Concord Carlisle Joint School Committee April 25, 2023

001foreign [Music] and we do have one member on Zoom so we actually have to call the order by real call okay um Anderson president [Music] Mr President Wilson present [Music] I'm terrible yeah okay all right and we I see our students are with us tonight so we're going to start with our cchs students perfect let me just share my screen um zarya unfortunately had a conflict night so she could not join us but she helped us with a presentation and Christy and I should be able to get through it um so one of the first things tomorrow is an extended advisory day at the high school so for juniors there's going to be a session on like cancer information and then also they're going to be teaching a little bit about different screening tools and

002things like that and for the seniors they're going to just start preparations for the Thrifty Day of Service so that's exciting the end of the year is really insight for them um and then also the AP exams begin next week so for a lot of upperclassmen and of course the mere grades as well um a lot of time being spent studying for that um and another Performing Arts update uh ticket sales are open for into the woods and you can see in the top right that's I'm actually the publicity manager so that was kind of my thing everyone needs to buy tickets or else I won't have done my job well um but the link is also on there um but yeah the lawn signs will be distributed within the next week too so you'll

003start seeing that pop around town um we in the performing arts department we also hired a new choral director which is very exciting I've heard a lot of great things I was also part of that interview process so that's really exciting for all of us yeah um and then Senate is also in the midst of planning to call around and obviously some other spring Spirit events so more to come on that but we're looking in pretty good shape um yeah yeah and uh there's also been some French exchange students who've been here and they've been attending morning classes in sightseeing around town so I think that's a program with the AP French students mostly but like the French Department as a whole Harry do you know more about that actually my friend's teacher was telling

004me today they went to New York City just for the day they left at 5 30 in the morning so definitely could be a long day for them and like it's been fun seeing them around school they came into my French class so we had the opportunity to talk to them a little bit which is cool and then um prom tickets go on sale this Friday so that's very exciting for our upperclassmen and yeah like I said it's just the end of the year starting to be insight yeah that's all we have thank you guys thanks for the update we're looking we're looking forward to seeing another great show and spring Sports continue and all that good stuff so good luck so we'll see you guys around the campus so thank you so much thank

005you thank you yeah right um and now we will enter into public comment and we will start with comment in the room if you're in the room you can fill out a blue sheet outside and sign in and if you're on Zoom you can use the race hand feature and as a reminder um please state your name and address and you will have three minutes and I'll open up the public comment once I've seen that in the room that online right thank you and now we'll move on to our recognitions tonight so we are thrilled tonight to have cchs Guidance with us and Lori would you like to introduce their recognition on yeah sure Crystal chime in okay so come on over here Allison Nookie guidance Department chairs here with Melanie Fernando or netco uh

006school counselor so we've put together some highlights of what guidance is up to and yeah just a um I put together a video that sort of highlights a lot of what we're doing across all the grades um with specific grades and then also some of the supports and services we have for all of our students so it's about a three minute video and then please feel good if you have questions about what I showed or anything that interesting piece so I'm sorry to those of you out there it's only on this screen tonight because of our technology limitations without mmm so feel free to move your chairs foreign [Music] laughs [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] that was awesome especially when you have you know kids that are currently at the high school that

007don't tell you half of the things that are going on in the college seminars and I might have a senior who's like right now in the decision-making process and hasn't told me one thing of what I've seen on your videos and thank you so much yeah position um I just want to point out um so the music you saw was composed by Dan Simone who's in our department he runs the Reverb club which is a live music Club um he's been working on this um song he said since he was probably like 10 years old um and he I told them what we were doing he said oh I got something and he literally like 10 minutes later came back and he said here you go he had grabbed three kids from the Reverb club

008and said and played a little bit of the song and the next thing you know they had that this was three and a half minutes they like all of those kids improv the whole thing it was it was amazing how good these kids are it sounds like a peanuts soundtrack it's very like reminiscent of that yeah yeah excellent and it's good to see I know the the addition of the newsletters for guns and counseling people don't know about the newsletter can you just talk about like those like her um for every grade yeah so we um uh we did them years ago and I they were sort of getting a little static and we just I think we sort of lost track of them seems to be the reason for everything these days and um

009I had been thinking about bringing them back and um actually during covet I had discovered um pictochart which is sort of like canva it's like this online um design feature like you can do presentations and flyers and create websites through it um I create our school profile our re I updated our school profile using that um and I sort of had this Epiphany like why am I not doing this for newsletters and so I sort of brought it back and I wanted to highlight different things like what's going on in each grade what do you need to know about right at this moment what are some of the things that we're reading what sort of on our radar what are some upcoming dates and then I also included in each newsletter at the bottom some

010of the highlights from the college guidance Network which is something we've been using for about three years now um we were one of the first schools to sort of on board with them they are so this 24 7 library of videos and PDFs and things you can things you can watch things you can read things you can listen to about really anything you'd ever want to know about the college process uh which we have found to be a really great resource I've I've been attending some sessions that they host just for counselors it gives us an opportunity to talk to each other and to sort of hear from people um in admissions you're directly from them so it's been a really great resource those newsletters today go just to kids can you put them out

011to parents parents I don't think it's I don't you know I'd have to ask my secretary I know she said I know she's sending out a MailChimp for the parents yeah I don't know I don't know if she's doing it to cchs or not nine to 12. yeah yeah and I think you can find it on the guidelines it's on their website like if you just want to poke around and look at it yeah I think one of the things we've been most excited about over the last few years is we sort of got interrupted with covid but we've been implementing this seminar model where so for our seniors we're giving them the time during the day to get some of their work done right so as opposed to trying to find us and hoping

012to catch us or worrying like sending us emails we have blocked off one hour uh during the week for about six weeks for them to come in and do their applications in the room with us to ask questions in the moment um and to sort of give them a quiet space to get it done um and then with our Junior seminars we've been sort of tinkering with it each year but I think what we really liked this year was the addition of a couple of things one is this sort of um uh College admissions gain if that's the right word for it but um the idea is you're sort of hearing what are the different things that a student would impact a student's admissions right like it's not just about grade necessarily there's also these

013other little factors that they're keeping in mind we also had students do case studies so we they're real students we took off all identifying information but we included their GPA scores things that they were involved in and had the kids guess where did they get in where did they not get in and then we also added this year a mock admissions committee which is the one I'm really most excited about um where students we gave them a a made-up College we made up we made up the priorities of this college what are they interested in this year um and then we gave the students four applicants that are all very similar they all bring something different to the table right they all sort of now match something in this priority list and the kids as

014a group have to decide who to admit who to waitlist and who to deny and the coolest part about it was that nobody agrees right because they're all very similar candidates even with that we did it within our group and it was we were all wow oh my God you guys accepted them that's so funny right and that was sort of the same conversation and we really it wasn't like there was one applicant that they all sort of leaned towards it really was split across the board so it's a really cool exercise for them to really get a better understanding of what's happening and why certain decisions are made and that doesn't feel so personal anymore um are those seminars like compulsory or are they elected we uh we put it on their schedule oh

015yeah um and but there's no grade involved or anything yeah but everyone gets a chance to participate it's not just like these real self-directed kids no it's not like Hey we're doing this come on we create groups um I think what we're we're looking forward to next year when we have these Flex blocks that we don't have to sort of even sort of have hazardly bringing groups of kids together within your own caseload then it's like sometimes only get four that have the same block you really try not to take their lunch because that's sort of their time um and they don't really want to give it up yeah um when do you do this like 11th grade 12th grade we have uh 10 11 12. uh so the kids are seeing that as early

016as 10th grade yeah not the college stuff so much it's more um Youth Science is our 10th grade sort of thing that we're focusing on um it's a it has aptitude tests as well as an interest inventory so it's not just what are you interested in but what is what are you good at and how does your brain work um and then it uh sort of helps you identify um careers that match your style of learning right you're you're the way that you're bringing what are what do you bring to the table and the cool thing about the Youth Science curriculum is that it's it's not a like Melinda like I'm a brainstormer and melanthe's not yeah it's I'm a brainstormer the lengthy is a detail-oriented person and so it always talks about what do

017you add to this like what do you bring to the table and how could how do you support other people around you um yeah sorry very interestingly yeah um so then when those kids take those tests or whatever do you share those with parents you can yeah yeah but a parent needs to know to ask kind of thing yeah well I don't know yeah I'm trying to hide it it's just it would be a lot for us to sort of email each other yeah and actually I think um right now only right right this year's sophomore class it's connected to score which is our um College search and application uh Tool uh that's not going to be happening next year they've they've parted ways so we would still have science and score right we're talking

018to each other like they were sort of integrated and now they're they're yeah so yeah and and I have said the other thing I'm going to put melendi on the spot a little bit but she runs the social media for cchs right now I highly recommend you follow it because it really is excellent I mean it's like I swear I'll be it again I think the kids love it yeah you know what's going on at the school I mean it's just a quick like so thank you for that of course thank you do you want to talk a little bit about your rollers it's a new role yeah yeah so I was hard as the medical adjustment counselor this year um so I work with all of our micro kids we have 49 at high

019school um and I work uh doing a lot of social emotional learning with them I do our achievement stress um I'll just um a more specialized class for kids to come do homework or get help with extra work um things like that and I run lunch groups sometimes and I have been going into Middle School um once a week to meet the eighth graders coming up so they have a familiar face coming into the medical program and then we have our room 202 which has been really nice the kids have been coming and hanging out with me we get lunch together it's been a really good year so far I think some decorating in the works is really exciting is there a mural going into like there's something about a mural we're working on it

020yeah she's been scouting pink colors last time just trying to get everybody to decide [Laughter] yeah how many years do you have working with the Michael um so this is my first year working with metco I was an intern at the high school in the middle school last year I think it's worth noting some of the work we did last spring with the metco kids in the list of what they really needed one of the top few was they wanted their dedicated counselor so we reallocated some Grant winning session made it happen melindies made a vision I don't even think we knew enough to happen and I'm just going to check Sarah Sarah [Music] any questions or comments for guidance I just don't want to forget about you guys thank you oh I like the

021newsletters I like that from the younger grades who can see what to look forward to and play plan a little bit more um rather than getting just at the moment so yay College admission process I think something is it learning Style Match which is something you don't think about when we'll find the politics are very interesting and you know kind of bring awareness to that thank you that's a great point I don't think until you're sort of living the process of the real college experience with your kids or you know in the school setting how much it matters right for Success when you actually get them that's a great Point yeah the struggle between Outsourcing and to expert tools but then also using that information yeah so um you know you're talking about the guy

022in college guidance Network in particular well I was talking yeah yeah um so we have moved away from Naviance to score that happened um we actually were one of the first adopters of score as well and not the answer was not changed it was just a really common system and it was hard to navigate not only for kids but on our side one percentage score sort of came in and disrupted space and um it's a much more intuitive site and in terms of sending materials [Music] it's more simple for teachers for counselors for a registrar uh you know I haven't talked a lot with kids about their experience lately but um you know they I would say scores exceptions hey what about this feature typically within a few months so that has been a good

023switch for us but similar to not it does the same sort of thing College search and the application okay I'm curious some of the tools distance us to choose interactive shorts or alternative to give us to five so um information like so if it's when they complete their use science um when they once they complete all the aptitude tests and they're done I can actually access all their results and then we have sometimes we have a conversation about it it's not with every kid but we'll sort of dig into it a little bit um the same thing with score kids are keeping their ideas in score I'm also putting some ideas in score and then we use it as a tool um you'll see in one of the pictures there was it was me and

024a student we were sort of looking at the graphs together um sort of saying like well what is you know is this school uh more of a reach for you or is it looking more like a likely admit like those kinds of so we have those conversations together so I find that the technology has helped those conversations um the college guidance Network piece uh I think for me has um I'm gonna go to something I think I think Sarah I think you said this but was information right like getting information early um I have found has really helped to sort of let some of the air out of the balloon of like this like sort of feeling of anxiety like I don't know what's happening I don't know I've never been through this process before

025I feel like there's so much to know and I don't know any of it and I don't know where to go um and so giving parents at we right now we're giving them access to it in the sophomore year and I've been considering even earlier it's just a difference in cost really um just because you don't know what you don't know and why not have the like there's nothing you need to do as a ninth grade parent but just knowing that you don't have to do anything it's a ninth grade care and what's been really cool about college guidance network is we've been able to use some of that some of those videos they have little Quick videos that we can use in our seminars with kids um so I've been able to sort of

026put together slideshows and not have to create my own video but use that video as a tool to give them some information then we talk about it um so I think I don't think it's taken away from our interactions with kids um I think it's sort of it's helped to enhance it a bit yeah and I think the the great thing on the parent side of score is like parents can put in a suggestion and you can see what the guidance couns are suggesting and you would see if your child suggests it so you can all look at your collection of school an actual Colby College like whatever it is and it's like this has been suggested by good luck and you're like okay so then you have like a starting point to have those

027discussions with your child and um there's a lot of check-in and if you skip a seminar you guys sponsor actually finds you and they're gonna come right to you to make you come so it's actually I think there's a lot more face to face and even over the past five years to watch it switched from an Aviance with you know paper like just affiliate transcript yeah you get the transcript it was all paper yeah and then it went to Google form and now it's all through score I even didn't know how to do it this year because it was so automatic I was like wait it has a bill that is transcripts I'm like oh no it actually all gets done pre-score and it's kind of the amazing world of technology but I think it

