NMRSD School Committee 4/14/2026

001Kim may be joining. >> Sorry about that, Lisa. >> That's okay. We hadn't started quite yet, so we'll be good. All right. Um, welcome everyone to the North Middle Sex Regional School District School Committee meeting meeting, April 14th, 2026. It is 6:02 p.m. The school committee reserves the right to implement additional remote procedures. Um, and I'm notifying the public that this is being recorded. All right. The next scheduled meeting will be will be discussed down below. Um, but it is scheduled for Tuesday, May 18th as of now, but this may move. I'll see according to the meeting. I'm going to take a roll call vote. Keenan Francois >> here. >> Did we lose Lisa? Screen. Her screen went black. >> She did say beforehand that she was having internet issues. >> Um >> yeah, I

002would get just give her a minute. See if she can. They're going to see your camera again. >> Hi, Lisa. You're you're muted. We can see you, but you're muted right now. >> Am I back? >> You're back. >> Okay. I reconnected a different way. So, >> all right. I think I left it at roll call vote. >> Uh Keenan Francois >> here. >> Mike Labosier >> here. >> Lisa Bloom >> here. >> Uh Randy Rush >> here. Jackie White >> here, >> Alexander Vancoui >> here, >> and myself. And then we have several administration here tonight. We have Superintendent Brad Morgan >> here. >> Dr. Reese, Aaron Upton. It's okay. You don't have to say okay. Aaron Upton, Shannon Cole, Kevin Dr. Um, Kevin Kir, uh, Nancy Haynes, uh, Ryan Demar, and Robin Ivy.

003Did I get everyone? I think everyone's covered. All right. Um, may I take a vote uh, or a motion on the consent agenda? >> I move that we accept the consent agenda as presented. I second the motion. >> That was Kenan France with the motion and Alexander Vancoui with a second. It is a roll call vote. Keenan Francois, >> yes. >> Isa Bloom, >> yes. >> Labosier, >> yes. >> Randy Rush, >> yes. >> Alexander Vancoui, >> yes. >> Jackie White, >> yes. and myself. Yes. All right. Moving on. Uh, we have public comment. We have a few public comments this evening. Um, how did you want to go, Robin? Do you want to do the reading or should we have >> I can do the reading. I I did have um June McNeil asked

004me to read an email she sent. Um, she wasn't sure if she could be present. I don't see her present um in our in our attendees. And I also had a second one from uh Mark Gorum. So I'm just going to ask if he can raise his hand if if if he's present and we'll allow him to speak. If not, then I can go ahead and read the um emails that were submitted and asked that we read them into public comment. And then if if it's okay with you, um Lisa, we can circle back and see if if anybody who's in attendance wants to participate. Did that work? >> Yep, that works. Um I do see Mark in there. Um I'll push him to allow to speak. >> Oh, okay. I I I see him

005now. I can allow him to give him permissions to talk. Mr. Gorum, you should be all set to to speak. Is he here? >> I don't know where. >> Okay, I pushed him again. So, don't push him. >> Okay, >> there we go. Do you guys see him on the screen? Mark, >> I can see him in attendance. I just I'm not hearing anything from him. Is is Mr. Gorum muted maybe? >> Um well I I I don't see him in the attendee list now. >> He may have he may be trying to reconnect. So, let's move on to the letters and we'll check back. >> Okay. Uh, the first email was received on Tuesday, April 7th, uh, from Peter and Mary McMurray. Um, members of the school committee, we just read the retirement of

006facilities policy proposal and are wondering how this would be voted upon. We would like to think that something this important would leave at least um would at least have to have a twothirds vote and ideally a unanimous vote. Please take this under consideration and we would appreciate this being read during your comment period. Um save this one for last. It's quite lengthy. Uh the next one is from um Ashb resident Kathy Boleris. I am writing due to my concerns regarding the retirement of facilities policy that recently went uh underwent a first vote by the school committee. Given that the previous policy was largely ignored by the school committee decision to close Asheville Elementary School, it is only reasonable that this new policy be applied retroactively and the AES closure be re-examined with the new policy

007being applied. Second, and more importantly, it is fair and reasonable to consider the impact a closure of any facility can have on a particular town, its students, and potentially the entire district. Consequently, I propose that the new policy relating to any potential closer be voted on and require a two-third committee approval uh four of six elected by individual towns and additionally include unanimous approval of all at large members prior to a closure. I appreciate your support in consideration of these important changes. Uh this next email was received um this afternoon uh from June McNeel, Ashby resident. Uh I am writing today with the public feedback on the following policies for review. FCB retirement of facilities. Please consider including wording on this policy that a matter of this importance should be required to have a two-third

008majority for approval. If the annual budget approval requires two-th3 majority, why wouldn't a school closure which has as much more significant uh I'm sorry has much more significant detrimental impact on the community be required as such. If a school is closed basely on barely squeaking past a tie, the uncertainty in the decision is obvious and should be re-evaluated. I highly suggest you amend policy FCB to make a required two-third approval before proceeding with approving this policy. I'd also like to see a stipulation noted that this policy must be adhered to and is not subject to bypassing or suspension. The building closure policy is in place for many reasons and if completely ignored at the critical time a school closure is entertained as we the case with AES then why have it at all? Uh BEDH

009public participation at school committee meetings. I highly support not reading emails as part of the public comment policy as the monotone readings lose impact. The emails are redundant since they were already sent to the school committee. It takes time away from the valuable work that needs to be completed in the meetings and in the past seemed to be cherrypicked and used as a political measure to emphasize certain points rather than reflect the true communication sent from the public to the committee. If writers of public comments wish for their views to be in public record, they should I'm sorry, they should be added to a public access folder rather than read aloud or added to the agenda. To further prove this point rather ironically, please read this email during public comment tonight, which we hopefully be

010the last time you will hear public comment emails read. Um, BDE subcommittees. I do not see anything listed on this policy about community participation. This has been a gray area as it seems non-school committee members have been included or or not at whim. As you know, policy should be very clear in expectations of members of the committee to be included on subcommittees or not. Also, the finance subcommittee in particular should have representation from each member town. If not, financial discussions and recommendations are being made without input from each member town leading to inequities of revenue use and future planning. Every town should have a voice in the budget, not just a vote by an active role in the discussion. I hope you will discuss this and consider amending the policy to clarify community participation on

011subcommittees and ensure every town is represented in ongoing budget discussions. Finally, on an entirely different note, since I have asked for this to be read publicly, I want to publicly thank and recognize Randy Rush for her 16 years of service to our school committee. Randy has always prioritize student education while balancing community needs and viewpoints. She has represented all member towns with grace and dignity and a strong desire to do what is best for all students, regardless of which town they live in. She will be missed immensely as her final term comes to an end. Thank you, Randy, for your many years of dedication to our schools and towns. We appreciate you more than I can ever articulate in this email. Thank you for all your time and attention to these viewpoints. I appreciate the

012opportunity to give this feedback and I hope it will lead to productive conversations. Kind regards, June McNail. Um the last um was sent by Tony Deamro um received April 13th. It's it's quite lengthy, so please bear with me. I understand the school committee is reviewing uh policy FCB, retirement of school buildings. I appreciate this effort as the impact of this policy, especially if it is the only school left in a town, has tremendous impact in many years. The policy should be mandatory and require a large majority of votes to terminate and to do everything possible as not to impact the town's finances. I understand a school in Pepper was considered for retirement and the district developed a plan to ease this situation over many years. The description below illustrates how not having this impacts a

013small town, the smallest in the district with one vote. I applaud the efforts of members of the school committee who believe regional school districts to excel require strong policies and procedures as guidance. Unfortunately, when the superintendent and certain members of the school committee are either unaware or disregard them, they become irrelevant. As demonstrated in the closing of the Ashby Elementary School, so many policies were disregarded. Um, policy file AA, every town shall maintain a sufficient number of schools. That leaves Ashby out. It has none. Policy FCB, the process to retire a school not followed, not even look, took the time to talk to Ashby officials. Only meaningless discussions how to use the school for other purposes. Used a budget ploy of we have two budgets. One we believe will pass, the other would not. Guess

014which one would not pass. To reopen Ashb would be an additional 1.6 million. A madeup number never again consulted Ashb. When asked what the detail was shot some numbers out but didn't even come close. How about the policy of negotiating good faith? How did that help Ashby? In that discussion were all the comments made about class sizes, teachers stretched to the limit, not enough time to support the youngest children? How is that an introduction to schools for the little ones? Would you like your five, six, sevenyear-old subjected to long bus rides? What about stress of Ashby parents? Did anyone care or young families moving out of town? How does Ashby look for young couples coming in when the town doesn't have a school, especially K to4? That's all Ashb wanted. In many studies, it has

015proven property values drop anywhere from 3 to 25% where towns and imple residents like that or they don't care about Ashb. How can a regional district survive if all involved do not care about others? There is the regional agreement conceived in the 50s with multiple amendments not even close to the state standards of today. Unfortunately, the agreement is the overriding document all relationships between the four parties. An effort was started to bring the agreement to today's standards in the early 2020s sent to Desi for approval and was rejected with questions about conflicting language and true intentions. It also had a section in in it that each town must maintain an operable school within its borders. This was around 2024 when the talks of closing the Ashby school. There was a comment to put the agreement

016on hold if you are closing Ashby. Wonderful. And a lot of the superintendent's comments how the school student level is dropping. Could this be one of the reasons? Maybe it would be nice if the superintendent and school committee brushed up on some of their policies. Just a few AAB FCB ha ka kb. In closing, for all four parties to build something great, there must be cooperation, care for one another, be honest, and and trust. In today's times, it is difficult. This is not the way to do it. Thank you, Pepper, for town officials putting out a statement. We must close the Ashby School. Really understanding and caring. Thank you, >> Robin. Was there any more email messages? >> Nope, that was it. And Mr. Gorum. Uh, I'm going to give him permissions to speak now.

017>> And then during the time I'm going to let everyone know that Kim Craraven has joined the call. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Hello. Can you hear me? >> We can hear you now. Would you just state your name? >> Your name and your address for everyone? >> Sure. Uh, before I get going, let me just say I'm at a uh North Middle Sex softball game out in Lunenburgg. So, I'm sorry if there's any background noise. Um, my name is Mark Gorm. I'm a resident of Peril for the past 10 years and um, I have a son in the second grade uh, STEPS program at Varnbrook. Uh, my son is enrolled in the STEPS program due to his autism diagnosis. I'm here speaking before you due to the recent major shift announced by the administration

018of the STEPS program being moved out to Townsen for both middle for the middle school and the elementary school. A decision that was quietly made back in February to move the entire steps program to Townsen. I say quietly since until parent rumor mill start stirred up. The majority of the steps parents had no idea of this change. Once the cat was out of the bag and none of some of the parents started hearing the news, an email was finally sent out by the administration. The administr the email was very vague. It def it simply defied the different special education programs offered within the district and at the bottom of the email calmly mentioned the steps program will no longer be offered in PEPL. No plan or details given. This news caused parents to start emailing

019both the special education administrator as well as the district administrator. Emails were responded to with no answers to the specific questions. No plans offered, no clear answers, no cares, no worries. very default copypaste brush off answers. I unhappily understand the fact that these changes are potentially final. What I do not understand is the enormous lack of communication and planning. I work in the corporate world producing products. Sacrifices and budget cuts are made at times but not without a plan in place as well as clear communication. Problem is we aren't talking about products here. We are talking about children. Children with special needs. Children who need to be included not excluded. So, I am here tonight to ask you, was this the best choice? How did this decision get made? What studies were done? What impact

020analysis was done? Will there be more inclusion or less? Will the sidekicks program continue? What is the transition plan? Or is there even one? Will there be extra supports? Was the academic and behavioral regression discussed? If so, what is the solution? Staffing, teachers, and paras. What are their assignments? who will be we be seeing with our children. Offering of mediation of how this came about came to me in email before a clear plan was placed in my hands. I'm not requesting a solution here. I'm simply requesting a plan, a meeting, uh give us confidence in the administration that our children are going to be safe and educated in the year of 2026 and 2027 and so on. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Gorman. And thank you for all the letters received as well. Um,

021is there anyone else from the community that has a comment? I'm not seeing any hands raised. Robin, will you double check to make sure I'm not missing anyone? >> All right. No, I don't I don't see anybody. >> Okay. Moving on to the chairperson's report. I do not have anything at this time. Um, Superintendent Morgan, do you have your superintendent's report? >> Yes, I I have a just a couple brief points to touch upon before we um and then the other items in my report are on the agenda later on. And I I do want to let the committee and the community know that North Middle Sex has applied for the FY20207 Massachusetts Capital Skills Grant Program. If successful, North Middle Sex would be basically obtaining seed money to begin the process of bringing upwards

022of two career and technical education programs to North Middle Sex within the next couple of years. As you know, we did a survey of families back in the fall. We've also um done some work with the workforce investment board in two areas that were identified uh through both avenues were public safety and construction craft laborer neither of which are offered by our receiving career in tech schools. Both areas are in need of workforce development. I do want to thank the towns and police department and the laborers local 39 out of Fitsburg for their support in applying for this grant. I also want to thank Monty Tech for their assistance and support with this process. We are also applying for additional grants to compound on top of this grant. Again, if we get this grant, it's

023not enough money to actually fund the programs. It's literally just enough to actually start to get some materials, some equipment that would be needed. Um the larger grant has a deadline coming at the end of this month. And that would allow for uh funding to be used for things such as staffing and any potential um construction needs that may or may not happen. Uh but again uh especially with Monty Tech and even Great Alol which is relatively close to us both of them have lengthy wait lists uh the high school does have some room and it's something that that I have talked to the committee about uh so it is something that we are exploring and hopeful that we will be considered for a grant. It is going to be extremely competitive uh for a

024public school to get grant money uh for something like this. Again, it's it's a very difficult um ask. Uh Dr. Ree did a great amount of work on the grant application itself. So, I have no doubt that we put a strong grant forward. Also wanted to let uh the committee know that I was officially made uh aware late last week that the OCR complaint on Ashb Elementary was um opened and then closed. Um, I was notified by US Attorney Sarah Cho that after I told she had essentially reached out to determine what was happening with Ashby Elementary, I did share with her that the school committee um and administration had um moved to close the building um after a one-year pause. And essentially because that happened, the civil rights case was closed. I did ask

025and I did uh communicate this with um the town manager, Mary Dhy, just to let her know that I did reach back out to say um is this actually dismissed? Is it closed? What if this what if the school does reopen in another way? Something along those lines. And they said that the um complaintant would have to refile again. Uh but the likelihood of it being reopened would be relatively high because it was opened and screened in um this last time and it was around the school being physically inaccessible to per to persons with mobility impairments was what the report listed. Um it had um again it didn't specify any particular area. It just said that it was not accessible to persons with mobility impairments. That's all I have for now until later on in

026the meeting. All right, moving on. Assistant Superintendent Dr. Reese, did you have anything for a report? >> Uh, no. I have a couple items later in the agenda that I'll address at that time. >> All right, moving on to new business. Um, I do have a request um that we move the next scheduled meeting to May 4th. This would be right before Peril's town meeting and this request was put in because of elections that are coming and it could put us in a lame duck situation where there isn't a chairperson named to the committee. Um, it also allows people just to have one night out and not the next week out and because you'll probably be out for town meetings. So, any questions if the meeting is moved to May 4th at Nissatis or concerns?

