Um and that's the IMA for the two locals is how the two founds the two towns fund the capital projects for the region. Um so that is the number that both towns will present. Um, as Beth mentioned, we did have some lots of opposition in Sherburn. The um, select board actually on that Saturday um, open hearing voted one to four against um, the turf. The advisory committee is voting tomorrow night. Um, they did not seem to be as opposed to the turf. I think they were waiting to get more of the financials piece of it. obviously advisory finance um and I think there were some new concerns that they heard which is why we're going with the Brockville instead of the Crumb Rubber. So we feel like that is a um sort of a change in the project that could have a a material impact to those in Sherburn um who have some concerns with both the health and the environmental um situation revolving involving the crumb rubber.
There's inputs, outputs, and outcomes. And so the inputs are the things that you put into your system in order to drive your outputs because your outputs are supposed to be your midcycle indicators that you're on. They're things you've chosen that you think if we can do this, then our outcome should end up where we want them to be. So when we look at things like um compensation, benefits, and working conditions, they really live in the input space. And so they're not necessarily on the outcome end of things. And I think what makes it hard is like we could say well of course if you pay more you get you attract and retain more highquality teachers and more highquality teachers leads to the outcome of higher student performance. Right? And that's a very sort of broad brushstroke. um and it and it doesn't necessarily create a direct connection.
They also had issue with the Turk carpet itself, but the manufacturing of that has gotten so much better than where we were when we installed this in 2012 that we feel like um there's headway. We're adding the the safety pad underneath which is going to be extra safety for anyone using the turf. So the enhancements that we're making we feel should um outweigh in switching to Brockville should outweigh any of the negative concerns that um certain Sherburn residents may have. Um, so it will be um important for us to make sure people are educated and come to vote um just to make sure because it would be detrimental um to our program here and to the community in general not to be able to replace um the field and do the upgrades that we need to do. So the reality is if we can't use this field, we're going to start using the grass fields here and all around over in Sherurn, which means less access for our youth programs.
But if we think of it as an input in the system, then it might be easier without having to put a ton of effort and like spend six days researching, you know, is this true or not? It might be easier to create threads from the work that meet and confer is doing to recommend those adjustments to salary benefits and working conditions and how as inputs they will impact the outputs and the outcomes. And so, um, the best example I can give you and and this I want to give lots of thanks to, um, to Daniel and and Ariel and, um, Ann, thank you. Well, I I I'm visual, so I'm looking for faces, but we she was, um, voice only yesterday. Um, but we had a we had a really good conversation yesterday afternoon about some of these concerns. And one of the things that came there was a question that came up that was like, well, why is the district so set on, you know, adding some coaches and adding some additional PD?
I I will just say that whole presentation that you did was completely enlightening. Now, I feel that, you know, I had no idea exactly what you just said about how it's going to impact our younger kids. I had no idea about like how it could shorten the seasons if we It was really well done, very educational. Thank you very much. Quick question. I thought that the organic material freezes in the shoulder season and makes those fields potentially not usable. There is a slight there's a slight risk of that but it outweighs the not having a field at all. Right. And that was advisory committee voted down one to four. The select board select board went forward and it was it was a combination of um environmental um so the PAS is like the hot topic, right? So um part of that I think is still the unknown and so they had concerned about continuing to introduce materials that had unknown um composition.
Because if you watched the last board meeting and you looked at the um the progress monitoring report, one of the things that they were talking about is here's some things that appear to be working and having an impact and here's some things that aren't. So we want to do less of what isn't working and more of what is working. Right? So you have these related inputs. One of them is well we're seeing where bless you where we're where coaching is effective it's actually moving outputs and there's an expectation it'll move outcomes. There are some places where it's not and so what you want to do is move away from the where it's not stuff and do more of the where it is stuff right um but that input doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's because who's receiving the professional development and the coaching. So in the example from the progress monitoring report, the teachers that were receiving the coaching and the professional development were a small cadre of 11 SEI teachers, right?
Um the crumb rubber definitely was a huge concern of theirs from a a health perspective for participants who are on it. I don't I think there's s there's studies to go both ways. I think when you have the ones that say there's negative impact, it's those um where there's extreme exposure. So, the true scientific where there's extreme exposure. There's even an article um on the Massachusetts uh public health site that basically says there is no there there really is low risk. I mean, that really says the high risk with exposure to crumb rubber is when there's high exposure. Um, and on typical use, it's it's not something that's going to be play out for um, most users. I mean, high high exposure meaning like 247 consistently exposed to um, like crumb rubber, which is t, you know, groundup tires. Um, so what but we feel that and I will tell you if you look at um some of the um field rehabs that are going on right now, Brockville is sort of a new um environmentally friendly uh fill that places are using.
