachers you know from what I understand that's you know essentially that could be you know basically their home room teacher or any teacher um what kind of um training or coaching do they receive or or do we intend to at some point expand additional training to them um you know if for for those who were for when they do that um so that was my question related to that and I'm happy to to wait on an answer for that well well yeah we probably have to well with the targeted one we have a certain amount of teachers per school just based on um budgeting but Sarah Beth last year and this year has also writing a grant to get more um teachers so we can do that um but we don't know until we when do we find out like June usually middle of July yeah oh July we can find that out so that does affect the schedule and about the professional development we haven't developed a plan um yet for all the integ all the teachers that teach integrated um SE okay or integrating yeah the standards can I build on what I what we discussed the other day we we talked a little bit about the importance of trying to figure out which models are more effective so is targeted have a greater impact does integrated have a greater impact and a lot of that you know how it's implemented the school comes down numbers how many kids how many teachers but we have beg having some conversations about that would you care to elaborate at all on what we're might be thinking for next year the consideration at this point but okay absolutely so first just to give some context around when we say targeted SE program teachers we're not saying that we are targeting teachers what we're saying is we're providing the professional learning to the teachers of targeted instruction and so in the world of Structured English immersion in Arizona there are four different models that we can use to teach Structured English immersion and we use three of those models in our district each model has components of targeted instruction and integrated instruction and so they also include so a label so the three models that we're using are the pullout model the 2hour model and the Dual language immersion model and each of those models prescribe a very specific number of minutes that multilingual Learners need to have in targeted instruction and also an integrated instruction and so the Dual language immersion models are used at our two dual language immersion schools the most common models that we use are the 2hour model and the pullout model so when specifically the two-hour model that means that our multilingual Learners are receiving two hours of targeted English instruction which means that they are only with multilingual Learners and they are getting instruction solely on the English language proficiency standards and one little Nuance when I say two hours I mean two hours for Kinder through fifth grade sixth through e8th grade is actually 50 minutes sorry per day so it's 100 so for the two-hour model it's either 120 Minutes for K5 or 100 minutes for 68 and those are that's per day and it can be counted per week so if you did a few minutes less one day than you would have to make up for that on another day and so that is with our 2hour model and then we also have we the pullout model and in the pullout model students are getting one hour of targeted English instruction with the English language proficiency standards and one hour of integrated instruction which is typically in that pullout model what that really looks like is that we have a 2hour English language arts block pretty standard there give or take a few minutes depending on the grade level there's let's if we look at a two hour English language arts block and I'm an I'm a multilingual learner who is in the pullout model that means that during the two hours of English language arts one of those hours I'm getting targeted instruction with all multilingual Learners on the English language proficiency standards in my other hour I'm with some multilingual Learners and some mainstream like English language proficient students or students who are native speakers of English and we're all getting the English language arts standards but there are scaffolds that my teacher needs to provide to me so that I can access that information now let's pretend that I am Al I'm still an English a multilingual learner but I am in the two-hour model what the difference there is that for my full English language arts two-hour block I am with all multilingual Learners and we're all learning the English language proficiency standards now per the model I still need integrated minutes which means I'm getting English instruction with native speakers of English and English proficient students but I'm getting that integrated instruction in another content area so if that happens to be in math then my math teacher is teaching me and my mainstream peers math but providing scaffolds in English using the English language proficiency standards which could mean like there's an English language proficiency standard about vocabulary for example so it could mean my math teacher is really focusing on specific like they we're learning fractions right you have a typical fraction lesson but as a multilingual learner my teacher is scaffolding for me specifically ensuring that we that I interact with the math content vocabulary so when we talk about what Dr dupin was referring to is something that Dr pumbo and I have talked about quite extensively is that a lot of anecdotal research and just student experiences and Street data really really points to the 2hour model being the most effective for a multilingual Learners because they're getting full concentrated two hours of English language arts instruction English language proficiency instruction they have the same group of students for that are all multilingual Learners learning that together for their full language arts block and that tends to have greater impact we still looking at specifically what that looks like in our school district and um I know that Mr Myers has already started pulling some preliminary data and we need to clean it up before we can really make that assertion that it works for our kids but we are looking at when we're creating our Master course schedules next year to the extent possible given Staffing student numbers and teacher numbers at each grade level that we are going to prioritize as much as possible using the two-hour model so there are the two hours of targeted instruction that multilingual Learners are receiving with that additional like math or science or history class that's integrated and that two-hour model is what's being implemented under our to dual language schools right no so that is it's a separate I mean it's the opposite well it's a third model which is the Dual language immersion model we'll bring a picture next time that helps illustrate this I'm I know it it gets very complicated to sort it all out um but I love this because it makes it makes me have a lot of wonderings but also it gives me the wondering of the tool dual language schools that we have tend to have the highest outcomes for the most part so W model is being used there and could it what is it is there some preclusion of it being modeled in other schools even though they're not dual language I don't know if that makes sense yes and so yes that is a question that we have as well and also looking at when we look at the total number of students in the Dual language immersion models it is a much much smaller number so that's something to consider uh the Dual language immersion model in is 30 minutes of that targeted instruction with only multilingual Learners and then the remainder of that English language arts block which would be your hour and a half got is integrated got it wow I love that thank you so much and it just reaffirms how knowledgeable you are too and how much of a great asset you are to our district too thank you for sharing all that and it completely made sense to me so I appreciate it and usually it takes a couple of times for me to be like what is she saying but you did it perfectly so I appreciate it I appreciate that and we will in our next um presentation make sure to bring that picture that really helps I have it in my mind when I'm explaining it thank you thank you for those questions Miss Marquez um do we have any other questions comments or wonderings will you bring um the class size for all those uh immersion different sorry the different methods dual language versus 2hour versus yes so the numbers of classes that we have or the numbers of students numbers of students in each one and and we can provide that in like the next board update if that's okay yeah that would be perfect yeah yes we will get all that information thank you so much for that thank you so much I appreciate your guys's time and all the back and forth it it goes thank you thank you at least it makes my job easier on how to make other decisions I appreciate it so now that we have heard our cron sofg goal 3 progress marting report three I am going to move the governing board approve cran s SOG goal 3 progress maror report three second all those in favor I I any nce hearing none motion passes thank you team for being here and being so prepared yes thank you for all that and the back and forth it's it's really appreciated you guys don't even know that moves us to our next item which is 5A public comments have weed any more Miss qutis okay perfect I would like to invite Miss green up to the podium good evening I'll try to keep this short um I appreciate the opportunity to um address you I attended the last um school board meeting I attend most of them as most of you probably know and there was um some conversation quite a bit from Miss Shapiro and some members of the board about the budget and where we stand in the budget and I'm like everyone probably in this room and I get very anxious and concerned about some of the things that I see in the news about both our federal situation as well as our state situation when it comes to funding for education and support for our students I'm a long-term um employee and a very dedicated and care a lot about our district and all of the students in the community I want us to I'm urging you guys to find the balance between um I guess reality and fear I believe that we need to live in the land of reality but not in the land of fear and I believe that we need to look at um how are we going to make sure that we have enough staff to implement some of the things that we've been talking about tonight that are very very important I agree with you professional development extremely important but we also have to have the staff to provide that professional development too and I think we need to look at our Sur surrounding um districts and what they are doing under these same conditions some of whom are also part of the sofg cohort and we're already hearing that um most of the districts are giving at least some staff raises and I understand that right there was the whole conversation about that that balance forward the carry carry forward balance and you know how much is enough and how much is not enough and I get that and and I know Miss Shapiro worked very hard the compression and compensation team has been working very closely with her the meet and confer team has been working very closely with her to make sure we're finding that balance between not you know succumbing to full fear but also being responsible and conservative and and where does that balance lie I'm really really worried about our ability to attract and retain staff and I just don't I don't just mean teachers I mean all staff because good instructions begins with staff the direct instructors as well as the people who support them and we have to be able to at least kind of be in the ballpark of some of the nearby districts or they are going to recruit away some of our best and brightest um staff members so I would urge the district to yes do a lot of hard work at the board I meant um do a lot of hard work in weighing and finding that balance but let's let live in that land of reality and not just the land of fear thank you thank you so much I appreciate it that brings us to our agenda item six which is approval of consent I move the governing board approve consent AG agenda items a through G in accordance with policy be dbe I have a second second all those in favor I I any nay hearing none motion passes that brings us to 8 which is the board Direction on meet and confer policies HB and HC Mr pero or Dr Lauren whoever I think I think it's just us okay our show um oh I have my paper I don't know what else I can say um I understand is that we need to look at all retaining and and everything um one of the things that I do want us to keep in mind is that I do believe that for the past at least five years that I've been on the board we have signif significantly you know um approved raises and and approved different things as we go into this sofg framework and really look at our data and what we have not been able to do and maximize the tool sets that our students have is something that's really going to be in the back of my mind and yes I do believe that we should not operate in fear um that's always I I feel like that's something that we kind of historically do is that we're very reactive versus being proactive and um at this time with all the uncertainties that we have especially like I said before in my board update that we do not have any support from our other elected officials so we're really left to fend for our own in the local governance that we have at its most local Authority at the end of the day we do have more than what $30 million budget and I do believe that we can also as we're imagining our goals and we're reimagining our what's possible for our students that our budget is going to have to be reimagined and in order for to get different outcomes we will have to do different things I know that some of these conversations um it's not taken liken to everybody and that's okay too two things can be true at once two things can coexist and at the time um it is my perspective that this is not a time especially with all the attacks and everything that we have going on is on keeping adults happy and doing the same thing without showing any progress in our students at the end of the day we want happy healthy and full individual students and the only way that we're going to be able to do is to start reimagining what our budget also looks like how are we actually getting the support to from previous you know board meetings that we've had and looking at our progress monitor reports there's been a lot of implementation gaps that teachers has just been thrown you know 20 different initiatives with no really carry out professional development no coaching and and to me that's something critical we should not be throwing all these different different initiatives and then we have no direction it's what cost us to get into this you know ongoing issue of not improving outcomes for students and I understand we're human beings and and we feel things but at the end of the day our data does not lie our data does not lie we have historically left certain groups that tend to be our most modalized groups as a community as a whole and we're not providing what they need so that's just some of the conversations that we've had and I at least personally am really set in and if I cannot see the correlation of how a me and confer recommendation might improve you know the actual professional development or the assistance in order to achieve our goals I'm going to have a hard time being on board and saying yes um I think we are going in a New Direction and a lot of our districts here in Phoenix are as well but it comes to that whole number one phrase of student outcome change do not do not change until adult behaviors change and that's going to be a mindset you know we have all the knowledge we have all the skills we've been working on off of Knowledge and Skills for all these years and yet we still have the data that we have something different has to change and to me it is that mindset portion that we really are going to have to change our mindset and make sure that everything that we're doing and we're allocating our funds is directly impacting our students in order to help them be successful in the next grade level so with that um I'll leave it up to my other board members and whoever wants to add comments or ask any questions this is the perfect opportunity to do so miss Gibson M I was just going to um uh I guess briefly in terms of like when we're I I I understand the need and the want when we're trying to figure out how to um come to the table with something new for um teachers or staff Andor staff um to obviously there's a necessity in some regards to get comparisons from other districts what I will assert and I think I've said this in many ways without explicitly saying it in the past is that I think our district is very unique in many ways one is there's not another District that's similar in size to ours like name I I would challenge anyone to find a district that has nine schools that has the same socioeconomic makeup based on the wildly different geographic area that we cover um and like has the same like Dynamics right so there are other districts nearby that are e either have adopted sofg but maybe are one and a half to two times larger than our district and are forced to to close schools because maybe they didn't have some of the management that was going on prior or they're nearby and they're widely different in in total socioeconomically and have the support have boosters have all this extra stuff going on I mean obviously we're right next door to Scottdale we're right next door to Madison so I think it's just really hard to to compare ourselves to any nearby districts we have two nearby districts that are smaller than us who aren't necessarily doing that great and so I'm just trying to like when you try to put it into perspective it's really hard to compare us to people nearby um and I say this because I know this I am from here I am from this neighborhood I went to school here and I know my parent my dad went to school in Rosevelt my mom went to school in Phoenix Elementary right um I know this city and so it's hard to say how all of these Dynamics are changing I know we're on our own I think that I don't know that we've necessarily been operating in fear or that we're going to I think that um um I think that we're just trying to be as smart as we can and I appreciate the reminder because I'm not one of those people who ever wants to operate in fear and I think our board has shown at least the three of us who've been on here for some time that we don't operate in fear we operate in what we believe to be something that we we believe is going to work and that we believe in and we're going to stand on that um and so I think that if we can continue to make sure that we are like staying laser focused and that has to be at all these different these different facets and levels of what we're doing and so I think the two takeaways here are that we need to be narrow when we come back from meet and confer with like what's presented to us needs to be kind of narrow all right I know we had a lot of recommendations last year and so I would hope that we get a shorter list this year that's been more that's more intentional or seems like it has more intentionality behind now I understand y'all have a very long process um but when I say more intentional I think it goes to my second point which is that we're hoping and I'm saying we but I'm hoping I think my FK my colleagues are hoping um that there's also some evidence with the recommendations to show like how this is all going to tie into all the other things that we're doing in terms of hey okay you're saying we need more professional development we need or we would need more bodies for that but we would rather have these raises I need to see something to show me that um that giving raises to teachers is going to be a better payoff for student outcomes than getting more bodies for coaches like I need some sort of something to give me that information um or how it's going to be tied to student outcomes because it's hard to um it's going to be hard to move forward I would hate to turn down recommendations that have gone through a long drawn out process simply because we're not meeting the mark or we're not making the connection that we need to make in order to have these things line up with how they're going to further the work that we keep getting presentations about um and so narrow recommendations closely tied to student outcomes that's all I'm hoping for and I'm hoping that you can trust us considering I I hope we've proven ourselves to be taking the time to study all of this to ask questions to read to do our homework you know we're not coming in here haphazardly just going with the flow and so we're hoping that what gets presented to us is going to back up everything that we've endeavored to continue on in this ship that we're kind of trying to guide and it's difficult and along the way there's going to be people that are upset um but again we're going to we're trying the best we can to get this in the One Direction and that is to get our kids where they need to be um because like I just said earlier in this present a like 25 years ago when I was about to start high school I didn't know what a subject verb agreement was okay that's still an issue here it shouldn't be that's absolutely effing ridiculous and it needs to be changed and it needs to be fixed and whatever has to be figured out to get that done is what's going to be got like got gotten done okay is what I'm trying to get at okay and so narrow recommendations tied to student outcomes is all I'm asking and I think that's the direction that I would point out here thank you Miss Gibson mle misss um so I think I have a little bit of a unique perspective here um so I am on our IBN team um but I also am working in a district that was taken over by a receiver and so I feel like we have to really be careful as a board because we are the ones making decisions and we should be the ones responsible for those decisions so um part of that is making sure that we ask the people um that do these jobs um like the CFO to make sure that we're in a place where we can function because I would hate to come back and tell our staff next year that we're going to take a pay cut like we're taking a payat next year in in um Isaac so um I I think part of it has to be with with like what um Katie said is that we have been educating ourselves and um I I think that something that has been missing from um certain boards is just the education and the simple belief um of believing the people um that work for the district not that I don't believe our people because I do I I do trust but we have to as a board question those people because that's our job because if we don't do that we're not representing our community um and I I promise you if we ever go into receivership and I'm on the board I I will completely tell you I will resign I've asked our board members to resign because I think they have done a disservice to our community and and who's paying the price it's our kids so our kids are paying the price our families are paying the price our staff is paying the price and the people that made those decisions are not paying that price um so I think that's part of the decision now saying that I also am an educator I've been in education for 24 years um is the talk of raises always on the table for IBN yes why because we know teachers don't get paid enough we know Educators don't get paid enough and that's something that we have to gravel for every single year um our state doesn't fund us properly so um they give maybe a 2% Which is less this year it's a 1.8 so um when you're looking at um an inflation rate of 7% and then you get 2% you're continually taking a pay cut and I'm not sure that people understand that in in the real world because I don't understand um what other job may take a step back every single year um and so we're always losing um so I do understand that as well and then I also agree with making sure because we are so invested in our student outcome focused governance um that we do need to like look at the things that are being brought to us and making sure that those do align with our goals because otherwise we would be kind of like ironic in saying hey we support um this though it doesn't support our goals and that's what we have been um working so hard on so um for me I'm in a unique place I can see a multitude of sides um I promise you I'm not operating out of fear but I am operating out of caution because I am stuck in the midst of a crapshoot show right now in our district and I never want to be there so um I'm just kind of in this triangle right now and um I love that I can see multiple sides so um when it comes to it I'll make the best decision that I think I can make um to make sure that we have teachers that um are qualified because God knows we don't have enough in this world um and I think that this district has a lot to offer um you guys get free insurance still I don't know who still does that I've had to pay for insurance multiple years so I'm losing even more money um every year and graveling for my little 2% every year but this year it's minus 5% so we've lost two two and a half years of moving forward so that's my two cents thank you Miss SS um Mr Jones do you have anything um I guess I would just say I'm a little worried if the public hears this and it's we're so tied to sofg and I think it's a good thing uh that positive student outcomes uh what's not to like but it could be perceived by the public as another method of cutting but um I don't think it has to be that way so uh I don't think it should be hard for me and confer to really find evidence that there is a correlation between teacher pay and student outcomes um that's all I have thank you Mr Jones Miss Marquez yeah um so obviously I'm new to the board new to the fairly new to the sofg work um and you know obvious like like Miss sis touched on you know it's my understanding are you know the benefits insurance is covered which is huge that's you know that's one thing that's kept me out of the workforce a long time is Insurance you know being able to hold on to the insurance I do have or lose it um and uh I kind of I wanted to take us back to something real quick so if we look at the governing board guard rails um where is it there we go number three board will not conduct its studies without including students families teachers staff community members in a manner that inspires broad Community ownership of board policy so I think one thing um as as a parent who's been in the district four years and I've built relationships with administrators with teachers with other families with staff one thing that I've come to to witness is the culture we have here in kraton and that is something that you know you're not going to find everywhere that's something that you know some teachers are like yeah I'm struggling financially but no I don't want to leave my school I love my principal I love my students I love my community um and that's not something that you know you can just money can make up for so so um tying it back to to that like I think what the work that we're doing right now with our policy the policy work you know that that kind of ties into that and it's it's helping to build upon that culture and um create something that's you know going to be inclusive and G to be um you know set set the tone not just for the students but also for for our staff and and for our families um and so I think when we're we're talking about like like the meet and the confer and like how are we keeping and retaining um teachers one thing that you know is really disheartening is when I talk to a teacher and I hear about a situation where they've perhaps been treated unfairly or poorly by by an Administration or you know situation happened where they weren't backed up or they you know were were swept aside um you know it hurts to hear that because if it's you know that's the kind of thing that that drives teachers away so I think one thing that we need to be aware of as leadership is like what culture are we creating and is that harming and driving teachers away or is that making them want to stay despite you know a m you know a small raise or or whatever so I think um you know un fortunately like like if if it were up to me like man everybody be getting a raise you know like I wish it's ridiculous that our state and our country fails at funding like our our most important natural resource which is our students our our children you know their minds so you know unfortunately we're we're very limited on that front but as far as setting the culture and how we allow our teachers and our staff to be treated by leadership that's something we can control so and that's also something like hey you know I I know that's something I'm looking out for and I hope that as well you know HR and our superintendent are mindful of that too is that when we're hearing that some teachers are being treated unjustly that that is not allowed to continue um because that's going to drive drive good people away and create you know a bad reputation for us but if people know like man I you know kraton they love their principles they love you know they have a good culture they're you know it's anyways that's going to draw people in that's all I gota say thank you so much Miss Marquez I'm just going to end with this um as governing board members and elected we have a responsibility to the community I always say that we might not be responsible for let's say of a fight breaks out in a classroom I'm not responsible for what happened in the classroom because I wasn't there it's usually the teacher or whoever was in that incident but I am accountable to what happens based off of that situation um so in addition to the school board meing to align school system resources with priorities necessary for improving student outcomes the school board has to be intentional about communicating the school system's results back to the community and I think this is a big piece that sometimes is being left out is that we're now being held responsible to go back to our parents and told them hey that child that you have that we said is an adventurous thinkle Cloud bir of learner and kindhearted leader I'm just letting you know that they're probably in the 177% of not passing or being proficient in third grade so we have a responsibility to come and tell our parents that as an institution we're basically failing their students right and the number one conversation that comes from her parents is guess what it's not necess necessarily where are the teachers getting paid enough it's like what are you guys doing to make sure that my student has the resources they need to make sure that they are moving the needle so I'm not saying that this is uh who do we love more or who's at best but when we are out in our community and speaking to them about the one job that they think that this institution is doing is to ensure that their kids are learning and being effective for the next grade the number one concern is that you guys are not doing that and you guys as my elected as the person who comes and knock on my door and tells me that you're going to love my child like your own child which I have my third grader sitting in the front row today um is the same kind of respect and the same kind of values and the same kind of energy that I need to give to all the 4600 students that we have in our institution as the one child that I have so I think that's also important for us as these conversations are happening that we have a DED responsibility to go out nobody else is going back to the community and letting them know what I'm doing as a governing board member or what adult changes I'm making in myself to improve the success of their students in this institution only us not even Jay is responsible for doing that he's not elected we are so I think that's a big piece and component that we also have to make sure that we're keeping in mind as these conversations are going is that at the end of the day we have to face the community and when there is Backlash or other things are occurring it's our email boxes and that are getting flooded because we're technically the owners of this District whoever sits on the board not the teachers not with all du respect not the superintendent not anybody else but technically the owners are us as the governing board- elected officials and our only one goal is what the education system was built and the number one fundamental thing that schools exist is to improve student outcomes that's the only reason yes everything else coexists that's why we have guard room and we prioritize social mental health and all the other things that are important to our community but we are the ones that are 150% accountable for that data nobody else it flips we're responsible for the data and then our superintendent is accountable this is an us job so as we go further and we talk just make sure that I think that's my ass us well is that as the representa of this community I'm the one that has to have those hard conversations with those parents and let them know like you you know if you're the child of a black student let me tell you that since 2015 0% of those eighth grade black students have gone on to high school knowing the fundamentals of math to succeed so those are all the hard conversations that each of us have to have in the schools in community and broader in business relationships as we try to figure out how we're going to get all this support because it's going to take all of us so I just wanted to end with that um and make sure that we all all at the end of the day are aligned and I want the best for everybody in this institution but we are guard railed us as as people who make these decisions on what we can we can't do and we have to be Innovative and in that Innovation if the student if that third grader or those students are not prioritized at least for me personally it's going to be a non-negotiable I don't know if um anybody else has anything else to say or add to it thank you all right so that kind of wraps up our conversation and obviously this is a continuous conversation I know that we have one more meeting confer and I'm you know excited to see what comes of that that brings us to our agenda item 10A which is the acceptance of financial audit reports for fiscal year 2023 24 and I what happened where we at 10 a oh sorry I was on the wrong I went back to look at when we did this before and I was on the it's okay I was like oh no did I mess up again um all right so Miss Shapiro I'll turn it over to you thank you madam pres president um governing board policy requires that a final reporting of our financials uh be presented to the governing board for examination we also are required to uh procure an external auditor to come in and do this work and additionally school district and governing board um shall publicly accept all Audits and compliance questionnaires by a roll call vote which is why this item is on here tonight I'm very excited to uh present a representative from The Firm of heinfeld meech and Company this is Mr Josh jumper he is a CPA and audit partner with heinfeld and meech and the lead on our um account account partnership uh audit audit welcome back jaky fingers don't do that all right thanks for sitting through everything it's been uh uh well good evening uh the the good news is you got to hear them talk about how responsible they are for the budget right like isn't that one of the questions you typically interview them to find out like are you paying attention so here evidence presented good evening man president board members superintendent man executive team uh my pleasure to be here this evening but just uh not related to the audit but just so impressed of all the discussion you're having and the care that you all have so but that's my personal opinion not my audit opinion I'll put my audit hat on uh but here to present the audit results uh for June 30th 2024 so we're always looking backwards for the audit so just keep that in mind uh we're looking back at the prior fiscal year so not the fiscal year you're in not the fiscal year you're looking towards but the One backwards uh so keep my comments very brief uh but if you have any questions need any clarifications or have comments please don't hesitate to ask so uh the annual audit uh is required by uh in AR uh and just want to go through what's can what's entails the audit so we use this term the audit what's included so there is a presentation but I don't need it yes it it's fine there's a it's very high level in just a few slides but I can go over it without it too the same it is the same yes and it has been posted with the um board agenda yes it has uh but just to entail uh so uh the audit timeline so the audit engagement letter is signed in the spring of 2024 signifies the start of the audit we do some preliminary procedures uh before the year ends we do some procedures uh the bulk of our procedures after the year ends after June 30th and especially after the the records have been closed and the AFR has been filed in the fall so that October time frame uh the audit reports were issued in February so just last month of J I'm just gonna jump in real quick because we do have two new board members and so AFR is our annual Financial reports so that's the the closing up shop of the school year it's all of the expenditures have been closed out and we file our annual financial report yes my apologies uh it's okay yes one of the many reports required to be filed uh but that includes financial information so once that that is filed the the records are closed out uh the audit procedures can be completed so what audit reports are issued uh for the audit so uh the the main one being the annual comprehensive financial report the acfr that includes the district's audited financial statements that is what uh our audit opinion is in and included in that report so I'm pleased to report tonight that the audit opinion was unmodified that's the technical audit audit accounting term uh the non-accounting lingo version of that is a clean audit opinion so uh free of material misstatement so that's pleased to report that uh that annual comprehensive Financial reports quite large includes different financial information uh not going to go into detail on it but uh includes the audited financial statements additionally uh one audit report that's issued is the single audit report and this one is required for all entities that receive over $750,000 of federal grants so cron exceeds that and it