027Can I take a motion? See nobody raising hands or anything. Can I take a motion to move it? Lisa Bloom. >> Um, I can't make it at six o'clock that night. >> Okay. >> Are others. So, that would be the organizational meeting. >> Yes. >> Jackie White, >> I'm sorry, Lisa. Can you state it again? So, our meeting would be at 6 o'clock just before town meeting. >> Just right before town meeting. It's It had traditionally been that way that it was always like right before town meeting so people could attend town meeting. >> Okay, got it. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Um, I'll take a motion if somebody wants to make a motion. >> I I move that we res Oh, did Randy have a question? >> It It was just >> That's

028okay. You make the motion. >> Yeah. And then we'll >> All right. I move the May 14th, 2026 school committee meeting to May 4th, 2026 at Nissatis Middle School. I'll second. >> All right. Do I have a second? That is Mike Labosier and Jackie White with the second. Randy, >> I was just going to give a little bit of the history um for from the beginning of my time and before mine, uh school committee meetings were on Mondays. Uh we just recently changed that. I think it was last year to a Tuesday or this year to Tuesdays. Um and the Monday was when the pepper roll town meeting was which is why they would have it at the school one hour before just the organizational meeting. Um that's just the history of why it used

029to be in in front of the pepper town meeting. Um it was early enough so that the pil residents could attend but obviously uh Townsend and Ashby residents uh tended not to attend the pepper town meeting. Any more questions? >> Lisa Bloom. >> So, is there any reason why we can't keep it on the 12th? I mean, if if the committee wants to keep it on the 12th, um it just puts like a week of not working on things forward. Um Kim Craven has a her hand up. >> Thanks. Um given all that's going on, um I would prefer to be able to be meeting before the town meetings with the news committee. So, I'm I'm okay with the move um just for that reason. I I feel bad if there's certain folks um that

030can't make it, but I do feel like it puts us with an with a meeting before that town meeting um you know with the new newly elected members. So, I'm totally okay with it. >> Didn't understand anything. She just said that she is okay with the meeting being at that time with the new members. Randy, >> not sure if anybody besides Lisa Bloom cannot make that meeting. I obviously will not be attending. Um, but it's a fairly important meeting um where a lot of things get decided. I'm not sure if there's something that can be done that Lisa Bloom can still have a vote on who is the leadership um of the committee, a vote on who is some of the other officers that we um vote on and the special education uh um firms

031and all the other things that get decided on the first who's going to be on what subcommittees. um having a a member not be able to attend and not have a way for them to actually participate with this being a move because it wasn't anticipated uh before now. I I I think there should be something there that she can um that she doesn't miss this meeting. >> All right. I'm just going to p point out that there are elections and so it will be the electors of the committee or who gets elected. Okay. >> Their schedules as well. >> Once again, I'll have to change my schedule all around. So, >> all right. Jackie White, >> can you explain? Lisa, you mentioned there would be a lame duck situation if we don't have it on

032the fourth >> because if they're asking for a presentation to be presented like at Pepper's Town meeting, >> okay, >> there should be people responsible to stand up and talk to questions. >> The same happens in town. if there's people to stand up and talk to it. >> Um, so that's how that's why like it's a lame duck kind of situation because if people the elections and everything happen >> and then is an hour truly enough time to get through all of the important things that we need to get through at the organizational meeting. Yeah. Okay. >> Yes. >> It goes quite quickly actually. Um, Superintendent Morgan, >> I I did just want to add that uh we have heard from Pepper and they are asking for a presentation, a budget presentation at town meeting.

033>> You heard that yesterday. They they're expecting one from North Middle Sex and the Shobet >> Randy Rush. >> Um, it does need to be a chair. Um, usually it's the superintendent uh that will do the presentations and the administration uh school committee members are there to support. Um, it doesn't have to be a chair. It could be the liaison or just the res or the resident u members of the school committee that can speak um to this. Uh that said, um as far as being a lame duck, um I wouldn't put it as far as the um presentations at town meetings, but if something comes up that a decision needs to get made by the chair of the committee, then having somebody in place in that time frame, uh April 27th until you choose

034a new chair, um if it ends up being empty, then that could be an issue where there isn't anybody who's in charge that can do any kind of emergency uh decision making. >> Is it it just a spitballing here? Is it possible to have the meeting earlier than the 4th? >> You could I mean we don't have to have it on the 4th. You could have it the next day after elections and or anytime. >> Yeah. So anytime between the election well once the election's been determined I assume which would be the following day I assume >> right but then you need time and they have to be sworn in. Yeah. >> Oh yeah that's true too. >> So this is kind of a kind of a tight time frame. >> Yes. >> So we

035can take a vote and then go from there. I think. Anybody have any other questions? >> All right. Keenan Francois. >> Yes. >> Uh, Alexander Vancouver. >> Yes. >> Jackie White. >> I don't love it because we don't know newly elected people what works for them either, but I will say yes. Uh, >> Lisa Bloom. Yes. >> Uh, Mike Lassier. >> Yes. >> Randy Rush. >> I'm going to abstain since it doesn't pertain to me. >> All right. Kim Craven. Did I get crim? >> Yes. >> All right. And I'm going to abstain as well, just because I'm just going to abstain. All right. Moving on. So it will be moved to May 4th at this time. Moving on, we have the auditor's report. We have Nancy Haynes and Dr. Kam. >> Hi, good evening.

036Um could you uh post um or bring in um Rebecca Gamsby and is she in the waiting room? >> I'm I'm looking for her. Hold on. There's a few people. So, oh, hold on. Um, oh, there she is. Rebecca should be joining as a panelist. >> Rebecca, is there anyone else uh from CBIZ on the call? >> Just me today. >> Okay, wonderful. So, Rebecca Gamsby works for CBiz and has been the the lead on our audit for FY25. So, it's uh ending June 30th, 2025. And I'll I'll turn it over. She's going to just do a a a brief overview of the process and the and how that um went for North Middle Sex this year. >> Thank you, Nancy. Thank you very much for having me today. My name is Rebecca Gamsby. I

037am a director with CBIZ shareholder with CBiz CPAs and as Nancy noted um I was the shareholder in charge of the district's audit for this year. However, I've been working on the audit for many years now. Um again, my objective and my team's objective is just to express an opinion on the district's financial statements and your schedule of expenditures of federal awards. We perform our audit in accordance with generally accepted um accounting sorry auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America and the standards for financial audits contained in government auditing standards. So my responsibility is to plan and perform our audit to obtain reasonable but not absolute assurance that the financial statements are free of material misstatement that they're fairly presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles gap. It is management's responsibility

038to ensure that the um financial statements are prepared and the within um the I'm sorry management's responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in accordance with GAP. So as part of this audit process, we do assist the district with the preparation of those financial statements. We receive a trial balance that's exported from the district's general ledger software. It imports right into our audit software and we are able to prepare the financial statements off of that and then begin auditing all the numbers that are associated. There are audit adjustments that are required along the way to move from the budgetary basis to modified basis um to the full acrual financial statements that you've seen. We did begin our audit work around uh May of 2025. So just before year end and we

039finished our year-end field work in August of 2025. There's more pieces that come into play until we issue the financial statements which happened in March of 2026. So, they were issued within the timeline required um by the federal audit clearing house to submit your review of your federal awards. We complete a risk assessment of your internal controls. We review for compliance with laws and regulations, test your year and account balances and reconciliations, and then we review the financial statements for compliance. It's all part of our audit process. For fiscal year 2025, we were able to issue an unmodified opinion. It's commonly referred to as a clean opinion. Means that we did not noted any instances of non-compliance or any other matters that are required to be reported to management or to the school board. There

040are a few um key disclosures I'd like to go over as part of the financial statements. So, when you review the financial statements, the first couple pages are our audit opinion. Again, those are the only pages of the report that we actually own the rest of the responsibility of management. That audit opinion does note that there was a clean opinion. Again, no instances of non-compliance, no significant deficiencies, no material weaknesses reported. The following pages are management's discussion and analysis. That's your summarized financial statements. And then you will get into your financial statements which start on page 13. So, you begin with your statement of net position, your full acral statements. The full acrual statements bring on the district's capital assets, long-term debt, the estimated net pension liability, net OPED liability, and some other items as

041a part of this process. At year end, so again, June 30 of um 2025, net position did have a deficit balance of um 50.7 million. That largely relates to the fact that you are bringing on all those long-term acrruels, all those long-term estimates as the net oped liability is estimated at 87 million at year end. And I I'll get a little bit more into that in a moment. Net position only decreased 1 million, which is fairly consistent with um prior year. Those are good results. During the year, there was a new Gazsby um a governmental accounting standards board implementation. It's Gazsby 101 related to compensated absences that changed how the district's required to estimate and report the acrruals for vacation and sick liability for all their employees. The impact of this was about 2.5 mil

042$2.4 million for the year which is part of that result of the decrease. Now the the implementation did not require a restatement which has been common among other school districts or communities. This was just pushed through ret um prospectively instead of retrospectively. It was not too significant overall to the district's financial statements. The full acral statements are followed by your modified acrruel. So those begin with the general fund. Um the general fund did have a fund balance at year end of $7.2 million. There was an increase of $593,000 over the prior year. Within the general fund is the capital stabilization fund which had a year-end balance of $89,000 that is reported within restricted fund balance within the general fund. At year end there was also 1.9 million that was assigned within fund balance for the

043use of END for fiscal year 26 budget and unassigned fund balance was 3.8 8 million which is the amount that's essentially now available as of 63025 for the district to be spending. The district did have a final general fund budget of 65.6 million which included a use of END of 2.7 million from the prior year. However, the revenue surpluses that reported and the expenditure turnbacks they did exceed the use of END. So there was pos positive budgetary results for the year. district also reported a few other major governmental funds. So they qualify based on different aspects. Um these ones both qualified based on the fact that there are significant liabilities reported in those funds due to the bonds um the bands outstanding at your end. So the bond anticipation notes they relate to the high

044school construction fund. And then there's another fund that's called the accelerated repair fund and it's related to all those MSBA projects that were ongoing that have not quite finalized yet. There are the near other non- major governmental funds are reported. Those funds had a fund balance of 6.7 million at year end which did report an increase of 1.8 million over the prior year. Usually that's the difference in year-end timing collection of receipts in advance of those expenditures. The final statements that you'll see are the fiduciary statements which relate to the district's OPED trust. So at year end there was 1.3 million within the OPED trust an increase of 267,000 from the prior year primarily due to the contribution that was voted for fiscal year 25 of 150,000 the remainder of the increase related to investment

045returns within that OP trust. When we are looking at the financials the biggest part of the financials that follow your statements are going to be your notes to financial statements. So all your significant disclosures related to your cash and investments, receivables, capital asset activity, debt activity. Um the most important ones that we usually talk about, your significant disclosures relate to your net pension liability and your net OPED liability. So the district's a member of Middle Sex County Retirement. At your end, you're reporting a $14.1 million liability for all of your employees that are a member of the Middle Sex County Retirement System. There's no liability reported for any of your teachers that are part of um MTRS, so the Massachusetts teachers retirement system as the state takes on that liability for the district. Middle Sex

046County Retirement System is well funded. They about 58% funded at year end, which is great news. Note 11 talks about your net op liability, so your other post-employment benefits. The liability is estimated based on an actuary that's hired by the district. So there's a lot of assumptions that go into calculating this liability. Um the total net liability at year end was 87 million. So we'll take the full liability that's reported by the actuary reduce it by the funding of the OPED trust, the 1.3 million to come up with the net OPED liability the district reports. So how much is due for future um post-employment benefits? The discount rate that was used is 5.11. So that is really what's impacting that total liability that's reported by the actuary. Because of the trust only being about it's

047under 2% funded compared to the entire liability. The discount rate is a little lower that um they need to use a market rate for the municipal bond. So overall that's why your statement in that position is in that deficit fund balance. primar primarily related to the net op liability. As I mentioned, your compensated absences liability didn't grow this year due to the implementation of Gazsby 101. However, we've seen that across all of our communities, all our school districts that we audit. It's very consistent with all the others. Final pages of the district's financial statements are your RSI, so your required supplementary information, which includes like a budget to actual schedule, and then 10-year schedules showing the changes in your net pension liability, your net OPED liability, and the contributions to the system and the OPM

048trust fund. The second report that we do issue is related to the SIFA. So, the schedule of expenditures of federal awards. Um for fiscal year 25 the district spent three million of federal funds. As part of that we're required to audit what is referred to as the major programs or the significant expenditures of the district which was related to the special education cluster of grants. For the major program we were able to again issue a clean opinion. There were no um findings noted. Everything was clean. So we had nothing again to report to management other than um we were able to perform the audit very well this year. So that's your highlevel summary of all the reports that we've issued for the year. I'm not sure if there's any questions on any of the reports

049that were provided. >> Thank you, Rebecca. Does anyone have any questions? >> Randy, >> um I just want to say thank you uh to Rebecca for that nice concise or fairly concise uh uh summary of all of the stuff. it is quite uh for anyone who's not financially uh um involved in in this kind of stuff, it it it's quite a lot. So, thank you for your explanations of all of that and thank you uh Nancy and your team for another great year um with all of the finances in the district. >> Thanks so much. Um I just wanted to u mention that the audit is out on the district's website if somebody wanted to. I I believe it's in the packet as well, but it's uh this year's completed audit and the prior years

050are out under the business um section of the district website. >> Thank you, Nancy. Uh Jackie White has her hand raised. >> Um thank you, Rebecca. That was helpful. It's a lot. Um certainly for, you know, someone in my position, I don't deal with these types of things every day. Um, my question is for the finance subcommittee. Does all this sound reasonable to you? Did you have any questions on this? How does it jive kind of with what what you've seen over the year? >> Anyone? >> I mean, as a member of the finance subcommittee, I can definitively say that that was definitely a lot. And you know, I mean, that that that went over a lot of terms and details and whatnot that I do not know about, but you know, the the clean

051finding is the part that that is seems the most important out of all of that, and the rest is just the details of how they came to those clean findings. So, you know, I I was briefly scrolling through it, you know, this 70 plus page document of just seeing all of these numbers and whatnot and and you know, it's it's it's good. It's good to see that all of this is being examined very thoroughly and carefully, but uh other than that, I don't have any particular comments on it. >> Thanks, Mike. Enan, did you have anything or Kim? Speaking as member of the finance subcommittee um who has never been through an audit before. We didn't this was came out after our last meeting so we didn't um discuss it in depth. Um certified not

052financial professional here. Um but I hear clean opinion. I I like the sound of that scrolling through the document. Um I earlier today and uh yesterday I was definitely spent a lot of time googling some terms but um I liked what I saw. Um so thank you Rebecca and thank you uh to the business team for doing a wonderful job. >> I'll just say u chairman Martin um that we haven't met since this has come out. So it's certainly something that at a future meeting we can discuss um especially folks that haven't been through them before. It's definitely an arduous process to read through them. I say I've had the fortunate unfortunate um experience of having them through different associations and nonprofits that I've run. So, a little bit more more familiar. Um, but to

053appreciate that there's new findings and um I think we can dig in um where this is the first one that's been released with this committee >> and a clean audit speaks volumes about our business office keeping things in line for all of us. So, that's what we like to hear those words come when the auditor comes to the buildings. absolutely does. I think you all picked up on the key fact that clean opinion, no no issues, no findings, and again, I should reiterate, no disagreements with management. So, that's another key fact that we need to put out there. Um, everybody at the business office has always been extremely helpful and always answered all of our questions and provided everything that we have asked for. So, thank you very much for hiring us as your auditor.