028probably gives you guys more time to interact with students which is I think our conversations are better like we're talking about more meaningful things as opposed to just like always like little Logistics there's a lot of logistics that we have to get through but it's not the seminars have have sort of we use that time to do a lot of the big stuff like here's what you need to do here are the steps you need to take and then in addition to those seminars we're doing one-on-one meetings and that's where we really get into which schools are you applying to and why and let's maybe round out your your list a little bit I'm a little worried that you don't really have a lot of likely admits on here that like those are the individual

029conversations that we can have I think Sarah had yes sir did you do something else I have a question on the the not knowing what you don't know until like until it hits you um one of the challenges that we dealt with this summer and then I know my daughter had a few friends who had similar challenges were uh one is that common app opens in August and not having access to a school computer like to their own device um was a was a challenge in our household because we didn't have a computer that she could use that she could work on her own her own things um and and I know that and I heard from some kids who were like sophomores taking uh classes over the summer and stuff but there are ways

030that you can support the kids um to have access to technology that doesn't rely on a family going and buying a device to be used until they can get back to a school computer all right is there any kind of offering or support there I just wanted to talk about yeah yeah I got that question you know um it's something that's come up from our end as well um I think a lot of updating of computers happens over the summer that was sort of the response I got um so I don't know what I I don't know I it's I've asked the question as well okay yeah I see what other districts do I think a lot of this first do have to at least for juniors yeah you're gonna figure out how to manage

031or at least get those done first and then you guys can come in early for August or something so we can have that conversation that's interesting yeah I mean you can actually start working on the Common App now and anything you put in rolls over but they add questions they take questions away so like you can start working on it now it just might not be the final application that you're end up filling out because in the summer they have a lot more time you know between sports and school and all that there's a lot more time in the summer before yeah we encourage kids to do a lot in the summer they don't always listen any questions comments well thank you so much I'm happy to send you a non um glitchy version of

032the video if you like yeah yeah thank you are you going to put the video on your website or anything yeah yeah thank you so and see what you're doing and because it's more it's more than just college that you guys do yeah yeah I know we talked a lot about college tonight but you do so many other things yeah yeah and I I mean I think the thing we didn't even talk about at all is all the sort of day-to-day things that come up kids who need help they need you know somebody's having a bad day they got in a fight with them right like those things are just always constantly coming in and so that's that's sort of always happening but that wasn't addressed here so yeah you do other things we do

033other things as well and even how you sign up for an appointment you know it's all done through calendly now and we used to go into kinds of somebody to write on a clipboard which I think you still can we took down those towns yeah yeah yeah they're great but the kids actually for those of you that don't visit the high school they have like on their phone they can sign up for employment yeah that was that was a great it was really good that was a really good silver line yes yeah that and then picture there's a lot of things yeah but you put in your emails and everything like that right yeah it's on my sign off yeah so thank you so much thank you for having a great night thank you and

034follow the high school on social media if you want to sleep I'm gonna have her start doing our guidance one because I can't keep up with that um so moving on to correspondence and I believe we only had one piece of Correspondence this week too and it actually came to Concord Republic about but it was about the region um yeah just about an enrollment how to enroll and Conquer Carlisle and uh Lori took care of him superintendent report and why don't we um just start with you Lori you want to start with anything sure I was just going to highlight a few things and Kristen should chime in as I had a few things he's been running although I'll always watch back uh or or I'll just do it uh it's really one of our

035busiest times of year I think probably the busiest time because the end of year just ranched sway up with really great things and activities and all sorts of really great stuff closure of the Year and that we are at least a half a foot into next year and there's always a full cook work that needs to get done before everybody leaves that we're really heavily focused on so one of those major initiatives is hiring for the fall um so the buildings have started to do that I work a couple of The Quiet days last week and wrap that up with a number of candidates so we're off and running really successfully um just a few hiring notes that I know you're aware of but worth saying out loud um we've hired two assistant principals at

036the high school so that has been really great it feels really successful Mr Cameron's in the process of the assistant principal at the middle school and as I know you know we have three strong finalists with a thorough position and this is the week where they're on a site one yesterday one tomorrow one Thursday um getting a lot of great feedback via technology from staff and families and making a lot of reference calls and trying to be sure we just know them thoroughly uh before the final decision is made probably early next week I would say um we're eager to stay ahead of the um many postings that are out there and secure the best person so that's gone really well thanks to Kristen for running the first round of the process and the screening

037committee that she worked with Carrie was there um it's been really successful we've had a lot of positive feedback I think people enjoy all the ways they're getting to participants um in terms of and this is where Kristen can chime in uh we're buckling down on setting up professional development and training for some of the major initiatives that were in this Rose of and we're continuing to next year so do you want to just quickly talk on mtss today and restorative justice yes um yeah so we had a wonderful day today actually in this business room uh we had the principals guidance counselors School psychologists bcba yeah I don't want to forget anybody uh uh Apple crib yeah and district-wide people Andrew Debbie and I were all there um and we were coming up with

038a system for a multi-tiered system of success for students um in social emotional learning and mental health so um social emotional learning are the skills that you need the five areas the castles five areas you know self-awareness that's like knowing your emotions self-regulation being able to control your emotions and so forth and then mental health is um some emerging conditions that people might have like depression anxiety schizophrenia uh and then a trauma and um informed uh program as well so the idea is that we give screeners it's that process that we use for reading in math but to use it for mental health and social emotional learning we have screeners really starting in kindergarten um all the way through grade 12 so that we pick up any issues before you know we pick up trickling

039streams before they become Raging Rivers so the idea is to be proactive so um the example of the social emotional learning give the screener of Dessa which is the teachers fill it in in elementary school the students self-report in middle school and high school and they have uh it's a strength space so I feel I have the ability to make a new friend or um to resolve a conflict um and then the data all gets fed to the administrators the mental health Team at the school and so they can look at kids who have big Variety in their skills so that could be or just low sort of self-reporting of skills and then use the mtss system so you have uh six to ten week skills Based training on whatever the area of deficit is

040how do you make a new friend how do you greet someone how do you calm yourself down you know on all these different areas that's in the social emotional realm in the mental health realm learning about um different types of mental health uh and where people might have challenges and then how are those work done so for example we have an issue with stress in Concord Public Schools so you might have a group on anxiety and you might be talking about how I mitigate my anxiety so what are some ways I can use you know breathing yoga humor and there's eight ways so um so that's kind of the mtss and so our goal is to have a system that talks to itself vertically and horizontally especially at those points you know when you're going

041from one fifth grade to sixth grade eighth grade to ninth grade and so forth new kids coming in at different points how do we get a read very quickly because we all know that if you're not okay uh emotionally your mental health is going to be really hard to learn also so we feel like it's setting the table is that what you did that's perfect and then restorative justice is part of our deib work um so we were taking a slow Road we're trying to do it um very very well the discipline law in the state of Massachusetts changed to add that we want to approach behavioral infractions from uh try some other ways besides sort of punitive discipline uh and and restorative justices that is the idea there and um so we're learning about

042the three tiers of restorative justice the big tier is community building second tier is looking at little interaction something that can be solved in like five to ten minutes and then the the top of the triangle is like really harmful situations and how you would work with a group to come up with a way to understand the impact that your mistake has had on the community and then how you can try to repair or restore that that mistake so um it feels really good that teams are really strong we have the administrators of course the counselors on those teams and we also have lead classroom teachers who are really interested in it it's part of our deib work because in general in the world um students who are historically marginal from historically marginalized populations are

043disproportionately represented in disciplinary situations so the idea is really to get to know someone as a human and help them come to understand whatever the mistake was that they made and this process of restorative justice really started in the penal justice system not in schools so it's really really effective in Massachusetts in particular in Concord in particular at MCI um you know so the rate of recidivism someone doing another uh breaking a law again after they've been through the restorative justice program is actually extremely low so it's a very very successful program with um uh you know very serious crimes so um this is we're working with a group that helps put the system into public schools so they're called Pathways to restorative justice and it actually started here although it is a nationwide program

044thank you so much good stuff going on my last notes are just a real shout out um we met today with Concord Rec they're offering camper ships to all of the kids at the shelter in the long stay rooms kindergarten through grade eight um and just everyone's just so appreciative and I when I imagine people the the you know daunting time involved in a summer lag of nothing our family coordinate or something to get them squared away with all the intake they need to get the kids on boarded so um just really grateful this community continues to really caretaken and offer amazing things yeah thank you okay thank you and do you have anything yeah she's going to get your stuff later the only thing I have um the only thing I have is uh

045there is a d e i b strategic system committee meeting tomorrow night and the focus is on special education um so I just want to put that out there that Sharon and I go to that and yeah anyone else uh very quickly um uh the Human Rights Council held their Holocaust Memorial on Sunday night and very well attended um and uh just for your information uh I'm on the 2229 advisory committee now but in that role I'll be able to keep the school committee informed as to what's happening in terms of discussions about the ultimate use of that property can you um 2229 sorry is the old nmi starmet Superfund Site which uh is oh gosh don't quote me now 21 Acres of usable land something not not an insignificant piece of property over near

046Knox Trail um very preliminary ideas include Recreation include a government campus include affordable housing include open space and Recreation or some mix of all of the above um these These are only just uh ideas at the present time nothing has taken shape yet Nord is the town have uh jurisdiction over it is still in the hands of the federal government and the Department of Defense this is a task force or a committee this is uh crazy for the region the Carlos heat pack is going to host an event on the 22nd um Thursday at 7 pm about learning disorders and anxiety and our diversity Equity inclusion Community advisory council is working on a pride event in June and a community a Community Education event with Kerry Harding and their they're working together with core on

047that it's about it's called stories that last event and also we're working to participate in our anxiety day okay great all right so thank you all for that and we will announce anything from Sarah or Domingos we're good okay and so we will move on to we have a guest with us tonight and I'd like to bring up Carlin Reed of the pig access uh committee and she I believe that you all have a flyer that is attached to the agenda so I will turn it over to Carl thank you very much Tracy Carl and Marine I'm sure the peg access advisory committee been that for about four years I think it's been a while but we're finally getting to the whole point of the committee which is to help the town negotiate the Comcast

048conquered a franchise agreement and this is the time when we're trying to do what's called the needs assessment now everybody in the every household got mortgage postcards um and if front and back on this sort side there's a QR code where you can RSV people one of the three focus group events and we've got a survey that they'll be available online starting May 1. we're trying to get input on what you think about the Comcast service now this is designed for the cable TV service but because the internet runs over the same wire it's we're looking for input um really good at that the the uh three programs this open for anybody who lives or Works in Concord now this would include School administration School staff School teachers parents anybody we're trying to get input

049on what you what you think about the podcast service how it can be improved and what do you think your next your needs are going to be for the next 10 years because that's the kind of that's the length in terms of the contract we're doing those three programs are one is on May 10 at 2 30 to 4 o'clock by the Concord main library the next one is May 11 uh 10 30 a.m to 12 noon at the townhouse on 22 Monument Square and the third one is May 11 on 7 pm to 8 30 p.m at the Harvey Wheeler Community Center in the clock tower room we're going to be getting it having a presentation we've hired Consultants who could walk us through four basic areas to get input of what's going on

050then there's going to be a drawing of each one of these focus group meetings a a fifty dollar gift card to a local business must be present to win okay um if you enter in information um online you're also eligible for that sort of thing we're asking that people RSVP for these programs by May 5 at all possible and if you don't want to come but you want to give your input I've already had about five of those email it to me at Pac which is p-a-aac concordmath.gov that's a collection point where we're Gathering input on what you think about Comcast I'm really interested especially about the school's interface because I understand you use Comcast for your cable TV services and for your internet right I believe so yeah okay tell me what you think

051and the responses are anonymized so it's not like a particular thing but from a professional standpoint from a personal standpoint we want your input on this sort of thing so you've gotten a copy of the uh the handout the press release that we set out it's been research on Parker Bridge hasn't shown up yet but let's say it's there and we're looking for input on this I also want to take at this point let's see I think when we have one of my members on the call Vince Carl said hey you might be enjoying there may be another member or team from our committee and we also have Cynthia Ray who's been the school designate to the peg access committee and I really appreciate Cynthia's help and guidance along this way or it was our

052destiny at one point and I appreciate his help as well okay now questions you don't have to give me all the info right now but please give it to us we're trying to gather it survey again is open May 1 to June 9. focus groups are May 10 and May 11th yes said when you're asking for feedback on Comcast are you talking about like when we as Citizens like watch the mmn network on our Channel whatever it is on Comcast or are you talking about to like um the internet service and that kind of like is it one or the other is it oh what are it's basically the cable TV cable TV experience but I watch uh I watched this this committee meeting over my internet connection right that's why they're connected that's why

053if I'm watching it like one of the page channels 8 9 or 99 and that's on podcasts on Comcast I can watch it in the TV I can also watch it on my laptop I'm using a Comcast right tab right I want all that information the more information the better you're getting to this critical and confusing distinction between the funding aspect that runs the pipe called Comcast and the delivery aspect called Minuteman media yeah which gets conflated pretty quickly yeah for the person who simply wants access for local media right um if I might um the 10-year contract is a contract between the town of Concord and Comcast Inc and it then is uh the source of the money that then is directed through this committee through the town manager to Minuteman media with a

054potential you know this better than I do instead of telecommunications lawyer um a Max of five percent now there was a day way back when when you could say Comcast we would like you to do this in our studio we would like you to buy us this equipment and we'd like this percentage off the off the top right now I think you're pretty limited to it's a percentage uh pretty much since people have pretty much been deregulated yes it's a money ask and uh Comcast comes in with an idea of what the market can handle because they're doing contracts everywhere all the time um and we're at what over four percent now 4.8 4.8 right which is very good yeah which is very very good I'll only offer up one opinion now which is what

