2025-11-18 School Committee Meeting

001Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the school committee meeting of the Charter Hill Regional School District for November 18th. Thank you all for being here tonight. I recommend closing and sealing the minutes of tonight's executive session as they pertain to matters which relate to the privacy of students and their records and discussions or considerations related to the acquisition or lease of real property for public purposes or the disposition of publicly held property where in advance public information would be detrimental to the public interest. So moved. Second. Okay, so we have a motion and by Mr. Luzon, seconded by Karen Reynolds. Any discussion on this, members? Seeing no hands raised, all in favor? It is unanimous. Thank you. Disclosure of executive session votes will be read aloud by our vice chair, Laura Chapman. Thank you, Laura. Good

002evening, everybody. There were three votes taken in executive session tonight. The first vote was the approval of the executive session minutes from October 21st, 2025. That was unanimous. The second vote was the approval of homeschooling application requests. That was also unanimous. And the third vote was to return back to open session. And that was unanimous. Thank you. Thanks, Laura. All right. So next on our agenda is recognitions. So we have some of the members of our school committee will read aloud the recognitions tonight. But the superintendent is going to start with our first recognition, which is really awesome. So, Gina. Congratulations to our Charter Hill High School boosters. Congratulations to our Charter Hill High School boosters. Congratulations to our Charter Hill High School boosters. Congratulations to our Charter Hill High School boosters. boys D2 soccer

003team, the 2025 Rhode Island Inter-School Athletic League state champions. They will be invited to join us next month, but we wanted to make sure we recognize that our boys soccer team played in the pouring rain on Sunday, November 9th against North Providence. Charoho goalkeeper Connor Prescott described the scene as cinematic as Tim McCormick's kick sealed the deal and set off a well-deserved celebration on the field after their 1-0 win. This was Charoho's third D2 title in the last five years and their fourth Rhode Island Inter-School Athletic League crown of all time. The last one was in 2009. Congratulations. It was also in penalty kicks. That 1-0 score was via penalty kicks. Yes, yes, yes. Thanks, Tyler. Thank you, Gina. All right, Tyler, you are next. The 2025 CHS Girls Soccer Award winners. First team, All-State,

004Eileen Simmons. First team, All-Division, Aubrey Currier. Second team, All-Division, Grace Downey. Third team, All-Division, Addison Denicor. And Allison Sullivan. The Perseverance Award to Kyra Martin. All-Academic Award, Grace Downey, Evelyn Campbell, Addison Denicor, Kyra Martin, Kylie Toro, Eileen Simmons, Juliana Almeida, and Dylan Whitman. Congratulations, ladies. Jess, would you like to take care of the next recognition, please? Yes, I'd like to congratulate these fall postseason award winners. Field hockey first team, All-Division, Ella Quigley. Second team, All-Division, Megan Daniels. Honorable mention. Nola Belnier. All-Rookie, Vivian Smith. All-Academic, Megan Daniels. Ella Quigley, Madeline Burdick. Nola Belnier, Sarah Slitt, Frankie Smith, Izzy Woodmansee, and Marion Bode. Alex Bobbin, Alexa Bobbin, was named D2 Field Hockey Coach of the Year. For Volleyball, third team, All-Division, Olivia Lowell. All-Division, honorable mention, Abby Tiernan and Lillian Baxter. Thanks, Jess. Thanks, Jess. Our final

005recognition, which is by Laura Chapman. Thanks, Laura. The girls cross-country team came in second in the division for the first time since 1981, a seven and one record. Qualified for the state meet as a team. The Coaches Association Southern All-Division team, first team, Meriden Alge, second team, Chloe Grissom, Claire Toscano, third team, Alia Grant, Grace Steer, and all academic recipients, Alexa Austin, Grace Steer, Chloe Grissom, and Kara Link. All class recipients, first team, Meriden Alge. Coaches Award went to Alexa Austin. And Cherahoe freshman, Meriden Alge, competed at the New England Championships on Sunday at the Thetford Academy in Vermont. She finished the 3.1 mile course in a time of 21.21 minutes, 18 seconds, placing her 107th out of 250 competing runners. Congratulations. Thank you, everyone. Now we are going to move on to our next

006item on our agenda, which is public forum. So there was only one speaker signed up this evening, so and that's Mr. Avedisian. So I'll just remind you, Mr. Avedisian, where are you? There you are. Okay. That per our public forum policy, you can speak about items not on our agenda tonight. And you have the responsibility per our public forum policy to be accurate, present facts, prevent information, based upon personal knowledge, not hearsay and be considerate. So thank you very much, Mr. Avedisian. You have the floor for four minutes if you'd like to. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. I don't think I'll need all four. I have asked previously for the school committee to meet more frequently, perhaps twice a month as was done in the past. Instead, the chair has chosen to limit the time

007for discussion by both school committee members and the public. It appears to me that putting a time limit in the public forum, time clock on free speech first amendment right serves two purposes it limits dissent from other school committee members and it limits the public public ability to comment on agenda items the chair already limits public comment to two minutes um or in this case because i'm the only one for um and on occasion did not allow any public comment on an agenda item but the impact of agenda time limits as specified in the current agenda in this case um but the impact of agenda time limits in the case of dissenting school community members is an even greater concern and a a effect that i believe is compounded by the chair's bias towards some

008school community school committee members the chair routinely allows some school community members to interrupt allows some to address comments often personal directly at other school community members rather than to the chair she has also allowed some to speak several times on one agenda item often repeating the same points past school committee chairs have focused on running the meeting and limited their own comments to just before a vote but you frequently direct the discussion with the intent of creating a certain outcome rather than focusing on running the meeting the school the school committee will never be able to conduct its business with agenda time limits especially if this behavior continues surely with all the urgent issues facing the cherohoe implementing agenda time limits will not make this committee more effective in performing its duties i seem

009to remember before the chair was appointed to the school school committee you were allowed on multiple occasions to speak without limits now that you are a member of this school committee and its chair you and every member of the school committee are bound by the decisions of the committee in the whole if the public and and the minority school committee members have to endure and suffer the consequences of your decision then you could at least extend us the courtesy of enduring our comments this part of this is part of the job of an elected office of elected office perhaps you if you had actually been elected rather than appointed you would understand this thank you well that was very very very very very so i will continue on this subject uh it's a public forum

010and i thought that it was very very very very spirited but what i will say to that is that our public forum policy says that we have 30 minutes for public comment and when there's 15 speakers on the agenda i'm looking at the 30 minute time frame and i allow two minutes uh you do not have the floor i have the floor okay so what i will say is that i well i have the floor right now so you you're basically accusing me exactly of of what you spoke about that you would like to sort of interrupt my uh uh my question is but i want to know if you can have a minute or two to begin with my speaking so just give me a moment to finish my thoughts you had your time

011and now I have my time so tonight there was one speaker so I have no problem allowing you the full four minutes but when there's 10 11 12 13 14 15 speakers I am going to limit it to two minutes but this is on our agenda tonight and there may be some changes to that policy so that that's all I'm going to say on that and Mr. Luzon. Madam Chair just remind people we do have the right to waive our policies. Absolutely if you would like but no one has ever brought that forward to waive the policy at least since I have been the chair and took that spot in January so there has been no motions from the floor to waive that policy and extend the time by any of the members up to

012this point so I'm always you know if you're you're I just there was more in my statement than just simply public forum what I'm reading in the agenda that you put out today is there's time limits on on each end agenda item I you know I don't think you can conduct the school committee's business on under such a limited time frame and I appreciate your comments on that and those are for to keep us all in mind that sometimes we have been here until 11 o'clock or midnight so and are we allowed to go beyond the time limits of course I think you are bringing something to everybody's attention that really isn't a problem right now but we're trying to be mindful of time management I mean I've gotten feedback from the former chair Miss

013Juicy that I have to be more mindful of time management so this is an opportunity for us to be more mindful of time management if we have a discussion tonight on the bond language and it goes beyond 30 minutes do you think I'm going to limit it to 30 minutes or is that something that you're going to be able to do in the next 30 minutes Mr. Avedisian I am not and I think that that's all that needs to be said at this point well I I I reject that statement and it just we're going to act in the best interest of our district thank you and we're going to move on all right next item is policy so discussion and possible revisions of the public forum policy and this was requested by Laura Chapman

014myself and then I believe member Purcell had also some suggestions for the public foreign policy public foreign policy potential revisions so I'll turn it over to um Laura first so I the purpose I think when I initially sent this request out um I had actually assumed that it was going to be moved to the policy subcommittee but um Gina I'm not sure if that's the correct protocol because this is uh for the school committee purposes only you all this is a policy that you will so you don't have to bring it because that um the subcommittee for policy is really about the policies that impact students teachers um and the local business anytime a policy is just speaking about school committee like the rules of conduct would be another example public foreign policy would be

015an example your um code of ethics is an example of things that would only be discussed for this for this committee so you don't have to put that into a policy subcommittee that comes directly all of you got it okay thank you um and so just to kind of you know what my intention behind this was that when i looked over the public policy the current policy there's um it's just it seems a little bit antiquated to me that we you know in the age of the internet that it i think it's difficult to have a statement that says that we will only present facts when we when we get up to the microphone because i believe that that's a little bit that can be a little bit of a contentious thing depending on where

016you're getting information from so my only you know my real recommendation for that was just to revise some of the wording with all this so that it's a little bit more broad and allows people to just kind of speak freely and voice their concerns as they see them thank you thanks yes linda i guess what i would like to i'd still like to recommend that it goes to the sub i i i To me it's a little bit different than just the policy that i just talked about earlier which is just for us to sit here for how many minutes whatever it's going to take to wordsmith this just might not be uh good use of our time um i think it would benefit all of us if we actually brought it to the policy

017subcommittee and and created the policy and i know we don't have to but i think that might be the best avenue and then we can bring it back um does this policy also have to go before legal or no everything goes before okay so so yeah so we would come here first and then it john first and then our legal first and then it would come back here for us to review it um you could do and that that would be up to you oh john's coming okay but i that would just be my recommendation i think just we could spend an hour trying to wordsmith this today at this meeting so it would probably make more sense in the smaller group and i i agree with ms chapman and ms lyle that probably the

018best thing to do is to send this to the policy committee it would be very helpful to the extent that people can mark it up beforehand the superintendent or or angela can send you a word document that you can do it try to circulate it ahead of time i will look at them ahead of time myself or somebody from my office will be at that meeting and see if we can hammer something out at that meeting i'm not guaranteeing we can hammer it out in a single meeting it may take more than one meeting but i think that is a better process than trying to get 12 people sit and do it without having a document to start off with does that make sense sure yeah thank you john thank you very much holly you

019had your hand raised with that being said i'd like to make a motion to send this agenda item to the policy subcommittee second okay so we have a motion and a second discussion mr luzon are we going to have a meeting because we haven't had one in quite a while i um yeah until usually when we have a policy ready we have the meeting i have not received any changes to any policies or requested any revisions from our side of the house like right now our principals and their teams have are in the process um for example i know laura chupman has requested a few things uh i think i just just got that mid-october and um well the homework policy i haven't received it back yet so um it went to the schools and

020there was no um major changes that anybody wanted at this school. um it went to the schools and there was no um major changes that anybody wanted at this time so now if there's a member that has a change we would need to have that so we can go back to the sit the school improvement teams but i typically i only set up a policy meeting so if the chair wants one or if the team wants one you just have the chair now and then that's how it gets started but i put it on when i know i need you to review something i think that's a great um opportunity for you all to slice and dice this a little bit more but i just want to make sure that i know jess had specific

021comments you were great in marking up um and adding some some things that you wanted to the um to the policy or be considered for revisions the only my only comment on this was there was someone last month that wanted to speak on something and he you know he was not allowed to speak because there was some comment about hearsay so i just put in my um suggestions and i think it's sort of on on this notes um portion of our agenda for that the members have that you um my recommendation is we keep the entire first paragraph but um maybe make some edits where it says each citizen who makes a public statement has the responsibility to one be accurate and present their comments succinctly and to be respectful in their tone when offering

022remarks um so i think the other things can should be eliminated and that's just my opinion so i hope that the policy subcommittee would take my suggestions under consideration and i can certainly put those in writing and with respect to what you guys just said let's see if you guys have some more ideas for our projects and then we can um make it more formal if you will for the policy subcommittee thank you any other discussion on this yes i would just say if other people have suggestions for the policy subcommittee um that would be good to know i think what i did you know i didn't intend to change this policy but when i saw the notes i took out the document i tracked some changes i tried to synthesize what or like summarize

023what you both had said in your notes find a way to make the policy to enhance it um and to have people write that in there by 저� and i think that's a very good numa for a policy committee i feel Yesterday I had no input when job team members want and it had a challenges in Mui.ai. and to make it, you know, my goal is always clarity and consistency as far as how it reads, what the expectations are, and that it serves the, you know, the attendees of the school committee and of our meetings and everyone else here too. So I hope that everyone, you know, if you have, or if you want to comment directly on the notes that have been offered by Ms. Chapman and Ms. Dinsmore or the notes that were

024offered by myself, that might be a good starting point for us to take into consideration what everyone feels about it. Thank you, Jess. And just for the record, it's never my intention to limit free speech. That is never my intention. And I feel that people come to these meetings at seven o'clock at night on a weeknight away from their kids and their families, and you all should be allowed to speak on whatever you want to speak about. As long as you're respectful in your tone, that is just something that I think should be reflected in the revised policy. So we have a motion and a second. All in favor of referring this to the Policy Subcommittee for Revisions? Unanimous. Great, thank you. Oh, Gina, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. I just wanted to, and John's

025correct. While you don't need to mock up the policy, it does help set up who needs to be there sometimes when we have an understanding of what people are looking at. So when we asked, when we put something into review at the school improvement team level as an example, if the school improvement teams don't provide, have no changes that they want made, because that, that, that's not a policy that's going to be in the policy. So I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. So if you're not going to give any advisory to the principal, then it, it stays as is, unless you all have specific suggestions that you want the teams to review. So that's

026sometimes where I think there may be, and again, I know the Policy Subcommittee is one of the newer committees, and it's not an easy one. It involves a lot of legs sometimes. But in the end, the more that, if you can give Angela any, any suggestions you want the subcommittee to review, it helps us for backup so that everyone comes prepared. So that we're not spending more time making more meetings, just helps us be really efficient, is really why. I think it's, John would call it a best practice. Thank you. John, did you have any other comments? Okay, thank you. All right, moving on to business. Discussion and approval of any revisions to the superintendent evaluation process. Chair? Yes. Point of order. Yes. I think after the last meeting, we're at a stalemate. Yep, and

027I do have comments regarding stalemate. Okay, as long as they're aware. I am. Okay. So thank you, Mr. Luzon, for bringing that to our attention. So, so on this agenda item, I do have some comments, and I would love your feedback on this. So, so just to refresh your memories, if you were here last week at our special meeting, we did have a special meeting about a number of topics. But one of the agenda items last week was to discuss and vote on revising the evaluation process for the superintendent. So I have some comments about that, and then we can certainly discuss that at length as a committee, and then I would be happy to recognize anybody from the community. So since our meeting last week of the Cherhoe School District, I've had a number

028of lengthy conversations with the superintendent and our attorney, John Anderson, and I'd just like to share my thoughts on this topic. So our special meeting last week was held to discuss revising the superintendent's evaluation process. Just to recap that agenda item, there was a meeting, and I'm going to go ahead and wrap up. So I'm going to go ahead and wrap up. So on this agenda item, there was a motion put forward about having the entire school committee serve in developing a rubric to guide our work in evaluating the superintendent. That motion failed by a vote of four in favor and five against. Then there was a motion put forward to have a subcommittee work on revising the superintendent's evaluation process. That motion also failed by a vote of four in favor, four against, and

