001Um, in attendance we have boards from other towns. Do any of you want to call your boards? >> Townsen. >> Ashby, do you want to call your board president? Okay. Okay. >> We have quum. So, >> okay. Uh this is Ron Cal. I will call the um board the select board for town to order at 60 p.m. Does Pepper have a quorum? >> Okay. All right. May I have a motion to um for the public hearing? And I can read the motion. Open the public hearing on school choice for the year 202627 according to chapter 72 section 12B of Massachusetts general laws. All interested persons shall be given the opportunity to voice their concerns. >> So moved. Second, >> Kenan and um Michael >> and that was at 606 or 607. >> And then we
002take a roll call vote. Keenan France, >> yes. >> Randy Rush, >> yes. >> Michael Labosier, >> yes. >> Jackie White, >> yes. >> Alexander Vancoui, >> yes. Lisa Blue, >> yes. >> Uh, remotely, Kim Craraven, >> yes. >> Kim, >> yes. >> Carla Lima. >> Yes. >> Right. And this is to open the hearing for the um school choice. Superintendent Morgan. >> Thank you. I would recommend if possible that we not vote at this point in time on school choice and again looking to see if we can wait additional information probably within the next I would say by the April meeting to see if we can determine what seats we actually have open and what enrollment looks like K to 12 across the district. >> Does anyone in the audience have any questions? >>
003Is there any way that you can limit school choice? I know a regional district in the area have said they've limited it for capacity. So there's no consideration in your vote or not to limit the seats. >> So we we can limit school choice. The issue is is that if we vote no if we vote yes on school choice then we can't reverse that. If we vote no then we can reverse it later on in the calendar year and accept and accept more students in. So we can actually limit limit it by grade level and by school. So that would be a no vote and then you could come back to it or a yes vote would give you a limitation. >> So a yes vote would be on the number of seats that we
004have available >> and at that point in time if there was a significant shift in enrollment over the course of the summer we can't go back on that. We still have to allow the school choice students in. So essentially if you vote yes, you can't go back on that. If you vote no, then you can vote yes later on down the line if you want to. And at this point, uh, our rationale is with programs moving and with some of the unknowns that we still have, we want to wait to see what we actually have for class sizes at each grade level before we say yes or no. If there is availability, then it is something that we would like to explore. >> Hang on one second, Randy. When you guys are speaking out in
005the audience, we come up to the podium so that we get the recording. >> Okay. So, I'm just gonna >> Hey, can I just ask if you come up to the podium, we'll just need you to sign in as a signin sheet, a public comment. Thank you. >> All right, Randy, >> I'm just curious. Uh, so we're thinking about doing the school choice program. We have opted out of it for the last few years. [clears throat] >> So, I think that uh in looking at it, class size has been an issue for the district for the past couple years. So, we want to be sure that if we say yes to school choice, and generally speaking, this is it's usually a decision that we've made in the past right around the March time. If we
006make it now, we don't have a clear picture of what class sizes are going to look like until we decide on what we're doing with the special education programs. Once those programs move, we'll have a better understanding as to what we have for space. What I don't want to do is um further exacerbate any class size issues that we currently have. >> But if we do have some spaces available in particular grade levels of particular schools and it's something we can certainly certainly explore. >> Yeah. No, I I support waiting and making sure that we make those decisions. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions from the members present? >> This might be a silly question. >> Yeah. Go ahead. Um, so why was it on our agenda for tonight? >> Because it's a
007public hearing and we have to put it out to the public so that they can come forward and talk about it >> to us. >> But they can do that future meetings, too. Like if we decide not to to vote tonight. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> But it's a state law. >> Okay. I'm sorry. It was my question to Brad earlier. Why are we doing this? So, >> any other questions? Kim or Carla, do you have any questions? >> No, >> I do not. >> I'm not hearing from anyone. >> I said no. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> All right. >> Can I take a motion to close the public hearing for school choice? >> So moved. That was Keenan >> seconded. >> And that was and we're closing at 6:11. Motion by
008Keenan. Second by Michael. >> Roll call vote. Keenan Prince. >> Yes. >> Randy Rush. >> Yes. >> Michael Leosier. >> Yes. >> Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Alexander Vancoui. >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Um Kim Craraven. >> Yes. said yes. I'm trying to hear there's a audio club. >> And Carla Lima. >> Yes. >> And myself. Yes. Moving on to the public hearing for the budget. Um I make a motion to open the public hearing for the FY27 proposed budget. Do I have the motion? >> Michael, >> Jackie, and we're opening at 612. >> All right, roll call vote. Keenan Francois, >> yes. >> Randy Rush, >> yes. >> Michael Blossier, >> yes. >> Jackie White, >> yes. >> Alexander Bank, Lisa Bloom, >> yes. >> And Kim Craraven, >> yes. Yes,
009Lisa Lima. >> Yes. >> And myself. Yes. All right. I will invite. All right. [laughter] All right. I'm inviting the superintendent and the business manager for their [clears throat] show. >> Okay. Thank you. So, as many of you know, we actually began, as we have for the past several years, budget summits back in September. And this year, we we held five. We held one every month uh through January. Uh we asked the school department budgets to have their budgets in on the 25th of November. And again, had to wait for the governor's budget proposal, which came out on January 28th, which brings us here this evening for the public hearing. The next step will be the budget adoption on March 10th and then school committee meetings after that. Town. Sorry, Jeremy, you can go to
010the next slide. >> Oh, sorry. Slides. >> Yeah. I'm gonna turn this way. >> You might have trouble. >> I'll talk about it. >> Yeah, see how it works. >> Robin, am I coming out clear enough? >> Yes. Okay. Okay. We can go to the next slide. Hold on. >> Okay, there we go. So, an ongoing challenge that we face are the budget drivers. We just skip ahead. >> Skip ahead. >> We have to go to the budget timeline. Fiber. [clears throat] We have to go back. >> Okay. >> So they can see that. >> Okay. So again uh the ch some of the challenges that we face um the staffing drivers that impact the budget is that we do have new students federal and state mandates an influx of prek students who are in
011special education an increase in the special education population on the district placement transportation and social emotional student needs as well as multilingual needs. This has led the district to respond by hiring additional counseling staff to support students, hiring English language or multilingual teachers per DESIE mandate, hiring additional special education teachers, par professionals, behavior technicians and service providers to support our students and maintain compliance with individualized education plans again which are both um mandated at the federal and state level. The result is an increase in mandated staff leaving North Middle Sex with very little room to to make any improvements in the general education area with regard to content teachers because we're essentially making cuts for content areas because we have to continue to hire in special education, multilingual and so on. Next slide. per pupil
012cost, which you can see that the cost to educate a student in North Middle Sex right now is just over $20,500. We are still just over $2,500 below the state average. And that gap increased by $1,64 over 2023. So, our per pupil cost is still not where it needs to be. If it were, we would be in a much better situation. You can go to the next slide now. The overall budget FY27 represents a 3.06 increase over FY27. So essentially in looking at this, we we weren't able to get to what all of the towns wanted. Right now we were asked by the towns to come in at three at a 3% assessment and both Ashby and Townsend are below that 3% assessment. Unfortunately, Purple is not and that is an increase. This budget is
013an increase of 3.85 85 FTEES over 2026. And go to the next slide, please. So, other budgeted 20 2027 funds, excess and deficiency, we're using $2 million from that um to help support this budget. And then looking at school choice, $327,000. Circuit breaker, $2,900,000. Food service $95,552. Athletic revolving $193,000. Preschool revolving $160,527. It's important to note in that that we do have some staffing coming out of that. And then tuition revolving $103,864. We have three power professionals coming out of that line. Go to the next one. The breakdown overall that 3.06% 06% increase. Salary and contractual obligations and benefits cover almost all of it at 2.81%. And then you can see the rest um which which are much smaller amounts. But again that increase most of it is is found in benefits uh our health
014insurance benefits and also our salary lines. We were asked to look at what would we be looking at if we had an optimal budget. The budget that gave us everything that we needed. Um the difference from a 3.06 would be an additional 13 classroom teachers at just over a million dollars. Uh three would be going to Barnabrook, four at Hawthorne Brook, four is two at the high school. an additional IT technician, an additional high school secretary, a shared assistant principal uh between uh Spalding and Swanico, complete technology projects that were cut in FY26, restore curricular program cuts, and then restore virtual high school as well. So that would be the optimal budget. At this point in time, it is over 2% higher than what our current ask is. The impact would be an additional investment
015of one $1,551,500 would provide schools with the resources to make up ground from recent cuts. This would require an override vote. With these additional resources, the district would address class size issues at all three levels with 13 new teachers. Address the increased workload of the technology department and additional technician. Address administrative building coverage at Spalding and Swanico to meet the needs of students and staff. restore curriculum access and support for students and staff and then address technology needs at multiple buildings. Nancy, you got >> sure. >> So the next slide is uh our historical foundation enrollment which was from 2018 through this recent October 2025. Uh it's generally a slow reduction. It's um in this particular case, it's uh it's only the last um certain number of years that we're including, but um essentially a
016rather level from 24 to 25 with the exception of Ashby, which had a slight reduction in enrollment. Next slide. The enrollment um student enrollment is listed here with the shifts for the different towns. Ashby had a decrease of 36 students or minus 0.70%. Pavil had a decrease of 52 students, but they gained um enrollment overall 0.27 and Townsen had a decrease of 35 students. So our new our projected uh foundation enrollment as of October 1st was 2870 for total number of students. The shift in the percentages by town is listed here. So Ashby was in uh FY26 was 13% of the district and now is 12.30%. Pepper was 48.68 in 2026 and is now 48.95%. Townsen was 38.32 and now is 38.75. Each year we send our enrollment projections for Octo as of October to
017NASDAQ and they run historical projections. We actually have these by town as well, if anyone's interested in that. Um, it it gives us a a 10-year projection out of what they foresee based on the enrollments. This does not take into account um, for example, large projects that may not have started yet, which I know there's been discussions about PEP having a project. They they don't include those kind of uh, changes until uh, the projects are underway. So, as you can see, it's it's it's rather level, but slightly down over the next 10 years according to the projection. We did project uh revenue this year. We we have the governor's proposal. We've made a few slight changes to that which I'll walk through here. Chapter 78 um looking at the FY27 column uh and the chapter
01871 and the charter are just about what the uh governor's proposal is but with the exception of chapter 71 we did include Mckin Vento reimbursement of 150,000 there. We also uh the governor's proposal included 87% reimbursement for those students greater than one and a half miles but u we're not sure how the house and senate will go with that. So, we've actually reduced that to >> 85 just to be on the safe side at this point. Um, we should have the House and Senate House numbers in a few weeks, I believe. Um, and we can take a look at it at that point. So, overall from the 26 adopted budget to the 27 uh proposed uh revenue, we have an increase of 2.55% from state aid. The district revenue section we discussed already using a
019$2 million of END listed there. It also includes other sources of revenue that the district has like Medicaid. Um we have investment income and the school choice funding um is 327 which is more than is in the the um the governor's proposal but we have more money in that fund. So we've been we're just trying to slowly reduce the amount of the school choice to be closer to what we're actually bringing in for school choice revenue. um leaving a slight increase of 4.44% on the district revenue side. The town uh assessments uh the the biggest issue I would say with this page, I mean I'm not going to go through every line here. It's certainly available. We'll be putting this up on the website [clears throat] um so you can pull this up. But the
