Methuen School Committee Meeting 3-24-25

001e e e [Music] good evening the methan school committee Workshop executive session of March 24th 2025 will now come to order this meeting is being recorded and will be made available for viewing on the methan public schools website please note that executive sessions are not would you please please call the role member dunan here member Keegan here member Maxwell here member shabila here member wette here mayor borgard here all members are present except for one we need a motion in a second to accept the agenda as presented for March 2025 motion from the vice chair the second is from memb shilia we vote all those in favor say I I opposed the I next is the flag salute to the repu nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all we do have uh have

002some written comments that were submitt begin with Reverend Daniel Stanley thank you honorable members of the methan school committee good evening it's me again my name is is Dan Stanley I serve as pastor of river god in methan I have done so since 2011 more pertinent to our current meeting I have been a volunteer at the Mars grammar school library since 2011 as Welling we went from two Librarians to per school to one librarian per school to no Librarians per school and Z libraries now for the past three years I've operated a Weekly mobile Book Exchange to the marsh students this year I've been bringing books to over 400 of our Marsh students less than half of our and it's only about 6% of our methan students that have had access to library now this

003year each Library received thousands of new books for our Li libraries thank you for that they're great they're beautiful they're exciting they're shiny but they're mostly unused I've been told that self checkout stations will be installed and that's that's better still woefully short of what what our libraries need are like media centers specialist who will teach and guide our students so that their literacy will improve and that their imaginations will Blossom without Librarians we either have libraries being run by teachers or volunteers overloaded I don't think it's fair to expect teachers to add another 30 minutes to their schedule is up and down to the library helping find books and helping them check out books and are great uh they can be a great asset to a library but a librarian and put away books

004libraries organize the libraries to meet the everchanging needs of our students Librarians instuctions on how to locate so that students can be competent Library users Library Arians teach themes and genres and parts of books they help Ela common core standards with learning or comprehension strategies Librarians Foster a love of reading for pleasure reading for pleasure opens up the doors of cultural awareness of others possibilities for the future they teach how to explore an online catalog of about cating uh curating personal Collections and encouraging digital citizenship these are not things that volunteers can be and there's I have every teacher would rather have a 20 minute free period per week that a student goes up to the library bring their kids to the library methan students are going to continue to work at a disadvantage without

005library with qualified Personnel I know that superintendent Quang and her staff have been doing the best they can with what they have I know that budgets are tight maybe this new budget already has funds set aside for librarians but I've been told we just don't have the money budgets are statements they show the priorities of an organization we have not had the money because W staffed libraries have not been a high priority so I've come today to try importance of libraries and Librarians on your priority I'm going to continue to raise this issue with you and I'll continue to make the residents of methan dedicated to this because I care about the students of methan I'm sure you do but I urge you find the money make the right choices let's bring Librarians back to

006methan grammar schools thank you thank you is there anybody else in the audience who wishes to speak speak but didn't sign up if not then the vice chair has some written correspondence methan school committee my name is John Drew and I have been a proud homeowner in methan since 20121 I have two children in the methan school system one in fifth grade age 11 and another in preschool Age 3 like many parents I am deeply concerned about the school budget and the potential our children's education seeing nearby District over considering staff I fear that Methuen could face similar if reductions as a first year member of the CGS school council I've had the opportunity to sit with the superintendent principals teachers to have early budget discussions firsthand before this experience I was admittedly SK about

007how School funds were allocated however what I have witnessed over the past year or so has completely changed my perspective on school funding I can say without with that our school educators are dedicated thoughtful and Laser focused on uring every dollar is stretched as far as possible to support for our children and our community attended both the CGS and the Tenny giving me firsthand experience with the remarkable efforts of Educators ac they do often with limited is nothing short of a miracle in my opinion I am not asking the committee to blindly approve the superintendent's budget as of our City's finances I to scrutinize every expenditure consequences of cuts to our schools our children must be I also hope the city coun when the budget reaches them and that they vote to keep education at

008the's Future Mr Mayor you were elected to move our city forward the way this budget is handled will Define your legacy underfunding our schools will have long-term that extend far beyond the next fiscal year strong schools create strong communities please vote accordingly submitted John R Drew Jr six Spring Valley Road methan massachus dear members of the school committee superintendant Quang and mayor board we the undersigned teachers and members of the Donald P Community are writing to express our deep concern regarding the recent public exchange involving School Committee Member Maxwell a current member of the school committee and a parent at our school in a Facebook post School Committee Member Maxwell advised a family consider during relocating to our school district to avoid thus expressing dissatisfaction this public admonishment of our school has been widely read

009in the community including by staff parents and union members and screenshots of this exchange have been circulated to the mayor while we acknowledge that everyone is entitled to their personal opinions the harmful impact of such a statement especially coming from a school committee cannot be a public official advising families to avoid our district creates a damaging narrative that undermines the hard work of our dedicated staff and the many positive aspects of our school if our own leadership feels comfortably comfortable publicly declaring that our school is lacking how can we have confidence in our community or choose to enroll their this is particularly concerning given the current challenges facing our district High teacher term over and the strain of meeting the needs of our at a time when we need to build a strong trust having

010a public figure actively advising young families school only exacerbates these challenges the fact that school Committee Member Maxwell has been an act in our school's PTO raises additional concerns about the message she may be conveying to other parents and community members privately especially if she feels comfortable making such negative statements public it is difficult to see how we as a district or as a school can move forward and improve when those in position of leadership are publicly undermining our efforts trust collaboration and support are essential School community and we are deeply concerned about the long-term effects of this school's reputation and morale we respectfully urge the school committee the superintendent and the mayor to address this situation promptly and take steps to prevent similar occurrences in the future we believe it is crucial for all

011members of the school committee actions especially when they have the power to influence public perception and the community's trust in our school we look forward the steps that will be taken to address this issue and we hope that together we can work towards creating a supportive and positive envir sincerely of the timy grammar school specifically signed and I apologize if I mess up anybody's last name Lauren trasco education teacher Nicole Conway general education teacher Ashley wolfendale general education teacher Olivia H general education teacher Amanda McCarthy general education teacher Stacy o general education teacher lii Burns general education teacher Alana Hol teacher Delano general education teacher Susan phopas general education teacher Mandy O'Brien general education teacher Karen KR school psychologist Michelle McCormick program assistant Cara Crow teacher Stephanie Nan ESL teacher Jessica McLoud ESL teacher Linda

012Higgins grade 2 to teacher Caitlyn M Marino Bonnie Laro Sabrina Fulham grade two Jillian Kavanaugh SLP Kristen Natalie or yeah natal um special education teacher Caitlyn en two Colleen Stan special ed Susan lorta special ed PA Christine Crow special ed a special ed Melissa diman special ed Christine Khloe grade six teacher IET toy special ed teacher Shannon Robert reading specialist Terry zapa teacher grade five Colleen Mueller teacher grade two DTI grade five Michael price teacher grade five Mark Razo teacher grade three Tracy swiniarski stem teacher Katherine oel oawi ESL grade one Katherine osimo ESL grade five and six Katherine coin grade at this time I will close public participation if you cannot make a meeting in person for public participation you you can send an email to Martha seroy m i ois meu. K12 ma.

0133 pm on the day of Superintendent at this point I'll invite you to begin the presentation regarding uh the fiscal we're talk about the preliminary budget superintend yes thank you um so have a binder in front of you that has this present ation uh hopefully which will allow you to ask questions uh in that uh this presentation is actually uh a culmination of everything pulled out in the narratives so it's also you have a narrative of each School an executive summary uh in the front and uh each school and a capital Improvement program in the back so uh the hope for tonight and I know there were differing opinions about presenting this to everybody at the same time this evening and I just I want to be able to explain the thought process and the

014conversation the chair and I had last week uh having done this as many years as I have done this what happens is the information uh sometimes gets uh takes its own narrative chance to actually educate and explain to everybody what we're how we Define the foundation budget uh and so that was one uh major reason uh behind the thought process tonight to really be able to have budget and where we are uh the second part is uh we were also very much hoping for some information about the federal grants of which we did not get uh we had a couple of sources that we were hopeful that we would have a little more uh affirmation about the grant not going uh so I was really trying to hold out that final information if be shared

015tonight or not um and so that is also part of the re wait so at this time it has been posted on the website the present tonight plus all of the narratives that you have in your budget book are up on the website appropriately um meeting site for school committee um there are copies here for some folks uh who are with us the principles will also be presenting tonight uh I think what also we have to understand is this is happening weeks prior to what we have done in the past in my seven years we've never put together a budget in March uh and the amount of take uh that is with me tonight uh to try to get the entire uh Staffing salaries uh place all of the uh current ratified contracts and tenative

016Agreements are reflected in what I am presenting this evening so I also want to say that um that was uh part of our work and so um again there was an an enormous amount of work that went into getting this into the hands early knowing that this is going to somewhat challenging and we'll probably need several more conversations in between the meetings that we already have scheduled so I did put that on the agenda for this evening after this presentation uh I do believe strongly especially because of the way March Falls the 31st uh there's three weeks between now and the next time we formally meet uh I do think that is without another discussion about the budget especially when I have to have the public hearing on May 20 stone uh so we have

017to have an approved budget uh ready to go to get that into the hands of the cafo and the mayor for city council so April 14 second just doesn't leave us a lot of additional talking time for the budget so I think again my hope tonight is that there is uh a lot of uh you know listening tting and reflecting and that we can come up with another meeting potentially next week or the week after again before the 14th or maybe one each um to be able to then have additional discussions depending on how we leave this evening right with what task this setting forth to say now we need to do X and so uh that is I just want to start by saying that that is was the reason behind that uh decision

018and again I know it was a practice but I do think that once you see all of the information here tonight again everybody will hear it at the same time and at the same time uh and again ask questions as you go write down questions our next session will be about more questions right there's going to be a lot to process tonight so uh timeline and on the screen is it showing appro okay um timeline I just uh process we've we've met with school leaders District leaders we're presenting to you tonight we have many discussions I think ahead of us before we have to have that final uh budget hearing which also I would say uh that night we have to have the actual budget that we're presenting to vote on 10 days prior to

019that date to be able to post it so there are I think seven attendees there are requirements around that to that we will have to post uh the budget number that will be approving on on the um the hearing evening and then the city council will have their public hearings as well at the end of May and June so I think there's there's something to be said I show this every year but I think seeing it in a chart is pretty critical this is Page four of your presentation so student enrollment uh I think what is most important is the Red Bar shows where we are this year all right and the the trends so we're looking at fiveyear trends of our student enrollment and these are things I tried to focus on uh and

020a lot of it is feedback from this particular committee over the past year and four months working with all of you some of the conversation has been really succinct about the fact that the data is what we need to look at and so I've provided as much of that as I could hear for context and understanding what we're talking about and being able to show this right being able to walk away and take this to somebody else and be able to explain what is actually happening was what my thought process was in putting together this presentation um so this is just one example of a way in your narratives so in your executive summary you have the number you have the chart with the numbers right um but this chart really does show exactly what

021we've been talking about with the in continual increase of our English Learners which you could see that bar on the far right there is almost doubled in five years that's what we have been talking a lot about it's gone from 10% to just just over 19% in 5 years uh our first language not English students also continues to grow lowincome continues to grow and high needs all right so that was yeah please I I think the best way to do this is to ask questions as we go waiting till the end is going to be way too overwhelming I'm totally on board with that and I think that's okay this is our uh one of our biggest actually this is our role as a committee so tonight uh I'd like to have more of a

022struct to be a lot more free willing than ask away so high needs the English language students with disabilities the English I know those all come with additional expenses for the res but on here you also have a lowincome column yeah is there students don't fall into one of these other categories is there an additional expense there so it's not necessarily an additional expense it's a really good question um are additional dollars students who are lwi Income dollars in or dollars out dollars in okay which we're going to get to so not necessarily uh part of the and I should say with hope uh the low income actually does dictate our entire so I was incorrect in saying that so there's dollars in right based on lowincome lse status um and and the thought process

023behind that is that they're going to need more REM because they're not necessarily participating in early education programs or you know head starts where that promotion has been now those entitlement grants are primarily Federal though right to that lat we will thank you yeah I have a question can you just Define what high needs means because students with disabilities learn is very clear mean so high needs is an actual uh it's Dr golovsky can help me here but uh it's it's gr of students that actually are in these categories lowincome English learner students with disabilities could be in the high needs category so that's a that's a group that multiple times is that right it's not a unique number yes so our our high needs group of students so if you're looking at the chart

024here um about 65% or so of our students fall into one of these categories so some may fall into more than one but of our students fall into at least one of these student groups that was said so much nicer and that's 65% of our entire population okay I just want to be clear on that thanks yes so this is a uh another statistic that our school committee has seen recently but thought that it would be important to share here again this is also going to be in the hands of other folks and posted publicly um indicated the the part the data that we talked about specifically here last month the blue circles represent the students that are coming into district with disabilities and the students at the bottom that are withdrawing and the top

025number is much larger than the bottom number the orange circles represent our English language Learners and again you can see there's a vast difference between the students that are enrolling since August of this year to and the date on this was 34 I believe um to to the number of students withdrawing and this is going to be uh hugely impactful as we move through this presentation and the information but again not new to the committee but potentially new to the Comm while sharing because this these are the kind of numbers that we're really paying close attention to and what it means and to member shila's sort of point right this is all going to be about where is the where's the funding coming from and where are we spending uh that funding and why is

026it enough right why aren't we getting enough I made that part I added that part for us but it's the why aren't we getting enough so there's also lots of conversation and controversy over the student Opportunity Act so I also felt an important here to make sure we were really clear about what it means uh I use it frequently but again not necessarily sort of have it here to refer to um but here here's the student groups that the S SOA uh reform the the regulation of 2019 um benefit five groups of students so guidance and Psychological Services special education out of District so not speci education in total that's also going to be very important uh English Learners lwi income and it's all expected to be phased in by 2027 right that's it was

027it was billions of dollars uh they had to phase it in over a longer period of time um so you can see there there's some explanation about those tiers uh interestingly enough so Methuen currently districts that have uh high lowincome students benefit from these higher rates and so there's a there's 12 levels that the state has defined for low income when it comes to the student Opportunity Act and how you are rated is at 604 60.4% low income lands Us in tier 10 level 10 um that's pretty high and and there are dollars attached to that uh group of students uh in addition to uh just flat dollar amounts attached to English Learners the rest is not as easy to to say the FL dollar amount and this is where I'm going to get into

028some detail about why some of the funding get really really confusing and where the problems lie we've talked about this before thought I would put it back in here you know I highlighted the inflation rate issue that we've had the foundation budget is set based on the foundation uh based on the inflation rate that is set by the state uh last year it was 1.53 this year it's 1.9 93 uh Far Low far lower uh than the 23 24 school years where it was capped at 4.5 and even those two years um did not meet what the actual inflation rate was right we have talked about that member wette has talked about that we've Advocate advocated for that um that is something that also is just a it's a it's a standing challenge to the

029foundation budget because it's not fixed and that becomes incredible problematic for us when we're planning just a followup through the chair of the superintendent I know our uh colleague from the havil school committee has done uh PhD in economics and that since uh 20223 to the present time because of inflation there's been a gap of about 20 70 funding for the uh city of havil do we have a comparable number because if hail was 20 million Chapter 70 and not accounting for inflation I would a smaller Community we're talking about Millions a a massive amount of money I don't have a comparable number that is something I could probably figure out that's something that should be presented to the audience because we're talking about Chapter 70 which is about ion dollar per year and we