requires a single audit uh so included in that report are a few things the schedule of expenditure of federal a wward so reports all the federal dollars the district receives and spends for the year and list them out all by the various grants that the federal agency gives the name of the grants too uh in included in that uh we did notate a few items a few findings this year so we notated one over Capital assets and then one over accounting records and specifically over some cash reconciliation items and revenue posting items so uh those were included in there which I'll touch on in a second additionally uh the federal programs we uh did detailed testing on were the special education program and Esser uh please report no findings over those grants but uh those two findings I mentioned uh the district is required to include a corrective action plan included in the report it's included in there this uh report or the plan uh is unaudited so I'll let Miss Shapiro talk to it talk to that plan if she wishes but uh I've spoken with her over these findings uh what caused them uh but in my professional opinion she's taking them seriously and has put a plan in action to ensure they don't repeat in fact at this time uh both uh findings have already been corrected on our ins for uh next year's audit so we're excited to have those taken off uh during the next cycle have any of those findings caused any major changes or issues on any of the things that we have in systems in place or anything oh other than just correcting them and absolutely so a a big part portion of that is something that I think we've discussed a few times is that in smaller districts you tend to have people who wear multiple hats and there aren't a lot of resources to have backup procedures um so one person can be very pivotal in a system and if that person leaves the district or is not available um it can have a big impact on a system so uh with Dominic oh he's already left uh our brand long Mr Ruth our new I know I'm like he should be there I think he's online right now watching us probably going to text um we have uh strategically been uh re revamping those procedures to ensure that there is a backup in place so that all the knowledge doesn't sit at one chair and that's what we deem to be the the most um important piece as to why these audit findings did occur and as you know uh here in the pretty recent past we had significant turnover in critical positions namely our Director of Finance our procurement um our payroll so those were the three specific areas that uh having turnover in one year uh definitely had an effect and led to these findings so filling the positions but then also uh doing the work to make sure that those procedures are not sitting at one desk and that there is a backup piece in in place was the the the fix that we knew we needed to make immediately and we have uh put those pieces in place thank you I appreciate that yeah and I'll just add I mean during the last part of the stage of the audit those positions that Miss Shapiro mentioned were unfilled so it was you know an all hands on deck to try to get the audit process complete and Mr Ruth did come in at the end and did assist in the completion of the audit as well so uh yes I I'm in agreement with her uh assertions and uh I do think that the district is on the right trajectory ensuring these findings don't repeat themselves so uh additionally another report that's issued is the uh uniform system of financial records the usfr a compliance questionnaire so that questionnaire has to be filled out and completed and submitted to the auditor general for every school district in the state so this questionnaire is the same for every school district and we have to go through and say yes or no they're all yes or no questions black and white uh there are over 170 175 questions that as part of the audit we go in to test transactions to say yes or no and uh I did my count uh my my count that there was 12 NOS meaning 12 instances of non-compliance and so the areas that we look at are a wide variety of all the processes and areas in the business office over attendance uh property control uh budgeting uh just a vast variety of processes and procedures so there were 12 questions that were no but keep in mind there are over 175 questions in total and I would uh point out that each year those questions do change um slightly or sometimes dramatically and we never know uh what the list of questions are going to be until they roll that information out even the Auditors aren't sure um and uh in the past my rule of thumb has been that uh 10 and Below uh tends to be where I like to keep it because that means that we're doing a really good job with due diligence working with our Auditors these are human processes there are going to be errors if there were no errors I would probably say to the Auditors could we please test some more um because this is a while Auditors are independent we utilize our audit as a tool to help make make sure that we can identify any areas before it does become a concern so we want our processes to be tested we want to see if there's uh things that we've missed in there but you know when a auditor looks at uh 15 deposit packets and in one of those packets somebody didn't issue a receipt that just allows us to know we just got to constantly be uh bringing that message and that training back out to staff um those are very common for those things to happen and uh when you do that test work so again anywhere you know 10 to 15 I'm making squishy face uh somewhere around 10 uh and and below I feel like we're doing a very uh good job and I would say that I'm being a little harsh uh 12 is a very good outcome with that many questions with the situation that we're going through and that um uh completely reflects on just the hard work of the staff in all of those areas I mean that's the school sites taking attendance trying to check the kids in and out withdrawing uh enrolling these are just just a tons of processes not just the finance office or payroll uh we look at um just a multitude of area areas and those uh items are attached to this uh agenda so you can get the single audit um if you wanted to see those two findings in detail this is our the bigger document the AER the audited uh comprehensive statements and then those usfr questionnaire um responses are in there so you can see which ones that they said no to um and again those things are yes or no uh one time in uh in the past I had not here at kraton um a contract to a staff member was off by one penny and the question is did we pay according to the contract and because of some rounding fashion or whatever at the end of the day we didn't pay by one penny and it was a no so those ones are tough and I always bring that one up because that one sticks in your craw but the the question is yes or no and did we do it no we were one penny off so uh just to kind of show what types of questions are in that in that process does the Arizona auditor general determine all those questions do they get it from some national uh great question the Arizona auditor general decides what questions are in the questionnaire each year I can't and won't speak to how how they decide which ones to change add delete each year but I believe it's their own Department gotcha I would say we'll be seeing some interesting questions here in the in the future um with some of the situations going on in the financial World an example of this is at one point in the past maybe like 10 um 15 years ago we had some border districts who weren't doing a a super strong job in ensuring that the students that were attending their school uh came from from Arizona and so we had them coming in from some border states we now have a slew of uh questions in the questionnaire that um requires us to go pretty deep on providing proof of residence which goodness if you don't live in Arizona and you're coming to kraton good for you that's a pretty dedicated family um but those questions still exist it came from situational things I do know that questions get into their uh based on current events and you will start seeing things uh coming down the pipe later um so trying to address issues if I get to S they also get in there sometimes due to changes in the usfr and there have been years and I I got to give kudos to Mr jumper because he's helped us through these over the years but there have been years where we have been three quarters of the way through the year and not re there's been no clarity as to how we were supposed to implement the changes that are being tested by these questions and so um one of the things that um as an audit partner heinfeld and M meech is incredible at is the PD that they offer as well has really helped us get through some of those challenging situations too all right one more report to touch on uh and so not a report but it's the letter to governance so included in there is uh a letter addressed to the governing board so it's directly from us this is required communication for every audit we do we issue this for every audit we perform and it just highlights uh certain aspects and required things that we are required to communicate to you but just some highlights that I'll notate in this presentation so uh no uh there were no uncorrected misstatements for the financials so uh those findings we notated so the items we came across we brought them to Management's attention they made the corrections timely to ensure the financial statements were properly stated so there were no uncorrected misstatements additionally we had no disagreements with management uh and as well uh the engagement letter assigned at the beginning of the audit representation letter assigned by management at the end of the audit that gives us the approval to issue our audit opinion those are my prepared remarks tried to keep it as brief as I could but happy to answer any questions you might have board members do we have any questions or comments okay perfect I really appreciate you coming and explaining these things too and I also appreciate all the backend conversations that Miss chaparo has and at least in my personal experience she's always open to meeting with us oneon-one and going over these in-depth questions before they come to the board meeting so Justice a transparency it's not because it's late it's not because we don't want to ask questions we really are meeting one-on-one and making sure that all these whatever wonderings we have are being answered so thank you appreciate it thank you a motion oh yeah the roll call [Music] vote DED on it next year if we don't nope all right thank you I move the governing board accept the audit reports for fiscal year 2324 in compliance with ar ar1 15- 914 second all those in favor and I'm going to go ahead and take roll call vote Miss Heather SS hi Miss Katie Gibson mcleen hi myself I Mr Tristan Jones hi and Miss Nico Marquez hi having five eyes no nce motion passes thank you thank you that brings us to our next agenda item which is 11a the continued discussion and consideration of paple school name change and with that I would like to invite Miss Sylvia Earl and her team up to have this discussion thank you so much so excited to hear the updates thank you all for sitting yes I appreciate it get through here good evening Madam president members of the board executive team uh thank you for having us here tonight we are here because because we wanted like you said give you an update on the progress we've been making on the school name change and if you are new to the board and may not be as familiar where we are in the process we want to give you a little short update so I'm going to um start with um reviewing our agenda thanks so I want to introduce our team I'll be doing that shortly and then we'll be discussing the progress to date we started with an examination process and we went to a little more exploration and now we're in more of the advocacy role and just for context I believe this was introduced back in 2022 or that's part of your I apologize I'm just going to be quiet no you're that's all right thank you and these are the members of our Equity team and here tonight to present with me is Miss senat mauka and Mr Isaiah Washington and thanks to this whole team has done a great job not only in this work uh with the school name in particularly but throughout the year so this has been a really really crucial team on our campus so yes in 2021 22 that was the first year we just were asked the question and we had a late presentation at the end of that school year um that from at the governing board meeting where it was actually when we were still online if you remember um when we were asked to consider a different name and we were learning about the history and that kind of came forward and so we started with some staff um introducing it to the staff we I went to Native American Community uh the family nights uh we did a parent connection just to introduce it we started talking to our students and then the following year um we followed up with the certified staff and then we started integrating the equity team into this process and included more parents into just educating about the name and just checking in on how we feel about it what should we do about it kind of kind of low uh level on the just just understanding and like I said examination and then year three we also added in lower grade students so that they can start understanding what was going on and then in the exploration world where we were like doing a deeper dive really learning more about it that happened in the second year and third year of this process where we just kept adding additional perspectives we started a little shallow but we kept getting a little deeper and deeper and I would even include some of the work we're doing right now as part of exploration um as we're doing the name change we kept going back to and doing more Outreach and I feel like that was part of exploration and kind of toggling and advocacy so that's where we are right now um we've learned quite a about the name that where it comes from the town ofam people in that the where the where the reservation currently is but also their ancestral lands being all the way um just stretching and also that who lives in this community in this area and so we learned quite a bit about that and um have a few names to bring back to your attention right so here's Mr Washington hi hello again Madam president uh members of the governing board superintendent um so last year almost I think it was like literally like a day was this almost Yeah March 26 now March 25th um we we came to you um to you know go over some of the suggestions that we had looked at and a lot of the work that the equity team and I have did was looking at the criteria of that governing board policy FF with naming facility ities making sure that it's of a geographic location um and looking at or specific people that were of significance to our community um we also wanted to make sure that we were keeping in mind that Native American representation a lot of what we heard at those Native American Family nights is if we were going to make a change making sure that you know if we change making sure it's not forgotten making sure that we're still having it included and and since it is a part of our community um we also wanted to again making sure that it's part of that Community Connection making sure it's part of what we see what we hear what we feel in our community um so at that time we had brought to you three names of agave um which as you know that a plant that we have here it's at our desert Desert Botanical Garden we've seen it around uh also piesta which would be after piesta Peak which is the mountain peak that we see from our school campus as well as we found out it is the mountain peak that is in our logo um and we also looked at possibly desert because knowing the uh Papago Indian tribe was now from Puma which would be also with the tan Nation T Autumn desert people so wanting again having that connection to it um we really appreciated that the feedback and the considerations uh that were given at our last formal request for name change as well as the discussion that we had here with governing board members some of the things that came up was about being able to consider the Hopi tribe since piesta uh named after Lori piesta being part of the Hy tribe making sure that we were uh having their considerations since we were incorporating other uh local tribes we also uh during that time uh one of our members Miss Sarah Jones had us also consider speaking to our local members such as the Salt River Maricopa Pima Indian Community uh so we were actually able to myself Miss Jones and Mrs Earl we were able to meet virtually with lisis baragan who is the manager of the language Department of the srpmic um we've also had some of our Equity team members re try to reach out to the pesta family uh as well as trying to reach out to the Tana Autumn Nation um and I know I wanted to have Miss Earl speak to some of the connections that we've had with tation oh sure I mean this is going bring back s several years now but we have reached out in several capacities um we had the speaker who initiated this conversation and then we also followed up with some texts from the tanam the cultural center that was that's on the reservation they shared some resources with us and so we purchased some of the text and had conversations and so that's one way I even looked up the T Miss ton aam Nation on Instagram trying to trying to get her attention it didn't work but I tried to just find some other opport for some public figures to just be able to share a little bit about how this might affect them as well so that's where we some of the work that we did thank you um so with that being said a lot of the considerations that were brought to the table really guided a lot of the work that we've that we've done for this past year um and so what we bring to you today um is two of our current name suggestions that we have and I will have Miss tzuka share with us uh those two current name suggest sus and then give a little bit more context for our first suggestion he really wants to talk about the second one so a lot of work on it uh so the two that we have been examining at this point are agave and then Iron Mountain as an alternative to pesta a peak uh looking at Agave um this was one of the most popular names amongst like the community members that we have surveyed particularly the students I remember going through that Google sheet and it was just there constantly um and this is used for Centuries by the hokan people uh for many different purposes including food fiber and medicine so this plant is really integrated into this culture that we are wanting to honor with the name change uh additionally it has not only been used by that Community but also by the Latino Community which we see very prevalently at our school um it has been used to reduce clothing footwear building materials fires and papers um we've informed that this really can be a strong option because of its prevalence in a geographic area I mean if you've grown up in this area you see the plant everywhere or most likely have and it is honoring both the Native American communities that we want to honor with the name change but also the Latino community that we see so prevalently at our school your turn yes thank you um so uh also one of the top was for pesta or pesta Peak and I know it was very popular uh here in our governing board as well uh but and because it's the mountain peak we see from our school campus again it's part of the logo it's part it's part of our community um and so but a lot of those considerations of making sure that we were we we didn't really consider the bigger picture and getting more of those voices and looking at it a little bit deeper so that's where we took the steps of reaching out to the pesta family reaching out to the Hopi tribe uh the toam nation and other local Native American communities so after speaking with uh the Hy tribe uh which would be Elders or leaders of the Hy tribe uh the leaders from our srpmic as well as one of our Equity team members uh Mr Dexter nibit is part of the naav Navajo Nation uh we learned that it is taboo to name something after someone who has passed away um that after someone makes passage to the afterlife that they should be allowed to rest uh in peace and just let them go on um we we re we in addition to that um we also had found out that there had been some time where when the name of piesta whak had been brought up that there was a lot of contention and a lot of other groups had contested saying this is against our values we want to make sure that they lay at rest and so for it to still be to still be named was something that we're like oh okay that that was very interesting that that you know they was still push forward um so that it's Arizona true it's Arizona um and so and keeping in mind of the PSA family as as I stated uh some of our Equity team members have tried to reach out to the family but at this time we haven't haven't presently got a hold of them we hope to connect with them in the future but we haven't at this time um we also learned uh that the uh srpmic Community has been had been working for some time to rename the papao butes um so it's it's been some time where that that also just that name of the different areas in our city has been uh had some had some controversy and that they were really optimistic that this could help promote and maybe be spark of change for Phoenix and for the community so that was something that made us feel really empowered and inspired uh so that brought us to learning that the original name for pesta Peak uh and please perit me anyone who is listening who speaks the Autumn language I'm sorry if ruin this uh but vam dog uh and this name means Iron Mountain uh and so members of the srpmic also found as well as many others that we've kind of talked about this about Iron Mountain says that it could be a strong option to incorporate this significant geographic location while respecting the cultural values of our local Native American communities so with that information we really wanted to come back to you for um just to ask where what you think our next step sh should be we would like to propose that we go back because we haven't been able to share this new information with um we have shared it a little very briefly with our staff but want to share it with our families and our students and our communities we'd like the opportunity to kind of do another feeler but this time for a preference between these two if you don't mind and re-educate them about why we've made um this new suggestion and then come back to you hopefully by your next meeting if if we don't know about your timeline but we thought perhaps by the next U meeting so that we could move forward as um expeditiously as you see fit but we know that this has been a long journey and we are ready to you know put the name papao to sleep and move on to move on to exactly where we want to go you move forward you know in in in aligning our name with our vision and making sure that we are responding to the new information that we have so that is why came back to you to share that with you and ask for your guidance and suggestions and if I could add for the board members um some of you have were here for last year's presentation others may not have seen it but all of this and it was in the presentation is driven by governing board policy FF and so in there two important things to note is that the board will ask for a committee to be formed and many thanks to pepo's um Equity committee who served as that committee on the board's behalf but the other piece is that following pre presentations at no less than two board meetings the board can then take a vote so even though there's been a lot of historical work on this we we working with the team we felt like if we had them come back since had some changes in board membership update the history give us an update on their work over the last year we would consider this our our first of those two board meetings and then if we had a presentation um assuming we're not putting too much time pressure on the team to come back on our April board meeting we would have that second presentation and that would put the board in a position to be able to to vote to make a decision on the renaming um the other reason you know that I think we would like to try to do that on April 15th is to give ourselves enough time because it's still a pretty tight window when you think about things like changing out signage you know updating records at the state level you know all of the getting Googled the acques to a name change appears to be one of the harder things to do so um so our hope is that if we do that April 15th we'll have a lot of that work completed between April 15th and the start of next school year so you all feel like you have enough time to go back like is the next board meeting enough time for you to go back to your I think so we have a uh we have another family learning night happening this Thursday okay we think we can share that with parents at that time we have pretty good readership of our school newsletter so if we send it out there we think that will reach families um so we can send it to students at any time and then I'm in connection with the local neighborhood association so I can ask for some feedback from our neighborhood association as well so and and if you would check in with Miss wasik um I believe we we have a community newsletter yeah that's going out um sometime in the next week or so so that might be another way Thursday's your deadline for the newsletter well we have a Google form we're already ready to go so we'll just send her that link as soon as well I know um do I know um Jay was telling me in our one one about kind of all this research it was very enlightening and interesting and I really appreciate it and I made kind of a joke about well it would have been nice to know all this when we did the other name change maybe even though there was a lot of more demographics and other problems involved with that whole renaming even I laugh when I tell people where I went to middle school because it sounds like a misrepresentation of like I went to some Preparatory Academy but um that's neither here nor there I appreciate all of this research and I think it's fantastic and I appreciate all the work that you've done is very informative and I hope that there's some way when these changes occur whatever we do land on that there's a way to other than just what's in board docs like to commemorate the work that you all have done in terms of something at the school that kind of out like shows some display of the work that y'all have done in determining this name I don't know how that could be represented somehow but I'd hate to lose all of this and then like people on down the road like when we were like well who the heck is Larry Kennedy right um you know so like maybe there's some way to commemorate this or keep it there somehow yeah as we're you know one of the things is as we're changing out signage you know one of the things we could look at is potentially changing out some graphics in the front office for maybe a super graphic that tells part of the story or something why why is the school name this that type of thing so I think we have some different options and I know um that M Shapiro and our facilities team will work with the team at papao to to try to come up with some things that that might be able to sort of capture that so that way we don't play the mystery game um again of trying to find out why why why would we have named our school thises and just in case you're wondering I have a lot of people asking me about the school mascot if that will be changing so we were hoping to keep it Panthers we've changed all of our shirts to take off the name Papo over the last four years actually and they lot of them a lot of them just say panthers so that we could continue in our school uniforms and I mean a team sports uniforms have only save Panthers on them right now as well so we were hoping that we could keep that part of identity while making a name name change of the facility so that's something we're hoping long history of good athletes that's right I hate I hate to the fact but it's true and our students very vocal that they wanted the Panthers to not be changed it was all in the surveys Panthers Panthers Miss Marquez I remember a couple years ago gosh I think it's been a couple years um but attending a Native American family night here in the district and your group was there and you got feedback from from everybody that attended and I remember just like being really excited that that was happening and but you know here we are a couple years later so I want to thank you for like that's a long time to be working on this you know and so thank you for all the research and the work you've done and for going out and getting feedback from you know the community and you know the our native American families and everything so and I I love both those names so I'm going to have to think hard on which one I like best and yeah yeah speaking of mascots I went to mon Vista in the 90s and there was a little you know Duke was popular that was a little tff about whether it was appropriate to have that mask that has come up several times Mr Jones do you have anything to add no I was just going to say uh that the naming of the peak Lori P well you know the greater American culture is we want to honor our military service members especially those that have died in combat she was the first Native American woman to die in combat and unfortunately when you have the Native American uh you know rules of naming things or not naming things after that people coming into a clash of with this American uh military uh worship or um honoring but there's another example is Hayes a lot of people don't know Sierra australa is named the high point is named after Ira Hayes who had a very tragic post World War II uh life and uh he was one he's one of the Marines in the eima monument but it it just goes to show that we live in a state where we have the highest military service of Native Americans right because the nature of having so many tribes in our state uh my money's on Iron Mountain and yeah I will wait and see yeah thank you Mr Jones yeah I just appreciate all the work that's been done I I am appreciative of the intentionality and really getting to know if we're going to make the move of changing something on what it's going to mean and what is what are the unintended consequences like what happened over there witha I would hate in order for it would hate for us to move in a way where we're going against cultural beliefs like he said there's a certain way that certain of us perceive certain things but not at the stake of going against the same people from that culture or from those practices this just doesn't add up to me so I appreciate everything I also have my own bias of what I like but I'm not going to share that I'll wait until it goes out in the community I I already know what what I want um it's it's awesome I'm just excited and I think it also tells a story of how it everything that we transcend and everything we do is aligning we have a land acknowledgement for a reason and it's not just there for words but it's really to take heed to the policies and everything that we have going it back and always centering back to our indigenous people that were unfortunately displaced when this institution was created in the 18 late 1800s so there's a lot of history there and I appreciate everything you guys did and yes you I I believe that we're all ready as long as you guys are okay and it's in your time frame we're ready to hear whatever next steps are to renaming the school Miss SS did you want to add anything no just the same sentiment like I'm excited that um we're kind of getting to the conclusion of this as I'm sure a long journey um and uh I actually like I like both of them so I really I can't say which one I prefer to tell you the truth I think they're both ke so thank you yeah thank you for the extra work and the hard work and for staying late with us yes I appreciate you guys and thank you to the equity team for all their hard work because without them all of them everybody thank you thank you thank you so much all right that brings us to 12a which is future agenda items do we have any future agenda items the only future agenda item I will add is um us giving a little bit more context on the majority of where our operations budget goes into and what is in that operations like what are we doing to sustain that oper um that salary and the operations when it comes to the co the workers of the district is that enough Miss hes I'll send you yeah perfect I had the two yeah of course I we we G to read these that are already on here or we don't need to um no the ones that are there we usually don't those are just living documents that we' I mean future agenda items that eventually we'll put on the agenda but go ahead Mr Jones oh thank you I I've had these on my mind for uh probably a couple months now um uh the first one is uh taking a look at Chronic absente absenteeism and absenteeism in general in our district uh I think it has a direct effect on student outcomes if it the students are not in the classroom learning they're not going to show any positive uh you know outcome and my understanding uh from a conf what prompted this was when the nape report came out uh I can't remember now if it was in February or January I was able to watch a a the campaign for grade level reading hosted a webinar on uh the result kraton does not participate in in natee but it's the nation's report card so it's just a general sense of how school districts across the country are doing and um not well was the big takeaway from this and I think even though we're not participating I think we're seeing similar problems and uh when they hosted this webinar this was after it was released and what what could we find from all the data in nape and uh what was brought up over and over again was attendance uh post covid or post pandemic you know or post lockdown that this era after 2020 21 and uh I had a conversation with Mr Man briefly on one of our Monday phone call meetings and uh I think we were in agreement that it's something we could tie into student outcomes for sure and I don't think you know it won't cost any money at least at first but uh yeah I'd like to see uh attendant attendance reports by year over you know five years before 2020 and then you know going into now and looking at those numbers but and uh any data that you all might that this executive team might have on attendance impacts on testing in the district and my second uh future agenda item is uh our student phone policy and usage of electronic devices during the school day uh by students and so just to clarify that I'm sorry I need to interrupt um we don't have to read the student um cell phone usage because was already didn't have it but we can add another one specifically to the usage of technology in classroom instruction and yeah that was actually Nicole right put that one on there but you m mine I I guess I just wanted to put the policy down there so that we're all clear from the start but if there was any discussion in the future of this it was more uh I'll write read my rationale it might be worth considering if we're not seeing an improvement in reading and math testing that there might be detrimental effects from students being distracted by electronic devices uh and furthermore since the first superintendent guard rail States the superintendent will not neglect social emotional health wellness and development the board should have a discussion about how much time our students are spending in front of screens and if there is a feeling that this might be affecting the mental health of our students okay and then um any reports or data collected on student times spent on electric electronic devices during the El the school day and if we could have any of the district psychologists or social workers comment if they have a perception of this being a problem in our district uh this was prompted by my reading of the anxious generation which was a very popular book last year um my brother who's a pediatrician sent it to me because it has some very troubling figures uh from 2010 onwards especially within you know looking at teenagers mental health and anxiety and depression and uh uh in in different subgroups within children but uh I told him I you know I think this is something I should bring up if I'm going to be a school board member awesome thank you so much I appreciate that any other future agenda items all right hearing none we go to 13A which is a move the governing board adjourn second all those in favor I any nay hearing none motion passes mu as noes thank you to everybody have a great night

should do like they do at the Sun's games and we should you guys when I say hour this side chant hour and then on this side say house say okay so our house no okay just here to entertain you folks all right we're just giving one of our board members another minute to get Okay, welcome. Want to welcome everybody to tonight's board meeting. It's Tuesday, March 25th. Uh we'll uh call this meeting to order. We want to thank everybody that's here uh in attendance with us. We love the packed house and we want to say hi and welcome uh the millions of people that are watching online.

But today, we've brought you here to start talking about the budget process. Right. We're we're getting to be in the thick of it. Town meetings coming up in May. We're looking at what our departments are are needing to be able to do their jobs. So, we brought you in to really talk through what is the budget process for a town

Hello clockers. It is good to be back with another segment of WACA News Blog. My name is Hi Silver and today I'll provide you with a quick update on the latest happenings in Ashland. Welcome Officer Tusano. Join us in welcoming Officer Emanuel Manny Tusano to the Ashland Police Department. With 23 years at the Norfolk County Sheriff's Department, Officer Tusano brings expertise in K9 handling, firearms training, and defensive tactics. He's excited to serve Ashlin, saying, "The community policing here is something I've always wanted to do." 1 2 3. The Clock Tower Pickle Ball ribbon cutting. Ashlin's indoor facility on Homer A is officially celebrating its grand opening. Clock Tower Pickleball offers leagues, tournaments, and a fullervice bar with food options coming soon. Whether you're a pro or a beginner, this is the place to play. Visit them at 200 Homer A in Ashland. Gabe's 100th birthday celebration.