020uh the biggest issue is that the minimum local contributions that the different towns um are required the required contribution ended up being a little bit uh off where PPL you can see PPL has a 6.59% increase um Ashb was 3.77 and towns was 3.31 and these numbers uh are are result again we we were as we were talking about the budget in the beginning of this process We just used a 3% and I and I think I mentioned that it's really hard to project what those numbers are going to be and in fact the municipal growth factor is one of the numbers that's factored into this and that is not even available on the website yet or maybe it is by today but it wasn't as of the time of the governor's uh if the
021chapter 70 work coming out. So that's a factor and income in the towns and valuation of property. So that uh that's the minimum local contribution that you see there the very top section. Um then certain portions of the budget are are above [clears throat] that which is true of many towns in the state where we're actually have I would say most towns are paying above that minimum contribution resulting in the operating assessment of the 3.53 average. Um at the bottom this page has the transportation assessment which is It's really pretty good overall. It's a 1.17% and again that's because we're using a little bit u more funding for Mckin Vento and we also um this particular school year had a one a half a less bus so we have um those numbers are coming in
022a little bit lower. So overall the bottom figure is the total assessment for operating and transportation and you can see the trans how it translated with the different towns. So enrollment plus the municipal growth factor affected the towns in um where Ashby's at 0.33%'s at 4.53%. [clears throat] And towns in at 2.63 63 just sharing the the debt service for um for the reference. This is this has been updated with the latest uh ban that was uh we we had a ban for the accelerated repair projects as well as the high school project and that has been incorporated into these numbers here. um excess and deficiency. Uh most of you are aware we we have a certified excess and deficiency of 3,549 313. If we were using 2 million which is what's planned for this
023budget, it would leave a remaining of 1,549 313 and um the percentage used towards the budget would be 56.35%. Next slide, Kevin. So, we also wanted to talk about just sort of what our projected enrollment is because class size has been something that that has been um talked about in a lot of these meetings. So, this is our uh 27 projected enrollment by grade level by building. Um and so we've worked with this to try and figure out sort of again the staffing needs. Um, we've done a more holistic look at it because you can't we we know that there's going to be shifting of teachers between grade levels, but we don't know who those teachers are or which grade levels yet. We don't want to, you know, put that out public without speaking to
024teachers. Um, but we feel like we we have a plan that addresses some of this. Um, next slide. So, what we did here was compare again um the town had asked us to come in at 2.47 uh%. So that's our that first row. And all all I did here for this this uh table was take the projected number of students uh per grade level per section uh and divide it by the number of the classroom teachers because sometimes you see uh student teacher ratios that also include spe total number of teachers in a building. But that would include specialists and other um you know calculations that don't necessarily show the true uh what's happening in a classroom. So in this case it was just strictly classroom teachers or content teachers at the at the middle
025school level. Um and so you can see that when we're using that sort of 25 demarcation that that comes up a lot. Um the town asked we would be significantly uh a significant number of our classrooms would average over a 25. So the middle uh columns are our request 3.06 budget. You can see we've addressed some of that at the elementary level um by uh budgeting in an extra kindergarten teacher at uh both Squan Cookook and Barnum Brook to bring those class sizes down again to sort of address some of the needs that we're seeing there. Um it still doesn't really touch the middle school though. And then what would happen if we got that optimal budget? You can see on the far right where that would, you know, make everything a lot more um
026pleasing to the eyes of both uh the staff and students and buildings in general. But just to kind of give an idea of what it could have been. Now all of this is sort of has the asterisk of this is the current special education alignment. If we move steps to uh towns and some of these numbers might fluctuate a little bit, but it's still generally in the ballpark of where where we uh as for the high school enrollment, uh this is what we're looking at uh right now. So again, we're projected to lose a few more students, a little over a dozen uh for 2027. Uh one of the u sort of analyses I ran today uh just again trying to to get as much information as we can. The last four years, the average
027uh attrition rate of eighth graders to 9th grade has been a little north of 30%. The prior four years, the average was 24%. So again, the idea of, you know, how how are we supporting our students? How are we able to use this budget to to maintain some of those eighth to nth transitions that we seem to be losing a little bit more over the last couple of years could help this number, but this is what we're we're looking at right now for 2027. So just a overall summary of the budget with five by by um appropriation category and the budget we generally break into large sections administration instructional support pupil services operation maintenance insurance retirement uh debt service and out of district placements and assessments and overall as we discussed earlier the budget was
028um 3.06 6, which is 69637559 with this public hearing. Um, just over $2 million increase over FY26. I broke the appropriation categories in in a different view this year um just to just to switch it up and uh essentially just gives you a a feel for where the total the the larger uh spending is in the budget. So obviously instructional support all the way on the right is the largest category and um you can you know I'm not going to read each one of these but just to get a feel for where things fall and again teachers and staff instructional support retirement insurance um program second. So that's pretty typical for a school district in general. >> Yep. So again in looking at the 3.06 6 we are still looking at some potential unknowns for
029our budget. Uh first and foremost is that for special and regular transport special ed and regular transportation we do not have um a final number for FY27. We do have uh had route changes this year as well as a half bus reduction in FY26 as well as some enrollment changes. So again we do not have a final number on that as of yet. Special education is always a moving target when it comes to tuition. That's something that can change on a month-to-month basis. Uh all decisions for with regard to special education are team decisions that are made with a team from the school as well as um the caregivers of the student. So whether or not a student remains in district or goes out of the district often is at the discretion of the [clears
030throat] team. So, that is something that we always try to keep a very close eye on and we we monitor it on a month-to-month basis. Uh, retirey health insurance, the GIC, we do not have um what that increase is going to be. We should have that on the 12th, so in a couple days. Uh, some good news that we do have is that our um Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance is coming in at this point or I should say looking much lower than anticipated as far as what that increase looks like. We are still working on final numbers, but something that we are cognizant of is the fact that where GIC is likely going to experience a significant increase, we could see people that do not currently take our insurance shifting onto our insurance. So,
031how big of a savings we actually have with health insurance really won't be determined until open enrollment April May in the April May time frame. So that's just something that we have to be aware of with regard to health insurance. Um staffing needs again looking at some specialized positions that have been very difficult to find qualified candidates. Um so and also addressing some class size issues and specific grade levels primarily. Kindergarten this year has been a very difficult spot. It does not look as though those class sizes are going to be as high next year. At least that's not what we're projecting. and the large kindergarten class sizes next year should decrease in first grade because we have additional sections. Uh seventh and eighth grade, we will certainly be dealing with large class sizes again
032um coming close to if not going north of 30 in a class. So that's something that we do have to pay very close attention to and we have some ideas to potentially deal with that. Um enrollment, actual enrollment is fluid. Again, it's very difficult to project kindergarten. We oftentimes do not have students registering until late August, no matter how often we ask people to register their students early. It does not always happen. Uh homeschool returns, moveins, and DCF placements. Federal funding, uh federal grant funding is something again, we're not entirely sure what that is going to look like moving forward. So that is something that that we'll keep an eye on. other insuranceances, liabilities, work, workers compensation, our pending final rates, state budget process, legislative uh budget process can impact estimates of transportation reimbursement, chapter
03370, and other funding. And then another thing that we're paying close attention to is that even though this increase, we're finding the 3.06 6 to be extremely responsible. Next year is going to be I I think much more challenging and that all five of our CBAs expire on June 30th of 2027. So that will have an impact on the FY28 budget because all five of them come at the same time in that cycle. >> Questions? >> Are there any questions from the audience members that are here? All right. >> Um, you already sounded um I just had a couple of questions in regards to um the optimal budget. I I see a lot of your expenses and revenues. I don't see where there was any cuts. Can you explain to me just a handful of
034the cuts that were made to get to your optimal budget? I I see there's an increase in teachers and staffing based on ratios. I don't think it was ever identified, not to my knowledge, what was actually cut in budget to obtain the optimal budget. >> We didn't we didn't we didn't we didn't move forward with the optimal budget. That's the 5.35 or >> Okay. So, the budget that we have that you're >> so 3.06 3.06. Can you just explain some of the budget cuts that were made that weren't student related such as teachers or it? I mean, what are some of the the cuts that were made to get to that? >> Yeah. >> And I want to point out that we're not voting on the budget tonight. This is just a hearing budget. >>
035I'm just trying to Thank you. Sorry, this is just sitting here spinning for a minute. Page that I did. Well, I know the office elementary school. That was the biggest cut out of the budget from last year. So, uh, the changes that were implemented when we reduced the building were last year or I should say FY26, not FY27. However, um, we have some areas where we've added staff, some of it happening this year that and some areas where we've reduced staff. So, but overall the total change in staff from last year to this year is 3.85. >> Up or down? >> Up. >> So, you have more staff. Yes, >> correct. >> So I was just interested in what the cuts were to come to them. >> So So there were ads and cuts. So
036you almost have to look at both which is we had a slide for this actually but >> um >> we can I don't know. >> Do you want to share it? >> Yeah, we can put it up. Sure. >> It's not in. >> Okay. I can share that one if it helps. >> Yeah, I can actually. [snorts] Is that all right? Is there anything in here that's that's correct? >> Yeah. No, that's it's correct. And there's nothing that's identifiable. So, >> can I clear cut from from what? >> From I'm just trying to figure out how we get to the budget. What cuts were made? I understand. >> Like cutting from what I I'm not understanding your question. Cutting from >> the reductions from last year to this year. you've had an increase and you've
037shown the revenue, the expenses. >> So, I'm looking to see where the budget was cut in order to to shrink the budget down to the 3% that the town had asked for. >> It was a lot of it's health insurance in special education placements. >> Well, I mean, I know that you budgeted a lot more for health insurance and you just indicated that you think that's going to come down cost. So, a lot higher, which we all anticipate higher insurance. So, that wasn't a cut. that would have been >> that we didn't we didn't have a budget that was higher than 3.06. Like it's kind of where we we kind of landed at that at the at our first draft. The 5.35 is we just kind of added when we were asked by school committee
038to what would it look like, but we never actually anticipated that that would be what we would get because we knew what the financial situation was, but there isn't like for example like a 4.1 that we cut to get to 3.06. Like the 3.06 is pretty much our first step. That's what the school meeting ever asked you to go back with a reduced budget, cut some more. >> No, not yet. >> Not yet. >> This is the first opportunity that is presented and then we go through and then we listen to the town and then we the school committee decides we need to go back for more cuts. >> Is it as far as actual cuts go? There aren't actual cuts. This is our first budget that we're proposing. >> Well, I thought that was
