Um, as you can see, our ESS web page is up to almost 1,800 views. And then we also worked on um some different onepagers um that included the idea timeline, the child find flowchart and the ESS lease restrictive environment process. And again, Miss Nash brought us all of the information and we just helped it helped make it a little more digestible um and gave it a little um visual flare and some branding. Um what we noticed um as we as we revamped our our web pages um and our website in general was that um our our analytics were really very basic. That's the those are the analytics that came along with the website. So, our next steps include inserting some code so that we can start using Google Analytics so that we can dive in a little deeper to see where people are spending the most time.
So I ask for your vote and I want to thank WACA Yolanda for hosting the show and I would appreciate your continued support on May 20th and I ask for your humble support and vote. Thank you and let's wrap it up. Okay. Um so thank you again to to WACA for for hosting this and Yolanda. Um this was a great conversation with the two of you. Um, you know, we can see that Ashlin is going to have some major challenges in the next couple of years. Um, you know, we're going to be balancing the growth that we're going to see, which is coming coming to us all at once, with how to preserve the character of the town that we love. And we're going to have to do some real long-term planning um on the needs and the services of and the infrastructure that is going to need to support that that growth in town.
Nope, the kids are going to do it." And so, uh, so you're implementing that. So, that's great. Kudos to you. Excellent. Thank you. I heard there's a high demand for their student council, too. There was. Yes. I heard all about it. So like to the leadership, I mean that's phenomenal because those kids will, you know, move up and then all want to do it. So I heard it was like quite a Yeah. Quite a It all starts with that job application. Yeah. I said to them, you just have to do it well enough and then I'm going to pick out of a hat because I didn't want to get into like the application was better than that one. So it was very much Yeah. And it did turn out to be like almost a split in the genders. Oh, that's great. Which was weird. We're going to send him to the high school.
So, I applaud them. I'm so proud of them. And thank you. Thank you very much, Jackie. Can you send us the slide deck when you not now but the slide deck? Yeah, I can send it. Thank you. Um All right. So, we will be brief. Um, a quick update on the AIS wall situation. So, as you know, we've had a a safety issue and had to block off some of the parking lots. I'll let Dr. Mike take that one and give us a little update as to where we're at with the retainer wall issue. So, as we shared the email, there's um there's been some movement on that wall. If you drive up to AIS, there's that first parking lot right on the right side. That big wall is a it's a concrete retaining wall. goes down about 20 ft. But the piece you see when you're up on top is brick.
Um continuing to refine our academic success curriculum and expectations um that all freshman and sophomores take. So continuing to look at that um looking at more professional development for the co-e model because that is you know an interesting dance between the gened teacher and the co and the special education teacher um and making sure that that communication is strong. Um and then we both schools are also looking at attendance and credit thresholds to positively impact attendance. So making sure kids are coming to school and taking advantage of what we have to offer. questions. Did you see my question mark appear? It did. It went right above you. The statement that you just made, Erica, could you do it again? Somehow or other. I didn't follow which part? The part about the uh was it the attendance? Yes. Right. So, just looking at incentives to encourage kids to be on campus if if kids are struggling.
So that's why we do it this way to ensure that we have a a quality um expense. That's an average yearly cost of $70,692.97. Um since you mentioned Bob, I'm missing Bob right now um because he would check my math and make sure I'm correct. But he would hopefully that's accurate. Um, student edition with digital courseware is included. Um, teachers edition and worksheet masters. Um, had some questions recently about grammar, so there's some grammar practice built into that. Um, and then a component called writable. I know we talked about that at the last meeting, but in case we have new folks, um, writable is a crosscurricular component um that allows teachers to work on those writing components. Um, one of the things that that our committee really liked about Writable is that it can be assigned by any teacher. So even though this is an ELA adoption, um we could have students working on writing in a social studies classroom, they could also use this tool, get feedback on their grammar, their structure, some of those components.