029there was one abstention. There was a third motion put forward to keep the superintendent's evaluation process status quo or the same as it has been. That motion too failed by a vote of four in favor and five against. It was painfully obvious that our committee was divided on this topic, and there was a stalemate. After the special meeting, I contacted the superintendent and asked if she would be willing to work together with me as the chair, and she obviously as the superintendent, and asked if she would be willing to work together with me as the chair, and she obviously as the superintendent, for the two of us to develop a rubric for the evaluation. The superintendent told me that she, quote, loved the idea, unquote. We shared this with Attorney Anderson, and he too felt

030this was a creative solution and offered a fair path forward. The superintendent and I have worked quite well together over the past several months, and she and I will be, would like to work together to develop a rubric, or perhaps even two rubrics to bring to the full committee. If the full committee members have suggestions on what a rubric could entail, you can certainly forward those suggestions to the superintendent and myself in the same email. We would be happy to review those suggestions and discuss them and try to put a path forward to the entire committee. In the near future, I would anticipate that the superintendent and I would like this process to move forward, and when we have something to share with you for the committee's approval, we would do so. So in closing,

031can you please stand up? So in closing, can you please stand up? Considering the contentiousness of what happened last week, this I feel is a happy medium. So if there's anyone that wants to comment on this, be happy to listen. Okay, so I think Laura was first, Tyler, and Polly. So just as a recap, so I felt like at the special meeting that part of the reason that the second one did fail was because not all of the members were here. I know that Tyler had originally requested some of this, and Larry felt that Tyler should be here for the conversation. And so I know that that was part of what you had said, the reason you had abstained at that time. I don't know if that necessarily means that there was not an agreement

032between amongst the committee themselves. I think that it's that part of the reason that the chair obviously does a lot as it is. And I think that if we have the ability to communicate openly with multiple members from the committee, that it may be more beneficial to the process. But those are just my thoughts on how the meeting kind of transpired last week. Okay, Tyler. Yeah. I want to apologize to the members of the committee here and to the members of the public that I was the one who requested this and I was not able to attend prior work commitment. I was out of town traveling for work. I did watch the meeting, spoke with a few members this week regarding the meeting. I do think that the solution that I think that you and

033the superintendent have come up with is a very good path forward for us. I think that allows the superintendent to drive a lot of this process. I mean, these are, this is for lack of a better term, Gina, this is your baby, right? So I do think I'm 100% on board with that idea. And chair, as long as you're willing to take on that work, I do hope that members of this committee will be involved as much as they can be. The only thing I would suggest is instead of just bringing us something for approval, we bring something for discussion. And review. That way we have another bite at the apple, shall we miss something or shall we want to add something, rather than just having you and the chair develop something and bring it

034to us and say, here it is, guys, you need to approve it or not. Give us a bite at the apple. You know, I hope that those of us that want to be involved in this process will take the bite at the apple when we get the chance throughout the process. But I'm fully on board with what you suggested here. Thank you. Polly? And then Jess and then Craig. So much in the same vein that Tyler said, thank you. It's a lot of work. So thank you for taking that up and taking it upon yourself. It's a creative solution. I think you could use some help, though. And I will go back to my original thought of having a subcommittee, but maybe just one person from each town. So you have three people helping the

035superintendent. That seems like enough, in my opinion, to get this up and running. And then that way each of us who represent our town can take in information from the other school committee members that we might find useful towards this endeavor. Okay. Thanks for that feedback. So I have Jess, Craig. Any other hands? Laura? Okay. So Jess. Linda. Okay. Linda after Laura? Okay. No, no. Linda before Laura. Okay. She hasn't spoken. All right. Okay. Great. Jess. Just to start, I want to comment on the overall process and framework. You know, I have been opposed to changing it since the start, but I have also noticed and really appreciated the materials that Ms. Picard has provided to us to really showcase the process that's already in place. Because I don't think it was as laid out

036like this framework is or some of the resources that are used. So while I, you know, have opposed aspects of this initiative, I do think it's gotten to us, gotten us all to a better place, I think, where we can understand the evaluation framework, the evaluation process, and if we have the same goals, we can work to make it better. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Pinn, do you have anything to add? I think that if the motion to form a subcommittee failed, I think another path forward would be to add other stakeholders to this rubric development team that are not on the school committee. You know, a large, the majority of the superintendent's job is not just the school committee, it's running the entire district. So I would like to see stakeholders like a school principal,

037a teacher, another one of the admin staff, someone that really can understand the goals that are being set out in the school committee. I think that's the key to the overall experience, is it's important. It's important to understand the duties that a superintendent undertakes. I think that would be a very valuable team to have to establish the rubric. John, with Tyler's proposal, are we going back to the stalemate? No, not necessarily. Not necessarily. You know, my hope is is that the superintendent and the chair of the school committee will work together and come up with something that's really effective and disciplinary and safe. I think that's a very valuable team to have to establish the rubric. that they're both comfortable recommending to you. I agree with Mr. Champlin completely, and it was, frankly, while it

038was said approval, that means discussion amendments and so forth. But I apologize for that not being clearer in the way it was described. I really urge you as a committee not to strangle the baby in the crib. Let the process, let these two women see if they can come something back. All the rights of the school committee are protected. The school committee has the final word, not this subcommittee, and they can present to you. And I'm optimistic, hope springs eternal, that they will come up with something. But if they don't, Craig, yeah, I suspect there'll be a stalemate again. But let's not cross, as my mother used to say, don't cross bridges until you get. So, Chair, I'm all on board for this. I'm not going to be argumentative. I'm not going to, my point

039is I'm all on board for it. I would just hope that when you folks come forward, that we're all open-eared. That's it. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Linda? My only comment or recommendation or suggestion would be not necessarily have a subcommittee with stakeholders and other people, but as you see fit, the two of you, you could probably ask people for some, you know, like you could, you know, for their expertise. So I don't, I'm just thinking off the top of my head. So like you might bring somebody in just to talk with them about, you know, developing rubrics or I don't know how you're planning to do this, but I think it would just be more clean. I agree. I like, I like this idea. I think it would be cleaner if the

040two of you work together and brought in people as needed, like as you need somebody. And, you know, whether or not it's, you know, someone in the community or someone within the district or someone has a certain expertise or a certain experience, I think that would be a little cleaner. And then you guys can focus on the work and get the job done. And I appreciate this. Thank you. Thank you. Laura? So is the intention where they would, you would just be creating a rubric? Is that? Because, so my thought was with the evaluation process was that, you know, part of, a lot of what I hear frequently from up here is that there's a misalignment. And I think that while the superintendent is the liaison for education, the school committee members are essentially the

041liaison to the public and parents and people that come to them, their constituents essentially. And so I know that some schools, they have a, you know, they have an evaluation process that they follow or a rubric or however you want to, you know, look at that. They have it for a, you know, for not only the superintendent, but then they also have an alignment of goals that are for the school committee so that both of those, both of those, you know, entities essentially can work together and make sure that they are aligned because they're taking information from different places. So I guess I just wanted to know if there could be clarification on, is this just to develop a rubric or is it also to, you know, incorporate that other piece of, you know, where

042we talk about the alignment? I don't know that we got that far, to be honest with you, but I appreciate the feedback there. So I pitched the idea to the superintendent. I spoke to John. And again, I just to reiterate my comments that, you know, I tried to step up to be a leader to see if we can, you know, come to some sort of a happy medium. I don't know if that's possible sometimes with this full group, but, you know, we're trying to do our best to move forward in a productive, positive way. And I think that the superintendent is, you know, open to working together. And certainly if you, if anybody from our committee had some comments or suggestions as part of those reference materials that the superintendent gave us all as a

043committee, that you would suggest that we do our best to incorporate those things into an evaluation process. Then of course, as your chair and as a superintendent, you know, we will take all those suggestions and put them in the process. And I think that's a great way to do that. And I think that's a great way to do that. And I think that's a great way to do that. And I think that's a great way to do that. And I think that's a great way to put something forward that hopefully best represents your suggestions. Tyler? Yeah, I think, Laura, you're kind of on the right, in my mind, you're on the right track in the way that I'm thinking about this, right? Gina, we're in the process of getting ready to set what the new

044strategic vision for the school for the next three years or the strategic plan. We're in it. We're in it, right? So in my mind, right, that drives what your goals are, right? Which should support what's in our evaluation process in the rubric, right? That's, in my mind, that's an easy way. And part of this for me, Gina, is some of these presentations that we've gotten from you, they're very well done. There's a lot of data that comes at us. And if you can organize it in a way that matches up to a rubric, to sort of grade evaluation and performance in a role, I think that it all comes together right then and there, right? And it's, you know, you have all the data points you need, you know? Section four, you know, point B

045is X, Y, and Z. Well, here's how we improved in this area, this area, this area, here's the metrics. You've completed your evaluation. You're doing this anyway, most likely. It's just putting it in a legible, easy format for all of us to digest and to use, right, going forward. So, Laura, I think you're on the right track. I think this all is tied together at the end of the day and how we do it. So, that's. So, Tyler, just so I can get some clarification. So, pair up the strategic plan with the rubric so that. Not necessarily pair it up, Louise, I don't think. Because then I think you're guiding your development of your scoring metrics to something that's relatively short term, right? We do the strategic vision, strategic plan every three years. Well, and

046it's guided by the state. So, that's what I've said. My role is legislated. The superintendent's role is legislated. So, it comes with parameters. Right. Just like the school committee role is legislated. Right. Your constituent's role is legislated. And the students are the kids. And it's very clearly. So, I don't necessarily think you marry the rubric directly to that, Louise, because then you're, I feel like you're pigeonholing yourself. Okay. I think, I have all the faith in the world in the superintendent helping in this process. I think it's important that she drives it or is in part of the driver's seat here. You know, you guys are co-pilots, I guess, in this. And I think, I expect good things to come out of it, to be honest with you. So, that's pretty much. All I have

047to say. Okay. Thank you. Does anyone from the community would like to speak on this? Okay. So, can I entertain a motion for the superintendent and my. Yes. There are a couple more things I wanted to say. Okay. You've spoken twice on this, but sure, why not? I did not. I think I spoke once. Okay. Okay. I had your name down twice. Sorry about that. Go ahead, Jess. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I just spoke once. Okay. So, I would like some feedback about, my thought about having other stakeholders on the team. Or what Linda said as far as having maybe a couple contacts that can review and offer feedback. I don't think that the superintendent job is just for the school committee. I know that we evaluate. And I think to talk about what is

048in the rubric, it should be starting where we are, you know, starting with the framework that we have. And then I do want to bring up something that I brought up another time as well. I think the first thing is, you know, the first time we discussed this in June or July, July, which is that one of the changes I'd like to see in the process is that I think the superintendent's contract should have a note at the bottom that, kind of like a policy that says when it was revised. I think that her superintendent contract should have that context in it, the history and context that shows when the contract was first started. And each year it was renewed, not renewed, what the votes were. I think that level of. Transparency would be important.

049I think this is beyond this, potentially beyond the scope of this agenda item. If you have any of those suggestions, maybe you can put an agenda item forward for that. Approval of any revisions to the superintendent evaluation process. But the contract is a different, I think that would be a different agenda item. John, can you give me. I agree. I think I know what you want. Yeah. And when the, you know, the next time I'm asked to draft a superintendent's contract, it can all be incorporated in the preamble, whereas, whereas, whereas. So it can be done, but I don't. But I agree with the chair that this is not the conversation. Okay. And frankly, it's not the conversations that I had with either the superintendent or the chair in terms of, you know, seeing if

050this was viable or not. And I appreciate very much that both women thought that this was viable. So I get it with the contract, but one step at a time. Yeah. And I think what. Maybe. I think what I find helpful is, and I can, I can even do more details in the framework. So for example, you know, at the summer advance, I ask every administrator this year they have to share with me what they believe my goals should look like for this upcoming year as they prepare so that they get the support they need to be able to do the actual improvement plans that you see. So there is a direct correlation. The teachers and all get the survey works data about how they're feeling about the, the district and, and, and how they're

051feeling. And so the district is me. That's what, you know, Dr. Camilla, all the work that we do. Parents also have access to that. I mean, I was really proud, you know, elementary principals do a great job of getting those survey works, you know, up to participation rates. So we, even this year, Ashway for the first time was that, you know, the highest it's ever been for response rates. So I do think it just may be making sure to, to Tyler's point that I help you align those pieces so that you see where they come in. So for example, like our survey works data, I always talk about it, but everybody sort of understand something when they're ready to understand it. And sometimes the light gets a little clearer as you do this. So what

052I can do also is think about that as I, as I make the progress. And I remember, you know, Donna chambers, I think a few years ago, she asked me. I think it was my first or second year here to literally in my email sort of update you on goals throughout the year at quarterly times. So things change. People want different goals. Right. Right. And so I think that's, that's one of the things that I can do is I can do different things. And I think I can also really provide some support that doesn't add, but also just shows you where the teachers and the, and the principals and the community have access to be able to give us feedback and to give us to, when I say us, me feedback, because everything is really

053feedback for us to improve. none. 掉 One more comment. and a question. The comment is that we did approve the superintendent goals unanimously in October. So when we talk about alignment goals, I think that's one of the ways that we can do that and monitor that progress. And the second is just asking both of you chair and superintendent to feel like you've gotten enough feedback from this committee so far. About what they would like to see in a rubric. I think that that is part of the process. I think that that is part of the process that if obviously, if you have something that you want us to consider to get that done in the first place, that's a great piece of advice. Right. Right. putting in the rubric. You could send an email. You

054could, I think that's, and include Gina and myself in that email. And the Angela, because I'm always sometimes on the run. And then we will look at, put everything in a pile, put all the emails in a pile, and then we will work together. When we put our agenda, the agenda together, that's what we do essentially is there are lots of people who give us feedback on what they would like to see on the agenda. And we go through it together with John nine times out of 10, and we come up with our agenda for our meeting. And the last six months, it's been seamless. So I think that, you know, as I said, we put together a creative potential solution to this stalemate. And I think that, you know, hopefully you can give us

055the opportunity to work together on this. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion that you, in conjunction with this, working with the superintendent, work to develop a rubric to bring to the school committee for review and approval. Do we have a second? Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? Anyone opposed? So just Jess opposed. Okay, thank you. Yes. Thank you. Okay, appreciate that. And thank you to the superintendent for putting our creative hats together here. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Okay, we're going to move on. Discussion and approval of information to include in bond legislation. So is Karen Grandy here tonight? I don't see Karen. Do you? Is she here tonight? I don't see Karen. So what do we do in this case? Do we table this until next month?

