Salem School Committee Meeting - November 3rd, 2025

001live at 7 p.m. This meeting is taking place in person at 29 Highland Avenue, room 227 in Salem. You can also join via Zoom using the me the link posted in the meeting agenda. Uh first order of business is approval of the agenda. >> Move to approve the regular school committee agenda. >> A second motion made by member Cruz, seconded by member Miranda. All in favor? Any opposed? Seeing none, 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 it. 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

002participants to model respectful and productive public discourse for our young learners. Public comment in the chambers. Please, you can approach the uh podium if you wish. Public comment on Zoom. >> Do not see any hands raised. >> Raise your hands. >> There's >> Oh, come on. >> You can you can use the um the part. Yeah, >> there's an actual volume. >> Yeah. Sorry. [laughter] >> Um hi. Okay. Uh good evening. So, I wrote some things down. I don't know how much time I have. Probably like a minute or two. >> Yep. It's a three minute limit. >> Understand? Um, so my name is S Maria. Um, some of you know me. I see a lot of familiar faces here. Um, and I'm an alumni of Salem public schools. Um, I attended Harest Man back

003when it was on Lafayette. Um, sorry, Luring A, right? Luring a yes and Collins Salem High School. Um, I have three children who all attended Salem schools for the majority of their education thus far. Um, my oldest is at Salem Academy due to some personal situations. Um so two of my children are currently Salem public school students and um they both have IEPs and I feel that um you know it's important for uh children to have stability. Um and I think that uh you know changes have happened in our district before and you know there are certain trends that I'm noticing now more than ever. Um, I think Salem in general has become less of a family-friendly environment. Um, I know I did get your email, Dr. Z, about um, you know, the whole UNICEF

004designation. Um, I don't know if you guys were here when Nathaniel Bowage closed. Uh, my oldest was in kindergarten when that happened. Uh, it's something that she still talks about to this day. Um, so I just want to, it's a lot of things I wrote down here, but bottom line, um, I just want us to keep in mind, um, the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable when we're making these decisions. Um, you know, if there's any way cuz, you know, talking about salt and stall, well, it's now it's no longer K through eight. It it was a K through five back in the day, too. I know we're talking about numbers. Um, but again, in terms of trends, um, I think it's important that we consider why those those numbers have dwindled or or changed

005or whatever the case may be. Um, and that has a lot to do with the affordability of Salem, which that's another topic for another day. But yeah, I I don't I I'll just I'll be following this very closely, but I really think that we should be careful when we're considering all of the facts, especially the children. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other public comment? All right. Uh, next item on our agenda is approval of the consent agenda. These are the minutes of the school committee meeting of October 20th, approval of a field trip for the SM High School basketball team December 17th to the 22nd, and approval of the warrants of October 23rd and October 30th. Move to approve the consent agenda. >> Seconded. >> Motion made by member Cruz, second by member Campbell.

006Under discussion, seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? And the matter carries unanimous. Student representatives report. Sydney. >> Good evening everybody. Um for tonight's student representative report, I have decided to speak a little bit on our student advisory yearly project. This year we are focusing on ways to welcome midyear transfer students especially those who are eelss or those who have moved from a different district or a different state. We looked through a bunch of articles today and we found different ways that different schools have been working through this issue. And a few ways that we decided are good ideas that we will also be starting to implement are a welcoming committee which directly works one-on-one with newcomer students and actively involves students of the high school who share similar interests to newcomers such as like

007favorite sports or like a favorite activity that they like to do at school and they bond these students that already go to the high school with the newcomers. We also decided on a student transfer committee which will be more so a counselor and teacher but also studentled. And this group will be working towards making decisions on things that new transfer students should be aware of such as like the grading system or the locations of every class. And we also read about a web program which is where a person touches base with the newcomer students to see how they're acclimating to the school and how they're feeling as they're transitioning to a brand new school. And we also have decided that we might go ahead and create a survey for every newcomer student as well to

008help us with the welcoming committee portion of it so that we can find the best student volunteers to pair with the newcomer students. and student advisory has also decided to spend the next few weeks before Thanksgiving break um going around and talking to as many ELEL students and as many new transfer students that we can find so that we can get opinions on what they also think would be the most beneficial and what they think should be definitely implemented in the community. Thank you so much. Any questions from committee members? Cruz >> and thank you Cindy for the presentation. Um and really excited that you're all thinking about some of the students that might be joining us in the district as this is usually the time where we start seeing some influxes. Um my question

009centers around um kind of uh any of the most recent meetings that you've had with Dr. Reich, if there's any key things that you want to report out from there. Uh but also um you know one of the statutory requirements of this committee is that we are supposed to have a bimonthly meeting uh with the student advisory council. So, uh, we haven't done that. We've had a student representative. So, would love to, uh, be able to support you with that as you have two liaison at the moment on the committee that are assigned to work with the student advisory council, myself and member Campbell. Um, and we're transitioning very soon. So, would love to just find some time for us to connect to be able to support you with getting that meeting up and running.

010>> Yeah, absolutely. That's great with me. Um, it's really just a matter of everybody's schedules >> and we can support that. So, we can work around uh the student schedule. I think we can make it virtual. Whatever is easiest. >> Yeah, I think Dr. Zich and the student advisory were talking about that today sometime around 5:30. Dr. Z. >> Well, yeah. Uh, we did talk about I was going to send an email to see who might be available. It's hard these the schedule the these uh our students are have busier schedules than any of us. Um, and so and rightfully so. We want to respect that. But, uh, I did throw out to them that even if I could get a group of them to come maybe before, um, the next school committee meeting that

011we could do a meeting in person then and some of them said they would be able to come to that. So, I think we could get at least a group of them here um before the next session. >> Yeah, I think maybe some gastro diplomacy, get some >> Yeah, I did throw pizza out there. Yeah. So, I will uh uh we'll definitely follow up um with that. Um, but I did broach it today. Sydney Sydney's my evidence that I did I did ask that today. [laughter] >> I'm not I'm not protecting them from the school committee. I promise you that. So >> that's never happened before. >> Never. Never. Um so yes, we we we definitely need to do that. >> Thank you. Thanks, >> Amber Campbell. I was just going to say um I

012really appreciate your project idea and that you guys have been so thoughtful in terms of inclusivity of voice and really identifying um a need in a way that makes students feel more welcomed and um settled into the school. And I love that you're considering the feedback of students who have gone through that process of arriving someplace that's brand new um to kind of figure out what would have made their transition easier. Um and then would just add it might be a great chance to get them involved in the student advisory um if they're not already. um as you start to get opinions, it could be a good recruitment uh point as well. >> Um adding on to what you just said, actually we are working to get an EL student into student advisory. There is

013a member of student advisory. I won't mention her name because I don't know if she wants that or not, but she is friends with someone who is an EL um student and the student was very interested in joining. So, we'll be touching base with them as well. I feel like we need the inclusivity and the diversity. >> Member Cornell, >> I just have a piece of advice. I've heard that high school students are tired of being bribed with pizza and I think Chipotle is actually a pretty good option. [laughter] >> Gotcha. >> Let the record reflect. Any further questions for our student representative? All right, seeing none, superintendent report. >> Yeah, good evening. Um, I would just add one thing that on Wednesday we're going to launch the operations hero, the facilities reporting issues uh

014that high schoolers will now be able to report issues uh that they see in the facilities, not just staff. Um and so Z uh our facilities director was meeting with the students today and on Wednesday we'll launch on CLA class link so that uh New Liberty students Salem Prep and Salem High students can report issues that they see around the building um for uh repair. So we're excited about launching that on Monday uh sorry Wednesday as we don't have school tomorrow. Um before we start with the presentation I think everybody is here for tonight. Um I do love that um now we have people in the front row. I love how you're just as bad as any student class. Nobody sits in the front row here uh for this presentation. But um thank you to

015those that came in and sat in the front row. Um I do just want to on a very positive note, I would like to just call out congratulations to our three Salem High School athletics teams that made the playoffs. Uh girls volleyball, girls soccer, and football. Uh really proud that our girls teams have had outstanding seasons. It's the year of our girls sports this year and it's uh really encouraging to see our teams um making the playoffs and the girls soccer team is playing right now. But whatever they do, they've all made us proud this uh this season and it's been fun to watch them. And then I do big shout out to the Salem High School band program in color guard. Uh it is nothing short of extraordinary that they won the division 4

016uh state champion uh ship and they had a police escort late last night as they came back into the city. really proud of Mr. Sherto and all I mean there's so many people to I can't I'm going to forget somebody so I won't say all the staff but to all the students we have an outstanding program that just keeps getting stronger and stronger so congratulations to all those folks and it's a reminder of why we do the work we do and and uh Salem is Salem students are making us proud and a lot of different things that they're doing so uh congratulations to all those athletes and musicians. Um so we tonight um we have a one long presentation uh which um I think you know has a lot of important information. Um we are

017very fortunate to have uh two consultants that have worked with us on this project and um I will say that we just shared the presentation with the school committee um just a few minutes ago and uh Chris if you want to put the presentation up on the website it is available it will be available on our main page. the presentation that's being shared here tonight. Um, and we do have interpretation available on Zoom for families that need interpretation. Uh, tomorrow we will share um the presentation again out in the link and we will also share uh hopefully the video of tonight's um school committee meeting for people to watch. I think there's so much information here um that we hope everybody will take the time to obviously listen tonight, but it's going to take some

018time to digest and read through the materials. I mean, I've learned a lot about the district in the in just the few I've had a chance to uh look at some of the information the last couple days, and even though I've been superintendent here for over five years, there's a lot that I learned that I did not know about the school district. And so I I do think we're all going to get enlightened by a lot of information. There are no decisions here made tonight about our future. Uh you know, there's no vote going to be taken here tonight. Um it is just a lot of information and a series of scenarios that you'll hear from our consulting team um for people to consider and then I think the committee will talk about what the

019engagement will look at look like following this meeting. But uh we hope that you know you partner with us and really learn with all of us as we digest this information and decide on what the best course forward for the school district is. I will just say um I I'll just say what we've said in the public meetings. We're a district that um has a lot of really good things happening. I I think we should all be proud of the work in the Salem public schools. We have awesome teachers. We have more importantly awesome kids. And we have families um who are incredibly supportive. and I feel, you know, fortunate to be here. We are faced with some fiscal challenges. Um, not unlike a lot of districts in Massachusetts, but I think ours are pretty

020acute. Um, and we want to exhaust all possibilities early enough in the year so we can make strategic and thoughtful decisions ahead of the budget cycle for uh the upcoming year and and future years. Um, so I'm pleased that we're doing this in I guess it's just November, beginning of November, as opposed to having these conversations in March and April and May where we all feel stretched and you know, crunched to make thoughtful decisions. Um, and so I do hope that this gives us enough time to be thoughtful and to have um, you know, substantive conversations with our community. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. uh, Dan Anderson and Dr. Sarah Faudy who are going to share a presentation with you. Again, if you want to follow along, we didn't