Are they downloading these onepage IDA timelines for their own use? Um, how many visits each of those things are getting so that we can really start to tell where our families are spending their most time. And then with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Beckett. Thank you. Obviously, the action steps that you're looking at here tonight reflect uh the challenges that not only Maroba Unified School District faces, but also districts across the United States. It's getting the appropriate people uh into the classroom for fill rates and also is focusing then on making sure that they're appropriately certified. Those six steps were uh action steps that we took this year. These are the outcomes that we're looking at. As of July 2024, we had 100% fill rate. Very excited about that. U excuse me, a 95% fill rate. Again, our goal is obviously to get that 100%.
and how do we how do we do that with the budget constraints that we're going to face? Um and so I think you know the the town really needs um serious people who are going to dig in and um look for some real um you know understand the issues, understand what's what um the problems that that that the town will be facing um and you know bring the community along with it because I think that is part of the process. Um, and that is really what what I bring to the table is really that's my skill set. Um, and there's a lot to look forward to in Ashland. We've got kind of a really great year coming up actually. Um, we're looking forward to the the Metro West YMCA coming to Ashland, the uh Ashlin Arboritum. Um, we've been making some great strides on the Upper Dale, which we didn't even get a chance to talk to uh tonight.
Yeah. Yep. Thanks. Thanks, J. Thank you all. Thanks, Kate. Thank you, Kate. Who is like the best partner there could possibly be. She's the best. Oh gosh. Thank you, ladies. Oh, good news. All right, warrant approvals. Now you me. All right. Between April uh 10th, 2025 and May 14th, 2025, I Paul Kendall authorized by my signature payables in the amount of 939,198.39. This includes general fund expenses of $649,228.73 volume expenses of 283,3308 grant expenses of 65 $6,5006 $61.94 and meals tax expenses of $764. Thank you, Mr. Kendall. Superintendent's report. Sure. Just a few things. Um it's been it's almost been a month, right, since we last met, but um it was like Yeah. So, uh had a nice trip with 40 of our finest high school students to Europe. Uh chaperoning that. I think it was my sixth time doing this trip. Um it was it was nice.
That brick sits on top of that wall. So, one of the first things they're going to do is remove that brick to take weight off that wall. And then they're going to begin excavating a lot of the concrete and the mud grass area right there to remove uh weight from that wall. That's going to begin probably in the next week or so um just to make sure that that load comes off the wall. Once they get in there, they're going to start doing some excavating and exploring to figure out just what they need to do to shore up that wall. Um there's a few different discussions about what what that could look like based on the engineers way above my pay grade. Uh it's some technical stuff, but they're u they're going to be probably tightening up the ties. There's concrete ties that pull that wall into the side of the hill and they're going to be tightening up those ties, probably reinforcing it and then uh uh doing some uh some steel beams on the other side of that wall that are going to actually act as the brakes.
Okay. So, this is an outside of the uh academic structure to make like um one of our insurance agencies does a program where they give kids that improve stuff, you know, a bicycle or Yeah. that kind that's what you're referring to incentives and and just working on like making sure they understand the importance of being Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Well, and I appreciate you bringing that up because I I'd like to also add that um both Eric and I struggle on our campuses, uh one of the things that the block schedule allowed students to have many classes, eight classes. So, students beginning as freshman into their senior year, second semester, if they pass all their classes, they meet that credit requirement fairly early. And so we have a lot of seniors who are 18 um and maybe even 17 year olds who are not going to class, not attending class because they don't need those classes for graduation because they've already accumulated in specific areas the requirements for graduation.
And so it gives us really some of those crosscutting standards um which is really important to us in 2025. Um Mr. Beach, I know you asked about professional development um and our first read. So basically there's a a kind of a standard package for our initial launch. Um, that's a two-hour live online training uh for into literature and then a two-hour training for writable. Um, and then we have some a one-hour training for our leadership, for our campus administrators. Um, no shocker here if I tell you that's woefully inadequate because it takes a long time to get a curriculum phase. Um, so we actually also have some additional training that happens over the course of the year. um we target those on our district professional learning days that happen on some of those early release Wednesdays so that once folks are in and working with the curriculum, they have those additional supports.
Additionally, we were looking at appropriately certified. Not all of our teachers are appropriately certified for their assignments. And so there's a breakdown there of the percentage of people who are appropriately certified, those that are working on an alternative certificate, and those that were emergency certified. Additionally, I just want to thank the board for their good work on establishing the clear guidelines for studenttoteer ratios. That's been very helpful for us in terms of determining need and so that that work has been very very beneficial for us all. On top of that, not all we can not always find a direct hire when it comes to some of our positions. And so, as a result, we are working with contracted service providers outside of the district. And we have been working with Miss Nash and her department on establishing an approved list of providers. In addition, we're going to be taking some of the responsibilities away from the ESS staff and we'll be doing the screening ourselves in HR, allowing uh them to be able to concentrate on things directly related to exceptional student services as opposed to personnel matters.