056Or should we? You can discuss. Right, you can discuss. Basically. You do have your hilltop is here. The bond legislation doesn't, can't be filed. I'm sorry, can't? The bond legislation, the General Assembly won't act on it until they come back in January. So if you, if the board doesn't have a vote, then we can't file it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So if Karen is not here, then I would suggest that you put it on the December agenda. Because again, this people at state house don't go back until the only thing I would say john is for the final Yes, but since that an agenda item, it may be a good time to have conversations about what from the Charo Act you you want because I would say that that's the that

057specificity. Karen will need from them. Well, I think that's why Karen needs to be here to listen. Okay, that's then you're legal. So yeah, I mean, I think Karen, you know, needs to be here. I mean, I will speak to Karen. I know that the issues, I've been around since 2008, and I know the issues that have come up in the past, and I'm sure that she will be prepared to address all of those issues. And then you people make the decision. She, you know, she gets these. We also have Matt Blaze here. I see Matt is here. So I don't know if we want to do the conversation about the costs. The cost is different than, yeah, that's fine. I'm talking about the Charterhouse Act. Only because you're going to, for example, like we're

058going to give you a dollar amount, and Matt's here. So through the bond legislation, how you. I was just addressing the Charterhouse Act. Okay, so John wants Karen here for the Charterhouse Act, but I would suggest the bond numbers, if Matt could come up, we could talk through those. Mr. Blaze, please. Good evening, committee members. Good evening. My name is Matt. I'm Matt Blaze with Hilltop Securities. We serve as municipal advisor to the district. I believe you all have received an analysis that we put together. And what this is, is looking at a $110 million to $110,200,000 bond issue. And you'll see we're currently looking at it for 30-year amortization. It is relatively conservative from an interest rate standpoint. It's looking at. A 5% interest rate right now. It's sized to level payments in each

059year. And it comes out to, if you look at it from a gross basis, on $110 million bond issue, it comes out to around $215 million. Now, the state has certain incentives through the Rhode Island Department of Education, I think you're probably aware of, where they provide a reimbursement on those debt service costs. The base reimbursement for the district is $60,000. And that's projected to be around 61%. I believe it's been at around 61% for the last few fiscal years. It's projected to still be 61% going through fiscal year 2026. And if you look at it from that basis, that net debt service amount, after factoring in the reimbursement, it translates to around a $2.8 million payment per year. Essentially, 39 cents on the dollar, right? That's compared to a $7.16 million that it is

060on a gross debt service basis. So, that's a lot of money. All of the eligible school projects that are approved by the Rhode Island Department of Education are eligible for these reimbursements. On a total basis, it's $83.8 million total debt service. Essentially equates to less than what you would actually borrow for a bond issue, too. Now, if you look at it from a maximum reimbursement standpoint, there's a possibility to receive up and above that 61% reimbursement. We looked at 65%. Here, as well. That equates to around $2.5 million in debt service per year over the 30-year period. And on a total debt service basis, it's $75.2 million. Again, it is relatively conservative interest rate assumptions that we're looking at right now. Based on what we're seeing in the market, we're going to continue to monitor

061that. We won't know exactly where those rates come out until the bonds actually price, which means, you know, following- legislative approval by the General Assembly following the referendum assuming that it moves forward from there at that point we would start working on the process the bonds would be issued through the Rhode Island Health and Educational Building Corporation that's the conduit issuer in Rhode Island whereas the district could issue on their own for school bonds and receive a reimbursement on simply the principal amounts as you see in the first column here but in order to receive the reimbursement on the interest portion the bonds need to be issued through the Rhode Island Health and Educational Building Corporation so just a general overview a relatively straightforward analysis just showing you know what what does total debt service

062look like under the conservative assumptions what does it look like when applying that reimbursement as it currently stands maximum reimbursement likely as well and I'm happy to answer questions from anybody too thanks mr. blaze you're welcome thank you any questions for our guest Tyler that interest rate that you're looking at right now that's current rate that you're seeing in the market for I'm assuming that's based off the state of Rhode Island's credit rating no actually it is I would say it's more conservative than that too on a tax-exempt basis right now as of today you know we would look at a 30-year bond rate it's a scale so it's a 30-year scale there's a different but there's a different rate in terms of the rate of the bond that's being issued for every single year

063that of that 30-year scale in the 10-year right now it's a 2.75 the 20 years at 3.85 the 30-year maximum is at a 4.14 percent typically how it's priced is there's a spread that's applied to that based on the credit factor of the district the district has a very strong credit rating it's a double a3 so we would you know we if you were issuing bonds today I would say that that rate is at a 5.5 percent but just for a conservative assumption you know being able to keep everything relative and give a little bit of sensitivity to rates too because we don't know what will happen by the time you act by the time the district hypothetically would actually issue the bonds that's why we're assuming the higher rate here but all else being

064equal it would be a lower rate for example the district borrowed in on closed on bonds on July 30th of this year seven point five million dollars in bonds that rate was it was only a 10-year bond issue so it's it's a different amortization as a lower rate but just for comparative purposes that was around a three point four percent for an interest rate over the life of the bonds Tyler follow-up yeah I don't know if anyone else has any questions what is the timing Gina say let's let's say we get through the legislative bond legislation we get through the referendum everything goes through what's the timing on issuance here I don't know if that's you that's Matt yeah no I'm happy to comment on that as well so the issuance process through RIBEC it

065is it is a longer process than if the district was to issue on its own right or if a city or town was to issue on their own outside of the conduit issuer and that's because it requires board approval at the RIBEC level at the corporation level there is a they meet once a month there's a preliminary approval meeting so that would be one month and then there's a final approval meeting too so it gets two passages at the board level and then it gets to the board level and then it gets to the level at RIBEC I would say it's probably around a 10-week process by the time it's all said and done it includes going back out to the rating agencies and having the rating reevaluated there's other due diligence that goes along

066with it to a marketing period for the bonds where an offering document goes out to investors that's probably out there for around two week period to some of that can happen in tandem with going through the process of the bond with going through the board process once preliminary approvals achieved but I would say you know from a safe standpoint let's say 10 to 12 weeks so almost almost three months from a from a from a right start to finish so we're looking like early 27 does that timeline make sense yeah yes yes early 27 basically and once because we also have to establish the building committee because remember it'll be the building committee that spends that that those those dollars and then has to hire the architect the OPM etc okay right because you typically

067want the OPM to be able to chart out all the cash flows first to make sure that it all lines up with the with the needs of when you'll actually need those funds so we work with them as well Jess did you have your hand raised okay so Mr Blaze question for you there's been a number of building school building projects happening in Rhode Island so in this sheet that you gave us um you you know sort of guesstimated or put on here five percent interest do you have any feedback on some of the other building projects that have been taking place in Rhode Island over the last couple of years and what kind of percentage that they've received for their projects yes excuse me yeah yes um you know it really depends on Market

068timing right because if you have another municipality that would be pricing say six months ago it could be different than if they were pricing today right just because of the fluctuation and rates with that being said let's assume you know we've seen other double a rated categories that have entered the market and I would say they've been in the uh an equal length of time to let's say maybe 28 to 30 year final maturity um those have been in the range of 4.3 percent 4.2 percent um so again just taking it some sensitivity that's the five that's why we're using the five percent here as well um just want to make sure that we stay realistic just in case something happens in the market it has been obviously a bit volatile I think from a

069federal standpoint too um that can have a difference in rates on a day-to-day basis almost these days um but they haven't they haven't raised above this five percent level uh based on your credit rating at least in in recent in recent months and honestly in the last year or so okay thank you Jess Laura Jess and Laura so thank you for the information you've answered my most of my questions as you've spoken which were about the bond rating and the interest rate of the main campus bond um but when you say like we could go back to rating agencies to get rated again like I don't know where a3 is on the list you say it's high but is there something we could do to increase our bond rating yes so you're in so you're

070a three that's Moody's investors service there are three main rating agencies that are out there there's S P Fitch and Moody's um the district's historically been rated by Moody's and a double a3 the upside from there it goes from a double a2 to a double a1 and then which is one notch off of the highest rating that can be achieved in the market um certainly investment grade high investment grade it would be considered too for every bond issue that's that's offered to the public issuer will go through that evaluation with the rating agency because you will get a bond there's almost two ratings that are tied to it there's a bond rating so they'll rate okay your 2027 series a bond okay we're going to keep the rating of double a3 because there haven't been

071any changes hypothetically speaking right they'll also affirm an underlying rating too and they'll do it at the same level so they'll say okay well you already carry a rating from Moody's we will affirm that double a3 but we're also assigning these bonds a double a3 so investors know where it stands from a credit rating spectrum um so that's that's the general process there how it works with the rating agencies thank you did you have something Laura and then Mr Zanion yep go ahead Laura um so just to clarify theoretically what you're saying is that if we if the bond rating comes in lower than this five percent then basically the the if we went with the 65 percent reimbursement the um the payment would be lower correct correct the interest costs would be lower exactly

072and then um when you say that it's it's a that these type of bonds are are scalable in the sense where you go from 10 to 20 to 30 and then you kind of do like a mixed rate is there knowing how long the project is going to take and I don't know enough about you know public bonding and how this whole municipality thing works but in knowing how long the it's going to take to build such a large school do you guys do anything where you possibly break it up so that you can get the lower bond rate and then kind of that's a segmented that's a great question you see that among a lot of these larger bond issues that you've seen in Rhode Island with the public school push over the last

073five plus years is okay you have a very large bond issue um sometimes they break it into two different bond issues and so there's uh there's a lower say taxpayer impact on the smaller bond issue in those early years until substantial completion of the project and maybe at that point you'd issue for the second series of bonds to be able to complete the project so you see that very often you know there's also things such as interest only periods where okay principles deferred over the first few years until the project is substantially complete too so there's a few different structuring mechanisms that can be utilized to be able to mitigate against that upfront burden um but those are what we've seen primarily you can do uh what's called a bond anticipation note and it's exactly

074what it sounds like it's a short-term note say about one year and at that point you would issue a bond and it would take out what you've already started uh with projects from that short-term note so you fund a short short-term note you receive those proceeds you can begin your project and then you bond a year later the only consideration with that is that side the Rhode Island Department of Education typically at least in all the experience I've seen will not reimburse for that interest cost related to a short-term note they will they will reimburse when you take out that short-term note with a long-term Bond on the principal portion so if it's 10 million they will reimburse for that 10 million when you bond it out for the long term but they won't reimburse

075for that interest cost because they see it as you're borrowing to pay interest costs so they and it doesn't go through the Rhode Island Health and Educational Building Corporation typically with a short-term note which goes back to what I said earlier where they won't reimburse for the interest cost if it doesn't go through the Rhode Island Health and Ed Building Corporation as a conduit issuer thank you thank you welcome Mr zenian had a comment um Matt um you make it sound pretty easy I've been through the process now and um yes yeah it's pretty complicated um the committee did ask a lot about on what we do to increase our bond rate and but um there are definitely things that can decrease our Bond rating yes correct that is correct yes yes yes there is

076a down there's always a downside to that as well um certainly taking on a large portion of additional debt as debt burden could potentially stress a rating um I will say if you look at the most recent Moody's report that was published in you know July of this year right when when the district went to bond, they note that there's low leverage levels. Honestly, they look at it from a methodology standpoint, from almost like a scorecard, where, okay, here are the financial ratios. Here's our notching factors for management. Other factors similar to that, too, but a lot of those rely on leverage ratios, too. Honestly, many of those, the district is in the AAA category. I think in enrollment, there has been some declines here and there over the years, and that is a little

077bit of a stressor. But as far as the leverage ratios go, extremely strong. Honestly, more in the AAA rated category before they weight it down to the AA3 for some of the other factors, too. But yes, there are mitigating factors that the rating agencies look at, and many times in the reports, you'll see there are two categories. Okay, these are the factors that could make your bond rating go up. These are the factors that could make your bond rating go down. They look at unrestricted fund balance levels to look at the amount of liquidity that the district has, if it's with other AA rated peers that they see in the market. So, a long-winded way of answering your question, yes, there are factors that can lead to a downgrade as well, in addition to working

078on an upgrade. Taking on a significant portion of additional debt is one of those, not a factor that's listed currently for the district, but it's a factor that we've seen with others as one of those mitigating factors that could potentially lead to a downgrade, or not necessarily lead to a downgrade, but stress the rating, too. Are there other areas of the stress rating in Rhode Island that has happened, like a real-life case that we could... That's related to issuing a significant amount of debt. Possibly where a district went out to bond, but there's something that happened that decreased their rating? I'll be honest. On the school side, it's not as common, but the reason for that is because when we talk to the rating agencies, we really stress the fact that this is not like

079other states in which they don't receive a reimbursement on their debt service. That is a substantial offset, as we talked about before. I mean, let's assume all go... All went as planned, and there was $110 million that was borrowed, right? Just for discussion purposes here. The repayment's $75 million if it was 65%, which is significantly lower than if it was a full debt burden, maybe borrowed in another state where they don't offer a reimbursement. That would be $215 million. It's just much different when they run it through the ratio analyses, right? Not to say that we don't see... There's been very large school projects out there where prior to borrowing, they said, well, your leverage levels are within what we see with our peers. We don't see them as stressed. And then they borrow, or

080then they give their intent to borrow, and there's an evaluation meeting with the rating agencies, and they say, well, okay, this could potentially stress the rating because we're starting to run this through our model, and you're showing increased leverage levels, right? You're borrowing more than you've borrowed in the past. There's been significant increases or, let's say, decreases in unrestricted fund balance, too. So it's maybe a combination of two different things, or sometimes it's not even just debt that we're talking about either. It's pension and OPEB, because there are several municipalities that have large unfunded pension liabilities, too. So that plays a factor in not only debt, but debt and contingent liabilities, when they view it as a whole, as far as what their burden is just outside of the debt, too. So you see it

081with several factors. I'm trying to think if there's been a distinct issue that I can think of where, okay, a municipality, district, other has borrowed, and it's immediately resulted in a downgrade. I haven't seen that often because municipalities try to avoid that, right? If they're not doing anything, then it can be an indication of, well, maybe we need to reevaluate our debt plans, too. But, you know, if there is a downgrade, it's usually in tandem with other factors that are occurring at the same point in time. Just, yeah. Thank you. Can I? You're welcome. Mr. Zanion, yes. I know that when we went through the process in April, May, and June, I had to do multiple phone conferences where the questions were pretty intense, and there were many. And there were staffing questions. Staffing questions?

082Yes. They repeatedly asked me about our superintendent. As long as our superintendent had been there, as our superintendent had a current contract, they never asked me if the superintendent's contract was renewed. But if they did, would that be a problem? Yes. Would that have impacted our bond rating? Would it directly impact your bond rating? It could potentially have an impact on how they view management. I mentioned, you know, some of the factors that the rating agency looks at. They like to see consistency. They like to see, you know, cohesiveness, I think, among the full district. So, you know, it is potentially something that they could evaluate. Again, it's difficult to put it in a. In a financial metric, right? It's difficult to actually say, oh, a ratio based on that. But it could play into

083how they evaluate it from a management standpoint. Okay, well, we typically would have viewed this as very strong, but maybe with certain factors, we don't view it quite as strong as we did before. Therefore, you know, instead of seeing it at a higher level, we put it in the mid category instead. You know, something along those lines. Could it have an impact? Yes. It would be a consideration because as you pointed out, it's questions that come up, right? Whether it be through the rating agency process or it could even be during the due diligence process, because I'm sure you remember that. I'm sure you remember that as well. The due diligence questions that get asked to you and to other issuers from the underwriter, from the investment bank that markets the bonds to make sure

084that they're, they're doing their job on behalf of investors and to, to certify that they have all the information on the district if they're going to be selling bonds to the public market. So yes, yes to answer your question. Yes. Just to touch upon something that you brought up and to kind of bring it into a little more, street terms or general terms, talking about how ride gives us the reimbursement or is, alongside this bond with us so it's almost like they're co-signing the loan and improving our credit score is sort of how I'm understanding it just to help folks understand a little better yeah and I'm also curious what their bond rating is if it's an a a one or two or this yes state of Rhode Island's in the double-a category too so

085the Rhode Island Department of Education has a has a solid track record this comes up from time to time on rating calls and during different evaluations where it's well what happens if the state of Rhode Island doesn't include it in their budget where you're gonna get your reimbursement what happens if there's a financially stressed time at the state level right I'd say in my entire experience and from everything I've done as far as research looking back there's never been an instance where the where the state has not lived up to including that reimbursement in the budget there would be many municipalities I think in that case particularly some of the higher reimbursement municipalities where they would be more than stressed to put it to put it lightly right it would significantly change their debt burden

086so there's a very good track record at the state they've always given up there they've always done their reimbursement but also you know the question comes up a lot well can the reimbursement change you're at 61% is there a possibility that 10 years from five years from now it goes down to a 50% but once the Rhode Island Department of Education approves the stage to approve their their approval of the project essentially that reimbursement rate is locked in for the life of the bonds too so it would be 61% relied upon for the life of the bonds thinking if there's anything else we can do on that one. Thank you. Thank you. So that's a good point. I mean I think it goes with the mechanism to include. Reimbursements available upon substantial project completion too.

