001Good evening everybody. Welcome. Have a full house tonight. It's nice to see everybody. It is what is it? Is it February 9th? >> Wow. >> Unbelievable. So, we are um here. So, Mr. Angley, can you please take attendance? >> Sure. Joe Abdella >> here. >> Vicky Salem >> here. >> Stephanie Colnik >> here. >> Jesse Leeman >> here. >> Angela Mirulo >> here. Alex McNottton >> here. >> Justin Angley here. >> Jen Pod >> here. >> Jane Sergeant >> video. >> Pete Tagley >> here. >> Mary Weber >> here. >> And Christine Widick. >> She She might be on to I think she was going to try to hop on. Great. Well, thank you. Uh moving on to public comment on agenda items. Is there anybody here who would like to make a public comment?
002Where's Ben? I don't see Ben. Anybody um on No. Okay. >> Okay. Thank you. Great. Alex, your favorite one. Consent agendas. Is there anything? >> I found one error and it was not in the minutes for this meeting. It was the minutes for the FNO meeting >> which I had written. So, I'm going to correct myself. >> You are. >> And I've left an R out of the word portion. It said potion. That works. >> Yep. Thanks. So, anyway, I'm going to slap my own wrist and make your correction there. >> Actually, I have a correction, believe it or not. >> You do, Mary? Okay. >> We um we had to um make a motion to move after 10:00 to Yes. And we did that and it's not in the >> It's not in the
003minutes. Okay. So, we just need to make a motion to amend the minutes amendments >> and add that to the >> I saw I read that there was a motion and I thought I made it. says the meeting was adjourned at 102. >> They were in there. There was a motion. >> Yeah, there's a motion. >> It's in there. >> Uh, >> yeah. Motion made by Alex and seconded by Angela to extend the board of ed meeting past 10 p.m. >> How did I miss it? Maybe it was after 10. very last on the agenda. >> You were sleeping. >> Okay. >> I was >> Well, thank you. So, we don't need to make an amendment, but thank you. >> It was late. It was a really late night. >> Thank you. Okay. Well, thank
004you. Now, moving on to presentations. We have uh the board appreciation presentation of student artwork. This is really exciting. >> This is exciting. And you might remember at a prior meeting I said that some art students and art teachers on their own valition came to me not the other way around and said they wanted to do something to show appreciation for the board. Now, you're going to get more because I think board appreciation month reality is is in March. But this is the the artifact that you're going to get, you really ought to get in January, which we we tried to do, and now it's February because there was a problem with the printer. But um I think um Miss McMillan's going to come up and uh show you what she has for you. And
005I think it's meant as an earnest statement of our student and faculty's appreciation for what the board does for our district. Miss McMillan, you want to come up and >> show us your wares? So what we have, we really wanted to show our sincere gratit very very appreciation. >> It's really incredible. Thank you so much. >> Really? >> I think it was Angela who said that you should I mean we feel very like it's special, but you should sell them. >> They're they're so beautiful. >> Not not these, >> but you really they're so they're so beautiful. They really should be They're an incredible fundraiser idea. >> That's true. Great idea. >> It's a It's a really great idea. They're they're beautiful. >> Really? >> Thank you so much. >> We'll take them and then
006we'll we'll we'll pass them around. They're they're beautiful. Thank you, Linda. That's so nice. >> Thank you. They're so beautiful. >> They're so incredible. So, thank you. They're so beautiful. Wow. Here. So, take them and pass them down. So, two. Yep. And then you each have one and then take one and pass them down. There you go. You're incredible. You're so beautiful. Thank you. Okay. So, now we're moving on to the enrollment projections and that would be Dr. Shell's and Nicole Grant. This is so beautiful. >> It's really incredible. >> All right. Good evening. And actually, I made a hard copy. You want to follow along? That's great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. All right. Well, good evening and we're here to talk about the latest enrollment data and projections that we
007received from um the scholar that we used to do that for us, a man named Dr. Peter Prada. And of course, my talk here tonight is not original work. It's all indebted to his report. All I'm trying to do is summarize it and make it accessible to you. There's always a danger in that when a lay person like me tries to make the uh the work of a PhD accessible. But to prepare for tonight, I did call the author. I did talk to him and he did seem to ratify the way I was going to explain his report and he's kind enough that he also told me that if there are questions that remain after I speak tonight that um his report is posted on the board website on the front page is his email
008and his phone number and he was gracious enough to say anybody from our region can call him and ask questions about the report and that was uh nice to hear. Okay, so there's two parts to this. First he spends a little time giving a snapshot on where we are right now or where we've been just a little bit about our historical enrollment and then where we stand today a snapshot of enrollment and then the heart of his project is to talk about projections for the next 10 years. So this is just a graphic that shows historic enrollment over time or the lifespan of our district. You can see there have been some inflection points historically. One in the mid 1980s, one in the early 2000s, one around COVID. And if you look at the next
009slide, you can see some figures to make that line seem more real. So in 1970 when he started his research the enrollment as of October one in that year was around 1222 students and then it changed as the slide indicates went up a little bit in 74. There was a precipitous drop in 88. >> Hey Don. >> Yes. >> Can you just speak a little louder? >> Oh I'm sorry. >> Thank you. >> Oh heavens. I'm sorry. Can you hear me now? Uh usually I fill the room. I don't know what's happening. I'll try to be more more All right. Um, and in 1988 there was a bit of a drop to 950. 2003 a little bit of an uptick. We see what happened during the COVID years and then it balanced out to where
010we are right now which is around 810 students. Okay. Now this graphic shows right now um the breakdown of where our residents attend school. So there are 775 people available for for this exercise and of those um uh 75 excuse me 75.1% or 582 are enrolled in the region 12 public schools but 180 or around 23 23.2% 2% are enrolled in non-public schools and there's a small amount that go to magnet or technical schools uh under um 2%. Now this shows the breakdown of folks who do attend here their status where these folks come from. So of the 810 students enrolled in region 12 um you can see that 582 are residents. That's the biggest amount of it. Three are residents attending tech schools. 10 are residents attending magnets magnet schools. 180 folks don't go
011to public school in our region. They go to private school. And 228 attend here, but they don't reside here either through the Agra Science Center or through the tuition in process. by grade. This shows for each one of our grades enrollment the number of folks who are residents and the number who come in either by tuition in or uh aggra science and you can see that through the grade school years um the majority of each Ben can you just go back for one sorry you can see the majority through the grade school years are made up of residents and then as you get into the high school years a greater percentage come from tuitioning or aggress science balancing out those classes. Okay. So, but the the heart of the project that I think everybody wants
012to start thinking about tonight is Mr. Dr. Prada's um projections for the next 10 years. And I just want to say a word about how they're constructed and how we should try to understand them. So a projection is in this case is just something that uses a trend from the past from the recent past to predict the future and the trends that are identified by the researcher are valid and have shown by the assumptions that we can make to have validity going forward. Now you have to assume that those trends will persist going forward. So the researcher also considers any external threats to those trends that could make things different and considers them. There are a lot of those that I'll summarize on the next slide. But for example, an an event can occur that
013forces you to rethink the assumptions that have led to a a prior trend. Recently, the state changed the law on the um entry age for kindergarten and made it that you had to be age five at a certain point in the year. That should change the researchers assumptions about how many kindergarters we'll get in a given year. We know that COVID was a time that caused an influx into our region region and that is something that was a different trend and also shouldn't be relied on as an ongoing trend now because things circumstances are different. So we're always on the lookout or the researcher is always on the lookout for new factors that would upset the assumptions that underly the trends we're using to predict the future. Um, and averages are used over years. Averages
014of those trends are used to predict long make long-term projections. So, if you're looking at a cohort and you want to predict where they're going to be in five or 10 years, you take the average of where they've been in the past and the number of years that goes into that average depends upon the number the amount of data that you have and you use more of it when you can in order to get a more robust average. Okay. Now uh in the report this is again accessible on our website um Dr. Prada goes through the different kinds of things that affect his calculations. There are a lot of variables here. Um, and I won't read the whole slide at you, but there are points here that constitute demographic factors and other economic factors, birth
