um you know they can email the office if they want. Um we can also put something on social media just saying you know admissions dead uh application deadline closed on February 1st. You know we could put something out on social media with a timeline um as well. And we also um do keep all of the middle schools. We deal with I don't know probably 20 25 different middle schools. Um I know that they communicate regularly with them. So, you know, I can just connect and make sure that they're sending out that information as well, whether it's in their own emails, newsletters, things like that. >> Thank you. >> All set. Moving on, Mr. Superintendent. We're going to do the uh quick update on the new hanger. >> So, just a quick update on the hanger. The process in terms of trying to purchase this hanger.
And the base of the pyramid was made of whole grains. Then it went to fruits and vegetables. Then it went to protein, so dairy and meats. And then the very top was fats, oils, and sweets used sparingly. So the top tip would be what you would eat the least amount. and the foundation would be what you eat the most of. And then um every five years they release a new dietary guidelines for Americans. And so that was in place all the way till 2005. In 2005 they decided to tip the pyramid on its side because they wanted to be able to show the rays coming down with about how much. So they're showing you this much of your plate should be greens and this much should be vegetables and the person on the sides, you know, walking up to the top. And if you see the yellow, which again, it's not at the tippy top anymore.
Our student our student population in the district in all three buildings include students that have um have challenging medical conditions that require the presence of a school nurse in order to attend school safely. The float nurse provides us with that ability in the event that we have absences. Our nurses are people too and sometimes they need to be absent. Although we do have a, you know, a great pool of substitute nurses, they often have other jobs, other equipment, they work for other districts. They're not always available, and they're not always available on short of notice. Um, this year alone, we've this school year alone, we've actually had seven incidents um where we've been short on nursing in the district. And having a full-time flow nurse in the district would really help us address that. um because if we have an unexpected absence, we have that nurse available to cover that building.
Uh we are at this point um completed the process. All the cities and towns have voted. Um the one thing that's uh that's left to do is for the two towns at town meeting have to vote on a change in our in our um charter. Uh but they've gotten positive recommendations from the board of selectmen. Uh it's a really no cost minor uh need. Uh but the city of Lawrence has agreed to move forward and are purchasing the hanger. At this point here, they were waiting for the uh uh what is it? One uh documentation on the value of the hanger, an appraisal from an official appraisal. They received that yesterday. Uh so then now they're ready to start working with the owner and putting a purchase and sale together. So once that's completed, it's just waiting until the spring when we can purchase purchase it from them.
That's like the oils, fats, and sweets. And then they have dairy and then ends with uh meats and protein. So you can see it's still very um grainheavy as far as the percentage. Then in 2011 uh our current dietary guidelines were released which is the choose my plate. It was a representation of a plate so that a student or a person even an adult could look at it and say okay this much of my plate should contain vegetables. This much should contain fruits, grains, protein and dairy products. So that way if you were building each of your meals you could say this is a well- balanced healthy meal. Um we are currently following this. However, it is changing because our meal pattern um according to uh the laws of the government for the national school lunch program and the USDA, our meal pattern must follow the most recent dietary guidelines for Americans.
In addition to just the absences, there's a lot more that those float nurses that the float nurse does. There's a lot of screenings. Um there's a lot of um documentation. There's a lot of parent communication. There's a lot of sick visits. There's a lot of medication. And we also know um the school committee has been really great about supporting field trips. A lot of field trips now require a nurse to attend so that all students can participate safely. So that is the request is to increase our float nurse position from two days per week up to five days per week. And I believe that the associated cost with that is approximately $60,000 across the district.
So in terms of the hanger, it pretty much been the uh all the background work has been completed and we're just waiting for the owner and the purchaser to uh finalize the purchase and uh pay the check. >> All set with that. Uh Mr. Lavoy the uh house project in the back parking lot. You got to update for us? >> Uh so the uh the uh passive house in the back parking lot now. Uh the foundations in uh they have put the floor uh uh the uh decking down. They just completed the decking today and have already started the walls and so it should move pretty quickly now that we're into out of the ground and working with actual lumber. Um the kids are have worked right through the freezing cold and they interesting. They've been very uh great about it because they've been so excited about it there.
