001before I don't get okay all right well that's good too I know but that's stupid well I guess it's time to do it um [Music] hi everybody thank you all for being here um we are calling the standings order uh April regular meeting April 26th at 7 pm um last meeting is chair and as a Committee Member so Excuse me while I give you all a little piece of my emotionality um it's been an honor to be on this committee for the past six years and um seven years previously on the elementary committee so it's been a long time we have done a lot of work in these past six years and absolutely have a lot to go during my time here we cleaned up a messy student support organization program we've worked to ensure
002that every student is valued at matsco and prepared for once they leave the quote Masco bubble through our anti-racism policy we successfully made it through covid without having to shut down School produced a comprehensive Capital plan we're currently working on a strategic plan we reduce Sports fees by 25 with a pledge to produce some another 25 percent started a drama program and finally we have a Turf project that is moving forward after a long time we have done this all we're while receiving High Praise constructive criticism and harassment but nevertheless we persisted all of these things go towards my number one goal of keeping our students happy and healthy and yes educated most important things our graduates can leave Masco with our strong communication skills problem solving skills critical thinking skills and the ability to
003work well with others hi MCAS s-a-t AP scores it's not what defines the success of a graduate it is the aforementioned soft skills and I hate that term which I believe Masco is well on its way to teaching if someone were to ask if I had any regret regrets I would say not getting the start time changed later if that's the only thing that we haven't been able to change and I certainly hope that you guys will continue to work on it because it's the one thing that can improve success for every single child beyond that it's been privileged to work along with all of you these are really hard-working people sitting at this table like I said we've accomplished a lot but you all have a lot of work ahead of you So to
004that I wish you continued success more praise less harassment I don't think you won't be seeing me because I it's just doing something thank you thank you and we spoke earlier on behalf of some other long time members Carolyn Miller and Costa pentakis um I said stuffed about them later I'm not going to do it again because I might get emotional so anyway I want to recognize them for all the work that they've done for this now we do one of the things that we love to do which is recognize our students for the awesome things that they've been up to besides last time we talked about sports and sports recognitions this one definite near and dear to my heart Arts recognition so um please so Stacy Manheim who is our department head for art
005is going to introduce our students all right thank you good evening everyone um so tonight on behalf of the school committee and Dr Harvey I would like to congratulate our students for their achievements in the visual arts their creativity commitment perseverance and their wonderful finished works all the students mentioned tonight should be very proud of their accomplishments the specific focus of this presentation is to highlight the goal key winning work artwork of the masconomic students from this year's Scholastic art Awards as well as award-winning work from the sixth congressional district art competition so let's see this isn't moving forward for me oh my God I need my visuals go to sleep okay happy now there you go okay thank you so hopefully I know it's a little tough to see this but um there's more
006pretty pictures in a second um so the Scholastic art and writing Awards is the longest running art competition for teams in the United States It's a Wonderful opportunity for students to share their work with a larger audience and to have their creativity appreciated it began in 1923 and has had many notable winners over the years including Robert Redford who by the way was a painter before dancing film actor and director um Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon to name just a few um any work created between January and December 2022 was eligible for consideration in the Scholastic competition the work is judged on the basis of originality technical skill and the emergence of a personal Voice or vision this year there were 7 363 visual art entries from across the state of Massachusetts 508 gold keys
007which are equivalent to first place were awarded 733 silver keys and 1119 honorable mentions gold and silver key winners had an awards ceremony at Tufts University in March also um all gold fee work was displayed at breed Hall at Tufts both of these special in-person events haven't been done in a couple years because of the pandemic all Award winners in Massachusetts were printed in a four-page spread in the Boston Sunday Globe art section this March all gold key work from all states is considered for national awards so the mass economic Middle School received a total of 24 Awards this year for gold nine silver and 11 honorable mentions this is more than any other public Middle School in the state this slide highlights the gold key artwork created by two seventh graders on the left
008is Caleb aitchison's ceramic sculpture titled Blue Dragon and on the right is Atta eisenberg's print titled radial rhythms her piece was printed in the globe's art section one of only 15 days that were printed the grade level uh noted on the slide refers to the grade level the student was when they created the work let's see so um let's see these gold pieces were created by two eighth grade students on the left is Kira McCauley's mixed media drawing stained glass and on the right is Bella Dennis's found material sculpture titled scorpion so if Caleb Ada Kira and Bella are here can you guys stand up you're here [Applause] and now uh the masconomic high school received a total of 52 Awards 12 gold keys 21 silver keys and 19 honorable mentions um this is the
009second largest number of awards of all public high school art programs in the state the next many slides will show the goalkeeper of the high school students and then after I get through showing those I'd love for all of you guys to stand up and we'll applaud you as well together on the left is Paige panagosa's sorry page oil pastels self-portrait drawing titled submerged and on the right is Megan Brady's India Inc fingerprint self-portrait titled imprints did you say fingerprint she she made it with her finger on the left is Megan Carroll's ceramic plates titled lurking below I don't know if this this is conveyed clearly but it's two plates and the plate on top is somebody extremely floating on a raft and then there's sharks circling below and on the right is Angelina dulis's
010engraved print called uh childhood on the left is Gwendolyn Moon's Conti crayon drawing titled Oakley and on the right is JT marachuk's colored pencil drawing titled new shoes you helped me choose on the left is Jessica Villarreal reyes's ceramic piece titled wave platter and on the right is Andrew mccary's mixed media self-portrait drawing titled faceted Andrew's piece was also printed in the globe really is a rare occurrence and quite an honor as well um on the left is nor Achilles colored drawing um color drawing colored pencil drawings excuse me titled converging stories and on the right is Angelina delis's graphite drawing titled empathy on the left is another Nora achille piece a graphite drawing titled batter up and on the right is Amber goudreau's foil pastel self-portrait drawing titled morning ritual so now I'd like
011all high school art students to stand up Bravo those are amazing thank you before before we finish I know there are members of our art faculty here today so I was going I'm not important if I'm taking too long all right oh okay um as I previously mentioned all gold key work from every state is automatically in contention for a national award more than 260 000 works of art and writing were submitted to the 2023 competition less than one percent of Works receive a national medal and I'm proud to share with you that two masking on that students received National silver medals this year so Bella was awarded a silver medal for her clever Whimsical scorpion found material sculpture and I do have a little information that Mrs malinowski shared with me that I thought
012you guys might enjoy uh Mrs malinowski told me that when Bella started the project she had a Clear Vision and really hit the ground running every day she came in and worked diligently on creating her scorpion with great attention to detail continue continually comparing the anatomy of the Scorpion with all the material options in front of her she kept trying various pieces until it it fit just right I specifically remember her creating the Scorpion legs each part was resolved by doing a lot of experimenting and once the optimal solution was determined the final construction was executed with Precision something didn't seem right to Bella she would rework it until it was exactly how she wanted it so Bella I think and Paige chronogos was awarded a silver medal for her striking unique and compelling oil
013pastel self-portrait drawing Paige told me this was um the only the second oh pastel drawing she had ever made the first one was for the merry project both of which she created this year Miss Syeda Pages APR teacher shared some insight with me that I'd like to share with you um when we began the project we talked about the importance of the of the portrait saying something about the student Paige is a swimmer and a lifeguard so that wasn't an area that she was interested in pursuing when it came to her portrait we spoke about the possibility of Paige taking her own photo in the pool with her partially or fully submerged in the water she liked the idea of I wasn't sure if it would be possible but she agreed to try as a
014backup we also took a photo of her here at Masco in her life Garden gear I remember Paige and I looking at both reference photos and to me it was a no-brainer the photo that Paige took far surpassed the photo I took it was unique original and so visually exciting but Paige wasn't initially convinced she went back and forth between knowing her own photo would not challenge due um knowing her photo would be a challenge due to its detail color and imagery we talked through the pros and cons of each and I really tried to let Paige make her own decision secretly dying inside because I wanted her to do the fully submerged photo finally she turned to me and said you know you know what Miss did I miss sayeda I'm gonna do it
015I will work with my photo I know it's going to be a challenge but I'm up for it and that perfectly describes Paige also on our final reflection in AP this is what she said about her future plans I'm going to Rochester Institute of Technology for industrial design and to swim I wish to work either in a design firm or a cool company like Timberland or even teach art in 10 years but anyway congratulations before you go further can I just ask please I'm so curious about these pictures that look like photos so they take a photo and then they draw it from that yeah they use the photo as a reference um and sometimes they really stick very close to the photo sometimes it's a little more interpretive you know it but it's yes
016it's a reference for them yeah those portraits they're 16 by 20. oh wow yeah they're not up right now but yeah it's it's sort of a senior um tradition that they do this amazing thank you all right so another composite competition that we've participated in I believe since it's Inception in 1982 is the sixth Congressional District High School art competition each spring the Congressional Institute sponsors a nationwide School Visual Arts competition to recognize and encourage artistic talent throughout the nation and in each congressional district each school can commit uh submit up to six pieces of Art in our case artists and Educators at Montserrat College of Art select the winning entries winners are recognized at a ceremony at Montserrat along with Congressman Seth Moulton so uh from left to right Vanessa vasame received a best
