Finn or Whiter. Ball is loose. [screaming] Nobody. As Lucy Parsons comes up with the ball, East Lamel smartly calls a timeout with 15 seconds left in the game or in the fourth quarter. >> [clears throat] >> All right, let's see. 15 seconds left on the clock. East Lmetto has the ball just barely at the 40 35 yd line. M Whiter with the ball. They're going to uh quadruple team her as she's going to turn around and go in and out of them all. 10 seconds. She gets the ball over the restraining line. Does Mac have enough Zooi left in her to get by everybody? She goes through one, two, three. Mac Woodward turns around. >> OH WOW. WHAT AN UNBELIEVABLE BEHIND THE BACK GOAL TO TURN AROUND AND PUT THE BALL IN THE BACK OF THE net as East Law Spartans score a goal with no time left.
The officials are going to talk about it. Do not take that away as that was unbelievable. You either have to call one of two things. A stick check to the head or a goal for M. Whiter. Either way, it should be a goal. We'll see what happens. Goal. And what a great finish for the Spartans as M. Whitward goes through everybody to get that final goal with zero time left and the Spartans take one away from West Springfield 11 to 10. Have a good night everyone.
[music] >> I'd call this meeting to order and recognize we have all of our board present this evening. If you would please stand as we say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Okay, we are live. Um, welcome to the budget and finance and warrant subcommittee meeting. The date is May 5th, 2026. The time is 11:41. Chair statement. This meeting is being recorded by the budget, finance, and warrant subcommittee. If any other persons present are also recording, you must notify the chairperson at this time. Um, we're open. Call to order. Um, roll call of members. Um, Mel, are you here? >> Here. >> McKenzie, are you here? >> Yes. >> And I'm Ann. I'm here. We're very formal today. Public comment. Um, we have no members of the public present or online, but if anyone shows up at a later date, we'll go ahead and give them a shot. Okay. Um, approval of March 30th, 2026 draft subcommittee uh minutes. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Do we need a moment to look or are we ready to vote?
record to All right, it is 10:31 on May 4th, 2026 and we are getting ready to get started the long-term facilities use advisory committee meeting. Um, we are recording this to the cloud. Uh, and if any other persons present are doing the same must notify me at this time. Are either of you also recording? Great. Didn't think so. Just wanted to ask. And we currently have uh no members of the public in the meeting. Um I don't see anyone in the waiting room [snorts] either. So with that, go ahead and call to order um and do a roll call. [gasps] Um I'm Chair Ston. I'm here. Member Deniv >> here. >> And member Webb >> here. Great you. Uh, we're all here. We have a quorum. Um, again, we have an item for public comment, but no members of the public are present. If a member of the public does show up, I think maybe we can accommodate them at that time if they would wish to contribute.
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. >> [clears throat] >> All right, everyone had a chance to look over the agenda for this evening. I need a motion and a second to approve tonight's agenda. I'll make a motion to approve tonight's agenda. I'll second. I have a motion and a second.
>> Okay. Um, do we have to do roll call? How about we just I think >> All in favor? Okay. It's unanimous. >> Um, okay. Now, discussion of warrants paid and received in April 2026. Uh, member Goodwin, I know that you had some questions. So, so these are old ones and it looks like beer. I sent them my questions ahead of time. >> Uh, got answers from beer. So, MCOR HVAC services, was that just for cleaning them? I mean, that's $51,000 made me like, >> yeah, the heavy details of some of these >> Okay. I mean, we can tell you who's paying for it, but >> Right. I I saw what was I mean, the bills, but um it didn't really I just have never seen, you know, in all my years as a principal, a bill like that I've never seen. So, I'm not sure what was done at each school.
[gasps] Um, and now with that, we will move on to just reviewing and making sure that we know what the purpose of this group is and how we are going to set ourselves up. Um so a lot of our charge comes from the proposal that we voted on at our meeting last month. Um and this is essentially for us to sort of continue the work that had been done to understand what we are doing with regard to our facilities. I think from my understanding, prior iterations of the action that had been taken around the long-term planning has focused on redrawing district lines in terms of like which students are slated to go to which schools, which students are getting bus versus walking, etc. Um, but hadn't really touched on the actual use of the buildings and our long-term thinking with regard to all of our buildings.
