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Happy to answer any questions about this study, and it will be funded out of the debt service fund. So, I don't necessarily have a question but a comment. I think this may be one of the most important studies we've looked at in a long time. >> Yeah. Cuz people I hear people they don't understand that circuit breaker. They don't understand how the property taxes and we're only getting this circuit breaker. I think this is going to be critical for us to really understand what that means to us. It's really going to benefit the corporation for a number of reasons. One, if you remember the budget presentation this past summer, our circuit breaker loss historically for the past 5-6 years has been in the $9 million range. The estimate uh this past summer was as much as 17 million. So, that really uh forces school districts to make decisions uh when looking at their finances.
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That's and welcome aboard to our team. Um I think that's it. Well, I will say the same thing. It's welcome. Um the musical was great. The kids all did great, and the plant sale was great, too. They actually insisted on carrying everything to my car for me. I know. I know. >> [laughter] >> I mean, yes. So they did a great job, and she does a great job with them making sure they know what they're doing and they're very helpful and respectful. First thing uh two veteran coaches here from the school baseball. Easy easy. >> [laughter] >> How how's that going? Well, we haven't got kicked out of any games yet. Well, that's good. >> [laughter] >> I haven't done any yet, so. But yeah, and uh thank you principals uh that's that's fine and uh musical was interesting. And uh after the first intermission Well, they all I was going to say how many intermissions [laughter] I was going to say I was going to say uh I didn't know if I was going to make it to the meeting tonight.
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Um you know they're learning about bi literacy and and they're learning about aca academic and content and language at the same time and then they're learning culture and it's it's a beautiful thing to see. So tell me what I know what I've heard, but I want to know what what have you heard in terms of feedback from families and staff and the community about coming on. >> Oh, they love it. We had an event on Thursday, this past Thursday. So, um you know, we only expected about 75 people. We ended up with 200. >> Yes, [laughter] >> we ended up with 200. So, we had a lot of um families come in and and the purpose of that program on Thursday was really a showcase to show the community and the parents. We had a lot of parents of um upcoming kindergarteners who are interested in the program.
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And the middle school graduation is Thursday, June 18th at 6:00 p.m. >> Does anybody have any other um matters that they'd like to discuss? Go ahead, Mr. Oliver. >> I do. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd just like to bring the committee up to date. Uh Miss Coughlin and I and Mr. Kylie had an opportunity to attend uh the uh last week's uh joint budget advisory committee. I remind the the board as well as everyone in the community that this is the uh a joint budget advisory committee made up of two school committee members, uh two finance committee members, and two select board members, as well as Mr. Kylie, Mr. Carrerero, the town finance director, and um Cody, the town administrator. Um and the idea, the purpose of this committee was kind of it was I believe it was at the um recommendation of the select board to create this committee.
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Nothing there. She gets the ball over to Burns. That's what all the Spartan girls want. Veronica Burns turns around goes through one, two, uh Veronica Burns trying to get herself a shot. Gets hit by a couple Agawam players. Agawam quickly gets the ball up. Nice nice pass by Agawam to get the ball up. Can they get a shot off? They do with five seconds left and Julia Gray was there to save it. Spartans come out with a win 18 to 4. We'll be back on Wednesday night playing South Hadley. Have a good night everyone.
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33%. Most boards spend 0 to 10% if they're lucky. You have consistently been way above that range. You are on a journey to try to get to 50. You have done, I think, everything you possibly can with your agenda to have it be very effective and efficient. Now, you know that your consent that that's not the norm. So, that number probably would have been boosted and vice president. What did you say the percentage would have been even if we would have gotten down to two minutes? You say 44%. We got Yeah. If we got down to 2 minutes on the thing, it would have been 40%. >> She >> But then if we knocked down the superintendent report, it would be even more. >> I I see how you play. >> Weak. >> And again, I don't want you to short change yourselves because there's so many great things you want to talk about.
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So, um, anyway, pretty pretty positive across the board and, um, I just want to point out two things, two takeaways in that safety domain under rules and norms up top, you can see that, um, staff ranked it 3.9 and last year it was 3.0. So, that was a huge jump and probably contributed, um, by our new policies surrounding the cell phones and attendance and so forth. So, um, people felt, um, more confident in what our policies are and that supported the rules and norms. Um, that also probably impacted leadership and efficacy. Um, so that's another takeaway. Um, last year it was 3.2, this year it was 3.6. So, we rose up to that 3.6 um, positive threshold. We're still a little bit behind on the national benchmark, um, but all in all it's a very positive survey and, we'll look forward to next year when we issue it again, we think for the third year and then have even more data.