017in school award for her imaginative building design done in Conte crayon titled letter building Jenna Lindsay received an honorable mention for her richly detailed colored pencil drawing titled leave a mark and Haley Serafina also received an honorable mention for her joyful oil pastel self-portrait titled don't be afraid of color so um Vanessa Jenna or Haley here by any chance let's still give them [Applause] foreign I would also like to just take a moment to publicly congratulate all of the 68 masconomet Award winners Gold Silver and honorable mentions and all the students that submitted to the Scholastic contest as well as every art student for their participation in the visual arts and last but not least I want to take a moment to recognize the masconomic art faculty Yvonne malinowski or Cena Amsler Joe yukkin Syeda
018Aaron Evans and Brian Dow for their pivotal role they play in mentoring all of their students they are each talented artists in their own right as well as dedicated creative caring and exceptional art educators our students are very fortunate to have them as teachers and to experience the rich visual arts program here at Mass economic so um thank you everyone and I would just like to now introduce Brian Pereira our Drama teacher foreign thank you [Laughter] [Music] thank you I wish I could draw myself perfect awesome well hello everybody so uh my name is Brian Pereira I'm the theater director and theater teacher here at Masco this year um I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for your community for supporting us in our first year of building this program um
019it's been an amazing ride and I'm sure all the students can agree with me that uh we appreciate your support so much um just to briefly talk about our year as a whole um we put on two Productions this year in the fall we did Chicago um which was very great um a lot of Bob Fosse choreography really challenged the students in a different way than we've done before um and then we have the opportunity for our second show to compete in the metg Massachusetts educational theater Guild competition with our piece of woman in Wallace um so we competed against 88 schools in Massachusetts um and made it to the final round which was the top 13 which was really cool and a very unique experience um so now I'm going to hand it over
020to our president Eleanor so that she can give us a little more detail about women in Wallace specifically hi everyone uh if you don't know me I'm Ellie from Sanka I'm a senior and the president of the company um and I'm just going to talk to you about the success that we saw with women in Wallace so yeah if you didn't know we participated in the metg Fest where 88 schools compete and they all have one-act place that are 40 minutes long um so there's three rounds like Mr P was saying of the competition prelim round semi-finals and finals and then also something that matg puts on is they give out All-Star Awards to students who have excellent performances so some of our students that want All-Star Awards include Quinn Tierney for excellence in acting
021she won at the prelim level the semi-final round and also for finals um she's also here with us today uh also Sophie Gustafson one for also excellence in acting at prelims and at semis Kimball Robinson won for excellence as a featured dancer at the prelim rounds and the final round Aiden benkus and Dorian florstal won at the prelim level and semi-finals and finals for music composition uh and then our our team of pit uh people they also won for Live musical performance at the prelim round and the semi-final round so a lot of All-Star Awards and some of them are here tonight so I have some pictures just of our our winners uh that picture on the far left is our music team so our pit and our composers you also see Quint Tierney there
022uh second from the left and Sophie guest of sim and then the final little group has Aidan benkus and Dorian are composers Quinn Tierney and our dancer Campbell Robinson and then I have just some pictures of us us at the different rounds this was prelims as you can see on the far right corner that's our students uh packing up the truck to head out to prelims um the first round for us was hosted by North Reading high school and there were eight total schools there including us and them so out of eight schools four got to move on to the next round of the competition so eight out of four 50 50 odds we made it um which is awesome and that picture in the middle is us when we heard that Campbell had had
023uh received an award for her dancing so it was a really special moment for our team and then for semis semi's who was at St John's Prep and there were six total schools there including us and them and only two out of the six were to move on to the final round so it was a really really big deal for us that we made it past we got this big trophy as you can see in a couple of those pictures um so it was really really meaningful for us that we got to move on from semis I also have a little clip of us celebrating as we uh were announced [Music] so it was really it was a really powerful moment for all of us like super meaningful and like really emotional too so we're
024super lucky that we got to move on and then these are some pictures of us at finals finals was in Boston at the John Hancock theater and it was over the course of three days and it was a really great experience to go and to see I think it was 13 other schools right 13 other schools all the best in the state so so lucky that we got to be there with all of them so yeah um we'd like to just recognize our adult staff Brian Carrera Megan Finnegan Scott Jewell Scott Ames Marcia K and Leanne told thank you [Applause] that's all from me thank you guys [Applause] so awesome to see because this was an initiative that members performed me brought to the school committee and we worked hard for years to try and
025get this department to be built up so to see this in number in your number one of having a full-time teacher directing all of this is such a great um a great reward to you know to see that so I'm so happy you guys all look so engaged and thank you thank you I'll make her cry they're already there it's tenfold I feel the same way so thank you guys for having me and allowing me to do this with these guys so thank you thank you so much okay well you guys are welcome to stay and enjoy where you can go home to something much better so thank you all for being here experience [Music] um okay refocusing um that was fun love seeing all that kind of stuff um we're gonna do comments from
026the audience comments do I just talk just come on up here so if the microphone can um can grab you I just didn't want the door to be open while you're speaking so just identify yourself um from and um and go ahead all right um Marsha kilgallon um the costume advisor for that group um for the past several years for middle and high school costuming um the administrative assistant to the principal for the high school I've been here for 13 years doing I'm also a licensed teacher so I've done long-term subbing for Middle School and High School teachers um and I'm just coming to ask if you would consider on your agenda I did send the letter probably nobody got it yet but okay um when you get to the point where you have to
027you know decide about taking kids out of District if you would consider it's not in our support staff contract it is in the teachers they get to have their kids come here I've been so involved in this community for a long time and you can read on my family and whatnot my son is he's my only child I wouldn't like it if you would consider a little bit of weight maybe to you know if there's room for a support staff student because I can I gave you the reasons why we both been very involved in the community and he actually was at a competing school at theater at the finals and spent all the time with us because he worked on us too so that's all I just wanted to see if you would put
028some ways to that okay thanks Marsha any other comments here hi guys I'm David Shapiro I'm from Middleton I'm running for a mastermind school committee and um so I don't know if any of you guys have seen this letter circulating circulating online written by some teacher that goes to this that works at this school and it seems that a lot of teachers have a lot of concerns with the current way Mass was being run I'm just these aren't my words I'm just going to read what she wrote um I and many um staff members I'm so bad that the school committee doesn't seem to have any concerns or awareness that there has been significant turnover since Dr Harvey and Jeff Sands have uh arrived at our school system we have lost the following since there
029they arrived our principal retired Early Head of Technology losing Ryan King was a huge hit to the school head of security has gone uh didn't even make it a full year social studies department head of 15 years is gone our faculty manager left during the school year and there are no principal they also mentioned that there is no principal search committee there was no screening committee until the final round of applicants and she also mentioned that I encourage the students and other community members to get educated to get involved in what's happening here um what is happening here to be involved in any school committee collections that we make taking place we need people in the school committee that can ask Dr Harvey and Mr Sands the hard questions and hold them accountable when they
030do not have the answers and are not fulfilling their duties in the way that benefits the students at mascot so I just want to also enter this into the record the minutes yeah you're well first level letter is anonymous so that holds less weight than if it were resigned but also it's recorded you read it so that's okay thank you any other oh yeah good afternoon everybody thanks for uh letting me speak uh my name is Scott Carey I'm from boxer Massachusetts I've been a resident of the town for 10 years now my neighbor I'm so fortunate to live next door to me um I'm here today not so much to talk about the past but our future athletically um I've had two students two of my own children that have gone through the school
031one right now that's a sophomore um here at Masco my experience here has been very positive I'll say that right off the bat I think academically my uh my students have been challenged and I couldn't be happier with the education that they're being provided with athletically is a different story I'm not here to talk about five years ago four years ago the current conditions of the field right now I'm here to speak about experience and so I had taken some notes down today and I just wanted to run through some of them I think we can all agree that our our children are our most important people in our lives and certainly been the case for me and I had a realization last night after countless back and forth on our social media page in
032Boxford in regards to our field conditions in the turf up committee and the direction that we're going to be wanting to go in um and what occurred to me is I don't think there's a framework right now around what it's like to be a parent here with a student athlete but more importantly where this starts Athletics today have changed dramatically from when we were kids so when I was a child I was baseball basketball football you didn't have all the you know the lacrosse and all these different sports they can specialize in a sport right now if they chose to I don't agree with it but they have that option the common denominator when they're kids and you're starting to raise these children and they're playing in these different environments is they're always playing on
033astro turf almost 90 percent of the games are played on astroturfs so whether it's lacrosse um not so much baseball but uh football as youngsters as they play at Boxford common soccer but primarily field hockey field hockey is a totally different sport if it's not played on astro turf the conditions here have been I mean deplorable last year I mean they're getting better right now this year we have an overused problem number one but number two on top of that um when you try to maintain the fields the bigger problem we have is slopes divots dangerous conditions for these kids when they're going top speed up and down you know these fields so youth sports today is a 19 billion dollar industry 19 billion that's more than the NFL and the reason that the kids