all right thanks everybody for being here like Regional school committee to order reminder is being recorded your imagent voice will be recorded uh could you all please stand and pledge Le United States stand Nation God indivisible liy and justice for all right so the way we have tonight's um agenda meeting set up we have a public comment up right now um that public comment is available for anyone who would like to speak to anything non budget related that's on the agenda anyone here speak about anything non budget related that's on tonight's agenda that's a no all right so we'll go forward any Communications all right agenda Megan yes anyone like to discuss the consent agenda all right all in favor I against all right all right budget I think I hads to say so not last last meeting we had we had the auditorium maybe about five or six people we so apologize that tonight's meeting are standing room only so I apologize not having it um going for with having a different issue so Joe R Aon can I ask you to start out with slide 20 form on this presentation I can through Itor 24 go go back um sorry keep going back right there than I just would like to start up with this quote anyone that knows me is sort of my thing is having some some high quality quots in here I think this is not lost before startling this conversation um the best way to predict the future is to create it and the best way to create a better future is by investing in the education our children and I just want us to stop and I and I really stress the importance of of this F we really need to invest in the education of our children they are our future our students that are in our classrooms today are our future they're our teachers our future fers our lawyers our doctors our nurses our electricians they truly are our future to make financially so budget Aaron I want to discuss some discuss some exact figures on March 11th scho voted in the budget presented to them with the six to zero vote and it read the following that the burlin bolon school Comm voted to approve an FY 26 operating budget of 24,3 9 3,973 in an FY 26 capital budget of 4, 5972 resulting in the total assessment of 10,585 3113 Berling and 14,26 353 to the town ofland and sorry oh sorry um so again once again sco can you voted on that of a 24,393 n73 he better now no's ever told me to speak up um since that meeting took place on March 11th um with school committee um myself school committee Aaron Osman our Director of Finance and operation had several meetings after that our first meeting was with the bson fincom on March 17th and then with Berlin on March 19th and Berlin was a combination of fincom and select board both communities since we presented this budget to them came in with the lower figure that was voted on by by scoy on that March 11th date since that time we've been working for days and days and hours and hours with our principles our directors and our school committee in the Union as well to having conversations with them to have conversations in the best way to meet the numbers that were given to us by both communities tonight Aaron and I will be presenting a budget that aligns with a dollar figure that the money were given to us at this time we've taken the money have been given to us but both communities and this budget you're going to see tonight is is is going to reflect that again I can't stress enough the work that our our principles our directors our school committee and our our Director of Finance operations have done please know that I along with principles and directors at this point do not support this budget we're going to present to you this is a budget that has huge impacts on our students and staff and in particular particularly students that attend Berlin Memorial in Tonto middle and high school we present this to school Comm tonight and the community in hopes of getting direction on our next steps along with your support to let people know that we need and should want more for our students and our staff as I said the very first day that I walked into this District we are a very good District but we striving to become a great School District as Jim Colin says as eloquently as he does in his book good to Great the enemy of great is just being good and we're not going to be settling for good so at this time I'm going to turn it over to our our start of our presentation and Aaron and I are going to walk you through our budget presentation again please know that this will align with the monies at this point that were given to us by both communities but this is a budget at this point that we're presenting the schoolping the communities that principles directors and myself as the instructional leader do not support at this time I have a Qui question we've got people waiting outside that can't even hear anything you're saying do we get a speaker system in here Auditorium and no one can hear agreed a it's not in the auditorium we had a schedu this room what announc all over Facebook well whether or was in an Ann or not the a we had it there two weeks ago and nobody showed up okay well everybody at this point to move everything that we have set up because we're live streaming this as well too be very difficult for our Tech we're not going to interrupt that meeting what we could do though is pause for a second and bring some more cheers and I get the custodians here you can bring more cheers but for us to move there's a logistics of getting this into people in this room so Lisa yes back about we just pull this back about four in slide that good good Joe joic the sound system away all [Music] right Jess the sound system all right the majority of the speaking will be done by Aaron who's at the front of the room so he'll be speaking into all of you so that should help the situation but uh we're still recording we're good okay all right continue out please okay so I hope you're not ask me to repeat everything I just said but at this point right now um I'm sorry so at this point right now Aon and I are budget presentation I can't trust enough for those people again not a budget that we're we're supporting at this point but this is what we're doing to make sure it's align with the do that we're getting we'll presenting the in the community be need support to get what we feel we need to deliver high quality education proes so at this point I'm going to turn it over to Aaron osband and him and I are going to walk you through these next couple um couple slides Aaron howy so uh given we've got a few more people than we had on March 11th I'll take a moment to put in a quick plug for the musical on April 11th right in the in the auditorium not here uh Beetlejuice Jr yes yes okay uh I tried to give a plug then but the two people um seemed very interested but maybe we'll have more people this time so I will uh walk you through a little bit of where we're coming from and then where we're going uh for those of you if we go whoops I'm running this show in fact uh so when we put this together for March 11th and we had our budget hearing uh we came up with assessments um for the towns uh operating we were hoping might be in line we knew the capital numbers were high if uh for those of you who've seen the budget we had number of items that were blacked out or grayed out we didn't necessarily expect to get those items uh one of the things we want to do is make sure that those items are recognized as legitimate Capital items that are needs for the district and those will be pushed down the road in many cases year after year after year um so uh these are the these are the assessments again you'll see that sort of capital assessment is really really high and we understand that um so the same thing for Boon right very high Capital assessments operating assessments um a little more tenable right for total assessment so uh after we uh held that we've we've had a couple meetings with the towns and I think this is in line with the direction we got from the towns um Berlin asked us to reduce the operating assessment that we were showing by 207,000 uh and reduce the Berlin Memorial Capital to that 237,000 number so reduce it by a little over a million again we knew a number of those items the roof wasn't necessarily something that was going to get picked up in nor was solar on the roof going to get picked up immediately but we want to put it on the table and make sure people know we're we're looking at that uh boil uh Boon runs their assessments a little differently so Boon's request was to reduce the operating plus toono debt and capital assessment by 685,000 increase so just so you know that plays out I'm not sure everybody uh has spent a lot of time digging into the regional agreement and digging into how those assessments work um and that is pretty well embedded in the March 11th I'm not going to dwell on all the ins and outs of the regional agreement um but in order to get to these numbers what do we need to do what did we need to do so we had already made a number of cuts to get to that March 11th number uh we looked at um we made a commitment to eliminating those contracted per professionals if you've been around you've heard us talk about that a number of times uh we had uh 12 or 14 total contracted par professionals throughout the district um we're going to make a real effort to hire um our own people um we had some staffing cuts that weren't specifically identified because we hadn't had the opportunity to have some of those conversations so you'll see the health teacher literacy coach uh Library Tech um with a resulting addition of a parah recess Aid that would pick up some of the recess Aid coverage that had been budgeted in previous years all right if I could just jump in for a second so eliminating the health teacher um so the way the curriculum is lined up in the state of Massachusetts is health and physical education go hand inand so although we we're eliminating that health teacher position and I'm trying to be really real careful and and respectful to people that are in the position so know we've had these these conversations principles directors and they've had it with um the Staffing as well too but we're still talking about people here um but that health will be taught by the physical education teacher which goes like I said hand inand with the curriculum um so the library check although we're eliminating the library at the elementary level we'll have some of coming in that will be working um within the library looking for a lot of parent support that'll be helping out in that Library as well too um but also will will have the Dual role of being a resource Aid one that something that I've heard from both communities want from the play sorry y sure so the uh collaborative tuitions um we receive a circuit breaker reimbursement um I've done a deep analysis of the available funds prior to that March meeting um and realized that we have the potential for some rollover funds that we could use so I've committed some of those resources you'll see that in a couple different places that we've made that commitment um there were some changing needs of students students moving to um uh from uh Berlin to toono um so you'll see some changing needs for special education Transportation needs those are recognized in here as well so then if we were to need to meet the cuts um that the towns or the the numbers the towns have um the first thing we do is um or not the first thing but the first thing on this list I apologize it's not the first thing we do um but to go down the list in order um there is uh a classroom uh I believe John correct me if I'm wrong 27 students that would be um in grade two next year we would add a teror professional to that classroom for additional support resulting in some savings um you will see Bann across both schools um I'm not sure 100% sure that FTE in from school to school is 100% accurate but I think the numbers um bear out um uh we have math tutors and literacy tutors at the elementary level um we would eliminate both of those at burlin Memorial um you will see that um there's some movement in uh a music teacher toono this is that bumping you'll see that is a negative reduction right so it's actually a positive when we terminate when we uh not terminate when we eliminate a position right our teachers have bumping right based on their seniority so we have a presumption that that Tanto the person in that Tanto position would have bumping rights to move down potentially to uh an elementary position um I've done sort of a deep dive looking at just picking away every little item I could um you know prior to some of those first hearings I looked at some bigger ticket items uh I've been pouring through every single small item to just see what we can pick at right because you know if we can find 5,000 here 5,000 there eventually we might save a position so that's what I've done um opab I don't want to get into oped but it's a contribution towards retire uh health benefits it's a liability we have um it doesn't impact anything operationally uh I'm comfortable there's no mandate that we put a certain amount but we have to put something into our OPB um so you'll see across the board I've cut our OPB contribution by 50% uh saving us you know about $25,000 again not profound but in the aggregate a lot of this might save a position in the long run um I took a deep dive into long-term substitutes I I spoke with John a little bit about that we felt like we could manage that um you know anytime we're looking at something like this that could create a potential liability for us there's some risk involved right we're taking some risk when we cut some of these but I I think as as John and I talked we felt like we could we cut that and then I made some asks of the principles and and and they largely stepped up to um look at some potential Cuts in overall supplies right if we're looking at the potential for cutting staff we we might as well like look at it across the board and how can we look at some of our supply lines and things like that um there were definitely some lines that had already been cut I didn't touch those I focused on the lines that we hadn't really dug deeply into yet so going through I almost on that slide second so I I I want you to appreciate eliminating that grade 2 classroom having 27 students in that classroom um if if we eliminate that position in grade two right um we're going to feel that all the way around right so year after year you're going to have at this point um would be one of each grade so that second grade classroom that's going in there for next year there'll be one class of 27 then the year after and the year after but then we're also looking at the classes that are remaining behind so we'll have a a big impact all the way around when you're living down to that one class size how is that even Lally possible so sorry so just the other part that you you you need to be again none of these cuts are what we're supporting right but this is what we need to do at this point um the the other part you need to know is the the two most important things that you'll hear me ever say is high quality teachers and low class sizes those are the two things that we really need to be focused on uh but right now you just need to know that the impact of having only one of that grade we'll hit we'll see year after year after year not only that but the curriculum that's taught during those grades as well too extremely important they say those first three years up to grade three you learn how to read right and then the kids read to learn but those first three years after the grade three of the most crucial years and learning teaching kids how to read along with that goes that literacy tutor and math tutor huge pieces now people might think of tutors are just students that need that additional support and help they do but they also have those kids that they're excelling as well too so when we're eliminating those tutors that's Crossing all of our students that well um and and not only we're eliminating tutors but we're we're eliminating class size huge impact on our students to so we need to be mindful of that Al you hold on a second so we can't take all all questions from the crowd during this but that's something I know the committee wants to know about the great to teacher you're essentially playing musical chairs every year explain how that works yeah and and tell me when that class goes off to Tanto what happens so so a couple things right and I'm real careful about going to people and Personnel here but if you have two veteran teachers I'll say teaching in grade two right when when you have to reductions you just don't say to that particular grade this where the reductions going to take place because of sity and that whole piece the teacher might be displaced and be teaching another grade that affects that teacher teaching right has to learn a new curriculum as well too and not mastering of that as well too and again I'll say as those kids are traveling up that that change will keep happening where we we we might have two of one grade and then one of another and how do we keep those veteran teachers and keeping them teaching what their experts at right we want to make sure that they're strong in the curriculum the backbone of any educational system and this is someone who's been a curriculum director for the city of Wester is the curriculum and having that strong curriculum and teach us knowledge of that curriculum so them having to learn multiple curriculums that that's a tough thing we want our teachers to know the scope and sequence we want our teachers to know what should be taught in those grades and become experts in those grades as well too and them constantly looking at teaching different grades it's it's a hard thing for our teachers that's also an opportunity that we might lose good teachers because they want to be able to settle in that one particular grade they want to get good at their trade um moving all over the place is a tough thing for a teacher so we need to be mindful of that when they hit the middle school and high school again that large group you know I'll say it again small class sizes high quality teachers you can't make up those two things what happens come whoever the school committee is in 2029 discussing the fy3 budget what happens to that budget when you you can't have one classroom because we know the classes are growing we know more people are moving into town we have projections what is it 30 40% growth at BMS student body coming up what what we just automatically put it back what we cut then what happens that's true and and and it it's it's a really tough thing to do makeing cuts in these classrooms it will definitely impact our students and at some point in a long time we got to you got to be paying it late you're going to be paying it with our students that aren't having that individual instruction and you're going to also be paying for it because eventually you're going to need to put that classroom back in there um the the other part is you got 20 we have sorry we have 27 students in that classroom all takes one or two new students to move in and then I'm at 29 and 30 that's just completely completely unacceptable but please appreciate we're down to the be bones you know people say there's a lot of extra and and I've worked in districts where sometimes there are extras right but when I look at the extras they're they're on me right when I look at the Staffing at the central office we when you look on ra uh it's called Rad Radar um for the pop education we are one of the lowest number of people that are working in central office when you're running a school district like there was no secretary today right like Aaron and I are running these things off that's why we're running late like we don't have that additional support so we're cutting everywhere we can and there's nowhere else to cut right now in Berlin except for these grade two classroom teachers and this is the point w and again it's just it's unacceptable at this point can I just say something too about whenever you cut a teacher and we learned this last year I think the way it works is it's since we're one District it's low man on the totem pole so that might not in Berlin so we could even though we're cutting a teacher in Berlin Memorial we could be playing musical chairs is this correct where it's the low it doesn't matter if you're in bees or BMS it's the lowest so there two factors it's seniority in the district right depending where in the union verifies that but it's also license certification so if there's a lower elementary Ed licensed person in Boon it could mean we're actually getting of a teacher in Boon now we're not going to get rid of that head but that specific person could be the one out and there should be shifting meaning someone from Berlin might have to go to Boon Elementary I haven't looked that deep into it but certainly that's a scenario that know last might not be the case when that class moves up to third yes sh it goes you want to say something just real quick to add on to what Al's been sharing one of the other factors we're talking about a school that was designed to be small you know the rooms are smaller the coke closets are a joke um you can't fit three adults in the coke closet it's you know it was we saved money this is the school that when it was built they only primed the walls they never painted them so you know we're always looking for ways to economize and I get that it's a small town but what will happen now is you'll lose things that kids have come to rely on flexible seating no more tables it'll be rows of desks just like you and I went to school the other thing I wanted to make people aware of as we talk about moving forward starting in third grade our teachers are departmentalized which means that one teacher teaches Ela and social studies the other teaches math and science if we L and I would argue and I think my teachers would argue that it's part of the reason that our kids are very successful they have teachers who are very deeply invested in Literacy for example and if we lose that and have to have one teacher do the whole thing that will also impact student learning and student progress it's just another loss in a really bad idea of a thanks sorry on that so um next slide gets into uh the very specific operating assessment um for to the towns uh I went through how the regional agreement does this on March 11th if you haven't seen that you're welcome to to go through the excitement of the the regional agreement dig through all of that um but you know we start with the overall budget um add in the the district costs um take out Chapter 70 a share of Chapter 70 a share of chapter 71 so Chapter 70 is just general state aid for schools uh chapter 71 is transportation reimbursement there are formulas within the regional agreement that Define how you calculate this I encourage you to feel free take a look at that March 11th I explain it out I won't dwell as long on the other slides that go into the calculation but just so you're aware of how that generally Works in general sense so we get into Boyston so you know interestingly um because of the way the assessment formula Works um and the numbers we received from the towns and and where some of those cuts need to be made Boon is in a better situation this year in terms of of where things stand so we made some Cuts preparing for this in March knowing that we had a lot in capital um uh as you saw in the first slide Boon considers uh toono debt and capital plus their operating assessment as part of their overall operating piece they contribute so uh as we weren't able to do as much on the Berlin side on Capital we did have to sort of collapse the Danto Capital which put more money into sort of the Boon pop again this is all based on the regional agreement it's very exciting I encourage you to give it a good read um but you know you can see a lot of similar Cuts can I interrup you please your comment about it puts more money into the Boon pop can you just explain a little further because some people are gonna think that means you're going to take the money we're going to spend in Berlin you're G to give it to boon that's not what you're doing but some people would want to that yep so um trying to think of how to explain this um the the once because Boon considers Tonto Capital part of their operating budget the money we had in capital now flows back to General operations right so uh because of the numbers we received from Berlin um let me get to really quickly to Tanto Capital we have collapsed Tanto Capital down to just replacing some Middle School Furnitures so uh the the split between the two schools uh is roughly um 65 35% so you're really talking about $99,000 to I think to Berlin and then uh 16,000 to Boon on this so that sort of collapse that number that would have had to be part of the Boon assessment and that moves into operations as far as Boon is concerned so the money that wasn't in capital and and we can't Fund in capital because uh Berlin is indicated they can't cover that relative to some of the needs at Berlin that are a little needier so if I get into Berlin that should be Memorial I apologize uh the elevator controls are an absolute must that is an ADA compliance issue uh if that uh elevator is shut down um in many ways we are shut down so that's an absolute must cameras are security priority for the district you'll see them at Berlin and Boon um so this really was pretty close to the limit of what uh Berlin indicated they were capable of doing so they Bur takes Capital out of their free cash and and basically they told us we're capped out on free cash so they really weren't able to do anything at Tanto so I I know it it seems a little wonky but every town handles these things differently they have a right to do that um so it's all out it's all out in the regional agreement um and that was decided five or six years ago one thing you probably heard um Aron sorry my mother be yell here people we are back um one of the things that you've heard us say is it's time to revisit it right it's it's been five six years now and we need to revisit that Regional agreement because we're following exactly the way it's laid out and financially in terms of payments as well too so all that's laid out in the regional agreement so you take a chance to look at that but it's something we definitely need to revisit all the way around so Aaron is what you're saying basically we were're given a certain number need in Berlin yeah you've done all you can at BMS the elementary level you got spread some of that to burlin share of D fair enough because of math the way it works and the formula for the assessment if you cut something from Berlin at Tanto you got to do a corresponding cut of something from Boon except for the fact that Boon has actually said no we can cover that amount it's don't necessarily care where you put it but we can cover that amount so what you're saying is yes that's then going back down to the elementary school because of the agreement saying that we're going to fund the elementary school separately 100% they're willing to fund schools for their students and that's why we're seeing a bunch of things being added back here at the elementary correct so to some degree in order to make the numbers work we have to make cuts at both toono and Berlin Memorial School right it wouldn't be Equitable to do it at just one and and there's no way we could take it all out of one now the reality is the minute I cut money from Tanto 65% of that results in a cut to Boon's assessment um so sorry yeah that's that's a better explanation as well so as we're making those cuts to Danto it is only saving 35 cents on the dollar to the Berlin assessment and 65 cents then goes to Boon which then frees up additional funding that's available but I can't put it back into Hanto otherwise that will cause an assessment to Berlin so I have to put that money in Boyston Elementary and we appreciate the money that B's given us and so since we can't use it all at at time because it would impact ring that's why you're going to start seeing some of the money that we thankful that bson gave us will be seen in in the bson elementary school and that's what we going to see to so Boon Tanto portion is now shifting to the elementary scho that's correct I think you heard three different people explain hopefully that that was really can tell we all were working together on this trying to really get a good understanding of how this works yep yep my my apologies I I thre don't C that um so getting into Boyston you'll see we had some initial Cuts but again because of the way things had to go and some funding had to flow back to Boon Elementary we have been able to um even add a few things um you know looking at at ban that the sort of the decision was made to keep that as a cut across both schools but then we looked at what could be added back in terms of support what could help help Boon Elementary um with some of uh their academics um one was returning the literacy coach one was adding a special education teacher um some additional social emotional support that might be in the form of some adjustment counseling maybe some bcba Services things like that um you'll see that there is some money um increasing the budget again Berlin Memorial and Boon for that music teach that might be bumped to the elementary might bump um to the elementary level and then you'll see an equitable uh change in the opep contribution so both both schools have adjustments to that just sorry we really try to be Equitable Mak any reductions that we were doing again that health teacher up there in bston um same thing that should be taught by the physical education teacher right so that falls right along the lines with the curriculum um the the part that the library Tech same thing that was one position that we shared across both Berlin and Bon that's why we made that elimination there right because of of the being shared between both um but that literacy coach that we're adding the special education teachers when we we got our report um but the the Gap that we saw between our students um with some special needs and the and cast performance um there some concerns we've talked Cindy and I and we've talked as a school committee we know we get some work to do and that's why we want to bring in that literacy coach we know we're working in that Ela piece we need to we need to bring some things in to to make those scores move forward and make sure we're getting um Bon exactly where it needs to be but we need to be able to support our teachers and need to be able to support our our students with those movs and so that's why the best um additions were these please know that we sat with principles at all times and making all these decisions they were not made um in isolation in the central office so the tutors are still at Boyston but they're going to be eliminated from Berlin so the math and the literacy tutor correct syan Boon correct along with a literacy coach Y correct so then same assessment formula same assessment formulas um encourage you to take a look at the uh presentation for March 11th or go to the regional agreement it's all laid out there very exciting stuff have I sold it well enough yet um toono Regional budget so here's where we get into sort of those shared um pieces so we started out uh March 11th eliminating some of the contract per professionals athletic director the Staffing uh pieces we T we we didn't share necessarily entirely now we're sharing a little more fully now so athletic director science teacher a special education coordinator um somehow it looked like I hadn't shown uh the eliminative department heads and team leads um that was in the budget and that was shared um with staff um but somehow I didn't show that on March 11th so I'm making sure it's shown here um and then there was some additional circuit breaker I applied through that analysis I did that helped offset some costs for out of District tuition before we go on to that second half that we could just go Um that the athletic director it's not going to be a full-time position next year it's going to be a stien position as it is so we still be having obviously Sports we we're not the the school committee or the administration says you know we're we're wiping out Sports we're wiping out arts and everyone comes to to rally for that but they're really not true Cuts these are really true cuts that we have to make in that if we had to live with we do not want to live with them we we would be able to have to be able to do um eliminating the science teacher that's a programmatic cut at tant right that's that's a huge piece eliminating special coordinated position but we're not eliminating the services that still need to provideed that's going to be following our director of people Personnel our assistant principles at the high school um eliminating department heads still going to be able to work with our our department heads but that's going to be assumed by by by Sally who was our curriculum director for um for the the middle high school so we're trying to be really strategic and being very mindful of we're we're not trying to really eliminate them but we're just adding more and more to people's plates before eventually it's not our or doable as well too um but those are um those are true science Cuts those true athletic in that specially coordinat a huge impact on our district as well too without Cy um that that service beinged ACC sorry all righty so uh the additional cut um we would look to there's a an admin assistant in guidance we'd look to eliminate the position but try to reassign the individual uh this is the next line is the music teacher we've discussed um we'd cut a music teacher and I believe there would be some bumping involved based on seniority we try to look at that as much as we can ahead of time we don't always know everyone's liur as we putting this together but it seemed to us that this would be the case uh reducing the that opep contribution I've talked about before um reducing supplies textbooks it repairs and copier costs uh nursing Subs again I I dove into and looked at the past three years of nursing substitutes and it seemed like we could get some savings there uh based on Trends um you know again always some risk when we're cutting that stuff but I think this is a reasonable risk to take um Foster transportation we have a number in for in for there we we very typically have some degree of needs in Foster Transportation we're not always sure what that need is going to be so we've cut what we've budgeted for that by $5,000 thinking we could take a risk uh we're hoping for a warm winter um we're cutting oil a little bit um so you know I will'll walk around and I'll set the thermostats back a degree or two and hand out some sweaters um uh but seriously uh if you will some of some of you were in some of the early iterations of the budget um saw me mentioned that uh I felt that oil looking at a a going back three years and trending um that that was over budgeted in in Prior years and so uh I took that back uh I can't remember how much but I anytime you're doing that you're taking an educated guess right taking a best guess to what we're going to use in the future as I looked at again I said c can I can I cut that 5,000 more sure I can let's let's do that and if it means salvaging something instructional let's go for it and hope we have a warm winter um but just so as you can see we're really really being mindful about those redemptions we're taking we're really looking at every opportunity I mean 5,000 here 5,000 here 4 here like we really are trying to really look at what we can do what reductions we can make so it's not impacting our students our teachers but they truly do impact let's be let's be very clear they all Impact one or another but what's that direct impact sorry I I do want to thank you um for highlighting that I really want everybody to see that there are five full-time positions being eliminated at tont this is going to impact students this will impact the their dayt day um we are we are hopeful in that we can manage things but I don't think that's a really excellent model for education is trying to manage we're trying to grow we are trying to lift up we are trying to create the Next Generation we're trying to get these students into whatever position they need to be in for After High School and I'm not going to say college because that our our Horizons are broadened but there's five full-time positions being eliminated and that will impact what happens here so to Al's point if you look at the the bottom what one two three four five items count uh it's late in the day um that's $45,000 right our hope is that as we pick away at those things right that'll Salvage a position throughout the district every little bit counts um you know so I don't necessarily think that you know finding a couple thousand here and there is going to save things but if we keep doing it we keep fighting for this these little bits eventually they add up so tono's uh assessment formula is a little more complicated because you have the involvement of both towns you have a cal the calculations for the Chapter 70 and 71 um and then you get into each Town's uh minimum local contribution uh and their sort of above minimum contribution and uh thought those looked a little better last time but the Berlin is is highlighted in the pinkish and Boon is highlighted in the bluish um doesn't not as clear here but I think in the auditorium it was clear I know I'm probably being so as we get into the total Berlin operating assessments for 2026 uh we come up to a total number based on this budget right uh of 8,157 a dollar change of 35622 4 and a 4.57% increase that's right around the $27,000 reduction that we've been asking it might be a hair over um you know if we have some more money to put in we certainly um Boyston operating assessment uh same thing uh same calculation uh total operating of 12,293 679 for a total change of $420,900 so now as we get into uh the capital items right I'm so sorry you and I are used to as you can tell Aaron and I worked together for a long period of time um so people I know you did a a great job on that March 11 date but can you just give a little definition to people that are here about what really Capital means right as opposed to the budget itself as a whole sure so uh Capital items are typically the um sort of major fixed assets of the building um it the sort of the definition of that can can be flexed a little bit so in the past uh student and staff devices have been considered part of capital I wouldn't typically consider those fixed assets right they move around a lot students carry them around staff carry them around um but oftentimes you end up putting them in capital but you don't have funding in operations and you might have some flexibility year toe in terms of well if they don't give us 50,000 maybe we could take 35,000 or something like that you play with it um more and more districts are are really endeavoring to move uh devices into operations uh as opposed to Capital many years ago right your your average computer was three four $5,000 you know now a laptop or Chromebook is 300 um it's very mobile it's very breakable it's almost you know considered a a a disposable in some ways with a short lifespan right five years give or take um so these are are largely things that are fixed assets but sometimes things bridge that I've seen school districts do curriculum in capital um again not really where it should go in my mind but that's something that school districts when they've had to come up with money for something usually capital is covered by many towns uh through the free cash process um again uh yeah um that's sort of the amount of money they have when everything is all set and down at the end of the year and they have some excess excess cash exactly what that feels like right thanks put spot the definition you did TR with that the other part remember Berlin is Berlin Memorial is owned by the town of Berlin right bson Elementary is owned by the town of bson as well too so but we we need to make sure that we're taking care of these things and as you as AR will go through that number one is is we need to have a d right in Berlin oral it needs to have D so we can keep our schools open y um so again if you were at some of the earlier um sessions all those other items the difference between that 237 and 1310 those are still sitting on our Capital plan we have an ongoing Capital plan we're building a 10-year Capital plan out of this and those will get kicked down you'll see them next year you'll see them the year after you'll see them the year after if they don't get funded at some point um you know we'll come to a head with things like the roof and what have you I don't think the roof is in dire Jeopardy now but it's it's kind of at that end of life and we want to make sure that we're addressing it and sharing it so 237,000 I believe this is what uh the town of Brin said they could cover for um burlin Memorial so getting on to Boyston uh we did hear from the town of Boon and they seem to think that they could do this the 26,500 this includes some um water pump window replayer placements you'll see cameras at both schools we have a lack of cameras for security purposes at the elementary sorry am I thought you moving your head I'm like all over the place uh so uh there are also some fobs there's some doors that need some fob Replacements uh fobs are little things you use to open the doors electronically uh that's not a big part of that but it's a a few thousand dollars built into that uh student staff device replacement uh some of the exterior brick work needs to be repointed it's getting in rough shape um and then uh accessible playground equipment for the school so I know one of the things that you've heard us say at every meeting we went to is we really need cameras for the Safety and Security that are happening not only during the day but also after hours as well to what our schools it's extremely important we have it at Tanto but we don't have it in Brin and Wilson it's not only for the protection of our kids and student but also our facilities and I know one of the question questions that we received multiple times is well I have the the ring camera why can't we just put a ring camera up at our at our schools right I can watch it from my Cape home and still see how everything's going on but I'm gonna defer up to Joe sorry to put you on the spot Joe bado our our inter director of Technology just if you could give us just a short you know reason why we're not doing ring cameras all over the place instead of what we want to do here G so we already have a current system in place that um wouldn't we wouldn't wouldn't be compatible so it be bringing in say ring for instance um if we brought in a system like that one we wouldn't be able to handle the number of cameras that are needed to monitor our schools two the the security and the infrastructure wouldn't be supported at the um level for the security that is needed as far as protective rights um our our insurance wouldn't cover the ring camera if something was to happen um and just the infrastructure alone wouldn't the ring service wouldn't support um the broadening of the system that we need that we can monitor that would tie in will be able to give access to our police um give access remote access to our our safety coordinator and fire and EMS and it uh although those cameras are good on a smaller scale they're just not built for commercial grade on a larger scale to cover everything that we need to do including um you know some of the systems that we're looking into have the uh ai ai built in so if something was to happen we could open up the platform type in what we're looking for and it would bring up everything that matches that particular search query and and pull it up on all the cameras so we would be able to track and monitor and everything like that so although those platforms are are good on a smaller level um they just are not adequate for um the size and the need that we would have at at the schools to provide the security that we're looking for sorry as well I wared off principles and directors because we got down here that I might be putting them on the spot so they're all sort of prepared to have me ask them a question about it thanks Joe yeah sorry so Al did you you want to pull that up please we're having some visuals here as well too for you guys as well this is a middle school Joe would you Joe that's what he's right there thank you okay that's not an appropriate chair for many of our middle school students um so it is I the correct chairs weren't bought originally I I don't know what to say I I they just those are those are Elementary so yeah so there are many yes ABS 100% absolutely so so there are many eighth graders walking around this school who are Joe's size my size um I've sat in those chairs it's it's comical it's absolutely comical um we originally had around 225,000 in for this Lisa looked at what replacing all of the the Middle School Furniture would be um given that that that we came to realize that that that might not be tenable we said what's the bare minimum we might get by to allow those eighth graders who might be Joe's size or my size the opportunity to have furniture that's sized appropriate to their needs um we came sort of at this number it's not a there's no sign behind it it's a round number that