Salem School Committee Meeting - April 6th, 2026

001Call to order the meeting of the Salem School Committee of April 6, 2026. This meeting is taking place at 29 Highland Avenue in school committee chambers. You can also join via Zoom using the link posted in the meeting agenda. Our first order of business is approval of just want to confirm. Do we have a member participating remotely? Is member bias on? Yeah. Okay. First order is approval of the agenda. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Motion made by member Cornell, second by member Miranda. Under discussion, seeing none. All in favor? Any opposed? None opposed? The matter carries. Public comment. The Salem School Committee would like to hear from the public on issues that affect the school district and are within the scope of the committee's responsibilities. Spanish interpretation is available for anyone who needs

002it. The members of the school committee would like to remind the public that Salem public school students regularly attend school committee meetings. We encourage all meeting participants to model respectful and productive public discourse for our young learners. Start with public comment in the chambers. >> I'm going to use this tool. Do I need to give my name? >> You you don't have to. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Good evening. Um, I am a Salem public schools parent, uh, mom to a senior and a sophomore at Salem High School. I'm a geometry teacher and head teacher of the mathematics department at Salem High, and I'm a proud Salem community member and taxpayer. As a community member, I will be voting yes on the upcoming vote regarding a new building for Salem High School. I believe it is

003both important and necessary to provide our students with a learning environment that matches their potential. One that supports the high standards we expect of them not only today but for many years to come. A strong high school is foundational to a vibrant and attractive community and its success benefits us all. While I strongly support this investment, the success of Salem High School depends on more than just a new building. It depends on strong leadership. Right now in Salem, those two priorities, investment in our school and stability and leadership are deeply connected. Mr. Glenn Burns has dedicated many years to Salem Public Schools, including the past five years at Salem High School. During his tenure, he has played a central role in the school's remarkable turnaround, helping to position Salem High as one of the 57

004schools of recognition in the state, while also contributing to Salem becoming the number one academically performing public school district among mass Massachusetts gateway cities. He has led significant improvements in student achievement and driven meaningful gains in both school school culture and community pride. I also want to share additional context that might not be as well known. Mr. Burns is currently in his second year of a doctoral program in leadership at Vanderbilt University. He holds certification for superintendent lensure and has already received both formal and informal interest from both district from other districts due to the success at Salem High School. As a teacher and department head, I feel strongly that this leader has both the capacity and the drive to make a broader impact. While he remains committed to Salem, we cannot assume the commitment

005alone will be enough to keep him here without providing opportunities for growth and leadership. I urge the school committee to carefully consider the impact Mr. Burns has had, not only on Salem High School, but on the district as a whole. Many of the positive outcomes and recognitions we are seeing across the district are rooted in the progress made at Salem High. Please consider the relationships he has built with students, families, and staff, as well as his unwavering commitment to the success of every student in this community. Then ask yourselves the following. What concrete steps can be taken to retain this kind of leadership in Salem? This brings me to the broader leadership decisions currently facing the district. As superintendent, Dr. Zich accomplished a great deal during his time in Salem public schools. In particular, he

006excelled at building strong, trusting relationships with the school committee. I had the opportunity to serve on the superintendent selection committee in 2020, and I recall clearly how thoughtfully he spoke about the importance of building that strong relationship with the school committee. More importantly, he followed through on that vision over the past several years, which helped bring about positive change for the district. As you move forward in selecting the next superintendent, I encourage you to build on that foundation, but not to let it limit your perspective. After the screening committee completes its work and presents candidates, I urge you to focus on one critical area, demonstrated results. Ask candidates, what have you done in your current role to create measurable positive change? How have your leadership uh decisions improved outcomes for students? What evidence can you

007provide that your strategies are effective and sustainable? How do you build trust and accountability within a district? Our students, staff, community deserve leadership that delivers real results. I hope you will keep that at the center of your decision-making process. Thank you for your time and consideration. I'm Jamie Naven. >> Additional comment in the chambers. >> Hello, I'm Tracy Capantis, president of Ask Me Local 294. Local 294 represents all of the bus drivers, monitors, facilities employees, food and nutritional services employees, and clerical staff employed by the district. I'm here this evening to request that the FY27 budget includes custodial staff, especially a senior custodian, head cook, and food service workers for New Liberty and Salem Prep. These two schools will now be in a Salem public schools building and no longer in a rented space. I

008would also like to request a school year clerk for Collins Middle School. The school currently has approximately 750 students and one front desk clerk to handle all clerical matters for the school. These include, but are not limited to, attendance, dismissals, student, staff, and caregiver inquiries, purchasing, inventory, processing payroll for the PSRP employees, basic office tasks such as filing and troubleshooting daily issues, and they are one of the frontline employees responsible for the safety of the students, staff, and visitors within the building. Um, thank you for that. And I also just want to point out on the it was pointed out to me this evening on the agenda, it does not say that this meeting is in person or list the um address of the building or where it's being held. It was just stated that

009it was in Zoom. So just you might want to update that. Thank you. >> Any further comment in the chambers? Not is there a comment on Zoom? Please use the raise hand function if you are on Zoom and you wish to provide comment. All right. Seeing not no further comment, we'll move to approval of the consent agenda. These are the minutes of the school committee meeting of March 23rd, the minutes of the school committee workshop on April 1st and the warrants of March 19th and March 26th. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Hoffman. Under discussion, seeing none. All in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. The matter carries. Student representatives report. >> Good evening everyone. Um today will be just a very short report on what's going

010on at Salem High School and with the student advisory. Um today we had our first monthly meeting um with Miss Paulie and Miss Carboni. Um we worked on establishing elections coming up next month. So there will be a new chair elected, a new vice chair, a new secretary. Um practically all the positions will be open considering that they are currently occupied by seniors. Um we also are working on how we are going to go about um future approaches towards um getting more students to join student advisory. Um, what's also going to be discussed in the coming weeks is possibly the new project for next year as we're working on wrapping up the current project for this year, which was, if you do not recall, the um project on inclusion for incoming um students at the

011high school. Um, and regarding the um activities going on at Salem High School right now, tomorrow is the PSAT for all sophomores. Um, the SAT was last month. Um, there's also the Shell podcast that was started by two coaches at Salem High School, um, which is going really great. Um, they're currently posting on the newsletter. Um, there was also senior awards that came out, um, a few weeks ago with, um, a lot of the seniors winning AP Scholar Awards and, um, the John and Abigail Adams scholarship. And yeah, um, it's looking great. It's a very busy month and we're slowly slowly starting to kick off AP testing season as well. So very busy month coming up. Thank you. >> Member Cornell. >> Uh I don't really have a question for Cindy. I just want to

012point out that Cindy was invited by many, many excellent colleges to join them next year, but she will be participating in the honors college at UMass Amherst and going basically for free because she is an excellent representative of our student body. >> Thank you. >> So, congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Further questions, student representative? Seeing none, I'll turn it over to our new interim superintendent. Well, >> thank you. Um, good evening members of the committee and to the Salem community. Uh, I have a few brief comments before we get into tonight's main uh, agenda item, which is the proposed budget for fiscal year uh, 2027. I do want to start by thanking uh, several of our school principles and executive team members for being here tonight um, as they were all instrumental in helping us