030have a 10 doll close to it we have a Millionaire's tax which the MTA okay a diversion of 800 million to the te and they have also have a surplus from the Millionaire's tax that's not being part of the budget that's being presented by the governor so we're having discussion about what's with the federal level and I said situation but at the local level we are limited with local property taxes I know the governor in the auto excise tax to me that's a no-brainer that's a non-st uh candy tax uh attacks on prescription drugs attacks on cable boxes so Beacon Hill about taxing and yet they have a rainy that's almost approaching $1 billion they have a millionaires tax they approved casinos they approved part dispensaries they approved sports beding but yet the governor is

031not going to help us and again the only people that right now I'm seeing helping with at least put an analysis of the situation is our colleague from the hail school committee our esteemed senator who an advocate for the Gateway filed budget amendment he's been on the front lines he recently had a presentation at the state house so there's a massive that I hope the audience here tonight and also at home realize that you're talking about act streams that not being applied to the schools by the current admin but a beacon hell and the local taxpayers of methan are not going to swallow what's happening at either Washington which we don't know yet uh Beacon hell what has happened the last few years they've 70 um we don't know about the circuit breaker and years

032past they've undercut that um so we have to be balanced in our approach here this evening now again you're making a presentation and I'm here to listen to that presentation but we got make sure we revealing all the facts on the ground and that's always been elected official is that I the ground I don't go into speculation or hypotheticals I go into a concrete numbers I'm seeing from Chapter 70 and there a massive disconnect and we have the revenue stream the local schools thank you okay um I this is uh some of the information that I'm presenting to you tonight along the same line of what member wette just said um there is a rally cry right about what's happening in uh Massachusetts with our school funding and what I mean um roundt super roundtables

033in the Commonwealth and we had a legislative breakfast on Friday and uh there were a few of us who presented and again I'll share some of the information we presented because it was pretty compelling about special education uh costs and funds and Source Revenue sources but I will say that a little bit of a shout out I guess we had um many uh legislators with us uh some Francisco pelino was was there so I get to spend some time with him to share some data um there were senators and representatives from all around from it's all the you know from Arlington all the way up here uh it's a very large round table uh and they really were passionate about the conversation really appreciative of the information we handed them that they could bring back

034to have these conversations about what some of uh the pro what the the lack of funding is doing to the communities so it was very a positive experience for us it was worth uh the work that it that we put in to to present but um there is again a rally cry with within my colleagues and you know getting to legislators and making some some noise about what's happening at the state level not saying it's going to be fixed tomorrow but there are folks making noise so this is our uh some for some of you hopefully this looks familiar you have the sheet actually in your um you have part of it in your binder in the um the side sleeve this is the summary sheet comparison for uh fy2 FY 26 directly from desie

035this shows exactly what our chapter 78 uh will be and what our required net School spending uh will be as well and that change number it's not the number that we want to see that change uh is lower the $2.4 million change from FY 25 to 26 is lower than it was here in Methuen prior to SOA taking effect the 1819 school year actually had just about a 2.4 so we're getting lower than that at this point um which for us is telling us that something is fundamentally off with the formula and how this is working so I want to spend a a few moments just talking about special education funding and I think this is where I have really uh taken a deep dive into how the state actually funds special education costs in

036our foundation budget and how do how does circuit breaker work so we have these two s sort of differing uh pots of money um and I think the one thing so you'll see here that the chart I gave you uh it was Westford tubry wuber and US myself that presented as a group uh on Friday and this was some of the data that we shared but you can see very strongly this is not a methan only issue right this is not uh something that we're experiencing and why is it happening to us this is happening in every District whether it's Suburban affluent Urban big Urban um the trend looks very similar to what you'll see on this chart um and I think one of the things that is the most striking for me and this

037is something that again I think it's just we got to we got to really internalize this information to be able to reshare it out to people around us when Jessie gets our enrollment in October right and October one enrollment there is no difference of funding for special education kids they are included in our grade level enrollment numbers there are few exceptions to that not enough to make enough of a financial difference and so a student who is identified as uh on an IEP for maybe needing just speech services is counted the same for foundational funding as a student in a subpar program in districts and so now just take that in for a moment right that is something that is is incredibly striking and that was part of our conversation on Friday because we know

038what we're experiencing if kids are coming with more need our numbers right this is that conversation that sometimes people in the community get a little mixed up about well our enrollment isn't going up why do we need more money right it's because the needs of our students are increasing and I don't know how else to Define that and except showing the world this kind of data that says our student needs are increasing which I'm also going to show you that chart in a moment um our subpar students counts are going up subpar students looks very different than 47 regular education classroom enrollments they just look different they cost different um so so I think that is a really powerful understanding to have that they are not counted differently so what the state does is they

039take a percentage of your IND District special education and you're at a district and they stick a number on that and they put in your foundation enrollment which you could see on one of the charts on the big spread sheet on D's website and I believe that in District it's like 3.5% or 3 .9% of your uh total population and out of district is like 1% so again it's not it doesn't match the funding needs that we're seeing uh for both groups of students questions about that so this is a big one Mr chairman um to the chair to the superintendent we did the Ed Reform Act of when was the last time the state has done a full value since 1993 2019 2019 so that the years that let that was the first time

040the formula changed at all was with that student opportunity 2019 okay and with the circuit breaker of fluctuation the the current amount is 75% correct but at times we've been yeah was a bill on the hill with Senator Jake Ola to increase it to 90% Y and again what I emphasize to people you have an opportunity these bills were just filed to be on record with your state senator and your state reps and advocate for the increase of Chapter 70 which I've been consistent over the last two years and also an increase of the circuit break 75% to talking about extraordinary circumstances of a student population um and again if you look at the population we've had an increase of the English language Learners and the extraordinary caseation um and again the only constent that

041we can focus on is that it should go from 75% to 90% because the funding should match with the child because if you don't match the funding with the child not only you're going to be penalizing that student and you're going to be sacrificing services for the regular Ed in order to pay for the services of any local school district agre if you have to sacrifice teachers and administrators uh and that is a is a crapshoot is that we don't know all of a sudden we could have an influx of a 100 students that are profoundly dis and we're BR 75% and the remaining 25% will be the responsibility of the local school district and also just recently we had 44% for transportation for special ed correct now uh to the process but again that's

042woefully if we're talking about these profoundly disabled individuals that's something also we have to put on the radar screen we do have cash reserves in methu but cash projects not to Personnel because if you start using cash impact your your bond rating do certain things at the local level and I know um that we're very close to the levy limit we have about a $300,000 Gap to the levy limit so people who are t ride or drain our reserves right I think it's counterintuitive because you have a state house right budget process if you're not happy with the governor's budget mobilize your forces to approach your state reps and senors you have we have a day on the hill as school committee the MTA I know uh has been working with this Association of school

043superintendents the school business uh right and also the MTA and the school committee are all in concert that that Chapter 70 formula has to really be uh revised upwards and we're losing tens of millions of dollars but again now is the time I've said the prior fiscal year to is now is the time to mobilize OES thank you Vice chair um looking at this chart I'm reading it that in four years we've increased our special education almost $20 million I'm I'm not reading that incorrectly you are not reading what is that money being spent on I mean I understand special educ what we're spending $20 million more on now than we were four years ago yes and I'm going to that because the next few help okay anything else on this slide okay so again

044I think member will let to me uh but the the ne it's okay the next slide I think pieces that is really important and this was uh information that I shared uh on Friday as um our the rate of to and the rate of Transportation increase is is H just a a faster higher rate of reimbursement can give us and so so what we're seeing so that not all of the 20 million but a lot of that is uh in24 OSD allowed the private schools day schools to up their tuition by 14% they did it so you know we saw a pretty large spike in in tuition cost that year and so now each year when it's oh like a whole lot except that's three per se three on what was already increased by 14%

045two years ago again uh the the um the folks in wuber are really mirroring they're smaller so it looks a little different uh but uh that assistant superintendent for student services presented with us on and her and her superintendent are really experiencing something similar than what we're I mean it's you could almost mirror the communities again just different size but that is something that we're seeing and I think um to to share um I'm just GNA actually oh no I don't want to do that yet um to share uh that member wette just said I think there's a false narrative out there too don't understand circuit breaker when you hear things like SE funded or full 75% means fully funded well what does that actually mean it does not mean that the state gives us

046a reimbursement for all of our special educ ation tuition right it's 75% of a portion of that out of District tuition uh and that can get very confusing as well are certain thresholds so there's a there's an education there too where people are talking and you're absolutely there's a bill right now to actually increase have fully funded mean 90% instead of 75% of that amount over the threshold I just realized I forgot the T in that box I apologize circuit breaker is only used for uh portions of the cost for added District tuition services and transportation only there are some services that will be ured for um but primarily out of district tuitions and transportation so I think this is uh also some compelling data uh we'll see I wanted to look at again a

047lot from the conversations we've had with about what does this mean right we keep saying over and over the numbers are growing we need more preschool teachers I need three more subpar Pathways teachers why um so this is some information so this is a five-year comparison red is right um so we have two things you have students with disabil ities preschool um Rising so so students is up 50 a lot but let's put that into perspective for a second right up we have 50 students receiving services that could be full day that could be speech that could be OT only um just the third bullet down the the number of students that means they're with us for the full day they need classroom support and you can't put 30 kids in one classroom I can

048tell you that right now right so you can't put 30 subpar preschool kids in one room right so that equals four to five classrooms at this point with with additional right Services speech program assistance all of those pieces so I think that when you think about what that actually looks like is important to note um our total number of students with disabilities is up 136 since 2020 and our number of subpar students is up 40 students from 2021 and again those 47 students two classrooms right depending on the needs it could be classrooms so this just again for educational sake right this is uh oops how circuit breaker is defined and again this is a lot for just information that you can refer back to that you have that that people can really understand what

049we're talking about when we say circuit breaker the state sets the thresholds and fy2 threshold was 52 419 so basically the district is responsible for anything up to $52,400 that amount you take 75% of that amount that is what a circuit breaker that's what's eligible for circuit breaker re reimbursement so again it the way we talk about it is critical because if we talk about fully funded people think that we get uh our full tuitions back what do we what are we upset about well we don't uh and so uh all of the kids that go out you get a portion of this or at least you have eligible and depending on uh as member wette and I have been saying depending on the year and how much money uh that number can fluctuate we

050have definitely had years where we've only gotten 62 65 60% of that um add cost back Transportation has recently been added uh which is wonderful transportation for out of District students again this is not for students in District um but the problem with that is there's no set formula for that it's basically whatever's left over uh is how is the best way to look at it so this year it was at 44% and it was 44% of the total cost so while it was less it's a better way to look at the formula by saying it's just all of that Transportation cost and we're going to give you back 44% of whatever you've paid out makees sense everybody we're good okay so this is these are three right now current examples from Methuen in this

051situation three different uh outof District situations you have a student at a district collaborative and for us that would be Crest we're the members of but we also have students at Valley and seam collaborative but our member member collaborative is crust average tuition for one of those students is 89,000 that's that's base tuition for the year $889,000 for us it costs $2,795 to transport and there's an aster next next to that because in a in a district like Methuen uh we have the opportunity because we have more kids we can we can have one bus with five or six kids on it so each student is costing $122,000 that bus in total is probably costing 75 80 grand right so what other districts are experiencing is they have one kid going to a particular they're

052paying a full $75,000 for one bus we do have some situations like that um they're not as frequent in methan as they are in some of the smaller communities but we do have situations like that where we have one student only going to an added District placement and so you have a tuition and you're paying the entirety of that bus for the year um so that's one situation and then you have a day school private Day School 127 is an average tuition and again you know we have students that we maybe have multiple students on a bus um typical supports on a bus uh going to a private day usually a bus monitor or a nurse is are the are the two more frequent um costs so that student is $177,000 and then on the

053right side you'll see how it's calculated for reimbursement and then a typical residential 3, $32,000 that's that's the cost of the full residential obviously there's no transportation and you'll see how that is calculated for reimbursement uh on our next goar around of this this is fantastic and this is what I think we talked about a couple of meetings ago it's scary how expensive ential would it be show kind of like a recap what that total was versus participating for 26 because I think this has has a very strong narrative y sees it because the the conversation has been the school is spending money the school is we are spending money and here it is correct would go a long way in being a nisp that can combat that conversation is is it doable you can

054tell me no I mean I'm okay with so I guess I'm unsure exactly what you're asking so like there are these three assume we know how many how many kids were at day schools and how many kids were residential average uh the the spend for the current fiscal year is X we're anticipating having this many kids next year based on these numbers because I don't know if we know what the increase is yet we do know most we're anticipating these numbers and then we can show of them yeah we can show the difference we have oh those numbers are in included here yeah we're gonna get to that slide no this is fabulous keep asking why I wanted to pack it ahead of time I did all this anticipating what all of you were going

055to ask so that we could make sure everything was answered do you see how this is going to question members shilia as we go through I have nothing but faith in you y okay other questions in this one again just example to show something tangible and concrete all right so now we're going to get into uh what we are presenting tonight so yes a good question um could you also get us um how much it costs for a separate versus how much it costs for a say with just costs for a jened student so that we can see the IND District impact also those would be best estimated costs right as students okay yep well you said one more time sub separate what were the three tiers I sub separate say one special ed Service

056versus a gened student who's not receiving any services so fully included maybe sub separate versus gened with no service correct okay got it thank you okay okay so now we're going to get work that our team has done uh what we believe our schools need to continue to move forward so understanding uh that we have some finances and defined some of our um you know challenges at this point it's also imperative that my job as superintendent and the principls behind me and the central office staff also make sure that we communicate to you and the public what we believe we need to best service our students and we talked about that as a committee I would say over the past four months uh during our meetings about the fact that this is important right this

057is in a really important part of the process and what our team has spent the most time doing um so looking at class sizes reducing where they can looking at uh looking at new needs looking at different needs looking at um different programs uh you know all of those things come into play here so uh you'll see in your narratives uh for the school committee that you have uh in the executive uh summary uh three sections specific SE sections student supports professional development and operations is sort of how we've divided the uh the budget just to for talking points tonight and then the principles will come up and talk about their buildings but for student support these are all the things that fall under the student support category um in the preliminary budget that you're

058going to see tonight we have preserved class size this is something that we did not unilaterally uh reduced to a point that didn't make sense to us that would be I think further conversations with this committee um but maintaining that Target class size of uh 18 to 22 in the grammar schools and not exceeding 25 everywhere we possibly can and then a target class size in kindergarten 15 to 20 and we have lost uh the kindergarten program assistance uh for several years now but keeping those kindergarten classes as small as possible is really one of the best ways that we have seen to be able to support the challenges that are coming in uh so early as those classes get bigger it comes becomes more challenging at the early age for students who have never

059been to school before I I do recall during the prior budget cycle which was a very difficult budget cycle that we had day increase class sizes by 25% is that is that accurate because we were presented numbers of an increase in in class sizes we had increases in class sizes in places in the upper school we did not sizes at all in K4 okay so this was was was uh PE meal peace meal definitely peace meal okay so so what you're going to see tonight is that we you're going to see ranges between and you're going to see some you're going to have those anomalies where they're get to 25 right right off the bat um but you're going to see 18 to 22 everywhere we possibly could maintain those class sizes that's what we