034are playing on these AstroTurf Fields a selectman and Boxford last week that said um I saw the field and every portion of the field was covered in kits not the grass field the turf field why do you think that is because that's what they play on they play on that every time that they're with their club sports when they're playing for the you know their particular schools when they're in travel teams they're not playing on grass anymore every school in the NEC every school in the cow asked her except for Masco every one of them why do you think that is I think they've done investigations in regards to health safety we're the only ones that have it with that being said um injury on Turf first grass I don't think the data is clear
035on that at least not enough right now but the bigger problem right now is we have great uh programs here when you look at the MIAA and the way they stage uh home playoff games for instance these are the rules that they require I took them off the website if you want to go and check you can see it lacrosse this is what they require home field venues must meet the following standards from MIAA handbook conditional playing surface number one number two crowd control number three seating capacity number four ticket sales control because we know the Mia wants to get their cut right field hockey condition of playing surface number one crowd control number two seating capacity number three ticket sales control locker rooms and acceptable lights for night games Scott can I just interrupt
036you for a second yes you realize that we've all voted um unanimously in favor of turf pushing to turf fields I just want to let you know that that we have I guess I'm trying to shine a light on this and I appreciate that thank you for doing that right so the next move right now is to tell me to get people to vote right yeah absolutely so I'm glad I'm glad we're all on the same page here so I'll skip ahead so the fact that you know that is huge in Boxford it's a different scenario I've been I've been debating bring it up at town meeting oh I certainly will I certainly will um so we're all on the same page all right so I didn't realize that because uh thank you the sentiment
037in some of the the people in town you know are asking a lot of questions around chemical runoff and running into the water and you know what is this going to look like because obviously you guys know it's a bigger problem right we need stadium seating outside of just the football field we need turf turf for you know the kids to play on for other sports it's imperative and what we've told them is that what we're doing right now is the design engineering and permitting stage and after that we will have a great idea that we would never want especially now that we're going to be proving a sustainability policy later on we would never want stuff reaching into our River we don't want anything that's unhealthy for our kids and but all of those
038materials will be chosen in the next phase if we get we're all on the same board then I'm sorry to waste your time I am feeding the bandwagon the interesting thing is I'm not opposed to grassfields though either and I think that that's Lost in Translation like if we could maintain a grass field like an NFL field there isn't an athlete on the planet that would choose Turf over an NFL manicure field I mean that's the reality of the we have the energy right yeah exactly I mean it seems pretty easy to me to determine and then to have you know the other you know areas for kids to sit in so thanks for listening to me I'm sorry to waste your time learn something from your voice as we go forward with a capital
039plan so please watch our meeting minutes because some of this will be included in that as well so yeah no definitely definitely so it was a good practice for you and actually they're on the chair right there behind the Flyers there that are a combination of our budget and our um information for everybody that's here okay thank you appreciate it thanks Scott thanks [Laughter] um okay moving forward um we have a public hearing on the vote on school choice participants oh I'm sorry Kathleen I didn't see her yes I know we are not in the hearing yet oh thank you I had not actually um prepared to speak but um well first of all thank you for that and yes please speak at the Boxford um believe me I've been talking a lot of social
040media but I've been getting attacked from every angle right now on and I'm not a chemical engineer at the end of the day but it just makes makes the most amount of sense they have social media anyway so Kathleen will start pilot I just took another look I did see this this uh letter that uh David um had uh tried to enter into your minutes um and I did see it on on Facebook a couple weeks ago um I think that it's unfortunate that there are teachers in the community or in any community that feel like they can't come forward um with a name on it but the fact of the matter is is there are teachers within our community that feel this way um he did not David did not read this entire letter
041so I will ask again as he did that this letter in its entirety and it thinks we can pass this out to you or at least give you this copy be entered into and attached to the record so that people watching this at a later time or going to your minutes can actually see what it is people who are not as you so wisely pointed out not on Facebook and not on social media because they're probably smarter um and avoiding it but they're still going to want to see this and again it's it is a an anonymous letter there is doesn't carry weight we don't know if that it is an actual teacher we don't know anything about it and and until we know that it's it's it it's been asked twice now that it
042entered into the record I just want to make sure that is fully established um they'll be attached so that people can read it you can caveat it it's Anonymous and people can weigh it for themselves I will uh you have a fit for all of you who may not be on social media to take a look at it thank you any other comments okay hearing them we'll go into our um we will just figure out what the policy is in the sense that we that's Anonymous compliance is anonymous um um about our policy experts over here um we are now going to enter into our school Choice hearings oh do I have to wait till you can go ahead yes okay we're not going to enter into our public do we have our Sab here
043coming at 8 10. I don't know why don't we skip ahead and since we have some fans of turf here let's vote to create a masconomic Turf project account assistant um we are doing this so that when the fundraising by turf they are going to be sending the large donations directly into this fund will be used specifically for the first project um so when I was doing the possible tell meeting questions I had a question about this because I wanted to put this in there but I just wanted to know the revenues that we make when we're renting out the field are they also then put into here uh do not believe so that's okay okay good question yeah there's a there's a whole other revolving account that we already have established for building and
044field usage so we wouldn't make a separate Turf one for that good I think I think I think we should think about the future especially if you wanted to start your marketing funds for replacement for example that's the way you write but we don't have to decide that now no no but what we need to have is this this is yeah just the receiver any donations so the motion is at the masconomic regional school committee approves the creation of a new account entitled Masco Turf project to be used to deposit gifts and donations and capture related expenditure specific and capture related expenditure specific to the turf project as determined by the school committee so um do we have somebody that would like to make that motion so move any further discussion about this but the
045related expenditures right you know it can only be for the purpose that the donation was given for so it's not for the school committee or anybody else to determine what a related expenditure is you know that that is the committee if if I give ten thousand dollars to build a turf field or building it you know the school committee can't decide that the related expenditure is repairing a turf field because I'm giving it to build it not maintenance well so that's so even more specifically this should be the building the turf field fund and then we will get that second fund that is more of the related right you know because you know this guy there's got to be a Synergy between the purpose that the money is given and the purpose that it's used
046for and you know if the donor doesn't expect it to be used for other than building it then that part is is accurate but you can't take it one step further than that and say I want a field that's great that's purple that says pasta on it yeah that's a school you can't actually start determining once once it's given then the committee makes the decisions around how the how the funds are spent yeah but when we accept the gift many accepts it for a specific purpose right it would be for the purpose of the the project in general not necessarily okay for a certain aspect of the project that's you know specific okay unless unless you really wants to committee stipulated that to win the acceptance but I wouldn't really recommend doing that Tom Jones
047and then bill I guess uh the question I have is what does the turf project really mean there's three phases in the overall plan there's you know do we need a better definition around what this is really all about should say something like for the construction of turf fields at mosconomet and just leave it at that because the term the turf project doesn't really mean anything if you think of I think those two same thing pretty clear correction I don't think it is having been involved with it for a long time it seems clear to me okay I don't think and the only other and please don't kill me Tasha but the uh uh I'm going to be nitpicky here that in this motion Masco is capitalized [Laughter] so if we could clear that up
048I think um we can keep the motion standard because we don't have another Turf project going right now so it is for the turf project any Turf project it could be State I mean we could keep this for if we did a phase three so I think the this yeah we're not doing this under a rock either and we're not we're very transparent about what we receive because we have to do that and I'm speaking the cost is this point though about if I'm giving money for Turf you know it's going to be go to something else no we're kind of a nebulous definition so I'm getting at it okay so given that we're going to change the way the uh name of our school is written um do I have all one more question
049yeah questions picking at this but can you explain like capture related expenditures construction costs I would think like the stadium construction costs the building um like the whole project I would think it's not just capturing them like are you talking about the word capture yeah absolutely yeah from accounting that's an accounting perspective I believe that means they'll be built against this account right yeah [Music] send okay all in favor say aye aye um any opposed any obsessions let the donations roll in what time was there 7 55. I've got a couple more minutes um you want to do your superintendent report why don't we vote on the last day of school okay like six minutes okay let's vote to set the last day of school 10 30. what day is that Thursday Thursday the lunch
050would have started it's three hours it's always six and a half hours I don't think it was that way when I was here I mean is it worth having come in for that those three hours if you don't get to count something then it does count for 30. the other day he said there is no minimum but he learned from the state really wow as long as you meet the required number of hours I thought you have to do days you have to be open for a certain number of days but then there's no minimum there's no minimum for the length for the year so we couldn't great so it's at 10 30 every single day for the rest of the year no no we wouldn't make our house we didn't do lunch every day
