Very, very grateful and ex- parents excited about what's happening. All right. At this time we're going to open the public hearing in regards to this. Um are there any public comment? All right. We can close the public hearing. Um is there a board member that would like to make a motion regarding this agenda item? I would love to make a motion to approve. I'll second that motion. Mhm. All right. Uh Vice President Olson made the motion um to approve the extended school year. And um member Robinson seconded.
That way we're aware somebody has an issue. We're letting the superintendent still do the job. If they can take care of it, take care of it. But then the staff member knows at least the board's aware of the situation. Do we need to meet? Superintendent took care of it. But at least then the concern is being heard. Allow the superintendent to do their job. But then that way everybody's in the same loop. >> I like that. But because that was what Roger ultimately had his upset part was is to make sure that the board is aware when someone's wanting something to get to the board. >> Yeah. >> As long as if we're aware, >> right? We don't need to do their job, right? >> Cuz I still want to empower the superintendent to do their job >> and it doesn't burden. They're the ones should be responsible for copying us, right?
I feel like, you know, the doors are always locked. Um you have to buzz to get in. Um, there are protocols in place for any type of tornado, fire, you know, I don't feel like, you know, I've been in schools and when they have them, no matter what school we're in, if they have a drill, we are participating. Um, and I see that the teachers have been trained in that and they know exactly what to do. And again, there's some other things I'll talk about. we come to the special ed um area. But um >> okay. So what you have to understand about special ed first of all um our biggest area is called child find and that is where when a parent or a staff member says that they feel like a student needs to be evaluated for um an IEP. All right. Um without going into too much detail, there has to be data that aligns to one of the 14 disabilities.
When we talk about, again, doing what's right by kids, I think Tina, made a point to me about it doesn't matter if it's one kid or 30 kids in a program. >> can just say what that is cuz I think most people are not going to know what it Yeah, so Brighton is it's it's I forget the acronym. Kelly, you want? Um but the opportunity for kids who were or maybe hospitalized, uh who have um need clinical support uh in in having not only academics, but mental health concerns, uh physical concerns working with families, with doctors, with outside clinicians, etc. So, but to Tina's point to me and and we just started the program a year ago and we have anywhere from you know, six to eight kids who may be participating uh within the Brighton um umbrella, if you will. And the challenge becomes and what I was hearing was it doesn't matter if it's one or two or three kids, if it's eight kids.
Uh the tier time for out of district is is 60 minutes. We try to keep roots under 60 minutes. Anything over 60 minutes requires parental approval uh by the parent. Uh our conclusions with the special ed uh is that uh uh again for a district of this size and demographics uh 61% and a wrership of four and a half uh is considered to be highly highly efficient uh by both DESIE and industry standards. Uh again, uh any changes would require school bell schedules and with regard to your special ed out of district placements, it would require the the placement school to change their best bell schedule. And quite frankly, that's probably not going to happen. Uh and again, any increase in writership uh would require change in placement bell schedules and would end up resulting in longer longer routes and more uh student time on vehicles.
Again, giving you even further capacity and ability to cost share routes and to increase your ridership. Right now, your five-passenger vans, if there's a monitor, you really only have three or four students on the on those. Um We then were asked specifically to look at the the cost-benefit analysis of whether it made sense for you to continue to run your own vehicles or whether it made sense for you to contract out. It was one of the key questions that we were asked. We look had to look at several assumptions when we looked at your self-operation. We looked at the the fact that you outsource all of your maintenance. That you would consider to outsource your fuel because you you buy fuel by albeit tax exempt, you're buying it locally. We looked at the cost per day per bus uh in your contract, uh which was uh $486.45 for 20 uh year 25-26.
Any questions or comments? All in favor? I. I. Any opposed? I. Okay. Motion carries. Um Al? Oops, sorry. Policy 514 uh 5145-12 search and seizure. Uh motion that the Board of Education accept the first reading of policy 5145-12 search and seizure as recommended by the policy committee in accordance with exhibit 26-32. Thank you, Al. Do I hear a second? Second. Seconded by Lauren. >> Any comments or concerns? All in favor? I. I.