060that's what our target has been okay the historic low that we achieved was 20 students on average per class that's that's about what we have right now again upper school is a little bit bigger upper okay all right so there was a differential and there was a 25% increase and those classes you're not you're not incorrect so you with the budget at regardless of what's Happening we anticipate stabiliz class size for the most part tonight what we believe is going to be able to maintain and move forward our district okay this is what we're doing right now right so so to make sure the changes in the buildings again reductions additions things like that that we need for student services for student delivery program uh that's what we're presenting to you tonight job as a

061collective whole is to figure out what we are going to keep and not keep uh and again that's statement for us a school committee and an Administration uh my my values our values are reflected in what I'm presenting to you right now about what we truly believe if we want to continue to move this District forward we need to maintain class and 22 the best we can so having a prom with have a prom necessarily with having a wish list of you present things that we need for the school District I'm having going forward really have to face reality unless is going to be a sea change on Beacon Hill I'm not seeing going to be a drama I would love to be proven wrong on it and I think it's going to be a

062tug-of-war between the state house and the local community is going to be caught in the middle um but I I really want to make sure that we try to be as realistic as possible with these class sizes that's the case and again this is a fluid situation tonight is for the discussion I understand that butd yeah it would not be I mean as superintendent I would not sit here and present a budget that I think would decimate the work what my value is and what I think your value is the conversations are get to get right but but as a leadership team and a superintendent I I'm not going to present to you and I I would say I'm not sure it's such a wish list this is what we believe we need to move

063forward right I think when you hear from the principles we're not talking about like new programming and um you know situations like that I think you'll hear that from the principles about what we're looking at we need and what we can reduce I think that's part of the whole process okay thank you so um also in the student support making sure that we have our uh special education you'll see uh that throughout the narratives in the schools um we're also looking at which if you recall principles go through details of this position but you all in the fall uh approved adding an evaluation team facilitator very briefly just a quick housekeeping item so YouTube feed is completely down and we're having issues apparently with Comcast folks are recording recording okay so the meeting will be

064for anybody who's having technical difficulties continue sorry y um so the evaluation team facilitat facilitator if you recall we added to the marsh fall uh and largely due our special education administrator position we have not changed that position in 20 years and I have prefaced a lot of what I'm saying tonight changes in special education and the needs and the programming has the largest subpar program in the grammar schools next largest subpar program and with those subpar programs of program that makes it really challenging for those Seas to actually handle all of the compliance and the meetings and also the progamic programmatic oversight of those subpar programs so you'll see that in the narratives of the other schools tonight and the explanation for those are exactly the same uh our special education administrators are uh

065basically just doing compliance and meetings all of the time the lack uh of time that they have to be able to put into the programming is what we're hoping to gain back um so again you'll see those in the narratives uh but we you know we don't we won't have the principles actually go through that again unless you have specific questions feel free to ask them um so we you will see the adding of media center Specialists again this has been uh a a pretty large debate of something that we wanted to upon we spent thousands of dollars this year rebuilding uh you will see those in this budget that is uh before you tonight um and one of the biggest ones which uh Miss bosek and I can can talk about now and you'll

066see it uh again a couple of times but we are look Define the pathways program at the marsh um we we feel strongly that the program is St grow uh sort of how it has been defined and we want to redefine that program as an alter schol and what that means is that we would have a a separate schedule for that not not a day schedule but they wouldn't necessarily have specialists at the same times what really complicates the programming for our Pathways students is the the level and amount of services they need and many of them cannot access grade level curriculum material time space um and so uh we're looking to do again a full redef one of the things that we are reaching out for we tried to do this last year it

067did not pan out to be successful um for a variety of reasons we reached out to um one of our partners collabor help us with just the kindergarten classes we had at we had five kindergarten classes from preschool going to the marsh and we felt very strongly uh that that was way too many classrooms uh to be adding to the marsh school and the staff there so we house rooms at Branch Street so it was a shared responsibility a little bit on the uh related service providers uh and the staff so during the time with the two classrooms at bran Street uh miss bozac and miss Blanchett were able to build a very positive partnership with constellations they're Contracting provider that focuses with ASD and so they have really helped us with the programming in

068that classroom those classrooms I think we saw a uh 180 of how the classroom started to what it looks like now with their support um so I did ask Miss boac to start the conversation with them a few month this before programming and I'm leaving out 5'8 because that is just a little bit different it's really the the K4 that is exploding right now uh and they need a little bit more attention and so they great proposal that would add uh Behavior technician Behavior technician and an AB instructor good um to each classroom that really would for the programming and behavior supports of each classroom of eight to nine kids alongside our staff right so that that this is twofold It's building the program but it's also building our capacity right so to have this

069partnership at this great amount it would we after it is something that we talked a lot about during negotiations as well with our own staff right everybody knows that a big part of our the contracted service providers coming in coming out right it it's been a challenge for everybody this we feel an opportunity to again service the kids that we need but also build our own couple of years we're not going to need this level I said that correctly and just to put this in perspective because obviously this comes at a cost right so their contract for K through 4 presented to provide us with Staffing and professional development is $2.4 million and again to put this in perspective we have 14 students going out of program tuition onlyon dollar tuition only that's not Transportation

070at this point so again just putting that into perspective if I had to send these 85 kids to an out of District setting oh I don't I don't know right now but um that's not our goal so we have been fortunate enough to have capacity uh in some of our uh schools to be able to build these we've built it and uh it keeps growing and so we need to think about doing something differently and this is what we're trying to present to you tonight that we do think will work uh and work well the hard part about this one this is a hard part is that if we don't come to some agreement about this contract it's all going to be for not because if they don't if we don't agree to this soon

071they will not be able to get us the staff and agree to secure that the longer we wait the less likely this is going to be successful so just keep that in mind for tonight uh that that is something that needs to somewhat be in the Forefront of our conversation if we're going to move forward with it or not and again that's not a decision foron I'm just saying that's this is these are some things that need to be priority when we're talking about our next steps so I had two questions now you just gave me a new one and more importantly okay if they need to make decisions for Staffing how is that going to be impacted by a late June final budget approval from the council so so they I and again I'm

072saying just speaking in these situations that we would have to sign a contract with them contingent upon appropriate funding but that they would need some Assurance from us that we're making this a priority and that we're going to fund it okay uh wrong in that missak is there any vendor of this sort because there was no mention of 30b and I don't remember seeing any bids go out for this did we have an exception for that or it is all right is it is and there are some other folks to miss boac the fact that we actually have firsthand knowledge of the work that they did with us so that we could see what it's going to look like is is we don't have that with any other group to the extent that we have

073it with wisc conell population and the same group of kids they're going to be working with next year and I'll add to that well and I also add several years ago we had a consultant from melar New England come in evaluate the sub separate program for ASD back was we had great the recommendations they had we put into place that didn't help us build capacity um and like Dr Quang said we've had an opportunity to see this firsthand be very successful in one of the kindergarten classrooms at the marsh and not Marsh sorry Branch Street um because we we wanted to try something different and it literally was a complete 180 um staff support cohes cohesiveness immediate um embedded professional development training to build um behavior supports and capacity awesome I like I like the

074idea of doing new a huge help for everyone um but going back to the statement you made earlier about the kindergarten classes that are currently divided between Marsh and all of those kindergarteners now from both the ones in the building at the marsh and the ones at Branch stre are going to go to first grade correct presumably at the marsh correct but when I look at the marsh don't get ahead of yourself keep getting ahead getting ahead of me well this is why I wanted to okay I'll I'll I'll I'm kidding you can ask you no I'll withdraw save my question and maybe I'll answer it before you get a chance all right maybe I don't know I we'll hear from uh member Maxwell we have the vi so this um this specific program is

075another contracted service that we would be hiring my only concern with that is that we we put out a lot of money for contractor Services when is but is there a specific reason we're not bringing those Specialists our district and paying them rather than paying a service because I'm sure it would be cheaper to hire the teacher than it is to hire a contracted service except what they're giving us is full oversight of programming that we don't have unless district and we just don't have the staff capacity so I could post for 13 12 12 Behavior technicians and 12 ABA instructors but I don't have anybody to run oversight over what that programming looks like to build our capacity in in those classrooms and continuity between the grade levels I think I'm just confused so

076what where where does that 12 there are K4 classroom sub separate ASD classrooms well they will be at the okay and to do that going to see is we've removed one of the program assistants from the budget remember we have seven so we're not talking about right so we've removed one of those positions so we have two program assistant program Assistance Plus this this provid again training capacity we can off service provider and supports and capacity of our own staff didn't we just hire behavioral um I think it was yeah for wouldn't couldn't they lead that programator yeah so risk and Crisis Intervention with the uh sub separate programming at the Tenny or the uh at any of the schools actually ASD program so they had a totally different response the crisis interventionist at the

077marsh does support they and students but not in the way where you're talking about programming be programming what the kids actually need to learn every day response when they're having trouble and disregulated I'm just concerned with how much money we're spending help when we should be doing we're sending a lot of kids out of district for things in District and we're not focused on that and I I think I just wanted to make that known I I don't know why there are so many expenses for contracted services that we can offer here so CH cheer are we going to be redefining a program versus a sub separate um so um one of the draws to the day schools a 12month program if that's the case and we are going to Define this as a public

078then are we going to make this a 12-month program so that we don't need to send the what parents who are looking to get their kids out of the district are looking for is that 12-month program great question I'm going to start it and then jump in so that is a a conversation that Miss bak and I have been having about the 12 versus school year um for a variety of reasons um I think for us I don't know if we feel comfortable committing to that with having seeing that that may be something we leave alone for the 25 26 school year if that works right what we're looking at and what we're trying to redefine then for the 26 27 school year we talk about of being a 12mon that's where we've landed so

079far in our conversations well and to add to that the purpose of us doing this with constellations is to build the Capac remove the contracted providers as we've built the capacity with our own staff given that there's profession part of this contract that would go into place this coming summer with the teacher assistance to to start them before the school year so to commit to right now wouldn't Mak sense because we need to build in that training and then carry it through for the remainder of the school year okay as long as we're looking into that because I think the 12-month program is going to keep more kids in District that we're going to be able to afford better um and to add those eight weeks worth of programming cheaper than the outof district costs

080even at a public day remember Don we just Circle back um obviously there's a great deal of in how many people will be coming to methan from constell the technicians 12 Behavior technicians 12 okay one for each classroom okay 12 ABA instructors okay three bcbas wow that again for the members you'll see that all listed in the narrative for this sort of redefine and I think it's worth noting that many of sim bcbas it's been impossible to hire them it's been so hard to find people to fill those positions for whatever reason um is there any way this would make an impact on the inclusion Services uh those students because I know last year was okay not like when you talk about training there would be no that to the staff that works in that

081area it' be very specific to the staff the kids okay because part of this redefining of it as well is um including uh adaptive specials got it so we already have adaptive PE um right now at Branch street because we needed to provide specials there we have uh adaptive music coming in once a of our own staff have been doing adaptive art um with the two kindergarten classrooms okay um and my next question is let's go back to that Media Center when you say um adding media centers is that model like the old time Dr goopy I'm gonna turn that right over to our vision was a little different I the older version where it was um a traditional specialist cycle where the students would visit once every some odd days um we're also an

082engage off unities um both after school and perhaps during the wind block or the school day so we envisioned um potentially that person a little different um maybe a later start so that they could stay after day after the school day to offer um clubs or activities um that would involve research and creativity and perhaps some stem elements um but we are looking for that that role to fill a lot of our need needs um so certainly not only promoting reading um and literacy across all disciplines but also interacting with primary sources information evaluate sources um that would be something that they would be supporting teachers in and with during the school day um so certainly some collaboration about around themes or units um and tailoring subject areas um teaching yeah that that was one

083of my questions so you could see these certified teachers they would be certified correct okay pushing into the class lower upper I mean those hours can be tough low what do you think I think that's why you're talking about a completely different hour structure and doing some stuff after school yes school hours okay gotcha okay thank you you're welcome M shilia or having these folks come in is there an opport some of our out back with the assistance of this team like you give us this 14 for 1.7 and my assumption was for us looking at it was oh we're spending 2.4 but we're saving 1.7 by bringing those 14 kids not necessarily but she say go would be to transition the students back it's not going to be right out of the gate because

084we need to build the program are we are we thinking full like what is best case scenario it depends on the individual student the conversations it's a team discussion um parents are part of that it would be U work bringing parents revisit the program tour um all of those places and then they would have to consent okay all right definitely the goal always the goal okay all right I'm gonna have Dr golovsky talk about our stem supervisors as well which this is something that has been deferred for the past uh we are we are bringing it back up again but I think there's some new uh information that could be very helpful as to why we need these positions sure um so you'll see on on the slide um and in your binder as well

085we reference um the district review that occurred um in 2019 from or 2018 rather from desie where they came out and stayed week um and in their report which was published in 2019 um I have a couple quotes there where they found um that our grammar schools were particularly thin administratively um and they thought it would be really challenging to provide staff students and families with the support they need um academically in pursuit of Excellence without those additional people um and they were a fan of the structure at the high school and recommended that we model the grammar school similarly so over time in the past few years we've added the humanity supervisor who helps oversee English and social supervisor who supports our multilingual learners but also Alo the teachers supervisor would really round out

086that comp [Music] some science support um we critical juncture here with math and science um and an exciting one at that um we've been pursuing some grants to bring on open SED is a science curriculum in the upper schools um pleased to announce um that of all of our four schools who applied were all really um strong contenders went through a series of interviews um ultimately the marsh was and the timy um has some teachers who are going to start the onboarding as well um so that's a three-year Grant process make sure implementation is strong um so it would be really critical to have someone in the buildings to provide that support and oversight um and the understand GS and tenny doing some activities this year with open sad in8 and we'll hopefully roll in

087the following year um so we're we're really excited about that um math as well it's been a little while since we spent some time looking at our curriculum um undergoing a review and streamlining um on that end too we very well aware of our students needs um and really feel like that's something both schools uh teachers administrators could benefit from next I just have a Qui question I I don't um try to think of how to say this what is the benefit to hiring or bringing on stem supervisors and what has been the benefit of bringing on the humanity supervisors because you don't I don't I don't even remember when we brought in the humanity supervisors but has there been a significant change has anything has scores testing scores changed has the productivity of student

088you know progress change I'm sure the principles could attest to this too when they come up as well um but the humanity supervisors I believe came on three years ago three years ago um so since then we went in the upper school to having um what felt to be a peace meal curriculum to highquality instructional materials um 5 through eight um so every school every teacher um has had training in those materials Implement them regularly um and we're currently undergoing a K4 review of our curriculum for ELA um in terms of civics all eth grade classes are participating in the Civics projects generation citizen PD um and each of those Humanity super visors has uh 20 to 30 depending on the building staff that they evaluate um so they do the observations and all the

089forms um and they also uh perform supervisory roles beyond that they also support um our tiered systems of support So when students um we notice maybe having some difficulty in some subject areas and teachers are a little stuck on what to do and the students don't seem to be making progress the teachers gather the data and it's very much um the humanity supervisor and the El supervisor who sit and review the data and talk about potential interventions um and advise the teacher how to to maybe seek a different route and then come back and see what if there's been any success on that end so um on that note the stem supervisor would be awesome to have as part of that support team um to help advise what's going on that way um and they've

