School Committee Meeting - 3/5/2025

001hello and good evening everyone welcome to the March 5th 2025 meeting the cohes school committee would all members that present please indicate so in roll call Mr car is going to be a few minutes late Mr dial present Mr Hannah pres Mrs leki present chair is present giving us a quorum of four members present I'll officially call the meeting to order and ask all who are able to please rise for the recitation of our nation's colge of Allegiance which is going to be led by goass high school student and uh perspective Eagle Scout Evan Welsh I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for stands one nation indivisible Li justice for all thank you so much a reminder to everyone that this meeting is recorded it's

002being streamed on Facebook and broadcast and Coop passet 143 TV you can also part participate virtually by logging into Zoom utilizing the link that appears at the top of our agenda you can participate virtually um by utilizing a Q&A feature on Zoom to answer any questions or comments that come up throughout the meeting which leads us into the first agenda item which is public comment uh this section the agenda is reserved for uh statements or questions or concerns that aren't related to a topic that's already on our agenda if you have a comment or question or concern related to something that's on the agenda just wait until we arrive at that point meeting and we will absolutely address uh that issue but if you have a question or comment that's not related to something that

003we're going to that we're already scheduled to talk about today then please uh raise that concern now uh again if you're attending virtually you can do so U utilizing the Q&A feature and I'll give you a few seconds to do that uh if you are participating in person you can simply uh raise your hand and make yourself known I suspect most of the people in person are here for our student presentation tonight however um just make sure that uh and this goes for anyone that speaks uh that is not a member of the panel throughout the meeting that you state your full name and your residential address that's just so we can memorialize your comments properly for the meeting minutes let me just check and make sure that we don't have any we're second okay

004I don't see any uh questions coming in through zoom and I don't see anyone in the audience making themselves known so at this point we'll move right into the invited guest section of our meeting and we have our again coass high school student and perspective Eagle Scout Evan Welsh to present to the committee on his proposed project his proposed Eagle Scout project so we'd ask Evan to please come and take one of the seats at the front table here to present your project project thank you for being here tonight thank you so much just a scout master you're the muscle made behind the good even everyone uh my name is Welsh I'm a light Scout 228 um and I would love to have a project for tonight um my project is to clear p um

005above all my Fields uh next to the uh stairwell or staircase that has been uh built by another you out um um and at the moment it's a little difficult to get in there there's a lot of dense uh vegetation there's uh tree small trees with really sharp branches um uh many many uh bushes around the area so I would like to um clear an area clear all that out and then make make it accessible uh to get to the flag in order to fix up for future sporting events on on the field um the first step that I'll have is to uh as I said clear all the trees around it and with the help of uh Mr Phil Mahoney um who will be using heavier equipment uh such as uh smaller excavators um

006and landscaping equipment uh we will slowly but surely clear as much as we can out um to get to the um they will dig 6 in uh with the excavator um to allow a base layer of gravel um and then we'll compact it and then add add over some stone dust to it um and then additionally we have blue stone slabs which are or which we'll be hoping that will last very very long um into the future um and that way we'll have the the vegetation won't be able to mess with the path the if it rains the gravel won't um the gravel won't be like covered um and that way it's clearly this will to get to the bik the second part is to open the wired fence around the fight pool because when

007um Mr Mahoney and I were looking reviewing the area um it didn't look like that there is any way of accessing flly pool um and having a open gate um that would be available for people to get in or just people who need to maintain it uh would be crucial for the flags maintenance um and finally I think that uh improving the landscaping around the fle with uh ground cover and better lighting than the I think there's a a rounded sort of disc store panel charge light that's on the top of it but it doesn't uh it does not eluminate it as best as as people can see it when there's games at night so it was planned that we would have wrer light such as flood lights or um uh spotlights to show it

008off there um if there's anything else anybody would like to hear oh yeah um yeah if you if you need I have the yeah uh yeah any questions about okay well thank you so much uh for that Evan and thanks for uh considering the cous of public school grounds for your Eagle Scout project it's very generous of you I just note that Mr Carr appeared at 608m welcome Mr car so are there any um members have any questions for Evan about his prospective Eagle Scout project want to just go around in alphabetical order I don't know if Mr Carr has any questions you just walked in maybe we'll give maybe we'll make you last Mr car okay Mr dial why don't you lead us off um no questions Mr well thank you very much I

009Echo chair's comments that we appreciate you considering schools and improving schools as your as your e Scout project uh and I particularly like the idea of using the flag as a as a project to help kind of um you know show our our our actual spirit so definitely appreciate that I'll just comment favorably that you're you have some nice materials here that you provided with us and this is very thoughtful um and I know just having with a little bit of stuff and I was at a zoning board meeting last night and I learned a lot about ground and cover and sand and clay and water and it looks like you've you've C you exceeded my knowledge so very well researched project here I look forward to uh seeing it um completed so thank you

010very much thank you Mr di Mrs Hannah i' second everything Mr I think this is great um and love the fact that you're looking at you know improving BS and pism so yeah great looking for to it and way to be courageous and putting all together and coming in here and presenting to a bunch of adults so well done there take a de thank you Mrs Hannah Mrs leski most of you have said what I was going to say but I'm just curious if you were granted permission to start this project would you start it this spring um was we expect it to be ready for the fall season is this an over the summer project um as soon as I'm able to get approval from the regional um board I would plan on doing

011it during APR break so that I have as much time as I can possibly allow to use the project and that way it's also my me from school um and work with that it does have a little timeline deadline right you have to have your project done before your 18th birthday and when you turn 18 June 6th congratulations on a milestone birthday on your Eagle Scout um project um it's it's a big step for those those people endured through scouting through the through the years um it's a lot of commitment and a lot of time so congratulations and thank you thank you thank you m leki Mr car thank you for letting me go last uh this is a great project I love when we can have people that think creatively where we can use

012a space we don't use very eff you so I think this is terrific so congratulations thank you I I did a similar thing when I was your age and I think I wrote mine on the back of a napkin and so congratulations thanks for being organiz great project thank you Mr Carr so Evan I have um I'm not trying to be a downer I have just couple questions about um the so you're going to be using a looks like a mini ex A Min excavator um so we're going to have equipment uh Power Equipment on site I wonder uh if our insurance policy will cover will cover anything that that could happen on the school grounds or whether there's going to be an individual insurance policy taken out um again not trying to be Downer

013not thinking anything will happen but you know we want to consider and contemplate any sort of worst case scenario uh have you have you contemplated that at all have you thought about insurance coverage and and it's okay I mean I probably wouldn't have if I was 17 years old so um I just didn't know if uh maybe Mr Thorton may I I don't know if anyone has I have personally not so his citizen adviser Phil Mahoney um has Connections in order to get the exavator I'm not sure if Phil is actually licensed but we can there we go yes thank you great okay I thought I remember read that but thank you oh did it say that and I missed it yeah so it's inside the the packet so Mr Mahoney is is licensed to

014run the mini excavator in there it is I was looking for it and missed it so a great point to have it on record that's that's that's that's great and then and then um one other thing is uh you will not be operating the excavator anytime not okay and nor would any other minors that you might have with you that are work okay so again not trying to be down we're excited we're we're very pleased that you you chose this project I think it's a very appropriate project for an eagle scout as well and I think it's going to be great I think people will really notice they'll be very visible so thank you very much you having cleared those things up in my mind are there any other remain concerns or questions for any

015commenity members I'd just like to one do one thing and thank vce Thon for his work with the Scouts being a scout master and coming here take time out of your to your life do this stuff for the kids and it's very much appreciated I enjoy I enjoy thank you and just to clarify there you might understand that SC Scouts of America has is very concerned about liability uh so there's a guide to Safe scouting so they're not all low to use such excavators as well as power tools chainsaws chop saws things that nature um but there are some tools that they're allowed to use to incorporate their leadership and oversight of the project all right and thank you Mr I think that's a great point I think that we might owe Mr a round

016of applause for everything does for our so with that I'd uh seek a motion to approve the uh Eagle Scout project that's presented by Evan wellsh here tonight at the meeting is there a motion to that effect so mov motion has been made by Mr DS or second second seconded by Mrs lesi all in favor I all opposed ssions the motion unanimously carries so you have our approval and our quick housekeeping now it comes it's just so AR insured signatories um so every project that a scout does requires a a beneficiary signature so it wasn't sure you know Phil Mahoney is the citizen advisor on it um not sure if there's someone from this school committee Mr shanon I think it could be one of three people or think be the chair superintendent or the

017business probably so uh I'm happy to do it if you he doesn't have we can have him scan it and send it over to you so I think either the superintendent or myself is probably easiest for it to bring the central office um he's also welcome to bring it to my Law Office downtown whatever is easier for you yeah Evan's actually a Boston College High School student so he did go to the yeah I was I went in seventh grade excuse me no I appr apologize I went to Boston College High School oh wonderful we he were you so unfortun I graduated there in um [Laughter] 2017 class of 98 so congratulations I'm sorry I didn't I didn't realize I think I made a presumption sorry um all right well BC high well represented thank

018you very much thank you all right so get us that you can bring it to this Central opposite the school or you can bring it to the law office it's at 1 113 Ripley it's right next to P par shop I'm happy to sign it if I'm there so I feel like the best thing to do is just bring it to the central office because you know someone's going to be there all right congratulations thank you all right thanks sir moving right along into our next set of invited guests who are very eager back there we have bunch of sixth graders and three daughters of school committee members uh from Mrs weisinger social studies class that are here to present a project they've been working on and I'll turn the meeting to either Mr Mills

019our Middle School principal who's here or Mrs weisinger who I know is here somewhere but I don't see behind all the kids yeah uh I I'll introduce uh M weer but first I want to say thank you to the school committee for the tradition of having spotlights on the schools because it's a great night to be able to um have our teachers and our kids come to school committee and really describe what we do every day and school committee is always welcome to come and visit any day anyhow but it's a great opportunity to find out what what goes on at school so I want to thank you guys also want to beforehand before we start thank everybody for coming out tonight and uh I know it's a long day but I really appreciate it

020come making time to come out tonight so I'm gonna step aside introduce Miss weinger uh member of our sixth grade sixth grade team and our world geography and ancient c one social studies teaching thank you so much for having us um some of you were with us um four or five years ago maybe where we piloted the use of Minecraft um education and the students at that point had recreated ancient Egypt um I am here with we have Devin and um Carrie and Eliza and um Charlotte and C Catherine here M Harper Rose Zoe Satie and Hurley Hurley's calling right now um that volunteered their time to join us tonight and they've been so excited about the project and I had a whole Spiel that I was going to deliver to you but these three

021wonderful friends of mine came to me late this afternoon and said could they practice what they had prepared for tonight and they did a better job than I would have so I am simply going to turn it over um to you okay hello scho comme I'm I'm and I'm um and today we will be presenting our understanding of the ancient civilizations by using Minecraft education to start off we will tell you all about grapes we use grapes to divide our Minecraft FL grapes stands for geography religion achievements politics economy and social structure each group was responsible for one of the six categories the be presenting today is politics first we will talk about my Minecraft impact on the understanding one example is it gives students a chance to build from their notes they dently stages

022another example is it so much more enjoyable to be hands on rather than having to read a chapter of a book or write aness well another reason is before we start a presentation on of our Minecraft world is it introduces a new way for students to demonstrate their understanding of the topic a lot of students stress about having to take the right message Minecraft education also can help students really understand what they learn for at first when we started this most students commented on how it be challenging Minecraft can also really take you into what you were learning by building houses and libraries in our Minecraft world we were able to really see how the people before us used to live nice nice intro guys take your time sometimes it takes a few seconds no

023rush what are we looking at guys um well this is our Minecraft world um and they will be sharing she it's very glitchy it's okay just takes a second I think Zoom to catch up take the time yeah take it'll be fine this is ashra paal he is like the king of Assyria and in this room they it's showing all the iron weapons that they used they were conquering Mesopotamia next we'll be moving to our library we so this was the first Library um it held over 25,000 play tablets with stories and information that down through generations I should [Music] so maybe we can um hear from some of the other students if they want to share about their experiences what they did um Hurley are you looking to share anything at all we just

024I'm just starting with you you don't have to you guys can only share if you're comfortable but if you want to talk about what your project was what you guys focused on go for it and then we can move to s or you guys can SK if you're not comfortable our group was focused on yeah we were economy and um what we had to build was um we we built a boat for um traders to travel back and forth um across the rivers to trade and um we build a market too Marketplace um everyone to okay thanks Zoe good job guys right and guys remember these are just right these we're all just moms and dads right so you know most of us right so don't be nervous right this is like you know Mrs

025Hannah and Mr D and this is leki so and I'm Harper's dead you guys know us so don't worry okay and if you don't feel comfortable sharing just say yeah no you can see me yeah so and Charlotte we did achievements and we focused on FS yeah and like a and settlements and stuff like that and for like our cation we had training C people since we hadon we need like and yeah it was important it's a good thing to learn [Music] about anation um we also um so besides the grapes we were also assigned a lead and an Empire um we were assigned Babylonians youone great job do you have something to add ear oh no I was thinking this was just a really fun project overall and it was really great like visually

026for like visual Learners and it was lots of fun and I think it was a great way to connect yeah it seems it seems it anyone else have anything to add before we have maybe some questions from the moms and dads up here no okay so Mr car do you have any questions or any comments for our sixth graders I just I think it's amazing that you can use cool game like this to learn something it's terrific so thank for doing that I couldn't even figure out how to play the game when my kids were growing UPS congratulations it's great di guys this is this is really cool um I have like I have a seventh grade son graceon he played a lot of Minecraft and I've played it with him and I'll just tell

027it for everyone who doesn't that was an impressive little city there there was a lot of detail a lot of cool buildings a lot of work in there the library was really impressive I did notice the skylights um so that was pretty cool uh and sounds like it was it was a great way to really kind of bring history to life um so good job great presentation everyone uh you guys did a wonderful job explaining it to us I think that even especially you know you guys were calm when it was glitching so that's no one can rehearse that so great job and thank you for for sharing this with us Hannah anything I I agree on all of that especially the glitching um technology is always an issue in presentations it always will fail

