That's great, three S's. Um, I feel like that number one kind of addresses that, but maybe it needs to be more specific. And I read number one is that like I I would I would enforce policies by being neutral. So, I I read it more as like this is going to be like we will maintain objectivity, and I think that is different than But, it can't go against like the like the school um, like policies. So, I I don't know. I didn't read that that would cover it, but I also feel like I read another thing earlier incorrectly. What about you, Justin and Evan? So, my I I a I'm sorry, go ahead. You're good. All right, I was going to say I my only thought is that I don't think that covers everything of like today's day and age. Um as far as like what you could have on a shirt that could be seen as as such.
>> I think the numbers are the same on >> Yeah. I think the reason was that that document um this piece on the in the budget is not updated to remove that. But I can I'll make sure that's removed. The PD piece is removed for the next one. >> But it's still 19,000. Still the same cost. It just does not include PD. >> Right. >> Okay. >> Thanks. >> I think I'm done for right this minute. >> Okay. >> Rachel's hand is up. >> Oh, I'm sorry, Rachel. Go ahead. >> No problem. Um, Tanya, a related I Ready question. I I read pretty closely and couldn't really fully understand this. Is that cost per pupil um or per h how how does I work? Like what might we expect if there were to be an increase of 20 students? Would that number go up significantly in the future or how does that work?
We're We're doing I think we're taking the right approach. There are unfilled positions that we have in the budget, easy ones, right? Those are easy to say when when people say, "Are you Are you Are you really culling through your um your budget to ensure that it's really cleaned up, etc.?" I will stand by what we've done. Yes, we we go line item by line item. Chris Matthew, our director of finance is here. We go line item by line item. And we say, "Okay, can we reduce this?" Because that's the fiscally responsible thing to do for a community that's struggling financially. So then, on the other side, these are true reductions, meaning these are positions that are not retirements or unfilled positions. So, these three positions are positions that are being reduced. The conversation we've had, the school committee, if you want to go back and look at their their last meeting, th- those positions will actually, you know, hamper some of our um ability to do the the best job we can do for our students.
She had a great experience and has chosen to return and we are so happy to have her back. Taciana is currently an afterchool teacher at a local preschool and hopes to make elementary education her career. Upon graduation, Tacosiana plans to attend Gordon College this coming fall to major in elementary education. She chose her TEDx DHS topic because of her passion for education and we believe that Taciana will make a wonderful future educator. Please welcome Taciana Dilva. Technology today is all around us. Not only do we carry one of the most powerful devices in our pocket, but it's also all around us in the classroom. In this school, we have more Chromebooks than students, a Smartboard in every classroom, and when we want to talk to a teacher or see our assignments, we simply go to Google Classroom or Aspen. And this is clearly a national phenomenon.
So, I just wanted to personally give you a shout-out because you're always behind the scenes. So, that's pretty much it, Mr. Rypkema. I believe they're located in New Jersey as well, SHI. >> Yes, they are. Yeah, good group. Thank you, Mr. Alfano. Um I do see we have our student council here. So, we would love uh to hear a report if you guys have any information to share, let us know what's going on over at the high school. >> [snorts] [clears throat] >> Thank you, guys. Uh what time did you say that the egg hunt was? Sorry? What time is the egg Okay. There's different rounds? Okay. Good, looking forward uh Yeah. Nice. Good, good. And no snow on the ground, so we got that to look forward to. So. Um I believe that is it on our end. Mr. Sestanovich, anyone on the Anyone from the public?
Like for example, um if I had I'm not sure if you guys even know. Do you know Tory Lanez is? Does anyone know who he is? Or you guys may know like Megan Thee Stallion. Have you all heard those names before? I know who is. We're with you. Megan Thee Stallion? Okay, so one of the big things is um Megan Thee Stallion had um I'll just call her Megan. I don't want this to be recorded. I'm calling her that. Megan Megan Thee Stallion. >> Megan, yeah, yeah. Or so um there was a situation where her and another rapper got into some type of issue and the other rapper's now in jail. Um and it had like gun violence and things like that. Like if someone came to the school with a shirt that had Tory Lanez's face on it, which he's a very popular He's extremely popular artist.