013uh, draft tonight's budget proposal. Um I'm happy to report uh that we had a good first week in the postz era. Um we're um still standing so that's a good thing. Um and as the work uh continues I just have a few uh important updates to share before we get into uh the budget. Um so I wanted to um provide some comments around but uh the batch one registration. So early last week, we completed the first round of the registration for next year's early ed classes, which includes preK, kindergarten, and preschool. Uh batch one registrations uh notifications went out um on March 31st to families as required by the policy. Um we have uh 315 new students registered to join us in the Salem public schools and this is up from last year at the

014similar um at the same time of the year when we had uh uh children registered and the year before um we had 221. So we've seen a increase in the number of um families that are registering early. Um, in batch one, uh, it included 188 kindergarten students registered, 93 prek, which are our four-year-olds, and 34 preschool students. And I really want to give a shout out um to the strong outreach from our um, welcome center. Um, we had the early ed expo, as you know, back in January, which is, uh, you know, a a session for families to help them navigate the registration process in terms of the logistics. We followed that up with school tours at each of the elementary schools um that principles and their staff um ran throughout the um month of

015March. And then the welcome center also hosted several um outreach registration sessions out in the community. Um and our early ed itinerant team also did some ongoing outreach um at our community-based child care centers um to assist families with the registration process. So, I'm really proud of our team for extending a helping hand to families um and with a process that quite frankly can feel daunting and confusing um and for creating a sense of belonging rate from the start. Um I'm happy to report that we were able to survive um the first year of having school open on Good Friday. Again, a shout out to our school leaders and our staff for doing a really great job readying their school communities uh to manage in some places uh contact complex uh staffing and co uh

016coverage scenarios. I did visit every school on Friday to check in with principles on site um and universally things looked in really uh good order. I did uh want to mention that I I spoke to a few caregivers and for those who are watching um in terms of student absences for the religious uh observance of Good Friday um families were able to notify the school of the absence and that would be considered um an excused absence if that um is interested uh of interest to the family. Um in continuing with um some student recognitions. Um at our last meeting we celebrated the tremendous achievements of the high school boys basketball team and over the past couple of weeks um we continue to see our students excel. Um uh we had the pleasure of celebrating the

017incredible talent of our students through two district-wide musical uh showcases. Our all city uh choir and jazz band performed on March 24th and that was followed by the um all city uh band and orchestra which uh that performance was on the 27th. These musical showcases highlight not only the skill and dedication of our student musicians from grades 4 through 12, but also the strength of our music program, which is no secret districtwide. Uh we're grateful to the educators and families um for supporting this opportunity and it was really wonderful to see the students having fun and pride and just the excellence and joy that they brought to the stage on both of those nights. And that's that's it for general comments unless we want to get right into the budget. You can do that, too.

018>> All right, let's do it. >> Let's do it. All right. So Mark is going to ceue up the presentation which I think members have hard copies of. I'll get us started on the first few slides and then I'm going to turn it over to our expert um uh Miss Paulie. Um so good evening and um thank you for the opportunity to present um the FY27 budget. There's nothing like becoming interim superintendent and jumping right in. Um so here goes. Our initial proposal totals 81,755,368. Um approximately 78% of that budget is dedicated to personnel. Um which supports salaries and stipens of roughly $878 employees. and the remaining 22% is allocated to non-personnel expenses. As in recent years, this budget reflects um difficult but necessary decisions, including position reductions and the strategic use of grants and

019recurring revenue to achieve balance. Throughout developing this budget proposal, our focus has remained on preserving and prioritizing the student experience both in the positions we have added and those that we've had to reduce. This means that when faced with making reductions, we tried to make them as far away from the supports that students would experience directly. This year's process um as you all know um began earlier than usual through the discussions around elementary school reconfiguration. And while initial projections in the fall estimated a budget gap of around 4.5 million updated assumptions particularly around non-personnel costs have resulted in a smaller gap than originally anticipated. I would be remiss if I were not to highlight that both the committee and the district have taken on some major actions in previous years, this one included, that have

020led um to this budget, both strengthening our position and stabilizing our foundation. Those moves include a new teacher contract that made our teacher and paraprofessional pre pay more competitive, making reductions last year in the FY26 budget that evened out staffing to a more sustainable level, and electing to merge two smaller elementary schools for next year, which allows us to concentrate resources and save on duplicated costs, as well as moving two specialized secondary programs out of an expensive lease at the downtown mall. These important shifts have played a critical role in helping us arrive at a balanced budget amidst the challenging financial times that are being felt by districts in our local area and across the Commonwealth. Next slide, Mark, please. So as we move into the details of the budget, we always begin with our

021values because a budget of course is a value statement and ultimately a reflection of what we collectively hold as important. Belonging, equity, and opportunity sit at the center of our work and they are intentionally embedded throughout this propo proposal. You will see these values come to life in several ways. Our commitment to belonging is evident through continued efforts to build a more diverse staff, particularly through initiatives like the registered teacher apprentice program um and increased investment in student supports. Our focus on equity is evident by aligning staffing decisions with enrollment and student need. And our dedication to opportunity is evident by preserving our academic coaching model as well as expanding and increasing access to out of school um time and programming. Next slide. These four pillars I'm sure are familiar to many who are watching

022tonight and of course to members as they represent the four core buckets of our work in the 2023 26 strategic plan. And these have guided our efforts over the past several years. It was no different during this year's budget development process as we keep these in focus um as we did analysis and weighed options. Next slide. And just as a reminder, this is a our portrait of uh the graduate. It res represents our ultimate goal, our shared vision for the skills, the knowledge and dispositions that we want every student to develop. And it also serves as a key driver in the development of this budget, guiding our decisions so that our investments align with and actively support this vision for every student. Next slide. As part of this process, we established this set of budget

023priorities. They are grounded in our values and they shape directly and they were shaped directly by community voice and input through a robust engagement effort including three public forums with over 65 participants. We heard these consistent themes. the importance of maintaining reasonable elementary class sizes and ensuring equitable investment and supports for our students with the greatest needs. This budget reflects these priorities. We are keeping elementary class sizes within a 21 to 23 range which are below contractual limits. And while there are some reductions in special education and multi-learner programming, those adjustments are driven by enrollment and student need, allowing us to continue meeting demand while maintaining manageable CA case loads and access to highquality supports. Next slide. To go a little deeper into um class sizes, here's a snapshot of our projected class sizes for

024next year. We expect class sizes um at the elementary level to stay relatively consistent with those from this year. We anticipate as I said those uh average to be averages to be between 20 and 23 students um which again remains below contractual limits and is only a modest increase from this year. At the middle school level, classes are projected to average around 25. And at the high school, class sizes vary by uh course and student um choice. Um and this is an area for continue analysis to ensure that we're in balancing student choice with sustainable programming. Next slide. Um so as you know our budget starts with enrollment and enrollment is set by DESIE the department of elementary and secondary education on October 1 and what we've seen happily uh in the last uh several

