All of that. And if people want to give money, where's the best way to use that money and what's the thing that's going to have the least impact on students? Every cut we make is impacting our students. But as a superintendent understands the budget and understands curriculum, those are important conversations. Aaron and I, Patty and Arnold, every day, every day about 10 12 times we're meeting just to talk about this budget, see where we're going. Any little move we make, how's that going to affect and how's that going to affect our students? That's my job. So I I understand the budget, but there's a bigger piece of it. You got to understand the whole dynamics of being a superintendent, understanding the all the facets of that as well, too. When you have to add some additional grind funding, which we always hope that will happen, but when that money comes in, where are we going to best use that money?
the Ford four uh four Ford Econoline vans that I purchased in 2012 um for student transportation. We can no longer those would never pass like school bus inspection and they're sitting down at the parking lot behind the stadium. Uh two Ford E350 vans from 2008 that are not operational. Um and outdated ELA and math curriculum materials. So things that don't align with the standards that have been sitting around in closets and people walking around them and saying when are we ever going to get rid of these? Um so those are the things that I'd respectfully request your consideration on and um like I said we will first offer them up to other folks the town departments. When that doesn't work, we will uh we will attempt to auction them off and see if we can see if we can get any money for the town for any of them.
Um, we did talk about the other day the op the possibility that if a teacher needed maybe like $650, um, then we could decide as a a club, um, if we wanted to go ahead and fund that extra $150 or whatever, um, but we would only ask for the $250 from the board. Um, did I cover everything? Yeah. Okay. So, um, just kind of kind of feeling out to see if that was something that you guys would be interested in doing. Um, we did also make the stipulation that on our like application thing does say too that anything bought with those funds would still be property of USD112. Yeah. So, and do you have like kind of restrictions on what they can buy? I mean, it's not just for go buy candy for Oh, absolutely. No, it would it would have to and that's why there's the application to I mean it would be something that we would approve because they have to tell us like how much it would cost who it would benefit like a mini grant application how many it would benefit um and then they'd have to turn in receipts for what they purchased.
We have to make cuts, we are going to make those cuts as well. So I I have experienced that. Um and I've also had the experience, as you can know, the hiring people, right? So, we're sitting in an interview hiring director of finances. You got to know what questions to ask. You better know the correct answers as well, too. Sometimes you can sort of fake things, right? Right. I sit in a calculus BC class. I pray for the teacher to come back in as I'm coming from the bathroom because a kid askked me a question. Calculus BC way out of my lane, right? And I'm okay. I own that. But I better know the finances because that's the foundation of our school district. We need to make sure of that. That's the foundation. Everything else is based on that. I have to be able to be sure I have the things that teachers need so they can have it in their classrooms to provide for our kids.
Thank you for that. Um any questions, discussions on that? No. All right. Um, madame chair, make a motion that we uh dis declare surplus the equipment as listed in the memo from our assistant superintendent of finance and operation dated April 14th, 2025. Second. Um, motion by Mr. Non, second by Miss Emerald. Um, all in favor? I I I um just to segue, you said that maybe we should have our own rules about surplus. The I'm sorry. Yeah. Um the um the town's policy complies with the law. Um so for items valued less than $10,000 uh there the town can can rem remove and dispose of this these type of materials um in as long in any way as long as they have a written policy to do so. If it's more than 10,000, which I assure you none of this I wish it was. I wish these were worth more than 10,000, but none none of these things probably all of these things together I'm almost 100% sure are not going to be $10,000.
So, the one thought I had um as a school board member was like, "Oh gosh, are we opening a can of worms?" Um, but I do know there's the PTO and I know there's um an organization at Wilson, too. So, I mean, I feel like if they had similar things that they wanted to ask the board, you know, if we set a limit at like two per building, that still wouldn't be, you know, funds. Yeah, but it would be up to the PTO and the Wilson group to come to us and ask for the same thing. I think there's a little bit of similarity. Mrs. Oer might be able to speak to this with the Sorry to put you on the spot. With the Sony Hills Community Foundation, the USD12 funds, there have been times in the past where the teachers requested more than what was available and the district helped pay for that.