Any questions on the agenda? All in favor? Aye. Uh none opposed. Uh nobody has signed up this evening for public comment, so we will skip over the public comment segment. Uh which brings us right into the consent agenda. Uh which should be a review and approval of minutes. Uh that includes a regular session board meeting on April 13th and our executive session on April 28th. Uh review and approval of claims. Review and approval of fundraisers. I do have a couple of fundraisers here >> [snorts] >> uh to mention uh a night at Agave Azul for the cheer club and then a trash bag fundraiser uh for next school year for elementary school. Those are the only two uh fundraisers. Uh field trips. We're winding down on those, but uh there's uh five on there. Some of them actually have already taken place, but uh uh Spanish club, advanced auto class, uh second grade, and the CES Fannie Mae winners uh trip to Lafayette.
I mean, especially the 30,000 at the high school. It's a brand new high school. We're still paying 1.8 million a year on it. So is that just >> so emerald? >> Okay. >> This year 51,000 >> y00 and they maintain our hacks. >> Okay. >> And including like they change filters um belt inspections. Uh so they be performed some tastings just bunch of um >> okay >> we there's an attachment >> I saw that >> there that shows the proposal that they submitted and the dates obviously for this year seven >> no it won't let me look at it denied access Um, I guess so. Is this an item that was put out to bid and they were the winning contractor? >> So, how do we find that out? Because that is an overwriting question from people. >> Where where the bids are, >> the bidding process >> and who does them?
Um we also so the proposal calls for us to explore a few different um a explore a few different permutations of things we might do. So there's a specific call for us to look at what would happen if we wanted to pursue regionalization. What even would that mean? Now, I want to be clear that the proposal asks for us to gather like information and to understand the impacts of these few different things. It does not call for us to actually like go for any of these things. So, before anyone says, "Oh, we're regionalizing now." No, we are exploring what that would look like. Um the I think there were a couple of others. Some of them also include uh we want to understand if we were to consolidate buildings, what would be the impact there? What would be the likely scenarios? Um what would that look like?
Uh our student transfers and also our personnel report is on the consent agenda. I will add on the on the personnel report uh is our new hire for girls basketball coach, Mr. Dave Crandall and is that my pronunciation correct Crandall and all right and here this evening and his family so we're happy to have him. We acknowledge him there and so I need a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll second it.
This is just a really basic question. >> What have you done by council? >> So I asked them that and they said that they were done here. So I'm trying to a thank you answer the >> some of them done by here by not much. >> Okay. Now I know snowing suns done by town hall and >> okay >> I haven't been in >> also airport was done by um >> okay so do you know how old this is because I can't see it because I'm denied access so like >> what date the access because I have this file >> you just says I'm denied >> you request the How many >> I brought in for a few minutes. >> Okay. >> Start the stopwatch now. >> Yes. >> Encore is like $51,000. >> Correct. >> So, how long have we had a contract with MCOR?
And how would we make that work with the minimum disruption to our educational services? And ideally, we would want any consolidation to actually improve the providing of our educational services. Um, but at a minimum like having a neutral impact. [gasps] Um, and [clears throat] then I think there's also a call in here for potentially creating additional buildings and beginning the process of thinking through let's say we did want to have a more modern potentially unified elementary school. What would be the process there? Um, and then there are there's a statement in there that says and additional things like additional aspects of this that the committee would also like us to to look into. And so that is um basically giving us giving us the ability to um [cough and clears throat] to look at additional um you know to look at additional ways of organizing our buildings and organizing our facilities use that we might not have thought of right in this moment.
