NMRSD School Committee 10/23/2024

00130 and call to order the North Middle Sex Regional High School Committee meeting. It is >> middle school. We are at the high school. >> We just need to make sure we talk louder. So that's >> at 6:30. >> It's 6:30. We're opening the meeting. [Music] We have members from Zoom that are on. Is that correct? All right. And I will take a roll call. We have Will Hackler. >> Here. >> Patrick McFillips >> present. >> Lisa Bloom >> here. J McNeel >> here. Randy Rous >> here. Do you want to say our other members or is it just members? Brad Morgan is here. >> Yes, I am. >> Dr. um Ree is here. Nancy Haynes is here. >> Ryan Dear is here, our athletic director. And in the audience, we have Jeremy, [Music] >>

002Kevin, and Lisa. >> Kamala. And I'm going to ask that we move Ryan Bailey to the top of the agenda because he has to get back to the PCA for a com or a comedy talent show. >> So, >> all right, Ryan, the floor is yours. >> Hi, everyone. I'm Ryan. Um, I'm a senior here at the high school and last year I did a civic action project about paper recycling. Um, and the main mill I used was Manadnock paper mills trying to figure out a way to do something called closed loop recycling. I have a hand uh hard copy out for everybody. Essentially what it is is that if we give our paper to this mills, they'll recycle it and bring it back to us. So instead of us having to constantly cut down

003these trees, we'll be able to be using the same supply of paper just refreshed and renewed. Um, I tried emailing them when I did the project and during the summer, but unfortunately they said they couldn't give me much information because I wasn't technically supported by the business that I was doing. Uh, so I've come here just seeking permission to say that we are potentially interested. Um, and if we don't make decision yet, that's perfectly fine. Um, I just want to know so I can start working with them. And if we don't approve it, we don't have to approve it in the day, but I just need to get the information from them for money and stuff. Um, so if we do approve, I'll need someone to contact here about budget and paper so we don't

004get anything wrong and um just get info and prices about our current paper supply. Secondary um if we don't want to quite do it yet, um we could still set up it's turning to quarter two soon. Uh we want to set up maybe flexes and um advisories where people throw away their paper and collection bins since at the end of the quarter people have a bunch of paper they don't need. And usually, you know, I always did a big like burnout at the end of the year with it. And I'm like, that's just a waste. So, people can throw it in these. And we like to get that maybe start as soon as we can experiment with waste. So, I like to start an environmental club here that can work with that, that can sort

005through the paper and allow us to use this closely for cycling. Uh, we would fund raise for collection bins. Um, these big collection bins we can do during advisory and we like to get individual bins in most of the classrooms. Um, and we'll need to do fundraising that the group can run. Um, and we need a storage area. I know that there is some rooms that aren't fully used in the school right now. There is some side rooms of science classroom that I know is vacant. Uh, we could move it outside at all. We'd also need to figure that out. Um, data that I found is that we use seven tons of paper every year. Um, and that's constantly every year that we're cutting down roughly 102 trees worth, which is a lot um, for

006a school, especially our size. Um, so I'd like to do close loop to minimize amount of oil, water we use in our our ecosystem. Um, if anyone has any questions. Um, I think the main thing I have, we don't have to make a vote on it yet. Just look on this and see if I can get approval to start um, contacting Manenna Paper Mills to see if they'll be interested in doing it with us and possibly start getting a collection service uh, going. >> Thank you. Anyone from the committee have any questions at this time? >> So, um, in order to start getting, um, a cost for any of this, they just need approval to be able to start working with us. There's no monetary, um, >> no >> anything we need to commit to.

007>> Yeah. No, it's non-binding. When I emailed them, they said, "Sorry, we understand that you're a student and we're not sure if your school they don't want to waste time essentially, right? So if I say, "Oh, this school has good bit of my back and maybe they'll be able to give me prices and stuff." But nothing buy. >> Okay. How did you come uh come about this closed loop? Uh >> so um I uh I actually worked in um a part of service learning went down and they actually had a mill for that down there for almost the whole city which is very impressive and I thought that there's anything in New England that does that and I found that Manadnok is the closest for paper. There's one I think 30 minutes away in um

008Massachusetts that is cardboard if we want to extend to that but start with this paper and manadan knock mills is a great producer of that recycling that a lot of businesses around here use so I think it'd be cool to put our school into that and start making that progress forward they able to give you any uh schools or businesses that are already using their services >> uh I can't remember the name of businesses I didn't find any schools yet but they would consider us as a business per se. Um, but still we hate doing it as his first >> and he had a great presentation at the civic action day and so and he talked to me about it and it was quite interesting. So, anyone else have any questions? >> It seems like

