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Most needed items include canned soups, stews, and meats, instant oatmeal and cereal, flour, sugar, and baking mixes, snacks and crackers, cooking oils and condiments, personal hygiene products, baby wipes and diapers, and regular household trash bags. Every donation makes a difference. And for this week's community shout-out, Gabe has lived a remarkable life from serving in the Navy as a flight engineer to working in construction and faithfully serving our community by driving the senior center bus for 17 years. He was also proudly honored as a parade marshal, a true testament to the respect he's earned over the years. Many of you have seen Gabe cruising around town in his iconic black car with the horse emblem, a familiar and comforting sight to all. Thank you, Gabe, for your service, your stories, and the joy you bring to everyone around you. Here's to 101 years of memories and many more moments of laughter, storytelling, and connection.
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If you weren't, I'd say go ahead, but let's let's wait till we can see it. >> worries. Should be coming up momentarily. No, just just the second one. Thank you. Yep, that one. Not seeing it yet. It's about to pop up. >> Okay, see it. Yep, it's coming. Thank you. Okay, go ahead, Mr. Oliver. Uh unless there's anything Mr. Kylie wants to say before we start making comments or asking questions. Well, I mean I I I'm sorry. Or anything Dr. Sabin Maguire wants to say as well. I mean I I guess what I'd offer is that from our perspective you know, we thought that the the last school committee meeting was a was a very productive one. Um it was nice to have the select board attend and and we thought it was uh a good collaborative meeting in which the town administration you know, made a change to what they were initially allocating.
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Um, so our wonderful man, our >> Do you want me to manage us? >> I just need to let in whoever that >> Oh, it's more Kimberly G. >> Um, so our wonderful director of educational technology, Brendon Hall, who's here tonight, who you've met before. Um he told us that there was a great opportunity this year to go to a conference where districts would be gathering and having some time to learn from some of the experts on AI uh to bring a team of teachers with us and to actually have some time to not only become educated more on AI in education but to have some time to put together a road map and a set of guidelines for both our students and our educators. Um so we had a wonderful group of teachers that was there uh Mr. Scratch down who's over here, our high school English department head and wonderful teacher extraordinaire was part of that group.
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Um, do we want to go one packet to the next packet or just open with any questions that we have? >> However you want to do it. I mean, I think member Webb maybe has >> I lost my notes from the first packet. Don't ask me where they went, but I do have my notes from the second packet. >> Okay. because I also we do have um questions from you from >> I know that I have asked um Roland questions along the way and Andy questions along the way and Ver questions along the way and in general speaking. >> Okay. Okay. Well, if you have your questions ready from the second packet, do you want to open or I can go to the some of the questions that you had from earlier in the month. Um, and we can because there was the the email earlier in the month.
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And we'll start by calling this meeting to order, and we will observe a moment of silence, and then I will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. If you would all please stand. >> Thank you.
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That's it for me today. Thank you all for tuning in, and thank you to our town staff. My name's Halley Silver with WACA, wishing you a good night, and as always, go clockers.
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We were pleased to see that. Uh so we have prepared a draft revision for your consideration. We're not asking you for a vote today. The vote would be on the third on April 13th. But what we're offering for your consideration is a revised proposal of total request of 5%. The detail on the screen shows you how we've gotten to that 5%. So we've reduced the amount of of maintenance increase, music increase, and athletic increase to level funding. So anything above level funding we have reduced. And we've also been able to incorporate and maintain uh some of the key positions that we recommended in the previous request. So the four ESPs at the elementary level, the three RBTs, the adjustment counselor at the middle school, the job coach in the Outlast program, and the elementary instrumental music. We've maintained in this budget request. Um we've made a couple of adjustments in terms of a reduction of a teaching staff position at the Quinn school.
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Um so together Brandon, her myself are going to give you an update on what we learned about and on how we're going to move forward as a district with our vision for using AI. Uh so Mr. Hall, thanks. Uh so the one of the first tasks that was um sort of presented to me when I started last year uh was to figure out AI um and we we have a small tech department. There's four of us uh that are in the building here uh most days um and across the district. And it became pretty obvious that we were being asked the same thing that a lot of other districts were being asked uh the tech departments were. And uh in looking at it, it became not just a technology department problem but a school district uh issue that we wanted to we wanted to resolve and we wanted to do it with voices of teachers involved.
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So, it's up to you. >> I don't have a preference. I think we should start with the earlier ones. >> Okay. So um member web had those questions earlier that were forwarded to you guys. So I'll go through those. Um first question was cell phones for administration. Is it needed? Whose contract is it in? Can we eliminate some? Do they want it? So do we have any cell phone thoughts? the um our I'll say our attorney is a believer that our administrators should have cell phones. I don't have the history, right? Um obviously when they came in or you might have some of that >> I right personally I find it a pain right all that kind of stuff. >> Um I do understand the concept of having two separate not to mix uh you know work personal all that kind of stuff with freedom of information requests that happen and all that kind of stuff.
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>> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you very much. We will do roll call. Miss Wilson. >> Mr. Chad Thompson. >> Here. >> Miss Shayna Murray. >> Here. >> Dr. Blake Robison. >> Here. >> Miss Jill Humphreys. >> Here. >> Mr. Jesse Brainard. >> Here. >> Mr. President Mr. President, all board members are present. You have a quorum. >> Thank you, Miss Wilson. We will move right into our approval tonight. Approval of tonight's agenda. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda as outlined? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Miss Humphreys. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Brainard. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda as outlined Hang on. I would Hold, please.
