Salem School Committee Meeting: 4/7/2025

001meeting of the Salem School Committee of April 7th, 2025 at 7 p.m. This meeting is taking place in person at 29 Highland Avenue, room 227. You can also join via Zoom using the link posted in the meeting agenda. Uh, first order of business is approval of the agenda for the meeting. Move to approve the agenda. Second. Motion made by member Cruz, seconded by member Miranda. All in favor? Any opposed? The matter carries. Our next item is public comment. If you uh 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

002school committee meetings. We encourage all meeting participants to model respectful and productive public discourse for our young learners. We have any comment in the room. A long address. This is a lot of writing. Hi. So, for a change, I'm a little unprepared here, so I'm going to wing some of this. Um, good evening, Dr. Joke, Mayor Pangalo, and members of the school committee. Um, first, I want to thank you for your transparency in sharing the budget process with STU ahead of time. um in speaking with my union colleagues across the Commonwealth, this was not the norm um in all the cities and I appreciate it very much and having an opportunity to um hear the process and learn about it and what was going to happen prior to this meeting tonight. Um as I'm not

003one to beat around the bush, I'll say what I need to say and let you get on with the business at hand this evening. Um, while I understand the need to be fiscally responsible as a district, I am concerned that the loss of many of the positions that you're planning on discussing this evening and possibly cutting in the next couple weeks are going to be detrimental to our students um, and the function of our schools. I fear that we're not going to be able to staff appropriately. Our students who struggle now are not going to have the adults next year available to them for help. and the educators who are currently overwhelmed with work will have less help. Um during negotiations, we had long discussions about the value and the necessity of our paraprofessionals having

004them in our buildings and in our classrooms every single day. And yet here we are talking about cutting them. Um every person in our buildings on a daily basis helps run that building. It doesn't matter what their job is or what their task to do that day. And that's actually all I have written right now because I had a lot to do. I've been fielding a lot of phone calls lately. So, I'm just going to wing it. When you are in a building on a day-to-day basis, you could be tying a kid's shoe. You could be opening a milk carton. You could be helping them open a locker. You could be teaching them. You could be doing who knows what, but you are there every single day. When you're cutting these individuals, we're not going

005to have in our buildings every single day. There's nobody to at recess. And if every single available person is out at recess, there's nobody left in the building for an emergency or to tie that shoelace or to open that milk carton. So I ask you when you're looking at these cuts to please look elsewhere. Please before you start cutting the human beings in the building every single day, look elsewhere. I don't know where. I don't have those answers. I wish I did, but please look elsewhere before you start cutting from the buildings. Thank you. Any other comment? Good evening, Drs. Reich, Mary Pong, Maror Pongalo, and members of the school committee. My name is Jodkincaid Tomayoshi and I am the director of digital learning and library services for Salem Public Schools. I am in my

006fifth year of work with Salem Public Schools and it is with my great and constant commitment to our students, our families and my colleagues that I stand here this evening. Last year, this esteemed committee concluded that the value of a comprehensive library and digital skills program in Salem public schools was worth our investment. This body agreed that our students deserve libraries with curated collections of richly diverse books and resources that reflect their identity, culture, and interests. That our students deserve libraries that support their learning in literacy and across all subject areas. and that our students deserve libraries that introduce them to our quickly changing world beyond. After years of neglect, these immensely valuable resources, our libraries, which support belonging, equity, and opportunity in our schools are now in development in Salem. Our high school librarian,

007Beth Bright, is currently working with our Spanishspeaking and Spanish learning students, selecting a collection of Spanish titles to develop a collection of books that is both engaging and accessible. The collection has grown by almost 10% with a 30% increase in circulation. If you walk into our library at Bates Elementary, you will see an expansive display of books on display that represent our vast human experience. Every day, those books are going home with students eager to open them up. These are two examples of how your decision has already impacted our students. At the same time, our students are finally acquiring digital learning skills using an expertly developed curriculum that brings our district into compliance with the state. But more importantly, it guides our students into the safe, responsible, and ethical use of technologies they use every

008day, both in and out of school. Just across the hall, our seventh grade students have been learning about the impact of technology on society and how they can be positive change makers. They are making infographics and presenting persuasive arguments to their peers to demonstrate their learning. In second grade, 75% of our students are now proficient in using at least one digital tool. And in fifth grade, our students are developing savvy as they learn to evaluate and site the sources they use for research. As director, I built the scope and sequence and the resources necessary for these goals to be met. While there are numerous digital skills learning programs out there, not one of them covers the comprehensive standards encompassed in the state's digital learning and computer science domains. The state itself has had to collect

009a disperate list of programs that do a little but not at all. In Salem, we are selecting and building a curriculum that is aligned with other content areas, is highly engaging and relevant, and meets our students needs. We are setting a standard that we can be proud of and serves our students well. And we are taking the more advanced step that many educational experts see as the future by combining digital and library skills curricular curricula as the two content areas have an almost seamless alignment. We now have a curriculum that spirals our K through8 learning so that as they advance to their next grade and ultimately high school students have an increased exposure to books and information and have developed critical thinking, problem solving, ethical and digital skills foundations to step into any classroom and

010be able to access their learning with confidence and independence. But our program is only in its infancy. We staffed four schools with library and digital skills specialists this past year and plan to staff two more in this coming year. And we have an enormous amount of work to do to develop district-wide library management procedures that support our team's vision of access for all and continue to expand and iterate our new curriculum. This work requires dedicated time and bandwidth to train and support our specialists in their craft who while they are certified librarians are learning to be technology teachers too. As they grow into their roles, our team will also provide essential on-site technology training and support to their colleagues, leading to a much larger impact across the district. As the director of this program, I

011tap into my expertise in education, technology, library science, and leadership to achieve the goal that your leadership committed to last year. As you consider the district's staffing needs for the next year, please commit to continuing your full and unwavering support of our library program. You need only to look at any highly excelling district's library program to know that Salem students deserve their libraries, too. give us the time to realize this goal for them. I thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Any further further public comment? How's it going tonight? Good evening, chairperson and esteemed members of the Salem School Committee. I stand before you today as the president of ASME Local 294 to address the proposal uh proposed budget cuts and the potential impact on our members, their families, and the students we

012serve. While we recognize the difficult financial challenges faced by the district, we have some concerns regarding the proposed reductions, particularly with the impact on positions held by our members. It's important to note that these uh proposed cuts would affect more than just the two ASME positions being targeted. Uh due to contractual obligations agreed upon uh by both parties, these changes may not result in the savings originally anticipated. We question whether these proposals will truly align with the district's goal of condensing um the deficit. ASME Local 294's executive board has met and discussed these concerns thoroughly. While we are grateful that our union isn't as severely impacted as some others, we still have an obligation to advocate for our members and ensure that the changes, if moved forward, are executed in a fair and proper manner

013in full accordance with the language of our contract. We are committed to working collaboratively with the district and would welcome the opportunity to discuss alternate solutions. We look forward to the continued dialogue and hope that the district will take our concerns seriously and be willing to engage in proper impact bargaining. I appreciate the opportunity to address the committee this evening and look forward to speaking again at the next meeting. Thank you for your time. Any further public comment in the room? Any public comment on Zoom? So we will move on to the next item on our agenda which is approval of the consent agenda. This consists of the minutes of the school committee meeting of March 17th. Approval of field trip to Canoby Lake Park for the Carlton fifth grade students. Approval of the planting

014of two trees at Salt and Stall School on Arbor Day, a donation uh from Vision Incorporated uh for Witchcraft Heights Picture Day, and approval of warrants from March 20th and March 27th. Mo move to approve the consent agenda. Second. Motion made by member Cruz, seconded by member Manning. All in under discussion. Seeing none. All in favor? Oh, mayor. Under discussion. Um, if there's anyone in attendance that was waiting on the field trips approvals once we take this vote, uh, you don't have to stay any longer. Just noting for folks. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? Matter carries. Student representatives report. Good evening everyone. Um these past weeks we have been working with um Miss Mullen at the high school to help put announcements on the TV screens all around. That's what