090also been great um as a as coaches although they're supervisors and providing teachers a sounding board um and helping to oversee pacing um and use of supplementary materials when appropriate So based off of the last three years with the humanity supervisor we haven't we haven't seen any increase in our test scoring um over the past three years is that no that's not true okay so we have seen an increase in our test scores and our student progress since having that Humanity supervisor yeah we brought on the um The Benchmark testing um and then the reading support block so when the students take those Benchmark tests the humanity supervisors are the one ones that pour over those results and group the students for their support blocks and then advise the teachers on how best to direct

091the students during that time that system is entirely new okay I think one thing to add we we would not be where we are with the curriculum implementation without the supervisors as well that is not something the assistant superintendent can do in a district this size so the fact that we worked with tntp again you guys came on sort of in the middle of that process but um that was a process that the previous assistant superintendent and I started after covid uh it it is night and day where the curriculum implementation is in this district and the materials that teachers are using in the district I just I just wanted to ask those questions because I want to make sure that it's not like a micromanagement system that teachers are able to teach the way

092they teach without being yeah their instructional their instructional method and delivery is Theirs to own the materials that they use is ours right and so every everybody has their own personality in delivering that instruction um but it really uh should not be the teacher's responsibility to go and find lesson plans day-to-day and materials that's our job and I think we've provided the teachers over the past three and a half years uh an enormous amount of materials in the ELA both upper and lower member Donovan okay so I'll let talk about having an additional supervisor your question makes me think about the our literacy initiative that started what three years ago as well yeah pre right after Co right after I I I don't know if I'm getting ahead of myself but will that program continue

093U is this is all included in the budget the the focus of course okay I just it's our strategic plan so things go away n your strategic plan is right in the front of your budget book right because this all has to line up and this 100% everything that we're presenting here as well aligns with a strategic plan okay and those literacy it's all in numbers have really been pretty impressive through the last few years thank you remember Willet thank you um now at this stage these are advisories to the school district from desie um when is it going to be with teeth and enforcement or if we get any type of warning letters because with the pr I'm having is is that they give us these advisories and we already kind of know what

094we should be doing at the local level but they're not helping us in terms of the the funding um because I know with the the CTE there is an opportunity for additional grant funding to me that's in the same wheelhouse of trying to with the science technology engineering mathematics and I think to a certain extent it would add it as Steam with the Arts um to me if you have C grants targeting a school district because you see the future vocations and it's a to me it's an economic security and National Security the same thing with stem is to me it's it's a national security issue if you don't have students that are involved in science technology engineering mathematics and I'm a big advocate for the Arts as well right that's something too that there

095should be grant funding to say okay you're going to have the supervisors overseeing instruction and improving the curriculum and I know in in other school districts they have they provide kids with opportunities through nonprofit Foundation to entice the kids to do like summer programs or during school vacation weeks in the stem uh Fields um so I I think there's a disconnect of they will give us the advisory I think we're well aware of the deficiencies but they don't provide the funding to deal with the deficiencies and he did it with the CTE grants but they won't do it with the stem so that's a you know another disconnect that I'm feeling but I just wanted to add my two cents thank you okay keep going so um another bucket of um I think our last

096one here Operation Safety and Facilities so we're looking at uh again we had some Transportation support in the past um I just I I can't reiterate again just like everybody else would reiterate but to have the assistant superintendent of finance and operation be the only person in the district who works with Transportation takes phone calls and is the contact for nrt is such an incredible challenge uh when I'm also asking uh Mr golin to balance all of our $100 million budget and grants and payrolls and everything else it is um unusual that a district our size does not have support in the transportation department a neighboring town that is not that much larger than us has seven people in their transportation department just to put some context to it so again it's about how do

097we right because this is this is what I have to look at and what we have to look at is how do we run this District efficiently I can't just eliminate everybody who isn't student facing because things will not run and I know we all know that but that's another piece of this when I'm looking at trying to make this District the most efficient more efficient than it already is and so you will see that uh in there as well our Technology support staff we do have one retirement in that department we are asking for two uh Tech supports staff we are so uh under staffed in that department for the amount of devices we had I put some numbers in here that Miss Lopez gave me our director of Technology with which I thought

098was really important so you could see just how many devices are going through the hands of our staff our students uh it's it's remarkable and right now there are two support technicians in this two support technicians in this District that solely focus on devices and then we have a data you know we have other tech department staff who focus on the network who focus on the operations who focus on the data management and state reporting those are very specific skills in different areas so that's something that you will see as well and then I also have there this is also another position deferred uh I don't I I won't go through that again but I also have have the assistant superintendent of um finance and operations uh managing Transportation facilities and all finance and operations

099again as a one person uh one person Department um so that director Finance was something that was recommended several years ago we put it in the budget in 24 and 25 and it was not filled so uh something else that you'll see in your uh budget books this is something that uh was certainly uh heard uh reflected upon loud and clear to me and the team something the mayor and I have discussed as well uh we are presenting to you a reorganization not massive but enough that we feel could make a difference in the district um the reorganization of our facilities uh and maintenance areas um it would result in adding three building based custodians and two and a half maintenance staff just when you're talking about FTE districtwide the the organizational chart that you

100see um one of the things that we would really like to see come to fruition is having a full-time maintenance person in a building and not get pulled one of the things that we are experiencing is the current directors of facility is the only one when the roof leaks when I have a emergency when the boiler starts leaking uh he is pulled away for the entire day days weekends nights whenever those things happen uh and yes there are some maintenance folks who can help but now those folks get pulled from the school buildings to do any of the maintenance that was happening in the buildings and so it's a vicious cycle of the fact that I'm pulling people to do support things and now that time that that could be spending in the buildings doing

101the maintenance and upkeep gets lost and so that is something that we had some significant conversation about and the maintenance supervisors would be under the direction of the director of facilities and assistant superintendent of finance and operations and would be uh skilled unaffiliated folks so that they are also being called at different hours um they would have to have certain certifications we're considering HVAC is the most important one right now with all of the issues that we're having with Cooling Towers heating and HVAC systems uh and really having to know what the systems are in all six buildings um so that is presented there's again detail on the positions in the narrative um but again this is something that we have heard loud and clear from the community from this committee from the health task

102force um I would also say uh just to make sure that I say it out loud we did meet with the custodial Union about this restructuring uh and there obviously is some uh items here that would have to be negotiated so some of that uh is not you know done yet we're presenting ideas right now to see how folks feel about those again we have thought about it and feel that this restructuring uh would be a great start the three building ads would be the Tenny the timony and the CGS and the CGS is because we actually removed one last year um from the budget that we want to make whole so they're actually one down more than any other school and then Tenny and tenny T timony and tenny are very large and in

103the past have been asking for C additional custodians and we have not been able to put those in the budget either so it's a bit concerning because we have a very big retirement coming up and you just mentioned how that particular individual is sometimes pulled away for a day days weekends and after all the money that's been spent and thankfully we have a mayor and a council who approved the free cash allocation to kind of help our team play catchup because they let's I mean let's just call a SP a spade they've been short staff for a long time I I'm worried that we're not preparing ourselves to maintain what we've created and I don't know if there's anyone who can speak to that CU I'm I'm open to being wrong but I look at

104this and I've walked I mean you and I have walked with timoy more times than I can count like I just I don't know how you look at this and then think about all the activities that these folks are being pulled away from especially within basketball in the building or wrestling and all the other things that they're not able to do their actual job for because they're doing all the ancillary things because they're being pulled away I just I'm hoping that we can hear from someone who may be able to speak to this directly at some point not not tonight but at some point but I can I could add to that so um something that would be um also in your narrative under central office is where this is written and kind of laid

105out some of the ideas that we have is is to be creative about these new positions meaning um one of the ideas that we bandied about was do we need a night Foreman right which is the sort of the language that folks use in other school districts because our senior can't work uh a 16-hour day so how do we make sure that we have some oversighted night with somebody who can actually be uh the liaison for whoever's coming in the building something like that so those are some of the ideas that you'll see spelled out but also some of the ideas that we talked about when we met with the Union of like how could that work and what could that look like right what shifts do we need things like that and those are

106some some things that we would have to really kind of iron out together on what that would look like but we haven't lost that and you'll see a little bit of that in The Narrative of the fact that we need something a little different in that second shift um you know how do we redefine that I think that's what you're getting at I you know I'm not sure if I answered that or at least we're thinking about the same things that you just asked yeah I mean close enough for right now but I'm sure there'll be more as we get into it definitely we have the chair member Maxwell and member wette so we'll start with the vice chair and member jaago um so the organization chart looks good to me but I want to

107know if the union had input into creating this organization or did you create it and bring it to the union like were were they involved in this does does this make sense to them and is this what they think they need so we did bring it to them after we thought about it with not formal meetings so in the in the same thing same vein that member shilia just said like this is a start right this these are from conversations who can kind of see the whole district and what is happening in the district because I think one of the things that we realized when we sat down with them too is not every building knows what's happening they just know they've lost a maintenance guy for 4 days and they're not quite sure like

108the roof you know what I mean it those things are happening as well so um we absolutely uh have committed to maintaining those conversations as we go to see how this might work out uh and what sort of that flexibility is in the positions in the conversation I would just hate to agree to a budget for the maintenance I would say they were very positive when we met with them and we very you know um supportive of certainly adding some positions back and restructuring there was an understanding that they had when we met with them okay that was positive yeah I just don't want to fund something and then have them say this isn't what we want or need so I just want to make sure that they're having input into this member Maxwell um

109so what is the difference between what we have now and I I know um what do we have now for custodians this is a two-part question what do we have now for custodians versus what we're looking at so there's one less custodian at the Tenny timy and CGS than what you're looking at here so and that two the arrow that's pointing to maintenance supervisors to that's new okay so we're only bringing on one additional custodian three well per school for the Tenny timony and CGS so just one and I think that um and what do what do you do 3 three and three is that the shifts is it morning afternoon night no it's it's first shift 6 to two second shift 10 to two 2 to 10 then there's a split shift in the

110middle so how many custodians would be on at night let's say if there were nine custodians how many would be on at night five you can't that's okay with the split shift there'd be I believe five and there are four now right and it's obvious that we need a significant amount more than what we have now right to maintain what the cleaning companies have done there's also no part of gold at the end of the rainbow too so we have to find a happy medium I think the added maintenance staff dedicated to each building would be a huge help during the day being able to you know fix those things to break during the day that they can't get to when they getting pulled out of the building I think just having the dedicated staff

111would make a huge difference so if something doesn't break in their school are they reassigned to help clean the building there there's always something to do in the building these are really big buildings I just I feel like we need more custodians than what we H have or what's being offered here this is the first of many conversations okay member Willet thank you Mr chairman I need to know the historical timeline for the reductions um I've heard the mayor mention that the custodian ranks went from 70 down to 46 I want to breakdown historical breakdown of those numbers um in terms of custodians versus maintenance I need a breakdown of those numbers um just for my edification um secondly in terms of the the rental fees um I've always been an advocate for the hybrid

112approach of still having having the the high capacity hi trffic schools having some type of of cleaning apparatus from outside vendors maybe not to the comprehensive extent that we had before but we still will have gaps of um holiday vacation time uh sick leave um things that will occur and gaps between the schools I think the timy and and the Tenny to me were the most problematic schools and the the high traffic schools so I want to look at the rental fees and find if we could have some type of hybrid approach to cleaning and again I think it's a good start talking about the maintenance staff I think that's Paramount because I hear every day about uh repair deficiencies and that leads to the final comment is that I think we really do need

113to have better reporting uh to the school committee and that's an ongoing conversation and it has to be an ongoing process of reporting and not having it be just simply whistleblowers and things that materialize at the last second if it's something that needs to be addressed it should be reported to the school committee that needs to be a better uh reporting mechanism so again the timeline is again I came back to the school committee uh last January and prior to that did not serve in any elected capacity and I had to come back and clean up a major mess and I don't appreciate it secondly the rental fees if we need to increase it and talk about a hybrid approach I I'm still entertaining that because I think look at a timy and a Tenny

114uh were catastrophes um and again we are making improvements I want to say that for the record working with the mayor we are making improvements but I want I don't want this let this Fester so four years from now someone approaches me and said oh you hear about the schools again that's that's the final aspect of it is that we should have a better reporting system to to school uh committee so thank you AMT daglio thank you Mr chair um so I'm happy that the night Foreman um was put in because I know I've I've been doing my research and I've talked to you about um night shift supervisors um the thing about it is and and I know the the union rep uh President and Vice President is here I would like to have

115their take on this um opinion um I know for a fact that the timy I don't know if I can bring them up Tas because they're requesting adding three to the building I I if I recall it would request maybe two to three extra custodians if I was sitting in that meeting so they're still going to be three to short still if I'm correct from that meeting with when we went in November they requested that they needed three to maintain the building if I'm correct I'm not sure what meeting you're referring to meaning when we sat with Mr Reeves in his office it was Mr shabila okay that meeting if we recall where Ian I okay well I asked how many how many cards it would take to maintain this building additional um concernings and

116I heard three I remember that I have my notes I can bring my notes next meeting um so that's just one thing all right and I could be wrong but I heard three so we're adding three to fit we're still going to be short a certain amount um according to Mr wette um the historical uh I know they possibly have it the union will'll definitely have that because I've been asking that for several months and I haven't got the exact number but I have it in my notes somewhere I could possibly get that to you um tonight or tomorrow I just got to go through all my notes um the real big thing I have about this is the procedural part so for instance um health inspection reports will uh principes be able to receive

117their health inspection reports also will you get a copy of the uh no but it's procedural it says oversight districtwide oversight which if it is more districtwide oversight that's a question if it's in the budget I should be able to ask that question what does that mean by District oversight I think there have been many conversations about policies and procedures that would include what you're asking yeah also uh the ticket system I still don't like and it's we pay for it so I would like to know how much we're paying for that ticket system um for my opinion it doesn't work especially when the principles don't get the high priority um like situations in the school I think if a principal is running a school they should know exactly what's going on in their schools

118especially the major things so that it could go strictly to the director of facilities like I said um and then also which will go down the later road but I really would like to know who's in charge of the pestan reports for each individual schools so if the director of facilities and then these foremans and supervisors are they in charge are the principes in charge especially if we're adding night foremans which will probably be a union negotiation things correct with the shift supervisors well I would like to know what they're in charge of especially when regarding those pesent reports so before I can vote on any of that I would like to know specifically what their job descriptions are that would happen during negotiations with the custodians and obviously that would be something you guys

119would be involved in in executive sessions perfect thank you okay could to move on keep going okay because it keeps getting good okay so Capital Improvement and extraordinary maintenance this was another um topic as well in the last section of your binder uh you will see this uh information and you'll also see the details of numbers and a a detailed list of items uh that the team has put together for uh extraordinary maintenance programs and capital Improvement and the years uh FY 26 2728 by priority because of course we'd like it all done at the same time but that's not feasible either um but just for everybody's you know understanding I think there's sometimes these these terms can get tossed around and misunderstood but extraordinary maintenance are items that are part of our operating budget

120and they have a cost limit of 100 $50,000 so anything that goes over $150,000 or something that we think will go over $150,000 if we go out to bid um that is going to be shifted to the capital Improvement plan which is not part of the operating school budget that money cannot be used as part of the operating school budget so larger projects roof Replacements HVAC systems cooling towers um anything that that is over $150,000 goes on a capital Improvement plan and that is something that we have to do in conjunction with the city and all of the other departments so there's one large Capital Improvement plan that has the school department the fire department the DPW the the city hall right all of these departments and working with the mayor and the cafo uh