025years is that our enrollment is growing. Uh last year we saw our enrollment grow and this year once again we have seen our enrollment grow over 2% over the last three years. So, I know this slide is small if you're watching on the screen, but the bar chart on the left hand side is our overall enrollment, which as of October one was 38.99. Um, I then compared, you know, what does that look like compared to the previous two years, and you can see that there's been a steady uptick over the last five, but that 2% um growth is over the last three, and it's 6% over last year. So the good news is we're adding more students to the Salem public schools and that is excellent news because that means we can serve more students

026and it adds to the vibrancy of our community. It also contributes directly to the amount of state aid we receive. So that is a really important trend and we hope to see it continue. Our enrollment though is changing and on the right hand side of this slide I've included two charts that are both in the budget book. Um the top is multilingual learner enrollment over time. And this one is always very important because equity is core to our beliefs and we welcome all comers and we're delighted to make sure we're prioritizing resources where student need is the greatest. We have seen over the last um several years our multilingual learner enrollment grow and then uh contract. So this year, as of October 1, our multilingual learner enrollment was down 4.5%. Compared to last year, but

027if we look across the last three years, it's down 8%. Um, and actually that's as of October 1. If I look March to March, it's actually down at at a higher rate. So there are fewer students in March than there were in October. Um, special education enrollment is not the same story. we are seeing growth in our special education enrollment. And so here I've um in the bottom chart I've compared our special education enrollment over the last three years and that actually has increased by 12%. So as we get deeper into the budget choices that we've presented here for your consideration tonight, I hope you'll see that we've considered both our growing enrollment and our changing enrollment. Next slide, please. So this is our um budget in a nutshell. Our FY27 U recommended budget will

028be $81,755,368. That is an increase of 4.6% over last year, which is very similar to the last two years. In fact, it it would be close to 4.8%, but we've shifted all of our hardware requests onto our capital budget. So, um our capital requests have increased somewhat and our budget will be going up hopefully by 4.6%. As Superintendent Carboni mentioned, um, our personnel is the vast majority of what we spend our resources on. This year it will be 78% and generally that ranges from 76 to 80%. Um, it will be 64,53,930 in FY27. That is a 6% increase over the current year. Our non-personnel uh expenses, which as you'll recall have been growing rapidly over the last several years, will be 22% of the general fund budget. And that will be 17,71,437.17. So, it's interesting,

029and I'll explain more about these cost drivers in a moment, but that's actually 1% lower than an FY26, which is not to suggest that our costs are going down. They're just growing at a slightly less rapid rate than they've been growing over the last several years. Included in this proposal, which you can read about in our budget book uh on the website uh if you have a hard copy here, um it does include the the budget proposal includes a reduction of 31.8 positions. Um most of those 60% come from the merger of two elementary schools. This proposal also includes new positions that we're proposing to add in FY27. So, we are proposing to add four new positions. This budget also maintains new positions that have been added to the budget since uh last spring. So,

030after the budget was approved, we've added 14 new positions. Half of those were onetoone par profofessionals to meet students needs as students moved into the district. Um, next slide, please. So, this is what our budget looks like. This is actually page 55 of the budget book. Um, I I want to note a couple of things here. Um, first our budget on the general fund is about 600 budget lines and it has just been um brought to my attention that there is an error in one of those lines which is we have erroneously um budgeted members of the PSRP unit to a clerical line in the DEIE budget. So we'll correct that for you and make sure you have the copy um a copy of the corrected version. It won't change the totals, but it'll make

031sure they're those members of the PSRP unit are budgeted to the correct line. But here you can see um all 18 of our cost centers. So those are on the left hand side. That's how we organize our budget. The schools are each a cost center. And then the departments are cost centers as well. You can see the increase um from $70 million in FY24 um to the recommended $81 million uh in FY27. That's a 16% increase and a dollar amount of 11.4 million since FY24. This year, our dollar increase is 3.5 million. That is the last number on the bottom right hand side, um which is easier to see in the budget book or online. A couple of things to note. In the final column on the right hand side, we do indicate the change

032to each cost c center's budget. If something is in parenthesis, that means it's negative. Um, and so you'll see the excuse me, the largest negative numbers here are for the Carlton Innovation School and the Salt and Stall School, which are being merged into the Sarah Parker Raymon School. Um, which looks like that is the largest increase to our budget. Um you'll note that there are some significant changes in other um cost centers including New Liberty. Um this 230,000 negative dollars is uh rent that we'll be saving from New Liberty um being in the mall once we move it to Carlton. Salem Prep uh also is no longer paying rent but the difference in salaries which had been offset to grants um masks that in this chart. Um, and then I think, oh, and then the

033last one I'd call to your attention is this negative $122,000. The second to last line for instructional technology that is moving our hardware over to um our capital requests. So you um I encourage you to spend some time with the budget book and to really spend some time on this slide and then we explain each cost center gets its own page where we explain um with narrative text some of the changes that are being made. Next slide please. So um this I want to spend a little time on the things that contribute uh to our rising costs. So the pie chart on the left hand side of this slide shows in blue the amount of our resources that go to personnel and in red the amount that goes to our non-personnel. So it's 78.22. Um

034this we've spent a lot of time talking about our rising costs in utilities in outofd district tuition and in transportation and those are continuing to be significant costs for us but as I mentioned before they are growing at a slower rate. So, for example, at the top right of this slide, I show our electricity costs from FY24 when we budgeted them at a million and FY27 when we will budget them at $1.7 million. This is about a 5% increase over last year, but last year we we reported to this body that they were going up by 30%. So a 5% increase is still significant, but it is not the same as the 30% increase we saw last year. The difference uh there we believe is the nearly $5 million that we have paired with the

035city um on to make improvements to our HVAC controls to greening our energy and to weatherizing our buildings. So we believe that is part of why we're seeing a difference in the slowing of our electricity costs. for outofd district tuition. Um this is the cost for students who go um to either a collaborative or a private special education placement outside of the Salem public schools. So the line um in red on this chart is the private uh placement tuition and the line in blue is collaborative um collaborative uh tuition costs. So it does appear as though our costs are going down and to some degree that is true if you look at what the budget was for last year. So we um project our out of district tuition based on the students who are enrolled

036who go out of district and the students who are likely to go out of district. Over the course of the year students will move out and move in. And this year we did have some um changes to both our students placements from more expensive to less expensive placements and also some uh students move out of the district or complete their time with us. That actually lowered what we anticipated spending. So our cost this year will be about $350,000 more than our actual spending, but it will be less than our budgeted spending for last year if that makes sense in out of district tuition. I would also note that we offset this outofd district um set of costs with the circuit breaker reimbursement which is a reimbursement from the state to um help districts with very