051and that's only like 30 minutes that's what it has to be that's or whatever next time or something like that okay so we're good okay do we need to make a motion for that um yes okay if someone want to make a motion to motion to accept June 16th at 10 30 50 June 15th I'm sorry I can you can send here no seconds all in favor any posts I need symptoms excellent yeah let's do Wastewater it's like menu right exactly for 200 I'll take our treatment plans I'm not open to the right thing wwtn no I got it hold on there it is okay this letter from Jeff uh you know as we've talked about already there has been some major repair work done on our sweater treatment plants uh that's that little building
052off to the right of the superintendent's office when you're facing it um so you see there the drive-in shaft of the rotating biological contactor uh was in need of replacement and that effectively shut down the treatment facility uh it's been shut down for months at this point uh as a result the Massachusetts Department environment of Environmental Protection instructed our plant operator uh to pump and haul all the waste water off site until the necessary repairs were completed and the RBC rotating biological contactor was back up and fully operational the drive-in shaft has been replaced and we're now waiting on the installation of a new Drive-In bearing which is scheduled for mid-may so we anticipate the wastewater treatment facility being back up and full of operation on May 31st so the estimate for the repairs are
05354 385 dollars for the RBC repairs and that's from Mountain machine works uh amount of eighty thousand dollars for the Wastewater removal uh and then ten thousand dollars for engineering testing and Diagnostics by Martin engineering and pride environmental and that's a total of 144 385 uh so we're requesting that the school committee approved to transfer that amount under forty four thousand three hundred and eighty five dollars from The District's uh stabilization fund uh to an existing wastewater treatment plant Capital project account uh which is account number 302 to cover the cost of these repairs the current balance in the stabilization fund is one million 103 953 dollars don't know what the balance and the wastewater treatment plant Capital project accounts don't know that there is a balance yeah at least the 19 it was 43
054odd thousand dollars good question I don't have answers well I'll make a motion to approve transfer of 144 385 from the district stabilization fund to the existing wastewater treatment plant Capital project account fund three or two we have a second second so that stabilization fund is going to start dwindling um obviously this is necessarily necessary if we need our wastewater treatment um okay sorry yeah um why is the Wastewater removal such a round number the same with the engineering Diagnostics as well as just rough estimates is the actual number going to be something different and will the money be moved back if it's not used I don't know the answer as to why Jeff put that 80 000 I I would assume that's what what stewards is charging us all right I mean that's another
055question when when is all this happening mid-may is when the the work is going to be done so we're we're actually charging against that account right now and probably have the negative amounts in it because they've been calling for months since January that sounds like um okay any other questions about this but if if there's less spent what happens with the money does it go back or does it stay in in committee would have to make another transfer I believe to do that okay and how many times has Stewart's come a couple times a week not barely I think trying to figure out how often I see that truck I think it's I think it's almost close to everything yeah but it is like normal practice to estimate what the cost of a project is
056and set the amounts aside before the work is actually done they're charging us on a weekly basis and so it's depending on how long it goes depends on how many weeks yeah one four this is done um okay all in favor say aye aye aye any extensions thank you thanks for getting us questions and I think we are right on the dumpster now three times a charm I'm going to earring I'm saying it really slow on school choice a couple of things okay excuse me all right so it's part of our public hearing um so we have a couple of slides here just to kind of see things up and sort of set some context uh for the committee uh so as of right now we have a total of 12 students who are uh
057attending uh Mass economic in grades 9 10 and 11 uh through the school choice program um you know the the second table there is to give some context around enrollment um we're currently at 162 students who are in at in District I think the total number if you look on our uh our sheets is 16 10 there are eight students that are in post-graduate uh programming so that they are not eight students they're not here um so I took those out and then 2023 uh they have a projected enrollments uh based on what we've been using through our budget uh process numbers um so the um actual October 122 enrollments include two non-resident faculty children uh the non-resident Choice students or 12 and then there's a non-resident student who is currently paying tuition uh and
058that student will be aging out uh so that's that student is not concluded in the 2023 um you know uh projected projected numbers um total projection uh in District or presenter we're looking at a decrease of 36 students and that's going to vary a great degree depending on how how the grades are moving up and different grade sizes 15.93 sorry yeah there it is I thought it was the one that Jeff sent us today I'm trying to remember I said three plus six equals nine so maybe that's what he meant for whatever 2023 is wrong a lot of females today yeah there's been too many today um yeah [Laughter] the 36 ads across it should be 15. so 2023 isn't adding across 74. Ah that's my there's no mistake that's not gonna work either 1574
059for the total there you go okay okay catch Tasha thank you okay so that's the enrollments that we're looking at uh typically we look at uh adding school choice students in grades seven and nine um just because those are kind of natural entry points uh into the district so um just background on school choice participation um Mass General Law chapter 76 section 12 B uh require is actually um requires that all districts in in the state participate and are presumed to be participating in school choice uh unless they withdraw and so the school committees have to vote uh to withdraw from school choice uh prior to June 1st for the upcoming year um the resolution that the school committee votes on has to contain reasons for the withdrawal although uh Desi says they're not going
060to come back and ask you to justify that so it's part of the part of the advisory um so generally it's enrollment is what uh we'd be looking at in terms of limiting participation so I did have a recommendation an emotion um so we I would be recommending uh that we uh withdraw from participation in school choice in grades 8 10 11 and 12 due to enrollment uh and then I would also limit participation in grades and school choice in grades seven and nine to ten students in each grade uh for that for the upcoming 23-24 school year oh um look at the numbers um okay so the hearing is open right now correct right so anybody can so right so participation from the audience is is allowed when I say it is when when
061I call on you if you have to put your hand up or something to speak on this right now wait you are recommending is in seventh grade no I can't use yep seventh grade we're projecting for 2023 282 students and for ninth grade 251 students and you're you're recommending 10 students in each other half of 10 um as you can see we've generally said 10 but we haven't gotten close to that number in all the years that we've said we're participating so um you know five six and one is what we have so just also to be clear here um we had a request to um have a member of the administration is uh government assistance and then assistance um Child come in which they don't have it in their contract um we don't talk
062about whether or not we want um children from the teachers union contract coming in anymore because we've taken that off of our plate so and we cannot discuss um that student coming in unless they are coming in through Choice that's what is on our agenda right now we're talking about choice so we have a couple things to talk about Mike's recommendation and I'd also like to put in a consideration to opening up a seat or two in grade 10 the only thing is that that is open to everybody who wants to come to grades 10 and so if we put in two seats and four kids wanted to apply it doesn't mean it's a one for one we have no say it's a lottery and we don't get say as to who comes so for
063any of these um if we receive more applications than seats that the committee is set aside we have to have a lottery uh and then invite students in as they were selected off the lottery list members who haven't been here for some of the school choice hearings is to one um if you could confirm the amount of money we get per child student so the analogy that was presented when we first started considering it when I was on the board four years ago is that we have an airplane and we have to fly the plane so if there are a few extra seats we're going to fly that airplane anyway so um what is the what is the district benefiting from having another student here when we have to fly the airplane anyway and then
064is there a suite number for classes at the levels like is there a number of students that pushes us over requiring another session or a bigger plane yeah another plane especially for the 10th grade class because I know that is our biggest class here right now um and I am a big fan of choice I think it's a really good um Equity program I was here at Masco when we first had choice and I thought it was a successful program um in the early 90s and it helps you know our school and so that's that's my spill so I have questions in the comments so the the statutory amount is five thousand dollars per student and over and above that um it's because that's there's a question that's come up before about special education services
065those are 100 reimbursable um so every year Lynn just got it this this week um Desi sends us a claims form that we then identify what services the students receiving price them out and send that into Desi and receive that that is set at 100 reimbursement that's 100 reimbursed that our business specialist fair enough it's like a minuscule amount right which is ridiculous correct they we need an exchange program huh yeah different exchange yeah I think I think if Bessie didn't do that I don't think anybody would appreciate your choice right yeah and that's the yeah because it's risky risk yeah okay so in that 10th grade class did I read that there five students out of the ten ended up accepting the school choice and yeah so there's hypothetically five seats that we would
066have had felt correct but we didn't no we didn't did not correct she does remain open though they don't remain open no they just they're just only they're on it they're accepted on an annual basis last year I think we only voted to participate in grade nine um so that's why that's right because incoming seventh graders the participation is really are you going to take new students have we ever had 10 . level seven we've only been doing it for a few years we've only actually been participated cops this hand is up so I'm gonna go start that yeah to go to your airplane analogy by taking you know admitting Choice students who then stay here until they graduate it can impact your ability to downsize your playing or right size your plane you know
067in the future so basically the vote of this committee binds the hands of future committees when they consider downsizing therefore I have always been against you know school choice the you know if you can uh right size your plane and adjust one staff member you would have to have you know that's a lot more than admitting a few you know a choice students so yeah you're still in the hearing opt out and school choice elsewhere by Town students who both support principal Choice yes what are those numbers like they're pretty similar to what we have coming in around the same and number it's it's awesome it was in the budget somewhere because we have to pay um yeah we're paying the price I just can't remember what if one of our kids that come here