121that gets approved money gets uh typically bonded uh for those projects and you'll see um in your Capital Improvement so there's an fy2 if you guys wouldn't mind just looking at your um page two of your narrative so there's an fy2 uh Capital Improvement that uh I believe we're all aware of but again this is also for the public to understand that we have projects that the city has already approved money has been allocated and bids are out at this point for projects at the timy for carpet replacement we are working through uh that is going to be a a very large project uh it is the school with the most carpet uh and the most carpet that needs to be Abad and so we're going through that process now the marsh uh boilers need

122to be replaced they are on their last leg we had a really trying uh past four months or so with that that also has been um approved by the city council so there's two on here that we did just share with uh the mayor and the cafo a week and a half ago um that are somewhat urgent matters but were not part of the original fy2 24 so we're still in discussion about how to get those fixed there's an air handler at the timy that needs to be replaced and the water heaters at the CGS need to be replaced it was noted as a a board of Health concern the CGS heaters uh we really have tried um Ian knows more Mr Goin knows more of the details but uh our staff has really tried

123uh their best to do everything to try to fix that to maintain it uh to extend its life and we are out of options at this point so again we just shared those with the mayor and the cafo last week but you can see that fy2 is on a different sheet FY 26 27 and 28 start on page three go through to page five and you can see on the bottom as those who are looking at the screen can see uh these are the costs we're looking at uh for the district for Extraordinary maintenance and capital Improvement projects over the course of three years and so the the other piece to keep in mind with these projects is that for the most part these projects can't be done until the summer right and we have

124eight weeks to get it done and that's it uh just because of the enormity of it right changing carpets replacing roofs water you know um boilers things like that are going to have to be done in the summer which also is a challenge for us things have to be determined by this time of year to go out to bid and actually assure that we can get the work done in the summer and even now we're up against a timeline a little bit questions yes looking at the fy2 chart yep the water heat is were flaged it's a Board of Health concern and I noticed that that box is not checked right does that means it's not getting done in 25 so we're not sure so what I'm saying is that we tried our what we

125shared with the the the cafo and the mayor a week and a half ago was that our team has tried everything to resolve this issue and fix the problem and they're too old we just we can't fix it so we presented to them this was the first time we presented to them a week a half ago that's why it's not checked okay so at that point the fiscal year 25 CIP had already been presented approved by the council but uh nevertheless the fiscal year 26 CIP we're in the midst of preparing that imminently as part of the budget so uh that's going to definitely be well that's what I noticed that when I flipped the CGS I didn't see that in the list of items there yeah so depending on what those conversations are and

126I should have started this whole thing with uh our team is meeting with the on the mayor on a weekly basis at this point so we're able to have some of these conversations this will start shifting all right also I just kind of want to I want to call it out because this is I want people to understand what a big deal these numbers are it's you know I I actually whispered to the mayor hey good job while you were presenting because this is the first time at least in my tenure in the city since 2015 that I've seen this much of a dedication to to the schools there's a lot of projects that have just kind of been neglected because there was no money and this this is huge and the fact that there's

127a three-year plan to get caught up is amazing and that's you know kudos to the mayor and his strategic planning and I hope that we can keep up with it so we're not looking at you know a $10 million hit every year and we can be a little proactive once we get through 2018 2028 and kind of stay on top of things instead of playing catchup perpetually yeah it is kind of remarkable there were things that were on the 2016 Capital Improvement plan that we are on this piece of paper yeah that's wild so I just I think there's been a a constant you know we we ask and we understand that millions of dollars of projects can happen every year like there's an understanding of that as well that's also when you end up

128with crack boilers agreed and then you have emergency expenditures remember we left member dag thank you uh through the chair to the superintendent I know we were doing a separate discussion about the accelerated repair program and that's an ongoing process where are we in terms of the status of that application process have we received any feedback from the state and I know that could be at least three years in waiting right um so I know the dynamic of you have immediate needs that need to be addressed and the mayor is working on those immediate needs needs and then you might have a three-year waiting period and trying to reconcile that um immediate intermediate and long term yeah um so hopefully you will give an update uh to the school committee and have some feedback from

129the state on it I know we're running up against a timeline of uh deadlines right of uh with the application process for the accelerated repair program yeah Mr gsin could probably answer that better because I know that he and Mr had to reimb submit some things to see if we even qualified yeah myself and Mr stall spent most of I think Christmas Vacation um online with them going over questions of our our heating our our electrical our all our systems and then um we spent five days walking through each of the schools where we they can verify that they've taken all that information back um they have asked us for some updated information on size of our plot land Etc that we need to get to them uh before we can finalize any paperwork where

130that leads us we'll have to let you know when we get there but okay um we are deep in the process because I know in havil they were able to achieve uh 76% reimbursement from the state and again it was a threeyear waiting period and unfortunately with these programs I think one time they did a Green program I believe back in 2011 it was like $300 million imagine being able to invest in the schools of Massachusetts in a green program of $300 million they only did it one time um so in terms of Energy Efficiency I think it's kind of counterproductive at the state level when you talk about Mass Save and all the money that's going into that and you know the schools and the utility costs um to be able to upgrade our

131boilers our roofs uh insallation the windows all these factors and we're scrambling for funds and we're competing against many other districts and I think it was only one time they did a a green energy program uh affiliated with the accelerated repair program and the school um building authority um there's a disconnect on that too but I appreciate that we're applying um it's not a Panacea and I know there's a commitment from the mayor and the city council and we have limited resources and we have the cash reserves which should be dedicated to that purpose and I want to emphasize that again um but I appreciate the feedback thank you member doag the vice chair y thank you Mr chair um just quick question about uh the pocket lot lights and security cameras I know member

132wette has constantly asked if we are going to use the the the fee for parking for any of this and if so um when do we plan on starting to install them by how much first of all I should ask um Ian how much do we have in the revolving fund right now it's approximately $62,000 so 62,000 that would basically pay half of half of this right now the 120 so are we planning on using those funds for that if we can get the other 60,000 yes okay so that would be one of the um extraordinary maintenance items because it's under 120 so I forget which year I put it in there but it is in there 120 um so totally intent we need it it's just a matter of funding it okay thank you

133Vice shair um can you explain why um the fire alarms at the marsh are going to cost 300,000 versus the other schools are at 880,000 Mr gos can I believe the $300,000 worst case scenario um depending on what um right now the system we have is Obsolete and we're struggling to get all the parts to to fix it um we're hoping that we can keep the wiring and replace all the parts with new with new panels switches camera you know all we're not sure we're going to the wiring is going to be compatible going to be um good enough so we may have to replace the whole thing including the wiring so we'd have to keep the existing one up and running while we go through probably about a 4-we process of installing another one

134because we can't have a building without a fire alarm um and then once the new one is done we would switch over but why is that different than the other schools so the marsh is 300,000 and the other schools are 80 we don't believe that the wiring is going to be good enough and the the ones we're pretty sure they are yeah that's a short story remember daglio followup so now going off the vice chair's question because the wiring um how old is this wiring just like I can get more specifics on exactly difference in the wiring um but that was from the original renovation back in s 97 so the follow-up question of that is and I I know it comes down to money and I totally understand but I feel like this is

135this thing that we go down the road where the wiring doesn't work anymore and we have to install new new wiring down the road and possibly cost more money for us in the future would it be easier just to replace it with all new ring that's what I said if we have to replace all the wiring it's going to be $300,000 for each building event for the marsh is what we're talking about right now okay and I will get you more specifics because I may be using the wrong terminology but I will get you more specifics so the good news is I think we covered most of this um but challenges and considerations for this budget so we've presented some specific things to you some challenges and then I'm going to ask the principls to

136to just share their additions reductions and the wise behind it um we've already talked about the fact that the chapter 78 uh is flawed uh I think the other piece that I shared with the school committee at the last school committee meeting I will shared again now for the public but uh our foundation budget is based on October 1 enrollment period end of story there is no Second Chances there is no re-upload uh for enrollment I even asked and got a according to the regulation it's a no uh October 1 is it and as of 320 we are 110 students up in enrollment from where we were on October 1st uh that actually translates to uh about $2 million just under $2 million of uh Chapter 70 that we the students are here and we

137won't see so uh I guess we can't cry over spilled milk however just again puts it into perspective of the enrollment e flow that uh we don't have any way to receive those dollars uh and we already talked about the student Opportunity Act our non-negotiable cost increase as you'll see special education we talked about out of District right that out of District private tuition saw 14% increase and then 3.6 uh in 26 that that's incredibly challenging for us um with again no additional funds that that allows us to keep up with that pace right that increase um our collective bargaining agreements across the board are all obligated increases and then our contractual increases for transportation both regular and special education as you all are aware uh that bid came in over our cost that we

138spent in 25 um and uh we're moving forward uh that this budget contains that uh bid we haven't finished the contract for that but that's what we're going with so there's an automatic increase there in transportation again for both departments so the last piece that is uh also we've alluded to already but just to make it really clear um so the federal grants again I was hoping to get a little more um a little more indication uh by today if we were going to receive those or not um but I did not receive that uh so those two grants combined and I apologize uh there's a typo in here it's not $3.6 million the total grants are $3.6 million but the total amount of salaries is about 3.15 so there's other costs that are associated

139in those grants uh especially when it comes to private schools and what we owe the private schools with those federal grants um so we are just we're not sure and uh so that also is a huge challenge for us this year which is indicated on some of the slides uh next year yep so I cheated and I flipped through the rest of the pages to anticipate this not being a question I can't help but notice that there is a number that is conspicuously absent from this packet the city contribution number do we do we know what that is yet we do not not yet we're working on that do we have do we have a timeline do you have a like a you have a Rah ra goal there Mr Man soon as humanly possible

140oh that's not helpful great question member cilia I didn't leave it out on purpose no well I assumed not it would have been said yes we're working we're working with the city the 3.6 in the federal aid so is my assumption accurate that if the mayor gives us all the money and all this goes according to plan and then we are surprised with this and it still comes through the door we could add 3.1 whatever the number was in additional that I love that stuff yeah that's so like and I I know Pam you can smirk all you want but glass half full that that could happen yes okay thank you okay so um this just summarizes what we just said right the the significant increase we have significant increases in contracted Services which we'll

141look at on the next page uh contractual increase in transportation to the tune of about $2.5 million cbas and then our enrollment which again is about a $2 million uh amount that we will not see for the total number of students we currently have um another challenge that we're seeing and it's at the very bottom but I it shouldn't be because this is kind of a big one um but we have been uh since my tenure as superintendent one of the things that Mr golin and I have been very um cognizant of doing and this was a lot of work that we did with uh Shan Cronin who was one of the State overseers uh in the early my early tenure uh is to build the circuit breaker carry forward so that you don't spend

142it all you build it so that when you do have those hundred students that you don't project uh and don't know they're moving in you actually have funds to help alleviate those costs and we have been so fortunate to be able to do that and have worked very hard to be able to do that we are coming to a point where we don't have the same level of funds in circuit breaker to keep carrying forward so if you recall uh last year and and M uh daglio and uh member Keegan should recall in years previous we've been able to offset the next year's budget by using circuit breaker to prepay tuitions and do some of those things and we're just not going to have that level of funding where it's going to make that kind

143of a dent in the next year's budget and this is where to put in perspective a lot of my colleagues right so some of the things that we have been seeing right they haven't had the the um that fund that carry forward fund to be able to offset like we have and so you've seen budget deficits and and terrible stories about school funding over the past several years and a lot of it is due to that um there's just not that carry forward that folks have so uh I do want to say that out loud because that is really critical to what we're doing here that we're just not going to have that amount of money to just take off the top of FY 26 like we have had in the past to help offset

144that cost and we've had that for the past six years I've been superintendent which again very fortunate right um so worth saying and important to know so the next three slides are the actual money so the first one is transportation so this is Nonet I put a little tag there so you can because I just I heard somebody was going to ask me about crossing guards it's wrong what Mr Goslin there's a type oh there that's not Crossing gods that is should the transportation coordinator be uh put back in the budget oh that was so close that's why it's under transportation sorry um I will tell you cross I will tell you Crossing Gods is $120,000 and that is level funded it's not on this chart but it is $12,000 that makes sad now I

145want to just skip the slide all together that's okay I will change that and repost it my little red arrow um but anyway so the the increase that you see that final column in in non-et transportation is 2.58 uh that is again I don't think unexpected that is something that we have been talking about we knew that the transportation contract came in over from last year it was one of two bids and it was the lowest bid the next large pool of money is contracted service I believe I got this one right the my little note on the side I think is absolutely correct right Miss boac okay so the uh contracted Services is up $9 million from uh previous fy2 and so you can see there uh I just wanted to point out in

146the line where the 2.4 million is housed so you can see where that lives uh the rest of this is uh some special education tuitions so you can see uh just the difference in uh 26 out of District tuitions versus 25 is $3.6 million for the current kids that we have projected for out of district and then there are some other contracted Services by way of facilities technology and utilities everybody gets very quiet now that we're looking at numbers so the last page here is the summary of the budget so kind of what Mr uh member shabila just alluded to uh I've put a couple of scenarios on here but you'll see FY 25 to 26 and the difference in the last the far right column those are the differences between uh what we're seeing

147year toe and on the bottom in the blue is the difference between uh the adding up of the sum of those columns and then what I also did is in green on the bottom that's what it would look like if indeed we got the federal entitlement grants that are 3.15 uh million of salaries right so it would take professional salaries right off the top of that uh that's where it would come from as professional salaries I hope that makes sense and and again the other piece that this just puts it all together kind of circling back to member Keegan's question in the beginning we've added up all the pieces of why special education has gone up so much um you know going through this process but just again also perspective 53.2 million of the budget

148that we are uh presenting to you tonight is special education that doesn't mean out a district and that's all of it in District out a District transportation related Services everything $ 53.2 million 42% of the budget that is presented and this is where uh I say I made my friends in wubber that they're dealing with something very similar in the fact that those numbers are large and a large percentage of their overall uh budget not quite as big as ours because we are a large dist District um but just something to point out all the conversation we had about special education and where we land with it yeah can you real quick on this chart that was free floating in our binder can you speak to the required District contribution line Mr Goin might be

149able to and I think I just wrote all over mine yeah I've done a lot of math on mine tooo I should have brought a calculator because what are you specifically looking at member shilia so it's the required District contribution line yeah the 49 million 49 million and I I won't I won't say the number out loud but I did the math between the wish list here in the Chapter 70 to see what we would like to see from the city but what what is I guess if you could just just speak to that line because I want people to understand what that is that $49 million is required contribution from the city towards net School spending Transportation non- net would be on top of that okay so um what is it 50 what's the

150percentage um oh they don't have it broken down yeah 53% 53% yeah 53% comes from uh actually 53% sorry 58% comes from Chapter 70 uh for net School spending that just on the foundation the state sets a bare minimum that all School departments must spend on net School spending and they tell you what that bare minimum is and you're not supposed to go under it the vast majority of schools are way over that that minimum spending and that $49 million would get get them to Foundation or the bare minimum so by my math there's about a $7 million swing from what this budget requests from what the state puts at our minimum and just n that not really I mean it's it's just a little more complicated because again what you're looking at here is