054>> Thank you for for taking our our business All right, Nancy or Kevin, anything? >> Well, thank you very much, Rebecca, for joining today and um appreciate it. >> All right. Thank you, Rebecca. You can if you want to drop off, you can or you can stay with us for our lovely meeting. >> Thank you all. Have a good night. >> Thank you. >> Right. Moving on to the food service vendor. Nancy and Kevin have this as well. >> Sure. Um we had uh reached the end of a uh one-year contract with four annual renewals with our food service vendor which was fresh picks. Our last request for proposal was uh done in 2021 and we have gone out for request for proposal. We established a small working committee to review those proposals and the

055they went through um actually initially we had eight vendor vendors or related parties pick up the proposal. Um and we received four separate proposals. Um we had um included those the summaries from the like the executive summaries in your packet so you could read those at your um leisure. And uh we're making a recommendation after the review of the proposals and the committee met, we're making a recommendation to put forward uh Witson's um with uh slash fresh picks. Um they're than our current vendor. We actually initially went with Fresh Picks back in 202122 time frame and they were uh picked up as a subsidiary of Witson's. Um, so it's really one and the same, although they act as a subsidiary under Witson's. Um, I don't know if there's specific questions or if the committee, um,

056essentially what we need to have happen tonight is for the committee to, um, either, um, is to vote to accept the recommendation of the food service management company and authorize the superintendent or a designate or the committee to enter into contract negotiations. Um much of the process for food service is now uh put forward by Desi Department of Nutrition and requires us to use their template and often um we're allowed to add some of our own thought process to it but essentially it's literally a template that has to be utilized so that we're covering all the required language that a contract has to have. So we would um if the committees agrees move forward with that process. After that is completed that contract goes to Desi for approval to make sure it includes what's required

057and then um we can sign move forward signing a contract. Kevin I don't know is there anything you wanted to add before we accept? >> Nothing specific. I did want to uh thank Chair Martin for um helping us out with the process and also principal Smith um for because seeing the size of the binders that were given to them. It was uh not a quick read um is actually probably longer than the audit. So there's a lot of work that went into it. So I want to publicly appreciate that. >> Yes, thank you very much. No, it is nice serving on that because you do get a lot of viewpoints and different food selections to view and and so it's it's a good thing to serve on when we pick a new vendor. So, I

058appreciated it and thank you Miss Smith and Kevin and Nancy for working on the food service. >> It's it's pretty a major undertaking for these vendors. So, I I also wanted to appreciate the effort that they put in um to put forward proposals. it it's as Kevin mentioned, there's multiple binders, multiple types of documents. Um, it's pretty extensive from from their perspective. So, I'm very appreciative that we had as good a turnout for this proposal this year. >> Jackie White, you have a question. >> Um, two questions. Just do you notice any difference in the food like choices or they pretty much the same? And then will it still enable families to use the My SchoolBucks platform to pay for their student meal accounts. Um, as far as the My School Bucks, that's something that

059the district could work with the vendor on. Um, but yes, I don't anticipate that changing. >> It's really easy to use, just opinion from one family over here, but um, okay, good to know. >> Sure. Anyone else have any questions? >> Right. I will take someone making the motion. I will move that the school committee pursuant to general law chapter 30B section 12B authorize the procurement officer to award a food service management contract for a term not to exceed 5 years including renewal extension or options. Full stop. I there's two separate motions in the agenda. Do we want to bundle it or does it have to be separate? >> Let's keep them separate. >> Okay, >> I'll I'll second that first motion. >> All right. >> Um, that is Kenan Francois making the motion and

060then Mike Labosier making the second. It's a roll call vote. So, it's Keenan Francois. >> Yes. >> The Bloom. >> Yes. >> Mike Labasier. >> Yes. N Rush, >> yes. >> Jackie White, >> yes. >> Alexander Vancrui, >> yes. >> Kim Craraven, >> yes. >> And myself, yes. All right. Now, make a second motion. I move that the school committee designate the superintendent to negotiate and execute a co a contract for food service management pursuant to an award by the chief procurement officer and >> and that is Keenan France with the motion and Mike Labosier with the second. Uh it's a roll call vote. Alexander Vancoui >> yes. Kim Craraven, >> yes. >> White, >> yes. >> Mike Labosier, >> yes. >> Lisa Bloom, >> yes. >> Randy Rush, >> yes. >> And Kenan Prince,

061>> yes. >> And myself, yes. Is there anything else needed, Nancy or Kevin, from us with the food contract? >> Uh, not at this time. And we will probably include that final contract in a future meeting packet so that it's available for people to review. Um, it's um, but I think um, at this point um, and and also the letter that we would get back from Desi approving that contract, we'll share that in the future. Thank you, Nancy and Kevin. >> Thank you. Thank you, everyone. >> All right. Now, we're moving on to FY27 athletic and extracurricular fees presented by Superintendent Morgan and um Mr. Demar. >> Thank you. I will turn it over to Mr. Dear momentarily. I did share some numbers uh with the school committee over the weekend looking back um essentially

062over the last two years mainly because we had not done much tracking with regard to participation uh prior to FY25 especially with clubs. Um we had always kept um you know relatively accurate records with athletics due to rosters and things but clubs were a different story. So, um, I am going to say that at this point we are not recommending a change to the fee structure for 2026-27 and I will turn it over to Mr. Demar to go over some of the numbers. I know he was working still working on getting some numbers this afternoon on on just getting some final counts. >> Yeah. So, um, one of the biggest issues um, when it comes to the numbers um, that I know that Mr. Morgan shared was um you know this year we rolled out

063and it's not new for athletics is the use of arbiter registration which is a process um for parents to go on and and it again like u superintendent Morgan stated allows us to track for rosters and eligibility and things like that. Um however it has a component to utilize that for clubs and things like that. Um and I in uh I know throughout the year um there was six emails sent out either from myself to adviserss or myself to community members or or students to to get them on board to register but I think um just because of the new platform things like that um that those numbers didn't necessarily accurately depict um what was going on um at least in terms of some of the clubs or activities that might not nec necessarily fall

064into the activity fee. Um, however, uh, throughout this year, we've had, um, clubs, adviserss, especially those who are part of the high school club and activity card, um, submit rosters, uh, each week. Um, and you know, it is at this point there is 28 only 28 paid high school students who are part of the high school club and activity card. Um the the numbers were um about I would say I I think the total let me wait one second um 47 um originally uh at the beginning of the year in terms of people attending the first round of meetings and then when reinforcement of that policy came to having to pay for the activity fee uh those numbers did uh drop. Um so we saw um clubs like Best Buddies, the international club um lose

065members due to that. Um one another side of things is the drama number or or the theater group. Uh I'm still waiting for those numbers. Um those again based on use of the registration were after talking to at least of the high school uh Mr. Thompson and Mr. uh Miss Simco were not accurate and they're getting me those numbers. Um just to make sure uh just because this year obviously with the productions they there was a fee um for the play it was $50 and then for the musical it was $100 just because it's a bigger production there's more that goes into it. Um so they are in the process of that as um they are working currently on the musical uh itself. Uh and then on the athletic side of things, um the like

066Mr. uh or Superintendent Morgan said, the tracking piece is easy easier because it's again something that people are used to. Uh we are tracking even though again we've saw the user fee increase from uh last year to this year. We are tracking the same exact uh numbers. uh last year or this year for spring registration, we're at 341 registered throughout the district. Um and last year in spring 2025, we're at 336 and then in 2024 for spring we're at 339. Um so again, even with the the user fee changes, um we are seeing the numbers stay the same. Um and we are able to offer more opportunities at least in the athletic side of things. Thank you. >> I I did just want to add add a couple things. >> Excuse me. >> Go ahead,

067Brad. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Go ahead. >> So, I did want to add, you know, I will say that from uh for our athletics, um the numbers are, as Mr. Demar stated um still pretty consistent which I I do think is commendable and speaks to the program uh that he helps uh facilitate and run at the high school uh primarily because there are so many club opportunities for students now. Many students that play club sports may not play high school at all. And if they do play high school, it may be a select season. Um, and I know especially um fall and winter when you're looking you're looking at uh basketball and ice hockey which generally run through both of those seasons. And then when you go winter into spring you're looking at things

068such as lacrosse, softball and baseball which also um have a pretty strong club presence. And I I didn't mention uh in the fall soccer a huge club presence. Um, so that I would I would think that that does have some impact on our numbers, but it's not um, again, it's not having a dramatic shift from one year to the next. We did see a decrease in the fall, but we saw an increase in the winter and the spring. The only other piece that I did want to bring up is um, the Best Buddies program. Um, and I think this this does play a role in why we have so few taking student activity cards at the high school is that I would say at this point the majority of the programs are service related and

069there is no activity card fee for some of those service related programs. Uh, but Best Buddies um was a um was a club that required a fee this year and I would like to recommend to the committee that that fee be waved because that should also at least in my opinion be considered a service club as well. And I know we we did have some outreach to the committee as well. So that is something certainly something that I would support waving the fee for. any Oh, I see hands up. Oh, all right. Um, I'm gonna go with Jackie first. >> I would fully support um amending that so Best Buddies does not have to pay a fee. I don't know what we need to do to vote that in, but it would get my support.

070>> All right, Randy. Thank you, Jackie. >> Randy, >> yes. Best Buddies definitely uh from what I understand of the program falls within that service learning um uh type of um you know club. Um so I would support that. I'd actually support uh not having um an activity fee. um if we had half the members drop out of non-service clubs. Um as I understand a lot of them didn't run this year because they didn't have participation um and we only collected um a small amount of money. Is it worth excluding students from having afterchool activities if they're not interested in the service learning and they're not interested in in athletics? There's a lot to be learned from just being in a group for something small like gardening, something small like uh the the you know

071comic books or um any of those other smaller ones. They kind of just it's it's a way to uh just sit and communicate and uh relate and connect with people. And I'm sure there were more people that didn't even sign up because they didn't want to pay it for some a small club like that. And the fact that we lost half of them and only had 28 um on our list, we had at least 13 um to 14 uh clubs that weren't service learning this year and 28 people paid. I don't think it's worth what it's doing uh and taking away from the students. Thank you, Randy. And I do believe that gardening is in a service learning platform, so they're not being charged, but >> it is. >> All right. Um All right, Kenan.

072>> Um just a a question here for Mr. Dear and Mr. Morgan. Um for those 28, do we have information on where they came from? like what like say like do we have that breakdown of like what club you know breakdown those 28 people came from? >> Yeah, I can gather that for you. Um because like I said earlier the adviserss have been doing rosters and then we have the the students who have done the registration and then we can find that information for you through the rosters. >> Sure. Okay. Thank you. Um, and what our fee this year is $50. Is that correct? Or $75? I don't recall. >> Uh, 75. >> 75. Um, speaking as a recent graduate, um, I found I was involved in several different things including drama, band, gardening club,

073um, yearbook, so on and so forth. Um, and I I do believe all of those activities. um were essential um to my own personal development. They're essential to all you know many others development through school. I I know this year was um obviously when there's a certain level of trition that comes in initially um from any new fee uh that comes in and uh you know participation the the way that I'm looking at it is 28 people seems anecdotally in my head way less than what it was before and I cannot necessarily immediately assign it to that $75 fee, but I would certainly feel that definitely has a significant part to play in it. Um, and I say this as somebody who voted uh for this activity fee. Um, 28* 75 is $2,100 or whatnot.

074Um, which in a $69 million budget is a waste of our time. Um, and I I would actually support Ry's uh movement here for at least for the general clubs. Um, I think we're wasting our time here and I don't think it's worth um the possible student exclusion that we're bringing in. Um that best buddies um removing say we choose to keep the fee, I would absolutely support removing that um from the you know fee structure. Uh and I would just like to highlight um for anyone who might be watching that when you send an email uh we do read it. Um I would have never known if that high school student did not send an email to all of us saying that best buddies has gone from 30 40 people to a couple a

075handful um if you don't reach out. Um so the community's voice the students voice is important. So, if you're watch if you're on this meeting now and listening um or you're watching back on the recording, uh please make yourself heard uh and make yourself known uh when you have an opinion on any of these kinds of things. We're happy to hear or we're happy to listen. Um but I'll defer to Mike now. >> All right, Mike Labosio. >> Yeah. So, I uh wanted to mention that same email. I read that too and I was very sort of disheartened to see cuz I you know I know uh you know I know one of my son's friends is part of that program and love you know loves participating in it and you know I want to

076support those sorts of programs and and you know absolutely support eliminating the fee on that in particular but I you know I the way Randy stated her point I also agree I think that these the fee participation fees for the clubs. I think it it the the the for the amount of money collected it's not worth it because it does you know it is a barrier to entry for for some students and and I feel like that that taking down that barrier it would be a good thing. So that's that's all I had to say on that one. Uh Randy, >> um actually a question for uh both uh Mr. Dear and Kenan. Um on the drama, um my kids were not they were tangentially involved with drama on and off. Um, but having seen

077a couple of the pro, you know, the plays uh that were put on, the productions that were put on, 42 to me seemed like a low number for cast and crew, especially for um two plays. So, I throw it out there. Is that something that is reduced? I know we don't have a number from FY25, but is that typically um just dependent on which play was chosen on how many parts there are um or is that actually decreased um uh an amount of what's normally involved? >> Um so that was part of the I think the registration component as well. um where we had some confusion over the registration process where we're working through that now with um Mr. Thompson and Miss Simco where I think we'll see those numbers go up. Um, in terms

078of the the overall for the especially for the musical, um, I did see the the play pamphlet for our most pre uh our most recent play. Uh, and it did come in under that 40 I think it was under that 42 number. Um but like you said uh with multiple productions in a year I think that number will be uh different now that once we get the the accurate information like I said from the adviserss or the directors in that case and then also the information from uh FY25 as well. >> Yeah. And just to jump in there, 40 when we're talking about three shows a year, um I'm not sure if we're doing you pay once and you're in it for the year or you're doing for each unique production. Um if we're doing

079for each unique production, then yeah, I would call that low, but I would also I I would presume that's just a tracking issue and attrition based on what I'm hearing from people currently in the program. I don't I don't hear any lack of participation in that area as it's you know quite unique. You can't really get that elsewhere. Um or there's limited opportunities to do so. Um so I'm not too concerned about on the drama side of things. I I would point that 42. I would I would anecdotally I don't have the evidence in front of me but I would I would think Mr. Dear would is correct on that one. It's just a tracking um mishap. Uh M Craraven, >> thank you. Um definitely if there's an impact to students, we need to rethink

080the fees um especially for the serviceoriented um or clubbased. I would say my my only disappointment here um at at this juncture because we can fix moving forward is that we didn't know this sooner. um to be able to figure that out. I would have thought that if there was an impact um we could have had that information a little bit earlier to make sure that students were not left out. So, I'm a little bit disappointed um to learn that at this at this juncture, but it's certainly a little bit late in the year, but I think anything that we can do to remedy um kids getting involved at this point um that should be done um just so that they can at least have the remainder of the year. All right. Anyone else have

081any questions? So, um I'm going to make a motion to explain. Um I am for dropping these fees altogether. Um but I think it's inappropriate to blindside the entire administration just like that. Um, so I'm definitely going to propose that we bring back this discussion uh a a more detailed discussion into fees with you know proper analysis at all levels. Um whether that be in a in a finance subcommittee meeting or that you know be at a a you know a school committee meeting in the summer. Um but I will make the motion now to remove best or to I suppose add best buddies to the service learning category list. So, um, at least as of now, they will not be charged, uh, for school year 2627 and going forward. >> I'll second. >> All

082right, that was Keenan with the motion and Jackie White with a second. And this um motion is for removing Best Buddies charge for next year. And then we'll take this vote and then I'll explain more to what will go on with the process. Any questions? All right, it's a roll call. Hello. Keenan, >> yes. >> Lisa Bloom, >> yes. >> Mike Labosier, >> yes. >> Randy Rush, >> yes. >> Jackie White, >> yes. >> Uh, Alexander Vancrui, >> yes. >> And myself, yes. >> You left. >> And so, oh, Kim Craraven, you're on the bottom of my screen. Sorry, Kim. >> Yes. Thank you. All right. Now, so what I'm hearing, Kenan, what your suggestion is that Superintendent Morgan and Mr. Demar come back to the committee with more detailed about the fee of the

083$75 fee put on activities. >> Correct. And if I guess we'll suppose we'll get our next meeting scheduled during the organizational meeting, but um I don't I don't think it's necessarily in scope of finance. Um I don't know if Kim agrees. I think it's just best for the next general school committee meeting um to have that discussed. >> And you're okay with that, Superintendent Morgan? >> Sure. I I um you know obviously you know I do think it's important for the committee to know that um you know just so everyone's aware when you when you're looking at athletics the athletic user fees covers about 23% of the cost of of the programs as a whole. So it's it's a good amount but it's still a relatively low amount. the the the clubs, even if clubs

084were, you know, participating um you know, based on a couple of years ago, if the participation was there, my guess is that the activity cards would be funding even less than 23% of what it cost to actually run a club when you're looking at things such as um stipens and things of that nature. Uh you know, I do think we have to be cognizant of of what students can afford and what their families can afford. uh just because you know a lot's changed in the past year. Uh we have a lot of students you know especially juniors and seniors who are working who are driving um gas has doubled um and that's not just for them it's for their it's for their uh caregivers at home as well and everything has become more expensive. I

085do not want to be in a situation and never have wanted to be in a situation where students are being excluded because they can't afford it. um and certainly don't want students um to not feel comfortable about coming forward because we've always worked to make that happen, but that's easier said than done. The student does have to come forward and that's not easy for a student to do either uh to make us aware. Um so I am more than happy to continue engaging in these conversations. I I don't think waiting until after the organization organizational meeting is a problem. But I do think that we have to look at it um as a whole, not just the clubs, but how we go are we going to continue on with athletics as they are? Um how

086will um band um and things of that nature be handled? How will drama be handled um versus clubs? So, I I just think we have to be um specific around what we're doing, why we're doing it, and why there may be fees for some things and not others. Um and just make sure that we have a solid um solid evidence with whichever way we go to make sure that that it makes sense for our students and their families. >> Any questions? All right, Robin, would you just make a note that this will be put on a future meeting for discussion? >> Yes. >> So, no fees are being approved tonight. What I'm hearing from the committee, >> no fee increases are being approved. >> No fee increases. Okay. Um, Sophia, I can't call on you

087during the meeting. She has her hand raised. Sorry. All right. Going on to the student services program update. This is by Aaron Upton and Shannon Cole. >> Thank you for having us here tonight. Um, would you like me to um share the the documents that I had submitted for the school committee packet? Would that be helpful? >> Yes, please. >> Um, I just need permission to share, please, Robin. Or I don't know if you can share, you >> you should have you should have permission. I don't I'm not showing you. >> Oh, it says host disabled attendee screen sharing. Hold on. Let me try. Yeah, I'm showing that I'm sharing here. Lisa, are you able to do it from yours? I don't know why mine Yeah, it's mine just may be delayed. See if that