087That's why we were talking about structuring and about potentially deferring principal payments as well particularly with large projects that may take a little bit more time to get complete. I think every single meaningful projects been completed though I think there's also a very good track record amongst the municipalities and districts in Rhode intended purpose and they can only use it for the intended purpose. A lot of that is just because the way that the Rhode Island Health and Ed Building Corporation works too, all of those funds, they do not go into a district general fund. They don't just get mixed with other funds of the district or any other municipality. They go with a third party trustee. In order for the district to even access their current funds that they may have, they have to

088reach out to RIBEC, they have to submit invoices for the disbursement. The trustee will pay those invoices directly. So it's not even the district making the payments or having direct access to those funds. There is a high level of monitoring and it needs to be scrutinized to a certain degree because these are tax exempt bond proceeds and there's only certain purposes that you can fund with tax exempt bond proceeds. That's why they're advantageous from a rate standpoint too. Thank you for that comment. Thanks, Mr. Blase. We appreciate your intelligence on this. You are so knowledgeable and we're schools tonight in bonds. Thank you so much. My bond's 101. Yes. Thank you. Is there anything else from Mr. Blase? Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see your hand. Back in 2010.

089Yes. During the Obama administration. Correct. Just lean into your mic. Yeah. I can't hear you. I can't hear you. Okay. During the Obama administration, we got some, I forgot the name of them, but half percent rates. Now, is there anything in the horizon? Anything? There was a period of extremely low rates following the financial crisis. You may be, and you may also be referring to federally subsidized bonds that were offered such as there were a few different programs like the Build America Bond Program. Right. There was a very popular one where the state, or excuse me, the federal government was offering a significant reimbursement. There's been some sequestration to those rates as well, so they're not quite as advantageous as they originally were. They actually changed the amount that was due, but in the near

090future, I don't foresee any programs, at least not in my current knowledge. So I think that's something that may be coming available. Obviously, when they do become available, many municipalities still have those 2010, 2011 bonds outstanding that are Build America bonds. They received a 35 plus percent debt, not a reimbursement, but a direct subsidy. A lot of them were direct pay subsidies. Some of them were issued as taxable too, just because of the purpose for the projects. But I don't think that—. As far as what I see on the horizon, it would take maybe another—not to say another financial crisis, but it would take some stressors from a general economic level, from a systemic level to be able, I think, to offer those projects again, or offer those, excuse me, programs again. Thank you. You're

091welcome. We had one more question, so we're not letting you off the hook yet, Mr. Blase. Certainly. Molly? I don't have a question for you. Okay. I don't know anything about the subject. So you're off the hook. Since our agenda item says discussion and approval, maybe we should make a motion to table the approval of the bond language until the next meeting, or when—? So we're just going to put it on the next agenda. Yeah. Okay. I don't think we need to table— I just wanted to clarify, so we don't— Because you did talk about the bond— I'm not as much of a— This piece of the bond, so you had the conversation. You just haven't made any decisions. I'm not as much of an expert on the language as— That's right. I'm not as

092much of an expert on the language as— Okay. I'm not as— Certainly as Karen Grandy is when it comes to that. I mean, and I understand it would need to go in front of the legislature at the General Assembly, which doesn't start until the second Tuesday in January. And then from there, approval's granted, right, to be able to even move on to the referendum portion of it. Public notice at all three member towns. Yes. Circulation in the newspaper prior to any type of vote. That's— Plus everything in the Chero Act. So that's— I was trying to remember the Chero Act in my head, and those are the immediate things that stand out to me. But that's probably the most helpful I'll be able to do. Thank you. Holly, thank you for that— Thank you all.

093—for bringing that to my attention. But I think we could just put it right on the next agenda. Okay. Yeah. I was just being cautious because that and approval in there— Yes. Thank you. All right. So, Jess— I know I already spoke more than twice, but I'm just wondering— So, yes, I will allow it. Thank you. Since we are tabling this, I'm wondering— Yes. —if it would be helpful for us to reach out to the town councils of each town. You know, last time around, we—Ms. Picard and her team went to each of the town councils. I just know that in the past, with bonds and the way that it works in Chero, the town councils don't have the authority that they usually do. So maybe since we are tabling this, we have an extra

094month, we could reach out to them and ask them to come to our next meeting or to offer some— Yes. —thoughts or we can provide them with information or presentation, some of the pieces of information that have been shared with us so far. Sure. I will certainly make sure that Gina and I discuss that. And just like we did with the community conversations relative to the three options for the elementary schools, Gina reached out, I reached out. So I think that's a great request. So thank you. Yeah, we'll take care of that. Okay. Gina, I'm sorry if I spoke for you, but— No, no, no. I'm ready. I'm ready. No, no, no. I'm ready. No, no, no. I'm ready. No, no, no. I'm ready. No, no, no. I'm ready. Yes. Agenda item. Okay. Thanks, Jess.

095Yes. So there was no official motion to table. We're just going to put it on the next agenda. No, you don't—because you had the conversation with the bond legislation. John, do we need a motion to table officially? No. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next item under business, presentation in Chero Data Review, State and Local Assessments, which will be led by Dr. Camilla. Gina, do you want to introduce this or frame this at all? Yes. So we want to welcome all our administrators that are here in the audience. So they always love this time of year where they get to come. And then what Dr. Camilla wanted to make sure you all knew is that he only asked for five minutes, but I said, okay, I get it. But some people are new, right? We're going

096to make sure. So what we want—what we really want to make sure you understand is that the idea is that this should be a conversation with you. This is not us just presenting the data because we want to check a box. We want to make sure you understand it. We got a lot of great feedback on our report out last year. And I think the more interactive and the more questions you have—and it may be you got the—Dr. Camilla actually shifted a couple of slides because we're preparing a letter for our faculty to go out. And I thought it was, you know, one of those genius moves that he loves to make, and he does a great job. So typically he would be joined by our high school team. However, we're—Jerry Orth has asked to

097really make sure that he doesn't show Mike up, that just Mike take the lead. So we're going to honor Jerry's request and make sure that we don't, you know, put anyone to shame. But Dr. Camilla thinks he can do it, Jerry. But thank you for your willingness if we need you. And everyone that's here is happy—if you have a question about any school, they're always happy to get as detailed as you need us to get. Thanks Dr. Camilla, and thank you for the team for being here. DR. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the school committee, and members of the public. I'm pleased to present our annual review of student assessments. We're going to be reviewing the assessment data for the 24-25 school year. Our focus today will be on the grades 3 through 12

098data, specifically from RICAS, PSAT, and SAT assessments. And just there's always some confusion about RICAS. So RICAS stands for the Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System, which is inclusive of all of the data you see tonight, but we've come to identify RICAS as really like the 3 to 8 for math and ELA, so kind of like a dual name for that. So tonight our objectives are to review our vision of a growth in the school system, our vision of a graduate. I'll go through the data for all of our assessments that were just released about a month ago, and then we'll talk through our strategic plan and school improvement action steps, and then I'll entertain any questions. So these are just the key terms. As I mentioned, it can get a little confusing. So those are

099there. They were in the packet prior, but I'll just, you know, they're just there. You can review back as we go through. So our vision of a graduate. So last year we had a student assessment. Last year we introduced this as our ending point. So our high school, we know that all of our students in K-12 go through all of our schools, and they end up here on campus through the high school. So it's really important for us that we consider every educator, every administrator, every support staff, that they have an impact on all of our students as they move through the K-12 system. And so you can see we have a 95.7 percent graduation rate. That's up about 1.5 percent. That's up about 1.5 percent from last year. Cheriho continues to rank highly in

100ELA, 13th in ELA in the state, or the high school, rather, and 8th in math and science. So we've got a bump. And then the high school is ranked number 10 in Rhode Island, according to U.S. News and World Report. So once again, this is important for us because it's not that kids are achieving only once they get to the high school. They're showing success throughout. And we know that. A successful graduation rate indicates a successful district. We also have a very impactful graduation. We have 24 credits that our students have to earn, which is above the state requirement. So we'll give you a high-level data review, first covering math, ELA, and science in grades 3 through 8, and science in grades 5, 8, and 11. So you can see that we compare very favorably

101to the state. In fact, we've increased. In fact, we've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've increased. We've had a slight dip this year in math, and increased substantially in science, and we've continued to show strongly in those areas. And also including, you can see our participation rates. Participation rates are important because they're also part of the accountability rating that we'll go through in a few slides. SAT overview, another indicator for the high school. So you can see, again, we compare favorably to the state. So our proficiency. And ELA continues to increase. And as we celebrated back in the spring when we received our math data, we had over a 9.5% increase in SAT math. So

102we were very proud of that. You know, the high school has done a tremendous amount of work in the short term to get those achievement rates up. So instructional days. So we know that when our assessments are given, whether it's the RICAS, whether it's the science. Or the SAT and the PSAT. That they're given anywhere with two thirds or three fourths of the year with about a third and a fourth of the year remaining. And we know that not all students have been exposed to all of the content. So we think that's important because you can see here our end of the year data in math last year, almost 70% met or exceeded the standard. And that's according to our internal progress monitoring data, our screening data. And then also our early literacy data which

103is in grades K to 1. 82% of our students met or exceeded. That's up about three percentage points from last year as well. And in ELA in grades 2 through 8, about 80% of our students met or exceeded the standard. So we thought it's a good contrasting data point to show that at some point in the year on the RICAS our students achieve at a certain level. But once the students have been exposed to all of the standards and had a chance to complete the majority of the curriculum, this is where they're ending up in our screening data. Attendance is a big focus for the state and for us as well. So we continually talk about students and the importance of them attending every day. We identify chronic absenteeism as missing 10% of the school

104year or 18 days. And 18 days may not seem like a lot, rather. But if you think about it, a student could be missing two days of school a month. And that has a significant impact on their learning. So you can see here on the bottom there the differences. So students, for example, in grades 3 through 8 in ELA, students who are not chronically absent achieve at almost 55% compared to students who are missing 18 days or two or more days a month at 28.75%. So you can see that's a significant increase. And those have kind of those have actually those gaps. Those gaps have increased slightly from last year. So we know it's important for students to attend every day. You can see the significance in the SAT ELA, you know, what a jump

105that is as well. So, you know, all of our schools have attendance teams. They're focused on attendance, getting schools in. It's in all of their school improvement plans. There are attendance goals and attendance initiatives to ensure that our students are in every day. We were asked this year to talk about student growth and why it's important. So I'd like to spend a few minutes here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So I'm going to spend a little bit of time here. So when we talk about growth measure, we're not just talking about benchmarks. We're not talking about how students achieve or what like benchmark. Are they meeting? Are they exceeding? Are they almost there? We're talking about how much students grow. Okay. So that's over a two-year period when we

106look at RICAST data. And it needs we always need a minimum of two data points to assess that. So what's really important about that is let's just focus here. So. Okay. So it's about acceleration, right? So when we focus on growth, what we're really trying to do is to move students at a faster rate. So the two types of growth we talk about in the upper right-hand corner are typical growth and stretch growth. Think of typical growth, how a student would just move from year to year, right? So if they're in fifth grade, the next year they go to sixth. And if they're on standard and they're meeting typical growth, then as they progress through their grade levels, they're going to continue to meet the standard. But if we have students that are below the

107standard in a particular grade level, what we strive for is stretch growth. So that means that we're that's the acceleration piece. What we're trying to do is to move students faster so over a two to three-year period, we can get those students back on track and on grade level. Okay. And that's a major focus of our multi-tiered systems of support initiative that we've been engaged in for the last three years. So just one more thing. Okay. So I just wanted to spend a little bit of time on that. And in our measures, when we talk about like growth, so in the bottom right-hand corner is one of the growth indicators from RICAS. So I believe it's from Richmond. So this is you can see this, the blue, it says 56.5%. That's in the high growth

108range. So that means that 56.5% of our students, and I believe this was in ELA, are moving at a high growth. So we're actually closing any gaps. Those students have. The 70, the average growth percentile is a high indicator. So if you think 50% is really an average growth percentile. But our students are actually achieving at the 70 or showing growth at the 70th percentile. So in this particular area for grades three and four, we can see that we're closing that gap. And I'll take questions along the way too because I know this is a new slide for us this year. We're spending more time trying to, you know, explain this. So I'm going to take a few questions. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

109you. Thank you. So that's one of the things we're trying to explain why growth is so important for us. The other piece of that, too, is that as we continue to move students into the high growth area, that also raises their achievement level. So we may not see that in year one or year two, but we'll see it in years two, three, and four as we continue to do that. School highlights, this is the first year we've been able to present our data and we've had the accountability ratings released by RIDE. And you can see this here, so Ashway is one of 19 schools, only 19 schools in the state that is a five star school. So we're really proud of the work of the teachers and our admin team there. And you can see

110the ratings for the rest, so Charlestown, Richmond continue to show strong with four star, the middle school three, our high school at four. And our Cala, our alternative school is a one star, but we've known as when they report out every spring, the students there are actually, we're looking at alternative measures and working with the ride team on that. But one of the highlights this year for Cala was that they graduated 83% of their students, which was up from 66% a year ago. So we're really proud again of that. And just to highlight a couple of the, so I wanna go back to talking about growth again. So if we look at Charlestown, oh, let's go up to Ashway. So Ashway this year, 86% of their students showed a typical or high growth in mathematics

111again, which is one of the reasons why they continue to show strong in math. Same thing for Charlestown Elementary, 92% of their students with disabilities show typical or high growth in ELA. So that means that there are students who are on level, but there are also students who may be below level who are falling into that high growth area. So it'll take time, it doesn't happen overnight, but over a two to three year period, those students will start to approach meeting or even exceeding expectations. And the same thing at Richmond Elementary. So when you look at Richmond Elementary, 83% of those students show typical or high growth for ELA and that was for economically disadvantaged students. So you can see for our underserved populations, the students who need some of the most strategic help, those

112are the students that are actually growing the fastest for us. So we're proud of that work. And just to take a little more time to explain the school accountability rating. So when you see the star rating, RIDE assesses schools based on their not their highest ranking, but actually their lowest. Okay, so the example here, Greg's laughing because he had to suffer this as the middle school principal. So you can see this here. So the school quality and student success, you can see the middle school actually scores at five stars. Another area for five star rating for them is their low performing groups. They do not have any low performing groups in the school. In fact, this is the first year in several years when none of our schools outside of Cala, just because they serve

113a very high need population, have any underserved populations. So again, another strength in that area. However, where the middle school continues to grow, they are an achievement in growth, they're three stars, which accounts for their three star rating. Okay, so I think that's a lot of the public is not aware of that. So how the schools get their ratings and why it's so hard to get to a five star is that you're actually rated in the area where you need, shaking your head. Yes. The most. You have the most support. So I always like to say, think of it like this. You have a rubric and you are exceeding and you get a four in every category. It's a four is the highest, but you have one area to grow. Now I'm a coach at

114heart. So for me, feedback is like really important. But imagine saying, well now, because I gave you one, two, we're gonna score you a two. So this is where, you know, sometimes my middle school teachers need some love because this is hard to swallow. But in the end, you know, the work that our teachers are doing every day with our kiddos, you know, we're super proud because we know that when I first got here, we weren't being identified for ATSI and TSI in subgroups. So, you know, it was hitting us knowing that every year, what I'm really proud of is with the MTSS framework, we're really digging very, very deep into root cause analysis to ensure that we're meeting our kids where they are and where they need to be so that we can grow.

