Otherwise we don't we don't really give input into um how they teach what they teach. I mean, they give us a course curriculum for the high school that we always look at and approve, but um you know, we just have checklists that we make sure that we have. The the one interesting um the relations with non-public schools. That one kind of confounded me um for a bit because I'm like, what what we're a public school? I don't know why we're talking about a private school. But anyway, there are these things out there that are that are enjoined and we just, you know, that was it.
Like if you attend new teacher cadre for the year, then the reward is that you're professionally developed and you get moved up a level. If you don't finish the cadre, then you don't move up a level. No harm, no foul. If I remember correctly, the issue was about the timing of the PD. Is this right? And that it was It just sounds like Can we just I think that sounds like two different options. One is saying people will get a raise if they return. One is saying people will like they're two different things, right? So I feel like we should just add another option for Katie's idea and then we can talk about it later because we're just revising language right now for clarity. addresses the interest. Can I just add what's more important? Them finishing that new teacher cadre or them coming back? Oh, sorry.
So, do you all have any questions about what you read? Um, or any questions about how it was written? There's a lot of strikethroughs, but it's all covered if not in one section. Some of these were covered like five times, and it really did not need to happen.
Um, I think we have to look at what's more important, them finishing that teacher cadre or them coming back. And I only say this because is it cost money to do new teacher introduction that a week before normal teachers come back. That's cost money. And so we're constantly having to rehire new people and do the same trainings over again. And we're never reaching getting, you know, our teachers to that four, six, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine year mark because they're quitting after the first and second year is actually costing us more money in the long run. So I think we have to like what's more important? Getting teachers to stay in the district over time. And yeah, they might not finish new teacher cadre, but they're still coming back year after year. And we're providing professional development. We're providing quality training to the point where, yeah, you didn't finish this, but we're going to keep training you and working with you and getting you to a point where you're a veteran teacher and you're able to do more in the classroom.
Is there any questions so far? I'm just surprised by how much overlap there was. There was a lot of overlap. Um, and it was interesting too because some of the grammatical stuff too, I think we stopped Alicia because we're like, "Oh, don't forget we're three committees." And she would write like, "No, we don't want it written that way. We want it to reflect this on the committees." And, you know, she said that we're not unusual because there are a couple other originals. But, um, but there is a lot of overlap and there's a lot of things that were just specific to us where we got very much down into the nitty-gritty of how we want things done. And it was really more of a a policy handbook thing that we needed instead of this broad-based to try to because it didn't even apply to all three schools.
I'm sorry. Maybe we should start a Sorry, it's up there. It's up there. Oh, it's up there. Look at that. Um, in response, I would just like to say that coming from an instructional coach perspective, I think we want to keep people that we're training. The new teacher cadre is an extension of new teacher orientation. As somebody who facilitated new teacher orientation as well as the mentor program and the new teacher cadre, it's all stuff that's spiraled and cyclical and it's all about behavior management cycle, building routines and procedures, accessing the curriculum and engaging students. It's all based on new teacher need. It's one hour. One hour a month. Real quick, I'm going to jump in before Rebecca's. Um, Diane wants me to read the framing statement, which was the kind of heart of our longevity issue. And it says, "How do we improve current longevity to improve staff retention to impact student achievement?" Which I think was Katie's point earlier to kind of weave in the SOFG.
So we're so then we were having to write paragraphs. Paragraphs are written about this goes for this school, this goes and I was like this is a lot. What I mean we just need the broad-based we have to make sure we follow the law and then we we state what it is. But then we wanted to leave it up to each each building and up to our administration to say this is how we function because I don't want to get in there and tell them how they're going to teach their math curriculum. That's really not my forte ever. Just that they have to have the state mandate and make sure that we uphold it.