151required net School spending right what we've put here is net and non-et okay does that make sense it does so when it's presented to the school committee it's one whole number I believe I we talk about operational budget so what we spend on Transportation education facilities that's operational there's another piece with the municipal chargebacks um that we report to the state that the city spends on behalf of the school department um school resource offices insurance is the big one um so that's an additional $20 million that goes towards that net School spending right so if you if you wanted a total number of net non-et and chargebacks you're going to add 20 million to that we haven't even had a conversation with the city about chargebacks but it's not money that we typically see it's

152just money that the city right for the health insurance that's been a standing arrangement for yes yeah it's it's pretty standed it not expecting any huge jumps or anything unless insurance goes through the roof we know to expect it thank you mhm okay silence all right so I'm going to have everybody jump in at this point I know we're at 8:30 so I'm going to keep track of the time when we hit 9:00 we'll stop and pause and make sure we vote to continue past 9 o' um but I'll have Miss boac just kind of quickly identify the changes at the Early Childhood Center and then the five principles will come on up so at the Early Childhood Center we are looking at reducing one integrated preschool special education teacher and one program assistant the

153needs of the students that are coming into our preschool um are more of the Intensive needs and we're not seeing the enrollment projected for the integrated preschool classroom you will also see reduction of two Pathways program assistance um these are the two kindergarten classrooms currently located at branch that will be moving to the marsh next school year and um Dr Quang had mentioned earlier that we are reducing the program assistant um support in those classrooms by one so that's why there's a reduction of two and then there is a request um as mentioned earlier as well for an evaluation team facilitator to support the work of the special edit administrator at Burch Street carry on questions this will be a standing question throughout I guess all of the conversation but I'd be curious to know

154how many of the positions that are being removed are vacant versus how many are filled the program assistant ones are vacant well but just as a standing question as we go through yeah we can definitely do that um I guess this is less of a question than more of a statement that by eliminating an integrated preschool means we're also eliminating tuitions coming in to pay for that classroom also correct because we don't have any paying students in that in those rooms that we're replacing this room with correct so we're losing money coming in yes as well as okay just wanted to make sure that I'm not crazy that that's what we're doing but also our preschool prer models have been down okay um it's not we're not losing the full capacity at this point okay

155thanks okay so I'd like to call it Mr caret just to go through if you guys turn to your methu high school tab at least you can see the narrative while he's going through the positions your first good evening uh thanks for having me up here um so I'll go through the high school's proposals um so I'll start with special education uh the the first I'll talk about is the addition of a Pathways program assistant um so essentially um our ASD uh Pathways program uh is set to um significantly increase in enrollment next year um with our projected students that are be coming up to the high school um essentially doubling uh the enrollment um uh so we are proposing that we're to add a a a program assistant for the ASD um Pathways program

156and that's not something that um you know we feel like uh needs anything more than that considering our current numbers um but with the with the program growing pretty significantly um we could definitely use the additional support of a program assistant um we are looking to add a on toone program assistant um and that's that's really um grounded in uh the the students uh specialized plan that that calls for a onetoone program assistant that we currently do not have in our uh budget allocated um we're looking to add a speech therapist uh so students uh speech and language needs have increased at the high school in the past couple of years with more students requiring Direct Services um and it is a position that um would be shared uh with other buildings um with regards

157to students in other buildings needing um uh speech services as well uh we're looking to reduce um one of our educational captionist as that student is graduating and will no longer uh need that position required moving on to um our El uh program uh so as of um June 3rd of last year we had Els um by October 1st of this school year we were we moved up to 300 Els and as of February 25th um of the school year we up to 322 Els so um we are proposing the addition of one English learn teaching position um that will allow the department to provide the recommended service minutes uh to to foundational Learners and then additionally with the um changes um to graduation competency determination um that staff member would also be able to

158uh uh co- te and and support freshman and sophomore English classes and algebra and geometry classes which are are going to be requirements for graduation and mean compeny determination for our El learners uh moving on to CTE um so you know as you guys are are I'm sure very much well aware of we're looking to secure uh chapter 74 designation um by securing the designation that that would significantly increase uh funding um to uh the school um and with that there are a couple of requirements that we need to meet to secure that chap chapter 74 uh designation uh one of them being that we do have to offer an exploratory course and then we also have to have a director or supervisor of that department um So currently um our marketing and accounting uh

159classes are um very popular uh and with the addition of exploratory it's going to result in those teachers um uh not being able to teach as many classes uh and then the same thing with our Early Education and Care um section um very high demand in terms of students wanting to take those classes uh but with the addition of exploratory uh we won't be able to offer as many sections so um that's why we're making that request there and then again our director of CTE um is a requirement of uh the chapter 74 designation and additionally some of their other responsibilities outside of obviously supervising and supporting the department uh would be to oversee and uh run the um internship externship programming and then a few additional staff that we're proposing uh we're proposing adding

160uh well one building based educator um you know these positions uh typically support um us when when staff are out on sick days personal days Andor have to attend um IEP or 504 meetings when we you know pass a certain threshold with regard ards of Staff being out of the building or in meetings uh we do have to relocate large groups of students to areas like the media center the auditorium Andor the cafeteria uh which makes um learning in those moments pretty challenging so we're hoping to add a BBE to our staff uh we currently have uh 12 bbes um uh some of the the grammar schools uh you know are right around our number in terms of BBS but we we Service uh between 6 and 800 more students and have additionally um between

16150 and 70 additional staff in the high school building um we're also looking to add a building monitor uh so obviously it's a priority of ours to make sure that our building is safe and secure um our building monitors work very hard we have three currently we're looking to add another one um to to make sure our students are where they're supposed to be our building is safe and secure checking exterior doors um supervising the hallways uh making sure that we're good and safe um but it is a very big building there's a lot going on here and an addition of a building monitor would really help us out with um making sure the building is is where we want it to be with regards to security and safety and it would also allow our

162administrators to do um some intensive work with supporting students in programming uh we're we're looking to add a nursing staff member um this is really more of like a shift um uh there there's a student coming to us next year that does require a Ono one uh nurse per their specialized plan and that that student currently gets those services at the uh grammar school so it's more of a shift uh uh from that of that that position over to the high school uh we're looking to fully fund the supervisor of physical physical education health and wellness uh that's a position that was folded last year when there was a a resignation uh there was a side letter with the with Unit B uh that that would that was hopefully be brought back this year uh

163that staff member uh doesn't just um support and and supervise uh the health Wellness PE staff at the high school but they they do it for the entire District um and they are in charge of of of over 30 staff members um Additionally the um the there's an overhaul with the curriculum uh ensuring that the um the the curriculum being taught is aligned to the Comprehensive Health uh standards um so uh right now we don't have any oversight or supervision of that um and it's left on the building principles uh to do that work um and then uh on here additionally we have uh the the addition of one program assistant for little rangers so our little rangers um uh daycare program is currently house them ATU in high school uh they're not they're not

164officially affiliated with us um they currently have two teachers and two Pas um which I would say is them operating at uh capacity um and then if there's a a teacher Andor a PA out that puts a pretty big burden on the program to make and and they are understaffed and we don't um really have the resources at the high school to provide support we do uh we make it work but um the addition of a program assistant for little ranges would would significantly help us with that um and then the two um positions that we are uh proposing to remove are um one I mentioned um and then the other one was uh math position that's current currently unfilled um that that's in um our budget as a as a position that supports uh

165supplemental classes uh which we just weren't able to fill it this year and we were able to make it work so we're proposing removing that any questions for Mr Cur Vice chair um two questions um in future um meetings can can you highlight which ones are um legally obligated um and like point out like we don't really have a choice we have to fund this as opposed to this is something that if we don't fund it we're not looking at a legal implication um that's number one and number two um is the program assistant for the little rangers paid for by the tuitions of the little rangers program or is it going to be in our operating budget from the revolving account okay yep yeah it would come from the tuitions all those tuitions have

166to be spent on that program so and it it's healthy enough that it could it could cover that okay thank you andette thank you Mr chairman do do we have a sense with the additional CTE grant funding how much with th one could potentially receive because no but I just wrote it down that that is something I need to find for our next meeting okay that how much we would receive more per student for an additional the radio the media production and then if we added more teachers they'd have a full complement of courses that would add enrollment numbers so I will get that for you okay and the exploratory Brad cast I will get you how much uh what we're presenting would increase our budget and then in terms of like enticement again I'm

167just spitballing enticement to the vote vocational school or to outside methan potentially um what is our capacity for that CTE program could we get a number on that like if we expanded if we make sure we could maybe entice students to maintain um availability to stay in methan schools versus going to another school system is that something too that we could project down the line to explore and study sort of so I'm I'm as a comprehensive High School we're not allowed to open any any CTE programs that our partner CTE school high school has they can I cannot even if they don't offer the the services like we I can offer a CTE pathway that they do not offer okay we can have an agreement about that but I can't I cannot add like automative

168I can't add a auto shop here okay or medical assisting I can't go through that process when they offer it at their school and I know there was that's my understanding I could be wrong I'll make sure that I'm not misspeaking but I'm pretty sure that that is how that works and we had a a neighboring um I think the wooder is closing down certain CTE programs is is that a possibility to explore again I'm not necessarily in favor of something but if it could be additional Monies to our district to to to explore that option with the Early Childhood because again I want to if you have a thriving program kids more than likely stay with that program and stay in methan um and I think also it benefits us as a community and

169we could obtain additional grant funding um something just just a study down the line yeah and we don't went wer is not our partner school so we don't send kids to wer okay we might have a few that are tuition out right Mr Goin but it's not our partner Technical High School okay so all right thank you you're welcome I Maxwell um so two questions is the is the building monitor uh security guard in a sense is that what we're I I guess in a sense um we use building monitor um but I mean schools have similar positions that do similar roles uh we on top of the SRO yeah no they're not they're not security officers like you're thinking at all they're they're methu Public School staff and they basically are there's tiered uh

170times that they arrive and leave the school so the schools always covered they work with the principal to actually uh make sure the hallways bathrooms under stairwells places where we might not see things with cameras that kind of stuff kids are getting to class and not in places where they shouldn't be so so they and they're monitoring the doors as well so I mean this is a Hu the footprint here is massive so we have three building monitors right now at the high school Mr KET is requesting one more you have three building monitors and how many students at the high school just under 2 I think we're at 1900 now do we have any building monitors at the elementary schools okay um and as far as the supplemental position that you said that you

171were were asking for but couldn't get filled is this still a need for that position and we're just getting rid of it we were able to uh fold and combine classes and still keep our class sizes uh in a position that um we're comfortable with um so that position isn't needed anymore yeah at the time say yeah it's not needed okay any other questions regarding the high school if not we'll move on thank you Mr thank you thank you Mr K Mr Hill you're up so the Tenny grammar school is next good evening uh appreciate the opportunity one I I'll Dive Right In uh starting first in terms of gen Ed classrooms looking at enrollment there and obviously uh anticipating keeping class sizes within uh the range that we have have worked on for so

172long uh the addition of a grade K teacher uh resulting in projected class size of 17 students trying to keep that as low as we can a reduction of one grade two teacher resulting in uh projected class size of 21 addition of one grade three teacher resulting in projected class size of 20 students a reduction in one grade four teacher resulting in the projected class size of 21 and then the addition of a grade one or grade eight teacher which would result in a projected class size of 22 so obviously trying to make maintain uh those projected class or maintain target class sizes within uh K through 8 can I just clarify something so in the grammar school uh narratives so I think if you're on the Tenny you're looking right above that each Grammer

173school this was something we did not add last year and I think it's helpful to have it in your narrative the chart above that gives the projected class sizes with what is presented here uh so you can see that so if you you know you start deleting you can just add five to like each one of those numbers every time we have to reduce a teacher um it just gives you a good perspective on what we're talking about so I apologize for that but each of the grammar schools will have that chart above uh their narratives thank you sorry Mr Hill thank you we've talked a lot about in terms of increase with specialed programming increase is one thing but also looking at this specialized needs of students that we're servicing uh so in that

174regard the addition of three program assistance to specifically with students who require the onetoone support um additional one uh occupational therapists given the increased needs for students in our substantially separate program which continues to expand and then the uh addition of an evaluation team facilitator uh to support our special ed administrator I cannot um emphasize that position enough in terms of the increase responsibility on our ours our currently just our sea in having a full-time uh evaluation team facilitator to support that individual is critical especially to building um the size of the Tenny with a number of uh increasing needs of students with specialized needs um Health Services uh we are uh anticipating a uh specific student needing uh a onetoone uh full-time nurse uh to be with that student uh the RBT support we've

175looked at uh trying to fill those positions but we're unable and thus made the decision to reduce in terms of uh the two RBT uh support staff we do have a full-time bcba who does an amazing job uh supporting uh classroom teachers and students Ela Services we've talked a lot about just in terms of the overall projection and increase of el we're right behind the high school in terms of enrollment of and identification of el students and thus would request to uh have an additional e elel teacher uh to meet the specific uh educational needs of our El students uh we've talked a lot about in terms of custodial staff the Tenny On Any Given night um is a very busy Place uh with two gyms cafeteria Auditorium um multiple events happening at any one

176time currently our custodians largely take that responsibility in terms of whether it's opening doors letting people in and out that is pulls them away from cleaning the building which is their primary responsibility so we uh are recommending the addition of one night shift custodian we've talked about the stem supervision once again I cannot in terms of role there overseeing uh particularly science and math um in a building K through 8 with a number of teachers and it's not just teachers but also uh assisting program assistants and anybody else involved um with curricular uh program delivery really important position uh Media Center We There was we've obviously had discussion regarding uh the importance of that position given the work that we've done so far uh in creating such a viable uh Library space for our students

177and then lastly the addition of a uh one bilingual secretary I continue to the uh to this day in a building that's almost 1300 students am amazed I don't quite know how our two full-time secretaries pull off what they do in terms of number of students communication we are fortunate to have uh an amazing parent leaon who assists as well in terms of um communication interpreting uh translating and helping out in the office but it's a huge responsibility on our two full-time secretaries so the the addition of adding one would be would be uh extremely helpful and I believe that is the uh extent of our proposed recommendations for the Tenny any questions from Mr Hill Maxwell um where it says the addition of the evaluation team facilitate facilitator aren't we asking for district uh

178facilitator for evaluations no and I apologize if that was confusing I was talking about that position that you would see that request in all of the schools okay so it's not one specific one per School correct you got it and I apologize because I realized when he was talking that might have been confusing but yes so that was I explained some of it Mr Hill explained some of it some of the folks might add but uh you'll see that request in each school okay um and as far as the reduction of two rbts what is an RBT and is the reduction of two RB rbts the equivalent of hiring the full-time bcba um so the RBT is a registered Behavior technician and they typically don't get paid as much as a bcba um but can

179the bcba do what the RB does yes so so the bcba supervises rbts so the rbts we were hoping to be supportive in going into classrooms helping teachers be there for the students um but we have not been able to fill those positions meaning like nobody's applying for those um so we filled it with one full-time better no so we've had the bcba permanently for several years that has been part of uh a you know a heightened requirement we have that person who does functional behavioral assessments for evaluations supports the staff and students at the ten you'll see that in all the buildings what what we're seeing is just we expanded that last year thinking the rbts would be a support for the bcba um and we just we haven't been able to fill those

180positions but there is still a need for it I would say there's still a need for it okay that's all thank you just had to make some decisions y um Mr Hill would you disagree with I would not okay um just to go over like reduction and addition of teachers like there there's a possibility like the reduction of the second grade teacher will be possibly moving up to third grade you're right so that's so every principal that does the addition and reductions are looking at current staff and where they could potentially go based on certification perfect that's just for the public because some I know last year when we did that parents would be like oh my God we're losing teachers and it's like no we're just moving them yeah at this point I think