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And so, those things look to be around $3 million. Okay? Okay, so if we prioritize, then we would we would like to uh to do those projects, $3 million. Well, we don't have that in capital projects. That would be something that we would take out debt for. Um so, those are the things that we we look at. Do we take out 3 million? Do we do 4 million? Do we um do the full capacity at 10? Um there's some strategy there that we will need to decide. Um we also need to really get a handle on explaining to the public all of these budgeting issues in a way that they understand. Um what what is the debt service for? What what are we going to do with the referendum? What's the tax rate mean? And so we want to make sure that we share with them, but but we can't go in the weeds.
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It will also help us uh with this comprehensive plan that Mr. Shellers is looking at uh to build a a not only a facilities plan but a strategy to fund that plan over the next few years. Uh and then finally uh um as you uh are made aware, Senate Enrolled Act 1 really changed uh the funding structure for school districts and property taxing units in the state of Indiana. That will allow us to get a real understanding of what kind of an impact that will have for EVSC. So, uh it's it's a study that is is needed and we will make good use of the information gathered. Yeah. Well, Carl, I I really believe that once this study is complete, I think we need to share it with our state legislators because I want them to understand the impact, you know, of what either 9 or 17 million makes to our programs and our personnel and all those things that, you know, we have to do to to put the right product out there for our students.
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But it it was you know, it was a 3-hour but it was great. You know, the kids were great. That's all right. Um congratulations. Uh welcome uh to the school and thank you again uh staff. You guys always bring good information and good enthusiasm. Uh congratulations. I was really impressed with the fourth grade um math uh bowl kids. They were that's impressive. Um and I still think for staff recognition week next year uh we need to have field day and let them let the kids have some fun with the axe. You know, thank you guys and everything.
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They're not even in the program yet and they wanted to come and see really what the the teachers were doing. And so we did open house style where um we gave you know community members and parents and caregivers time to go into the classrooms and and the children presented something either poetry or projects that they were working on. Um and then we had a cultural component as well. So we had a group come in and um teach about the history of bomba which is a dance from Puerto Rico that comes from >> I know bomba. [laughter] >> Yeah. And so from our um our African heritage and they were able to teach >> um everyone how to dance and the history of it. And so not only the classwork that you know what we do in our classroom but as well as the cultural piece which is really really important to us.
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And it's to kind of look at everyone's all the departments in town, um everyone's finances, everyone's operations, and kind of see where we're at, where we need to be. um in uh our last meeting which was uh la I believe it was last week now that um I just want to bring share with everyone that there was a a lot of good discussion. Um I do want to thank publicly thank the um the town for going kind of looking outside of the box to for their health insurance benefits. I know health insurance has been a a big thing for our for our employees as well as the town's employees and as it goes up every year by a significant amount. Um, and I think they they kind of, you know, moved provider. I don't know, not providers, but uh because we're still with Blue Cross, but with uh what's Maya called, Mr.
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Um, what is your pathway to get close to 50% then? Can I make a note real quick? I just want to also talk about the action items because we do have those legal requirements and like recently it was the the pro statements for those elections and that was important. Um but I I also want to note that I have noticed for me the 25 minutes maybe is a little higher than normal. We could have been a little more efficient but I really have seen that number come way down too in our regular meetings and I think that's because we've been trying to prep as much as possible ahead of time. give the board enough information um on those action items prior to us coming into the meeting so that you already have a lot of that information. So I just I feel like sometimes we're we're stuck when it comes to the legal ones.
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So, that's kind of a review of the the required survey if anybody has any questions. >> What did you do to get such an outstanding student response? >> We bribed them with caffeine. >> [laughter] >> No, we specifically targeted access. So, they were a captive audience and specifically asked the teachers to ensure that their that their students were focused on taking that survey. It was so important. And then those that we didn't capture who may have not been in school were called down to take the take the survey. And and we know that other schools have done this tactic as well. So >> out individually? >> Correct. >> Yeah, well we uh yeah, both schools took a a slightly different tack. I think one asked the staff to wait until later, just focus on the students doing it. Check it off when you see the green light.