And I will say the rub or the concern about uh PD was related to the late nights, I believe. I think that's kind of how they all got intertwined and also new staff being exempt from committees. And is this a committee or is it not? I'll say this is PD that we're paying people for essentially because we're pushing them up on the salary schedule, which I don't know why we're against paying people for PD. That seems like a good idea. Rebecca, um I agree. I agree with what um Eve and Ariel said. um coming from a school where I was a new teacher for five years. I worked with a mentor teacher as well as a coach and a principal either my AP or my principal. Um but there was no like new teacher like I had new teacher at the beginning of like my very first year threw me in and then after that during a prep so that was like my PD or our district PDS I had five years of district PD of new teacher implementation and then a weekly check-in with whoever I needed to check in.
So are there any questions otherwise? Thank all those. Um, and I've got some more finance for you. So, clean up then. Are we going to do that or how are we going to do that? Yes, we'll do that after. Yeah. Okay. So, we can take a vote then on uh uh approving policies FH and L on this second read. I'll do the same order. Can I have the region? Okay. Sure. Could I have a vote by the region to approve policies FH and L? The second read. Thank you. May I have a second? Colleen Barts. Thank you, Colleen. Um, any further discussion? Rachel. All in favor? Yes. Thank you. All right. Motion carries. Thank you. Uh, same for Sher. Can I please have a motion to approve policies FHL on the second read from the Sherborn School Committee? Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Mega. Could I have a second?
So, I mean, if we're talking about taking I mean, to my knowledge, we're kind of taking like talking about taking this like PD out. Correct. No, no. About whether to pay them regardless of whether they do it or pay them extra only if they do it. Yeah. Um I mean, I agree with I mean, personally, I think if you're going to put the time in to do it, I think you should get paid for it. Yeah. Um Yeah. I was just going to say that um in regards to the comments about the new teacher cadre um there I guess my like my issue is that new teach the curriculum that is taught in the new teacher cadre is curriculum that used to be taught in the new teacher affinity groups that teachers did for the first two years in the school district. Um it's not perfectly the same but that is like sort of seemingly where a lot of that like comes from.
Second. Thank you, Nathaniel. Um, any discussion? All in favor? Motion passes. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. And on the do side, can I have a motion to approve policies FH and L as uh as described here? Thank you, Goalie. Do I have second? Second. Thank you, Kate. All in favor? All right. Is everybody? Thank you very much. Next, we have a vote to approve the transportation contract for 26 through 28. Yes. In your packet, um, you had a summary of the bidding activity. So, we did have six vendors request our bid specifications. Um, we had bid opening day with just one v vendor presenting a bid and that was Michael J. Connley, our existing um service provider, which I will say we were slightly relieved um at that. It would be an undertaking to switch transportation companies, especially one that serves us so well.
And so earlier I Katie you referred to the fact that there was issues with getting people to show up. Um, I mean, I'll just, this is a little overly transparent because I don't like talking about, you know, private conversations or whatever, but, you know, among the site stewards, I think it's probably like less than five people who really reached out and had like a huge like issue with who had a contractual issue with going to new cadre who were aware of their rights and reached out to their site steward and said, "Hey, um, I think I'm not supposed to be doing this." Um, and those five people were told like, "Hey, yeah, our contract says you shouldn't be doing a committee like your first year, right?" So that would imply that if this is a committee like because we also had new teacher committees again with our creative naming convention like Dorothy mentioned earlier.
Um the um uh so we bid a a five-year so it's a five-year contract that we put out. you will tonight approve a three-year contract with the opportunity um in year three to extend for the year four and five. We're only allowed to enter into three-year contracts. Uh it came in basically where we thought when we budgeted just because of the past experience that we've had. So the first year increase is at 15 a.5%. Year two is 5.32 and year three is 5.45. Over the five-year contract though, it is 30 30% which is up slightly over the last five-year. Um, and just to add some perspective on to that, the new buses are about 50% more than the last contract. And as you know, the labor market's continuing to increase and the the need to retain drivers means that there's constantly an increase in our driver um hourly rate.
Um I think those five people missed like one session and then people pulled together and the lawyer was reached out to and the lawyer said actually this is professional development that is part of your job requirements. Everyone has to do it. Um and all five of those teachers go and do it now. Um, and if people aren't showing up to new teacher cadre is because at least from my opinion, um, the feedback that we've received about the new teacher cadre, uh, BD is that it is pretty universally negative. Um, and like if people aren't showing up, that's like an individual discipline issue. That's like a management issue. I think it feels very weird to tie like again if you have a teacher who comes in like two months into the school year and they miss new teacher orientation and new teach a couple new teacher cadre sessions.
