I have been feeling a little bit of pressure lately to do that and um finding that my time is not as ample to do that um because I'm still you know other than this week um doing all the other responsibilities I have. So, I I have been feeling like if someone else could take the charge on that, that would be great. Um, I do think that it would be fine to I if you were to open it earlier and close it earlier, that might leave less of a need for someone full-time over the summer. So Mickey, um, sorry, I should raise my hand. >> Go ahead, Rachel. >> Mickey, um, I'm not totally clear on your recommendation, but is your recommendation to be able to have that bit of money, but to use it to pay someone who has marketing expertise, is your recommendation to be able to extend the current administrator's year?
I understand, but but likely, unless you do something to reduce your other expenses for those four departments, you're going to be back in 2 years asking for another override. And I think that will really make the public It would it would anger me that it's like, "Why didn't we just get to some of the way one time?" So. Anyways, I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi. Um Julie Nardone, 86 Elliot Street. Um an override is not going to solve the problem and the and that's evidenced by the fact that towns that do overrides have other overrides. Because once you do an override, you have more money, more salary, more people, and you just you just make your budget exponentially bigger. So, this is a system problem, as Jim said, and I think the only way to fix it, and I've said this before, is to have the state of Mass.
So you might be thinking what is a more developed country? A more developed country also known as an MDC are nations with mature economics, advanced technologies, infrastructure and high standards of living relative to others. It plays a central role in the e in the global economy. technological innovations, international policy and these are heavily industrialized nations. So for my presentation I want to focus on two MDCs that are most should be familiar with you. The United States and the United Kingdom. So women's rights in the United States. I want to focus on key figures in um the United States that have helped promote women's rights. First is Serena Williams. She's a 23 Grand Slam singles title winner and she helped push the barrier for women athletics. And also most recently, we have the 2026 Olympic gold medalist team who won against Canada to 2 to1 in um the last Olympics.
Are you like, are you still thinking that over? But what what would you like to see if you could manage this? >> Um, well, I I do think opening up school choice earlier would help. Pelum, I think I'm not sure about the 6,000. This is the first I'm like hearing about it. So, I would have to I'm not great. I'm not a fast thinker. I have to think things through a little bit more. Um, I do think that most of my job over the summer is outreach to families who have submitted to the lottery, gotten letters saying they're accepted, but we haven't heard back from them. And I outreach a lot, and that probably brings us 50% more um students um by me doing that. I I don't know what's involved in the registration and the paperwork. Um so I need to learn more about that.
split the income tax. Their budget has doubled since 2012. They've got plenty of money. They do not fund towns like other states, and we're a very rich state. So, I really think you should lobby them instead of us. They They're the ones with the money. Um and then two, I always see these comparisons across towns. You cannot compare across towns because the demographics are different and the income is different. Okay, so I was a researcher. You probably see me post and stuff. Once a researcher, always a researcher. So, today I went and I got 15 towns around us to get the median household income. And going from lower to higher, we're the fifth lowest. And in front of us are Framingham, Marlborough, Milford, and uh one other town, but they all have huge commercial. Mhm. So, the towns after us, Hopkinton is about two We're 127,000.
And then lastly, we have former vice president Kamala Harris who was the first vice first female vice president to be inaugurated in the United States. So in the 20th century, women were fighting for more suffrage and suffrage and basic rights. So the right to vote like with the amendment in 1920 with the women's right to vote. But now in the 21st century you see a shift to more to rights with more complexity like the right to bodily autonomy and high level of governance. With this graph, you can see that women when given the opportunity in education can outpace men when it comes to receiving bachelor's degrees with 47% of women compared to 30% of men in um that receive bachelor's degrees. So, what's happening in the United States right now? So, we have Congresswoman of New York, Alexandria Okazio Cortez. She's from the House of Representatives, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
I hope that answers >> Yeah. I'm just thinking back in February, one of the points of guidance that we made and that I I know I pushed on really specifically was to say that it would be helpful for the superintendent's office to identify what they might need to be able to do more outreach. What I would like to suggest is um that we do allocate that $6,000 but not so specifically to a role and rather to outreach. Um and that Mickey and the superintendent's office and the team be able to have the time to figure out what makes the most sense to do with that money to increase numbers most appropriately. That's sounding like the need you're expressing. Does that seem like a like a good read, Mickey? >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think so. >> Okay. I That to me sounds like a reasonable thing to do.
