Um, so what Beth and Katherine and uh our community center team are going to present tonight is really just a lot a lot of information on changes that are happening both or changes that have happened both um in personnel and then changes that are coming up to the building itself. U I'll start with the building. Um that building's now 20 years old. you know, we think of it as a new building. Um, I think construction uh oversight, you know, some some days were better than others, I think, as it was being constructed. And so, we've had to deal with some issues, but also things are starting to fail. Um, so we've uh there's some things that need to be addressed there. But then, um, also I can't say enough about the team. This is a whole new human services team. Now, you know, the the rest of our community center is um you know, familiar faces, but this is going to be your chance to see a bunch of new faces for human services.
>> Yes, we love Frank. Nobody comes out till the budget's set. >> Okay, we have to come up with a budget really fast. >> Yes, comfort dogs in every class. >> There's something to >> So, yes, you got a lot of money for going out. We know that. So I'm going to present some things to you in the future about choice charter privacy. >> So >> when I knocked on a lot of doors in the hotel >> and I asked why of parents who took their children out for one reason was class size. Two was boulder. So those are the two things and class size has been big in Greenfield since long as I've been here. I mean they all talk about how many kids are in their classes. Um there was a question parents um at the middle school there was a social studies class of 29.
>> So I think I mean my question is or one of my questions is you know as you look I feel like I got a nice feel I think for the district today. This was a great experience, you know, being able to talk to folks and just really get a feel for um what's happening in the buildings and what some of the priorities and the goals are and um just how valued your staff is by your leadership is amazingly impressive. It's it's great. Um my question is what are the what are the obstacles that you see um that might be preventing progress with the district? So folks, we've got time. We can each take a moment to answer a question. if you have a response to this. I don't expect everyone to have one, but if you have one um that you would like to offer, keeping in mind that we we all have our own individual perspectives.
>> No. Okay. >> No concern. >> There are a couple other things too. Um it does specify uh point number four on the old policy in the graduation ceremonies present and former members of the board of education and the high school principal will be the authorized individuals to present diplomas to the graduates. I know that is standard practice but I think we should also include that in the policy. I think it makes sense to. It's been a long-standing practice in district. I'm just trying to pull up the old policy so we can actually just look at the language together. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Sorry, I know it's small. I'll give me a second. Um so the the first thing you mentioned um Kate is this first number one uh from our old policy and then Sorry, I'm looking for where you had the other one.
nothing in ter um it's something that commission we do take you know commissioners our commissioners are aware of any anything that comes up um if a charter school is either habitually late or um they get you know um seems to have a lot of issues it's something commissioners could note and decide to take further action on >> so I believe that that really is kind [clears throat] of the root of the problem here is that there's really no hard deadlines um which according to the state auditors testimony is I mean to be to be opening up audits for DOE um would overwhelm the department but that is because you folks are not imposing any hard deadlines or any real consequences for that. If um if that's the issue again that I I think the state auditor is bringing up as well as the legislature is looking at we can work with our auditors to let them know that you know to I guess the ultimate consequence would be to remove that auditor from the list.
Any questions? Perfect. >> Well, hey, is that that no increase on the dental is great, right? >> And at this point, there are no other uh options for additional products. I know last year, those of you who are on the team, we brought in Colonial Life and we had a couple other things that were added to our benefits package. Uh there's no change in those either, right? Except for coms, uh which you may have seen in the Kraton connection last week. Um, we have a EAP program that we used to have through a organization called Interface. Uh, that is available or was available to all employees regardless of whether or not they qualified for benefits uh or chose benefits. That company it doesn't exist anymore apparently or who knows. But um what what's happened is that uh Valley Schools worked really quickly to migrate to coms which in a a meeting that we had last week a webinar that product seems superior to interface and the things that are available.
Um completely new like last summer, basically all of our human services team departed for other other positions. So, ARA, you know, came in and basically had to rebuild a team with Catherine. has just done a remarkable job. Um the creativity that has gone into this um into what they're about to to talk to you about tonight and show you um has been very very inspiring. It's easy to think of that community center as just kind of like the place over on the western side of town, you know, sometimes because a lot of activity, a lot of meetings, our government meetings and everything, tax bills and everything are paid here. Um, but that community center is as alive as it has ever been and um that's thanks to the people there. But I'll turn it over to Beth and Katherine. Like I said, I I hope um I hope you will understand just the significance of what they're talking about doing here.
