So, this is the time of year that we complete the staffing matrix uh based on where kids register for courses, based on what we need from from a staffing lens. Um, and typically once the board hears where we're at from a staffing standpoint, then we we post the positions in which we we have a need for, right? Um, and that's based on uh kind of a complex matrix of retirements and and where positions are open and so on and so forth. We tend not to post for positions that kids have not registered for courses for because it's typically not um physically responsible to do so because we'd be hiring teachers for positions that may or may not occur. We've done a couple advanced postings for uh things like counselors because they tend to not be dependent upon course enrollment. Um but but that is that is a little bit of a challenge and and certainly you know the board has discretion um to hire positions that aren't necessarily filled by student enrollment but generally we would not do that until after this particular board meeting um each and every year.
Um my coworker is also on the call uh just let me know that um you did some digging in the actual data and um since May of 2024 81% of outages on the circuit are tree related. >> Thank you. >> So this this is a this is a a pressing factor for the reliability of this circuit. >> So when you say this circuit you're talking about a regional circuit. You're not talking about these two streets, right? >> Uh yes. The circuit is all >> Yeah. Let's not get confused. Um Trisha, I have a lot of comments, but I'm remote, so you tell me when you want me to jump in or how you want to do this. >> I think we're ready for questions um from the board. >> Questions or comments? >> Uh either one. >> Yep. >> Does anybody want to jump in?
>> So you just roughly just to make sure I got where you usually post in March. >> We'll post well March tomorrow. Okay. >> We'll post tomorrow after we review with the board where we're at saffron wise. Yeah. And so again, you know, I threw out September as a sure uh we want to gesture to the community that we really want this and we're going to really try to make sure that we do our part to lure in talented people because we want this program to go. So, I threw out September, but again, I I know that this maybe this is a a wild idea, but I do think that maybe there is some appetite on the board to hire some people even if they're not full-time. Like, if you go back to that sample growth over time chart, you know, where we have one teacher starting with a point4 position.
Who's in there? Or I can start with >> How many outages are we talking about on these roads? >> Uh >> we talk about 81% but is that one to two? I mean, how many >> We're saying these two streets are not in that data at all. >> I mean, they're they are a part of that data. If you give me a minute, >> you're saying those two streets had outages specifically in that data set. >> Yeah, if you give me a minute, I can pull specifically how street um for how many of those, but we're looking at 68 outages since May of 2024. >> 58 outages. >> Wow. 58. 58. >> That's a lot. >> 68 between those two streets. >> Okay. >> 68 on the 455H3. >> Um but it's more >> Yeah. I'll pull Give me a minute and I'll pull. >> Yeah.
Again, this is all something we have to talk about. But if it was up to me, I'd be willing to hire someone at a point four that first year because we want to get this going and we know if we get it going here that will attract more teachers in because sometimes, you know, we are all interested in this topic, but not everybody is in this room. So, if we actually hire someone even for a point4 position, which I know is a lot of money, and then get them to be a permanent sub for those rest that time, uh, and maybe gets them to work on curriculum, that whole year is going to be time for the word to get out that like 2:30 series, they're building something. I >> I know that that's an expensive option, but also you might get some situations where Spanish teachers say, "Okay, I will pick up a couple hours of Arabic and I will I'm going to investigate this because I like teaching at 2:30.
So, you're pulling them from the entire region. you're not pulling them on those two streets. Um, >> and as well, it's a lot of outages. Um, but the circuit is hitting the threshold for how long these outages are. So, not only is it a lot of outages, they're lasting quite a while. >> Yes. So, so I I guess I'll just jump to to my point, which is this is not just a street. This is a regulatory protected, statutoily protected scenic routes. So the conceptual idea that this is like any other street in Ashland, we've got a lot of nice trees or that this is just like a state park I find to be not um not accurate. There's sort of that joke if if a tree falls, you know, if a tree falls in a forest and there's no one to see it, has it really fallen?
I like languages. I you know, I have seen teachers do this before." So again, that's a big idea to talk about. >> I know where you're going with that. If I could take you back because I have seen this slide earlier in the week. I I get you when Mark when you say wild ideas. >> Yeah, it's amazing. I struggle I struggle with financial responsibility. We're saying four. I struggle with what does that open that we start having all of this. I would have a greater I would have a greater sense of acceptance with that if that person had other endorsements and was filling other needs with MTSS and intervention and helping students in an academic fashion and assigned duties. to say the person that's going to do that and then to do curriculum development that is breaking everything >> we've done and I'm not paying someone that much money for a permanent stuff.