055I've learned over 30 years of playing with this stuff is it's the caliber of the of the staff that makes the difference day to day as to what works I remember the delivery side of it yeah because once Comcast is done then the money is in place more or less depending on subscription subscription rates yeah I think I think it's a major break is who's out there serving us day to day which is I think where you've done an admirable job supporting the the professional staff over the last couple of years and I've intend to continue right in whatever capacity it possibly can now it's not just channels 899 it's all the Comcast channels and we want to get as much information and input as possible yes Alexa my next question is you know it's

056interesting because the cmlp internet service is so exceptional as a customer myself I don't like that club um that it has become so easy to cut that Comcast cord so to speak and I wonder from your perspective are you seeing we did this about five years ago now are you seeing a steady decline of concordians that are even using Comcast as their sort of cable interface if you will so I for example have no access to channels eight nine or I don't know um so I am Reliant totally on Zoom like if Zoom were ever to go away I wouldn't be able to watch a meeting live right so like it's interesting and I'm not suggesting that poor Peg means to start making con you know there's so many providers out there you couldn't possibly

057make the but but are you seeing a big decline of podcast users in the town no no thank you what's going on oh I'm an early adopter 1500 Broadband subscribers yeah to the uh the live plants Municipal Broadband we have about four thousand forty three hundred cable TV subscribers because we can afford it I wouldn't guess that because people want to watch sports if they really want to ask and a big part of our base is um uh folks over the age of 55 right have the large screen like the sit on the couch watch TV great um but there are there are other folks who are subscribers as well so anyway we're seeing a decline it's not a real but it's not yeah interesting it started to pick up pace but well I think

058it's 20 something so totally cut that camp of course they have a smart TV and they're done but part of it is also a Comcast also known as Xfinity has their strategy their bundling their their cable with internet yeah and you can get them all pretty cheaply so you pick us up when we cut one no no no Wireless so the Comcast has a lot of stuff in it but it's all fascinating yeah what's the number because that's I think people get the number the number the value of the 10-year contract oh well yes if you look at just the cable component it's about 60 million dollars over the 10-year period if you look at what rise over that height it's more like 200 million dollars over the 10-year period because that's Comcast cable plus

059and XFinity so it's a big deal it's a contract that's signed by the uh select board and our current contract expires April 21 to 2024. so we're in the leads assessment period now and compliance session there'll be a final report to the select board probably in August of this year where they'll say well here's what we found out from based on the input and here are the recommendations and from there the negotiation of the actual contract goes into the hands of the select board and the group that they designate to do the negotiations with our consultant one last thing we have an actual article one article number 42 it's Peg access for an article it's on account at this point but in it we're asking for an authorization of 537 557 as to how much

060we expect to expend this coming year for the peg Services part of that a big chunk of it 135 000 is to include the capital upgrade the Capital Equipment the teams and cameras apps done most of the rest of it is for salaries with videographers okay can I plug that there's still some needs in this room [Laughter] last minute why we don't have mmn here tonight yeah I gotta talk to some folks about that yeah are there is it is Comcast the only option are you for this contract like for this contract or are you talking to other people we have one contract and so we have a it's a non-exclusive contract if uh say Verizon wanted to come in they could but right now we have just one contract sometimes they have two sometimes

061have three table TV providers but we have just one is Comcast so any any cable provider who wants to provide Cable in our town would have you would have a contract with them [Music] Verizon is negotiating five-year term contracts and Comcast is doing 10-year term contracts so 55 acting just recently renewed uh both of theirs um so they're different terms I mean we're focusing on a 10-year contract uh we've been watching and preparing this for a couple years now so we're ready to go thank you all right and this brings us to our superintendent evaluation so thank you all for filling out your evaluations um and for the members of the public each one of us build out an evaluation of Dr Hunter and Sarah and Alexa um put them together and I'm going to

062turn it over to Alexa and I just hope Sarah's watching from over participating but I said she would Smile Smile yes acknowledge yes but I but yeah we appreciate it yes so again I'll Echo Tracy's thanks um the evaluation of the superintendent as you all know here at this table but for the public in case they don't is um one of our three uh Chief responsibilities in our role as school committee members um Sarah and I um collated all of the um individual evaluation we were able to average everybody's um uh evaluation into a summary rating and um as we did um two years ago in the evaluation from 2021 we chose for the comments instead of which prior to 2021 it had been practiced for the two individuals that were writing or compiling the

063summary report to sort of synthesize the overall themes um that you know all the individuals put in their comments um and two years ago we changed that and we put in undirect quotes so that there wouldn't be any interpretation this is these are the literal and exact words um of all of us that you will read here today without any um editorializing on the part of me or Sarah so um I will take us all quickly through Dr Hunter's um evaluation so the first step that um we do is we give an overall evaluation there are three uh sorry four categories Dr Hunter scored um an overall rating of proficient um which um we would hope and expect uh there are three subcategories sorry Court I'm still compelled to what I feel compelled to interrupt

064you say we expected um I would simply offer up also that proficient is a very high bar it's an masc makes that very clear that it might sound uh somebody might equate it with average uh that's not that's not what we're talking about here um and I think the best evidence is that the very goals in front of us and in front of the superintendent to hit proficient on goals that are that robust that significant um so forgive me for interrupting I don't want anybody to minimize what that means um because outside of this room would be very easy to misunderstand quite ordinary doesn't it thank you I'm sorry thank you I appreciate that clarification card I think it's a good one um as we evaluate the superintendent we look at four sub um groups

065four standards they are instructional leadership um Dr Hunter enjoyed a proficient um rating on that standard and I will go through these in a little bit standard two is management and operations this can be the boring day-to-day stuff you'll read we'll we'll highlight in a little bit things like well not boring or day to day but creating it um and um operations can also be some of the larger things or oh I guess it could oh I'm not even on Zoom oh yeah okay thanks Aaron can you pull up sorry about that not long enough um oh okay so we'll go through so I'm in step two here Aaron um where we have four standards uh that we evaluate the superintendent on these are the the big sort of chunks um like I said instructional

066leadership the superintendent enjoyed a proficient rating it's among only two in management and operations and I will take you guys through these in more detail she earned an exemplary rating in family and Community engagement and a proficient rating in professional culture overall if you go down to step three that earned her an overall rating of proficient um we when I look at some of the overarching themes um that we're sort of in the summary review um people really talked about um the fact that Dr Hunter enjoys tremendous amount of respect in the community she is often sought out by not just parents and teachers in her own building but many different Community groups they look to her for wisdom guidance and Leadership um and there is a great amount of respect and admiration in the

067community for that we also talked about you'll see in this and I won't I won't read it this is a publicly available document but um well there was a lot of discussion of um the fact that Dr Hunter really works hard with her team and in a large group of stakeholders to implement a vision and then once that vision is established there are many systemic or systematic um goals that kind of come under that and she does kind of for one of the better work knock through them pretty well um so between her vision and then the goals that follow them and the infrastructure to support them um we have a really compelling story here um in terms of what it takes to build a really compelling and strong District um and I think that

068was kind of the overarching theme that you'll see in the in the general comments as we scroll down um her goals which we Monitor and track throughout the year she provides us with a tremendous amount of detail of um she has met all of those which again is is tremendous and just sort of I think speaks to the organization and the dedication and the commitment to continuing to keep focused um attack those goals with um a lot of rigor and and again we're we're achieving them at every turn then we'll go into Instagram leadership again the superintendent enjoyed a proficient rating here I think I think the highlights here are that um we continue under Dr Hunter's leadership the tradition of academic excellence in Concord and Car Lab um we actually received um some really

069compelling data that was compiled by the superintendent and her team in discussing that um it was high school data um and I and I do think that's important because in addition to being able to continue on with that tradition that has been a long-standing tradition here in Concord that the community really frankly expects there's also been an expansion of what we what we are in Concord and which is sort of inclusive tolerant um you know really focusing on um other groups that um and those I think include like our diverse Constitution our diverse students with respect to race and sexual orientation and also neurodivergence so you'll also see that special education and the in the very narrow and laser focus on special education has been a strong suit of Dr hunters and I think one

070of the things that we highlight here is the Continuum Services into the middle school what we did notice um I did notice and it's in here as well as we continue those Services I think this committee hopes and expects to see more discussion of that how is it going how are we going to move into the high school as we continue these kinds of things um and I thought that was compelling and just to be something that's on your radar something that we're interested in bringing you to high school next year and as we move forward I think it's just part of what I think is important that we need and want to see um there were comments about our Equity audit um that I think were very compelling and then talking about the use

071of metrics whether it's about academics or about some of the equity work that we do that we'll be looking forward to seeing those again in the future I think this was um a year of establishing uh a lot of a lot of programs and services and then the following years will be about sort of evaluating and seeing how we're doing um additionally I think uh I talked about in the overall summary um the compelling story we have about you creating a really stable infrastructure and there was a comment that I thought was an interesting one about as we build this infrastructure with um the staff that you're putting together talking about um how those needs were established you know why were we picking these you know establishing new roles what the need was um they're

072at the expectations of those individuals and then how we sort of see those roles um becoming valuable moving forward um we can move on to management and operations um I think what's really interesting here is we talked a bit in this in this piece about the fact that the past three years have been fairly tumultuous um and managing an organization through um tumultuous times is not always easy and you you did it with a tremendous amount of level-headedness and um calm and Poise and and really sort of became the shepherd through that storm um again we talk about in this category everything from being this sort of mundane like a bell schedule and again but it's so complicated and you and um and again achieved it um building consensus with your team taking complex things

073making them look seamless another thing that was printed out was beyond boarded a new assistant superintendent of finance and operations this year um which has been you know very successful onboarded someone this year um so we appreciate your ability to quickly and um and smoothly establish a strong relationship with Mr Connery um so that um our work and as it intersects with your office has become um some very manageable uh you know again one of the things that was pointed out is um your diligence with respect to fiscal Prudence oh sorry um um you know I think that your your budget asks have consistently been below that of um your predecessor this year seemed to be an outlier although it was exactly almost exactly what we had predicted um and then there were some actually

074really good suggestions as we set our planning I think for August and September about how to sort of start the school year um I included those in this summary because I thought they were really constructive and also maybe to just keep a reminder for all of us to keep those um in mind as we move forward um then we go to standard three which is family and Communications you enjoyed an exemplary rating here I think that there is extraordinarily broad consensus that this is um what sets you apart as a leader your ability to um command the respect of the of all stakeholders in the town um and I think someone even wrote your singing the omnipresent in the community and I think that that kind of um sums it all up right there we

075have appreciated um your inclusiveness and your um responsiveness to all of our different stakeholders and Concord Carlisle and Boston um and the fact um that you have done an extraordinary job with the working with the homeless shelter that was done on a dime and I know it was mentioned before but um if you the the way that these DC PhD groups and the leadership team there talks about um how Concord really has been exceptional and very different um in how they have been what they've experienced in other towns but similar shelters um I think again is very and truly indicative of Dr Hunter's leadership um I think however what's interesting is oh we concluded with this you know as we as we move towards a trickier financial future here in Concord um we need to

076remain a new needs to remain very aware of trying to be ahead of issues um trying to ex you know continue to maintain the relationships that we have with the different town boards I think that is going to be extremely important um for you moving forward and making sure that you know we continue to hear those messages and react accordingly we'll move into standard four professional culture this was really focused on this shared Vision I think that that was probably a focused indicator because of our renewal of the five-year strategic plan um here we talk about um with respect to professional culture you have obviously an extraordinary team of building based leaders and administrators and extraordinary teaching team that it seems to be you know a group of individuals that work really well together under

077your leadership um everybody has a unified Vision they know what the vision is and they know that we are executing it um and they they understand support and are enthusiastic about that vision and I don't know how much of you guys read like the masc Twitter feed for example I don't think that that is common in all districts um um as you sort of look around different municipalities and and and school districts around the Commonwealth so I think at that in and of itself I think is fairly exceptional um your um deib efforts have been front and center this year um I think that is plain and clear for all to see I think we've made a tremendous amount of progress and we've talked about that um here as well I think that is a

078a great accomplishment the fact that you that we have brought together um different needs different um Community ideas about what the vision for the future hair will be um and that you you're always very inclusive with respect to listening and I think that that is um very very very appreciated um and again um we bring up here too you know as we look towards um continuing to collaborate with the disparate organizations and groups in town we're going to need to leverage those communication skills that you are exemplary in to make sure that um you know the professional culture and working together collaboratively continues um to be a success story um that about summed it up again it's all there for everyone to read and see I hope that you guys all were able to look

079through it and um I don't know if anyone wants to make any additional comments or has questions open the floor well I want to thank you for doing the work yeah thank you no no biggie I like doing this I love taking everyone's quotes and trying to make it sound like a single person exercise for me I don't I I actually enjoy it good weird like that I was struck with the way in which uh comments from quite a number of people got put together in such a way that it actually flowed when we all worked on it independently um I do hope Dr hunter that you consider this over time a useful feedback mechanism um to continue to guide you and your work here um over a dozen times we all reference data and

080metrics data and metrics data and metrics we didn't have any data in metrics here however to cite and so one of my hopes is that in a year from now we will cite some then Benchmark data and some now achievement data so that we can uh be a little more assertive about supporting the superintendent around real movement in specific areas um I I know that our survey work collects opinions and those are useful but when we do real decision making we need more than opinions from people and we need that idea of specific metrics that are called out here so many many times um on page six I'll note that one of my colleagues references wanting to see quote a little bit more information unquote about how we're assessing our students um I I would