015rate, these kinds of things, certain trends that if not calculated in could pose a threat to the validity of the um of the survey. and they're all considered by the researcher in making the projections that we're about to see. Now, without getting too wonky because I'm not capable of getting too wonky. I'm outside my expertise here, but I want you to know the heart of this report, the projections are done using something called the cohort survival method, which is not novel with Dr. Prada. This is apparently the standard in the industry for how you do these kinds of projections. And the way it works is that for each grade that you're studying that that's constitutes a cohort um you compile gradetograde growth rates for that for that cohort over time in order to predict what
016trend is coming. So for example if this year's third grade class has 30 students I'm just making these numbers up and then next year's next year they're going to be fourth graders. this cohort moves forward next year they have 38 students that generates a growth rate in this case that would be a growth rate of 1.12 or a 12% growth rate that could be used to factor in going forward the trend in this cohort it might just as well have gone down the cohort could maybe fewer of them survival is a nasty word to use in a situation like this but maybe fewer students continued on in that cohort and then that would be the way that the trend went or the way that it's calculated So these cohort change rates or this cohort survival
017rate, they're then averaged over three or five years or 10 years depending upon how much data you have available for that cohort in order to make predictions about what's going to happen to that cohort going forward. And of course, as I said before, all the potentially confounding variables that we outlined on the prior slide are considered by the researcher in making the projection. So the big question people have is how reliable is this process and it's statistical projections are not perfect science but we have reason to think that there's a rational basis in this report that gives it utility and makes it a useful tool for our planning and we just look at what's happened in the past. So if we look at the prior projection period between 2015 and 2024 that this researcher did
018for us, the projections in that report had an average one-year error rate of 2.2%. Which is not nothing and not insignificant. If you have 800 students, you're talking that could be plus or minus 16 or 20 kids. So that that's a slight curveball. However, it um the report is useful for our planning purpose to help us overall make sense of where we're going. So, there is a foundation of prior reliability in this method that should give us reasonable confidence in similar um reliability going forward. So, then we're ready to actually start looking at the enrollment projections that the report contains. And the first one is just a graphic showing in a for the entire region an enrollment projection looking forward from now to 2035. And you can see there's not a lot of volatility in
019that line. It's relatively stable. But on the next slide I tried to collect some numbers. Next year we're projected to have 797 students in the report. If we take in a a mid-year point like 2013 2030 that number is projected to go to 813 and then by 2035 to settle in around 811 which is only uh a student more than we have right now. So over time in terms of the whole district this doesn't predict a whole lot of volatility. The next slide let me just tell you what you're looking at here and you can see it again online or in this packet. You're looking at total enrollment projected to 2035. And across the bottom are the years one one by one running from 2026 to 2035 and across the top going up the um
020top to bottom the vertical axis number of students. And you can see there again each year each of the 10 years instead of just picking the midpoint like I did on the prior slide and there isn't a whole lot of variability over the life of the study there either. And there is if you want to look at um Prada's report. I won't give you each year like digest it tonight because we don't have time but you can see the exact number for each year if you want yearbyear to know what he projects. All right. Now I'll say a little bit about um each one of the schools first for the Burnham school. Okay. Okay Ben. So the numbers that we're talking about in year 2026 Burnham is projected to have 81 students. in 2030 projected
021to have 78 students and in projected to have 72 students. Okay. And um um this is the same thing for each year going through from now to 2035. And you can see the basic again similarity from year to year although there's slight changes of several students here and there. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Quick question. Does that include tuition aid kids? >> Um the yes but a prior slide um differentiated the people who were residents from the people who were um tuition in. Yeah. So I can Oh, you're asking whether um No, I'm sorry. These are all residents. >> These are all res. Yeah, but the projection I should say the projection does make an assumption that we're going to continue admitting with similar frequency tuition in students and aggra science students and they're considered
022in the overall numbers reported but these are about residents if that's what you're and and folks are going to be interested in that here obviously I think because each town is going to want to know how many residents are attending our school from that town. So these are just residents but the report does take account of aggra science and tuition in students just I'm not doing that on these slides. Okay, sorry. So here are the key points you can take on Burnham. Um he's projecting 81 students again in 2026 and that stays the peak. That's sort of the high point, 81 over the reporting period through 2029, but settling back down to 72 students in 2035. And over this 10-year projection period for the Burnham School, there's an average of 78 students per year, which
023is higher than the average of 61 students over the past 10 years. um for booth free school. Okay. So for year 2026, next year Dr. Prada projects 83 students enrolled by 2030 104 2035 back down to 89. Here again is a plot of each year. Again, you see uh up the top up going up this axis the number of students across the bottom the year every year from 2026 to 2035. Yes. >> I mean >> yes. >> Um I I I think that does just I I don't want to like overcorrect you on that but I I think that does include our tuition and students >> for 2026 >> for the elementary schools. Yeah, they do include because we don't have 81 residential students >> for the 2026 at least. >> Yeah. And I think
024historically, and again, you'll fact check me on this, but historically, the Prowder report has included tuition and students at least for the elementary schools. It has used that as part of their projection. >> Okay, hold on. Pull it out. If it is, tell me, but I >> while we're on it, I just thought I'd throw it out there. I was just like for 81 students. >> That's that's our total population that >> Well, I think it's important that we know if it this is just residents or if this is including tuition in students. It's important that we know it right now. >> That's right. >> Right. It's very important. And I'm looking at the page that I pulled this from. It's a similar bar graph, but it could be that I misread it and I'm
025so sorry that I didn't and that um tuition in students are in this. So, I will fix that. So that you What's that? >> Yeah, I will I will fix that. Yeah, for sure. Okay, thank you for catching that. >> Okay, so I'll should for now I'm going to continue with with these numbers. Is that okay? >> Can I just ask you one question? >> In the elementary schools, are we capped uh for tuition in? You know, the principles come up with an analysis to protect historic class sizes and they look at that, you know, who's going through the school now, how many are coming up, what we want to do to protect the class sizes that we've seen in those schools and out of that comes a number that we have available for tuition
026in and the same thing happens at Chipog. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Okay, Ben. So, we can go to All right. So the key point on booth projections projecting 83 students in 2026 with a peak of 105 students around 2030 ending around 89 students in 2035 which is one more student than this year and over the 10-year projection period an average of 96 students per year higher than the average over the last 10 years which is 78. Okay. All right. Now to correct for to make sure that people leave with a good sense of the question that's uppermost in everybody's mind which is the percent of residents in each school. At the end of this um slideshow, I have multiple slides that map out exactly for residents the percentage attaching to each town. So that will
027help. Okay. And I regret the confusion I caused by um misexplaining. Okay. So we're going to go to Washington Primary School now. And again um this shows overall projected enrollment through 2035. In year 2026, next year it's 153. In year 2030 it goes to 133. and then in 2035 drops to 121. The next slide again as the rest have shows year-over-year in a graphic and you can see a slight decline over time in Washington Primary School. The key points here is that there's projected 153 students in 2026 um settling down to 121 students in 2035. Over the 10-year projection period, an average of 132 students is expected average per year. That's lower than the average of 164 over the past 10 years. And reach moved to WPS in 2013. So that's a factor is this