015we've been discussing at our Monday meetings. And today on the 7th we met with Dr. Zich. We met with an architect for the uh new school building and we also met with the building and grounds director. Not only that, we have three new students that have been enacted into the superintendent advisory board. Two from New Liberty and one from Sam High. And not only that, we hosted our officer elections for secretary, press secretary, and officer at large. When we met with the architect, we split up into three groups talking about how we wanted to improve the dining. We wanted to improve quiet spaces and we also wanted to include wellness spaces. Changes to dining include talking about a more open plan that included more natural light and a more lounge style. Quiet spaces included um

016things like projectors and laptop chargers and furniture to make the space a bit cozier for academic purposes and wellness spaces were more dedicated to the health of the student rather than academic and they would just allow for relaxation and a stress-free environment. To conclude the meeting, we spoke to the building and grounds director about these school facilities like bathrooms, locker rooms, and outdoor spaces. Any questions? Mark. All right. Thank you, Mark. Thank you. Thanks. Superintendent's report. Uh, good evening everybody. I appreciate how many people are here tonight um and to engage in a very important conversation about our FY26 budget. I uh um I appreciate the level of engage engagement. Just a couple of updates before we get to the budget presentation. We're going to go first to that uh because I know that's why

017a lot of people are here tonight. Um first of all, I do just want to confirm the last days of school. Not that we're thinking about the end of school. Um but it is coming as we have snow in the coming down today. We're thinking about the last day of school, but uh hopefully there's no more snow days. Um and the last day for pre kindergarten and kindergarten will be Monday, June 16th across the district. Uh, grades 1 to 11 will be Friday, June 20th. Uh, that will be an early release day. And then, of course, Carlton is special and has its own calendar. So, uh, kindergarten will be Monday, June 16th. And for all other students, uh, June 17th, which will also be an early release day. And then seniors at Salem High School,

018last day is Thursday, May 29th. Of course, we had one snow day this year, which I admit was a bad call on my part, but I was joined by others in making that bad call. um on February 6th uh would it's too bad because we would have been able to get off before the Junth holiday but um we are so everything got pushed back a day. So I just want to acknowledge that people have been asking and I want to make sure folks know that. Um I also uh do just want to um I have a few updates also uh that I'll share when we do the building committee update. Um I do also want to acknowledge that this is the last meeting before April vacation. I do want to uh wish everybody a uh

019happy and healthy uh vacation um uh season. Um and we do have a number of people traveling to the Dominican Republic uh from our team who will also will be interviewing candidates for open roles that we have particularly Spanish speaking roles in the district. This is the first time we we've done that. Last year we did go but we didn't actually in um interview folks. So, we're looking to diversify our workforce uh especially linguistically as well as we try to staff up our dual language program in particular, but it would be obviously nice to have as many staff who are connected to um where many of our kids come from the Dominican Republic. So, I appreciate the staff that will be going. We look forward to hearing back from them when they return um after

020after the break. Um and we will be running uh April Academy accelerationmies and programs and I'll be sharing that with the committee um in the in the next week so you're aware of what uh we've got organized for our students during that period of time. Many of our staff will be working um and supporting our students during during the um the break. Um with that I do want to turn to our budget presentation for this evening. I do want to call that um you all uh the budget booklet is on the website. We didn't print out, you know, it's almost 100 pages, so we didn't want to waste too much paper, but it's available. We're happy to print it out for anybody that would like a copy and any school committee members, but I know

021many of the members do not want hard copies of it. We also, um, and the budget presentation for this evening will be up there. We're working on getting it translated in other languages as well, uh, so that families can see it in Portuguese and, um, in Spanish. So, we'll have that, um, by the end of the week, um, as well. So, I don't know, Mark, do you want to queue it up or Okay. Um, so I've got the first few um slides here and I do want to acknowledge like, you know, this is my I think 12th year as a superintendent. This is by far the hardest budget season I've ever been through. Uh, not totally unexpected. Uh, and we've been planning for a long time. Um, you know, uh, discussing, uh, there and there's

022no good choices here. So, I just want to start by saying there is this is the land of terrible choices and um so and we we we have to make what we think are the best choices in a difficult situation. Um and as many folks know, you know, this is part of and I'll get to it in a moment, but if you want to go to the next slide, Mark, or not, Mark, I have the clicker. Sorry, I'm telling people to change. Where's the clicker? Here we go. All right. Sorry, Mark. All right. Um so I'll talk a little bit about how we think about the budget in general but then specifically this the context of this budget. Uh when we thought about this uh budget this year and and of you know and as

023years pass we always think about how we allocate resources equitably. We want to think about uh we have our equity statement in the back of the room and how we think about uh who needs the most get gets the most. Uh it doesn't mean that everybody gets the same and so we think about it through that lens. We also have a strategic plan. We're in moving into the third year of a of a a three-year plan next year. And so that plan is alive and well. Uh we've got very clear uh values which I'll share in a moment. Um and so that that looms large in the decisions we make. Everything we try to do is um related to the strategic plan. Uh we also try to get input from the community. Obviously, this is

024not a year where we're trying to get input about what things we should add. But we did have conversations with people about what are the things that we should definitely not touch and if we had to make some tough decisions. Where would you make those decisions? And predictably, people are not going to offer up a whole lot because they care about everything uh that we do and offer. Um but that that does loom large and I'll share a little more about the input we received. Um and then we do rely on our school leaders. I want to thank our principles for being here tonight. Um, and they've um, you know, their input looms large. They know their buildings the best. Um, I obviously think our educators know the buildings well. We've gotten input from the

025different unions, but our school leaders have given us a lot of input in this budget process as well. Okay. These are our values and uh, it was referenced by Jod earlier. These do are important values to us. Belonging, equity, and opportunity. And I think at this at this moment in time that we live in, these are as important as ever. and they do shape um the the conversations we have about the budget regardless if it's uh you know um you know uh positive times or if it's lean moments like right now the our values should be uh critical to our decision-m uh our mission statement and vision statement are here these haven't changed uh they were here before I arrived they continue to drive our work and I just want to make sure that people

026are grounded in what these um what we believe about our schools and what we uh hope to accomplish with our kids and and our you know our vision about what we aspire to be. We want our students to be locally engaged, globally connected, and fully prepared to thrive in a diverse and changing world. Again, I referenced our strategic plan. We have uh four core priorities. Elevating learning, uh empowering educators, centering belonging, and strengthening our foundation. Again, these priorities, the goals attached to them, and the priorities are also part of the design of this budget. Um and um we you know as long as we have this plan this is our north star and again you can't read those. I'm sorry. Um they're small but these are our measures of success. This is what we're holding

027ourselves accountable to. Um and each one of the priorities we have a series of goals that I report out to the school committee and the public on a regular b basis. We now have a public dashboard that shows how we're doing relative to these goals. And so, um, I would ask that as people think about giving us feedback, which I'm very, you know, we're open to, that's why we shared this information before the budget process and we're going to, we have a budget hearing next week, is that you think about our strategic plan, you think about our goals, and that you try to match your feedback to those uh, goals because that's what's that's what we hold is important. I I I at no point think I've figured it all out. And I'm sure there's

028when you have as many shifts as we do in this budget, there's obviously room for discussion and there's room for input. Obviously, we have to close a a deficit, but we um there's always room for discussion and for um very intelligent people to offer different perspectives about how we can meet our goals. So this is the overview and you know Elizabeth is much better versed than I am and she's going to talk more in depth about this but um our budget uh for our proposed again this is a proposed budget. This is not this is my recommended proposed budget. It is not baked and it will not be until ultimately the school committee and then the city council votes on that which won't be until May. Um so I just want to remind folks but

029it is a 78,73,061 is what we're proposing. It is a budget increase of 4.8% which is identical to the increase we received last year and is higher than the average increases that the uh Salem public schools have re have received over the last you know decade. Um but the budget gap is 4.9 million. Um and we're going to talk about what the factors are. Um so even with that you know above average increase and with um you know a sizable uh you know um increase from the prior year we still have a gap and there's a lot driving that right now. And I I don't I don't have to tell all of you what those uh are but I just will reiterate them. We we no longer have pandemic recovery funds. And as many of