115But that takes time and grace, but our teachers, I mean, they're the best. We're very lucky here. I'm very proud. More importantly, when I walk into, you know, elementary school and then the first grader says to me, well, I would need the resources to be able to do that. I'm really proud. And these are students that their vocabulary and their abilities is great. So I think what I want people to take away, he's not done yet, but is that this is important data, but it's a piece of information. And there's so much more that I want to make sure that we don't lose, you know, that this doesn't become a conversation because when you don't understand, let's think about a restaurant. If I'm a restaurant and I get three stars out of five, I'm not

116going to be thrilled because that one person didn't like, had a bad experience or wasn't ready or something didn't happen. Maybe, you know, somebody called out sick that day. But in the end, overall, as a larger community, we are not only aligned, but there's coherence, where we're coming together and really ensuring that not just our students, but our teachers are evolving to ensure that we are serving students in the way they need to now, because it is very different than it used to be. Then I'll stop talking. All right, so the next five slides are a review of our grades three to eight, RICAS, ELA and math data. So the first slide here captures our most recent ELA and the percentage is meeting and exceeding. On the left, it's the definition of meeting and exceeding

117expectations. So meeting expectations on a RICAS test means that students have demonstrated academic abilities expected in their grade level and exceeding is they're going beyond that. So you can see for us in grades three to eight, you know, we had a 101.4 increase from the previous year. You can see 2019 and obviously in 2020, we've continued to mention there was no testing in 2020 due to school closures. School is not being in session due to the pandemic. But you can obviously see the impact when students returned and our recovery from that. In math, the same. So you can see the, from 2019 to current. I mean, as I mentioned, we had a slight dip this year in math. We had a slight dip last year in ELA and it rebounded. So that does happen from

118time to time. But again, as the superintendent mentioned with our MTSS and our focus on our MTSS framework, we're seeing results, especially with our, you know, our students who need the most support. Dr. Camilla. Yes. Can you guys have the ability to pinpoint what grade levels that that decline is in, right? Is it in a certain grade level or are you seeing that across three through eight? Yeah, actually I think the superintendent sent it out. Right, you should have the grade level data, but we can see that. Okay. Yeah. Are you asking specifically? No. Okay. No. I mean, we can drill down to the student. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. And science, our science data continues to hold true. This is for grades five, eight, and 11. The reason why we include 11 here is

119that's how it's tested. So it's the one assessment that's common through high school and middle. And just to know, when you see grade five, eight, and 11, the elementary schools, and now their science scores are attached to grade five. So both middle school gets their science score attachment and elementary school gets that score attachment, even though they take the test in fifth grade. So that was, they love that. And a special note, just to call out the middle school, they were, the middle school is eighth in the state in science. So they continue to rank . And we thought it's important too, to talk about partially meeting, what partially meeting means. So the definition, according to Ride, is that a student who receives a partially meeting test score indicates that they have demonstrated some, but

120not all of the expected academic skills. So we do have, we continually have a high percentage of students who are in that, you know, in the middle school, that approaching, you know, the partially meeting. So you can see here when we take those together, you know, how those percentages pan out. So this year we had about 26 students score a 499, which is about a question away from the 500, which is the meeting or exceeding. 37 students scored a 498 and 12, a 497 in ELA. So students in this case are missing just a couple of questions to achieve that 500. The same thing in mathematics. Again, it's close to 90, it's over 90% when we include the partially meeting. So again, those numbers are there. And then just to review the status of our

121vision 2026 and our areas of focus. So we continue to be on track. One thing to mention about this is that even though 2026 is next year, we are the state law and the Ride data release do not align. So what that means is that we're getting, you know, we're still like two years, two sets, two years of data away from really determining our potential on vision 2026, just because the data comes out after the, I'm trying to explain it right, after our vision is approved by Ride. Right, so we're sunsetting the vision and don't yet have the two years of data to be able to completely say what we know are on track. So because like Dr. Camilla said, because of the fact that we're testing and we get the results after, that typically,

122this is really, so like for example, right now, our school, our principals are looking at their goals based on their data from last year's SIP, not this year's SIP, because they're in the currently performing on that. So it can get very confusing when you don't live in the world every single day. And by the way, we live in the world every single day and we often get very confused. And have to remind ourselves that whereas like two years back, when we look at state data in relation to the strategic planning. So, before you go to the next slide, can you just go back one, about the meeting exceeding with the scaled score of at least 500. Yeah. The microphone. Sorry. The hard copy of what we received, those numbers on the right hand side are

123different than what you have up on the screen. So I just wanted to make sure that I have the right numbers here. Yep. Thank you. Okay. And we'll update. We did, as the superintendent mentioned, I was updating the slide back even up till before the meeting. All right. So, and every year we do do a Massachusetts comparison. And the reason for that is Massachusetts continues to be top one or two state in the United States in terms of achievement and having one of the best education systems in the country. So you can see that how Rhode Island, Chariho and Massachusetts compare. So we're proud that we continually outpace both states. And even though, you know, it's important to note that there's still a lot of work to do, right? So like, you know, a lot

124of what we're highlighting and we're feeling proud about our data and we truly are, and there's a lot of success here. We also recognize that we still have a lot of work ahead of us, which is why we view this as a K to 12 initiative. We, you know, and even though to Mr. Champlin's point, we can identify the grade level and the student. We know that the end result is, is, you know, a lot. We know that the end result is, is, you know, moving through our grades and our schools. But we continue once again to outperform both Rhode Island and Massachusetts. PSAT 9, now PSAT 9th grade, we started to administer a couple of years ago, is not part of the RydeCast system. But we do it to get an indicator of how

125well our students are gonna perform in grades 10 and 11 on the SAT. So you can see our scores, this year, again, continue to outpace Rhode Island and the nation. So our mean score combined, this is math and English, is 946 compared to 840 and 852 for the nation. PSAT the same, so we continue to outperform the high school, I'm sorry, Rhode Island and the nation. Ninth grader take the PSAT? Does every 10th grader take the PSAT? Yeah, that's a good question. So in Cherahoe, they do. Okay. In the nation, they don't. So in several states, Rhode Island's one of the few states that, they use it as a high stakes testing. So they're looking for almost 100% participation. But in other states, it could be 20%, 30%. It's based on their college and career

126goals. And this is something you as a school committee, so this is an important one, that you commit funds to for the assessment so that we have that important data so that when we do the PSAT and SAT, our teachers can get the information earlier and not wait for the PSAT. So while it's not required, but it's a good thing. So while it's not required, one of the things I know that we are all aligned to is academic excellence. So in order for us to be at our highest level of game, the more information we can have individually about students, the more we can think about. And when you see in my goals, another alignment sort of connection around MTSS, that's the work. So when we say the MTSS, multi-tiered systems of support, what that

127is saying is that we're trying to ensure that instruction at the time that we deliver it and the moment, that instruction is delivered. So that's the very first time that we capture most of the students to ensure proficiency happens right away. And then the least amount of students would need tier two and tier three supports. Because when we look at data like this, and when we're thinking about like my alignment of that work, you wanna ensure that you're creating in the budget. And so when a Louis says to me, how does this align to your goals? How do I see what you utilize? This kind of commitment to the assessment piece, that assessment system is one of those areas where I'm asking you for the dollars to ensure that our teachers have access to the

128information they need to serve students in their instruction. So this is like when we talk about the kindergarten assessments, the Dibbles assessments, the screening data. We by law have to have a minimum, but oftentimes we're utilizing to be really efficient with our dollars, but really capturing systems like Branching Minds, a dashboard that you all committed to, to ensure that our teachers were spending less time creating, and where the data can come up, and they can actually utilize the plans faster. So that's where, so one of the things I wanna do about a job is making sure you understand where my goals in the budget and this work, the data work, aligned as we're talking about how my goals, how can we see that, and how we can connect those dots. So SAT data, again, we

129continue to show strong, and we do highlight Connecticut here, only because Connecticut is a state like Rhode Island, and it's a state that's not a state, and it's not a state, like Rhode Island, and it's a state that's not a state, like Rhode Island, and it's a state that's not a state, and it's a state that's not a state, like Rhode Island that does use the SAT as their high-stakes assessment for high school. So you can see that there's another, again, a favorable comparison to Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the nation. And we mentioned earlier, one of the highlights here is the increase in mathematics, the big jump that we had this year. Our AP key takeaways, so if you look all the way to the right, that's our 2025. We had a lot of success

130last year with AP, so we've had a lot of success with AP, so we've had a lot of success with AP, we've had our highest number of students enrolled in AP courses at 21.3%. We had our highest number of students earning a score of three or more, 170, which accounted for 88% of the students enrolled in those classes. Again, that's another success indicator. Again, a credit to the teachers, and to the students for the hard work, and actually Mrs. Bradnini. And Jerry, right, Jerry? Okay, we'll include Jerry. But Mrs. Bradnini was at the high school last year and oversaw a lot of this work. Good job, Jerry. And these are just some of the courses where we saw at least 80% of test scores at three or higher. So there were 10 this year. And

131a couple of our classes, so in 2D and 3D art at 100%, and chemistry at 100%. Can you just share the scoring for AP, what the three means? The three is, it would qualify students for a college credit, so the three allows them to earn. So it's, right. So it's saving them some money when they get to college. It's one credit, yeah, okay. So we had this example last year to talk about our multi-tier systems of support. And so the idea behind it is that when we talk about tier one, so if you're on school improvement teams, you'll hear a lot of the work around MTSS. When we talk about Tier 1, that's our core instruction. That's the instruction that students are getting on a daily basis. The example here is just that if you're

132brushing every day, you're taking care of your general hygiene, ensuring that you're flossing and brushing every day, that's something that you do every day to ensure that your teeth are healthy. Tier 2 is what we say is more Tier 1. Sometimes you go to the dentist, you need additional cleaning, you might need a cavity filled. For some reason at our admin office, everybody is having issues with dentists. It's a very awkward example. But that's what Tier 2 is. You'll hear Tier 2, and that's what that involves. Tier 3 is when something's gone awry, you need additional help. And like specialized. You need specialized services. That's an indication that you need something else. You might need somebody else. You might need a doctor to come in and provide those services like we do. In our schools,

133that's the support from our special educators, our math specialists, and our reading specialists. And then this year, we've organized all of our action steps to fall under each of the tiers. This is different than your slide deck. Yes. So in your slide deck that you received, and we'll update this tomorrow. And the administration, this is a slide I think our teachers would really appreciate these slides because what I love is when I walk into his office and he's like, hey, I just changed his life. And this is why. I'll let him explain why. But these are the genius moves he makes. That's why it makes us love him so much. Genius is overrated, but that's okay. So what we did was organize the action steps because sometimes you see all of these action steps and

134they can be overwhelming. They're overwhelming to me sometimes who's overseeing a lot of this, the superintendent, our principals, but most importantly, our teachers. So what we're trying to do is sometimes when we're introducing MTSS, but it's really not new. So if you've been an educator and you've been in education, you know that we provide levels of support. But what the framework allows us to do is to really center the work. So captured here are things that we generally do every day. So the director of MTSS, that's Mr. Scantopieco, who's here tonight, will strengthen and monitor our implementation in the framework. So he's working right now with school teams, school leaders to do that and other things that we do. So we're constantly looking at data. Our educators are using our high-quality data. So we're constantly

135looking at data. We're constantly looking at quality curricular resources. We continue to focus on writing. We know that that's an area of need in all of our schools. And we continue to offer professional development. Our PD in mathematics is focused at the middle school and at Cal this year. And we have increased differentiation opportunities. The high school has taken on coaches to provide differentiation and continue to build capacity and increase support related to student services. So not only is this about academics, but it's also about students' skills. So we're also focusing on student support in the school. So you might hear something about positive behaviors, school culture. So that's all inclusive of this. So before he goes on, so if you go back to the graphic where he had the dentist, right? So the tier

136one, this is your, we're doing this every day. This is preventative. This is to keep us healthy and well and including behavior. This is not separate. So we talk about academics. We talk about behavior. Some of the school committee members. You talked about like the behavior code or behavior policies. It begins in tier one. So same kind of thing when you think about student incentives and school culture, the connectedness, that's all SEL tier one. So an example would be in my goals. I talk a lot about the MTSS work around our framework as it relates to behavior and SEL. So what that means is like, for example, our elementary schools are going to undergo an audit of tier one. Cause we put in our guidance a few years ago. So now, I mean, they have

137a rubric that they, their leadership team has shared. And then we're going to see how strong really are we in our tier one so that we can ensure that we're not just jumping into tier two, but that we're closing any gaps in our larger system because just like anything else, we, where we try to be, you know, fives in every single area, but we may need to focus more. So when we talk about behavior and the SEL. That tier one. Yeah. So the tier one sheet, all that you saw it's in the next slide. All that you saw here, the professional development right now, we have cohorts of men of teachers with mental health, Sharon Martin, Cheryl Lightfoot, our district teacher of the year, Janine Mankoff, Jeff Skaterpieko, Mary Harrington in the back. They're all

138members of the SEL team. And while the team sometimes work, you know, in different bucket areas, it's for the same purpose to ensure that the most, the most important thing that we do is educate. But we educate the entire child, right? That's that 360 view. So when you think about the behavior code and that that comes from the connectedness, so it comes from the survey works, all of this aligns. So the more that Dr. Camilla and I can help sort of strengthen, you know, your background, not to turn you into educators, but to understand how this framework really is the core values of our district. This is going to be something that, and I said to the teachers that, you know, I'm going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a teacher. I'm going

139to be the head of the convocation this year. It's kind of like your furniture. You know, when you have a good, strong piece of furniture, you don't ever want to get rid of it, but it gets older and it might need a leg or a few tightened, a new knob here or there. So you're just trying to adjust and evolve so that you can take something and sometimes you've got, you have to upcycle, but in the end, you know, that it's got strong bones as we would say, right? So this is really going to give us those strong bones and I won't talk about the dentist because I got to go Thursday. Dr. Kevin McLeod More of the strategies that we've continued to implement over the last couple of years, including conducting learning walks with

140our school leaders, focus on differentiated approaches in ELA and math, and as we mentioned earlier, the focus on attendance because we realize and understand that being in school every day has a significant impact on student learning. Tier two, when we talk about tier two, it's just more, we like to say it's more of tier one. It's again, the director of MTSS and our MTSS fellow working directly with our tier two teams at the schools. Tier two is new for our schools this year in terms of the approach. So we're taking a slow approach to this because we know, you know, my phrase I always use is to go fast, you go slow. So we want to be intentional about it. Our early warning system, so you heard the superintendent talk about our branching minds platform.