037high um individual costs for students and above a certain threshold. This year we are receiving more circuit breaker funding. So we've also been able to offset more um funding from our out of district tuition line. So, our costs aren't going down as dramatically as it appears. It's just our costs have shifted and we've gotten more reimbursement. So, that is good news um for the district um this year. Next slide, please. So, I also wanted to include regular day transportation and homeless transportation. So, when we started the budget process this year, we did start earlier and we had to make some assumptions about what our non-personnel costs were going to be. um for regular day transportation, we assumed a 26% increase when in reality it's only a 17% increase. So some of our assumptions could be

038um reduced somewhat because our costs are going up less than we projected them to increase. So um so that is our regular day transportation. And then for homeless uh transportation, last year we saw a 46% increase in our costs over the previous year and our costs are going up by 3% this year. So in the budget narrative, which is the first part of the um budget book, we shared with you that part of this is our the numbers of families experiencing homelessness is declining. Since the emergency shelter was closed at Salem State University, we have seen a decline in families experiencing homelessness. Um, some of that is because families are being sheltered elsewhere. Some of that is because families have actually found permanent housing, but we are seeing a decline in this population. So, um,

039our cost will go up by only 3% which is much slower than in previous years. Next slide please. So this uh donut is um from page 55 in the budget book. This is what our cost center. So that chart I showed you um this is what it looks like uh as a pie chart. So here are the 18 cost centers. The largest of these is Salem High School which represents 19% of the budget which is equal to what it was in FY26. Um the general fund budget for the high school in the coming year will be 15,550,335.91. This is a 7% increase above FY26. The next largest cost center is Collins Middle School, which represents 11.7% of the budget. Um and that is a significant increase over last year. But I would note that um

040this 15.9% increase reflects a couple of things. First of all, fully um allocating all of the staff that came over from Salt and Stall to Collins Middle School. Also, there are significant there was a significant increase in the number of students. So, we are offering more programs and the students who have arrived, we're grateful they're here and it has prompted us to diversify our programs, including some of our special education services. Whereas we might once have had a point 3, four or five of a person working here at Collins, now we've shifted those to 1.0's. So we have seen an increase in staffing both in the numbers of teachers that came over from Salt and Stall in the special education um services and also we've just seen some shifts in the staff who are here.

041So I think this is reflect reflective of the size of the school and the diversity of the programs. Our third largest cost center is special education, which is 10.1% of the budget this year at $8 million. Um, this budget is actually smaller than it was last year, largely driven by the outof district um, tuition costs that I just described. Next slide, please. So we often are asked about where the money goes um you know one level down from those 18 cost centers and this pie chart which is on page 58 of the budget book uh shows that there are this the 67% of the budget goes directly to the schools. So when we look at just that 67% of the budget, the allocation goes in order of size. Salem High School as the largest piece

042of the pie, then Collins Middle School, then Witchcraft, and now the new Sarah Parker Raymond. So 67% of our budget goes directly to things that are budgeted to schools, mostly people, but also non-personnel expenses. Next slide, please. Then we're asked about the other 33%. So, the other 33% of the budget that is not um budgeted to schools and this um pie chart, it looks a little different because I made it a donut instead of a pure pie, but it's on page 57 of the budget book. Um this is where we spend that other uh 33%. Um so the largest uh chunk of that of the 33% is in special education. Within the special education budget that in that's budgeted centrally there's a small number of central staff. There are um centrally budgeted teachers like teachers

043that serve um multiple schools. There is also the outofd district tuition as well as the in district and out of district transportation. um for special education students. The next largest uh cost center or expense group uh in this district-wide supports category is operations and maintenance. This includes both our facilities which includes um custodial supplies, grounds, custodians. It also includes our utilities, but it here it includes transportation as well. So the regular day transportation. So the largest part of the non-school budgets are special education followed by operations and uh and maintenance. The small blue slice at the bottom uh it may be hard to read that is regular day. Regular day is what our budget and munus calls our academics. So this is the slice of our general fund budget that funds our academics work. um

044which much of which is supported by grants. Next slide please. So um I wanted to spend a minute on the revenue that goes behind this. So many of you have you know attended uh public conversations or attended these meetings and know that a a significant portion of our budget is chapter 70. This is the state's largest um way of supporting K12 education. Um it is designed to ensure that all students receive a quality education and it is based on a formula that considers enrollment demographics and a community's ability to pay. So this year as part of our $81 million budget, 32 million of that will come from chapter 70. The next um and the largest part of our budget is the local contribution. So um the the city of Salem's local contribution this year is

045expected to be over $48 million um for that $81 million budget. We um add on to chapter 70 and the local contribution from the city of Salem using recurring revenue. So what does that mean? That means we apply the circuit breaker reimbursement that we get from the state. We keep a year in reserve as is considered best practice and we are allowed to do that and then we spend a year as we receive the money. So this year we are expecting to uh use $3.8 million of circuit breaker funds um to make our budget balance. We also use our school choice revenue um to support our early childhood programming. And we this year are expecting to spend $780 uh excuse me $768,000 um in school choice. So that's our recurring revenue. And because we get

046that every year, we plan to use that as part to cover operating expenses, which we wouldn't do if it was a one-time money. So we also have balanced this year with other offsets. So what do I mean by offsets? First, as in previous years, we plan to prepay special education tuition. So that um special education tuition for out of district students, last year we prepaid $700,000. This year we're anticipating prepaying $500,000. What that means is we'll take money from this FY26 and we will um apply it to FY27 which we are allowed to do. We also have assumed um some revenue this year from revolving accounts including our our rental uh agreements. So, we already use our short-term rentals to offset our facilities overtimeline. And this year, we are anticipating that um rental income from

047the organizations that currently lease or license space from us will subsidize um some of our some of our budget this year. And we've also assumed that um special education students who tuition into the Salem public schools um will provide some revolving revenue as well. The last thing I'll mention here, and it's I think it's an important theme when we get to position reductions and changes to our FTEEs, is we are really maximizing our grant revenue. So, Salem Public Schools aggressively pursues grants. Some of these come from the state, some of these come from the federal government, and some of these come from local private funders. So, we do have some large grants um for early literacy for CTE um that we are able to put staff salaries onto in order to fulfill the obligations of

048the grant and also um reduce the number of cuts that we had to make. So, that is our revenue. This um expense list, which is page 47 of the budget book, I won't spend too much time on because I did just walk you through some of our cost drivers. But as a reminder, our personnel costs are going up by 6%. Our regular day transportation is going up 17%. Homeless transportation three, electricity five um and so on. So our all of our expenses are going up and happily some of those expenses appear to be going up slightly um more slowly than they have in previous years. Next slide please. So, as in previous years, we are recommending some reductions as a way to balance our budget. I I can't stress enough that merging two elementary schools

049and concentrating our resources has helped us to um minimize the number of reductions that we're seeing across the board in this budget. Um we are seeing 19 positions um from the two merged schools being reduced and later in this slide deck and also in the budget book I'll list what those positions are. We are also um making some reductions in to our special education um staffing and so we are uh eliminating a vacant district-wide student nurse position. This is a person that left some time ago. We have been paying for a contract nurse out of our contracted services and so we are cutting this position from our personnel um budget. We are reducing one central office clerk who is a school year special education clerk. Um there have been workflow efficiencies realized that have you