030you may have read in the news um the federal government swept all that money from districts that hadn't spent it. So, I'm grateful that we did spend it when we did. Um, but that it was swiped by uh from a lot of districts around the country and in Massachusetts, but we no longer have those funds. Um, there are major expenses rising. You all know what the cost of doing business is right now. Um, but we have rising expenses in out of district tuition, which the number of students going out of district isn't necessarily more, but the cost of the tuitions has gone up exponentially over the last few years. transportation costs have gone up even though we will we are proposing running fewer buses or one fewer bus but the cost of transportation and running

031buses has gone up and our utilities costs uh continue to go up and Elizabeth will talk more about that um and we do have required salary contributions that are ensure that our staff is competitively uh compensated tonight we're going to talk about the SAA contract and the um and and hopefully we'll get a ratification tonight on that contract but we also made a very sizable um commitment to our ASME unit and of course to the STU in the last year. Those were the right things to do. I don't want anybody to think that there's any um blame to put on our staff. We were not competitive in our strategic plan. If you read in the plan, it says that we want to um increase our benefits and and salaries of staff because we want to

032be competitive in the region. and we were not and we needed to be and we made an important decision in partnership especially with the um STU um and uh no regrets. It's important that we retain quality people. It's important that we um uh continue to we we hope that we don't have the turnover that we may have seen a few years ago and we think that the uh increases in um salaries will help that and it's important for our kids to have stability of quality educators. Um, and then of course, Chapter 70, which is the way that we get funding for schools, has not increased at a rate that keeps pace with inflation and what our needs are. And and Salem really hasn't gotten its fair share of um the Student Opportunity Act over the

033last few years. For those of you that, you know, watch these meetings religiously, and I'm sorry if you do, but um um you know th those of you that have been watching, this has been an issue for us for a long time, and we haven't gotten our fair share. Every district is struggling, but we we deserved, in my opinion, to get more than what we have over the last few years. Um, we made reductions as equitably as we could across schools and departments. We looked at the percentage that schools and departments had of the overall budget in FY25, and that's the that's the goal we set for reductions for each school and department going into this. And I appreciate the work that our school leaders did. It was not easy to to get to the

034places that they've decided to get to. and and I support what they I think we have excellent school leaders who made thoughtful decisions as thoughtful as possible painful no less um but uh thoughtful decisions about where they thought they could make reductions um and then the personnel look you know this is also we're a people business I we care about people and we do we think we have really good people in Salem uh you heard uh you know an mention that I believe that to be the case we're going to do the best we can so that the people that we think um you know that we're We tried to uh the positions we reduced, we tried to make sure they were as often as possible vacant ones filled by retirees, people who are going

035off to the next chapter in their lives. Um and then um we obviously have obligations to professional status staff, but we also want to retain anybody who we think um shares our values and is committed to the city of Salem. And we think we're going to be able to do that in almost every case. I'm not saying it's going to happen in every case, but where possible, we we're going to do whatever we can because we do think we have good people working on our behalf, you know, and and um so that that's a commitment that we we have made and we'll continue to make um in in our conversations with uh staff, uh not all of it's been sorted out. Um but because this is just a proposal until the nothing is final until

036we we there's an um a vote by the school committee and and then ultimately the city council. So stakeholder input we did host a number of forums. Uh we had two community forums. We did have a staff forum on Zoom that was well attended. Um and then I do have regular meetings with advisory groups that have been really informative in this process. Uh teacher, student and parent advisory. uh they have been um very useful in getting their input. Uh we did I did meet with the LPAC and the CPAC um our multilingual parent association and our special education parent association in the last week to talk about the budget and then we've had ongoing conversations with the Salem teachers union. We met with ASME and we've met with SAA as well to discuss uh the

037budget um you know not as in detail as you'll hear tonight but with um a sense of what was coming and what was happening. Um the finance subcommittee for the school committee has met a few different times. We were very careful about not having we wanted to make sure that people who were impacted had information before it went out publicly. So we were we didn't want to have the public. We'll have there will obviously be a series of public meetings now but we were very careful because we wanted to respect people who were impacted. Uh we've obviously had multiple discussions with school leaders. the executive team of the Salem public schools has met about the budget uh about the budget process and we've received I've received a fair number of emails at SPS budget um

038and those I've shared with the school committee anytime I've received um budget uh um feedback um again you're not going to probably be able to read this on this screen but this is all detailed in the budget booklet with even more detail this is a summary of what we heard and some trends um we asked this is uh questions we asked students, parents, and the um staff. Um which positions or programs might Salem public schools do without? And what ideas do you have for more effectively using resources? Folks are not ever going to name specific positions, but they do say non- studententf facing positions. Everybody wants the yonder pouches gone. Uh even though I think people think yonder pouches will co, you know, cost a million dollars, but they really only cost $27,000. But people

039spent think we spent an inordinate amount of money. Students said that loud and clear. And there were some parents that raised that as well. Uh so I just put it there because it came up in all the conversations. People I got an email from a staff member about yonder pouches as well. So it was consistent in every group. Um but I will tell you we can't balance the budget on cutting yonder pouches. Um you know people don't want to see consultants. Uh they want to um they want us to think about sharing staff and resources across schools where where possible and it doesn't impact kids um and duplicative positions. What are programs that we we cannot do without? We heard a lot about pre kindergarten. We heard about class size a lot, right? And so

040class size alone came up a lot in every conversation. You know, arts programming was something we heard about art. And I don't just mean arts. I mean arts, music, and drama. Um CTE programming came up. I have prekinder here twice, but that's what maybe that was intentional because it came up so much. Um early college uh was another uh and then people talked about the late buses. that was something I didn't expect at Collins and Salem High School as being important. Um, and then any program that motivates kids to come to school were things that people highlighted. Um, and then we we did have a whole conversation about fees and we asked everybody, what do you think about instituting fees? Generally, there wasn't a lot of support for the fees. Um, if if we were

041going to do it, people said that you should just let people donate um but don't charge specific fees. Our students were very clear that if you charge fees for ath athletics and other programming at the high school, it will deter kids from participating. They were pretty clear about that. Um and then, you know, there were concerns about transportation fees and what it would do for chronic absenteeism. We already have challenges with students getting to work on time and uh safety for children commuting to and from school. So, that came up. Um and the school committee uh for those of you that may have tuned in, had a very robust conversation about fees. uh where there didn't there wasn't a lot of support for moving forward with uh fees. Um so just this some strategic decisions

042that we made in this budget proposal in this re in the recommended budget which will now go to the school committee for review is we we did preserve uh high interest programming prek is not touched in this budget including par profofessionals at the prek and kindergarten level. Early college and CTE programming was also two things that we heard a lot about. You know we're maintaining our commitment to those programs. Um, we did prioritize where possible studentf facing positions. Every position in the district is a studentf facing position in some way. So, it's it's hard to say that they aren't student facing, but we tried to keep it as far from the classroom as we could without without the system uh not being able to function. So, um that was a decision. The class size is

043are preserved. We did not really touch class sizes in any way. In fact, I think class sizes will be lower in many places next year. We've maintained the caps that we currently have that are lower than what's in our in the contract. Um there may be some slight changes at the high school level. We're still trying to figure that out, but generally class sizes uh will remain the same. We we have we're going to continue to invest in our educators. We're not going to uh violate our contractual obligations and requirements. Uh this this budget does not um rely on fees in any way. Uh so we're not banking on collecting fees from families. Um we have to support the salts to Collins Middle School transition. So this budget, you'll see Collins looks like it's getting

044an influx of staff that they are um while they had to make their own reductions, but they're also getting 150 students. And so we needed to make sure that we support that transition. uh there is an expansion of digital library library services. Uh Jod did mention a a shift in a position but we are but she also mentioned that we are uh um uh moving to um add library services at two additional elementary schools as well. Um we also have resources in here to increase the stipens for athletic coaches. I want to note that that was a rec that came out of the negotiation with the STU. While we haven't set on what those um when we say uh well coaches, they're athletic coaches. We haven't set what those are. We we still have to

045um get the recommendations from the joint labor management group that's meeting, but we are planning on increasing s the stipens for athletic coaches. And then we are in this budget trying to maintain uh reasonable ML and special education case loads. While there are some reductions particularly in special education, our our ratios are going to be less than districts with similar dem demographics. Our ML numbers continue to rise. So there is not um shifts in significant shifts in any way in our multilingual learning uh staffing allocation. So um with that, I'm going to turn it over to really the architect of the budget. Um can you just hand this to Elizabeth uh to the assistant superintendent, Elizabeth Paulie, who's going to give you some more specific information about our budget proposal. Uh thank you superintendent Reich.