These trees when they come down will be visible to the p to the public. These are scenic routes that are important, protected, and I would say some of the favorite streets of people in Ashland. Yes, it sucks to lose power, and it also sucks to have road um inconvenience, but I can tell you as somebody who's lived in Ashland for a long, long time, it's known to avoid certain streets um during storms. That's sort of common sense and logical. Um and so road inconvenience truly is about cost both to Eversource and the town of Ashland. Now, I'm not seeing a report here from the select board that our town resources are so overwhelmed that we need to do this. What I'm hearing is Eversource is here to say they have their own regulatory scheme where they must deliver to the state quick response. What does that mean?
So I appreciate your creativity with that. I think that could be discussed. Anita, can you do me a favor because I think one of the key factors, Can you go to that slide with the three columns of the heritage, the native speakers >> because I think that slide, yes, >> I think one of the things that we talked about earlier this week is this is this is the pipe dream, okay, to have all three programs with some of the challenges you have presented. Take away all the outside noise from us, from everybody else. Which one, you being the expert, is the most viable to start >> financially or >> program wise, program design programmatically? And I know we kind of talked about this earlier in the week. >> Can you define that term? What do you mean by programmatically? to do all three of those programs.
That means they got to put people on these roads quickly. They've got to be responsive and if they're not responsive, then the state penalizes them. That has nothing to do with the scenic route. We have zero obligation. No offense to Eversource, zero obligation to asssure that their penalties are low. In fact, that's their responsibility. They charge the residents of Ashland a cost to to deliver power and should take responsibility to pay attention to those scenic routes to assure quick response. So, with all due respect, I'm not seeing how this allows us, the planning board, to somehow loosen the protections for a scenic route. All that being said, the statute itself has language that allows our town warden together with the town of Ashland if there is an emergency to remove a tree. I'm not hearing anything like that. I'm not hearing that, you know, there is an emergency right now.
Like she said, there are three different pedagogical theories with the second language learner is someone who's never spoken French and learning French. Okay. The heritage learners, as we've heard from many of our our people in the audience today, there we have a lot of heritage learners that that learn it whatever the language is. You've learned it because grandma grandpa came over from another country and they speak it at the table, but they don't have the formal instruction. So they still have the receptive language and the native speakers are ones we have lots of native speakers in other language like Anita said could go out of the gate and get the seal of bi literacy. So to me it's those are two very vastly different programs when we're also looking I hate to use the expression Robin Rob Peter Paul but when we're limited with people that have the lensure whether they're going for this one or this one there's some of the same people with the same pool so my question if we're starting up and we're building this and how this is supporting our students you mentioned still the compliance with the e that that um Charles repeatedly presents it at student support.
The tree is there. We got to remove it. And that, by the way, you don't even need the planning board to do. And so, to Becca's point that anything horrible can happen on that street, absolutely, that's going to happen. And the town of Ashlin will remove those trees when it happens. So there is already a solution in place in the statute itself for emergency response. We don't need to be talking about that as a threat because the statute already takes care of it. So the only thing we're discussing is a increased responsibility and cost to Eversource which to me, no offense, is not sufficient to remove the protection for that street. What I'm hearing is out of those 21 in level three, you've got half that are dead. That's a no-brainer to me. a dead tree should go. The rest in level three, >> I would have to be I would have to receive the data that those are the trees that are potentially responsible for what's being presented as ooh fire or highlevel incidents in this region.
What do you think is the most viable for us to start? >> So before you answer, I just we got into teacher lensure and student programmatic. I I just want to make sure we're answering the right question. This slide is about the students >> what what experience they would be having within the scope of the program. Heritage learners are kids, as you said, >> right, >> that typically have a background in the language that are able to speak it um typically at a at least a conversational level, maybe more advanced, but there's gaps in their learning that have to do more or less with uh whether it's reading, whether it's writing. Um our best example currently is we have heritage Spanish, and that would be exactly what you described. kids that have a an an experience with teaching or or not teaching but with learning the language or or illustrating their their knowledge of the language but they don't read and write at the level of of our uh traditional languages or the the the the acquisition language programs.
