>> the is the reason that we're only recommending four? Is there a reason for that? Like is there are there more needs for that grade or So I think I think Rich had a good So oh, yeah. Yeah, Rich had a good point. Yeah, absolutely. That ninth grade class is we kind of refer to as our bubble. We have students that need a lot more support, so we need to do a lot more specialized classes. Sometimes it requires smaller classes to be more successful. And on the other end of that too, we have a lot of gifted students in that class that that we are building AP tracks for. So there's just a lot more moving pieces. We we we even knew that the number existed last year. We were very hesitant to add anything to it just because of all those moving pieces. They're like the outlier class.
>> Correct. That's the current ninth grade you're saying that is a total of 62? Correct. And that to add to that, I mean we we do have to be mindful of staffing and also, you know, understanding these numbers are made very proactively and thoughtfully in that we know what classes are being offered at the freshman level, at the sophomore level, the you know, junior level to to understand, you know, how many chemistry sections will we need to offer? You know, does that chemistry teacher need to teach you a section of biology or does the physics teacher So we I I know Rich has been hard at work with the team at Tahanto working on scheduling and I think with understanding the section numbers and you know, what will be available, we look at these numbers and even though they they don't seem consistent, they match with the staff because we are always tweaking, you know, how many sections of this are going to be offered?
How many sections of this will be offered? Math and English are two important subjects where they we have to make sure all kids get the right fit for those. And So >> But also for our lab classes, right? So we there's only so many seats sitting in the lab that kids will save, right? So we have to make sure of that, right? I was just talking to a colleague of mine who was telling me that, you know, he has labs that that cuz of the schedule not being appropriate that they have sometimes more kids that are sitting in that lab than they even have lab seats, right? So there's a whole safety component to that as well too. So all of that is taken into account when we're recommending that depending on the grade. Also, that ninth grade, appreciate Rich and I have had the conversation with Lisa as well too that we're still COVID.
We're still dealing with a lot of the situation that those kids were at those ages. If you do the math and go back from COVID, you'll see where those kids were landed. 10th grade is a pivotal year, I don't know. Ninth grade, yeah. So the ninth grade, 52 residents, 10 recommending adding four. So 14 out of 66 kids in that grade will be school choice. So that's like 22% of that class is not a resident of Berlin or Bolton. That's that's a lot. So hopefully with our strategic plan and then development of pathways, so perhaps that could be considered for school choice funds, creation of pathways and the one-time capital improvements to create the those equipments, so I think it's a really good point that Mike and Beth are making instead of doing there's some districts on the west of our state that's the only way they operate school choice all day long.
We need the money to exist and survive. That's what gets these districts sometimes in trouble. Knowing that but you're stealing from one to the other like we as superintendents say in the west of our state, you're taking my kids, that's help killing my budget but helping yours. But if you have a goal or or a mission that through our strategic plan that you're going to use this funding for as a source of revenue, great great way to deal with it that All right. Anybody else have anything to say? You want to go to my school? It'd be great if you could. All right. You haven't seen Berlin yet. No, we we spoke to Tahanto then. All right, I'll have a motion to approve the recommended school choice seats at Tahanto at nine. So moved. Jackie? So moved. Jess?
All right, any discussion on that? All in favor? Aye. Anyone against it? I'm against it. So that motion passes five to one. All right. Can we do Berlin next? Open you got that one please? Apologize, we made some some changes. So we had these numbers earlier. We were in focus so much in the budget that we realized on our agenda today we had to get some school choice things. So using that same philosophy in terms of creating this chart um that Lisa explained here, those are the recommendations that we're looking at for Berlin Memorial. Total of four students that were open spots I should say for school choice. Anyone [clears throat] need Lisa to come up and explain do that again? >> [laughter] >> Should we hold off on this one until we have our conversation on Friday since we we're not recommending any in Bolton because of cuts.
We don't necessarily know what positions are going to be cut. Should we hold off on this one? I think we did the Bolton budget. What's that? We changed the Berlin number. Not the number but we could be possibly changing line items if it goes the way that they were I don't think we authorized them to do anything except the ELA coach. We said a point yeah, Yeah, I four ELA coach seats with Berlin. Nothing changes in Berlin. So nothing's going to change in Berlin. Our our hope in the direction we're at is we're not looking at Berlin right now. >> [clears throat] >> And you you're confident you can find a half part-time ELA coach? >> I have no idea, but as soon as you guys vote on this on Friday, that will be the first thing that Lisa and I sit down and do is put it out there, post it out there.
