001e e e I will call the Mee to order welcome to the Summers Board of Education meeting Monday February 24th and please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag the United States of America na indivisible andice okay so first motion will be approval of minutes of February 10th if someone wants to make that motion motion motion from Ed and a second from Jan so all those in favor everyone can vote for it even though we had four absent but everyone can vote okay so that's unan all right we'll turn it over to you thank you and good evening a few weeks ago I presented a proposed budget for the 2526 school year our current percentage is 5.68% the dollar amount is 30, 47632 this percentage and number has been closely
002examined by the budget subcommittee it's a number and percentage that would keep us moving forward I want to emphasize a few things this evening health insance premiums are expected to rise by probably 10% we could possibly see an increase in electricity of $75,000 and in that number is my request to purchase a ka8 math program which has never existed in this District April will mark my second year in this district and part of my charge has been to understand and figure out figure out why Summers has not performed as it should and part of that is the lack of some important resources and this uh math program is one of them not having the ability to look K through a in a sequential manner uh using a program that is standards based I feel has
003handicapped The District in regard to growth and acceleration if approved that could POS L affect 900 students of our over 1300 students in creating this budget we were also able to realize significant savings due to retirements and a re-evaluation of programming needs that has resulted in a reduction of 5.10 full-time staff members at a savings of over $400,000 and I'm mentioning that because I want the board and the public to understand that we closely monitored as we as people noticed us that they were retiring could we efficiently deliver the same level of service to our students so I just want the board and Community to know that that thought process went into do you replace or can we shift responsibilities and and realize an efficiency and that's over $400,000 in closing tonight what's the return
004on investment SCS is a finalist for school of the Year their visitation is tomorrow in this community they about 12,000 people and we're Comm competing against communities 50 60 70,000 people we're also competing against communities in the wealthiest part of the state and we are to finalist that doesn't just happen that means that we have been able to codify and communicate the work that's going on here and these are external people coming in to evaluate us so it's just not us these are outside Educators who are coming to look at us and to that point last year in this small community MBA still has the title of middle level School of the year they hold that title Statewide I also want to note that Summers high school is ranked number 23 based on the last
005school performance index scores that came out last year and I believe that that was a jump from I think you were in the 60s Dr reenberg a year ago 56 or 65 my numbers are I think it in my head is 60 it's 65 and I'm mentioning this because people want to understand what is the return on investment and I'm saying that we are definitely on a trajectory to be a top 10 School District in this state and that's not Pie in the Sky the the numbers will will show that the external evaluations are documenting that and it's something that I suspected when I came I just didn't have all of the answers until I sat in the seat for a while and I said that there's amazing potential here and we're starting to realize
006that potential so I'll get off of that particular soap box but people will want to understand you know there are increases things are going up but we also have carefully looked to capitalize on efficiencies and also deliver high quality so that's that 5.68 number I know um is unusual for this community but we are definitely tracking to be among company that we've never been in before so that concludes my update for T think we have a high school report I think G really well for students so far cor has a mid concer 12 we had our Spartan showcase for the eth graders we show off high school for them on February 4th we had kindness Awards outen and Madison messenger we hads out to Ryan H Alexa Gabrielle and and for honorable we have 46
007students achieve high students AI I forgot I was ding sorry for upcoming events Dr will be taking his prece history students to museum on March 6 drama will be having their performance of descendants on March 7th students interested in the medical field will be able to take a trip to the Harford Hospital Center for Education simulation and Innovation on March 14ths will be taken on March 27th with the makeup date on April 3 and and our Spanish three classes will be taking a trip table to experience like different Cal and for some sports updates their respective weight classes at wrestling conference and States sadly the girls and boys basketball seasons have ended and McKenzie Smith and both thank [Applause] you she must have forgot something in the cut a good yeah all right did you
008want to add anything at all um have a schedule change that's definitely happening at the high school now the students will learn about it tomorrow so that's really exciting super pumped about that it's going to allow for a lot of the tightening up of some of the other things happening that are going to happen next year in the building excited that was a super big win for me all right opportunity to add or delete agenda items all right so we'll move on to the consent agenda we'll take a motion for that from Kim in a second from Shane any questions on the consent agenda all those in favor right it's unanimous okay old business so we'll go back to reading the agenda beforehand I've kind of front loaded U the Salient points that I wanted
