It's about investing in a community where every child has the opportunity to thrive. And here's the most remarkable part. We can achieve this without placing an additional burden on our taxpayers. Upcoming debt repayments in 2026 and 2031 create a unique window of opportunity, allowing us to make a tax neutral investment in our community's future. We've seen the transformative power of our preschool program, and we know our children deserve the best. We have a sight, a need, and a path to success. We urge you to join us in writing the next chapter of our district story. a story of hope, opportunity, and unwavering commitment to our youngest learners. Let's create a legacy they will carry with them for generations. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Brown. We will now hear from Jason Tanzel, Bacon, Baker Tilly Municipal Adviserss LLC, our municipal adviser, about how the proposed project will be financed, as well as information about the effect on the typical property taxpayer.
Good. Um so we we deserve to celebrate and I think just bring out the community. My specific ask of um the board is help um publicize um like the Facebook page, town manager newsletter, any other suggestions? Um it asks you to attend and have fun. Um I did email the chiefs of of both departments assuming they're sort of publicly minded want to participate. And um I'm I'm sure you'd want to know about it, but it's a public sidewalk, so I don't think there's really any particular issues otherwise except you'd obviously want to know about it and hopefully participate. Great. Yeah. Uh just real quick, so Kate and I did chat about this. I think it's a wonderful idea. Um again, keep informing people. Uh I would say touch base with Beth Reynolds, our economic development director, so she can get it out into the public via the different communications with the town.
Thank you for your time. And here's some pictures from our competition. I have a quick question. Um, at the very beginning of your presentation, you mentioned where you get your framework for what you're going to do. What again was that entity? You mean like the company is Teach Democracy? The Teach Democracy Foundation. Okay. That's what I wanted to know. Thank you. And this is put on through the BU County Office of Education. So I work with Marie Ellen there and she provides us with the case packets that are created through Teach Democracy. And so every school in California that competes, we all have the same case and the cases are ambiguous um to a point. So you can argue for a guilty or not guilty verdict. Um, it's up to the students to have to create the case that they want. Thank you. I'm very proud of you guys.
So, thank you for giving us a full day of professional development. We really appreciate it. Uh, at this time, we're uh actively planning our 2526 school year. Um, so that's what we're very busy doing here um at the board of education. So, thank you very much. That is my report. Thank you, Mrs. Calib.
Unfortunately, Philip was working so hard on his film that he lost his voice. And so, uh so Carolyn is here. She's kind of flying solo. So, I know I know Philip's going to line up guests for you and so you can interview them. Um, so that's going to be fun. And um and and gosh, I'm just so excited to be here at the 26th annual film festival. And I was just going to ask what year it was 26. Well, Mr. Milky, how was it? How's the difference from the first time you had the fil first film festival until now? Wow. Um, well, I'm hoping to have three times as many people as we had as at the first one. Although the first one was a lot of fun. uh we were taking a lot of projects that we worked on in in class um and turning them into a film festival and there were some some even very creative uh ideas back then.
Um I want to highlight our third grade team here. I feel like they're a shining example um in my opinion of how well Liz and Jinder have worked together to support our teachers. Um, as you know, third grade is a very high stakes testing grade and I was, no offense, a little nervous that we had two brand new teachers in third grade this year. Um, but I am happy to report that that team has some of the highest percentages in the district in regard to the number of students who meet their NEOA goals. So, that deserves to be celebrated. Uh, Miss Gray and Miss Leaden are amazing in their own right, but I also feel like the support that they received from Liz on how to, you know, really interpret the data and then bringing Ginger in to model that instruction and put it into practice um, is what has allowed them to take off the way that they have.
Hearing none, we'll take it to a vote. Mr. Pesca, I. Mr. Music, I. Mr. Tinerio, I. And I vote I. Mr. President, that is all the business that I have to come before the board this evening. Thank you, Mr. or Dr. Kryp. Um, Mr. Plesk, you have any departing comments? I just like to thank everybody who made donations. Thank you all who are watching online. Want to thank you for what you've done for the band. And that's a great idea and thank you for doing that work to get that here. That is all I got. Mr. Music. Um so first thing I want to I want to mention is I did I do want to express my condolences to the Vanderland family. Um unfortunately I wasn't able to make it um to the services as I was handling some services at my own job. But uh very sorry for the loss.