All right. If anybody want to make a change or suggest anything? All right, I'll have a motion please to add four school choice seats to Berlin Memorial. So moved. Beth, Lisa second? All right, anything on that? All in favor? Aye. It's Bolton or sorry, we did Berlin. Do you want to say something about Berlin? No, I'm good about Berlin. Then we're moving on to Bolton, sorry. Have we voted yet? All right, I rushed it, sorry. All right. All in favor? Aye. Anyone against it? I'm against it. Motion passes five to one. All right. Bolton, you So I don't know if we really need to vote on Bolton. If you could just it's we're we're not recommending anything at this time, right? In light in lieu of everything that's happening, right? And cuts that are happening there, we're not making any recommendations for a school choice right at this point.
Does anyone want to change that recommendation make a motion? Okay. All right. Do you need to vote on that? If nobody made a motion, so then nothing moved. Do you want a motion Do you want a motion to vote on zero, Al? Is that what you're asking? >> You know what? I think I probably would just to vote yeah. All right, do me a favor. Someone make a motion to approve zero school choice seats at Bolton Elementary. Megan I heard. Second. Beth. Okay, anyone? All in favor? Aye. [clears throat] I'm also in favor of that. Motion passes six to zero. All right. So the next thing on my superintendent's report is the bullying prevention planning intervention plan. I know Lisa has been working hard on this. I know it's been in your drive. The only thing that we're looking to do is it's this we should be doing yearly is update to align with the policy.
It's just an FYI. It it is our bullying prevention plan. You did have it. If you have any questions, we can certainly answer for you answer them for you, but it's really just updating and aligning it to the policy of bullying prevention. >> [clears throat] >> Questions on that at all? Was there any glaring differences between what we had and No, I think the the difference if you stop right there, there's any any of the items in bold are the ones that were added because they appeared in the policy and were not specifically identified in the plan. So I I just made sure that there was an alignment between what was in the policy to be reflected in the plan. Lisa did a really nice job going through this process and putting this in place. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks, Lisa. Anything else on that? Nope, that's it.
Anybody have any questions? Would anyone like to make a second public comment about anything on the agenda? Yeah, come on. What's the benefit for Berlin Memorial School? Um just a thought on the calendar. Um we always have like parent conferences then we teach the next day. Um, I was just wondering if you could maybe move the professional development to like that Friday after after sitting for hours talking with parents about students and stuff. It's kind of like you're drained and then the next day it might be nice just maybe to have professional development rather than "Oh, let's teach again." I don't know, just a thought. Doesn't affect anything. Or um, maybe early release and conferences like with the Veterans Day. Just something to just make it a easy. Thank you. Anybody else? Yeah. Um, just a couple of things on some of the things that you guys >> [clears throat] >> I'm hoping that you'll think about when you talk about moving things around, right?
I'm glad you guys got to learn about them. Um, you hear things like nurses are expensive and you know, we can get a point eight nurse and and all that kind of stuff. I also hear talk about like we want to keep our legal fees down. So, you have to kind of like think about, you know, I know you guys want to move things around, but I do want to talk about the nurse. Um, specifically not having a full-time float nurse. And I've already talked to this. I think it's very important to understand that there are a lot of times in these schools where we do not have a full-time nurse in these buildings, right? And this float nurse would be there to make sure that we have that coverage, right? Um, we've talked about how sub nurses are probably costing us more money. Um, so having three nurses and then having to hire a sub is actually, you know, not as cost-effective.
Um, so as far as eliminating the nurse coverage, you're you're putting yourself in serious legal exposure for the district. Um, we have students with IEPs, 504 plans. Those are legally mandated health services um, that are written into their plans. Um, I don't know how much you know, most parents know, but unlicensed staff can't administer insulin. They can't give glucagon. They can't give any injectable medications. So, if you have if you don't have a nurse and something happens like someone has a hypoglycemic emergency, um, the district legally has nobody who can treat that if there's no nurse here. That's literally a federal civil rights violation. Um, a single, and this is Massachusetts statistics, a single medical incident involving a student with a known condition can cost the district $100,000. That's according to the Mass Tort Claims Act, um, plus any legal defense costs and then a single contested special education case, um, stemming from failure to implement nursing services can cost $150,000.