021want to make 100 copies of a 100 pages each, but you can look on the website. Chris, is it all set on there? Okay. So, the presentation is available to the public and we are ready to hear from our team here. Gratitude. Good evening, members of the school committee and the broader Salem public schools community to thank you for the opportunity to conduct this work and to speak with you tonight. As members of the Salem community ourselves, we are very grateful for the chance to contribute to our city and its schools. We moved to Salem in 2020 and have since built our own family here and are excited to for him to join Salem public schools as a witch in the future. While Dan opened our presentation this morning this evening morning I'm tired this

022evening in Spanish we are presenting in English for the rest of today. I wish we could do our introductions and presentations in all languages but since we cannot are grateful that the district is providing translation on Zoom for tonight's meeting. My name is Sarah Faudy, she her pronouns, and I live with my husband and presenter here in our son in the South Salem neighborhood. My expertise is in school choice and assignment specifically and research and evaluation in institutions related to racial equity more broadly. I spent time as a classroom teacher in middle and high school in Philadelphia and out of schooltime settings and teaching in higher ed and as an evaluator or consultant with nonprofits and other districts. And I'm Dan Anderson. He him pronouns. I come from experience as a high school administrator and

023a district administrator in Boston public schools and then uh experience at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education before becoming a consultant. Uh as we said a moment ago, we're working together and we are married with a young toddler who'll be a Salem student. We just want to say to the school committee as we get into the heart of this presentation, there's going to be a lot of information as the superintendent had said. So we welcome any clarifying questions so that you can feel like you understand anything that you want to before we move on in the facts. So our charge our charge from you all was to evaluate possible scenarios and build a knowledge base for school committee decision-making. What this has included is work to understand the impacts on students and families of

024any changes, developing a clear picture of how changes interact with family choices, identifying every area possible of Salem public schools that would be affected by elementary school changes, modeling financial impacts, and creating a roadmap for the school committee to come to an informed decision. Uh, at the request, we've left most community engagement to the school committee and the district to you all. though we've enjoyed the opportunities that we've had to engage with students and others. Uh so why even consider reconfiguration? There's several factors that make this necessary and we want to talk a little bit about them building on what the superintendent shared. So challenges, this is largely tied to funding. There are some difficult fiscal realities. Our enrollment is currently up compared to similar districts in particular in the state overall. It still varies

025from year to year and it's hard to project. Local funding went up by 4.8% last year and state funding through the chapter 70 program went up by 4.7 4.7% last year but is not keeping play pace with inflation. Also, we had a large influx in every public school district of federal pandemic recovery funds and those have now concluded. In addition, expenses are building. It costs more to provide level service. There's a 12% increase in overall district costs, as you've all heard through the budget process last year. And the cost of utilities are up 30% this year, which is fiscal year 26, uh, compared to last year. We also want to make improvements to our buildings and lower our carbon footprint. This also yields higher electricity costs because you're doing more things with electricity as opposed

026to fossil fuels. And since electricity is getting more and more expensive as we make those improvements, that also will get more expensive. It costs dramatically more to make repairs or to purchase parts or facilities pieces than even a few years ago. Uh expenses are up through some of the estimates that we've seen by between 30 and 50% for capital's facilities projects in some cases compared to before the pandemic. Trying to get the slide to go. Thanks, Mark. Last spring, Salem Public Schools had to close a $4.9 million deficit to reconcile the budget. Specifically, the district had to do this by including conducting staff cuts. Since there's not that much outside of schools to cut, schools experience these reductions, as you can see. FTEES are a jargoning term, full-time equivalent, which stands for roughly one person

027full-time job. Since there, sorry, excuse me. Uh, as costs continue to rise, financial stability is going to be harder and is going to require more attention. So, you see that we've had cuts in each building, which totaled around 31 FTEEs in the elementary schools. Without a decision on reconfiguration, every school will likely have more cuts like this and more significant cuts for the coming years. So, every school would face more challenges to its programs and success. Reconfiguration will not cover all of the deficit for this year and future year, but it can help to stabilize the deficits and channel reductions in a way that mitigates them. We are not people who do reconfiguration. We're not here to do reconfiguration. We came here to build information and test the assumptions and so we really wanted to

028test whether like it is really necessary and we've come to think that it is reconfiguration also can be more than just a response to challenges. So what we want it to be also is a chance to focus on core values like Salem's of belonging equity and opportunity to work on moving our schools towards the conditions we want if there's going to be a change make those changes beneficial. So on the programming side, some of those things include sticking with a commitment to integrated and equitydriven schools, a commitment to growing early childhood citywide, valuing innovative models, all schools continuing to serve students with disabilities and multilingual learners, uh, English language development or dual language program will continue to uh happen, one or two, one or both, excuse me, one of those at each school in any

029scenario. And then students with IEPs are at all schools right now and specialized programs are at all of the schools uh excuse me, substantially separate programs are at all of the schools except for Bentley. We also want to think about ways to consolidate resources and expertise to better serve students. So in other words, if there's going to be changes, how do we use those in a way that has resources coming together more for all of the students as opposed to spreading them out more? In the facilities, many of our elementary school buildings have room to grow. And you're going to hear us distinguish between schools and buildings a lot because we do not want to treat those things like they're the same. And when we're talking about buildings, we want to be clear when we're

030talking about buildings and not forget the people. So, we can address some things on the facility side, including how much we're using the buildings and uh the wide variation in some of the things that they need. Sarah's going to get into some specific goals. >> So, we really want to ground this conversation not only in the financial realities, which are real and part of why we're here, a big part of why we're here, but we also want to talk about the values and what we're calling the north stars of this project. We heard over and over again that if all possible, folks want us to have reconfigure options get us closer to the district we want to have rather than further away from that. So in our conversations with school committee members, district and community

031leaders, we began by listening to what you cared about most. And these are direct quotes from what you told us. You told us, "I want to know that everyone is taken care of. I don't want another white kids versus brown kids like Baich. It's not who we are. Put kids at the center. Cost factor out, humane factor in. I want my vote to reflect a stance that is as equitable as possible. We need to feel confident that the money we are spending is in the best interest of kids. I want to know the impact on kids. From these conversations in looking at the district's values, we put together these sort of four north stars of this presentation to help think about the system that we want. Those four are equity, futureproofing, consolidating resources, and taking

032care of communities. On your own website, you say that equity is allocating resources. so that those who need the most get the most. In terms of future proofing, we care about flexibility for not if, but when enrollment and/or conditions change, whether those be where kids live in our city, where housing even is in our city, and or climate change. Consolidate resources, adjusting those offerings, as Dan was alluding to, to best serve all students. and to take care of communities, minimize disruption, displacement, and dispersal of students and staff when at all possible. So, we began our work by building out our understanding of various parts of the system, covering every aspect we could of the elementary schools. We visited schools. We conducted over 40 interviews with over 50 people as uh Sarah shared I think reviewed

033hundreds of pages of documents, assessments, plans and spreadsheets. Research best practices and current conditions. Reviewed transportation maps. Learned a little bit of GIS uh and more. We saw more school boilers in a week than we had seen in our entire lives beforehand. The second one is not that interesting. >> Second shout out to Z watching at home. >> Yes, our facilities director. So this research is culminating in a document that's our concrete fact base. We are constantly updating it with new data coming in as recently as this weekend and then actually uh even a new update of data about half an hour before the meeting. And we are proud that this will be made available to the public. [clears throat] Uh along with the school committee and the district as soon as we have a

034chance to finish updating it with that new data. Our goal is that anything you hear tonight in our reasoning, you'd be able to follow our reasoning on it and to understand the underlying context by reviewing that fact base, which we expect to be shared thanks to the district's assistance next week. The areas that you see on the screen are some of the things that we delved into. The schools themselves, our current state enrollment and family choices, the facilities master plan from a few years ago, facilities, building needs, transportation, the choice system, food services, staffing, climate resilience, early childhood partners and plans, multilingual programming, special education programming, out of schooltime programs and partners, innovation schools and plans, and some considerations for decision-making and more. Now, we're going to turn to some of our overall findings, which

035are going to inform the specific scenarios and recommendations that you'll hear afterward. As you can imagine, no single scenario will be perfect or will meet all of our aspirations. They will reflect our Northstar values. They will not reflect each of those values equally because they're all going to be challenging to put together. Our aim here is to give you a clear picture of what we collectively do and don't know, plus some crucial facts that determine what is and is not feasible, as well as the real choices and trade-offs that you're contending with so that you can confidently make a choice. This first finding section presents you with some context findings and analysis related to the geographies of school choice, family choices, and transportation in Salem. On [clears throat] this slide, you will see hopefully familiar

036a map of Salem. The small buildings are the six elementary school sites. You'll see bolded black text, very small, but hopefully Zoom is winning at the presentation tonight. Um, you'll see bolded black text roughly in the center of each neighborhood as defined by the city's GIS site. The blue boxes beneath the neighborhood show the values of all kindergarten registrants in each neighborhood over the past three registration sites registration cycles, excuse me. So the blue boxes are the total number of kindergarten registrants from the past three registration cycles. This slide is the same except instead of raw numbers, you're now seeing the proportion of all the kids who registered over the last 3 years by neighborhood. So, for example, where we live in South Salem, the previous slide showed 118 kindergarteners as having registered from our

037neighborhood over the past 3 years. This chart shows that those 118 kids make up 16% of all families in Salem who have registered over the past three years for kindergarten. Those boxes now highlighted in yellow are the five largest registering neighborhoods by number of kids who did so. Now, it's likely not surprising for me to point out that not all neighborhoods are the same size or have the same number of kids registering. However, I want to point out that there are as many families who live in either the point or South Salem as live in the combined 11 neighborhoods from Castle Hill to Mac Park to the entire downtown and northeast of the city. This distribution also matters because of where buildings are in relation to these neighborhoods. You'll see that Horus Man, roughly in

038the middle of the map, is the only school quote unquote nearby four of the five top registration neighborhoods. Meanwhile, there are three to four schools, depending on how you count it, in the north and northeast part of the city. As we considered this mismatch of geography and school sites, we explicitly thought about the feasibility of our choice system versus a more neighborhood school model. Even before beginning this project, we had a lot of concerns and we were we had heard a lot of concerns that we were quote spending a lot of money busing a lot of kids all over a small city. And yes, you do. Each school bus is roughly $100,000. So cutting that down could be meaningful savings. However, given the large number of kids in the southern part of the city, our

039quick estimate showed that at least 20% of all registering kindergarteners in the last three years could not walk to any school given their current home addresses. This includes all of Vin Square, 42 kids. All but four kids in the Highland A neighborhood, 67 of the 71 kids, and 25% of kids in South Salem, about 30 of the 118 kids. So given the mismatch of where kids in buildings are, you're likely going to need to bust a lot of kids anyway, and given that two of your six main elementary options are innovation models, which would likely need to remain city-wide options, it's unlikely that a neighborhood model would have the savings you'd want, and it would come at a pretty street at pretty steep tradeoffs in terms of the equity values, which makes Salem truly unique

040in a positive way in this field. One last note here on geography and transportation. This is again a map of Salem. This time a bit zoomed in to show the commuter rail train tracks. The tracks essentially divide the city in half. And there are only two parts of the city where you can cross them on Jefferson Avenue down at the bottom um and in downtown Salem where the three lines are up at the top and Swamps if you go further south. This infrastructure constraint is such that any elementary school of any size or reconfiguration would likely always need a minimum of two buses. One on the east side of the railroad and one on the right so that kids are not on the bus too long given your staggered start times and sharing of buses.