028you in presentations so way to be confirmed and I just love that you guys came in here and were able to share and I think it's a cool project I agree like the fact that you can incorporate Minecraft in with you know making it kind of meeting them where they are and everything to get the lesson across I think you know we need more of that so and it sounds like you get that fun good job Pres thanks M Hannah mki to say something new I mean I feel like what my colleagues have said were it's all absolutely correct but what I loved is how um you were all able to speak um about this project and what you learned without much in front of you which means you really learned what you did um

029because you were able to just talk about it um and so that's a sign of really deep learning um which is absolutely wonderful the other thing I noticed was that there were lots of smiles and that seems to me that you having fun or you're just smiling for the camera but my guess is is that you had fun um doing this project and so when learning is fun it also becomes really memorable so um you should thank your teacher for giving you absolutely a wonderful opportunity to learn um deeply and in a way that's really going to cement with you these topics um about ancient civilizations for so well done thank you Cel so I have some questions guys so um is is this so is it over now is the project finished is this

030the end of it yes okay do you guys use Minecraft for any other units or was it just for this just okay and do you guys feel like you it's easier to remember things about what you're learning from doing this type of project or just sort of reading or listening to Mrs whitlinger that's not aing question at all um what do you think no I mean like not even any teacher right you're sitting in a classroom is would you rather just would you rather read about it learn or or or listen to a teacher or did you think do you think that you took away more like do you think you remembered more from from doing this I'm just I'm just wondering I'm I'm not trying to put give you the answer so um I

031think personally for me I like to do stuff rather than like just sit and listen to like my teachers explain what about but so I think that actually building it and like being able to like think think more deeply about how like things worked and like you also have to keep in mind like about not just like about like not just about the past but also like in the like when you're building it you like the kids they have to talk to each other to like is it okay if I place this here can I place this here will it like conflict with something you already have built and I think that that's what I think that people from ancient Mesopotamia can relate to that a lot by like ask needing to know if like

032they could feel to here her and that's pretty that's pretty important for how they achieve what they did and I think that if we're um in that if we're experience that like doing it I think that that's pretty okay so you guys did you guys enjoy working in teams like in groups yeah having to share each other's thoughts and each other's perspectives and and coming to the final project the final product I should say good you guys did an awesome job and I should note that um well first of all thank you also for um publicly pointing out the shortcomings of our internet bandwidth which we need to fix here at the class of public schools I think but um I want to um I want to point out that our state senator and our

033state representative was here to watch your presentation as well I didn't want to say that ahead of time to make you guys nervous but they were here and I I could tell that they were very impressed as well so uh good for you guys for getting up here in front of a room full of adults and presenting thank you so much anyone have any final thoughts before we send you home to do your homework did I say Deon Deon did you raise your hand okay I just want to thank you all again and and note too that um we finished this unit probably more than a month ago um so content did stick for a bit um and it was incredible this is what I see each year when we do this project you can

034almost see them thinking it's it's almost that tangible and they are in groups according to grapes they were also assigned an Empire um and so they had to collaborate with one another within the group but also across groups as you alluded to um and and it is just it's a really powerful powerful experience and I do want to give a huge uh shout out to our it Department to Dan and to Kyle and to Joe they were on my doorstep through the entire project and they really helped us um to navigate we did have a little few bumps here and there with the internet but um it it they helped us to produce a real great project so thank you all that's great big round of applause for us time to present to us okay

035while they shut that down I'll just let everyone know that we'll be hearing from our state senator and state representative in a moment we'll just allow our students uh to clear out no rush guys and then representative mosino and Senator o Conor ask you guys to take a seat at the front table can welcome why always make us go after a fabulous presentation like that I know well you know I feel like you guys are allowed to stay up a little bit later uh but uh but we're always happy to hear from you and we're thankful for you making the time to come and present to us um we do have a a full meeting tonight so uh hopefully the presentation can be a little bit stream because I know people are going to want

036to ask questions afterward as well but thank you so much for being here uh and I just turn the meeting over to you to present however you'd like U well hello and it's wonderful to be here um State Rep jono um with my fabulist colleague Conor uh it it really is always nice to come in and uh spend some time with you uh you know we're coming into the budget session so we thought it' be good timely um talk about a little information we thought we would just run through a budget recap from so of give us a little context run through the budget recap from fy2 um and then look at the budget process moving forward um we thought would share with you a few items of Interest we thought might and then we

037want to go straight to the questions um if you don't mind p hop in just hop in um so January 1 we got sworn and um the new session kicked off uh with Bill filing uh to date we have filed almost 7,000 bills collectively between the house and the Senate um which was pretty impressive number um the first thing up was uh rules debate and now that that's voted that creates the Committees and all of those bills are now um being shephered to the various committees by the subject matter and we're going to talk about a few of them that we thought might be of interest to you in a little bit um and then with that we get our committee assignments um so I I got a new committee for higher ed but you're

038actually on educ on education yeah education um next up for us now that we're sort of formed um is really the budget um with the state of the Commonwealth the governor uh releases her budget they refer to it as house one um it shows what she's in you know her priorities and her interests um it is just a starting point it then moves next to the House of Representatives that's the um the body that can initiate spending pills um and so right now it is being reviewed thoroughly line item by line item Dollar by Dollar um through house Ways and Means um and um the chair is meeting with members to talk about priorities Etc we can talk about all that in a minute and then it moves on to um on to the Senate

039so we take it up uh in April and our Senate colleagues take it up in May then we reconcile and F CR will have a budget uh we shoot for um June 30th so that it'll kick off in the year but not to worry if it goes a little bit beyond that um we do always U make sure that our budgets move forward month to month from that that thing um do you want to yeah jump into the recap yeah so um thanks everybody for having us um appreciate being able to come here every year and talk about going on we know just in dealing with eight communities I represent the challenges that local communities are facing right now when it comes to budgeting I think it's a real Perfect Storm of things that are

040happening from the rise in health insurance to us creeping towards the end of our unfunded pension liability schedule and paying for the sins of the past in the 70s and 80s when there wasn't enough budgeting inflation as well um so we know and we're trying to really Advocate strongly to get more local support to our cities and towns in order to be able to bridge the gap and we'll get into some of the things that I see as sort of long-term solutions to this but really I think right now it's the next two three four fiscal years that we're um going to face some significant challenges I know the coassin is facing this year as well so we're keenly aware of that and I just wanted to get that out there before we go into

041you know more of a presentation that we're working really hard to try and find Solutions well you were a city council and I was a select board member so we really do understand what goes on level unlike a lot of our colleagues so I think that that speaks yeah this this year's budget which we're eight months into uh was a $58 billion budget it incorporates 41.5 billion which is basically everything that the state collects in tax revenue and that they build their budget upon since Federal funding has been at the Forefront of uh National discussion our budget's made up of 14367 billion dollar from the federal government that gets to the the net figure of the the 58 when you added some other um subtractions and additions here and there the stabilization fund our reserves

042are at 8.96 billion dollars as a state which is very healthy when I came into office in 2016 we were at just over a billion dollars so we have been uh talking to and following the advice of actuarials and economists to be able to build our stabilization for when at some point in time the economy uh turns $6.9 billion of the 58 went to Chapter 70 which was an increase of 3 $9 million over the previous fiscal year in the legislature the governor released her budget with $30 per pupil increase and this is the minimum Aid districts which all the communities of the eight that I represent are minimum Aid districts we were able to increase that number to $104 per people inside the House and Senate deliberations uh and that delivered a estimated $37

043million more in resources to school districts across the state one of the governor's key initiatives has been uh early literacy and literacy in general ener the reports that came back from the national report cards on literacy showed Massachusetts struggling compared to other states and so we are trying to shift that Trend I know that I spoke to actually members of um the parents in Cohasset who talked about sort of literacy in general um and trying to invest more in that so I'm glad that the states prioritized a significant investment this fiscal year in literacy to try and get more money out the door local school districts to buy additional curriculum start more programming and have more resources for students to be able to uh to learn how to read better uh and then $1.3 billion

044was to unrestricted governmental Aid this is basically uh the money that the state sends to communities to spend how they wish and that was an increase of $38 million over the previous year and we also uh funded metco at $30 million in the previous year's budget and I should say this year eight months in we're running about a $400 million surplus uh February's numbers should come sometime in the next day or two uh and the real month to watch is April obviously with tax returns that's the make or break month is whether or not the state's going to see a surplus or or be in a deficit which we'll have to address at that point in time uh so we just wanted to um show you a couple of um charts so that you can

045see Cohasset in the budget um and I think what you can really you obviously can read it for yourselves but what you can take away from it is that um both municipal a the local Municipal Aid as well as the chapter 78 has been it can be really characterized as steady modest growth um which I think is actually an important thing to um to remember uh we had I it's been a lot we've both been doing this for quite a while and you know if you remember some of the when we around 2001 you know they really tanked Municipal Aid and it's been a slow steady growth back um along that number and we get in there and we're having our conversations with our respective Ways and Means that's what we're talking about is make

046sure that that Municipal Aid sticks uh because that throw money to you and that's U an important way for the state to support everything that you're doing whether it be on a municipal side or on the or on the school side um oops oh yes um we threw a couple of slides in there um so did you w to oh there it is um um so we threw a couple of slides in there also um just to talk a little bit about more detail about Cohasset the budget um and we just wanted to share um a few things that we were able to get into the budget um thanks to Senator raing Harts SC $250,000 um I was able to get $40,000 for CCR um but some of the more some of the really important

047ones like free schools I mean that's 170 million dollars that that come out to the districts to really address foodness security um and that is a substantial amount to cassin um we also have the chapter 90 money we have circuit breaker which is of course all the money that comes in to support the extraordinary expenses on sped um special uh Ed Transportation Library Aid these are all things that we ask you to do um and we we provide Aid to assist and make sure that you're able to do it as well as you want to um we did also note um that the uh Osgood Elementary School uh was accepted in the msp's um acceler repair program which was very exciting and I we forgot to add in there as well is that uh s

048vot Tech is also doing um an msba building project and was really exciting to see that casset voted to support that um and we continue uh their relationship and sending the kids there to the goch which does a fantastic job uh did you wna sure um just to hit on um some other things that representative moso just talked about too raising Hearts is a great charity um that was created here by Candace Hartford who has two autistic children and wanted to kind of reimagine how artistic Resource Centers would look she's opened up a location in Handover with an initial investment that the state was able to provide through Ane Mark uh last fiscal year so in fiscal year 24 and after seeing the work that she did I really wanted to double down on that

049we were able to get $250,000 in this previous year's budget my hope is that they can use this as a model for what autism Resource Center should look like throughout the entire State as we um you know see in the numbers that are you know very shocking um the amount of children who are being diagnosed on the the spectrum is increasing and we need to do as much as we can to provide resources and support not just for the children but also for the families uh that are that are um you know struggling to try and figure out um what the best way to take care of their child is and um some of the programming they offer is uh it's it's it's offered basically throughout the the Southshore and the south coast and our

050hope is that we can continue to to grow upon this and for the people that don't realize this um Senator car Le the space with with developmental disabilities um both for children and for adults um and this is a piece of work that he has really done exemp work in um and it's a it's really something that's near and dear to the whole District um but you leave out that I just think people should know that no I appreciate it and um yeah and honestly a lot of these this came kind of organically when I first started about nine years ago and it came from a couple parents uh senior citizens in Cohasset who were the first people to stand up and say no when they were going to institutionalize their children and said no

051you're going to educate our child you're going to provide them healthare you're going to give them opportunities and seeing that tradition amongst families who have a family member with an intellectual disability is really inspiring and I think the social offers the best programming and I think that the best thing that we can do is to invest in it and hopefully have it replicated across the entire State and then hopefully the entire country because uh every uh individual especially most vulnerable deserves opportunities to be taken care of uh so just moving on um to um the the coming fiscal year um so we are currently in fy2 looking ahead to FY 26 um this year we're looking at a 62 billion budget um those are that is a consensus Revenue figure um house Ways and Means

052works with Revenue Community uh excuse me both ways and means on respective sides work with the governor's office with the revenue committees and they come to a consensus on that number um so you can feel pretty confident in that number and you do very good forecasting and track it very closely um and so you sometimes we'll see it shift a little bit throughout the debate um but by and large by the time we hit this point you know it's a pretty good number unless something drastic happens um incorporates upgraded um um tax revenue forecast to 43 billion that's a $2.1 billion increase over last year um our stabilization fund still is holding strong at um over8 billion um you're seeing an increase 7.3 billion to chapter 7 funding that's a $420 million increase over last

053over this current fiscal year um and you're seeing it again um with the with the minimum Aid uh the governor actually met us halfway this time and put it at 75 but we'll continue to do advocacy because again that's real money in your pockets um to see if we can't get that up higher during um the house and the Senate debates again the circuit breaker is fully funded um at 6 uh 682 million um that's again up um about I think it's 110 million from last year so it's really recognizing that costs are going up um that we're you serving more kids and what have you so those are good signs out of the governor's budget um it did include an increase on the early literacy initiatives 25 million um it's five million over last

054year and um we see an increase a more modest increase in the general um Aid that the municipalities get um the to 1.3 billion dollars um and then of course again $30 million for um Meco and I did just want to give a quick shout out um to superintendent Shannon um she was up at the State House for uh the first Meco uh advocacy day uh with our with her colleague uh from hang wild so it's was really nice to see uh See You in the building and have you there advocating and we're always delighted to host to and I think going to see you at the end of the month again too so uh so great job and welcome you're always welcome to the yeah it was really good so um yeah uh obviously

055with the ballot question that passed in November mcast is no longer a graduation requirement the Administration has decided to really um have desie try to figure out what now um as far as what school district should be dealing with graduation requirements they're soliciting public opinion on proposed changes to um what they believe sort of interim graduation requirement should be and then they're going to do a presentation in May and solicit public comment to try to figure out where the path forward goes now should there be a Statewide graduation requirement should there not should it be left to the individual school districts what's basically next and uh right now it's kind of up in the air you know I know that there are a lot of people inside of the Department of Elementary and secondary education