050know shown the special education office that they they believe they can live without this position. Um there is one special education teacher who we consider to be a district-wide teacher because this person is allocated across two different schools whose role is being eliminated because it is being converted into a behavior specialist role in service to student needs. Um so those are the reductions in special education. There will be two um position reductions 2.4 four, excuse me, PO position reductions at the high school, including two teachers. There will be reductions for both districtwide and central office staff. So, districtwide, these people are assigned to do their jobs at one at two or more locations. Central is defined as people who do their job in this building. So um as part of those reductions, we are proposing

051to eliminate three family engagement facilitator positions, three multilingual coaches, a point four from the dean of innovation, and uh one director of grades 6 through 12 student supports. We are also planning to offset um positions onto grants. So, we're adding a teacher from the Sarah Parker Raymond onto grants, an ML coach onto grants. We're adding a traditional K teacher and a par profofessional um and 3.6 teachers at Salem High School. So, together these will get us to reductions of $4 million and that does include um personnel and non-personnel. So, could you go to the next slide, please? So, this is what it looks like in summary. And I didn't note the page in the um budget book where this appears, but this chart is from the budget book. So we I wanted to um there's

052often a question about when we do reductions, where are those reductions coming from? And so I broke it into school which means they're budgeted to that uh 67% of our budget that is budgeted to schools district staff which means people who are budgeted to two or more locations or central um and th those people work in the central office. So the total reductions 31.8 8 below that in the second row I show the percentage of each um category as a percentage of the cuts. So for example under central the 2.4 cuts is 8% of the 31.8. I would note that 6% of our budget is central office. So they do align somewhat with um the percentage of the budget represented by each of those categories. I wanted to show because we did try when we

053were eliminating or reducing positions to start with vacant positions and so we were able to among those 31.8 positions eliminate three. Um then another question that often comes up and I I think this is really important because this is a human enterprise and we couldn't do our work without the people in the Salem public schools. um how many people whose positions are being reduced are likely to stay and the number that we estimate out of the 31.8 is 13.8 are likely to stay and that means that 14 are likely to leave. Now that is our best guess as of now. Positions open up over the course of the over the end of the school year. So I couldn't say for certain who will stay and who will go. if someone is has professional status um

054they are you know they are owed a job um but we do as Dr. Reich has said and I'm sure uh Superintendent Carboni would say as well, we do everything we can to keep talented people in the Salem public schools. So if somebody is um a high performing employee and wants to stay, we're going to look for ways to keep them in the sale public schools. I also note on this slide that we did propose to add these four positions. We added 14 positions in FY26. So, one of the themes I think you'll see is that there has been there are reductions, but there are also shifts according to where student need is the greatest. And so, we added 14 positions uh in this fiscal year. And um we did that because that's what students

055needed um from us. So, you you could consider it that the net reductions are 13.8 eight after factoring in the new positions that are being added. Next slide, please. So then here are the changes to our FTEEs. The first slide, these are the specific positions that are being reduced and I want to just acknowledge that these positions are have many of them have people in them and um we are grateful for their service and want to be respectful um that their positions have been eliminated. All of the people holding one of these positions have been notified um by their principal or their manager um that their position is included in this list. So there should be no surprises, but nonetheless um just it naming that we want to be respectful of the people in these

056roles. On the left hand side of this slide, the 19 um positions there are positions being reduced from the merger. On the right hand side are the other school reductions including the two teachers at Selm High School and the point4 early college coordinator. Underneath that are the positions from the district-wide budget. Um those are positions that are budgeted to two or more locations and at the bottom are the central office positions. So these are also included in the budget book. Um I won't read them to you but they're in the book and also available in the slide deck. Next slide please. And this slide reflects the changes to our um FTEES which are the new positions. So um in order to maintain elementary class sizes, we are adding actually one elementary classroom teacher to two

057elementary schools. Witchcraft and Bates will both receive an additional position. One of those is a shifting position that's moving over uh to one of the schools and the other one is a new position being added. So I count that as one new person but each elementary school witchcraft and Bates will get an additional classroom teacher to maintain small class sizes. The behavior specialist position is the trade for the teacher position that is being converted into the behavior specialist role. We will add a transitional kindergarten class which will involve hiring a new teacher and a new parah. Underneath that box is the list of positions that we added in this year. So we added seven onetoone special education paraprofessionals. We added four other paraprofessionals. Um and this was I should note to the general fund. There

058were other positions added on grants including Prism, our early literacy grant, and RTAP, which is our registered teacher apprenticeship program grant. Uh these are positions added to the general fund. We added two teaching positions including one kindergarten teacher and one special education teacher and we added a hallway monitor. So these are the new positions that in the top box will go onto the general fund next year and the bottom box went onto the general fund in this fiscal year. I know that is a lot of information. I hope you will spend some time um in the budget book really um looking at how these pieces come together. Could you go to the next slide please? Um, and I want to pause there and invite Superintendent Carboni to share some uh, reflections as we um, present

059this to you. >> Great. Thanks, Elizabeth. Um, uh, so as we close, I want to underscore that this budget reflects thoughtful strategic decision makingaking in service of our students and our future. The strategic reconfiguration of the elementary school portfolio was central to our ability to present a balanced budget while minimizing disruption and preserving what matters most. I'm also encouraged that uh position reductions were fewer than initially anticipated, although no reduction is an easy one or a welcomed one. By leveraging grant funding, we were able to retain key staff and maintain continuity for students and schools. And at the same time, we are not standing still. As already mentioned, we've added 14 positions in FY26, maintaining those in this current budget and are adding four more in FY27 to ensure we are meeting student needs across

060the district. So overall, this budget reflects a careful balance of fiscal responsibility and our continued commitment to providing highquality learning experiences for every student. Next slide. I do want to just remind members of the community of upcoming opportunities to provide input and stay engaged in this process. We welcome feedback at any time at the email address that's been used throughout the process and we share all the comments um that are shared with um committee members. That's SPS budget atsalemk12.org and we will be holding a public uh hearing next Monday, April 13th at 6 pm here in the chamber. Uh and the committee is scheduled to take a final vote on the budget on Monday, April 27th at 7 pm. So we encourage your continued input and participation as we move forward with finalizing this important

061piece of work. >> All right. Thank you. Uh I will open up to committee members that may have questions on the presentation. Member Miranda Um Cindy, >> sorry, it was just very quick feedback. Um I was looking through the positions that are being cut for next year's um budget and I noticed that it was multiple ML coach positions being cut. Um I understand the thought process regarding that decision and I fully respect that. However, there is a great many students in the Salem district who require the additional support of having an ML coach. And with my understanding seeing that there will only be a limited position of an ML coach, I what I'm getting is that there won't be an ML coach for every school. I'm assuming um I myself am multilingual. I English is

