These these positions are are part of reductions in both budgets. Um, you know, we talked about it. Um, nursing reduction, special coordinator, athletics budget gap, all these things are being impacted, right? And in one of the two budgets, it's they're significant. Just just want to make sure you you didn't go back to option two slide. I don't believe. >> Oh, sorry. >> Um we skipped ahead because of the question. >> Oh, this one. >> Yeah. Um thanks. So So this is just the 3.25% increase. It still includes the 13.2 reductions. It it the $300,000 for athletics that we're trying to help fix that deficit um is going to have to be picked up somewhere else. Um we're funding 450,000 in operating expenses in addition to the salaries uh out of school choice. Um so that's 1 point 1 million 1.1 million approximately um in school choice just for operations and um teachers um and then the additional 300,000 for the structural deficit of athletics.
So, please call the role. >> Secretary Webb, I'm a yes. Vice Chair Childs, >> yes. >> Member Deniv, >> yes. >> Member Dyman, >> yes. >> Member Goodwin, >> yes. >> Chair Ston, >> yes. >> All right. Approved. unanimously. And now, uh, Superintendent, if you wouldn't mind, item B from that agenda. >> Thank you. Um, each year, uh, schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, um, are presumed to be participating in school choice. And, uh, if you choose not to participate, a the public school system, they have to let the state know by June 1st of each year. Um we we are currently a participant in school choice. Um this is of accepting students not sending right we have uh no option in terms of doing anything that way. This is for taking students in from outside of students who live outside of Greenfield in that sense.
So, please call the role. >> Secretary Webb, I'm a yes. Vice Chair Childs, >> yes. >> Member Deniv, >> yes. >> Member Dyman, >> yes. >> Member Goodwin, >> yes. >> Chair Ston, >> yes. >> All right. approved unanimously. And now, uh, Superintendent, if you wouldn't mind, item B from that agenda. >> Thank you. Um, each year, uh, schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, um, are presumed to be participating in school choice and, uh, if you choose not to participate, a the public school system, they have to let the state know by June 1st of each year. Um we we are currently a participant in school choice. Um this is of accepting students not sending right we have uh no option in terms of doing anything that way. This is for taking students in from outside of students who live outside of Greenfield in that sense.
>> Okay. And so, when you step on it, um you step on that sill, water just kind of comes out. So, so it's not the unit itself, we don't think. It's just sort of the seam um around the >> Okay, cuz I remember we had something with a unit and a rail that had to be fixed, so it's a separate issue. >> separate. Yes. >> But it's it's massive. All right. Joy, anything else? Any Any other questions for Joy? Well, the new school. All right. Well, thank you. Moving on to student representatives. Before you start, Emily, I just want to give you a quick shout-out to you and your friend Katie. What's her name? Yeah, Katie. >> Katie for doing a great job with the bake sale. And shout-out to my wife as well, who's home. Great job. She was um parent rep, I guess, to be there for you guys, so She was the parent rep.
They did a great job of knowing a lot of facts. Um so, Mrs. Dent and the high school kind of did a collaboration this year. Um and so, we had our jazz parade. So, up there at the very top, um those are the Y Jazz Band students who came out and they played for us. Um after they played, our fourth and fifth graders got to play their recorders. Um I don't know if you can tell on one of the lines down there at the the bottom, the fifth graders got to march and play the recorder. So, they had to learn how to do that. Um our kindergarten through third grade worked with Mrs. Dent to learn a dance. Um so, every it was whole school. It was probably the best event. It was so much fun. I hope we get to do it every year.
>> to amend this to say micro-credential That would give us more flexibility in trying to determine what kind of pathway could exist. Question. Question. Question. So, where was this course? At what campus was this course? >> It's at Manoa in Hawaii's in Hawaiian language. It's a 400 level course, so there are some prerequisites. You'd have to be fluent You'd have to have gone through the existing Hawaiian language courses. >> any kind of research as to where there might be more interest whether it's in the uh communities where they have more Hawaiian learners? So, we did reach out to all of our vice chancellors for academic affairs when this resolution was posted to find out where everybody was standing in terms of Hawaiian language is specific to this question. Obviously, Kauai has um potentially the most connection to Niihau. However, they expressed that they already have trouble finding faculty to teach uh Hawaiian generally, let alone in the specific interest.