Um, the cost of a full-time nurse uh, is a fraction of that legal exposure that we have. Um, so I just want everybody to think about that when we're talking about moving things around and taking nurses out and um, having a point eight nurse. We all know there's no way we're going to get a point eight of a nurse. People want full-time job. They need it. We're in a valid economy right now. Everybody needs a full-time job. Maybe one and a half. Um, the ELA coach, I think specifically for that, and I had talked to some of the teachers, um, that were here tonight. And I feel like we're bringing in someone a superintendent with a lot of expertise. I know we talked about like, you know, him affording his expertise and maybe doing professional development. But just in general, I feel like if we're bringing someone in like that, you'd want them to be part of the conversation possibly and plan to hire someone like that as opposed to potentially bringing someone on board.
He's going to take six months to get ramped up and by that time we haven't even really utilized the ELA coach or had a plan ready for them. So, I I do see some prematurity there and and hiring it for this year. Um, and then maybe including him in part of the plan or conversation around, you know, when and where that ELA coach comes into play. So, that's just sort of my thoughts about that. Thank you. Anybody else? Just making a note. What's that? Uh, what do you mean? So, we have three full-time nurses, one in each school. Right now we have point four part-time sub nurse that someone is currently employed in. Um, and so we do have subs within the district as well, which yes, are not as reliable as a constant sub, but I think it's a nod to yes, we need more coverage within the district, but it's not suggesting that we leave schools uncovered.
Okay. Any other public comments? All right, on to business items. The first one up is the school calendar. Uh, do you want to talk about it at all? So, we you know, this is never an easy task, right? We give we give it to you a couple of times to be looking at I think you've had it for a little over a month now, um, to be looking at it. We gave it a different sort of look at it this way. Um, Jen did some great work in terms of presenting color coding it, um, but we we put days in there, um, that match the 180 school days that we have to provide for our students as well as adding the professional learning days that we have in place for for our teachers with their contract as well, too. Um, I know that one of the comments that came up public comment was about that that non-school day, um, that would be on March, um, next year.
26th. 26th. Excuse me sorry, yeah. March 26th, um, that's a non-school day. Please, I hope you saw what was going on in the news in many districts across our state as well as across the country, the school districts had to close for the amount of the teachers that weren't available on those days. It was all over the news. Um, we were just sort of being preemptive on that. If we're not taking it off because it is Good Friday, we're just calling it a non-school day cuz concerned about staffing. We heard last year from Rich uh, and Lisa how many teachers are out on those days and students as well, too. Um, so. And having a half day makes it even more difficult, um, to find subs for that timing as well. So, other than that, the calendar is as it is. We certainly entertain questions.
We all worked on this together. Certainly give comments as well, too. >> Is that why you do a full day off in the day before Thanksgiving? You just said it's really hard to find subs for half days cuz people travel. >> that's right. Yeah, I received a couple emails and and texts about the calendar. People saying that they would rather have a half day the day before Thanksgiving and a half day on March 26th. I'm just Um, I'm relaying the messages. Go ahead, Jen. I'm curious like so, two years ago we had 10 half days in light of information that many half days allows more connection with teachers. And so, we got a lot of feedback that was very difficult for parents, working parents, um, because you could not truly utilize that day. And so, then this year we combined those and moved those to the beginning or the end of the week.
So, I'm curious why we're now shifting back into the middle of the week with those days. Yeah, so a couple of things. We we we went from one end to the other, right? With half days. We realized that we don't have enough time for those professional learning days. So, we're moving it back, right? So, the half days, when you have a half day it's still conference day for students, but we're also able to be very strategic. We'll use that word with our strategic plan about what the professional learning's going to look like, right? Mapping that all out. Lisa, myself, and Brent are already working to figure out exactly what that's going to look like for those days. Um, but we were really careful about where we're putting them for families so it's not all over the place as well, too. Um, again, we'll we'll get we'll take comments on this, but we were really it's a tough thing to do is create a calendar.
Yeah, I just will like looking at September, there's a Thursday one, October another Thursday one, November there's a Tuesday and a Thursday then a holiday Wednesday. So, I just like as a working parent, Yeah. I appreciated that those days were moved to the end or the beginning of the week to utilize that as one of my big days and take my family somewhere or, you know, so in the middle of the week is hard. >> Sure. Then November day actually just remind everyone that we're stopping use of schools. We agreed for that in Berlin. They're going to stop using our schools for polling, right? And I've actually even engaged in conversation with Bolton looking at at that as well, too. Possibility. So, that's why we're now, which a lot of school districts do, we will be doing all our professional learning so students will not be in the buildings when voting is taking place.