009to highlight regarding the budget um presentation from a few weeks ago so you know I'm positioned to to take questions I wanted to clearly communicate what the return on investment is I wanted to communicate fact that we didn't just fill positions that we closely examined need impact and ability to deliver the same service to students and families which I think we I know we can do with the number presented 5.68 um and the math program is very important um knowing um using a standards based program to we can track student performance in real time as they move through grade levels is something that's been missing and you know that's part of one of the reasons why we haven't outperformed some of the districts that we most certainly can and should so you know those were
010um the points I wanted to reiterate this evening there's nothing new that was added from the inial so I'm happy to entertain any questions about it at this point all right so what if we go ahead and put the motion on the floor and then we can see if we have some discussion on the motion about that uh move to approve the proposed 2025 2026 board of education budget with been increased of 5.68% to go to the Board of Education public hearing on March 10th 2025 at 6m in the Board of Education Chambers and then go to the board of Finance okay and a second to the motion from JT okay so questions or discussion on the motion what do we currently have in place for the K through maap is there any there's no
011singular program it's just peace meal throughout each grade level or I don't want to use the word peace mail but it leaves a a lot of variance okay for for delivery um meaning that a students's experience can be different from classroom to classroom grade level to grade level because the materials used are not all the same so it creates this variance and you know when I when I first came aboard um almost two years ago administrator and teachers did not have a tool to be able to recognize patterns in student performance and growth we have one now it's called looker Studio but this is another way for us to create that standardization from great level to grade level My ultimate goal is to have us move out of the state we're in where there are
012pockets of exdents from from we're good one year and and we have a dip the next year and we can exp erience that from grade level to grade level and from building to building what I'm after with this standardization is to be able to track Trans in real time have teachers respond in real time so we can with relative certainty predict how our students are going to do over time that's the huge like K8 investment and rationale behind that so now we we leave it up to teachers to to uh find instruction resources and you might like one thing you might like something different you're teaching the same standard but from an organizational standpoint it's it's very challenging to really zero win on Excellence from grade to grade and from school to school and math
013has been a week spot for us so so then you know we're trying to make up ground various points instead of having that strong steady ability to project how kids are doing and then respond right if if kids are not doing well respond to that but if kids are excelling being able to respond to that and and that's why you know there's been a little patchworking going on why we have a cohort of middle schoolers uh who are accelerated but there was no mechanism really to identify that till we started working together and and I said we we need to find the students I know that they're there who already know what they're doing yeah right and they're and they're proving it and we need to make sure that we're challenging every student appropriately so
014this will help the excellent students Excel it will actually help students throughout the through all the continuum you know and you know I I said it a while a while ago we have two students who are going up to the high school taking a high school class and if we know in advance how kids are tracking we can better meet their needs like right at MBA so thank you sure so Stephanie I've got a question for you um so just before before I left the house on the news tonight they were in the middle of having a discussion on the special Leed costs at the legislature trying to get more money so can you just I guess we we keep thinking we're going to pass the budget at this certain percentage but there's still hope
015that there might be some changes coming along that might help our budget get even lower so yeah there's been a lot of discussion about at the state level um last week or the week before I went to a legislative hearing they were holding listening sessions across the state and so I attended one of those and they had Parents speaking and districts speaking and um various Educators speaking about the challenges of the riseing cost of special ed not just out placements but also our riseing cost within districts to be able to provide services for the students that are attending our schools right now um we're identifying a lot more kids we're seeing a higher need um and so there is hope that they will increase funding I know that they're looking at the excess cost Grant
016and I've talked about it multiple times in board meetings that our reimbursement rate was much much lower this year than past years historically I've been in education for 16 years the lowest I've ever seen it um so there there is talk about that um there's also talk about the ECS formula again and putting more weight on special ed students so that maybe we get a little bit more ECS funding which that's on the town side and that offsets the tax revenues um I don't know what will come this is a long um legislative session it goes until June um so I'm not sure how quickly we will get answers or if anything will be um decided this year or next year before our budget of course we do get information that can help our budget