009a great project. We need to study market research. Could we move to vote now just to let impress? I mean, it's up to the committee tomorrow. And you guys are good with it, you can move to vote. >> All right. >> I'd be happy to work with here at the high school as well, just to be clear. >> This is just at the high school you're doing. >> Yes. >> All right. Or does somebody want to make a motion? >> I move uh to give the schools permission um to look into the um the feasibility um for the um full circle or the closed loop recycling program. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> All right. >> Who would I quick approval to maybe start working with somebody for advisory? We don't want to do that quite

010yet. >> Mr. Morgan said he would help you figure out who to >> get in contact with and different things. And will you come back and present to us again? >> Okay. So, I'm going to take everyone in favor. I >> Anybody opposed? Anybody abstain? What's happening? Patrick. >> All right, we have the approval. >> Thank you very much. >> All right, >> we're going to move back to the consent agenda. You can take a motion on the consent agenda. >> So move. >> Second and second June. All those in favor? >> I Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Any public communications? I didn't see any. I didn't see any. All right. Now we are on to Meredith, but I'm gonna Meredith was um mentioned in an article in the Sun Bowl lenome um about her outstanding

011field hockey career and as a top student. So and sent out the article to everyone. Did everyone have a chance to look at it or it was in public communication? So congratulations Nancy. >> All right. Now that I've shown the spot, you can go ahead and give us the student report. >> So Natalie, do you want to finish? >> Okay. >> Oh, and this is Nat Natalie. >> Natalie. >> Okay. So we had homecoming September 28th brand smoothly was a big success. Um this week the student council is also starting to sell Halloween candygrams where students can purchase candy and that funds will go towards student council as well as we have spirit week for the coming week for Halloween. Um We're also starting to plan for veter veterans day and the faculty chair and

012so committees are meeting together. The veterans day celebration is November 7th and school committee members are welcome. >> What time is the Veterans Day program at? >> Usually in the morning and I think everyone got an invitation on it. Correct? And then we have the powder puff game upcoming November 19th 5 to 8:00 p.m. And it's going to be grade versus grade. So it's freshman versus sophomores and then juniors versus seniors. And the winners of those two games will go against each other. And that's usually a big >> and that's November 19th. Yes. >> As for other things in the school, NHS inductions are two weeks ago and we're always looking for more service opportunities. And as we start to get going, our individual service groups are being put in their projects, which is because

013it's just like little groups of students in NHS who are going to do service projects around around the school for sports. And as as our whole season's winding down, many teams are heading into tournament season, which I know we're all very excited for, but there's also a lot of building excitement around winter sports because I know like indoor track and we're all very excited for that to start. And in just other news, u Roappa National Honor Society had their inductions as well as the triad national music society. All right. Does anyone have any questions for the representatives? Thank you, Natalie and Meredith. If you guys want to go, you are free to go and do your homework. Thank you. >> Thanks, girls. Thank you. All right, my report. Just some bookkeeping. There's some quies that

014need to be completed. And then if everyone would um when the meeting is sent out, just acknowledge that you got it or if you're coming or not. declining and I think that is all on that and then superintendent report. >> I don't have anything to wait in the bottom. >> All right. And then you are up Mr. Dear. >> Oh, perfect. Um, so I just wanted to um come to school committee to request um approval for the North Middle Sex Regional High School baseball team to do an overnight trip um to Mashby uh for it's March in March. It's Friday, March 28th through um Sunday, March 30th. Uh they go down there. uh they've done it I know they've done it in the past they play a couple scrimmages it's about a little less than

015two weeks into the season um it is something that they've already started um fundraising for um and it's you know a situation where it's it's not only the opportunity to scrimmage um some teams from different parts of the state but it's also an opportunity for them to to uh do some team uh bonding. Um it's something um that coach Borugard has I mean he's done now I know at least for two years the leg work for for all of this and he handles the logistics and he I know he um in my uh at least in the packet had he offered both the itinerary kind of dayto-day but then also some of the you know some of the pertinent information hotel location the funding those type of things. Um he's with that I know there's

016a fee in there that talks about like $300 a player. He's provided um I would say at least four different fundraising opportunities for families um as ways to cut into that amount. Um so it's not necessarily a burden in terms of uh for families because it's something he's discussed with them um all along. He's also already got the process going with the nurses. Um he's given them kind of a list of prospective students or or players. So that um it is obviously a wide list because they they don't try till March, but he wanted to give them plenty of time to get ahead of that. Um he has submitted the um the out of state overnight field trip form request as well. Um that has been looked at by the interim principal here at the