That so that part doesn't make sense and it's frustrating but uh it'll be great you know hopefully some we'll have some common sense uh legislator in the near future who would uh who would think about improving uh student safety and quality of uh air around the around the school campuses. So >> Mhm. >> I can hope I'll hope for the keep hoping and you know keep praying and keep dreaming but we shall see but no thank you for their presentation. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments or questions? >> How many students are we talking about here? >> 130 on an >> 130. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Just whatever. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you so much for the overview. I actually had a quick question for you. Sorry, you already back. But um I really um do appreciate the bus program.
Is there any discussion at this time? All right, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed? All right, this passes with a vote of 4 to 0. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we are moving along um to business services 9B. This is also um a discussion action item. We're going to be um talking about the lease leaseback agreement um amendment number one Pleasant Valley High School building D fire rebuild and Julie Kissel be will be presenting tonight. Hi, good evening. Thank you for having us here tonight. Um in case you haven't met Maria Campos, she's here with me tonight. Um Maria is the uh facilities planner and construction supervisor for the district and she has spearheaded the effort in um bidding this project and getting the price that is before you this evening. So as you know um we unfortunately lost that building at Pleasant Valley High School due to fire and we have been working very hard to figure out how we're going to rebuild that building.
So, >> so do you not want a process in place where somebody could request a meeting then or no? >> Because you don't have that in you know what I mean? >> I keep close. >> Well, you kind of do. Bring the matter forward to the school board through the appropriate process. So, if the appropriate process is they get to have a meeting, then it's covered in my mind. >> Oh, I suppose. There's the unwritten >> Yeah. >> the unwritten appropriate processes. If they're not happy, then I just request a meeting, I guess. >> Hey, I met with them. >> Yeah, >> that's I'm still not >> I'm still happy. So, I want to have a meeting now. >> Yeah. Like you said, I guess that's if April's still mad about spring break. I mean, >> she can always say, I want a meeting by God.
Um developmental delay is only from 3 to nine. Um and um when looking at that, first of all, we look, you know, academically or behaviorally would the data that we see from the teachers aligning with one of those 14 disabilities to do an evaluation that those pieces of that evaluation. um are aligned with the disability. So two areas that we see students with behaviors um are emotional disability and other health impairment. Um a lot of times in other health impairment you see here ADHD kids. Um so you see those areas where we see more behaviors. So we have behavior assessments that are very thorough that we do. We do a functional behavior assessment and then we put a behavior plan within that IEP if if they meet criteria. It's all based on criteria. Um and um I know we've already talked about Furpa and you know we've already talked about when we discipline a special education student there are laws and whether we agree with the laws or not and I always say that in special ed uh presentations article 7 and IDA we may not always agree with it but we chose to be in education and we have to follow it because there are um as we talked about like fura violations that's funding and we already know and you know they're already taking a lot of funding from public schools and we don't want to see more of that funding um be taken away from us because we did not follow the law.
Doesn't have to be 20. How are we best supporting all of our kids? This makes sense to me, right? Um we just started this program. Kelly has seen growth uh in the program and the work with our with our families. But it's easy to put on a list when you're only dealing with a few kids, right? That's an easy to say from a budgetary standpoint, you're not servicing you know, 30 kids in a classroom. You're right. But when you step back and I and I have to sometimes I have to step back out of my own self and get out of the way and say, "Okay, what about those eight kids who are now in danger of being dropped out or dropping out and not getting the opportunity, right?" Um I think too, Jim, it's it's another another important um thing to think about with losing Jan Tanner as well.
Uh we looked at your district-owned fleet. Uh your your metrics are uh you only have 17.6% of your vehicles under warranty. Uh uh you have 17 your average age is 5.6. Your average mileage is 124,000 miles. Uh and uh you only have three of them as I said under warranty. Uh we would like to see an efficient capital replacement plan for the replace sequential replacement of of vehicles as opposed to just buying them when money becomes available. Uh this allows you in the long run to level fund your capital outlay for replacement vehicles over time. Uh we recommend in the report that you use a either a three-year uh lease purchase uh for vans and a 5-year lease purchase uh for buses. Uh and that allows you to build a fleet uh where you have 50% of your vehicles under warranty at all times level funding your your capital plan going forward.