041When we looked at family, the data from the welcome centers on parent preferences and what potential walkers choose. I have here a comparison of two neighborhoods, North and South Salem. I'm comparing them because they have similar numbers of students and enough students to have a story we can meaningfully tell, but they make different choices. In North Salem, everyone in that neighborhood lives within a mile of Bates and therefore would be what we consider a walker. In this neighborhood, over 50% chose Bates as their first choice, but 15% never listed Bates as a choice at all. In South Salem, where only 75% of families could walk to Salt and Stall, Horus man is also nearby. We see that reflected in their choices where 24% of walkers chose Salt and Stall, but that's tied with 24% choosing

042Horus Man. Those two choices make up a similar percentage as the North Salem families who chose Bates, suggesting that about half of each neighborhood preferred a quote unquote nearby school, even though it didn't necessarily mean they were a walker to that space. In South Salem, though, we see a difference where 34% of walkers are never listing Salt and Stall as one of their preferred their first choices. I show this to emphasize that families are taking advantage of the choice system and are able to do so in the current model even while preferencing their nearest school. Great. But there isn't just choice variation in neighborhoods. Those preferences are also changing pretty dramatically over time. Here's an example from the Points neighborhood over of from the Point neighborhood. I'm really sounding like I just moved here. Um

043over the last three choice seasons, we suspect that as awareness and confidence in the Bentley program grew, something we heard from many interviews that was an intentional effort from the district over the past few years, so did the number and share of families who picked it as their first choice. Inversely, we see a decrease in the demand for their otherwise closest school, Salt and Stall. Other changes are clear here too. Witchcraft, which is likely the furthest school from most families in the point, also had a growth in popularity. We've heard anecdotally that this could be attributed to the need for busing to make school and work days work for some families. And this is the kind of information that would be particularly valuable to ask about in future community meetings. With these findings taken together

044at this time, we are not recommending changes to the controlled choice model in Salem. This is for several reasons. With our north of Equity, we found that families from most neighborhoods are utilizing the choice system and making a wide range of choices. Transportation, despite Salem's small footprint, will remain necessary for a minimum of 20% of students given the city's generous transportation policy. Additionally, these areas include some of the city's largest low-income housing. We believe that creating a system without choice would also explicitly create a system of class and racial dynamics in Salem through busing, which we do not recommend and does not align with your values. for the time because the choice system is now fully realized as designed. The balance [clears throat] within and across schools mean that this reconfiguration is not driven by

045hallmarks of segregated systems, by demographics, by performance or even by teacher turnover. And that's something to celebrate here. We also believe that in terms of futurep proofing, the uneven distribution of elementary school buildings in Salem relative to where kids live will remain an issue irrespective of irrespective of any decision you make tonight regarding not tonight any decision you make this fall regarding reconfiguration. Any innovation model would also likely need to remain a city-wide choice, which is another piece of evidence to not recommend the change. The next [clears throat] part of the puzzle is the buildings themselves. So, we're going to talk a little bit about variations in size, space, conditions, and needs across the elementary school portfolio, which is such a jargony word. So, we want to start with capacity and thinking about how many

046students can each of the buildings themselves support. And I'm saying buildings here. So there are we examine different figures that have been generated either for the facilities master plan, a school facility survey or other for sources as well as floor plans uh and the building space and some conversations with school staff. Building utilization which is to say how full is the building of students is always very tricky because different educational programs host different numbers of students in their classrooms because there's always great uses for space in schools. It's not bad uses for space. It's different uses for space. And we're thinking about all these things for purposes of decision-making. We have a model here that provides a range of estimated school current utilization of the school buildings. Again, that's how much of the school's possible

047number of students are there. The spread here in the rightmost column is determined by comparing the number of students in general and and in special education classrooms each with a minimum full amount of students and a maximum full amount of students is what we're calling them. Maximum full reflects the cap in the collective bargaining agreement for the number of students that can be in the class. Right? That is the highest you could go. Minimum full reflects filling classes to a critical mass that is lower than that but is still a critical mass of students to collect them, excuse me, to have classes be be able to collect resources in a way that's sufficient for all students needs in the ideal more of an ideal way. As you can see, all of our schools by these

048measures are underutilized. This does not mean that they can all add more classrooms like a new third grade classroom, though many can. They can add more students in many cases. Sometimes in many classes there's significant space in the schools. Okay. So, we wanted to look at a timeline of the facilities themselves. And we've colorcoded this a little bit so that you can see over time some of the new builds, expansions, and renovations that some of the schools have experienced. We're not going to read through all of this chart, and I'm sorry that it's so small, but this is one of the reasons why we want everything in people's hands and everything to be publicly available. You're going to see if you look closely that all facilities have had major renovations since Bentley was built in

0491962 except for Bentley. We're going to come back to that a little bit. Uh, another factor that we heard a lot about in our startup to this project was folks speculating or concerned about anticipated issues about climate change, especially around flooding. So we've heard that concern and we wanted to test it, take it seriously and test it. There have been assessments through other other projects. We are not a climate resiliency firm, but we have seen the city, the district, the facilities master plan undertake work in this area. There are some concerns for some of the schools. So Bentley and Carlton, the buildings and Salt and Stall's outdoor area, they face an elevated risk of flooding in models from Massachusetts coastal flood monitoring program as they project out to the years 2050 and 2070. In particular,

050Bentley may take water as often as annually. Like, and I don't mean for a year, I mean as often as once a year there could be something with water coming in. Bates, Carlton, and Bentley face hurricane surge risk. This was discussed in the facility's master plan. The biggest issue is actually roadway flooding, which is going to be more frequent for you than building flooding. In many cases, the problem is going to be that roads get washed out. Many of us have, for example, driven on Bridge Street after a downpour and had to take a detour. Roads get washed out, which means that the buses wouldn't be able to get through on days where that kind of thing could be forecast. I don't know if that is going to mean that we have more rain days

051like we have snow days. In any case, the past reports all reports all call for additional assessment and mitigation and the consideration of the locations, but it is not our understanding that these assessments called for relocation as necessary. So, we believe that SPS should continue planning for mitigation with the city and with content experts around this, but we don't think that this precludes the use of any of the facilities, including the ones at the top of the slide. As we move toward our scenarios, we want to be clear that not all schools aren't in them. Specifically, Bates and Witchcraft, their general programs for K5 are not in any of the scenarios of possible moves because they have consolidated resources already in a lot of cases where you are closest to the goals of full classes

052and buildings. They are largely futurep proof in some ways. They are large buildings and they have large populations already who would have to move and there's still some room to grow if we needed them to uh and we dispersing excuse me they are too big to move without dispersing the students not all to the same place but to multiple places which is something that we'll talk a little bit about avoiding in a moment. So those aren't going to be schools that you see in the scenarios. We're going to differentiate as I tease between changes to buildings and changes to schools. Thinking about the options of what could occur. If you close a school, there are different possible outcomes. If you closed a school and dispersed all the students, there would be cuts in staff positions,

053but most of the staff would likely move to other schools. There would still also likely be annual cuts from the budget deficit. uh the building that the school is coming from that is closed would either move offline, which is to say not be used, or would it be re it would be repurposed. If you merged schools, you'd have students integrated between two schools into a new school, most of the integrated, excuse me, most of the staff would be integrated in the merger. Although, we want to be really honest that some administrators or and other support staff would likely have positions cut during the merger. There would likely still be cuts annually. If you do a collocation, which is where you take a school and move it from one building to another building and it is

054sharing that building as a full school with another full school, you'd have all the students moving together to a new site. Presumably, the staff would generally speaking all have the opportunity to move. if it's a collocation and the school is just picking up and moving to another place. But that and it wouldn't cut anything immediately, but then you would have more significant cuts every year in every building. The original building again could be closed or repurposed. You could also do nothing, which we would not recommend because it would be likely that you have to have even more steep and significant cuts in every building every year. Again, we want to acknowledge the people and there is a fiscal component to this. So, mergers and closures do result in personnel savings, which is a way of

055saying that there would be some position reductions. If [clears throat] you had a merger or a closure, a certain about 12.5 positions we estimate would be reduced. Those are not classroom positions. We do not know what the impact on classroom positions would be. The reason that that uh is the case is because classroom position changes would be determined by once two schools come together or once students move to other places, you then see how many students you have in each school and how many sections you need in each grade, for example. And so that would then tell us how many classrooms we need. That was a little more than we could model out with the data that we had. This would affect administrative staff, some service providers, and other educational support staff. We want to

056talk about merging a school versus closing a building. The left scenario question for a clarification. Um on the previous slide >> um where it notes on the right hand side it says school collocations would likely not result in most if any of these savings. >> Yes. >> Are you planning to go into that or if not can you clarify why that would be the case now? >> Yes. Uh that's that one's I think relatively straightforward. So it's if you take a collocation where two schools are sharing a building and they are both the full schools then you're not changing any of your staffing because you you still have for the most part it could be that there could be some shared positions but generally speaking you're not really changing the structures of either school and

057so they still have the full staffs of the original schools that are now colllocating. So underst staff when you say likely significant cuts to every building every year, you're not considering those you're considering those akin to the do nothing. Yeah. >> Budget cuts that would take place as opposed to a savings from the collocation, >> right? Because the Yeah. So the collocation in terms of staff positions wouldn't really save you anything. So they would still just like everybody else experience the cuts that would come from a budget deficit every year. >> And so I maybe it's just terminology. So for me, I view emerge as one student body from one place embeds themsself into one and then as a result there are decreases in staffing from having it >> colllocating. I would consider that to

058be two buildings, two school communities relocate and that there would still be the merging of it. Are you viewing collocation as a shared campus but no merging of the staff? Am I understanding that correctly then? >> Yeah, that's the distinction we're making. A merger being you have two schools, they become one school. A collocation being you have two schools, they stay two schools even though they're in the same building. That's a collocation. >> So, um, a merge could be I'm in this building and another student population is coming into this building. Or it could be two different sites are merging into, i.e. a third building. Is that how you're defining merging? And then collocation is we've still kept all of our existing structures. We're operating as two fully separate buildings. Okay. Thank you. >> Yes.

059Yeah, exactly. Thank you for and we know we're bringing a lot of information and we're trying to move relatively swiftly. So, thank you for stopping us. When you think about the difference between merging a school and closing a building, so again, the scenario on the left is about schools and is specifically about a merger. We have what we told you about the potential to save some funds by cutting some positions. you're not going to necessarily have any facility savings because if you do a merger but the number of buildings stays the same, you're probably not saving any money on the buildings. Transportation will shift and it may reduce the cost of transportation, but it may increase the cost of transportation in some of the situations that we've seen by about a bus closing a building.