068on Choice needs to go to um an outer District tuition the sending district is responsible for that tuition I just I I always like to it might be my last chance to do this [Laughter] um just to mention that when we had the NASDAQ members looked at earlier this year and we see that um we have had declining a moment however when we look to the Future classes coming up from the Triton Union it appears to be plateauing so in my mind this is sort of saying since it's looking like it's going to plateau all here no you're so past that's um has his mind to lunch okay thank you um um again it's not a guarantee but um closing out that still don't have an Sab we've created a Turf fund let's go to
069super reports first off uh talk about the addressing hate and school sports initiative um so on Friday and Saturday of this week athletic director John delanis and I will be participating in the addressing hate and school sports training at UMass Lowell uh addressing Hayden School sports initiative was created but as a joint initiative between the Massachusetts Attorney General's office the department of Elementary and secondary education the Massachusetts National Aztec Athletic Association the Massachusetts school of Administrators Association and the Massachusetts Association of school superintendents it's based on a shared belief that school sports have the potential to build leadership and teamwork skills in our young people Foster diversity and inclusion bring communities together um the state was uh has an immense outpouring of interest um this past winter 450 school and athletic leaders from across the
070state uh met at the addressing Hayden School sports conference uh to learn best practices for building positive culture and School athletics effectively assessing incidents of hate and bias so this next fees will allow school and athletic leaders to dive deeper and learn how to effectively apply best practices in their own districts through 13 Regional trainings that are provided by the northeastern center for the study of sports and Society so looking forward to it we're signed up for UMass Lowell this Friday and Saturday is that the second yeah so they did a big conference at uh at kindergarten back in December okay um that we all went to and now the the original ones are now taking place this spring so so we're sign up for UMass Lowell I hope you can bring us back um
071also coming up this weekend um masconomics Middle School drama club will be performing Frozen Junior uh performances will be on Friday April 28th at seven o'clock P.M and on Saturday April 29th at 2 p.m in the masconomic auditorium we're also bringing back the class of 2026 our freshman classes bringing back the walkathon this year which is great um so throughout the year the peer leading program is not only on assisting the freshman class and transitioning to high school but also on creating a sense of community as a culminating experience the freshman class will be participating in the Freshman walk which is an annual Six Mile Charity Walk on May 17th this year all the money raised through this fundraiser will be donated to the charcot Marie tooth Association cmta charcoal Marie tooth is a disease
072of the peripheral nerves that control muscles that can cause Progressive loss of function and sales and sensation in the hands arms legs and feet while this disease affects 133 000 people in the United States and roughly 3 million worldwide cmtas aggressively pursuing treatments and a cure for all types of cmtake all the money raised by our students will go directly to cmta to further the research and treatments and cures the peer leaders are or Operational Support looking for volunteers if anybody's around and has the time open there's a link that'll be in my blog in my blog uh they're looking for people to man The Water stations uh any with donations of goods they're looking for to actually be out on the roof so I think he'll be there for people that want to volunteer
073was that not did we not happen because of the uh because we haven't had it in I think three years it's been at least I remember my first year but it was it was always on October yeah um it's probably my last year it was probably the last one yeah so all right and next up another sign of spring on May 23rd Mass economic will again host the credit for Life Fair this event will be attended by over 130 Mass economic Juniors participating with over 800 area high school students and the credit for Life Fair students will simulate the life of a 25 year old professional and navigate the many challenges that face young people and a quest to balance their budgets and live within their means participants choose their professions or assign monthly take-home
074salaries and then navigate checkpoints to make purchases of Necessities such as housing Transportation clothing and Health Care uh utilizing imaginary cash credit or savings uh there'll be over 200 volunteers from the institution for Savings in charge of these various checkpoints around the field house uh we think Ben Hodges uh thinks this is the seventh year that we've hosted the credit for Life Fair uh and probably about the 10th year that we've actually been participating and so we want to thank the members of our business department and the business and digital learning Department have been Hodges for their work in organizing the event it's really a great great take so if anybody wants to come let me know if you want to come see it firsthand it's pretty cool what was the date again the 23rd
075okay uh update on the principal search so the principal interview committee is in the process of interviewing candidates this week uh we should be announcing the names of finalists hopefully by the beginning of next week uh and then finalists will be invited to mask for a series of public interviews during the week of May 15th um that's right we're hoping to do it sooner but with Town meetings and everything else going on that's the best time we could get a couple of days or clear um so part of the public interviews will entail an online session with parents and interested members of the public uh held in the evening via Zoom uh more information on these sessions will be sent out with the finalists now I know next week so let me details there and
076then finally uh during the week of May 15th uh the department of Elementary and secondary education's office of language acquisition tiered Focus monitoring review of the last time School District the office of language acquisition reviews each District's and charter schools English language acquisition program uh every six years to monitor compliance with federal and state English language learner education laws and regulations areas of review will include English Learners student assessments identification of English Learners what programs English Learners are placed in parenting Community involvement curriculum and instruction student Support Services licensure requirements for faculty staff and administration program Clan program plans and evaluation and record keeping in addition to the on-site visit Aaron Outreach is an important part of the review process the district will send a survey to the parents of students whose records examines survey
077focuses on key areas of their child's English language learner education program survey results will be reviewed by the Ola and they will contribute to the monitor parents and other individuals may call Samantha Kodak from the office of language acquisition review all right 781-338-3561 to request a telephone interview if an individual requires an accommodation such as translation services to participate in the interview Desi will make the necessary arrangements so those are two different ones two yeah so we're so same same process though finishing up within 60 day 60 business days of the visit uh the review chairperson will provide the district with a report with information about areas in which the district meets or exceeds regulatory requirements in areas in which the district requires a system to correct or improve and the reports will be available
078to the public on the Desi website so yeah so we're actually so Lynn's doing the same week it's the same week too doing the special education review and um Gina Hearn is doing the English language Learners uh review same week good times with Jesse thanks for letting me know at the higher come into that Year One oops that's it okay oh yep couple questions so speaking of credit for life like I said a question is the bank still open it is not the institution for savings closed all of its School Banks oh wow um second question that was pre-covered actually yeah because I was walking by and I couldn't you know um second question the principal committee search who's on that I think you've said before but it's a representative committee so I'm not going
079to give names out because we're still doing the interviews at least names afterwards School Committee Member uh there are department heads uh members of executive leadership team teachers how many people on the committee 11. it's a good number Costa might disagree with you and since it had come up that's the same list of people that were on the search committee as voted on a public record I've pulled up your press blogs from the from previous search committees and they always have elts teacher parents student department head parents another teacher another parent on past search committees so I just want to make sure that people understand that that's yeah that's very much a standard standard practice go through the list and um people might not be aware of it but that doesn't mean you didn't do
080it and you didn't tell people you did tell people thank you yeah it was posted for a good amount of time any other questions will be done we did vote the last name policy okay so we are voting our second read policy section okay um it's all the policies that aren't redlined in this document um that we reviewed and approved for the first week the last time so somebody have a motion to um approve um section K that we reviewed last time at red light so moved one second a second any further discussion or questions silly I just want to since we're approving it again and because it came up quite specifically in policy ke we have noted that complaints will be investigated fully and fairly however before any such complaints investigated they must submit
081their complete in writing and Anonymous complaints will be disregarded thank you okay um any other further questions comments okay all in favor of the second read through all right [Laughter] any posts any extensions um the next policy for the second read is sustainability at Mass economics um last time me nothing was changed from first time to second time yeah okay okay so to have a motion to approve the sustainability I'll say enough so moved and second all right okay any further discussion on this so I have a list of possible amendments do you want me to read them one by one and discuss or yes okay so first paragraph I'd like to consider taking out in the last sentence and mission of the school or take out and Mission so I would say integrate this
082into the vision of the school not into the vision and mission of the school yeah I think Mission when I think of a school I don't think of its mission to be creating sustainability I don't know I think Vision covers it really I mean doesn't it like our mission statement I don't see this anywhere needing to be anywhere near so we want to vote on each of the Amendments so um the other ones are pretty similar I think um look in Courage so it's that we need to um we have to bring it back no okay so so let's let's hear them all and then we can incorporate them right or to have a discussion okay um and then two three and four like the numbers two three and four take out encourage and then