088see if it works now. Erin, sorry. I don't know what's >> Yep, it worked. Yes. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. so much. Um, so I wanted to start with the Vanpool update. After the meeting on February 24th where school committee had asked me to return to Vanpool to try to negotiate a um an increase of less than 4%. I did engage in further conversation with administration at Vanpool. They initially thought that they would be able to reduce the annual increase um as per that's captured in our contract of 4% but when they reviewed um their own cost increases they just they came back and said that they could not reduce um that percentage below 4%. They identified that the major cost driver was a significant increase in the um driver wages which

089has led to increased um recruitment and retention of drivers. Their hourly rate increased 23% um from about $18 to $23 per hour. And then they are planning an additional increase for the next school year bringing wages to 24.40 per hour. Um so having you know given that information they said that they could not reduce our contract below our the 4% um as originally thought. Um our current contract terms are um include a contract extension for FY27 and FY28 um with an annual increase of 4% which was approved at the last school committee meeting. Um if we do um continue with our planned contract extension for the next two years, they are anticipating an increase if we um remain with Vanpool um of about 18% in FY29. So very significant increase. Some other um possible scenarios

090that um we had discussed included maybe in in uh potentially in either FY27 or FY28 looking at an increase of greater than 4% to try to offset um the significant increase PL planned for FY29. Um so they um they agreed to develop and present two proposals to us um for us to consider um and then we can look at the financial impacts of those scenarios um in trying to figure out what's going to work best for us in terms of our budget stability, long-term cost controls, and transportation service reliability. Would you like me to pause here to take any questions or should I continue? >> Um, I will ask if there's any questions. Jackie, wait. >> Um, hi Aaron. Uh, how long has Vanpool been our provider here and what other options are there really

091in in our region? So, I I do know that our current contract um was a three-year contract with a two-year extension passed this year. Um Superintendent Morgan, would you do you know how long we've had Vanpool? >> I believe that we've had Van Pool uh since I have been here. I I believe it extended also beyond that. Um at least for a portion of our runs. I think the challenge that we've always faced with regard to options is that it would be very difficult for us just because of the size of our district geographically to find a single provider. For instance, um D actually used to and still does have some special education transportation, but right now it's North Middle Sex is not a district that they could take on. Um, so unlike uh the

092bidding process for public transportation, which is non-existent, we actually don't have much of a process for special education other than finding finding a vendor that can suit our needs. Um, and I will say, you know, it it's certainly uh there's been a change in leadership with Vanpool. Um, and that happened a couple of years ago, and there have been certainly some improvements. Um, and they are certainly more receptive when issues arise to addressing those issues than they had been previously. Uh, but as far as the actual history of it, I I think Nancy um may know how far back it goes, but I know that we've been using them for quite some time, at least uh for a portion of our runs. Sorry to put you on the spot, Miss Haynes. Yes, I just goes

093back past of my memory. So, I think um it's been significantly a long time we've been using Vanpull. We did go out to bid uh I think two contracts ago for special education transportation. We had some interest in our um bid and then um we received one bid at the the actual uh bid proposal. >> And just Oh, sorry. I was just going to add just just to be honest because things are different than than the yellow bus transportation. I I've reached out to a couple collaboratives. I've reached out to D and I've reached out to a couple of smaller vendors and it's it would literally be peacemealing um our transportation together um and using multiple vendors in order for us to get uh what Vanpool's providing now. And I do think um you know

094it's it's a scary time when you're looking at the contract because as we know um getting the workforce is difficult. Um you know D has had to deal with a significant pay increase for their drivers as well. But on top of that now and I I don't believe it's really being reflected in the prices as of yet is fuel. And if that's going to continue um to be um at the price point that it's at or anywhere near it and not drop back down again, um it's going to be a challenge. >> Any more questions? So this there is a motion down in the old business to approve the contract. Is that something everyone is comfortable with now or? >> I'm comfortable with it to be honest. Um, we have no other options basically. >>

095Yeah. And we just had the we just got all the information about it so we might as well vote on it now. I guess the question is though about the rate like if we want to is that right for 26 27 we'd have to decide either a 4% or 7% to kind of ease the burden come FY29. >> Well, it sounds like we I think it said we we don't really have the option for this coming year because we already voted in the budget assuming the 4% increase. >> True. just add uh because we did some of the analysis um where it says a rate less than 18% and it's kind of vague. It would have to be 11 and a half% for the cost to be the same between the two options. So if

096they were going to come back with more than 11 and a half in year three then we'd be losing out. Feel I feel like paying more now for the potential future maybe paying less later isn't really a good deal for the district. Anyone else? >> Robin. >> Uh, the committee did vote on 224 to approve the 2-year extension. >> Okay. >> So, you don't need to vote again unless you're changing that. >> Oh, okay. Okay. So, so we we already did vote on that. Oh, yeah. That's right. >> You did. February 24th. Yep. That meeting. >> And we had to ask Aaron to go back to the company to ask if there was any revisions that needed to be made or that she could make or >> It sounds like the answer to that was

097no. Basically, we we they couldn't come down on the price. So, that's it is what it is what it was before. So, what I'm hearing is everyone is comfortable with this and there's no motion to change the contract at this time. All right, moving forward. >> Okay, thank you. Um, next I'd like to share an update from the department. Um, and I'd like to start with um just some um some data. I shared this data last year as well. Um to date we are not seeing a significant change um in the percentage of students identified with special education needs or those placed in out of district schools. We're not seeing a significant increase or decrease. Um we have noticed that this year that there's been a slight decline in the number of students referred for

098initial evaluation. Um and also subsequently we've noticed a slight decline in students found eligible after initial information. When we analyze the data a little further, we noticed that students referred by their um school student support team or ISST team are more often found eligible for special education services than students that are being referred by parents. um we're finding that referrals from parents um are less often found eligible for special education. Um so what's important about this to mention is that it really helps to show that the tiered interventions provided to students throughout the district are working. um it indicates that students are who are not closing that access gap with additional interventions um should be assessed um as they may have a disability and require specially designed instruction. So, I think that with our continued

099efforts to strengthen our multi-tered systems of support throughout the district that we will eventually see even more students close the access gap and in turn a more significant decline in the overall percentage of students qualifying for special education. Earlier this um school year, I was asked um to share some information about the district-wide program. So, I thought I would include um a summary of each of our programs and um we do have very comprehensive program descriptions that I am happy to share, but I just included a few bullet points for each of the programs that we have. So, our um in district programming, the integrated preschool um this is our early childhood inclusion model specifically for preschool-aged learners. Um I identified that the age group served is ages three to four because students who are

100kindergarten eligible um do move on to to kindergarten. So um when their their um the new school year starts. So it's primarily servicing students turning three and students who are turning who have turned four. Um and we do have some five-year-olds in this program. This program is um only located at Squanakook early childhood center. The academic community headways independence educational vocational and enrichment for life or our achieve program um we have available for students who require this level of support for um in kindergarten through grade 12. It's designed for students who have significant global delays and require a highly modified curriculum with intensive supports throughout the school day. Um, functional academics are emphasized as well as communication, self-regulation, daily living. Um, and there are still opportunities um, as many as possible for students to have

101um, participate in inclusion. Students typically spend 80% or more of their school day in a substantially separate setting with individualized pacing and instruction. Our positive social thinking and executive planning or steps program we have um oh I apologize let me back up. The achieve program um elementary is located at Varnbrook Elementary School. The middle school program is at Nissatis Middle School and the high school is at NMRHS. Our steps program um services students in preschool through grade 12. Um these are students who who benefit from um an ABA or applied behavior analysis approach um to instruction and highly structured datadriven learning environment. Um this program focuses on academics. um students could be um performing close to grade level at grade level um or significantly below grade level and requiring this level of support. Um there's

102a focus on communication, behavioral supports, adaptive skills, self-regulation, and students who need flexible inclusion opportunities. Students c may spend a range of 20 to 80% of their school day in the small groupoup classroom depending on their individual needs. Um this program for preschool is located at Squanakook Early Childhood Center. Um currently the middle school the elementary and middle school are located at Barnbrook and Nissatis respectively. Um those programs are are the programs that will be transitioning to the towns and schools um for the um next school year. We also have a more intensive um program for students who require ABA supports. Um there is a um an increased staff ratio for students who are in the learning enrichment autism program. We currently have programming for students in kindergarten through grade 8. Um students are also

103focusing on academics, communication, self-regulation, sensory needs, and adaptive functioning. Um but students in this program typically spend 80% or more of their school day in the substantially separate small groupoup setting. Um which is often uh a 1:2 ratio um from staff to students. This programming is currently located at Squan Creek Early Childhood Center and um Hawthorne Brookbrook Middle School. We do have language-based programming um at Varnum Brook um for our elementary students and at Nesatissit for our middle school students and at the high school for high school students. Um this program is is really designed for students who have a language-based learning disability with specifically challenges in reading, writing um and expression, oral expression. Um the there's a systematic explicit approach to um reading provided um and it we're using uh a collaborative model that

104supports students in small groupoup pullout settings as well as access to grade level curriculum. Um this is where we are initiating a consultation model with landmark out school outreach program to enhance our middle school programming moving forward. The therapeutic learning classroom or TLC we have for students in grades kindergarten through grade 12. Um this program is located at Barnum Brook Elementary, Nissatisit Middle School as well as the high school and it's for students who require intensive social emotional and therapeutic supports in order to access their learning. Um students could receive um academic interventions as well as behavioral interventions, but some students are able to fully most students are able to fully access the general curriculum. Um there's a combination of services provided that includes academics, social emotional instruction, behavioral support, um therapeutic relationship building, and

105structured reinforcement systems. And it really focuses on helping students understand their emotions, connect emotions to behavior, and develop healthier coping and decision-making skills. We are um initiating a partnership um an autism partner program with the New England Consortium for Children. Um, and I put two grade bands in there because we are looking at um, providing this programming for a small group of students um, who are currently placed in out of district programs um, to bring them back into the district. Um, we feel as though this will um, oh, I just noticed an error here. Um, I apologize the description is incorrect on here. This is an intensive autism specific program. Um there is one-to-one support provided to students. It's the entire program is based in ABA and uses datadriven individualized instruction across academic communication, behavioral

106and adaptive domains. Um and it's also the curriculum is supported by the New England Consortium for Children's Autism Curriculum Encyclopedia or ACE curriculum. Um, it includes a strong emphasis also on family engagement, staff collaboration, skill generalization, as well as inclusion opportunities. I apologize for that error in the slideshow. Lastly, um, and this program will be located at the high school. Lastly, we have our gateway program, which is for students it's in who are 18 to 22 years old. um they can attend up until the day before their 22nd birthday if they are eligible. It's a post-secondary transition program. It's focused on preparing our young adults with significant disabilities for adult living, employment, community participation, and includes instruction on functional academics, financial literacy, independent living, vocational skills. We include several work experiences and community- based instruction.

107Um, so the weekly programming varies from um classroom days to um time at different work sites as well as community- based experiences and this program is located at Nesatis Middle School. Um, I did include a slide of the breakdown of the grade bands and the school locations for each of those programs that I just reviewed. So hopefully that is helpful. Um, and then I wanted to mention our extended school year program. This year will be um at both Squanakook Early Childhood Center for our early childhood program as well as our LEAP program for elementary and middle school. And then Barnum Brook Elementary School will host the remaining programs and students who require extended school year programming. Um the dates uh will run from July 6th through August 6th. Um, students have an individual schedule based

108on their needs per their IEP. Um, so some students attend Tuesday through Thursday, some students might attend only one day a week, some students may attend Monday through Thursday, um, depending on their individual needs. Lastly, um, I included some staffing challenges that we have right now. We do have two vacancies, two full-time vacancies for speech language pathologists. Um we're currently contracting externally to fill this need. Um we have been unable to fill our 6 um FTE job coach for the gateway program. This is the second year that we've been unable to fill that position and we also have a vacancy for a BCBA um which is a new position to better support students in specialized programs. Erin, I'm just going to break in for a second as we have massive storms going through the area

109and so if people lose power >> um we'll try and reconnect. We may have to cancel the meeting and go to another day, but um the wind is really whipping out my window here. So, we're going to try and keep on as long as we can. All right. Just a warning to everyone. Go ahead. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um so what's working in our department currently is we've established some some really strong systems and and processes. Um we feel as though we're moving in the right direction building programming in the district with our languagebased programs with our ABA program with our neck partnership strengthening our in district programs and strengthening our behavioral supports for all students. Thank you. All right. Any questions? And Erin, you said you had a more detailed of each program.

110Would you provide those to the committee and and send them to Robin and she can disperse them out and then put them in our um folder system as well? >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay, Randy. >> Yeah, thank you very much. I really uh liked that presentation. It was very informative about what's in the district. I know the special education if you don't have children in there um you really don't know what's available in the district. Um so that was uh very very helpful to know what we have. Uh the question I have is with the steps program moving to towns and um schools. Um, I know one of the uh one of the uh issues with it over in Peril, other than the schools being um just really full was the ratio of the

111special education to the regular classroom um general education students um when they were in in settings. Uh being that the towns and schools and the pepper schools are basically 5050 for those general education. Um, do you see any issues with the towns and schools getting overwhelmed like the pepper uh classes did with that ratio? >> Thanks for asking that question. Um, so I the current classrooms in Townsen um do not have a ratio of of 50% students with special education needs and 50% students. Is that >> Oh, no. No. It's just the um in the district uh Peril is about 50% of the district students and towns in Nashville make up about the other 50%. It's it's a little bit off but essentially >> understood. My brain thought about it a little bit differently. Um

112so I think that this will will really help um you know balance out the needs at Varnbrook. Um there are a significant number of special education students currently attending school at Barnum Brook which does um impact our inclusion classrooms because all of the students do attend inclusion for at least a portion of their day. Um so by moving the program the steps program specifically to Townsen um we feel as though although that will increase the the number of students um in those schools that it will not significantly um disrupt the ratios in the classrooms. Um there are currently um 64 students in the STEPS program that would be moving. So, we're talking that would be the number um that will have an impact and and that is um in kindergarten through grade 8. >> Thank

113you, >> Jackie White. >> Um sorry, I had to go off camera because as Lisa said, there are crazy storms and I just got a call of my kiddo on the way home in the storms. Um, so I'm sorry if you just asked and answered this, but um, how you showed that one slide that shows the location of all the programs, which I think is really helpful for newer families that were welcoming into these programs. Um, what's the onboarding process like for them? And and do we say this is what it looks like right now? These are all subject to change kind of based on our district needs as we move forward through the years. Um, so if a student moves into the district with an IEP that requires um a level of programming, whether

114it be for STEPS or another program, um, we do explain the programming that we have available that would be a match to them. Um, and we offer a tour before they start, not just of the school, but also of the classroom that their child would be in. So, I guess my question is more like because we're dealing with this issue, right, of of moving buildings around and so forth so that families don't get wed to a certain building, but rather to the program itself and just understanding that that could move based on what we need for the entire district. Like, is that kind of explained? And if not, is that something that we could kind of make into practice? So, I don't think that that has been part of our pra past practice as this

115is the first time that a program has been moved in in a few years. Um, but I do think that that is important to explain to families that um the programming is district-wide programming and could be subject to moving. um if you know if there were a change um that required us to move for you know more space or um or some other reason. Yes, I I think that that's a great idea you had. >> I think it'd be helpful. Um and then I love the autism partner program that we're working on with neck. How are we going to start letting the families that are currently out of district know that that's happening? So, I've reached out to the families to let them know about this exciting potential opportunity and have offered to meet with

116families to talk about what the program will look like for them. Um, since we do not have a classroom that they're able to visit. Um, I have connected with the director of student services in Chsford who does have a high school level program and she has offered to um invite our families there um with myself or Miss Cole to visit the program to see a classroom and what the cla how the classroom functions. >> That's great. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Seeing no hands. Um, what else would you like to present, Miss Upton and Miss Cole? >> I believe that's all we have tonight. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yes, thank you. There's a big crack of lightning coming. So, um, thank you for your presentation tonight. Moving on, we have a CPAC report.