060So, in other words, the schools aren't changing. They're moving, but you still have the same seven entities. Closing a building and not a school. Again, the transportation could shift because things would be moving. You have a number of factors that that uh determine whether or not that is giving you any fiscal savings. So, number one is the cost of operating that school as a school. So, for example, paying your light bill every month. A second thing is the cost of mothballing a school if you're taking it offline but keeping it. Mothballing being effectively and safely taking the building out of service but closing it up in a way that it's going to be stable and it's not going to become a health hazard or fall into further disrepair so that if you wanted to use

061it again it wouldn't be in terrible shape. So, if you're going to close the building and then keep it for later, you need to mothball it, which means you're still going to have some costs. They are dramatically different in things like utilities costs than if you kept it online, but there are some costs there. The other big difference is saving on the improvements that you would make to that building. So, you have two kinds of dollars. There are many there are a lot of kinds of dollars, but in particular, there are two kinds of dollars. There's your general budget and then there's what's called the capital budget and capital funds. Facilities improvements like big projects on buildings like new windows or a new roof or a renovation come out of capital dollars. They're a separate

062budget. It is shared with the city, but it's not the same district budget that you generally hear most of the attention on in the budget hearings. It is also limited. So if you took a building offline because all buildings could use different improvements that would mean that fewer buildings are sharing the limited capital budget but you are not going to see any of the capital budgets uh represented in the figures that are on this slide. >> Yep. Me >> sorry me again. Um I'm confused as to why merging a school doesn't have the same facilities impact as closing a school. two slides earlier under merging when it said um building closed, moved offline or repurposed. So if the two if we're understanding merging as it could be we're relocating to one site or two are

063relocating to a third site. Either way, it seems to me like there's a building that again could be pulled offline, could be repurposed, could like the how are the savings not the same in both of those two scenarios. >> Good. So one of the reasons for that is in our scenarios as we get to them we even when we are recommending mergers we are not necessarily recommending pulling the building offline. There might be an option to repurpose it. So what you are sensing is us keeping the door open that a change in our school configuration is not inherently a change in facilities because that's a second decision within the same scenario. >> Okay. So hypothetically, a merge could result in facility savings, but none of your recommended scenarios include that. So that's why it's not

064treated as savings. Like a a merge could result in a >> merge recommendation. A merge doesn't guarantee. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, we wanted you to see them split out so that you can also see them together, but like thinking of it as those three different things. Okay, we were a second ago talking about capital. So one of the biggest considerations as I said is if you close a building you save on the money that you would spend to update that building for each of the buildings and this is based on a number of sources including work from the facilities master plan extensive work by the facilities department um and other sources uh to try to understand the needs and the current conditions of some things but also the district's efforts as I said

065to move toward newer greener technologies and things like HVAC. So this is an example of the needs in certain kinds of buildings. That doesn't mean that those systems are like not working right now. These systems are generally speaking in place in these buildings. This is a desire to upgrade or systems have an expected life expectancy and you generally have a refresh cycle where you work through these kind of components. We have an estimate of avoided capital expenses if one of those buildings each of those buildings was to come offline. We want to be very clear that that is not a highly precise number for multiple reasons. These are largely based on for example when we have one estimate for one building. We don't have specific estimates for the same project from vendors for you know

066six buildings. Uh and so they can't be exactly precise but this is intended to give you a sense of scale. There are different scenarios that some of these things can happen, which is also why there is a range. This would all be on the capital budget, not the same operating general funds budget that determines things like staff, personnel, curriculum, those kind of things. It is a separate separate pot of money. This is intended to give you a look at how that would be stressed. And in the factbased, we are going to have information also on what the recent capital budgets have been for the district. So you can get a sense of how long it would take to do some of these things. A few buildings have very specific considerations. There is a possibility that

067the district is investigating sorry that Bentley [laughter] that Bentley might have I'm going to keep going and okay it's back. There's a possibility that Bentley would would need to be vacated for it to get a full upgrade of its HVAC systems, which are the oldest and sort of the most out ofd in terms of what is in place in the building. That would be a challenge. That's why the district is working to investigate that. Uh, additionally, schools that have received funding from the Massachusetts School Building Authority for a project cannot be closed without consulting and likely repaying the agency for their prior contributions, which is a fun thing. So, Bentley [laughter] was approved for boilers in 2019. I I do kind of get it. Uh, Bentley [clears throat] received new boilers in a project they

068applied for in 2019. I think they received the boilers in 2020. Bates is scheduled to get a new roof this summer. That hasn't happened yet, but it's about to happen. Salt and Stall had a green improvements project as did Collins I in 2012. Um, we're not sure that that would be uh a factor, but it is something that could be that we would want to make sure. Additionally, salt and salt, there is something which out of an abundance of caution, not an expectation of an issue, and in fact, recent uh facilities checks have suggested that this would not be a major issue, but at an abundance of caution, the district is someone coming in to check something in the foundation, part of the foundation at Salt and Stall. So, these are considerations. Member Campbell, >>

069I'm so sorry. I always have a lot of questions on these things. Does that >> I apologize for questions. That's exactly >> careful what you wish for. All I need is to be emboldened. Um, the MSBA funding, does that include if the building is repurposed for educational or a school-based thing, or even if you're still continuing to use it in a different way, it needs to be repaid? >> Thank you for asking that. I should have said that more clearly. As long as you continue using the building for an educational purpose in the district >> from prek to 12, you are still using it for what they funded you to use it for. So >> it does not have to be the same school. >> Sorry. >> So it would be buildings that have received

070it if the building is closed, not if the school is closed or relocated. >> That's right. >> If hypothetically you had a building that had had a project a couple years ago, the school could move, another program could come in and it could still be used for that new program. Yes. Thank you. I really appreciate you asking that question because I meant to say that. >> Thank you. Dan, can I >> Yes. >> Can I I mean, this was a conversation we had with about when we were looking at 7 to 12 at Salem High School because Collins had had a recent uh well, a renovation. That was going to be an issue if we chose to build a 7 to 12 at the Salem High School site and vacated Collins Middle School. The MSBA

071would have had a problem with that unless Collins remained a school in some, you know, in some capacity. You could have moved an elementary school here. That obviously is not happening now because we chose to build a high school at Salem High School and uh keep Collins as a middle school. But that that is pretty consi you know consistent with the conversation we had with the MSBA when we were looking at the possibility of a 7 to 12. >> Member Cruz. >> Thank you. Can I just ask a question about the investigation of the question around uh vacating the Bentley for major upgrades? What is the timeline for that investigation to be completed? >> Do you know the answer to that? I know Z was >> I don't know the answer to that, but we

072are actively working to answer that question. >> Okay. >> I mean, and just on that, I mean, part of it is looking at what it would take to put in a cooling system, >> which they don't have cooling of any kind. Well, they have makeshift units that don't work very well. Um, so part of it is like, you know, that's part of when we say I mean they have old pneumat pneumatic heating system there, but on top of that is we would want to have cooling like every other building in Salem has other than Bentley, >> if I might add. And also the opportunity to move to a heat pump based system which is more electrified and again gives you the opportunity to move off of fossil fuels in the future >> or in the

073short term actually not the future. Yeah, >> near future. Yeah, near future. Um, it is possible though that you could do a short-term thing at Bentley to enable another step and then a bigger project. That is something that you could consider potentially. Okay. Again, thinking about the costs of the costs, one of the things we thought about is estimating the five-year cost of doing all these kinds of improvements in any of these facilities. And I want to say again, we're talking about the buildings here, not the schools. We're talking about the structures, the facilities, not the not anything about the people. So, what you see is from the most expensive to the least expensive, the estimates about what it would be. That's in the middle column. on the right column is how it changes if

074you factor in funds that the district is already uh uh one through a competitive grant process or is or entitlement or is pursuing in another for example a new round of the MSBA's project. So what you see is that Horseman for example, which has a really high price tag overall to do all of the work that we'd like to do there, a lot of that would potentially be covered if the grants that have if so it's already been invited into the current round of the MSBA's accelerated repair program. And there's two other grants that the district has been working on that I think would support uh almost all the rest of it. So that's something that can happen. That's happened in a number of places and it could happen in the places that it hasn't

075happened. They would be just as eligible for those programs. And there is nothing in the needs that we saw that we think could not be addressed by a in MSBA terms an accelerated repair project as opposed to a like full building. There none of these are a tear down. They are all still solid and useful. Every single one of the buildings The middle column is the same here. What's new is the far column where you think about the current enrollment in the school. And so you're dividing the cost to do the work of all of the capital facilities work that the district would want to do over the next coming years. You're uh as well as some operating the cost to do all that per pupil with the current enrollment. And so one of the

076things that you see here is that the size of enrollment changes this chart a little bit. And the point that we're trying to make here is to show as you have people spread out in a lot of places. Excuse me. As you have people spread out in a lot of places, you're not necessarily concentrating resources for smaller for larger numbers of students, you're sort of spreading them out a little bit. But you can see how that affects individual schools. >> With all of this in mind, >> member Campbell, >> Sorry. Um, I'm not sorry. I'll take it back. Um, what are you considering to be these estimated district costs? I'm thinking in particular how Salt and Stall is listed on a prior slide for 250,000. >> Yep. >> Um, as estimated capital avoidance, whatever, and

077then here it's 1.4 million. What's the difference between how those are calculated out? It's the annual cost of >> times five plus that number >> then divided by enrollment >> and we picked it in the middle of the range >> and if it's a range we picked the center of the range >> for >> so then I get sorry go ahead >> say sorry for for this specific projection I don't think we did this for others to give you a sense again of the like scale we pegged it to the middle of the range for each one of the schools for this one which is why it looks a little bit And we're happy to check our math if this feels wonky and is wonky. >> Yeah, it just seems that Salt and Stall has

078the greatest discrepancy from estimated avoided capital expenses being at 250,000 tagged as needing a new PAL/ Intercom, but no other major upgrades to then needing 1.4 4 million across the unless that unless I'm misunderstanding the capital versus is this just facilities maintenance like to to simply do the maintenance and doesn't include the capital upgrades. >> I I did say that it's just capital and I misspoke. This is capital plus things like utilities operating that are building based. >> Okay. Yes. >> Thank you. >> Okay. With all of this in mind, the scenarios that we've modeled that we're going to share with you, we have considered and modeled school mergers or collocations, not closures where the students are diffused to many many different places. We have focused on mergers where at least most of the students

079get to move all together to a new place if they are going to move. As we said earlier, we want to take care of communities. We want to focus on the reality that you need cost savings and you want to avoid as many teaching reductions in particular, although reductions overall. And so collocations, they're not always helpful, but we definitely considered them. Potential consolidations of programs that are similar. For example, if you have two substantially separate programs that use similar techniques, have similarities in their programming, have similarities in the resources that they need to use to operate to serve students. We wanted we looked at scenarios where sometimes they came together. We also really wanted to look at scenarios where you have fewer half empty buildings and a more balanced district. Uh this does cost more

080money than closing and dispersing because there would be more personnel reductions if you just closed buildings and dispersed everybody. That would give you a quote unquote more efficient district in terms of the number of staff that you would need. But based on the values that we heard from you all in our individual conversations when we were uh asking for your input and other factors that we've been talking about and the district's values, we focused on mergers and collocations, not closures with dispersing students all over the place. Okay. I'm going to say one more thing. Oh, sorry. I'm just going to reiterate that we will always include options to repurpose buildings if there is a move out of that building. So, those will be modeled in these scenarios as well. We want to emphasize that there

081are no perfect solutions to this problem, but you can start to think about it in different ways. And when I say the problem, I just mean the district's situation of a difficult budget. You have all these buildings. They're not totally utilized. For a second, if this wasn't about people at all, and you were just thinking about a single factor, the size of the building, then sure, you would consider Carl or Salt install. They're smaller. They can't hold as many students. They don't leave you as much flexibility. The condition of the building, you might consider Bates or Bentley or Horseman, which need probably the most facilities work. You might consider the current utilization, how full or empty the building is, which might make you think about horse man or salt and stall. If you're thinking about

082location where the population is and where the students geography are, you might think about Carlton, Bentley, Salt and Stall. The point we're trying to make here is you are balancing a lot of different things and we really don't want to be thinking about schools as you know like these little cogs and we want to say that it's complex. This isn't a blank slate for the students, families, and communities. But you can think about it as these different things that you are weighing so that you can try to do the best overall resulting district for the students. >> All right. We know that any proposed change, irrespective of where deliberations and votes end up weeks from now, is going to weigh heavily on school communities, even if it's not ultimately decided on by the school community.