So I'd like to know which streets, which trees, what we're actually talking about before I would be comfortable approving all of these being removed. But I have zero problem removing the debt trees and that's my position on this. All right. Thank you. Are there any other questions from the board or comments? >> I have some questions, but are they going to respond? >> Uh, so we do have a regulatory requirement to the state um which the responsibility of which of course does not fall onto the town of Ashland. Um but the crux of that um that regulatory requirement is that according to the state of Massachusetts um it has defined a threshold of outages which is not acceptable Massachusetts citizens to experience. Um so it is directly related to uh the residents of Ashland and the outages that they are experiencing. um that um uh we do something to address these trees.
So the pathway typically is they learn those basic skills in reading and writing and then reintegrate with kids who are learning it in in the traditional sense. Um, this is a little bit unique to this particular program because it's so uh uncommon with school districts that are, you know, we've mentioned Oaklan is as was maybe the example. I know District 88 has had it on the books, but they have not run it. And then 218 typically, and then I'll let obviously you you go into the more details. Typically, with the exception of magnet schools that offer it for kids who don't have prior knowledge, uh, like uh, CPS schools, uh, it it it it has more uh affinity for heritage speakers. Is that accurate? >> Yes. >> And it's also significant that the state of Illinois requires a heritage program for Spanish, which we have, >> but that's unique.
Now, I didn't get too deep into the details of specific trees uh because I know that we've been trying to plan a sitewalk um to go out and look at these trees in person uh which is something that I would be very supportive of. I'm very happy to even do it on a weekend. Um because when you put these trees on a list and they just become it just becomes a list of trees with some comments of uh various things that I saw. Um, I think being able to go out and physically look at these trees, have an actual give and take about specific ones based on what everyone is like, uh, visually seeing at the same time, I think is a more productive um, conversation. >> I'd like to open it up to other Oh, sorry. Was that you, Becca? >> Yes. I was just um through through the the chair.
That's for Spanish, but that is not such in place for Arabic at this time. >> Really, >> we're uh compliant with our bilingual service plan um for the Spanish language arts through the Spanish heritage course. um it is that it we could offer a a span a Spanish language course separately. Um we we're not required to offer heritage, but we we um are compliant because of that. Uh I think right important here um because in in my world, right, these are two different ways that teachers would approach instruction. And so when we're thinking about the number of students that we could potentially serve, right, um it would be very challenging for a world language teacher to have a student who has no prior exposure to the language with a student who has some receptive language, right? Um from home. And so that would be very challenging for a teacher to have both of those students in their classroom.
I was just also going to add to um Anna's point about emergency trees and everything. Um with my tree warden hat on, um we do everything in our power to avoid being in an emergency situation. To clarify what an emergency tree is, it means that that tree is actively falling. Um the classic emergency situation and I've dealt with this in um another community is a tree has dropped a branch. It's hanging in the wires. It is actively on fire. The fire department can't even put the fire out yet because they have to wait for the utility company to come turn off the wires and meanwhile things are burning and people are having to evacuate from their house. um we don't want to be in that situation because it's not just a cost concern or a time concern. People's lives are at risk at that point and we want to prevent that from happening.
And so, um, you know, choosing a path to to start this program, um, I think it would be best to support one of one of these approaches. Um, and I just want to be clear, the native speakers is, you know, that that's not a path. Uh, that is right. We're encouraging those students to take a separate language, learn something else that they haven't. Um, but right, I think we would have to make a decision. Are we going to commit to heritage or L2? Um just I think given some of right the the interest from our student population um if I had to make a guess right I'm assuming most of the students who are going to be interested in the course are going to be have some type of receptive knowledge they're going to be speaking it in some way shape or form that we would primarily run a heritage program initially with the goal to be to build second language acquisition over time.
Uh so what we normally do and what I do I use the same matrix and Matt Matthew's only showing the second part of the matrix. The first part of the matrix um looks at how likely is a tree to actually fail, to have a branch break, to fall down, to have some kind of issue um compared to what how likely is it to actually hit something if that failure occurs. So, I can look at a dead tree and say it's nowhere near a house or a power line or a sidewalk or a bench that people are going to be sitting on. and it might be imminent failure, but it's negligible likelihood of hitting anything. And so it's going to be in the unlikely category on that left side of that matrix chart. But if it's in those categories and then the consequences of it hitting something, maybe it is near power lines, but it's leaning the opposite direction, so it's not likely to hit the power lines.