039the last meeting when they >> Can I just But maybe clarify um the 3.0 06 is that level services from FY26 to FY27 or were there cuts made between the two? I think is what is there? >> It's primarily level services. There were not additional cuts made. >> I I think that's what you were trying to ask. >> I was just curious. >> There were some positional tradeoffs, but that resulted in a 3.85% increase. >> 3.85 >> 3.5 effort. Yes. >> Yeah. So my understanding is correct at the last meeting the school committee had three budgets to look at an optimal level funded and one that included keeping AES. So there was no questions or anything on the budgets or what consisted. I know that when we originally said they were looking the school committee
040was looking to close Ashby Elementary School last year when they put it on pause they said it was approximately $600,000 cost savings to the town to close it. You would still have upkeep and maintenance which you did. your city budgeted $125,000 for this past year when the school was on pause. My question is where did that million dollar I know when you presented it to the school committee you presented a $1.6 million to keep Ashby Elementary School open. I'm wondering where that million dollar increase came from. I know that you had mentioned that you would have to have a full-time uh principal, a nurse, a counselor, but those didn't exist six months ago when school was open. So, I'm curious as judge where where did those mandates and requirements come from if we hadn't had
041them there for the last few years? >> The the only position that didn't exist was a full-time principal. >> Um, do we have a full-time nurse there? My understanding >> nurse counselor secretary. >> So, I think that's what you were indicating added to the budget. So, I'm just curious as I think I emailed and asked the question as to what the million dollar extra combined. [clears throat] >> Where did that come from? And I was just wondering if the school committee had asked that question too because it was indicated to close the school it would be a $600,000 savings that year to the budget which would have been fiscal 27. So I'm just wondering to reopen the same school six months later or it would be approximately a year later where did the million dollar
042extra come in? >> So in Brad's second statement that second form that you put out it had the listing of all the positions that would be added back in. Did you read his statement? >> It's on the website and it listed out it lists out what positions were added >> to reopen >> for a million dollar increase in one year one year closing school. [clears throat] The school still remains the same. You still maintain the school >> but but the savings itself came from the consolidation of Spalding Guanook and Ashby. That's where the savings came from. Well, I think in your presentation you indicated that closing Ashby Elementary versus Spalding at the time it was a little bit more little less of a cost because Aby Elementary is smaller than Spalding. >> Um and I
043don't remember that being indicated. It was an individual >> significantly smaller >> than SP. Yes. >> So there would be less of a cost savings but you chose Ashby Elementary to put on the cause and not fall. >> Yes. So, I'm just curious again. I I just I I didn't hear any questions from the school committee at the last meeting when they voted as to what the million-doll extra came in at. Where did that come? You're telling me. >> So, I if if I may, my understanding was a much of the savings that came from Ashby Elementary School last year did come from the consolidation of staff and that, you know, was shifted around throughout building. Some people, you know, some people were not replaced, you know, when they were retired or whatnot. But the
044million the $1.1 million that additional increase which I think you're referencing is bringing back all of those staff members that we then need to staff Ashby Elementary School which does not exclusively include schools like classroom teachers. It includes a nurse, a principal >> custodian >> custodial staff. So the com the the savings from last year might [clears throat] appear less but that's just as a result of the way that the numbers landed when people retired they other people moved into different walls >> if that makes >> that's correct yeah >> the the operating costs of FY25 or Ashby were 1.7 million so some of those shift costs got shifted to Spalding to Squanook but many did not to bring that back it wouldn't be the same 1.7 because there are the technology and infrastructure things
045that did not get done at the end of 25 and Jeremy can speak to those a little bit more too. So all of that came back but that's not a cut because it was never actually in the [clears throat] 26 budget. So it already been cut so it wouldn't be cut again if I'm understanding your question correctly. >> Okay. Um I think my other question was at the same time that I know the MSBA had a loan on it. So, I was just wondering where that might I know they're trying to get a meeting together with the MSBA, but um >> we have not heard back from them yet. Okay. >> And so, once we hear back, which I think you're on the emails and the towns are on the emails, >> and so we
046have not heard anything back from the MSBA. >> I think my final question right now, if I can pause it, would be to so [clears throat] if the school committee voted last meeting to pick the budget that we're looking to vote on tonight, we're have a public hearing on I think you said March 10th, you're going to make the final. Is is there any um recommendations from the board to come and make any other further cuts um or are we just are you putting >> that's why we're having the hearing so that we can have the budget presented and then we will finance will work on a part of it. We may get better numbers and the budget may move down further but it's no or it may move up. I mean we'll see how
047the school committee there's nine people on the board what they feeling is at this point. >> So that's why the hearing is so would that have happened at the last meeting as well. Why weren't there any questions or considerations at that point? >> So during we had a brief discussion maybe not brief uh during our last finance meeting and even we briefly touched on it the finance meeting before that about a lower budget a possible a 2.47 budget but that hasn't been fleshed out. The finance committee has not made a recommendation on any kind of budget yet. Um, this is the first time that this is being discussed in a forum, a public forum, you know, with the entire school committee about the merits of the 3.06 budget um, and so forth. And if I'm
048sure Kim Craraven might have something to say about that if she wants to, >> but the school committee is the one that voted on it the last meeting. It's not >> We didn't We didn't vote on it. That's a That's a purpose of this meeting. >> Did you not bring forth a budget? It didn't include the ASB. >> It's just a draft. [clears throat] >> Just a draft, but you had a few budget options to this school committee at the last meeting. Correct. >> Yeah. And those voted on discussed it in finance and and I think the overwhelming uh thought was not to propose a five I'm forgetting the percentages. >> 5.27. >> Thank you. 5.27 27 budget, but that they were comfortable to present tonight at public hearing, a 3.06 budget. And again, there
049are a few things that we are are are waiting on, numbers we're still waiting on, but um essentially that it seemed like that was the best option given that the towns advised us that they would like they don't want to have an assessment that's more than um a 3%. Um, so that was that's why the decision was made that way for this hearing. And then the committee may decide tonight to do something different and their their their final vote on the budget will take place right around well on March 10th meeting. Um, they actually need to vote 45 days before the first town meeting. So I believe it's scheduled for March 10th. the budget adoption. >> Um so we would you know listen to feedback from the towns from the committee and then propose a
050a budget on the 10th. >> So right now the school you guys are having a public hearing on the 3.06 6 budget. >> Correct. >> Because that is working required. Now, wouldn't it be that I know that the role of the finance committee and that's the same is wouldn't that be to bring it all and say these are our recommendations but the school committee as a whole votes on that the finance committee doesn't make the final recommendation they bring forth the budgets and I did see that I mean we looked at all the budgets at the last meeting. I was on the meeting virtually as was all of you virtually, but I didn't see any discussion or any open dialogue on what the difference are between the three. It was just this is the one
051we're voting on. Um that was >> we didn't vote on a budget. >> We voted on something to bring forth to tonight's hear which is a budget. It's a 3.06 budget. >> That was the recommendation from the committee last time. >> Yeah. I just >> the finance committee recommended. >> Yes, I believe. >> Yeah. But doesn't the finance committee recommend to the school committee and the school committee then decides on which budget after a lot of discussion? I mean we're doing that now with our you know >> well that's a process now. So if the bud if the school committee wants to move the budget up to a 5 whatever >> they could I mean we will see for discussion. I mean >> so the school committee has a an option of look reooking at
052other options and making further cuts. They could this body could do whatever they want related to this budget in this hearing. We can't vote on a final budget, but if we want to discuss a 5.35 budget, we can discuss a 5.3 budget. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Thank you. That's all I have. >> Any further questions from the audience? [clears throat] >> Administrator for the town. Thank you to all the volunteers for volunteer myself. I know sometimes it feels like a lot. Um my question just for the town of Townsen was more about with the hearing I was sort of hoping to hear and see like projections like what's the story five years from now with population going down and you're asking for increase in teachers and you have a collective party agreement four I
053think you said Brad >> five towns in the same boat with several bits agreement and I'm just trying to understand you how they're all going to fall and you're potentially adding FTEES, but your population's going down, it's [clears throat] counterproductive, >> right? >> It's not a great ROI for what taxers are putting into the budget. And while they're likely asking for an override in towns in because we're 1.4 $1.2 million in the hole based on department requests, it's tough. It's a tough situation for the rest. So, I was really [clears throat] hoping to see the story what, you know, years three, four, and five look like from now. So, the only thing I can answer at this point is as far as projections grow, projections go, excuse me. Um, it's always a question, how can
054the enrollment go down, but staffing go up? Um, and the issue that we're facing is that we're seeing um a larger percentage of students qualify for special education. We also have our um you know I mentioned at a meeting earlier this year I think it was two years ago we had one MLL staff member multilingual staff member in the district and now we're over five um in the district. Um so anytime you're looking at special education multilingual or even um 504 you're looking at federal or state mandates where you have to hire staff to make sure that you're in accordance with those plans. So, we're [clears throat] increasing staff there, but we're decreasing um kindergarten teachers, you know, first, second, third, fourth grade, seventh, and eighth grade. We're we're cutting regular education teachers because they're
055not mandated. There's no actual mandated class size or anything other than what's really recommended for kindergarten at the [clears throat] state level. Um even that, um there's certainly room um room to go beyond the recommended 25. Um, but that's really essentially what we're up against is is looking at the increase in special education. And if you look at, you know, again, special educ special education multilingual, any students that have additional needs, they're in excess of 30% of our total students now. >> Um, and that that's a growing trend across the Commonwealth. Um, we've our special education numbers especially have gone up significantly since COVID. uh students fell behind and you mean districts across the state are looking at influx of requests for special education testing um and students are being found eligible at a higher
056rate than they were before. So it's a challenge. Um we can certainly look at um what five years down the road might look like, but it's it's it is tough when we don't know what the special education numbers are going to look like. And I will say this year we had a positive swing in bringing students back that were are privately placed, bringing them back into the district. And the hope is is that even if our numbers go up or just remain high, that we're able to bring students back into the district, but also our special special education department is working on bringing in two new programs next year to hopefully again bring students back, but possibly tuition students in from other districts to help with some [clears throat] of the re some of the
