I bought those books too, the graphic novel. So, I I hear you know what you're saying. I see your point, Kristen, but it's the same thing. Like, I love my kids teeth to be healthy, too, but I also question, of course, when when the when the dentist comes in to give the fairy presentation, h and how are we picking who's coming, who's not, you know what I mean? Because and I'm not saying this guy wasn't being altruistic and and I it's not the content that I'm questioning. It's is it appropriate for a public school to be promoting something where someone is selling a product for for a for a profit? if he's donating your if your mother-in-law is donating all her that's a different story, right? But I don't and I don't know I don't know enough about this to say that what I want us to do is have a conversation about it and not just say that it's okay because totally the topic is good and I think I mean it would be useful to to come up with consistent parameters.
Um what happens is as you said we created there was a study committee created who um looked at the town and said the most practical area to look at for um a historical district is the downtown area. Um so we outlined that area and um went to the state and the state asks you to do in a contiguous area um so that it goes from basically from the ocean house down to the um post office and back um some part of um down a little bit on um Homera, a little bit on to the railroad station, down a little bit on Front Street. Um, and it it encompasses a lot of the um really older buildings in the town. The only way to preserve history, historical buildings, is a historical district. Um, people think that the national um national register does that. It does not, unfortunately.
I mean you know the the dentist has been coming here forever as far as I know. I think it's part of the health curriculum to have that piece, but then they I know in my experience with the tooth fairy coming, this woman dresses up in a bridal gown and she's there and the kids, they can present, they can teach children. Not every dentist could walk into a school and talk about what they need. So like if the person's giving them quality free, they're coming for free a day out of their office. But Kristen, they're giving they're giving kids swag bags to come home with their business cards. I mean pieces of that, but I'm you do for free that are not really they're not really you're not really doing them for free. We do have the the commercial use of the building. We've revised that policy a number of times over the last year and a half, right?
It's it's a list, but it does not, you know, it's it's an honorary list. Um, the only way to preserve the buildings is with this local historic district. And it will allow a commission to be formed out of um people from the town um an architect, a realtor, some of the people that live in the area in the in the district um some of the business owners. Um it'll be um they will be appointed by the select board and um they will oversee the district. So if someone wants to make major changes to a building, they would go to the commission just like they go to a planning board or to any other board in town for for um approval and they would go to the com the this commission that was formed and they would um work with the with the owner or the um the developer whoever whoever comes to them and um to try to keep the character of the area and the character of the building.
Um you know, we look to put some guidelines in there about what we feel is appropriate. It feels like there's like almost like a like a a market rate at this. It seems like this is fairly common on the on the author. You don't want I don't I've not even seen it done any other way that I can And one thing is that the um books are not being sold at the merch. No, it's sometimes offered ahead of time. Sometimes it's often offered after the fact and it's always like you have to go through these lengths to do this if you would like to do it. So, I do understand what you're saying and I do understand where it's something for us to talk about, but I do think it is a difference that it's not being like brought up here. Yeah. It's not on the table.
It doesn't mean you can't sell your building. It doesn't mean you can't do anything you want inside the building. This is only for the facade from the front of the building. Um, so as you're looking from the street, what you can see, um, you can add on to the back. You can do solar panels. You can do mini splits. You can It doesn't do um, uh, landscaping. It doesn't tell you what color you can paint it. Um, it's just trying to keep some sense of time and place in the town. um some sense of when you look around. I think Stacy Spice said it best to me to make me understand. And when you stand in the middle of town and you look around, what do you see? Do you see the history of the town or do you see these big huge buildings or do you see can you see what can you see from that area?
I think that does for me it feels like a little different that it's kind of being offered separately. But I would definitely, you know, like I think Yes. And I think we should I mean it'd be helpful to everybody, right? Because then we know when we talk to people to bring in we could say this is our expectation this is what parameter that will where do you think that would fall like committeewide that like a policy I would guess so policing too yeah or curriculum programs if it's a program yeah I'm just wondering standard you know I think it is important to have discuss but probably like it should it should start in committee at the very least and then and be worked upon there. But if that's the issue, it's really important policy. Okay. I you have like an assembly policy, right? Tied to that is the type of people you're going to bring in and what the parameters are.