062not my first language. Um my brother is multilingual. he was in an EL uh in an EL class from third grade to fifth grade. Um so I'm speaking from experience. I feel that EL coaches are very valuable to the students considering again how many just how many students do speak a foreign language or really just any language that is not English and require that additional support. I also feel that especially at the high school with what I've noticed myself, the EL coaches are extremely involved in the students and they take on projects like the biiteracy test, the stamp test. Those are all jobs that the EL coaches do out of their own valition of desire to help out the students. And I feel that in taking away that position that is going to leave a

063lot of gaps in the necessary help that a lot of the ML students will be needing especially in the upcoming years as well. >> I can just say thank you Cindy. I think those are really thoughtful and insightful um comments and I don't disagree with um what you said. I myself am a huge fan of the coaching model having launched that um in the district and the coaches do play important roles um in in the district. Um the coach role does tend to be you know especially with the ML um coaching role a little further from the student experience as you said they are coordinating the stamp testing the seal of literacy um the access testing which can be um you know uh complicated and timeconuming to um to uh organize. So we are going

064to have to be really thoughtful about how we redistribute that work. We are maintaining one of the um one of the uh ML coaches to support the expansion of the dual language uh program. So one of the coaches will be working uh here at Collins and um at Bentley. Um currently each school does not currently have a singular uh uh coach ML coach. So they've been shared across um the schools for for a few years um here. So um you know you do raise some really important um thoughts um and that you know we are going to have to be strategic. some of the workload is going to have to be assumed by the central office ML um director um who can do some of this work also and we'll have to um you know

065figure out that distribution but thank you for raising that did you want to add the only thing I would add to that is I I did um go through that quickly so thank you for flagging that we are committed to our coaching model and so looking at ways to make sure that our coaches are able to support all students and that we're embedding the work um across our all of our faculty, all of our central office so that we're able to meet the needs of all of our students. >> Miranda, >> thank you so much and thank you for your comments, Cindy. Um I just wanted to ask I didn't see per pupil uh spending kind of listed out on here. Um, and I was just looking back at some data that we had received,

066uh, back in November, um, which I can forward the email to you, but I'm hoping that at some point it's not in the presentation. Is that correct, Elizabeth? >> That is correct. We did, the only place where that appears is in the elementary schools. We did try to adjust the non-personnel spending using more of a a per pupil formula which we're piloting this year but we did not include in this presentation but would be glad to provide the committee and the community the um per pupil spending by school um if that would be of interest. >> I would love to see that. Um, and then also if it's possible just to to get a a better understanding for myself and then also for members of the public, a better understanding of how each school's budget

067is determined. So maybe if it's if the way that it's determined by the district is by breaking it down to, you know, different student needs, as an example, like students with disabilities or or what have you. Um, I'd be curious to see some of that >> and and I'd be happy to provide that information. I would say in brief and then I'll respond more fully. Um, as a follow-up, when we look at um staffing, it is based on the students in that building. And so when we see a shift like for example witchcraft and baits, they'll have large class sizes. We need to add another class. We needed to add a special education classroom this year to maintain uh manageable case loads. So the staffing is based on the students and the programs in the

068building. The non-personnel until now has been mostly and I would say this is not I would say this has been a weakness um of our budgeting process has been mostly a roll forward of what they had in the previous year. So this year we really did um try and you'll see for example the Bates uh non-personnel um budget goes up um because they are a large school and their non-personnel expenses were very low in the previous years. So we have attempted to pilot a a formula that accounts for um the students in the building in our non-personnel um staffing but happy or non-personnel budget. Happy to provide more information. >> Great. Thank you. Any further questions from committee members member Cornell? >> Um I always think it's important to note for the public that while

069personnel is 78% of the budget as it should be. Um it also doesn't account for I believe the 8% increase in health insurance qu costs um which is on the city side of the ledger. So, um, when we're thinking about the city's appropriation, it is actually much greater than that 4 and a.5% increase. Um, I also appreciate having the breakdown of positions versus human beings. Um, because as you said, this is about people. We're we're we need to be sensitive to um, you know, people's dedication and their livelihoods and their the important role that they play with our students. So, I appreciate that breakdown of trying to eliminate positions that don't also subsequently um mean that folks are leaving the district. >> Um slowing of the electricity costs because of upgrades and investments that we

070continue to make in our infrastructure. I think I think that it's important to note that you have been really instrumental in making sure that those upgrades and improvements happen so that we can make you know chip away at those electricity costs. I am interested to know sort of what percent of that um you know 1 million 1.7 million electricity bill comes from Salem High School. Um, so it'd be interesting to kind of see the breakdown because I I'm I'd like to see what the breakdown is for those schools that that were really investing investing in our infrastructure versus the places like a Salem High where we're we've got double the amount of space than we, you know, than we need. Um, what that is costing us. Um so I do have um one I think

071I just have one question which is uh do you does this anticipate or that's this is my second question. Do you does this account for an expect expected increase in enrollment at Collins Middle School? Um because I know the enrollment it's it was pretty minor. rate went up a little bit, but um just given um how well the school is doing and the commitment that people have in in the new programs there. Um and you know, it's just it's I can anticipate that we might have a larger student enrollment there. So, I'm just wondering if that's factored in. >> I hope that we do and no, it is not. Okay. >> So, what we what we do for our projections is we roll everybody forward. So we assume a zero loss which in some ways

072is accounting for what may be an increase of kids coming back because we know some kids will leave but we haven't attempted to project the number of kids that will recruit back um to the to the schools. We do we have as you know the 14 positions we added this year as we need to we add positions so that we can serve kids. So if um if we've underestimated you know we'll have to we'll have to look at that. Um I thank you for raising the city's contribution in the budget book. I note but I did not in the presentation note that our the health insurance costs for our employees are not included in our general fund appropriation nor are our capital requests. So there is a significant investment by the city above and beyond

073this general fund um investment. So thank you. >> Any other questions? Um, so I I have a few questions very very brief and I'll also add that you know in addition to the health insurance costs and the this year's capital it's the debt payments for previous year's capital is also not reflected in this but our investment in our schools that we're continuing to make in the buildings as well. um on the uh the data that you showed around changes to the um ML enrollment over time going down by 8%. That's down also from a the year before was also a decline from the from three years prior. >> Right. So it's three this year we're down 4.5% but when I look over three years it's 8%. >> Um so my my question and this is

074something you can get back on I guess is is that comparable to what other similar districts are seeing around Massachusetts or the statewide numbers? So the state has seen a significant decline in lowincome students. Actually the state has seen a significant decline in students period. Um there are fewer lowincome students. It is it is sort a more mixed story with um multilingual learners. Um some of the gateway cities are starting to see significant changes plus or minus. Um I do think Yes. I'll stop there. Um yes. Okay. Um, I'll just note the slide deck that was I think provided the school committee members did not have the cost drivers on transportation. So that was >> goodness apolog if that could be forwarded that would be >> very helpful. Um, and then I think um the