Hopkinton's 201, Sherborn's 250, Medway's 1 1, I think, 79. I'm going to put I'm going to type this up and post tomorrow because honestly, I just feel like you're trying to get water from a stone. Okay? There are a lot of struggling people here. You might not be able to see them, but they're there. So, I know there's a lot of people that want to speak. Thank you. Julie, I just want to say I agree with you as far as what's happening on the state level. The system is broken. Um I think that that is a conversation that's happening at the state level. We We've We've raised that and um you know, we're part of the Mass. Municipal Association and they actually put out um a report this year that basically you know, states that that our towns are in crisis and um and it is that the system is broken.
With these graphs, you can see that there's been a 44% increase from a decade ago of women's involvements in Congress. You can see at the House of Representatives that there's been a massive increase as women are given more opportunities to education and and polit politics. And you can see the same um trend in the Senate. As of early 2025, women occupy 150 seats in the Senate and House of Representatives combined, which consolidates to about 28% of the total seats in the the US Congress. Next I want to focus to the UK and I also have some influential women. So first we have Adele who won 16 Grammy awards pushing the barrier for women in that woman artists across the world. And then you have the 2020 Tokyo bronze medalists for artistic gymnast gymnastics that helped push the barrier for athletics. And then lastly you have famous British actress Emma Watson who helped promote women's rights to mental health in Hollywood.
Is anybody else? Um, I like that suggestion as well. >> I I have one question for Shannon about this. So, if we decided that we don't feel the need to have the to expand this position to year round for registration. Um, but we wanted to then look at what more we could do in in in marketing or whatever. Is that a cost that could be covered by say a donation from the PTO or something >> and not be included in this budget? like could we do a an outreach to the PTO to say, "Hey, can y'all raise, you know, $1,000, $2,000, whatever it would take to do a more robust outreach?" Is that something that we would be able to have fun? Like, if the families stepped up and would pay, is that something we could do? >> So, we can always accept donations for a specific cause for what somebody wants to donate it to and have that in a specific fund.
So, I I appreciate that comment a lot because >> [music] >> um it needs to we need to have the state um look at how they support the communities um because if if all the communities are having the same issues and we're not able to um fund basic our our basic education and our basic programs, the system is broken. So. Yeah, and Julie, to your point, actually that conversation is starting to ramp up a bit more across communities and I think you know, I I think some of the state laws, especially some of the more recent ones that have been implemented to maybe take a little power away or local control away from communities, I think you know, that and some of the budgetary stuff is really starting to get communities asking saying the same things. Yeah. Yeah. So. And can I just comment a little bit, too, Julie?
So, same thing with the US. Um, in the early 20th century, the UK focused primarily on suffrage for basic rights like the right to vote. And now you see a shift towards more complex rights like bodily autonomy and level of government governance. So, the 20 2024 election saw the highest number of women elected, which was 263, an increase from 220 in 2019. With this graph, you can also see just like in the United States, the members of Parliament from 1918 to 2024, there's been a massive increase in women's participation in politics when given the opportunity. So now I want to shift over from more developed countries to less developed countries. So you might be thinking also what's a less developed country? A less developed country, also known as the LDC, are low-income nations facing severe structural impediments to sustainable development characterized by low human assets and high economic vulnerability to environmental external shocks.
Um the concerning thing that I have right now is um the regardless Pelum's registration has to be done and the the allocation of cost of who does it and what Pelum should pay is where if we don't apply this 6,000 we don't put give this work to the clerical then do we continue doing it as we have and if so then Pelum should be have a portion of that person's salary on their budget. So it sounds to me like we're getting school choice and registration hooked together in our in this discussion and I'm not sure that they really are. They're really two separate processes, not one. Is that is that correct, Mickey or Tanya? >> Yes. I mean, if if we're not paying Ammerst, someone in Ammerst to do registration or paying um full-time secretary over the summer, then it would fall on me. Um and I'm not sure what it entails, the registration.