117Is it CPAC? Am I saying that correctly? >> You are. I'm just going to uh promote Relle Bum to present. Hello. Can you hear me? >> We can. Michelle >> Robin, are you able to bring up my presentation? >> I'm not, but is is somebody else, Lisa? Are you able to bring it up? Sorry about that. >> That's everyone seeing my screen. It's small but yes. Yep, we can see it. >> I'll try and make it bigger here. You go ahead, Michelle. >> Okay. Um, so I am Michelle Blom. I am with um CPAC and for those parents that are listening, it's special education parents advisory council. So we help um facilitate the gap or the bridge between the special education department and any questions that parents may have about special education in general. Um,

118if you want to flip to the next slide, Lisa, we always start the school year out with trying to attend all of the open houses and we do our best um to do that. I have um Jessica Falls and Colleen Harsh as co-chairs this year and we were able to make all of them. Our challenge with the open houses, um they're not all, you know, designed the same. Some allow for um parents to have time to stop by all the tables and others it's go go go trying to acclimate to their kids schedule. So we do our best to try and um invite parents to take a few moments and stop by our table. This year we had a raffle basket um filled with toys and sensory objects for kids. Um that went over really

119well. Our priority is to increase our our mailing list so that people know um about us and what kind of events and presentations we put on. We like to um give out any information that we possibly can. Um and just make them aware that we are here. If you can go to the next slide, please. Um so this year we were in a really unique position. Um, for those of you who don't know, the kids country playground is located in Towns and Mass and they have an independent um, group of parents that maintain it and they got some grants and they raised a whole lot of money over several years and we now have an ADA um, compliant playground which is so exciting. Um, and we were asked to be involved as part of the

120ribbon cutting ceremony. So we went and participated on with that and we also donated some sand toys for the kids to play. We also came into possession of a accessible swing and when we inquired around in the district it occurred that the only school that didn't have the swing was um Squanuk for K through one. The preschool has one. So that's where we donated it. So now both sides of of um K1 and preschool have access to a swing. I know Varnham Brook also has one in pole. Um so it's just one more thing to help make you know playtime easier for kids who might struggle with playground equipment. If you could um go forward please the next slide please. Thank you. Um, we put on several events every year. The sensory Santa is by

121far my favorite. Um, we are very lucky that St. John's Church, um, has a really unique setup in their hall that allows for us to keep the party portion away from Santa so that the kids can have some fun. And then when they get time to visit Santa, it's in a very quiet, relaxing, um, nonrush environment, which is so needed for so many kids. Um the mall is often very overstimulating for some. So this has been a truly wonderful opportunity for some of our most precious kids to be able to visit with the the jolly old man himself. Um and we can't put put this event on without the help of our high school volunteers. So we are always grateful that they volunteer year after year. Um as you can see in one of the

122photos, we had a rousing game of duck duck goose. And uh it's always fun to see the high school kids interact with um our young kids as well. If you can go to the next slide, please. Um Towns and Library has a festival of trees that they put on every December into January. And for the last several years, we've always had a tree um with a different theme. This year, we chose to talk about Special Olympics. And we asked many of the kids and like the achieve the steps, excuse me, in some of the other programs to help decorate our trees. So that's what you see in the photo here. Um, we gave them colored paper and they could decorate it as much or as little as they wanted. They could write what activities they

123enjoy in Special Olympics and that way they were a part of the tree. And then we we had two different books, one aimed at children and one aimed at adults that would promote Special Olympics and talk more about what they do and how we can support them. Next slide, please. Really excited about this one. Um Valerie Tvado, who is special education at the high school, contacted me. this has been on my bucket list for years and she just had the the gumption to get it started and we were happy to help and be a part of it. Um we had a transition fair. So what this means is any child who is on an IEP or 504 might need supports if they go to a college or university had representation there. um any child who

124maybe they don't want to go the college route, but they're they want to go into the workforce and need some skills. While we weren't able to get a technical school present, we did have materials for them. And then we also had representation for kids who maybe they may or may not enter the workforce. They may need housing and other supports after graduation. So, we had a wealth of information um represented there for families as well. It was our first attempt at it and I think we we consider it a great success. We had over 50 families there, not only from North Middle Sex but brought Dunstable as well and lots of great ideas to continue with this next year. The feedback was great and we just hope to expand and make it more inclusive and

125helpful for families. Next slide, please. One more slide. Um, now when we talk about our presentations, we brought back Brendan Mahan. He um is a gentleman with ADHD himself and we have had him speak previously. He's a fan favorite and he's very well known. He's in the middle of writing a book. Um, and we brought him back this time not only to talk about ADHD, but the the impact on executive functioning. We partnered with brought dunstable um because once these speakers get a little traction and they become popular, so do their fees go up. So to try and make it economical, we we split the bill. It was very well attended. We had it in the high school auditorium and we had rave reviews once again from his um presentation. Hopefully we will be able

126to bring him back again in future years. If you can go to the next slide, please. Um, we just had Dawn Dinaro um in couple weeks ago as well talking about um when reading is hard, you know, dyslexia and other challenges that students may face when trying to learn how to read, defining the problem for us, the different types of um issues they can have, and what kind of supports parents can do for kids at home. Um this was a really great presentation and um we were happy to have her in as well. Next slide please. And then last night we had Mora Schulman. She came in to talk about um mediation. So basically when parents and the districts can't don't quite see eye to eye on what the IEP should be, you know, mediation

127is a very um often overlooked but really great solution to try and come in the middle and compromise and find what's going to be best for the student. Um so parents get to learn a lot about what that process looks like and how it fits into the whole um IEP solution. And then the other part of the coin is the Federation for Children with Special Needs. They are really a great resource that we have access to. And the wonderful thing that they've done this year is they put presentations on a rotating calendar that anyone can attend. So in the past, we would have to make the very difficult decision of okay, well, which presentation do we want? You know, basic rights, do we want transition or or what have you? and then we would have

128to pay for it. They decided they were still going to continue with their online presentation model, but they were just going to have um a schedule and any parent from anywhere in Massachusetts could log into any of these presentations and watch at their leisure. No cost associated other than the cost of membership which we are a part of every year. Um, and for parents listening, you can find this um at www.fcsn.org backvents or you can go to the North Middle Sex website, click on special education, click on CPAC and it'll be on the right hand side it'll say FCSN and it'll go to a live link of their calendar so that you can see all the different events that they have. Um, so that was really exciting. And next slide. I think that might Oh,

129no. Fundraising. Um, as I mentioned, the the greatest speakers that people, it doesn't matter what school is trying to reach out to, they cost ridiculous amounts of money. I'm talking in the thousands of dollars. And I don't have to tell parents how tight money is and how challenging it is. So, we really try and be savvy when we bring someone in and we are so grateful to our sponsors. Every year we put on the school toolbox fundraiser. We will do that again this year. Um, for those of you who just you're enjoying summer too much and you don't want to shop for back to school supplies, you don't have to. you can log on a few clicks of the button and you can just select that your child's grade and their school and then pay

130for the the kit and it's sent to your house. You know, it doesn't get any easier than that. A small portion of that um toolbox kit gets sent to CPAC so we can put on programming. We also are very grateful to have Sophia's Pizza and Townsen as a continuing partner. They always give us a percentage of profits the night before Thanksgiving. Um, which is helpful. And we have Bailey's here that also um had a a fundraising night for us not too long ago. And we have one coming up with the Alamo May 11th as well. So, if you're hungry for some barbecue, um, head on out on Monday night, May 11th, and support CPAC and get some good food at the same time. Um, a lot of the fundraising we do, we try and keep

131minimal min minimalized because we don't have an army of volunteers. Um, our goal is to try and encourage parent participation, but we understand the conflicts. Um, we're competing against sports, you know, theater, clubs, music, and then, you know, some it's babysitting and childcare issues. So, um, we ask that if you have time, even if it's to do one event or help us make phone calls, we would welcome you in any capacity. Um, we always have a challenge, too, in reaching out and getting the word out about our presentations. So, you can find us on Facebook. We try and post through all three town sites, as many parent um Facebook pages as we can in addition to Brad's newsletter, the the um principal newsletters, and Aaron sends out information as well. Um but if anybody else

132has any other creative ideas on how to reach parents, please share them with us because our goal is just to make sure that everyone is aware. Um and that's our highlights for this year. We will be reconvening in May. We will be posting what our our next meeting date is shortly and let um hold elections for next year and then talk about what we want to do in 2027. Any questions? >> Uh thank you Michelle. I know that you put a lot of work into this so I want to thank you. you do a lot of work for the families in our community and I thank you and I know that you have volunteers that work with you. Please send our thank yous to them as well. Um, thank you. All right, Randy has a

133question for you. >> Actually, it's more of a statement very kind of um on your coattail there. Uh, Lisa is Thank you very much, Michelle. Uh I know CPAC in all of my time on the committee has always been instrumental um with the parents in the special education. Um it takes a village to raise every one of these children. Um support from home and support for the uh parents is always very important but especially so for uh the special education children. uh those parents um from what I understand and I've heard throughout the years is look to CPAC uh for some very essential uh information um that they need to get acclimated when their child first gets uh put on an IEP um or for anything ongoing. So, thank you very much to the organization

134and to everybody that um has contributed to it and will contribute to it. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you, Michelle. Miss Upton or Miss Cole, anything from you as well. I think you are finished. If you want to step off, >> well do. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Have a good evening. >> Moving on. School choice. Superintendent Morgan. >> Thank you. Um, I I supplied the school committee with a school choice enrollment history dating back to 2008 and as well as a pros versus cons um chart that was uh basically comprised from several school districts and um honestly at this point in time and I'm I'm certainly able to go over the chart if you would like uh but at this point we are only recommending school choice in grades 9, 10,

135and 11 with 10 slots. each. Um the reason for that is K to8 our goal for next year is to really try to get down to that 25 being the maximum number of students in a classroom and essentially at every grade level we are hovering around the 24 25 even in some cases 26 mark. Um we do have a couple of grade levels that are around the 22 or 23, but um in talking with the administrative team, building principles at last week's leadership meeting, it's too much of a risk at this point uh just because of the fact that we have seen growth in what's what's really happening is especially over the past couple weeks, we've seen growth in two schools at two grade levels. So Spalding for instance has seen a an increase of

136I believe five students in grade two and Nissatissa has seen a similar increase in grade six. So the students that we're getting are coming into one grade level. So even if we're at 22 23 because we are a district that does tend to um see some foster and DCF movement over the course of the summer. it's too much of a risk to say we're going to add a slot or two here when that could potentially put us over that 25 mark um and create a very difficult situation again for our staff. Um so in looking at the high school where the enrollment is down um and it has been dropping fairly steadily uh compared to and and that's also in the enrollment report that I gave you. It's dropped off. If you go back to

137the 1990s, it's dropped. It's It's cut in half. It really has dropped significantly. And that and that's for a a wide variety of reasons. Um I can't guarantee that the school choice lots in in grade 9, 10 or 11, if they were to fill that we wouldn't need some fractional staff, but even with that, it would still be beneficial to our students because our athletic teams, our clubs of all of that membership is starting to to drop off. We, as many of you saw, we had to co-op our football team um this past year. Other teams are looking to co-op in other sports. Other other uh teams and other other school districts have reached out to North Middle Sex to see if there's a possibility in us co-oping for football next year. We already have

138a co-op agreement with Grat and Dunville, potentially other sports, but in many cases, schools that used to be able to field their own athletic teams are now looking at having to go co-op. And I think it's because of a drop in drop in public school enrollment statewide, but it's also due to, you know, some of the club sports that are having a a negative impact on high school sports. Um, many kids have become one sport specialists and that's what they play year round. They may play that. So, if you're looking at soccer, for instance, they may play soccer at North Middle Sex, but they're playing soccer year round. Um, and some of those students may not be playing a winter or spring sport, or the student may be playing club hockey. Um, and playing for

139North Middle Sex, we're not doing a fall or a spring sport because hockey has become a year- round sport. So, it's certainly a challenge and I I in talking with with Miss Smith, there's certainly room at the high school. Um, but if we were to fill those slots, we would be looking potentially at having to fill um some fraction positions. We do have a situation at the high school. We do have some flexibility with lure uh which is which is a great place to be in. Uh but K to8 uh the $5,000 at this point that you get per student which has not changed since 1996 um is just not um it's it's too much of a risk when if we get to a point where we have to hire another teacher and that $5,000

140doesn't go very far. Even if it's, you know, five or six students, you're looking at 25 $30,000 for a teacher with benefits that is closer to 100. Certainly willing to take questions. >> Right. Anyone have any questions? Um, so I guess uh the first question I have is um at the high school I believe when we were talking about um class size at the high school before you were looking at next year uh I don't remember which grades of classes being over 30. Um is that in the 9th, 10th and 11th grades? So in some cases there are definitely pockets of classes of 30. It's not necessarily because of a staffing problem. It's due generally because of a scheduling issue where you have students that are picking a particular path. um you know it could

141be uh you know an honors student who is taking multiple honors classes and they get funneled into a certain schedule uh due to the number of sections that are available or a student that may be taking a particular foreign language whether it be French or Spanish or they may be t taking a particular music class it's so some of those singleton classes or some of those singleton electives in many cases drive the schedule so that there are certainly some classes that high school that are very high again, but then there are some that are on the lower side. Um, and there's there's not much that we can do about that because you would literally be be looking at the only way to address it would be hiring a point. 2 English teacher um which would

142be which would be very hard to find. Now, as as I said, there is potentially some flexibility. Um, you know, I think one of the one of the things that, um, puts us in a good spot in North Middle Sex is that we do have some par profofessionals, many of whom that want to eventually move into teaching. And we have some that are already licensed as teachers. So, there could be a potential to share a paraprofessional and maybe a part-time teaching situation. Um and that could potentially help with some of our larger class sizes but it would be something that we would really have to fill inhouse if the lure is there because someone can only you know for instance if we have a par profofessional that is licensed in English they could teach an

143English section they could also teach 20% outside of that English lure as well um we try not to do that if at all possible and to keep them in their area of lure but if we can't find somebody and they have the skill set to do it. Often times that may be an English person teaching a history class or vice versa. Um, and we're able to have a positive impact on class size and we will definitely look at that. Um but as far as um as far as those school choice lots, if those were to fill, we would we would certainly need to fill some fractional positions, but we do feel as though we have the personnel at the high school to make that happen without necessarily having to look outside if that makes sense.

144>> I would assume we'd have to pay a little bit more than what the pair professional made. So to our budget, >> um we have been um asked by you for the last four or five years to opt out because $5,000 does not cover the cost of of students. Um and um even with filling an empty seat that they cost more than $5,000 even when we don't have to um add any staff. So, where is the financial benefit to the district of bringing these students in where we know if we have these filled, there's a good chance that we're going to have to hire or pay more even in house for the services. Um, it just, you know, $5,000 has always been said we it it hurts our budget. So, why now? So I I

145I don't believe if these positions fill it would necessarily come at a cost because we'd be looking at potentially a point 2 or a point4 addition to staff. Uh that's not that's not a full-time we're not looking to necessarily hire a full-time teacher would be to create potentially another section which we may have to create regardless um just based on student enrollment. You know, unfortunately, like much of everything else, u the way the budget works, it it doesn't it doesn't jive with the way um the state works or anything else. We approved our budget in March. We can't schedule the high school in by mid-March. That's just that's not possible. Um so, while scheduling's going on, we're working on excuse me, while we're working on the budget, we're scheduling the high school. we really we

146can't schedule the high school earlier than we do and we do have some sections that are high. So, we may actually end up having to find uh some fractional staff and potentially having to pull from other sources in order to make that happen. We've done that in the past. Um I guess my point is is that if we're going to do that, we may as well try to fill in fill in some slots as well while we're doing that. Um whereas at the elementary level, I'm not filling a class. I'm filling an entire classroom and having to hire a full-time teacher. So, if if we have, you know, four sections of 28 and we opt to bring in some school choice students, we would be creating another section which would not be paid for by

147those school choice students. That would be $100,000 in a new staffing position right there. There's just no way that that that makes any sense. If we're looking at a situation where we may already have to break some of these students up, it may make some sense to bring in, but it only makes sense at the high school because it's the only place where that can really happen because K to 6, you're still looking primarily at self-contained classrooms and having to hire a staff member. Um, at the at the middle school level, it's even more complex. Um, it could be having to hire a split team or an entire team of people in order to get class sizes down. at the high school. It's just a fractional staff member. >> Okay. Well, uh before we had

148closed AES and um well before we even considered closing AES, we were not taking any uh school choice. We stopped taking school choice where in Ashby we actually had classes of 15 and 16 because we had to split a class. Um and we were told even then for those empty seats that 5,000 was not enough. Have we done a financial analysis like was asked for the last year, year and a half on school choice so that we know is this anecdotal that it does that $5,000 doesn't cover a child when we don't have to hire a teacher or does it and does it benefit the district? Uh just saying now that it's oh a small amount of uh one class versus a teacher. Well, there was no teacher before and now we're hiring a class.