081advocate for more than a little bit um I think this has to be a an emphasis uh on our part just as it is on Dr Hunters as we emerge from the uh the uh Trials of the pandemic um and on page eight uh a recommendation from a member it would be helpful for the school administration to begin the fiscal year setting expectations with the uh School committees about various budget topics and I would like to put a uh exclamation point on that I think it's more than helpful I think it's a necessary part of our role to be more engaged in the budget process than we have been this year my experience of the budget process this year was it was uh for me an up or down decision on a December recommendation that

082has remained unchanged then that is what it is but it's not a pattern I would want to repeat I would like to see a school committee be more involved in budget development and budget deliberation in the future than we we have been this year all in all however um I'm delighted that uh we're on a good path here and thank you for the work and thanks Sarah for the work character um I thank you Sarah and Alexa for pulling this together uh I think the real thanks is to Lori for um not just efficient I agree sounds average for just really extraordinary work over the last couple of years you've been a true leader for this community and um I know that it's at a great cost to you from sleepless nights and fires and

083pandemics and so many so much chaos um you have just been a steady leader at a time when we're watching so many things implode in communities all around us so um thank you thank you thank you and can we all be better and do we all strive to be better absolutely do we all as committee members um as students as teachers we all want to be better next year yes can we learn from some of this I hope so and get better together yeah but um thank you for all of your hard work [Music] I just want to be sure I mean I don't do anything alone like President Bob are here the others aren't but there's the depth of the team and by team it's the leadership team but then beyond that it's the

084circles of teacher leaders and then beyond that it's teachers and classrooms to Leon and it's parents and then the amazing kids like the systemic part's so important of why we are where we are and um so that's not an individual task but any stretch of the imagination and I think to Carrie's point I have had such a an eye this spring especially on other communities in the Commonwealth who just really just do not have what we have there is this unprecedented amount of superintendent turnover we don't have that um there's an unprecedented amount of turnover um in the leadership teams you have such a stable infrastructure and when I think of you know like putting it in a metaphor the foundation of this district is so strong um that you know the house that you've

085built is it's just so well made um and I and I I do I know I say this often to you like that that story isn't like the foundation of the house isn't very sexy or pretty or interesting but it's everything and um that to me personally is your story you're the foundation of the house and and you and your team are the foundation of the house and it just don't curious about the foundation that they should um and I and again I just think you know it's such a it's I think it's an app metaphor and um we are grateful for that and again especially when you look elsewhere we are enjoying the benefits of a very strong and stable Foundation here in Copper and Carlisle so thank you I said one thing to

086add um you know when I sat down to do mine I I sat down with all my papers because I needed a paper I knew the computer I needed it at all um and looking at all of your evidence that you brought to us and when you really clicked through it because I had to look at a paper and click through at the same time and looking through all of the links that you provided and everything else the evidence was all there I was hoping there was a category for just like exceptional because I do think our leadership was really been exceptional here um you know these standards of coefficient exemplary I mean proficient really is exceptional when you look at the masc standard I mean I would agree with court on that like completely

087like when we say proficient that really is exceptional work that it's done in this district and it is under your leadership and of course we do have to thank the leadership team that you work with so closely and that is evident every day when I was on the masc website today looking at 40 superintendent searches that have all gone on this year we're just fortunate that you are here with us and I really want to thank you for the time that you give to our kids to our districts for teachers to the staff and to the school committee because it's a lot of time and I just want to just publicly say that too so thank you for everything you've done and I work at education over the past three years I mean it has

088never been like this you have led through a storm a pandemic like what other words can we use I I don't know but I mean I really think that we have weathered that storm um and and we're better for it so thank you just texted me and said he's on Zoom he would like to make a comment if he I don't know if you're on screen Domingos sorry guys thank you I'm not on screen I'm not feeling too great today um but I just wanted to chime in on this point um great work team um for putting that together great evaluation uh as a new member to this body uh I just wanted to add you know Dr Hunter uh we appreciate the work that that you're doing um especially for the families here in

089Boston and the way that you are going about making the difference um as you can see you have two two family members um on the school committee um due to the work that that this district is doing to to push forward um equality we look forward to extending this relationship and building off of it so we can continue this for years to come we don't want it to be just a you know one or two one or two terms type thing we want to see this be embedded in concord's history um to be a Pioneer and something that's not being done across us across 33 different school districts where one of 33 who have Representatives on two levels to make sure that the voices are being heard so I wanted to just to say thank

090you I just got I'm just getting to know you um you've gone through so much uh on a personal level you know there's a there's an experience that you experience that no other district has dealt with and the way you went about it and the way you bringing other voices to the table and you being a leader that I can that I can represent and also respect uh and and I appreciate you know what you are trying to accomplish in any way that I can be an assistance to you as a person and as a parent not not as a board member but as a parent and a person I look forward to building that relationship because I do see the brighter days ahead of us and and like the uh Tracy said a second

091ago going through the pandemic that was something that was like heavy um the last time we we experienced something like this as a community was 1919 the Spanish Flu 100 years later we're in a space where technology has given us the opportunities to expand communities so I just wanted to say I look forward to this uh upcoming 23-24 season and any way I can help please reach out I'm sure we're going to talk about that itself at some point but your participation here has been really amazing and important absolutely and can I just add yeah everyone has said everything um so they've taken all the words very quietly very authentically thank you right so all right now I want to thank you Dr Hunter we are going to move on to our assistant superintendent update

092from Mr Connery so he had some questions from our last meetings we're just going to review some of that yeah so um but our last meeting in um at Medco headquarters there were some questions on the um the budget transfers for ccrsd um so I'd look into those and just wanted to report on them first question related to an adjustment to other District administration we had initially budgeted uh 98 000. I'm just going to run to thousands that's okay uh 98 000 changed to um other District administration and that was for a Medco position uh we restructured mecco position it did result in net addition to to Staffing but in the general fund we no longer have it budgeted so the favorable adjustment to remove it from the budget is the restructuring I do the

093restructuring of the Medco support um the curriculum directors uh piece was due to in large part to Contract Services for diversity Equity inclusion uh forty thousand um within the curriculum director's lines there's also some supplies and materials lines multiple lines that we had to spend some additional funding for but the bulk of that 74 000 increase was her Dei Contract Services um the other two items that I ever calls I had notes that Sarah had asked about were the counselor and the school psychologist um so the the guidance position did increase that was to backfill her school psychologist that was hired to film as dean of students through the restructuring of the main office principal's office in support so the guidance increase was to backfill for the school psychologists and psychologists decrease those two have

094this school psychologist fill in as dean of students for this school year those were the main items I had notes on there was an additional couple I'll comment on the medical therapeutic services line 2320 increased that was to fund the speech language pathologist to complete the Staffing for the language-based program at the high school [Music] and I think those are the ones that I recall questions on [Music] I don't recall I don't have notes that there were questions on the CPS side yeah I think Sarah has a good questions online sorry go ahead Sarah just have a question about going forward with this guide with the psychologist adjustment like next year with this new the the new um vice principal and the dean of student new new positions there right uh are like where are

095we going to be in terms of the psychology like the psychologist Staffing right because so basically we're sort of we're we're sort of short one psychologist but the psychologist was the dean of students and so not really short one uh is there a plan to fill that position or good question so she's going to slide back to the position that she had um because we've hired external candidates for the assistant principal ships so we will be fully staffed in Psychology um that said there's a lot of discussion of kind of how we're allocating psychologists and counselors and I think we'll be excited to bring you more updates on that given the needs of the kids but she's going to slide back to where she was before she stepped into the main office and just a

096reminder all that initial shuffling happened was because we were without a high school principal uh at least you know very Suddenly at the beginning of the year so we're really grateful to Christina Johnson for her willingness to step up and serve in the in the office and she's going to go back and do great things in the psychology as well do we do we then have a Dean opening so there'd be two assistant principals Dean two principals so the dean goes away again yes I think we had an update on it it's just renamed as assistant there's assistant principal Student Life assistant principal of curriculum and instruction and two co-present schools so still four bodies it's just a different title thank you then we had talked in a prior meeting we're working on identifying um

097ways to pay for the one incremental position and we've identified some now but we'll share that when we have more complete information right all right any other questions for Bob all right which brings us to budget transfers and and Bob's going to help me with this too so I've done a little research since her last meeting um on how different School committees are doing budget transfers I've been touched with masc I've been in touch with their chairs group and what I've learned is we're all kind of saying the same thing but um we're doing it a little differently so historically we have and anyone can jump in and correct me if I'm wrong but we do an end of the year kind of cleanup of the budget some other plate we always get there that

098they I like to call it the subject formerly known as parents reports or quarterly reports so we have the quarterly reports where we're seeing adjustments now some school committees see adjustment slash transfer some seek transfer our category says adjustments so I think that there was probably some confusion in our last meeting but I do think we're all in agreement this is part of our role so now the question is how are we going to roll this up so we are now in the third quarter um we are going to have to clean everything up at the end of the year and we're going to have shake a vote at the end of the year which will likely happen in June so where do we kind of stand right now do we want to start July

0991 making this a process for our committee so we'll do our cleanup in June and July 1 every quarter we're going to see it from Bob Bob Bob and I well Alexa Bob Lori and I had some discussion about if we want that line to say adjustment slash transfer do you want to say transfer first I think we're just looking for some Clarity and some consensus amongst the room but I do think we're all actually in agreement it's just a bunch of how we're gonna do it going forward so certainly if anyone has any opinions or thoughts on that I will just open it up Alexa so our fiscal year opens July 1st right so in theory if like we would vote the transfers on you know October is that right so we would have

100a quarterly report July August September October in October is this or or the end of September like but it would be in October for the three months of July August September so we would vote in October like in the first meeting of the year which sometimes changes there at that first meeting right well right obviously okay then again in the first meeting in January right yeah April okay [Music] we shared and at the last school committee in June we shared uh where we were and then when you go through the end of the year and you're closing out POS and you have balances there's things that shift we would do the first school committee meeting when uh school committee came back in August we had them both the final numbers which could potentially be typically

101we're different from the end of June not by a lot but um you just needed to have the final numbers signed off yeah but for the region we need to vote e and D is part of the budget process so but then we need to post it out before July 1st there's no no we don't by July 1st we EMD gets certified through our after we close no but if we have no extra money in our fiscal your budget okay so we need if it's going to be over five percent that we need to figure something out before it'll get returned to the towns in the assessment or I would just we would know it we would forget I mean the transfers that we bring you in June which is where you've been that's formalized

102about it for sure um is to address right or any of that so we are transferable yeah I'm not trying to right talking about the same thing yeah right and I think it's just been even when I talk to other school committees about it um like I talked to Sudbury for example they and Tracy come and do this exact thing in Sudbury so Sudbury they really wanted to formalize it so her entire presentation was on and I can share it with you guys a lot of it was on um transfers and how to make this happen and how to do votes she shared with me motion language so it's really just us we need to really formalize how we're going to do this because we're all looking for the same thing and I'm definitely open

103to ideas as to how we started when we started everybody has different opinions on that there's no broad consensus of the best way to do it when we're looking to kind of start it properly so I posed a question I actually and I'll put you on I'm like what do you think you know because I do think that you know are we doing it now are we doing it starting next year starting with July 1 and we just close out our year in June to make it cleaner or are we going to vote the quarter three of course yeah I believe we should keep it simple uh I believe we don't really have a choice about exercising some modest amount of fiscal oversight I think quarterly is about as modest as you can get um

104I don't think that's a big stretch I don't think quarterly is unusual I don't think it's so difficult but it has to be postponed uh I don't think this school committee or other school committees have used the budget scrutiny as an exercise to uh um what cause difficulties for the district um and nor do I anticipate that happening um I think that the end of year takes whatever time it takes we used to say around here that June 30th is the longest day of the year because uh you know it takes minimally two weeks and a good year to close everything out um so I think these numbers are ready when they're ready ready but I believe that quarterly is a minimal expectation and if anybody uh is what more as a more critical eye

105on the money than this school committee does um well and good they're entitled to it I think they too would want to see at least a quarterly and I think and I think and I think I think if we do less than that then we ourselves aren't close enough to our own budget to really claim any sincere sense of responsibility for it um a normal practice because we do view the quarterly variance reports already so we're just talking about codifying our interaction with it correct I concur with that completely and and again I think you know a lot of I think of this like a lot of that we didn't have a budget Workshop till February but I think of so much of the work that we did in like August September even until October

106was about trying to establish infrastructure you know how important that is from the superintendent's evaluation in our own committee and best practices that will out live and Outlast the the seven and nine of us at this table um and so I think this is a necessary part of that um and I certainly would um I would seek to adopt this and again sort of like I think Sarah said it perfectly codify the practice that we're doing and just formalize it um and again I like this October January April last um meeting in June as a schedule I think that would be my proposal to adopt that for next year I think that's again Tracy know because very clearly articulated its best practice I am very interested in ensuring that this committee abides by masd best

107practice so I really I'm I'm in favor of this all around yeah care did you have something dude I thought you were just no it's redundant at this time yeah it brings us to a vote on the agenda um of anything I just really wanted to have this discussion because I think it's important it's important that we all realize that um from a communication perspective because that is one of our school putting goals this year that we are all actually talking about the same thing and we're all in agreement and I just you know it might not have sounded that way I think at our last meeting but I think that we're we're all in agreement on this so um we can look to make this our best practice we vote on our quarterly transfers

108and I'm gonna you know Bob I don't know if you prefer adjustment adjustment slash transfer in that column does anyone understand really have a preference that column is currently named adjustments we're going to approve whatever the problem says if we understand it and I'm sure we will yeah yeah and are you suggesting in your that will you start this up July 1 is that the recommendation at this point or immediately I'm Gonna Leave It to the video I think it's made a decision with what we're going to do is there anything messy about doing it late in the game like I don't know I have no idea if if now is when we're catching on to this is best practice then let's catch on I don't think it's changing to all of them doing is