056that want a graduation requirement and there obviously um a lot of folks the voters who chose to take away the graduation requirement so it's um kind of in no man's land right now aside from the fact that des's asking for input as far as what folks would like to see happen next uh the public comment deadline is April 4th by 5:00 pm and you can do it by email uh competency DOD determination mass.gov um you can send it in by mail as well that it's all on their website just in case anybody wants to see it and I did ask for um what the comments would look like and I I meant to give this to you before um superintendent before but this is the memo that just went you pass it down that just

057went to um to the commissioner uh as they're looking ahead what they'll be looking to do is how to align language uh the regulations the new statuto language um Define terms provide clarity um specify minimum U requirements to earn a competency determination um add any additional areas um you know they the amended uh regulations uh had added US History um so they be looking at that offering other options to address du needs and providing oversight so those were the the buckets that they're going to be looking at but U I just downloaded that that's all on the website um if you're if you're interested I think was the website um oh the website is um um so ww. doe. Mass ms.edu lawre one word um back all on the website and I just I just

058brought that so you have it um the other thing we wanted to just mention real quick was charter schools so um the board of Elementary and secondary education took up this question of as adding Statewide to um to the Char School enrollment and um in fact sore Charter asked for about 225 new seats um so they did vote that in um but I did just want to let everyone know I I just I don't know why but I didn't I guess I didn't remember was coming but I I noticed that they were having comment so I did send a really quick letter in I did share with the superintendent um so hopefully she shared that with you but just to go on the record that think and thank you U for helping me articulate what

059I was trying to articulate on short notice but you know I think we all understand they're doing a good job and after all of this time they've really crafted the niche for themselves and that there are actually students there that you know try to maybe do better but for my part we represent Blue Ribbon Schools and which I just didn't think that it that there was any additional need uh they're meeting they they crafted a nice um so we did just put that on the record um just to let you know but it did get voted in six to four um that they did approve it so but I I just want to give you a quick shout out thank you for helping me find a balanced articulate way just to say fine but no

060more the next is legislation of interest uh the first two are uh ones obviously we're both involved in but um I've taken lead on some of the education funding reform that we're trying to do with Statewide during the last year's budget I proposed two what I would say would be bridges that I talked about earlier in the opening statements that I think communities need the first one would be to increase circuit breaker funding from the 75% reimbursement that we give to 100% over five years with 5% being added every single year that would free up capital for communities in order to be able to understand first that in the following school year that the state would take on more of an obligation from from a circuit breaker but also that this would give communities more

061funds during a period of time that I think is incredibly crucial to get past the period of time that we're looking at our unfunded liabilities right now with education funding I honestly don't see any school uh across the entire State and I've spoken to a lot of uh Community leaders a lot of my colleagues no one right now with two and a half% New Growth can afford to take on the challenges that come with health insurance health insurance is almost eating up everything from your tax levy increase that you have in Norwell which I just recently met with the Town Administrator literally is taking up more than their Levy increase inside of the health insurance line them that's not including collective bargaining it's not including inflation it's not including just general costs going up and

062so we're at a situation now that I think the current education funding language um that was last sort of tweaked under uh acting Governor Swift is outdated and is not um not representative of what's happening right now in our schools and in our communities and it needs to be updated it's going to take time to do that we're going to have to ask for another uh Foundation budget review commission the last time we did that it landed us the student Opportunity Act which we're in the fifth of the sixth year of of funding that's been about a $250 to $300 million investment every single year inside of roughly 26 School districts the most underprivileged school districts that we have in the state My Hope Is that once that's fully funded that gives us more money

063and another Avenue to then tackle other challenges outside of just those 26 school districts I fully supported it was on the conference committee I think it's a great thing that we're doing but we need to expand our scope because other school districts are hurting now too and we can't let the the bleeding of what's happening right now inside of Municipal funding continue to um or even slightly erode public education giving children the opportunity to learn the best way they possibly can and schools the resources that they need to continue to make those Investments the other thing that I looked at was inflation right now the state um caps inflation at four and a half percent and so despite inflation being in some previous years at almost you know 10 11% we do not account for

064that inside of the calculations that we make when it comes to funding local school districts we only will go up to 4 and a half% so I created legislation to have an inflation Bank where say inflation's at 10% and you're C at 4 and a half% the additional 5.5% would be banked and in years that Fall below 4 and a half% inflation it would then be applied during those years so it wouldn't be a huge uh onus on a year with massive inflation that we going and giving school districts more what it would do is in times of low inflation and hopefully good economy it would allow the state to then invest those dollars that they were not giving to the school districts at that point time I think it's illogical to have inflation at

06510 12 13% and only account for 4 and a half% of it uh it's not real budgeting it's not real economics and they really need to correct that because it's not it does not represent the true cost to our school districts and our school districts being left behind in this so those are two of the proposals that I've put forward uh to really look at education funding reform I've been the ranking member for nine years on the education committee I've worked with uh chair Sonia tenang Diaz as well as now chair Lewis and my hope is to continue to work with them get a foundation budget review Commission in place use the two years it's going to take to actually try and fix education funding and put true reform in place but in the meantime

066hopefully give um some credibility to those two Avenues as a way to kick more State funding to our school districts as we're trying to figure it out and we're funding that last year the student oportunity act in this coming FY 26 so in the next FY 27 there's in theory m what's timely about it and the millionaire STX is coming in with more money than we thought to um so there's there there's ways to do this it's just really trying to build a coalition that's needed to get something like this past because it is a massive reform and then yeah and then the next thing just very quickly um I've been on student financial literacy for quite some time now uh and I think that it's time that we do this I've worked with uh

067some folks from across the entire country we are falling behind in financial literacy we are one of the uh few states that have not been able to pass financial literacy yet we pass Civics education we see through the history days and all the different things were're able to do inside of our schools how beneficial that's been we passed genocide education after data reports came out that said that we're falling behind when it comes to awareness of what genocide is then Co hit and we have not as a legislature as a state mandated any further education when it comes to our Public Schools it was kind of a hands-off approach with all the things that our schools had to deal with and especially now coming out of Co all the wraparound Services the schools provide to

068students but I do believe that there's a strong case to be made and that's why I continue to file it I've actually um partnered with Treasurer Goldberg on this to make it not just a legislative piece but also a constitutional officer piece to try and get financial literacy in our schools I was able to secure an earmark for $125,000 two years ago and it was matched by Tim ran zanetta who's a Founder out in Silicon Valley who created nextg personal finance met him talked with him about the bill and he actually um matched it we were able to train about 100 teachers at Bridgewater State University over two days on how to incorporate financial literacy not just in you know math class but in history and the Arts and basically across the entire board with

069a handshake agreement that they'd incorporated into their curriculum moving forward and so what we're trying to do is really build the infrastructure in place that so when financial literacy hopefully becomes a law and is mandated in our schools that it's funded first obviously and in addition to that that we're ready to go and flick the switch and have this thing in our schools right away because we're continuously training teachers on how to incorporate into the curriculum and nextg personal finances in I believe 20 States at this point in time and they offer free curriculum free resources for all of the uh uh states that are um that that that have passed the Mandate for financial ltacy um we just wanted to toss a couple of other things um of their interest um an act relative

070to benefits for teachers um refer to it is the fair fix R plus um this is the one that when you if if you didn't get the communications during a certain period of time um you didn't know to buy back time and now all of a sudden everyone at again it got really close um but it didn't quite get across the board last year um we have heard from tremendous amount of um teachers about this bill so we just wanted to let everyone know that leader P um did refile it and she's a leader ship so um that's a great sign that um that they're confident with language and that it could move forward um so we'll be following that one and advocating for behalf of your teachers for that I just want to let

071everyone know that significant constituent support on that um very much wor the needed uh and the other one I just thought was a nice one um an act um to increase access to disposal musal products um rep Barber refiled this um and this is another one with significant cons support your so as you saw earlier your your terrific students um you that might have been the sixth grade but when they're heading High School there they are really out there um advocating coming and speaking at the state house actually volunteering doing the work U to get menual Equity product menstral products into um schools and then other spaces as well but um to schools so I just thought that was another great one that we should just mention um both one of the students teachers good

072in just nice photo we had the Cohasset boys soccer team up at the state house last week uh undefeated uh first uh state championship for soccer that they were ring home to coet we recognizing was a great day it really was a lot of fun talking to them seeing where they're going to uh to college next year for the seniors very impressive uh group of students and you should all be proud of the work that you doing to produce such um good citizens uh and then as always um conion Services is the bread and butter of what we do um so I know we're not showing it but um we did provide contact information for ourselves uh and our staff um really it occurs to to call us please do so um we happen to

073be here in the in the school meting but really as the general public listening that's what we're here for we have wonderful AIDS and um all you have to do is go on go online take a look our emails are there our office numbers are there and we both host office hours in the districts um and those are all posted on lines too so we really do try to make ourselves very readily accessible for people and if it's a question or you want to share like how you feel about a policy matter or you need help navigating um some state agency have you please if it occurs to you to call please do call um to help so um with that said Thank you thank you both so much appreciate that and uh R know

074the um information the contact information will be these exhibits will be published along with our minutes so all constituents will have access to that as well even though it's not being published on the slide so thank you for that uh any questions for either the senator or the representative or both starting an alphabetical order Mr car first thank you um for being here um we're we are so happy that you were always available to our community and a lot of people don't get the same answer in a lot of places so thanks for your commment us I I would say two things one is thanks for your commitment to medgo this is a very important part of our community here so anything you can do to help with them and their funding I think it's

075a wonderful organization the second one I think we we welcome anything they do around special services for our educational portfolio in that regard and I don't know if you met Michael Stapleton he's our new director of student services so put a name in the face where he's not new to our community but he is new to that job so investments in transportation and like that this goes along way so we appreciate it very much but thanks for all you do for us thank you star stop um yes I'll start by thanking you for coming uh of course this is this is great I always get a lot and learn a lot from these and I also want to just say um to both and to our community that that you guys are incredibly responsive to

076uh constituents uh I know we had a u Senator Conor helped us out with a call with with desie on something uh and was just immediately responsive so I want to thank you for your commitment to the communities and and helping us out um and I I G to preface it with I get I'm not I'm not mad but I get passionate about this um and be and because we've been talking about school finance a lot in this District uh and I don't know what to do um but just tell you what's going on could you could not possibly have watched all our school communities that wouldn't be then you would be responding back to so uh right now in class we're looking at and I'm going to use roundabout numbers but about $800,000 short

077call for this year okay that's going to carry forward next year after we give our steps and Lads to our teachers and our prot call is going to be on top of that $800,000 another million dollar now we're the contract negotiation trying to be fair to our teachers and their compensation so we got that demand as well we have the regular energy increasing demands and what we are seeing and Miss ow correct me I'm wrong you mentioned health insurance for us and maybe our structure is a little bit different but the biggest drivers of our budget shortfall so far have been uh special education spending which is not controllable and transportation those two uh areas seem to be the biggest growth growths of expenses that plus utilities um eating energy uh have really just taken

078a a toll on our financial resources and we're Blue Ribbon School just got the um honor at our high school this year our test scores are trending up and up we've we've built over the past several years a a a great school system and we're very proud of it and I'm I'm very jealous of it and I'm seeing it start to crack and I'm seeing us we're we're going to have to we're going to have to consider Cuts we're doing as later in this agenda you're welcome to stay we're talking about what I've been telling people we're going to rank up fees to 11 uh it's going to cost families lots of money to give their kids on the bus to um play in our sports to do lots of things we we're going to

079talk about reinstating fees for kindergarten which we just took away which is is we'll talk about that so we're not in a great budget situation and then I hear you know Chapter 70 increases for the last year there was a big increase ciruit breaker there was big increases and the millionaires taxes more than expected but other than Chapter 70 funding which for our district came in lower than expected and circuit breaker which came in much lower than expected we're not we're not seeing any and so I don't know if there's and I don't know if it's math and I don't know what to do and I don't know it's language and Senator Conor I do want to commend you on we talked about the Chapter 70 inflation adjustments it's great to see that you're sticking

080with that doing that so I'm not questioning what you guys are doing but I want just tell you what's we're facing on the ground what we're trying to protect and see if there's something we can do to you know from a legislative side is there advocacy that we can do I just I'm looking for some some advice and and maybe some support and ways to help this District because I also acknowledge that probably not in the grand scheme of things the most sympathetic District um given the name of our town but you know our town is very is much more similar to smaller towns other places in the State uh in the sense that we have a small tax pay case with no commercial center so with uh a little bit lacking in Revenue levers

081if you will so um any I wanted use this opportunity give you that perspective I don't know if you have any thoughts or or suggestions or uh if there's other times we can engage but um that's that's what's been on my mind the past sever months you know the one thing I do just want to acknowledge and I just I I never understood why we do it this way um but I just think it's an opportunity you know are the way we budget right is year to year but circuit breaker for example is extraordinary expenses but the student can arrive tomorrow and you have to cover it today um and then you get reimbursed for it which is fine except that it comes through into the general budget so you never actually see it um

082unless you have a good collaborative relationship between your town manager and your superintendent which is we're lucky to do but I mean I think that's always been one of the big chall es and then it ripples with the so it's it's it's about dollars and money but it's also about when and how too and I think that that's always been a piece I I never quite figured how we could get at that piece but boy i' love some ideas on it you know we'll certainly get in there but I think that's one piece at least that you can have some predictability like it doesn't necessarily get out the money but um you know pass with the Senators is is is working our way up towards a full funding of it so of the 7525 but

083uh but it's that predictability in some ways that we have to figure out how to get out too so I but you said it very articulately and uh you know was certainly eer to work on any ideas that come from you and how we might stabilize some of that other yeah I mean if if you just look at the Chapter 70 year-over-year I mean it's about a $100,000 increase every single year and it's simply not enough um I think that the education funding formula is broken I don't think that it accounts for what's actually happening right now in our schools and $800,000 obviously a significant amount of money but from from my perspective uh when we're looking at these Investments that we make it's it's it's tough to keep up so let me pause that