I have a motion and a second any questions? All in favor? Aye. Congratulations. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> Moving on to our stellar employee of the month award. Okay, this month's stellar employee is graciously sponsored by House of Lions. It is my privilege to recognize Sam Bridge as Covington's stellar employee for May for his outstanding service, steady leadership and dedication as our technology coordinator. Sam may not always be the loudest person in the room. He may not be the first person you think of as the face of the school, but in so many ways Sam is the quiet glue that keeps our district moving, working and on track. His work often happens behind the scenes, but the impact is felt every day by our students, staff and families. Sam consistently demonstrates dedication, innovation and professionalism in the way he supports our schools. His technical expertise helps ensure that our systems operate efficiently and securely.
Do you know? >> We've had we had a three-year contract with them and we extended it last year an additional year per our contract. That's what we could do. >> Okay. So, right now I have B&G Mechanical. >> Okay. >> Putting together a quote. I should see it the end of this week or beginning of next week. >> Okay. >> Thanks. At B&G Mechanicals putting um a quote together to do the same thing. I asked MCore to give me a quote a new quote because we should technically go out the bid for them. But if I get ahead of it with the quotes, it'll be a quicker process. But it's something we're going to have to do fairly quick or extend it one more year because um they know to start with their PMS and all that stuff in the summer. >> So So there was a bid done three years ago, six years ago.
Um the other sort of major aspect to what this subcommittee does and that we'll also be talking about here in a moment um is that this is structured as an advisory committee and explicitly involves the participation of additional members of non-school committee folks. um [clears throat] doing this for the purpose of basically um wanting people to be involved with these long-term discussions and also any decision or recommendation that we might produce would have then the buyin of people who would be affected by that decision. Um, so hopefully it would mean that any decision that we would recommend would have um, you know, I'm going to say the word blessing, but would have, you know, some some agreement to it, would would not face such resistance as if this was something that was just being thought of by school committee members themselves. Um [clears throat] that does mean that we will need to go through a process of recruiting and appointing uh members of the public and deciding what that process is uh amongst the three of us.
More importantly, Sam does not simply wait for problems to happen. He anticipates needs, researches solutions and works proactively to prevent issues before they interrupt teaching and learning. And superintendent stuff cuz he always comes to my office and saves me. Beyond his technical skills, Sam stands out because of how he treats people. He is patient, approachable and always is to help. Whether he is assisting a teacher with a classroom technology issue, supporting staff through a system issue, or explaining something complicated in a way that makes sense, Sam does so with calmness and respect. He helps people feel supported rather than overwhelmed. Sam's leadership has made a meaningful difference across our district. Through careful planning, responsible budgeting, and forward-thinking decisions, he has helped ensure that our technology resources are reliable, accessible, and aligned with the needs of our school. His work directly supports the learning environment we want for our students in a world that continues to rely more and more on technology.
>> Three years ago, >> four years ago and then they redid the price >> 2022. They redid the price last year to include some carrier units that we had carrier doing. So, we had two vendors for no reason and I don't know if they couldn't handle the workload during CO or something. Um, so I had them take that eight or 10 units and put it into that bid and it that's where it came up to $50,000 roughly. Can you explain to us the bidding process, how you go about that for >> So, basically, um, I work with the with Vera and Andy and we tell them what we want. So, we want to have air filter change once a year. We want you go through and do a run of maintenance. So you're cleaning coils and and checking belts and tightening things and making sure everything's operational, everything works, everything's responding correctly to the controls and and all that stuff.
So that is one of the things I would like for us to get started today. All right, I've reviewed that. What [snorts] other things sort of are y'all thinking about? Does that all make sense? Are there questions you have about what we're up to? Um, all right. Seeing none, then I think that we can go ahead and move on to this discussion of the process for soliciting additional members of the community for the committee. Um I am pulling up right now. Making sure that this is the right one. Yes. Uh pulling up right now the proposal as voted on because I believe that it contained some numbers for us to work through in terms of like this many number of parents, this many number of school staff etc. um planning green field. Okay. [snorts] So, we are the three school committee members uh sort of leading and facilitating this process.