What a like he'll play I'll go out behind him. I'll grab his head and I'll start moving it like left and right and he'll start hitting all his shots. Oh wow. That's insane. It's weird but it's funny. Mhm. Okay. I think No. No. I thought Jaden was going to stand up and give a motivational speech. Oh me too. Honestly, I haven't heard many motivational speeches in the esports room, you know. Yeah, they aren't starting so far. They're waiting so long that I had to come in here and say, " can we get like a We're not Oh, wait. We're not. You're wait. I had to come on here to Occupy Time to say hello. I'm going to say this is the captain. Uh, do you want to do like a pregame interview? Uh, sure. Sure, I guess. Cuz yeah, we we need something for for time, I guess.
Yeah, it's determined by statute what has to be. Do we have any comments or questions on that? Had a chance to look over all that. We don't we'll close that close that hearing. Thank you. This last time well technical. You read them anyway. So I'll read it. Listen carefully. Yeah, listen carefully. You have questions. I will not guarantee the pronunciation of these names. We have our HR report. Resignation. Lauren Deck, par professional at Northfield High School effective 327. Silva as a teacher at South High School. Uh that's beginning I guess end of 20.5 right the end of this school year end of this under employment. Uh Amy Pal professional and subbus driver for North High School effective 47. Deborah Shinkle long-term sub at Sharp Creek Elementary effective 47 until the end of the school year. Tom Gary, volunteer junior high track coach, effective immediately. John Higgins, volunteer assistant baseball coach for Northville High School, effective immediately.
Jason, welcome. Thank you very much and thank you for having me at tonight's meeting. My name is Jason Tansel with Baker Tilly and we represent the school corporation as your municipal adviser. Now that we've had an opportunity to hear about the needs of the project, we will review how the school corporation could pay for this project through the issuance of a property taxup supported bond in an amount not to exceed $28 million. It's important to keep in mind tonight that we are establishing maximums and these are maximums that we cannot exceed but we can come down from. They include they will include items such as the borrowing amount, the repayment term, the maximum interest rate, and the maximum annual payment. We have a presentation here before you that will illustrate how this school's current debt service structure will allow uh the a potential to bring this bond on while replacing payments as they come to their maturity.
Cool. Thank you. Thank you, Kate. Connie Manel, resident of Ashlin for 47 years, Newcastle Road. Ashlin understands the need for more affordable housing. It supports the housing laws. My fear is that Ashland is being forced to do too much too fast. To meet the demands of the MBTA law, in good faith, Ashland has recently built two very large complexes, 574 units. A Memorial Drive here near the MBTA station, Ashland allowed an enormous complex of 398 units on Chestnut Street in front of the FAF Fafford condominiums. Another 174 fourstory units And yet this year, five more complexes are in the pipeline with 829 more units for a total of 1,43 new multi-ousing 40b units. We could we could have in excess of 3,000 new residents, a population increase of 17%. 1,43 new housing units will impact the town, schools, police, fire, traffic, even water. And according to the Massachusetts state uh auditor Diane Digglio, the MBTA law is an unfunded mandate, meaning that Ashlin could very well not receive or have received little state funding.
Good work. Thank you. [Applause] So, moving right on over to Pleasant Valley High School, uh, Mr. Steve Huff and Lauren Green to talk about art and computer science. Thank you guys for having us. Thanks to our school board members. We want to um give you a little insight into a project that Mr. Huff and I have kind of well, we're still developing it. Um I'd say we've just launched it within the last week or so and we kind of hoped we were a little further along to be able to present this to you guys, but things take time and we're figuring stuff out. So, um without any further ado, I'd like to let our students introduce themselves to you. Uh, I am Owen Wallsman and I'm going to be representing the graphic art design portion of this presentation for the students. Um, I am Xavier Mati and I'm going to be representing the AP computer science students.
Any questions uh for Mrs. Calib? Turn it over to committee reports. Any committee reports from the board? I'll turn it over for the high school report. Valentina, I see you have a beautiful Clemson hat on. Yes, actually. And I'm assuming that's where you're going. Yes. Congratulations. Congratulations. Everyone in my family got rejected by Clemson. Oh, congratulations. I had I had one of my daughters got rejected and well actually she's on the waiting list and the other one got in, but they they decided to go together to uh James Madison University. But congratulations. And it was beautiful. Everyone looks super happy. So I We'll be visiting you though. Oh, thank you. Yes, I'm expecting you. Now, what's what's going on at the high school? So, tomorrow we're having our pep rally. Yeah. I got postponed because of the weather, but tomorrow's supposed to be pretty nice, so we're very excited.