057rising costs in special education. >> That's great. Um, and then I guess because I'm a a miser from towns and they're tired of hearing me say it, um, we're going to really leverage the levy limit, which is what the town has, is two and a half%. And I guess I'm now saying it hopefully to your friendly faces that that's going to be our guiding par for any budget stuff we have be agreements for labor, anything that's two and a half. And I think that's all the town can really afford. Even then, we're probably in trouble with the level level spending in towns and we're still in a deficit. So that's sort of where we're at as a town in general. So, but again, I know it's tricky. It's hard everywhere and every town's looking at
058these days. So, [clears throat] thank you. >> Anyone from board countryside road. Um, first I'd like to thank the committee and the finance subcommittee for the work they realize, you know, the difficult task that the towns have asked you to do. and started meeting you did present a request for roughly 3% increase and you guys came through with that with some very difficult choices. I know the allocations don't come out with exact 3% but you as a school board or a school district don't have control about that as more of a function. I did like the slide that you presented about the per pupil and how it relates to other area schools showing that North Sex has the lowest per student cost that's at the request of the town trying to requesting that you control
059your cost. I personally not as a select one do not think of that as test students. I also know if you take your chart a little bit further because I've done this is looked at desi and also looked at what the net reimbursement from the state is north middle sex also gets the least amount of aid from the state. So you have the towns requesting that you level service our our children but on the foundation formula for budgeting for chapter 70. If you attend any of the public hearings that were held this fall last fall and last spring to every member of those committees said that the formula was broken. Yet no one put together a bill to force the bill to be looked at. I would ask every member of the school committee and
060every resident in each of our towns to write to our legislators or to meet with our legislators and demand that the Senate and the House select an independent third party to begin this process. The state senate has not done anything as yet for this in this year. So that means nothing will spark until fiscal 27. Fiscal 27 that will deliberate for a year or two. We will not have a solution to this revenue problem until fiscal 30. I don't think that we as a district can stand for that anymore. We need to have a formal plan with our rep representatives and our senators to get this to our voices heard. What we've been doing has not worked. I've been to the state house for two years now at every public meeting advocating for this district
061and our voices have not been very efficient. Again, I'd like to thank each member here for the effort and the time that you you put into this budget as well as the administration for all the efforts they do for educating our children. Thank you. >> Anyone else from the audience? Are there any comments online? Anyone? >> Nobody's presented here. If you are a virtual attendee and would like to comment, if you could raise your hand, >> anybody, >> anyone from the school committee have any comments or questions? >> Just as far as the presentation, is that going to be shared? Yes, >> just a process question. So, you know, as we're each kind of going through line by line on the budget and have questions. My understanding is that even if we were to attend
062this finance subcommittee meetings, we don't want to run into a quorum issue, right? So, we are taking a listening role in that. So, where is the best venue for us to say, "All right, I have questions about this or can we cut that?" >> So, questions from the school committee should be all fed through Brad and I and then we will feed them to Nancy or um Jeremy or the correct person to answer those questions. That's so that we can tell them all together and like have a collective, >> right? Because we don't want questions. Okay. And so, and I do ask that everyone on the committee follow that rule because um Nancy and Kevin's time has to be take considered. And [clears throat] so, anyone else have any questions? >> Um you said that
063the board school committee at this joint can make further recommendations or kickback. My understanding is that we've already sent the closure of Ashby Elementary School to the state. Can that be pulled back? >> No, it cannot be rescended at this time because the process is in motion. Nothing can be rescended from. >> So, one of the budgets that were presented to the school committee can now not be looked at. >> We can go up in budget. The decision on Ashby closure that's done like it's been done. We can't go back and do Ashby. we can bring our budget up by adding more staff, by adding um more um instructional services, things like that if the if we choose to. >> So am I wrong to say that then the budget was already presented to the
064school committee voted if it didn't include the I mean that was one of the schools within the district. So that was included >> the closure of Ashby was voted on and the body voted For anyone at home, we did pause the meeting while correcting I did not miss anything. We are up. You guys can >> anyone from the audience? I'm going to go back and ask anyone from the audience wanting to speak. >> Mark Matthews. >> I'm looking for him. Was here, but he's he dropped off. Yeah, it's not >> Jessica when you're ready. [clears throat] All right. There were what I'm asking is what is the percent assessment for each of the towns over the assessment from last year. I see that there's a transportation, an operating budget and a that assessment, but um
065I'm I'm and I understand that the total budget is 3.06, but what is the assessment for towns? We need that for budgeting purposes. I know you didn't spoke until March 10th, but with with the budget you presented today, >> uh could you tell us the >> the percentage is 2.63 >> for taxing? >> That's operating and transportation, but not debt service because debt service is excluded. So, usually we separate that out. And so your your debt service is 1,429714 >> which is 13.82 higher than last year. >> 13.8 correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Jessica. >> Hi everyone. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Perfect. Jessica Callen and Ashb. Um I apologize to um ask you to repeat yourselves, but we actually missed on Zoom the conversation about Ashby Elementary School. Um the last
066thing that we heard was that there was a vote to close Ashby Elementary School and then we actually were cut out of the Zoom. So I'm hoping that you can repeat what was said so that all of us can hear the conversation. >> Go ahead, Kenan. So the the conversation that ensued um was the at the last school committee meeting this body voted to close Ashby Elementary School. That decision at this time is permanent and cannot be undone and any budget that might include Ashb Elementary School is null and void. All future proceedings um and budgets presented um will not include Ashby Elementary School as a factor as we cannot undo that decision. Um I don't believe anything else of substance was Yeah, I think that was that was kind of the end of it
067and then the audio problems became apparent and we stopped. >> Great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I just have one follow-up question. Um, when the closure of Ashby Elementary School was presented, was it presented in a budget format? >> No. Okay. And then so the budget options that were presented on as recommendations that included Ashby Elementary School closing, that was not the factor that was voted on. It was a separate motion. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you for clarifying. All right. Any I have M Mark Matthews. [snorts] [clears throat] >> You should be all set. Mark, >> can you hear me now? >> Yes. Okay. U first of all, thank you very much to the administration and the school committee for bringing together this budget and putting it together.
068I know it's a lot of hard work and and difficulty and also the point is to help our children become better leaders. So, I applaud that. The question I have or concern is that you're a month away from voting on a final budget. Um, we will hear on Wednesday some very difficult numbers for the town of Peril and I recently heard the information from the gentleman from Townsen. Um, I am sure Ashb is going to be in some continued struggles as we all are. I mean, it's been health insurance. um it's been uh uh different costs that we have and it is going to be astronomical. So I I ask I guess at this hearing please don't stop you know look turn over every stone look for every opportunity again we want to have good
069quality education for our children but um I think our communities due to the lack of state funding is as Chuck Wakovich had already said um we are in dire straits and this year is going to be horrible and next year I think is going to be worse. So, I appreciate the time. Again, I appreciate the hard work. This isn't easy. And I I wish you the best of luck. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Any more questions from committee members or from the audience? Kenan. >> Uh, Superintendent Morgan. Um, we just saw presented a 3.06, [clears throat] uh, budget overview. Um, I understand that the 2.47 247 uh budget that the towns can support may not be fully fleshed out um or might not even be up to date um given that information from towns.
070And are you able to just provide the committee and the audience just a brief overview of what the 2.47 budget um entails over the 3.06? >> Yes. I don't know if you would ever want to start this and I can finish up to you. >> So, essentially what uh we did was a a scenario of a lower budget. This is prior to the governor's proposal. So, 2.47 may not be what's necessary to get it down even further. Um but at the time we took a look at um how would we get down and and we reduced uh the stabilization transfer. we had increased that back um so make no transfer to stabilization. We increased the use of um END for um to offset um you know some of the capital in the regular budget. So
071we moved that to 2,250,000. We looked at uh FTE changes of 1.15 over FY26 which would have been five staff from the 3.06 budget. Um I don't know if there was >> I was just going to say >> it was really just a scenario. It's not not to say that the committee would have to do it that way, but that was one option >> and it would really provide us 2.47 247 would provide us with absolutely no room to address any any class size issues that we would encounter over the course of the year and we would basically be we would be continuing on with what we currently have this year as far as class size issues >> and potentially worse >> and that budget was or I should say scenario that scenario was made
072with the 3% figure in mind for each of the towns. >> Yes. >> Is that okay? >> That's right. And since then the governor has come out with a proposal. So that would be slightly different I think. Okay. If we were to run that again. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Y >> Oh, Jackie question. Jackie. >> Um so two things. Um just going back to what Mrs. story said and I think Jessica one of the callers just a question about um like was there no budget consideration going into the Ashby question and I I just don't know that that's maybe I'm confused by how it's being phrased but like the thing that I relied on was this 47page document from the superintendent that does outline numbers and going through many scenarios and I think while
073it wasn't a specific budget we looked at I guess per se like I'm thinking of the town ask the district ask and then the optimal option and just knowing that we're not even close to like already we're talking about going down to a 2.47% 47% increase just I don't know those were the things in my mind as I was considering the closure question. So even though it wasn't specifically related to the budget I guess like there were those scenario plans in in this documentation there. I guess my next question is just Brad if you may not be able to answer this but anecdotally have we started to hear from staff that they're just not coming back next year because they've been so overwhelmed by this year. >> Yes. Um so I I know that we
074have at least one early retirement um at this point just being sheerely related to class size in student need um coupled with the class size. Um I know that we have uh staff that are looking elsewhere if they can find a situation where their class sizes are going to be smaller. Um so I have heard from a number of staff. I have heard from uh the teachers association and the district on a regular basis saying that that needs to be the top priority addressing class size. Um and just the fact that it's just it's overwhelming to our staff to continue on down this road. So I do think that if if we go into FY27 with a similar setup that we are going to be looking at a large number of vacancies that we will
075not be able to fill. Uh filling vacancies in in education used to be relatively easy. Um there used to be a very large applicant pool. Um it's very similar to um what what law enforcement is dealing with now. There is no pool of candidates. um jobs that used to and I'm not exaggerating that would generate 800 applications of social studies position for middle or high school. We're getting single digits. >> Thank you much for that. As someone who had who is a teacher used to be you couldn't get a social study job if you didn't have years of experience already. >> So it's a real challenge and of those single digits that are applying um a number of them aren't licensed. So that puts in us puts us in a situation where we can't hire