Um just to give you some perspective, the fiscal year 25 daily uh bus rate right now is 405. We're going up to 468 for fiscal year 26. So in line with previous years, we sort of see a little bit of a larger increase in that first year. And then um this this this five-year contract, we actually have a little bit more substantial in here, two, three, four, and five. But that's just the nature of um sort of the market right now. um you each will um approve your own separate contract and once I finalize a few more things each chair will sign the contract on behalf of uh their committee. So um the breakout you have by district is dovers, sherburns and regions. Again this is just the base for the to and from transportation for the 181 days. There are some ancillary services that are provided that I sort of highlighted um below really the special trip cost which um is something that we can negotiate and which I have continue to negotiate because I felt like those price increases were a little bit higher than I would have expected.
Would you say, "Oh, well, you don't get your year of experience." Like that's kind of a weird thing. Like I that's why I suggested just splitting it into two different options. I feel like that then we could debate them. Oh yeah, my name's already up there. Um not about the option maybe district whoever is in charge of teacher professional development since this current model of you know new teacher orientation new teacher cadre is not working out like how we're making changes to the way we're doing coaching with the SEI maybe we can district if they want to can look at creating a new model of how they want to roll out this new teacher induction program if the current model isn't working. I don't feel like it's the job I I just want us to stay with what we're we're to stay with to I don't feel like it's the job of this cadre to punish people for not doing something that's obviously not working for them.
Um and as of yesterday I did get another proposal. So I will um let you guys know it's the mainly the impact is at the high school for the athletic buses. Um and so we won't see as large of an increase as what I documented here. Um the other increase just to highlight is the fuel adjustment clause. So as we know we're finally we're seeing an uptick in what diesel fuel is looking. Our old contract had a base price of $3 and the new contract is a base price of $3.86. So that's another little bit of increase. We technically have been paying that because we have the fuel adjustment clause. So it's already in sort of your numbers. Um but now it's built into the base of the contract.
Okay. So, the the wording um that they worded is okay for that option, but we're adding another option under that one. Okay, Maria. So, we're going to keep it the same. Yes. Just adding what is it called? first first educator and successful completion of new teacher inction. Okay. So after first year of employment staff who return now we have certified teachers. Oh and successful completion. What? Yeah. Tell me the title. So that now include that multiple Would that now include like teachers that have like multiple years too coming into first year of employment? Okay. [Music] I feel like this is going to get really muddied by adding another option. Is this something that you feel so strongly that we need to add at this time to move to even consider that option? because so now we would be after the second year was also I think also partly just for my clarification I thought part of the intent of this particular option was also to address compression when we have a an individual who's starting as a brand new teacher I'm here this year and then next year I'm at A and I have another teacher coming in behind me that's also at A.
Um are there any questions on this? I just wanted to know if there's been any updates on electric school bus um that being electric buses being an option. Yeah, they're still um in high you can't get them. Um, and I think the districts that are eligible for the grants are the ones that are like Boston, right, are getting them because they're getting actually those funded. I will tell you from the individual providers um like Connley when we speak with them, there are are still a lot of kinks to be figured out with the electric buses and one of the biggest drawbacks we or the stumbling blocks we have is the infrastructure, the charging stations. Um, so if you remember, we were part of a Metro West group that was looking at if there was any way we could do shared cross infrastructure and there there's really not.
So I think that to me that that seems like what that conversation was in last meeting. That's where Yeah, that's where it came from. Well, Katie Reed, can you tell us again the whole option so we can hear it? She's writing it. I just want to see how the two relate. I mean, if nobody else agrees with adding it, I I'm fine with not adding it. I think that I Okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean, can you can you read us what you wanted the wording to be? Hold on. I want to make sure everyone's listening. After one year of employment and successful completion of the new teacher cadre, certified teachers return s who return are moved from level A to level B on the salary schedule. But we just it is two years. So then it would have to be two years after two years.