017at any time we certainly take that into consideration and our bestd that next so we're still trying to say how much we're going to be spending 18 months from now correct and and I've had conversations with on the town side Dr Galloway and I both met with the town finance and you any kind of negative information there's talk about holding districts harmless for next year as far as ECS we're scheduled there's a phase in of reduction of funding for wealthier towns um Summers is considered one we're scheduled to receive a $90,000 cut next year in ECF funding um there's talk about that being held harmless and us not losing $90,000 I there's no decision made on that yet and so the town needs to anticipate that we are a reduction um until we hear otherwise
018anytime I get that information I'm passing it on and sharing that Brian at the Town Hall to let him know hey just a heads up we may we may not be cut right and so he's taking that into account it's a constant checking especially right now because of the long session I mean we do the best with the information we can get right and along the I only plan for the kids that we know about right now right this second that are happening to us right now could change tomorrow that absolutely could change tomorrow and I try not to make those kinds of changes to the budget because that is something that can change and fluctuate I don't want to come to the board and say oh we now have $150,000 that we need to
019spend and then a week later oh we have a kid that moved out of District or graduating um you know so those it's very a good work for can can I just add um point out the positive relationship that we do have with the town CFO Stephanie communicates regularly with him I believe was last week he came over yep last Thursday and the three of us um sat down just to be in in sync they have their own challenges but at least for this board to edification in the community we have a a positive working relationship with the town we keep them and to to Brian's credit he's kept us informed as well I have a question about the reimbursement so are you suggesting that if the reimbursement was much higher you probably had a
020more appropriate level that we wouldn't have to request such an increase at the local level because it'll be supplemented with the state's reimbursements which we all contribute toward potentially the hard cost is that we can think this is how much we could potentially get and then they don't give us that money um that is exactly what's been happening um a lot of districts plan for a 75% reimbursement and so when you then get told well you're only going to get 60% of your reimbursement and then on top of that you have a higher number of students that are now out place that you were budgeting for already you just fall further behind the eightball and to help balance out that unknown or are you going to just ride it out and potentially have to freeze
021your budget that's what we had to do this year was we froze our budget at in November at Thanksgiving um so we have really just been waiting to hear what's happening with excess cost and to see how much we were actually going to get um at an impact to we're not filling everying comes in you know if somebody leaves we're not fulfilling that position uh we are holding back on nice TOS in in curriculum if it if we need to buy it because they can't access the curriculum without it we're purchasing it if we need it materials instructional materials if it's that's really nice to have and and good for maybe staff morale we're not going to do that right now because we have other expenses that have come up um between utility costs electricity
022and some special ed expenses that we did not plan for some out placements that we did not plan for it's led us to us to slow down a little bit on our budget this fine Balancing Act Right like I'm trying to plan for a year that I don't know what's going to happen next year I don't we won't know until December or January what our excess cost will be next year sounds like me filling out my W4 for exactly right you can't predict so it's like I I equate it to being in a job where you depend on a commission for your salary right right you just never really know you rise the cycle and you plan the best that you can um and and you hope that your Finance people are on top of
023it yeah I I appreciate the explanation I think it's important to note there probably uh a lot of opportunity there but unfortunately that's not something we can solve in this room we just need to do we need to Al to make it work but clearly there's a concern here at a state level not only is inflation a major contributor that's kind of the elephant in the room everything has cost significantly more I just spent $10 on a dozen eggs so when you couple that is almost a perfect storm and the state should be there to have our back we contribute a significant amount to our state tax dollars I just I feel like it's important to note here like we're trying to do what's right I think we have an awesome team here locally and
024I support you the increase but there's a lot that goes into it and I think there's things outside of these walls that are definitely impacting what's going on so absolutely Stephanie in addition to uh some out placements that we weren't expecting um have our rates changed with any of the out placements I heard some districts are faced with some some new contract even though they had contracted rates those went up mid year do we experience that so historically we have planned for about a 3% increase every year so that's how I budget I increase we are seeing 5 to 7% increases when the contracts actually come down um so yeah I'm kind of getting there by putting in a 3% increase um but if I can't control what the out placements are charging every year