076them and then we're hiring day-to-day subs. Um we still have positions in the district that we can't fill. Um so it's a challenge. I know a couple years ago we we ended up cutting middle school foreign language. Um I I've got other districts now asking me how we did that because they can't find foreign language teachers anymore. They can't find them at the high school level, much less the middle school level. So other districts are looking to cut there. So it's a constant struggle. Um and you know some the the the ones that are regularly hard to find special education, math, science are almost impossible to find now. Um that being said, even even humanities positions, guidance counseling, physical education, those applications are few and far between. So, it's definitely a fear if we lose
077staff um that we're going to struggle to replace them. >> So, I I asked I want this to be more conversational like for the towns that have spoken already like please come up and share kind of your thoughts back to that and how would you like me us to go back and look at these numbers again just keeping that in the back of your minds >> please. Yes. That's awesome. Um, >> so as someone who loves a good negotiation, Kieran from Towns, um, you I mean you leverage the teachers when it's two and a half%. You decide if you exceed that wage option or you have more teachers to teach with and make sure your students have a better experience in your community stronger. They have to decide. As someone who just went and then
078they connect, one of the greatest opportunities for leverage was that it's the teachers unions that really need to go to the state house. As someone whose own community has written thousands of letters, South Market, Scottdale, Cronin, everybody, it's not changing. It's not changing anytime soon. So, it's really the the strongest elephant in the room is your teachers union. They need to go to bat for it or they have to just take two and a half%. because that's how you get more teachers in the classroom. It's really simple math. They're asking for more than the levy limit. Districts can't afford that. Very black and white. It's just a math equation. So that's what you start. It's 2 and a half%. We'll guarantee that. It's what I'm going to tell the staff in town. I'm on record
079now. I've been on record for a while. It's 2 and a half%. That's the number. Carla has her. >> Go ahead, Carla. >> Yeah, just a quick question. Did we have the same issue with overstaffing? I'm I'm sorry, understaffing um capacity when AES was opened last year or is this a new issue for this year? As far as it's not a capacity issue, it's it's the ability to to fill positions >> um budget issue >> in the budget. Yeah. >> Finances. >> Carla, does that answer your question? >> No. My question was did we have the same issue last year when AES was open and there were were there enough teacher ratio per students compared to now where we're seeing lots of Thanks. >> The year before we had cut positions as well. Over the
080last two years, how many positions? 42 >> or along those >> I'm not asking about cuts. I'm asking do we have the same issue that is being brought up right now that >> the teachers are complaining because [clears throat] there's too many students per classroom size >> and we need to bring in more heads to cover that. And I think it was because budgeting we reduced because we reduced the the amount of money we had available. We couldn't the decision was made that those some of those positions would not be filled and there were reductions last year as a result of that. So I'd say the the class size issue is it's been ramping up but last year was the first year where we had significant uh teacher reductions. um middle school mo the middle
081school model was reduced um a number of places where we consolidated it everywhere we could so that we could fit into a budget that the towns could afford. At that point we started higher last year went through a variety of budget revisions. This year we didn't start with 527 because we knew the towns can't afford that. So >> thank you. >> I don't know if that helps. Any other questions? >> Mark Matthews. >> Mark, go ahead. >> You should be all set, Mark. >> I'm sorry. I I I did not mean to. My apologies. >> Okay. >> All right. Ken, >> um at the beginning of this budget process, um we requested a number from the towns uh for what they could support. Um can we reiterate what was that number uh in percentage wise
082that they >> a 3% assessment? >> Okay. Um >> and that's per like per assessment. Can I clarify from the towns and select board town administrator um you just said that you are now saying that you can only support the 2.5% or is that going forward? >> I can quote the letter if you want and this is from our previous >> Sure. Sure. I'm I'm happy. >> So um >> can I have you come to the podium? Sorry state your name is the school. So I've been enjoying all our budget meetings. Thank you very much for all those learned a lot. Um so from this is from the letter from Andrew Nelson and Mary the three town administrators. Um in FY27 we expect growth be even lower. It is therefore critical that North Sex work
083within our limitations new assessments within our projected annual growth. For FY2027 we are collectively anticipating about a 2.6 6 revenue growth levy state aid local sees new growth and that would be an increase to NMRSD of 1,67,72 in total new spending for the district including debt service but that mixes up the calculation slightly as it is both >> okay thank you >> um I suppose I have um the town administrator or town manager town administrator >> town manager my apologies Um, what is it that your town can support percentage-wise increase over last year? [snorts] >> Sorry, I didn't. >> Yeah, we have the 2.65% was the increase. Um, our proposition 2 and a half is only allows us to raise our property taxes by 2.5% every year. So, that levy difference automatically goes to the
084school. It has most budgets in every town school um has at least more than 50% of the overall budget. Um I can only speak to Ashby because we have mostly property value or bedroom community on my pepper and town who has a little bit more industrial commercial. So we're only able [clears throat] to do the two and a half% growth um while I'm standing up here. You had suggested a few things. I had made some suggestions before and I told it wasn't our budget to to make recommendations so forth. um as our budget is our budget. It's not, you know, the school committee's budget as well. But I'm just curious as to the non-union, what is the pay increase that's been budgeted into this budget for the administrative staff? >> The non >> I cannot
085speak to every staff member. Um but the superintendent's contract is a 3% >> and I can't speak to any other administrative than that. That's the only one I'm familiar with off the top of my head. So, we don't know if there's an overall non-union pay increase. We don't know what that is. How did we >> That's individually contracted. >> Everybody has contract. >> So, have a contract. >> We all have contracts. >> The business managers have contracts. >> And you have a contract. >> I have a contract. >> Okay. I just in math law, the only people are allowed to have contracts is our department heads. And there's just a few not all the property are allowed to have employee contracts. So within those I mean are they due annually or >> some are annual
086some are every three years. So either three year or annual >> generally >> has there been any reduction to the administration staff >> last year? >> This year I'm talking about >> no none proposed. No >> none suggested by the school. I just know when when I present a budget, we're asked to make cuts in [clears throat] all areas and we've had to make drastic cuts as well. We're probably going to look at those as well as this year comes in as Townsman and Prep both indicated. You know, we're up against a lot of the same or different mandates, but same we're required to pay the contractual um we all have unions. Uh just as yours, we have teacher unions, we have highway union, we have police unions, we all the other towns have fire
087unions as well. So I'm just interested if the board's look and the school committee is looking to do any suggestions of making any administrative cuts. >> So I can speak for myself personally. Um when we talk about administr when I look at inter administration there's two different things. I'm looking at central office administration. I'm looking at building administration individual schools. Um when we're talking about individual schools um there's a we have a lack of administration in the building. They're overextended already and central office staff has been picking up the slack where they can, but they have their own jobs to do. So, I don't, this is me personally talking, not for the committee. I don't see any spot where we can reduce administration without impacting student experience. Um, I don't think I have anything else
088to say on that. Well, I just know in the towns um and I give my kids speak in the towns and their petrol, but in our town, we've cut all administrative assistance. So any assistant to a person was cut years ago. We never bought back money because we have a very limited budget due to the two and a half proposition um mandate to us. So we can't we can only raise what we can raise and we can only tax what we can tax. So we made those cuts and we've never unfortunately been able to bring them back. So we too wear a lot of hats. I wear several hats um for the town and bash we and we have to do that because of our budget constraints. So we have constraints that we can't hire
089the staff that we need as well. So we make do with what we have. So we work with what we have. We make do with what we have. Um could life be a lot better? My job would be a lot easier. They talk about early retirement. I might look at early retirement just because of the budget constraints. It makes this job very hard. If we had unlimited money then it makes everybody's job a lot easier. But unfortunately, we have what we have. So, we can only budget what we want and what we need. I'm sorry, not what we want. There's a lot of wants out there. But, so I mean, I just, you know, right now we have two business managers right now. Um, not to call out anybody, but I'm just wondering when that
090might change. >> Next year. >> Yes, that will change next year. And then I'm going to point out that our they have cut administrative assistance because the school committee used to have one that helped more and the assistant superintendent had one too, right? There was more administrative assistance back years ago >> and they've reduced it. So Robin fills in for the assistant superintendent, the su super superintendent, and the school committee as an administrative assistant. >> Yeah. Just to clarify, uh the school committee for 16 years I've been on has always used the superintendent executive assistant. So we didn't have our own separate. >> Okay. >> Can I ask a follow-up question? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you for sharing an idea. Um if I may ask >> Oh, sure. >> Just contractually because I don't
091know the answer to this. If you do look at reducing staff like that for someone who's under contract and or not giving them the raise that's in the contract like what are the ramifications for doing that? >> Well, I'm talking about the non-union. I mean right now we have the contractual as well. So we have to whatever contractual and budgeted we have to budget for that because it is a contractual whether it's >> just sounds like we're in a different position maybe because we have so many contracted roles. >> Yeah. I just I was unaware that they were all contracted and normally non union people are the administrative staff. So again our administrative staff is 32 hours and I cut that down to 19 for cost savings. So it saves the town of 50. [clears
092throat] So again I that makes more work for me as you said you know some of the administrative assistants are gone. So we do have to make those concessions to to to meet the budget. We I have to bring forth a balanced budget to the town to vote on. I appreciate just those considerations and again I didn't I apologize for not thanking you all. I know everybody else did. So I do apprec I appreciate our selectman. You guys are all volunteers and a lot of time consuming away from your family. So I appreciate >> um and not that I'm advocating for this right now. I think our budget is close enough we don't have to go here but in the past um many years ago um under Joan Landers um who had most of my
093experience as a on the school committee um in the really tough times there was one or two years that were really really tough she actually negotiated with a lot of the non-UN um members uh or of the staff [clears throat] um as well as with the unions um for a reduction in the year against their contracts and everything just everyone kind of pitch in. So in really really tough years that's always an option to try and go to every group [clears throat] and say hey can everybody pitch in um and get agreements. >> Any more questions? >> Um I know it was a while ago that we just went back to that and we heard um that the town of Ashby and the town of Townsen are able to support what 2.5%. Going back to
094that 2.47% 47%. To be clear, that the and that was in a previous iteration scenario of what the towns could support that was made under a 3% assumption. Correct. >> For the assessments, >> correct? Yes. >> Yeah. I think >> yeah, the debt the debt is excluded. It's outside of the two and a half. Um, so I don't there's I mean usually people look at those as separate separate things, but yeah, it was really not a two and a half in the case of the prior. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Not to say that we couldn't make a change that would get there. I just I'm saying at this point we weren't looking at that. >> We sort of backwards engineered it and said how much will we need to cut to get 247?