046Uh and good evening. I am going to take you through some of the main points of this budget. We are having a public budget hearing a week from today. Um so if you haven't seen the budget book which was posted this afternoon, it looks like this. Um please take some time this week to review it and consider coming back and sharing your comments with us next week. also consider sending us an email at spsbudgetsalemk12.org. Uh I'm joined here this evening with Camila Salazar, our director of financial operations, who is here as backup in case there are any extra technical questions and between the two of us, hopefully we can bring some understanding of this very complicated budget um to this group. So just to ground us in where we are, we often say that the

047budget process begins on October 1 when the enrollment is set by DESIE. So that matters because that determines what our chapter 70 state aid will be. If our enrollment has grown, if the demographics have changed, there is a weighted formula. And so it really does matter what our enrollment is on October 1. And that is typically the official start of the budget process. Although for this budget, I would say the budget process began during last spring's conversations about the FY25 budget when we acknowledged that we had a structural deficit and used one-time money to offset some of our expenses. So, it feels like we never really stopped talking about the budget after we approved FY25, but officially we started on October 1. Um, we did salary projections in November. It is very very helpful to

048have uh collective bargaining agreements that can help you project what the salaries will be in the next year and that helped us begin to see what the size of our gap would be. So in December we went to department heads and principles. We asked them to identify things they could live without. We asked them to do that in proportion to their overall budget size. So no one would we didn't ask people to cut the same amount from each budget. We looked at where do you fall in the percentage of the budget relative to the overall budget and asked principles and department heads to identify uh ideas for things we could live without uh as a preliminary step. In January, we do our midyear stepbacks to both check in on how this year is going and

049to think about what does this mean for next year and we looked at those preliminary ideas uh together with the superintendent, deputy superintendent and myself along with the department heads and principles. We brought the school committee uh finance subcommittee into the conversation and as the superintendent just shared, we went out to the public uh to get input from the community. The Salem community is our largest funer of the Salem public schools. So, it is always important to get their input. Salem parents send us their children and so it is always important to get their input. But in this year in particular, knowing what we were looking at was cuts, it was especially important. And so, um, we did, uh, have all the engagement opportunities that the superintendent just just articulated. Since February, we've been working

050to identify, well, what could the city um give us in terms of a budget increase? What does our chapter 70 from uh the state look like? And we tried to make those numbers matched with a finalized preliminary, I know that sounds strange, a finalized preliminary budget proposal that you'll see either online or hear about tonight. That brings us to April. So, we're in the last column of this slide. Tonight is the budget presentation. Next week is the hearing. The school committee is scheduled to vote April 28th and then we send this over to city hall. At the end of May, the superintendent and I will go to a city council hearing where we'll answer any questions they have about the budget and then they will vote to approve our uh school committee approved budget and

051it should be settled by the end of June. The new fiscal year starts July 1. So that's just grounding in where we are in this process. A reminder because there's just a lot of detail. So I think it bears repeating. Our increase this year is 4.8%. That translates into $3.5 million over what it was last year. That is higher than our 10-year average. On average, we the annual increase for sale public schools has been about 3.5%. And last year the city was able to do a 4.8 and we are grateful that this year the city has matched that and has done a 4.8% increase. The architecture of this budget is very complicated because our expenses exceed that 4.8% increase. So what we have done is used recurring revenue to reduce our expenses. So, circuit breaker

052reimbursement from the state for special ed uh costs, school choice for students who pay tuition, who come into the district, and other recurring revenue, any student that pays tuition. We looked at facility rental. Um, we looked at that recurring revenue as a way to bring our budget down in hopes of getting to the 78,173,61 number that is going to be our budget in FY26. We also looked for efficiencies which I'll talk about in a moment and eventually came to position reductions and non-personnel reductions. So reductions in the number of positions and in the things we spend money on related to transportation, contract services, etc. The number you'll see tonight is 56.5 positions uh that are being eliminated. Although I should note that is not 56.5 people that we think are going to leave the district.

053And I'll say more about that when we come to the next slide. So here I know you can't read this but this is in the budget. This is just a picture of the budget from the budget book. On the left hand side are the 18 cost centers. And then you can see the FY25 budget, the FY26 budget and the um per the dollar change. So a couple of things. Uh this is page 45 of the budget book for anybody that's following along. You'll see at the bottom of the FY26 column that the number is 78,998,42710. And for those of you who are paying very close attention, you'll know that is higher than what our appropriation is, which is $78,173,61. So the number at the bottom is $825,000 over what our appropriation is. And this is

054after we have applied the recurring revenue of school choice and circuit breaker. This is after we have assumed the cut of 56.5 positions and non-personnel costs. So we are still after that about $825,000 over our appropriation. We will close that gap um in two ways. One, we will prepay the tuition for um some students who go out of district to intensive specialized placements. So, we typically do prepay tuition. We're allowed to do that and we will do that this year. That will help us close that $825,000 gap. And we will also offset the remainder of that by maximizing our grants revenue. So making sure grants and revolving fund I should say revenue. Making sure that we are maximizing the administrative costs on our grants. Um charging a custodial fee to our food and nutrition services

055for some of the percentage of their time to clean the kitchens. um and using the remainder of some funds we received from the state to offset homeless transportation. So we can get down there from 825, but that is the gap after we apply the cuts and our recurring revenue. Um but we thought it was important to show that number and to be transparent about how we're getting down to zero. So, these numbers are about a 6% increase over our FY25 appropriation. If you're looking closely at this list, you'll see that the largest increase this year is for Collins Middle School, but as the superintendent noted, that is because it is a reflection of the merger with Salt and Stall. So, it's a it's a little misleading that um Collins Middle School's budget is going up

056by $800,000. that is after they have cut positions but also are assuming students and staff from Salt and Stall. Conversely, Salt and Stall has a very large cut and that is for the same reason the staff um who are coming over to this building. The largest cut is to the district administration cost center where we have made non-personnel um cuts. Um, most notable, and I think this is what makes it the largest cut, is we have reduced the collective bargaining reserve line, which last year had over $900,000 in it because we hadn't settled our collective bargaining agreements with the STU and the PSRP. So, this year, because we have settled our contracts, we do not believe we have to build in as big a collective bargaining reserve. This chart does not break down the cost

057by personnel and non-personnel, but personnel will be $60 million uh in FY26, which is up 3% from last year and represents 76% of the budget, which stands to reason because we are a people business. Non-personnel is the other 24% of the budget and that is 18.6 million up from last year's 16 million. So it's a 16% increase. However, the one note of caution there is that that number from last year, that 16 million that went into Munis was heavily offset considerably with one-time revenue. That is the end of esser. So for an applesto apples number, the baseline from last year was closer to $18 million. So our increase at 18.6 is closer to 3%. Um, so that's a lot um, but some hopefully uh, detail that adds context to this slide. So, taking a break

058from our numbers, I mentioned that chapter 70, the main form of state aid, is dependent on our enrollment. And I am happy to say that our enrollment has been increasing in the last several years. So, if you're looking at that horizontalish trending upward line um on the chart, you'll see 3831. That is our official enrollment as of October 1. So, that is what DESIE thinks our enrollment is and what our chapter 70 is based on. Our actual enrollment as of today is 3958. So, we've had more students arrive um since October 1, which is typical for Salem. Um but we do have uh many more students, 127 more than we had on October 1, and we have two point 2% more than we had last year. So, this is good news. It is good news