084for a second it's tough to keep up you know we took on School meals um special education Transportation was part of student Opportunity Act that covered all the schools that's only been going on for 5 years that's about $175,000 we try and fill little buckets with more money to try to offset the fact that Chapter 70 is only going to go up $100,000 when your fixed costs are going up substantially more than that and I think we're running out of buckets I think the state's running out of ways to transfer more funds to school districts without actually diving in fixing a very complicated uh funding formula that's based on wild um you know metrics of population figures and uh household incomes and all these different factors that go into this enrollment and I think the

085best thing that we're we're going to try and do is find more buckets like the two that I identified and there's others that are floating around out there to try to fill them with more money until we can get to the Crux of the issue which I think is the education funding formula just doesn't doesn't work um and the extraordinary costs that we're seeing and the goals that we have as a state you know par professionals um should be getting paid a living wage and in order to do that for school districts you need more funding from the state and the fear that I have is that we're not going to fix this in time we're going to get back to exactly where we were in the 1980s where every Community basically in the state

086is going to have to pass some sort of override the ones that do pass the override so they're going to be the have communities and the ones that don't are going to be the have not communities it's going to end up in a lawsuit like Brockton took the come to Massachusetts to Supreme Court and won and then it's going to lead towards the state demanding on the legislature to do education or funding form we have about three-year window to get something done that's substantial and that can fix in my opinion these problems by getting more Chapter 70 funding formula route but until that time we fix it it's just literally putting trying to put more money in more buckets because even with the increase from $30 to $104 last year you know the increase was

087a slight uptick but you're looking at you know that with your enrollment you can see what it is but it's you know 10 grand 15 grand and the despite the fact that we look at that as an accomplishment by doing that because without it would have been less it's not significant enough to move the needle so I I totally get it you know I did 12 Years in the city council and wa before this and we faced the 08 and we were in net School spending deficits and it it it's it's really you know concerning to me that we haven't touched education funding for in so long with all the we have now that we have to face there's anything we can do to help you make the case whether by be example data or

088talking to people I'll certainly volunteer myself and I'm sure anyone in this committee are in administration would be willing to help out so we appreciate that and I would say Mass Municipal Association um you know I think that they really need to start beating the drum on this um there's some noise and shatter on this there's legislators who are talking about it but this needs to be at the Forefront of a lot of major discussions we have the same way that all these other you know hotbed issues get um the light shined on them and and news you know broadcasted about it the same thing has to be happening with education funding because it's happening in literally every single community that are present Ian people are looking at it um I I will just say

089when you touch the formula they are very complicated and uh I think it it'll be hon us I mean communities to your point communities like us tend to lose in those battles so it's well it needs to be done and it needs to be thoughtfully done so um and will be meeting with the superintendent soon next week I'm not sure but um but the but the sort of Southshore superintendent some of our school committee members are coming to that as well good good I I met with a long-term liability um committee that's that's meeting in Cohasset as well met with them and we had a conversation with uh perak about the liabilities that we have in North F County retirement system and how that whole schedule works there is going to be an opportunity inside

090the municipal budgets that there is going to be a huge drop off of expenses when the pension liabilities met most of them is set for 2031 or 2032 it is going to be a significant amount of money that's going to be coming back to cities and towns my fear is that that's going to then be transferred over to opep to pay for um unfunded insurance but we we have an opportunity with that sort of horizon coming with that and us being able to do work in the legislature to actually correct this and get communities in a in a space that they won't have to worry about deficits for a significant period of time as long as they budget correctly thank you thank you Mr D just reminder we got we do have a full meeting

091and I want to be respectful of our administrator time so I want to keep on and that's I'm not it is an important issue so I'm really not trying to chill any sort of conversation but if ever going to be mindful of that in our comments Mrs Hannah I just want to say I support getting financial literacy in this SCH and thank you guys for coming I'm new to the school committee so this has been a huge Lear OPP but um I couldn't agree more I they from a financial literacy standpoint like they should be graduating high school understanding what a credit card is and what they're getting themselves into as they go to college campuses and they throwing all these opportunities so than thank you very much was that quick enough forn yeah so

092I wasn't picking on you Mrs Hannah I I'm really and I wasn't trying to be funny at all I mean we have you know a bunch of our administrators here they have to be here first thing in the morning and form for all our kids and I'm just so I'm just mindful of it I know this is always like a very discussion Laden meeting when we have the repr senator here and everyone wants to talk it out it's just that you know we we got to keep moving because I I don't want our administrators getting home some of them have commutes at 10 o00 at night right so always us directly I just call ourselves and Mrs Hannah it wasn't anticipating your it wasn't anticipating that you were going to be G you just happened

093to be after Mr dial I did not take it personally Mrs Les I will just thank you for your advocacy um for the schools um and for our communities um you know I think particularly some of our communities that you mentioned um you know our our young women in schools um and in other places in need of um mental products I think that's huge to take that off the the shoulders and the minds of um particularly adolescent girls um but also working with Children and Families um with autistic children um huge those are just really vulnerable populations I think and and your support is is much appr thank you thank youki um just a couple very Qui questions Senator the legislation you're taking lead on that you spoke about earlier what's the chronology on that

094U because I think that that is the issue I mean I think that the formula is the problem so what where what is the timeline on that like what do you when do you expect that to be you know acted on I think the first real debate that we'll have on that going to be in the it'll be either be in the house budget or the Senate budget um Senator Lewis is forming a group of legislators that are going to speak to to this and it would be opening up a foundation budget review commission to bring all the best minds and education and Finance in government to on to a table like this and try and figure out how do you actually get to the to where we want to go as far as education

095funding and then that that takes time let's do an Opportunity Act took to years to get the idea and then it took four years to get ped so I'm anticipating that we're going to have to have some time to you know put the due diligence in to get whatever this is going to look like done and agreed upon by teachers unions and communities and everybody else and then you know move it forward but they're talking about it because you know just in the house the other day they had a whole briefing on Chapter 70 really for the new people but not for nothing it's a good refresher um and it gives all the slides with all the details everything so people are actually talking about it and to have it in the front of their

096Consciousness is is a good start yeah every Community is facing the same challenge as the coass is unless the community has had extraordinary New Growth recently or the community has major commercial districts right uh okay uh and then just to expose my ignorance a little bit uh I noticed in fy2 uh minimum per pupil for Chapter 70 went from 30 to 104 you said then f26 says it increased to 75 I don't understand seems like that would have been a decrease sorry about that so what it was is we were just telling you that the governor's budget put it out there at 30 um to show you that she's starting to move towards us this time she put it out at 75 um we were able to negotiate and to Advocate to get it up

097to 110 um and then we'll continue to do that as well to to to build in so we're minimum a community so that's 17% um someone smile me yes uh 177% and then to try to um to to just bulk that up a little bit um there there's no losers on the formula right so to bul that up what they do is for communities like us with minimum am they they push it with the per people expenditure some years it has been 30 and we're always advocating for it to be higher and higher because that's real money to you so we were just showing you that as a new starting point which is good understood I just mised that okay and then lastly ugga what is the allocation formula there how did how it decide

098which communities get what what oh that's another complicated formula um results in go has to getting nothing well it's again um where you know as I say wealthy communities the reality is is that you're only as wealthy as most those with most modest means of with you right you can't just because some of us have doesn't mean you can just you know do operational CRS all the time um so it's it's a struggle sometimes for us to advocate for it um but that's what we do and uh it's modest growth it's much more modest growth there um Chapter 70 is the far more significant number coming in for Operational Support than it is for the regular govern yeah seems like a man of figure that's why I I'll is about1 16,000 a year increase if

099you roughly do it out for a coet I mean again you know this is a tool that the state should in my opinion use to get more money out I've filed amendments in the past to try to double uh the amount of money that's in unrestricted governmental Aid it is a huge number because it impacts every single one of the communities but it is it is a a key in my opinion as we move forward with education reform that we increase Hugga unrestricted General governmental Aid to offset some of the Chapter 70 money that we don't get because we can um right we can tweak that a lot easier than Chapter 70 all right well thank you both for for being here tonight we really appreciate you taking the time and uh and again not

100to not to uh appear as though trying to rush you off the stage but we are trying to I am trying to rush you off the stage thank you for everything you guys do for all right moving right along uh um into our super update um turn the meeting over after she says goodbye to our and I'll be at the meeting too so thanks so much for your time appreciate it you too thank you thank you both have a great night you all right we'll turn the meeting over to superintendent schools uh Miss Sarah Shannon to provide the superintendent update this time all right thank you um so I have a few updates and then I have um a presentation for you as well tonight so um first of all welcome to March it's the

101longest busiest month of a school year so we're in it um and I want to start off by just first congratulating both of our basketball teams for making not just the playoffs but last night both our boys and girls basketball team won so they're in the Elite 8 um they're moving on to the state quarterfinals we're not sure sure exactly when they're playing next I think we have to wait for some other teams to play and either win or lose to determine when we're playing next but I would encourage folks to stay um current with the social media because that's when we'll announce when those next games will be um as Senator o Conor said the boy soccer team went to the state house and I heard it was a great day they got a

102wonderful tour and had lots of opportunity to learn about state government as well so we thank him and um representative Macho's aid for their time and I also want to congrat congratulate a junior at the high school Ty dwire who is being le as the Southshore League's 2025 Boston Bruins MIAA sportsmanship Award winner this year he's going to be honored along with recipients from other leagues at the March 17th ruin game for that accomplishment um and next week all of our model un students are heading out on their Excursion to New York City so I want to wish them good luck with their work in a safe trip and let you know that we will be having our model un and some model Congress students coming for our next student Spotlight in April so we'll

103get to hear from them about their experiences and finally we kicked off our strategic planning process last night it was led by our GL Consultants we had about 30 stakeholders in the room as we started to review our last strategic plan and to start thinking about what we want to do moving forward I'm really excited excited about the work I'm really excited about the group of people that we have that coming together and I'm so grateful for all the time that they're putting into this work because it is about three hours per session and it's about six sessions so um a lot of students some parents our administrators some teachers it's a lot of time and we're very grateful for that um do you want to raise a a question for your consideration that was

104raised to me and given the timeline Maybe tonight's not the night to discuss it but something to think about um talked over a little bit with chair mclen and and think it's important that each of you weigh in independently as well um for a variety of reasons just wanting to get people's input on I know lots of people like the paper packets but just sustainability and financial constraints and in wondering how people feel about potentially going to electronic um p school school committee packets um because they are all online now Jennifer sends them out and so we have all those materials and it may not be a unanimous decision there may be people who really like the paper because they use it and manipulate it and there may be people who come and bring their

105personal device and access the the materials that way so something to think about maybe for a future conversation okay thank you um and so tonight I want to share my entry plan findings Report with you I also want to recognize that Moren lacroy my um mentor and Coach is here with us tonight she joined us earlier in the year and was introduced to you as my superintendent coach since we started working together through the new superintendent induction process um she and I meet month monthly twice a month actually um and I've really appreciated her support her advice and her collegiality it's helped me trans ition more smoothly I think I hope into my new role and I appreciate her being here to support me and sharing my entry plan findings with you superintend Shannon just

106pause there just I just want to make sure that no members just ask them if you have any questions about any superintendent Shannon's updates that she just gave before we get into her no okay continue thank you sorry I'm gonna um no problem and I am going to share my screen if that's okay um I might need permission to share my screen okay there you go thank you yeah I forgot to make you a co-host that so in the packet that went out the electronic packet that went out to everybody all the school committee and the general public is my full plan finding report it's there for everybody to read it's about 12 pages long um but I'm going to share just a highle overview of my findings with you tonight um happy to answer

107any questions and then even as you have time to read the whole report happy to answer any additional questions um so it's been eight months since I started this position which just seems kind of crazy to me that it's it's gone by that quickly um when I started this position and I had this conversation actually with a couple members of the staff earlier this evening um when I started this position though I worked in education for a very long time I came in only with the perspective of a parent and a and a colleague of sorts um I feel like I have a very different perspective of the district now and I'm so grateful for it because I came in already appreciating the Cohasset public schools and I feel like I have an even deeper

108appreciation for the district than I did starting on July 1st um but I came in really trying to discover who and what is the cohes of public schools and so I spent a lot of time looking at what we do I reviewed a lot of data um a lot of documents I talked to a lot of people I visited all the schools I talked with students with staff with families community members um and through the strategic planning process also have done uh survey of all of our stakeholders and have had the opportunity to review all of that information as well um and so sort of high level overview the cassa public schools is an amazing District we have this really strong Foundation of academic Excellence dedicated Educators we have a student centered approach and within

109our Excellence there opportunities for us to continue to Excel and we need to find what those opportunities are because all of us are human we all have areas of strength and areas where we can find ways to continue to get better um you know a couple really key things we've talked tonight it's been mentioned several times that we are a blue ribbon school that reflects on the high school but also all of our teachers and all of our students because our students who are 12th graders are a compilation of every experience that they have had prek through 12 um we ranked F fifth in the state on Ela mcast and 14 and we're you know in Boston magazine we're 14th best school district in Massachusetts we are leading the state as a school district and

110really what we're looking to do is to continue to build upon that um some things that I did when I did this entry report were I really looked at the four um Compass points that are in our our last strategic plan and looked at those four categories to think about how do we identify the strengths within each of those four areas and where are our opportunities to continue to grow within those four areas and so the first one is really teaching and learning and so again building on our Excellence we have really dedicated and skilled Educators in this District I can tell you to a person every conversation I had with either students or um family members and even in the forums for the Strategic plan over and over and over again I heard about