149Where's the financial information to tell me that this really benefits the district and our budget? >> So, there's there's a big difference between hiring a full-time 1.0 teacher versus a 2 staff member uh or possibly a point4 staff member. Um, I would say with confidence that if if we were creating a situation where again you're creating another section of students, unless you have 25 school choice students to fill that classroom, you're taking a financial loss on it is it's not it's not I mean it's a fact. That's just the way it works with the finances because you're having to hire a full-time self-contained teacher full-time. This is different in that enrollment is down at the high school as a whole. There's a likelihood we're going to have to hire an additional fractional staff member anyway.

150Not a full-time staff member, but a 2.4 something like that. And if we're going to have to do that, that could help supplement that position where there's definitely room at the elementary level and middle school level. I would say again because of the change that we see from every single summer and the influx of students that we see in some cases coming out in other cases um coming in. It creates situations where unfortunately that is not a balanced um shift in students. It always tends to be at a particular grade level and that ends up, you know, us potentially having to tell a teacher late in the summer, you know, we really have to move you now to another grade level because the grade below you, the class sizes have gone up significantly or potentially

151having to hire a staff member um to to fix that situation. Last year, we couldn't do it because we just didn't have the money. Um, this year I I don't feel as though we can hire a full-time teacher, but if we absolutely had to and the school choice money would supplement that and I would say possibly cover all of it because it's fraction. It's a fraction staff member. I don't see what what the risk would be and it would only help bolster some of the athletic programs and arts programs and clubs that we have at the high school which again the the high school population has has been cut in half over the last 20 years. >> No, I do understand currently with the higher class sizes and the lower grades, but I'm still looking

152for some financial data to back up that $5,000 even trying to cover a 0.2 to FTE at the high school is actually going to worth it with the high school and the loss of these students from 8th nth grade in the last couple of years going up exponentially. I would actually prefer your efforts to be going towards trying to figure out how to keep more students in the district. That would help our high school um and our finances much better than trying to bring in some school choice with $5,000 that we just don't know. We've been told for 5 years that it doesn't pay for itself, even if you don't have to hire staff. So, I'd rather see us keep our own students than open this up. >> Sure. And and again, I would encourage

153the school committee to look at the enrollment uh information that I shared. I think it tells a pretty good story um as to as to why we're dealing with an enrollment problem. It's it's it's not an NM problem. It's it's a Massachusetts problem. um it's a national problem, but it really is um something that is where Massachusetts is seen as kind of off on its own as far as seeing declining birth rates and the number of choices that are available to families right now outside of comprehensive public education. So again, just just a recommendation committee can certainly um opt not to move in this direction. It's it was certainly just just an idea and it's something that we may have to address whether we're taking in school choice students or not >> I think the

154explanation I don't I don't necessarily understand where the confusion was coming from. Um, I I think Superintendent Morgan explained it quite eloquently. Um, I'd like to also add in that given that these are all high school students, um, we can think of this as say a 4-year investment um, for these grade N folks. Um, we're only accept or he's only the superintendent is only proposing 30 students. Um so 30% of that um I should say 33% of that total student investment is four years and 33% of that investment is 2 years. Um given the breakdown of the enrollment sections which was provided um like specifically um you can see the high number those high numbers pop up um in specific levels. Um the high school tends to bundle the electives 112 and 910. So, it

155makes perfect sense to me how hiring a 2 to break up something that's already going to need to be broken up um would be perfectly fine under this model. Um given this is $150,000 of revenue um that may not even need, you know, a permanent addition. So, I'd be comfortable making a motion to accept Oh, I need to read it from the agenda. My apologies. Um, I would move that the district accept students uh for the 26 27 academic year in the following grade levels. 10 for grade 9, 10 for grade 10, 10 for grade 11. >> Do I have a second? >> I had a comment to make. Um, I have my hand up. >> All right. So, go ahead. >> Yeah. I'm I'm gonna come out and say I'm not for this. Um,

156I'm not a big fan of school choice to be perfectly honest with you. Um, I think uh adding adding market elements to public goods is um a bankrupt idea of the 1990s. Um, I don't think it's a good idea. Um, I I get the I get the um I get Superintendent Morgan's um reasoning. I get why he wants to do this. I get that, you know, you might need to break up a class anyway, but to be completely honest with you, as a teacher, nobody nobody nobody wants to be a 2 teacher. All right? Yeah, maybe you can scrge up a parah who wants to do 2. But really, that parah is going to be gone next year because they're going to go from a parah to a parah plus 2 and they're going to

157be like, hm, can I make, you know, I can make twice as much money as a full-time teacher now that I've had that point2 experience, you know, I'm gonna go do that. Um, I I just don't think this makes sense. Um, I think in the short term, yeah, but in the long term, uh, you know, I I don't think this makes sense. >> Is there anyone else? I can't speak for the superintendent but I think that objection was already stated where yes it would be difficult to find a point to parah but given that we already have licensed individuals in the district that it would not be outlandish to believe that we have people eligible to do so. And this once again, as I stated before, this is not the same thing as school choice

158at a lower grade level where we are now in a much longer commitment to these students. When we're talking about a point 2 at the high school level, there's far more flexibility there um for someone to move around even between different levels. Let's talk English 10, English 11, English 9. Like between all those levels, you you have a lot more flexibility between that teacher and a sixth grade English teacher who can teach sixth grade English. Um, so there's that. >> Superintendent Morgan, do you have your hand up? >> Yes. I I just um and I don't know if this will will um will will make a difference, but I I do just want to add that we place a tremendous amount of value in in the power professionals that we have in the district. Um

159one of the things that that we like to do if at all possible is and many of these power professionals, as I said, are licensed and their goal is to teach in the district. Um being able to potentially hire a PAR professional at a at a 2.4 four type situation. Um, not only gives that par the opportunity to to get their feet wet teaching in the district, but it also gives us the opportunity and the students the opportunity to see how they fit in the North Middle Sex culture and to see if they would be a successful full-time candidate. So the goal is to uh whenever possible if we have paras that want to teach is not to let them go to other districts but when we have an opening to have them move from

160parah into a full-time teaching position um if they have the license and if they have the desire to do so >> sorry uh Lisa Bloom >> um I totally agree with Randy and Alex um we definitely need more studies on Yes. Anyone else? Um, can I second Kenan's motion? Is that allowed as a chairperson? That's a good question >> because we do need to we do need to vote on it. We have to vote it down or vote it up. That's >> all right. I'll I'll I'll simplify it. I'll I'll second Keenan's motion so that way you don't have to figure that out. >> Okay. Thank you. So, that was a motion by Kenan and a second by um Mike Labosier. All right, it's a roll call vote. Randy Rush, >> no. >> Michael Bossier,

161>> yes. >> Uh Lisa Bloom, >> no. >> France or Keenan Francois? >> Yes. >> Alex Vancoui? >> No. Jackie White. >> No. >> Myself. Yes. I think that was four against and three in favor. >> Kim's still on the call. >> No, she has dropped. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you, Superintendent Morgan. >> So, just to be clear, we're moving forward with no school choice for FY27. No, no school choice for >> Okay, thank you. >> All right, moving on. We can skip number eight that's already been approved. We are going to number nine on the agenda and that is Dr. Reese. >> Good evening everyone. Um so I have the opportunity once again to share some grants that the district has received. Um, and there's two, they're very similar. The first is

162$3,500 for a Project Lead the Way grant. This is to provide professional development for staff to be able to teach uh the new courses that we're offering through Project Lead the Way Pathways up at the high school. I don't know if you want me to go through both or do each separate. >> Uh, go through both, please. >> Okay. And the second is through uh it's an investigating history grant. As you know, we have investigating history in grades five through seven. This year uh we had a team of teachers uh participate in professional development from our third and fourth grade and pilot some of their units for the third and fourth grade which are new for investigating history. uh they came back very excited and helped craft the grant application uh for grades three and

163four. Uh we did receive a grant uh two grants uh one in the amount of 13,500 for Spalding and then 10,000 for Barnum Brook. Um and again the funding would provide professional development activities for implementation of the investigating history for our grades three and four students. Does anyone have any questions? Alexander? >> Yeah, I'm So again, as I've stated before, um so both project lead the project with Lead the Way is a uh project based um uh project- based curriculum. Um investigating history is an inquiry based curriculum. I don't like either of those. Um, as a teacher, I think those put the cart before the horse. You need concrete information first and foremost, especially at the elementary levels. I do not think that an inquirybased learning system is developmentally appropriate for third and fourth graders.

164Um, and yeah, it's super trendy. I know it's pushed by Desie. It's pushed by every, you know, big giant foundation, you know, that writes all our grant, that gives us all our grants, that tells us what to teach. But I think this this is Lucy Cockkins 2.0. This type of stuff is just not appropriate. And I have um it does not fit with the field of cognitive science. And I have some notes here because I'm very passionate about this subject. Um so inquiry learning was was um conceived of a long time ago 60-ish years ago. Um based on the assumptions they had about cognitive development at the time. Um those assumptions have since been superseded within the science of within cognitive science. Um, and really there's been no strong empirical evidence to show that inquiry

165based learning or project-based learning is superior to any sort of teacher-led direct or explicit explicit instruction. And in fact, the data goes in the opposite direction. I'll point you to the 2018 um meta study the effectiveness of direct instruction curricula by stalker uh wood at all um where this is I know this is trendy I know everybody who talks every all these companies come through all these foundations come through and they tell us this is the way to teach this is so much better this puts the power in the hands of students it's all nonsense We need chalk and talk and drill and kill. Explicit and direct instruction that's very clear that involves lots of checks for understanding, lots of opportunities for student practice and drilling until students master the curriculum. This type of stuff

166really it puts it's it's for the high-f flyers, this inquiry based learning and they'll do they'll do well with anything. You sit them in a dark room with a textbook and a flashlight, they're going to learn. All right. Um, and you know, the way we acquire information as humans, um, our short-term memory is extremely limited, right? And if we're constantly relying on short-term memory in these project-based and inquiry based lessons, and we're not relying on explicit instruction from a teacher, we're going we're only going to acquire that information very slowly. Um this fits with like the field of cognitive science. Um and we spent decades pushing curriculum called um we spent decades putting pushing queuing and decades pushing um whole language models um of reading. And what did we find out after decades and decades

167of that being this big trend? We found out that old school phonics is the way to go. Old school phonics taught through explicit instruction is the way to go. I have a an HHS study right here that says as much. All right. Um, and I know I know I'm fighting I know I'm swimming up river on this. I know I'm fighting uphill because I'm fighting against all the prevailing trends in the Commonwealth and all the prevailing trends that are pushed by these foundations and by their backers. Um, and yeah, uh, the rest of the school committee can feel free to vote for these grants. I know nobody wants to say no to money, but I am using this opportunity to express my opposition to these so-called studentled practices and my preference for um, teacher-led direct

168and explicit instruction. And you guys can disagree with that. I know Gary's got a higher degree than me. I know Gary's got more years in education than me. Gary's a smart guy. He's a nice guy. I have nothing against him personally, but at the end of the day, I do not I don't like these curriculums. Um, just my experience as a teacher and the relevant data I have seen just it's not there and I'm against it. All right, that's all I'll say. Sorry. >> Can I respond to that? So certainly I appreciate your feedback, Mr. Vancoui. Um, this is a program that actually the teachers did go to and were in favor of. So it's not something that I was pushing. It's not something that was coming down from these higher bodies. Um, it's something

169that the teachers saw the benefit to. They saw the benefit when they were implementing the pilot lessons in the classroom. They saw the benefits for all the students. Um, I do have research studies that show the benefit of this these types of approaches. I know I've offered the opportunity to sit down with you. At that time, you didn't want to hear any opposing of view to your viewpoint. Um, but I continue to be open to having a conversation and sitting down about that. >> It wasn't that I didn't want to hear your viewpoint. I was just busy at the time and I didn't set up a meeting. Okay. Um, I'd be happy to talk to you about this, but I think we're just both going to pull up different studies and, you know, it's going

170to be a whole, you know, to steal from someone I don't like very much, an alternative fact situation between the two of us. I think the research and education is a woefully lacking field and I think we have you can basically a lot of people make studies and they can go wherever they want. Um, >> and so, um, we're I think we're going to be talking past each other, um, for a lot of it. Um, and like again, you you're very I understand I like respect your credentials and I respect your experience, but I just do not like these types of curriculum. And I've experienced myself um at open sed trainings um pretty open kind of like indoctrination into this type of education and it's really treating it like it's fundamentally superior which I just

171it that it nothing shows that it's better than um explicit instruction or any old school methods. Well, thank you and I I appreciate that and I would hope that if we sat down and have a conversation, we wouldn't be speaking past each other, but we would be speaking to each other and listening to each other's feedback. So, thank you. >> And I'm going to reiterate that, Alexander. I do think that a sit down with Gary would be beneficial just to have some back and forth with each other and discuss it. That's all I'm suggesting. All right, Randy. Um, with that said, um, I respect, um, Alex, um, as a teacher. He's on the front lines. He has his experiences. Um, and we all know that, um, teaching methods have changed and some have gotten better

172and some we end up going back. Um, Gary, we've had Project Lead the Way for a number of years in other classes, I know. Um, do we have or can we can I ask you to present to the rest of the school committee? I won't be here. Uh, just try and take a look at the what the data is saying as far as how these courses are uh what they're doing for our students, for the ones that are the most needy, for the ones that are um the most gifted. Um, how are these programs actually inc, you know, increasing their learning or not? and maybe try and take a look at the data for our students because my guess is a lot of this can be very um specific to this district and the students

173that are in this district um and we have to take a look at that first and foremost but bring us back to the data and let's see what the data is telling us. >> Absolutely. >> Does that uh satisfy something for you? You can take a look at that and really kind of see how the students are performing with what we already have in the district. I Gary did say yes. He He's shaking his head yes as well. And so Robin, will you just make a note that on a future meeting Gary will come back in our action notes? All right, Jackie White. So I will just add that I completely appreciate the discussion that we're having right now. I think um I am always looking for a happy mix of both instructorled and studentled.

174I think that you know we're never going to totally move away from one method in favor of another. Um my thinking is always like the learning sticks for me. Not when someone is always telling me the answer, but I really have to struggle with it myself. That is just kind of how I best learn. But not every student is like that and I can appreciate that. So, while I am going to vote yes to approve these grants, um I certainly see the the pros and cons to kind of both methods of teaching and learning. >> It is I'm just going to remind people it is getting late and we have some stuff to work through. Um we have executive session as well added on to this. Um so, just want to remind people Does anyone

175have a motion on these grants? >> Yes. Should I should I combine them into one motion or should we just do them separately? >> You can do them separately. I think it makes it easier for >> Okay. All right. I move the school committee vote to accept the 18 project lead the way Massachusetts grant in the amount of $3,500. >> I'll second. That is Mike with a motion and Jackie White with a second. It's a roll call vote. Randy Rush, >> yes. >> Lisa Bloom, >> yes. >> Mike Labosier, >> yes. >> Alexander Vancoui, >> no. >> Lisa White. >> Or no, Jackie White, sorry. >> Yes. >> Sorry. Jackie White. Yes. Uh, Kenan France. Yes. >> And myself. Yes. All right, Mike. I will let you make the next motion. >> Yes. All right.