017high school. Um and has like I said movement moved on to the nurse. Um and it even you know he kind of goes into um the medical piece of it. He traditionally has a parent there that is um either has a nurse or a doctor uh background and they are one of the few teams I would say in Massachusetts that have their own AED that they travel with. um it's something they they bought early on in coach Borugard's tenure here and they bring it practice games everywhere. Um so they are well equipped in case of um any medical situations there. Um I also know that he meets with his coaches and chaperones prior to this trip um and goes over kind of the procedures for different scenarios. Um just again so those that those medical

018concerns are kind of at least the anxiety that may come from those are kind of squashed prior to heading and they have a plan for all those different situations. >> Anyone have any questions for Ry Mr. Dana? >> Looks like you've covered everything. I will take a motion then we approve the trip. >> I move the school committee approve the North Middle Sex Regional High School baseball team's overnight trip to KOD for team building scrimmage games for March 28, 2025 and March 30, 2025. >> Second and all those in favor. >> Any opposed? It's all approved, right? >> Thank you. >> We are on to the homeschool report as the athletics tiered sponsor form has been removed from the agenda and the Washington DC trip is removed as well. Okay, I think you're up for

019the next three. >> Yes. Thank you. Uh good evening everyone. Um as we do each year I just submit the report annual report to notify the committee of the number of families and number of students that are enrolled for homeschool program. So each year families have to submit a new application to identify what their curriculum is and their means of assessing uh their children through the homeschool program. We're continuing to see a decline in the number of families um from um we spiked in 20 the 2021 school year to 215 students and that was kind of postco or midco um so we're continuing to see a decline. I don't anticipate we're not back to the precoid numbers yet. I really don't anticipate that we'll ever get back to that level because I think some families

020who had the opportunity to explore homeschooling when we were in a pandemic period have actually found that that was a more beneficial opportunity um for their children to learn. So they've maintained that. Um but we we are continuing to see a decline. Um it represents now only 4.55% of our students um overall student population and it's a decrease from last year of 8.28% in the number of students that are doing homeschool groups. >> What age groups predominantly are being homeschooled at this time? >> It's it's really mixed report. Um, you know, we see between like 10 to 15 students anywhere for each grade level from grade one up to grade 10. Um, when we get into grade 11 and 12, it's down to about five students in each grade level. and kindergarten. We do have

021five students which we don't kindergarten is not required for families to submit a plan unless their child is turning six prior to January 1st of the year that they would have been in kindergarten because kindergarten is not a required attendance program. And uh do we find um that there's uh an increase decrease or about the same of parents actually asking to be in a particular class like at the high school for a lab class or for supplement? >> No, we don't really see a lot of that. Um, I see more of it in terms of families that want to explore or participate in extracurricular activities such as athletics or even we had one family last year or at the beginning of this year that wanted to make sure that their child could still participate in

022things like school dances. And as long as they work through the the high school administration, they're still able to attend those programs and as long as they're also compliant with rules and expectations. Any more questions on the professional development plan? >> So, just another quick update. Um, so this year we have four um early release, late start PD days. And what we decided to do for this year was have our staff at the elementary, middle, and high school level go through a rotation for three of those days where one day they would be receiving professional development um focused in special education topics and that's going to be led by our director of special education. Uh we're going uh Massachusetts is implementing a new IEP individualized education program this year and that's work that our special

023education staff need to be aware of. But there's also impacts for how it looks and how our regular education teachers need what their understanding of the process needs to be. So that's going to be one area of focus. The second area of focus is around our multilingual learners. And last year we had um an outside consulting from Mountaintop Consulting work with our our multilingual teachers. They felt they were had very positive feedback and so we're bringing her back to do whole staff training really around strategies and supports for students as they're train as they're working within the general education setting to make sure that we're meeting the needs better meeting the needs of all students. And the third area that we're providing PD on those days for is around restorative justice restorative practices. in restorative

024practices is really a lot of times when people think of it they think just around the discipline piece and making sure that the discipline when a child behaves in a certain way that we wouldn't like that they then are restoring their the sense of community to whatever they've done. So if it's something in the cafeteria, what can they do to then restore their ability to be in the cafeteria and not interfere with other kids access to enjoying lunch or things like that. But it really at the base level restorative practices is really about how do we create a caring and safe community that all students understand that and then want to be complying with rules and expectations. Because if a child doesn't have that sense of belonging in their classroom and then we're asking them