111how much our teachers love our children and are dedicated to their personal success and their academic success how much they go out of their way to support kids and get to know our students and that's really good for our students well-being but it's also good for achievement there is so much data out there that says when kids have strong relationships with adults in their school buildings they perform at higher levels and they learn more and so that I think is a piece of why our kids do so well there are a lot of reasons why our kids do well but I think that is an important piece we have high academic achievement on both traditional and non-traditional standards we have almost 100% graduation rate again the Blue Ribbon we have received AP Platinum School honors

112due to the number of students that we have who participate in AP courses along with the course the um results that they get and we are doing a lot of work to shift curriculum to support the vision of a graduate in and our educational Vision we're seeing more and more Project based learning example this the earlier in our meeting with Miss weinger and the um Minecraft Project to represent the ancient civilizations that the kids are learning we're doing more and more of that and we're creating more and more coursework that actually is um providing our students with these deeper learning experiences that are meaningful authentic and relevant and they're leading to a place where our students actually have a real sense of what they want to do school so we're grateful for all of that

113and there's a there's opportunity for us to continue to elevate that experience for our kiddos um how do we have an opportunity for all of our students no matter what grade they're in to have those authentic learning experiences because while they exists in the school district not every child has that experience every single year here how do we continue to elevate student voice elevating student voice was a priority in the last strategic plan if you talk to students they will tell you that they feel like they have voice and they will tell you that they love more opportunity to have voice so how do we continue to build that um how do we continue to close our achievement gaps we know that academically the majority of our students are successful and we have some students

114who still need to find some additional success so what do we need to do as Educators to to get them there and finally how do we ensure that all students have Equitable access to challenging learning experiences across grade levels and subjects um we've heard a little bit I think even at the last meeting um when we had our student from the superintendent advisory Council she came and spoke and she talked about how it doesn't always feel like it's the same experience if you're in the same course and and even down to the elementary levels that has come up in some feedback so how do we continue to to get there and it's not that the experiences aren't good but how do we just ensure that there's enough commonality that kids are coming out having the

115same experiences or have learned the same curriculum I think this is a really important piece of data because we all went through covid and you can see that coming out of covid our students were struggling social emotionally um their levels of anxiety depression were on the higher side and one of the things I've learned since July is how much of a focus the district has put on social emotional well-being of students the focus on building relationships and making connections with individual students the focus on providing the resources for students to meet their social emotional needs and as a result we are seeing students self-reporting fewer and fewer instances of feeling anxious or us and that's the trend that we want to continue I think that's a really important piece of data from our youth risk

116behavior survey and we are doing that again this year so we'll get even more data but the more our students feel healthy both physically and emotionally the better they are going to do academically and as we think about their social emotional wellbeing this is an interesting conversation that we need to be having because we need to be able to find some balance between high achievement and well-being because one of the things that we're hearing from students specifically is that they have this feeling of high pressure to perform to fit in and to do it all um and we want our students to be high achieving but we also want them to have some balance and to be able to manage their stress and to take academic risks without being afraid to try something new in

117the classroom so how do we start to have those conversations as a district and with our students so that they can get there and we're also hearing from some of our students you know 85 to 95% of our students believe that we are a very inclusive District we still have some students though who feel like they don't quite fit in and so how do we continue to build a culture of belonging and a culture of inclusivity so that number gets closer to 100% because that is our goal and how do we continue to build and support the well-being of our Educators they are the foundation in the back bound bone of our district they are doing amazing work it's evident in all of the data that I've been able to look at but at some

118point they start to get burned out as well and they start to feel an additional need for more support so how do we make sure we're building in what they need so that they can continue to thrive and one of the things that we've talked a bit about is how do we continue to build the trust so that our educ ators really trust us as administrators because I think that's going to be a key to continuing to build their social emotional wellbeing as well and you know our last strategic plan the mission shifted a bit and the mission became a mission where we put students first and I think that has really from what I have had the opportunity to learn made a huge difference in this District I think we are a district that

119that thinks of students first that puts students first they that creates a culture where they feel supported um and we need to continue to look at are there other areas where we're not getting students first and what might that look like and that might require some some different policies some different staff training some enhanced curricular reviews but that's an area where we can continue to to think about how we move forward and then Community Partnerships and communication boy do we have a lot of really strong Community Partners um kassa is really really fortunate to have Holly Hill to have our Historical Society to have cscr the amount of work they do with students at all levels is really phenomenal and how do we continue to seek new local Partners who support us just as much

120as they do we have a growing internship and independent study program here at high school that is really helping kids start to find their passion our vision of a graduate talks about kids finding their direction right what's their compass and these are the types of opportunities that help our students find their compass and often ignites that desire to go off into whatever they're doing after high school because they've figured out what it is they want to do here um and we're continuing to grow the relationship with the town we share facilities Department we Share technology department we share financial resources as you just heard from our Senator and our representative and so it's really um a focus for me is continuing to build those relationships so that we can continue to work really effortlessly together

121um I do want to note here that our school committee has a goal this year to build a database of Community Resources and experts to help support the meeting full authentic learning experiences of our students an email went out from the school Community asking people to fill out the Google form so we know what you do I'm quite sure that every parent in our community has some sort of area of expertise that our students can learn from um I also put the link in my last newsletter and I really would encourage parents and caregivers in anyone in the community to fill out that form because you are going to be the people that our students look up to and having you as experts in their work would be a really meaningful experience for all of

122us and so in terms of resources um you know we've talked a lot about facilities we are part of the accelerated repair program to get a new roofit osid um we are looking to once that's done in the next couple years go for that again but for the Deer Hill roof and we continue to submit statements of interest for a new middle school high school facility um and hope that the msba takes us in as a partner technology we are a BYOD district for grades 6 through 12 and we have iPads and Chromebooks for our younger students as well we have been we just completed year two of four years for replacement and installation of interactive Boards Hardware wise we are in a good place as a district um you saw our students you know

123with the Wi-Fi that lagged a little bit that's an area of growth for us but we're also um looking to do a whole Wi-Fi Expansion Project this summer so hopefully that will make a big difference um and that's townwide not just school but that comes from sharing technology Resources with the district and with the town and budget we have talked a lot about budget this year that is clearly an area of um growth for us where we need to continue to think about how we have a balanced budget I think there's a piece of that that is definitely us as a district and as you've heard Senator and the representative some of that work is actually finding ways to support them in their efforts to change the funding formulas because there's a point at which

124we can only do so much and then it becomes a much bigger issue um but we really are a district that is built on Excellence tradition and this deep commitment to students um so we are going to build a strategic plan that hopefully will be completed and presented to you by the end of May that will identify what's next for us because we are a district that can is currently and can continue to Lead Massachusetts public education and I think we have the we have the foundation to be the best school in this state um I really truly believe that I think we have all of the pieces that we need we have teachers who are dedicated who want to learn who want to excel we have students and families who are looking to to

125really do that same exact thing and when you have an entire Community who has that same philosophy you can do great things and so um I just think the next few years are going to be really powerful years for us as a public school district and I'm excited to be here and to be a part of it and I'm just so grateful to be able to work in the Cohasset schools because as I said earlier I think I always love the this District but I have an even deeper appreciation for everyone who's a part of it so thank you for allowing me the time to present thank you very much superintendent Shannon uh any members of committee have any questions for sh related to the entry plan is presented tonight Mr Carr I'm just glad

126you're here thank you this was excellent thank you Mr Carr Mr B uh superintendent Shannon the gravity of my remarks reflects the thoroughness of your presentation and I am very impressed I have no comments questions just let's just do it thank you well we can all be thankful for that Mr D I do have one comment I think this is really well done so thank you for it and thank you for you know coming in here and doing the Deep dive that you've done and everything um I would Challenge and I'll continue to be the drum there's no mention in here around Athletics at all and 80% of our student athlet or students participate in a sport and I get that that's at the high school level but there is a huge opportunity to connect

127with the community Through Sport and so I would challenge us there there's a huge opportunity to drive Revenue so we're not doing dinging people for fees and increasing fees there's huge Revenue opportunity and then I just think like when we talk about like social and emotional needs like sport working out sweating working with you know your teammates and everything like that's really important and so I just don't want it to get overshadowed um you know you have a lot of kindergarten through eighth graders that are playing Sport and so there is this connection between high school athletes being able to come out and help them out and everything um and so I just think we can to kind of Overlook Athletics at this point in time thank you very much Mah Mrs leki thank you

128I love that presentation I would just say that I have a particular appreciation for your highlighting um importance of well-being of students and staff um because kids who are not feeling connected or feeling included are not going to learn well likewise teachers who are on the cusp of burnout or not feeling included or respected do not teach well and so I think really sort of at the core of so much of this um is creating an environment where everyone feels like they have a place they feel safe um included listen to um and they can be their authentic Sal appreciate that thank you very much mki uh thank you superintendent chanon for everything you continue to do and that you have done since your uh beginning of your inclement here at the classic Public Schools

129I think it sounds like uh you know everyone is very grateful for all your work so far and we're looking forward to what you bring to the district in the future and uh I think that you know just as M sah pointed out one specific uh area there's always broker growth right and there's always opportunities for improvement and I think that that is a major like tenant of of coass public schools I don't think we we tend to rest on our Laurels and and we make sure that we're you know dotting every eye Crossing every te that we know that we're only as strong as our most vulnerable Learners and and um so we're always striving for excellence in that way so uh thank you very much moving on uh unless there are any other

130comments regarding the entry plan seeing none we'll move into the uh next block of our agenda I'll turn the meeting over to our director of student services Mr Michael staple thank you thank you for being here Mr St of course so I have three updates tonight um so I'll move us through the first update that I have is tied to the data fling which I share present here so February was a little bit of a shorter month obviously with the February vacation built in um but again a busy month for student services oh sorry Mr uh M Davis or CPAC leaz on why don't you come up in the front table you Davis is the president of the spe special education parents advisory Council you so at the elementary level there are three annual reviews

131um there was one reevaluation and two initial evaluations from those at the elementary level um two two of those came through the mtss referral process um one of those was found not eligible while the other student was found eligible and then there were two family referrals um one referral which ties to the third part of my presentation tonight is really came from early intervention um so a student who would be you know turn um transitioning into public school system within the year and then one not eligible um we also reviewed one independent evaluation at the middle high school there are six annual reviews um there's one reevaluation um One initial evaluation ation that came from a family who attends a private school you know we do are responsible for evaluating students who attend private schools

132um and so that student um you may access Services through class of public schools um and then as the outo district coordinator I shared one in review and then one reevaluation so there were total 20 meetings um in the office of student services for February the second component now case I can take questions at the end um really ties to the sped strategies work that I've taken on since starting the role um and you know I've shared kind of all the resources and information for this project throughout this one slideshow and so this is just the final slide of the presentation and so this really um this work is being done for two reasons really you know the state indicating that there's a proficiency gap for our students on Statewide assessments specific to MC um

133for you know Ela and math and then also you know our responsibility to work to close that Gap you know as public school district and so through Community feedback through analysis of different data points that we have um you know we really have come to this goal that was required to be submitted to the state which would be the close that proficiency gap for students on Statewide assessments I think it'll be interesting to watch this unfold and while this plan um you know was official and been submitted to the state there is room to adjust and to kind of pivot as we move through this different work um and so the practices that we've identified you know again based on all the data sources that we reviewed um it was analysis and review of tier

134one instructional data so that you know instruction that happen with the the education setting for all students um and that work will be done through the leadership teamwork and I think a lot of the components Within These practices and actions ties directly to the Strategic plan in my own personal goals you know um my professional practice goals and the work that's happening across the district um the second practice that we identified was continuing to develop our co- teing model um you know as I've kind of analyzed a multitude of data as we look at the co- teaching practice we really started you know years ago in the middle and built out and so there's room for growth and development at both ends of um like the educational you know K through 12 um both at

135our Osgood school um we consider you know kindergart in grades one and two and then also in later high school if needed you know based on individual student need and so we'll continue to work on developing the co- teaching model and those Partnerships between special education teachers and general education teachers another area that connects to co- teing really is differentiation of instruction and something that I've been you know reflecting on and seen as a need through my time here with in has it is working uh with general education teachers to develop the practice of differentiation and making sure that we hold a high standard for all students but you know all students learn differently whether that's how they demonstrate what they know um or how they you know access the curriculum materials and so I

136think that'll be a nice supplement to the review of the tier one instruction that we're doing as we think about practices for teachers and developing both strategies for co- teing and opportunities for co- teaching and then also how we differentiate for students and we consider know different student profiles another component to this analysis and work ties to the curriculum review cycle that you know Dr scollins has been working on in um you know Rob Roberts in an area that connects to me that I think is an area for further growth and development is really looking at um what you know research-based interventions and uh you know curriculum materials we're using for Reading Writing and math in my time here we' really focused on like the specialized reading materials to be you know whether that's the

137Wilson Reading Program or for Gillingham um but I think comprehensive overview of what specialized materials we're using will be very important um to really look at closing that Gap and how we remediate and teach and use different materials um for students with you know different learning needs whether they're special education students or students going through like the mtss process or really just those practices as a whole um and so that work will be done um you know over the coming years too as we really analyze that and buil for the future uh the third practice that um I'll take on and the district has committed this previously but kind of revamping and rethinking about how we teach executive functioning skills um a big piece of why we and through collaboration with all the participants you

138know within this bed strategies work we talked about how test taking skills while they're taught to students um students with disabilities or challenges related to Executive functioning um we could be a little bit more deliberate in how we teach those and how then well not teaching to the test necessarily right um teaching strategies to be a good test taker um and so I would continue to work with the special education department students have executive functioning goals on test taking strategies um and a goal that I have moving forward would be to allocate time in special education department meetings to share resources and use them as a professional Learning Community um to really build out resources um that could be shared across the district and um also you know with families and we'll talk a little

139bit about that in a moment and then the fourth area um really looking at absentee rates for students with disabilities and whether um you know there's a multitude of reasons why students May absent it could be you know they're truly sick and there's a doctor's note and that's like pretty simple but if students have you know School refusal for example um related to their disabilities making sure that we partner with families to to really get students within the building and just having those dialogues with families about how we can support them will be another area that we would look at in order that proficiency app so that is the overview again this plan was submitted to the FED strategies um is a federal and state initiative and so I'm waiting to hear back any feedback