028school is prek to five enrollment enrollment peaked at 52 in 2016 for reach shrunk to seven in 2020 due to co and this year was at 46 students. Now, this is a pie chart just showing showing the projected 10-year average enrollment at Burnham, Booth, and Washington Primary School. And the projected 10-year average for each each school is 132 for Washington Primary, 78 for Burnham, 96 for Booth. And that works out to 43.1% the average enrollment. Um, but this is not correct. I'm going to show you numbers about residency shortly. This is just overall. um 43.1% to Washington primary, 31.4 to Booth, 25.5 to Burnham. Okay. And then just shapog projections. So for next year, the middle school is projected to have 149 students. Uh in 2030 projected to have 145 and in 2035 projected to
029have 165. Once again, you get a year-by-year graphic on this slide that you can look at and also in the in Dr. Prada's report, it'll give you the number for each year, but there's only slight volatility there u from year to year. And the key facts about the middle school again, you expect 149 students next year with a high or a point of peak of 176 students around 2028, settling back down to 165 students by 2035. You can expect an average enrollment of 160 students per year over the next 10 years at the middle school. The high school enrollment projected to 2035. Next year is for 331 2030 353 2035 364. Again on the next slide you can see a graphic comparing year-toear from now through 2035 with relatively small amount of volatility from year
030to year. Key facts again summary 331 students in including 110 non-resident aggra science students 353 in 2030 including 104 non-resident A and 364 and 235 including 103 non-resident A. We're expecting an average enrollment of about 350 high school students per year over the 10 years. And these figures also include projections for non-aggracience Sherman residents, 28 this year, projecting a low point of incoming Sherman students of 19 in 2027, ending around 24 Sherman students in 2035. Okay. So here um this again is a this bar graph shows um what you're looking at here is again on this up the y ais is the number of students across the bottom you're seeing a year the blue represents shap enrollment residents of region 12 the red represents non non-resident aggra science enrollment and you can tell from this
031year-over-year the average composition of each class the blue indicates residents and the red non-resident. All right. So, what I think you probably is mo most um interesting to a lot of folks in Dr. Prada's report is coming up now. So these are projected enrollments by town of residents for all schools. And you can see his projections call for next year in 2026 an enrollment of Bridgewater residents of 154 students which is 26.6% of our total resident pool. 190 from Roxbury which is 32.8% of our total pool and 235 from Washington which is 40.4. 48% of our total pool in 2030, which is sort of the midpoint of the projection, that goes to 186 in Bridgewater, which is 29.43%. 214 in Roxbury, which is 33.8%, and 232 in Washington, which is 36.7% of our enrollment. And
032when you get to 2035, the last year of the projection, things settle at 189 for Bridgewater, 29.9%. Roxbury, 231 students, 36.5%. Washington, 212 students, 33.5%. So over the life of the projection, you can see for each given town how the percentages would increase or decrease. Um, and that's another thing that people are going to be interested in and will want to use for planning purposes. And this, Alex, is the data I think that you were asking for before when I confounded the first slides, which again I apologize for. Okay. Yeah. Um, okay, Ben. And this is just a graphic way to show the same over the three years. I found that some folks like to see things and compare them visually rather than with the numbers. And on this uh Bridgewater is depicted in blue,
033Roxbury in red, Washington in yellow. And for the three years, 2026, 2030, and 2035, you can see the relative percentages. You can also see in Dr. Prada's report the relative percentages for each year in the projection period. Uh if you like pie charts, it's the same thing for 2026 2027. Graphically, you can see that Washington's predicted to be at 40%, Bridgewater 26.6, Roxbury at 32.8. And the next slides have pi depictions for the other two years, the midyear and the last year. Again, just to repeat, Washington in 2030 is at 36.7%, Bridgewater at 29.4, for Roxbury. Did I Did I say Washington at 36.7, Bridgewater at 29.4, Roxbury at 33.9. Okay. Okay, Ben. And then this is just the average over the entire year of the projection. So you take the each year percentage and
034divide it add them up and divide by 10. The average percentage of enrollment over the next 10 years by town falls Washington at 36.5%, Bridgewater at 29.2 and Roxbury at 34.3. Okay. Now, um questions, comments? Yeah. >> Question. You say this is going to be on the website. >> Yes. >> Is is it more depth going to be on the website or is just this presentation? This is just my summary of the main act. Dr. Prada's report is on the website and that goes into great statistical detail. >> Okay. >> Yeah, >> that was my question. Thank you. >> Questions. And don't forget Dr. Prada who can do more justice to this than I can is offered to talk to anybody who calls him which I think is a very nice offer. Okay. All right.
035Thanks for your attention and I hope that this is helpful and I I think we can use this again as a tool that has some has reasonable amount of validity and reliability to help us plan going forward. Thank you. >> Thank you. Go get them. >> Okay. It's a little strange coming up here a little bit. Okay. It's been a while. Okay. So, good evening. Good evening. So, I am up here this evening as the chair of the intermunicipal elementary ed um advisory committee to share the origin of our work over the last I think 18 months. About that, right? 18 months. and the collaboration that has taken place and the responsibility we carry as we look forward as we look toward the future of our elementary schools. Please know that we know that the
036decisions is really in the board's hands because I'm not a board member as I stand up here right now. Uh we see ourselves as the community connectors working to understand what each of the three distinct towns value sharing that perspective with you so that you can make well-informed decisions. Just as importantly, we hope to support the board and the administration in keeping region 12 stakeholders informed along the way because clear and cons um and consistent communication is essential to this process. The idea for this committee began I think back in July of 2023. For years, Region 12 has discussed the need to address the three aging elementary school buildings and all the issues associated with them. Financial, educational, health, safety, the list goes on. And our three towns have been fractured by the attempts to
037find a solution by past boards, myself on the boards, and administration. And trust was lost and communities were angry. for 14 years. I think 14 years now have passed and I believe that time has helped heal some wounds and I thought maybe it was a time to try maybe a different approach, one that maybe was a little bit more thoughtful, creative, and collaborative. I asked the three first selectmen if they would be willing to embark on this collaborative journey with me. And remarkably, Jim Britain, Patrick Roy, and Curtis Reid all said yes. I asked each of them to select a community member to join the effort. And we welcomed Bab Bob Papson, Paula Conway, and Carolyn Dwire to the committee. And along the way, we picked up Holly Stark. We are also joined by key
038members of our region 12 leadership and staff. Elementary principles Emily Jud and Emily Rue, Phil um facility director Don Olirri, director of finance and operations Nicole Grant, interim superintendent Dr. uh Lori Rodrig, followed by Dr. Don Shells, Roxbury Board of Ed member Justin Angley, Washington Board of Ed uh board of ed member Joe Abdella, Bridgewater Board of Ed member Alex Mcnotton, and Chapag's uh vice uh principal Mike Croft, who was extremely helpful in the committee in many ways, even though he wasn't officially on the committee. The role of this committee was first and foremost committed to ensuring that our students had a high quality education in a safe and functional space. Paula Conway, I said you, didn't I? Okay, good. I did. I wanted to make sure. At the same time, this committee is trying
039to be considerate of what is important to each town based on the results of the survey um of the survey and bring that data along with our recommendations based on our findings to you the board of education. So, did I I got this along the way? Yep. Okay. And as our committee, as a committee, we worked collaboratively to develop a survey with questions using SurveyMon with a shared goal of keeping them simple, clear, and concise so that they would be accessible to our stakeholders. The survey was distributed widely, emailed throughout our region 12 district to communities and staff. We emailed them to every uh to our uh the three uh towns through the uh the townwide email blast. We even visited our town transfer transfer stations. Justin, thank you. Um and uh and handed out
040postcards encouraging participation. And then we were fortunate along the way, thank you to Patrick Roy, that we found uh a Roxberry resident, Tony uh Benov Benavvenia, sorry, thank you for supporting this effort with his extensive background in survey data analyst. Uh Tony carefully reviewed our findings and he has prepared an impressive presentation that he shared with the committee and now he's going to be able to share that with all of you. Um so I'm going to uh ask Tony to come on up. for a little bit. Thank you. Uh hello everyone. For for those who uh don't know me, my name is Tony Benavania and uh I came into this process uh through just an encounter with Patrick. Uh I saw that this survey that had been done by the steering committee uh was out.