083Because of this, we're going to first explain the formatting of how we're presenting the scenarios very briefly. This is hopefully a chance to give to allow folks to navigate and compare scenarios and feel supportive for processing more information after maybe an hour of long information already. For each scenario, we have prepared five main slides that I will walk you through now. They are all available in the deck that is now on the district website for the public. Given how much information there is though tonight's goal in tonight's goal of presenting our findings and recommendations, we're just going to narrate two of those five to you right now. We are happy and expect that other slides will come up in the Q&A and in future conversations and we welcome that discussion. We are also going to

084be presenting eight scenarios and ultimately put forward four of them for your consideration. Each scenario will be numbered. They are in no particular order. The numbers do not mean anything about their value or our decision. We will summarize the scenario and show you this branch of whether or not the vacated building should be closed or repurposed. The second slide which will be at the end of this presentation for you to all access but not narrate out loud are these detail areas. Every scenario will be modeled out in terms of the number of current students who would have to move. So any prek to fourth grader who would if this change went into effect next fall would be potentially changing sites the school size of a merger or collocation and the utilization rate of that building

085as well as impacts or considerations for special education school start times early childhood facilities transportation and a catchall for other. I want to be clear that we did talk to and look at the impact of this on multilingual learners. We do not believe given the struct current structure of programming in the district that that will be directly impacted by any of these scenarios since they are served in all buildings. But I want to name that because it is not an area on any of these slides. The third slide that you can find in any scenario at the end of the deck is options for repurposing the building. We did model out some ideas and advantages and challenges of how you could potentially repurpose a vacated building should you want to go with that option. The

086fourth slide is financial implications which will ultimately be I'm sure very important in your deliberations. That's also at the end of the deck so that we don't all drown in nuance and numbers at this stage of the process. You will see it modeled out for at the top part of each table are the one-time savings and the bottom part are the annual savings for either of those scenarios, closing the vacated building or repurposing it. The fifth slide and one that I will narrate, we will narrate in any scenario um is our assessment of that scenario whether or not we deem it worthy of your consideration as a voting body or not recommended and why. Okay. Finally, we are going to transition the scenarios themselves. There will be eight scenarios. A reminder that we're only going

087to be presenting two slides per scenario, but all five are publicly available and at the end of the presentation and deck. Scenario one, Salt and Stall and Horus man schools merge at the Horus man building with branching options to close Salt and Stall's building or repurpose it. We do [clears throat] believe that scenario one is worthy of your consideration, particularly a version in which the Salt Install building is repurposed rather than closed. Some strengths are that a school merger provides annual savings with stable current condition and location among highest population areas. The Salt and Stall building is a great location to use as a swing space, an early childhood space, or to have family welcome centers. Some concerns. There would be no savings from moving a building offline if you were to repurpose Salt and

088Stall. And moving Salt and Stall to Horus Man would require two more buses given their current locations as students um in order to get them there than they currently require going to Salt and Stall. Some considerations. As the building needs the least work and is the lowest cost by enrollment and capacity projections, we argue that it would be better to use salt and stall to improve or diversify the district's portfolio than to close and divest from the building. The second scenario, Salt and Stall and Horus man schools merge at the Horus man building and the ECC colllocates at Horus man while Bentley moves to the Salt and Stall building. I want to be very clear that we did prepare this slide also before learning about the some of the details of the MSBA um constraints.

089So, we had considered that the two options were closing the Bentley ECC building or repurposing the Bentley ECC building. We suggest that you consider specifically a version of scenario 2 in which uh Horseman and Salt Install merge and the Bentley or ECC building is repurposed rather than closed. The merger gives you the some annual savings. It starts to fully maximize an otherwise pretty empty large building that you're already investing in. Uh it preserves this larger elementary site at Horseman that's pretty centrally located. Concerns are that it might actually be too tight uh even with and this would displace the Head Start Pathways program which is a real factor. It might be tight even with that to have all of these schools colllocate or excuse me they're not colllocating but all of these schools populations at

090the same site. uh some considerations. It could intentionally you could intentionally then lower the amount of classes in the new incoming excuse me the number of classrooms in the next incoming class to start to move it to a smaller like one fewer strand school to free up some of the the tightness of the space. We think you should consider this scenario. In scenario three, Carlton and Saltstall schools merge at the Bentley ECC building and Bentley moves to Sultenstall and ECC co-locates at Horus man with options to close the Carlton building or repurpose it. We do not recommend any version of this scenario. This moves a significant portion of the students in our schools. We estimated over 700 of your current 1,700 elementary school students and it does not allow for repair at the Bentley site

091without multiple years of disruption at multiple schools. Some strengths, however, for you to know about. Again, the annual savings from a merger and merging two small communities near each other does make sense. some concerns. Any investment to get Bentley back online may require a year of swing space in the district and and this will also require two more buses. On top of that, >> scenario four, Carlton and Salt and Stall merge at the Salt and Stall building with the Carlton building being either closed or repurposed. We suggest that you do consider this scenario. It merges two smaller schools and you could create the preferred sort of three strand school and merges schools whose special education programs have some related features. There are advantages to either closing the Carlton building from cost savings or repurposing it

092as a swing space, which is where you would have another uh group of students move to temporarily while you're doing some other facilities work or if you have another program that requires space uh such as the specialized secondary programs uh or repurposing it as a early childhood center. The school merger would provide annual savings. It would merge two smaller communities. The initial merger would be very tight probably for the first one or two years at least which could be alleviated if the school then phased from a four strand school to a three- strand school by taking in sort of one fewer grade. >> Have a question member Cornell. >> I'm sorry I just lost the thread of what three strand and four strand is >> the a strand. Thank you. A strand is uh one

093classroom per grade. So, it's a set of one classroom per grade in the school like from either prek or K. In the case of [clears throat] Salem schools, it's really more about K since the choice comes in for K, but excuse me, K [clears throat] to five. So, a strand is those six classrooms. A K classroom, a one, a two, three, a four, and a five. And so, what this is saying is Carlton and Salt and Stall are more like two strands. Now, putting them together, you would have a four strand school that would be very tight in the Salt and Stall building. you could keep that merged school and then the next year you sort of phase out one strand but you still have uh like three strand school with critical mass >> Cruz.

094Uh while we're uh I know we just learned about the issue with the MSBA and then some of our facilities. Some of the mergers that you're proposing in the scenario uh involve um schools that are innovation schools. >> Yes. and then some of them um so I'm wondering about that what's the interplay there and then additionally as you go through the rest of the presentation uh I think it' just be helpful to understand uh when you say merging at a particular location so merging at say horse man >> yes >> does the school then become horse man or are we making that decision based on the accountability data of the particular schools because my understanding is that when you close a school or merge a school there's some implications on the accountability system. So just

095>> yeah it's a great question. Ultimately it's your decision. So we were trying to be very clear that what we're talking about in each of these scenarios is a merger of two schools. We are not telling you what your resulting school name would be in terms of the innovation schools. Uh that is that's actually why we had the question here about which educational model will be used in the merge school. That's something that we had in mind there. I I have actually done a lot of work on innovation schools. I helped set up a couple of innovation schools in Boston. Um, and I can talk your ear off about that, but I don't think it's gonna be super helpful there. It's it's pretty intricate. There are options to do things like make changes to an

096innovation school. It is possible, especially when the innovation plan is coming up for renewal anyway. So, you can move on from it or you can keep it and you can modify it. The innovation plan has a number of different autonomies in it. a school and a district together and a school committee together could work to make adjustments to that innovation plan so that some things stay the same and then something shift. So there's a lot of there's a lot of scenarios we are not and something we meant to say earlier that I neglected to say earlier is you will notice that we are not saying the word MCCAST in this presentation because this is not an accountability or performance-based conversation. Um, in terms of the schools, off the cuff, I would say I believe that

097when two schools are merged, they don't pick the accountability status of one of the two schools. They actually take the testing and accountability information for all the students who are now students in the new school and they generate a new uh accountability status. So, we could also get into the weeds on that and we could certainly ask for for confirmation. Um, I think I just threw a lot at you. I'm not sure. >> Super helpful. I think the last time that we were having conversations around school closure, it was a question that was raised. >> I think I raised it during the committee meeting, but then I also raised it. Members of the public were raising it as well. So, just I think it's helpful for everybody to have that same level of information, but

098we don't have to get into the week. We can talk another time. >> Thank you. [clears throat] >> Scenario five, Carlton and Horus Man merge at the Horus Man building with options to either close Carlton or repurpose it. We do recommend scenario five to the committee as worthy of consideration. This merges two small schools and there are advantages to either closing Carlton as a building in terms of the cost savings or repurposing it as swing space or an early childhood center. You will notice that as we get into later scenarios, there is overlap on these slides of what are the advantages and challenges. Some concerns that we do want to name is that there might not be room at Horseman for the Pathways Head Start program to stay or for the ECC to join if

099they were to do that. Um there's certainly not room for both unless adjustments were made to future kindergarten enrollment or substantially separate program placement. Um this would also likely add two more buses in order to have these schools together. Um, we also want to be clear that the special education programs that would be brought together by these two schools coming together are not entirely similar. Although there is definitely room to support both in that space. Again, the question given the innovation plan at Carlton, how does that impact the educational model in the merge school? Scenario six, Bentley moves to colllocate in horseman and ECC remains or moves. Again, I just want to say this was before we we made this before we had some of that information about MSBA. So, that should be taken into

100account, but we do not recommend this scenario anyway, uh any version of it. the ECC would either stay, which would likely be disrupted by building improvements the way that this scenario would work, or move, which is sort of impossible at any district site unless you displace something else, like for example, a substantially separate program in another school. And there's not a cost substantial cost savings anyway, and it would displace the Head Start program at Horus Man. Uh, and the collocation would provide limited cost savings anyway, and could increase your transportation costs. We do not recommend the scenario. Scenario seven, Bentley moves to Horus man and Horus man moves to merge with Salt Install at Salt and Install's building with closing the Bentley building which now we have more information about or the Bentley ECC building