075the FTE changes the transitional kindergarten and parent professional positions. Which school are those being added to? >> Uh, they're going to go to Beats. And those are will be funded via a grant. >> Okay. The only questions I have. >> Oh, >> yes. >> Remember Miranda? >> Miranda. >> Um, sorry, I forgot to add this part. Um, just wondering if you can speak to the loss of family engagement facilitators. Um, I know that we've talked about uh similar to the to what was raised by Cindy around um the ML coaches. is I know we've talked about um the benefits of of having um these folks engaging um in the deep way that they are with our community. So just wondering like how do we plan to uh kind of fill that gap? >> Yeah, I

076think it's an excellent question because u partnership with community is core to who we are and who we strive to be. I would I would suggest and I would invite um Superintendent Carboni to weigh in as well. I would suggest that when between FY25 and FY26 when we went from eight family engagement facilitators to five, that actually was the most significant cut. And the reason for that was because that meant that schools didn't have a full-time facilitator. And because of the nature of the tasks that they were doing, um, schools have had to find this year a way of doing those tasks. So, in some ways, I think the schools have already felt the loss of the family engagement facilitators. Um, now I think I think we would all agree that the work that family

077engagement facilitators do should be owned by every educator. So building strong relationships with families, building relationships with community. I I think we also have to figure out who's going to pick up the tasks around attendance and calling families. And I think that is still in front of us. But um the because we this year especially, we're trying to minimize reductions and minimize reductions of student facing positions given the change we made last year. for better or for worse. Um these positions were not as student-f facing um as some of the other positions that we we might have looked at. So our plan for now is to go from five family engagement facilitators to two. Uh the two will staff the welcome center. So maintaining you know that as an access point and partnership point um

078for families be resources to the schools particularly at busy times but we still have to think through you know what that looks like. The other thing to note is we do have a family engagement program the parent child plus partnership. The um manager of that program is retiring. So, we will be posting for that position and it may be that one of the thefts whose position is being eliminated may apply for and may receive that position. In which case, I think we'll have an opportunity to both have a bilingual person in that position and um pair that early childhood family engagement with the um the prek through 12 in the Salem public schools family engagement. So, I think it will look different. I think it will call upon school-based people to think differently about those

079tasks and also the holding of those relationships. Um but that's some of the thinking that went into it and I don't know um if you'd like to add anything. >> Yeah, I think you covered it all. I mean I know that Dr. Reich spoke about this pretty openly at the last meeting that um you know there are some unintended consequ you know impacts of these positions um that um you know that this is the person that does family engagement in the school when it really is families want to engage with their teacher uh their child's teacher um and so um you know that's some of the and and we've built capacity we have Limebridge in in our schools where teachers have access to um interpretation services in a way that we hadn't had before. Um

080but we do love the people in these positions and so we want to find ways and a landing space for them. Um we've had conversations with principles around and I I you know agree with um what was previously said about this has been a transition year of not having those staff in the schools um full-time. So there's already been sort of a transition of how do we uh you know absorb some of the um some of the responsibilities. We did huddle with the elementary principles last week to talk about um one of the biggest um areas of need, not the only one, but a big one was managing the um the school tours during um March where lots of families are coming in and out of the building and the thefts were really instrumental in

081that. I think we can strategize around that how to do that in a more strategic and thoughtful way um with the with the principles. Um so that's what I would add. May I add one thing? Um at our our uh community forums, we were asked about how families could give input and we did share the uh SPS budget at salemk12.org. But I wanted to note that at the public budget hearing um community members can uh give comment and share feedback with the school committee. So there were just some questions about how to do that and I would say come to the meeting and offer public comment. >> Thanks. >> Member Cornell. I just want to also suggest because we do talk about this every year that um I think we haven't had a a sort

082of audit of like central office positions in the time in the four years that I've been on school committee. And I do think that that is something that we should engage in as a district to kind of do our due diligence to to get a third party auditor to come in and have a conversation with us about all of our positions. um you know, school committee members are not equipped to analyze that sort of thing. U that strictly comes from usually the superintendent. And so I I'd just like to suggest that over the course of the next, you know, few months before we engage in our, you know, our next budget process that we maybe um devote some resources to engaging a third party auditor just so we can speak to the public. Also, everybody

083always asks that question. What about what about the central office? Um, and I'd like to be able to answer it in a really objective way and know that I've, you know, we've all put in the work that we need to put in in order to to um speak to the public from a place of understanding. >> And there is on page 53 there is a high level, but I agree that it doesn't it doesn't do the thing you're thinking of, but it does list uh the number and percent of central office staff by department. I forgot one question because you did note that if we're talking about like percentages of, you know, the three sort of um we've got the central office, the um >> district and and school folks. So, I would like to

084see the percentage of each of those. You said you you said like it's sort of this is six makes up six% of the budget and so what I can't I can't exactly remember how you worded it but I would love to see those the breakdowns for those three >> Yep. >> categories. >> Um some of that information is on page 53 but I will get you that information. Uh and just to follow up on that, the what you shared in terms of the presentation as far as the percentage of the uh reductions by district, central office and schoolbased relative to their share of the overall budget is based on the total reductions, not based on the net reductions adding in those the 14 >> based on the total reductions >> because all the net position

085all the positions that were added in FY26 and are proposed to be added for FY27 are all schoolbased. None of them are central office or district. >> Uh none of them are central office and I don't think any of them are district. I think they are all school based. >> Any further questions? Seeing none. >> See you at the public hearing. Do you have any further updates in the superintendent report? >> Uh no. >> No. Okay. Uh, is there a finance and operations report? >> Oh, I did have I did have something about the building. >> Okay. >> Yes. So, I did want to just we don't have a letter that we meant to put in there, but I can just give a verbal update. So, we did have the gathering on March 29th at

086the high school, which was the um open house, um where members of the building committee presented to community members about the building project, including information about the current condition of the uh facility. Um facts about the projected costs um of the project were detailed as were costs related to bringing the building to code which would need to happen if a new building were not um built. And uh thanks to all of the building committee and school committee members who supported this event and to community members who came out. I would say there was about what 30 would you say 30 members of the community >> the presentation? Yeah. >> 30 40 >> 30 to 40. Yeah. Uh so I thought that was a great uh turnout. Um slides from the presentation can be located on

087the district's web page um through the building project quick link that's on the homepage. I did want to uh note for members who are here in the audience and people who are watching, there are two more follow-up presentations about the high school building project that are scheduled in advance of the May 5th vote. Um, and so one is tomorrow night for the Collins Middle School community of uh families and staff. That will be held at six o'clock in the Collins Middle School library. And a session for all Salem Public School staff will be h held via a webinar uh remotely April 14th at 3:45. And the parent square on this um invitation is scheduled to go out tomorrow to all staff. >> That's it. Um, so I'll just to add to that, we have um