109adding a motion and analyzing but I think we should do to our next meeting I really don't like voting on things right not on the agenda which is awesome that's great so I just wanted a discussion here yeah um I will add as an action item and we'll um old school committee because the next meeting yes no well and I think Cindy you bring up a good point I think you know again going back to oh do you mean Carlisle right um going back to what I said about creating a really strong infrastructure that outlasts the individuals at this table that is of best practices that again outlive and Outlast us you know I think one of the and going back to sort of what you said even about not wanting to take a vote

110this evening I think last week did remind me of the fact that one of the protocols and Norms I don't remember which practices protocols is is this Spirit of no surprises so I think it it really is important when any of us have concerns or suggestions um or ideas it really is imperative that we share them in advance of the meeting because you know we always are trying to show to the public our best but um in this case this is something we all agreed upon but because it was such a surprising you know thing that no one had planned on it it you know it creates confusion in the meeting so I think this was a is a good case study that reminds us to go back to those best practices and our practices

111and protocols to make sure that um you know when you have a suggestion as a school committee member um just alert the chair um if you have a question just ask the chair and and we can work that kind of thing out in advance so that everyone can be prepared um in the meeting and I would say sorry and I would also say that if um like Carrie today said you left the policies off the agenda if there's something that you don't see on the agenda absolutely alert us and we will update the agenda but if there's something you want to see you know send it quite like that what did you want to did you want to yeah did you watch them and we were like oh my gosh look at Tom and he

112gets a little busy so I appreciated the reminder are open to feedback suggestions additions to the agenda because they're you know home tonight start that next agenda yeah so all right so I'm going to close that out so that that includes budget transfers surprise like we've talked I know it's pain it doesn't hurt it doesn't hurt I swear talking I just don't have a voice um on this topic like saying that this is a Learning lesson right this is a conversation that I think we've had on and off over the past year like there was we had a question about it almost exactly a year ago as I remember like and we talked about it with rmasc um Liaisons so I think something to think about going forward is uh when the topic that's important

113comes up like if we have conversations that we that are in fits and starts right how to track them a little better you know because I mean I understand that like it was a surprise in the meeting but in the sense of like if you look at the whole year it's not like oh session come from right like so there's that which is just a it's just something to learn to navigate I think yeah and I it did force me to look into some other school committee documents Valley School committees because that's like my other favorite thing to do and um Sudbury has a great document that has like every vote that they've ever taken like they do it twice a year so within six months you're all the votes we've taken there were there's

114a column of and I think they probably used the picked up chart which I'm gonna look into that but Allison Wiki said because it looks lovely so they have all their votes they have looking um other items that have come up and you see it all in one place so it's very public facing so it's a good reminder to keep it on your mind when you're creating an agenda so thank you for that all right I'm Gonna Keep moving on because we have a few more things to do tonight as you can see so yeah so item e review of the Concord County article article 16 which Hunter and to your Bob to just do a quick really this is to show you a preview of the slides the content hasn't changed because the regional

115budget was settled months ago and it hasn't hasn't changed since so we just wanted to be sure you get to see it preview of the size either the slides used at the public hearing and Concord um so there's not really anything particularly new here we just didn't want you to not see them before Sunday um so I think it's as simple as that yeah the font size might need to change okay any questions or comments on the regional side so uh chapter Revenue I think people are going to want to hear about if there's changes if it's the same uh what are we expecting Chapter 70 70 71. well I guess that's a question since nothing's formally right but done at the state level um it's not bad news 71 70 won't be bad 70

116won't be any news uh 70 is pretty much not going to change from what we say 71 potentially is good news but not guaranteed and then um are we planning for expecting shelter expenses or revenues to being impacted by 24. well so yeah it's evolving obviously um the most recent information we're going to get the per pupil subsidy we're eligible to start filing for that in June and it'll go back to March when the kids first on board Adventure Transportation uh there's 100 reimbursement is holding in all of the budget drafts the timing is going to be the problem um so that there's been no change to that but right now it's still a year out so I'm staying very close at their request with Jesse and Simon Patel though and anyone who will listen

117about the need for the first it's more processed than intent like the 100 money seems to be sticking it's how they the timing of the money and when they get it to us so we're not outboarding hundreds of thousands of dollars and then waiting for reimbursement years later and the addition additional admin FTE you you've said to us already there's no budget impact right we're still wearing will give us more detail yeah but it's not a surgeon this time of year all the ftes even at the teaching level because we I don't know zero base is exaggerating it but we we have we place staff in sections based on kids so we actually will have ups and downs to ftes so somebody might be 0.75 this year and they'll go to 0.5 next year or

118vice versa um so we're in the thick of all of that and then we'll be sure that any anything we can't save within the FTE is through attrition or class consolidations or whatever else we're already looking at other spots because enrollment is fairly well known with Concord and Carlisle but there's some changes that you can't predict but they're not significant eventually right right okay and I do think we could consider writing another advocacy letter to try and get funding um sooner like that might be help if that's helpful to you yeah you can't start doing that at some point like from the school committee just to try and and I'm still working through who's who we're advocating with most specifically now that the funding seems pretty solid is the audience deci it does okay that

119would be helpful and as soon as you can identify someone I think collectively okay um okay anyone else on the regional budget oh okay logic cell phone tower very exciting news Bob oh sorry yeah uh can we just reaffirm when are we meeting Sunday these are the high schools yeah I think we should call to order at noon I think you based on this conference meeting you're gonna have tonight I think is going to determine that we usually meet we've met historically like in the learning Commons it like not to be so like specific it takes some time to oh are we in the gym now are we on the lawn or in the gym oh gym okay so it's much easier I just remember the covered days when we were walking up to the

120term so yeah okay but I still think possibly noon we should look forward or gonna go to the cafeteria for lunch yeah right you were there yes yeah so I think that we should go to the learning Commons if Dr Hunter could book the school or I could book it if you want let me just book it you know thank you um so learning Commons and we have no budget for lunch we'll bring your own lunch thank you good thank you I just want to note I won't say this on Sunday but Sunday is my daughter's fourth birthday so I will be there as much as I can but I am not gonna stay for the whole week okay here I'm gonna know something else so I'm celebrating my oldest daughter's on 23rd birthday Sunday

121evening but I did hear last night and correct me if I'm wrong is that no no business will be taken up after 5 30. okay um I have a 6 30 reservation and the attend the intent is to close time meeting at six o'clock and then it would continue on to Monday okay should I add to your birthday meeting on my birthday which I have done in the past so my gift is Saturday do they have a order of Articles uh they just want to March through them I think they're just gonna play today calendar I haven't heard it there's no timed articles this year there are a bunch of consent articles um needless to say but nothing time no no high interest for the particular time no so go back on the posting for

122Sunday to post for a joint meeting we need to need to share course Sharon or Sarah and we'll clarify sure so you can go to your birthday party yes yeah yes but it is good to publicly say that it's your daughter's birthday because then people don't think you're rude when you walk out okay I just don't yeah family first okay all right I'll move on to cell phone tower yep all right so uh Bob and I along with Tim from facilities did a walkthrough of the um high school campus of two areas that they have well they're on the back there are three areas there are potentials for a cell phone tower but third we all decided it's really not feasible at all at all and even Verizon 75 peaceful so we met with Horizon

123we if you can Envision kind of if you had someone run across country in those woods in the back or there's a practice field there's a lacrosse ball like that Grassfield um the area it really abuts almost route two and my husband voted for that he said look to the map you said that's where it's going yeah that's where it is so the the like the cross behind the ball yes right there he's gonna be pretty excited he should be really excited so so we learned a few things um I I know a lot more about cell phone Paris and probably I did earlier this year if you'd like to see one what it's going to look like I suggest you they're a six cell phone towers in Concord but drive by the one at

124the Middlesex school campus and you will see it um it is down by like their skating Lake we took a little ride by I actually have some pictures so it is like if I get above the tree line like 125 feet box 129 is the number I remember 129. I don't know why it's nine but so you picture where those trees you're going to see it so it's going to be really clear you're going to see it to use the top of it it is um there is a um we have file for variance with the town because it is a little bit under the thousand feet of the school building and the only other thing that I am just going to bring up that I think that we should talk about is well well

125first of all the priority is safety for our kids on the campus and for anyone visiting the campus because there is no cell reception there have been medical emergencies there have been mental health emergencies certain bus issues all sorts of things happen outside of the school building where there is no landline so I just I need to say that again safety is the priority on that campus will it provide the coverage so you're looking for all the way on the other side of the campus so um I asked the question will they have coverage inside the school building in also outside yes absolutely the whole campus will have it because it's a big giant cell phone Tavern it's just called what is the reach you told us he told us but the thing is in

126a tripod not necessarily in select board last night said they don't even want tricon mentioned because there's no contract yet there will say that they're in process and Verizon let us know that they're right right and just there's no contract as of last night select board decided if in a month they have an executed plan a that you just described the town will go to its Plan B they didn't divulge that either but it's public but it's public property somewhere yeah so now to my knowledge my knowledge now this was a few years ago was the thought of where the current solar farm is across from that was a possibility for a cell phone tower um I don't know if that's been investigated since that time but I was wondering if we could maybe ask

127the select board or the town manager as a school Community like we have a safety issue at our high school and we're investigating this at the high school but could we ask them to look again and maybe Advocate as a committee to look again at that spot to get us coverage up our house this one with whatever they're playing or Plan B is because that's a little bit of a difference yeah I think it should be coordinated and I just I really think that we're going to generate a little bit of Revenue it's not much not enough yeah it's not enough to be a factor I thought it might be but all I really care about is safety on that campus and um you know we've had people write into us about safety I I

128brought some things to you about you know investigating like they have on college campuses like blue lights which are like outside landlines I'm not sure that we can even do those because you need cell phone coverage for that so like we're just investigating other options of what can we do right now because we were asked by a member of the community what are you going to do right now so what is the timeline so it's it's going to take a year to 18 months if we were to go forward and the RP goes out and Verizon bids on it they get awarded it they said other people will probably not bid on it because we don't want to pay a thing to them they do it all um they don't need to put and Bob

129if I miss anything just feel free to jump in they don't need to put asphalt down they can put something that we can use here in Concord that will not um yeah it won't be impervious yeah so it's of no cost to us but it's a benefit to our campus I mean I know just to say what you all know you know this has been a top concern of mine and policing Fire Chiefs for my entire tenure which was six years now yeah and it's something's got to happen yeah it's great that we've started to exercise what might be within our purview I think a town conversation makes sense again to see where they're at so our eyes has been clear you need two towers to get this right because one on our campus should

130it be doesn't cover downtown and vice versa so reconnecting with them they've been staying engaged at a less formal level while they talk with them and we talk with them and whoever on stock but then probably time to yeah sync back up before definitive plans I don't want to be alarmist but it'd be very nice to have this in place before 2025. oh I want it in place as soon as possible you said two years um 2025 is an attack so our infrastructure and I think that's the number of the year that a lot of people are thinking about so um well how do you think of the Town what like who's who does that so I we've stayed in a very informal level there's a couple of people on Carrie the floors team that

131have been doing some of this discussion with Verizon but again I think it's been very low level because they it's all these moving pieces so I think a more formal discussion with maybe that was Carrie and the select board whether it's chair to chair or whatever way to make it happen yeah I think the chief concern would be to the best way to do this would be to coordinate so that the coverage is not applicative and it gives you as much breadth of coverage as possible you know there's there are sort of two issues one is the breadth of coverage right like the the area and then the other thing is like for lack of a better way to put the depth of coverage like when you have density in town you need you know

132yes you need a lot of coverage um and then you talk about 2025 and more more useful in the town um so I think that coordinating with the select order Town manager Whoever has the purview um would be wise because you know we want to make sure that we get it right and and and it could be that the campus is not the most optimal place for it it could be um for example as Tracy mentioned the where the solar energy we try to talk about I don't know if you remember the difference and I also think it's like it's a different time the world is different the safety needs or different uh schools are ubiquity I think that it's worth investigating it with the town and maybe we start with like a meeting uh

133and want to reach out to the chair do we think that's why we reach out well the other thing is the downtown putting it downtown which was rejected seven years ago as you said a different time because you could potentially see the cell tower from Old North Ridge I think we should be very public about it yeah um because you know there will be some people who aren't thrilled and so you know we've already heard we've heard it a little bit we've heard a little bit but I think that I'm hearing more from people and and I do have kids at the high school you know I'm hearing more from the safety perspective the high school I can't get in touch like it I was actually in the high school signing diplomas and my kid

134was sick and um I didn't get a phone call I was literally in the building and I was like but this is classic like the nurse is calling like I can't you know and even when you're it didn't matter now I will say Verizon did say we will have coverage in the building as long as there are windows in the building there should be coverage in the building the only case where that's difficult and challenging is in the cafeteria you get those cell phone motels but it will be better we have landlines the outside is is really we need something we don't want the kids on the phone yeah well but I will say the thing that has changed significantly at the high school is uh kids are required for their cell phones they have

135a computer in their classroom all day long so I think that it's easier to put the computer away than uh yeah yeah but but the cell phones literally sit on the number on it works out it works and they're doing it the high school so good kudos to them all right so that's cell phone tower and then we'll just so stay tuned hi yes sir in the interim um is there like how often do we ever do like audits on the coverage of our modems right just to see if it's worth it you know where the ranges break up because I know on the communications I have with my kids it's really like hit or miss on different if I can get through to them on a where they are and can I get through