095We thought we thought it was around 400,000. So we [clears throat] didn't piece by piece say what that 400,000 was. We just knew what the target would be. >> [clears throat] >> Townson. I guess the question has been could more money from END be used to offset that >> the committee. Thank you. The committee would have to look at it and [clears throat] in our upcoming discussions we will discuss that as well to see if END will be or a different funding. Any more questions? Any questions from the audience online? >> Actually one more. >> Can we just talk about school choice for one second and can I ask a question about it? So, it's right now on as a revenue line item. I forget what the dollar amount is, but if we're saying a
096no to school choice, we would not be getting that revenue in. Right. >> That's going to be going away. >> Yeah. >> It's slowly reducing over the years because we have had less and less school choice students. However, there's a fairly large balance in there. So, I don't see where we wouldn't be able to use that same number. Um, unless the committee was like, "Absolutely not. We want to leave all that money in school choice." But, we could. I'm trying to wean off of it by as other funds become available to shift it so that we're using less of it knowing that we're not bringing more in. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. So, and to clarify, school choice, we get 5,000 per student. Is that correct? >> Plus this plus thereu if they're a special
097education student and there are costs associated with it, they can they'll reimburse us for that as well. >> I actually just have the number >> and that number that 5,000 has not changed since. 93 >> 93 1993 that we continue to get 5,000 per student. >> Go ahead, Randy. >> Um so yeah, uh we used to have um we're doing this consistently about 80 students in uh K to 12 in the district. Um we're getting 400 500,000 um was the maximum that um all this information can be found on the DEES website. They do have for every year school choice in school choice out and we can see um in the last I think four years it's been since or five years of maybe it's been six I forget how long when we stopped while
098>> when we since we stopped taking school choice students which is why that number is going down. So we still have them in the district um in the upper grades because once they're in the district they stay in the district. We don't um send them back just because we leave the program. We just don't take everybody new in. >> Well, we can't we can't send them back, right? Like that's Yeah. Once once they're in, they're in. As long as they want to stay. >> Yes. >> The most recent number I have in 2023 with all the adders, it was $6,623 per student we got. And our per pupil that year was 19,800. So, we were [snorts] minus 12,000 per kid. Right. But you know, adding a student here or there, like we hear that if
099we lose a student or two, it doesn't affect if we gain a student or two, it doesn't necessarily affect the budget. So that money can be helpful. >> Oh, absolutely. I'm just saying. >> Yep. Well, that's that's the reason why it's only at 5,000 because [snorts] you add one student to one class in one grade, you're not going to your per pupil cost is not going to go up by um by that much. So, that's the theory at least. It should go up. It has not changed in a very long time. So, I'm not trying to make the argument that 5,000 is enough. Um but we shouldn't, you know, um I I don't see them ever going to what the per pupil cost. No, no. In 2008 it was half and now it's a third.
100So, >> all right. Any more questions? >> I'm just wondering between closing the hearing and starting >> Yes, we will meeting. >> Um, any more questions? Any more questions online? Can I get a motion to close the app public hearing on the budget at 7:36? So >> that is Keenan Francois and Alexander Vani making the motion. Leo Colo Keenan. >> Yes. >> Randy Rush. >> Michaelier. >> Yes. >> Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Alexander Vampudy. >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Online. Carla Lima. >> Yes. >> Is Kim Craraven still on? Kim has left. Okay. and myself as yes. Before continuing, may I take a motion to have a five minute or two minute recess? A few minutes. >> Oh, okay. Well, you can do that once. Go ahead. Go ahead. >> [clears
101throat] >> Are you good? All right. Now, can I make a motion to take a five? >> Some moved. >> Keenan and Michael. >> All right. Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Alexander Ben. Jeffrey White. >> Yes. >> Michael Bossier. >> Yes. >> Randy Rush. Yes. >> Kanan Francois. >> Yes. Carlo. >> Yes. >> And myself. Yes. It will be five minutes. So, we'll come back at >> 7:42. We're going to come back in session. The time is 7:43. Roll call vote. Randy Rush >> here. >> Michael Lavoier >> here. >> Jackie White >> here. >> Alexander Vancoui >> here. >> Lisa Blue. >> Uh Carlo Lima >> here. >> And myself are here. Human Francois is out of the room for the moment, but I'm sure he will be joining us. All right. May I
102take an approval of the consent agenda or just discussions on our minutes or >> on the minutes? Yeah, we have to wait for >> I put your email in the um in the minutes form. >> Thank you. I did see that. But it should be in the consent agenda for not sure. Well, I assume you're going to talk about it now, right? >> So, it doesn't get put into the consent agenda. >> Right. Okay. All right. So, we are to the consent agenda. Is there any motion to be made on the consent agenda? >> I school committee approve the consent agenda at time. >> That is Alexander Vancoui. and >> thought we were pulling the minutes >> and pulling the minutes. We're going to pull the minutes from what was the last meeting >> 129
103please >> 129 20 or 26 the minutes from there. So make a consent or make a motion >> as amended. >> Okay. Um I move to uh the move the school committee vote to approve the consent agenda as amended >> and second. So that was Alexander Vani and Lisa Bloom on the motion. >> So just to for for to clarify for myself that we were we've taken the minutes from January 29th out of the consent agenda and voting on the rest of it. >> On the rest of it. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Any questions on the rest of the consent agenda without the minutes? >> All right. I'll take a roll call vote. Lisa Blue, >> yes. >> Alexander Budy, >> Jackie White, >> yes. >> Michael Lavoier, >> yes. >> Randy Rush, >>
104yes. >> Keenan Francois, >> yes. >> Carla Lima, >> yes. >> And myself? Yes. Now, do we want to revisit the minutes? >> Because I know that Randy had some >> small changes. And I think they were forwarded to you guys. >> Yes, I saw the I saw the email. Let me open that. just two paragraphs that I just wanted some minor changes to to reflect what was actually said in the meeting >> to clarify. Are you asking us to amend the minutes to this or >> can I just ask a clarifying question you just going back and listening to the recording or that's just you know that's >> um as far as the first paragraph um that is what I had said so I knew what I had said the second one I had
105actually gone back to Any further questions? >> Um, this is I I mean, I see the members reading, but I'll just make a motion to table this amendment. Um, I this came in an hour ago. Um, and I personally I'd like to just review the video to understand what I'm reading. >> All right. Do I have a second on the table? >> Second on the table. >> Yes. >> Second. Yes. >> Michael will second. So that was Ken to table the minutes from 129 and Michael gave >> them to the next meeting. >> Oh, we have vote. No. Keenan France. >> Yes. >> Randy Rush. Yes. >> Michael Lumba. Bossier. >> Yes. >> Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Alexander Vanudi. >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Carla Lea. >> Yes. >> And myself.
106Yes. And that is to table the minutes until next meeting. All right. Moving on. I have nothing in the chairman's Oh, do we have any public communications? >> I don't have I didn't have anybody signed up. >> All right. Um chairman's report. I have nothing at this time. Superintendent report. >> I have nothing at this time. Just budget. >> Um is Dr. Reese. >> Yes, I have nothing at this time. Uh something on the next section of the agenda. >> Well, you're up next. So, the replicating learning instruction everywhere grants. >> Excellent. Good evening everyone. Um sorry to be remote. Um I'm pleased to share with you that we received um a few more grants. Uh two of them are through the replicating applied learning education grant. This is through the 1A foundation and essentially
107our two middle schools have applied or requested that we apply for this grant in order to get some additional professional development around using highquality instructional practices. Namely, it's around uh student discourse. Um, and really the practices of what we call like notice and wonder, which is a practice at the beginning of a lesson where you ask students to notice what they identify. And this is something that's used within math, science, social studies, and English classes, K to8. Um so they notice and then they have some conversations about what they wonder about the material which just helps prepare them for the learning and then also gives them a concrete foundation as they are summarizing at the end of the lesson. Uh so the grant is for 2,000 for both each of the middle schools and it
108will provide funding for substitute coverage for um we have a team of three going from each building. substitute coverage for stipens for the work outside of the school day for the teachers um and [snorts] any other travel related costs. >> All right. Does anyone have any questions here in the room? >> Uh yeah, I got a comment here. Um so I was looking at this. Um, anybody knows, anybody who knows me knows that they be in my bonnet about um all this uh uh [clears throat] new educational practices. I don't like them. I'm a very strong uh proponent of chop and talk and drill and kill. And I know that a lot of people are it's going to make a lot of people's skin crawl to hear that, but that's my that's the approach I
109find works. Those are the approach that I think the data supports. Um I know that this means saying no to money, which is not popular. I'm going to vote no on this. Um just because I think this discourse stuff is um pushed I know it's pushed heavily by the state. I know it's pushed heavily by all the curriculum companies, but I don't buy it. Um I don't buy this stuff. Um, I don't buy this student led learning nonsense. I'm gonna vote no. I don't say no to money. It's mostly symbolic vote. Um, you guys can do whatever you want. Think however you want. >> Thank you. Anybody else have any questions? Randy. >> Uh, following up on that, Gary, can you uh talk a little bit about how long uh some the course has been
110in practice? what kind of uh studies have been done compared to others? Uh where are we seeing that we may want to have this? >> Sure. So, we've been using it within our district for the last 5 years. It started with our e education curriculum. It's also embedded as a strong practice within the illustrative math program within open sed within investigating history within DKP within project lead the way all of the programs that are highly supported by the state but also by the national science teachers association and other national organizations. So these are practices. I don't have the studies directly in front of me, but all of these practices and all of these programs are based on what we call highquality instructional practices which have been uh researched um and really have shown improvements in
111student learning and student investment and just student knowledge just beyond factual knowledge. It really gets deeper learning practices. And that's why the Department of Education in Massachusetts has strongly advocated for these types of approaches. If it's been in the district for five years, what have we been seeing with our students? >> We're seeing students that are more engaged in their learning. We're seeing students that are asking more questions. We're seeing that the students are able to carry over those skills uh not only from year to year, not only within content, but across content areas. >> Thank you. Any further questions? Carla, did you have a question? >> No. >> All right. Um, may I take a motion to accept the replicating applied learning instruction everywhere grants as presented? >> Michael and Keenan. Roll call. Keenan
112Francois. >> Yes. >> Randy Rush. >> Yes. >> Michael Labosier. >> Yes. Um, Jackie White, >> yes. >> Alexander, no. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Carla Lima. >> Yes. >> And myself is yes. Credit to life grant. Dr. Reese. >> Sure. Thank you. And thanks to Dr. Cormier for once again uh writing this grant and securing these funds. This is the third year that we'll be implementing it at the high school and the credit for life fair just gives our seniors an opportunity to explore what it's like getting a credit card having choosing your job trying to decide am I going to live at home live away do I want to go to college or not and they walk through different stations where they make those decisions and then see the impact of those decisions so
113it's a great learning experience for our students and we're thrilled to be able to bring it to them for a third here. >> All right. Any questions about the credit to light? >> Only comments on the matter. Um, as I was a senior last year, I had the privilege of participating. [clears throat] Um, and it was definitely a great experience. I honestly wish that I went a little bit more in depth. Um, but it was it was fun. It was good. Um, and it definitely got a lot of good response from students. >> Thank you, Kina. Anyone else? Carla, did you have a question? >> No. All right. Uh, may I have a motion to accept the credit of life grant as presented? >> Yes. I move that school committee approve the $3,200 credit for
114life fair grant as presented. >> All right. That is Michael Locosier and Alexander Vancoui. Roll call vote. Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Alexander Vancoui. >> Yes. >> Jackie White, >> yes. >> Michael Lavosier, >> yes. Randy Rush, >> yes. >> Kenan Francois, >> yes. >> Carla Lima, >> absolutely. >> Yes. >> And myself, yes. >> All right, moving on. We are going to the ADA RFP recommendation. Dr. Reese, >> actually I think that's going to be Mrs. Hayne. Miss Hain's presenting that. Is that correct? So, we uh went out to um request for proposal for a company to uh handle the RFP um transit um sorry >> oh it's it's the ADA south evaluation and transition plan and this was a grant that we received from the state uh which was approved in a prior