176Uh, I move that the school committee vote to accept the 18 investigating history magnify grades three to four grant in the amounts of 13 $13,500 for uh for Squan Cookook and $10,000 for Varnenbrook. >> I second >> clarification. That's not Squan Cook. It's Spalding. >> Spalding the Yep. I I I mix up the the Spalding and Squan Cookook every time. >> So, it is Spalding and Jackie White was with the second. I did hear Lisa, but I think Jackie beat her. Um, Lisa Bloom, >> yes. >> Randy Rush, >> yes. >> Mike Labosier, >> yes. >> Alexander Benudi, >> no. Jackie White, >> yes. >> Keenan France, >> yes. >> And myself is yes. All right, moving on. We can skip over Vanpool. Um, moving on to finance. Kim Craraven is not here. >> Uh,

177she did ask uh if I could do it, Lisa, that's >> Yep, you can go ahead. Um, so I'm not to put um Nancy on the spot, but she can definitely explain the budget transfer better than I can. But first, I'll just go through um our last meeting. Um we definitely had a good productive discussion. Um a bulk of our discussion was focused on our year end for FY26. We're set to end with about 2.188 million. Um, we uh had a lot of discussion about uh what we're going to do with this money now that we have a budget set. Um, if I'm not mistaken, we are currently set to use 2.5. Um, anyone jump in, correct me if I'm wrong. 2.5 for END for uh from END uh for FY27. Um, and then this

178additional 2.188 will land us at about 1.5 um to two 1.5 or 2 million. Um, I apologize if I'm getting these numbers wrong. This is on the spot. um for in FY27 left in END. Um, we had discussion uh about whether or not we could do some preurchasing uh for some items from the projected balance from FY26 for FY27 um for items uh primarily in the technology category. Um given global market unpredictability um and ever rising costs um the committee was generally in favor of uh you know pre- purchase plans and arrangements and we asked the administration to explore these options. Um, we there was also discussion about whether or not we could um uh use uh this projected balance from 26 uh in prepurchasing to then lower um our budget ask for FY27 and

179thus the uh town assessments. Um we had differing the committee had differing opinions. Uh there um the I can tell you my personal consensus was that um we should not necessarily entertain um any changes any lowering of the budget um or uh assessments uh if we do go forward with a pre-purchasing plan. um just because of our uh constant uh reductions over the past several years have left left us in a uh inflexible position. Um and with this unexpected money uh to say um it gives us a lot of it gives us some liberty back um and autonomy um where we're able to get going on these projects which have been put behind. Um we did not take any formal action and the committee did not take make any recommendations um on this matter. Uh

180further on and uh so moving on from that um we also discussed the Ashby solar panels um and got an update from administration uh where uh legal council is currently uh in the process of moving forward to transfer the agreement to Ashb. Um so our council and the Ashb town council um are in the process of working on that. Um, I don't know if any other finance members have anything to jump in with on that part of the meeting if I covered everything. I think that covers most of what was talked about. Um, I know that there was the talk of um I know there's a um a budget transfer that also needs to be approved. I I figured that was what you were going to do next. >> Yes. Um, I'm going to defer

181to Nancy on that. Um, because I probably cannot explain it effectively. >> Um, go or Randy first. We'll go to Randy. She has a question. >> Yeah. I just as far as the reducing the assessments next year, um I did listen um afterwards to the finance subcommittee meeting and listen to uh what Kim's arguments were for um reducing assessments next year. I believe uh that we received about $234,000 from the collaborative uh this year in excess uh revenue uh unanticipated revenue. Um, I think being that we increased END from 2 million to 2.5 million, uh, because we had money that we wanted to reduce the END by 234,000 from the collaborative is only going to raise it back up. Uh, it does nothing as far as if we are going to pre-purchase anything and lowering

182the budget um because of those pre- purchases. I think that $234,000 should go back to the towns. Um we we just keep closing out more and more money. Um and I don't think it's going to be clear exactly what we have until we get the END out of the budget. Um but if we have all this money that we can't seem to spend, why are we not giving it back to the towns? >> Yeah. And I think that um that collaborative uh we got that number afterwards uh for the meeting. So I I do believe that this discussion is going to come back up in the next finance committee meeting um next month. Um I can only I can direct the public and um other members to refer back to the finance committee meeting um

183for a more you know concise and detailed um summary of everybody's arguments. Um we had you know a variety of positions um to different on different scales of the spectrum um across all the four of us on the committee. Um so yeah >> yeah no I I I understand and I I I would love to move on something before the town meeting so the towns actually know where they're at as far as their budgets. Um I believe there's still very tight budgets in Townsend and in uh Peril. I know Townsen has an override for the police uh raises um on the on their ballot. Uh so they don't have enough money in their uh budgets uh to give the raises per the contracts. Uh so anything extra that we give to them would be helpful.

184Um last year um you know again uh they needed money and we had a budget and we're closing out with even more. So if we had given money back last year um they would be in a better shape and we haven't spent it. So again looking forward where we have uh consistently have a lot of money at the end of the year more than the END that we're putting in um and the excess revenue only raises our END uh account. Um I think it's a good idea to consider it now before the town meetings to lower the assessments. I don't have any numbers in front of me to be able to make a um uh a motion. Um but it would essentially just be to put in an extra $234,000 um to lower the assessments.

185>> Yeah. And we're scheduled to meet um finance is scheduled to meet one more time before town meeting on next Friday. Um so if anything pertinent comes to light um we could certainly call um a session together. Um but if that's all there is on >> Yeah. If you're meeting on the Friday before, you're never going to be able to have the 48 hours that you need for the school committee to call a meeting before um the town meetings. I don't know if it's is I didn't check. Is Ashby's town meeting before the Saturday um or is it the Saturday after uh towns and imperil? Anybody know Nancy? >> I think it's usually the first Saturday of the month. Correct. >> That's my understanding. >> Yes. So that's um we scheduled that purposely with RAM.

186So there's at least seven days I should say there's at least five business days before um Ashb Town meeting. um if we do need to do something which we don't know obviously the valley information is new is new information so we haven't been able to review the actual you know specifics on that >> I I I will also yeah I will also remind the entire committee that while the finance subcommittee or any of the subcommittees are very useful uh for doing some of the work uh nothing precludes any of this work from being done in a full committee and us making a decision on the spot without having a recommendation commendation from a subcommittee and we're already this far along. U finance has done a great job in getting us to this point with the

187budget that we have. Um there is no need um for a recommendation to come for them for us to move forward with another vote. Um, uh, Jackie White, >> at the risk of making myself seem really inexperienced here, I'm going to ask a hopefully I can still get away with a newbie question. Why could we not take that 234,000 and put it back into the school budget for hiring teachers? I someone else can give a better answer than that, but I think the simple actually I'm going to let somebody else give an answer. >> Yeah, I can I can take it. Kenan, Lisa, is it okay if I take this one? >> Yes, of course. >> Um, so so any of the funds that may be left over between now and June 30th would end

188up rolled into the next END certifications. any revenue that we get including this valley collaborative would roll into the next certification for END. So this would be after the end of the year is closed out. >> Right? >> If we go through the process in October somewhere around January, we'd have a certified END that included that money. So we can't vote that money specifically. What we would need to do if you wanted to do additional an additional change to the FY27 budget would be to either to to either find revenue that we could use such as END which we do have use additional END currently from the operations of FY25 not the operations of FY26 knowing that we'd be replenishing it. Um however I just will mention that this can be done anytime through the

189fall as well. Well, I know obviously ideally, you know, getting something to the towns before town meeting is is always it's always nice. It also makes everybody scramble, including the towns, because they have to figure out how they're going to use it and have meetings and decide what they're doing with that additional funding. Um, so in the past when we've had changes such as when the state maybe gives us additional money or maybe we end up with more um transportation money, we might have the option of doing that vote at some point past the end of the year. So I guess it it's really up to the committee how you want to proceed. It it could happen before the town meetings, but it also could happen anytime in the fall. that of course they don't

190have the numbers at that point but they they can they usually do a fall town meeting and can make adjustments. Um and also we have only the governor's proposal so far. I have not seen a house proposal of the state aid or senate proposal. So we're really still waiting for final final numbers. Um that doesn't mean we aren't going to close out funds. We probably are. Um but again that's just just data I guess for the committee to think about. Um so however you want to proceed is fine one way or the other. It's just um it it is a revote of the budget. So it's good to get that right generally. So if we're just changing say the END number that's pretty straightforward. We would take the vote we did last time and change

191the END amount. Um, but again, we're trying to get away from those one-time funding. I know I know we're replenishing it, but again, we got to start somewhere here um with with pulling that back, but um we also have the option of adjusting the budget by um prepaying something like tuitions for special education. That's allowable. Um, I think when we talked at the finance meeting, one of the issues with prepaying some of these items is that the costs are going up next year and the budget was already tight. So, for instance, Jeremy um was looking at costs going up significantly. So, prepaying some of that might be okay, but then those costs next year might be higher anyway. So, then we need to do in that case would be to reduce the budget lines. Um,

192and I think that was where we had um potential, you know, people wanting to pause and hold on that idea um until we had something clearer. So, I guess that's my my input. Is there any other questions that I can answer as far as the process goes? >> Yeah. So, I didn't really have a question, but I did just want to say from from my point of view, from our discussion at the the subcommittee meeting, it did basically seem like while it would be nice to give back some of the, you know, to basically reduce the assessment a bit based on this new information, the issue, I think, was that we were sort of we're dealing with a lot of uncertainty still and also some, you know, like price increases that are almost certainly coming

193um for for various things, especially technology related Um thanks AI but um you know it's uh it felt like it was premature to to reduce that when we are you know we sort of aren't 100% certain what's coming um in terms of like you know we had this this unexpected windfall I guess you could call it but then you know a month later we could have an unexpected you know increase in cost or reduction in revenue from somewhere that we were expecting like things can change just as easily against us as they changed for us in this case. And I feel like trying to like we get a we get a little extra money, we shouldn't just suddenly say, "Okay, we're going to give that money back because we may need that money um in,

194you know, at some point in the near future." But I think that if there's an option to uh you know look with more information later on like in the summer if we can re-evaluate and it still makes and it does make sense and we're more sure then I think that would be the time to think about you know maybe returning some money to the towns if we don't if we know at that point that we're very unlikely to to need it. Anyone else have any questions or concerns? >> Nancy, would you be able to go over the budget transfer? >> Uh, sure. Uh, so this transfer is the first one we've done for FY26. It is essentially a summary of all the changes um culminating in the difference between the instructional categories or the the

195greater categories. It represents a bunch of changes between individual lines, but moves um funding from instructional um support to operations, maintenance, technology, which is essentially for a plant facilities and utilities costs. again estimated um from where we are and a transfer of 36,000 to uh the debt service which is representative of um a portion of the debt service that is covered by um a bond premium which is essentially money that was given when we borrowed money to apply to interest. So just making that change clear that we're going to use those funds um transferring it between the lines there. Um, I don't know if there's anything particular about it. It's actually pretty a pretty Originally I had thought we might need to transfer more into the tuitions and assessments line because the assessments came in

196at almost $300,000 more than anticipated. Um, but because of the savings in tuitions this year um or changes in tuition, we have room there. So, I don't need to transfer that funding. So, I was able to simplify the transfer down to just these three lines um to keep it together. I hope uh we won't need any more between now and the end of the year. This remote chance that we might I'm going to try to make make it happen without having to do another transfer. >> Any questions about the transfer? Randy, >> I was looking at the individual transfers in the budget detail and I understand most of them. Um, but there's a couple that were um a little surprising like with the out of district uh uh payments that entire section. I know there's

197a zero net movement in that um category, but it looks like you have some of these lines that are still negative and some of these are very positive and I'm wondering why that was not evened out. Are you going to have to come back to us for another transfer uh later to even out those different lines? >> Um I will have to I will eventually have to solve that. Um but between that usually what the way we look at those transfers is between the entire section. So if I'm not moving more than I need to I don't need to move it outside of that area. So in the past we've done is if anything between large transfers between those um categories we've approved at school committee. Um I also don't know the final numbers for

198some of the tuitions even though I have POS for most of them. I think for the majority of them we know sometimes things can change even this late in the game. So making sure that I have the right numbers there um and including transportation um is important. So I will adjust it. In addition to that, should we have additional funding, I can move um things that we paid maybe at a circuit breaker and pay those out of that section. So, I have some estimates there which are causing some of those overages. It's confusing, but basically there's another bucket. There's a circuit breaker funding, which is the state funding, and then there's our funding. So between those two, I can move I can move say a couple of different tuition payments one way or the other

199depending on how that section finishes the year. Um but ultimately yeah it's possible that we hoping we don't need another transfer. Um if we do we'll just have I believe there's a meeting in June. Um by then hopefully we would have most of catch anything that might be coming or if we have changes in thought process about what we're pay prepaying or or not prepaying. Um >> I was gonna say I know we usually vote in the larger uh buckets as far as um the actual motion, but I thought there was a rule change a couple of years ago that we actually uh when we do that, you've been providing the line item changes and the school committees are are responsible for all of these line or approving all of these line changes and transfers

200between the individual lines, not just the full buckets. Correct. So, it's rolling up into that those transfers. >> Um, so if you're going to have to adjust these later, it will need to come back as another transfer even if it's zero in the larger rolledup bucket. >> I mean, certainly we can do that if there's anything between any lines between now and the end of the year, but there will be. So, you might as well just plan on it if you want to see a final I mean, you'll see a final expendial report anyway. me if I'm wrong. I, you know, like when I first joined the committee, I thought we were only responsible for the large bucket changes and then a couple of years ago, um, I thought MASC had said, "No, no, no,

201that is wrong. Um, every line item transfer the school committee needs to vote and approve." Um, >> and I I think that's fine, Randy. I think if if my suggestion would be that you include that in in the language when you vote that those transfers. So I don't see us doing a vote that has every single line in it other than to reference the reference the detail report that goes with it. >> Right. Again more I was asking you do I have the law correct? >> Yes. You we the school committee has responsibility for transfers >> between any of the lines. >> Any of the lines. Okay. Um and the other question I have is most of the lines except for things like um >> uh you know sub lines, sub salaries and things like

202that um most of them with the transfer um have anticipated expenditures along with them that bring that line down to zero. Um except for one and that is the superintendent stipens. Um it had 587 was the FY26 adopted. Um looking to transfer in $7,500. Nothing's been expended and nothing is anticipated to be expended. So I'm wondering why are we moving money to move money. >> So I think in that case um there was a version of the budget that had that in it and was approved. And so uh after the budget was approved, we had to me we had to sh up some of those lines and I had already posted the budget so I had to transfer between the lines to make it match exactly what was in the voted budget even though that's

203not going to be spent. I was that's what I was doing at that point. It could be moved um going forward. Um sure >> um we can put it we can take it out of there. It's not needed. >> Okay. But there are plent but there are plenty of lines where you might see some something left right now but I'm you know or a transfer but that's all I was doing is shiring up um or making exactly match what was voted in the packet u when we voted the budget originally. >> Shouldn't that be in that first line of FY26 adopted budget? >> It would have been if I hadn't missed it. So it it got it got adjusted at some point in the process. So I had to correct it. So, it ended up

204looking like transfer, but if you refer back, and again, I'm just kind of going on memory on that one. It's going back to what we originally voted, it was in there. Right or wrong, it was in there. So, I wanted it to be reflected there. There's no change in any of the stipens in that area. So, it's just essentially a corre budget correction. >> Okay, that that's fine. I I mean, I didn't know that. It just looked a little odd. Thank you. >> No problem. Anyone else have any questions? All right. Does somebody want to read the motion? All right. I can do that. Uh second. All right. Uh I move to approve the FY26-1 transfer as follows. reducing the appropriation categories budget instructional support by $177,373 and adding to the appropriation category operations maintenance

205technology in the amount of $140,392 and debt services in the amount of $36,981. >> Second. >> That is Mike Leosier with a motion and Lisa Bloom with a second. Any further questions? All right. Um Randy Rush, >> I'm going to restain because I I I I'm not fully comfortable with a budget um correction without it being fully explained ahead of time. Um so, Lisa Bloom, I think I'll abstain too. >> Michael Bossier. >> Yes. >> Uh Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Alexander Vancoui. >> Uh I'll abstain. >> Am I? Yes. All right. So, this is going to have to come back to committee because it has failed. All right. So the new committee will have to address this at their organizational meeting or at a next meeting. All right, moving on. Um DIIB uh the

206fiscal revenues policy. I'm going to suggest that we suspend this policy this year. Um just so it's clear. Um, I know that wording is different in it and that we don't necessarily have to apply it, but I think at this time just to make it absolutely transparent that will suspend it. Does anyone have any thing to input or any input? >> I mean, so, so my only question is if the vote to suspend it fails, functionally it doesn't change anything. Correct. we can still like do what we're doing because the the the policy is a should not a shall that that I just want to make sure that that is also clear that like if this if if this if it got voted down it wouldn't actually change anything. We wouldn't we wouldn't be required

207to change what we are doing. Okay. >> I just want I just wanted >> I'm going to interpret it too. Um, but Randy, >> I just wanna the reason why I wanted this to come up for an actual vote is yes, we wrote DIIB fiscal reserve policy not to be overly restrictive for things that we have to do. But it is strongly worded that END should not be used for this purpose. It is strongly uh written that this is not a good practice. uh we have been asked by the superintendent to take the END out of the budget because it is not a good cycle to be in. It is not a good practice to have. Um the and it really needs to be something that we strive very very very hard for very quickly

208because this is something that's needed. If we want to have best practices, it needs to come out so we know how much we have to spend. we have a a very stable reserve to go to and it helps the process. That's all I want to say. >> Uh Kevin, >> so I I just if I can just to put it out there because this is going to fall under me next year. I humbly ask the committee to approach this with a bit of grace because as as well as a job as Nancy has been doing this year to help prepare me, I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to appreciate support through that process. So when there's public discourse about any sort of failings to reach this as a policy, my hope is that

209the remaining members of this committee and whomever joins this committee reminds people that this is something that you decided on sort of halfway through this year. We were not able to prepare for this for a full year and you've got someone new executing it. So that sort of patience and grace has shown I'm going to do my best to try and meet the the the demands, but I might screw up. And so I'm just putting that out there right now. And I just appreciate the committee's support and grace during that time. >> It's okay, Kevin. I think we will give you grace and um appreciate and know that there will be new members coming on the committee and they will decide the next path and so you'll have an opportunity to work with the committee

210and more of an understanding of how the budget process works and how all of this connects. So, I will give you grace for my remainder of my time and so I would hope that other members do as well. Uh, Randy, I apologize if that came off about anything against you. Um, I would really like to see this uh put out. I've asked for a plan and I haven't received anything back. I know you're just learning. Um, take all the resources you need. Talk to other districts that have done this. Talk to Mazbo who can help you. I'm sure Nancy can help you. Um, but a plan would satisfy a lot rather than the subcom the school committee every year looking at this policy and suspending it saying no later, no later, no later. The re

211that's the reason why I wanted to come up for the votes. It keeps it in front of the committee that this is something we are striving for and not something that we're just going to kind of forget about uh because it says should instead of shall and then we're not going to work towards it. That was that's my whole purpose in having this here is keep it in full force of every in full face of everybody so it doesn't get forgotten that we keep working towards it. That's all. All right. Any other questions? May we take a motion just for transparency's sake or does everyone think that the wording in it is gone? I mean, it's up to the committee. Lisa Bloom, >> what's the motion that you're looking for? Oh, sorry. >> Just to

212suspend the policy for >> I think it's fine. >> Without a vote. >> Mhm. >> Yes. >> Randy, are you okay without a vote? Are people okay without suspending the policy? >> If majority people feel that way, that's fine. We still come back to it like in >> you can incle in a in in yes in the next cycle you can come back to it. >> It won't be applied to this what we're doing is applying it to this year's budget coming you know not the going forward budget so it's not next year Lisa Bloom. >> Okay. I think I misunderstood. So then maybe Yes, I think we should take a vote. >> Uh a motion to suspend. >> Yes. Um to keep it as we vote. Well, to keep it as we voted, right?