136on WhatsApp or can I get through through a text message or can and so it may be that you know for now for some of that outside piece or something if you if we do some kind of audit of where the range is going um and there might be holes that can be filled in just uh to talk with you these are poor I.T Team every time I complain goes back out they try to add another um responder sort of thing they're looking at it now they've added a couple outside to try to push Wi-Fi as far out as we possibly can they can't they can't boost the sell signal that isn't there that's how they right in the lay person way they say it to me Glory there's no signal in the booth but

137they are trying to boost the Wi-Fi as far as they can because most phones in a wi-fi people so there's one now and the score tower on the field which none of us know is enough so they're checking on that one they've done a couple outside we had a big issue with a student and I complained loudly and they put a few more out it's never going to be enough but I'd love to have them I think next time we talk I think they helpful for you to hear their efforts to figure out what they have yeah we're working at that yeah yeah because don't they also sell like sell boosters I remember when when my daughter was in Middle School she did a science fair project because Carlisle's signal is so bad she made

138a homemade cell phone booster like out of metal and stuff that she put in the highest point in the house to recently we went through like State science fair for this but then it turns out you can actually buy these things too is what we found I don't know if it's something viable for the school at all but I know a number of families in Carlisle actually have like cell phone boosters that they buy that increases the signal within the house okay so more to come on the cell phone tower potential because they're doing that right now yeah right so I don't know how fast to you throughout the spring because I do think now is our time and if we were to do something like the blue lights that does cost more money so

139that is mine um but we're gonna have to talk about that when do you think we will discuss this again again well I think we'll just keep putting it on the agenda um so today our next meeting in May the 9th if we have anything new to update you on the night who will Verizon is willing to come here and present to us sure so if somebody could just do a little Google Earth where you think it's going to go approximately that's in did you guys get that and the reports that we sent did we send that do we pull forward no I don't think so of where the spots were I thought I sent the three spots all right I'll forward it to you yeah because they do have that they have exactly where

140they would place it there one spot is better than that because it doesn't disrupt the cross country course either at all but do any of the other spots are they close to property no no two are in those woods advice next to the grass field up above one might smoke the other day they're into that cross country spot which we don't want to do um so the other one doesn't impede it at all they have to be a certain distance from the railroad tracks back too far good I did ask about a stealth Tower which they did not want to do which to make it look like a little tree on the top yeah and they will not do that why maintenance everything else and it keeps telling it's not possible but I just keep

141asking every time we meet with them middle food but dry you know if you see the one on Route 2. you think about it yeah a little better and Middlesex you'll see um in Middlesex just got sick of it they were like our kids are living here and yeah no service yeah I want to keep track um all right mental health Forum so we had that is on our goals for this year is to do our mental health form given the fact that it is April and we had one day available that I think we had to save the date it would be my recommendation to move this to September I do not think we're gonna we're gonna have a robust enough discussion about it I think we could really take more time in planning

142it and to really say like okay we everybody's talking to the Mental Health crisis what are we going to do about it and to really talk about what are some things that we're doing within our schools to do that and the best time really to do that is in the fall so we're not going to meet that goal this year if we move into the fall but it would be my recommendation to move that to the ball because I just don't think we have enough time to get the word out there to you know April vacation comes at a time that we would have to put it out there right now and then it would just be kind of like a it would be a crisis in and of itself exactly it would be a

143bad look to pull it out I don't think you're going to get engaged that's my bigger concern yeah and it is important we all agree it's important we agree that's the topic but you know even our coffees we didn't have a huge showing at our coffees it's one of the good entries to a school year um I would hope we consider so if we aren't going to have it though I think we still need to work on planning it oh yeah Mental Health crisis but around mental Wellness for the year ahead yes I think it's also like packaged as like back to school resources that could be I also you know I another thing we were just um at the ptg presidents meeting High School just did a speaker series um I I worry that

144we're we're just in a a mix of too much like you said and to get the engagement that we think this topic deserves the timing just seems kind of bad and you know what we take ownership of that and to Cynthia's point I think we could we do better starting today about making sure it's properly planned and promoted and we make a schedule for that promotion and so that parents are getting the engagement Tracy's point I think October might be too late you don't want to interfere with the start of school I happened to like the last week of September I think that's people are still enthusiastic about the school year you still feel like you have that um turning over a new Leaf kind of vibe going and you're going to be your best

145self um but it's not too late I you know so anyway and Sarah was trying to say something yeah when we talked about similar things uh the adult and Community Edge for the uh can we talk Series in the fall one this was one of the ideas that we were kicking around we were using phrases like work life balance and finding your passion rather than like saying like Mental Health crisis more spin it on like you know mental hygiene right like mental health like how to not as a crisis but as an opportunity for growth kind of thing so it was like really focused on like work you know your your work-life balance and and finding your passion and how that all develops your satisfaction and uh equilibrium cool all right so again the planning

146is beginning today and if you have any ideas certainly send them our way we'll keep this you know kind of on the agenda um yeah I wonder just to to your point about on agenda Cynthia's point about moving it should reticent to volunteer but I'm wondering could two members kind of own this for a little while to keep it moving yeah and where we are so Reliant upon the school also I think that would have to be to work with and I'm sorry to put you on the spot but Mrs Anderson over there to kind of make this all come together and have the partnership um together I think that's a good idea yeah the team is ready it was a guidance counselor for reach level Elementary Middle uh talking about uh how you had

147been the school uh you think about volunteers are dealt with um but shared the concern showing up because there's so much going on right right so do you feel like um you would like support from a couple of our members like sure to flush that out yeah what what exactly is the topic yeah and then how does it complement what is happening for other sub audiences so to speak yeah and the change of year looking to the school year ahead seems really well yeah I think sometimes yeah yeah okay all right so um why don't I let everyone think about that and if you would like to participate in that group with Mrs Anderson please just let me know via email so that way you can think about it before putting anything around the spot

148in the meeting to say yes I have the time for this just think about your time it would probably be like this spring into September we'll need some social media postings Etc but I'm sure Melissa can help us with that yeah yeah okay and I'm going to move this on to Kerry uh the second reading of our policies which we have seen all of these uh at our last meeting not our last meeting yeah was it our last yeah in Boston and our Boston meeting we saw these they run a ton of uh real updates so I'm going to turn it over to Carrie to just lead us on this discussion yeah I've already walked through one by one on all the policies so really this is just an opportunity we've all kind of walked

149away from it is there any feedback before it is on the agenda tonight to vote on so is there are there any last minute questions or feedback so just remind me about evc-s what are we doing next okay hold on let me know the first one that's so good the pandemic so we're removing it okay that's it and all the others we are adopting masc which are comparable to our own but pleased up and David Davis explanation then vast majority let me just make sure yes that the others we are adopting we are recommending we have recommended that we adopt the masc version most of them are unchanged it's just updating the date reviewed the left hand column this implies that they all exist in a it's their current forms right now there's no additions

150here correct got it thank you foreign [Music] School committees um adopt the updated policies as outlined in the agenda uh CBI k l g k l i k l k l a l b l b c and LDA and remove the uh interim policy on covid uh entitled ebc-s and the second second any further discussion okay for this and we're gonna have to take a roll call vote because Sarah is on Zoom so roll call booze Anderson Iver both eye for both rainiac for both Rank and I for both region simple agent thank you Sarah it's been a long time oh God we could have continued without you but I appreciate that you stayed this whole time we're glad that hurts us more than you um initial action item which would be to approve staff

151members requests to enroll their children in Concord public schools and conquered Carla retail School District to to staff looking to know their children one high school teacher and one Alcott team trying to have it open but yep that's my number yep that's exactly who it is I moved at the Concord and conquered Carlisle School committee's Vote to approve the following staff requests to enroll their children in Anchor Public Schools Concord Carlisle Regional School District for the 2023-2024 school year and that the tuition be waived an Alcott teacher child to enroll in third grade cchs teachers child to enroll in the third grade success Cynthia seconded and any discussion any roll call please Anderson Randy after though Rank and I for both with ice region Wilson and I for region during the uh Concord Carlisle school

152committee thank you so much for coming Sarah thank you for staying with us the whole time no there's no insurance no adjournment okay Noah germ is that's the one thing I was thank you foreign welcome back everybody we are now discussing the bulk actually the entirety of our meeting is dedicated to um the three potential parties um on at Sunday's 10 meetings so uh we never did the courtroom we left yeah we ran out of time so I will need some time to take a stream thank you for that um okay so um as we did with article 17 if you would take us through quickly the slides that you intend to present at 1080 for article 17. you should have started the slides of the State of the Union uh either or um let's

153just say has anything changed yeah no no okay so maybe we don't feel the need to review them I think if we've all seen them next time we can move into this sort of State of the Union um report you were on last night I think it was just you that I saw um so in and so at last night's select board meeting um made a presentation to the select board talking about the fact that um an accounting error was uncovered late last week that um demonstrated that the town's budget was overstated by about a little more than 500 000 um so the allocation um what their guideline was higher um but because it had been discovered so late um Sherry did not feel she had a sufficient time to do the necessary work to

154reallocate that money before so her recommendation was that they were simply going to remove [Music] um 515 I think it was 1000 meters from their operating budget so reducing and I also did you say if you're looking on the paper agenda that's not your most up-to-date agenda the most activated one is um yeah it says you guys all an email this afternoon with letter and say that we'd also update the internet did declare this was their error they uh understand that um without uh casting any blame they did explain it but uh the town has tier one capital and operating together and there was some double counting by some new people that Carrie didn't catch and she knows that that lands in her um I think this was discovered Thursday yeah and then they got

155right to work so that by Monday night they had their solution which was to uh recognize that the fincon guideline number was erroneously inflated and uh didn't ask for the same time to bring the number down just assumed that the number was now corrected um so the fincon weighs in Thursday night and of course they haven't even met from the so as you said the United request name gets reduced in the 2015 I mean so I sent so it might have so everybody does everybody kind of who wasn't there and understand the sort of play of the land and consensus that with court and Michael said it's accurate good so in light of that um I said to you all we put together um letters today that I I whipped up this afternoon I am

156wondering if there is insurance in um talking to finance committee advocating I guess well formally um to see if you know they've always talked about them sort of paraphrasing from the letter when they advocated for a smaller guideline for the CPS budget we're asking seven percent clear recommending three they've always stated and I think they've been really excellent in their Clarity with their messaging that their Chief concern is the physical 24 impact so given that you know the overall ask of the taxpayer when you combine the finance uh sorry the Chinese budget the CPS and other aspects of the budget would be reduced by 515 000 and given the current Delta between our budget and the finance committees request is about 580 funds and that would if you applied those moments which again yeah um

157that would leave us with about seventy thousand dollars to close the delta what I'm asking of this committee is it is a two-pronged question I suppose number one would be do we have interest in communicating to the finance committee that urging them to re-examine our budget in light of this new information one and two um if we were to come to consensus that that's an advocacy position we would want to take do we as a committee and you as a superintendent and really as an assistant superintendent agree that seventy thousand dollars is a reasonable reduction to our budget that could be achieved so again I think those are the two questions that we want to ask ourselves and discuss today if that makes sense is that clear your articulation Gary um so when you sent

158all this I tried to find the video but it's not okay so in that and I just have a couple of paragraphs so um on did the select board discuss I know Carrie said in the email that we said that she didn't officially say how we should allocate that money but did it come up did our Gap come out and then what headed back later on but they voted again they voted to reaffirm their commitment to the position yeah but yeah so trivia so well well it was interesting I don't want to speak for Matt Johnson but it seemed like Matt Johnson was trying to position the conversation to say is this is this relevant and would we like to re-examine our previous vote there are two reasons he wanted to re-examine if one was

159um the absence of Select board member Linda Escovedo at the original vote where they voted three to one in favor and then I think secondarily again without trying to put words in that minutes now I I viewed his discussion last night and the way he's advancing the discussion that he thought this could be relevant if they so chose to discuss it they did not the vote was Sharia and the vote ended up reaffirming the finance committee CBS yes and then so last time I thought it was created one so there was no discussion around how to allocate this money no generally whether it was us or no because again Kerry Stadium it wasn't considered new money to allocate it was considered a cut in the line item request and um here is the code here's

160what I'm getting yeah um I would be careful about assuming Mr Johnson's uh uh intentions because I think it was actually another member he repeatedly said it wasn't that who said Linda wasn't here does she want to weigh in and that's when it was changed from three to one Matt do you want to weigh in I see your hands yeah I think I might well so yeah um I was not connecting uh the reduction in the town budget to any you know reconsideration of the uh guideline versus uh the requested amount for the Concord Public Schools but what I was trying to reopen the discussion about was that there was a member that had been requesting a lot of information related to the the historical percentage of spend for the schools versus the town and

161the question of whether the town's percentage you know had been decreasing or increasing relative to the school's percentage over time and so we got some of that data uh last night and based upon that data uh I offered the that possibility of the revote because because I think what it generally showed was over the past several years that you know if anything the school's percentage of the overall spend in the town has decreased slightly it's been very very stable actually but um and and of course though as you look ahead uh to FY 26 uh with the The Debt Service if you include The Debt Service that will change but you know in terms of the past uh Trends there hasn't been a trend of the school spending more for as a percentage than the

162town over the last 20 years yeah thanks Matt one of the explanations that the town manager gave us for I'm looking at the figures now uh CPS at 34 a couple of years ago was 35 percent uh her her main explanation as I recall it was that uh we now have 24 7 ambulance coverage in West Concord and that that was a significant expense so it wasn't uh it was that one single item that was the most significant downside number if you look at Group Insurance of which we are a huge component it's gone from 4.7 to 16. yeah sure so there's other I I mean I think we should have a more thorough discussion you know at the beginning of next year some or whatever I think we should work together with the town