seemed to work um it will continue to come up we will continue to try year after year to to replace this furniture over time but this at least puts a dent in it and we can start working on right sizing some of those furniture and to the point the existing furniture will certainly be able to replace furniture at the elementary level the invironment for a student is extremely important for them to learn right and one of the things is at least being comfortable sitting at an adequate desk and chair so they can wear right and for them sitting at those chairs it's again for eighth graders it's unacceptable at this point so that's why this is on our Capital yeah a lot of our desk workers have the benefit of a standing desk even right I have a standing desk I think it's fair to think that students could have something that's comfortable to sit in so going into um total Capital assessments uh this is where we get two uh Berlin Boon uh total Deb assment this is the debt that sits on this building so we have um two bonds one's a 2018 Bond one's a 2021 Bond uh I believe both of them were subject to refinancing at some point uh when Bond rates were low um I I know I refin financed a bond around 2021 and we got a really nice rate on that I'm imagining similar here so those are the totals for uh debt and capital moving into the total Berlin assessments uh operating assessment at 356 224 I think that sits right about uh that 207 uh I think it's maybe more around 210 reduction but you know we're just trying to play with with not with with where we can be uh the Tanto debt and capital an increase of 61,69 Elementary Capital uh a change of 93 868 you can see the totals under f y 26 for a total increase of 511 697 or a 6.06% increase uh you'll recall March 11th our total assessment at that time was 10,585 313 a big piece of that decrease does come in capital but we've also made some efforts um that you saw on the operations side total Boyston uh I spoke to the operating plus Tanto Deon Capital so when we're talking about the dollar change uh Boon gave us a total of 500,000 available if you add $420,900 44 you will come to $500,000 so that matches what Boyston uh suggested um Elementary Capital we have a a modest reduction but again uh they Boon has met the needs that we put forth um in that 216 500 for a total assessment of 13,312 299 based on these figures versus a total March assessment of 14 206 353 and we're back to Al's quote um I'm going to attribute it to Al going forward unknown I'm just going to call the and Al G um thank you very much thanks yep um just one last thing I know that and I'm paying attention to comments and things that we had the opportunity to meet with individually school committee members today again had an opportunity to meet with the union we met with principles and directors and we're hearing some of the information I want to make sure I'm addressing it that might save some of the public comment as well too I know another concern that was brought to my attention um was we have some contracted phans in our district working this year but it's FY 26 there's no Contracting positions um I I would say again you've heard me say multiple times uh everybody needs a coach Tom Brady even needed a coach right and we needed those contractor positions this year as you're well aware we were left in sort of a financial situation when we first came on board since I Mike put it so eloquently at the March 11th meeting the whole financial office has been turned over since we came on board in late August anyone knows that that first round of paychecks Financial things that went out were sort of messy and we got them back in place but we needed some support we needed some help so we did contacted people in to help us out right both at our schools and in our central office um those are not in the budget for next year at all and I know I've heard a couple comments about that so I want to make sure I address that as so this is our budget presentation that we present to school Pria as a whole in the community um and again it's nothing it's everyone in our our admin and principles um and directors we are not in support of the this budget but this budget is in line with the financial money that we're given from the town of Bolston and the town of thanks um we're going to do public comment now but before we get to that uh this is not for school committee deliberation but I want to just make sure we have a few things out there I want to ask Aaron some questions and John I want to ask you some questions Statewide the last four or five years there's been issues not issues But Rising costs right so we know here we were told a few years ago uh how District placement 14% increases Transportation 177% increases this year we're seeing health insurance 18% increases those are things that can't be cut they can't be dropped we have to we pay them or we I don't know what happens if we don't pay health insurance I I I I'm imagining we have a few staff here um if if your health insurance disappeared I mean I know if my health insurance disappear period I might be a little ver clumped um so those are massive increases over the last three or four years of things that have nothing to do with hiring a new teacher for math or or losing a science teacher we can't control that right absolutely and the other thing the last couple years in Berlin not so much Boon Boyston finance committee refused to do it because they know better but the last couple years in Berlin to lower the tax hit to taxpayers we've used a additional cash whether it's from the town or whether it was from uh the the school choice or wherever it was from we've used additional cash to effectively buy down that assessment last year it was June 17th at the special town meeting minutes before we agreed to use an extra $250,000 quarter million dollar to lower that assessment so when you see a $511 increase in assessments this year you can't think of that as a $511 increase it's really a $261,000 increase because we used cash last year to buy it down not use that cash we would have it today to offset some things but we would have had higher taxes last year so it's a give and take when you use cash to fund an ongoing budget operating budget it's hard to do because we use that 250,000 it was a combination last year of cash and cuts at BMS uh I think uh don't quote me on the exactle numbers I think 230,000 applied to DMS and roughly 20,000 to to whatever the numbers were but John did that create any challenges for you this year this budget no no this Curr year that we like today scho challeng the challenge is that we you know we lost we lost important support people we lost for example we didn't hire a literacy coach the most important thing we do in elementary school is teach children to read effectively but we don't have somebody to support the work that teach teachers too as as hard as I work and I have just amazing teachers in my school we were always working to do better always working to reach that next kid always working to challenge those kids who are reading chapter books in first grade and that was an essential position that we lost um we cut back a lot in terms of like little support things that made lives easier that teachers didn't have to worry about that they didn't things that they didn't have to buy on their own or ask parents to donate you I remember last year you wanted all the supplies paid for and it almost work but didn't but then it falls to them the other thing thank you we lost our only kindergarten perah in a class size of 20 and I'll say it again because it makes me really cranky when two or three years ago when Boon had 20 kids at a kindergarten clest it was an emergency it was the end of the world as we knew it when we had 20 kids in a Kindergarten class we've lost the only kindergarten PA we had shared kindergarten PA shared kindergarten thank you for chiming in Mrs pennet it it's true so true hold on so you're saying a single classroom of 20 kindergarteners yeah one teer one teacher one teacher was a challenge it was a challenge okay so now we're considering one classroom of 27 second graders not kindergarteners but second graders I know a little bit about that particular class yes you do is that g to be that'll be pretty easy though their second grade as is their first grade teachers would tell you maybe not so much um The Challenge there are a couple of challenges one is that we teach differently than we used to to teach so when I was in second grade and dinosaurs roam the Earth or you were in second grade right it was Rose and everybody had a desk and the dust roll and Rose and it was all very 1950s right we were training kids to be workers and factories now we're training Kids To Work effectively together so it's long tables and different types of chairs even chairs that are too small we will take the chairs those are the those are the changes that have made learning more effective for today's kids and by plopping 27 children in an undersized room with an overwhelmed teacher and both of my second grade teachers are excellent but that's a big change is going to be hugely disruptive to learning and as I've said as they move into third grade there's a whole different set of disruptions where we can't focus on really effectively teaching a couple of things you know my third grade teachers are just out of this world quick but it's partly because they can focus on major parts of their topic and we'll lose that not to say and and I think at some point I have to say this the other piece that I think I'm struggling with personally and I know a lot of my colleagues from Berlin Memorial are here it's just so fraking discouraging I get and I think when we're calm and thinking it through I get that the town Berlin is struggling they made a ton of cuts on the towns side but at some point you know there has to be a decision made about how much do we actually value education okay that never happens so what you're saying is last year through combination of cuts and extra cash for $250,000 created a couple challenges for you this year we're talking about another cut of we we're well into some Cuts whatever the number is 400 another 200 on top of that losing the classroom teacher I I intended just to be talking about the assessments right so your assessment number Aaron you showed a 6.06% increase in Berlin if we you know the reality is we use cash to cut that off to cut some things these cash cut that number in half we're at 3.01% which is under what Boon's assessment is going up because Boon didn't use cash to buy down their assessment the last two three years I just want to make sure that's in people's minds when we're thinking about why are you going up so much and Boon's not you're giving your money to Boon why like that's the question those questions have happened they've been asked to you directly theyve been asked to us they're going to continue to be asked so we need to make sure we understand why math math is the way that it does and it's because artificially adjusting numbers using cash and an ongoing operating budget some of that 250 that was cut last year to buy it down that those expenses that they need to happen again uh two years before that it was an additional amount of cash from the town side for uh we don't want to get too much into it because it involved special ed but it was to cover a new need that came up I think and there was confusion as to whether or not that need would continue it did need to continue and then there was confusion to well why does the need continue we paid cash for it for one year we should be done with it so it was an issue we don't need to rehash it but to understand why are my taxes going up all of a sudden so much well because they haven't gone up as much as they truly should over the last couple years but at some point you've got to pay the tax this the other piece that it just and I I know school comm's as well aware of it as well as our our communities are we're in the middle of negotiations right so we're in the middle of teacher negotiations so all of that is a figure that we're still uncertain about we we're it's a really um working group that we're all working together both school pretty um and in the union um it's it's been going really well but there's still there a figure that's unknown there for we're going through that process that we have to be mindful in our budget as well too so when when Mike talks about insurance and we talk about all these unknowns and things which we we we can't control sometimes these are some of the parts that we have to be prepared for as well and um so we often talk about the elementary schools um and I and I tried to express this on the floor of the town meeting last year but when we red when we are asked to reduce the budget for the burlin assessment we have to reduce our budget by like three times the amount so if we want does that make sense to everybody because it's it's a 3565 split so if we want to reduce toan we have to if we want to reduce tant's impact to Berlin we have to literally reduce three times what Berlin needs to be reduced so say cents in burlin right yourg right right and so another conversation that often happens at school committee is and and so I'm I'm G to plead with school committee not to have this conversation because I will tell you I will point you to this why are students leaving toono I'm I I won't I'll this and so I brought that up when we were in front of Berlin right and and and I still stand this by as the instruction leader this is a competitive business that we're in right if our students aren't getting what they when when John and I were going to school you went to your neighborhood School you went to your neighborhood Middle School you enh high school it's not that way now and we need to make sure we're providing our kids everything they have at this middle and high school so whether they go off into to the world of of business are Plumbing attrici vocational are they go off to college and universities they are competitive health and we need to and there's still things we need to even additionally do at this high school we should be creating Pathways but stuff like that cost money and this is we're just looking for the bare minimum care not those extra things that we continue to need to look for so when people say there's a lot of extra take it from someone who's been in this job for over 30 plus years this is a district that's not have a lot of extra we have ba what we need to go by and we can't wa afford any more reductions like we're doing right now well I'm going to get myself in trouble here but John already swore tonight so it's okay we're not going to swear your to your point about being a competitive isue I was told directly by person in Berlin so what if you want a better school do what everybody else does send him to a private school and I go back to that original Slide the these these are our students right these are we want to make sure we're providing everything that we can for them in our community this way they go off to to educations and Fields and and getting their degrees and then they come back to be part of this community as well that's how it goes that's how our communities grow we want our kids to go off even as parents we want our kids to do better than we're doing right now that's what we should be doing as educated we want our kids have even a better education than we have that's our job and our responsibility as instructional leaders as a school committee and I have to say I work with a lot of school committees this is a school committee that really this year I can honestly say publicly they've worked really hard with me in long hours and meet with me at all days and hours and nights sometimes longer than I need to be at 11 o'clock 11:30 at night but asking questions and they really want to know what's going on and so I I appreciate that and I support that as well too because we really want to make sure we're doing right for our children for the students that live in the communities of G and this is our future back to my slide right this is our future we're investing in them sorry all right um thank you so next up if anyone would like to speak about this to make a comment ask a question we're not going to have a back and forth Q&A we're not going to answer your questions live but if you want to say something about it maybe something that we would consider during our discussion come on up to the front of room say your name and tell us what you to the front room can James can you speak up a little bit jameswood Drive well first thing what you said about U you reducing your tax rate understand we do it every year we've done it every year for as long as I was s we take money to our overall second thing is reducing five positions at ton and putting that onto the heads guarantee five head for new jobs next year so now you're really replacing one that's just common sense if someone's going to add more work to my workload and I can go somewhere else and make Sy top of that have the materials and things we want to provide our teach so they can do their jobs well right we want to make sure of that can I know I know you're back here can we really have everyone come up here just so we can get you on the cameras and we can all hear as well too I think it's much better here so all right do you have more more um boil took and did their parts of their roof on their own school on our own money ising their bus taking out another poid question so the the the comment was uh took uh different sources of funds from their budget uh they had in town corporate Partners uh sharing some cost for the roofs of the buildings and everything that they we our own and some money from Bo as well their own money um the question was is Berlin leveraging any businesses in their town to do the same for the improvements of their buildings yeah I don't know but we that'll be asked all right uh anybody else that so won also has an msba project that we're working on right now as well too for so just for for public information who's next a list B that put your name on the list Jamie Kyle get my good side pleas uh thank you uh I'm going to reiterate a lot of what's been said and I appreciate all the work by everyone here the burlin Boon Educators associate oh sorry uh Bill Whitehead president of the bbea got you the Berlin Boon Educators Association wants to emphasize that we should strive to be a district that attracts and retains quality Educators which simply put requires a concerted effort by Administration the school committee and both Berlin and Boyston to make sustain AED financial investments and Staffing and programs positions have already been cut for next year tonight we're seeing how additional Cuts will now be impacting programs no one wants products or services to be more expensive that they are across the board we understand our desire to see where cost savings can happen but it should not be at the expense of student programs nor should it be at the expense of the livelihoods of the Educators working with your children already teachers in the district have been working with what amounts to a decrease in pay the average CA cost of living adjustment for the past three contract years was an increase of 16.1% yet the total pay raise for those years was 8% additionally health benefit premiums have increased and show no sign of slowing down our rates for this year Al went up 10% and as you know they're going up 18% for next year it is understandable to hear the community wants to spend less money trim fat where they can and not increase taxes how however it is disheartening to have the same community be comfortable with achieving such savings by allowing teachers to work to work at what effectively is a decrease in pagee cutting positions and reducing programs offered to students such an approach is shortsighted and will result in a district that families want to pull their kids out of or avoid all together due to a lack of programs and opportunities for kids that will be on top of a revolving door teachers that do not want to stick around because the pay is not competitive resident should only want the highest quality from any of their institutions the schools the fire department the police department and so on however the cost of doing business the cost of living the cost of anything has gone and will continue to go up it is an uncomfortable reality we all must face the result towns must pay more to maintain the same quality they have come to Expect While working to open more revenue streams taes will go up so they can continue to pay for services additionally residents should be contacting local legislators asking them to advocate for more funding for Education once positions and programs are cut it takes a lot to get them back and even if they do the seeds of uncertainty and low morale have been planted we already have seen that as a result of last year's budget process we hope to see positions have already been cut with March 11th's budget reinstated in future budgets and support for our Educators shown not through words but through financial action to avoid having an irreversible negative impact on our students and school community we urge the school committee to vote to not make additional cuts to the current approved budget and for residents of Berlin and Boyston to insist that money be put back into the schools thank you youa yes yeah problem Rodman hi I'm Eileen Rodman high school counselor and counseling department head at least until the end of this year apparently um and adviser to the class of 2026 while I reside in the neighboring town and therefore cannot vote I'm speaking to the school committee and mostly the town's people who are here thank you and those may be watching um as a dedicated employee of bbrsd with half of my case load participating in Civic action projects and all students attending recent presentations about making a difference I could not in good conscience sit idly by while in court decisions are being made without speaking up so the first time I met superintendent gam and he alluded to this this year back in August of 2024 on the staff day at the start of the year I remember it clearly because he said something that at the time I respectfully disagree with and again tonight he said that bbrc is a good school district but that his goal was to make it a great District now I'm not opposed to change and I don't deny that there's always room for growth and Improvement yet I disagree because we are great this Excellence is due to the people within our schools the programs that we're able to offer the students and families especially given our small size and the community with whom we work so closely and it is those very programs and people that are being discussed being cut tonight or in the upcoming budget I've worked in several districts over my decades long career and one thing that's very special about this one is the camaraderie shared Within our small buildings we support one another we really get to know our students and we work toward common goals and with such small faculty and staff it also means that we wear several hats um take on multiple roles extra assignments and we do so willingly in an effort to do what's in the best interests of our kids but there will become a time when our necks can only bear so much weight we are proud of our reputation yet by taking away staff not only will will our students and families lose services and become disheartened there will be a noticeable drop in morale of this tight Community all resulting in detrimental effects on our students and their experiences personally I can't fathom how anyone thinks our counseling office of five full-time um employees serving all students in grade six through 12 will function without any assistance from an administrative assistant but staff cuts and services reductions will significantly harm our currently strong district and I'm sure you would agree that such measures are certainly not the way to elevate a good school district to Greatness hold one second is that a greatting statement would you mind emailing that to us um Alissa yes thank you so I'm Alissa Tucker I teach third grade at Berlin Memorial I don't have anything written down he kind of last minute this afternoon decided we could no longer remain silent as a staff um those of you who know me I actually see some former students in the audience I have been with our district for 32 years I have served I've served many roles second grade teacher fourth grade teacher third grade teacher Mentor teacher Mentor coordinator curriculum committees you name it I've done iter and to say I'm not feeling a little discouraged the last couple of years I it I am what I'm here to say tonight though is representative what we're feeling as a staff at brma Memorial we're hearing people say oh small class sizes student supports that's what helps that's what helps our children succeed yet we are considering removing those unbelievably important supports our power professionals our tutors who work diligently with our students who reduce the workload of teachers who want nothing more for those children to succeed but we can't do it alone and we're asking we questioning why positions the roles that have direct impact on students are being considered for cut when we feel there are other roles and positions that don't directly impact our students remain in the budget we question why are we losing we didn't have a literacy apprach this year why are we losing a literacy coach to keep a math coach what we just what's the rationale if we really want our students to remain where they are and even better our class sizes need to stay small and we need those supports those tutors go above and beyond our par professionals above and beyond our special Area Teachers do a wonderful job those are the people that are directly impacting your students those are the people I'm sure many of your children are coming home excited about when I see a student thrilled to see the literacy tutor walk in the room because they know they're going to go get some really good small group attention there's nothing more important to that we want to directly support our students we want staff that can do that that's just our opinion and we just want to make sure that we stated our opinion I have a big support system here today that we want nothing more than for our students to have the support that only teachers par and tutors can provide thank you [Applause] allow to make a couple comments here I'm Howard drer town of Boyston I am the current chair for the fin cup so what I'd like to do is provide a little education I am not a teacher okay but uh Erin I'd like to clarify the definition of free cash that was mentioned here so Massachusetts certifies each Town's free cash sometime in November of the year before that is a variable amount you cannot count on that for operating expenses because you don't know if you're GNA get that same amount so Boon we almost always I would expect probably 95% of the time we use it for Capital items things like the repairs at the elementary school uh the capital items that are be on our town warrant this year are replacement of a highway truck that damaged this winter uh another 200 ,000 Plus for the elementary school for some some repairs we had put money aside last year for repaving the parking lot they get done this summer except so that's sure I was trying to be as simple as possible I just want to say so any town that says they want to use free cash for operating expenses you are setting yourself up for a disaster okay um Oil we're at our Levy l so I think everyone know knows that at some point you can tax up to the maximum rate and then after that you can only do two and a half if a town sits below its Levy limit it could raise its taxes all the way up so in some years some towns have a lot of room and they do more than two and a half oilton has been in its Levy limit last year we at a levy limit this year and at this point I don't see us getting away from that for some period of time at this point so that is one of the reasons why we in the fincom and the select board went to the the the operating side of our town and the school board and said hey this is how much we have how can you live with that okay what do you have in your Capital that we can help with we have a million dollars this year for Capital I do not expect we'll have a million dollars in oils in next year I have no idea what that number is it will go down the major um apartment complex on the corner of 140 there is complete that we're not getting any more building permits that number's going to drop probably a couple hundred, so we have a lot less Capital free cash I'm sorry so that's all I wanted to say thank you uh and I want to say uh to the school committee the new Administration you have at the district office is an excellent group of people to work with thank you martinz is Boon 26 Drive bston parent of three kids who gone through uh bston School District got one still in um I'm just gonna be very brief and just talk to like the the comment about like if you want a better school go to private school St a nerde because it just feels like public education is under attack and to me it's like public education is really important because my life is better when my neighbor's kids are educated and this premise that there's an alternative to public education is a lie it's a scam okay and we really need to just focus on that my life is better when my neighbors children are educated and I think that that's an important message that people need to really put out and reinforce out there and then I'm just going to walk away with the fight really isn't in this room I think most people here I'm not everybody different is an agreement about what's needed and what we want the fights outside this room it's at the state level it's at the federal level um and with it's with other mindsets and you have to really you can't just leave this room and be quiet about it so that's that's all I really wanted to [Applause] say my name ER I'm not a public speaker this is not my gig but I needed to say something um I'm a product of Boyston schools wry Tanto I had two kids um a sophomore at WPI went through Tanto my daughter is a junior the education my kids have received is topn I teach in the nearby district and um brag about o everything about how great the school are and it's just not even comparable to the school district I work in I just didn't here I just wanted to speak up and urge you um not to support this budget um our kids our staff you're working so hard all of you been for all your effort um also ending with I teach second grade in my nearby District this is my 24th school year teaching um second grade I have 17 kids right now in a much lesser District um 17 kids I have par professional support it's hard really really hard to be a future today more than ever 27 is absolutely unacceptable and Shing it [Applause] but I wrot down name Christina M fromon I have four kids in the district um before I start I did want to thank and acknowledge all the hard work you guys have done to unpack all the issues from last year and we've done an amazing job this year carving out all the budgets and making your best attempts at CS that would impact students the least um the whole process is quite complicated it takes a lot to understand uh it took me a few years involved as a parent to fully understand it myself um I have a background in my without saying something um but I have the supported home and I'm able to come to these things and voice my concerns help where I can not all parents have that kind of support system so I typically you know take this time to make sure that I doing what I can for other parents who can't be here um I feel like despite the best efforts by the school committee um the towns continue to come back year over-ear with just less and less um and I feel like from some of the meetings that I've watched online it sounds like they're not going to have much more next year to offer which is even more disturbing um and I think most of the talk was about operating budgets and then we start talking about Capital expenditures we need there just millions of millions of dollars that we just don't know where it's going to come from um the towns are claiming they don't have these revenues and they don't see the pipeline for it and if we agree to these additional Cuts we're essentially accepting the behavior that nothing has to change um that couldn't be farther from the truth uh towns have seen the rise in cost of Education since covid and we need to be we need to continue to be transparent upon around what those costs are and keep holding the Town's accountable for catching up um we need to continue to highlight what schools need what they're going to need in the future I feel like more Cuts made above and beyond what was already first proposed by school committee is setting a very dangerous precedent it's sending a message to the towns that our schools can somehow continue to operate efficiently without covering real cost increases many of which are out of our control towns across the Commonwealth are all struggling to catch up with cost of living increases and many are seeing cuts um our town's no exception if anything we have more ground to make up we need the towns to acknowledge these are real costs for operating the schools and that we aren't done catching up from previous years both towns clearly have their work cut out for them they have a lot of work to to do to generate new revenues um to catch up with all the cost of livings we're a big part of the town's budget where the school is and naturally we're the first stop for cuts but if we take our foot off the gas now we're only hurting ourselves we need to be loud about the cost of Education what we and what we think the costs will be and hold towns accountable for doing the work and going out and finding it we are in the exact scenario that put schools behind in the past we need to hold towns accountable for planning and funding the real cost of what it takes to operate schools towns really need to start looking at what things cost and acknowledge the deficit in town revenues if we have Revenue short calls then all of our effort should be put forth to filling those gaps but instead schools continue to be asked to cut and we to Bear Us levels unfortunately we're beholden to the outdated prop two and a half um and if we want to spend more than that we have to go to a full Town vote um we're going to need good marketing um and clear materials to present to Citizens if we have to go to town vote again um and we're going to need every parent to come and vote and voice their concerns things cost more people should not be surprised that going to cost the towns and the schools more to operate which translates into higher taxes if towns aren't finding new revenue streams then they're going to fall to the taxpayers school committee has done a great job of cutting down the budget that was already approved in hard Economic Times we have to tighten our belts but this isn't a one-time ask to cut back these are the towns once again asking goal to cut back because of years of Revenue shortfalls um I've actually decided to um um volunteer and hopefully help Wiston to try to find some of these new revenues this year because I can contribute um so that you know speaking up you can't have skin and you volunteer thank any no one else on the sheet name and please Cara mcneel Berlin I wasn't expecting to say anything um and it'll be really quick because I'll get emotional but I have a first gr and she'll be going into second grade and I know that her along with a lot of her classmates have um tutors who have been incredibly instrumental and I feel like taking that away from them and shoving them in class double the size is really just setting them up for failure and I really really don't want to see that happen thanks [Applause] also from Berlin also with a first grader so second grader oh I'm sorry um I just see any thank you sorry um I won't be as eloquent as those who have had time to prepare and I won't hopefully be as emotional as as Cara but I say we're having a conversation about increasing the the incoming second grade class to 27 I did some quick Googling so please don't quote me on these numbers but my understanding is that the average second grade class size in Massachusetts is 20 and 94% of second grade classes in Massachusetts is 22 we're going up by five this is the proposal going up by five additional students and at the same time having a conversation about cutting cutting literacy tuts cutting our our support systems to these students this is this is beyond critical this is to me the elevator coming down we're going to have a class size of 27 and know support of these students they cannot possibly succeed under these terms we come to towns like Berlin to Boon to these kinds of Regional School Districts to give our students the education to give our children the chance to succeed to set them up in many cases in ways that we ourselves were not we've worked hard to get to this point I cannot believe we're having a conversation that includes these numbers I don't know where to get the cuts this is my first school committee meeting I've worked in higher education for 20 years I understand what it takes to fund colleges to operate colleges I don't know about the Regional School District I'm going to learn I'm going to learn starting today and to whomever was before me who says she's going to volunteer in oyston I'm here I'm here to help this is this is unacceptable we do not accept this we cannot have this level of direct student cut we've got to find it something El we have to find another way the students need the teachers the teachers at Burl Memorial are phenomenal I've had we got find so I'm here to help I don't know who wants my help let me [Applause] um Jason pette uh Berlin got an eighth grader here and a fifth grader at Berlin um I I got I got more involved after last year's budget season and I was really put off by the conversations um I'll start out by saying this year's conversations have been a whole lot more constructive and productive so thank you thank you um I've tried to approach this a little more pragmatically I have kids which means my tendency is to want to preserve everything um I've tried to approach it maybe a little more rationally what what is the impact of my pocketbook now a big part of that question I can only speak for Berlin I can't speak for Boon I've only been to the Berlin meetings um a big part of that question is going to be Sol Solomon Pond Mall and Commercial devaluation we don't know what the number is going to be until the fall but what we can estimate is the difference between the March 11th budget and today's budget it's about $11 a month that's s first even if that estimate is off by a bit call it 20 call it 30 if you put the March 11th budget to vote I for one will vote for it because the cuts I've seen tonight are worth 11 or 12 or 30 or 50 bucks a month to me I'd rather preserve music for my kids I'd rather preserve the class sizes I think I'd be having a different thought if the order of magnitude is more like hundreds of dollars we're talking about a dozen maybe a few dozen dollars that'll be on top of again that's incremental the $200,000 difference we're talking about we don't know the total magnitude change in the budget until this fall when property assessments come out but that $200,000 we're talking about cutting incrementally it's not that much I would vote to keep it in and I'll take the [Applause] T Joe that spreadsheet that I you the Third tabre so while while Joe was putting this up I actually looked into what Jason is just talking about there is $1 a month it's pretty spot on so the towns give us this um last week I asked had to ask the towns you know what do these amounts mean to your tax bill and they said go to this website Department of Revenue it is not an accurate concrete firm number because it's based on this year's data um Joe if you could minimize the lower corner there for that scale you can shrink it a little bit sure um but this is the do website the link is on the screen here on this file you'll see it in a second so I went through every single line item that they were proposing to cut and I pluged that number into this calculator um and it it spits out an estimated range for your taxes your property tax now again not a true indication of what it will be next year because this is uh estimate numbers based on this year the assessments won't be set the rates won't be set the splits won't be set until the fall but both Town administrators sent us the same website to use as estimates and if you scroll up a little bit Joe I have if you move those screenshots down a little bit so the Berlin ask and the boilson ask we plug those numbers into this calculator it gives you a range of property values it starts at 250,000 as property value goes up to 1.5 million as a property value in Berlin Boon I look through the MLS data there's uh a dozen or so properties in Berlin over a million dollars several quite a bit more in Boon over a million dollars also quite a bit at the low end as well but this is where I think Jason you're probably getting your $11 a month they tell us to use $650,000 as an average home value in the towns and based on that this number plugged in comes to $123.6 annually tax it to your property tax bill divided by 12 where are you Jon I think if I M is about bucks right is that right so that's what he's talking about I did this we're not going to show it right now but on one of those other tabs I did the same calculation for every line item it's based on a range it's not a perfect way to do it it's not don't take it for gospel truth as to what that's going to be on your tax bill but at least it serves as a guide for our discussion later to know you know what are we actually hitting you know so if you're at the lower end your property value $47 for the year at the high end is $294 for the Year Jason says he wants to cover 11 bucks I'll cover 11 bucks I don't know what anybody wants to cover 11 bucks but I just want since Jason brought it up in his comment I did do this work yesterday today and uh it's what it is so it's not my numbers I didn't make it up it's not M math it's from Department of Revenue you scroll up a little bit Joe that's the link right there um that's directly taken to it so anybody can go and do it plug in your Town plug in the dollar amount there you go so all right we can go back to the uh slide or we leave it here whatever's easier leave it there leave that there all right leave that there mark right yeah Mark Johnson Boon M um hi everyone uh I just have a question it's about do we have a representative from the Berlin finance committee here this evening because Howard was nice enough to come forward and give an overview of what our tax lby is in Boon if I recall if I'm wrong didn't Berlin have to go through multiple special Town meetings to get budgets passed by Ry noding right so I'm curious what is the appetite of Berlin residents because I can say for the category I'm not trying to pit us against them but in Boon I imagine first budget the March 11th one or whatever other budget we come up with people in town will come out and vote for and Berlin doesn't seem to always be the case so what is the appetite for Berlin residents and what can we do to as Boon residents what can we do to help Berlin residents what you know what what their tax rate is is they have a split tax rate they have a I think it's 12% $12 per thousand for residential and then they have like 25 for for business but as little business they have um where Bo just has one rate but I'm just trying to figure out big picture since we are one regionalized District here which means we're all in this together how can we as Berlin residents help Bo resents help Berlin residents what can we do as residents of both towns that's just my question if there's a person from Finance I can put on the spot and throw the bus no try thanks for this that's [Applause] Boon Mass I have a first grader and the third grader at Boon Elementary School I'm going to pick you back on what Mark had to say also the other gentleman from Boon name I didn't catch we have created a very nice Echo chamber in this room of everyone here supporting the original budget or the May budget the people who need to hear from you are not here I want to applaud some members of our Boon Town Administration who are here so Howard Jamie for many years of support of our schools I see J Maro over here mark from the planning board Boon representatives are here in the room they're listening and they're participating if there's someone from Berlin here please raise your hand I want to acknowledge you as well thank you so much for being here we appreciate it right but the people who need to hear from you are the Berlin finance committee and the burlin select board none of them are in the room tonight take this same energy you have tonight and go to their next meeting and ask these questions to them because everyone here I think is in agreement including the members of the school committe so thank you very much [Applause] hello name name please Nara Kaplan 13 big old dve Berlin I um am a first grade teacher of EMS at least until June um but um I came to BMS two two years ago and I was met with nothing but support from the amazing teachers Mr Campbell and some