And for those 11 teachers, the feedback from those teachers is we were resistant at first, but like once we got into this, this is actually not only helping our academic work, it's actually helped behaviors in our classrooms too. and like we want more of this and our friends who we've been having conversations with want some of this too. So that's the reason you heard the team talk about well we may want to double the number of seats we have available next year for this because it's something that has been identified both by the curriculum team as this seems to be working and by the teachers themselves as this this is actually working for us right and sometimes you have to get over a hump of resistance disbelief whatever right in order to like let's come on let's try this and see if it works but that like I said that input doesn't exist in a vacuum because there's those 11 teachers, right?
Um we're actually going to go see a school at Park at Park. We're going to see Park School in Brooklyn um who's had that for three years and Lexington now is their fields are moving forward with Brockville. So, Don, this Brockville um change was made after the meeting and the vote. Okay. So, then when the next vote happens, will there be another presentation that talks about the changes that were made? So, the select board won't revote, right? um the advisory but advisory well and then they'll be vote based on they'll know based on this because at that point on that Saturday we did not have the bid and so we were waiting for the bid to come and obviously to see um we went we went for with what we really wanted to do and then you sort of have you know you do that and then you see what you have to sort of um compromise on but it'll go to town meeting with a negative vote from select board right yeah but it will also have the advisory vote yes on there.
So now we have 11 teachers who are more effective in their instruction and in being more effective in their instruction, they are going to be driving the outputs that we want to see as a district in order to get to the outcomes we want to achieve as a district. So what's the most important thing we need to do with those 11 individuals besides continue to provide those supports? Well, in my mind, it's keep them, right? So, so that's a way to draw a thread with compensation. Why would you invest this money in the additional coaching supports and the additional PD only to have these 11 people become highly skilled, therefore equals highly valuable and then have those individuals leave the district. And if the goal is to adjust all of the inputs to be aligned to create the outputs and the outcomes that you want, theoretically you're going to be bringing these types of resources to bear on everyone within the system.
Yes. And that's their opinion, right? It's really the town meeting where the the town's people decide whether or not it's going to go on the ballot, right? And it's probably education worth doing if I mean, I don't know anything about it, but especially on the regional committee, I'm sure people want it in. We should probably get parents to act to go to town meeting if they care. And we're we're going to start not directly through us because we really can't do it as a school, but um we have a meeting early next week with boosters, all the youth programs. they know what's going on. So, they will be our our support for um moving forward. Um Sherurn Capital, just so you know, voted 300 in support. Um and in Dover, do capital voted 50 in support. The warrant committee is in support. Select boards in support.
So everyone within the system becomes more valuable. Everyone within the system is someone that you want to hold on to. But you really can't do that when people have to make choices based on things like compensation, benefits, and working conditions, right? So to me, that's a little bit more of a direct connect than saying, "Well, come on. It's obvious. Like, if we don't pay people well, we're not going to have good people, right?" Like that's just very high level. Um, but as we kind of got into the conversation yesterday afternoon, I was like, "Wow, this is a literal straight line throughput. If you're if you know if if A plus B equals C, you don't want to lose A or B because then you don't get C, right? Like it's simple. Oh, that's hopefully that's an algebraic equation. I haven't just embarrassed myself." So, haven't really done much math instruction in a lot of years.
Don't have their exact votes, but um they're moving forward. Uh what you always have to be careful about is that's their opinion. again um you know in the general dober population are there concerns? That's why we've always got to be ready and prepared because you don't know um you know what may show up on the floor at Dobertown meeting as well. So um we plan on having our consultant um who the region saw presents uh Mark Novak will do the presentation for us at both town meetings. So will he be talking about this brothel at the meeting? Yes. Yeah, he won't. Great. He mentioned it at the meeting, but at that point, we are still moving forward with the crown rubber. So, Don, what happens if one town passes it and the other doesn't? You're just stuck for another year or so. Half of it toll every time the other town wants to.