And last month in January, they released a new one. So, we're going to talk about that in a second, but let's talk about what we're doing right now. Sorry, I forgot that we changed the order and apologize for that. >> Sorry, baby. >> It's okay. She likes to keep me on my toes. We're good. So, the breakfast, uh, students must choose at least three of the four components. And like we said, um, grains is the highest, um, thing that we're focusing on right now in school meals. So, they must be a minimum of 51% whole grain. Fruits and vegetables u are fresh fruits on the side or 100% fruit juice. Fluid milk. We have to offer different varieties including different fat levels. I think you've seen in the news re recently they've been saying whole milk for schools and things like that. That counts as a variety.
Any questions? >> Anybody? And you know the amount of paperwork that nurses have to do right and monitoring that. So, if there was a nurse that wasn't out, that would be our lead nurse that would be overseeing and evaluating and supervising the other nurses as well as the paperwork that goes along with that as well. >> Right. Right. Yeah. That there's there's just so many layers um that that are hard to imagine all of those all of those pieces, but certainly the lead nurse has a role um in that as well in coordinating that coverage and coordinating the coverage in buildings when there's an absence. We call her the lead nurse, but she's really housed here in Toronto and doesn't have the opportunity to to work with the other nurses. >> Right. Yeah. Right. The current arrangement, our lead nurse is one of our full-time school nurses, and so she does some lead nurse work for us early in the morning and in the afternoon and in between when she can fit it in.
We haven't kids saying no I'm not going out there. They've all been anxious to get out there and do this project. So it's gone it's going well. You're going to see a lot more progress at this point. Uh so uh there's a lot of excitement around it and um a lot has gone into this and we're excited about the fact that this is one of one of a kind in Massachusetts in terms of a high school building a passive home that will get certified uh at the end of the project. So uh it's uh I'm not so sure that it'll be 100% complete, but the frame will be up. We expect that the frame will be up and they'll, you know, uh be working on the electrical and plumbing and HVAC before the end of the school year. So, um and it's u recognized by the clean energy center.
And then meat and protein are not required at breakfast. They they will let you count a protein as a carbohydrate or a grain at breakfast. So they were really focusing on grains at breakfast. And so we decided at Gilbert public schools to offer a more balanced breakfast to fuel the students for learning in the morning. And so we do offer as you see in this picture the eggs are protein and the turkey bacon. So we do offer both and those are just counted as grains in the morning on the meal pattern. Next is the reimburseable meal pattern for lunch which follows the current guidelines which are changing. Students must choose at least three of the five offered lunch components and one component must be a fruit or vegetable. So, as you see here, we have a picture of our teriyak chicken meal. We have the grains.
And this is a this is really a great opportunity for some, you know, additional coordination and improvement overall. >> And God forbid something should have to happen on those seven days. Just so you know, like they they cover it, but they also know that we just dial 911 if there was ever something like that. Absolutely. We we want a nurse in every building. We want coverage for that as well. >> Right. And that means that our lead nurse is often when we're short in a building is traveling between the buildings trying to sync up to medication schedules and go back and forth. And as we all know, as much as we would like, we can't none of us can actually be in business. This is going to be a dumb question, but don't I thought it was the law that there had to be a nurse in the school at all times or is that just to admin administer medication?
uh we've been asked to uh present to the uh legislators on behalf of the clean energy center how we've uh uh we've g been given grants by the clean energy center which has helped us and some of that money has gone into the construction of this house. So we will be uh in March presenting to the legislators uh the energy committee from the uh legislators uh the house and the senate uh to uh demonstrate and explain to them how we've utilized and how the benefits of the clean energy grants have supported the work that and teaching that we're doing with our school which is partly based around this one project but many other projects as well. So, but we've been benefit tremendously on the support of uh grants in order to do this kind of work. >> And there was a large donation. >> Uh we have a we did there are also companies that have uh donated.