213Because I'm getting tired. So maybe I'm misunderstanding. >> Yeah, Lisa. It's a matter of um whether we let the language stand in the policy that it's not a a directive, it's not a shall, so they don't have to uh take the END out of the policy and let the language speak that uh this year we're not. Or do we formally take a vote that we're saying that we're not moving towards implementing this policy for next year? It's kind of six one half. Um, but I just want to make sure that this does come back up and this is a policy that doesn't just slide to the side and we forget about implementing. >> Well, no, I think we do should implement it the next year, right? To keep it. >> It may take a few

214years, but there needs to be a plan, >> right? not seeing a motion to suspend, but it does read that the um policy does not have to be applied so that everyone's clear and it's not applying for next year because we are using EMG next year. Okay, moving forward. We are moving on to policy Randy. Okay. Uh so policy, we'll take um the first readings first. Those will be nice and easy. Um, does anybody have an issue with me taking these all at once for one quick motion? So, I am >> Please take them all at once. >> Yeah. So, I'm going to move that we take that we um vote and approve policy JL student welfare JLC student health services and requirements ECA buildings and ground security. ECAB access to buildings and grounds policy

215uh BAA evaluation of school committee operational procedures as a first reading. >> I second. >> That motion was made by Randy and seconded by Lisa Bloom. Um a roll call vote. Any questions on these policies? Seeing no questions. Randy Rush, >> yes. >> Lisa Bloom, >> yes. >> White, >> yes. >> Alexander Vancoui, >> yes. >> Michael Bosier, >> yes. >> And myself, yes. All right, moving on to the next one. Randy. >> Okay. Uh, the next three are up for adoption. Um and we did get feedback as everyone heard in public comment on these three um for changes that uh the community would like to see changed. Um I would say policy BDE, why don't we take that one first because that had the least amount of um changes that was requested. There was

216a request uh to have on here um something about when we we've talked this year about having community members on the subcommittees. Um we had um community members on subcommittees before and so just putting something in this policy that we can vote um community members into our um subcommittees to be added to this um language I came up with um underneath number two. Number two on here is the North Middle Sex Regional School Committee chairperson subject to the uh committee's approval will appoint the subcommittee pro tempor um chairperson and its members. The subcommittee will choose its chair its first meeting and then I'll insert here that the school committee can vote annually to allow community members to join subcommittees. Um any community member requested will be voted on by the school committee. Um if everyone

217is open for that. >> Okay. And that is a choice by the next committee to vote if they would have members come into the committee. >> Yep. Um so at at the u when we form the committees then the full committee can take a vote. Do we want community members this year? And then subcommittees can request somebody and the school committee can vote somebody on. And can each subcommittee follow their own policy in regards to allowing comm um community members? >> I yeah um we can expand this and just say that the school committee depends on whether you want to say that we allow it each year but each subcommittee can make a request to have a committee a community member join. So each subcommittee can make that choice. So basically the each subcommittee would

218be on an individual basis saying we want to have this person on our committee and then the full school school committee would either approve it or not and yes >> and so if the subcommittee doesn't want any community members to be joining it they just don't request any community members to join it and that's that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And so for these subcommittees, is it a non- voting member? Because you have to be careful. >> No, good point. I >> because they're not elected. They're not elected representative. >> I was going to say I apologize. I didn't mean to add that in. I had a handwritten notation and then I put it on the screen and I forgot that part. I was going to say that allow community members to join subcommittees as non-

219voting members. >> So this um Okay. So there's not a clear copy of what this is going to say correct to us right now. Like because I don't want to adopt something and not have a clear copy like to make it transparent to everyone. Just >> just saying that Randy like >> No, no. >> Because with a new committee coming on, >> you know, I you know, so I don't know if the best on this committee is to push it back to policy. clean up the version and make it completely correct before a committee votes on it. >> I feel like that's what we've done with other policies that have come up over the >> We can do that. Sure. And if you think that there's enough if if it's small enough changes, then it

220doesn't necessarily need to go back to the um school committee. We can a make the change on the fly here and vote it in or make a small change and keep it out the new change for first reading another time to the next school committee meeting. This way it's it's not two meetings for an adoption. >> I would see keep it out not vote in keep it for that second yet. Is that how you're saying it? Keep it >> put put these changes that we talk about out for first reading now. So, >> yeah. >> Yes. Yes. >> So, we can >> I can share my screen. It's a word document that I made very quick and easy. It wasn't uh usually what uh Robin does. It's not as clean. I didn't have time to

221use the proper uh converter from PDF uh to a word. So, I can share my screen. You can see what I put in here. >> Well, I think going back to the first reading >> makes takes care of that. >> Takes care of that, Randy. So, you don't have to share your screen or and then supply it out or okay if you want to share your screen. >> Okay, if you're happy with what I have here and you can change it again. Um so I will move that we approve policy BDE with the new amendments um for a first reading >> second. >> Okay. So that is Randy with a motion. Lisa Bloom with a second. >> May May I just ask a question? Um, Randy, is that in the um are you working with

222track changes? I just want to be able to find >> I do I do have track changes on the word document I have. I will uh submit this to you. >> Okay. So, you're not working off of the our regular document in the >> No. >> Okay. So, this is to send so that everyone's clear. This is BDE. Correct? BD. Yep. >> BDE to go back to a first reading with a clean cut. >> Everyone Okay. Got it. >> The new amendments. Yep. Okay. The next one, policy. >> Oh, no. We got to vote on it. >> Sorry. That's okay. Randy, >> yes. >> Lisa Bloom, >> yes. >> Jackie White, >> yes. >> Alexander Vancoui, >> yes. Michael Bossier. >> Yes. >> And myself is yes. All right. Moving on to the next one.

223>> Uh policy BEDH. Again, it's the same thing um with the feedback that was um given. Um there were two changes that I pulled from what they had said. Um, and so the third paragraph would uh change a little bit from uh that uh if you want an email in the public record that they will be included um in a public folder with acknowledgement by the chair, but the full email will not be read. That's the change. Instead of putting it on the agenda, it would just be in a folder that's accessible by the public. the chair would um acknowledge the emails that came in um and we would move on. Um and the only other change that was asked for is uh down at the end of section 1F. So uh any comments that

224require answers will be referred to a subcommittee administration um or other appropriate individual along with a time frame for to for followup discussion among the school committee on the topic would not would be restricted to procedural tasks and I just added a sentence the chair will be responsible for any followup needed. Um it was asked that that be added in specifically that the chair was responsible for the followup. Were these um did these pass through the committee the subcommittee? >> No, these were >> or were they ones that came through from the public >> from the public? Um >> so it hasn't been vetted out by >> the not so this was a first reading. This was vetted by the policy subcommittee for a first reading at the last meeting, but with the public input

225that came in, I made these slight changes to this one. >> So again, we can put it out for our first reading again um if people are comfortable with those small changes. If not, it can go back to the subcommittee. I do think that this policy needs to go back to the subcommittee for just a more vetting because I mean this is allowing like us just taking whatever the public says and throwing it in a policy. That's what it feels like to me possibly. Um I don't know if that's how >> No, this is like anyone like the emails that were read today. >> Yeah, we already had public. >> No, the change I'm not talking about the emails. I'm talking about the change >> like of of the procedure >> is like we took

226from the public and said this is what we should do. I don't know if everyone had input or >> for the first reading anybody including the school committee and staff can comment but >> does it mean we apply their changes to that? Yes. >> Okay. >> I hear I hear what you're saying like we're getting feedback. Yes. But >> have the subcommittee take another pass and make sure that we're like in agreement and aligned with what they've said. >> Yes. >> Before putting it forward. >> Yeah. Because in a sec, you know, like second reading is our adoption and bringing it there's a process to it and a vetting process of what the public has said. Is that in agreement to what the committee wants the process to be? >> Yep. >> Um and then

227it's going to be the same thing for the the third and final policy which is FCB. Um which had many changes that were requested to be changed. Um >> Randy, before you move to that, um Superintendent Morgan has a question. >> I'm sorry, >> you're on. Yeah, >> just wanted to add I I I do think it's important to when considering public feedback because I'm not entirely sure this was stated that we do have to look at the accuracy of what's being said as well. There were comments that were made in executive I mean in public comment tonight that that were simply not accurate. Um so I I think that it's you know we certainly want to get feedback but we have to discuss at some point um you know if it's going to change

228something we have we do have to discuss the accuracy of feedback to make sure that it is that it actually happened. That's all. >> Okay. So going back to that, what I'm hearing is FCB, I'm getting my letters here. FCB and D E D H should go back to subcommittee. Is that what I'm hearing? For a a better vetting process. >> I'm getting motions. Everybody's shaking their head. >> That's what that's what I was going to say. Yes. >> Okay. So, I think we should take a vote on that to send it back to subcommittee just to make it transparent to everybody that that's where it's going. >> I I will move that policy FCB, retirement of facilities and beedh, public participation at school committee meetings, goes back to subcommittee for um review um after

229public comment. >> I second. >> Second. >> All right. I'm going to take Randy and Alex Vancloody on the second. All right. Uh Randy. >> Yes. Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Uh Mike Loy Bossier. >> Yes. >> Jackie White, >> yes. >> Alexander Vancoui, >> yes. >> Myself, yes. All right. And with that, I would like to just if I can just take one moment to thank uh the policy subcommittee this year uh for working with me and um I wish you the best of luck taking this over. >> Thank you. And I thank you Randy because you have taken on the policy as many of you know the policy at one time was not online and right it wasn't >> there's no red >> as good and Randy has built it up over her

23016 years. So um I think us as a community have to thank you for helping with that process. So thank you. >> You're welcome. >> All right. Now, let's move on to legislative. I know that Kenan is gone, but Mike has something and I will add to Mike's. >> Yes. So, I just wanted to mention, so last Monday I went or two Mondays ago, I went to the state house for the Mass Association of School Committees Day on the Hill uh for some legislative advoc advocacy. Well, first there was a presentation or several presentations from speakers talking about legislative priorities and you know things that you know basically things that are affecting school districts all around the state and um talking about uh the so one of the key priorities is adjusting chapter 70 u

231to account to basically make it more equitable for regional school districts and rural school districts. um and just basically taking the opportunity to go and get in front of our legislators. So, I had the opportunity to speak with uh our new senator, new senator Vanna Howard uh and well, my new senator um I believe she's only senator for Pepil and East. So I think not Townsen and Ashby have a different senator if I recall correctly, but um uh so I got a chance to speak with her and you know basically reiterate the fact that our district needs help both short-term you know in the in the immediate with the this coming year's budget and also uh in the long term with adjusting the funding formula to you know address the fact that essentially you know

232we've all seen the charts of you know how much state funding has gone down as a percentage of our overall budget and it has been for many many years. And so, um, you know, one of the things Senator Howard said to me is that, you know, keep making calls, keep writing emails, keep, you know, talking to your legislators. You know, everybody needs to keep pushing this because it is having the effect that we want. More people are paying attention. More legislators see that this issue needs to be addressed. But it's not a sprint. It's a marathon and so we need to keep pushing. Not just us on the on the the committee, but all of our community members need to keep advocating, keep, you know, writing, calling, etc. Um, you know, show up at their

233office hours. I know Senator Howard is having office hours um very soon. I think I think the 28th she's at the Lawrence Library if I recall correctly. So, go visit her and talk to her about this. you know that then keep keep it up basically is is the the long and short of it. So um it was a but it was a good day. It was very uh very sort of educational in terms of just learning a lot about um you know the how the whole budget how the whole state budget process works and interacts with you know school districts like ours. Thank you, Mike, for attending. And um so then the next day I traveled down to watch um I was going to say Senator Morgan, it's really getting late, but um Superintendent Morgan

234and Chuck Wakovich, who is a Pepil Selectman, and Kate Stinsky, who is the union rep for North Middle Sex, um speak and testify in front of the Ways and Means Committee. Um there was a good showing very um advocacy for regional districts um even in our communities of Graten and North Middle Sex Graten Dunville Lunenburgg. So we had a really powerful showing with that and so so thank you um Superintendent Morgan Chuck Wakovich and um Miss Stinsky for testifying. Anyone else have anything to add? All right, we are moving on. Operations, there is no update. Community outreach. Um, Carlo Lima did not join the call tonight. Um, I did not receive any updates for Ashby. um myself for PPL. I have not received any information from PPL. >> Townsen's been quiet >> and Townsen's been

235quiet. The towns have been quiet. Um all right. And then S or Senator Morgan, Superintendent Morgan has supplied um the enrollment on hold harmless. There's information in that those documents. Um, everyone should review them and if you want to further have things added for a better discussion, um, contact, um, Superintendent Morgan to put on the agenda. All right. Anyone else? Because we are getting close to 10:00 here. Uh, Superintendent Morgan, are we holding the executive session? >> We are not. Okay. So, the executive session will be rescheduled at a different time. >> Yes. >> Um, and at that before we close, I do want to thank Randy again for her service to the committee. Um, and so, thank you. Anybody else? Anything to add? I just want to say thank you. Oh, sorry. >> Yep.

236Go ahead, Alexander. >> I I want to say thank you to Randy, too. I mean, she's been on the committee for 16 years. Um, she's really on top of things, you know, she's, you know, um, and she's really passionate about this and, you know, we're we're going to miss her. Um, and I thank you for your service, Randy. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. Andy, I want to thank you for your 16 years of service and you've taught me a lot with policies and I have always you've always been my mentor. So, thank you. >> Uh Jackie White, >> I remember being a new parent in the district way back when and I feel like Ry's face is the one that I have consistently seen uh at meetings over the years. So, um, it's been really

237great to have you kind of teach me over this first year that I've been serving. And enjoy your free time. >> I'm sure she's going to >> Yes. >> have a lot of free time. >> Yes. And >> you say that >> things have a way of taking over any kind of free time. Thank you everyone for the wishes. I really appreciate it. It has been my honor to serve on the committee and serve with everybody um that I have um and with the administrations uh working for the students um and the communities. I really appreciate it and my door is always open if anybody um has a question about um some history uh about any procedures um feel free just to reach out. I I have no problems answering questions um to help you

238guys do your job. Uh, and good luck with the future of the district. >> Thank you. >> And with that, Randy, would you make a motion to close our meeting? >> I make a motion. >> Your final motion. >> I make a motion to adjourn. >> I second. >> So that is Randy and Lisa Bloom with the second. >> Randy, you get to go first. >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom. Yes. >> Michael Labasio. >> Yes. >> Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Alexander Vancoui. >> Yes. >> And myself. Yes. Good night everyone. >> Good night. Night. Bye everybody.