Uh For these middle school pieces as a kid, these are things that we're just not offering currently, um you know, due to you know, the loss of the world language piece, and uh that's just a course we haven't ran one for a number of years, so it'll be on the back burner for a while. And what can we do when languages come back in? Um that's an ongoing conversation. Um you know, we are looking to We obviously, if you look at the research, I mean, building in language in at the elementary school is where that you get your best bang for buck, right? So, that's a bigger topic that we have to talk about. It's not a graduation requirement for us here at Tantasqua, that's why it is what it is. Uh so, unfortunately, that's the nature of the beast with what we have. What do we have currently at the high school?
Um so, as of right now, we do offer um tracks one one, two, three, and four um for foreign language in both French and Spanish. So, wait, you said language is not a graduation requirement at Tantasqua, but it is a requirement for many colleges. It's recommended for 2 years. It says it right in there. They recommend 2 years, but it's not required for Correct. 2 years consecutively if you're looking at a 4-year college. So, our guidance counselors will work with our students in scheduling that. So, if that is their pathway that they're looking forward to, make sure that they're receiving those. Not to graduate from high school, but most colleges will want it for 2 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Yeah. I'm curious. I know that I think we have access to some college classes as well. Do kids have that ability to do for languages, too?
So, we do. Um we utilize Edgenuity. If there's any outliers, obviously, the primary goal is to make sure that we have an actual live teacher in front of our kids, um but if it does not align with the schedule whatsoever, and this is, you know, based on a couple different circumstances, we have utilized online to support it. And we also have to just be careful with the union, right? So, we we can't be subletting jobs, uh so we have to take that up. >> It's for like true conflicts. Like my daughter had was offered you could either take French three online or history online, and I was like, you're not taking a foreign language online. >> [laughter] >> It's It is difficult. It's hard. But it's an option for true conflicts in schedules. In terms of the college classes, sorry, I'm going off on a tangent, but like is So, like evening classes college classes, do kids have access to that later on in their school?
We don't promote Right. So, um Steve, you want to Go ahead, please. Um so, um kids we we encourage students to engage in anything that they're passionate about. It doesn't supplant credits for us, but it looks beautiful on their resume. So, if they put if and on their college application, they love a foreign language so much that they exceed what is offered here, and um to go off campus on their own time, that shows initiative. That's actually something special to write about for college. Um so, we absolutely encourage that and think it's fabulous. We just can't count it on our transcripts. Just many of our kids do night life at Assabet, right? Yeah, yeah, it's great. JAM pathway high school kids, not just from our community, but all others that that are full walking around taking those courses that make giving them an opportunity. If If Assabet comes and does Was it eighth grade they came?
What grade were they came and did a presentation Assabet for our Yeah, eighth grade. Eighth grade came. So, I'm going to say the program of studies it if you're ever interested, the each graduating class has a Instagram page where it's like what schools everyone's committing to and what their majors majors are, and this is a reflection of if you go on that one for this 2026, you will see business, business, Isenberg school. You'll see that business is it's you get a really good feel for what the kids are looking for. >> When we come at the next meeting, we're we're going to present to you where are some of our college Our kids are getting accepted into college. Some impressive Some places. unbelievable the places our kids If you ever want to think about the work we're doing here and the kids walking across the stage and where they're going off to.
Well, it speaks volumes of the educators and the education they're giving. Absolutely. Uh I mean, we have kids looking at unbelievable schools that are making choices right now. But I you should definitely look at the page. It's super It's really fun to see where everyone's going and what they're majoring in. I I you'll just from the kids I talked to like decisions they're making. Talking to Matthew Dowd like his choices like how are you kidding me that they're trying to decide it? Uh I talked to the the I get the Lee kids confused. The one that's a senior. Brendan. Brendan got accepted to the Isenberg program at UMass. That is the most competitive business school in the entire country right now, and you know, not only that, state school prices, but, you know, being at that level, incredible these kids are getting in. So, we'll be talking about that at that school meeting.
Not the one Friday next month. Got I have a motion to approve the program of studies? So moved. Beth? Second. Lisa? Final thoughts? All in favor? Aye. Anyone against? Okay, that motion passes. Um so there's an offer to donate to fix the front sign at Boylston Elementary from Leslie Greenier. Uh the the quote that we have in there is for $5,000 and that's what she's committing to donate. So we have to vote to accept that. Can I have a motion, please, to accept the donation to fix the Boylston Elementary front school sign by Leslie Greenier and her family? So moved. >> Jackie? Second. Jess? Questions on that? Excellent. We'll we'll get thank you notes out as well as do once the project is complete as well. All right, uh all in favor? Aye. Anyone against? Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. The next item there, bingo night.