181we're talking about shifting people yeah at this point perfect y thank you you're welcome I think that's it thank you thank you before we move on to Mr re the timy I want to I need a motion in a second to extend past nine o' second second uh motion for member Willette the second is from Member uh Vice chair Keegan all those in favor I opposed the I have it we're going past nine all right here we go Grace yourself good evening um yeah I think mine's going to be a little bit quicker I mean Mr Hill was up here and other people we're talking about some of the common positions we're going to have in each of the buildings um so just in looking at uh General Leed teachers uh we too are going

182to be asking for a kindergarten teacher um to keep our numbers down below that 20 uh student Mark um we are looking to reduce a second grade teacher but that goes to um just a shift it's not really losing a teachers that shift that we were talking about before similarly in the sixth grade and the seventh grade we're looking to reduce a teacher in the sixth grade um but that's with our bigger bubble of kids so that teacher will travel up to the seventh grade which is why we're asking for another seventh grade teacher eighth grade's a little bit different last year's budget we reduced our we normally carry six teachers per team um our numbers dictated that we could drop down to five with this class coming up we need to at least replace

183that uh to bring us back up to six U but that puts us right at 25 starting the year with 25 so we're asking for an additional eighth grade teacher to at least start the year with under 25 students so that's the general education uh scene at the timony um in special education we are looking to reduce um the choices sub separate position that we had um just in talking um with assistant superintendent boac and across the district our building programming and District programming um there's just not a need for that program anymore so we're going to reduce that position um we are however going to ask to uh ask for a lower school resource room teacher so again that potentially could be another shift the subpar position actually was it was unfilled all year

184we were unable to find somebody for that position um so we are going to see if we can shift that over to our lower school resource room we we're anticipating um 13 students with IEPs coming up from prek um and currently right now um our special education reading specialist and our first grade special education resource room teacher sort of split all of those things and just with the amount of services and complexity of services that are um special education uh reading specialist deals with on a daily basis um that's the Reas reason for the ask there um again due to an increase we we're projected to get 17 students in the pathways program um next year um so we're requesting four program assistance to cover those services for those students um that that particular program

185is one that's grown grown a lot um over the past year and a half so um the four the four program assistance would be um great to have that program is now over 60 students in our building um we do have two one-on-one program assistants that we're asking for those are for uh both medical and special education needs for those particular to students um um I'll skip the evaluation team facilitator though we would really really really that would be super helpful again to get it that programmatic piece as you know the timo's got two programs we have we have a component of the pathways program we have the choices program um you know that level of oversight that an ETF would um allow the sea to have over those programs I think would be uh

186something that's been missing for for years um so I'm excited that the possibility of maybe um securing those positions for the district um the bcba that was one that we we held in the budget we did not fill it after somebody left so I am asking that that bcba um be added again this year it's for our general education students the one bcba that we do have at the timy is for our choices students it's for our choices program only um though she does help out here and there it's supposed to be dedicated to our choices students which are about 30 students 34 students um so we have all of the others uh at the timoy um that could use that pcba support um you know the night shift custodian we've talked about um definitely

187the timo's the biggest square footage of the grammar is 225,000 square F feet um that was told to me by Bruce Stella so I'm sure that's accurate um in our building it like the T and it's used every night um and Sever and a lot all of the spaces are used um consistently so having that support would be great um and I think yeah I'm going to go with that one I have that one last um everything else I think down to the health office um that's a reduction only because it's a one-on-one nurse for a student with a medical need and that student will be going to the high school so that's the reason for that reduction there everything else is pretty much consistent with the with what the other grammar schools are asking

188for we any questions for Mr ree M shilia the bcba if Will constellations be in your school as well just the marsh even though they have some of the is it is it P different Pros so there's I know this gets really confusing too but there's a Pathways program in every school it's a it's a partial like it's a resource room pathway so the students are included into regular education but need that support um and have the the um identification yeah they students identified with autism autism and they are accessing grade level or near grade level curriculum content they're in primarily in the general education classroom require additional support to navigate social situations might need some small group support and that's different from the autism program at the marsh which is sub separate sub separate

189so our our our bcba now who works with choices supposed to work with choices only also works with the students in the pathways program and she's got she's I think I had her do a list and it's like 87 students that she's trying to work with it's a lot it's a lot for one person especially when you look at some of those uh the the complexity of some of the needs that they have I I would love to also clarify though because it if you if there's confusion I just want to make sure there's not so there's a K8 Pathways program that Miss boac just described in all four of the grammar schools there's an additional Pathways program that is subpar at the marsh that's the one we're talking about consolations I didn't when we

190talked about consolations I didn't make the separation between the programs and I thought all cons titles right all Pathways would get one and I saw this and thought Oh you're going to get a bcba from it's different he might wish that thank you good thank you all right thank you Mr ree we have one oh wait Mr ree we have questions sorry have something too have to hook yet my not we'll have member Maxwell and then my apologies yep um so with the reduction of the one to one school nurse I'm assuming because they're going to the high school is the one to one going to follow them to the high school since that was the one I think Mr correct did speak about yes that it's a swap yes so you'll see the addition

191at the high school because the student is coming from the timy so budget wise you're going to see that reduction and that addition just we're trying to make sure so if we have reductions in one school that potentially the other school may need they will just get a transfer to another school is that what we're hoping correct okay um and then the addition of the one bilingual secretary didn't you just get a bilingual secretary I did but that was that was a low lower school that was the lower school secretary position that was open the candidate happened to be bilingual ah so that's all thank you y you're welcome anybody else from Mr Reef it's not specifically for Mr ree I've noticed it at the Tenny also but this summary does not match this in

192all of the positions so there's some missing on this page okay so I just want to let you know that this is not complete I already have to edit it and repost it so I will make sure that I were there things that I didn't hit on that were on there so it's mine I did it I'm so I'm going off my narrative yeah the narrative is the The Narrative is complete but I noticed on the Tenny there was a missing position on here and I was like wait a minute what's that and then I I start again stick with the narrative for right now yep I put the slides up there just so the folks behind us and in the public could have something to look at and so I apologize for that I

193will certainly correct no worries okay thank you m thank you all right Miss Gordon hey my turn all right so we'll start with um janed at the marsh um due to our declining enrollment we will need to reduce a grade one a grade three and a grade eight teacher that still maintains the target class size for Support Services we are looking to add a risk coordinator um so a little bit of data for you from SE this past September to January in upper school there were 115 office um behavioral incidents at which 58 students were involved 21 of those students were repeat offenders meaning they were involved in more than one of those incidences in lower school we had 224 office referrals office incidences 81 students involved and 37 of those students had multiple incidences

194so we are looking for a a risk coordinator to support appropriate in school consequences and provide additional more targeted support um so to with the goal to try to keep those kids in school Under special education we are looking to move um from the program the two classrooms at bran Street to Marsh so that would be two special education teachers as part of the pathways sub separate program four program assistants and one occupational therapist coming to the marsh and we are also um looking to add due to numbers one special education teacher two program assistants and one speech and language pathologist then as Miss boac um said about the constellations and the alternative Pathways programs based on the structure we would be able to eliminate 12 program assistant positions we would um we are looking

195to reduce aota which is a um OT therapy assistance and we are looking to reduce one um resource room teacher and add in place of two program assistant ums so that we could support students um in the general education classroom and then like everybody else um requesting a stem supervisor media specialist and um bilingual secretary any questions from Miss Gordon Vice chair um I just want to make sure the math is right and um if you're take bringing two classrooms from Branch Street to the marsh um how are you reducing 12 program assistants wouldn't it only be 10 so the current classrooms that are there in K4 at the marsh plus bringing over the two M we're for a total of 12 classrooms we're reducing one program assistant from each classroom but we're only going

196to be reducing 10 from the marsh budget because the other two are over at Branch Street right now we have to we're moving them to the marsh so you see them in the marsh and then reducing are we saying different things I this this year I see those two program assistants at Branch Street not at the mar correct okay so then when I look at the marsh um when I look at the marsh budget this year it doesn't include those two program assistants from Branch Street so you're not actually reducing them from the marsh budget you're reducing them from the Branch Street current budget so Marsh itself is only actually reducing 10 positions not 12 because the other two are currently in the budget at Branch street we will examine that okay because it's 910

197and I think I get you but like I have to look get different things than just this to I totally understand what you're saying we'll make sure that everything is in the right place okay yeah cuz I just don't think the 12 positions are coming out of the marsh I think 10 positions are coming out of the marsh and two positions are coming out of the out of Branch it still adds up to 12 it's just that in the budget they're in different places got it member shilia so my my question was in the same vein goes back to what I asked you earlier if we had the five preschools with the five the five kindergartens which you have five full kindergarten classes right now and we have the extra two I guess I'm concerned

198as to how we're reducing a grade one teacher when we're bringing up two extra kindergarten classes to the marsh so the General Ed yeah so so we're looking at be full sub separate so that's not yeah so if you look at the the projected class size chart for the marsh it's set up a little differently the marsh and the CGS are set up a little different differently for their different programming so when you look in the middle um total enrollment minus the pathways kids because those students are not going to be in the mainstream classrooms on any given day full-time okay or if at all likely right so we're looking at class sizes reduced by that many kids in those grades that's the class size you're going to see in a regular classroom or a

199specialist classroom because like Miss boac said right now we don't have adapted adapted Specialists for that program they're they are going as much as they possibly can uh to the specialist classrooms when grade one has class Etc it you know sometimes it works and sometimes it it's not super successful um so they'll have when we talk about Alternative Program we're we're really going to create a situation where they're going to have their own specialist schedule their own programming their own schedule between 8 and 3 okay and my last question and probably more for you um with the addition of a Riz coordinator at the marsh does that now give us the RZ a a Riz equivalent position at each school to do the what essentially amounts to the in school suspension versus an out of

200school suspension yes because I Believe Miss proed will be asking for that as well saw that okay but yes I think both have made the case with the numbers of students they're seeing and seeing how well that's working at the other two schools there's that flip to off and I've heard that loud and clear too from many school committee members about offering having that opportunity at all four of the grammar schools for that timeout in school suspension half day when you we don't need to send kids out of the building awesome yeah thank you you're welcome any other questions from Miss Gordon yeah just a quick question I noticed that and just because they're backtack I mean um the Marsh Grammar School has 227 students with dis disabilities and the timy has 268 students with

201disabilities so I guess I'm confused on why we have so many specialists at the marsh and not more at the timony it really comes down to that specialized program the pathways program at the marsh is an intense that's a program that you would see in an out of District school that we're housing in District that is what we're talking these numbers include those pathway students yes so these numbers at the timy do not include those pathway students different programs different I understand I I know that they're different programs but there are more students at the timy with disabilities but more specialists at the marsh correct there areund next year there will be 109 students at the marsh for the pathway sub separate programming only only so you're talking about an outof District program with intense

202services for 109 students at the marsh with related service needs with behavior needs with social needs it's a different Pathways program is a is a uh social needs uh what what is the pathways program again social emotional and students with autism autism okay um okay so can I just help out a little bit the kids at the marsh are autism specific that need a program that does not integrate they don't go into the gened classroom whereas the numbers at the timy the kids with special needs could be just a person who needs reading help so the in the intensity of the kids at the marsh require all of those other Specialists whereas the kids at the timy don't have necessarily the Intensive needs that the kids at the marsh have okay any other questions from

203Miss Gordon thank you thank you thank you Miss Gordon miss pretti here I am round this out like deep breathing a couple of jumping jacks like a little reset no I was usually first I'm last this year so lucky you the and some of my friends already spoke of some of my positions so um like my colleagues there are some adjustments in enrollment um just fluctuations and we're responding to that so we have an additional kindergarten teacher we're in need of an additional kindergarten teacher which will bring us to five gened kindergarten teachers uh we'll do a reduction of two gened teachers based on enrollment so that would be grade one and grade eight um that's that's really all we have for Jen Ed at this moment based on enrollment my positions are really they

204speak to the conversation we've had tonight about the changing profile of our students so largely a lot of my positions about special education in English language Learners so uh the first position for L is uh I need two additional ESL teachers so the current numbers at the CGS I'll say current last time I looked was 176 ESL students and it's important to differentiate the ES SL students from the newcomer students so newcomer students are those that this may be their first US School experience they're in the Excel newcomer program the students that have ESL Services have acquired enough English to go into the general education classrooms but need support within the general education setting so then we look at the general education setting what supports can we give them so that they are still successful

205in the Jed in the Jed end setting those two ESL teachers excuse me sorry will help support really that general education kind of inclusive setting so that kids are integrated into the mainstream and they have that really successful um educational experience like my colleagues we are getting some additional pathway students to our our uh Pathways inclusion program so we require a PA for that we think that we can do it with a program assistant um we also need the addition of a onetoone program assistant assistant for a student that has some Sub sub substantial medical needs um the I'll skip the ETF for now um and then the night shift custodian I think Dr Quang and the team has really speak spoken at length about that we did have to reduce that position last year

206we're just looking to beh whole with that uh the other positions are are similar to my colleagues so uh we will we're asking for the ETF and I really look at that position in giving an opportunity for the SCA to do some programmatic review we haven't had that opportunity to have anybody really go into the resource rooms and kind of do some of that like are we using high quality materials what do we need differently right we haven't done that for a while so I know we're all looking forward to that uh in addition to that uh the stem supervisor would really complete like Lisa said the full complement of having supervisors and really content and curriculum Specialists to again review our high quality materials uh the media Center Specialists we're all very committed to

207that you know goal of having these beautiful libraries and have kids have books in their hands and really feel that empowerment of getting a book that they can read so we're looking forward to that and I the bilingual secretary I I can't speak to this enough the CGS has 354 L's out of a thousand students um and and all it takes is one person to be on the phone and another person to be talking for a parent to someone call me for a parent to call me and say no one's answering the phone it is it's a challenge our goal is certainly wonderful to you know we have this wonderful goal of parent engagement it's really hard when their first phone call goes unanswered so so really I I think if we're going to have

208that goal we really have to put you know the force behind it to really make sure that we're answering and responding to parents and I think that the bilingual secretary will help us do that the last two things will be a reduction in a resource room teacher um and uh reduction into program assistant for the choices program again to the comment or or to the conversation about the changing profile of our students uh we see reduction in the choices program at the CGS so we no longer need those two choices Pas um and the last thing the risk coordinator uh I to uh principal Gordon and I looked at numbers similarly of 26 repeat offender students in Middle School collectively they have already till January missed 180 days of school that's a lot of school

209so our risk Coordinator would then provide them the opportunity to have in school suspension because now when you're absent that much we're missing we have engagement issues we have content issues and we're chasing our tail so really what we'd like to do is have those in school opportunities so students if they have a disability are getting their special education need if they're chronically absent we're now tax Ling that in addition to building respons responsible students who are respectful but also building some skill gaps so we see the risk coordinator being a very influential and important uh position for us great thank you any questions for Mrs pretti mayor Maxwell um just a quick question um with the 180 days that you used as collectively um bringing in that risk Coordinator would help with in in

210school suspension um are we keeping those kids back because I mean how can they be at grade level or you know accessing everything that their peers are accessing if they are missing so many days of school and we're trying to play catchup I I think that speaks to the point right so some of them I mean 26 students if they all Miss 10 days we'd be at 260 we're not right so it's a student by student student issue but to your point we need to build skill gaps we need to build those social Relationships by having them out of school and not attending and not doing work every year they're getting further and further behind even if you miss 10 days we're not talking about staying back but you've still lost 10 days of instruction