059because we have more students in our buildings, and that's why we're here. And it is good news because that means we get more Chapter 70 aid um when we have more students. Just two things that really jumped out at me as I did a deep dive in our enrollment. For those of you working in buildings, this will not be news to you, but uh two large and rapidly growing populations in our uh student enrollment are multilingual learners and special education students. One in five students identifies as a multilingual learner and one in four uh is a special education student. So that is a 9% up 9% for MLS and up 8.4% for special education students. So that is a significant and growing part of our population adding to the diversity but also the need for

060a wider range of programming um as we look to next year. So this helps with our state revenue. Um our state revenue is up by 4.7%. Uh we have increased our chapter 70 by $1,395 uh $395,987. Um our chapter 70 this year will be $31 million. We also get reimbursed for students that we send to the charter school. That has increased. This year it will be $1.4 million, up from around $900,000 last year. Our local revenue, our annual appropriation is up 4.8%. It is notable that Salem's contribution to our budget is growing rapidly as the state assumes that Salem is able to pay a larger and larger share of our budget every year. And even as Salem does that, and this year Salem's contribution to our budget will be around $41 million, uh that does

061not account for our health insurance costs, which the city does pay uh for sale public schools employees as city employees, but they are not counted in our budget. Those are counted on the city side. So those costs are going up this year about 11%. Um, and that is in addition to the contribution the city is making to our um to our budget this year. Um, at the same time, our expenses are going up. So, I showed you the numbers about multilingual learners and special education students and our overall growing enrollment. And it is true that as our enrollment grows, our need for a diverse range of programs also grows. Um, and we are creating programs and responding to student needs that will help serve all of those students as they come to us over the

062course of every year. That means we redesign or create new positions. And this year, since the budget was created, um, we have added six new unbudgeted um, positions to the budget this year. Uh, it's not just personnel that is increasing. Although personnel is increasing this year, um it is our fixed costs and non-personnel expenses. Just as I'm sure your budgets at home are increasing, um our non-personnel expenses like transportation, utilities, um are also increasing and I assume are likely continue doing so. We did um make a strategic decision to increase our um salaries through collective bargaining agreements. That is part of a strategic priority for the district that was done with intentionality. That is part of our rising expenses. And so in all of these, we are looking at strategies for ways we can reduce

063costs. So the next couple of slides are just really going to look at some of our costs and how we can um try to contain them. And I'm just going to say apologies for the small charts. These are in the budget book. And if you're looking online, you can zoom all the way in and they're much more readable. Um, so our electricity costs will go up significantly in FY26. So people may remember that uh last year the city signed a new contract um to that locked us into a rate for electricity. and the current contract or the contract prior had saved the city um $869,000 in the year before we signed the contract. So the fact that we have this fixed rate protects us from fluctuations when energy costs go up and we have benefit

064benefited from that in the past. Um this new rate however is about 20% higher than the old rate which was signed I believe in 2020. So, as new fixed rates go, it we actually got a good deal, but it was so much higher than what we had been paying that um we will see our costs, our delivery costs go up by 20% in the coming year. That actually will translate into a 30% increase in our costs after usage. So, our electricity will go from 1.2 million to $1.6 million next year. And this is after when we talk about creating efficiencies and trying to reduce our cost. We have invested $1.3 million in energy conservation efforts in this school year. So we are working hard to weatherize our buildings to have more efficient equipment. Um and

065yet our costs continue to rise particularly in electricity. for natural gas. Um it is also increasing estimated to be increasing by about 10% but not anywhere near the level of our electricity costs. So that is a significant cost driver in our budget. Um the next slide I have again with apologies for the small size. Um I have regular day transportation that is the to and from school for the 13 big buses. I have the middle chart is um our homeless transportation and I think the hard copies that the school committee may have do is a slightly different version than what we're looking at. So you do not have the special ed transportation costs um on the paper that you're looking at. uh but I'll I'll voice over them so that you will get the benefit

066of that anyway. Um so uh and I took them off frankly because it's so small that I thought that that would be easier on your eyes. So the top chart that looks like it's going down slightly in FY26 is our regular day transportation. So, we currently have 13 buses serving about 1,500 riders every day. As a way of containing our cost, we are proposing to reduce one bus um and have 12 buses next year. That will save us about $100,000 um in transportation costs. And so that is why you see the um the total the line pointing down in that top chart. The risk for this is that we will have a wait list for student riders probably at the Collins Middle School where we do not currently have one. We will probably have a

067wait list at Salem Academy. We will have a longer wait list at Salem High School which is currently the only school that has a wait list for bus ridership. The way we plan to address that is next year we have invested in an attendance um technology for buses so that kids when they get on the bus they're supposed to swipe on and we can see who's riding the bus and who isn't riding the bus. Also parents can see that their kids are on the bus. Um that has been inconsistently I would say implemented this year. And so next year we will um fully embrace and and make sure we're using that technology. So if somebody is rooted to a bus and taking a seat but not riding the bus, we'll be able to take kids

068off the wait list and move them onto the bus. It is imperfect, but this is one of the ways we're hoping we can serve as many kids as possible and reduce our costs in regular day transportation. The big story here though is in the middle and that is for our homeless transportation for students that are experiencing homelessness. So that looks like a hockey stick um for FY26. It's right it's the chart in the middle. And the reason it looks like that is because for the past several years we've had funds um for the emergency migrant shelter which has closed. And we have been able to use those funds to offset our homeless transportation by almost $600,000 a year. So we have been able to budget our homeless transportation costs at about $800,000 when in fact

069we were spending about $1.4 million. So our costs for homeless transportation aren't going up that much. We're just out of this money. So we'll use the last of it. Um but our we're budgeting $1.1 million for homeless transportation in the coming year. Um and that probably is about level funding. So um it uh but it is going to hurt on the general fund. And then last um our special ed costs that is the special ed transportation cost down at the bottom. Um we do participate in regional um cost sharing through the seam collaborative for our outofd district specialed transportation. Those costs are going up fairly significantly um this year, but part of that is because SEAM hadn't renegotiated their contract in something like 8 years. And so the old rate we were paying um through

070SEAM to NRT for our outofd district costs were almost a decade old. And so those costs have gone up. But we do we are able, believe it or not, that it's better than if we were doing this alone because we're able to share vans um with other districts through this. So um our transportation costs for students experiencing homelessness and students who are going out of district are increasing next year. Also out of district, um another major cost driver is tuition for students who need intensive or specialized placements. So um you can see here the orange line is students who are is the cost for students who are going to private placements and the blue line is for students who are going to collaborative placements and both are going up. These costs actually already assume the

071circuit breaker reimbursement. So this is a significant cost for us despite the fact that we are um plat we have we think we are plateauing with the numbers of students that are going out of district. So before the pandemic we had 93 students going to out of district placements. This coming year we're anticipating 64. So it's a little bit of a Ushape. During the pandemic in 2122 we dropped down to 50 students going out of district. We're back up to 64, but still 30% below where we were before the pandemic. I think the rise the steep rise in costs has as much to do with the costs that these placement schools are experiencing uh as much as anything else because it is not necessarily about the numbers of kids that are enrolled in these schools.