088there's additional public presentations coming up for several um neighborhood associations as well. And I want to thank the Salem High School students who led the tours at the open house. Um we probably had another >> the the presentation that took place on Sunday will be available on YouTube next week. So >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> This coming week. So >> excellent. So, we had pro we had uh um a number of people come for the tours who didn't make the presentation, but um my thanks to the high school students who led those tours through the building. Um and to SATV for filming the the presentation and uh as was mentioned, it'll be available on the website for folks who aren't able to get to one of these road show presentations. You can watch it um

089online as well. And there is a link on the building committee website to submit questions. If you have a question that's not addressed in the presentation, uh you can just click on contact contact us on the um salemma.gov/salem high school page and submit your question and we will get back to you. Um okay finance update besides the budget? >> No no updates. >> Okay. Subcommittee reports. Oh, did you have anything further? Sorry. >> Me? No, no, just just an itch. Okay. >> Subcommittee reports. Amber Hoffman, >> I have a report from the ad hoc. We met last uh our last meeting was March 25th and we worked on the applications for the applicants to fill out for the superintendent screening committee. The deadline was today. We briefly discussed how many members and composition of to

090be determined at the April 9th ad hoc meeting where we will be selecting from the community members that submitted the forms online. Um, I just want to remind the community that there's a community survey still up on the Salem K through2 website. So, please take the moment to fill that out. And I wanted to mention that the Collins Center had um told us that this was the first time in 17 years that they'd had a posting that had been translated in other languages. So, I thought that was pretty cool. >> Yeah. Salemk12.org/ /arch for the survey. When does that When is the survey closed? >> What's that? >> When is the How much longer is the survey up? >> How long is the survey out? Yeah, >> that I'm not sure. >> Is it Wednesday

091this week? I think maybe. >> Yeah. >> I put it in my update yesterday, so I'm just >> It's Wednesday. >> It is Wednesday. >> Yep. Member Miranda. I just wanted to ask, I noticed when I tried to click on the link just now that it says no longer accepting responses and I don't know that we put when we put it out that we had I don't see a specific time. Um and so I was just wondering if you had an idea of what that was about. Do you know why? >> Why there? >> Okay. Um that's a that is a concern for me. Um I was hoping that people would be able to have until the end of today since um that is the listed deadline. Um but I don't I have no idea

092how many responses we've had up until today. >> Is this sorry for the screening committee application or for the survey? For the screening committee application. >> Yes, exactly. >> Right. We can check that link if we if we if it's not been active then we can extend maybe the application by >> like a day or two. Yeah. Um and then AJ, may I add something real quick? >> AJ, >> can I add something? >> Um I just wanted to say we have a meeting on Thursday. um the ad hoc committee um and AJ Hoffman, myself and and Yamaly Bayas are on that committee. Um and that is executive session. Is that an executive session? Okay. Um but just wanted to let the public know. Um, and then I my understanding is in that meeting we

093would be combing through all of the responses uh for the people that applied to be on the screening committee um and then choosing um choosing that screening committee and presenting it to the full body. >> Thank you very much. Any further subcommittee reports? >> Yep. Um I I wonder member Miranda um if you want to share an update from the buildings and grounds um meeting uh we recently met to talk about declaring surplus spaces. I didn't even think about the fact that Yamaly wasn't here so I didn't um like prepare I didn't prepare a statement. Um so I'm like very on the spot right now just kind of like racking my brain. Do you want >> while while you do that? Um I I wanted to flag for the committee that the buildings and grounds

094subcommittee met last week. Um and we met to review a a request that the staff is bringing to the committee for your consideration to declare um the spaces that we currently lease or license within our buildings to declare those spaces surplus. The reason to do that is because if we are going to go out put out an RFP to renew those leases and licenses, um we have three and two of the three are expired. So if we want to renew them, we have to put out an RFP. And if we want to put out an RFP, we have to declare the spaces as surplus before we can um put out the RFP. the so because the school committee asked the buildings and grounds committee to attend to and stay close to our leases and licenses.

095We had a conversation last week. Um, and I let the committee know that we have to do this in order to go out for an RFP and that by declaring these spaces surplus and the spaces are the space upstairs occupied by the Boys and Girls Club, the space at Horus Man occupied by Pathways and the space at the high school occupied by Angela's um child care. By declaring those surplus, we can go out and um solicit tenants which may be the tenants in those spaces. This is not about evicting those people. This is about updating our agreements with them. Um we don't have to. So if the day ever came that we needed the space, we wouldn't have to continue leasing it out just because it was declared surplus. So that is what we talked

096about last week and um I don't know if you want to add anything. Yes, >> memory. >> Thank you. I feel like that was a million years ago. Um, yes, just wanted to add that the buildings and ground subcommittee uh may would like to make a recommendation. It was so decided in that meeting uh that the full body um uh declare the spaces as surplus. Now, that is something that we were voting on tonight, right? I saw that on the agenda. Okay. Um, so that was the buildings and grounds recommendation. >> Any further subcommittee reports? >> Seeing none. Motions and resolutions declaring spaces as surplus at Collins Middle School, Salem High School and Horus Man Laboratory School. >> Motion to approve as presented. >> Second. >> Motion made by member Miranda, second by member Cornell.

097Under discussion. Seeing no discussion. All in favor the motion. Any opposed? >> None opposed. The matter carries unanimous. >> Member Cornell. >> I was waiting for you to get to the next thing. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Good. Sorry. >> I did not I did not take notes on newsletter items yet because it's just the presentation and we haven't asked a lot of follow-up questions. So, I'm just going to save newsletter items for our next full meeting. >> Any announcements from committee members? >> Member Miranda? >> Announcement was just going to encourage people as a last push um to apply to be on the screening committee, but since that link, and I haven't tried it again since then, um but since that link uh was not working, um I would just ask people to keep

098their um keep their eyes and ears open. Um, and if there was like some error, I I think um it would be appropriate for us to extend it for one more day. Um, and yeah, that's all. So, just keep a lookout for that. >> Was that application closing today? That one? >> Yes. >> Okay. That might be why it's down is if it ended at a certain time today. >> We didn't have a certain time listed. >> Hey, Cindy. Um, I just wanted to add to that because I just checked the email that Mr. Burns sent out for the students and he listed the deadline as today. >> So, it it probably was today and that's probably why it closed, but I'm with you on the fact that it should probably stay open for a

099couple more days. >> Any further announcements from community members? Member Hoffman. >> Uh, Saturday is Nagley's Red Party. It's the biggest um fundraiser they do for the for the year and it supports our LGBTQ youth. Um so if you there's a online um auction that you can do or get a ticket, come party with us. It's super fun. It's at the um Colonial at the Rockefellers, the second floor. Super fun. Uh, I I'll make a plug for the Collins Middle School production of James and the Giant Peach on uh on Thursday and Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. Go on to the school's website for details and to get your tickets because it's going to be a great show. Any final motions? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> You forget. >> I forgot what it was called.

100>> I'll second. >> Motion member Cornell. Second by member Miranda. Under discussion, seeing none. All in favor? Any oppose? None. The matter carries. We're adjourned. Thank you everyone.