Yeah. >> So there is a per pupil. Let me find the per pupil cost. And Stephanie, if you're online and you know that per >> and if you need if you need to look that up and get back to us, that's fine. But that would be helpful information. >> I have it somewhere. I'm just trying to see where it is. But yes, I will find that for you and get back to you. >> Great. >> Call. >> And this next question is not for Tanya, so it looks like you might almost be there. So, if you get it while I'm talking, >> um I we we had comment that really said this. I just really want to reiterate agreements with the with some of the comments we heard from John and Julio. Shannon, I really appreciate the um context that you shared around working to make sure that no district is subsidizing the work of another district at at the central office level.
We are definitely seeing more and more students uh come across uh in in into our community who have uh higher levels of need, whether it's socially, emotionally, educationally, academically. How are we going to provide that? And and two of them are administrative positions, right? And they're not in front of kids. It doesn't mean it's not going to um have a detrimental effect on families and kids. It it certainly will. But again, we believe this is the best approach to get that 2.75 where we need it to be. What are some of the drivers? And and I I don't want to spend a ton of time on this. Uh if you get online my budget book, uh it's it's there and it's really detailed. And I think for the most part we've gotten it to a point where I'm a former CPA, so I tend to look at this stuff and how can we put it in layman's terms so everyone can understand it?
In this past fall, New York Times conducted a study on the amount of times the amount of time that students spend on devices in the classroom. For elementary schools, this is a lot less, averaging around an hour or less. And this is mostly because of a move to keep younger kids off of devices so that it doesn't alter their development. And this is something that I have personally seen working at a daycare where device time on devices for students is strictly prohibited. However, when you get to middle and high school, this goes out the window with three plus hours spent on a device in school, not including the time that the teacher is using technology or your own personal use. And this is something that teachers have mixed opinions on. For example, Mr. Mr. Chapas, a second grade teacher from New Orleans, says that even though he's seen them, talking about his students, do incredible things with technology at astoundingly young ages, he's also seen attention spans decrease dramatically.
>> [clears throat] >> May I bring up something? Sure. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Item number 27. Mhm. Number 27, number 27, Dr. Papanikolas. Number 27 on page eight. I would request because it's your resolution Mhm. that you add the word second reading. Okay. Because although it says we're approving it, I think that we should memorialize the fact that this is the second time it's coming before the board, so Okay. you wouldn't mind making that motion. Sure. We can do that. Thank you, Dr. Papanikolas. Do we have any public comments? Just before we have the public comments, Mr. Rypkema, I just want to little housekeeping and some ground rules. Essentially, uh this is a forum for the public to to provide it provide the public an opportunity to be heard. This is not going to be a kind of a Q&A. Just want to, you know, under just understand the ground rules.
Um then that could or says like free tone free Tory or you know, stuff like that. Um even on outside of like celebrities, there are also memes and GIFs and things that are really popular online now that mean vulgar things that we would just never know. And so I'm wondering if if um like right now at least the the question that was posed prohibiting clothing that promote the use of drugs and alcohol. Like I could have a picture of um like Future with another artist. Future is very much so he talks about drugs and lean and alcohol use and things like that. And it would promote it just from his presence on my my shirt. Um and kids do things like that and that's also very popular nowadays with uh with new clothing designers and things like that. So I'm wondering if if if that would be getting too much into the weed of things as well or if that's something that we can add that would be pretty simple.
And I think it is important that that get done in a holistic way rather than starting um here. I understand we've got to start somewhere, but I share the concern that we heard from the public about starting with a single cost that will need to be on Pelum's balance. Um and would really like for us to find another way or to uh I I would really like for us to find another way to do that. It doesn't seem like a reasonable plan to me that that balancing start just with a single position um immediately. >> That is not a question. That is a comment. >> Okay. So that that is something we need to keep in mind when we start to talk about the budget for fiscal year 28, which would be our opportunity to change the way things are done. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's my that's my thought.
I think we've done that. I think it shows both of these um scenarios and and they're really the cause and effect of of one or the other. But look at our expenses and our trends. Transportation. And and we're going into a budget year right now where our our transportation costs, fuel costs, um leasing of of of buses, etc., are up. So, we have another negotiations coming. What will that do to our um our budget next year? I don't know. Um you can see how the distribution of of special education regular day cost of transportation over time, you know, we're almost 50/50 now. Uh we have we have many students. Uh we've built great programs in our system because we believe all of these all of the kids in this community are our kids. And if they can be a part of our system, we're going to do everything we can.