And also, how's that equitable across auditions from both Boston, Berlin, and how's it? Thank you. Uh Lori, last but not least, please would you ask number eight? Okay, so my question is long. This doesn't require a long answer. Be a little rest. Um you're gonna It may be familiar. We are currently in the middle of a big shift. Our current interim superintendent has had to do much more than just his superintendent duties. He is trying to make sense of last year's budget and finding things like job descriptions and professional practices that need updating or creating as some don't exist. Typically works well beyond 7 p.m. on weekdays, attends town meetings in both Burland and Boilston that often run until 9 or 10, and he often spends weekends in central office. Do you feel that you are equipped to continue his work? Would you be able to dedicate as much time to turning our district around so we could attract a full-time superintendent next year?
Um so, um if it's more than 10,000, you have to follow Massachusetts law uh chapter 30b for disposal of property. It's like you got to seek bids and do all that. Now, we can we can still follow that law, which is what we're going to do for the majority of this stuff. Like, I probably I I think I'm even going to list the plexiglass on an auction and see if maybe there's somebody out there who wants two two or three trailers full of plexiglass. Um, we've done it. We've used it for lots of things, projects in the schools and things like that, but there's, you know, you can only use so much of that stuff. So, so, um, we'll attempt to auction it off. We don't really have to by the law. We could just dispose of it, but it might it might produce a little bit of money for the town.
So there's a little bit of a precedent set that I think this just continues that and I think it's great to get the the stuff into the classrooms that kids need and the teachers need. I just think too, you know, when I was in the classroom and I wanted to do something, it was nice to know that I could apply. Not that I would be awarded it, but I could always apply, you know, if there was something that I wanted to do with my my kids. So, and I think we're probably talking more like equipment or, you know, tangible things in the classroom. We're not talking about $500 worth of teachers pay teachers things. So, nor curriculum. I mean, the district will pay for curriculum. We're talking about like microscopes or um you know, if there's a STEM thing or if there's a robot or something that we they want or equipment in the PE closet.
I looked in the mirror as a kid like looking looking pretty old that lately. Um but so my goal as an interim is to get this district in a place where the superintendent can come in and work smarter. That's that's my job to start every morning. Finally, we have a flag outside of the central office of the police station. Every morning I go up there and I put that flag up. Right. We finally have a flag out there. It's like which we should. And every day at the end of the day, which I'll leave after I come here, I'll go back and forget. I am not a a senator. I am not a Conor office superintendent. I am not. And if that's what you're looking for, I'm not your guy, right? There are some of my colleagues that are Conor office superintendent. What that means, they go in their office.
So, um, there's like a website that you can use and yeah, people can go on. If anyone's interested, it's govdals.com and we'll be listing everything and and then, uh, see what happens. Um, so would it be less hassle if we had our own rule and we didn't bother the town or is it less hassle just to do it all with the town? It's fine. It's fine. And I mean I I love the idea of being able like for instance we have had and it's been a long time but like we we um disposed of a van many years ago to the police department um who needed a van just to run I think it was to run um cadetses to the academy back and forth and we had a spare van. It wasn't going to be it wasn't going to pass inspection for as a school bus, but it could pass street inspection.
Um, I think that's like a a good thing for us to know where like, okay, yes, we need to set aside that money for for those teachers. So, so, do we need to make a motion for that? Yeah. Just that way we would know if we awarded something that that it would be matched. Yeah. Um, so I would move to approve funds up to $500 to match the um, Central Plains Rough Neck Reinforcers grants for teachers. So $500 from the minister to That's what you were asking for. Okay. I was thinking 250 250 times two cuz she was talking about doing two grants and we would match 250 times two. So 500 total. Got you. Okay, there's a motion by Allison and a second by Josh. Does anybody have any further questions, comments, [Music] concerns?
Office is always in the corner when you're superintendent for some reason. And they get their work done and and good for them. But that's not the work that I I like doing. Does that work need to get done? Yes. Do I need to get those things in place? But I I love being in schools. I stop my morning in schools. I apologize to Nicole over and over again. She tries to manage me the best she can by staying in the central office. I call her. True story. Yesterday afternoon, she picks up the phone. There's about 10 kids behind me like yelling. I change your schedule. We want the superintendent to be at this event at 10:00 this morning, which I got to but to rearrange everything out there because that's where I need to be, right? I need to be in schools. I need to be at the events.