101being repurposed. We do not recommend any version of this scenario. The students from Horus man and Sultan stall would not all fit at the Sultan Hall site. Additionally, the ECC would not really have a home as a result if Bentley were to be closed or even if it were had had to be vacated for necessary improvements with this change. >> Scenario eight has two branches. So, it's Bentley moving to the Carlton building, Carlton moving to merge with either Salt and Stall or Horse Man at their current buildings, and the ECC moving to Horse Man. This is the same as either four or five with the addition of Bentley moving to the Carlton building. We do not recommend this scenario. It requires significant movement of a large number of students. It would hamper your opportunity to

102in the future grow either ECC programming or Bentley programming. You would have the annual savings of a merger. You would have two of the smaller schools coming together into a larger school. You would have facility savings most likely. Well, actually, sorry, that one doesn't matter anymore. Uh, in terms of facility savings because if you take Bentley offline, you're paying it back. Uh, and then in terms of concerns, Bentley would also not be able to grow a Carlton. And it's not that we specifically need Bentley to grow, but as you're thinking about future proofing, you're trying to leave room for different things that could happen. Uh, also losing the Bentley building is losing one of the largest buildings that has the most capacity. Moving the ECC or Carlton to horse man would displace the Head Start

103program and ECC would not be able to grow unless additional changes are made. Uh, scenarios four and five are a lot simpler and they involve a little less moving. This also may have additional bus costs. That was a lot. I just want to honor that. That was a lot. And thank you to everyone here and those at home hanging with us through I'm sure dinner and bedtimes and your evenings for a very long meeting. Now that we presented all the scenarios, we want to regground in those north stars that we started with to inform how we created and evaluate the scenarios. So in building the system, we want just want to restate that we focused on equity on futureproofing on consolidating resources and taking care of communities. And as Dan said earlier, there are no

104perfect solutions to this complex problem. If there was, we would have presented that to you tonight. There is no one school change that would fix the challenges with finances, buildings, and equity. And even if there was, there is no change that would be possible without impacting our students, families, and communities. So to recap, excuse me, [clears throat] in summary, we identified four scenarios that we would consider particularly worthy of your consideration. Scenario one, salt and stall and horseman merging at the horseman building with the Salt and Saw building ideally being repurposed. Scenario two, Salt and Saw and Horseman merge at the Horseman building and Bentley moving to the Salt and Stall building with uh the ECC Bentley building being repurposed likely as an early childhood center. Scenario four, Carlton and Salt and Stall schools merging

105at the Salt and Stall building with the Carlton building going offline or perhaps becoming an early childhood center. And scenario five, Carlton and Horseman merging at the Horseman building with the Carlton building offline or becoming an early childhood center. The school committee may have additional ideas that we have either not tested or necessarily haven't quite gotten into uh or ideas that we hadn't thought possible that might be. You also might have more questions or considerations that we than we had considered. We certainly want to leave room for there being things that we didn't think of. We're really really eager to support this work both for the community. We also really want to acknowledge that these are schools with children and educators who are our favorite people in the entire world. This is incredibly challenging I'm

106sure to see the name of your school on something like a major change suggestion like this and we're talking about it sort of dryly. We really appreciate everyone's uh going with us to try to understand everything that's behind this thinking. One outstanding question is immediate which some of you I think have already anticipated. We recommend that you immediately continue to investigate whether Bentley would have to be vacant for upgrades because I think that has we think that has a lot of implications for any of the choices that you would make. Additionally, we would recommend the following to the committee and the district. Consider the possibility of phased renovations options and school moves. So, for example, you could have ECC or Bentley, not both, potentially stay in the Bentley building and possibly have renovations happening in

107one part of the building while the other part is being used and then flip to renovate the other part of the building. We are not sure that that's possible for some of the projects that need to happen, but we suggest exploring ideas like that, especially if they can help with upheaval. Also considering phased school growth or right sizing. So, this is where we started to get into the strands jargon. uh but thinking about using things over time to shift. So phasing out or phasing in a Kto5 set of classrooms in a particular area so that the entire district is so sorry so that the school and the system isn't having an immediate larger shock. There's time to gradually make that change. Protect space and continue investing in the highest need students. For example, if we

108saw some data that made us think that it's possible you might actually need to start setting up more space at the therapeutic program at Bates. If that's the case, and we're saying if, consider what you could do that would enable you to have more space for that kind of a program or specialty programming that you want to have like one of the innovations or your prek offerings and you just had the prek strategic plan, which is a great roadmap come out that we would certainly want the work here to dovetail with that work. Uh and finally, consider this as an opportunity to recommit to valued and high quality partners. Uh there are several partners in the district who do out of schooltime programs, who provide other programs, who provide pre-k programs. You've heard me mention

109the Head Start program at Horseman a number of times. When we have programs who are doing high quality work, we want to see what opportunities we have to work with them. We know that we've given you a lot of information as Sarah said and there's more coming to you with the full fact base that we've mentioned that we want that we will be bringing to you and we it is we're very excited that this will also be going to the community as well. Uh we want to reiterate here that we recommend action right now at this time. We don't mean today but in this conversation in the next coming weeks uh at this time for a few reasons. First, December is actually a really good time to make and confirm decisions in a lot of

110ways. For families and students, it gives them some time to plan for the future. If a change is going to happen to their school, they'll know about in advance. Also, for our families who are going to be registering for school, which we are really thinking about, this would happen before you launch that process. So, you wouldn't have families start that registration process and then their choices change. For school communities, obviously changes like this are challenging. We're not trying to minimize that, but we want them to have time to process and prepare as a community. And for teachers and staff, there's implications here as well. In particular, where we start to talk about position cuts and any staff who'd be affected by a change to their school should know that change with as much time to

111plan for the next year as possible, hopefully in a Salem school uh and the hiring season. This would give an opportunity at least to be out ahead of that for the system. It's imperative to decide any reconfiguration changes before you start to do things like the budget process. I don't know how you could do a budget process without knowing what your decision would be here. And we also want to say share something that we've heard in this process during all these conversations which is that uh we were actually worried at first about the timeline being too fast >> and a big part of that was had to do with the choice process and families and so making sure that this wasn't happening after that started. But in general we were thinking about that and thanks

112for our conversations with educators and leaders and administrators and other folks and our collective bargaining partners. We've actually been convinced to change our minds about that that a that a change next year would be doable. And we've heard from a lot of you that once a decision's made, a time frame of about half a year is the right time frame because making a major change to a school community much further in advance of that creates a really drawn out period of time which can be difficult for the community. Uh and as I said that really changed our minds. With that in mind, we have some recommendations for the committee on process and we are nearing our conclusion. So, there's a seven-week period for you to use before the new year. Uh, it's more than seven

113weeks, but I'm not counting the winter break period. We humbly and hopefully not presumptuously suggest that the committee discuss and decide tonight when to add community meetings to the schedule to make sure that you are building in those. Uh we I'm not going to read you through this whole table, but we've laid out each of the weeks and some suggested activities that we think could be helpful in terms of making a decision. We want to help you make a swift and methodical decision in this process uh that we think is really necessary for families, students, educators, and the school communities. And Sarah is going to close us out. The district has created an email address for public input which you can see on the slide reconfiguration salemk12.org. We will be supporting them and answering questions

114and gathering additional data and analyses as needed and we'll let them explain more if there's anything I'm leaving out with this. But if not, we will wrap up here. Thank you for the chance to do this work and for all of your time and attention today in raising our kids and our communities. We look forward to answering any questions that you may have here and in the coming days. Thank you. >> Thank you both very much for that presentation. Uh and I appreciate if counselors counselors if school committee members >> Thank you. >> My apologies for that. Uh if school committee members have questions now or if you want more time uh we did receive this presentation this evening for the first time. So, I think people may want to have some time to digest

115it and follow up with questions individually, but we'll we'll take questions now if there are any. Member Cruz. >> Thank Thank you, Mayor. And, um, you know, I think it was a wise choice for us to process this information at the same time as the the public. So, just appreciate um Sarah and Dan, the work that you did here um and the engagement that's happened this far. I think it it is a the recommended approach is it feels truncated but these are conversations that have been going on for more than a few years. I think if there was a few places that I would say um I would want the public to be operating with the same level of information that the committee has within the presentation. I saw a few of them. Um I

116think where you note what the budget deficit was in the previous year. I think we've talked about at this committee level different projections. I know that they're not exact about the budget deficit we're facing in the upcoming budget and then the the the following one, but I've had a lot of members of the public who are like, why is why is it that we keep talking about a fiscal consideration? Wasn't there just a major series of cuts that happened in the last budget cycle? So, I just think giving the public within the presentation, which I'm sure a lot of folks are going to digest, the opportunity to understand that this committee is grappling with anywhere between 15 to$20 million over a couple of um of years. You know, I think that that uh lays out

117the transparently like that is a real fiscal challenge that we're uh facing. So, if we could include that in that particular section, I think that that's helpful. Um the other place where um I thought it would be um important to note is on the conversation around school choice. I think it would be important for the public to understand that within the policy itself, we're required to reexamine that policy every 3 years. So if we could include that the reference to the policy just so that again members of the public understand that um we we have taken a look at the policy uh every couple of years you know we do do the review but that we're required to have that level of community engagement uh and we've done that in the past um and so

118I just think from a transparency standpoint again people operating on the same set of facts this is a community a committee that operates with fidelity uh to those policies so I just think that'll be a helpful kind of note for folks that want to do some further digging about why we were even having that conversation in the first place. Um, just with respect to like what I saw in the recommendations, this is more towards my colleagues and the superintendent. Um, I think it this is a committee that's going to be in transition very soon. Um, and we have folks that are experienced right now and for the new members, you know, you know, quite frankly, they're going to be drinking out of a firing hose. So, I agree with the sentiment that we probably need

119to make this decision before the end of the school year and that again might feel quick for some folks. Uh but I I do believe in giving our families, educators, and students the clarity that they deserve because we've talked about the challenges that we're facing as a system as being something that we need everybody engaged in and it's going to feel like a really intense period, but it's absolutely the right um kind of timeline for folks. Um and so I would just ask that we have public hearings uh regarding um kind of the the presentation, the research that'll come out, whatever we're uh lining up fiscally. uh and that we actually think about the ways in which these meetings could be more accessible if we have public hearings by moving the location of the actual

120school committee meeting itself. Um I just think as we're talking about particular communities, not everyone can get to Collins Middle School. So I I just think um you know to the extent that we can be in other places. I know committee members I want to thank everybody who made the rounds at the various conversations that led up to this point uh but I do think having our meetings in different locations will allow particular school communities to feel more comfortable coming forward. Uh just given that again contacts and proximity uh people may not be as familiar with this building but they are with other buildings that are within the district that are listed within the recommend recommendations. Um and then I would just like to put a plug in um you know I think Sarah and