Moving on, our extracurriculars are nothing short of amazing. Our night's theater company had a successful showing of their musical Charlotte Webb. There were amazing reviews all around from praising the music to choreography and our school's thespians pulled off an amazing show. They had also hosted our annual ACBs Got Talent in which various students were able to sign up to show off their amazing talents. Ranging from signing, self-written songs, playing various instruments, dancing, and magic. The night was full of entertainment and energy. We began the fourth quarter with ACP's fourth annual dance concert directed by our dance teacher, Miss Danis Zuitta. Our dance classes have been preparing for this recital for weeks, so it was mesmerizing to see all their hard work come together. It's incredible to see how our school arts programs continue to grow in the talent of our students. National Honor Society has pulled off in another amazing nights in training which is an event where clubs reach out to title one schools through the district to allow first graders to spend a day with high school buddy and engage in fun activities ranging from science experiments a ping zoo club booth so showcasing dozens of different opportunities and ideas.
It's very descriptive multiple times. Um, those are the things that you need to be aware of. And while I don't believe in banning books either, I also don't believe in using the taxpayer dollar to provide pornography in the classroom. These aren't ones that we buy, correct? >> Right. So that's that's part of >> do you purchase access to it through a curriculum provider online in a digital format? >> That's part of what the ongoing conversation will be. So to fully answer board member Horn's question, those that were the behindthe-wall ones, those we would have to explicitly seek out. They're not they don't they're not contained anywhere in the adoption. >> They are not there's not even um segments of it. They're not referenced. We would have to physically say, "Oh, we want to bring this in and go get it." Um, those that are in that enrichment piece, and I will make sure I delineate when I share that list with you.
Uh, you know, people have asked, you know, what about athletics and and fees? And we're bringing in about 297,000 a year in in revenue for from fees, and we're still one of the highest I mean, we're already one of the highest fee uh structures in the Tri Valley. Um, certainly Pete is looking at um middle school athletics and what does that mean? Do we have opportunities for kids? We don't we don't want to reduce opportunity, right? But are there opportunities for for kids to play um in townwide programs at their at that age level? And so we're looking at that, right? I mean, there was actually an article in the paper the other day uh I think it was Welssley um girls lacrosse and the number of student athletes who are now especially in girls lacrosse has dropped significantly across the Commonwealth in the past five years.
So um under the school choice laws as I mentioned everybody is presumed all districts are presumed to be participating in it unless you vote not to in that sense. So, um, it's worded in the positive there because all your motions, as you're probably aware, with the rules need to be worded in the positive and then if you chose not to do it, you would vote no on that. Um, I would maybe assume, maybe wrongly assume that you've been a participant for years and that you would continue to do that. I would support that. Um, in that sense, uh, we do not have to right now tell what exact slots and what exact grades. Um, I printed some different things, but if you look at the school choice list online, you can pull up every city in town in Massachusetts that does it. And many will actually have a line that says, um, contact the district for the openings, etc.
So um under the school choice laws as I mentioned everybody is presumed all districts are presumed to be participating in it unless you vote not to in that sense. So, um, it's worded in the positive there because all your motions, as you're probably aware with the rules, need to be worded in the positive. And then if you chose not to do it, you would vote no on that. Um, I would maybe assume, maybe wrongly assume that you've been a participant for years and that you would continue to do that. I would support that. Um, in that sense, uh, we do not have to right now tell what exact slots and what exact grades. Um, I printed some different things, but if you look at the school choice list online, you can pull up every city and town in Massachusetts that does it. And many will actually have a line that says, um, contact the district for the openings, etc.
>> Great job on that, and we hope you guys continue to be successful with it, so Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'll actually start off with that. So, the bake sale for the grad party that was held on March 28th and 29th went great. We raised over about like $800 or so um just for those 2 days, so thank you everyone that donated, and obviously like they're still looking for donations, so if you can, please donate. Um so, this morning the juniors took the SAT, which is very fun. And but spring break is next week, as people know, which is so exciting. Oh, yes, a lot more fun. Um so, senior prom and decision day is coming up on May 1st, and so we still have some volleyball and badminton tournaments going on during ILT for March Madness, and BHS will be holding our student government elections at the end of April.
Everyone was dancing. It was wonderful. Um in March we had our spelling bee. Uh and so, right here you can see those winners from each grade level was first through third. We had some really tough competitions. I don't remember what grade level, but there was some that just went back and forth um for a while before we found the winner. Um our PTC in March set up a wonderful book fair for us. Um it it was an all week thing. The kids absolutely loved it. Um I don't remember the number, but I think we raised a lot of money and the kids got a lot of books. One of the most amazing things is PTC makes sure that every student gets a point and that point equals a book. So, every student in the whole school got one free book for them. So, I just wanted to shout out to this student, an eighth grader, um was in our leadership class and requested to kind of do something different besides make posters.