072So in the last two years, each of the last two years, the increase um range from 8 to 14% depending on the placement. So um that's what's driving the cost. I will say uh one of the things Salem has done to reduce these costs is we have created a a significant number of new programs to keep kids in district. So in 2018, we had 19 programs that were specialized to keep kids in district who otherwise would go out. And now we have 31. That's on page 59 of the budget book if you're following along. Um so we are trying to keep every kid that we can in the district. We want them to stay and learn with us here um when we can serve them well. So I would say that the costs are rising

073because the tuitions are rising. And then um those are the major cost drivers for non-personnel. Uh and then our personnel costs are also a cost driver. So this work is about people. It bears repeating. Um and so it should be no surprise that we spend 76% of our budget uh on people. It should be the largest part of our budget. Um, when we think about who our people are, 89% of them or 89% of the FTEEs, excuse me, work in schools. Uh, 7% of the FTEES are the 65 people who are in the central office. And 4% are districtwide. And the way I'm defining districtwide here is people who are allocated to more than one school. Uh, so we have music teachers who work at more than one school. We have special ed um specialists

074who work more than one school and others. So that's how I define districtwide here. This is articulated on pages 31, 32, and 33 of the budget book. Um so typically our personnel costs go up between four and 5%. And if you look at um the personnel budget tables, you'll see that that is what it has gone up in 23, 24, and 25. This year before we applied the cuts, our increases if we just rolled everybody forward were closer to 10%. And that is because we are trying to keep our educators here be more competitive. Um so we may that is an intentional choice. Um so this is a major cost driver this year and and probably should be. Uh what these two charts show uh in microscopic unless you can zoom in on your own

075screen font is in the um horizontal bar chart. The blue bar is the total FTEES by school or central office and districtwide in um this fiscal year. So the blue is FY25 and the red is FY26. So the blue is everybody that works here. Now the red assumes that the 56.5 positions are in fact eliminated. And so that's what the change will be. And you can see the p um I think those are numbers actually. You can see the numbers next to them. There's a larger chart coming uh where you can see this probably better. And then just to show it a different way, the pie chart, the big blue um Pac-Man size square is the salaries for the schools and then the other two, the lighter blue is central office and the gray is

076districtwide. If you're adding up these numbers, they're not going to add up all the way to the total personnel costs because I did not allocate stipens for the purpose of this pie chart. Stipens are included in our budget, included in our overall personnel, but they this won't add up to 100 because the um the stipens aren't there. So, okay. So, here is what it looks like. This is our appropriation. 78 million173061 is our total budget. Um that is a 4.8% increase. Our personnel is $60 million. are non-personnel is 18.6. So this assumes the personnel assumes a $3.5 million reduction from positions non-personnel uh which is everything I just showed you transportations utilities tuition instructional supplies um will be 18.6 6 million and that is um that is about $2.5 million above last year's appropriation. So

077it's a it's a lot of different numbers. So, I've I've mentioned this um but because it is complicated, I will just note again that uh before our reductions and offsets, our total, if I just rolled everything forward, was $83 million. Um and that is about 6% above our appropriation. So, after we come down to the 78 million, but that is after circuit breaker school choice. um uh the position and non-personnel reductions and then the prepayments and the grants revenue. So that is how we get to that 73 or uh 78, excuse me. So here are some of the position eliminations. And I think every uh position that is eliminated represents a very difficult choice because that is a member of our community um whose whose uh job is being changed or displaced. So that 56.5

078represents positions at schools, positions in the central office, and positions in every bargaining unit. The chart there shows you um how we tried to prioritize the position eliminations. So we first look to retirements or known vacancies. Um that is 34% of uh those position eliminations. We also looked to then to people who we knew would move to a different job in the district. So that's that second bar um that you can see there um so that again you know minimizing the displacement of our staff um and that is 27% of the 56.5 um we'll be moving to another role and then finally that third bar which is 21.5 positions um that is uh positions that are eliminated And we do not know if the people who are in them will stay in the district. So

079they may um and that I think will become clear over the coming months. Um we believe that every you know highly qualified educator who wants to stay in Salem will be able to do so. But we weren't we couldn't say with certainty in the way we could for the previous two columns um that these people or those positions that have people in them um would find another place in the district. Um here is oops sorry I just changed it on my computer and not on the screen here. Um these are the FTEEs. That's that horizontal bar chart that I just showed you, but this is a little bit larger font. Uh, so you can see the difference in the total FY25 FTEES, the total in FY26 and the difference. Again, you see the phenomenon of

080Collins and uh, Salt and Stall. Uh, that has to do with the merger. Here's what the position reductions look like um, by cost center. So um as I mentioned in the beginning, we asked, uh district or excuse me, department and principles, department leaders and principles to consider their size in the budget um when making uh when identifying things that we could live without, things or positions that we could live without, both personnel and non-personnel. So this is what the position reductions look like. um by cost center. Um so you can see it is 8% of the central office which is uh 4.5 out of um 65 districtwide it is two out of I think 23 and the rest are um the cuts in schools as a percentage of their overall eight um FTEES and I

081want to be sensitive to the positions that are being cut because these are people's lives and livelihood. So, this list is on page 29 of the budget book, but I'm not going to go through each of the positions that has been identified uh as one that uh could be reduced. So it does total 56.5 because we heard from community um and including our own staff that it was important to really think about the impact on students and of course that was a guiding principle as we put together this budget. Um, we did take a hard look at what this would mean for class sizes and on average the class sizes will not be significantly different than they are this year. So the blue horizontal bars are this is this is um all schools K through

0828. Uh the blue horizontal bars are this year's average and the red horizontal bars are next year's average. So this year the average elementary class size ranges from 19 to 22 students per class. Next year the range will be smaller. It will range from 20 to 22 students per class. In the middle school the student uh the classes will remain at an average of 24. This year for some reason the classes um come out as an average of 24.6 students per class. And next year we're estimating they'll be 24 students per class. though slightly lower. This chart does not include the high school average class size, but the data at the high school suggests that core classes at the high school will have an average class size of 21 next year. So, well within our

083limits of what the contract says um and also um honoring our commitment to protect class sizes as we put together this budget proposal. Okay, so back to the recommended budget. Um, I wanted to show you on by showing you this again just because it's a lot to take in that our overall costs will go up $4.4 um million uh in the coming year. And you can see the change to each um cost center. We've we've already talked about that, so I won't dwell on this. Here's what it looks like for non-personnel and personnel. Uh there's there's no new news here on this slide. Um just to show you the slope of the increase. Um and um remind you that it does appear to be a 16% increase over last year's non-personnel. Our costs are going

084up, but in fact probably not that much. and our personnel costs are going up about 3% but that assumes the cut, excuse me, the reduction of these 56.5 positions. Uh I should have showed you this um slide first that the cuts might make a little more sense, but here's what the cost center looks like. Um you can see that the cost centers um match closely to the pie chart that shows the cuts. So what we were trying was to not have small cost centers that have a smaller number of positions uh have to eliminate a significant number of them um and rather tried to look at um where the staff and where the resources were. So this is the budget um by cost center. Um the largest cost center is uh Salem High School followed

085by um our special ed um department and then uh Collins Middle School. And here it is by school. So I've pulled out uh anything that is not a school from this um this chart. And it is the largest cost center is Selm High School at 28% of the school funding. Collins Middle School at 16% and Witchcraft at 10 are the top three, which makes sense because those are our largest schools. Um this is very similar to how the budget has looked in the last two years in terms of the percentage that each cost center makes up of the budget and the percentage that each school makes up of the school uh portion of the budget. So that is the budget presentation. I think it was a lot of information and we look forward to hearing

086your feedback. I'm going to turn it back um to the superintendent for some closing thoughts before discussion. Yeah. Thank you, Elizabeth. Um and just as a final closing, um the we're taking feedback um on the Can you put that slide back up? Well, if not, I can still talk through it, but the uh SPS budget at Salem K12.org. You can also email school committee members. I don't want to speak for them, but I think they're okay with that. and then email u myself or Elizabeth if you have any questions or you have comments. There is a budget hearing in this room next uh Monday at 7 o'clock. It is the only purpose of the meeting is to uh hear comments um and uh ideas about the budget. And so that's next Monday. And then we're

087tenatively scheduled, school committee can choose to shift that if they want, but tenatively scheduled at our next school committee meeting on April 28th at 7 o'clock to take a vote on the um on the budget. I just end with the uh quote uh here um by um economist David Ramsey. What you do with your money reflects who you are, your priorities, and your beliefs about what ma matters the most. And again, as I said earlier, I think we're I know we're open to your thoughts. uh we have clear priorities, we have clear values, we have a strategic plan, we have an equity statement that all direct us in where we're trying to go. So if you have perspective on how we can live up to that in in ways that um you know better serve