Um the production value wasn't what it is today. Um editing and special effects and a lot of things that we get to do now um just really wasn't there before. Um but we like I said we we had a lot of creative ideas and a lot of fun putting the film festival together even 26 years ago. Um, so I'm I'm just uh I'm just super excited that we've we kept we keep it going. We raise thousands and thousands of dollars for the Clifton Education Foundation. Um, none of that money goes back to CAST, you know, directly. Um, we've never actually asked for um any of that money, like even through a grant, but we love that the grants are going to other places, other needy places in the district. Really important that that money is going back into our schools. and um and we're just happy to be able to show off our films, right?
Um, really hoping that this level of support that we're able to provide now um, is going to keep all these new people that we hired so we're not going through that again. Um, I think it's going to go a long way too in elevating our core instruction. So, I wanted to highlight that program change. Uh, and then two other things I wanted to talk about, um, is shining light on two of our specialist teachers. Uh, if you haven't had a chance yet, I would love to see you guys come in and watch Miss Wahhab in action. Uh, she is our new STEM teacher. Everything is like all hands-on. I mean, when you have kindergarten and first graders doing engineering and all these models, I mean, it is just amazing to watch. So, you know, I would definitely love to see you guys come in and see all the work she's doing.
I mean that's a loss for our whole community. Um Jim was a a great guy. He was always so kind to me anytime I saw him, even though I feel like he barely knew me, even though he probably knew my family pretty well. Um, but he was he was a really great guy and uh so I just want to say I'm very sorry for their loss and for the community's loss. Um, in lighter in lighter news, obviously, as David mentioned, uh, you know, the River Forest uh, you know, bet we had on the basketball game, I would like to point out that our JV team did win though. So, if we would have, you know, bet on the JV team, we would have been good. But, you know, we there's always next year. Uh, you know, we'll keep uh we'll keep working. And the most important thing for me is that I'm always going to bet on our kids.
Yeah, I imagine it's very awkward in here just sitting here. We're just talking. I know. It's good. We were talking about how you guys were jamming out and then how we we had nothing to commentate. So Jordan commented on how Tristan took a drink of his water and I commentated on my favorite drink. So So yeah, that that's that's how like dry the commentary is in here. Sound riveting right about now. Yes. Yes. Yes. So what is No, just just in case there's a spy in the chat, I'm not going to ask what the game plan is. Um, what's how are you feeling about going to this match? I assume you've beat this team before. Yeah, we have faced this team before and we beat them in week three. The thing is they did not have their captain Jigglypuff player in that match. So, we will see how it goes this time.
Dr. Chris superintendent um for our school district, effective July 1st, 2025. Mattie Culver, volunteer software ball coach, Southfield Northfield High School, effective immediately. Scott Grineer, Clay Target coach for Southwood and Northfields, effective immediately. under retirement. Joe Glasco, Northville High School, end of the school year. And under leave, uh number 189, uh leave will begin August 11th, 2025 through June 1st, 2026.
And I'm actually going to skip this very first slide because it's very difficult to see. Uh but we're going to going to go to the second slide here. Our second slide is a graph that shows the current bonds that are outstanding of Madison Consolidated Schools. Each bond is represented by its own color. And you can see that there are currently six bonds outstanding and annual payments are approximately $5.3 million. You can see that next year in 2026, payments are decreasing to about 3.5 million and that all debt of the school corporation is repaid by 2031. It is this declining debt service structure that would allow the school corporation to potentially replace these payments without increasing above these 5 this $5.3 million annual amount in 2025. Here is a summary of the maximums that you will find within your resolutions tonight. A maximum borrowing amount not to exceed $28 million.
The sanctuary, a proposed 250 unit complex, is an example of inappropriateness for our town. When developers thought that Ashlin asked for too much, the developer used 40B in order to build what they wanted instead of what was good for everyone. Our small downtown is complain is comprised of one and twostory colonial style, mostly white clapboard and red brick or clapboard buildings. In contrast, this 258 unit complex is huge. Picture the 180 unit complex on Chestnut Street with 80 more units in the middle of downtown Ashland. It will be industrial looking, orange, five maybe six stories high and towering over any other building in town. Moreover, it's in the flood plane. It's on the NASA contaminated river and when the river overflows, cars will need to be moved. Also, there is no clear and practical traffic pattern and the current congested traffic will become even worse.