And our own teacher in the same study, Mr. Lima, says teachers are constantly competing with their Chromebooks for attention. So, how did we get here? To start, I'm going to go all the way back to 387 BCE with Plato's Academy. This is one of the first schools of thought with older men going to to pursue higher learning. This is where Aristotle both learned and taught. However, this was a very small group. The Socratic method of teaching that you might see when you do a Socratic seminar once a year was their only method of teaching. Their group of 12 was their entire school. And this was again only for adults. When education started coming to children, for example, in ancient Egypt, it was only for children of the royals to prepare them for higher positions. And as uh education started going across the world, it moved in the same way.
Again, it's a forum to provide the public an opportunity to be heard, but there's not going to be kind of a back-and-forth dialogue. And we want to try to keep it in around a 3-minute, plus or minus, time frame. Stay tuned, Amy. Great to hear from you. Feel free. I've got the I've got the Timex on you. You got the Timex on me? Yeah, I got the Good evening. My name is Stephanie Woodley, and I've been an educator in this district for 23 years. I was a coach for almost one. I coached bowling. So, I was super excited last month when they were telling me it was amazing. That whole team, I had them as freshmen, and they are amazing. So, I It's a part of my time, it's a separate thing. >> [laughter] >> I'm here tonight to speak against the proposed policy 3231 that would ban teachers from coaching teams that our students compete in.
We have like uh narco wrappers, too. Right. Evan, I think you were starting to say something. Um I I hear you, Justin. I was going to actually throw it to Katie and see what she what she might say. Um and Jay, but I recall Evan wanting to say something. I was just saying like on this that first point, I I was reading it as more of like from the standpoint of their like the freedom of expression, which is what this policy is about. More like that like looking at that from a neutral Yeah. >> standpoint, not like types of clothes and year three esses. So, I I would say we would need to add something. Um Can I give an another example really quick? Like just for the sake of the conversation. If someone came in with a um not to get political or anything, but someone came in with a Turning Point USA shirt on or a a just a picture of Eric Kirk or Charlie Kirk or just like something that is like you know, people clearly can't support it and there's nothing against people and what they support, but it's it's you know, potentially divisive nature of wearing the article of clothing like is that like is that something that we're not touching or is is it something that we do want to think about when talking about this?
If we're going to talk about um changing how individual charges are coming from the central office in that way, I think that needs to be done in a holistic way and we need the time. Shannon, I know we are asking quite a lot from you and that that can't happen in this kind of kind of time frame. Um but I do imagine it can for a year from now. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. >> Do you have anything now, William? You said you were done for them. >> Got a hand up. >> Yeah. I it it's for the the I Ready IMath stuff. Is it is that curriculum? I know it's when I I looked online. I think it's like 32 to $35 per child kind of thing, but it's IMAT and then also I Ready? Like it is like double the cost or whatever because we're doing two of them and not just one.
It comes at a cost, for sure. But they're our kids. They're your kids. They're your community members. And for me, I look at this and say, "Okay, yeah, so we have to hire a vendor that has access to a van because we have a number of students in wheelchairs." That's costly. But those kids are thriving in the Ashland public schools. They need to be in our system, right? So So, there's certainly has been over time uh about a 50/50 ratio. This is just the data behind it if you want to go back and look at it um in terms of of the true cost of of each of these um it's really the one I'm going to stop for a second. Look at the FY25 and you see the revolving fund use. Now, again, we charge families to ride the bus. That's a tax on families who have kids.
For example, Shishi High School, one of the oldest schools still operating in China, started in 141 B.CE. but was started by a governor and only for the top ranking men from each family. Then the king's school 597 AD still only for the oldest boys and smartest boys from each family. And this was in Canterbury, England. And even when schools started coming to our own neck of the woods in 1635 with the Boston Latin School in Massachusetts, it was still only for young men in order to prepare them for college. It wasn't until the 1800s that the idea of a public school system came into thought. And this started with Massachusetts very own Horus man who became the 1837 secretary of education. He proposed a common school much like our public school the basis of our public school system. Now this is the first proposition of taxf funded schools and teacher trainings so that education would look more universal across the board.
I believe this policy, while well-intentioned, would cause real harm to our students, to our teachers, and to the faculty of this community. First, this board voiced concern that students being placed in adversarial positions against their teachers. I'd like you to reconsider that. Some of the most powerful lessons we can give our students are the ones that teach them how to compete with grace, how to honor someone's ability, how to shake a hand and mean it, how to understand that another person's success is not your failure. These are lessons that they will carry into careers, relationships, and life. Who better to model that than our teachers? Their teachers are not the students' competitors, their teams are. When a teacher is on that other team, it is an opportunity, not a conflict. I've stood on the lanes, and I've said this for years, and we watched bowlers.