121Daniel you did a great job of just elevating that we have really vulnerable folks that are in our district. So as we just think about like who can be the folks that are the bridgeuilders LPAC CPAC uh and others that again represent I think the more vulnerable students and the parents within this district. I think we just need to talk to them about how they want to be engaged within this process in the seven weeks that have been laid out um uh in the in the packet. >> That's it for me. >> All right. Thanks, >> Member Cornell. >> Um I just want to say thank you. That was what I was hoping for. I was, you know, and I think probably even more detailed than than I was expecting. So, um that was really

122great. Uh I really appreciate your expertise and the thoughtfulness with which you kind of un engaged with and and ultimately understand the community that that we live in and what our values are particularly around equity. Um I really want to thank everyone who came tonight and everybody who is listening online. It's you we've been really um kind of overwhelmed and impressed with how many people have shown up for the individual school discussions. We've had 30 to 40 sometimes 50 I think people at those meetings, people asking really great questions. So, uh it's I think I think I can speak for my colleagues when I say that community engagement and community feedback is incredibly important for us. So, if there's something I think that we're if we're missing some avenue of communication, please reach out to

123Drs. Reich or any one of us. Our email addresses are available on the city website. Uh, I think we're all very accessible. If you email us, we'll give you our phone number. You can call us, talk to us about your concerns, uh, ideas that you have that Sarah and Dan haven't thought of or we haven't thought of. The last thing I also want to say, uh, because it might seem strange that we have all these options that they came up with that they're not recommending. Those are those are actually super valuable for us as a school committee because we've been having this conversation for four years. we have kind of thrown around a variety of scenarios, some of which just don't work very well. And so it was good for me at least to hear

124like this idea that you had is actually not awesome. So I just want folks to understand like why we have all of these rejected, you know, or not recommended ideas because we we were like, how about this? Uh so that was really helpful for me to hear and four is actually a really a number I can wrap my head around. So thank you very much. you know, I have them. >> Yeah. Okay. Member Campbell. >> Hi, thank you. Um, okay. I have a couple I think mostly requests for additional information. I'm not sure who that would come from or where it would come from. And then a couple of questions. Um, my first is I believe at the beginning of your presentation you referenced having additional materials next week. Um, I just want to make

125sure I understand and that the public understands what what those will be and what people can expect to have to look through next week. >> Sure. Um it's currently over a hundred slides and that was so that we are not here till next October tonight. Um but because we've pulled so much information including looking at all the bargaining agreements and links to those things pulling the DESIE policy on transportation and the links to those we as we've been finding all of these meaningful breadcrumbs and doing analyses and comparing. We want to make that really transparent and available so that if we miss something or misspoke or miscalculated it's transparent and that can be part of the process. We knock on wood didn't but we're also human and so want to honor that this whole thing

126needs to be available so that it's not a behind closed doors assumptions that that got us to these eight scenarios or to our final recommendation. So the slides are for example the one I shared about um the maps that I showed there are maps for to show you where which neighborhoods had each school as their first or second um had the most kids as their choosing it for their first choice or mo second most kids choosing it as their first choice or never chose it. So, a lot of different ways to think about the choice data, a lot of different ways to calculate facilities or estimate facilities or calculate different ideas of costs over time and different um interest rates. There's a lot and it's going to be overwhelming and I wanted Sorry, I was

127going to invite you in and then I just boxed you out. Love you. Um so, [snorts] there's I I wish that that would be as accessible as I hope tonight's presentation was. And I want to say that it's going to just be a a information dump in the spirit of transparency. We welcome questions, follow-ups, and folks want to engage with it. We're here to help do that. Um, but there is not time for us to package it the way we did tonight and get it to you so that you have it for important conversations and decision-m. And so that's a known trade-off that we're making. >> Perfect. Thanks. Because actually what you referenced is specifically what I was one of the things I was looking to get which was more specificity in regards to like

128if not opting for their closest school are there patterns and trends where they are choosing to list as first, second or third. Um, and in that I would also really hope to see I know that it's easy to bucket South Salem as the neighborhood of South Salem, but especially given the train track conflrated. That's a whole thing with the transportation. It would be really helpful to be able to see because for some of them like South Salem are so close to Salt and Stall, some even closer than the students in the point. And for others in South Salem, Salt and Stall is very much not their closest neighborhood school. And so for example, when you talked about I think it was 34% of students not ever selecting Salt and Stall, does that encompass all 25%

129that are not within one mile of Salt and Stall? Like are in other words, if you are within that 25% of students for whom Salt and Stall is not your onem proximity school are those the students that are not selecting Salt and Stall at all or is it really that there are a lot of students who are quite close to Salt and Stall who are not choosing Salt and Stall if that makes sense. I can say anecdotally I was so I created sort of a neighborhood variable and then looked up every address of every kid from the last three years who registered for kindergarten to map them onto those neighborhoods. And there were kids who were across the street from multiple schools. I don't want to be singling out salt and stall here. Um there

130were kids within a mile within a half mile within a street of many of these schools who did not choose it as their first choice and that's consistent across the district. And that's why I sort of zoomed out because we're dealing with such small neighborhoods. >> It's a little tricky to make sure that we're really protecting students and families and where they live in some of these small neighborhoods to say where their choices are because they might be in those schools now. And so I'll have to sort of think about that. Um but these are the questions. >> It's just sort of like um roughly from this area. These are the general like if there is a trend or pattern like I'm making this up off the top of my head but actually you referenced

131it that in the point there is an increasing number of students I can do that by neighborhood that that type of thing that's sort of what I'm looking for and then for South Salem the geographic split I think is just really hard for me to wrap my mind around >> given how geographically large it is and the number of children that are there to really be able to see like what patterns might emerge from there. Um, and then similarly, I appreciate and understand your conclusion in regards to how school choices working for kindergarten where I have my most significant concerns are in the non- kindergarten grades and in particular, I think anecdotally, third and up. Um, what I'm really concerned about is do they have access to schools or are many seats already filled up

132for these students because of our controlled choice policy. And so, for example, if families are moving in with third graders or let's say a second grader and a fifth grader, are they automatically really limited because they're looking for where is there a slot in second and fifth grade available? And so that for me where my biggest concern regarding school choice comes from is I worry that we are artificially limiting new arrivals to Salem and then by default often are immigrant families. Um, and many of whom again anecdotally would love to go to their neighborhood school, would love to be able to walk, you know, like that. I hear that a lot. Um but there may not be seats there and there often is like well why am I going to the school all the way

133across the way and then because of our um mandatory rider policy new arrivals to the country are automatically mandatory you know it that's my biggest concern is not is it working for kindergarten because I think by and large it does seem to work for kindergarten. We've seen that again and again and again thanks to Jill Conrad's wonderful presentations over the years. But like what does it look like for non- kindergarten students in particular? >> Totally hear you. I want to clarify one thing in terms of the data that I used because I was looking at their choice preferences, not their enrollment. I still think it does tell us about what they want without telling us where the I'm not in none of the slides that I speak to where kids ended up. It was just

134where parents picked as their first, second, or third choices. And it was all year round. I did not just look at on time or first round registration. So, I just want to clarify that piece that I think it'll tell a little bit bigger of a story than it might have suggested tonight and that doesn't speak to where they end up, which we know does structure access the way you're speaking. >> I do know again from Jill's presentations many of the time most families are receiving their first or second choice. So, that is for the most part where they have landed. And I just don't know that I would like to know if our upper grade students are receiving the same level of choice as we would hope given our policy. Um and then sorry I

135have two more um for now. Um the first is about dual language. I would love to know and this might be more a question for Steve. Um do we have an idea of what the level of interest is in dual language? I think that's a really important um consideration in terms of like facility space if it's you know we see a lot of interest that could easily outpace the room that's available in the Bentley school for example is there a consideration for being able to add additional strands into it in such a popular model um or have we sort of based on our information have we kind of right do we have the right size program for the level of interest and I think that would be really helpful as well um and then my

136Last question. This is more just like a small one. The current percentage of mandatory riders on the bus, I know you referenced at least 20%, we would still need to have a bus for it. Um, is that what is our current percentage of students who are mandatory riders now? Do we know? >> We have calculated by school. So, we could add that up for you. >> Okay. Because if it's similar to that calculation, I would agree with it. But if it's significantly higher, that is still a swing. like if we're looking at a much higher percentage of mandatory riders. Um and then I thought I heard you say when you talked about um I think it was Bentley or sorry the point and um the number of students going to Witchcraft um Heights. Was there

137a comment around it perhaps being used because the extended hours of the busing helped kind of elongate the day or did I misinterpret what was said? That's what I've heard and what folks have said anecdotally, but I wasn't looking at any data that could prove or disprove that. >> Okay. Thanks. It just made me think in terms of like on our other school committee hats that we wear, increasing access to extended day programming and what that might do for families. That's it for now. Thank you. >> Any other questions at the moment? Um, so I want to say first, thank you both. Um we're very fortunate that you were able to help us with this project to this point and also that you are Salem residents yourself which is really grateful. Um and just to

138reiterate for the for the community I think a point that that you mentioned during the presentation which is this is this is not a performance-based or accountability based process that we've had um seven preliminary meetings with with elementary school communities. about 400 people have attended those and um if you've had the opportunity to participate in one of those presentations I think it was very clear from from Dr. Zich's presentation and the school committee member who attended um that this is based really around the facilities and the financial constraints the district is facing right now. Um with that being said, we do have more process ahead of us. Um, and in following up on the time frame that you outlined in the presentation, I wanted to propose some uh some dates for the community feedback sessions

139that are outlined. Um, specifically looking at Monday, November 17th and Tuesday, November 25th. uh the 17th at 5:00 PM preceding our school committee meeting and the 25th I think we said 6:30 p.m. >> I'm getting head shakes. >> Let's just I'm sorry. What's the second date? >> The 25th. Uh and in terms of locations, since in the four recommended scenarios, Salt and Stall, Carlton, and Horse Man are the three schools that seem to be the most impacted amongst the four scenarios, I would suggest two of those three schools. >> Member I mean think salts makes sense because it's centrally located. Um, and I think horse man makes sense because it's, you know, we when we look at that map of how many kids are in that area, I think that also makes sense and the

140buildings can accommodate a bunch of people. >> Yeah. >> Except Bentley has a lot of parking. So, [laughter] >> it's walkable for me. So, she can park there. >> It's not all about you, Member Campbell. the drive. >> Okay, >> we will confirm those dates and times and share them with the community. Um, so I would suggest that for the the November 17th listening uh session or community feedback session um that we also hold the school committee meeting at that location immediately following the uh the public information session. And for the for the public, the format for these meetings will consist of a abbreviated version of the presentation really highlighting I think the the uh scenarios that are under recommendation um and then allowing time for public questions uh dialogue or comment if there isn't

141a question specifically. The email address that was shared previously is also available to provide written feedback on the scenarios that were presented and uh as has been mentioned this presentation is on the district's website. member Campbell. >> Um, will questions that come into the reconfiguration email, will those be posted publicly? I know we've done that for budgets in the past. >> Yeah, we can do that. I have it's coming to me and a couple of other people. So, we can post whatever questions we get um ahead of time and I can share it with the committee as well. >> Or even I I mean the questions and then like if there's answer provided, I think that would be almost like an FAQ kind of. I've already gotten a question. So, we'll uh >> somebody here