041I responded to it and I mentioned to Patrick, you know, I mentioned, you know, I had a background in analyzing this kind of data, setting up these kinds of surveys. If he needed my help, just give me a holler. And he did. Um, so I worked with um Nicole and with Mike Croft and got access to the to the raw data and um I used the tools I have uh at my disposal to uh to analyze the results. Uh you know I went into this process I mentioned to everybody uh to be totally objective. I don't have, you know, I'm I'm here just to analyze the data and report to you what people said. Uh, you know, so, uh, that's what I'm here to do. I'll go briefly over, um, what we did. Um, there
042was an eight question survey, very simple, that was posted, uh, and issued to the town. It was done on Survey Monkey. Uh, and you know, Survey Monkey is a fairly decent tool for collecting survey data of this sort. And it was on the out there from midsummer, like a uh July through through September. People could respond online and complete the survey. And there were paper surveys that were also issued uh and distributed around town. There were paper survey. >> People had the option to complete the survey on paper. >> They had the option to come in and do it. >> Uh, I was led to believe otherwise. Is that Holly? Is >> I'm sorry. I said I said I was led to believe otherwise that there were >> No paper surveys. It >> was all
043online, right? No, it was all online. >> We discussed it. Yeah, we discussed it, but no, it was all online. >> Okay. Okay. >> Well, in any event, um uh the um I was operating under the assumption that there were some paper surveys because we saw multiple responses from the same IP address. And I figured, well, that was somebody sitting at their computer entering the survey. at um sorry um we uh like um senior centers at the three senior centers if the senior center uh we encourage seniors if they wanted to fill out the survey they could come in okay and and do it out of the senior centers if they weren't techsavvy >> okay well there there were a handful you know I saw that whenever you see multiple online surveys done from the
044same IP address you wonder is is there some stuffing of the ballot box and we didn't really see enough of that to to warrant any major concern. Um uh so with that said, you're telling me no online no papers are raised up? Okay. I had no way of knowing that I there were um a total of 1,215 people who responded to the survey and across the three towns there was approximately equal number of response respondents in each town which um in a convenient survey there's not a lot you can do to to kind of adequately sample the towns in in proportion to their population. So if we're looking at totals uh I weighted the data just look at totals I weighted the data to uh to to reflect the fact that uh to to mimic
045the populations. So Bridgewater where we had 393 respondents but only a population of about uh you know 1600 um I had to wait their data down and in Washington I waited their data up. So basically, I only did that when I wanted to look at totals, but for the most part, we're going to look at the three responses to the from the three individual towns. All right, can we flip over to the next slide? All right. Uh there I I mentioned there are some shortcomings with this type of survey. It was a convenient survey. uh people were just came to the website if they wanted to complete the survey. They they were not recruited as you might typically do a survey if you were doing a poll uh a voter poll. So they they came
046and they took the survey. What you see in situations like this is um the people who respond to the survey tend to be those that are heavily involved and more involved in the issue. uh those that kind of don't care one way or the other, they're they're going to look at it and they're not gonna they're not going to participate in the survey. So, you're dealing with a little bit of that which may or may not be a good thing. There were people who responded tend to have high involvement with this whole issue of uh what you do with the schools. Uh so, we had you know approximately equal number of respondents from each town. uh and we had 73 people who said they were from uh an other town and when I got into
047that it was mostly people who uh they were either tuition in students or they were part of the aggra science and there were some staff members from uh from from shup too from the school. So um you know and the one thing we we have to keep in mind is u this is going to give you a just a rough rough picture of what's going on. You can't get precise results from this type of survey but we can get some pretty good indications of how people feel about things. I wouldn't necessarily use the results of this survey for planning purposes, but I think in terms of communication, uh, I think it works well. I'm going to cut to the chase and go right to the the critical question that was asked, and that was in
048question seven. Question seven, people were given, can we flip to the next slide? There we go. People were given uh these four options. for what you could do with the schools. And they were they were told, "Please tell us if you think this is most preferred, acceptable, or unacceptable." And the four options kind of go from I guess the might say the least painful maybe to the most where you update and just bring the schools up to code or you renovate where you build three entirely new schools one for each town or you build a new consolidated school. And what we saw let's go through the choices one by one. Next slide, please. When you look at the the first option that was presented to update the schools, bring them up to code. Um there
049was very little resistance to that. The the if you look at the bars there, the the red bar is the red flag. That's unacceptable. Blue is preferred. Green is acceptable. So you know you look you combine preferred and acceptable and you got the large majority of people who are in that camp. U so that that seems to be an option that people don't have a problem with. Um of course we didn't have costs associated with these options. So that's that's a little bit of a handicap for this answering this kinds of these kinds of questions. So if we go to the next slide, you can see what people said about uh renovating. Renovating, you got a similar picture. Maybe not quite um quite the level of preferred and acceptable, but you you did see a
050minority of people who found it unacceptable. There were less than 50%. So this is another option that that could work in at least from from the the perspective of the the people who responded to the survey. go to the next option which is to build an entirely new I'm sorry to uh build three new schools for each town. And here you see um a a lot of resistance. Uh nobody wants to do that. uh you know well you know well the large majority of people are in that unacceptable camp and I think people realize that would probably be the most costly option so let's not do it go to the uh fourth option next slide bill one consolidated school and um there you see big differences across the towns uh Bridgewater is very much opposed
051to that You only had 20% of the people who even thought it was either preferred or acceptable. 80% said it was unacceptable. You got a little bit more of a mixed bag when you go to Roxbury and you go to Washington. Uh and you have almost uh you know nearly 50% saying uh you know they could live with it but a slight minority. Uh so when I went into the dug into the other questions of the survey and the other responses, it pretty much supports what that this bar chart is showing us that um Bridgewater people do not want a consolidated school and uh it's a viable option perhaps in Roxbury and in Washington. I had uh a thought, a concern when I was analyzing the data that maybe there would be we would see
052some differences if we looked at people who had kids in the school system versus those that did not have any kids in the school system. Go to the next slide. I can break that out. This is a bit of a confusing slide here. You've got uh four pods there and the the pod on the far left is for uh updating the school system. So, and I and this is among total. This is not broken out by the three towns. This is among the total of the three towns. And again, that total was weighted to reflect the actual populations in the three towns. So, what I saw was not a whole lot of differences between people who had kids in the school system and those that did not. The blue bar on the left, uh that's
053the the total of the three of the uh of the three towns. And that uh amber color bar is for those that's just among people who had kids in the school system, which was about a third of of the people we surveyed. So, there weren't great differences there. I would have expected to see bigger differences, but I did not. So, I couldn't really get any um any sustenance there in terms of of what what we're looking at here. So if we go to the next slide and I show you the kind of the overall takeaway of what I see uh and this is among um among the total sample again it's a weighted total. So for uh for updating the schools you're seeing um not a lot of resistance across the three towns. That area
054red is a small piece of the pie chart and uh the green and the blue represent either acceptable or preferred. So either updating or renovating little resistance go to build a new school in each town. That weighted total shows a lot of uh a lot of negative responses there. Large red area in that pie chart shows that's something nobody wants to do in any of the towns. And then when you go to a new consolidated school, one school for the three towns, what I saw there is uh you know probably around half the people thought it was unacceptable, maybe a little less. This is a weighted average across the three towns and about half maybe a little more saw this as either preferred or acceptable. So moving along here, next slide. Thank you. I went
055back to question number six. And what I wanted to look at there was differences across the three towns. people were given a list a list of uh options that uh they felt were factors that were most important to them and that list of about 10 items uh you know social obligation to our future generation small class size health and safety of our children and staff. So people were were asked, pick the three factors that you think are most important. Looking at the data, go to the next slide, please. Well, I said I did more to I wanted to compare across the three towns more than anything else to see if if this would uh uh confirm or refute what what we saw earlier in terms of what Bridgewater thought versus Roxbury, Washington, what they thought.