115meeting. Uh we had a quite a number of uh vendors pull the bid documents. Um we ended up with three uh proposals and there was a small committee established to review the proposals and their um recommendation was to move forward with negotiating with um matrix um design group. So, uh, we're looking for the next step would be for us to reach out to Matrix, um, and authorize hopefully authorize the superintendent to do that work and to to, uh, sign a contract with them so that we can move forward with the project. >> Any questions from anyone? >> Did Carla have any questions on that? >> So, ju just a question just to remind myself. So this is for the self- evaluation for ADA accessibility improvements essentially or >> correct. >> Okay. >> So it'll be
116a process uh quite an involved process with the district staff and um leadership to go through the buildings look at where we're at come up with where we're basically where we are right now. And then obviously from that point we'd be kicking off to what areas do we need to make improvements [laughter] in the next step. This is required in order to apply for a grant to actually potentially do ADA work in the future here. So presumably we would um and I think the town of Pepper went through this as well fairly recently and then this this will be something that is public document and living breathing document that we could update and uh I think I think uh it'll be a good good option for the town and getting that grail is fantastic. So,
117>> anyone else have any questions? >> May I have a motion to authorize the superintendent to negotiate and sign the contract with metrics design group for the ADA self-evaluation and transition plan? >> So, move >> that is okay. Alexander Vanudi motioned and Lisa Balloon seconded. It's a roll call vote. Francois, >> yes. >> Randy Rush, >> yes. Michael Labosier. >> Yes. >> Jackie White, >> yes. >> Ellen Xander Vancoui, >> yes. >> Lisa Bloom, >> yes. >> And Carla Lima, >> yes. >> And myself, yes. Um, director of finance and data accountability, the um position. And so I'm handing it over to you, Superintendent Morgan. >> Thank you. So, I had spoken about this at our last meeting and requested um the committee to allow me to um present a a job description that would
118encompass um some additional responsibilities um that would be added to the business manager position and came up with the um director of finance, data and accountability um as opposed to breaking it up into business manager and director of data and accountability. uh provided you with a position, purpose, essential functions, qualifications, and would like the committee um to approve this job description so that we can move forward unless you have questions. >> So, it is in the packet the description of the job. Um does anyone have any questions? >> It does, sorry, I was just going to say it does still require um that the person maintain a license as a school business administrator. Um, thank you for putting this together and I am not opposed to this uh description. What I would ask is over
119the next year or two that you just reevaluate whether this is too much for one position or um if it can be handled. There's a lot of work here. I have a lot of faith in you Kevin especially knowing a lot of the data already should make it a lot easier. Um, but want to make sure that we're not going to be overwhelming you um with the responsibility, especially with having part of that being so critical to the district. [laughter and gasps] >> No, asking forward to wanting to do it. Um, and getting into all the finance on top of that. Just want to make, you know, check in and make sure that it's not going to become overwhelming. >> I appreciate that. >> We can certainly evaluate it without a doubt. Any other questions
120or concerns from the committee? Carla, did you have any questions? >> No, I do not. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, may I have a motion to approve the director of finance data and accountability title and job description as presented by the superintendent? >> So moved. >> That is Jackie White. And second, Randy Rush. I heard her over here. All right. Um, it is a [snorts] roll call vote. Lisa Bloom, >> yes. >> Alexander Bank, >> Jackie We >> Yes. >> Michael Labot Bossier, >> yes. >> Randy Rush, >> yes. >> Kanan Francois, >> yes. >> Carlo, >> yes. >> And myself, yes. All right, moving on to old business. At this time, we're going to move the calendar um to the next meeting because there is some there was um >> been a small small
121formula issue um with it. So we do have to do some revisions on some of the dates. [clears throat] >> So that will be coming back on the next meeting of February 24th. [snorts] All right, moving on to subcommittee reports finance. Kim Craven's not on. Michael or Kenan, do you want to give an update or sorry to put you on the spot? Um this might not be comprehensive but at the last um subcommittee meeting was very uh productive. Um we were have able to have a good conversation um on uh the updates and changes to the 3.06 budget including uh re or some slight changes in revenue numbers and slight changes in the actual um >> in in >> line items [laughter] of of the budget. um we were able to have a good discussion
122on um what utilities are looking like for this year and uh where we're going to land um at the end and at the end of uh 26. Um looking forward um we're hoping to just wait and see um for what additional numbers we'll get uh especially in terms of health insurance. Um, and we are next scheduled to meet on >> the 25th. >> On the 25th of February >> of February, [clears throat] >> 8 a.m. >> Any other updates? >> I just have a question. Um I've noticed uh on the last I think two or three um agendas for finance uh there's been a number of bullets under the FY27 budget planning reconfiguration cost savings previous under spending top 10 categories for the past three to five budget cycles potential need for overrides Ashby Elementary
123School. Um I was not able to uh listen to uh this past one uh meeting. Um but in the other ones I had not heard any of those uh addressed and there was nothing in the packet for any of that information. I was wondering if that had gotten I was wondering if this had gotten addressed in this meeting and whether you were going forward. >> So at at this meeting we did uh discuss cost savings. Um top 10 categories I do not believe we've discussed. Ash Elementary School was handled. Um we did briefly touch on overrides. Uh there was nothing uh additionally material uh that was discussed not bulleted. >> Okay. >> We did discuss um the and made a recommendation on DIIB, right? Or what is >> Yes, we did make a um and
124that should be on the next page of this I believe if you're looking at the updated one. We have this conversation. >> Yes. So we did make a recommendation uh to >> suspend uh DIIB for this FY27 year. Um that's just a recommendation made by the finance committee. Um, >> yeah, >> that can be taken up as a vote on like the next >> and and I believe the idea was that, you know, I mean, we we sort of went back and forth on the whole should wording of it and how, you know, it, you know, should versus shall and all that stuff, but we still thought it made sense to at least bring it to the full committee as a suggestion of like, let's take a vote on it and say, okay, we're not
125going to be meeting that goal of reducing reducing the um reliance on E and D this budget cycle that's just not going to happen like we we you know it's just the the reality of the situation and so that was the sort of the the thing we came to was essentially let's recommend that we sort of officially say that we're not doing it so that it's on record >> to suspend and so that was just a recommendation of the >> finance committee which in the next meeting we'll have to take an official vote yeah >> to say that we'll will suspend it because it didn't make it in time for this committee meeting. >> All right. Any other questions? >> I have a question. >> Oh, Jackie. So, do you think for the 2.5 meeting
126that you're going to look at coming down even lower to 2.5% budget increase or >> that probably depends on what we hear from the towns between now and then, I would guess because that, you know, that they're going to come back to us with feedback on the 3.06 06 budget and say, you know, we we absolutely can't or we can or something in between, you know, and then we'll have to start talking about adjustments at that point, you know, if if we if they say we absolutely can't do this budget, then then we have to start having those discussions of like, okay, where do we reduce this? How do we reduce this? >> I just don't think we're going to hear more than what we heard tonight. Right. >> I mean, I guess if if
127we don't, then you know, we'll just have to make our decision based on what we have or >> I think in advance of the March budget adoption meeting, we should have most of our questions answered. Um, you know, again, the big outlier right now is finalizing our active employee health insurance and then the retiree health insurance >> and by then, um, the towns should all have their health insurance numbers. So it I would say with confidence that we are committed to continue [clears throat] working to do what we can do to make it as doable as doable for all three towns as we possibly can. Um and we will continue to do that in advance of the budget adoption meeting the finance meetings in between. >> We have another meeting between now and when we
128have to adopt the 24th. So any more questions on finance or input policy? I see that we have none or policy approval. Uh [clears throat] >> advocacy any updates operations none. We heard tonight from the towns. Um but Carla, did you have anything from Ashby? >> Nope. I think you heard directly from them. Thank you. >> And we heard from PPL tonight. Uh Townsen any >> Okay. All right. Now, moving on to other business that wasn't anticipated in the within the 48 hours. Um future agenda items that I think Jeremy Brad sent you a document. could you display up on the screen? [clears throat] Oh, sorry. So, this was from the email that Randy had sent um about agenda items that she would like to be seen on the next um on the next few
129meetings. I did have Brad put together things that we do at the next few meetings like what has been scheduled in the past and what he saw coming forward and so I think we can discuss what future agenda items need to be done. >> Sure. So um again just keeping in mind that we do only have the three meetings prior to um the May meeting where where again we could be looking at upwards of three new committee members. >> Excuse me. It would be good for me to share this out. >> Yes. Yes. Um, but in just looking at the at the pacing guide and some of these things we haven't done every year just because the budget always seems to take a significant amount of time as it should, but we're also missing out
130on some other things that that we really should be discussing. Um, and that would be the annual review of safety protocols that are put into place by the district. I do think it's important that we continue to update the community on on what we're doing to keep our schools as safe as possible [clears throat] um in collaboration with um with first responders in all three communities. We do have to do a strategic plan update. We have to discuss prek tuition. Um we have to look at the 20 26 27 calendar that's been revised. And then we have to look at the budget again in advance of that March March 10th meeting. March 10th. Um I don't have anything listed, but some of these items on April 14th are going to have to be bumped up
131just because the budget adoption itself takes a tremendous amount of time. Um and then April 14th, the other items that that really need to be discussed are student services programming, uh having special ed do an update on that, hearing from our CPAC, which has become extremely active. Um a review of activity fe activity fees and student enrollment in our um clubs and extracurriculars. Family and student handbook has to be uh has to be reviewed and changes or recommendations brought forth. Food service vendor selection extended day program handbook update. Um looking at athletic and extracurricular fees for FY27. um our transportation contracts, uh whether to extend or not the SMS, the Spalding Memorial School lease approval, potential approval of the fair share grant projects, and then review of school choice openings by school um as well
132are all things again that that really need to be discussed between now and the main meeting if at all possible. Um in again in years past we have skipped some of these things. Um but but some of them just can't be skipped and others it would be good to hear from some of our um department heads especially around the strategic strategic plan and special education. >> All right. Um so you all can see that it's a full list of things and then given the um items that Randy has recommended as well and some of >> some of the items are over. >> Yeah. So, like the special education program that is um scheduled for April 14th, that was number five on um Ry's email. >> Um let's see. >> School choice was another >> school
133choice was when is that one? >> That's going to be probably April. >> Possibly March, but the March 10th meeting, but it could be April. >> Will that [snorts] include an analysis of the class of the school choice program and not just openings? That's what I'm looking for is um for four or six years we were saying that we weren't getting enough money that um that we shouldn't um be in in school choice because we were losing money um bringing these students into the district um only getting $5,000 or 5,000 plus a little bit. Um, now it sounds like it's a reverse course and looking at room for that. Although I'm not sure what kind of room we have having just closed the school. So I'm just want an analysis I had when we back