I don't know if that ever got fixed. >> Um and then just basic question is science and social studies yearl long at the middle edition. >> Thank you. I just >> just have one one >> that is a gold star for Roland. >> That's year long >> one. Yeah. They each have the whole seventh grade 100ish kids. Okay. Of one science teacher and one social studies teacher and one math teacher, which if you ask my child, she's very happy. Just to be very clear. >> That is excellent news. >> Was one of my And then so Andy had said to me that in last year's budget stuff, they had staff list. So, I went back, I saved everything and I found the list and and the middle school listed 10 more teachers than the high school. So, what was just >> that's that listing is redistricting.
None of us are speaking for the committee at this point. Um does anyone have something that they would like to say in response to that? Okay. Can I do member Denive, then member Goodwin, and then member Childs? I think um this is my fifth year on the committee. So from my perspective, every year or almost every year there has been disqu around budget transparency. And I think that something that would really serve our district is a new way to look at the budget. Um and I don't think that there's anything wrong with the budget. I just think that it's not as digestible as it should be both for the committee, for our city councilors, and for the public at large. So, I think that I think that we've made a lot of changes and we've grown a lot as a district and as a committee.
>> Uh, number four. >> Number four. Thank you. Um, the last thing on there that I just wanted to to bring forward and um, again, I don't know if this is existing, you know, practice or um, I think it it does help to spell this out. If you look at number five, it does talk about, you know, is that student doesn't meet the requirements, the student is denied the opportunity to participate in graduation. However, the student is still eligible to participate in all senior class activities. >> Um, >> so I don't know that we need to necessarily include all of that content since it's a lot of it is covered in the the previous, you know, the uh the new version that we're looking to adopt. Um, but I do think that sentence if that's our if that is our practice to allow students uh to uh participate in senior class activities regardless of graduation status.
Um, we are hoping our auditors can work with our schools and if it's uh if it's an issue like the compliance supplement that wasn't released, we do try to work with them and say, you know, if we can get your financial reports um and have that information that we can provide um not only to our commissioners but to DOE as well because DOE can use those numbers to start to fill in their reports as well. We've worked with some of our auditors to get those financial reports. It may you know the final audit may be a week or two away. We so we try to exhaust every every available avenue we have working with our auditors. >> One more followup and then this would be my last followup. uh because um instead of like how you said remove the auditor um I believe that if you folks were to really impose some serious consequences on meeting those deadlines then it would avoid the legislature having to pass bills to tell you how to do your job.
Again, this is available to any employee in the district and their family members uh at no charge and you get up to six sessions per need. Right? So, if you have uh you have anxiety and you have six sessions that that work through anxiety or or help you with your anxiety and then you have a financial issue, you can bring in a different consultant to work with you financially. And that's six for the uh anxiety and six for financial. Did I miss anything? >> The only other thing is you guys do offer a Sigma dental DHMO plan. Um that did increase by 5%. So that is the only the only increase there on on the ancillary plans. Um just to put in that to put that into perspective, the employee only cost right now is $10.30. That would go up to$10.82. So we're we're talking cents but it is an increase >> and HMO is covered by the district.
And I can tell you like when Jen was here, we were talking about the fact that we needed to have more space. we needed to do things, you know, there to kind of fix some things up and and we were thinking it was probably going to be we threw in like a placeholder number of like a million I think eight years ago. So, it's probably 10 million now with the with the way escalation has gone, but I think you'll be really really happily surprised to see what they have today. >> Thank you, Michael. Um, so we're here tonight to uh present to you our plans for the community center improvement project. So our goal for this project is a comprehensive reconfiguration and refresh of the existing facility to address the challenges we're facing while at the same time improving and expanding upon services to our residents.