083I would like to see it and each of them before it says and in accordance with environmental law you would like that to be taken out yeah like have it and uh so like read number two the way for number two I would like it to read actually a little further up consider and not encourage engagement in activities that reduce the district's waste stream period we had a similar policy in our last read that we had to extend Paul or not a similar policy but similar language that's that extent possible and we took that out I remember in our revisions um so I would like to personally see it and that waste stream and then the other ones are similar so consider engagement in activities that reduce water usage period so we had that discussion
084about consider versus encourage last several times and the reason you want to strike to act in accordance with environmental laws is because that's assumed right I would think that's something if we want to put it in the first paragraph I think um and then three do you want me to read through each of them okay okay three would be um considered oh yeah no I think we can figure that one sorry I thought you had another Point yeah no it's just three four and then five um I would I would I'm recommending striking strategic plan out of it I don't know if I necessarily envision our strategic planning crew focused on climate change whether I think that's absolutely they will as we're thinking strategically on how we're gonna and better better the school I think
085Capital planning yeah definitely we'll consider strategic plan also includes spaces in the school and physical spaces so it will um Okay so so how do we do this so let's consider and and and we'll consider Trevor's comments so if yes can we discuss them yeah that's what I mean um I feel if we remove um encourage we're kind of gutting the policy um because consider to me is says think about but doesn't really call for any action um encourage calls for a little bit of action and I think that that's the important part of this policy so I would like to keep that in there how about the phrase enact in accordance with environmental laws I'm personally okay we're taking that out but I agree completely with Carolyn that that encourage should remain because we're
086and we're not going to not act in accordance with environmental laws so I think I'm assuming we're going to do that because like all our other policies were acting in accordance with mass laws appropriate it states it in 1B regarding construction renovation it's I think one of the reasons that it was put in and you're right it might not be necessary but for the sake of our conversation at least is um that anything on here does have environmental laws that connect to them so there are laws around waste screams there are like specific laws to each of those things around environmental pollution that exist in Massachusetts so mentioning them just is like a reminder like this isn't just us saying let's do this it's like there's there are laws associated with each of these that
087doesn't mean it has to be spelled out on this policy I just I think that's why it landed there in the Drafting and then the last um phrase that Trevor commented on was to the extent possible oh if you take out encourage taking out to the extent possible is fine if you keep encourage then to the extent possible I think is necessary or the other as in Korea to take out both or none because you're encouraging to the extent possible so is it like one of those calls like dangling participle like because you've separated it I don't think so it applies to encourage it doesn't really apply to consider and I'll just say what I said last time we debated it I feel as though I was elected to consider all options and not be
088encouraged to take any one specific Avenue you were right I feel yeah but we I think in this are encouraging like we are giving the policy to encourage somebody else to do what we have considered so I'll use a really concrete example if it's a mass I cut you off an idea is my hand first but um so a good example right now is I've had a lot of really great conversations with community members in Topsfield that were either completely against turf fields or on the fence and many of them their primary reason is environmental impact of the turf fields and when I tell them that we are working on a policy most of them feel much more comfortable because their concern is they know that at the end of the day it's going to
089come back to this committee to approve whatever is going to get installed and if they don't know who's going to be on this committee at that point in time next year or the year after because it might take I mean hopefully it won't take more than one but let's just say they don't have trust that people will make those choices because they elected us to make these to have policies that's why they exist not to make day-by-day decisions that's about that this supports me it gives us Direction and then they feel a trust that a future committee has a direction that they have confidence in but to what like Trevor said like we are considering and evaluating the policies like what he was elected what we were all elected for but this policy isn't for
090us it we are writing it for them for them right so we want you to consider and encourage you we're not encouraging it per se we've just written policy we have now told them that they need to encourage it that's what I was trying to say was like the difference between like what we do versus you know the what and then they do the how but it is going to fall back on us when we're picking materials and that type of stuff we're we're not picking the materials so ultimately well you guys are coming up with a proposal probably following this policy yes you're going to like courage to consider in sustainable materials in the fields that are material that are selected and hopefully have a reason why if if it sells short of that
091right because in considering concert isn't 100 but I don't believe in any member of this committee or future committee should be accepting putting crumb rubber into it per se you know and I get that but I don't know if that's I don't know I don't think whoever's elected opinion I don't know if it's right I can't put my thoughts onto somebody but so I'm gonna say what all of our policies do though yeah this is a big guide the committee right so can I withdraw my motion that I that was seconded yeah true withdrawn I'm withdrawing my mush okay and my new motion is to accept this policy with the deletion of the causes and act in accordance to environmental laws in each of number two three four um there's two three four yeah and
092five [Music] and to keep consider and encourage and did we like the mission of the first paragraph sorry I missed that one and to delete and Mission in the first paragraph my second okay everybody understand that yes all in favor any opposed any extensions thank you all thank you for doing that um it was good it was like that was a good policy or a good exercise I agree and how our policy like how policies like that should should go good and look at that it's getting cleaned up I think I got it as we're sitting here so I freaking love Google Docs is the use of Google Docs there Pam um okay so now we're talking about the budget communication plan um [Applause] we can talk about okay so I guess I'll just say
093publicly although I've emailed everybody um when we were considering the cost of doing a mailer forgot about the cost of printing it and they expect us to print not these we're not really expensive to print um and so I didn't feel right making the decision for the committee to spend um about three times as much as we had considered as a committee which was a close vote as it was so um we made a last-minute decision um to get these done at Staples other than a coffee shop and get them done quickly so that the Topsail crew could have them at their Forum last night as one of the first places to start handing out stuff we've given each Committee Member about 50. stage each of those Stacks are 50. if the idea is to
094hand them out wherever you go we will adds more if you want to drop them there's a question here on meetings and we can put them on the table um soccer fields cross Fields not soccer fields lacrosse Fields Baseball Fields track Frozen um no they should basically if there's a table there like if you could throw them on them like everywhere you know the more people see it it's at least some facts and you know overview about what going on in our budget um the more we can promote facts and not just guesses the better off we'll be um I don't know since topsfield's had an early run if you guys have any feedback from last night questions or concerns or anything I know it was small but um well that's not last night was
095kind of whatever but I think this this morning Mike and I think actually that the feedback from them um was more around the override so for boxers really when two points that they kind of were like oh well that's good to know one was you know that what's the impact on the average uh annual income tax rate tax rate for them individually and when they heard that number a couple of them were like oh I can do that like maybe more more club members out there that wrong circulating on this immediate right right so giving them the correct number which I know for Topsfield is 107 for the year I'm not sure if you guys know the number for Boxford I actually just got it that's why I actually might I know I've won the
096average house of average household and average property value in Topsfield is 750 000 so for a home of that value the increase would be 107 for the year a year in their tax rate with hour override the division of local services website there's actually a calculator um on that webpage that allows you to do that Carolyn what did you get or um this is from our Finance our town finance person so for the medium the average home value will keep this thing which is 841 000 the cost of the mass go override is 96.59 and if you use the median home value 782 000 the cost is 89.85 89.85 per year right and both of the overrides in your two counts um for elementary and for Mass hourly about equal value are they a big
097difference of course ten thousand dollars yeah ours are practically it that is on the schedule as well and it's for all intents and purposes it's the same number okay Fox filled override is 1.4 million Elementary 1.14 1.14 and then ours is 256. but sometimes people put them together and say 1.4 that's it that's another like those are the kinds of things that happen and then that someone did that and then it started circulating that way and then we're like we're separate right so that was helpful for the number I had seen with something like either these numbers are even close to that amount if that's what it sounds like it's less than 100 per Boxford it's just a little over 100 for Topsfield anyway that's only because we have multi-year averaging which thank you thank
098you without a Topsfield all right would have been 200 000 bigger I'm gonna call it print Takis average assessment from now on um so that was helpful and then the other thing that they kind of were like oh that's important is when I pointed out that if it fails it's not just that number less it's almost eight hundred thousand dollars less for our overall so if our budget fails meaning if two of the three towns don't pass whether it's just the budget itself or the overrides the impact for the overall budget was as close to 800 000 so it's not it's a significant impact cuts that we'll have to make so we are back to the drawing and inevitably no matter what we do that will include teachers there's just no other way around it
099so that was also important they were like well that's important I would also but you're not just cutting two hundred thousand dollars that's right I think we agree I said get one Duffer out of top for a Top Field assessment you have to cut three yeah and because of the way the different assessments work um you know so those were good takeaways but I thought sorry I just think those you asked what were the takeaways so far in top still does work and that's good because you hadn't had that set up last we spoke that's awesome um so I have a question starting to joke before that um so we all understand because we've now said this a bunch of times but it feel like it continued to need to be said that in Middleton