142>> and I already responded. So, we uh >> How about that? >> Um I can tell you what I can tell the public what the the question was just about when we talk about um an early childhood center, what grade levels were we referring to? And I think you were referring to pre preschool and pre kindergarten, not kindergarten, right, Dan? I just want to >> Yes. Generally speaking, the way we modeled the scenario is the one that was coming out was Excuse me. [clears throat] Not including kindergarten. >> Not including kindergarten. >> Particularly because the choice because students choice in at kindergarten. You don't want to introduce more >> changes. >> So now you said that and people are going to start emailing you to check it right now. >> I'll have to I'll send

143it I'll send the email >> Facebook live with Dr. Z. Um >> um well if you submit a question to that um email address we can post the responses in the questions removing the information about who asked the question of course >> but if somebody wishes to ask a question and not have it posted please specify that as well because we want people to be able to feel comfortable asking whatever questions they have. Member Cruz, >> I'd just make one more ask as we're considering um what we're going to publish around the schedule here. I think we do need to involve our community in the broader uh push that we're having around the funding formula. I know that the superintendent um recently attended one of the public sessions that the state is holding uh regarding

144the funding formula, but the day after the scheduled school committee meeting uh on the 17th, so on November 18th, there's going to be a virtual public comment period uh regarding the chapter 70 formula. We really do need folks in Salem to be raising up their voices. Um you know, this we did commit in the state budget to re-examining uh this through a commission. Uh but you know, I just think that the pressure does need amount from communities like Salem regarding, you know, just how uneven uh the treatment of uh a lot of communities that are similarly situated to Salem has been by the chapter 70 formula. So uh to the extent that we can publicize that alongside of this information, uh Dr. Strike, I was going to wait till announcements for it, but just figured

145I'd I'd put a plug in for it now. >> Thank you. Thanks very much. Um, so that concludes the presentation on the reconfiguration study. We will take a brief pause unless people would really like to stay for the >> subcommittee reports. Motion for a two-minute recess. >> Second. >> Can I just uh say one thing before we close? The the plan is tomorrow to send out a communication to the community with all this information that we have and clarify the dates of the the different sessions so people know where they are, when they are. Uh so please look out for that. It might be the end of the day tomorrow so we after we finalize all of that. We didn't want to have any of those things finalized until after the presentation tonight, but we

146will um get you all that so you have that and people um will know. We want to give people ample notice to um for the hearings. I think it also gives enough time for people to digest both this presentation and then by early next week the facts the fact uh uh well all the facts will be out there. What what are you calling it? Your >> Fact base. Sorry. fact base will be out there for people to have at least a week to look at it before the first public uh hearing. So, um just wanted to say that um before we close this part of it, >> make a motion for a two-minute recess. >> I'll second >> motion for a 10-minute recess. >> 10 minutes. >> Oh, two minute. Jeez, I say 10 [laughter]

147minutes. Wow, there's a lot of people. It takes a long time. Two minutes. All in favor recess. >> We have the MSBA update in your packet. There's not not a lot additional information that's new from the last meeting. We do have a building committee meeting on Thursday evening here um at Collins. Um we're still working on the final design for the building for submission to the MSBA in December. Um but I I don't really have any additional information to share. Um I do just before I close and I think Elizabeth Elizabeth do you have an update too. Um I also would just say uh going back to the last topic is I am more than interested in going to speak to different um parent groups at the different schools. We know that for all our

148families like these meetings don't always work. Um I know that um not every family goes to every PTO meeting or every Zoom meeting that we shared. Um but there we have other groups that meet. We have members of our parent advisory group here. Um but um if there are specific uh groups in the community that want to hear more about the elementary reconfiguration plans, I look forward to attending those. I can we'll go out at any point to talk to the different communities uh that want to ask questions so that we inform as many people, not just the people that were here tonight or watching on Zoom. Elizabeth, I don't know if you have anything on your update that you wanted to share. >> I do. I have two updates. Um the first is about

149athletic coaching stipens >> which is right after the MSBA memo in the packet. So um the school committee and the STU agreed to review um and recommend new stipens for athletics coaches. They have not had a raise in some long time. um and they are among the lowest paid have been among the lowest paid athletics coaches in our um league. And so a subcommittee of the athletics department and members of the STU leadership team came together um to recommend stipens met with the policy subcommittee of this group met with me. And what we bring to you today for your consideration and approval is a set of stipens that will over the course of this year and next year increase the stipens for athletics coaches so that they are in the middle of the pay scale

150for our um for our league. It also um this language also includes uh an opportunity for coaches whose teams go on to postseason play. So they qualify for postseason play to have access to a pool of funds that will compensate them for the extra time that this extended season um would um would result uh or the demands it would place on their time. Um, I will say that this recommendation for FY26 aligns with what we have budgeted for FY26. So, we have found a way to raise those salaries over two years. And so, I'm bringing this to you for your consideration and approval. And I don't know if members of the uh policy subcommittee want to add anything to what I've said. >> Amber Cruz, I >> I would just clarify that um although the

151membership is the same, the personnel subcommittee >> Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. even though everything does get sent to policy these days. It was the personnel subcommittee. No, no worries at all. >> Apologies. >> Uh so I just I would just add that um I think this was one of the outstanding items from our conversations with bargaining. I just want to extend my thanks to our friends at the STU um the district leadership for coming together to work on uh a recommendation that I think was prudent and also aligned um with um the the agreement that we made with the STU uh last year. So, I I think that, you know, what we're seeing here is an opportunity for us to be able to retain uh the really great uh coaches that we have

152uh and to ensure that we're compensating folks uh fairly for the time that they spend with our student athletes. So, just want to express my gratitude to folks. It took a lot of work to get here um as we were exploring a couple of different scenarios, but I just think uh it's a prudent way to tackle the issue. Um, and I'm excited that uh we're going to be able to uh offer u these coaches who have dedicated just so much time to our children um these additional um forms of compensation. >> Um my second update and apologies again for the personnel subcommittee. My second update involves the buildings and grounds um subcommittee. We um at the last school committee meeting, we brought to the full committee a renewal request for the license for Angela's daycare,

153which is currently licensing space at Salem High School. The license goes through the end of this month. Uh and we have the option to renew for two one-year um two one-year terms. So, we were referred to the buildings and ground subcommittee. The committee discussed um renewing the license and um I'll invite uh chair Miranda or member Hoffman to from that subcommittee to um add in. But what the recommendation was that we approve the the one-year extension of this license with one modification, which is we sync the timing of the license to the school year and fiscal year calendar. So it would renew on December 1, which was when it was going to renew anyway, and it would go through June 30, 2026, as opposed to November 30, 2026. There's no real rationale for the November

154deadline um which was originally established because that's when the partnership was established not because it aligned with either their operating schedule which is 12 months or our operating schedule which aligns with the fiscal year. What [snorts] that will mean is we'll go out to bid in the spring in the early spring and they will have to bid for the space. Um, so that is the recommendation of the buildings and ground subcommittee and I don't know if member Miranda or member Hoffman if you would like to add anything but we bring that to you for your consideration. >> Do you want us to touch on that now or wait until the point in the agenda? >> Um, you can take it up now if you >> Okay. Um, I basically and AJ I totally welcome you

155to um offer whatever thoughts you have. Um, but overall I think the consensus that we came to is we're super grateful for the programs that we've accepted into our spaces here um in Salem and the benefit um for the community is significant and also I think it's it's really important for us to look at the ways that we're utilizing our space. Um and so the motion that was made was a recommendation uh for the full um committee to renew the contract for Angela's Daycare um for December 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2026. And then between now and as Elizabeth had stated, between now and around March, um we could do some further research um and things and determine how we want to go forward with um any of these kinds of like longer term rentals

156with all of our partners. >> That is my report. >> All done. >> All set. >> All right. any subcommittee reports further than the ones we've received? Member Cornell. >> Uh I just want to note that the policies that are coming up for a vote tonight are all ones that came from um the MASC in their review. So most of these just bring us in line with Mass General law. But I do think it's worth noting and member Cruz and I talked about this a lot in our last meeting is in general we tend to not just sort of like repeat mass general law in our policies but that is the convention with MASC and we did hire them to help us organize all of this information so that it's a lot more it's more

157searchable and it's more aligned with the other districts that use MASC um to kind of organize and hold their information. So while we discussed that it wasn't exactly the our usual policy, we won't be the one doing the work when when it gets uh when it gets changed or reviewed. So um that responsibility goes on to MASC. So I just wanted to note that because these changes are um kind of the you know they're kind of clinical. There's nothing particularly you know interesting about them. >> Right. Any other subcommittee reports, motions, and resolutions? Member Cruz. >> Uh, move to approve the athletic coaches stipen agreement with the Salem Teachers Union. >> Second. >> Motion made by member Cruz, seconded by member Cornell. Under discussion, any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? Opposed?

158Unanimous. The matter carries. Move to approve the Angela's preschool daycare and l preschool and daycare license renewal. >> Second >> motion made by member Campbell, seconded by member Cornell to approve the uh license renewal with Angela's preschool and daycare. Under discussion, seeing none. >> Oh yes. Um, does the motion need to be amended to state that we changed the contract um to reflect the school year? >> We can clarify that in the motion. So, >> I will accept that friendly amendment. >> Okay. A friendly amendment to uh approve the license renewal for the period of December 1st, 2025 through June 30th. June 30th, 2026 for Angela's preschool and daycare. >> Seconded. Under discussion, member Cruz. Um I I guess this is a question for [snorts] uh the superintendent or the assistant superintendent just regarding uh

159within the lease. Um it specifies particular uh rooms that the that are being uh rented out by Angela's uh daycare. Is there a process for conversations in the event that they uh overenroll or have a wait list for talking about any available space within the building? Um there is not an official process for in this license changing the rooms. Um I assume that if this became an issue during the term of the license that the district leadership and the school leadership would have the conversation, but for now this this set of terms with the change being the length of time is the only change that we're recommending. And then to clarify, we previously when we went over the the leases and some of the kind of different arrangements that existed within the district, uh I

160just want to clarify Angela's uh preschool offers free child care for our students and then is it a discounted rate for employees of the entire district or just the high school? >> Uh it is a subsidized rate for employees of um Salem High School staff uh school district staff. Um and so it would be broader than just the high school. >> Thank you. >> Any further discussion or questions? Seeing none, on the motion to approve as a as amended. All in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. All in favor? The matter carries. Uh, I'm going to take this as a group motion to approve policy AA acce and ADC for first read. >> Seconded. >> Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Campbell. Under discussion, seeing no discussion. All in favor? Any opposed? None are

161opposed. All in favor of the matter carries. announcements. >> I have a question. No, I'm just kidding. I don't have a question. >> How dare you? Uh, two quick announcements. Uh, so it was mentioned, uh, no school tomorrow for all schools except Carlton. >> It is election day. Polls are open 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Please remember to vote. Um, and November 11th, we have our annual Veterans Day ceremony at Salem High School at 11:00, and all are invited to join us for that. Any further announcements? Seeing none. >> Move to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Motion made by member Campbell, second by member Cruz. Under discussion, seeing none. All in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. All in favor? The matter carries. We're >> to crack another little joke.