From that area is what you're what you're talking about preserving basically. Um I'm going to defer to Jim to see if he wants to add anything. I'm not sure was a pretty good but we are we are looking obviously for support from not only the town boards from from the people we really hope that people feel as strongly as we do about preserving our history in town. So thank you. I believe this takes a simple majority. No it takes two. It's 2/3. Yes. Can you hear me? Yeah I can hear you now. There was there was no way to un raise my hand or or un unmute myself. Um so I'm sorry I would have come in earlier. Hi Jim Nielson. Um, still not showing me, but uh, we can hear you, Jim. You can hear me? Okay. Um, hi Jim Nielson, 35 Ramblewood Drive, Ashlin.
Okay. Makes sense. We'll take that up for our next meeting. Thank you, Dr. Any other questions or concerns? Right. Uh there are no HIV reports which brings us to action items. Uh Miss Walsh, can you move curriculum? I'm sorry. I'd like to make a motion to move the following items A1 through A7 approval. Second. Thank you, Mr. Becker. Yes. Dr. Groia. Yes. Mrs. Huck. Yes. Mrs. M. Yes. Mrs. Re. Yes, Mr. Vitali. Yes, Mrs. Walsh. Yes, Mr. Waldman. Yes. Motion pass. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Vitali, District Operations, please. Uh, under district operations, like to move action items B1 through B6, please. I'll second. Mr. Becker, yes. Dr. Drosio, yes. Mrs. Tuck. Yes. Mrs. McDev. Yes. Mrs. We Yes. Mr. Vitali. Yes. Mrs. Walsh. Yes. Mr. Walton. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Walman, can you move policy, please? Absolutely. I'd like to motion that the board moves policies listed under C1 for first reading and the policies under C2 for second reading.
I'm uh, the chairman of the historical commission, and Joan did a very good job of explaining this. So, I I would just add that um this doesn't cost the town anything and it's also something that we have to do if we want to preserve certain buildings downtown because even if you're on the National Historic Register, uh there's no guarantee that somebody can come in someday buy it and uh and take it down. And that includes John Stones, that includes the church, it includes the old railroad station. So, there's many many reasons for doing this. Ashlin's one of the only towns in the area that does not have a local historic district. People think we do because there's two signs on either end of the street saying you're entering a historical district, but you're really not. Um those are just signs. So, this is an official thing.
Second. Mr. Becker. Yes, Dr. Jrojo. Yes, Mrs. Huck. Yes, Mrs. McDev. Yes, Mrs. Week. Yes, Mr. Vitali. Yes, Mrs. Walsh. Yes, Mr. Walton. Yes. Motion pass. Okay. Thank you. Miss Huck, will you please move human resources? I would like to make a motion um that we move items D1 through 17. D17 um for approval. Second, Mr. Becker. Yes. Dr. Drosio, yes. Mrs. Huff, yes. Mrs. McDev, yes. Mrs. Reed, yes. Mr. Vitali, yes. Mrs. Walsh, yes. Mr. Wall, yes. Motion passed. Perfect. uh at 8:03 I think it says over there we are at visitors business where visitors are permitted to comment on agenda and non-aggenda items at this time. Again, we just ask that you please approach the microphone, state your name and address. Mary, only so people at home can hear you. Yeah, so people at home can hear you. Um Mary Burks, Cedar Lane.
The town votes for it um hopefully and we'll uh we'll have a little more say in what goes on in our downtown, the citizens of Ashlin will. So, thank you.
Um there's another question. And I knew when you were going through the class sizes for sixth, seventh, and eighth, they are fairly small, but you have three sections of each. Um I was kind of surprised. So the sixth and seventh grade, that's like 17 students in a class. in eighth grade there's 20 in a class because um I just think it's when you go through a K through eight school and then you go over that high school it's a drastic change when you have such you come from such a small environment with 17 students in a class and you get to mask one high school and it's like so have you ever thought about making them smaller classes like more two in a two two classes for each grade because I think that's my p I just think it's a very small class for the shock of the students it's pretty significant when you get to high school.
If anybody has any questions, the bylaw, the guide book, and suggested um um guidances on what what would happen with the with the um the zone, the district um are up on our website and so is our email.