163at you know at the same time and really look at this stuff a lot of other towns are doing that having like Summits where they go through not the whole budget but they go through pieces of it and understand what their shared expenses or not shared expenses How We Do Capital How We Do operating how we do so you know I think we really need to have a this is good and I think it's a good foundation to have that conversation so we don't have it to us which is better because we really are all in it together so anyway I 100 agree with that and I I also think though that we have a problem right now that we need to solve absolutely yeah and I I think that this sort of presented a

164potential opportunity so I think that's I I would share a different opinion I think that uh everybody on the fincom everybody on the school committee everybody on the select board and soon town meeting will know the numbers they've been following them um I think that uh a a last-minute effort to take the uh reduction on uh one leg of the stool and uh accept it but then say move it over to another leg of the school I think is so very artificial and change is nothing about the cost needs of the town it's just uh just image making the I think is not going to be impressive uh to the fincom and if it doesn't impress this income it only just to impress anybody else I don't want to have one problem a gap uh

165now um uh exacerbated by creating another problem with what looks like gamesmanship um between the entities my bet is it isn't going to help us could even harm us but but I think the immediate I think interestingly like the immediate problem that we all need to solve is today's problem which is um to ensure that there is in a specific type of impact to the town to the taxpayer in fy24 this um alleviate that problem the fincom has articulated I think clearly it will it does technically if you remove 515 000 dollars be asked again the reductions already happened right but what I'm saying is the the the IMAX committee is comfortable with a number the total number the total number let me see let me suggest that we didn't have a problem 24 hours

166ago we were ready to go in knowing there was again the information changed right right this isn't this isn't money that the Carrie LaFleur recommend this no no she recommended what I don't think she's not recommending anything right so this is I think the the town manager has done a great job to correct an error right which I'm sure she was not having to do um and I don't think this is now a good move on our part to recommend that we get that money even though it would fit the bill not increasingly it's not even getting that money it's just the finance committee saying we were comfortable with a specific impact to the taxpayer and in light of the Town manager's reduction the impact of the taxpayer has gone down because she's removed 515

167000 and again we're talking about the end result which is the impact to the taxpayer as such because now the impact to the taxpayer has been reduced does that offer the finance committee the opportunity to reevaluate our budget to say oh given that we have a reduction here we can potentially allocate more to the to the school committee so that and I think that achieves a lot of things number one um I think it makes for a much clearer message to the town's people at large that um at town meeting I think you know when there are amendments to be made and those kinds of things it becomes very confusing um and again their ultimate goal of impact to the taxpayer will be neutral if if they were to reconsider this it's not asking them

168to allocate first of all the finance committee has no purview in that it's not asking for anyone to allocate this 515 000 from one place to another it's simply asking the finance committee hey the conditions on the grounds have changed in light of that would you consider adjusting your guideline to meet our request that is I think all that we want to do because in so doing it has a net neutral effect on the taxpayer well we agree the 515 is already gone but so there's no allocating to even be discussed right um but remember please remember we had a very similar conversation uh when we said well we're under guideline at the region can we just move some of this over to the KA and the answer was no each entity has a guideline

169um and uh we aren't going to do suggest that we've reduced our Capital but our Capital plan so we we've literally said we are willing to show fiscal conservatism on this committee by reducing our Capital plan there was also the 150 000. we have we have moved multiple times we are trying to work with the finance committee and with the select board what I don't like is the look that you know we're all separate in this like we are one town of many people that live in this town their children need to be educated there are safety issues with fire with police we need to all work together to get to this point if we were a Neighbors in Carlisle this wouldn't even be a discussion because their budget has done totally different so it

170is the same bucket of money that we were starting so I just I I feel strongly that it's worth an ask to see if this is a possibility I don't think it hurts us at all to say in light of new information it is new information because Blackboard had a discussion last night because they have new information this is new information is it unfortunate that it comes four days before time meeting yes it really is um but we are where we're at so I think the reason we need to have this discussion and in light of this letter is I think we also need to agree you know we're the finance committee to be compelled by um this letter that we might send are we also willing to in this question I think is to

171both of you as well as to the committee members is 70 000 of a an achievable reduction to the budget in addition to the 150 that we've already produced you know I think the answer is we would take more risks or go into reserves a little bit more because we still want to maintain level service [Music] um now that there's a number attached to the question I think that's a committee discussion too obviously it's your vote um we would make we want to close the gap right so the Dual edge of both sides of that pull at us a bit but to be that much closer to closing and of course we'd be trying really hard to do so we bring you a proposal that we'd all have to agree was right and that would

172Dependable in advance of Sunday well do we want to close the gap we didn't want to close the gap yesterday um what we want to do is take advantage of the error on the town side we have no intention of closing the Gap so it was never a goal or maybe it is now but let's well I think the question changed the question posed to me at 70 000 versus 585. of course my answers are going to be a little different which is more of a risk question it's a risk question do we do we uh if we cut 70 000 with a guarantee that our budget is going to be supported that's different than going into town meaning oh yeah I know everybody said there's you know it's going to pass but we don't

173have a guarantee that it passes um and the impact of having to cut 500 85 000 is a lot more impactful I I like you too I have not I have all of us this is new information I I think where I'm landing is that the ship has sailed on this this budget and that we should go into town meeting with our budget that we have worked really hard to put together and that we believe in um that I I don't think finance committee is going to move and I don't not that it's not worth trying I think it's always worth having conversations but I I think um I think we I think my opinion is we should go into town meeting I think one thing Court said that um Swede me was that we

174could we wouldn't we weren't willing to move CPS or cchs that it's all kind of line items by department and we should be thinking about it um sorry I'm not being very articulate let me add I think it's not going to be lost on anybody that the burden on including the fincom who I suspect will uh make it very clear too that uh the uh impact has been reduced by 515 in total happened over here but it affects everybody sure the only thing I would say to that Carrie is you remember that vote on fincom was very very close this is new information this was not an overwhelming vote by the fincon that body that deliberative body was not overwhelmingly in support of the frequently guidelines yeah this is compelling new information and who I

175am having empathy for right now are the hundreds maybe thousands of people who will be attending time meeting and you know I think about not everyone follows this all as closely as we do if we have the opportunity to partner and collaborate productively with the fin fun so that town meeting is easier more understandable not confusing for members of the public I think there's an oblique an obligation but I think that that's wise and if they don't and if they don't if they have if they have no compulsion to take this even up as a vote or consider it then we're then we are where we are so I guess I just wonder if it does actually simplify things because people are already confused as to what of what's going on with the budget and

176then if we throw in this but so information simplifying it would be it would it would be the thing Amendment the amendment will go away yeah if it was something they were willing to take up and vote up on Thursday night at their meeting it would be you know it could potentially be that the bincom supports the school budget yeah it may not be bad right but it could be and I think that we all have to be really clear as a school committee if we are willing to take the risk that we're going to have a 585 000 reduction that is going to have significant impact to the students of copper and it is going to be reduction of teachers I mean we've already said we've seen what the list is that is what

177will happen and these are what school committees all over the state are dealing with right now and we just have to be prepared for that I'm not completely comfortable with the fact that if we have an opportunity to um not reduce some of those things that we have out there I would love that opportunity to do so before time meeting and I would love the opportunity to be able to collaborate with income and say we've worked really hard like we are we understand that the crisis that the town is in right now that you're looking to address we understand that we have acted conservatively I think we have made adjustments where they've been necessary we're still looking for a little service right and I think the bottom line is the likelihood that article 17 passes

178if it is recommended that the finance committee recommends affirmative action goes up exponentially let's remember that it was a close vote um I'd be surprised if anybody in this room has any evidence that this budget is under threat at town meeting this budget is going to pass as uh in an overwhelming way let me finish let me have a turn um I believe that uh we should consider what would be a better look if incom deliberates because they have new information let me do whatever they do or the school committee preemptively wants to take advantage of the guideline by virtue of Kerry's error I think that's a lot a poorer look a much poorer look [Music] um I don't think it is about the Optics isn't isn't town meeting about how you said it yourself

179a lot of people don't follow this very well so it's What lands on their understanding what do they perceive on Sunday afternoon um and I would hope they don't perceive that we took advantage of an error at townhouse and let's hope that the fincom uh looks at this and does what fincon does it's like whatever they do this budget has been Prevail why do we know that because this school committee was so dedicated to not touching this budget that we haven't touched it by one penny we got lucky with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in Revenue find and then there less cost but we didn't do anything to the budget we have been a hundred percent dedicated to an unchanged budget from proposal number one and for us to jump on this error I

180think is a poor look um look at his we have new information right now that's our see I see the object says like and I I've said this a couple times and I don't mean to get so like waxing so poetic but to me I feel like when I look like even at our national politics no one the art of compromise and collaboration to me in the United States is kind of dead and to me like this would represent the opportunity for us to be more collaborative be more deliberative be more talking about compromise and solving problems collectively and I think that is modeling actually really good behavior for our citizens our children um so I I see the Optics is very different than Newport um but and I and I think those are were

181the ideals to Aspire to um but again we all see the world differently I I don't my my position I don't think that it is more because I actually think that we should go in with the budget that we have I don't think we should make 70 000 in Cuts I think that we have and I don't think dipping into the reserves is the answer either you know I don't think that we should make our budget more risky if this is a budget that we believe in then I think that we should go to town meeting and and say that this is what we need to run a level service um I don't have a vote on our agenda anyway we have to wait for fincom to do something Thursday yeah so it's kind of

182a moot point anyway although a very good discussion I think it's an important discussion to have too and I think that you know going into town meeting with now the select board has voted not to support our budget to support the income guideline income has voted that way so it does put us you know a part which I don't like this divisive feeling yeah that's happening in the town I don't like the fact that you know it's you know the seniors versus the school-aged children it should not be that either we need to come together as a town and work together towards a common goal and I get it Middle School it is what it is there is a building project yes but why how we punish today's kids for tomorrow's building I mean this

183is our operating budget we have decide are we supporting our operating budget or not we still have needs to give level service to the 2 000 students of Proctor Public Schools yeah and and I I feel very strongly as a school Duty we need to advocate for those kids that cannot pay for themselves and town meeting I've seen a lot of strange things in my five years of child meeting here and you know once the amendment process goes up and the people aren't paying attention they don't even know how they're voting and how many times have we seen the moderator to say okay now remember this is the amendment this is what a yes vote means it's what a no vote means and it's also time meeting is only as good as the people that

184are in those seats on that day yeah it could we could have 150 people there we have a thousand people there and so I'm not as confident that our budget is actually going to Prevail a Sunday afternoon in the spring is is you know everyone says oh the school age parents always show up but on a Sunday afternoon and spring they don't know would show up you put kids in sports you get kids in theater there are all sorts of things happening so um I just I just have to say my case then I mean what would you have to do to send the letter if there's no vote would you how would we do that we would just offer as you to send a letter on behalf of everybody no we can't do that

185because I don't think we would vote tonight we're going to bring all of us back to school well I do think our position is one of advocacy and you know I know there's not an actual vote on the agenda it's on an action item but we are in a very short timeline and so I mean I would make a motion devoted I'm actually going to make a motion I'll make a motion to um send this the draft version of the letter of income different discussion purposes before we do that I mean the other thing too is we did I told you guys all to drop it but we certainly well that we would need to communicating before their meeting on Thursday [Music] um you really are out of time because we don't have 48 hours

186right and so in these instances I think you can certainly offer um I mean it's tropical and it doesn't seem like there's interest in in advance in the letter anyway um from a majority of the committee members so notice what it is yeah [Music] have they heard our discussion I mean I see John kapka is he going to give a robust readout of our discussion before their meeting I don't know um but I actually have the point of order I do have a motion sorry well I'm not going to Second it um but I'll wait for a second before I discussion with that Friday motion to the floor and you would not permit it to move forward were you considered it a surprise yes and I considered it very much in keeping with Robert's Rules

187of Order that this should have reasonably been expected to come before the the body because we had discussed transfers multiple times multiple times but nonetheless you said no this was for you a surprise not me I've been discussing it multiple times I referenced how many times Mr conry had discussed it how many times we had discussed transfers that we've been doing workshop on transfers etc etc you still prohibited it but now tonight you're gonna uh bring this forward which I would consider to be an extreme surprise relative to my surprise as you claim it of two weeks ago well I would object to that I said well you know this today with the draft of this pledge which is fine this is this is productive conversation this is what we should be doing we are

188in a situation tonight the town meeting is on Sunday so this is four weeks ago I talked about making a motion as well and I was told that it was inappropriate to make a motion because it was not on that like this is this is a reoccurring and I I was talking about making a motion about re-voting on incom's guidelines based on their previous two votes something along those lines and um both you and Cynthia said it would be inappropriate to make I mean this you're you're as at fault for this as anybody else is so to be fair this is not these are just this is tricky It's Tricky and I don't I don't mean to cause um any type of like descent amongst us you know I think we did some really great

189work at our regional meeting tonight and we else actually all came to agreement on that and our Communications improved this this is a letter this is not it's something you need because we have time constraints there were not necessarily time and it it probably is not going to pass late last night it started we didn't and I and I actually say that we all sat in that meeting quite surprised that there was information that Bingham and select board clearly had but the school committee wasn't informed of that until today so we were set by surprise on that and this is called like you know what are we going to do and because it didn't have anything to do with us it was Article nine it's that article it is they weren't but it does have