211and they're not being held back correct not for 10 days no um we are having conversations not 10 days I just mean the kids that are actively like you know those 26 kids for instance who are missing school and it's collectively 180 days there's obviously a significant impact on their education we're not holding them back so we're just passing them along no I mean I I think those that they're all individual situations if a student has missed and they're chronically absent which would be 18 out of 180 days we're certainly having conversations and holding the policies in the handbook we're doing those things but I wouldn't say that for every student in that situation okay it it's certainly student-based so some students if there's a student in that collected data point that has 34 days

212of absence we've already T we're already talking about that but I can't say that for every student that wasn't a specific to you question I just you were the best person to answer it you're the last one so you know it wasn't specific to you I just had that question I know that we're not holding kids back and I'm like well how are they progressing I think the important thing about retention though is we have to do something different yeah right so just pressing the reset button and not building those skill gaps and not looking at what interventions we're going to do and doing something different I think the collective philosophy is if you're not going to do something different and you're going to retain that student what are you really doing right right so

213I know that our whole team subscribes to that that it would have to be something significantly different I think the goal is that we're trying to reduce and trying to be preventative and I see that risk coordinator position as looking as a preventative not reactionary if that makes sense any other questions Dan's writing a lot over there thank you Miss P okay thank you thank you all right I would just like um I don't have a slide for it because I talked about most of them in the first part of the presentation but if you turn to the central office tab there are three positions in there that are districtwide uh that were not part of any other discussion I just want to point out um on page two of that you'll see that we

214again are asking for an additional secretary for the special education office um that has been deferred since 2019 uh has never made it into the final budget uh with committee so we're looking for that again and even more so now with the increases in responsibilities with transportation and homeless transportation to boot uh it is uh a pretty massive undertaking um and then we're also asking if you call last year we did not fully fund the director of Health Services we left it in as a partial uh of that person's salary and we are paying out some stiens um Miss boac and I went back and forth about this one we feel very strongly about it partly because there's nobody in the district that that can fill this right I don't have a nursing background Miss

215boac doesn't we don't have nursing backgrounds that we can do this work to evaluate our ends evaluate a medical situation so uh we are asking to actually bring that back full funding and then we will be reducing a family engagement specialist um it's a grant funded position not a full not a 40h hour a week position um we just feel at this point that uh with the grant restraints we won't even have enough uh to carry on the contractual obligations for some of the positions we have in the grants and that was a districtwide the rest in this narrative have been described or discussed in uh other their slides previous but they're all here outlined again with the facilities and maintenance operations uh and finance office member Donovan I know we're running out of time

216um the reduction web and tech support that's the retirement yes there's a retirement uh in that department and we're looking to replace that retirement basically with the two texts okay just want to make sure okay y thank you okay now we just spent three and a half hours which is critical because I think that all of you have different feelings right now and and thoughts and Reflections about everything you just heard um and again uh I I don't want to walk into this and I know member will let you kind of started this by like we have to be real a little bit um but there's there's a balance here and I understand that uh I'm not here to bank corrupt the city nor any of you um you know I I am being very

217uh forthright in our team presenting to you what we feel our our schools need to be able to be effective productive move kids forward support our student services support our staff um but I also know that we are uh so far over in the change from last year uh and now although we don't have a target number at this point you know it's not likely to be the number we've presented to you so I'm not um you know unrealistic thinking that I would like to think that um however I'm not um so the only other thing we want to share with you tonight to give you some perspective uh and also line uh this piece up so with what we've presented tonight we're at a plus 40 FTE right so we' reduced some we've added

218some you subtract those go out and now we're at we're asking uh what was just presented to you for the past 3 and a half hours is a plus 40 right that's that's what we've done so so what I want to show you because this is just going to have us leave on this note of really thinking about what we want to do because again what we do is going to be our Collective value statement about what's important to us and so what I'm going to show you next doesn't mean it's not important but I'm this is the real part of what I'm trying to present so so I just want to show you what it looks like if we were at net zero right so so Net Zero so meaning I've got to reduce

219Now by 40 positions somewhere and and have a dollar amount attached to that so so you all uh can see what that dollar amount equals when we're talking about these positions all right you with me okay so um and this this was an activity that mostly uh a few people did and then was shared out with discussion and I know that sounds odd but these are often you know asking principles to prepare what they need and asking the directors to prepare what they need and then saying by the way tell me what you don't need is is really challenging and I the reaction from the principles when we had this conversation on Friday uh was exactly how it should have been right they were upset set and uh you know distraught that they spent all

220this time on the work and that I'm going to be presenting something that is now Net Zero I find Value in what we just did because it is critical that the people of this community and the staff and the families and all of us understand that that although I've heard the word wishlist I'm not sure that what we're asking for is a wish list I think these are many of these things and I will absolutely do that member Keegan are are required they are they're not negotiable in the Budget moving forward because they're required on students IEPs or for Service delivery there are numerous 29 of these new positions are in that category right so the they're non-negotiable when it comes to what we need for Service delivery so what we presented here is an

221opportunity to look at positions that are either new or vacant because with position positions that have people in them comes different values that we have to then add for unemployment right that's a whole another step of the process so to start this I wanted to present this again so you guys could see a number value attached to what 40 less are uh FTE look like so what's presented here the positions in each one of these areas mostly preserves class sizes or case loads there's a couple of positions that don't most mostly because the retirements again non people filled positions all right we considered positions new vacant retirement 2.2 Less in professional salaries 374,000 in other salaries and 336 in clerical that's what these positions add up to so that's $2.9 million less than what you

222saw revious so what you're looking at is this chart which is the same chart I did the first time except I backed out the 2.9 Million that you just saw on the previous Slide the blue line is what it is without the federal funding and the green line at the bottom is what it is with the federal funding so with that you can still see the difference and it reads that the difference is still 16 m657 th000 right so so I did this because I it's 9:30 there's a lot to process and there's a lot of work to be done and and hard to know what that work is too until we have a Target and so I think that that we're going to continue to work with the mayor and the cafo on the

223Target but I do think that we need to continue this conversation and get I've been writing down everything you guys just said right I say I think there the next thing right there are some asks of the committee that I think will will help I that I want to be able to find and present that could be part of our next discussion uh those to me I was hoping that we would at least walk out of here tonight with with asks so that I could bring something back to this group and that we can continue the discussion and determine next steps um so again I think that is critically important to what we just did tonight if I may so first and formost I want to acknowledge the amount of effort and time that went

224into creating this as it does every year but this year being especially chaotic Troublesome concerning whatever call it what put in there whatever you want to put in and then I also want to acknowledge the fact that what I'm about to say is going to give the mayor gray hair um and I know you and I had this conversation a couple of times sitting I already have a little bit well I'm going to give you some more but give you and I had this conversation a few times sitting at the caucus table during negotiations and I think courtesy of the narrative that I've heard um from some counselors not all in the fact that the school committee approve uh approves a sends to the council what we want for a budget and they approve it

225Paints the picture that we're asking them for something and they're giving it to us which makes us the bad guy and them the hero I understand that this is not our final budget you're right not looking to bankrupt the city and I don't think anybody in the district is how however I will 100% be a no vote on any budget that goes to the council that hands them an easy give me to say we gave the school what they want but leaves us in a position that doesn't Advance the district and that's going to cause a lot of grief for the mayor and I apologize for that UPF front but the narrative that we've asked and they have given is so patently inaccurate and loaded with ambiguity I I can't support a budget that's going

226to do that I don't know where that goes but that's that's where I'm going to be um just to go off of uh membership bilia last year I voted no on the budget because I didn't think it would fit um withu in public schools I plan on doing the same this year as well um as members shilly has said I could tell you one counselor which is has the same last name is me um I will call him out right now he always says to us you guys pass the budget and we say yes so and I've already had conversations with the mayor already about it that I'm going to vote no and I've talked to the Dr kuang that it's it's sometimes not sometimes in this world you don't need to be nice and

227you put it on this Council to vote no on our budget and then we'll come back and we will do the cuts then if we have to but put it on them to make the no I I was going to vote no on the day of the budget so if we cut anything I'm voting no thank you Mr chairman I come from a different perspective because I don't want to give a free pass at the governor because they're still in the midst of a house budget that's going to be forthcoming a senate budget a conference committee reconciliation back to the governor so at this point if you go have a party that will go before the city council that's a wasted effort if you have a party before the school committee that's a wasted effort

228what you should be doing is marshalling your resources to Beacon hell and telling your legislative delegation and again I give kudos to the state senator because he's been consistent for the last two years is of providing an amendment to benefit Gateway communities and we have a colleague from the hail school committee that he did an analysis of it's about $20 million when you don't account for inflationary measures linked to Chapter 70 that is the biggest problem right now because we wouldn't even be talking about whether the federal government's going to be providing grant funding or not is because the state is not stepping up to the plate and I can go on an individual basis and I invite teacher parent administrator uh my colleagues we all know what the situation is you have an inflationary

229uh situation that occurred starting in 2022 inflation rose up to 99.1% that is also the time frame that interest rates skyrocketed the maximum amount that could be allowed for us is 4.5% in terms to account for inflation we've been woefully below that if you look at the group insurance commission I'm glad the superintendent brought that up they do a look back period to account for inflation Chapter 70 there has not been a look at back period so we're I think we're averaging probably now 5.5 if you look at the last few years in terms of inflation the state house is not matching that in terms of Chapter 70 allocations so we can go back and forth and the taxpayers which I have an obligation to and most of the budgets I've supported over the years

230I'm not going to support a budget that's overinflated that we may no effort whatsoever as a community to approach a legislative delegation and I certainly don't want to give a free pass to the governor who is really screwed up with the utilities all she offers is tax increases the illegal alien situation I don't want to go down to that road again and she has a rainy day fund that's approaching 10 billion we did a millionaires tax that by the way 48% of residents of Massachusetts voted against so that baely passed so millionaires tax rainy day fund Sports beding casinos and part dispensaries and we're having a conversation about a budget at the local level with all the resources that Beacon help but we're going to go through the same process again and we're going to

231have all these rallies and I'll have the same conversation with people thank you Vice chair um so looking at the numbers when we look at net School spending it's it's increased by about $5 million and when I'm looking at the budget that we've where we desire we're looking at about $20 million increase um and then if we have the zero ftes we're looking at about 11 million more than net School spending um so while I can appreciate wanting to go to the city council and saying here's our budget the reality of it is is they're not going to give us $20 million above net School spending and that's reality and I wouldn't put that on the taxpayers of methan so we need to do our job and make some difficult decisions and just heading to

232the city council saying here you go say no well everybody everybody knows they're going to say no and so so we need to do the work because they're not going to be saying no until June and we need to get a budget right so we need to do our jobs this is what we're paid to do this is what we're elected to do and I think it's very irresponsible to say that we're going to go to the city council with $20 million increase we have to be really sensitive at time so we got to kind of rain it in um we wrap up I I will so uh I I've already stated some of the things for next steps continue meeting with the mayor and the cafo to determine that City contribution number um I

233will certainly Mr uh member will let I am communicating with legislators regarding the status of our funding um and then just looking for feedback and discussions with the school committee and leadership team as we schedule more of these uh meetings to talk about the budget um I do think uh I'm I'm also realistic but also want uh want the best for our students as do all of you do as well um I think the one thing that is the most stressful thing for myself and the staff sitting behind me is the timing uh that's one of the things that makes this process really uh a struggle for us is that our process has to happen and kind of be done before the state is done um and so we've always created our budget based off

234of the governor's number uh we haven't really strayed too far from that in the end uh of any budget cycle since I've been superintendent uh it's been pretty close to the the governor's budget you know maybe plus or minus a couple hundred thousand not enough to offset this um so I just want to be mindful of that again we're starting this early because of I think what we potentially could be up against or not but I think that it would be unfair to say that you know we we don't have work work to do in the coming weeks um but I would also say that I certainly appreciate and the the thoughtfulness and the reflectiveness of the school committee in that there is uh potentially a narrative and I hope uh and I appreciate members

235shabil you saying that this was different tonight because it was a ton of work but I think the the amount of um narrative and education is what we need because that's what the community needs we talk about it and I think we all still need to be educated on different parts of this as we talk about it and what that impact is on our kids on the programming and our staff and so um again I hope this is something you can kind of carry out into the public I will edit the the the presentation to make sure it is correct and posted I'll repost it corrected on any errors that might be on it um but I think it is going to be uh a lengthy process regardless of where we are at this point

236so we do have two more agenda items um three really because we have an executive session but uh if we go you know if we don't make the executive session we will have to carry it forward and that's what we'll do so at this point uh we need to select additional school committee meeting dates for Budget workshops superintendent not sure if you have anything particular in mind don't I I think that we need I I would highly recommend at least one between now and April 14th if not two I worry that April 14th and then the week after is April vacation and then we're at another workshop and then we really only have like a three-week period between that and the the so I would I would while we're still discussing and figuring out numbers

237with the city I would say one or two meetings um and I don't know if it has been announced but uh the remote and hybrid option has been extended till 2027 so that is still an option for us uh to move forward in a remote or hybrid option which might help in this situation if we have to pull together uh a session just to talk about the the budget I'm for the sake of time we could probably sometime tomorrow or something like that try to have put a couple of dates out there and just send it to everybody that's fine perfect but we also have a executive s on the 31st we could potentially just schedu a meeting after that MH certainly yeah if that works for everybody we can just put that on the

238books now and just do a workshop at six o'clock yeah that's a good idea yep let's start with that the 31st so we'll post we can post both of those at the same time executive session and then we'll come in at 6 okay great um so next on the agenda we have member Donovan uh discuss question about the masc training yeah and thank you for tasking me with this responsibility we talked I think last week started off with member daglio having additional training we agreed as a team if I remember correctly last week last time we met informally that we would um have MS masc come in and talk to us about Norms establishing perhaps a mission statement how we would deal with Communications there is a graphic organizer there's a whole packet that masc

239can share but online um our contact there says she would need about an hour and a half to two hours I know we have a lot on our plate right now but uh it's something that is a policy and we must adhere to and I think we're running out of room time so I'm just wondering what we should be doing it was suggested maybe before or in place of our April um Workshop I don't think we can do that now I know we're kind of like so what's the pleasure of the just make it happen how about if I ask masc to send us and they're in the middle of superintendent searches that they assist with so why don't I ask for some dates from them my question is would you want to do it

240before meeting like have a 4 4:30 430 start date before we could do that maybe have throw some I will I will um follow your lead and send out okay great so look for some emails that' be great thank you any other business from the committee all right at this point it is roughly 9:45 I believe so uh we're getting close do we think we'll have enough time all right so uh with no further business to discuss we need a motion in a second to adjourn uh tonight's uh open session of the school committee and enter into executive session so motion from Member Shelia the second is from member daglio pursuant to Massachusetts general laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collector bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may

241have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares I'll make that declaration now this is regarding Unit B we will not reconvene into Open session at the conclusion of the executive session we'll take a roll call vote now on entering executive session member yes member Donovan yes member Keegan yes member Maxwell yes member shilia yes member will yes mayor yes unan all right we're going a new executive session the time is roughly 9:46 p.m. open session is adjourn good night mean [Music] e e for