100there's two parts of our budget which is the budget and and the turf um are together included in our budget and in top sales and boxer there are three parts that the the operating budget override and then the turf are three parts all three or two of those things need to be accepted for us to have a past budget all three in two tabs yes in Two Towns if this is my question if trust passes but our budgets fail in two of the towns the turf passes in three what does that do to us silver failed budget so you have to go back and reassess your budget number and your submit okay the turf technically would be approved and especially I think because it's a free cash I know you can't have it both ways
101part of the budget the budget's failed and then the committee has to go back and resubmit so so people need to understand that that in order to pass Turf they also need to pass our budget is what's all of our asks which are modest and not asking for much need to be approved that was what I wanted to say and then when we if the small chance that we aren't passing these things in our towns and as I'm saying that speaking positively we need to reassess the budget of the committee does not necessarily need to make Cuts correct reassess it and bring it back that's the same and have a special town meeting but it needs to be yeah I mean yeah I'm just saying it's not 30 days to reassess and resubmit to the
102towns and then how long do they have to I have to look I don't know but but I would think that at whatever towns that didn't you know support the budget the first time they will not supported by an even bigger margin and you will have pissed off people immensely we're used to that sorry yeah um I think I think the school should be pissed off also so I actually just want to ask Carolyn is that numbered just for the school committee or the school budget override or is that Turf included or are they separate so the the turf isn't going into the tax bills and they're using free cash for that in Boxford and I think the other town so it okay that's important super important Turf is not affecting anyone's Town it was
103also a take away from the meeting today when we said that appropriation so they that spending of free cash needs to be approved in a town meeting so people who want Turf to pass have to show up to the town meeting does it also need to be approved then no no because it's not an override of any sort 45 days after and would they still have the Quorum requirement of 100. the whole thing it's a special thing it wasn't there one that we can hold a special family if so if the budget doesn't pass that the second time around then the district will have it could hold a district-wide meeting that's just the one item town meeting issue yeah it's town meeting type thing and don't we vote for that just don't want the talents
104like the committee votes at that point and not the people in attendance no the people in the attendance vote oh okay at the town wide at the district-wide meeting it's all people anybody from any of the towns can come and it's a one item vote on The District budget what's what quarrel I don't know I mean it's it's the description of it's of all of four paragraphs so I mean it's not fleshed out it'd be interesting to find out from Desi what that looks like I don't want to go there it doesn't sound like a fun meeting to me so everybody understands we need to in Oxford and topsoil you have to there's three yes votes to pass this budget in Middleton there's two yes votes to pass this budget and Oxford and Topsfield the
105school has the override in all three towns the turf is like it's cash free cash comes from the sky it's free and it's not free and it's not cash it is but it is not affecting the top the taxes and in um both talks top sealed and boxer is approximately a hundred dollars for an average median home value it's a little over a little under I think those are all really important things that should all be talking to everybody about it and if it doesn't pass so something I learned last night at a moderator storm so for Boxford and Topsfield if it doesn't pass at Town meetings you should still encourage people to vote because then there would be at the ballot at the ballot for the overrides because then the tone has a mechanism
106too yeah then you would have to have another town meeting to do the appropriation and that scenario has played out in the past in Middleton on a project and going back to town meeting it failed tremendously along with a larger amount than the first time yeah but we still would need to just vote wherever you can vote is also really important aware that they need to vote at the polls for those overrides as well because a lot of people vote in favor of something and then um so the job is is probably probably more people need to go and vote than show up at a town meeting so that is a good point yeah so the turf people who are interested in the turf need to support the overrides in the town elections correct yeah
107for the moderator Forum uh Melissa bill and I had a slide deck that we used that I'm happy to share it has only topsfields well some of the slides are only about top sold and it's specifically by the warrants but if people are interested it might just be great does anyone else have a moderator an old friend hat it calls a pre-town meeting which is the Town Administrator going over the warrant uh the last two uh of them you know the attendance was the administrator the assistant Town Administrator the clerk the moderator and me okay okay we've had about 25 30 people and it's recorded and yeah like somebody was saying that their husband was watching it at home so I'm always hopeful that there's more people there it wasn't the most it wasn't the
108most well attended Forum but we've had more 25 is five times as much as Memphis yeah I don't know how many people watch the recording you know what though I think the preparation like are for us and every anyone in the who was there you're just better prepared for actual town meeting like those kind of questions that we're talking about tonight yes exactly you're like oh okay like the answers kind of roll off a little more quickly well and I think since we had uh difficulty with the boxer Board of Select or slack board and the fincom moderators former is another channel to Advocate yep you know when that is boxer Tuesday um May 2nd next week second during our time meeting yeah yeah 7 P.M Oxford Town Hall thank you um I will be
109doing a little um up to the moderator of their town meeting and we will be doing a little maso report um we discussed um kind of like a bullet list like necessarily a speech of things that Masco has done just over the past year like kind of like an update of where we are what we're doing and what we're going to do so not talking about the turf per se um not talking about the reasons why the budget is higher per se I mean I could like make a comment you know we've had some State um like some you know tax implication or budget implications that we weren't response you know we aren't uh we don't have choice in but you know talking about stuff that's happened um you know the slaves of like our
110lovely students tonight um you know and we've got a successful drama program we had lots of successful athletes we lots of successful artists we um got the capital plan um underway we've got a strategic plan going underway so just kind of a list we're working on the turf so kind of a whole thing but also bringing um to attention that the capital budget will be coming in future years so just uh two to three minutes level update so we have that opportunity under um uh article one town reports so we will be doing that um Mike is also doing the continue tour of the council or anything um with who's who's next Middleton this next book right boxers before Middleton is the Third at 11 15. yep Chris are you going oh any boxford's Thursday
111at 10 o'clock on the fourth yes Boston member that can go with what time is it 10 a.m 10 A.M it's all right I'm gonna try to go if somebody can't then let me know like if if one of you guys like if you know that none of you can go let let me know because I feel like I should go on I'll go um and bring Flyers yeah if you haven't already distributed them to the seniors yeah I can go bring them yes yes excellent clock out my calendar right now 10 a.m perfect um I'll try to come what other things do we any other Communications so I got uh received an email from Matt Coogan about boxford's doing a town meeting website this year yeah what does that mean uh might be just
112easier I don't know if I can if I can't zoom and show you what it looks like I mean people can post from home yeah that's what it sounds like to me that would be cool I think that's what everybody is waiting for with all our apology right not me you don't want it you like it yeah it is oh yeah Election Day election day not election week it's fun nice one because I see everybody superintendent it's always a good time someday we're going to go to town meeting in abstract that's what it looks like right now where are you finding that I don't know Matt sent me the link the other day yesterday um so this is so it's all the warrants and a little blurb all the articles on the warrant so is
113it more just the warrant on online yeah um but it's but it's more interactive um so there are links on this thing and and a little bit check the turf points um earlier so he he was asking if we wanted to put anything else on this a Turf link yeah to Turf shop maybe got it um I don't do it I don't know that we want to put it to Turf up though they have so much well I can't even see it so I can't afford that it's great okay reps yeah thank you what an idea um also by the way the turf up committee also had a new handout that they brought to the moderator Forum so hopefully they'll have that for you guys I don't have a copy of it I left them
114on the CLA I forgot to grab one well yeah we should put do you think putting the turf up um website there for the link isn't probably there's probably too much information yes it's that just that what are you talking about now because for the Boxford thing we yeah don't if we send them to the website board that that's not going to be yeah right now just the one send them to that right now yeah Matt's got has them pointed to our budget webpage yeah that's not going to help anyone make a quick decision so on the budget put this side on the budget yes and then on those Turf quit this side please that's a good idea yeah it's the income well it actually says it says it has links yeah then they can
115go from here to them I'm so excited either our website there's no information okay we're buying another new fire engine thankful it would help if the people of Oxford knew that this existed it's a great idea Casa why don't you get on that for Middleton this is the important is on my the website but it's just like a PDF right it's that yeah Interactive because you get more than you get out of I don't know it's nice yeah Trevor um so I'm still working on that the questions and thanks to everyone that gave me um possible questions um and I sent them to the turfsop people to try to get some feedback on the answers to make sure they're um right first of all and then good for a town meeting and Mike I might
116have to bounce a couple just off of you just FYI they might be incoming okay more than the ones that I sent already yeah okay you saw that I replied back I'm still looking for a little more on a couple Justin um so either I don't have a so I'm still a little like hazy on how many boxer people are on Turf up um and whether any of them are coming Tuesday night to their moderators Forum so can you kind of because your Terry should come she should come life is on terms are they together do they know about it though I'm wondering I wasn't sure if they'd go to it that is okay that's Karen's husband yes yeah okay um how did he not know that how did he not know that we're not
117that we're the choir I don't know because she anyway my husband doesn't talk to me about a lot of things either um but yeah so you want the the um I will if you could like email her and copy me or something like that that'd be great so that we can make sure that she goes or whoever they want to send comes on Tuesday okay the practice because they will need to be there at town meeting and stand there on the ninth and that's where the moderators form right now yes they came to ours but they didn't end up speaking but they were there and they had they just brought the handouts because you know it's our warrant so your backup right right it's our committee members should be speaking to it and then they