056And what what I saw here is you look at the numbers I highlighted in that um amber color, yellow color. Bridgewater um again you had to pick the three option, the three things that you felt were most important and compared across the three towns. residential property values, hometowns, hometown school, and uh proximity to home, proximity to home. Those numbers were higher in Bridgewater than they were in the other towns. Uh overall, the highest thing was uh health and safety of children and staff, but that's kind of like, you know, who's going to not want to do that? Uh that's where Roxberry people were coming out relative to the other towns and uh Washington and and uh Roxford and Washington compared to Bridgewater. If you go to the other towns uh that the results there kind
057of reflect the fact that these are tuition in people, tuition in students, and you got staff members uh from region 12 staff members. So that's why you're seeing things like small class size uh and um uh innovative spaces for for students. That that's why those numbers are popping there. Uh not surprising at all. Can we move on here? All right. I wanted to look at the demographics to see if there were any disparities with age. uh we already know what we what we got in terms of the the residency uh status of of the people that responded. And then we also looked at the uh uh the the the kind of the the way these people categorize themselves. Uh are they current region 12 parents, guardians, are they part-time residents, whatever they are. And what
058uh what we saw there go to the next slide with age the the age profile across the three the three towns is very similar um very few differences. So the age distribution was very similar across the three towns. It's only when you get to the other towns where you start to see a younger skew I think and that reflects pretty much the fact that you had a lot of staff members responding to the survey of that 73 and you also had uh tuition and students that tend to be parents tend to be younger. They've had kids in the school system. Not surprising at all. Go to the next slide please. All right. the as I had mentioned earlier um we had about a fourth of the a third of the sample uh even in each
059town. So the the the proportion of people who responded in each town was about uh you know uh the proportion of total sample was equal across the three towns which I found a bit unusual because you've got so many more people in Washington than you do in Roxbury and Bridgewater. Bridgewwater with this low population had a lot of people responding to the survey. You could interpret that a couple of different ways. Um my interpretation is that probably Bridgewater people probably more intensely focused on this issue and were attracted to go to the survey. You had 390 I believe people in Bridgewater responded to the survey. That's almost a fourth of the of the population of the town. So that was surprising for me. Anyway, all right. Can we flip to the next slide? Yeah, that's
060what I was show mentioning earlier um about the uh the distribution of uh uh people across the three towns. Uh the net number for parents or guardians was a pretty similar across the three towns like about 20 25%. So again, uh I didn't see major differences here except when of course when you get to the other town. So go to the uh the next slide, please. All right. There there there were questions six and question seven and I guess you could say question eight, people were allowed to uh write in an answer. So in that question about uh you know the the the uh the options that are most important to you and uh also what which of these factors are most important? People could write in something on the bottom of the survey. In
061in question eight, that very last question, people were allowed to bear their souls. They could say, "No, do you have any other comments or things you want to mention?" Let's flip right to that one because there was not a lot of nourishment in question uh six and seven. But in question eight, keep going. Next one. Next one. Here we go. In question eight, uh we had a lot of people who wrote in other responses to that to that question. And I read through everything people put in there and what I saw in in the in Bridgewater, I saw uh a lot of people mostly talking about how they did not like the idea of a consolidated school that they wanted to keep um they wanted to keep the schools local. uh I did this both
062kind of like manually by reading through every response and I also ran the data through chat GPT. ChatGPT gave me kind of similar a similar pattern to what I saw when I did it manually. So the the uh the bottom line here is you've got 93 Bridgewater respondents who made suggestions about uh you know what to do and there were 51 positive suggestions uh for three local schools. So that's that's kind of where Bridgewwater's netting out. When you look at the other towns, go to the next slide, please, you get more of a mixed bag. uh you know I I couldn't see a lot a definitive pattern here. The the the responses were more diffuse and and also the number of people who were writing in other responses were lower in in Washington and uh
063Roxberry. In Roxberry I had 89 people. There were quite a few more in Bridgewater. Uh so when I ran it through chat GPT I got kind of a diffuse response in in uh in Roxbury. you know 30% children needs and experiences were what people were talking about. Uh and of the 89 people had 22 positive suggestions for three local schools and then 32 for consolidated schools. So that kind of reflects what what we had seen earlier in the in the uh in question seven the critical question for the survey. So if we go to the next slide, you can see what what we saw in Washington. The pattern there, only 65 people in Washington wrote in a response at this question 8. And again, uh the response pattern when I looked at it through chat
064GBT was fairly diffuse. Um I did have eight uh positive suggestions for three local schools, 29 for one consolidated school. uh and that was based on my read through chatbt didn't reveal that but you know it the the the AI tool has its limitations so uh I I wouldn't put so much stock in that I think my read through will give you a better response give you a better picture okay the um I left with Jen the listing of all the responses So there are in Excel format you can read through what everybody said and I think it's a a fairly good exercise to do because it'll it'll tell you what the what what people are looking at what people are saying. Um you have uh you still have access to that data so you
065can you can issue it to anybody who wants it. Um and you can also reach out to me because I've got it I've got it there too. So, with that, I I'll entertain any questions that people have. I'll do my best to answer them. >> Yes. >> Will we be able to get your uh report you just showed us? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It'll be available online. >> Okay. And it's going to be put on the website. >> I mean, I have it. So, if anybody wants it, we >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Anything else? No. All right. Thank you. Sorry I had to bombard you with more numbers after you got bombarded with numbers already. >> Thank you, Tom. >> That's the way it goes. Okay. >> Thank you. >>
066Okay. So, so the fact is that anything that happens with our three elementary schools, we all know it has to pass in all three towns. Full stop. So, how do we do that? All three towns must work together to get have a shared goal. That's something that has actually never happened before. And I'm very proud of the work that we've done over the last 18 months um to work to move in that direction. It was kind of remarkable actually. There were lots of days that we actually walked away feeling hopeful walking sitting together at the table the three towns and it was really kind of remarkable. Each town will need to have to sacrifice something to get something in return. And we have to find a yes in all three communities while honoring each town's
067wishes. We are mindful um we are mindful that the in the financial impact of these decisions and then what they'll have on the taxpayers. These are not easy conversations, but they are necessary ones. We have even talked about possibly changing the regionalization act. What a crazy thought. And that each town might even have to the conversations of paying for their own school. Again, infancy stage, but interesting discussions outside the box thinking based on the surveys. And again, would we have loved to have had a larger pool of people filling out the the dipstick, so we call it a a survey? Yes, of course. And so, it's just a very small um uh number of of what we would have loved to have had. And of course, I was sort of bummed because uh Washington, I
068was like, come on, people. I wanted more people to um pull and take the survey. Unfortunately, they didn't. But it's just the beginning, right? It's just it's just the beginning part of this. So, I'm encouraged to think that this is just the beginning. Maybe by us talking about this more and coming here and asking for you guys to maybe with our recommendations to go and then we talk about it and we get we get you guys to convince you and maybe me to to to go forward and get the recommendations that we're asking for and people talk about it. And then we possibly with the committee going back with your blessing and we do another survey and we get more people interested and we get more data maybe we get more information. So based on
069this initial survey, we are recommending to the board for four architectural plans. One, two, and three to renovate to new Washington Primary School, Booth, Free and Burnham, which can all be scaled back into to any scope, right? It's the soup to nuts, but obviously so that we just have some sense of peel peeling it back. and then one to consolidate one school. There's no plan for it. It's just four plans that we can look at and then we can think outside the box with them. There's no there's no plan, no hidden agenda, just those recommendations to the board to go get those architectural plans. And then we get numbers. And then obviously we all look at the numbers and we gasp. We freak out. And then we we look at them and we say okay.
070And we decide from there what we might look at and plan from there. Obtaining these four plans will give us a clear will give us clear information about costs and help us guide the next steps. There is still a great deal of important work ahead. Reviewing the data, having honest and respectful conversations, working through differing viewpoints, and continuing to gather input from our communities. Sorry, I'm losing my this committee is committed to doing the work and I hope that you will continue to support us along the way. I believe that this effort is strongest when it is driven collectively by the three communities with with thoughtful data and meaningful stakeholder feedback. The board of ed and the administration will be well positioned to make well-informed decisions that will move us towards a viable path forward.