of the amazing parents you see here today um thank you very much um but I'm not here today to save my job this comes from knowing that you are the last person on to p and that's okay I am here U for my son cash who will be who will just turned five in December and who will be with um our amazing kindergarten teachers next year um I am here for my um 10-year-old daughter who is excited about maybe doing Lego robotics at Tanto soon or um playing soccer um at Danto um eventually right we live here we're we're community members um I'm speaking up for my first grade class um my 14 students who are saring they're um amazing and um every day they come to school ready to learn and they come um to school and they're met with the support that we can give them that they need um I um because of these literacy coaches that we have because of the math tutors that we have because of the small class sizes that they have um I also want to highlight um what it would kind of look like at in a classroom of 27 students in second grade um so it includes very minimum if not zero opportunities for small group instruction um education is hard you know it's not a one siiz fits all we can help struggling students in small group settings and students that are above grade level in small group settings we can't do it in whole group settings it's very hard to do um we'll see a lot of increase in probably behavior issues you know if you have kids you know if one leaves the house it's easier to manage right try 27 um and we already talked about the lasting impact this will cause as they move through the grades um I am just here today to plead that we take another look at the message we want to send these kids and we take another look at how we are going to with this budget impact their lives um I think there needs to be another way and um I speak for them my kids my students and um this amazing Community thank you anyse I'd like to remain nam I not one of M's students too young um too old Jason and Carol um maybe a quarter of the people in the room um I wanted to give a different perspective as a kind of an outsider in a way I'm uh from Clinton so I'm uh nine years in school choice thanks to John and Lisa um I want to start off by um thanking everybody in this room especially the people at the table um Aaron Al you guys work crazy hours I have a rough idea so um I just want to let you guys know that um even when you don't see a full room in here um us parents really appreciate and we don't take the numbers on the board wrong way um we know that you guys are against the budget that you're having to put for um and I like some other people said I think um I'd like to think everyone in this room is against the budget you know I cannot vote but I would um vote day a million times if I could um um one thing I wanted to say that wasn't really I mean was touched on in a way by Adam a minute ago is that um I even though I'm from Clinton I'm kind of a Berlin person because my daughter went through Berlin and um so I kind of feel part of that town but last year um one of the most I had one of the most frustrating days in my life watching that that boat at John's school and um I felt horrible for the school committee and for the people the residents of Berlin and I don't think a lot of the Berlin residents even saw what was transpiring um you didn't get the whole picture because the school committee and the the administration here for berin Boon Tonto worked tirelessly all year to get to cut back to get to that airbone budget and then when they they come to get your vote you guys all showed up the Berlin residents showed up and forc what I would like to think was to vote or what we needed for the schools but instead the income of Berlin pushed as hard as they could to reduce the number yet again um as they had done multiple times last year to cut it back um whatever it was a few hundred, more at the 12 hour and they strong armed our school committee and our school admin to present a budget to the Berlin voters that was no good for our school system it's only going to hurt us long term and if we do that if we vote Yes again this year uh either town it's going to be the same thing this is just going to um you know get worse every year um it's going to snowball like the voters can't imagine so the residents who don't want to see the $11 month increase are going to be stuck with a 3040 $50 month increase in 2027 2028 if if they don't stand up against the finance committees this year so I strongly suggest you support the school committee and vote against this budget and do help with whatever you can um I can't vote and I'm not paying the taxes so it's easy for me to say this but um it wouldn't surprise me if the taxes where I live are at least as high as the medium in your two towns and uh they're building new schools where I live and uh you know so unfortunately times are what they are add um because we don't talk a lot about school choice um other than when um we're talking about the budget um with the smaller groups here but um I would like to add that opposite of free cash you guys heard um the um the Boon Finance Committee Member explain further how free cash works and it's not guaranteed money well um I want you guys to know that school choice funding is guarant money so it looks at we look at um some of you who saw the March 11th numbers saw $850,000 it's a lot of money but what I want you guys to know real quick is that um thisa SOA rightfully so has tried to limit school choice every year the last few years because we've had to and even though my kid is school choice I completely agree with that we can't we can't send 100 Kids in a few years so if we're using that now know that you know in four years from now you people with first and second graders are not going to have that it won't be that $850,000 would be zero um I really don't know what that means but I know it's not good long I'm not a finance guy but and just add um real Qui to last year I I think that steer tactic was horrible I that's what I call it anyway so I apologize if I offend anyone but um I think there there's more even though the Berlin town is small it's still only about 3,500 residents there's more than enough parents in the town of Berlin who who I strongly feel would pay a little bit extra to um support their kids in if if if even half of parents again it's like you got say um 500 parents go and vote they they only have 500 voters every year so if even half of the parents show up and vote against this budget and for the March 11th budget it'll pass so as long as you [Applause] guys I have one quick followup question yeah what the general was saying let to make sure I understand functionally for everyone watching at home or everyone here that we're going to have two budgets on a Warr the March 11th budget and this cup budget is that correct what we're going to have no that's not I want make sure we were crystal clear on what is the actual everyone saying vote against this budget okay will the alternative be on the warrant for people to vote for for make sure we have Crystal Clear with our action this year so I was going to cover that later but no there will be one budget to vote on in May whatever that budget is I don't know we hopefully we'll figure it out tonight whatever that's going to be there will there won't be options there won't be recommended not recommended there'll be one budget that budget either passes or fails if it fails so be it we go to the special town meeting there's a process to follow we learned about it last year burlin sure Boon kind of followed along has an idea it's it's just what it is it's not our control it's not our rules we don't have any say in it it's the way the state has set up regulations uh so there will be one budget to vote on at town meeting for schools um in both towns what the number will be I don't know but that will be one number we've got about 40 days to come to terms with whatever it is so information will be out there um yeah they won't be vote against this budget for this budget it'll be one budget either vote for it or against it by the time we get there you'll know what it is I know last year's communication sucked it did and uh we've already it's not freaking it's not there will be much better communication about what it is what it involves what it details so we're potentially setting oursel up intentionally for a subsequent follow on town meeting correct not necessarily we don't we don't want to we want it to pass at so you just have to wait to see what actual budget you guys are presenting this because right now we're talking vote against this one and and support this one but we don't actually know what's going to be on a warrant our done with it we'll know tonight we'll know tonight effectively there's a budget we voted a budget on March 11 that's the budget we if we do nothing right now that's the budget March 11 that would be that budget yep we're discussing right now if we want to adjust that at all based on what the town of act all right and that's what we're going to discuss after this um but whatever that discussion brings we'll decide there'll be a vote that will be the budget there's not I've already told out there's not g to be any last minute in a really hot gym trying to figure out nickel and Di here and there and using this and that whatever we decide is the budget's going to be the budget's goingon to beate and we're just to add on to that we're hoping that conversations like Mike said between now and we have to go to town meeting that people going to be inviting us into conversations to talk about um from the community like let's talk about this and come to another right but the Scoopy has to give us at least a budget to move forward and have those additional conversations with the time appreciate and I know you asked uh you asked if anyone here from Berlin I don't know I know Howard is still here Jamie is still here but part of my plan later tonight was to suggest yes starting we're gonna get through this starting in September we we kind of brought this up at one of the early meetings the chairs of the fincom and select boards both towns Al Aaron whoever the superintendent might be at the time in September we don't know you're up in August so whoever that is come together starting in September and just figure out why there are these issues every year start we already know we're gonna be talking about the regional agreement possibly suggesting some amendments to that to make it a little bit easier to calculate so I am asking Howard and Jamie are still here um no one but I will be asking them I've asked them already uh let's start in maybe September start to figure this out so that when it comes to November December and now March we're not doing this again because here it is 7 o' on Tuesday we got dance lessons and talk was about to start up and all that everybody wants to get home but that is the plan going forward there all I'll bring mik just said it's very common right so the district that Aaron and I worked before that was very common for us to get together and have these conversations so it I mean this process so far has been smooth up so right now but it certainly could be an early conversation that we start in the fall right and start engaging in those conversations and for the record AAR Al Aaron Dan before Aaron have been talking IM meaningly with Christen and April in select bo back in October November December there was meeting in February so there no more of this you know anybody refused to cooperate nonsense it's not true it wasn't true it's not true now and I as long as I'm here it's not going to be true so that's what is apprciate kind of to go first off L lindsy tat all Berlin just to kind of picky back on that individual I don't know his name um so just to clarify because again I agree with whoever said it like Berlin didn't show up full transparency they didn't show up to the first meeting and I don't think that if I think Mike owned it it wasn't communicated well um so that's why I'm just looking for clarity so the total March even with the cuts made on March 11 those are unacceptable never mind the additional ones so are we going back to a full brand new budget or those those March 11s are already out those are done so we're losing contracted Paras health teacher literacy coach those are already cut is that correct there's no going back to the board and saying hey we need that additional 304 plus 145 that's great correct on that yes and just one last thing and for just for clarity people so we have to give this um to both towns so they can get their their work together to present their Town meetings they have next number of days they have to go to print as well too so all these assessments need to be in order and ready for the towns they put it to print so we can go to the town meetings I think it's April 2nd and April 9th both towns looking for that by that so so can I ask another clarifying question did did the towns people of Berlin like miss out on the meeting of the cuts on March 11th they were here oh no no Town people were here like did we get the opportunity taxpayers did we it was in yes it was in the auditorium and no one show should have been the paper what you doesn't think you're asking the right question no I think you're asking the right question so what your question was so my question is we don't we don't weigh in the school committee votes the budget that's so we don't get to weigh in that we just cut those 304 just like tonight with the public comment that was available March 11 in the auditorium at a meeting that was posted it was in the newspaper it was on social media it was an agenda on the website it was John Cindy and Lisa's emails it was Al's emails and yeah each other okay yeah I mean I guess today I appreciate boys mail by the way Al that was very fabulous but like I don't I don't know that I've talked to any parents in Berlin that were aware of these March 11th voting on cuts and I'm seeing shakes of heads in the audience because these directly affected the children okay spoken I ask question hold on everybody hold on everybody hold on okay she I just want to say there's a fincom meeting tomorrow night if people want to go 7:30 um and also I was at the select board meeting last night they're having an informational session on April 17th I think at 7:30 as well so people need to like show up to these things but that may be too late obviously tomorrow so the comment is that there's a brownland fincom meeting tomorrow night at 7:30 in Burl town offices and you said April 17th is a select board hosted when it comes to these Town meetings I don't know we struggle with this every time I mean there's a website for genda posted there's emails that go out newsletters that go out uh I it's communication goes out social media posts go out bbrd town uh School page Facebook page emails go up I mean there's a lot but yes you have to actually look for it read it not throw it away not delete it not skip over it this week because I'm busy at work or whatever it's a cost of battle we can't afford to do robo calls every time meeting can't afford to do mailers to every house I'm not asking for every time but if you're making significant Cuts in the classroom for the kids that's a big deal yeah I know this this got attention the leag was trigger so none of that information post the former member Julie Lee CS posted tonight but it was sent out the same way I think the only difference tonight was there was actually no newsletter email about it I didn't see it maybe I looked the wrong one but there was a voicemail from Al but that went out at like 3 o' or something so it was late it was it was there was a post last night on social media that I made I made posts March 10th or 8th or 9th whatever day it was on social media the same way same time same day Tuesday 5 o' so I don't know I mean you told the PTO the PTO but that was not before March 11 that was after so once you did that I think I know in BO we're not going to argue not argue after everybody's here now and we're here now we would been here whether there people here now or not so here we are and just one last thing you know we're talking about people's livelihoods people's personnels so we we did not give up specifics until we had the chance to have the conversations with our principes and directors and they could have those conversations as well we're just trying to be respectful they're still our employees so that's why we're not I to ask a question though talked yeah it'll maybe you can speak to a couple procedural things so if we presume that the March 11th budget goes forward um Berlin is not in danger of of hitting its Ling capacity assuming you take Capital stuff out um but operationally Berlin's not in danger of hitting its Levy capacity but I understand Boon is so back to the whole if if we say we're we're going to leave in that 35 cents for Berlin but that means we have to leave in the 65 cents for bston like is there capacity to do that like are all the just what how does the mix of the two towns and the different budget situations come into play part of our discussion okay the the other part um was a clarifying question related to what I think Lindsay was trying to get at is um the the March 11th number I think it's my understanding that you can come down from that right up until town meeting but we can't go back up so once you vote down is that what we're stuck at but we cannot vote back up again that's can I clarify one point March 11th meeting that we held in the auditorium someone mentioned that there was not a lot of Berlin personnel there from the town I disagree Mary the fin Comm Berlin was also present as was Scott the Berlin and yeah the Berlin fin Comm and select board did come March 11 as did the Boon as the town administrators um yes Julie so fast I speak quickly to so I'm jul um from Berlin I have four kids at Danto so I want to speak to Danto really thank you so all four kid my kids went through for um the elementary school and the elementary school is fabulous and I'm flabbergast that these cuts are happening um but at Tahanto for people that have elementary school kids you know you can't understand the middle high school until you're really there you know because you're so focused on you know all the elementary stuff and literacy is so important and you guys the teachers the elementary schools all do such a good job to get ready for that um Middle High School um cuts at the Middle High School are devastating crippling um cutting a music teacher when music is something that just enhances the academic um prowess for the kids is devastating to those musicians um there's certain kids and we know these kids I have kids like this um that they might not necessarily perform in an academic classroom but when they come from to class back to that science classroom they're ready to go you know what I mean so cutting a music teacher at Tanto is we should be outrage if that's even happening um how many music teachers at two two so we cut one so now we have one for grad six to 12 for all the music classes keep in mind your electives when you come into sixth grade the majority of them are music related so now we remove that so what do we have for electives for these kids Lego robotics which is awesome but there's not really a whole lot not just not a lot L robotics is we don't have the we don't have that anymore okay right we won't well I don't know but I'll tell you I have a sixth grader seven no no I have seventh grader eighth grader nth grader and 11th grader and I hear I have so many kids at my house all the time these kids don't want to stay they don't want to stay they don't want to stay because there the Athletics program is struggling our fields are underwater all the time we don't have a full-time Athletics director that's getting cut we're going to a stien physician how does that even work I would just wonder I would ask the committee how does that work who does the buses and the schedules and the uniforms who helps the coaches who supports them we're also helping teach our kids it's just I would reject this budget stomping the whole way through 100% I'd reject the first one too [Applause] last call anybody else okay uh was thatone someone all good okay so public comment period is now over there's no more back and forth public comment but school committee is now going to discuss what we heard tonight uh before we do I don't know how you guys want to go about this uh but I'd like to make a suggestion I'd like to suggest that we start by looking at the capital first because I think we could probably find some more agreement on that side of things and uh like Al doesn't support this budget um I don't support the operational budget either I mean so I want to suggest to the committee but we can talk about it we can discuss it we'll take a vote I don't want to touch the operation budget from March 11 I don't want to touch it I don't know what that means to you Aaron or or how you gonna figure that out I don't want to touch it it means it's exactly what you said yeah um but I think we can probably figure something out on the capital side and make numbers work somehow uh that's what accounts do they plug stuff get in trouble um I don't know if that is into that or not before we and so that's that's my suggestion we don't touch the operation side we we work on the Capital side I want to say two other things before we get started um one is just uh sorry the the budget process we talked about it a little bit Regional School districts are separate than regular single Town School Districts they're an entity unto themselves they don't have any ability to raise funds like taxes they have to go to the member towns but they're an entity the themselves the state of Massachusetts actually has regulations written that says the Regional School District is the one who sets the budget Al doesn't set the budget John doesn't set it Aaron doesn't set the budget Regional School District sets the budget obviously with input from Aaron and Al and John and everybody else I don't needan to keep Cindy but you're you're wearing black you're blending into the purple wall so we can't see um so that that's and then the Regional School District school committee sends that budget to the member Towns at town meeting to vote at town meeting by The appropriating Authority The appropriating Authority is not any other board or Committee in the town it is the town meeting in our case the town meeting accepts by voting for the budget that's the budget there there are other things involved that could cause issues problems I don't know but we have to figure that out if the town meeting does not accept the budget and they vote against it we do what we did in Berlin last year we come back the committee discusses it again approves the second budget it can be the same budget it can be a lower budget that gets sent to the town again the town select board would then call a special town meeting just like they did last year they have uh 45 days to call it I believe once they receive that new budget uh if it doesn't pass then we get to July 1 then the state steps in and says this is what you going Bay I don't care what your school committee says I don't care what your town says the state says this is what it's going to be we've actually heard from the state desie this year we have a couple of uh letters they're in the presentation from March 11th they're available to anyone who would like a copy um the state says don't do what he did last year basically and let's be really clear excuse me we don't want to get to that point where we're 112th budget right where the state takes us over um it's sort of like getting an allowance each month to to pay our bills and to pay everything we need to do um to my point we were we were extremely close to that point um and they still working with the Department of Education the most recent letter that came from them said they feel that they're in good hands what we're doing now and keep continuing to do the work revisit our regional agreement and develop a strategic plan um that that's literally right from the education saying that that's the work we need to do and just one last thing about Mike was saying about a regional so I use this analogy some people like it some don't we we really operate like the the Vatican is supposed to operate right the money we receive from the towns we get that and that's our money right we use that and have to budget that all year long we don't get a chance to go back unless we have to or there's an emergency to go to town meeting unlike your municipality when when I worked in wher for 30 plus years you get to go back something comes up something takes place we got to go back and discuss it covid happens whatever takes place that's not necessarily true in in in a regional agreement so let's be clear about that the money we get when we go to town meetings and they vote on it that's the money we have to budget for the entire year um so just be aware of that and and the last thing just for clarity I I'm not going to have Aaron and Schoop agrees um the the changing of numbers you know publicly right now with scho is giving us input we have another school meeting schedule for Thursday um at noon no one likes to try to figure out numbers in front of all these people and everyone becomes an accountant all of a sudden trying to figure it all out at the same time so we don't want to do that publicly we'll figure it out with the information we get from school py work on that Aaron and I tonight tomorrow and get ready for usue to present it at noon time on Thursday yeah the noon time Thursday meeting will not be a deliberation of let's cut additional things or add additional things it's simply we're GNA figure it out tonight no matter how long it takes and then Aaron's going to figure out the number and we'll just come together to officially vote on a number that we can get that delivered to the towns and time um okay so I suggested starting with capital but does anybody have another two minute recess for the bathroom that's a lot of people all right yeah J we can have two minutes two minute two minute recess e e e that's gross all all right all right thank you Jess that was needed thank you so I suggested that we start with capital uh Aaron might have a suggestion well um you want so so I think it's fair to say the messaging we've received from the town is is largely that the the Boon Capital number that we have up there is is doable um within their free cash uh the same with Berlin the Tanto number is very small um I would suggest going with the numbers we've presented for capital in this budget right um we can't really go down from the March 11th number numbers or we can't go up from the March 11th numbers I might suggest we look to retain the operating budget um for March 11th with some of the sort of smaller savings that I've kind of picked through right so you know we reduce our OPB a little bit it's that's not a you know the state requires that we make some effort towards funding our OPB um I won't get into the long arduous conversation about what opep is but there's no mandate that we put a certain amount towards it so as long as we're contributing and we're making some effort that's a fair effort some of the other other items are smaller and and they're things I think I'm willing you know they're they're following Trends right so the nurse substitute I think was probably budget a little high relative to what it trended in the past does that present a small bit of risk sure but it's not that much risk I think I'm I'm comfortable taking some of those items and even looking at some of the supplies cuts that talked about like you know I think we all have to you know think about you know some small tightenings of the belt and that's fair but if what I'm hearing right is that sort of that March 11th might be a bit of a line in the sand for the people here in the committee um you know maybe that's worth um looking at Joe you put Slide Five up there yeah that's the one we talking so all right so for the Comm to discuss anybody any question go ahead jessor you I have a statement so so Marshall 11 budget was put forth with a really close eye from and Al to try of cut things you know knowing things were tight for both towns we had 18% in health insurance increases the town of Berlin has 19% I we recognize that things are blown up everywhere and so there was little small Cuts made and they said with a scalpel to to really try to cut down costs without affecting the children and so like looking at some of these things on 311 knowing what they were not a huge fan of them but we recognize that cuts had to be made to try to balance the increases in other areas so yeah as a parent as a school Committee Member not a huge fan of this as I said during the meeting not thrilled with it but there are things that can be absorbed but still maintain the education for our children so I just want to make that comment about the 311 budget like not ideal not something I'd love but something that was necessary to try to meet oon and Berlin's ability to pay so just before we could conversation I just want to point that out that that was made with hesitation with thoughtfulness and you know I want to thank Aaron and Al and all the principles for looking at where they can cut and to absorb things to try to reduce that to avoid tax increases for everyone you know we know people are on fixed incomes because of that so I just I just wanted to make that comment yeah I think everybody shares their comment with Jess um we'll just come down the table that you have I agree with Aon about that that small savings that we've identified if we've identified them from the 311 budget I fully support implementing the savings it mayr is what at least the town of Berlin has been doing cutting like teeny tiny things like I think it would be a show of goodwi to cut these small savings we identifi than um I'm also in favor of cutting like reducing the OPB and you know I don't know about the longterm Subs but or the supplies I don't know I agree about maybe you know F I'm fine with those you know the $15,000 you know um so I know we're not going to vote tonight um we are going to vote tonight oh all right so but we're going to vote on budget we're g vote on what we're going to cut or keep not okay so I yep that's I agree with that on all fronts um for Capital I'm reluctant to vote to to bring Tanto down that low right now um just because that's really really low um I don't know if there's any wiggle room anywhere on that just after seeing that chair um Berlin Memorial I'm fine with voting on that capital I don't think we need to vote in Boon on Capital because I think it's the same number y okay glor um I am staunchly against getting rid of the second grade teacher um my first year teaching in Berlin was my first year teaching ever was 1996 I had 19 students in my class and principal saldi said to me you largest class to ever go through this school um and I mean it was it was a beautiful number it was May they may have thought it was big but it was it was just right 19 um and we've been blessed to have smaller size numbers and we know that the more you can be one-on-one with the teacher the better it is which is why Berlin prided themselves for so many years on having small class sizes um I I could not support that I I have issues with getting rid of band um for the very reasons that um Julie talked about so important there's a math component to that as well um and the tutors as well I just think they're really really important um I like the ideas of the minuscule reductions like the OPB and the long-term Subs those feel they're not going to impact the students as much and it's really about the teachers and the students and the education that we're gettinga I am totally against getting rid of the second grade teacher it just seems impossible untenable and so many long-term problems I don't think we can do that to the kids um and also the band that that would be a tragedy be tragedy so and I guess I'm just wondering like is this G to happen every year is it going to be this difficult and this expensive every year I mean do cost you know I know but is it ever going to correct so that someday we can have nice things or for the town to like find new revenue streams or get more Mone from the state like are those the only well think about it from your household perspective inflation is gone up eggs are up right groceries are up oil's up if you've got to do a renovation project let's say a tree falls on your house you got to fix your roof you got to repair a window have you tried to hire a contractor lately it's expensive so what do you do at home you come back and you look for another job and you tell your boss you need a raise and your boss tells you that's not possible and you know what do you do I just want say I do K so I just want us to be careful because it sounds to me like we're negotiating against ourselves right we we we we agreed on a March 11 budget and and and also now we're trying to like well maybe we should go a little bit here a little bit here I just don't want us to be negotiating against ourselves I think that a lot of these things are are still in flux right we're hoping that we're not going to have a bad winter we're hoping about this we're hoping that we're not going to have sped Transportation changes we need we we still have negotiations we're dealing with there's a lot of things we need to be mindful of when we're making this budget here so I just want us to be careful and I appreciate that we're looking at those little narrow Cuts along the way that's the work that Aaron does so well we work really hard with everybody but just don't want us to negotiate against ourselves why are we making it easy we should be having those conversations with the towns and say what can you do first before we negotiate against our just so speaking speaking about the little numbers right the 5,000 6,000 so that um again back to the Dr calculator that tax impact number I don't know why I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or if it's just the way it works I'm not a tax calculation expert but if I put in 5,000 for the town of Berlin it doesn't even compute a number so it's so tiny right so it doesn't compute a number I think I believe it works in ranges like I think it might start if I put in like 7,100 I think it might start to show me $2.50 of a tax impa in the year so are those gonna make a difference if something happens between now in town meeting you know yeah so um I am fine with keeping the budget from March 11th but to all of these people that showed up tonight please come to town meeting um I think in Boyston it sounds like we're going to be okay and we're gonna have the support of the fincom so it's not going to be an issue at town meeting but just to be Crystal Clear if the school committee does not support these Cuts tonight that means the Berlin fincom as of right now is not going to support this budget so all these parents that were outraged tonight it's going to be even more important like I think somebody spoke up about the meetings and and showing up at these Town meetings because we tried this last year and I know at town meeting Jason Carol spoke to it we literally lost the schools lost by what like was it seven votes or nine votes granted it was like at 11:30 p.m.

from of public schools tonight our presenter liby schaer from K BR program and she's going to be presenting my self advocacy okay hello good evening everyone my name is liby um for anyone who has not met me before um I am am from the Katie Brown educational program which is a program we have here in all of our Fall River Public Schools so today we are going to be talking about self advocacy so starting with kind of a basic overview self advocacy means standing up for yourself knowing yourself so identifying your own personal boundaries wants needs prioritizing yourself so choosing to make yourself the priority communicating once I know what I need communicating to others what I need finding ways to solve problems and identifying both people and resources that can help so when we talk about knowing yourself that looks like asking yourself what you need what you want what your goals are what your boundaries are what do you need in order to feel safe and comfortable we're going to talk about knowing your rights in different environments at work um with your children what am I entitled to what are my rights well we're going to talk about identifying resour ources and how we can communicate our needs effectively so why is it important to self Advocate you deserve to be a priority you deserve to put yourself and what you need first you are the expert on yourself so you know better than anyone else what you need you also have your own best interest in mind and other people may not um if you are at work and you need a different schedule to pick up your kids um you know that your boss your co-workers might not be aw of that um and we always say that self advocacy is contagious so when you prioritize yourself when you communicate your needs you encourage everyone around you to do the same thing so we're going to talk about best approaches for communicating what we so assertive communication which is where we want to be it's not passive it's not aggressive assertive communication has four main steps so up here number one we explain what we need we explain our boundary so for example I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a copy of this document in my language after we explain what we need we want to give a reason because this helps people understand why we need what we need um and makes them more likely to support us or help us so saying I feel uncomfortable signing something that I can't read or understand now when we set a boundary or Express a need um we need it to have power because if I just say don't do this to me to someone there I can't create a force field between me and that person I can't stop them from doing it so we recommend to set a consequence in your control for example if I don't have a copy in my first language I will not be signing that today and then finally we like to recommend thanking the person we we are talking to in advance before they even help us this is not just to be polite this actually communicates to the other person I expect that you will honor my boundary I expect that you will give me the help I need so of course when we advocate for ourselves we advocate in lots of different situations so we are going to look at a scale of advocacy when I was first talking about self advocacy with my students and I was talking about the scale about how sometimes we need to be very firm with our boundaries and sometimes we can be mild with our boundaries my students said oh that's like the Taco Bell hot sauce so my student actually helped me create this scale where we look at our boundaries almost like levels of hot sauuce a mild boundary is an assertive boundary with extra kindness a medium boundary is just a regular boundary and a fire boundary is when we make extra effort to be firm so we will go over this a little more with a mild boundary I am making extra effort to be kind or polite to the person I am speaking to this type of boundary and self- advocacy is designed to make the other person feel as good about this conversation as possible this is good to use in many situations um to address honest mistakes if you believe the person who is not helping you um just doesn't understand or people you want a good relationship with like maybe a boss or a roommate or people you feel nervous or unsafe talking to so an example of to Med first actually a medium is when you simply State the boundary there is no extra effort to be kind there is no extra effort to be really firm this is good to use when your priority is being as clear as possible and then my students call this one the fire balance that is when we make an extra effort to be firm fire boundaries are designed to show the other person they have seriously crossed a line or to show the other person that they have ignored a very important need of yours this is good to use when someone is being disrespectful crossing boundaries repeatedly ignoring something you need or this person is not someone you want around so if we look at an example of all three if I am telling someone I do not want want to come over a mild boundary I would say oh thanks for the invite I won't be able to go though since I have so much work to do maybe next weekend I would keep my voice positive friendly extra effort to be kind medium boundary I just the boundary I'm going to stay home and get my work done tonight have fun a fire boundary I might use if someone continues to ask me over and over again I'm starting to feel uncomfortable that you can't accept the fact that I'm unavailable I'm all set so that one a little more firm we are going to go over some scenarios where we might need to set boundaries um and talk about tips for setting that type of the foundary and advocating for yourself so this is a common one I see with my students almost every day a new coworker just started at your workplace you introduce yourself and the coworker repeats your name back with the wrong pronunciation she continues to pronounce your name wrong every time she talks to you when you attempt to correct her she laughs and says your name is too difficult to say I'm just going to call you Chris um I'm curious has anyone had this happen before someone getting your name wrong all the time no as so we know this is really important our name are one of the most important and fundamental things about us our name is part of our identity when people continue to say the wrong name mispronounce our names we can feel that that part of our identity is disrespected so an example of advocating for yourself in this situation saying oh no thanks That's Not My Name I'd like to be addressed by my actual name at work now again we have a scale that helps us with this because some co-workers you might be really close with some co-workers you might feel nervous around so different levels on the scale smes I could say oh it's actually pronounced like this you keep my voice very polite very friendly medium I could just correct the person I could just correct the pronunciation I could say it's jel not jel fire I might choose to use if this person over and over and over again ignores my request so I might say you can't just use a different name for me just because you can't remember mine that makes me feel like you don't really respect me we're going to talk a little about medical self advocacy advocating when you go to a doctor Urgent Care a clinic wherever we might get medical care so this is a common scenario you have been having strange pain in your side all week so you make an appointment with a doctor when the doctor comes into the office she seems busy and and distracted she is speaking very quickly and talking over you when you describe your symptoms she tells you it sounds like nothing recommends you watch what you eat and begins to send you home so we will talk about about some tips for communicating effectively and advocating for ourselves when we are at the doctors so we recommend taking notes make a list of questions to ask your provider before the appointment um write down any symptoms that you want to discuss and remember to write down how long you have had them if you have a c write down that you have had a c for one week two weeks also take notes during your appointment and write down what your doctor or provider says requesting records so you want to make sure that you ask for specific medical needs ask if you want to have testing done ask if you want medication for your pain if a provider refus uses your request ask them to document that it was refused in your chart when the doctor is accountable for writing down that they refused they may be more likely to help you request copies of any medical records or lab results you have the right to any copies of any of your own medical referes also always know that you have the right to refuse treatment if you do not want a specific type of test um medication you do not have to do it we also have the right to receive medical information in our own language so you are not being annoying or difficult if you ask a provider to repeat to slow down um or for a translator remember that providers are responsible for making sure you understand your medical care if they do not provide you with information you can understand they are not doing their jobs now this next step is a really important strategy um when trying to communicate pain to a doctor some doctors do not always take pain seriously depending on how you describe it so what is recommended is what we call the L TT method L stands for location where is the pain located in your body telling the doctor it's in my head it's in my knees I stands for intensity how bad is the pain on a scale from 1 to 10 T the first T stands for tip describe what the pain actually feels like is it stinging is it aching is it stabbing and the second T stands for time when did the pain first start how long have you had the pain so we will look an example of ineffective versus effective pain communication if I say my side hurts that only gives my provider a little bit of information they might then decide my problem is not serious here we have an example of effective pain communication using the L TT method since about 2: p.m.