190to do with it and we're trying to you know trick us or no I don't know not at all so but you know it is going to be a reduction in the town's acts so this is a I mean we're trying I look at it as we're trying to really work with vincome Blackboard I would love it if we could all sit in a room together and get on the same page on this I think that would be really super helpful and it would be great I'm waiting for that day to happen you know maybe we need to Advocate more for that and have a joint meeting with all three committees over exactly this because I do feel like leading up to town meetings those quite divisive and I would love it if we all

191went in in some type of agreement and we could have come to compromise we've been talking since December about you know like this is this is part of our process as compromise I do see that we have made some compromises since December yes our budget is the same but we've we've taken some risks we you know we've reduced our Capital project we've done some work here and I just think a lot of the work I mean as I've I've understood it from Dr Hunter and um Bob is that a lot of the work in creating a zero-based budget is done based on the way you create just based on the way you created a lot of the cuts are made in the process of creating it or a lot of the changes um and needs

192are addressed so I I don't know I I don't feel as though we've made zero changes or or sacrifices or anything I I just don't think they're done so early or whatever yeah I mean I think that that's tricky as far as the motion goes I think this is a perfect this is the perfect example of when you would need to make a motion on the I know the bug emotion in the moment versus um having it on the agenda well I think when there are crises I think we don't want to be yeah I'm strong by you know what is normally in our best practice have been no surprises um this in and of itself um I'll allow you to speak John yeah thank you Alexa so don cupka 39 Devin Street in Concord

193um so member fincom but really speaking for myself because I haven't spoken with anybody else I I just wanted to share two thoughts one is I just learned of it today as well so it isn't as if fincom was you know I know somebody on vincome obviously did know meet with the select board but it hasn't been discussed by vincon yet but as I understand it at least as explained by email um it's a little different I think than you're thinking um and I could be corrected on Thursday but just just so you know um the CIS B uh guideline amount is set as a function of the sustainable growth rate of the income of the town so it isn't as if there's a dollar amount or an increase rather it's a percentage over the

194prior Baseline and uh so if the town hadn't caught this error and made the made the correction um the total uh and the town's budget had been approved the total spend would have exceeded the guideline uh percentage increase the sustainable growth rate um so I I don't know if that you know I think you should do whatever you you know is obviously as a board you feel is right but um but for the town uh have the again had the town uh budget been approved we would be spending as a town more than our sustainable uh rate uh would permit and the guideline would have been reduced by this amount obviously um had we had we known about it from the beginning because our objective is to be sustainable to the town um and uh

195so it isn't as if it's found money per se that could be re-allocated it was never too it was money that was never to be allocated in the first place now again only my understanding and only from what I've read there's been no discussion yet thanks Don Motion in a second whether or not we want to formalize sort of put into words a little bit of the discussion we had tonight by this letter um uh there's a bug flying at us for everyone on camera um I guess the last thing I'll say is that I don't know I think I I think part of our role is advocacy and I think it's and again in in this since I'm sort of advocating for um just some clarity at town meeting I think this would be

196helpful um and I think it increases our opportunity or assurances that the budget would pass um and to your point you know the thing con could be totally unmoved by this but at which point we'd be exactly where we are without sending the letter so I don't I don't really see the negative and again I I see the outfits differently than core I see them as demonstrative of our you know attempts to find Solutions and talk to these guys and keep their line of communication open um so that's sort of where I'll end in my comments well and I guess you know I would just also say would we would we I mean I would we ask them to reconsider you know in the spirit of you know going into town meeting I mean select

197board revoted their position last night we asked them who vote they're either going to vote their position on Thursday or I think that's up to them I don't I'm not going to ask them I don't think it's appropriate to ask something that explicit but I said um you know the the two like conclude by saying in this letter the two actions by both of our committees them re-evaluating and potentially adjusting the guideline being their action and our action being our willingness to make up what would be the new Delta if they so chose to readjust their guideline of 70 000 would allow us to come to town meeting on Sunday in alignment while maintaining the exact budget levels that the finance committee was seeking to achieve by their Amendment so and again it's wow that's

198my and I think everybody in this discussion has brought really good points I will say that and this is hard it's hard this is really this is not easy this is this is the hard stuff and that's I don't know I've been to a few Town meetings also we all have been to a few time meetings uh my my belief is we will fare better if we let the towns chips fall where they fall and our chips fall where we fall we have been so adamant uh so unchanging in our advocacy of this budget Gap notwithstanding my guess is we don't help our cause by doing this kind of Hail Mary move tonight no anyone else yes we have a second we have a motion we don't have to roll call all in favor all

199right oh again all right so we will not send this letter all right and might I just say this is still a good discussion 100 like I mean it is it's hard I don't think that you know I thought I would drag my emotion you know I knew it was going to fail it's okay like I I think it's okay to have these hard discussions this is where we're at and I I think it's and if anyone knows we want them to talk about it they know things right so it's a our letter is out there it was on our agenda everyone's seen our letter and and I don't think that this is a bad thing and I don't think it's a bad look for our committee to have missed our discussion and to have

200some disagreement about it and something that we should be doing so it's okay [Music] you know I think the end result is that we're better for it well uh I don't think we've said it recently but uh I think it Bears repeating and that is uh yeah we do have deliberation that means disagreement that means ultimate decision making such that we walk out the door together right um that's that's worked in this town for a long time I think the town moderator says it better than I just did it better than most she's so great um all right so moving on to CPS Capital um these slides do look different because just recently we revoted um our plan we've reduced our Capital as by about half um and we have we allocated that Capital to

201new things that we recently voted on so with that I'll turn it over to Lori I mean it's about as straightforward yeah this is right off the table we saw Yes yes good it's the list to now equal to 4.95. yeah so and what do you anticipate for a discussion the the capital needs assessment uh facilities assessment uh anything anything else I don't think so um thorough has gone up in uh in its magnitude considerably that might be a discussion are we looking at other funding sources for them well I would like to make a meeting commitment to pursue CBC for thorough playground say again make a tam meeting make a commitment to pursue CPC funding for the thorough playground okay but that wouldn't be time I mean that'd be here and then we go

202to CPC at Town meetings say that we are going to pursue I thought about that you have to decide tonight [Music] at the last meeting I fully was in total agreement with you on that thinking this greatest plan ever what I'm what I'm wondering about before we make that commitment should what I don't want to see is you know we're in a situation that we're about to talk about with Article 19 where we don't have we're not going to have information on bids for the middle school we we may um we have an alternate deduct list that could wipe um you know one and a half million dollars off the scope of the project number four I think it's number four yeah yeah um but those first three are like they're not like ginormous chunks

203of money you know like if we're 500 000 over we're going to number four it's you know we're 80 000 over great we lose the bleachers we move on but like it's not a ton of money those first three you know nuts right none of them are like the biggest biggest right okay um so I worry about that right and so my only worry is given right now that we don't know where we're going to be necessarily in advance of town meeting with respect to those bids as a school district Kaden a do we do we want to put in bids that might compete with each other you know there's a finite amount so you're getting to something because I'm glad when I'm planning on moving article 19. I am really confused would it still

204be part of the building project or would it be taken out of the building project entirely it'd be a CPS project what we want to do is leverage and maybe Laurie can speak to this better but my but but you want to leverage the bid that you have now so then that's my point it is a town Town should be dealing with this the town should be dealing with the fields because it's part of the cognitive buildings Middle School building project but they we voted in that and and because they are not the school was deemed the the group that could advance that article but it doesn't make sense to me if we are we are the two mutually exclusive like if this list throw integrated playground 75 000 like are we do we have

205don't we have the option don't we always have the option of going to CPT do we have to decide that tonight no we don't have to decide tonight whether we're gonna make a public statement right so why can't we just not make a public statement yeah see how everything plays out right and then with the intention of course of going to CPC because I am really confused about why we're moving Article 19 even though we might not be moving in the first place it's because what is happening so so we've got uh multiple bid protests happening right now one from a union shop against uh general contractor we now have one the general contractor now going to protest against the different shop um against the difference a different sub or different sub yeah yeah so

206uh the Attorney General's listened to both and is talking about them with no I don't want to use the word ruling because they it's advisory really interesting they're not ruling it's it's advisory as to whether you should continue on while they make it so it may be a ruling there but it doesn't impact it's not an advice a ruling of the bid it's a ruling of whether or not the let's use the word grievance for lack of a better word is valid and so they're gonna they're gonna weigh in on one side or the other and then different things happen depending on which which winning party there is in terms of the bid itself they're not weighing in on the bid I just want to be sure we're clear about that they're not weighing on

207the bid they're weighing in on the complaining between the validity of the group the validity of the Grievances and so why can't we open them until they're there well so that's the discussion that came as we said afternoon I'm on a meeting tomorrow morning with Hill smma Carrie with Laura Gayo dad Town Council to talk through like where we are we did delay the bid opening a week we do keep doing that is the question if the Attorney General hasn't given a response to really the first protest so that's that's still a discussion that's happening but why couldn't we just open it see what they are they all said if one of these is successful then even goes through a hearing she said last night yes and what I heard today was that that may

208not impact the project they could be victoring legally while the projects yeah could like I mean if it's like a legal thing so what I wanted to say having had conversations this afternoon with Carrie smma Hill Gail and our legal counsel about there's a discussion tomorrow to figure out where we are and what the options are okay nothing's firmed up yet that there's no that we don't know they're just not we can't access them but they're all like they're not waiting for people to submit but yeah okay and nothing's going to change so whether we whether they were you know I mean I know it's not like just envelopes to European Foods at your house but if nothing Nothing's Gonna Change a method so why wouldn't we want to open this is the discussion the

209people that I just talked about are going to have what was the building is it up to us to determine like okay we're opening them because it's a consensus but Comfort level of the entire professionals with councils of course but including the agency but I'll still express my confusion why we're moving this article which one because so 18 are we good on 18. we're not going to get into anything I will just say a town usually could have some pretty detailed questions about the study about the web the study of the buildings [Music] oriented so I think people really are going to be looking for more detail on how it the the details of nuts and bolts of what these are these are going to look like are rip or whatever it's going to be

210yeah I don't think there's opposition to your point people want to know what do we get for it yeah um the reason the school committee has to put the article forward I equate it to the same with all the other capital projects that are still related the town doesn't put those forward and I think once it's not in the building project which essentially we're saying it if it's not in the building project so it's not that's what that's what we're trying to make it so that the timing is such you could use most of the same information and see if you work with the same people okay for cut for economy scale if we got pushed out a year say we're over budget we don't move this then we have to go out to bid

211as our own entity okay we'd really talked a long time I think I think I'm getting to your question a long time with smma and Hell of like is it part of the project or is it separate and because of the timing being close enough and I think we were downtowning like dating all so like is it close enough that the bids they get in could be pertinent if the month is quiet under the separate artists okay once it's once there's time in between you can and I guess my point that conversation was we can do a multi-year application to CPC which most of these big projects have done yes easy to see a play 90 years four years um I think we still will right I think you know and and Carrie and I

212met actually with Diane Proctor in her capacity's chair and she suggested exactly that so if we were to let's say we were to ultimately put Fourth Article 19 and it passed now we have the ability to borrow 1.4 million then right the September one we immediately put that Grant into CPC God willing we get some money great now now we're not borrowing whatever that is then the next up Grant opportunity because those fields won't be built yet we would apply again um I am more than happy to make that commitment at town meeting to a multi-year um Grant process with CPC to reduce the overall act and I'll tell you the town will put forth right after field this competing competing there's no no well there's no guarantee sure multiple applications yeah yeah okay yeah

213I mean that's that happens all the time let me come back to the protests for a minute um is the fact that the AG will only be about [Music] news ongoing legal exposure so the advisory part is about whether or not you go for it and open the bids I think I'm not getting late they're advising whether or not they're going to rule on the protests oh so they're ruling we have to follow ruling will be on the ruling isn't uh the ruling is between the other parties yeah there's nothing for us to follow they're advising us whether to open the bid for all those systems they have been they that's what happens our legal counsel or the attorney general I'm sorry last Friday so now we're revisiting it because the weakest ticket and is

214the AG revisiting I I need more information tomorrow morning so in light of that and the fact that we may or may not have new information I'm gonna move that we don't um vote on our action item and instead we move that to Sunday we have two boards who have not voted on article 19. so we're looking at all at noon they're not gonna they'll have to caucus on they have all the information we have I think yeah they can't say that they were gonna but we don't remove it yes they said they will quickly convene and have some type of response okay yeah if we have more information I know so we can post it tomorrow and if you don't need it we could just meet and not yeah yeah okay supposed to mean

215what times you guys all like on Friday I am not available until at least 2 30. uh 3 30 3 30. we'll give you a little break uh hold on actually wait why am I gonna bring to all this stuff oh I know that's after school for everybody it's fine um before pizza oh yeah I need to be late too um it's far too late for you Lori I told my family I'd see him in June okay okay 3 30. 3 30. I will compromise all right um but 3 30 on Friday we will post a meeting for the five of us why don't we also put um article yeah great okay 17 and 19 on the agenda tonight guys to this point of us all sort of not being entirely in aligned should we

216put any votes on this because I know we haven't we've had some disagreement at home no sure put a vote for the budget put a vote for Article 19 for the whatever you want okay vote to do nothing can we be so vague as to say vote on my other districts never indicated what the Motions were going to be right explicitly yeah it's just the topic and then article 17 vote on our celebrations we don't need to discuss Capital unless somebody yes something will happen nothing can happen we've got too many we're done okay okay is everyone cool with that okay marvelous let's go let's leave the meeting's over all right discussion of article 17 2017. sorry this is gonna I'm really gonna show my cards here thank you