141So what that does is it encapsulates all student data. Okay. So instead of going to multiple sources, going, logging into iReady, logging into our ELA assessments and DIBELS, everything is in one platform, including attendance and behavior. And so now when teams meet, they don't have to spend all of this time, you know, gathering all the data. It's at their fingertips. Their time can better be spent now on the planning of the interventions. And again, this goes back to the school committee's commitment on the budget, right? We had one of the best budget seasons I've ever seen. Last year. And it's with your commitment to that budget and the alignment, so things like staffing. This doesn't happen without your support. So when, and you know, I have to plug for everything for the budget, so I'm

142going to plug a little sooner. When we think about the MTSS and the director of MTSS and why that's important, and you've heard me say a few times the last few meetings, our bandwidth, and I know sometimes people are concerned about what, who's in what staffing. I would recommend anybody follow. If you follow me around, it's like a, I feel like a fire extinguisher most days. Where Dr. Camilla gets to do the work that I love so much. And then in November they tie me to my desk so I can't go visit as many schools as I would like to. But in the end, the reason why I like to visit the schools and be in the schools is because I see this in action every day. And when I'm advocating in front of you

143for resources, for staffing, for these positions to ensure that we can do quality work. It's not because I'm looking, you know, to do less and put my feet up on the desk. It's because I, in order for me to do my job and be connected to the public, you need people to do this work too. Because the more tied up I get, if I'm the only one overseeing this, things stop. So you've all kept the wheels moving because you've allowed us in that last budget season to ensure that we advocated for students, but we're thoughtful about our financial community. So these are the things where if I can help. Okay. So I'm not going to go in any way to help clarify these, but the, what I need blocks, that's a staffing. So if you

144go to say, you know, what's your band minimum for class size, we're going to lose staff and then we're not going to be allowed to do these opportunities. So when you think about the budget, think about MTSS, I don't want you to think about something extra. This is, like I said, the bones, this is what's going to keep this district, not just a float, but really a national leader. We're getting ready to think about the unified elementary school. We talked about the career and tech exploratory programs. I'm going to be talking to, I actually texted her today, Megan Carter, because I want to be able to ask for in our bond legislation, that there'd be extra points, bonus points to be able to get support for career and tech opportunities from K through eight, like

145we have for agriculture. So when we think like this and we do work like this, your budget in essence, right now, the law does not preclude you from tuition. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And don't worry, what I'm asking is for the school to bring in middle school students, not that I'm asking to bring more kids in. If the committee ever saw a decline, we're actually at the forefront of designing education so that all of you we get parents, I mean, Angela gets phone calls. Can she get them and can my kid come from middle school? In the end, we are designing an educational, people want to come here. the conversation that when we take with the budget approach, we're gonna

146try to really get you to understand why this work is so important to ensure that we keep Cherow not just a flow, but beyond what most students see in the state of Rhode Island. But that starts with this committee and your commitment last year really was a very strong in building this foundation. And the next slide just talks about our tier three supports. And you'll notice that a lot of our initiatives fall under the tier one. And that's because those are the ones that serve all students. So the focus is to avoid having students fall into the lower tiers to capture them as soon as we can, which is one of the good pieces of data that we've seen earlier. Just to point go back, we're seeing our students in K and one over 80%

147are reading on level. So that's the important piece. We've got to capture kids early, we have to capture kids young, so that when they are moving through, they're not falling into these other tiers. Lastly, we introduced this slide last year. And we were able to reach out to Ride and they created it for us again. So this is with the most updated, they're always a year behind when they're comparing this. So this is based on the 23, 24 data that includes the per pupil expenditure compared to achievement rates. And I'm happy to say that Cheriho continues to fall in quadrant one, which Ride calls the quadrant of success, where you see strong assessment results and a strong return on investment. So we're along with those other districts there. But again, continue to show strong, and

148as the superintendent mentioned, it ties back to our spending and how we're doing it and being efficient with it as well. I'll take questions at this time. So we'll go to the members first, and then if anybody from the public has questions. Polly. Can you explain in a little greater detail about win class? I'm on the parent class. I'm on the parent side of the win class, where the kids are telling me that it's a waste of time. I'll be frankly honest. This is what I hear when my kids come home. They say they do nothing. It's like a study hall. You're making a face. Mom, I'm telling you. I'm looking at the admins behind me being like. Yeah. So explain to me as a parent, when my kid comes home saying, oh, it's a

149waste of time and we don't do anything, what's really going on? Yeah, good question. So what's happening in the win block? Win blocks is they were created to provide that additional support for students, for enrichment and for tiered services. So depending if they needed it in math and ELA. And they were also created because in the past, we were pulling students out of classes to provide that support. So scheduling was one of the initiatives. And that's, we're trying to be thoughtful with the schedule in order to not have students miss core classes, electives, so that they could actually get those services in an identified block. Okay, so if they have a block of time, that a whole class is there, but only a few of the students need services, what are the other kids doing?

150So all the students in there are getting something. Okay. Right, so they're getting, so some students may be getting pulled for math, some are getting pulled for reading, some are doing their enrichment, could be there if they're in the highly capable program, depending if it's elementary or middle, but that's what they're doing in those classes. Okay. And so the teachers are purposely planning, using the data, I know sometimes it's perception. I'll say that, you know, I was a middle school principal and teacher a long time. Kids' perception is very different, but they are. So the teachers are purposely planning, using the data, and you know, on a weekly basis to make sure they were addressing those students. And I would say, as you know, any parents that have questions, you know, Ms. Bertanini, as well

151as Ms. Davidson is here as well, they're always happy to take those. And more importantly, the classroom teacher who's teaching the wind block, you know who that teacher is, please reach out. If that's something is, I mean, I know, I have a 15 year old, you know, what did you do today? Nothing. That's not true. But in the end, sometimes it's the way they say it, but please, I would ask if, as a parent, or if you have parents, first the teacher, then the admin, if you're concerned about any class. So I wanna thank Dr. Camilla and your team for the very thorough presentation. You did a great job. Thank you to the administrators and the staff that are here. We really appreciate your dedication. You shine. There's a lot to be proud of here.

152And, you know, I tip my hat, I'm sorry. Yes. Yep, that's what I said. There's a lot to be proud of here. So I tip my hat to all of you. It's a team effort. And, and I've always talked about academic excellence as a priority. So my question is, so, can you identify what you're most proud of? So that's my first question. And can you identify the top two areas that you feel need improvement and when budget season comes around what should we be mindful of as a school committee in putting budget resources to those areas that need improvement because we need to understand as a school committee how we can support you in getting to the next level in terms of growth um or what have you so i know that that's a lot

153of questions but i can repeat them if you sure yeah no i the what i'm most proud of is and we talked about it earlier is our that we're making an impact on our students uh with uh with ieps and our economically disadvantaged students because when you impact the students who need the most uh support in in any district you're raising the level for all students and when we talk about growth for those students what we're doing is we're again we're not that we may not see that in year one or year two but you're going to see it over time which is why i believe that we're going to see it over time because we're going to see it over time and i believe when students do get to our high school that they

154meet with so much success because it's it does take an effort to do that so that's really what i'm most proud of i think the concern so what would you identify as maybe two areas that you feel need improvement and us being mindful of potentially putting budget resources to improve those i want to play the honeymoon game where everybody gets a clip gets a board and we all put up our answers because i want to see i'm almost like i want a telepathic i i know i'm i want to know what i say is what he's going to say yeah i mean and we can open it up to to the administrative team as well so sure well we have a focus this year on um our high quality instructional materials so what i mean

155by that is and back in 21 um you know per state law we we onboarded math uh resources in math and ela to be used across schools and across grade levels the purpose of that and the state law is so that all students would be exposed to high quality instructional material right grade level it's great means that we're not we're ensuring that the resources that the teachers are selecting are grade appropriate they're not too high they're not too low because in order for us to get those skills you really want to make sure that they are at their grade level and sometimes even as teachers we may like a book and then not realize oh that level isn't really appropriate for this age group it may be too young okay so we've got a renewed

156focus on that um you know because sometimes you use something for so long and like anything else you just kind of like you're in the flow of it right and so what we're trying to do is to get back to that are we being thoughtful about the implementation are we doing purposeful planning on that so principals know we've talked about it already about monitoring common planning time being involved in that work walkthroughs we're working with right now with cala in the middle school um to design a a more thoughtful walk through um uh template so as we're going through schools we're capturing data that's really going to be impactful for teachers the only thing i would add may i yeah yeah so what the data is is that we're not just trying to get that

157data but we're trying we're thoughtfully working together as an admin team and to with our teachers for conversations around feedback and you talk about the superintendent and feedback feedback is not your opinion right i know how i feel when i walk into a classroom you know i stick with the vibe that's not fair right because we all have we that that's a perception but what we do is we're trying to what we call and at the education speak calibrate we and linda law you brought it up with karen reynolds so what we do is you know we walk classrooms together so that we could say what did you observe if we're talking to each other for example uh sharon martin and i a couple years ago we went on a little like feedback toward dr

158camilla and i wrote a letter to the to the staff because in chero home it was very common to get feedback really during evaluation and the feedback was that not that it wasn't good but maybe not strategic enough to really think about how to be very help our teachers would be reflective so my mapa die on is our teacher induction again an area where you staff as a school committee to commit because uh many districts removed the teacher induction program when uh dollars ran away from grants and charo kept it and that said a lot about this school committee back then because they they committed to new teachers being onboarded so when again when we do this induction and and martha was key she's our sort of ear to the ground um today we had

159our district evaluation Again, something that we talk about here with me. So the union and the admin team work together to discuss how we can do this better. Because evaluation of teachers is really, it's about feedback. They have to get scores too, but they don't love it, we don't love it. Because in the end, it's hard. But not because we don't like the score, but because the most important piece is, how do I know how well I'm doing and I want to evolve? I've said this before. We all want to be better than we were when we started every year. So some of this work and feedback. So Sharon and I, I needed to see how Sharon gave feedback. Not because I don't know that Sharon can't give feedback, but because I've never seen her

160do it. How do we work together and understand how we do that if we don't have a conversation together to understand how she goes into a classroom observed? So we take that time. And that's where we're working now on is that conversation of feedback and coaching. I always like to use my Tom Brady. Sorry if you're not a Patriots fan. But. He's had more coaches and has more feedback when he's a six time Super Bowl champion. So the better we are, the more we have to be thinking about the design of our focus, because I'm a rookie. Nobody's I'm getting the basic approach, right? But now we have such a high quality school district where refining it. So it is going to look different and it should look different. But I guarantee if you know

161you asked any of the administrators know we're in budget seasons. And Mr. Zanian is nicer when I'm in the room to them. But at the end, he's tough because he knows he plays all your roles in the meeting. We play you like it's like a role play. Well, OK, this is the question. How are you going to defend this? What is this for? This year, we had them align their budget directly to their school improvement goals so that if you asked me, I could share exactly how it was related to their school improvement plan. And then I have to align that to the strategic plan. So. There's a little just a little hemming and hawing, but but they did it. And I think sometimes it allows us to really get more thoughtful, not because we

162want to take away. And I think that's where I want to think this committee again, because when we can trust in each other and understand how things are being utilized, then they come to the table with honest examples and they don't try to say, oh, you know, I don't know if I can get this very important piece of equipment. How should I sort of spin it? I don't want them to spin it right. I want them to share how this equipment is going to impact. How many students lives does it impact? What programs does it impact? And I think the more refined we can get. So you push us all to get better to make sure that we're articulating what we need in a more thoughtful way. I don't ever want it to appear that

163we want you to be a rubber stamp. That's not what we want. We just want to show how can we get clearer so you all can understand why the funds are important in the way that they advocate. And I know I sound like Charlie Brown's teacher during a budget meeting because I have to advocate for everybody. Yeah. So I wish the podium was full of all the people that wanted stuff throughout the year because they tell me the parents tell me, too, because don't you do you all know once we get the tennis courts up and once the electric went in, I already have my softball friends on the other side of the field. That's OK, because we want to be the best. We have to make sure that we're thoughtful and that comes with

164responsibility. And as you can see, we've been doing all this with under two percent of an increase. And so it's not about asking for more. It's about being thoughtful. And again, when I say trust and leadership, it's about understanding that when I come to advocate, it's not Gina Picard coming for personal. It's because I have teams of individuals that are doing amazing jobs that are working with their teachers and their parents to ensure I have the information necessary to share with you. I just happen to be the messenger. So with that, any other. Thank you, Laura. I know you had your hand raised. So, Dr. Kamala, you you mentioned that the that the materials that you sourced in twenty twenty one, there was a change that was implemented and you had to make the materials

165more grade level. So the law, the law that was passed was that they call it the high quality curriculum materials. And so what it said is that every district had to have materials that were vetted through ride and that districts could choose from. You had choice and what you but they had to be they had to be vetted through ride. They had to be approved. They had to be approved. They had to be approved. They had to be approved. They had to be approved. They had to be approved. They had to be approved. So that's just not us. That's every district. So prior to that, districts could use whatever they wanted. You know, there was a lot of freedom. And in some cases they could, you know, lift it up to teachers in some districts.

166So it's it depended on the content, the district, you know, but what the state law did was unify all of that and say that across grade levels, every district has to adopt in math, ELA and science curriculum resources that ride has vetted for approval. Again, that is not just one. There's options. There's options to pick from. But that's that's what the that's what that's what happened in 2021. Okay. So my question is that if you have so knowing that all children kind of learn at different rates and that a lot of times you'll have in the same classroom, you'll have kids that are achieving at higher levels than others. How is that variation within that set that ride has given you? You know, do you feel like it's it's enough? Like, are you challenging the

167students that are is there enough variation where you're challenging the students that are either? You know, kind of. At this baseline? But that may actually be bored type thing? Yeah. So that's that's that's the situation. I think every grade level, every content. So what happens is our focus. That's why when we talk about like core instruction, it's core instruction with differentiation, right. Knowing that, like some students, once you deliver the lesson might be ready for more, but other students might need a little more depending on where they are grade level wise and where they are in the standard and where they are in that that particular area. So if they're doing something in English where they're really successful at maybe in another month, they might need a little more. a little more support in there,

168right? So our resources allow for that. And so it allows for the teacher. And really, it's not, I would say, that's not so much about the resource. That's more about the teacher planning, right? Using the data effectively and knowing their students on a daily basis where they are. But our resources do allow them. It has, there's enough in there for them to choose from and to differentiate. Okay, yeah, that's what I was wondering. This may be a good point, too. That's, when you said that, Laura, many of you, those of you who are on the committee, I know Mr. Luzon was, and I think it was just maybe, then Linda, I think you were the only two, and Donna, where we had to approve this new curriculum, but the teachers picked it. So what happened

169was they had a, where I did do workshops with groups of teachers across the districts in the state. They learned how to vet resources. They learned, you know, the quality control. And then it was our teachers that actually came to the school committee, virtually at that time, to present the, why they chose what they chose and what they chose. So that, you know, the school committee always approves the curriculum, but the resources were selected by Charajo teachers. They were the ones that led that work. And then through the assistant superintendent's office, you know, he's the vessel, again, that comes and shares with you. But they came and gave the presentation, and you can go online to watch it back in 2021. Jane Daly did the ELA, the first part of it, and then Mike came

170in as we were rolling out the rest, K through 12. But in the end, that's a great, another great example of things that come in the book. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you know, there's a budget around, like, even supplies. Your science materials are GemsNet, and it comes under supplies, even though it may, so your supplies are not necessarily paper and crayons. They often are kinds of resources that'll go along because they support the curriculum. But your question made me think of maybe a good point of alignment. Yeah, go ahead, Laura. And then my other question is, what's the deviation between the exceeding expectations and the meeting expectations? Because I know those are lumped together. I'm just curious. what what's the percentage of our students that are exceeding expectations because if we're in the

171top ten I'm just curious to know what that figure would be you talking to like a specific high school well actually I mean high school middle school so yeah so for example or I'll just have a la and right in front of me so for ela in 2025 for grades three to eight this is all-encompassing so it was meeting was forty one point four percent and exceeding was five point seven percent and I believe the superintendent shared this data on yeah okay just want to make sure yeah I'm happy to answer the question I just you all have it I just want to make sure you so do any of the administrators and or the educators like to comment on anything as part of this presentation one of the questions that I asked dr. Camilla

172was were there you know areas where you felt you felt that you were not able to meet the needs of the students and the that you were not able to meet the needs of the students and the we could be more mindful of putting more resources into the budget to raise the bar for chero and I'm always interested in that and being the best that we can be so be careful Sharon Martin wanted a three million dollar playground I'm just gonna warn you now we said sure all right well temper your expectations a little bit but and I don't mean to put you on the spot but if you would like to you know email any of us on the school committee confidence a little bit but if you would like to get back to

173this conversation because you know budget season is right around the corner and I think that we do need to be mindful of this so but if there are no takers then I will ask any need to be mindful of this so but if there are no takers then I will ask any of the educators if they like to come up let me ask the answer to this one of the educators if they like to come up let me ask the answer to this one just hold on one second just hold on one second ann marie and Jerry sorry Laura just wants to say something and then we'll ssa the and jerry sorry Laura just wants to say something and then we'll come to the microphone the the thing that I was looking at it showing