025and they don't tell us until we go into a contract and you can't just say well we're not going to send our kid there any our students there anymore we're going to pull them out and move them somewhere else it's across the board these these rates are increasing everywhere everywhere and that's one of the conversations that we' had with the state is you know it's it's great that you think that we need more funding but something also needs to be done with the oversight on how these out placements are charging for tuition there who's overseeing that who's putting a cap on them um is anybody monitoring that that's those are all their state approved out placs somebody um so that that's the difficult part right you can't just up where any you know there's only
026so many placs that we can set our kids to to begin with and once they're at one place they may be excelling there and you want to keep them there but it comes at a cost and it's just Rising faster than in this budget here knowing that we had five to s% increases I still only budgeted a 3% increase because I don't think that it's I'm hoping that our excess costs will offset any of those increases so there is no cap on any of the they can charge whatever they want yes yeah and I do know I've been in meetings with the commissioner of Education along with other superintendents and they're looking because Mass has a cap so they're looking at Mass a few other states have a cap I think Jersey has a cap
027so the awar is there but from awareness to action imp where where we are right now so is the Massachusetts they have a cap of a certain percentage increase per year like if you can only go up a certain percent percent each year and that allows districts to be able to plan better because it's it's really the unknown right and I don't want to increase and say we're going to increase our tuition our outplacement tuitions by 7% because I feel that's not being conservative and being fiscally responsible with historically it has been 3% but I think you know just like us we have rise in costs they have rise in costs and I'm sure that they've had to hire more staff as more students needed their services just we just keep going around in a
028circle right what it feels okay so other questions or comments all right are we good to vote on the motion then okay and so this is to approve the percentage and then it just moves it to the next step for our hearing it doesn't go to the board of Finance yet okay all those in favor of the motion on the budget all right so that's unanimous all right and we're doing the board of that hearing like we did the last two years right here instead of the auditorium and I did um we drafted a flyer that will go out okay that is just a draft right now I have to wait until the of Finance meets tomor they will there's a date on there that is special meeting so don't go and post that out
029okay um it's just a draft until Wednesday um Wednesday morning after the board of Finance meeting tomorrow when I confirm the special meeting I will send that up do you want us to like email you talk about it now maybe some feedback like what we I if you want to email um okay there something that jumped out just so this year versus other years you're seeing that other purchase service and supplies Rising quite a bit more than what we've seen in previous years and I think it's important to call out what those are people I don't think people understand that other purchase Services includes your special education your bus you any your special education Transportation so they're going to look at they're going to look at supplies and be like why do you need to
030increase your supplies that's really the math program that's you know so I think maybe in some of the categories we're not used to so seeing these increases oh I didn't see if you have just send it to us okay okay but if if we have any suggestions we need to get them to you by when tomorrow by tomorrow okay I would like to publish that on Wednesday like what I would like to publish that on Wednesday have to announce send that kind of out 10 days before okay so if we can each take a look at it when we get home tonight and get back to Stephanie okay all right new business none committee reports curriculum our next meeting is April 28th at 6 PM okay uh policy I'm hoping that maybe we could have
031all right policy is on hold because we can't meet when we're doing the budget are so we'll maybe delay that till the end of March so we're on hold okay planning and finance I think we're on hold until the right oh yes all right and sour negotiations uh Carl's not here but there's no meeting scheduled and building committee Mike um the bid documents are scheduled to be open on the 4th of March at 1 o' the fire department has given the okay to remove the ceiling tiles that's and our next meeting is March 4th at 2 o' okay so that's that's a A plus that kind of helps the time frame get those okay B documents March 4 March 4 so all the bid documents got to go to the right so we put our
032um to bid with our instruction manager and then uh it's all the trades electrical HB all all the things that go into this they're all submitting their bids right now and then on March 4th at 1M there'll be a public bid opening where we just read off this is the amount this what and then they'll do a bit evaluation and then the building committee will to discuss so each one gets read it's not like the lowest okay everybody gets and then there's an evaluation to make sure that they met all the specifications of the scope of work and that there's nothing that we need to clarify or anything like that and then gets AED to the qualifi B how is it going in I they're all going to to the construction yeah so I don't