118can have further and speak in favor of it obviously um we were able to answer all the questions so there was there was no need for for them are we able to change the um uh presentation that you guys put together um to make it boxer in the middle I just sent it and if you guys I can send it as a to the Box review it's like Google like I'll make a copy so you can edit it as you see fit um Middleton won't be able to present anything on Turf um like we can't have visuals we can't like what the candidate all right let's slideshow um but we'll be able to speak and [Music] FAQs will be and one that I think we should just answer now because I've got it a couple
119times this week and so we're all on the same page so what happens if it's not fully fundraised for I said in my answer that's not finalized if the funding effort does not cover all the costs as possible the committee can come back to the towns and ask for additional funding if the towns reject that ass the group will then continue to fundraise until the funds are race and full but is that true okay I think that that's that's the commitment that they've expressed yeah okay that their commitment is to fully fundraise and a year like uh you know next budget season we will have a much better idea of where um they are at and you know and what is needed to push it through or not and you just reminded me something of
120the fair moderator Forum sometimes when they ask when people ask well why aren't they fundraising for this piece and we have the reasons that are on this flyer but they have fundraised for the demand study and the feasibility study which is what got us here so I I'm pointing that out I think helps a little bit too it's like well they did and now it's kind of like you can't keep going back to those small donors over and over without a commitment from the community to keep going so just you know getting the permits is what will spur the fundraising you know who's going to donate money to something that may or may not happen especially the small donors like that's all like their money is a lot little bits it takes a lot um
121okay I think we're good we all know our charge yeah well wait um have we agreed within Boxford who's speaking at the moderators Forum are we I don't believe that we have should we do that maybe we should talk after this and for um Middleton people's houses sounds like you're saying that not a lot happens there but I think we should go anyway I'll still be there I'll be there about any subcommittee reports community relations nobody's not here um and nothing has been further set but I think she wanted to have one coming up in the near future um a new a meeting coming up in the near future I think we know about budget as yeah it's probably it may not be the appropriate place under community relations but you know we saw these
122amazing you know artworks and all that we need to do a better job of letting the community know about the talent and might be why not you know organizing traveling art show to them you know the town libraries and or see if any of these students would be interested in sort of teaching a community art class get people from the community that are interested in come into the facility see the town you can display lots of other artwork and you know it could be a you know the uh one you know in an internship project for some if they're interested or it could be some kind of other if they want to do it you know in the evenings you know doing through the school year different formula different mediums of the Arts I think
123the art show could actually be here another way to get people in that would be the second step the first is to get them too easier to see it what their appetite then you do a big one here this morning as Mike and I were leaving they were setting up that art those like thingies that you can hang out without damaging your wall because the elementary school is coming and doing a show at our town hall so and our library does have a great display so I love that idea and I also think that it'll be great to have people in the community who are invested in Masco and not necessarily in the trenches every other week in our meetings to help get people to come I don't know who used to um do we
124as a regular because I know we've talked about this invite the Council of Aging to our shows Frozen Chicago I believe we do yes the other thing that keeps becoming more and more evident is without a newspaper it's no one knows it like if you don't have kids in school you have no clue we so for next year I think we need to work harder on some kind of a newsletter that's more old-fashioned again maybe using the kids maybe we'd start printing the chieftain Chronicles and I went out there I mean it's like no extra something that's just circulating so boxer does a night's job because they have a newsletter that comes out quarterly I think it is because I think I got this into it possibly um in this Council of Aging was able
125to put this into their newsletter which goes out to every member of town that's over 60. um which I thought was a great a great thing so I don't know what Topsfield has said you're looking to see if it came out oh you haven't there thanks somehow they made it harder to read than it was originally I didn't think they didn't think they made fun is immeasurably improved uh newsletter from three years ago which was who doesn't do a full-time staff person for that one yeah who's the staff yeah like the director what is she a director oh the Council on Aging director okay it's not a communication I I don't know if you know she does it you know her herself or yes because I was like because we were changed like she was
126working on it the last our last meeting night and so I had sent her one thing and then we made edits I'm like again and so it was like being done at that moment um excuse me not at our house [Laughter] anyway we have to be creative in terms of seeing things different ways to get information out um and I'm happy that we have that so there is a boxer one like Mike's visit is listed in it a newsletter the Oxford Council on Aging Boomers and Beyond [Laughter] I mean but boxer has the thing that goes to everybody do you receive that like that newsletter that they asked for something the quarterly one goes out electronically to all residents that are on the list but we have Masco has not been like good about giving
127them good information to put in there like it depends on who's who got back to them also the person who reached out um so we've done it now twice and she's reached out to me directly and I asked her to to CC Jackie on all oh that's great going further because like I think she might have been going to you and you gave her to me and as the chair or whatever and and so whatever it is it shouldn't just be a Committee Member it should also be a staff that was a good idea yep um so so other other moving on say racism yes uh so way back on March 25th a Saturday morning uh Meredith Shaw the TTC hosted a meeting around supporting diversity equity and inclusion um and we participated in that
128along with uh members or representatives from three of the communities of faith in Topsfield as well as uh at least one student with the goal in mind still for the the spring uh spring is over we're still hoping to have some sort of community-wide event at this point we are Meredith is scheduled another meeting for for this Saturday where we will hopefully select what uh which option we're going to choose and then start to communicate that I mean which option like a community mean yes well yeah I mean well the the the the leading candidate at this point is a a short uh Ted Talk uh called uh don't call people out call them in uh by Loretta Ross and it's like 50 minutes long so so the current thinking is that uh we would
129we would share this um and then talk about it and it's about having respectful conversations among people who may disagree about things so it was very very uh I think all of us thought it was a a good place to start um so we're gonna try to gauge interest in whether we do it in one location or multiple locations you know with smaller groups uh remains to be seen uh but we will work back with uh with what the next steps are so and our our subcommittee meeting our subcommittee I hope to have a meeting with the breaks and stuff that's been difficult uh but hopefully we'll be able to schedule the meeting over the next week or two what time is Saturday again I'm sorry what time is this 10 A.M I don't want
130to wait till after time meetings just because people are next week and the week after um we have time meetings and they have time eats yeah I'm not asking for a lot of their time so squeeze it in [Music] liaison updates awesome so I've got a couple calls um from some Town officials about an incident that happened at school this week um and so it revolves around our emergency service plans and how we have box Veritas jurisdiction over here and they Outsource their ambulance services and I don't know if it was Staffing shortages but it took 25 minutes um for that call for that ambulance to get to Vasco Middleton before that it changed like 15 years ago Middleton had Mass go under their jurisdiction for ambulance services because we have one now top Shield
131also has an ambulance but they didn't at the time so I think it'd be a good idea to sit down with the fire departments of each town and have a serious talk to see if that's still working for us so I think 25 minutes was just I agree it was way too long and that's all I got thank you any other just if you haven't been to Hidden in plain sight I'm going tomorrow morning foreign night again um I think we've got our turkoff update as well um one subcommittee that's not on here that I'm just gonna throw out there because it hasn't been used and needed but I had talked to a few of you about being on that and obviously we will have to figure that out with the new committee as to
132who's on that I am sort of saying that I can continue I know it's been done before where a committee votes to have somebody um who's been on the on the subcommittee before like continue on even after their office up committee work on behalf of with the rest of whoever else is on it so you guys can discuss amongst yourselves once I'm gone if um throwing it out there because I've been doing it like longest um but I know we do have a meeting next week um about something yes yeah for bargaining sessions can't talk about it um and yeah so there and so like while this is our last Wednesday meeting as committee members we are committee members until we are somebody else takes our seat right yeah until someone else is sworn in
133so um I'll still be playing this role until then um something to consider and also when we talk about because next fall negotiations will start again um by October there's that October deadline you don't want to miss anything you want you got to let them know by October it's something I don't know the date right so um it will probably start right in September and um times that the meetings are held will be determined by the people on this hook I know that we've often done it close to after school but if we can't get people to like uh we've kind of last time around we did it all over the place because we had so many meetings so somewhere right after school somewhere later in the oh I want you to consider that since
134we didn't get a full consensus on Mexico round okay so through consent agenda I am making them I am presenting the convention and that's never going to get it right but the approval of April 12 2023. I know you're right um meeting minutes uh 10 signed warrants since April 12th um and the amount of 2 million 38 141.65 and accepting the baseball booster donation um because for uh fence thank you to them very much um they buy it last year is this okay um they're so generous so um do I have a motion to accept all of that so moved second all in favor hi any posts or extensions well with that I will close Carolyn Costa Tasha's last meeting on Wednesday night [Applause] were you right on schedule