174it says forum i now I need you to come to this wonderful book seven well put by the the thing that i was looking at it's showing it says that it's percent meeting or exceeding expectations and it looks like it's lumped together on this if you look at page two at the top you'll see ela and map yep right yep yep right there so you'll see ela and map and that's where it breaks it down got it thank you appreciate that thank you so um i'll just would mrs luzon would like to come up first and then we'll take mr off thank you just because you're closer to the microphone thank you okay um i teach first grade at charlestown and i feel that as a school we could use more support staff we could

175use more teachers assistance i know you don't like to hear that because it's a big budget hit but we have some of the youngest learners and we do have some very needy individuals and to have the extra support in the classroom is essential for us to see them make growth thank you appreciate your feedback thanks jerry a little bit and this uh has to do with uh first of all the mtss work that we're doing now i don't want that to be overlooked i think that's important led by jeff skinapieko and his crew uh but uh kind of along the lines of what you said the staffing i think is something that you need to consider when you're putting together this budget a classroom filled with 28 kids or 30 kids might meet contract but

176educators in the room know that that's drastically different when it's 24 or 22 or 18. so just keep that in mind that the contract may say one thing but the staffing is what drives the instruction and with manageable class sizes i think you'll see even better results so just don't discount that when you're making your decisions thank you thank you all right i don't see any other hands raised oh i'm sorry sharon yes sharon martin so first of all thank you for all the support that you give us already does not go unnoticed um so i think you asked a couple questions the first what we're most proud of i think at the elementary i can speak for all of us we are really proud of our growth in both ela and mathematics um and

177for our special populations we've worked really hard all of the elementary schools to focus on the kids who need it most and to make sure we're seeing that progress in terms of what we need well how much time do we have i would say we're pretty much in agreement that we have a need at tier one to really support teachers professional development understanding of differentiating the core similar to what mike was talking about we also have a need to increase our writing scores at richmond and some of the other schools we're exploring srsd which is a research-based approach the entire state of rhode island has weak writing scores and we know that's an area of need we're also trying to expand our teachers and the number of teachers that we're going to be supporting for

178this year in the next five years with the support of the team that we've had from the children's program community and the various schools that we've had heatherctica and other school districts have recognized that that is an area of need that we really need to transform our partnerships with teachers and also have some of those resources on top of this um you know uh that's really how we're working with that um i think of it as the employer's responsibility as the teacher to engage with the students as a student not just in the classroom but the entire school district with standard treatment protocols for standard things like running out of the classroom, those types of behaviors, to more specialized support through a BCBA or specialized trained practitioner to coach teachers, other staff, coach administrators, so

179that we know that we're responding in the best way possible to keep everyone safe and learning. Great. What's the BCBA, sorry? Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Thank you. So to the budget subcommittee, maybe you can take a note that what the team referenced tonight, perhaps those things could be highlighted in a color so we are mindful of those things. Okay. Don't worry. Okay, great. All right, Greg is ready. So my presentation's gonna have all that. I'm sure it will. I'm so excited to see it. So we are really grateful to you all. Thank you so much. I just wanna make note that we've spent, oh, I'm sorry, Karen. I did not see your hand. I'm an educator and I've sat at this table for a few years now. And I've listened to you stand at that

180podium and demand that we cut the budget. And now you're gonna sit here and make it sound like all nice, nice, like let's add to the budget? I didn't say that we were gonna add to the budget. I just wanna know what the resources that the team needs so I can understand and make an educated vote in supporting the district. But for years, you have stood at that podium. And demand we cut the budget. You've stood in front of Richmond Town Hall and Hoppington Town Hall and told people to vote the budget down. Well, thank you for your feedback, Karen. But I'm the school committee chair now. So I'm trying to- Yeah, congratulations on that one. I'm trying to educate myself. Now? I'm trying to educate myself. Maybe being on the committee before you became

181chair would have been a better idea. Okay, we're gonna move on. So I just want to note for the record that I think we had a half hour for this agenda item and we're over an hour. So I just wanted to make sure that we were making sure that the team had the opportunity to present what they needed to present. So thank you. All right, we're gonna move on to the next agenda item. So this is a request for the approval of the independent route with you. You heard Mario Carino, Dr. Carino came last meeting. Chair Densmore had asked that he present the transportation study to the team, which he did. And in order to be a part of this, you all have to make a decision. You do have to do it tonight. I

182actually confirmed with the chair that we had to add it to the agenda because they actually needed to know by yesterday, but he waited one day so that we could have, at least some of us had our meetings this week. Other districts are also looking at this. Mario also came after this meeting. He met with all of the Washington County superintendents. And it's my understanding that Narragansett and Wesley both have their own transportation. So they're sort of, their committees are maybe up in the air, but those of us that do utilize the service, most districts are opting in. So far, every district that's opted in has said they've saved at least one bus. One bus is about $100,000. So for the cost of under 9,000 to save up to 91, 92,000. I don't know about

183you, it sounds like a good deal to me, but in the end, this is a good deal. This is gonna, you also have in your consent agenda, you have the RFP for transportation. I think it's good to note that it's not a bad idea to have a good review of your routes prior to going out to a new transportation bid. Ocean State's done a great job. I think somebody asked that question of Greg and I, we have no concerns, but that doesn't mean that, they're a vendor, they wanna make money too. That a route review isn't gonna, especially as we get ready for a unified elementary school, it's probably a good time to do it. So you have a good check and check the, the pulse. All right, so do we have a motion to

184approve the independent route review and transportation attachment consolidation study by ride? Okay, we have a motion, do we have a second? Second. Okay, second by Diane. Any discussion on this? Craig and Jess. This is just a review. I mean, why wouldn't we go forward with it? Wait, it's the audit of our current systems, yeah. Okay, Jess. It did look like from the chart that we're paying about $8,000. Per pupil. Okay, per pupil, we, wait, for the study? Or no, for transportation? It was, so that 8,000 is correct, that's the amount, can you, I'm sorry, what does it exactly say? $8,439. $8,439, that rate, the way that Ride did the work was that based on your per pupil, they just, they were able with their formula to tell you how much each district, so you've got

185a list of what every district would cost every district to, so I think like North Kingstown has to pay more because they have more students. So that's a breakdown. Do they pay that amount per student? Or they pay, so. No, no, no, that's the total cost of this audit. Right, okay, 8,439. So I'm gonna vote for this because I feel like it's valuable but I'm gonna express the same skepticism I expressed last time and channel a little bit of Bill Day here because Mario told us it's not gonna cost us anything. No, no, no, that's not what he said. I think he did. He didn't say it. He said it was a nominal quality. That's false. Oh, okay, I'm sorry, then my misunderstanding. But I also, you know, this is gonna be done by Transpar

186Group, it's gonna study it, and Transpar Group is already the program manager for the state program of transportation. So it's like here's the people that manage our state transportation program and now they're gonna study, they're gonna do this additional job. I don't know what you mean. So when I was looking, you know, reviewing for this material, Transpar Group is the name of the company that doesn't provide the transportation services that monitors the transportation services. So they already provide these services to the statewide system, and now they're just gonna use them to do this study. So somebody else asked the question, but my understanding, I asked Mario this question specifically in the superintendent's meeting, and he said they're not the same thing. Transpar is the scheduling service, but the company that's doing it, that is part

187of the scheduling service. It looked to me like they were the same. I just, like I said, I don't want, I don't know. I don't wanna speak for Mario. I believe when it was asked at our meeting that he said they were, they're two different entities. Like I said, I'm gonna vote for this. I think it's valuable, but I'm also a skeptic as far as what, who it serves. I think it will benefit the statewide system, and I hope it doesn't result in the state saying, now we're gonna cover transportation for every district, because I've seen signs of that in other places, in other districts. In other discussions. I understand, I get it. I can't, I don't wanna speak for anybody. Like I said, channeling Bill Day. He would have said it in different language,

188but. Polly? I'm just gonna piggyback off of what Jess said and add, RIPTA is not doing very well. That's a state-run, I just, it does not give me the warm and fuzzies to know that the state will be taking care of our children and during bus routes. No, no, this is true. No, no. This is true. No, no, this is true. No, no, no, no, no. Yes. This is, they're not doing anything. This is just a review of our routes. I know, I'm jumping ahead further. Is this a review of all of our routes? Yes. Sorry to jump in. Yeah, Tyler, raise your hand. I'm jumping ahead to the other one. It's, wait, we're not, they're not, we're not paying them to do anything besides look at the efficiencies of our routes and provide examples

189of how we could do things better or differently. Go ahead, finish your thought. When Mario explained that with the objective I think it's everything. That the ride slash state would pick up a bus route from further out and see, it was all in the conversation. It was the other end of the conversation. He showed you three phases. Yeah. And. This is only, you don't have to do anything beyond phase one, that's up to you. I have great confidence in what Ocean State Transit gave us, how they worked so well with us. They really put in a lot of time redoing the routes and seeing what was most efficient. And I honestly, I'm gonna ask you, Ocean State, not a problem. But I can tell you even still, like sometimes, even parents will say, you could

190do this more efficiently. And Michelle listens and Greg listens and they change things. So all this is, is the efficiencies of how we currently do business to see, if not if we're just doing it well, but are there other options you may wanna think about as things change, cause we don't know what we don't know. So this provides you with a review of how we're doing it and suggestions on how to do it better. You know, or cheaper. Not I don't wanna do it cheaper. I'm not, not necessarily cheaper. I wanna do the best for, best money, best return on investment. So, but this doesn't do anything with our kids. This is just a review of systems. Okay, Tyler and who was, who had their hands raised first here? Laura and Craig. Go ahead, Tyler.

191This is just, this is just our in-district routes. This doesn't include our out of district routes. Is this all routes? This is all of our routes that we're responsible for. That we pay to- Getting our kids to our schools. Well, it could be- And or- Yeah, we, anybody we are- Okay, that's the question. Thank you. Yep, everybody. I'm good. McKinney-Vento, all of them. Laura and Craig. Right, so I, the way that I understood what Mario was saying was that it was the, that basically because we're only working with Ocean State Transit, that they're, they're limited to their, the way that they're able to create the routes and that there may be benefits to us, working with other carriers and districts because they have the ability to move the lines is the way I understood it.

192But that's, that would be phase two. That's like if you, if you wanna go past this. Oh, okay. Yep. So, and this is just- This is just the review of our current systems. Craig. Basically answered it, so- Okay, it's an audit. So we have, we have, I see no more hands raised. We have a motion and a second on this, right, Madam Clerk? We do. Okay, so all in favor of approving this route review? And anyone opposed? I said no. Okay, Polly is opposed. Were there any abstentions? No. Okay. Discussion and approval of transfer of monies for the fund balance to the operating budget. And I know Tyler Champlin asked to table this discussion at our meeting last month as we were running past the hour and he thought school, newer school committee question, newer

193school committee members would have questions. So I don't know if Tyler and Greg wanna take this in tandem. Greg, do you wanna start, please? I think the memo speaks for itself and I'm looking to have it approved so I can give it to our auditor so we can finish our audit. Okay. Tyler, did you have any comments on that? Yeah, Greg, let's break the memo down here. Because if you look at this spreadsheet and you add the numbers up, I get a total of about $5.8 million. And I know I don't, at least I don't think we're looking to allocate $5.8 million from this year to next year. Or is that correct? So when you look at it, it would probably be helpful if you drew a line where it says funded for capital projects

194not yet completed by FY25 and prior. Correct. Because everything below that you've already approved. That's just an FYI that has been put in this memo for years, I believe, to show how transparent we are, but it may confuse people. But what we're really looking at is the five, the one, two, the five numbers from the operating fund. So the $195,000, the $250,000, the $100,000, the $944,000, and the $303,000. But those are the . Everything else has already, you've already done that in your last budget cycle. Okay. So like I said, I think it's put in there to be transparent, but I actually think it may confuse some people. I do, my recollection is that when we, Ned started doing it that way because we also asked for you, I also asked for the budget transfers,

195because we were giving you them like, let's say, a month at a time. And you wanted like sort of a, like a rolling tally. So the idea was that you could see what you already committed, and then the new stuff was at the top. But again, new formatting, happy to insert line and say, previously approved in a different, you know, different way if it makes it easier. Yep. This was an agenda item also added by the school committee. Because we had this in the consent, Tyler, I believe it was you that moved it out. I would love to move it back into consent. Okay. Just just to just top of mind maybe. Okay. Laura had her hand raised. What is the line item for, it looks like it's $100,000 for, what is the description? Yes.

196Funds for administrative payout. Right. What is, is that for, was that for the principal or? That's for your administration. You currently have a superintendent that I have to assume may not be staying. So if she chooses taking on the job, we will have to buy her out. And typically, when a superintendent, tenant leaves one or two of them administrators leave with them so um their letters of agreement we typically put $50,000 aside for that but in the current climate that may not be enough money it's basically days accrued by employees that you have on staff it's sick days and vacation days that would be owed to the employee okay so normally you do 50,000 but you put it for 100 correct yes okay any other questions on this okay so I'm sorry Tyler yes Greg

197if I look back last year that looks like we had the same amount put up for the litigation and and a little bit of a lesser amount for the missions tuitions are we still expecting yeah more we're expecting more I will I'm gonna have John do sorry that okay yeah John's gonna come in December we have a couple of new issues that we have to discuss with the school coming okay I'll put a pin in that one okay do we have them do we have a motion to approve the transfer of monies okay do we have a second okay we have a motion in a second all those in favor unanimous thank you thank you great approval and vote for revision of 2026 Charahoe Regional School Committee meeting dates this was requested by me you

198we did have an email from Samantha Wilcox the president of the Richmond Town Council bringing to our attention that there were some overlap dates of the Richmond Town Council meeting in the school committee meeting and would we be open to reviewing our meeting dates for 2026 for to accommodate the public and maybe the elected officials if they wanted to come to our meetings as well so Jean and I took a look at the list and this is what we came up with I think it was gonna be over a month from now for the end of this session by September and it does look like there are still two conflicting dates in August and November but I'll turn it over to the superintendent because I think she can give more context about August and November

199so the calendar gets tricky because there's there's competing needs that the Department of Ed has and the state has a requirement so we did the best that we could with the date because Richmond Town Council does the first and third to- boxer and Savannah City faux-umm gel it does in Washington you did the best that we could with the date because Whichmontown council does the first and third to 2021 because Richmond Town Council does the first and third to- Tuesday of the month. And I'll be honest with you, we've always tried to coordinate calendars. Donna Soskavage was, you know, not her favorite thing to do. She hates calendar season. But what happens is more things are now being more defined by the General Assembly, which puts certain dates, like even when my strategic plan has

200to be submitted. So when you look at those submissions and calendars, you have to back map. So to that, I said to Louise, I would not recommend that the school committee move and that the town council consider maybe a shift was November, because we have Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, as well as election next year, for example. And that takes three Tuesdays. It's just right off the bat. And we need to make sure that that date in the middle, we can get our jobs done and that the district business because you're talking about a big season, getting ready for budget, getting ready, state assessment, accountability reviews. So my recommendation is to move to November. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. And I

201think that's a good thing. So my recommendation is that we not, you know, we ask Richmond to be more to also maybe compromise a little bit that day in November. And in August, they don't even meet two times in August. They only meet once. So my request to the chair is that they pick the opposite of what we picked, because we have to be able to meet with you prior to school opening usually. And we're already in session that last week now with teachers. So and then too soon in August. So and then too soon in August. So and then too soon in August. So and then too soon in August. So and then too soon in August. So in August doesn't give us enough time to continue to prepare for the opening. We want