I did get an email just before the uh meeting tonight that they're not going through with bingo. So uh that's no need to address that. Um the Boylston Elementary club reallocation. Who's to Rob, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so we have several clubs in our in our budget that are not being used and we have an arts and crafts person that wants to take monies from one that wants to run a arts and crafts club, which is one of the things that we wanted to see more of in our school. And um there's money in what they call the comic book account, which is not being used right now, so I'd like to transfer, I think it's it's $1,000 is what I asked to transfer to arts and crafts to make it viable for her to run the program.
So this donation is the right way through you guys, right? It's cuz you guys I guess at one point had a lot of that comic book club, you guys had money for that. We approved that and there must be money in that, yep. About $1,000. What grades is that It she's got two sessions she wants to do four sessions for K through two and three, four, and five for her four sessions. Only 12 kids, so obviously it'll be really hard to get kids in and and that's one of the So when we I just want before I send out anything, I wanted to get that cleared by you guys. Can I have a motion to authorize the BES student activities treasurer to transfer $1,000 from the comic book club account to the arts and crafts club account? So moved. Megan? Second. Jess? Questions? All in favor?
Aye. Anyone against it? Okay, that motion passes, thank you. Uh school choice, we already voted. And the uh Boylston Elementary donation from Ahold Delhaize. Do you want me to talk to that? Do you Yeah, do you have information on that? So I think it probably was a uh PTO or I they thought it was Mrs. Haydem thought it was a BEF thing. The check is made out to the school, so I can't put that in the account for the Boylston Education Collaborative, so I Lynn had asked me what to do. I said, "You've got to take it to school committee and vote and they can do whatever they want with it." So it's up to I said nature's classroom buses cuz I don't think any fundraising was done for nature's classroom at BES. I don't know. Okay. So I mean it's up to obviously that's your discretion.
I'm not making a motion on that. I I asked if we could do it so that Oh, yeah. But it wouldn't be fair to use it I don't think it Aaron was wondering if it's fair to use it for just this current year. If not, can we just divide it over all the current years so it's equitable? So just so we we're understanding where this money's coming from. I think it was Jen and I that did some research on it. We got a check, right, that you guys handed to us. It looks like it's from like Stop & Shop. You can allocate some money. Yes. It's underneath that whole So what we did, we used to be in charge of just grants and the PTO did everything else, right? So BEF was it was a foundation that just did grants. And so what we did is we had people that would go out into the community and they would fundraise.
And what happened, my guess is why it's one that's 160. So what we do is we get like sponsorships for bingo and for events that we hold. I'm guessing it was like a $1,000 sponsorship that [clears throat] we never cashed. It was from 2021. The check got lost in the mail or something. It's a donation from a company. They had to probably they probably paid it back with interest or something like that. That's the only thing I can guess or maybe it was 2 years ago. >> time frame I in Berlin, Hannaford's had a program where you could designate 5% from your sales. >> That's what it is. And this is definitely this is definitely what this is. It's Stop & Shop. We just started doing it. But you think BEF We used to do that. PTO used to every When they stopped doing like the box tops, That's right.
Yeah. they started doing this and everyone was doing it. We still do box tops at BES. We still get like I get like $22 twice a year. But you didn't even have to sign up for it. Like you it was just listed. >> is money that $1,000 We we didn't want to use it spread it out amongst all the grades cuz we really don't know what grade should be having it. So Rob will use his discretion to spread it out equally across the grades at Boylston Elementary. Based on how long each grade has been in the school, like what BEF did. Like so the fifth graders should get the higher percentage and the kindergarteners get the smallest percentage. Okay. I don't know how you did that, Jen. Can I have a motion, please, to accept the Boylston Elementary donation from Ahold Delhaize to be applied to to be applied to uh nature's classroom funding for the current K through five grades at BES on a pro rated basis.