071Our hope is to reach a final plan that most residents can stand behind because doing nothing is not an option. So, thank you. And if you have any questions, please ask and I hopefully we'll be able to answer them. And I'm sorry, I'm losing my I still lost my voice. So, >> actually, Vicki, you can go first. >> Oh, go ahead. >> You did you want to ask? Yeah, go. >> Um, first of all, I'd like to thank the committee for taking so much time and so much effort um into considering so much. >> It's on. I have a green light. Huh? >> How's this one? >> Oh, great. The other one doesn't work. Um, I'd like to just thank everyone uh on the committee for taking all of the time. I know it took
072a lot of time, a lot of consideration, a lot of back and forths, um, a lot of analyzing. Um, so thank you There is so much that I'd like to say, so much that I will refrain from saying. >> Um, I heard a lot of Bridgewwater, Bridgewwater, Bridgewater, Bridgewater in that presentation of analyzing the data. >> Yeah. >> Um, can you just go over the four um plans that you'd like to that you just were saying? So basically we're just asking for a renovate to new of the three elementary schools. >> And what was the fourth one? >> And the fourth one is a consolidated school. And it doesn't matter in what configuration. It could be two schools. It could be it. It's just so that I think the idea behind it is is that
073I always feel this way. I think you just have to present a number so that you can compare what one school looks like for one for two two schools. Maybe if two towns want to consolidate into one, you just want to be able to compare what that number looks like or whatever it may be. I think that information is important. We the committee feels that way. >> So everyone on the committee felt the same way felt that was so felt that that was a >> all the all the recommendations that we are presenting is by the entire committee all three towns. But there's not a hidden agenda like we're trying. It's just information. Okay. >> There's that's it. It's information. >> And do we know what the cost is going to be to get these
074plans? >> That's why we're asking the the board to So I would believe that you would have to get an RPF to find out how much that would be. >> We would have to put an RFP. Yes. >> Yeah. Which is another important factor. I think in the past I I think the board has kind of just gotten plans and done nothing with them and have been irresponsible about that. >> Correct. >> And I don't think that that was really >> I think that was irresponsible. And I think that having a committee get together to decide what was important and at least having some measure of what the communities wanted at least allows there to be some ownership among the three communities before deciding how to spend the money. Is I think correct? And I
075and I think that's where I was going because in the past we have >> we've had plans and never even >> looked at them. >> Correct. So >> and I don't think that that that doesn't feel good and then people find that out and then I don't think the board looks good doing that. >> So I wanted to make sure that every member of the committee was on board with this >> 100%. I mean I I >> Okay. >> Yeah. Were Were we all the all of the committee supported the um the recommendations? >> No, that's not true. I didn't support it. I didn't I do not support spending money to find out what a single consolidated school would cost. It's not going to happen. Why spend the money to find out how much would
076it cost? >> So that's where I'm going with this. >> That's new information to me, Alex. >> So that's exactly where I'm going with this. >> Is that new information? That's new information to to Carolyn, to Holly, to Paula. That's new information to all of us, Alex. >> New information to all of us. >> I I don't remember ever saying we want to get four plans, >> Alex. Respectfully, that is new. Is that new information to you, Justin? Joe, is that new information to you? So, that is new information to all of us, Alex, that we did not know. >> I missed that meeting. And honestly, if we look back at the minutes that you wrote, I respectfully I don't see that you it's always been unanimous. So, and we voted unanimously. So, respectfully, I
077don't ever remember that. >> Okay. Well, our memories are slightly different then. >> I think so. So, except for Alex, the rest of us all unanimously agreed. So unfortunately, but I still think the odds are in our favor. So other than Alex, I think we had 16 in favor, which means three first selectmen. And I still think that that's a pretty good number. So I feel very um confident and I still feel really good about it. So I'm very comfortable with it. And you guys get to make the And >> no, no, we'll see where it goes. >> Yeah. And you guys get to make the decision. >> Absolutely. >> so I'm fine with that. >> And inevitably, that's the decision that you guys make. >> So, it's okay. >> Any other questions? Mary? >>
078Yeah. I I like the idea that you're going to get do each primary school individually. Yeah. >> And do the consolidated school so that we if we want to, we can do a conglomeration of both things. >> It's it's information. We have money, >> but we have price tags on each and everything. >> Y >> um when people see the price tag, they may say absolutely not this or absolutely not that. >> Absolutely. >> This way. >> And so when you and then when you have the information and you have numbers, then people really want to be able to have their say. So when you go out with surveys, they really want to be able to have their their their voices heard. So hopefully with those numbers and then we get to be able to
079have then we can go back to the drawing board and and be able to say well that's not going to work and go back to the drawing board or you get creative or however it may be. So >> I like that. >> Yeah. >> Thank you >> Angela and then Jesse. Yeah. So the the build to build it up to code or renovate that's obviously I think you can get a price for that because you know where those schools are >> but the consolidated school and and I'm not saying that I'm I'm against doing that but >> you have to buy property. >> Yep. >> So that's another cost we don't that's not going to be factored in to this plan. >> Well it will depends those are so we have to go back to
080the drawing board. I so we would have to decide land and then there's some other options when we go back to the committee that may be considered too that we haven't discussed yet. So like I said the committee still is still >> right I I get that but so are you are we now on a search for property >> that would have to be part of the conversation. Yes. I mean, if you would have to consider that as part of the conversation, >> Vicki, what >> I I guess I just I guess I'm just a little confused because you you're going to do an you're going to do a plan Yep. for a building. >> Yeah. >> And as you're doing that plan for a building, >> prior to that, you're going to or we
081are going to be looking for property >> and then factor that cost in. And then we're going to have to vote, you know, and Bridgewwater I I saw the red. >> So there's no voting yet. Like these are just >> I know. I know that. But I'm saying that, you know, Bridgewater is is absolutely against consolidation at this point. >> Maybe Bridgewwater is not against consolidation if it if the school's sitting in Bridgewater. I don't know. >> Yeah. >> But I I guess I didn't I guess I didn't factor in that, you know, now you've got to find this property first. >> Yeah. So, Angela, there's again there's lots of conversations. So, I would say to you that while we're here, I would imagine that there would have to be property looked at and I
082would also say that there would also have to be conversations about being that are probably being we don't know what you're going to agree on, right? So we we're giving you recommendations and I would say that there are probably conversations that are also being thought about behind the scenes too. So I would say to you that I have ideas in my head, but I can't share them with you or with anybody until I know what the board is going to decide. And so then and I imagine that there are other people on the committee that have ideas that they're thinking about, too. So, I I would love to share my ideas, but I can't until I know what the board's going to decide. But, you know, >> sometimes you just have to have faith and
083>> Yeah, I'm not Again, I don't think that the >> I understand I understand that you're worried about >> finding property and maybe optioning. I I just think that's a way bigger piece of the puzzle. So, I would recommend finding out how much it would cost for the RFP to see how much it would spend. And in the meantime, maybe we come back with those ideas once we find out how much it would cost. Okay? >> And I will let you know and maybe other committee members will come forward with their ideas. But I think it's hard for us to be able to move forward with those ideas until we know how serious you all are in considering our recommendations. which is I think fair too, right? >> Jesse, >> thanks. Yeah, two questions. One,
084why did the committee not choose the update to code? Uh, >> because I think that that's part of the renovate to new. >> Okay. >> So, that kind of kills two birds with one stone. >> Okay. >> So, if you do the soup to nuts and then you can kind of that's all-encompassing. Um the second question is would renovate to new include any substantial redesign like you could change the footprint of the buildings or is the footprint fixed and any renovate to new is within the fixed footprint of the existing structures. >> I'm going to say this and then I'm going to hope that if I'm wrong Nicole chimes in. But my understanding is is that a renovate to new is that the footprint stays the same that you're within the footprint of the building