202to make sure we have we have that a little bit more of that stretch. So I would respectfully request that we keep November and August the way we have it and then make the compromises in the areas I suggested. So the compromises in the areas that the superintendent suggested are in red on your memo. So with that, I don't see any. So with that, I don't see any. So with that, I don't see any. Yep. Yep. 13th and 27th oh right so what yeah what Gina and I talked about was there were some members of the audience and there were some members of the school committee that suggested that in light of our meetings going late should we perhaps look at adding a meeting from time to time a second meeting and so we're trying

203to be mindful of what Angela has on her plate because assembling all of this material for all of us once a month is hard enough so again trying to be you know responsive to the community and also I think Tyler mentioned once a month I think somebody else maybe Craig mentioned one only meeting once a month and maybe bumping it to twice a month so we did add another meeting for for October for two meetings in October just to try to be you know listen and be responsive Tyler it may not be but again just I'm just trying to be mindful of everything that the staff have to do to get ready for a meeting. I think we can all understand and appreciate how much that takes in terms of putting the materials up online,

204getting the materials assembled, you know, posting everything, the team being ready for our questions. I mean, it is a lot of work. If I could add, it comes down to that, you know, we want to maintain the budget, but the bandwidth. So really, and Donna would be happy to come back, not to come back to this job, she would say, no way. But she only stayed because the school committee removed, you know, we started removing the sessions because it was, she really was my administrative assistant. She was the keeper of the, of the, and the beer of the school committee. And this was all consuming. So that meant that, you know, other people in the office, and while people think that there's a lot of fat in this budget, when I can tell you, when

205I say, you know, my bandwidth, boy, it was a lot of fat. So, you know, it was a lot of fat. Balls will, you know, Dr. Connolly, if we're going to drop a ball, we try to drop the smallest one that's not going to hurt anyone. But in the end, you know, especially during budget seasons and then competing interests, we are like a very good, well-oiled machine. But sometimes it can be during the year it gets stressful. And we just want to make sure we have a balance. Because what I see, honestly, is sometimes we have this was a very productive meeting. But in the end, I do notice that when you guys have two meetings, not when I say you guys, anyone for the last six years who sat in your seats, sometimes you

206need a little push, you know, to come and make a decision. And sometimes too much time lingers. I appreciate you saying that. Feedback. Especially for, I know I've heard not just from Mr. Avedisian tonight, but I've heard it from other members that there's a frustration that we went down to one meeting a month. And that there wasn't more than one meeting a month. Because it seems like some of these meetings stretch. And I've been a member of the board for a long time. But hearing what you said, I'm perfectly fine with going with what you have on the calendar. I always say to the chair, if we need a special meeting like we did last week, sometimes we can do that. But it just allows, you know, you allow us to do more of our

207job than just preparation. And not that we don't want to see you, because we do. It's just that you want us to be doing the work here. Jess? With that feedback taken into account, I would suggest that we take it. We're going to take out one of those October meetings. It's too far ahead. And I think, honestly, people keep talking about the length of our meetings, but I think it's gotten better. We had some very, very long meetings. But for the most part, we're getting out of here before 10, a three hour meeting. Like a lot of us are on a lot of other subcommittees. So, and have kids doing lots of other stuff. So it's not always easy to make it into two meetings a month when we have other weeks where we have

208a meeting three nights in a row. Or, you know, I think there's that to take into consideration. So I think. I would. I would pick one of those October dates. Okay. And I'd be ready to approve. And then it also, sorry, makes it more of a conflict with Richmond. If they keep their meetings on Tuesday, then it's even harder because we're having two meetings. And they're having two meetings. So you really only have two options per month. Yeah. Just so you know, that October 13th and October 27th meetings did not conflict with Richmond's town council schedule for that month. No, she said that. She said that then they have to. So what she's saying is. If. Two meetings for them and two meetings for us. Oh, gosh. Another reason to stick with one meeting. Is

209because it would make it even harder to. Okay. Craig. Schedule. First things first. It's been conflicting for decades. Why is it a problem now? I understand maybe they want to get involved more. Wonderful. But I just find it kind of weird. Second of all, you know, you talked about the meetings. But those meetings that ran on extremely long were very unique. You can't say they were just a standard school committee meeting. Okay. They were. They were unique. You had the emotion of the electorate that was there. It is our job to sit and listen to them. Yeah. Whether we want to, whether we want to go beyond 10, which we're not there just yet. But the point being said is it's our duty. Right. That's what we get elected for. Yeah. I mean, I'm just

210trying to be responsive to another elected official who brought it to our attention. So I don't know if you, you know, darned if you do and darned if you don't. So I'm trying to be encompassing and. Accepting everybody's feedback and you're not going to make everybody happy. So for the record, I did my job. I brought the agenda item to the school committee and ultimately it's school committee's decision as to what they want to do if they want to edit the calendar. So do I have a motion to accept the calendar with any revisions? Jess, I make a motion to accept the calendar with a removal of the August the October 27th date. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. All in favor. So we have Tyler, Linda. Okay. Anybody opposed? Okay. So

211Mr. Luzon is abstaining. Thank you. Okay. Approval of budget transfers. Mr. Zenion. I recommend your approval. Well, I recommend approval of Mr. Zenion's budget transfers. But if you would like to ask him any questions, there he is. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion here? Larry. On. Good. So we have $7,700 from Hope Valley School. We don't have a Hope Valley School. How can we take money from a, but can you explain how? Okay. Thank you, Larry. Which? So it's the first. Number one. Number one. Number one on, what is it, 11-18-25? Yeah. So we had to keep Hope Valley open until the end of September. So we had to budget for it. Okay. So we budgeted according to what that, those months would equal. Okay. And it clearly was last.

212You can ask me a question. I just want to know how come, if we close the school, how come? Yeah. When we closed the school, like for example, keep in mind when you guys budgeted, we didn't know when the school was closing. And technically we had to lease until December 31st. So you had a pretty good chunk of change put into oil because we weren't sure if we were going to heat that building for September. Yeah. So we had to keep the lights on, the heat on, and then when they agreed to take it on October 1st, it saved us even more money. So we started, we are transferring all out. And as a thank you, we left them the fire. We left them the fire extinguishers. We did do some things. And I thought,

213I apologize, Larry. I thought you were asking me about the next one. No, no, no. That's required because that's its own. Yes. So the next bill was for Hope Valley. Because we agreed that when we left on October 1st, everything would be in working condition. And in late September, the heating unit in the gym blew. So we, under our agreement, we fixed it. So I have, oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Paul. All right. So my question is for the 7,700 in paragraph one are line items that are under number one and the line items that are under number two. So where would that $11,000 be allocated? So do you just appropriate that $11,000 to the greatest need in the budget? Because it's technically a budget transfer. So how is the $11,000 ultimately used? Which one?

214Oh. What are you? So under number one is an emergency transfer to pay for heating repairs. Oh, okay. It does say it. So we did. Got it. We moved that money to pay for heating issues at Ashway. Got it. Okay. So we're in heating season. So you're going to start to see transfers every month. Okay. Last year. Okay. We had $200,000 in transfers to fix heating issues. And it's not the boilers because we have new boilers. It's everything connected to the boilers. Wait. It's the electrical stuff. It's the, what do they, what does Jason call them? The functions. The units. The units. That's right. Controlers. I can tell you that it's not much. All right. So we have a motion and a second on this. Any other questions? Polly, yes. I was just, my question

215was to Greg. Didn't we have a column in here for budgeting at one point? What we had budgeted? Or maybe it was another chart I was looking at. This transfer sheet has not changed since I've been here. So I don't know. I think it might have. That's the ones that have like a little tiny type in the horizontal. Nope. Budget were good. 940. Yeah. No, I thought I was, I thought it was, there's a whole bunch of them in this. Polly, you good? Yeah. You good? Okay. So we have a motion and a second on this. So all in favor of approval of the budget transfers? Unanimous. Great. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Consent agenda items. Is there anything within the consent agenda items? And there are a lot of them. Can we just

216do it? No. It's here. It is here. Hold on. Polly? I'd like to pull D1. Okay. D1 is the health and wellness mini grant. Yeah. Okay. Questions. So is there. There's no more. I make a motion to move the remainder. But before I do, let's acknowledge some donations. The chair of school committee extends their gratitude for the following donations. Craig, into the microphone so everybody can hear us. Please. Sorry. Catch you at the beginning. I know they can hear me. They can, but the people at home can't. Bill Kirk of Warwick, Rhode Island for the donations of a Mercury 2.2 and a half house port. Outboard motor with an estimated value of $600 to our marine tech program. Wow. Two and a half more. The Ashway Elementary School PTO for the wonderful breakfast. They provided

217for over 60 veterans at the Veterans Day breakfast and assembly on November 7th. Mrs. Gray for coordinating a stock took Socktober event, which culminated in a donation of 1427 clothing clothing items to the warm shelter and veterans home in Providence, Rhode Island. Darryl Perry, who donated a big box of pencils to the Charleston Elementary School students and a huge bag of candy for the teachers. Yeah. Let's spoil them. Number five. My wife loves candy. Number five. Community 2000 for their donations. As noted, $500 for the Thanksgiving senior luncheon, $1,000 for the gingerbread express, and $10,412.75 for various educational projects. Do we have a second for those items? We have a second from Karen. Okay. So motion to approve consent agenda items A, B, C, D2, E, F. G. All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you so

218much. Madam Chair, make a motion to approve D1. Charo seeks a ride school health and wellness mini grant of $10,000 to support initiatives that promote SEL and health and wellness. Okay. Do we have a second? We have a second by Linda. Discussion? Holly? Holly. I'm sorry? Holly. Yes. Okay. I had questions. First of all, when I read through this, it was very vague. It was vague as to what the money was going to be spent on. First question, though, is did this come out of the health and wellness committee, or is this just titled the health and wellness grant? I didn't know if it was something recommended by the subcommittee, the health and wellness subcommittee. Okay. Well, that's another topic that I'll have to talk. But, yes, this grant, here it is. It was vague.

219It doesn't say exactly what is going to be purchased, what's going to be done with the money. It's in here. I don't understand. Yeah, it's right here. To support the purchase of materials, curricula, training, technical assistance for Tier 1 prevention. Okay. But it doesn't directly give. Usually, grants have to say, you know, I don't know. What the money is going to support funding for. Yeah. Karen? I don't know. Yeah. Do you not have this? The grant does include efforts related to social and emotional learning, school climate, behavioral health, staff wellness, health. She sees it now. I only scrolled to the second page. I'm sorry. I thought it was only two pages. I retract that. I apologize. Okay. All right. So, motion to approve consent agenda item D1, the ride school health and wellness mini grant

220of $10,000. We do have a motion? Oh, sorry. It's getting late. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? All those opposed? Nobody opposed? So, I'm abstaining. Okay. So, Polly is abstaining. Okay. Madam Clerk, did you get that? All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Reports. Subcommittee reports. Necessity for school construction subcommittee minutes and budget subcommittee minutes from 10, 14, 25. Is there a motion to? No, you're good. You don't have to do anything. I don't have to do anything. Then it's my turn. You're good. All right. Superintendent's report. Gina, take it away. So. In regards to our five-year elementary capital plan, we are currently in what is called stage two, which must be completed by February 2026. So, the district stage one application, as you recall,

221will expire in February 2026, which is why this important process must be continued. So, just to recap, for an update, in September, the school committee commissioned a presentation that SLAM held at three in-person community meetings, as well as one additional virtual presentation requested by the school committee chair. The school committee's presentation was held in October. At the October meeting, for the school committee, you voted to direct the architects to design a unified elementary school, and then you also hired bond counsel. Tonight, we discussed some bond legislation parameters as it related to the funding of the bond. We will ask Karen Grady to return in December to discuss the actual legislation as you would like it written. So, updates as regarding, just a reminder that the stage two is a conceptual design, and we are going

222to be hosting a feedback session. So, what I want to remind you of is that in the stage two application, the final application you receive will have all the estimated costs, because they utilize the inflation rate, but the estimations, the environmental, the water, the enrollment, the traffic studies, and then we've been getting the question around like what soft costs. The biggest way to explain soft costs is, you know, how much your architect is going to cost. So, you know, you're going to have to pay the electric manager, but until you actually hire them, you don't really know, but they allocate the estimate of what that costs. So, that's a soft—bond counsel is a soft cost. Your OPM, like Collier's, is your soft cost. Land acquisition is a soft cost. Permits, furniture, technology is included in

223your soft cost. One of the questions that the school committee had last month was the furniture expenditure, the fixed furniture and equipment, the FFE, it's called. So, this is something that was given to us as well as the technology. That's built into the 110 or, I think that's—we're getting to that price around now, 110 million as part of your soft costs. So, it's in that money. We budget for it in the stage two as part of that, and then you get so that when we spend, just like we would spend any dollar, the reimbursement is the same. So then, we will be hosting the community feedback session—actually, Ryrie said we've exceeded—but we've already done the number we're required for and we're not going to overexert ourselves. required to do. But knowing what the feedback of

224the committee was, we said we probably need one more to discuss so that as we move into hopefully a stage three, we can think through what the community would like to see in a unified elementary school. So on Monday, January 12th, this will be in my updates to the community, but you're getting it first here because you're here. Monday, January 12th at 530 in this high school library, we will have a session for the community, anyone who wants to come, to provide input into a unified elementary school as more about the design, like more about what are you hoping to see? Like, oh, they're going to have some conceptual ideas, but I'd like to see this entrance or that entrance so that then they bring that back to the school committee because then what happens

225is when we get to stage three, all that feedback comes into play so that when we design the one that we actually want for our district. This is just a concept. So very important. So thank you. Please make sure all your friends know that. Richmond Playground update. I am so happy, happy to report that we did the ribbon cutting today. It was held this afternoon. Both the chair, Louise Dinsmore, and member Jess Purcell joined us. Louise was able to give a few words, as did the pre-TO president and Sharon Martin. Stephanie Potts from the Maddie Potts and Dan Potts with their daughter were there to support as well as some additional community fundraisers. So with the help of the president, we're going to be able to do that. So thank you. With the help of

226the school committee designated $5,000 to the project through our capital account. What did I say? Oh, sorry. It's almost 10. Okay. The school committee designated $95,000 from the capital account. Richmond received a $25,000 grant from the Rhode Island Health and Educational Building Corporation. Maddie Potts organized a community fundraiser that received $27,643. A total cost about $150,000. So thank you. With the help of the president, we did the ribbon cutting today. It was a lovely ceremony. The kids' excitement and the photos, more to come. But really on behalf of the entire district, we wanted to thank everybody in the community, including our school committee that supported this, our Richmond students and faculty. And I'm sure the community is very, very grateful for the opportunity to play on our safe and beautiful playground so they can build

227friendships. Thank you, Gina. Appreciate that. So before we adjourn, it says school committee requests for future agenda items or legal opinions. Is it 10 o'clock? Okay. Jess? So I talked about this as the last necessity for school construction subcommittee, but I'd like to request a discussion about an RFP or another possible way to procure website design services for a capital improvement plan website for the elementary school so we can have something designated to inform the public. Okay. Great. Can you just put that to Gina and myself in an e-mail? Yeah. Great. So I just wanted to see if perhaps we can get an update from the budget subcommittee on what we could expect like leading into budget season because I know that there have been some feedback from folks about how the information could be

228maybe presented more concisely, more a little bit differently. I don't know if you I think you may have discussed that in the past. I saw the minutes. But maybe an update on that. Yeah. And maybe a little bit of an update from the budget subcommittee on what we could potentially expect to see differently for January next month if possible. That'd be great. Thank you. We rescheduled tomorrow's meeting so it'll depend on if we meet before the next meeting. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, motion to adjourn. Item chair I make a motion to adjourn. Second. We have a second. All in favor? Happy Thanksgiving everyone.