134in May May 19th I think I had on here I had requested an analysis of the financials to so we can decide whether we wanted to be a program [clears throat] or not. I was told this year we would get an analysis of the school choice program in this district, what it's costing us um whether it's worthwhile to do so we can make informed decisions. >> I can talk to the team about it. I I I'm not sure um in looking at with regard to the request how much time it's going to take between that and then looking at our budget for next year and then moving programs, bringing in programs and then scheduling the buildings. Um it's possible that we can do some of it. I don't know if we can do all of
135it. >> We have a fair amount of data already. It's just I think one of the challenges in looking at the data is that the student doesn't stay in that grade forever and they move forward. So you have you'll be like a third grader go to fourth grade. So you know in that in that circumstance and then goes to middle school and middle school could have no room which means you're hiring another teacher. That analysis is very subjective I would say in some ways um hard to and again it goes to multiple years. So I think that the data about how much how many students we have, where they come from, all that is available pretty easily. I think just those subjective decisions about what um h how it looks over a course of years
136is a challenging part. >> Yeah. And I'm not looking I I know it's not going to be live down to the dollar and things like that, but getting a general idea of is it sustainable for our district to be bringing in school choice. I know we get money in, but we're also paying for school students going out. Um, we stopped the program. Money coming in is going down. The money going out has gone down some, but we're now we used to bring in more than we sent out. Now, it's a negative on our balance on our [clears throat] balance sheets because we're paying more for students going out and coming in because we stopped accepting them. um we we've been asked for a couple of years not to participate in the program and so I'm
137looking for a rationale if we're going to be asked to to participate again. There should be a rationale here and some data to back up why we should go back into this. I think we can certainly provide those without doubt, but I don't know if we can. Again, there may be things that we can't >> Yeah. >> assign a number to >> and that's fine. >> Ken, >> um I I assume everyone has the list pulled up on their screen. Um my personal opinion is items one, two, and four um should be referred to um for discussion. Items six and eight um are not necessarily appropriate for this session um and should be looked into for after the organizational meeting uh with the new committee. Uh item seven uh I find misleading and fundamentally disagree
138with um and I don't think it merits um any further discussion. Um and the remaining items are um fine. I [clears throat] think they they should uh plan their way on the agendas. [clears throat] >> Anyone else have any comments? >> As far as number six goes, I think I'd love to pick Robin's brand and Jeremy's brand after this more about the um hybrid meeting option, but I think we should talk about it maybe before the next committee is placed. The the only reason I say that should be deferred to the the organizational meeting is this committee is could change you know a third of this committee could change by the next um in the next year. So I don't think it makes any sense to you know change what we're doing already for this
139year. And to be clear I'm a big proponent of in person. I think this is fantastic. But um at this point I can only speak for myself. I'm taking 21 credits this semester. My schedule is locked and there is no flexibility full stop period and like I'm missing a 4hour class to be here right now and that is going to bite me later. So that I have no flexibility to be in person if we have not already scheduled it. I and and I do think as far as you know whether or not we move forward from hybrid we we do only in person to remote whatever it happens to be um we do have to find a way to make sure that it's foolproof because I am getting messages tonight that people are getting kicked
140off um and that will open us up to an open meeting law violation um you know I've said it before this it was value managed out of this for all intents and purposes to make this so that it would have been foolproof. It was removed. The technology um was was taken out. So, we're we're left in a situation where where we've got Jeremy and and Robin who are working super super hard to [snorts] make this work. Um, and I thank them for that, but it's it's extremely difficult and we're totally reliant on the equipment that we're purchasing working. And it's not >> I don't mean to stop you. Um, but this is not on the agenda. Just talking about, you know, whether we have these conversations and when. um rather than getting into the nitty-gritty
141here, I would love to hear about it, but um I also don't want to have an open meeting law violation because [clears throat] we're discussing something that we didn't say we were going to discuss. >> Okay. So, let's take this back to number one. I'm going back to number one. School choice will be on the April 14th meeting. Okay. Fiscal reserve policy finance has recommended it. It will come back on the February 24th meeting. The NASDAQ reports and the hold harmless. >> On number two, if I can just um I know they're making a recommendation for this year. Um I was hoping to have a plan for going forward um or some semblance of a plan going forward on how to uh go ahead and meet that not necessarily next year but top range. And
142I my recommendation for that was to refer to Fencom. >> Yes. >> Refer refer to the Fencom for discussion. >> All right. Now going on to the NASDAQ report. Um declining enrollment over the last two years. Um I think this one personally this one takes some analysis and time and I think that this one should be pushed off until next fall. That would be my recommendation for the NASDAQ report next fall or next year for them to evaluate >> in the summer >> or they can do it in the summer or you know out of budget season is a different not within because I think you recommended that these go on the agenda no later than April 14th. That one's a huge one. Is everyone okay if that one gets pushed off to a further
143budget down for the next committee to handle? >> Okay, just based on what we've seen needs to be discussed tonight. >> Okay. And the same with the whole harmless list. Um that's a big one that needs to be really looked at um and understood. I would push that one off as well until the next committee as well. >> Likely going to need some help from Mars. >> Mars with that the whole harmless one. >> All right. Special education is going to be presented April 14th. That's already said the discussion on inerson and school committee meetings. Um I do think that that one should be pushed off to the organizational meeting again. And I'm gonna reference what Kenan said earlier is that the meetings have already been set on the calendar. I know that we have
144another in-person A or is March 10th March 10th is an inerson meeting as well as I >> and then May is an inerson meeting >> and then May is an in person and at that time I think the committee because the dynamics of the committee may change and people's schedules may change >> I agree with the caveat that for people who are going to be running it would be good for them to know that your time may be requested in person. Yep. Well, and I think that that's something that the you know the the what whoever is on the the next school committee can collectively decide like do we want to do hybrid? Do we want to do in person? Do we want to do remote? And that will be >> that you know that
145will be up to those nine people whoever they may be. >> Yeah. The collective committee. >> Awesome. All right. Number seven. We are not officially and when I said it's not it's closed but the process of closing is not all the way complete and so I don't think um you should do a postmortem on it yet in that like we have to look at um all the building things that need to be done at Ashby. So, if you want to, you can move this to the other um vote for the school um choice program that was voted last May that we were going to get an update on that we haven't. This point was more about how does you know this internal and this is not necessarily with the administration. How is this body going
146to um hold ourselves accountable when we ask for something to make sure we're following up? When we have new programs, to make sure we're following up when it's not the very next meeting that we're asking for something. We have a very bad track record of setting these things up. It's it's an organizational thing, a process thing that this body needs to talk amongst itself on how are we going to hold ourselves accountable and keep track of what's been asked to make sure we get it. That's all. >> Okay. So, it's not about a postmortem on the facilities. >> No, I was using that just as an example. >> Example. So, this is more of a running document of what's been asked and when it's been delivered, >> right? It doesn't have to be a writing
147document, but we should discuss how or the body should discuss how they want to keep track of that. >> It sounds like that it does need to be something whether it's a document or some other mechanism for listing out here are the things that we have asked for. Here was the promised date, here is yes, it has been delivered and all that kind of stuff that we just >> Yeah, that was my point. >> Yeah. Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. similar to number three that we just tabled for the next >> um year. I mean, how are we going to hold ourselves accountable for coming back to that? Circling back to number three at some point. >> I think that's I think this is more about things that we've asked other people to provide us. I
148think this is like, okay, we asked the, you know, we asked the administration for this information and they said they would get it to us by this date. So that way we can go back and check like did they give it to us? when did they give it to us and just so because no nobody can remember all of those things >> themselves and so we need to kind of track it in a way that doesn't rely on our brain >> so it's a track it's a tracking mechanism >> yeah tracking system for all that all those requests >> so this is also u I think it's also it goes to the organizational meeting >> um to come up with that complete process >> but now we do have things that we have requested out
149Um, do we know what those reports are? Do you have any reports out, Randy, or groups or finance that haven't been delivered yet or >> that we've requested admin? I have to go through I don't have anything. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Requested this thing. Okay. And I and I would say not the organization because the organization meeting is literally about vice chair the secretary treasurer and >> so it could be pushed off to the second meeting of the new group >> and sort of okay now this is for >> you can rec you can yeah >> have the school committee operations subcommittee >> take it on if they're if you're going to keep that subcommittee going. >> Yes. All right. Now I think we're moving on to number eight. Um the request for
150more workshop scheduled for the SC. This one >> I say and this we don't have to discuss all of them tonight. I wanted to put this in front of everybody. Yeah, these are my thoughts, not what you have to, but these are ideas of what should be discussed among the school committee on you know just for workshops figure things out get things working better and have an idea. So that can be certainly be put off right now but that is something that I think you kind of feel needs to be discussed and decide internally. I think that it kind of falls in the same lines as with the tracking and the workshops and when the committee meets to decide um what [snorts] they need and being a young committee or fairly new committee. Um I
151think that like the accountability, the roles, those things need to be highlighted. Um, the one thing I do have to say about workshops is that schedules people need to be able to work them into their schedules. So, just keep that in mind. Um, but I think that one as well can be moved off into the new committee. >> Okay. And I have just one more um request for a no no date but a request for a future agenda item which is a report from the superintendent on his long range planning that was in his budget message on possibly closing Spalding Memorial and adding on uh to Hatha Brookke and making it a 2 to8 school that has not been discussed. Um it's out there in the public now and in the public message. I think
152the school committee should be informed about uh possible future plans. >> Is that okay? Good. All right. Future plans. All right. Anything else on future agendas? Any other items? >> Can we consult discuss what seats are? >> No, we can't. >> You can't you can't discuss that in public. I don't know. I'm going to stop you from discussing that in public. >> If I can just make um an announcement to the public as far as the elections coming up. >> Yeah. >> Thank u for everybody who is out there um in the community watching. Um I am formally I've mentioned it before, but I am formally letting everybody know I am not running again this year for school committee. So my seat is available. Um, and as of right now, I don't believe anybody has
153pulled papers. Um, I would really like to urge uh the community to think about this. There are some really big decisions coming that uh can affect the district um in [clears throat] very large ways. We need people to step up now and actively engage in the future of this district and how it will look and function um and we need people to step up. So, please uh consider running for the school committee. Um it is an atlarge position. So anyone from Ashby, Townsend or Peril can run. You go to your own town uh to pull papers and then you'll be on the ballot for all three towns. Um if you cannot, please talk to friends, neighbors. Uh we need this committee to be at nine members full so that we can operate properly. Thank you.
154>> Right. Any more questions? All right. I will take a motion to adjourn. >> I move that we adjourn. >> That is Michael and Alexander Vancoui. Making a motion to adjourn. [snorts] And it is 8:31. Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Alexander. >> Yes. >> Jackie White. Yes. >> Michael Loxier. >> Yes. Randy Ro. Yes. >> Kenan France. >> Yes. >> Carla Lima. >> Yes. and myself. Yes. Thank you everyone.