And we went through the process. You know, we you declared it surplus. The committee declared a surplus and we gave it to the police department. So, I mean, it's fine in the spirit of collaboration. I have no problem using that and asking the departments. It's just that I have a bunch of junk here that nobody's going to want. So, that's Well, thank you for that. Um, next up, I turn this over to Dr. Saba Maguire on the 2025 summer sports camps. I'm actually going to hand that right back to Mr. Kylie since I know he drafted his the um the notice in your for your packet. Thank you. So, um we you had in your packet um a memorandum and a analysis of the um last year's summer sports camp. Pretty successful camp. So, we're seeking your approval to once again operate um the summer sports camp for students entering grades 2 through nine.
Okay, hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Same sign. Motion passes 70. Thank you. Um item number 15, our KASB membership renewal. So the costs are going to increase a little bit, a little over $300 for that renewal for this year. Um we also participated in the legal assistance with KSB with no increases this year. So the total um amount would be $11,929 in consent for renewal for our KASB membership for next year. I think this is something that's been very um very useful, very beneficial, and especially now that we don't kind of have our in-house lawyer that's here for all of our meetings and everything.
I need to be there. So that's where I should be doing. That's how I really see the work that should be getting done each and every day, right? So I'm trying to get that those things that required for me, but I got to get this district in place. All this work still needs to be done. All of this. And that's my goal for next year is to get it in place so our next superintendent comes on board can work smarter on harder. We have professional learning done, right? We're ready for our calendar for next year. What we're working on this book, UDL now, and I give Sally and the team credit. The author is Katie Novak. Not guess who our guest speaker is for the beginning of next year. Katie Novak. We're going to have high quality professional learning for next year. We got the author of this book coming to our district to to talk to our teachers about universal design for learning.
The camp will run from June 16th through July 25th. It's 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. We are planning to offer baseball, softball, field hockey, flag football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, track and field, and physical education games. So, a pretty wide wide variety. Uh we are proposing that there be no increase in in fee. Um so last year and and again this year, it will be uh $80 for the fiveday weeks and $65 for the two four day weeks. the June the Junth week and the July 4th week um or four day weeks. So, uh the nine offerings that we had last year, we had 366 campers attend um and last year we earned a profit of $6,38.86 and that was after buying a quite a quite a lot of popsicles for the kids. So, um we again didn't raise the price and we propose that any profit earned will uh will support the um fizzed and athletic programs in the district.
Anybody have any questions or concerns? I move to renew the KASB membership along with the legal assistance fund for the 2025 2026 school year. It's a motion by Allison and a second by Josh. All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion passes 70. The SEL curriculum. Okay. So, our counselors have been piloting a new social emotional learning curriculum. This year they have settled on the character strong curriculum. I have a little bit of experience with this and have taught it before. This is for grades prek through K uh sorry, preK through six in Wilson Elementary School and Central Plains Elementary School. The first year cost for the curriculum is a little over $9,000, $9,62.20. Uh they're going to give us the rest of this year free for our counselors to continue with that social emotional learning curriculum. uh whenever we renew in 2026, the cost will be a little under $5,000, $4,996.
Incredible. And that's it. All this work still needs to be done looking at projections and our enrollment. That's my job still as a superintendent. All the things about being in schools, I love it. That's the best part of my job. I'd be lying to it. I enjoy it. I love scooping ice cream with the kids. I love going up to the different events. I love going to the basketball games. I love writing notes afterwards and saying, "Congratulations. Great job. Let have a little breakfast for the teams as well, too. All of that is important. Really is important. But all this still needs to be done. All of this right here. This is our MCAST scores for just for Berlin W for the last five years. This is the stuff I'm looking at when I go back in the weekends and look at how we can improve these schools, how we compared to other districts.
Thank you for that. Do we have any questions? Yes, Mr. I don't have a question. um adjust my every year. Uh I I noticed that the camps run from June 16th through July 25th and uh I'm grateful for the effort made over the years, but it still needs to be said that I just want to make sure that there are, you know, that those offerings do happen in June to allow for those students who um require um extended year services so that they can um participate. I know when my kiddo was little, it would have been important those off weeks that a basketball camp was there. So, not that other sports aren't fun, but like having some some of those higher attended perhaps a little earlier in June. It would be my suggestion to make sure that those students um with special education needs and and learning needs during the summer can participate.