088our kids, then we want to hear about it. Um obviously we have fiscal constraints that are not you know unusual uh in the state right now and across the country but again I I this is uh the best effort that we have with the recommended budget but it's good to have more eyes on it now that we've presented it and we're certainly open to the um to having discussions and to get your ideas about how we can better fulfill our mission and vision um in the Salem public schools. I'll turn it back over to you mayor. Uh I we'll open up to if any of the members have questions for member Cruz. Uh not not so much a a question. I just first wanted to express my gratitude to uh my colleagues on the the

089budget uh subcommittee and then uh the superintendent, assistant superintendent, and everyone who contributed to this process. Um we we made a commitment that we would start earlier um knowing that we have what we're working backwards from is a $17 million structural deficit over the next 3 years. Um so you know a lot of the things that I see here absolutely no easy choices. I know that a lot of thought went into this and there's clearly reciprocal dialogue that's happening with members of the community. So I just want to express my gratitude. Uh, mayor, thank you for the I think the generous allocation on the city side and every year that I've been on the committee. I think the city has always prioritized the schools. Um, but we're obviously heading towards a real fiscal challenge. So,

090I know that we're going to have multiple opportunities uh before voting on a final budget um to to hear from from folks, but I just want to make sure that the framing remains that we're really working backwards from that $17 million deficit. This is the first of uh three really difficult fiscal years. And so the work of this committee um you know following this budget cycle um is going to be conversations on everything from what we're doing with school choice uh and the costs that that drives in the budget um reconfiguration within the district to ensure that we're operating the the right amount of schools in the district. Um the reality is that, you know, this year it's a $4.8 million deficit. Next year it's going to be closer to seven. In the last year,

091uh that we're working backwards from, it'll be uh close to $10 million. Um so that means that, you know, I I think I I've said this at almost every meeting that we talk about the budget, about the contracts, is that we are talking about personnel reductions uh over that period. Um, but here's the things that, you know, I think we're also going to have to talk about in those subsequent budget years. And I won't be here, so I'm just putting some stakes on the ground for folks that might be looking at committee, but I'll certainly be supporting from, you know, a different perch. Um, you know, I I do think we need to evaluate all the leases that we have in the district to just ensure um that we're fully utilizing uh the spaces within

092our schools. Um, you know, I think about our students that are at the New Liberty and the Salem Prep and what their needs are going to be. Um, we have a master's facilities plan that made uh a lot of recommendations about what we're doing with schools that we're operating. So, the work of this committee, you know, over the next six months, and it's been our work for three years, and we've been talking about it, is to really put some firm stakes on the ground about how we're shifting things. Um, the superintendent and his team, I think you could see it in the budget proposal, continue to pursue grants. We can't move all positions to grants, but I think, you know, being as aggressive as possible is important. A concern that I have is that there

093are some external factors that we don't control. Uh we clearly have an erratic situation in Washington. There's $4 million in federal grants that this district receives um at any part of this particular process in the next three years. Um you we could get uh another fiscal bomb in terms of that $4 million being cut from the district because of the things that we believe in and that we stand up for our kids and our community. Um, and we need to be prepared that that is a reality that we could lose $4 million in federal funding at any given time. We've already seen that with some of our counterparts across the Commonwealth. Um, so that's just something that I would put out there. So, you know, I appreciate all the work that's going into this. It's

094many more difficult conversations ahead. And, you know, what I would ask is, you know, as we continue to navigate this, we need some advocacy around the inflationary issue with Chapter 70. Um that's not going to be tackled in this year of the legislative session, but it's my hope that uh with our partners at AFT, ASME, um the superintendent association, all of you, that uh we can really make a big push for trying to figure this out because gateway cities like Salem uh that have these structural deficits uh and chapter 70 hasn't necessarily met all of our needs. Um it's the only way we're going to be able to fill in some of this gap and minimize some of the pain. Um, you know, there is a conversation that I think needs to be had about

095um what happened the last time we had to re-evaluate the chapter 70 formula and to bring the state to heal. And obviously I have a a dual role here. Uh but I do think we need to, you know, be thinking about what's our legal strategy uh working with our partners in the union uh to really be thinking about um you know if the state doesn't move forward on fixing the chapter 70 formula, you know, how do we come together uh to put the pressure on the state uh through legal avenues. So, you know, we have a history of doing that here in the Commonwealth. Um, and so, yes, I am in part, you know, considering uh that we should be potentially exploring litigation uh to try to get the state to move on this issue.

096Uh, and then the last piece is uh and I think thanks in large part to communities like Salem that organized and mobilized. We do have a millionaire's tax that's provided $2.3 billion in additional revenues. It's up um this year from last year. Um, and for the most part, that's been used experimentally when we think about what's been allocated to education and transportation. Uh, but if that number continues to go up, um, I do think that some concerted advocacy throughout the process to try to address the chapter 70 issues using those dollars would behoove us. So, I know we have the vice president of AFT uh, who represents us here in Salem, uh, and our folks at ASME. I'd love to work together on this because I just think it's incredibly important. Uh because communities like

097Salem that have done the right things, that have, you know, stood by our staff, um are trying to provide an excellent education to our students. Um we're in a really difficult position. We're not the only ones, but we do need a coalition of folks again uh to make this um this budget cycle uh over the next three years less painful. So, those are my comments and thank you, mayor. Thank you, superintendent, for the the work that you've been doing. Other comments, questions, presentation. Member Cornell, I just thought I would mention for uh most of the people in this room know the drill when it comes to the uh the um budget forum on the 14th, but for folks at home who may want to come in and make a public comment or um make a

098comment over Zoom that the school committee doesn't respond to public comment. And so I remember the first time I came to a school committee meeting during budget time, I didn't understand that and I found it really frustrating. So I just want to put that out there that we will just we sort of sit here and we listen carefully. Um but if folks want to email us with their concerns, uh most of us will get back to you. And if we don't get back to you, just know that we're thinking about it. Um and asking asking questions based on your feedback. Thank you. All right. Uh, yep. Continuing on in my report. Um, next on the I on the agenda is the, um, Salem Administrators Association collective bargaining agreement. Uh, Manny, do you want to give

099that update? Yeah, happy to do so. Um so uh pleased to share with members of the committee um that we've reached a tenative agreement with our partners in the Salem Administrators Union who I'm told last week ratified the contract um and we did have an executive session before this meeting to just go over um the details of that and ensure that we were um respecting the confidentiality of the process. Uh but now um on the agenda today is a recommended memorandum of understanding that would create a three uh a new three-year agreement uh with members of the Salem Administrators Union. Uh and I want to thank uh my partners in the administrator union for really productive sessions where again we centered on our values um and what we wanted to do for our staff. Um

100and so you know this contract I think as members have examined it we'll see that many of our priorities that uh we exhibited throughout the uh negotiations with the teachers unions are replicated here in this contract um by ensuring things like parental leave uh uh for all of our staff in this unit. um adjusting our bereavement leave policies, uh increasing our bilingual educator stipen, um and then additionally um when it came to compensation, uh we did add an additional step uh to the salary schedule and a lane uh for those that uh have a doctorate uh or other um doctoral level uh degrees or an ed. Um and then uh in addition to you know making that uh additional step in lane we did uh over the 3 years annually there will be just a

1013% increase. So um I think that this contract uh is a is a fair one. It certainly um for the folks that are in our buildings every day as administrators doing the work. Um and I'm just grateful for for their leadership and partnership. I want to thank my colleagues, member Cornell and member Manning who they spend an extraordinary amount of time uh working on these contracts and certainly uh made sure that um you know we were living up to our values throughout. So just appreciate both of your contributions. Um and I would ask that today we take a vote on this so that um the membership uh of the SAA can know uh where this committee stands and uh we can put our signatures on it and have this ratified for the next fiscal year.