Uh and we used that as a benchmark uh to uh to look at cost-effectiveness and cost of the operation. Uh we uh we were fortunate that we had done the uh the bid last year for Amherst, Pelham, Shutesbury, and Leverett. So, we had a good information uh which we considered be local information to to benchmark your cost against. Uh even though it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, and I and I I admit that. Uh but, it's it's the best benchmark we had that's local. Uh you know, it makes no sense for us to benchmark you against uh uh a district like Milton or Duxbury or or or anything in the eastern part of the state. Uh or even at some of the large regional school districts that run a a a different type of operation. They run a single-tier operation as opposed to a two-tier operation.
Any opposed? I. Okay. Motion carries. Al? Policy 5142 student safety. Motion that the Board of Education accept the first reading policy 5142 student safety as recommended by the policy committee in accordance with with exhibit 26-3 uh 33. Thank you. Motion made by Al. Do I hear a second? Second. It's Al. Okay. We'll give it to Sherry. Okay.
I actually volunteered um one year to you know ride along on the bus and it was a really eye openening experience. It really helps students you know get to school to and from. Um the question that I had a little unrelated but I was just curious since uh Trusty Shinasan brought up environmentalism if our bus fleet um has been electrified and if not if we're looking into potentially grants if that's something that we're open to in the future. I'm just curious about that side. >> No, but we're constantly looking for grants. >> Okay. Gotcha. Awesome. All right. >> And we have the we have installed the technology to charge buses if buses if that comes down the line. >> Okay. >> So, we're getting there. >> Thank you so much. All right. >> Thank you. >> All right. So, next up is item 10, Measure U, Independent Citizens Bond Oversight Committee.
Um this board allowed us to enter into a lease lease back agreement uh through a rigorous selection process. United Building Contractors was selected. And they have been working really hard with the architects and engineers uh to help with the development of the plans, which has now been approved by the state architect. And they have provided a guaranteed project cost that we're evaluating with you this evening. The construction um guaranteed project cost for United Building Contractors is 5,163,845 dollars. Overall, the total project cost for the rebuild will be, you know, 6.4 million including the cost of all the engineers and the testing and everything that needs to occur. Uh we are very hopeful that if we get started on this work, which we plan to start spring break week, we're ripping the roof off of the top of the building. That's going to be very dusty and dirty and noisy uh while the students are not on campus and we can get to work diligently on rebuilding it with the hope if everything goes well, it could be up and running for the spring semester of 2027.
>> And then it's up to the board whether we decide with them or not. >> Right. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean they're they're board policies and and you guys determine how much you pin yourself in or don't pin yourself into a policy, right? I mean, as in >> I think the way it's written that it allows >> a little bit of a little bit of ambiguity, right? >> Y >> Well, did you meet with them? Yeah, you were copied on the email. I met with them. >> Well, you didn't bring anything forward because I didn't think there needed to be. >> Well, they emailed us again with us. Oh yeah. Then we have to decide do we want it here. >> Excuse me. >> So again, I have and not just Levi, but the superintendent of any school district meets with staff all the time.
Um so we also put in um crisis plans within um IEPs if we have a student that just I I'm again go back to I am not worried about a school shooter within special education. I'm just going to be honest with you. Okay. Um what I'm more worried about is the kid that elopes. That means runs out of the classroom and he doesn't get out of the building. All right. Um I'm also concerned for those students who have um major sensory um you know protecting them when we have a tornado drill or a fire drill because they can englobe and and keeping them safe but also keeping them safe if we do have an intruder. Right? Those are the areas that we see in special ed. But I want to go back to relationships. And I talk about this a lot with GED teachers, special ed teachers, and administrators.
So, this is this is one of the correct ways that we are truly supporting students when it comes to SEL, specifically around mental health, many many times, right? And you know, just to give you that acronym you were looking for, it does stand for Bridge for Resilient Youth in Transition. And that's exactly what the program is, right? It serves as our opportunity to help students transition back. And it really it just it serves a a tremendous purpose, specifically in the area of of mental health. Great. Thanks, Mike. And Jim, your original assessment in terms of that first pass, like looking at like let's say if we were looking at electives that only have four five kids, right? It It makes sense to look at the number of kids any specific position um services, but I think to the point you just made in terms of the intensive needs that that this specific position really addresses uh and kind of and and they're critical for many kids, right?