140back that they have but we can adjust this plan you know as we go through as we move things forward my third update tonight is um something that I've enjoyed in my new role which I didn't experience before is coass public schools partnership with early intervention um and so I just wanted to highlight this and look at this as a resource to share with families both on our website and through student services so families that reside in Cohasset um may receive first Early Intervention which is for students Young students before they enter school um who you know and this is I just pulled right from their program and their website um may require Services um and it's a family- centered approach um where parents and students receive Services um the goal of the Arc of

141so Shore and our partnership with you know they are their own entity in the sense um providing those early services to for students um but students may receive you know speech language occupational therapy and different related Services um but as we transition I want to talk about how we start to work with those families so that they understand the public school system and special education if eligible um so I'll be sharing this resource out on the website just so new families you know could see how this process works but um how it works from the Cohasset end is Cohasset would receive a referral letter um with the child's individual family service plan um from the EI family service coordinator who we work very closely with um and they request casset staff to participate in a

142transition meeting um and so I've had the opportunity to attend some of these meetings which has been and I have to give a shout out to the um our youngest team like the preschool team um through the integrated preschool which I'll talk about a little bit more and some of our related service providers at the Osgood such as our speech language therapist our occupational therapist really dependent on the students individual plan dictates who attends these meetings but it's like our first welcome to families in a sense to the ca Public Schools um and just the feedback that I had from working with the um family service plan coordinator who's um a seasoned veteran will actually be retiring at the end of this year um she just spoke so highly of our staff's ability to go

143into you know you're attending a family's home and learning about their student for the first time being able to just like articulate what we offer and the services and that partnership I think is so huge as we start to build relationships with families which is so important to both the Strategic plan and just who we are as you know class of public schools um faculty and so coass staff would attend this meeting um at the family's home with the um family service coordinator and at that meeting they will describe you know what services the child's received um we hear directly from parents about you know what they're looking for um and then the district would describe the special education evaluation process and the recommended evaluations you know based on how students presenting um following that

144then parents would complete the request to evaluate form which just you know includes the residency information the students information and demographic and that will drive their Sims number that's then you know used to track them the rest of their educational career um and then the district sends a consent form home um for the family to fill out and and then once the class receives that consent form our evaluators to conducts testing um in accordance with special education timelines for students so you know that includes 30 days to test and then we hold meetings within 45 days um and then the initial evaluation would be held atassa Public Schools um families typically invite the family service coordinator who helps explain the evaluations and that's something that we do as well at these meetings but again it

145just really speaks to like the collaboration that takes place with this Outside Agency um and then we determin if a child would be eligible you know on their birthday and then what that would look like and how those Services would go into place at starting at age three um I wanted to share this resource out and again I'm a big proponent of just making all the information available for families as possible um when families would come to this meeting um we would go through the eligibility flowchart that all students would go through when determining eligibility for special education services in the state of Massachusetts um and so this is the flowchart that we' go through and I won't go through it completely today but um you know again these are the questions that were're asking

146when determining if a student is eligible um and then based on the outcomes there's three kind of potential outcomes for students um you know turning three so they would be not eligible for services um they could be eligible for walk-in services so if a student receives speech language and that was an area identified um they may be eligible for speech language Services um or they could be eligible um for the integrated preschool um which is you know how is at the Joseph osid School there's currently two classrooms for the integrated preschool U this is a description and a picture of our integrated preschool um so families could be aware of you know this kind of potential eligibility for um and then this is our program description and so the the integrated preschool is for students

147Age 3 to five it provides an enriching supportive environment for class of preschoolers who require that specialized instruction along with typically developing peers so eligibility for the U integrated preschool real is driven based on um disability related needs so if a child does present with a disability and requires you know a higher level of specialized instruction um in related Services uh the program is based on Massachusetts comic cor State Standards U for prek and students will be working on Reading Writing math um and Social Development programs um again students may receive different different related services such as occupational therapy Physical Therapy the program is also supported by a board certified behavior analyst um if there's needs related to you know behavior um and it's really a nice introduction to the goood school as student transition

148through potentially two years within the preschool um a lot of that Readiness work is really tied to you know IP goals um and it's important for some of our students with more significant needs would be eligible for this type of programming to learn the structures of the school obviously they're a little bit isolated from the the the full school and the kindergarten the first grade and the second grade um but I think it's a great opportunity again for families to start to learn the staff and for um the students to be familiar with some of the school routines that they'll be a part of um as they move into you know kind ging I've also linked so the community has a website um for our integrated preschool um that I won't spend too much time

149on that but it offer some really great resources describing the preschool um there's some of our teachers Michelle Joyce is one of our integrated preschool teachers who's been with the district for you know a long time and is a great resource for families um as well as Kim Kirker who will be the second teacher um for the second classroom and then some of our power professionals um so this is a great again resource for families to learn more about kind of like that intro to class of public schools through the inter pres school I won't spend too much time here again these are the skills when we think about just curriculum and how things move forward from transitioning from preschool um to kindergarten um a lot of some of you'll see like the bridges math

150program is included a lot of the work that like kind of starts that transition um is embedded into like that you know obviously it's the preschool level with the academic demands of of the preschool um again this is links on our website and I think it's important to note um and this kind of connects to the data that I report each time that I'm here um at OS get a number of our referrals each year are coded as initial evaluations that are requested by parents and that's driven right from this EI process um so these referrals come in you know when a parent request Services we you act on those that's the participation that I described in attending the the meetings at family's home um since these children are not currently part of our mtss

151system that's why those are coded as parent referrals so I think that's just important for the committee to know um that that is you know a number of our evaluations each year at the oswood school um child find is one of my responsibilities as the Director of student services and it's an important initiative um and that helps us identify children who may require special education services um that aren't yet enrolled in the cohas of public school system um and so through this process you know each year we reach out and distribute um packets to local preschools you know there are a number of local preschools um private preschools in the area um and pediatricians yearly to make sure that families have information on um resources that the coass of public schools office of student services

152offers um and so that is again kind of tied to this this process um through early intervention um and then a plug to for our integrated preschool um you know it's a program that's special education used driven through IP process but we also um you know there a major component of it is having you know typically developing peers as members um and so each year in January and this happened recently um we post the peer role model application for eligible children residing in Cohasset um for admission and then we move through that process um you know eligible applicants are then depending on the number of slots available and making sure that we follow in those right parameters um you know a lottery has been done INE or is done um to accept students um for

153admission to the preschool and so that is just I think a great opportunity again um if parents are for you know being preschool or preschool model it's a great inclusive opportunity that really starts off our inclusive programming here then evolves going through co- teing and different things like that so that is my overview um I know I went through a lot of information tonight but I'm having answer any questions that MERS have thank you Mr stap before we take any questions why don't we ask in no pressure Miss Davis but if you have anything to add to any of that or if you have any insight or update from the special education parents advisory Council just so that as the committee members are asking questions they will have also heard anything you might have to

154say um and also feel free to you know ask any questions Mr State I thought that was very thorough no questions about that um the only thing that we were kind of there's been chatter about um was the mcast like the competency determination the mcast were wondering there's an article that was written and it kind of sounded like we were still going to keep the requirement for the mcast in this town so there was just some people wondering so I said I would bring it up it doesn't seem like that's the case after listening to Patrick coner but um I just figur that was the one thing we were all worried about um so that will bring us into the next item which you should just stay right in that se for um and we'll

155we'll I think we'll we'll take care of any confusion there in a moment so uh with that uh any members of the committee have any questions for quick little updates just based on CPAC being here um there is a meeting not this Thursday next Thursday um and the topic which I'm excited about we'll see if other people are is just executive functioning strategies for families at home and so that presentation I'm bringing a guest to that so strongberg our school psychologist at the high school level who's really one of our executive functioning kind of gurus um will be presenting with me on an overview of executive functioning skills you know the the brain and how the brain works and then we're going to be bringing some resources to share with families too um and so

156that's you know nice a plug there March 13 at 11 in the community room different so I feel like it's nice to kind of spread it out to like ex a different kind of topics yeah it should be great perfect okay now anyone have any questions for Mr stapon or M Davis will'll go around in etic order Mr car questions ni thank Mr car sh thank you very much no questions love the thorough thank you and um the integrated um approach I think is really important at those early stages um for everyone that's in that classro so I think that's great that we're serving M Hannah M leki um I will just note that I have two appreciations for you one is um the focus on Executive function I feel like that is such a

157vague term um and really sort of how to help remediate executive function issues um in a child is a really nuanced and complicated um thing um so I appreciate your focus on that um in terms of instructional practice but also you use the term it's our welcome to families um in terms of when you're meeting um you know doing those collaborations with EI and um the oate integrate and pulling together and I think that that just in terms of a mindset is just absolutely amazing because that's a really tricky time for parents um of children um when they're thinking about putting their children into school and will they be cared for and will they be loved for who they are um and will they get what they need and if our approach as a district

158is to say welcome I think that that goes yards and miles in terms of putting families at ease so I just really wanted to sort of highlight that in terms of I think that language that you used was really important and hopefully that's also reflected in those meetings that you have those initial meetings because I think that that is a really sort of critical Tipping Point in terms of a family's first um introduction to the district and it can it could go thank you very much Mr ceski um all I have to add Mr Stapleton is uh first thank you I think you and your team are doing some wonderful things and I think we're lucky to have you uh personally from a personal note I speak for the committee um I'm sure everyone feels

159very they feel great about you for sure um uh do you think I I love the the the um the preschool presentation I wonder if it makes sense to try and find a non-district outlet to advertise that through like maybe even like I I may regret this but maybe even like oassa 143 like the Facebook or something just to get that sort of like information out there um to let new families to go house know about um that programming um or maybe you've already done this and you figured out some other outlet that you're already doing this perhaps so yeah my plan was to include it on like the child find notifications a link to our website and again trying to put I'm trying to create resources for families on my website so whether that's

160a CAC presentations like this type of presentation and you probably tell from my I like to create a good flowchart of like the next step in process um and so I feel like that's the Avenue that I would go there um I'm not resistant to sharing it out more globally I just is worth noting too that like the process for eligibility for the integrated preschool you know we currently have two classrooms and it's really based on disability related needs so I just think that's important to like emphasize too that um while I want to get the word out there um it's it's very focused right like the the level of need that's required to be eligible for it um but I'm I can include a link within those child find notices that go to pediatricians

161in the area to the other integrated or to other preschools locally um and again make that The Hub of the website great yeah just looking to make sure it gets to the newer families that aren't connected to the school district yet and you know if it is based on some fairly specific parameter then I think you just make that known in whatever posting that you have and you can just put a link in I don't think it has to be a really but just a thought um because I think it' be helpful if people aren't already dialed into the district uh okay uh thank you very much Mr Stapleton we appreciate you um and we're going to move on to the program of studies now you'll recall that at our February 26 meeting we had

162the program of studies for both the middle school and the high school presented to us by principales Mills and Scott respectively um we did not vote on them primarily because it was not noticed as a vote on the agenda uh it has been for tonight's agenda there was another uh there was also an issue with the issue that Miss um that Miss Davis just raised I think I think everyone need to wrap their head around the competency determination um language that principal Scott had presented because it included the mcass in it and um I think people were trying to get their heads around the issue that just that Miss Davis just articulated so um what I'd ask for is um unless there's any uh uh concern about program of studies as presented by principal Mills

163at the last meeting um which I don't remember there being any sort of controversy surrounding any of that I'd ask for maybe a motion to approve the program of studies for the coet middle school as presented by principal Mills at the February 26 6 2025 meeting so motion been made by Mr Dallas or second second seconded by m leski all in favor I I all opposed exensions so motion unanimously carries that program of studies has been approved superintendent Shannon now moving into the high school program studies uh if you'll recall and perhaps do you do you um have that handy superintendent Channon by any chance that I don't know that's I know that's a big ask right I i't be able to talking I will find it I won't be able to um present it

164but I do have it handy so does everyone know what we're what we're talking about it's uh so basically in the uh last full paragraph of the commy determination um section that principal Scott um presented it noted that students in the coass of public schools who have not yet earned their competency determination through previous mcast administrations and I quote must participate in one of the mcast testing sessions in physics Ela and math itics and can meet the requirements for a compeny determination through the following and then he lists a few specific uh compeny termination alternative now however the mcast preceding that made it a that that was a necessary prerequisite so saying that the students uh needed to take the mcast it didn't say it didn't require any particular score but it did require them

165um there have been a number of parents that have or families that have reached out to me expressing concern about this in relation to the vote similar to the concerns that Miss Davis just presented on behalf of CPAC so um I just wanted to sort of open it up to some discussion before we approve this language um and hope maybe superintendent Shannon will find this and be able to put it up on the screen maybe not but I mean I think everyone recalls what we're talking about here so Miss Hannah um Can does anyone recall like I do remember principal um Scott mentioned in that they they're going to have to take it anyways and there's something about Grant or money that would end up going to the kids support the kids for college tuition

166if they don't take it then that money goes away so I think that's an important B so why so that's a great question okay so first of all I just want to help clarify for sort of the general public that the so the state voted to make the mcast not a graduation requirement us we still have to by law give the mcast and by law students are still supposed to sit and take the mcast so whether or not it ends up in the competency determination our students are still expected to take the mcast it's going to start in March it's going to go through May nothing about that experience for our students should be changing what changes is that our students no longer have to pass it in order to graduate but they still have

167to take it now to get to your question about the financial piece students who perform at a certain level become eligible for the Abigail Adams scholarship if students choose and really they're not legally allowed to choose not to take it I just put that out there um they then give up give up the opportunity to take that to potentially earn the Abigail scholarship so putting it into the competency determination or not doesn't actually change the act of taking the act of taking it nor their ability to potentially earn the Abigail Adam scholarship so hopefully that helped clarify a little bit so does it m Hannah does that answer your question it does answer my question sorry um Mr do so at the last meeting I asked princi Scott um we talked about the idea that