e e e of relgious FL to FL United States of America to the repic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all you please all keep in mind that the moment of silence the men and women in the military here in overseas especially our former students thank you sorry so crowded in folks Mr T M here M dla Mr Jones Mr Mia pres Mr M thank you we have a special student here tonight mrce 12th grade uh Advanced manufacturing resident of Lawrence I read your article Brian very very nice I believe I'm going to start off with uh one of your instructors everyone wants to volunteer first to tell us little sure hi I'm Chris waterworth I'm one of the shop peaches in advanced manufacturing and uh yeah Brian's been with us since he came to us during his freshman year right after the selection and he's been a big part of our shop and he's done a lot of hard work and done made a lot of amazing strides throughout his time and now re most recently made a hug leap and was offered a position over at strowman in the machine area by Mr Doug fog who's with us tonight's VP over there and Brian's been doing great he's getting accolades from his his supervisors over there and everyone that's there just absolutely loves them and they're really happy to be working with him they're glad that he's there at the company amazing young man would you would you like to say please yes so I'm Doug F DP of operations over at strowman uh Brian's been with us what maybe a couple months now when you start January uh doing a great job fits right in um you know he came to us interviewed he was real up front with the situation and we worked it out and fits right into the teamwork you know great quality work uh we also have a student former student Veronica Cardona the group leader who teaches works with the co-ops and teaches and so she's been working with Brian along with the other students and we're happy to have her D I think you have a couple of our kids don't you um it's much more than a couple we have somewhere between 8 to 10 now probably 12 to 13 from multiple career areas to the employees I can't keep TR thank you we probably have about 30 to 35 students over the last 10 years that have graduated and um Veronica who I mentioned is one of them she went from Co-op to Apprentice to machinist to now group leader Natalie did that pth now she's a a line Chief been been four years and managing about 20 people so your school program is great and credit to Don Chris Rob the whole the whole um um what you created here to give these kids training and opportunity and you know we benefit we're right down the road as um making dental implants we need machinists we need students and young people to train but um your whole program has been helping us quite a bit and uh credit to Brian and what he's done too thank you for your [Applause] uh well let me uh also introduce some please to introduce Ryan uh Morin Morin as a recipient of the exceptional Reggie award Ryan a senior in the advanced manufacturing program at Fred technical school has exemplified hard work resilience and unwavering passion for manufacturing despite being visually impaired has overcome significant challenges and excelled in the advanced manufacturing program using specialized tools like electronic met magnification devices and customized computer settings Brian has developed except exceptional CNC machine setup and programming skills strong educator uh staff and family Network have supported Brian's Journey over the years he has received incredible encouragement from his mother and dedicated teachers includinga Miranda Keith Gallard uh Tammy cerin additionally shop instructors Chris waterworth Don wette Debbie bernado in conjunction with the IT department he has played uh they have played a Cru crucial role in success installing a GoPro TV combination on Machinery to enhance his ability to see critical details further demonstrating the commitment of his support team Brian recently uh recent achievement of securing a co-op position with strawman a leading dental and plant manufacturer highlights his dedication and skill Brian has already made a significant impact in his role mastering the intricate process of micro sectioning dental implants this accomplishment is a testament to his determination the encouragement of his Educators and family and the mentorship he has received from St and team particularly Doug fog who's here tonight thank you Brian's journey is one of perseverance dedication and continues to inspire those around him as he looks forward to a future in engineering we are proud to recognize him for his exceptional achievement and promise for the future [Applause] great J all right you stand what the par need to shine too yes go ahead stand up with your mom behind right right behind [Applause] sure folks you're welcome to go you don't have [Applause] to thank you good to see you all thank you thank you next up is the students report do we have students out there yeah see the pride on mom's face huh just shut it down I know we're going to tangle come right up front TI for space tonight [Music] ourian students shared anded on works by Tupac and Nikki experienc both the joy and impact poetry and the support of CTE month CTE month was a schoolwise celebration that included the following events daily announcements by students sharing interesting facts about CTE guest speakers industry professionals and experts visited career area programs to share their insights and experiences with the students while affirming the importance of Career and Technical education and preparing students for success [Music] student of the CTE month CTE month concluded with the nomination of one exceptional student from each CTE program nominations were based on how the nominees embody and reflect the schools dra values of gos each exceptional student was honored with his certificate and a special gos GTE month gift this was an exciting way to acknowledge and celebrate the remarkable remarkable individuals within each career area who ex exemplify exemplified our shared values and contribute to the vibrant sphere of CT Dominican Independence February 27 2025 was the 181st anniversary of Dominican Independence the instru it instructor Jose vquez shared a video to commemorate this special day Mr varez shared the following statement in regards to the meaning of this day at GTS we take pride in the in the diversity that strengthens our community this celebration is a tribute to our students staff and families of Dominican heritage who contribution enrich our school and beyond your dedication hard work and cultural Traditions are an inspiration to all to all of us to commemorate this special day we invite you to watch this video you can watch the video later link is there skills USA District test an impressive 101 students participated in the skills USA District competition on Thursday March 13th at gos 13 students earn medals in their competitions 10 students qualify for States and will participate in the state skills USA competition in May skills USA teamwork competition the skills USA teamwork team represents four of the 10 students advancing to the state competitions this team consists of the following students from the construction cluster Thomas kotas Zachary dor dor Nicholas Marshall and Michael nine seniors attend the skills USA senior adventurers in leadership sale conference what is the sale conference an interactive training event for high school seniors and po secondary students designed to help students transition from school to college and careers purpose of the employability skills exam part of the district competition of the SE conference evaluate students workplace read Readiness and prepar preparedness for the workforce assessment areas athetics work aesthetic employment portfolio workplace skills Prof professional development skills USA skills USA senior adventures and Leadership sale conference recognition and achievement all nine senior students who attended the skills USA Sal conference successfully passed the employer skills exam awarded a sale conference th diploma and S sash to celebrate this compl this ACC complation lini Shephard Ry Gloria carera gelis Rodriguez jissa Sanchez Alexander sakan Lan Garcia Ashley Cruz Martinez Lan Garcia and Mia cofin she's right here she Tes picture Massachusetts Association of student council from March 5th to through theth gos student council members attended the masks foring conference they had the opportunity to learn from motivational speakers participate in workshops and network with other student council members from other schools ad advisor Charlie Le sh the following our students are eager to bring back what they have learned to glts using their experiences to enhance our schools culture and climate for all their enthusiasm and dedication to leadership will undou have ai influence on our on February 27th administrative student information specialista hosted a zoom webinar to explain the shop selection process and answer any questions parents may have to access a recording of the of the webinar go to this link and type the code to access presentation slides here eth grade students select nth grade students select the career areas on March 18th and March 25th their top five favorite C area they exp students will be scheduled into permanent shops on April 2nd parents and caregivers are invited to attend grade n parent career night on May 2nd toour the sh the sports on March 20 the winter sportset together toon the hard workation and incredible achievements of our winter sports teams withf speeches Awards and recognition of individual and team accomplishments we honor the hard work that went to and every challeng overcome congratulations win sports highlights boys and girls basketball C AC League champions wrestling Mar Soul became our first ever L holiday champ and state champion one of the top five DRS cheerlead the state vocational or won a School record and is qualified for states in hurdles and is a two time leag Champion a full list of season highlights can be found in the districtal track GTS elardo has qualified for the New Balance Nationals after becom champion in voice 300 VI congratulations for National spring sports Spring Sports began on March 17 and 450 students have registered the sports in season are outdoor truck tennis baseball softball boys volleyball girlsag football and cross GS scholarship application the 2025 gos local scholarship application is now available to all seniors in gos by submitting scholar by submitting the scholarship application seniors are eligible for many scholarships only available to GTS students all seniors who submit a completed application are eligible for the scholarship whether they are going to colge work or the milit the scholarship money is financially students after graduation regardless of their plans the deadline for submission is April 1st Mass H summer jobs during the Wind Block on March 4th and March 11th students met with a mass H representative about applying for to8 week on job atths Mass youth Works provides various services such as workshops jobs Andy and kindness cards the enre club launched the kindness card initiative a simple way to celebrate and spread kindness in our community here's how it works when you perform an active kindness or are on the receiving end of one you'll be given a kindness card as a token of the appreciation once you receive a kindness card keep the kindness going by looking for an opportunity to help or outli someone else this initiative is a reminder that even the smallest gesture holding the door open offering encouragement oring hand create a RI effect of positivity me kindness a habit keep an eye out for opportunities to brighten someone's day and be a part of this movement on the link to see an inter Club student talk about 20125 talent shows annual talent show on Friday March 21st coordinated by faculty member class many students participated in the talent show including a high number of students playing Musical shout out to Kyle Kane a junior it student for coordin for coordinating the sound and music for the show the overall winner was freshman D Perez performed the solo of on the radio congratulations and welcome our new regies the admissions Department recently sent out decisions for GTS class of 2029 great job guys thank you [Applause] before we get to approve minutes we have to I had a request superintend to change around the agenda is that but I need to get a v on okay the superintendent would like to go into an executive session when we get to 5 f is that correct 26 yes can I have a motion to move around the agenda please make a motion to move around the agenda of the agenda can I get a motion to approve the minutes of February 11th and 25th please all those in favor for the anybody post thank you now can I get a motion for the uh minutes of February 11 and the 25th we vote on that please all those in favor opposed okay Finance report to stepan good evening the cash balance report for February 2025 the count balance on January 31st was 5,601 672 63 we had deposits for the month of 7,231 88088 we transferred out 3.5 million to mmdt um less the payroll and the W amounts that you see there um use us with the G balance at the end of February of 3,867 30588 um in the mmdt account year-to dat interest from this is from July to January is 231,000 um so the mmdt balance is 3,931 15262 to start the month we had the transfering of 3.5 million from operations uh and interest for the month of 2,962 leaves us with the G balance uh at the end of February uh for mmdt of 7,425 5883 and a total operating cash balance of 11,292 36471 Consolidated cash is a hand out we need to vote to accept that I'm sorry can I have a motion to acceptance Stephano's report AC all those in favor say I post Consolidated cash is a handout revolving fund is the packet budget report M marel on the 25 budget 2 so there's a memo and a supporting doc in your packet um asking to revote our fisc year 25 budget to include the fisc year 24 shortfall of 92869 which was shortfall for us not meeting that school spending so we have to add that to our fiscal year 25 budget so our revised fiscal year 25 budget will be in total 52,500 653 is always nice can we get a motion to uh accept that all those in favor it's okay with everybody I'm just going to hold off on that 26 budget I just want to get that's everybody first Communications donations Mr Joshua dasta Empire autopots donated fenders for the auto continuing head night school program thank you Mr there are two articles one is the legislators breakfast and the other is the uh nassa project we have going on everybody I think self-explanatory Mr you want to speak um well I'll just quickly say that uh the hunch program is something we've been involved in for a few years now and it's been a great opportunity for our kids to be highlighted uh their skills at the highest level there's probably I think they said four High School in country that make part NASA one of those four we actually make the most complicated part and as a result of that they are going to be hiring three of our students this summer for a uh internship uh here at the school making parts for them under the uh supervision of would you like to catch on the legislative breakfast uh just said I thought the legislative breakfast uh went well got opportunity to uh outline what what's happening at glts and uh some of the growth and some of the uh future opportunities that will'll be uh moving forward for students in terms of programs uh which we hope will have an impact on uh our am students that we can take in in the future and most importantly meet the needs of some of the newer industries that we no longer or do not uh support right now uh and had a lot of conversations after the event with many of the legislators who are very supportive our work and U the lottery situation came up and uh representative Moran is actually trying to get a bill sponsored in order to put a work group together to look at the lottery situation uh to make a recommendation to the governor so pleased to hear that and I don't not OB be it that all of our legislators may not be for lot of it but it's an opportunity for giving more information to our legislators before a final decision is made on whether we need to go to the lottery for thank you um facilities update we had asked Mr ham if you would been good enough to come and speak to us about the updates that have been going on the facilities hi everybody for you guys who don't know me my name is Lance HL I'm the facility director for two years here at Great lawence Tech uh just want to go over something with you uh really briefly but I'd like to you know open an opportunity for anybody here to come visit me and go through the school and see all the production um my maintenance staff and custodial staff has done um I think you'd really be amazed with what we've been able to do um I have a great te I'd like to praise um my maintenance staff but also we do have a master plumber Dan Laughlin Charlie Kennedy Bill Anderson and Gary Sonia um as well as a great maintenance staff uh these people here um easily a million dollars in a year they save the school um from not hiring outside companies to come in and do electrical services plumbing services as we know everything's going up and these guys know the school they've been at the school they're former teachers most of them um um so it's really helpful to have them here and then you know when you have a pipe leak and you can make a call and they're already in the building they go fix it within an hour there's nothing better than that especially to keep the operations of the school uh going forward uh so quickly um I want to give an update on the new Aviation building which is the big building over by the small gym um that has two weeks left and we'll be complet we'll do punch list things um and after that we'll be staging it for the FAA to come in and uh do their we'll do our presentation to the FAA get that approved um the aviation hanger at the airport Lawrence airport um we have all the equipment there to Stage that as well that'll be going on the month of April so it'll be staging here and staging at The Hanger um we do have plans on putting bathrooms out there we've been um doing this investigation for sewer um that's kind of hit a roadblock but we have some other ideas to get around it um Barn number two which is the big building next to the greenhouse um the kids have been working on that the maintenance staff did most of the shell the rafters and stuff or trusses I should say in the summer the rest is going to be done by the kids all the engineering was done inhouse um all the um Plumbing electrical carpentry um HVAC um is all being done by the students so it's really good where we don't have a house for the first time in a long time um the new cafeteria the new cafeteria um is basically mocked setup uh but we have to do a lot of construction and we can't do that type of construction with school in session there's just too much saw cutting we are going to start to put some of the Mechanicals food cooking um Mechanicals in place start getting the electrical we did do three qus of the electrical which is quite a big feet and that I'd like to show you all what it takes to get that amount of power moved around the building uh that is in place but now we have to do drainage which includes saw cutting uh some jackhammering and you can't do that with school Obsession um the outside um infrastructure so you have a gas and oil separator we're going to be installing a grease and oil separator as well as two sewer lines and that'll be impacting the traffic coming down the the side of the building so therefore as soon as um we get a chance to start that we will but impacting the school that way is uh something we don't want to do as well as the shut off of the water shut off of the water we run into some problems with some gates on the school water gates so we have a hard time closing it so we're going to repair those when we do that whole infrastructure and also we have to shut it off across the street so it' be a good thing to just get it all done at one time um the building automation which building automation is what we can control the Heat and the AC in the building that has gone somewhat obsolete on us and we are starting that process to get that moving forward um and that's a good goal to get it done it's an expensive goal but it's good to be able to regulate all the temperatures throughout the building on a computer lastly um phase four phase four is the furthest field that we installed last year um it needs to be um Hydro seeded and then uh irrigation will be put in uh we we did do a well um for that and unfortunately it was only 68 gallons of water a minute which isn't enough to to water a field so they came up with another type of irrigation that's going to work on a smaller field like that so we're waiting for the plans on that and one thing I did forget the geothermal in the barn two next to the greenhouse that was uh four Wells dug at 500 feet and that's going to cause green energy in that Barn so that'll be a great feat for the school any questions Mr H can I throw I'm sorry the the new cafeteria um at the beginning of this year we were told that it would be ready in November what kinds of things have prevented that because I think it been kicking the can down the road and I actually thought that it was going to be utilized like in the fall so we did do some work in there we did well a lot of work in there for the electrical and we were going to do um I don't know what do you call it John they were going to bring meals down if you recall that's what we were planning on doing so we made a whole lineup they weren't just going to be cooking um so we did that we set up the tables it was set but the staff here felt that it was not necessary to go that even though we had it set up they said they were comfortable with what was going on if we had any more people because you had a lot of people go on Co-op and um once those numbers came down the stff was happy with what they had they thought it'd be uh too much to just bring this the food back and forth so we we stopped actually thought it was going to be completed that's that's what I have written down because I looked back on the other notes well there again like I stated before if we get into that we'd have to have school shut down um we can't be it seems like there's an awful lot that needs to be done one school is is out of session so it really was not even close to being in for the fall other than use it for space yeah so you I I am I know it's Mr that did say it was going to be utilized that project started almost nine months to the year before November and in the process of construction run into a lot of different problems not anticipated one being the issues we had with the U health inspector who wanted new drawings for our drainage work and wanted new drawings for the way we were doing hookups for some of the water and gas lines uh originally we were going to go to the major the major gas line on the right side of the school and uh when we got estimates on what that was going to cost uh we decided that we need to look at an alternative plan so we decided yeah we uh do a trench right a trench no we we did we we haven't done the trench yet but in Li of going with gas uh with all the appliances we we decided to go with some electric lces to reduce the amount of gas that we needed to bring into into the building so we were able to utilize the gas lines that were already in the building off where the assignment Labs used to be so we're going to that gas instead which will save us substantial money and a lot of work so that change in the project also uh the uh the town required us to put in a gas and oil separator for the barn as well as a separator which we knew we going to do a separator for the O for the uh grease and water out of the um out of the cafeteria but what we didn't know is that we had to connect those two lines to one service so that all have to be reengineered and redone so that put us back a couple of months waiting for the engineers we had a lot of problems with Engineers not staying on on on schedule when we had hired them one of the major Engineers that we work we were trying to get out here was the engineer that did did the work for the uh the new uh Aviation building uh I would say we waited three months for him to come to constantly reaching out when's he coming when's he coming we finally uh went with another engineer because he did he said up waiting for them anymore and so we had to go to another engineer so that a lot of that has caused a delay and then getting into the winter months uh we couldn't open up the street U because the ground was at that time was frozen we had to wait for it the frost in order to break ground and then had what we were planning hoping to do February uh the weather was so bad that we waited decided wait till April so that's really what's opening up that's held up the project one one difficult challenge after another with regards to the issues that came to us that's something that's basically what kind of up the project all the equipment's been here since last summer you know the appliances the walkin freezers and refrigerators have been here for longer than last summer are ready to be installed but all that's been H up for various reasons so and the kids were scheduled to do the HVAC work uh for the uh refrigerator and freezer walking refrigerator freezers and they were held up for the same reason because once we got into the cold weather couldn't keep the project going we couldn't there's a air exchanger in there that's on the ceiling that had to be removed because it's too loud and we couldn't shut down uh couldn't shut down the remove that so without being able to shut that down we couldn't put um the new heating system in uh because it had to be done within one day and that was impossible so those are all the challenges that has resulted in the delay of getting that project done I got one from parking lot 230 another superintendent's been working with you on coming up with ideas to change things around that's a nightmare of front at 2:30 yeah so we talked we talked about that and we're thinking um we're g to do some design um you know three weeks ago there was still snow on the ground I know it's hard to believe but um we are going to design the Rope course where the Rope course was that whole area there um it has either 86 parking spots or it has a couple of pickup lanes for students uh so that's an idea we were throwing we're trying to figure out how many cars we can actually uh stage there to pick up students uh so that way the you know our police officer and our security team will send them out back so this Loop isn't out front it's out back when do you think this might happen uh there again I have to make sure those drawings are final and you approve them that's the direction we're going to go if a fire truck or an ambulance had to get through here at 2:30 no it is a problem yeah L thank you very much um I know how many times Mr boy changes his mind on plans I know how his mind works and how fast he works and I give him a lot of credit you're the guy that's got to pull everybody through it I thank you very much thank you but like I said anybody needs to come for a walk I'd be happy take you thank you thank you everybody knows Mr Le I just want to recognize his work uh for the last two years he he's came in into time when we were exceptionally overwhelmed with projects and typically someone in his Ro would just manage existing facility but not only to manage existing facility but had to De projects that were going on on the site and that's put in a lot of EX hours and times which I appreciate thank you very much good night the thing I want to say about the FR front of the school there back in be October um we were talking about making changes to moving the people in the front of traffic to the back of the school and uh and meeting with the staff on it and complication of the and communication that needed to happen with parents um we decided to wait till the spring U just or later into the fall but because of the difficulties of winter we ended up not touching it um um but not of the wethers back we'll be back on that doing that getting that done soon thank you one other before we go into session Mr Rob mayella coer education coordinator Mr had asked for an update towards the end of the year this is your update well good evening everyone um some of you may know me my name is Rob my and I am your Cooperative education coordinator I have been working at the school for 18 years just finishing at my 18th year I've been running our Co-op program I think past six years now but prior to that I was a instructor here my shop was Automotive I was also teacher at that time too so um Co-op program is something that I'm very passionate about something that you know that the school works very hard to getting more and more students out uh as you've heard one of our biggest successes was was Brian the teachers worked very hard to get him ready and the teachers worked very hard to get him out to talk to uh Mr fog over at stman to find a place for him to succeed over so um every month I do share up the monthly Co-op report I trust that all of you have seen it in the past and looked at it so that is my go-to way of communicating what is going on with the program with members of the staff um teachers Administration and of course school committee so I think I don't know if you have a handout of the February report usually they're prepared every month um the next one will start working on the end of the month the can't believe March is already over but I'm expecting to have probably close to about 210 students out by the end of March the number does change every single week every week we have more and more students participating so it is a running Talent the program I would say is running very strong um back when I started this job probably in 2018 we we used to end the year with about 140 150 students last year we ended the year with almost 300 students involved in the C program so it's probably doubled in size so we definitely want to continue that Trend we have more programs that I do placement for I think now we have close to 20 so very excited because this year a couple of highlights um this year far as new programs robotics we have three students that began Co-op placement this year from our robotics program that was a brand new program also a new program environmental science you finally have their first two placements they will be beginning um next month on April 2nd working at the great lawence uh Sanitation District so I know the teacher has been working really hard to try to find some places with the students uh some of the other highlights for this year like to point out is our dental assistant program they have not only achieved 100% of their senior class placement but they have maintained it that means no students have come back so and that is since September so that means every single Stu senior student in that class has been on Co-op um I've been doing this job for a long time I've never seen a program achieve 100% so it's definitely great achievement um teachers do some awesome work in that job another program medical assist I believe I think I finally placed their last student but they will also now have 100% out and that is a growing program as well so um and they're on track to probably having some of their best years ever as far as student placement health is also in demand too so we have a lot of students out on that side of the uh program those tend to be my three largest programs now get towards the health indistry we have some out the middle of the road programs which are also very successful anyone have any question question I actually don't have a question I do want to say that you know I do recognize that the co-op um program has really grown and that's a tribute to you and um your team if you are the team um but you know I've been obviously a long time and I just know that this is not an easy feat and it's good to see that the kids are out and and getting that extra um guidance and and knowledge and skill set um that one comment is are there do most employees um employers um say that they're you know that the work that they're doing here prepares them for this job or do any of them come back for further instruction or um talking the kids ever get sent back and the employees decide to end their co-ops yeah because maybe they're not as skilled as they think yeah with the the program is not 100% it's not perfect once in a while something does happen where it does not work out whatever reason sometimes it's students don't like the job sometimes um they're not meeting the employes expectation but yes we do have kids come back to school for the most part most of the kids are enjoying the program it is contributing largely to their education yeah usually send out a survey right around this time of year to the students asking them one of those questions how much has this program helped you and you know this this program helps kids especially our students in more ways than just education this is helping them out greatly Financial some of our kids they're using their paycheck to help pay some of the bills and some of our kids they're making pretty good money right now we get some some co-ops as high as $23 an hour right now that's pretty that's pretty high I think that's good money for high school student while in a learning program as well it's a good thing it's a good thing yes Mercedes yeah um I I think again actually mentioned in the past uh um how I like to contribute on the way as business owners think when kids come to our our our jobs to as CS um so I probably just come in and kind of talk to you about my ideas but as far as the report for example when we look at it it's great to know the 16 are out 16 kids in for example in advanced manufacturing I would like to see on the report for example 16 out of 20 16 out of 40 your overall percentage give me an idea you know obviously 16 is a good number no matter if it's 25 kids in the class it's a great number but when you look at a three out of what you know that is M idea that could easily be added sure that would be great um and you know again I have I would like to to work along with you because I know that I have a lot of um business people I knowing all these different kind of careers and and I can give you ideas of what they looking for I mean I own my own business myself and I wouldn't want to pay a cosmetology kid to come in because it will take me a minimum of a month just to train them so I'm training giving somebody my expertise to have them come in and then a month later if I be paying them and I don't like them I just feel like it be a waste of money and I know I came to Bey school at the Grand lawence as well and as much as I thought I knew I really didn't know that much and you're out there um so I think that you know maybe different different shops are better priv than others but I I probably come in and just give you some ideas I think can help to get these kids to more kids out there and um but this particular um subject I'm very passionate about I I would like to know too like how can we find out how many kids want to graduate maintain their Co-op or their full-time job because it would be a great idea for us to know what's happening if they're retaining their job that's what we're hoping for right we're prepping for that is why most of the employees are getting involved with the program that's not always guaranteed what happens after graduation it's it's impossible to tell which direction students will go that is part of the survey that I do send out and that's one of the questions I do ask the kids do you intend to transition a full-time employment with curing Co-op employer I think last year was maybe 60% a lot of our kids still do opt to go to college and I imagine that number is going to go up because now um college is now free in Massachusetts right they just added that this year so I think a lot of kids could actually take advantage of that as well so but some will still maybe work there part-time or why they're not in school I see it all the time I see the magic of the program all the time it's not uncommon for me to go visit an employer who's been participating for years such as we had strong coming here this evening and I'll see a student that he was on Co-op for five six years ago now now they're a team here now they're in management or they're still working there on the way over here a even I just pumped into a young lady uh she was actually on Co-op Advanced manufacturing probably three or four years ago she worked at strowman that's what she's doing now she's now one of our teachers here at the night school program so to me that that's the magic program does it happen all the time it's hard it's really hard to say the kids have a lot of choices these days if they want to gr the gradation it may not always be their career but we do see a lot of people do Transition I'd say maybe maybe 50 to 60% so knowing that other Regional schools are in these other communities do most the kids work in the merch Valley area Lawrence and any I have no I have no radius wherever they want to go I will send so so yeah okay the opportunity I was just at this morning visiting a site um place in Wakefield we going to take a couple of Juniors Wayfield subar so a lot of our kids especially construction they will be communicate I'm Excuse me commuting to some of the job sites um you know they could be working in Boston I actually had I was very surprised at this a young lady Junior student metal fabrication she found her own job actually INB right near the airport so she's ask me to do set so um there is no limit to me as long as the students are willing to go there you know I usually it's usually within 45 minutes to an hour and of course you know we have you know there are people in other regions in our area too you know it's it's all fair all fair and Co-op when it comes together yeah like FR and scamman they're great partner but they're so big they they have kids not only from our school they get kids sure she Tech create a little Wittier so that's how big they are need more Pockets else Mr May um this committee actually gave you an assistance yes this year um well last year I had a part-time assistant this year I have a part-time assistant she's with me two days out of the week U that is working out really well however I feel like um additional support would benefit the program as well if that could be full-time next year that would be really appreciated and I think it could definitely lead to much more students out there was a lot of pieces moving pieces to this program and a lot of people don't see a lot of the behind the scenes work too is what she's involved so that's working out very well ining she helps prepare the lovely monthly reports that use thank you for having patience to be here all night thank you very much well thank you very much and if you have any questions you can always email me thank you I get a motion to go into allvor right let ex session stand right here e e e 26 budget presented to us originally I'd like a motion to approve the budget for the 26 school year motion Mr to Second MRIs can we call on this please Mr Mia yes Mr Mercedes yes Mr TX yes M Ferris yes Mr SLI yes Mr yes M Richardson uh action plan for the artificial intelligence for school year 26 keep this brief I have some notes here so um we don't have a formal action plan as of yet but we've actually been um doing a lot so far around professional development and really just kind of um getting some um exposure with the administrative team as well as some of the teachers um so I'll just kind of highlight some of the things that we've done so far so um we have a team of 10 um administrators and teachers who attended uh the edtech teacher Ai and education Summit AT Bentley University on March 11 so the focus of that um Summit was exploring how AI is transforming into ation um learning from experts and discovering new AI tools for school so some of the key um themes of the conference included AI policy and Leadership student use for um of AI for learning Ai and ethics the future of AI in education and tools for educators so overall the key takeaways for that particular Summit were how AI can enhance teaching and learning and addressing challenges and integration um so most schools um at this point really are just trying to educate the staff on where they are so there aren't too many schools out there that actually have formal policies and guidelines as of yet so it's like everybody sort of um trying to get on board at the same time I don't know if we'll ever be able to really completely keep up up with it or get ahead of it um but I feel like with everything that we're doing so far as a school um you know I think we're actually a little bit ahead of where other schools are um so we have another team of five administrators and teachers that are participating um in a program through the Department of Education um it's called Jessie's leadership in the age of AI learning Series so U they were offering an opportunity to become a cohort with a team of five people um they opened up to a limited number of schools throughout the state and we were one of the teams that they selected so there were five of us that attended the first session in March um so the OB objective of this uh Summit is to build especially generative AI there are actually different definitions of artificial intelligence um and people typically think of generative AI but there actually a lot of um uses of AI already that we have in our lives and it's not necessarily gener generative AI so really it's first about just building an understanding of what is AI um uh exploring practical applications for educators and students uh review resources from uh the state and other organizations on safe and responsible AI use and um the team will be working on a project so for the next session we'll be um identifying what our project is um to promote responsible AI use in the district and hopefully we will be able to have a more