So so I don't think it was going to go for nature's classroom. I think they're going to just use it through the discretion for the grades as well. plus I had to ask if we could use it cuz we were so hurting, but the the answer was you probably can't use it for just this year's class. You have to divide it over But that portion of fifth grade could be used for nature's class. Okay, but for nature's classroom I don't think it's specifically for nature's classroom, but he'd probably use it for the fifth All right, nobody's nobody second that motion. Come on. >> [laughter] >> Can I have a motion, please, to accept the Boylston Elementary donation from Ahold Delhaize to be allocated to the grades K through five at Boylston Elementary School on a pro rated basis. To be used as needed. To be used as needed at the discretion of the administration.
So moved. Chip, Beth, Jess. Okay. All right, Jess first. Any other questions on this one? All in favor? Aye. Anyone against it? All right, any future agenda item That motion passes, thank you. Any more uh future agenda items? Future agenda items? Are we going to talk about the district improvement plan? Strategic plan? Strategic plan? What did I call it? >> District improvement plan, yes. Strategic plan, right? Yes, we can put that on the next uh uh agenda. We actually made some good progress with all the people in the group, so we can absolutely put that on the agenda for next month. >> And that will be May 12th? Yep. We're just so you know, we >> Scholarships. Sorry. That's okay. Ooh, yes. I'm sorry, you're right. May 12th? Strategic plan, [clears throat] scholarship. And and just so you know, we're we're we're we're running out of time frame.
We're probably not going to have you be able to vote on the strategic plan by this end of this year. We're going to hopefully have it in place during the summer. Grant and I have some appointments already scheduled to visit communities to be able to explain the strategic plan to them. We have to get input from people in the community, both Berlin, Boylston, and our senior citizens as well as other community members. So we're hoping that by September 1st we'll have it Oh, right. Yeah. That was just to get the feedback from them. Now we have to go back and let them see what their feedback looks like in the strategic plan. So we really got to lay it out. It's been heavy lifting. Christine and Lisa and myself and John and people from the select board and FinCom have been doing And Lisa and me, I'm sorry.
Anyone want to jump in on that conversation? I think we are talking about adding scholarships somehow to the strategic plan. Whatever you No, it's the Moses Reed scholarship we have to vote on it. So we'll we'll definitely put it on the next uh month to be able to give you some updates on that between Lisa and myself, um John, and Lisa, and we'll ask Christine to join us as well, too. I And I don't know if if it's part of it, but you know, the mention of computers not being a one-to-one district. You know, I know MCAS is at grade three and they have to learn to type. That was mentioned at prior school committee meetings. So I don't know if that also can be discussed. I think it would be nice to see some financials on that to understand how much of a priority it would be because we have a lot of stuff in the plan and I think just you know, with the focus on the financials, I think it'll be an important piece for you guys to understand here are the things we want to do, but you also have to look at what it's going to cost us, right?
I I was talking about eliminating computers kindergarten first and second. No, I know. There there's a lot of there's a lot of um cost-saving initiatives in the strategic plan. So what I'm saying is is like we could eliminate a one-to-one, but it may not make it as big as big of an impact as something else we're recommending. So I think it would be nice like I we don't have numbers right now. We don't have no budget. Hypothetical budget numbers to see how much it would affect, but I think it would be nice to see which ones would make the most impact and how much LOE that's going to take, right? So that we can make a decision on how to prioritize which ones we do. And every single thing we're putting in the strategic plan, we're putting we're holding people accountable. Like who's accountable? You got to see a lot of it is school committee, right?
That they're holding them accountable to making sure that these things are in place. Oh, actually, can I have the uh master Boylston master plan implementation be an agenda item for the next meeting? Yep. Jen, you got that? Boylston master Boylston master plan implementation. Strategic plan, remember? What else do we need someone to add to the strategic plan? The scholarships. Scholarships. Moses Reed scholarship Beth has to I don't know who's doing that. >> I'm doing it. Yeah, both there's two, right? Yeah, the other one's passed on to the board, right? That one won't that one is done in June, I think. Yeah, we'll have to do that one in June, you're right. I think we our early May meeting might be might be too late. Yeah, I don't think we'll have We might not have either. The meeting May 12th we're talking about, so it's just Friday.
Good. All right. I'll have a motion please to enter executive session. We may return to public session and vote if needed pursuant to Mass. General Laws, Chapter 38, Section 21A, purpose two, to conduct strategy session in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel to conduct contract negotiations [clears throat] with non-union personnel, Director of Finance, Mr. Aaron Osborne. So moved. Second. Beth? Yes. Uh Lisa? Aye. Jackie? Aye. Beth? Aye. Jess? Aye. Megan? Aye. All right, the motion passes. We'll enter executive session now. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.