With regard to like Chapter 70 funding and and schools being funded through the state, right now we're at the situation in Ashland where we're a hold harmless district, meaning we're not getting those huge chunks of Chapter 70 funding anymore. We get $75 a child is what we get. So, it's about 211, 220,000 dollars, somewhere around there. That's all we're getting in chapter 70. Last year we were in a similar situation. The challenge I I find here, especially uh in Massachusetts of of doing budgets, we're talking about this right now in March. We're not going to see a state budget until July. And as they go through their process, we're hoping, as they did last year, they moved it to $150 a child, right? So they increased it by another 200,000. That's the impact it would have on us. We don't get an opportunity until the fall town meeting to really recognize that revenue.
Its role in the economy is that it's a resource-rich and global trade, most often requiring specialized international support from developing nations. So with this you can see the UN recognizes 44 countries as less developed nations. Just like in the map I showed before. Most of these nations are in subsaharan Africa and Southeast Asia with 33 of the countries out of the 44 being in subsaharan Africa. So I want to focus on two less developed nations. First Haiti and then Myanmar. So Haiti an island in the Caribbean. In Haiti, 14.9% of women aged 20 to 24 years old are married or in union before the age of 18. The maximum recorded representation of women in H in the Haitian parliament was approximately 11.11% in 2010 compared to 2.7 today, which is heavily increased. I mean decreased, sorry. So this primarily stems from an increased gang violence.
Um because that I'm I'm the only one working over the summer. So I do think we're combining them >> but also the registar does both school choice and um registration because school choice is a registration type of you're registering to go to a particular school. So the registar does both. So if there is not a registar I as Mickey said I assume it would be her but above my pay grade. I'm not really sure, but I'll but you should know that they're both the registar does both of those things even though they're unique two different systems. It they're both registration for school and it happens with the registar. >> Okay. Thank you for that clarification for me Tanya. >> You're welcome >> Mickey. >> Sorry I already said but I >> Oh, okay. All right. William, >> I was just going to say that like I I'm not I do not want to advocate for Ammerst to be subsidizing our registration.
We can't I Michael and I are really conservative when it comes to to the numbers that come out on uh in in February and March from the state. We have to be. I think it's the right thing approach. But typically, the state has kicked in uh a little extra in chapter 70, uh not so much in in municipal aid, but certainly in education they have. Thank you. I did see a hand online, but I don't see a hand up. There was. There was, but so if I'm just making sure that anyone that wants to uh make a comment online just to use the raise hand function. Oh, Leah, that's okay. Um I'm going to go ahead to to Leah. >> so that We are timing. Yep. Yep. Yep. Um Leah, if you want to go ahead and uh unmute yourself. If you can. Hopefully you can.
Um this increase in gang violence is heavily seen in the 2018 Haitian election where women were targeted by gangs. Um they were heavily targeted by gangs for their polarizing ideas in um politics. So even with this, even with all these setbacks from the Haitian, from Haitian, against Haitian women, Haitian women still fight to to against severe the severe crisis of gender based violence, systematic corruption, and deep-seated inequality. So next I want to focus on Myammar, which is an country in Southeast Asia. So Myammar is a patriarchal society. So a patriarchal society is a social structure where men hold primary power in a society. As of 2021, Myammar has been in control by a brutal mil military regime known as the state admission council. Patriarchal cultures cultural values still shape women roles in familial relationships, contribute to gender divid division of labor and limit women's participation in decision-making at all levels.
Um, so I would like to have information as to I and I don't know what the split would be because this is not a this would not be a split between the region Ammerst and Pelum. This would be a split between Ammerst and Pelum or that person who does the registar and I don't know if they're full-time only registar or if they have other duties that they do for Ammerst but whatever percent of their job is done on registration for Ammerst then I think we should look at like how many kids Ammerst has and how many kids we have and really look at what the cost would for us to share that employee for the registration of our students. And I, you know, it would be interesting to see what that number would look like, I guess. Um, you know, is that a $4,000 investment?
We're working on it. There you go. Okay. Go ahead, Leah. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Leah Suarez of 25 Valley Road. Um this isn't a question as much as it is a comment um to someone else's question earlier. Uh someone had asked if we had looked into uh revisiting the marijuana sales um and there wasn't too much of an answer to that, but I was going to say as uh part of the comprehensive plan committee, that is a part of the comprehensive plan to revisit it. Um I'm not saying that it will pass, it still has to go through town meeting, but I think discussions uh will happen in the next few years um related to that. Thank you, Leah. Jim. Come on up. Joan Gentry, 104 Road, um on the historic commission to speaking as an individual. Um first I want to thank you all for the um for the um presentations.