Um, we no longer serve the fortune cookie. It is now two scoops of rice instead for the grains. Then we have the vegetables, the fruits, and the fluid milk. And so, um, colors matter whether it's red, orange, dark green, starchy, legumes, others. Um, and then fluid milk, we must offer different varieties. So, the next slide is just a slight overview. You don't have to study this one. This is just a summary of our current meal pattern for NSLP. This meal pattern has been followed for the past 15 years. So, ever since I've been helping make the menus, we've been using this one. However, it will be changing because here is a picture of the new dietary guidelines for America, hot off the press in January. These were released in January and they are in effect through 2030. By law, the NSLP meal pattern must follow the current DGAS.
>> It's to do with the medication. That's right. Because we don't we we're not able to delegate um medication in general. >> So if there was a if there was a per a period of time where a nurse for whatever reason was not in the building and a child need their medication, you'd have to send that child home. >> No. Well, and that's why we have the nurse right now. Um, the lead nurse, Lisa, would be traveling between the buildings to make that arrangement. >> I would say this is a critical position. We given that information >> and there's a ratio that's recommended as well. But >> there is. Yeah, there's the recommendations um that the ratio recommendations actually are from 1998, so quite some time ago. And when they were last done, the recommendation is to have a full-time um school nurse for every 500 students.
So when we did the foundation, the company that provided the foam insulation provided many parts and provided a lot of training at no cost to training the instructors who now know how to build foundations with foam without the standard uh PL uh plywood forms. Uh and now the students have that skill sue which are you know uh not a lot of uh contractors that are utilizing that uh but we now have kids that are trained in that. So we have kids are going to are developing skills and knowledge. Not that that's the most important thing because the basic skills are still the most important thing but they're building developing basic skills but using new technology to build those basic skills which is so important and critical. Uh so and we have a company called TimberHP that has uh that is looking to donate $24,000 worth of high-tech insulation uh to this project at no cost which would save us uh approximately 20 $24,000 on the construction of this project.
When that memo is released by the USDA, which could happen any day, any month, any year, we have no idea. Uh we will adjust our school menus accordingly. So, we have heard from the USDA that they are fasttracking the meal pattern so that we will get it, but we don't know what that means. How long that would be. Um, will it be before next school year starts? Will it be before this school year ends? We don't know when. >> Do you have to change if it's middle of the school year? >> You have to change when they release it. Yes. >> And when they release it, they will tell you when you have to implement it. So they have the choice to tell us you have till this time to do it or you must do it right now. So they they put that in their memo when they release it >> because I would think that'd be a challenge if you've already encumbered all kinds of money and if you've bought all kinds of these meat boxes and then all of a sudden some things change.
So, Tahanto is actually a little bit over that. So, the current arrangement of a float nurse two days per week actually helps us with that ratio here at Tanto. That float nurse now out of those two days tends to be here at least one day um because that helps address that ratio. >> And we're looking for consistency, right? So, we have a a pool of subs that we use. Um, but that Lisa works her magic in making sure that there's coverage there as best as she can. But if we were to have consistent nurses, they know the students, they know the buildings, they know what medications kept, all of that. >> It's a very different role than it was 25 years ago. It's a much more require It's not like bloody noses and headaches. It's medication and diabetes, >> feeding tubes. >> Yes. Right. Feeding tubes.
They're in the process of completing the necessary paperwork with the company and an agreement with us to do that. Uh so there is a lot of interest with industry partners out there that are looking at the work we're doing.
So hopefully they'll >> the way we're choosing to mitigate this because you're right. It would seem like that we are assigning our entitlement dollars blindly. Correct. That's how it would seem. But the way that we're choosing to offset that is we are choosing more center of the plate options such as proteins, meats, cheese, eggs. They're only either going to give more of it. Do you see what I'm saying? It's not going away. I don't think they can completely eliminate grains. Do you see what I'm saying? So, so you're right. It's an educated guess, but we're putting a lot of stock in the fact that if the new guideline has protein, dairy, healthy fats at the top, the biggest again, no serving sizes are noted on here as you noticed in the past. And then vegetables and fruits, kind of the fruits trail down. And then whole grains, look, are the bottom of the inverted pyramid.