033get anything and they'll probably all roll in next Monday and Tuesday usually they go right up until the morning of didn't they say that they would post that can you watch it it's a video yeah or stream watch it oh yes it's a stream yeah okay on March 4th at what time the 's a live um Cape report um I'll be attending there's a meeting on March 1st for the Board of Ed chairs for area three that means there about 18 districts um that will meet next Saturday kind of compare notes I guess uh corre um's not here anything from SCF uh yes they're actually having their meeting tonight I guess they don't want me there but it's they did want me to mention that the uh Spring Fest uh which is what they're calling
034it this year their largest fundraising event is on April 26th at Joanna's restaurant it'll be the same format as previous years and they are always looking for sponsors so please contri you okay all right I think we covered everything all right audience to Citizens staff and students I wasn't able to attend I it February 20th meeting parents wondering what kind of Ten Tone presented a plan a and a plan apologies for not attending but wondering how how you felt I think it went well I don't know if everyone would agree with that but I think we accomplished our mission which was to visually display using the maps of the schools what sces would look like if students stayed in place and the moves that would have to take place so we showed that visually uh
035principal M communicated that her drive was her school and then she also talked about what her school would look like if students were relocated so if students stayed I think the biggest point would for me to state would be the students who need support the most would experience a sub substantial impact uh being on a stage with noises going on around and you know they for speech and language those kinds of things consolidating adults Who deliver those services in classrooms um makes it very challenging and and to me would the service would be delivered but how badly would it be impacted so so we showed with principal mcy showed without and then principal martello showed a schematic of her school and what that would look like and what was different from the first to the
036second meeting is I had not actually walked the space with principal Martell I had an idea in my mind she had an idea in her mind and when we went on the walk about we found I liked her idea better um it put grades five and six in one distinct hallway it gave them their own bathroom uh we were able to state to parents that each grade level will have their own lunch um so these are kids that and I'm not diminishing uh the Traditions that go on at SCS but these students are together right now so you know as adults and this is where I believe the uniqueness of this particular school district and proximity and positive working relationships between the two principles um principal martello would be agreeable to have fifth grade students
037participate where where appropriate and and you that's unique you know we're not talking about putting kids on a bus to a different neighborhood with strangers the these are they would be with kids who they're in the same hallway with right right now and you know I have to commend um both principles on really taking some time to um take their time and explain and we we stayed there for a while so parents could ask whatever questions that they have the um the meeting was advertised from 5:30 to 6:30 we ended at 7:30 so we had the presentations were given they were very clear that it was unbiased it was just we're going to put partitions on a stage and we're going to have three different classes providing you know special services like a speech there
038that's not good that's not in the best interest of student learning and it was you know very matter of fact and the parents had a lot of questions but it was started off with the superintendent responding to all the questions that had been asked the four weeks before every one of them this was the question here's the answer the presentation's finished we had one parent who got up and she said well I have six questions and she did and it continued and every one of them were answered and so we he kept it going you know it was very calm but I I think they had to leave like okay and so are you going to let the students go back to the elementary school and as he said when I got here you have
039two buildings basically the same size and you have twice as many students in one building and the answer is why and so no we don't know what what we're going to do when this is all over but when you think about it we have an opportunity that other districts don't necessarily have we have an opportunity to move a fifth grade into the middle school and let's see how it works there's going to be pluses and minuses I'm thinking there going to be a lot more pluses and minuses so you don't have to make that decision until the project is done and I think not many of them realize that this building was grades 4 through eight for years years and the only reason it got changed was we built a new high school and we
040shifted things around so um but I think for the most part I think it was well received you know I I'm kind of sitting watching the body language and when you see a lot of nodding like well you know that makes sense it makes sense so um and I think you know we're not having a crowd here tonight complaining about I didn't get my questions answered so you know I I take that as a good thing too so so thank you and um both principles not only gave a great presentation but I think what kind of came across to the audience was the relationship that the two principles have because they were kind of you know going back and forth answering and it's like they're obviously working together on this and have put in a
041time um to figure out what what is in the best interest of students that's the bottom line so okay other comments or questions with that we'll take a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn Shane a second from Jan all those in favor all right and we will adjourn at 740 thank you for coming