But um and I was an English teacher. But uh that's that's kind of I don't know if that helps, but that's kind of part of where my thinking is based on what I heard, other conversations I've had, what I know about student outcomes, focused governance, and what I know about the function, purpose, the policy behind what we do with meet confer. So it feels like an extra ask and an extra layer, but it's really just bringing context to the recommendations, right? And I think that was always true and we always were prepared to align them. I just appreciate that perspective because you do see kind of all all sides of it and that will help us in our recommendations and being able to like yeah make that thread clearly. Yeah. And I and I wants to speak to Yeah. If I could just throw one more thing out there, you know, happy to field other questions, but I think part of of part of what you're seeing too is we, you know, as human beings, we have we have kind of two components.
I think the key thing is that um if it's I don't I don't know what a difference a year is going to make if Sherbet rolls it down. If that's if that's really their reasoning. Um and the other issue if it's financial we've got at the region we've got big capital numbers the next couple of years so there is no way to keep pushing it off for the financial reason. That's why we are very we were ecstatic at the bid opening um to sort of see the numbers come in because we felt like this is really good. I mean this is an unbelievable price. I don't want to miss out on this opportunity because this may not come along again. I mean, you saw that the bid prices range from the million5 all the way up to a million948. Um, the million948's in line with what we thought the cost assessment was going to be, although that had a pretty large contingency in it.
Dr. Pombo um recommended this book called Switch to Me and and it talks about the elephant and the writer. I'm going to go a little bit philosophical. I won't stay there long, I promise. Right? But the but the concept is that like our logic brain is the rider and it's small and relatively weak but it tries to guide the elephant and the elephant's our emotional being right and that elephant is big and powerful. And if you know anything about willpower, willpower is like a muscle. The more you practice willpower, the stronger it gets. But the more you use it, the tireer it gets, right? And so that writer gets tired and then emotion takes control over logic, right? And so one of the things I think that's really kind of smacking that elephant on the posterior right now are the things that are happening at the federal level.
Um, but I think this is a um a a great investment for us, huge enhancements to the existing facilities over what we have. Um and so we are going to do everything we can to uh gain the support um so that we get the meeting the approval not only at town meeting um but in Sherburn right now it's slated to be borrowed and when anything's borrowed it then has to go to the ballot um because it's the two and a half tax exempt um and so we've got two hurdles um to cover do I don't believe is borrowing so once they pass it at um do town meeting on May 5th that gober is done. Um, Sherber may take us until May 13th, I believe it is. So, our consultant will be at both town meetings. I believe the boosters are going to be vocal at both town meetings and our student athletes are going to be vocal at town meetings.
So there's a lot of stress and strain, I'm sure, on all of you. I know it wakes me up at night. Um, and and it's certainly affecting our board as well. So they have a lot of fear and concern around what our budget's going to look like for next year and all of those things. So so that all kind of is in the pot, right? Like the cauldron of the stew of what's happening along with, you know, they're they're wanting to keep on this SOFG pathway because they're starting to see some results from it and they want to continue to see those results. So I think Daniel was first and then come back to Dorothy or is Dorothy first? I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to ignore you. Yeah, I think I I inadvertently through my public comment at the last board meeting um I don't know poked the elephant with something and it started caving into itself or something.
So, if you can get your neighbors and friends there, they'll hear all the information from the consultant and those folks. I think you got to go after the young families who don't know like I read this and I was like I mean my kids will be here eventually but like it doesn't impact us but if it does right but that's my point like if they don't know they're not going to go to meeting I'm definitely not going to vote for it. That's where the youth sports being involved though um because they are like you know field hockey uses here with what will happen it's going to be a so basically the select board in Sherburn um and you could watch the tape wants us to do natural grass natural grass we're going backwards in our accessibility for um multiple things. It's not only our our high school athletics it is the community and the youth sports as well.
I don't know because that's the sense that I got from the previous board me board meeting when we were talking about the carry forward and we already knew we were we were recommending a pretty conservative percentage and then there were clear like oh my gosh the sky is falling we can't even we need more more more savings and I was trying to express that but I made the mistake of using the word fear and it like clearly triggered most of the members of the board so I apologize if I did any harm by using the word fear, but that I that is what my sense was from the previous board meeting was leading with fear and they took offense at that. So, I feel bad about that. But my my real point is that we can't just stay in fear. We have to get back in our logical brain and realize that if we don't have any employees because we aren't even showing a willingness to try to be equitable with our pay, then we're not going to have anybody to provide PD to and all these other things.