But, you're right. Um there is going to be more or potentially more interest in Kauai. >> we have the opportunity to do things online. I'm just saying that True. Yes. if you reached out to, you know, various communities because you could have the entire state online in different locations. >> true. Absolutely. And So, that's what I'm asking. Was that looked at? Um well, since this particular resolution has come out, we have not looked at whether or not it could be offered online. I think there's also the concern that one of the faculty that could teach it has retired. So, there's some work to still be done to to build that out. But, absolutely, um online courses, especially in very specialized areas, is one of the things we're looking at more generally so that we can be sure to reach our students that are in rural or remote areas.
And overall it was an amazing day for the first graders and their high school buddies as well. Now, we can't forget about our athletics at ACP. Finishing off our winter season, our boys soccer team had battled the way to the top, being crowned 5A state champions. Our girls soccer team fought their way to the state championship game and came away with a state runnerup trophy. But we didn't get the championship. The girls played their hearts out and made our school proud. Our wrestling team had also gained two state champions this year, and another 10 wrestlers got to the podium. Congratulations to them all. Our spring sports are working hard and playing hard. Our varsity boys and girls tennis teams are fighting along their seasons currently 6'2 and 6'4. Our boys volleyball team is currently 9 and five. Our baseball softball and beach volleyball teams are also playing very well.
Those that are more in that enrichment piece are ones that we you would potentially as the board approve usage of. We have not yet purchased it. So, for example, I'm just going to pull one off this list um in sixth grade unit 3, the bread winner by Deborah Ellis. I don't know about the bread winner, but um that is on this enrichment list. So, if you as a board said, "We're good with what's on the enrichment list," we haven't bought it anyway because we didn't have the funds to do it. But, we would then open up access to a sixth grade teacher to say, "Hey, we're going to read The Bread Winner and our PTO is going to fund it. The the book fair is going to give us money. We're going to ask parents to buy a copy for their kid." >> There's a bazillion different ways we could get access to those books.
Like we're seeing a drop in our student athletes participation. Why is that? We don't know. In in Welsley, like other districts are dealing with this too in terms of the number of athletes and and should you be running numerous programs. Think about middle school. You know, somebody said, "Well, you're just adding our middle school sports break even. There's no like like it it's pretty clear to me like from a revenue and expense standpoint because they don't have as many games. They can travel together on the bus. you know there there a variety of reasons. Um but a you know secondary benefit of having reduction of those sports is it frees up field space uh and allows us to to um better navigate the number of high school sports we have. Um so those are things we're looking at but I can't see me coming back and asking you to increase more fees for our families just because they have kids who play sports.
like that. Um, so I bring it forward to you. Not so sure if you want discussion or need it, but if we are going to do it, you really don't have to take any action. I guess if you wanted to not do it, you would make a motion to do it, but then vote it down in that sense. I don't know if that makes any sense. I hope it does. >> It does because of the sort of arcane rules that we're working with. Um, so given that would anyone choose to make a motion to bring this up and with the like the the assumption being is that if you are putting the motion on because we don't actually have to vote to do it. We have to vote not to do it. But you probably could vote to do it and then just >> Okay.
like that. Um, so I bring it forward to you. Not so sure if you want discussion or need it, but if we are going to do it, you really don't have to take any action. I guess if you wanted to not do it, you would make a motion to do it, but then vote it down in that sense. I don't know if that makes any sense. I hope it does. >> It does because of the sort of arcane rules that we're working with. Um, so given that would anyone choose to make a motion to bring this up and with the like the the assumption being is that if you are putting the motion on because we don't actually have to vote to do it. We have to vote not to do it. >> But you probably could vote to do it and that would be Okay.
So, students, be on the lookout for information about becoming a candidate. And the National Honor Society is partnering with Sweet Scoops to host a We Care 5K on Mother's Day, which is May 10th, um to raise money for Brookfield Cares. So, please sign up to run or donate if possible. It is a great event, and we would love to have as many runners as possible that day. It should be like in the morning around like 8:00 8:30 or so. Um 8:30, yeah. So, >> Sweet Scoops bringing ice cream? I don't I'm not sure, but I mean, they're right I mean, I'm going to I'm going to head there after, so >> [laughter] >> But that's all I got. Thank you, guys. >> All right.