formal um action plan we've um also partnered with a um a specialist a consultant who specializes in AI um he's going to be doing first sub sessions with the administrative team sometime this spring um we're trying to set up some sessions for teachers in June um and then some PD when we come back to school in the fall let's see so we also had um last Wednesday March 19th was a professional development day for staff um the CTE teachers were broken up into three different groups and there was one team that was led by Lauren Jones and Lindsay Gangi and they led a great session um AI as your curriculum design partner so they looked at um using AI to refine your curriculum scope and sequence to align with State Standards streamlining curriculum development using Ai and using AI to create lesson plans unit plans and Curriculum maps for teachers so it's really exciting there was a lot of positive feedback from the instructors um who attended that session um and hopefully we'll be able to replicate that and offer that same session um to other staff in the future and then finally um we sent out um an email recently a survey asking who wants to participate in our school's technology committee so in addition to looking at like our Capital planning our Five-Year Plan for technology in terms of expenditures you know for Hardware software um everything that goes along with technology we'll also be focusing on issues like responsible AIU hopefully developing some guidelines and then eventually um a school policy on AI that would have to be improved by this committee any questions can I throw one at you um does anybody have this program up and running now you said not too many people who has it other schools yeah this sounds like it's going to be big for the future it really we're always looking at five years into the future yeah no it really is um I think it's it's really exploding there are some um schools that they're really at the you know step one and like they won't let students or teachers use it at all like there's really not an understanding yet and I think you know there's a lot of fear around it um but you know regardless if we say you know students you know you can't use that they're going to be using it they have access to it so there are certain tools um that might be blocked in a school like for example Google which is you know we Google school there's a Google Gemini is a built-in AI feature um so we haven't enabled that yet for the whole school but we actually just got five licenses for um some of the administrators to kind of try that out and see what that looks like um but yeah so there you know some schools are just saying you can't use it at all there are a couple of schools out there not too many that do have a little bit more of a formal U policy or guidelines um but for the most part what they're seeing is like people are really kind of using it and experimenting with it on their own um and there are some you know I don't know about the student use I'm not in the classroom um but there are definitely some teachers and administrators who are very very very um Savvy at using it already for their practice thank you anything else all right let's move on to the calendar we need a vote on this have a chance to look at the calendar for school year 2526 any questions on that changes to the calendar because of those days that we lost earlier in the year needed to adjust seniors exams and when they could be released because a state law allows to be released it's 12 days before that students so that four days impact that that's why we some changes but this is 25 26 you made you made changes till this year's C last year this year's C right but this is we're talking about5 next year changes they're not in here not in but I'll vote on it but this is the draft for next year it's not what you uh you would need to vote vot so if you if you had a chance to look at this would be next can V you're talking about making you we have to make some changes next year's oh so that's not I mean this yeah that's not done yet it is done okay can we get a motion on the draft please also to approve second all those in favor all right opposed thank you all right superintendent out of state travel I think there's three of them one is coming off the table voice trip so we still you want tell us about one please um looking to uh 11th grade students and teachers who travel to nashille New Hampshire uh to get a a Vega certification for press fitting these are our pluming students that would be going to get this specific certification this the uh the newest type fittings that are used in the plumbing industry today that's at zero cost no cost no cost we'll bust kids up all right can we vote on that one first please uh a motion to approve all those in favor post thank you number two so number two is for Lauren Jones Angela Brennan Johanna and Tina Nutter to attend the nas education showcase April 3 2025 uh it's a educational uh showcase or for educators to uh um cover some of the um new opportunities in learning uh but also one of the reasons we think it's important is we are going to have a fiveyear followup visit in September so preparation for that thisit we have this uh we had a original theat visit five years ago and this is see District I make a motion to all those in favor iOS okay next up is school choice which I'm kind of confused that we don't do school choices this yeah year for requirement um has to both uh either accept school choice or not accept SCH choice in the past we V the committee has voted no because we have so many kids on our weight list so this would allow kids from other districts to come to our school okay so the motion is going to be to to not to accept not to accept students from other districts someone want to make a motion on that please Mr to second all those in favor oppos skills up we received the update from the students that was great yeah I like that yeah so that's basically I mean that came from nonexistent to on the map again yeah so not an explosion but yeah very good having team on the team build having a team participating in team builds big deal so excited about that um they were're going through the I want to make sure I get their name right marisel um wrestling okay I had her on the soccer team helping her and um I went to see her wrestle um the all states in theum these are all the kids in all of Massachusetts Massachusetts were wrestling she's actually um 162 weight loss but she wrestled with their 185 and um she did so well that she went to all New England down Province R Island that next weekend she came in fifth there this kid has only wrestled two years and she is I don't want to use the word a beast I'm telling you the girls were wrestling they they were unbelievable so she did terrific and there are two colleges that they are looking at her as a student as also an athlete it's change she's going to go to New Hampshire to New Hampshire at hker M to college for nursing and also be on the wrestling I mean there a lot of good things come out of the school besides the shop she is just amazing anything else on skills uniform update Mr uh okay so uh I think there's some confusion on where we're going with the uniform update and just some conversations with the committee so I I'm just um I have reached out to one company to uh seek help possible bringing uniforms in but before we uh complete that uh invitation and get other companies involved as well um I don't know that I think I just need a confirmation that the way we're this is F Well a motion no you away me I thought you had something to say for you want to make a motion motion do you want okay I'm ready to make this motion to suspend the implementation of a uniform policy at this time and pursue a stronger enforcement of the current dress code r z as stated in the handbook that was SM B that kept you up at night huh I think it did good just didn't want to go you know Fly by Night I want I want every word in that motion motion because the key is to pursue a stronger enforcement of the current dress code we get a second ahead I'm not yeah but I I thought discussion after we can do the second she's looking for a ter Rec vote that's what you're saying I to be to be totally honest and I know this doesn't happen a lot but I had no idea what we were voting on that day that that meeting I did not and I'm not ashamed to say it because it went back back and forth I mean I think ultimately everybody wanted to see a much um I don't know a business more business kind of look not the low necklines the the sagging p pants so even though that's out of style now but the pajama pants I think we all were in agreement that the attire had really deteriorated and one of our ways to make sure that you know it's in the handbook and no one was enforcing it and I don't you know I'm saying no one but it certainly wasn't consistently enforced and you might as well just take it out of the handbook but I won't vote for hand book that does not have a a dress code in it some something some kind of guidelines boundaries so when we took that vote I mean while we're on the same page with the the ultimate look I did not think that just changing a shirt and and and having them wear khakis in a vocational school was going to make the difference they're already in a sharp uniform I lived that office in forcing uniform so I know that I think that that would be an excessive burden to put on that office that's how I feel but I I don't think it's an excessive burden at all and it was done to enforce what's in the handook I don't care what anyone says I enforced what's in the handbook and I don't see it being done so that's a personal issue that's the way I felt too because I didn't want to put the burden of the families having to come up with the money to spend for academ well I look I can see the scenario and and honestly when you get caught up in this scenario then you losing the learning time okay so I can see it now they're coming in with this show Shure no young lady it's not shop you need this kind of Polo so I mean what good is that I don't I don't see the difference what wrong would it be if the girl wore or the boy wore the sharp shirt I would find it hard to enforce that myself you want to speak yes I do cuz when we spoke when we voted for that we voted twice and the second time we actually just said why are we talking about this and everybody agreed going back to the beginning now and and and taking all those time that we spent from this in the greeting that I think that the uniform would have been best for students and and I I mean I understand and I respect your opinion but when the parent has to buy clothing to come to school they're not just buying a uniform or two uni they're buying multiple clothes because nobody these kids do not want repeat that shirt or that pants or those shoes because everybody knows they're wearing the same shirt he wore last week for the last time and you have to come up with five different clothes to come in in five different days where as if you have two uniforms you come in every day with the same uniform if you had to watch one every other day you still parents were still safe and again we had to think um this I think it would look more distinguished for our kids maintaining the the the look of everybody looking exactly the same it' be easier to to take somebody house from outside think on my community the fact of of of not as a parent not need to deal with the burden of going shopping for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in clothing for that kid to come to school andak well that that too that's that's just part of it and I think that it would be easy for for my commity for those kids just for those parents just say you know what I had nothing to do with it it's the school it's not me and this is what you have to wear and that's you have toar we voted and going back to say that we're not going to do the uniform I just don't know where I'm sitting if I'm sitting the same committee when I'm a different committee we're going backwards we need to move forward and we already decided I don't even think we should uh emotion at this point it was why are we we already decided to what it work I proposed long spe and they said short and said whatever and they said okay so why are we I think at this point when Mr is asking if this you know I don't know what was the question I think the way it was left is Mr was supposed to bring in some swes of at this point that's what we decided not whether we to the I think we were everybody Wasing the same on the same page so uh so we should move forward with it she can make the motion not walking backwards everybody has the right to their opinion anybody else well how do you we send vote just a motion in the previous [Music] uniformy had voted previously so if we were to revote on this whoever was on the prevailing side needs to make the motion and revote on this if there was anyone on the prail side from that meeting just say you could resend the bo but if we want to revote on uniform then that would be we all voted yes so is that what you mean by prevailance okay could make that that motion and so I'm going to make a motion to reconsider the vote of whatever date it was that we took we send Rec don't know M with me so to resend the vote dealing with a uniform policy do I have a second a second okay Mr boy we're back to you second motion ex motion got have a second mtion don't have a second the mo the original St yes the original the I know sorry last meeting two meetings couple meetings you cannot present that happen um I mean again to look at the law it doesn't have a second anyway so we're stay with the original yeah it doesn't have a second so discussion the original motion that's all original vote stand original vote stand no no just a discussion so um after the legislative breakfast uh the assistant superintendent and myself and two City councilors went on a tour of the school and in part of the conversation that I was having specifically in the shop areas was the concern around this uniform policy whatever was that we were going to propose because um if you look uniquely at the different shop areas they have their own logos that are designed historically for their their shops and so I think you know if we were to move forward with with a uniform given that that's that's the feeling that we have me from Rong uniform policy is just for academics not for shops we decided to leave the shops alone corre the shops doing their regular Cotton shirts nothing they going to catch fire um we were talking we talking about academics corre classes so be they're retired for the classes not for the shops and again the way I remember we left it look at swatches to decide which colors was it emblems I I believe that Lawrence High no longer has uni from because they found it very challenging well they did it for some they did it for a number of years yeah it was I mean a good decade seriously they did 10 years yeah huh I mean yeah I mean I was surprised they eliminated but they did it for quite quite some time all the problems have probably would be surprised they took it off because at least you know it's much easier to I'm this I'm gonna give this one last Stitch of it okay as Julio I think misunderstood I don't want to speak for him but he was trying to get at you know the the Shar uniforms which yes quote unquote historically have been part of the school ages so that's not what we're changing so my point is this you have a kid has a shirt very similar to this is it it what is it what's red and it has an em I think I think what I was yes I think what I was referring to in um friend you can correct me if I'm wrong is some of the instructors specifically mention to allow the respective students that were in those shops to wear those shirts for academics am I right or wrong so to be honest I don't remember them specifically saying that but I do uh they might have said that yeah I think though that I Mr Tarbox brought up the point of the freshman and sophomores right who have academics and Shop on the same day um which that does present a challenge we can't expect people to get in and you know change to to go from one to the other so I think even if we do have the uniform I think that we would have to allow the students in grades nine and 10 to wear their shop uniforms in their academics right so that leades just potentially grades 11 and 12 with a strict academic uniform um so I think you know we need to keep that in mind when we come back with a proposal and it's not just the different logos for each shop they also have a variety of different colors um that they're also very proud of right that they created those logos along with those colors and it's sort of like the shop identity um so I think we should keep that in mind too and not try to change that piece would you consider their shop T-shirt with chinos so they wear whatever shop their shop t-shirt and on academically they wear chinos instead of you know out like we pick out the color a couple colors and now you can have much more consistency in terms of what they're wearing and chinos you could um you could require the shop kids to wear those chinos too when they in shop so then you have consistency all the time well if they're wearing if we're talking about freshman freshman and sophomore and and they need to have um Shar uniform their shop uniform should be sharp uniform even though they go to academics but that's that's still uniform and and then when they go to Junior and senior where they even get in prep ready to go to the real world and theys should start dressing up like they're in school like they're like they're going to work so they Weare their their cing pants whatever we decided and and their shirt I think she just so you're going to do a shop you're going to do a uniform for 11th and 12th grades well the uniform should be for for four years but again we're we're trying to avoid them to come in and need to change but if they come in on on their academics uniform that's shop shouldn't have a problem because they steal in uniform you know like I mean again that shirt might be dirty and they want we academic as long as they look apart and they still have this schol logo on the shirt whether they have because they also have academics so it's still a uniform I don't I think so you so what are you saying it's okay as long as they have glts somewhere identifying them as a Shar student or academic it doesn't matter whether they're in shop or academic as long as they have the shirt we're talking about the uniform and they refer to the fact that in in sophomore freshman in sophomore right have to go a shop right so if they're if they're in shop but they also have to go academic they're they're they're in their shop uniform what difference does it make if they're in academics uniform and they have to go to shop as long as this a sh they're they're still they're still on on on the school uniform is what I'm referring not just coming in with the nice fancy jeans or the shirt and the and the emblem with with you know the would be Tom pant or whatever it may be which they're still on uniform and we're talking about freshman and software we're not talking about SCS Juniors those freshmen and sophomores will doing changes painting project then they would be wearing real un they bear wearing sh uni and getting them all then they wouldn't be they they wouldn't be wearing it for for shop week the the regular academic uniform they wouldn't be wearing it for shoing if they already wearing like you're referring to I think we have to be realistic about that I think I think with being realistic is that the fact that the whatever the people were working didn't work and it hasn't work it hasn't worked for years and we're trying to make something work now and we're going backwards which we still trying to negotiate on different uniform I don't even know what we're talking I mean different clothing or no clothing going back to enforcing something that hasn't worked for years why why is it going to work now a uniform works and they have to wear a uniform for freshman and S they wear their shop uniform and then for S Junior and seniors they have to wear their academic class academic um uh shop week whatever I mean I just don't I don't I get it I don't understand why is such a big deal as a m of the faculty for the last few years it did work it took a lot of weight off the kids the clothes like you said sometimes they don't wash them fast enough but it worked for both it was hard to keep them in something that they can get dirty without a problem to keep them from coming in pair of pajamas like Mr Jones picked out saw in pajamas getting off the bus I think he said um I think the policy is it written if it's enforced it's fine I don't like having the expense the family have to go through to keep everybody in uniform for something to work it needs needs to be enforced and then there needs to be consequences so I ask what are the consequences to non-compliance for not their uniform for not being in uniform during academic week thing is you want you want you you want to upgrade in the in the attire that's great I am I am all for that honestly and if I really thought it was going to work better than what's in the handbook I'd be all over it if it was if it was going to be totally different I just see such a merging of look they some Shops look just like that academic is going to look just like that so that's not a burden okay but some don't I mean I don't I don't know because the shirt has a loo on it somebody's going to say you're not an academic attire you know I mean you're you're you're wearing your shop shirt if you really want to you know enforce it to the to the letter of the law but getting not withstanding that if a student comes in Edison and doesn't have the uniform what's the cont consequence what would be the consequences if they don't come on on the uniform on the right now the way they don't come in properly dressed what is the same consequence will happen to those students that haven't been coming properly dressed what's the consequences I don't know it's been I'll tell you what it is there hasn't been any there hasn't been any exactly this exactly what's going to happen in Mar to call home okay in my day we had an in where they did their work okay that was what an in-house was used for in most cases so that doesn't exist so you're going to call home waste time this that yeah I don't I don't see it happen I don't I want to beor but I mean so you're saying I mean the the uniform is not being I mean the the polic is not being enforced we know that we voted for something for uniforms so that we can have more control of how kids are going to be dressed and it's not it's not even there yet and you're already saying that it's not going to work one and if and if we get when we get there you think it's easier to address a person that comes dressed however they want without out out of the police that addressing a uniform from a shop versus an academic that cannot be more difficult than what's going on right now it cannot if we not there yet and I I don't see that being more difficult to manage when people are when students are already in uniform whether they are in shop or in academic it will be easier I can see that it it's going to be easier to to manage than the polic that we not enforcing right now where everybody can d any however they want with any clothes they want inappropriate which we already we already exhausted the possibilities that are going on right now so I don't see this being a I mean being having a uniform is what we're looking for in order to get things on control I don't understand why we are talking about this right now um that's all I want to say and that's that was my point if we take students what are the chances that out of 100 students everybody will dress the way they should dress based on on the codes that that we have already planted before versus what are the chances of 100 students coming without a uniform if you look at it I would tell you that I think you may come in 10 student or less without a uniform but if you asking me out of 100 who would probably come in unproperly dressed will probably be 80 of them or 70 of them so again the percentage of of of that proper dress with a uniform versus non uniform we will stand better chance with a uniform than nonuniform that's obviously what I agree with well I think that the premise is that if we have a uniform the kids will conform to it more probably which is really because it's going to be the opposite you're going to have chaos I mean I think if you try to force it a uniform you're going to be dealing every day but want to get that AR properly dressed and then try to figure out well how are we supposed to be dressed today how are you supposed to be dressed today the kids will be somewhat confused but also kids kids won't be controlled that way you can't control kids you can motivate them you could Inspire them but you can't you can't you can't get you can't uh get what you want by just trying to control them um I think I I really believe a uniform is going to cause a lot of disarray in scho problems that that we going to be dealing with if we try to enforce problem like we're not we're struggling if you're saying we struggling trying to enforce this rule that rule is going to be way harder to enforce in my opinion my feeling because kids are not kids today much more want to be respected and have a little creativity and feels so they want to have some expression of who they are more than ever uh given in this world of you know social media and I mean look at all the pictures they taken everything it's just you know it's going to be a challenge I really believe it's going to be a real challenge to try to look for so I mean honestly after thinking of it I I thought it I I and not I'm in favor of enforcing what is period and if that doesn't can't be enforced then you have a problem well what if we what if we do this what if each of you come in at any ungiven date time and do a walk through the school and see what you feel how many kids you see that improperly dressed I don't think you're going to see that many to be honest with it pajamas you don't I mean I walk through the building and of course I'm not every minute looking but rarely do I see a student off Amazon it's not it's not like you got 1,800 students that's a lot of kids and you walking them through the hallway you don't see a lot of kids with pajamas on or improperly dressed that's a rarity in my mind the the the one thing I find with our population of ours and and I I think I to the some of the culture they they want to look good they want to they dress for the most part they dress well in terms of like compared to other high schools and I've had people tell me that all the time wow your kids were dress much better than than our high school even an if you walk through an high and walk through our school it's like night and day in terms of the you know how kids dress and uh our kids are well behaved they um you know in comparison if you walk through the building you know kids are I would be proud to bring anybody through the school and I have you know I bring people through the school but I'm proud to have them come through the school and showcase our kids who they are you know they're so respectful the things that really matter they're great in my mind they really are um I mean that's why that's why so many kids want to come here that's why parents want from the company because they have you know have a great experience and they work they treat each other respectfully they treat adults respectfully I'm not saying we don't have issues at time you got 1800 kids you're going to have issues at time but speaking you know so I mean that's the only thing I just I think it's going to feel more like what are we doing this for and like it's going to be you'll see some resistance and you'll and you will have more challenges maintaining getting what you want in terms of kids being in specific human I just believe it that just I really believe that and I'm an agreement so I mean I'm I'm I'm torn now because I am an agreement I am an agreement to keep it the way it is and enforce the way it is and seriously there shouldn't be you know I I get look weather weather plays into into attire as well and that should be no reason to you know um loosen your stronghold on on enforcement I would ask you give us give us a little bit of time to make sure that're reinforcing it the way you want it and at any time after but you're talking to me I'm on your side anybody come come visit after two weeks come in two weeks and see and count Telly on your hand you can see kids that are in i' love to hear again from you Mr Supreme intending you said that would be harder to enforce uniform it'll be harder to enforce uniform yeah because um kids don't want to they're not going to want uniforms they're going to they're going to rebel I mean we can enforce it but it's going to be every day a challenge it's do we want to spend all that hard work and effort on that or do want spend all that hard work eff on maybe you should had spend the hard work and not allowing allowing this to happen for for the years that been going on then would have never been addressing the the uniform policy but our kids are successful we're not talking about we're not talking about their success we're talking about the dress code and we already voted on this so I think we should move on because this is where theyed we can't even go back and this I don't understand what we're talking we have almost 300 kids on last year very few kids coming back that says that industry like industry is accept think the way they comes to work every day and no one like these kids matter these we're being we're being and they suc so I mean we're going to do what the committee wants us to do trust that's all I'm just trying to do articulate that it's going to be some challeng know what we want yeah no if that's what the committee wants we will enforce it awesome you're going to bring in some yeah I'll bring in some examples next meeting we'll have we'll have some models for you can I just ask a couple of clarifying questions that on expectations so I know we're not looking for parents and students to weigh in do you want a uniform or don't you the committee's decided we're going to have a uniform so what is the communication to students and families and are you looking for feedback on what we choose is I think we agreed to that I think this is yes we did agree to that to collect feedback for a un next year yes but for what it looks like not for a uniform for what it look for what it looks feedback that was what we agreed in the original so we'll send out we'll bring you some samples and then we'll send some up to parents as well we we'll work on that so the next meeting we'll have got something out to the parents and then we'll have some feedback from the parents for based on some samples we send out and that might help you make your own decisions that make sense makes sense can we do this for the coming April 1 can we look at some swatches you think you'll be able to get some in that so we can get some do something yeah we can get you some samples fa first if you want to get something colors matching like different color schemes different col schem and materials yeah I'll do my best to get something for April 1 ail first the reorganization it should be a short it should be a short is not for that meting abely it is but I mean if you can hold up some swatches for us to look at that we'll be able to decide for the following just to see the colors of what happen my thought was use uh work with Mrs Ferris okay my my fellow um committee board members are going to um hurt me I think but is that there is absolutely no way to reconsider that vote legally is that what you're telling me what do I have to do research you have to make a motion send that Vote or update I did but you telling me I can't there was no second can't well give me a minute I'll get a second can we do it the next I still got a page in a got to read Robert's Rules yeah that's all I read am rules and then if I'm challenged I do my research okay it's always worked can we move on yeah H superintendent Mission reports who's going to do that does anybody have any questions on the packet for the emissions it's basically where we get our we have sent out the first round of acceptances so received March 7 I think we out about 538 so at this point we have um 440 students who have accepted 447 students who have accepted our offer 104 students with withdrew after acceptance um we have 660 right now on the wait list um so we will send that a second round um except about another 40 students we haven't done anything the trans 660 on I just want 60 on the waiting list any other questions on that packet special educations review is it packing on that was an email that was sent to everybody I don't know if you you want to speak about that Office of Public School monitoring the Office of Public School monitoring uh does some uh they come in and review whether we are meeting uh the special in this case they came in to review if we are meeting the special head and civil rights criteria or to determine if we're in compliance with and after doing that they found we in compliance in all areas and U Were impressed with the work that had been done ensuring that uh everything was in compliance and they have no recommendations for any corrections so say big than to our special ed director in particular in this case being the special ed overseer of regulations such a great job Angela BR the director of admissions of counseling also helped to oversee the review she kind of cover so special so two administrators for did a great effort preparing for that review questions Mr general partnership little about that any updates yeah I po with u Frank morand actually call set up a connection with u former mayor [Music] Lawrence Mr and uh I think is the chair of thee atge General the trustees is chair of the trustees war and uh and he emailed me reached out to me uh that he's looking forward to having a meeting with us he wanted me to give him three weeks to uh get the uh the hiring of a new uh president for the one Hospital and so in fact so our meeting should be coming this next week to come and look at is a space appropriate for um operating our health and medical assistant programs at two hospitals in and the LA General both and that works still we number of medical assistant kids we take and uh in essence uh possibly open up a programming space that that they're going to get vacated in fact um there are programs we feel job market is strong and we we won be interested in uh and if nothing else it will give us more space for our academic programs and reduce some of the stress in the hallways in terms of kids moving in about throughout the school so we are uh interested at that so some of what we wanted to do at the uh the Elks we'll be able to do right at the hospital depending on what the cost would be what the space looks like and all that so um we'll be going out going out soon to look at the space and come back with report to the committee should have something for our next regular meeting in April on what that looks like any questions on that uh superintendent taste taste the so we are participating in the tast doing this year we have been doing it for the last few years we were in uh requested if we would do again this year and uh we accepted so that we can showcase our students at the event uh it's run by the Exchange Club that's where I think that's running May running I guess but yeah Brad off an officer for the reports of the committee old business district committee priorities changing the policy to gts's Old policy from GS GT's old policy to G CCC e Family and Medical lead with the new policy GB GF family medical leave this was sent to us by the mass Association of school commit right yes it's just a policy change that we have to approve the one thing in there that we I want to highlight is that um we're going to we're going to Define definition of a 12 month period in which you can uh request FMLA and so when you request it the time it ends we have a 12- month period in which to uh take 12 weeks and um right now uh it's calendar year so every January 1st it you have to resubmit so what's happening is sometimes some goes out in uh let's say December 1st and then it starts all over again their option to start over again which becomes a problem for us sometimes so what we want to do is have what's called uh they go out on rolling basis so if they go out in January I mean if they go out in January uh they have so next jary use that F so that's one of the changes this just to discussed personal consideration report designations Bridget Ren child care assistant effective 3 13 25 beliefs of absences retirements Walter Murphy Auto Body instructor effective rilla math instructor effective 63025 David SE math instruction effective 63025 I'd like to say a little bit about these three I had the privilege of working with all three of them and learning from all three of them um Walter Murphy started here in 2004 R started here in 2008 and David sea started here in 1994 the years of service total to 69 years of service to glts thank you guys appointment appointments rean spali cosmetology instructive effective 21025 in a pen Workforce Development programs manager effective 22525 Lisa Lao school psychologist effective 3325 Christopher lsbury horiculture instructor effective 31025 Glory Liz Rodriguez special education car professional effective 31025 Matthew Olivia visual designs and production coordinator effective 31325 and I'll need to vote for these postings there five of them we'll do them one at a time please Special Education team chairs person teachers uh contract school year 2526 new position the CD attached can I get a motion on that please motion to approve any discussion all in favor all opposed special education reading specialist teachers contract school year 2526 new position attached can I get a motion on that please all those in favor have you didn't do any discussion how many do we have I have five no how many speci education read this will give us we have two now this will give us four one is going to be working in the special Department working on special students the other will be additional reading specialist for our general population right now they have um special ed teachers who are teaching a new curriculum but they don't actually have their reading Specialists so we hired two this year and they're um both General Ed they're not special ed okay and if I may the prior appointments I know we probably approve those somewhere along the line why are we hiring people in March I mean do we need these people right now well there some of them on replacement so the um some of them for the Workforce Development program progr SCH cosmetology instructor is a replacement uh the articulture teacher of replacement the special care professional um and Matt is does anybody have any questions on any of these no I just did can I just do the the rest of all right specialist teachers contract August 20 25 new position Environmental Science instructure school year 2526 new position biotechnology instructor school year 2025 sorry 2025 26 new position can I get a motion on those please motion all in favor almost fut [Music] agenda all right future ex for future items your on and we need to get a vote on accepting minutes for the executive session last okay can I just can I just ask a question could to put under future agenda items I'm looking for upate on the website update on the website yeah thank you okay is there anything Mr lvo can answer you right now no I don't want to I don't want I want that's all you have to say executive session motion we have to go to Executive session just to accept the Motions ask to they they know the law you have to wait until the next meeting yeah wait till the next meeting to accept the I should I apologize I should have done it when we went in you need to and that's it folks can I get a motion toj

So, I'm going to call the meeting of So, I'm going to call special the special meeting of the Kent Board of Education for March 25th, 2025 to order. And with that, we'll kick things off with the pledge of allegiance in the next moment of time. Thank you.

We're going to go ahead and start with a moment of silence and uh followed by a pledge of allegiance led by Dr. Blake Roberson. If you'd all please stand and observe a moment of silence. I wanted to make mention that we're missing one board member tonight. Uh Shaina Murray is out with a a conflict. Um, but we still have uh our four board members here and I'll ask Miss Wilson to uh do roll call. Mr. Chad Thompson here. Dr. Blake Robersonson here. Miss Jill Humphre here. Miss Shaina Murray is out absent. Mr. Jesse Brainer here. Mr. President all Mr. President, you have a quorum. Thank you. Easy for you to say. All right. Uh, agenda item number two, approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda as outlined? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Brainer. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Dr.

Ashland's oldest resident, Gabe McGaren, turned 100. His surprise party included recognition from the town manager, select board, MA House of Representatives, and even the governor. Watch WACA TV's coverage online to see the celebration. Marcos Elio Perau. One last time. Who is the ghost? One more thing. Sweet girl. and also scholarships for seniors. Two $2,000 awards apply by May 1st, [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 2025. The Community Hero Award. The Council on Aging is accepting nominations for the 2025 Community Hero Award. If you know someone making a difference for Ashland seniors, nominate them by April 1st, 2025. Last week's poll, we asked, "If you could choose one town improvement as the top priority this year, what would it be?" Your response was overwhelming. Out of 227 votes, a majority, 112 people, said repairing roads and sidewalks should come first. And we hear you. New England weather is tough on our roads, and the DPW is actively addressing potholes and cracks.