Yeah. I think when especially in like we're at a very interesting kind of tipping point, right? Because we have 61 in 8th grade. If we were to do that in two, we'd have two sections of 30, right? Which I think people would say is too large. Um even once you start to get into the 26 27 range, I think most people consider that a larger class. But 17 and a class for sixth and seventh, those are small classes, class sizes. But yes, but we either have two or we have three, right? So, you know, when we have I forget, I don't have the numbers right in front of me. I think it was 52 for both of them. Yeah. So, when it's um 52, right? That's going to be 26 students in a class. and looking at our sending districts which are like are we are consistent with our class sizes with our sending districts.
So, if anybody has any questions, please uh by all means, please reach out and I'll try to do the best we can to answer before the town meeting. Thank you. Thanks, Jim. And Jim, you you weren't able to raise your hand. No, for some reason on Zoom, I don't think anybody can. There's no prompt. You try to do it, it says you're muted and it says you're you can't undo the mute. You can't undo the um the video either. So So when you go down to the menu where it says the react um that's on your says reactions and does nothing when you hit it. Oh, now it says race hand. Something just changed. When I was hitting it before, I couldn't get my hand to raise. Okay, there we go. There's a a big thumbs up. Yeah, thumbs up. So now it's working. Okay.
So yeah the other thing that also it starts to impact six seven eight that is where we start to have math placement right so depending upon which math level kids are in that's also creates three sections. So actually by 8th grade we have four sections when it comes to math because we have geometry, algebra and then right those are pullout classes. So right they're done and algebra. Do you do them as they the whole they follow the whole curriculum those kids are all in the same block like all the math and all the English are all the same or do you split them all up differently? Math is different. It's different than Yeah. Okay. Because I know when my kids came here, their classes sizes weren't much bigger. And even when they went to the high school, it was still like, "Oh, wow." Because, you know, we still do the you probably still do um the holiday parties and all that kind of stuff.
Just me and technology again. That's okay. I just want to make sure though um you know I don't know if anybody else is having that problem. Yeah. So we have a number of people on Zoom and um so now that we're sure like the raise hand feature I'll just take a pause here and if anybody on Zoom had any questions related to some of the previous Warren articles, you know, feel free to raise your hand. Um, sorry we're having fun with technology here, but um, give you a few few seconds to There's always something. That's for sure. But I'm not seeing it. Okay. Thank you. Great synopsis. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to article 16 which is a land taking for multimmodal trail um sponsored by the select board. So, this is a warrant article to purchase, acquire, or take by imminent domain of property on Pond Street that has been identified by the Upper Charles Trail Committee as being important pieces of property to the facilitation of the construction of the Upper Charles Trail, which is a planned uh trail route that would essentially bisect the town and connect the towns of Hockin and the town, you know, going through Ashland and connecting with the towns of Sherburn and the city of Framingham.
And then when you get to the high school, it's like, "Oh, wow. We don't do anything for like, you know, that typical when you go from elementary to high school." But it's kind of like because it's kind of a shelter in here and then all of a sudden it explodes when you go to the high school. It's a completely different world. just I just thought about that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. It's all it's very valid. I think it's important to remember though that uh K through 8 is a period of time and when you transition to high school, it is supposed to be a challenge. It is supposed to be another level. They are supposed to uh be challenged in certain ways. I believe and I've paid attention for the last 20 years that Belle kids in particular are very well suited at Madison Swan and at most graduations are represented at the top very well.
Uh that would create one large network of trails. So the Upper Charles Trail Committee was successful about a year ago actually in pursuing a grant and successfully did secure a grant for $300,000 to purchase this property. um at the time that we we had engaged with the property owner and he had encouraged us to continue the dialogue with him. Uh unfortunately, as you know, we received word that we were awarded the grant and were trying to make plans for this. Unfortunately, we weren't a although we made several attempts, we weren't able to continue our discussions with the property owner until very recently when um he realized that this would be on the town meeting warrant and so he has engaged the town again. That's probably the best the best way to say it. I believe the upper Charles Trail Committee is actually having a discussion with him tomorrow to talk about maybe some alternative measures as opposed to just doing a taking.