102All right. Ready to move on? Okay. Um, I also just put in my uh I just want to note that in my in the packet were my goals for 202526. I did uh make a couple of edits from the packet to today and that's why you have a hard copy. I know how much you like paper and so you have a hard copy here. I just want to note three changes and my goals based on feedback that I received from three different school committee members. I'm just going to quickly go over it. On the first goal, the student learning goal, uh I was asked uh by member Campbell, rightfully so, um to add make sure that the dual language program is captured around our early literacy work. And so I reflected that language in my

103goals for goal one because it's focused on uh uh our early literacy strategy. We certainly do not want to discount the work that we're doing with um our dual language programming. And then in goal two, member Cruz um rightfully uh turned me uh asked me to include language from the educator diversity act. There's some accountability uh related to what districts have to do around um uh creating a three-year diversity plan as an example, recruitment map and strategy. And so I took I lifted some of the language from that and added that to goal two. Um and then in goal three, member uh Cordell asked me to um again rightfully so, focus on uh um a bucket of work college and career um uh you know, planning for students and to make sure that our uh

104especially our most marginalized students are supported through the college and career preparation and application process and that we hold ourselves accountable to increasing the percentage of students who are applying both public and private colleges and the percentage of students earning chapter 74 credentials. So that language is reflected. Um those were re revisions that I've added since I sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh shared these goals with you uh at the last meeting. I'm going to ask for a vote or I guess the mayor will ask for a vote on my goals at the end of um the conclusion of this meeting. Yeah. Okay. Um and then I don't know if there's any questions or comments. Okay. And then finally, I am

105here to give the building committee update. Um and so just quickly um an update on the building committee. Um the Salem High Teachers Administration spent the last few months um visioning the about the new construction of the high school. They made uh they took a number of visits including principal Burns and team to see other high schools which really in helped inform the space summary and we talked about that at the last building committee meeting. A group of us went to Stonem High last week. Uh member Manning was present for that. Um and then there will be a team visiting Bill Ricka and Somerville High. Bel Ricka is designed by the same designer and Somerville High School um has CTE program. So we want to see uh their new or high school and uh Lisa

106Golden was part of those visits as well and will be part of those visits. Um the preliminary design program which is a detailed document um outlining um what the architects you know the design program for the new building that the architects are working on. Uh right now they're off uh working on multiple options. They have to propose a renovation, new construction, and a hybrid, which is a Renault ad for the new high school. And we'll be looking at those models. They'll be they're looking at the energy efficiency of those models. They'll also be looking um uh and they'll be looking at um where where it will be on the preferred site. Um, and so those decisions uh that that's what we're currently doing right now as we're looking at these uh designs. There will be

107public meetings after April vacation to share and review um preferred building options. We have to share at least three preferred building options and uh they're going to be sharing those with the public. So I encourage people to come. One of them will be on Zoom I think on the 30th. On the 29th, it will be in person and it'll be give you a chance to weigh in on what you think the design, the preliminary design of Salem, the new Salem High School will look like. The mayor and I on Wednesday night are presenting to the neighborhood improvement advisory council to provide an update to the neighborhood associations about the project um at 7:00. It's on Zoom. For those of you that want to attend another meeting, you can join us for that. Um the Salem

108Building Committee uh also is meeting this Thursday. Um and there will be a sustainability it's we're having a sustainability event. Um and the sustainability working group will provide information to the audience on sustainability priorities for the new building. So there's a team of the building committee working on that and there'll be a zoom meeting on Thursday which school committee members I need to sh get you the link for those of you that are interested. But it is open to the public. It is a webinar for those of you that are that are interested. We're we're heating up on the project here. Uh we're getting to the point where we're going to have some design options. Please don't be shy about what you think. Although when you ask people, there's going to be a million different

109thoughts about what this new building could look like. But this is the moment where the design is getting more and more real. And so we look forward to having those conversations um in the upcoming uh weeks. I don't know if you want to add anything to that, mayor, or um Cornell. Okay. uh what we are trying to give a update after every meeting now building committee meeting to the public like a one-pager that gives you a synopsis of what's happening so that the public can stay you know a breast of what's going on. So uh our communications where where's Chris is helping uh design that and we'll be getting that out to you uh following each of our meetings um building committee meetings. I think that concludes my comments. I remaining. Did I understand right

110that Somerville is not designed by is not okay. But we we wanted to see a building that had CTE programs. Oh, yeah. A new building. Yeah, I do too. I just I wanted to make sure and if anybody in the public is interested in joining, we're going on uh Friday, next Friday, which we don't have school uh Good Friday, the last year we don't have school on that day. Um and um if you're interested in participating, there's that visit and then there will be one during April vac the Bill Ricka trip will be during April vacation. But we you know we're welcome to take as many people as we want. They won't be in school, but if you're interested in checking out what what the high school what new high schools look like pretty impressive

111and it as as you see them get more and more excited about what Salem High will look like and and could look like over the next few years. So um thank you. That's my updates. Thanks. There's no finance and operations update that I have no report. Yeah, you sure? All right. Thank you, Superintendent. Are there any reports from subcommittees that we've not received? Yeah. Member Cornell, uh, we'll be asking for a vote for a first read for changes to 5103, which is a school choice policy. And I just wanted to explain that for the members and folks watching at home. So the intra district school choice policy is to maintain socioeconomic balance among our schools and uh we cannot legally nor should we as member Campbell always tells us use that as a proxy for

112race and our some of the language in this policy um wasn't sort of race specific but um kind of alluded to race as maybe a factor in um the kind of overall consideration of this policy. So these edits are are three-fold. One is to take out uh uh language that might suggest we are using this as a proxy for race. Two is to uh change it change some of the language around how we communicate with the public because the district has made changes around that. and three, some just basic information about Bentley Innovation School. Uh, but I do want to say that the changes to reflect the fact that this is not a proxy for race um do not in any way undermine our commitment to uh diversity, to equity, and to supporting students who

113need it the most. this the new the sort of cuts in this particular policy simply reflect the way that we are in instituting this policy or hope to institute this policy right now. Um and then the second thing is what we discussed in our last meeting which is uh to give students a little bit more stake in in their technology game and to have some fines or fees attached to uh I think those three areas that we discussed which is you know students who on purpose break a piece of technology. Uh, let's see. Uh, so $30 invoice for intentional damage that's repable, 100 for intentional damage that can't be repaired. Um, and $100 for a lost Chromebook. So, uh, but that was a conversation we had earlier. No other committees. So, uh, we'll move to

114item eight in the agenda, which are motions and resolutions. Our first uh vote is on superintendent's goals. Move to approve the superintendent's goals for the next school year. Seconded. Made by member Cruz, seconded by member Campbell. Under discussion, seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? The matter carries. Unanimous. Item two is Salem Administrators Association collective bargaining agreement ratifying the successor contract for three years 2025 through 2028. Move to approve the Salem Administrators Association's collective bargaining agreement um for the 3-year term of July 1, 2025 through uh June 30th, 2028. Second motion made by member Cruz, second by member Manning. Under discussion, seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? Matter carries unanimous. Next we have policy 5103, control choice student assignment first reading. Uh can we take them together? Yeah, together. Policy 5501 as well, responsible

115use policy and media first reading as well. Uh motion to approve for first read. I'll second. Motion made by member Cornell, second by member Miranda. Under discussion, seeing none. All in favor? Any opposed? Matter carries. Unanimous. Announcements from members. Do you want to? Yeah. Just uh want to note that we were just assigned a um a project manager uh and designer for the Bates roof project, which uh as many of you if those that work at Bates, there is some leaking in the roof, but that roof should get replaced um hopefully this summer. Um and so we were just assigned uh this was through the MSBA's accelerated repair project uh repair program. And so now the project is moving. We had our initial meeting this week. Um or we do have I think it's tomorrow,

116right, Lisa? Is the initial meeting is the kickoff. That's right. So that it might not be this summer. Okay. Maybe put the brakes on it when But it's going to happen at some point. I promise you it's going to happen. And actually Z just said next summer is what he said. Okay. Well, you know what? Scratch everything I just said. But we are going to get a new roof at Bates coming up. All right. Um so thank uh you know thank you for those folks that uh um but just shows you that we while we have a major project with Salem High School, there is uh the accelerated repair uh program and then we just put applications two applications in for other schools for um H you know the HVAC work as well. So um

117doesn't mean that you can't apply for other programs to help upgrade your building. So um that's good news. Any further announcements? Seeing none. Motion to adjurnn. I'll second. Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Miranda. Under discussion, seeing none. All in favor? Any opposed? The matter carries unanimous. Thank you.