>> Okay. >> It's going to be undone. So, we >> Oh, that was with the four extra teachers that were to be hired. >> We have post not redistricting but change that to the mayor >> because that didn't make any sense to me. I mean 10 high schools usually have more staff because they are doing AP and stuff. >> Okay. So I think based on what I'm hearing everything we present about increase we need to explicitly link to the people and the class size. I think that is the only way we can frame it for people to really understand the consequences and >> what the human cost will be if we're not able to >> make things better for children. >> Yes. >> But it shouldn't be shaming either. >> No, it shouldn't be shaming. It's just more of >> shaming. No, that >> and everything that was awful.
But, I think that that is something that just keeps coming again and again is how can we like there's really no more education that we can do on it. We're at the point where I think we need to rethink how we're communicating it and how we're looking at it as a whole. So, that's something that I would like to see change. >> Thank you. >> Declining enrollment. We have dropped um in the last 10 years um from almost 2,00 to,300. So, we've we've dropped um we have an amazing staff and I'm glad you you caught that. Um but we also have had um change in staff. I think one of the things that happened with the pandemic was a lot of people chose to retire. So, we have a lot of new staff. Um and we've had turnover in principles. One school has had almost a new one every year.
Um, we should include that I think in this policy as well. And I think I would just clarify is this someone that has achieved senior status and standing and then the only caveat would be if there was a uh for example a disciplinary infraction they could lose the privilege. So um I would just want to consider that. >> Um we could also say at the discretion of for example high school administration or something like that. So there's a consideration um that would allow kind of based on situation if we felt that that was more um amanable to be able to enforce where appropriate and then restrict where appropriate. >> I agree. >> Whatever we add should be in alignment with what what your practices are now. Right. >> I would say that that is in line. So the high school principal would be in the best position to know the circumstances around why a student may not be eligible to walk in the graduation but may otherwise participate in senior activities.
So you folks not doing your job only puts more work on us to have to pass bills to tell you how to do your job and then now we're asking the auditor to do your guys job too. So I think that there's some real serious structure that needs to happen within the department to ensure that you folks are more than capable which I believe of doing the job. But when it comes time to not do your job, then there's there's no consequences for that. So now we have to step in. We have to pass laws to tell you guys how to do your job. Then we got to tell the auditor to do your guys' job. So that's just a point that I want to make. Thank you, chair. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um just wanted to since the auditor is not here and I'm not lobbying for him but they since they are being asked to do this uh they do say we have strong reservations about the bill.
>> Yeah. >> So DHMO >> the the Delta dental did not go up that is I believe the employee in employee cost but the employer paid one did increase by 5%. >> Sorry I also have a question. So for the um vision United Healthcare is no longer a choice. So, BSP, but for the medical, we still have United Healthcare. >> Correct. Yep. >> Thank you. >> All right. Any other questions? I know that's a lot of uh numbers and a lot of information that was shared with you, but you know, we have Vanessa, myself that can help kind of navigate some of the background to the extent that we we have that information. If we have other questions, we can reach out to our partners and they'd be happy to to help us out with understanding how we got to where we are. Uh the meet and confer is the team that will make the recommendation for plans moving to the governing board.
um our since Beth and I started as assistant town managers, we've spent more time at the community center with the staff and the team over there just in our different uh role. Um we've listened to the team. We've heard from residents as well as volunteers and we realized that staffing needs weren't being met. We realized that the space was impacting or limiting what we as a staff could do to service the needs of the residents. But before I get into the presentation, I you know, you may have received, I know I've seen some emails or letters about some of the challenges at the community center. So, I just wanted to hear a little bit from you with the select board about some of the concerns and challenges that you've heard of. >> I know I'll I'll I'll start. I know uh back last summer or back last spring I had received a couple people reach out to me regarding the food pantry and how it wasn't quite big enough and how it was being used.
So just can't that again think >> it was bad. >> Well, no. And also the mayor does not have a money tree that she's ever revealed to me. >> She's got nine grandchildren. She is the first mayor to really I'm going to tell you like sits at the table with us. Okay. Most of them never even showed up at the table. And actually you can see her what was it the fire panel? I could see her head going doing the math and she said I I got that people were still arguing with her and she just said she was paying for it because that was important. >> Well, it I think it so from a nonshamy I think the framing is just like we are asking for this money and this is why this is the impact for the kids. This is these are the people whose jobs we can save.