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Um, and that is that would be through um through attrition. Um, there's a there's a retirement in that area, so um, you know, it wouldn't be a reduction in force. Um, we've also, you know, we were pleased to have the support of the DART, which is the um the the organization in town that organize organizes and coordinates the opioid spending of the opioid funds, so that has been able to help us uh with shifting some money that we would have spent on school choice to opioids, and therefore money that we could spend in school choice from our budget. So, the the total of that is is a 5% increase. Uh, so that's that's sort of where we are, and you see there um sort of you know, the variance in terms of what the town projection uh was um offered at the the 4 and 1/2% at the uh last school committee meeting on the 23rd.
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Um we wanted to do it with um with students involved and the the conference that we went to the co uh Kosen which is the consortium of uh school network school networking uh which is a national and international organization put on a conference in NIC in February. Um so we were fortunate to be able to attend that. Uh there were six of us that were able to go and at the end of it we came out with a pretty good rough draft of some guidelines that we felt comfortable moving forward with and sharing with staff. Um we further polished that and that's the document that you'll see tonight. Uh this document has already been presented to middle school and high school faculty. Uh we've asked for feedback. Um the feedback that we've received from folks was of the graphic design nature where they said, you know, this is green.
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So I you might be able to lend a little of the history part. So, we were all using our own cell phones um in the district and I think a lawsuit happened where um if you were this happened under Christine Debarge um Superintendent Debar where a lawsuit took place where um things were being emailed or texted from cell phones that personal cell phones and if there's a lawsuit they confiscate your personal cell phone and so we were advised to go to um districtwide. I don't think anybody enjoys it because trying to keep track of two cell phones um is really difficult. Two cell phones and a walkietalkie and then most schools also have small walkie-talkies for the people on the playground. So there's four times I mean everything you purchase has to have multiple pockets. Um, so I it's it was something recommended because there was a lawsuit that they confiscated personal cell phones and then when they take your cell phone, anything on it can be used in the lawsuit.
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Okay, I would like to propose a change to our agenda tonight. Basically, a reorganization of our agenda tonight. I'd like to propose that we move action items 9.02, 9.03, and 9.04 to just after 4.01 Superintendent's Recognition and Awards.
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Okay, thank you. Um, questions for Mr. Kylie uh and or uh Mr. Oliver. You can um proceed with your comments and questions. Yeah, no, I was I was very pleased when this uh when we uh were sent this um from Mr. Kylie. Um, you know, I I think it is speaks to what I had mentioned um around forward-facing positions um and being cognizant of the town's bottom line. Um, clearly they did some work here um looking at enrollment numbers or enrollment projections for next year for kindergarten. Um and I see that there was some backup data that was uh shared with us as well around the FY27 projected kindergarten enrollment. Um which uh makes me feel um better uh seeing this data. Um and knowing that we're going to be looking at cutting or a a kindergarten position at Quinn due to uh low enrollment.
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can you make this blue? Uh and and that was the extent of it. We were really really pleased with uh how on board people were when they when they received the presentation. Um so uh the three of us are going to share we've kind of broken the presentation up into three parts uh to share with you. Uh the first bit is that when we created this presentation and we we started our work at Kosen in NATIC in February, we did it um with our our DS documents kind of guiding our purpose there. So we used um you know our our district mission, our vision, uh the nine best practices, the portrait of a graduate. We used all of those as as the basis for anything that we were trying to accomplish throughout the course of of um the two days in NATIC. So uh looking at that um we tried to create something that was a human human centered approach to AI.
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>> Okay. >> I remember the day we sat here and listened to that. >> So does that clear the question for you, Member Webb, or do you have any other >> I mean yes and no. Um, I also know that like we live in a technology age where a lot of people have like Google numbers we can have and you know there's just different ways about going about it. Um, you know, and then I'm looking at like what levels are we requiring people to have cell uh cell phones at? Does it go just principal level or are we talking um assistant superintendent as well? Yes, an assistant superintendent would be higher level-wise than a principal. So, the people who have cell phones city issued cell phones off the top of my head would be myself. Stephen, your director of special education, your director of food service, your director of maintenance as well, your six principles and three vice principles and your two assistant special education directors.
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Are there any discussion or >> I'll take you a second first. >> Oh, would anybody like to second my motion? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Brainard. Anybody oppose? >> No. >> Okay. All right, then all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda with the changes we just I just motioned and was seconded and say I. >> I.
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Um obviously, I'm going to assume um I'm sure it's safe to assume that if enrollment were to change, you know, if numbers were to uptick, uh that we would have to look at uh keeping this position or bringing this position back. Is that Is that fair to say, uh Dr. Stave Amobi? I would say that is fair to say, yes. We will be monitoring our kindergarten enrollment very closely. Uh we're confident that the numbers that you have in front of you now, um we expect them to rise a bit, but not so dramatically that we believe that this uh this position um at this point in time, that this position uh losing this position won't cause us or cause the district great harm. Um but at the same time, we will be looking closely at those numbers as we get closer to uh to to the fall.
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Uh the next slide uh these are the folks that uh if we go back one please. >> Yeah. Uh these folks um all had something to do with this presentation whether it was proofreading or editing or um you know uh we had meetings. Gretchen and I sat down last February, February 2025 with Keith Kaplan who's the social studies department chair. Uh the three of us started brainstorming back then and we were excited that we were able to in February of 2026 h have a finished product. Um others that helped along the way, Amanda Brown, the new high school librarian. Uh Dan Carol who joined us on the committee at the conference. Um Denny, myself and Gretchen were there at the conference as well as Rick Grey and Natalie Nahabian. Um Dan Carol and Natalie are both uh middle school teachers. Um and then Nick Route is the technology department head.
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