168the um just having taken the test doesn't feel like a competency determination it doesn't really um but the concern was raised that they that the there were an interest on the District of ensuring that students were appropriately incentivized to sit for the test and then I I'd asked if there could be any other thinking on other ways that we could create that incentive other than using the comy determination at the in the handbook I don't know if anything has has done on that I don't know if we have any thoughts on alternatives to putting it into our common and determinations we don't have any alternatives right now um I think because it really is I mean it is the law so we have that as an incentive um but other than competency determination and graduation

169requirements there's really nowhere else at this moment to put them because those the only two things that students are required to do in order to graduate they have to meet that level of Competency at the end of grade 10 and then they have to meet the graduation requirements by the end of grade 12 so I don't know what the alternative would be at this time um so any other Mr carki okay here's what and if I can just remind when principal Scott actually expressly stated that he wasn't married to this being in the on the hill that's right that's right that's right I was I was using the euphemism purposely but thank Miss Davis for recalling this um so um I think that it may be prudent for us at this point especially given the

170amount of stakeholder concern that was uh leveled following our initial discussion so I'm really actually everything happens for a reason right I'm glad that it wasn't prompted for vote um I wonder if anyone would have a motion to approve it with that language stricken with the mcast language stricken if people feel that that would be ined before we way to do that do motion can we just ask the committee that views one way or the other that's what I'm kind of doing yeah um I can go first um my own view is that I don't think that the even though I support the mcast and think students should take it um I don't think the competency determination is the appropriate place to to put it because it is not a signal of Competency that you

171have taken a test so I think that that's that's that's the wrong metric so I would I would support the prog stud to absent the interested other views of I agree with what you're saying I think though this is a great opportunity to make sure that we communicate it out widely so everyone understands that it is still a requirement that they sit and take this test and I think this is going to be a big test on like you know we talk about like communicating better with everybody and how can we get this message out there because I think to your point and to that what you feel it is like this feeling of like oh you're ignoring the fact that we just voted out that we don't have to take the mcast and like

172that was actually never part of the vote there's a big misunderstanding and so I think that there's a big opportunity to communicate what you just said to us because I think that's important in this regardless of if it's in or out of the requirements I do lean with you Mr dial on that sitting for a test isn't does warrant necessarily being able to graduate if it's not actually a requirement but it is a requirement you take that test so yeah I am in agreement with Mr Miss Hannah but I would also add helping students to understand what their obligations are as well that I think families understanding is is one thing um I think students also understanding and and and allowing teachers to have those sort of age appropriate conversations with the kids about because

173they'll have picked up some things um and to sort of disabuse them of any fallacies that they've picked up along the way and just really just sort of do that education as well it's a good point and I I think that's one of principal Scott's strong points is communication with students and and you know ensuring they understand the wise behind things and and what their responsibilities are U Mr Carter you have any thoughts I'm agreement here okay I I do just want to qualify though that I do want to make sure that we to this communication thing the incast results are important for our strategic planning they're important for our positioning the district they're important so so it's no longer graduation requirement that's fine it's not going to be it sounds like it won't be

174in our our our our own requirements which is which is fine but I don't I want people to still treat it seriously and take it seriously and if there if there are ways to underscore that it needs to be taken seriously that's that's important because it is for the for the benefit of all of our students in all our districts that we understand have a snapshot of what our um areas of opportunities are yeah I I completely agree with everything you just said and I'm anticipating that that will be the content of my next newsletter it'll be very timely okay and maybe we can partner in the messaging as well absolutely we're looking for a motion to approve the program of studies for the high school as presented by Mr Scott with the edit to

175remove the graduation requirement uh as of sitting for the mcast I will make that motion I thought you thought you never asked motion's been made uh by Mr dial are second this and to be clear this is to approve the language with the cast Lang stra uh all in favor I I all opposed exensions motion carries so super Channon if you could instruct uh or convey that message to uh principal Scott you appreciate that I'll just note that that motion was seconded by his hand I don't know if I did that explicitly okay thank you very much um uh we'll move right on to the next section of the agenda which is budget resources and governance uh turn the meeting over to miss Susan Owen uh Andor superintendent Shannon to discuss the fee increase or

176fee discussion I think we have uh at least one member of the community present for this discussion right I think Mrs reny is here to talk about address the committee on that once we present we certainly don't need to of all the detail from just I am I am gonna not oh hold on sorry I tried to share it that's not what I wanted to do this is what I was trying to do so yes so I'm not going to go deep into each one of these things because I've already presented this um once in sort of an overview of the last meeting this is really designed to provide some additional context as well as the opportunity for discussion um but as we have been talking about with regard to the proposed FY 26 budget

177we are looking to close at least a $1.2 million shortfall and so there are two ways to do that either either through Revenue increases or through reductions and so that's really this this scale that we have to balance um and so tonight we're going to have that conversation around potential Revenue increases which for Public School District really looks at fees um and so we're going to look at certain fees to decide if those are fees that we want to increase or bring back or ADD or not and so the first fee that is up for discussion is a kindergarten fee I will just remind folks that up until FY 24 families did pay for full day kindergarten in the co- House of public schools um it has become something that is free for our families

178free full dayc and while that is a real benefit to our families it also is is approximately a $300,000 budget increase to our overall bottom line in our operating budget and so if kindergarten fees were reinstituted it would offset about $300,000 of our $1.2 million deficit and so we did do a little bit of research and the majority of schools in the state are free full day k for their districts these are some of the districts that are still charging um and just so that everybody is aware we do you know hang's very clear there it's on a sliding scale we do offer waivers for our students who are on free and reduced lunch so if a family wants free or wants full day K but cannot afford full day K we do have the

179means to support those families um but there aren't a lot of districts that are still doing pay for full dayc so something to consider we did talk about Transportation um in the potential for increasing Transportation um fees we are close to the top of our transportation fee requests from families um currently the only School District that will be above us they are not currently but next year Hingham is moving to $360 per Rider um so that is something for us to consider I think and our current ridership looks a little bit like this um where we have 450 of our full ridership are actually paid ride we do by law have to provide free transport ation for elementary students who are Beyond 2 miles so um we do have 329 students who are no fee

180and we have 25 students who are on the safety labor so we provide it for um students and a question was around our transportation costs and what they are so miss Owen has provided you with transport ation cost from FY 23 as well as FY 24 and you can see that in FY 23 between the budgeted Transportation costs and the revolving costs we were um in the $78,000 deficit but in FY 24 given the increase in costs um in expenses we actually were short to almost $300,000 and again we're expecting to be short again I'm sorry why do we have a zero budget for bus leaves fy20 that was because in our in our cap request to Capital in our CEST to Capital sorry we had um asked them to fund the entire amount of

181the lease so when we budgeted we took out the 60,000 um to try to offset some of the other expenses that we needed for the FY 24 budget um and then Capital came back and gave us 90,000 so we there was no budget for the bus Le and so we we they didn't when they didn't Cap Fund out of capital we didn't revise our budget and we have asked this year again for Capital to fund the full cost of the bus lease and we should hear in the next week or so but currently it is budgeted for um that's that portion of it that we have add Al paid um and but that said we are hoping that they will fund the whole bus leas um so some current Transportation concerns we do have an

182increase in driver salaries and in incentives that we are looking to lease another bus because we need to um add another route because some of our bus routes are full to capacity and some are long so we're trying to add a ninth grout um we do have the monthly parking lot expense but we are looking to as part of this FY 26 budget get rid of that expense by bringing the buses back onto campus overnight and finding a place in town where they can be parked during the day um and we are asking for that additional lease into um 25 passenger B bands as well from Capital we are also asking you to look at athletic fees um a proposed two-tier system for athletic fees is something we're looking to consider um Miss Owen has

183provided some of the overall expenses for athletics in general you'll see that we do run over in athletics um we offer you know really robust Athletic program and so it does cost money and our fees haven't gone up in a very long time and so our fees don't cover the cost of our Athletic program and you can see in comparison to other districts that we are um we're not at the top but we're not at the bottom with regard to our fees so in my mind that does provide us a little wiggle room to look at what some potential increases could be um we did look at area schools in terms of gate fees and we are not proposing a shift here because we are very much aligned with what other districts are doing some

184things with regard to the athletic fees right now we are still in year three of five of a lease to own um contract for our new fitness center equipment so that is a piece of the puzzle um and the costs have gone up because there's increased Gam staff um to cover and and referees are costing more money so all of that and we are paying more in terms of contracted services to bus our students to and from athletic events we're trying to counter that with some some vans that might help um and we do try and and hopefully with an additional bus it might give us some added flexibility um we talked a lot about this as a leadership team we don't have an activity fee in this district there are many other districts that

185have activity fees for students so we have a lot of students who participate in clubs theater Productions and there's no cost to our students but there are costs to us to run all of those all of that programming and so by charging a Student Activity fee it would allow us to start to cover some of those costs and offset them student parking fee is something that we are also asking you to consider you can see the area schools who do charge for parking for student parking our student parking has been free up until this point I did hear something about many many years ago our students PA to park but I think that was many many years ago um and so proposing that students do pay to park um looking at potential at $2 per

186day which is $360 a year we are also looking at our B building rental fees because we are not always covering our building rental costs so there was an increase in building rental costs a couple years ago and look to to go up again as our utility costs go up as our custodial overtime costs go up this is where we can start to see some potential offsets and so these are the potential increases for our building rental fees um you'll see like at the bottom right now we're currently only charging $5 an hour for energy Sur charge we looking to go to $15 an hour those are the things that that can help us make a little bit of a difference um and so again you know your decisions will help bring our scale one

187way or the other um the more Revenue we bring in the fewer reduction we have to make and vice versa so um you know I'm going to stop sharing but if any so that we can have the discussion but if at any point you want me to bring something back up thank you superintendent Chan so keeping in line with tradition when we do have uh stakeholders present to participate in the discussion we usually turn to them first um to be respectful of their time so I believe that um Mrs rny is present to address the committee if you would like Mrs rny just State your full name and residential address uh but if you're just here to watch that's fine too thought perhaps you might want to make a comment um that's okay I'm Kate

188renie um I live at nine snotch um definitely came to listen and learn I think a lot of people don't have an appreciation for the budgetary process and sort of what goes into it um but I think my interest was pequ when I saw the proposals for the fee increases I do think some of them are significant um but I also worry about the variability of particip ation in some of them for example like an increased bus fee may lead to people saying I'm just going to drive my child so building a budget off of fees in and of itself I think has some built-in problems with it I also have concerns about the idea of some of the feed proposals and how it's structured I do think it's can um there's a lot of

189focus on the high school end and then the kindergarteners and to me there's not a lot going on in the middle so if we believe in the district has this a District budgetary problem why would we kind of do a lot more balancing with the input of many high school families as well as those kindergarden children I think that is something to look at because in the middle like what are kids in first grade through sixth grade paying I do have two sixth graders um but in my mind too this is next year's budget I have two sixth graders so I'm going to now have to pay for the bus for both of them that would be an increase of 400 or 450 so that is something I would have to pay 350 a minimum

190now right I guess but um so I have those two to pay for I have a daughter who does two sports that's another couple hundred dollar increase um she drives a car to school because she plays Sports and she would need a ride home from sports that's another 360 so I think you know you can see where an individual family is really starting to add up the fees and I think the larger budgetary process has to be um incorp ating that discussion because when people think about the larger school budget they don't see that when people think about we going to go has it and they see what they're going to be paying for their property taxes they don't see those fees and I think people become surprised by it and don't really appreciate um

191that they didn't know I thought it was great also by the way the preschool presentation and saying like kind of Welcome to the districts I think that's a great way to introduce to parents like these are the things you need to know about if you're a first-time parent you need to understand these are the expectations and these are the expenses that come with it um two other things I'll say is one um both of my older daughters I have one who's 19 a sophomore in college and one is a junior right now um they've participated in AP classes AP classes are another expense for kids they have to take AP exams at like $85 a piece so my daughter F has four APS that's another you know roughly three some three something per year um

192and then sometimes they have to purchase books on top of that that are not paid for by the school that we got rid of but the books yeah now we pay for the books as a district okay but I also wrote the AP check Aon definitely paid for I don't recall paying for yeah um and then I just want to say like you know I think you know Tor made a point earlier I really believe Athletics is really important I heard of families and children who back out of playing High School sports because of the particular coach coaching the sport I think sports are so important particularly for women in terms of development and confidence there's I think an epidemic of lower confidence levels as kids hit middle school and as a coach I've seen

193that and I've seen girls whose confidence dips at age 13 to 14 um I think there has to be more transparency but where are all the where's the fee money going if you're going to ask High School sports participants as well as their families who are attending the games to pay this money to participate and watch we have to understand where that money's going I've had both my daughters in high school's boards have dirty used kind of poor conditioned ill-fitting uniforms and in one case that that one of my teams was given um H the girls team was given hand-me-down boys uniforms and I don't like that I don't think that's the best way to provide a confident experience for young women learning to take risks on a field make quick decisions and also create

194new friendships like if you are in all AP classes you're playing now with different kids that you're not in your classes with I think it's really important to have both a mix of children in athletics as well as the their the classroom activities so um I would just say that I think there's some opportunity for caution and to evaluate some of these things and again where is the money going I think there needs to be a little bit more trans parency but all this goes to a general fund it doesn't really make sense to call them user fees in my mind that's it okay thank you Mrs renie any questions for Mrs renie about anything that she just added thank you I do have questions ready so what do you propose so like what we're

195obviously what we're and I'm earnestly asking you because you're the one that's sitting here right out of all the people that this District services and this budget situation we're facing there's one person that's sitting here talking to us about the fees so I'm interested in what in what you have to say um as someone that's actually participating in the process um we are we are confronting a a very challenging budget situations which is why otherwise because I think this this could be this could be described as nickel and diing our stakeholders right the problem is that we we are unable to currently afford the operations under the current budget constraints so we're looking for ways to solve that problem and as the superintendent put it earlier it's either Cuts or we have to find additional