085but that you can work within the footprint of the building >> but that you can change the configuration within the footprint of the building. >> Right? If we we'll work with some planners and the architects but the vision is we wouldn't change the footprint but we would change the interior structure walls. So even though we're working within the same footprint, we'll be changing the inside of the we'll be making suggestions to change the inside of the buildings to maximize the educational space. Um but in and with respect to other question Jesse when we started we were looking at nine plans up to code renovate to new renovate. So getting just a set of plans for each building to renovate to new, we can then start to revise those plans so that we can get to
086a price point that the board can support and the community can support and and being able to kind of um pick and choose which things work best for the communities, for the schools. Um instead of getting update to code and then saying, "Oh, wait, but if that's what it's going to cost, we want to add this and this." continuing to go back to get those revisions would be harder and more costly than to just yeah >> start with the renovate to new and then peel back much like we did for when we did the aggra science build. Um that's project started out I think at a $42 million build and um when it got time to do the funding and get state grants that ended up being a $30 million build because we pulled back
087and and did a lot of um engineering to get um some of the numbers some of the costs down. So it's that kind of theory to get the renovate to new and then pull back. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Can I just add one little bit to that? >> So the properties are restricted with the lot coverage as well. So expanding upon the footprint may be more difficult than just working within the confines of the actual structures that are there. >> Yeah. Just for clarification, uh uh I want to read the minutes from what we made the motion. Um Jim Britain made and Joe Abdullah second a motion to present three sets of plans to the board. >> I mean four sets of plans to the board. three uh renovations to new for
088all three elementary school and a fourth one to consolidate school Booth Washington Primary School. >> Yep. >> And three recommendations to the board. One, renovate to new in all new three schools. >> Uh up to code in all three schools >> and consider consolidation booth Washington Primary and renovation to Burnham. And you were correct. It was a vote. I voted for it. >> Yep. Thank you. But then and then we also met again on Zoom and then we we changed it to instead of saying booth and primary, we just changed it to one school and >> it's fine. Did anybody Pete >> microphone >> mic put turn your microphone on. Thank you. >> Do we know whether the the land that this current building sits on and all of the land about it are a
089feasible uh piece of property per building? Have we done that? Have this >> No, it's not feasible. >> Okay. I do. You have a study for that? Is that what you're saying? >> We don't uh from what Don Olier has shared with us. >> Okay. We don't have um enough land to build. Yeah. Um like Vicki, I'm going to say thanks for all the hard work. I know this is a really difficult task and it's going to take a really long time to come up with solutions and this is really >> step one a of the entire thing. I know just from the historical notes I've looked at in Roxberry, we have been considering renovating and consolidating schools since like 1867. We've had multiple one school room houses. We have consolidated those. >> Oh, and
090that's half a joke. It's probably earlier than that. You know, the one room school houses consolidated into two room school houses and eventually we got Booth, which was the brand shiny new school, and now it's been there for a long time. >> Yeah. So, um I I think a good plan going forward is to personally I feel like um to add as much as we can to the initial request for RFP to the architectural plans. I think something the board in general has gotten in trouble with in the past is that we've assumed something and we went to an architect and asked for one plan and when that one plan didn't serve the needs of whoever >> Yeah. It never got revisited. And I think it does get expensive. We're talking about economies of scale
091here. To ask >> one time, how many things could we add? I'd actually wonder if we could add another or broader scope to the plan. Um, you know, like Jesse said, does renovate include to code? Does one consolidated school also maybe act as an umbrella for one consolidated school and one local school? Can you consolidate two towns and keep one town separately? like what are the configurations that you can use in the biggest umbrella of architectural plans that we ask for because going back and back and back to the architect has been expensive for us over the years. Yeah, we thought about the Jetsons, didn't we? With the com the combining the three schools with a a little bit of the consolidate them with a, you know, I mean, I I understand something like that,
092too. Just like one consolidated school would require um buying land, having, you know, one school and, you know, two towns come together and another one not would require a change to the regional plan. So, I know like one iteration kind of, you know, begets another iteration, but I'm just wondering how big we can look. >> Listen, I I think the reality is this, and this is I I'm just God help me, I'm speaking off the cuff, which we all know how dangerous that can be, but I think the reality is this. I've said this a million times so if I'm repeating myself forgive me but I've personally jeody not board member have come a long way in the last 14 years right so the Jeot who was in like diehard consolidation has come a long
093way in 14 years I have no I I really genuinely I just want to see the communities move forward in whatever way that is I if if Bridgewater wants to keep their school. Let them. If that's what they want, so be it. It doesn't matter. I just know that the status quo is not okay any longer because the schools are aging. They're not healthy. And we need to figure out how to make it different. And I think that whatever Roxberry wants and whatever Washington wants, I don't know. I don't know what Washington wants. So the survey for me is a is a template to figure out what the three community wants and try to make it work in a way that everybody says yes. That's it. So I'd rather have a plan with a consolidated
094school and then figure out if one of the or two of the towns may want to join or maybe they don't. I don't know. I'm hopeful and I figure I think we can figure out a way to figure the land out. I don't know how expensive it's going to be. It might be astronomical. It might be really expensive to to figure out how to renovate to new one of the two schools. I don't know what the numbers are. I just know that if we can figure out how much it's going to cost and then sit down and brainstorm and if the three towns are actually sitting at the same table willing to work it out, let's do it. That's it. and that hasn't happened. So, I'm hopeful and we're going to hit bumps in the
095road. We're going to get frustrated. We're gonna want to just walk away, but we're not. We're going to figure out how to get back to the table and we're going to roll up our sleeves and we're going to figure it out with no hidden agendas, no, we're going to be transparent. We're going to call each other out when we need to and then we're going to come back to the table and we're going to figure it out. That's how I feel. That's it. So, I just think that that's the agenda. And so, if we need to invest a little bit to do the plans and then see how it works, I'm in. That's it. That's the bottom line. And so, I think that that's and I think that's the agenda. I think that that's genuinely
096the recommendations that the three towns are presenting to the board. and with your blessings, if you're willing to vote for that and move that on, fantastic. I also really hope with your support that you will continue to allow the committee to do its work outside because I do think because of a lack of trust and transparency in the past, it really does allow for the board to just do its work and the administration without feeling like there's that hidden agenda. And I think that that really will also help down the road to help you um allow you the support that you'll need to to maybe move whatever forward in a really helpful way. So if you have the support of the three first select men and community members to actually get this passed, God willing,
097fantastic. It's just helpful. So, and um maybe it's a Polyiana of dream, but I think it I think it could help. So, that's it. So, that's up to you. And I as the chair of the board and the chair of this committee, I wasn't really sure how you would feel about me if it was a conflict of interest to be a part of the voting. So, I'm happy to recuse myself because I don't want to cross the lines. So, if you guys want to have a conversation and vote, if you want to postpone it till next time, however you want to do it, it's up to you. Um, I love what you just said. Okay. I love what you just said. Um, I think that there is a lot of history between the three towns.