And then, you know, the long- awaited dog park, you know, um will hopefully break ground this year as well. So, um you know, if if if I'm reelected, I will promise to work hard for the community um as I always do and I'm so grateful for for our amazing town and um I'm proud of the accomplishments that we've made in the last six years and it's been a real privilege to to serve this community. And so, thank you for your support. Um, and I ask for your vote next Tuesday on May 20th. Thank you. Great. Well, thank you all so very much for being here to our residents. I would say you could do early voting, but that was actually today. We only had one day of early voting. So, if you didn't do early voting or if you didn't do a mail-in ballot, uh the election is next Tuesday, the 20th at the Ashen High School from 8:00 a.m.
I always view it as an opportunity to get to know kids a little bit better for me because I'm not in that role like I was as a principal years ago where I really got to know students. So, so that was uh exciting and uh it was long uh certainly and tiring and um but well worth the time spent. Uh town meeting uh thank you to the voters of of the town of Ashlin for um supporting our budget uh and the budget of the town. But um you know, as I stated uh that night, it really is a collaborative effort and this year was to me one of the more difficult budget seasons that we've been through. uh but with uh school committee, select board and finance committee coming together a number of times to meet to have good conversation about where we are as a community.
That whole process is going to take uh a considerable amount of time. We don't yet know because um they won't know the severity of it until they get in there and they see how bad it is. um and also until they figure out how much money they have, how quickly they can move and what their options are for repair and who the engineer is that is going to do it and all those different parts of of a major construction project. So, uh for the foreseeable future, that parking lot is going to be off limits. Um and we'll have a timeline hopefully in the next few weeks as as more of these details um come to surface. Any board members have any board members have questions that they want to ask concerning? It it is a city project and it's going to it's two phases. One is to stabilize the current problem so that it's safe and then part two is is their real fix which will come later and be a little bit more expensive.
So another piece of that attendance threshold is is we are looking for opportunities to apply some thresholds to seniors uh because we want them on our campus. We want them to be a part of the culture. Um they do set the tone for our underassmen and so but we want them to be positive role models on our campus. So part piece of that is looking at how we can ensure that seniors are staying in class and uh continuing to stay on campus. Now we have Mr. Maul that's gonna talk to you all about uh alternative education. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Uh good evening. Uh I just want to take a moment to thank you for the opportunity to talk about our amazing students and our dedicated staff. Um I really need to praise my secondary colleagues as well for everything you just heard and much more that they do on their campus before a student can even step foot on our campus.
What I've provided for you in this presentation is um aligned with our recommended adoption, but you would see some very similar components if we wanted to go with the alternate adoption. Same kind of structures are in place. We always make sure that we build in professional learning for any of our adoptions. Um to look at a cost comparison with our alternate selection McGraill study sync was 579752 slightly more expensive but really within range of the in literature um the caveat there being that into literature included writable um McGraill study sync would not if we wanted that writable which was a critical component for the committee it's an extra $196,000 over the adoption time frame which changes our cost from 579 to 775 and you can see of course that's going to increase our yearly cost as as well. So, just a component for the board to consider.
And then finally, I think a point of real note here is we actually filled all of those leadership roles in that department. uh we have gone the last few years not really filling roles that we needed to have filled and it's been exciting for us to be finally get that taken care of. Next step, we'd like to have 100% of our ESS staff appropriately certified by 2027 and that's our goal and I believe we have some questions and please if is there anything we can answer, we'd love to do so. I have a question for Mr. Harmon. That is a lot of information guys. very nicely nicely done. Thank you so very much. Really does help um not only us understand but anybody who's watching and our wonderful audience over there, which by the way, there's plenty of seats over here. Um so you said um part of the budget uh facilities was um the furniture and the fixtures.
to 700 p.m. Uh so, make sure you get out and vote because as they say, what happens locally is more important sometimes than what's going on federally. So, again, thank you all for being here. Thank you. Go clockers. There you go. and Celtics. We're sharing We're sharing it with Great. Okay. Uh here at Around the Clock, we're going to take a short brief uh break um while we allow these candidates to step away and we have some other candidates for you to meet tonight uh for some of the other uncontested races that are happening on the ballot next Tuesday at our election. We'll be right back. Hello and welcome back to the Around the Clock discussion with candidates. We just had a very lively discussion with our three select board candidates who are going to be on the ballot who are on the ballot for the May election here in Ashland.