196ways to input some money so in terms of like Point well taken I mean all your points are I think they're they're excellent and I think they're compelling the problem is is the less of these fees that we impose and and I I don't you know listening to you it's it's it's a tough decision to make right because you're right I mean it becomes very it can become expensive for a public school district all of a sudden some fam paying you know $2,000 a year out or the kindergarten families have to start spending $3500 a year again but what what what do we do I mean do do you feel that as a as a parent more Cuts would be a additional Cuts would be a more desirable path or do you think that fees

197um would be acceptable if short term or do you feel that we need to have a like more widespread discussion before it's appropriate to Levy these additional fees I mean what what is what is your like proposal in terms of like how we would act right I hear your I hear your concerns what do you think we should do I really do think there needs to be a wider discussion I think more information needs to be available so you can appreciate the fees and the need for Revenue in the context of the larger budget um I am not following this meeting to meeting like you have been so I think I have done to some extent read through the materials to try to understand a little bit more but I don't know enough about the

198actual budget line items um I mean I think it's really good and it's unfortunate like more people we know people are watching but can't here like R machino and Senator OK Conor talk about the logistics of what a budget process from the state perspective what it does and what it does not do um are people really interested in that probably not but you know like I work for state government for 12 years I know what this what this kind of looks like but I think that people again if we had to then say we're either going to cut or do like a proposition to in a half override people need more education about what that means and if you still had to do do that because you didn't make enough up in fees I mean

199then it's still just like kind of forgetting we already charged these people these fees and then they're still going to have to vote for an so that's where I just feel like it's it's really just balancing a lot of it on the people who are paying the fees and not the bigger picture in general about the overall budget um but I wouldn't want to cut like sports programs in because we didn't have enough money right like I think there's has to be some balance I'm not saying no fees whatsoever I'm just saying like I think those are some of the things I thought of when I reviewed all those options um okay thank you uh why doesn't everyone just participate at GL at this point could I just clarify one thing of course um so

200when we collect fees because I think this is a really good question that you've asked and I don't know that everyone has a general understanding when we collect fees they go into a revolving account and then that revolving account needs to be used to pay for something associated with that revolving account so if we collect transportation fees that needs to go to supporting our transportation if we collect athletic fees that goes to support Athletics if it goes to kindergarten we actually are able to pay for kindergarten staff out of that revolving account and so but I think what Mrs Ry correct me wrong I think you were saying if you're talking about Athletics okay the athletic Fe are going to Athletics but what exactly for athletics there's no transparency to that which I think it's

201helpful to hear you say that now but I don't think that's apparent I mean I think especially when you're getting hand when girls are getting h on uniforms because boys got new ones yes that does not feel good entirely unacceptable and that's a whole another point that we need to look at but but but it's just not directly related like fees I mean it's another issue that I I am going to absolutely put that that's completely unacceptable but that's a whole other issue that yes I mean happened two years ago so it's not like I know there's a whole rotation for the uniforms and stuff but I think it is again to look at the whole picture of where is the money going I'm not saying it's being spent inappropriately except in that circumstance um

202it's I don't know like I said I think there's just a lot of Ripple effects I mean even like a um the rental fee like do the programs in town do the basketball boosters know they're going to probably have to have an increased rental fee for next year then they have to raise the cost for kids participating in the recreation programs like I do think there are going to be other impacts for those kind of things and again we want kids to stay in sports and when they only have a few options in high school there are no Recreation programs in high school so we're just I don't want to create more barriers or like raise the level of difficulty to get in by increasing the fee so high that they're not interested doing it

203or there are also other issues with the program itself like the coaches or like other things like that okay thank you so who Mrs Ley you were about to say something well I appreciate your comment um because it sort of made me wonder in terms of gathering more information and correct me if I'm going down the wrong path that looking at sort of an average cost per parent and it would be hypothetical because what each family would use if you're a a typical OSG good family what might on average you expect to pay for kindergarten through grade two if you have a student who's in the Deer Hill what might you expect to pay grades 5 through 7even for one student maybe you know you take the average of yes bus no bus and you

204split in half and you kind of get the sense of like what that average I'm not a math person so I don't know how those things work but somebody here does all like field trip fees field trip fees etc etc how those work and and to sort of to your point of it are these suggested fees landing unduly on our bookend years um in this the district however the operation of the high school is more expensive than our other schools um so I think that there's there's more being offered and more it's a more complicated operation um but that also made me think a little bit about to the way in which what you presented superintendent Shannon sort of showed that some of these programs are creating deficits for us such as Transportation such as

205some of the Athletics um such as special ed um and that those are maybe the areas in which when legally possible to create those um those those fees because they do make logical sense to the consumer um around riding the bus is more expensive than what we're currently charging and so we need to somehow make that up usually it's the cost it's the user's cost um to do that now granted it's a public school and we try to you know offer free public transportation but we're not in that situation um at the moment but I'm wondering if some of those sort of looking at some of those those sort of areas can ctually sort of get a philosophically what your concerns are um yes no I appreciate that I think that is sort of what

206I'm getting at but I don't believe that user fees should 100% pay for the services like Transportation yeah not 100% I think that again goes back to the funding and like where it came from and that the state is not expecting to people to self fund themselves on a school bus to get to school and I do think that would backfire on top of B where I think a lot of parents like I we personally have like two working parents I work remotely could I possibly drop my kids off in the morning and save the money yeah I could so like I do think that there is going to be like a Tipping Point where people just say I'm not even going to do it and then that jeopardizes your ability to provide the transportation

207for the rest of the kids who actually do really need it and don't have the luxury or a parent to drop them off and save that money so I I agree there should be some balance and some connection to the user but I don't think it's 100% for the transportation or Sports because I do think Sports again goes back to the whole social emotional and wellness um kind of theme that's been kind of put out as one of our four values school budget does provide um approximately 50% of the cation um so it's not you know yeah I'm sorry if you weren't asking me that I apologize I I was just sort of trying to sort of I think each of these have like its own Nu to it right like so Transportation I think

208you bring up a great Point like we raise the fees we're not going to make up the deficit with that because a lot of parents are just like forget it I'll just take my kid in so you actually don't get any Revenue off of that raising that fee maybe we're raising the fee to deter people from actually jumping on the bus and we can keep um you know the route smaller and everything but like I think that's a different one than this like the kindergarten tuition fee has its own nuance and and everything so I don't know whether it's worth going through and discussing these like are we voting on this as a whole or is it like hey we would be in favor of this we wouldn't be in favor of that or what

209is a bigger picture here that could help the RO so we're not voting at all tonight sorry um but we are um but when we do vote I think it would be wise to um divide it so that we're you know looking at each individual proposal and considering that um but I mean we can discuss it however we want right now but just keeping in mind that it's not on for a vote tonight um and so now I just want to I just want to sort of limit the discussion to the school committee now so that we can then again you know hasn't been well received tonight but I want to keep meeting moving Mr D um so first don't don't take the wrong way uh I appreciate what you did here but I hate

210this um I hate the idea of having increased fees the only thing I hate more than that is the idea of having to cut key portions of our of our school budget so I I don't I don't and I understand your concerns and I get them and I got two kids they have to pay fees too but we can't raise tax like the town can we can't but we can we can charge fees and we have a gap and we have to cover so um I'll say as far as the the individual line items the one that and this won't get surprised to you superan the one that I believe is a as a third rail is the kindergarten fee and the reason I believe that is that we went to the town asked for

211this you knowed in the thing we asked for a special one-time payment because we believed based on chapter 70 calculations that we would be self funding after a year um and I believe that when we made that ask at town meeting that's a commitment on the part of the school committee and part of the schools to to maintain that so I believe that we made a decision at that point that that's part of our budget and that should have been and I remember having discussions in our budgeting next year I'm like why is that still a line item we should just put that in our in our budget um so I don't think that's a lever that we're able to pull I think we I feel like we've made a commitment to the town and

212we just have to we just have to own that as far as the other ones um I like I said I hate them all but I I don't see another way to minimize the impact of what we're doing we are operating as a deficit the only technical thing I would suggest is and I didn't realize it was characterized like this let's just get rid of the energy search charge and roll that into the just fee I don't know why we haveen an energy search charge we're never going to get rid of it individually so let's just call it whatever the the fee costs um I mean that's if there's a reason for it to makes sense that's fine but I hear even that the family experience is going to be pretty terrible like we're gonna

213have Fe when you add in field trips and these massive trips kids go on high school you're you we might actually be approaching private school tuition costs when you when you add in all these fees so what I would suggest is I think we don't have a lot of room to maneuver from a budget wise this this year but maybe we look at all these as a temporary increase with the idea that we would pursue a more structural solution to our operational gaps and upon receiving that uh if we get it then these fees would revert back to the levels that they are today um and that way we can help us bridge the gap for a period of time where where where we need them but then allow the discussion at the Town level

214to land on what I would call appropriate school funding we're we're talking about this because we've structurally underfunded the operational um the operational expenses of our schools um and that this is this is the reckon and so I think this is something we can do as a committee to to solve it uh AB the kindergarten fee um but I think it should at least I would hope that we could consider a temporary measure while we find a a structural solution to this because I do not want these to be just like okay these are the permanent fees going forward I think these are these are necessary for now but there's a better solution that we can spread this not over the individual users but over the broader tax base and that's where it should be

215because we're public school so um here's what I think is appropriate at this point we're going on three hours so I think that it's clear that I don't think this is right for a vote at the next meeting I think that we're going to need to have one more meeting where it's going to be a discussion meeting about this um we may want to think about I don't know advertising a little bit more um for people to come and participate again so and it also will give us all another chance to discuss this it what it will hopefully be not a three-hour meeting um the timing is not going to allow for that so we're we've already publicized that we're going to have a budget hearing before the school committee meeting on March 19th which

216is our next meeting and our budget calendar has you voting a final budget at the May at the April 2nd well which we can adjust I just want to be able to that very public think I don't disagree I think we need to adjust it because this just isn't right for us making a decision next time because it's not gonna I think we're going to need to make sure I'm I'm concerned based on constituent input on this that this is going to be one of those things despite the three-tier process we had in rolling this out it wasn't enough and it's going to be impactful enough where people are going to after the fact uh have big problems with this and I think we need to be more transparent some power just be up front

217so and I also want to give everyone a full opportunity to be heard on this and I don't want to give that full opportunity tonight because it's already too long can I can I just raise one other concern I you can but we're also going to talk about this more in the next meeting I know okay the longer the conversation goes on the less notice we can give teachers who end up being teachers who are reduced that's that is a legitimate concern I think that the more compelling concern is making sure that the constituents have enough notice on increased fees for the district and I I I they're both incomp compellent they're both important concerns but I just if we're going to be increasing fees I'm concerned that it's going to be one of these

218situations where people just didn't feel like they had enough notice despite the fact that we tried to make sure I think we need to maybe make an even stronger effort to ensure that everyone knows this is happening uh I I just I just think it's going to be I don't I I feel pressured at this meeting I don't think it's too late I I I feel like we're getting too late now this meeting has been three hours I don't want the meeting to go beyond three hours and I'm worried that people aren't going to know about this um and perhaps one more meeting will help people know about a little bit more and they can participate in that discussion i m Mr dial just raised I think a pretty good suggestion but I also think

219that all this discussion has helped us contemplate the pros and cons to it a little bit more so I I think that we need to adjust that timeline so that we can give just one more meeting what we're talking about this do it I think it's going to cause problems if we vote on it to next meeting so you want to feedback um no I'm going to do that I'm going to put we're gonna have one more discussion meeting and we'll vote on it um so let's move on um what updates do we have from our commun our committee positions or Community leaders on positions thank you Mr I have none except I don't think I've missed a middle school council meeting since our last school committee so that's good right congratulations thank you I

220don't think we have one but um there was a Food Services sub committee meeting I think anyone want to report on that it was great I thought and we got to taste the fresh orange juice which was lovely and um and fresh muffins and uh I think overall it was just nice to understand what Vinnie has accomplished in his short time here and impressive as well so and I think he's focusing now on the elementary schools and getting that um on par to create really a consistent experience on our food services across the board did he present that plan to you okay so maybe are we going to have him come to present that to the committee at some point so we know exactly what the the plan is um I know we talking having

221come in the future great after we vote on right good one select board thing um they had a robust discussion about um boards and commissions in town and I was surprised to hear how many positions were open and um so they're they're going to try to push out you know to get more people involved um I my daughter is graduating I came here in a funny way and I have enjoyed my time but I do not intend to run for a re-election so I want to let you know but I think if anybody's friends with our guests we should get folks just like that who have some skin in the game but I wanted to tell you that the town overall is looking to encourage people to um to get more involved and I was

222surprised how many open sponsor thank you for that but important okay anything else before we move on all right moving to the last block of the agenda uh no topic uh that uh were not brought to my attention for of 48 Hours um I don't think we have any minutes to approve I think we're caught off on the minutes uh future agenda items anyone have any future agenda items I do want to talk I do want to at least I don't know we need to talk about at school committee level but superintendent Shannon can we just look into that Equity issue with the um I I really hate that uniform thing that was brought up it's not we're not going to discuss it I just maybe we can look into what's going on there girls

223getting old boys dirty uniforms and boys getting new ones is that's not not acceptable we don't want to do that here so can we just look in this see what I mean I don't know I've never heard it before I was haven't either so I definitely any future agenda items anyone fees anyone well we're splitting you guys up that's I don't know if this is Rel it's related to fees but I think also a discussion not only of the fees but what the actual cost is of reductions I think that that having people no no not that not the number cost but when we reduce our teaching Force what does that mean for day-to-day operations um and and sort of what that means because I think I don't want people making a choice about their

224own checkbooks but also understanding that well I don't have to pay as many fees but what what does that look like then for day today s all right make a note of that Mr leki anything else all right uh there's no reason to move an executive session right now so uh at this point i' asked for a motion to adjin the meeting motion made by m leki seconded by second M Hannah all in favor I I all opposed exensions okay thank you very much everyone for watching have a great night