098A lot of history, a lot of negative things have been said, have been done. And what you just said, I only hope that everyone on this committee >> can feel the same way. Everything that has happened in the past, let it be in the past. >> Yeah. >> And everyone should come together as one and remember that what we're doing >> is for the kids. >> Yeah. And I want everyone to understand that we are all here for the kids. We want them to be safe. Yeah. We want them to have the best education that they can possibly have. And we want to do it, >> you know, with as little impact, you know, to our pockets as we can. >> And by the way, it is going to cost money, >> right? And I
099just want everyone to be as honest as possible and as transparent as possible. So, thank you for saying that. >> So, that's it. Thank you. >> Okay. So, do we have a motion to either table or do we have a motion to vote? Do we have any motions whatsoever? A motion to vote. Okay. Second. >> Second. >> Okay. Uh that was Stephanie and uh Justin. So motion to proceed with the committee's recommendation for uh four separate architectural plans. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed one. Absentions. None. Okay. Motion passes. Thank you everybody. I really appreciate it. Great. Wow. Miracle, right? One small little miracle. Fantastic. Okay, so what are we doing? >> Yeah, it's good. >> Take a breath. >> I know. Now I can drink a little water. >> It's
100good. >> Okay. I don't have a board chair report tonight. I'm gonna let it go. Superintendent report. >> Okay, thank you. Just briefly tonight, just about some personnel updates, appointments. Uh Mark Frink will be a middle school baseball coach at Chipog Valley School. Joel Harbor will be the custodian, second shift at Chipog Valley School. Nathan McVey will be the boys assistant varsity track coach at Chapag Valley School. And Lee Joy Pearson, a power educator at Chap Valley School. For resignations, we have Ryan Blley, Agra Science teacher at Chipog Valley School, effective June 17th, and Janice Paris, par educator at Booth Free School and Burnham School, effective February 6th. Uh, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Sorry, I'm supposed to notify you about two field trips. Whenever a field trip is out of state,
101we notify the board. The first is a trip regularly taken by our middle school students, Greg six, grade six to the Bronx Zoo. Um, and that's part of their curriculum where they observe animals in their ecosystems and then write about it. It's part of a science unit on ecology, but it is interdisciplinary. Um, how they discuss different components of specific ecosystems. >> Um, and that is at the Bronx Zoo on June 3rd. We just want to notify the board about that. And the second out ofstate trip will um take place um March 24th. This is an aggra science trip to Sunni Cobalt School where um they're going to do a state level mechanics CDE competition and this is part of the power structure curriculum with hands-on experience. Um and uh we believe both of these
102are good educational experiences for the students. We've done them before. We'd like to continue doing them. >> Great. Thanks, Tom. Treasures report. Alex. >> Yeah. Um, I don't have a a new report. We haven't haven't had a chance to talk with Nicole since our last meeting. Um, if you want, I can go over the things that we went over in the last meeting, but they're in the minutes and it would just be redundant. >> No, it's not necessary. Uh, moving on to committee reports. Agra Science, Mary. >> Uh, we had a meeting tonight and Tyler went over some interesting information. a second place finish at fall field days and those will be that's the the segment that will go on >> your microphone >> I'm always telling everybody else um so that our K that
103the the second place team will go on to um will go on to nationals. Let's see what else does he have? uh our community partnerships are their outreach by the aggra science uh team is great. Uh they they've been working on the Judea garden. They've been working with um Patrick Karan at Wallingfield Farm. They've been they'll be working um building uh birdhouses for the Bridgefield Land Trust and the uh food bank donations that go out to the Washington Warren um food bank, New Milford and Woodbury and um we're they're going to expand that to other towns with Vickiy's help. um plans for the spring. Um they have um they're going to have the plant sale. That's the day before that's the day before Mother's Day. That's a tradition. That's May 9th. And I I just
104wanted to put in a a little side thing that uh the farm-to-table dinner this year that the uh the friends parents friends and FFA alumni support group uh does the farm-to-table will take place at Wallingfield Farm. And um I'm really happy that uh Mike Rod Rottman, who is a graduate of Chapag uh 1998, uh he'll be the chef this year. So that's something you might all want to consider doing coming to that because it's it it's exciting and I love it. Um let me see anything else. Um they're going to have some expanded um uh extracurricular uh things for the kids and oh they have um I guess 80 kids have 88 kids have applied and there'll be a there'll be acceptances of 50 to 55 and then we'll see what we get out of
105those. Okay. And that's about it. >> Great. Thanks. >> Oh, yes. The acceptance letters go out today or this week. >> Thanks, Mary. >> Thanks. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I usually don't have much to say. >> Curriculum Justin. >> So, we just had a a meeting tonight and a couple of >> items we discussed. Um Carrie Snowden kind of walked us through some of the new course proposals and I'll just kind of read them off first. We have Yukon ECE Spanish um intermediate and then there's another one of Spanish conversation and cultural topics um a new math class introduction to accounting uh Yukon ECE business and for those of you who don't know ECE stands for early college experience and basically you take a class that's sort of sponsored by a college here in
106this case Yukon and you receive three college credits for passing this Um in the music department there are two classes replacing other classes. So we have uh music 101 fundamentals and ear training and then popular music and diversity in American society. Then we have in humanities contemporary issues in sport and then a couple of egg um fabrication with wood and metal courses. We did make a motion to bring to the board um for a reading um the textbook for the sports class which is social issues in sport and I believe this will be in central office. Yeah, central office. Then for the accounting we have this one. So again this will also be available for anyone to peruse. And then the final thing we talked about tonight was the uh district-wide text self-study. Um not
107too much depth here. We just kind of went over an overview um about what's going on. The goal for the committee for the end of this school year is to um come up with a vision of ed tech guidelines and uh creating a survey as for what's best for students and technology. >> I think that's it. >> Thanks Justin. Ed advance. Joe, >> our most recent meeting was last uh Thursday, February 5th. And uh during this meeting, we received an update on the Workspace Connecticut property sale. Jonathan was able to negotiate an allcash deal, which is going to include a uh generous donation of 250,000 given over a two-year period. Uh the final sale of the property was 2 a.5 million which is split between at advance and CES which they were partners on uh
108owning and purchasing the property. The sale uh does require a resolution to the original uh purchase agreement. So we authorized uh the executive director to proceed with the the sale of the property. Um, also the governor was at the at Advance Lichfield office today. He was doing a press event to announce the allocation of the $830,000 to continue the support of the school-based mental health program. Uh, thus funds it through the rest of the year. I did not attend that this event. >> That's all I have >> to amplify that for one second. And I received that good news this morning, too. And there's an impact for us in that you might remember from prior reports that I made to the board that we lost some of the professionals we received under that grant when
109the money went away. And it's been very tenuous about whether we would get that money back. And now it is there and will continue to the end of the grant. So our two practitioners, two counselors that have been working with our kids will be back in around mid-March and we're assured that their tenure can continue here until the grant is over in several years. So that that was really good news for us. >> It's really good. It's great. >> A qu a question. Was this money the part of the five year plan that they cut down to two and a half years? N and so this but they're only bringing it back to three years now or they bringing it all the way back to the five years. >> Um I'm still not sure. This
110is brand new. I know um as Joe said, Governor Lamont was at at advance today. I've heard conflicting information as to whether it's just through June 30th or if it's through the original grant period, which would be an additional two years beyond June 30th and I don't have confirmation of that yet. >> Yeah, that'd be be great if the state were able to pick that up >> and I'll try to confirm it, but I did get advice from actually Joe from Judy Palmer today in advance that she believes that the money will continue through the So, I'll confirm that, but I'm hopeful right now that that's the case. >> Great. I did hear that same thing today. I just haven't been able to independently confirm it. >> Thank you. >> As Ronald Reagan said, trust
111but verify. >> Uh finance and operations. Alex, >> got two things. Uh the gate has gone up at with the ballards at the Burnham uh back at the Burham playground and it has survived the snow. Um secondly, the second boiler at Washington Primary has been installed and the software has been uh connected to the uh the boilers. So that job is complete. Two new boilers at Washington Primary. That's my report. >> Thank you. Uh labor negotiations, nothing new to report. Thank you. Policy, >> nothing new. Our next meeting is February 23rd >> and I have nothing new to report for long range planning. Old business consider and if appropriate approve the 2026 2027 school calendar that is ready to discuss. I will say Jen and I meet um the Wednesday before each board meeting to
112go over the agenda and she wants to get stuff done but she also worries about all of you and at that time you said this is a long long meeting. You didn't know if you wanted this on the agenda and here it is. Here it is. >> Are you ready to do it or do you want to defer? Okay. So, the last time we looked over the calendar and I reported that for next the proposed calendar for next year that it's substantially the same as this year, but we wondered whether we had good congruity with the sending towns in the spring break week. So, you wanted me to check into that and I put in a recent Friday update that I had done that. It turns out that I can confirm we use the same
113protocol we use each year. We have a little spreadsheet, a little Excel sheet that we share with each sending town and asked them to put in their spring break week and they do all align next year. Now this year they didn't. This year Danbury was an outlier which was regrettable from their, you know, but there wasn't anything we could do about it. Do the best you can. But luckily next year that's not an issue. So I think that was the one thing that detained us last time. I think the board might now feel ready to consider this the calendar for next year. >> Great. So, can I have a motion to approve the 2026 20 2027 school calendar? >> I so move. >> Second. All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone opposed? Obstensions? It has
114been approved. >> Great. The board meeting count schedule. The board meeting schedule is attached also and it's again substantially the same as last time. We looked at it to make sure that we're respectful of things like religious holidays that incur and other um to make sure that we don't jam things up in a way that's inappropriate and we think we've got the right spacing that it aligns with what we've done before and is mindful of everybody's religious practices. So I think this is also ready for board consideration. >> Great. Anybody have any questions? Can I have a motion to approve the 2026 2027 board schedule and committee schedule? >> There's so move. >> Second. >> Uh, all in favor? >> I. >> Uh, anyone opposed? Extensions. We have the calendar. Great. Thank you. May I
115have a motion to adjurnn? >> Second. Great.