and the children were falling asleep on the floor but um I mean you've got to get your spouses you got to get everyone there so I I think if it I guess my point is I think I'm total agreement I'm not voting to cut a teacher I'm not personally um or the tutors um I I can't it's not in me I don't think it's a good idea to get rid of that teacher at to the music teacher at Tanto I but people you got to show you got to stay for the whole time I know it stinks and you got to vote you gotta be there or or we're gonna have the same thing as last year the only thing I would say is I would be careful how we talked about what other Town boards might or might not do in the future we only know what they told us so far yeah as of now so we have no idea they might approve that you're right but as of right now they've asked us to make these Cuts Al didn't just do this because he felt like it this is being that wasn't fun for you yeah so much fun um okay so yeah I just the point is please show up and vote um are we uh let's take this in pieces if we could are we ready to vote on Capital inside of this I just have one question the capital for the boil and capital I and I understand that you wanted to use this full amount I'm just concerned about the plan that Joe was putting in place if we are replacing the devices only at foil is that throw everything I mean it would throw it out of whack a little bit but we'd be able to adjust for those that don't this conversation is Joe has been working with the just remind me the committee Student Success Student Success in in coming up with a fiveyear technology plan so there's more students at the es I just wonder like what if they're getting them as like fifth graders and they're taking them to to and then BMS kids are coming up with their broken computers and now so that's how it works no So the plan was to replace them as fifth graders and then cycle them down they would stay in that building they wouldn't leave the building okay so as we replace them at BMS or bees in the fifth grade we would cycle them down and then we had an extension of the plan at Tanto to replace him in sixth grade and then again at 10 at 10th grade and then cycle them through the through the system that way but they would stay within their own School building okay so under this plan only Boon Elementary would be getting new devices yes for next year for next year next for next year yeah yeah that's not for everybody right correct okay so we're gonna do a vote or or are we ready to vote someone have another question let's vote okay so we're gonna vote on Capital Aaron help me out here are we I'll just put it this way so can I have a motion please to approve the capital line items as presented in this budget version uh Aaron if you go to each slide please schol yeah Berlin Memorial it will be to replace the elevator controls and to add replace cameras Some Mo Jess second Megan any questions discussion okay all in favor I anyone against okay this motion passes the Berlin Capital um may I have a motion please to approve the Boon Elementary School Capital items repair water pump window repairs update cameras and fobs student staff device replacement repair area brick work and accessible playground equipment so moved Megan Jess any questions or discussion here okay that moot uh all in favor anyone against almost pulled up all right that motion passes may I have a motion please to approve the Tanto Capital request for Middle School Furniture pleasa second Jess any questions of discussion here that's so low can we hold off in a couple more days and see if we can squeeze a little bit more free cash I cannot believe ask so the the problem is this comes from Boon's operating right so this is this ends up in conflict with each right so so it takes the more we put in here takes away from what Boon can do on the operation side I get that right I right I mean things are things are going to devices are going to come to a head next year I mean we know that we can limp through this year we we've had those conversations um you know I know everybody wants to say this is the new building it's not that new um you know it it's going to start getting long in the tooth and and if we aren't prepared for some Capital expenses in the future um you know we're going to be remiss but I I think in order to preserve operations for now I think this is the best we can do so if like if the cash is certified and there's more are we able to vote I mean we to yeah I mean the towns can always the towns themselves can always offer to increase we can't increase the towns if somehow their money treat blossoms in the backyard they could come to us with money um you know did that motion get moved in second yeah okay anyone else questions or comments anything at all all right in favor hi any against okay that motion passes uh so we have a capital budget set now so Aaron will figure out the exact dollar am for us on Thursday is that okay more discussion on operating budgets um let's start with could we please start with Boon instead of burlin because this one's so Haron is it correct to assume you're recommending to stay with the March 11th voted number for operating budget for Boon Elementary um sure I mean I was suggesting you know some of those small Cuts you could you could do but if the if the committee I hear Al's Point um you know I think we're all just throwing out ideas um if the will is to stick with the March numbers I I can support that as well that's you know I'm not trying to please know that was just my point make that decision yeah very we're trying to to I think to some degree we're trying to be the best Partners we can be with the towns as well um you know it's important I think we think about where they sit um so you know I think you're right though that you know some of these numbers are small enough that may not be you know it may not be that consequential yeah the bigger numbers are the the 40 well here 43,000 I look at my handy dandy trusty calculator and I go to thank goodness for internet I go to Boon and I put in just 40 through 4,000 let just say um it gives me a range of $7.50 up to $46.50 again not set in stone not the actual number that you see on your tax bill I'm not a tax account professional I'm not a qualified to advise anyone on how to spend their money in any way shape or form um not a lot of people are uh but that gives us a guide 750 to 4650 for the year in Boon if we keep that band number and that number is so small I believe it would be similar in Berlin I think it might come out to five to 37 or something so yeah a $5,000 cut what's it going to do I I don't know but we have an option here so the option would be to move to accept or to stay with the March 11th budget or to move to adjust the March 11 budget by some number would anyone like to make a motion oh wait Mike yeah so this number in Boon is actually better than the March 11th number but it's dependent on if you make Cuts so this impacts this impacts to H I if you if you keep these ads to Bo to okay that's all I wanted to understand so yeah I I think because so could I uh I'd like to make a motion to keep the um March 11th budget for Boon Elementary at 200 no number as stated on March 11th okay that's a motion a second I'll second would I like to discuss Jess i' like to amend that a motion right to add on with the subtraction of the OPC contribution that is a motion to amend the motion to subtract $5,000 to OPB from the March 11th number that's a motion is there a second second Lisa second okay any discussion having watched the burlin finance committee to the last minute like at 10:40 at night last Wednesday like they were slicing everything out of the budget and I recognize they're trying to rec you know people have limited income um and I think if we can shave off a little bit here a little bit there I think every little bit counts and it shows that we recognize limitations but not willing to cut band and music and stuff for our children Jess it's a fair point uh correct me if I'm wrong if we went back and added up all the yellow numbers 933 th000 total was already cut on March 11 we have some unknowns April 1 is a date that we have some unknowns that we haven't met yet we don't know it's only a few days but we never know there's other unknowns that won't happen so but that's a motion that's an amended motion on the floor a did you have anything to say yeah I guess the what I would definitely say is I mean OPB is the safest thing you can come you can't eliminate it it's it's it's not going to go anywhere but there um we can have long discussions of OPB and I have plenty of opinions on it but I it's in it's inconsequential if you cut that you people are adequately funded right now no one's adequately funded oh I knew that yeah this is the I I think if you don't do it in Boon or if you want to be Equitable yeah do it across the board noep across the board yeah I mean which Boon's up against their Levy limit too so just Bo share yeah and I know they're looking for does this impact H if we did this op no there just okay only ad yeah so that's the motion on the table is to amend the motion to approve the March 11th oon Elementary School operating budget minus the $5,000 contribution to open that's the motion on the table it's it's to amend that motion yeah any other discussion all in favor I anyone against okay that amend passes now the motion is to approve the operating Bud as amended it by the $5,000 is there any question or discussion on that all in favor I anyone again okay so we've adjusted that motion passes and we have adjusted the March 11th operating budget in Boon school by 5,000 uh okay we should be baring next probably um so we're g to do I assume we would want to do the same here yeah I mean what are these supp I hate to cut supplies it's like I don't want them to like then I remember right incl the from The copier and all that stuff yes it's it's classroom supplies right it's it's paper pencils erasers I mean you know again we're just we're trying find places where we can like try to find something right because in the aggregate all of these Cuts they work all together might save a job districtwide that that's kind of you know where we were coming from if the the supplies unto themselves aren't significant so I mean you know if all the other things are on the table to Mike's Point about what's the value of $5,000 um you know I'd argue like you know you could put it back I'm not you know I think you know the O again I will say opep is your safest thing it's not huge uh there's no mandate that you put a certain amount each year you just have to put something in show effort no one is fully funded on their opab except for Welsley I think um and they did some stuff to make that happen um so and no one's close to funding their Ops it's it's just uh um so I I would argue that that's probably this if you want to make you know some sort of consolatory cut here that becomes you know something you could do and it's safe but the only thing I'd say besides pad every other reduction that we looked at was made from this side everyone are principes and administrators so before we think about putting money back into supplies we want to have a conversation what does that total look like and is there a position that might be instead so every one of these things we've agreed upon as a as a group and I said that before we make any additions back if any comes back we' said as a group again to have these conversations as principles and directors before we start saying supplies here supplies $1,638 is not a position it you'd have to come to us with that times you know five or 10 15 right so if you combine the last three items it's not significant but it's shoing a you know carving a little bit off the size all right fine anybody else have any comments Lisa Lor I'm in favor of doing the the 5,000 okay is the school district comfortable with that Al can you explain that comment that you just made about the teachers and how it affects I just I want to make sure I understand that any reductions that we talked about we have individual conversations with principles and directives then we had a meeting as a group to discuss and let everybody knows and if any additional funding should come back I made a promise to them because by the way once we make these decisions myself included all of us here we close the we we move on and they got to live with this stuff right our principal and assistant principal so I I said to them if there's anything should change I have the opportunity which is hence the reason why we have school committee scheduled for Thursday that we have a conversation with the people over here to say are we good and people over here too by the way sorry I'm just um but to make sure that we all are okay with these with these decisions that we're making when you say funding come back you mean us deciding not to do the cuts that's right anything right or anything that we I feel like we we should be having that conversation we made those conversations when we we made these reductions and I just feel I think it's really good that we're having a sping meeting on Thursdays for us to be able to to just even have these conversations even if they all just say yes I won't put them on the pressure that answer that question now but we leave we close the doors I walk away from berin B to Tanto and they still got to live with these decisions that we make so just want to be fair John if I could ask you what what supplies and Tech repairs is included in that item that would be everything crayons and pencils and paper and chart paper and graph paper paper clips everything that a kid uses every day now In fairness parents some parents are very very generous and you know provide a lot of supplies and provide extras but we have a growing population of people who can't afford the supplies that their kids need so that's your entire line I think it's your entire line it's it yeah I mean we we largely just sat and said like 10% across the board unless there's other items like in conversations with principles we had lines that they specifically cut for reasons if we had cut those and we'd come to a really specific number I didn't want to cut those I cut the other lines where we kind of said okay it's a bunch of pencils I carry over largely what we had last year right is there's only so much you can do down to I can't really sit down with John and worry about every single pencil he's going to buy I need to realize in the Agra he's going to need some number of pencils right so we kind of said well could we cut that by 10% right some of those lines um so again it's not every line we looked at them carefully and the ones that had discrete amounts in them we were careful not to cut because it had very specific whether it was software or uh consumables things like that that John had identified it's the more generalized like here's a bunch of supplies and we typically buy pencils crayons construction paper whatnot out and that can change year to year based on the needs based on what's sitting in a closet somewhere things like that just like we the to don't M go M adjust in terms of how many pencils do you buy how many rulers and all that we we we give that as the instructional leaders that's their authority to to buy purchase what they feel they all right could I have a motion then to approve the March 11th Ved Berlin Memorial operational budget less the 5,000 to oped contribution so moved Meg second yes question discussion I think we should add on the subs to sorry I think we should add in the subs as well you mean get ready getting rid of the subs mine is the subs I'm just floating and Amendment out there I mean if we need a sub we need a sub we're goingon to have to pay for it anyway this is just trying to reduce the line yes correct yeah I mean it's take it from something else it's you know this was looking at trends for the past three years so whenever I go through something like this I look at threeyear Trends and see where it's trending at looked like there was some room here uh to work with um you know long longterm can be a little you know one or two maternity leaves can eat that up very quickly but you have to kind of hope that when you're looking at sort of a three-year Trend right we're dealing every year our total number of teachers is relatively small we're dealing with small sample sizes right law of big numbers the inverse is there's a law of small numbers you're going to have a lot of variance right so you know our hope is that we don't have a something goes through the water and we have a lot of maternity leaves we have you know something things happen that just cause a lot of longterm leaves um I mean but you know no doubt there was I mean I can look at the trends and I can see the co baby boom right like right after covid um you know I tiled my back slash other people made other choices right every dollar right now today doesn't come back in case there an unknown to the Future yes and the future is is like three weeks correct and and part about the subs just just just so you know so they're creative as heck right so they they they beg and borrow and do what they need to do to cover those classrooms which is not good for our kids as well either but also there's a limited number of Subs that we have available too in this we're all fighting for them right wher all the surrounding commers everyone's fighting for Subs I mean no matter like if there's a longterm sub need we're going to have to cover that I mean that's not PE for that so I think it's just reducing that like looking at the trends and you're saying we're going to have to cover that we're gonna have to cover with less money in the bank is what you're saying we have to cut something else we'll have to do a a vote to move money from another line item probably move it from supplies and then like two years ago when they ran out of paper at the end of the so I mean like I I don't know I just can can I ask a question is it equal in Boon are they so are they cutting 5,000 over there or did they for opep no not for opep for the subs no we just took that no and but that wasn't even on there their their trending was consistent with what's there so you know again I look at three-year Trends I try to say you know if it increases a little bit you know plan for some increases again it's it's it's it's that sort of our hope is that in the aggregate we're going to have some things that go over budget some things that go under and in the aggre get a law of big numbers that it's pretty smooth um so you know we may go over in long-term Subs we may be under in short-term Subs we may be a little over in oil we may be a little under in supplies um you know John's crew goes for few fewer crayons right what have you I mean that's you know where it ends like all of these numbers are sort of best guesses at any point we are you know more than a full year out from the fruition of a lot of what we're talking about here and I can't predict crayon use that far out my point and ask that was just equality of crost like if we're going to offer if if we didn't risk anything in boilson I I just feel a little worried about that with is the word risk there the risk L is just like we just don't know right we're trying to save a little bit here a little bit there you know we don't we don't know what's going to take place in terms of the amount of Subs and that's that that's why the risk is bless you so the motion on the table includes only reduction for right now that is the motion table anything further I'd like to make a motion to include the longterm to amend the motion has been made to amend the motion second second comments discussion anyone in favor motion I I I heard Jess Beth hi and Lisa anyone against the motion I name I'm also against the motion that motion FS we're back to the original motion only the 5,000 in op contribution any further discussion on that okay all in favor of this motion anyone again okay that motion also passes so the Berlin Memorial operating budget will be the March 11 budget L the contribution of okay H we go to sorry I'm looking at my own sheet thinking everyone else is seeing as well sorry I'm using the force here okay not working remember in the the Tanto discussion any changes are going to affect both towns different okay so uh let's just get the motion out there so we can discuss it I have a motion please to approve the T Regional operating budget to be the March 11th budget less the contribution some Megan Jess okay discussion questions I just feel like we've cut enough from tono and I would just keep some of that little stuff in there because you know something's gonna happen and I didn't realize we were cutting a science teacher on March 11th I mean that's just like gut-wrenching right there um so we had that FTE in there but we weren't specific I know I know no I get it I get it and I know what we're trying to do and I just feel like that's has compromised enough and I'm not willing to vote to compromise anymore for that building and let's also be mindful of that special coordinated position is well too going to be a cut a huge cut well to all right any other questions discussion okay all in favor of the motion I anyone against all right that motion also passes so I think that is our budget start tomorrow Thursday all right so that that's our so we we do not have the number yet will calculate that tomorrow we'll have a quick Zoom meeting on Thursday that meeting won't include any any additional Cuts or addition that P us off another two days and passed our deadline to get these numbers to for the printing Warren um all right I think what show up and have conversations every Everybody Knows the meetings are they posted there show up show up um to meeting had to leave his b uh I don't know the exact time in Burl seven seven in Berlin at the elementary school in the gym probably gonna be babysitters available through P okay we got that's votes last though the school hold on I don't know how they're going to do it this year we don't know how they're going to do it this year historically yes it's at the bottom of the warrant but uh we have no say or control over that just I think they're restructuring from the meetings that I watched they were going to do them into section so they had good stopping points if had to go into a different day so I don't think it's however they're going to do it they information that comes out from the towns that explains exactly what they're going to do um that's what the printing is they're printing all that material that's what we got to get into so yeah so pay attention to your mail pay attention to your email pay attention to your voicemail pay attention to your social media pay attention to I don't think we can afford to send mailers out but we'll figure something out um well we have a whole other meeting to get thank you for coming tonight thank you very much for coming very important okay that takes care of the first I apologize joking you have a lot of other things on this agenda yet up with that yes I need I need my you want work next on our agenda is I'm listening I am I'm right here we've got a meeting to get to making good I'm working I'm ready sh here we go okay we got graduation requirements for the fy2 school year yes um Lisa if I can just um first of all those who um didn't have an opportunity to see liser on Spectrum news did a great job um interviewed by Spector news regarding the mcast and how we're here our district I think I shared the the site with you guys as well too uh but we s there could this is a lot of ownership on me I think the semantics um we we we had some error in the way we proposed it to you guys at spoy um the the uh MTA um reached out to to Bill Whitehead and re and Bill reached out to us MTA was concerned about the vote that took place in the state of Massachusetts and the semantics of the way that we read it at at school committee so I'm gonna ask Lisa just give a little brief explanation and and we can just have them revote if necessary um okay um so the last school committee vote focused on whether the district would continue using mcast as a graduation requirement as this was the most pressing issue how however the legislation it was very complex and it was very misunderstood at the state level mcast served two purposes graduation requirement at the state level as well as competency determination at the state level the Commonwealth voted to eliminate mcast at the state level for a graduation requirement which also ended its use for competency determination as a result each district was now responsible for defining its own graduation requirements which may include mcast if they vote for it and determine which courses demonstrate competency within math Ela and science our focus on that vote was on whether to maintain mcass as a graduation requirement for the class of 2025 which we voted to do um with plans to revisit that decision this summer after receiving further guidance however we did not vote on the courses which would fulfill the competency requirements so those that would reflect the standards assessed in the 2023 mcast exams for ELA math and biology to meet State the state's competency determination for uh for and this is what we've been doing so it's but we just need to vote on it students must pass 9th and 10th grade English for an equivalent course pass geometry and either Algebra 1 or Algebra 2 core equivalent courses pass one of the Three core science courses biology chemistry or physics these courses have always been previously required before students took the 10th grade mcast as they are still required courses to earn a diploma at Tanto in summary while we have chosen to retain mcass as a graduation requirement for now we have also identified the courses aligned with competency standards this clar clarification is intended to prevent confusion if mcast were no longer a a local graduation requirement so we just need to vote on competency being determined by passing ninth and 10th grade English passing geometry and either Algebra 1 or Algebra 2 and passing one of the three core courses in biology chemistry or physics I did I took notes so oh I actually printed it out for everybody so so those classes you mentioned those are currently graduation requirements to graduate from T yes yes and but it's also our competency as well to M so just saying this is the competency requirement right yeah we just we voted on the graduation requirement we got to vote on the competency that's correct yeah I got it and then and then we will revisit this summer whether we're going to continue to present the school pitting whether we're going to use mcast as a graduation requirement for our students so this is just the this year 2025 no well the comp the competency requirements will remain the same so what we're voting or what you are voting on is identifying the coursework that meets this um competency requirements for students that's different so there are two things there's graduation requirements and competency determination we're required to make sure we have both in place and competency we're trying to make sure that when you graduate from a High School in Massachusetts it it is comperable right it looks the same graduation requirements for for Tanto look I can tell you completely different than mini charts look like right they had additional credits they wanted to take there were different things the Scoopy voted on that they wanted to have so again we're just trying to clarify the the language that we did we sort of rushed to get that in front so we wanted to make sure um but please know we're going to be working on whether we want mcast to be part of the graduation requirement still they In Summer with everybody involved the other part we have to tell you also is that every one of our seniors are graduating this year has passed the mcast and we're happy to say we'll be walking across the graduation stage isue all right so we need to vote on this right now you want to vote please a motion to I know your voice you want to go for you heard my inhale no so I I'm just question I mean you can make the motion I have a motion please to uh approve that meaning the state's competency and determination students must pass nth and 10th grade English or an equivalent course pass geometry and and either Algebra 1 or Algebra 2 or equivalent courses and pass one of the Three core science courses biology chemistry or physics is that some yes okay so I mean this is just kind of a temporary hold we could always revisit this and add to it if we want so like off districts and that's the work we're going to be doing so there's there's still confusion graduation and competency are different yeah so we we can't really change competency requirement because the comp the state has identified for us that the competency requirements that we have to ensure that the competency requirements are the standards that were assessed in the 2023 mcast for La math and science so we have to identify which courses were have the content that were assessed in the 2023 and we're saying yes we have those courses though these are these courses so we have those in place it's graduation is different right okay is everybody clear on that okay any other questions discussion all in favor I anyone against motion passes thank you thanks Lisa nice job on that um we clarified that um next thing is teamers local 170 um I just making us aware as a scoop in the public um we have been um approached by our custodians um that they are looking to become unionized um we got the official notification um please know that I've taken that information and give it to our attorney Sean Sweeney and he'll stop that process we haven't heard anything more than that but they're looking to become uniz at that at the local level with the teamers and this is sort of just an FYI um next on the agenda and I moveing quickly is the District Attorney's um office presentation um I know this is something we talked about sort of got the late got the late um it's officially on that April 16th date starts at six o'clock pm um we sent it out through messeng school messenger I have it posted everywhere I know our principles will be advertising this as well to this goes along with cyber safety and bullying um that's taking place or taking place in our in our state in our country um but they did a great job with our students um and here's an opportunity for parents and students we're going to do it all by Zoom share that information we'll continue to pass that information along I know Jessica you been asking for that date so I went to show we we were block and loaded we along with many other people we're reaching out to the district attorney's office for this will that be live and zoom will it be live and zoom yeah no we're not doing in of C we're not doing in we'll all be by um last is the FY 26 school year calendar it is in front of you right now um um please take a chance to look at this there's a lot of conversation involved with this we've worked with principles directors um we're still holding on 2627 we're hoping to get that to you soon but this is for next year 25 26 um I just want you to also look at there's one piece of it that is highlighting this back page of of your calendar um there is potential for an extra professional development Day added to either the end or the uh the end or the beginning of the school year um we're working negotiations with that right now um but still that will not impact our students schedule and our student calendar it would impact our teacher calendar um but this is with obviously um we've heard from parents I've heard from school committee um there is obviously quite a large reduction in half days um and um more concentrated full days of professional learning we have a lot of information we can share with you at another time at school committee um regarding professional development days and the plans that we have um and taking a look even the last message we received from the union saying that they were not at this point um in favor of of the half Al you looking for a vote for this tonight or just um I'd love the bance but I think there's a bigger conversation I think it's important to get that out to parents so they can stop making plans I think we'll hear people might want to talk a little bit about professional learning um I would say that we have three full professional learning days plus we're looking for a fourth one I'd also like to have a conversation with second faculty meetings that those are professional learning days as well as second faculty meetings um but I guess I'd like you a look at it a little further get this out to the community to look at um this is the calendar that we're recommending by for to conversations so we're not voting on it tonight it's just for everybody to start looking okay parents can start cing as well too I'd love to put on the next agenda if you could no okay thank you I joke seriously come on um next up then is can we ask questions sorry I'm curious like so usually we have our first day of school like on a Tuesday or a Wednesday I'm just curious why on a Thursday so are just sort of we looked at it the way the calendar fell and yeah I like it I like starting Thursday I think that first week is brutal for the kids I don't like star before Labor Day next year I I have to have 180 days for students and 185 for teachers but I also need a buffer if there's bad winter right hopefully not I to make sure right you can't go beyond that June 30th date right unless you get permission it used to be from the commissioner um but just got to be mindful of that date also I'm looking at juneth as well too so all those things are being taken into account um when we're we're we're getting this dat so you got the last day of school is the 16th is that what it is right now that's correct so can make question the Good Friday I feel like when you add it has been on there in the past and then when you take it away if you're going to put good Fry on there you're going to have to commit to continuing to do it just so it's it's a year toe calendar we had that conversation about whether we wanted to put good Frid we know a lot of people um want to take that day off um so we put it on and that's why this is open for conversation so two years ago the Friday before vacation Good Friday landed up on it and so that wasn't great data but I don't know what happened last year in terms of staff and students being out right and then and this year we're already starting to get most school districts don't have school as they learned from my church this weekend when they were trying to do something with the kids on Good Friday and I was like oh our school district does have school we I guess I guess Worcester doesn't shy doesn't um so a lot of the big communities don't so I guess that's probably why a lot of staff are taking off not necessarily for religious reasons but because their kids are out of school and they can let's get some Community feedback on that this week and you yeah I mean I it's good my only thing you know as long as everyone's okay with I it's a money saver because you have you're gonna have to get subs so a lot of Subs yeah I'm sorry yeah and there's not not a lot of PD um there's not a lot of days off so I like having you know I know we have vacation that one but it's nice to have I kind of like having the day a few days here and there right I just just a quick comment um or just something to think about with negotiations as well that currently the teachers do have so many religious days in their contract so that is another reason why I think they try to take them whether or not they are celebrating that they are not they so just something to keep in mind calendar wise contract wise then however administrators don't but I'm just saying to do about their religion y um okay so anybody else we believe this is a great starting point we believe this again our biggest thing is getting it in front of parents so they can stop making their plans ahead of time we're hoping they take their vacation during their vacation times right and if they know ahead of time um they can plan a CL as well too I'm just hypothetically like if you started if you shifted the beginning of the school year to a Wednesday would that then in June you can shift that last day to a Monday I like it Wednesday September 3rd the last day is a Tuesday no no that's not what you meant that's not what she meant you mean I'm just saying like there's no camps there's no you know so it's the half days have been a struggle for working parents because it's a lot of days off that they have to take so it's just it's front loading yeah and I would say on the other end of that too um just parents sometimes like that summer camps end right so the summer camps are ending and August right they're all coming to an end families still need to find child care as well too um so Oh you mean starting after Labor Day Jess so shift opening day professional development day to the Tuesday gee no is Tuesday though you have to Shi two days to get new week the last L is on Tuesday Tuesday can we just okay can we can we post this on Med call whatever and people can comment on it and uh we get it out there don't have to put a big draft averaging one snow day year I I really believe this is we get up to people as well too it's it's March and April so soon so all right okay [Music] cool Joe yes yeah so I'm I'm done for school calendar but I'm going to ask Joe um if you could give us a little update what's going on sure so um we've had kind of an increase in um public record requests so as a district we've kind of streamlined the process so if in moving forward if we could just direct everyone to the district website um they go to our district they click on public records request and it brings them to the request page it tells them exactly how to do how to request the records um it tells us it tells them who our records access officer is so everything should be directed to The Rao at bbrsd.org email um that will get reviewed by Nicole and it also provides the public with just general information on the Massachusetts Public Records law um moving forward if this is going to take it away from people dropping off to the schools or stopping someone on the sidewalk we want to direct everything to this um platform to this email so it gets documented timestamped for all of our Communications so we stay in accordance with state law the plot starts tick in the minute someone releases that asking the question so we're we're finding that we're getting it to different people um we just went to try to streamline it put it all in one place um and this way it's also timely right so this way Nicole are our resource office could time stamp when those came so we're just trying to streamline that we want to make sure the public it as well as SCH is that email accessible by J though I'm sorry is that yes it's myself Aaron and me myself Aon sor okay that was sort of an FYI thank you thank you Joe that brings us to subcommittee updates uh Jess first with the Student Success in technology yeah we are kind of waiting on the next meeting um but on we put in the drive the cell phone guidance from the state again uh it's a really good document so if you didn't have a chance to read it last time I really encourage you to go through the whole thing and read it um and so in that vein we kind of had a several weeks ago so on Friday there was a cell phone free lunch at Theo during refresh day um so we're hoping to hear how that went and then um yeah found from there um Megan you better not have an update the budget no heard it you can no no you guys heard the budget all right uh superintendent search subcommittee what do we got going on that's been postponed uh we're going to have another date hopefully next week all right the position has been posted though right what yeah Tracy Tracy posted the position oh sorry you talking about oh you talking about the search yeah I thought you were talking about the evaluation I apologize did I say evaluation no in my head I think probably not it's too ear um the phys has has been posted we got an email from Tracy today um can we just review we had a lot of emails today um she bccd all the members um and she's checking in um she left it that she'd be collecting post interview topics so we need to get back to her that yeah so I talked to her about that if anyone has any proposed topics you want as part of the interview send them in send them to me I'll collect them with Tracy all right or send them to Lori too yep um and we posted on school yep it's been posted all right perfect there's no update for the policy subcommittee to do on that uh next up uh is we're not doing the calendar vote so we're gonna go right into the bus B contract in I got tell you it's not feel like two years ago with the buses yep so um our bus bid our bus contract has come to an is come to an end at the end of this year um I don't know if anybody's been watching what's been going on with bus bids uh lately um the increases are crazy um Northboro Southboro had a 46% increase uh I was talking to Winchendon they had something similar 46% uh we put our our initial bid out in January we came back with um a very high front end range with with some other increases you can see it was was around 28% above our 25 rates um uh we we talked about what we could do the the industry standard in a lot of ways had been uh a maximum age of seven years um we looked at that we talked to some other districts um and and a lot of them are moving bus bus ages um Can can range bus buses are usual usable 10 to 12 years um many people in order to get some of those number trying to get some of those numbers down are are going more like 10 12 years as a max age they all have to meet safety requirements they're all heavily inspected um things like that so you know we're pretty confident that um we could do that so we uh we put it out to bid again um we wanted to see what we could do um this so the first time we only got one bid um from our current provider the second time we actually had two biders show up um uh nrt our current bidder uh and uh green Wheels um unfortunately Green Well green Wheels was not um complete so they were missing an essential document um additionally when I went down to their numbers page um their numbers were significantly higher than what nrt ended up providing so down below you have nrt's daily rates for budget for buses though you will see that's still a pretty sign ific percent increase um keep in mind you know we talk about health insurance our health insurance number is Big right it's a very big number um so an 18% means a lot of dollars 21% to this is is substantial um I will make it work we have we we've we've put in a number um into the budget close to 10% I I think we can we can work with this um we really unfortunately no one's no one's bidding on bu bus contracts in terms of other vendors we're kind of left without a choice um it's made up of a lot of sort of small monopolies uh around the state um and no one wants to cross territories um you know there's really sort of Unwritten agreements of A Sort that you know you just kind of hold your own territory I've not seen more than one bidder on most contracts that I've seen and when I reach out and I talk to my peers they're seeing exactly the same thing so there's only one gig in time right every now and then you'll see someone else come in and their number is outrageous so that the number that the other number that we had was was very much higher so um my recommendation um would be to take this rate I think if we were to go out again we'd probably end up seeing a higher rate um just out of the pain of them having to bid it again um again I think we can work I can work with this within the existing budget I'm also a little bit hopeful that Transportation reimbursement will be a little um more generous this year um so I'm I'm I'm recommending it I wish we had another option I wish we had a better option um but this is sort of where we are right now and as soon we finalize this soon we can stop the work so we don't have much in place um last this past summer right and we'll have the bus Roots all set we'll look at the most efficient way to run those buses you know we had a huge move um rting the buses in Berlin um during mid year but we'll be looking be able to work with that we we know our provider of getting that information certainly not doing like we did this year the day before school starts still not having rest Rings may I make a request that we do it in both towns like reverse the roots St morning and night I mean it happened a couple years ago and I'm not sure why it stopped we're all that but you know we have a provider first before we stop engaging those conversations knowing that nrt is in place we can start those conversations immediately I'm fine with this for now but I think over the next five years and i' I know we have so many projects on the list like I just kind of did a quick Google search how much does it cost to buy a school bus I mean we're paying over $100,000 a year for like subpar bus quality at best um I mean I don't know if it would be possible again then you have the salaries of five people right because you have to have is it five buses the district has five the cost of the bus is that to your concerns $100,000 a year is I think it's I think it would be great to look at some sort of collaborative option right whether it's through a collaborative or through a group how we could look into with nine buses we're too small to operate that efficiently we just can't um where Al and I came from we had a collaborative um the lower Pioneer Valley educational collaborative that um ran our buses we didn't have to bid it it was all part of sort of our assessment with them uh and when we looked at sort of what their cost was versus private vendors it was substantially lower I I think it would be a great conversation to have with our attorney um Sean s and by the way keep apiz he's hising around so I apologize he is working wither right now that just purchased the RO buses so I think to your conversation I think it' be great to have with our attorney eventually to see given him perspective out there changing a little working a r no no so Aaron this means we're up a little bit here but it also means our our bus reimbursement Revenue will will go up that's cool that won't be for like two years until yeah that the next year yeah so we just we just need to get through this year and then we'll see some reimbursement for that always good all right uh so we need to vote on this please have a motion to approve the bus bid and contract scr down [Music] by the recomendations right there too oh perfect may have a motion that bbrc school committee author I second second that motion was not seconded it was not seconded that may I have a motion that the bbrc school committee authorized the Director of Finance and operations to enter into a 5-year contract with nrt bus Incorporated to provide school bus transportation to the district at a total anticipated 5year cost of 4,820 75 so moved Meg that motion has like to ask a question comments on uh okay uh I me five years it's l I'll chip in the 75 cents if it helps the put that write that down okay all in favor the motion please I anyone against it all right that brings us to our last and final piece on the agenda tonight is an executive session uh and will not return to open session uh I want to be clear that this is regarding a new item not any existing or previous items uh but I have a motion that the Berlin Boon Regional school committee is convening an executive session on the purpose one to discuss an open meeting La complaint filed by Margaret P Stone against the burlin Boon Regional school committee so second Lori roll call Jess Hi Megan I Lori hi okay the move passes we are going to enter executive session and not return thank you very much principals directors thank you