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It's so it's so difficult. So I think we need to be very very strategic in I don't what the referendum is paying for, what will happen if we don't pass a referendum, what uh debt service is paying for, what we need to to purchase here in the next uh 5 to to 10 years based on Stacy's worksheet. So um and all of that also matters because then we need to um and I know that's operations, but in the end I'm just talking about our whole budget. We want to be competitive with our salaries, and so we need to plan for our negotiations coming up in the next year or so. So we need to make some decisions, and we need to make sure that our community understands it. Yeah. Um so the GO bonds, that would be a good use of for the the fire alarm systems and the chillers.
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And so, let's work together on that and let's try to give them some idea about what happens here in the south. You know, it may not be that way in Indianapolis, it may not be that way in New York, but this is the impact it's going to make here. Definitely give us the ammunition that we need. Thank you very much. Any other questions for takes us to continuing business. Dr. Hoover, you may go. I'll start. So, at this time of year we start to start with the celebrations. So, tomorrow I will have the opportunity to present the state of our schools to the Rotary. I'm looking forward to kind of the highlight reel of the year and the work that has gone on this year. On Wednesday, we will have our sixth annual EBC signing day at the old National Events Plaza starting at 10:30.
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What was that said sorry you said thank thank you very much and uh you know, I again a shout-out to the team for the the bikes for kids thing. That um it just keeps growing and uh I think you're going to be missed. So, big shoes to fill. Um but no, wonderful. Um I'm glad to hear the play was a success. Um, that's all I got. Uh, okay. So, welcome Aaron. Thank you. You're going to do a great job. You'll be just fine. Uh, >> [clears throat] >> the other item I want to point out Derek Cowart, uh, director of maintenance shared with Mr. Mick and myself today. I just want to highlight him for a moment here. He on his own took a course in the uh 12-hour course online this weekend and he took the test that was closed booked and proctored and he passed and he is now EPA, I got to look at it to get it right, EPA 608 certified.
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>> So how are we thinking of extending? So there's two thing two questions I have right we know we're creating this sixth grade academy in the middle school um and this is for Ammer. So there's students who are coming in that are in kaminatases. So how are we thinking of addressing that? And how are we thinking about the future of the students who have taken all this time in Spanish and are now going into the region? Is there is there some connection or bridge that we could make? >> Yes, we have to be very creative moving from Emmers to the region. um you know so with kaminantes every year we've kind of added a little piece to the program like I said this is the first year where we've had sixth grade in kaminantes and so now we had to say all right now that we had the sixth grade what are what are we going to do with them in seventh grade right because originally if we said nothing if they just graduated from kaminantes or sixth grade and moved on to seventh grade they would uh be thrown into a pool of students that now need to take Spanish one or We do offer other languages as well, but as a language teacher myself, a a teacher for 20 years, I knew that that was not the best practice and and the best choice for our kamantes students.
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Kylie? >> A joint purchasing group. >> Thank you. Joint purchasing group. Um, so we're moving joint purchasing groups and we're going to be able to save some money and hopefully that'll make the town of Dartmouth overall a little more competitive with our benefits packages. I know it's not a lot, but it certainly um is something for sure. But with that, you know, the consensus was was made, and please jump in, Miss Coughlin, um that at some point, probably by FY28, we're the town's going to need to really consider an override. That's what that's when we're we're thinking that that's when um the group is thinking that we're we're going to have some problems operationally by then. Um if not before then. Um so in discussing the override and what we can do to help facilitate that because as we know every vote in this town matters and any town and municipality matters for an override.
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We'll be bringing some budgets here in the future. Uh but I think we've been doing a really good job there. Um so I mean maybe 25 minutes could have been a little more efficient, but I I just think that we're we really are focused on those action items. uh and getting the board educated prior to coming to the meeting on on what they are. >> Yeah, I would agree. I think for the most part, most meetings were good and sometimes we do have bigger conversations on certain topics, especially because some of them our board members were new into accepting prostatements. So, it was a little bit longer, but that's perfectly fine because it's a very important needed conversation. Board member Jones, are you curious to know what it was like back in 2023? >> Yes. >> Oh my goodness. >> December of 2023, out of the 210 public meeting minutes, zero were spent on student outcomes.
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