025to restore themselves within a behavior in the classroom, there's no incentive for them to do that because they don't care about that connection. So restorative practices at the base level is first just starting with how do we create that sense of belonging and community that all students feel respected, feel safe, and want to be part of the community. And so we're working with uh Suffach University's Center for Restorative Justice and they're going to be providing an overview this year and my hope is that it'll be very well received by staff and then we'll continue a model with them into subsequent school years where they provide more specific training on implementing it and working with small groups of teachers so that we can start to do some pockets of um growing in that practice. Um, so

026this really will just be an overview during a two-hour process. Um, and the other thing I just wanted to highlight in terms of professional development, we do have our upcoming November 5th PD day and we are collaborating with Lunberg Public Schools for this PD. This is a great opportunity for us to save some money to share um some of our resources and expertise. We have a keynote speaker, Dr. Aaron Nerino who's really um has done some work. She was a former teacher at King Phillip um Regional School District and while she was there she did work with students around interrupting harassment speech. How do you interrupt? How do you do it in a safe way when you see something happening whether you're a teacher, whether you're a student? How do you how do you intervene

027but intervene safely? And so there was a structured program she was doing there at um King Phillip. She's now um I forget what college she's at, but she's now a college professor and she's continuing that work with at the college level of how do we provide support? Um so she's going to be our keynote for all staff to hear. Then she'll be doing some breakout sessions. All staff are going to have the opportunity after they see the keynote to self- select between a variety. We have probably about 40 to 50 different sessions that will run over three session blocks. So teachers will be able to self- select a topic. um that's most of interest to them. All of the topics are focused around the concept of caring, safe, inclusive environments. So, we're we're excited about

028doing it. Um I know we did this work with Lunenburgg. I don't know if it was pre-COVID or right during CO um of kind of sharing our PD work together. Um and we're we're looking forward to doing it again. And it'll be hosted here at the high school. >> And you said that's November 5th. That's our November. >> Any questions for Dr. Le on to MCAST? >> So, I'm going to pass this over to Dr. Cormier who um has really been digging into the data. And what I will say is you'll see um and we'll try to keep it as concise as possible. know there's a lot we can talk about um but it's not only a focus on our MCCAST data but it's also what are the other aspects of data that we are

029collecting because MCCAST is only one source of information for one period and we want to make sure that we're continuing to look at all of the sources of data we have to make sure we're making effective progress for students and also making good education decisions so thanks Dr. Co. >> Thank you Dr. And so in a little bit of change in the past, I'm actually not going to hit you with a lot of numbers. I've I've linked everything on the relevant data. Um so you can see the charts and tables if you're into that sort of thing. But I really took the time to dig into like what's the story that this data is telling us and how is that going to affect, you know, the instructional practices and the priorities that that we have

030going forward. Um okay. All right. So, the first thing is there's a district-wide accountability um percentile. Where do we sit within the state? Um we we've seen this from year to year. This is only just to kind of show you that this is what the state trends were. Um the state is pretty flat and slight decline um overall. So, I'm going to try and and situate us as in relation to statewide data as well to show where we're sitting, where we're outperforming, where our sort of uh focus needs to be in order to kind of bring something up. But if you see like last year 82% of schools that were not requiring the assistance this year, it's down to down to 83. Last year, um same with the progress slightly down. Last year there were

03166 schools that received the school recognition uh award for their there um in this period. There's only 50 this year. So you can see that already there's a little bit of a drop in statewide performance and that's going to be pretty fun along the way. Um what measures and again I'm not going to go through all this. The the indicators hyperlink will give you all the percentages and the weights and everything that goes into it but these are what goes into the accountability system currently. So, it does talk about MCCAST, but it also talks about things like chronic absenteeism and at the high school level, the ability to access advanced coursework and then things like graduation rates, dropout rate, and everything has a weight. It comes in and then they rank you either as a

032non- high school or a high school. So, the high schools are only compared to high schools. The non- high schools are only compared to non high schools. So, you can't compare them to each other. Um, this year, none of our schools uh are targeted for any sort of assistance. And so I bolded Hawthorne because last year Hawthorne did have uh a uh a finding around um one group of our uh eighth grade students who did not not enough of them took the MCCAST. So we had a plan to make sure that was something that was addressed. It's one of those things where it's a subgroup that does not have a lot of students. So every individual student counts more towards a percentage. So we actually didn't have to do a lot of work. we just

033had to kind of be vigilant, take a look at it, and it kind of worked itself out, but we did what we needed to do. Put down the state non. Um, so here's where we end up for our percentiles. I'm going to talk a little bit about these. So the elementary, um, again, we're about middle of the patch, give or take a little bit. Middle schools are a little bit low, but we'll talk about that a little bit. And high school is at the 43rd percentile. So again, somewhere near the middle. 40 to 60 is basically the middle. It's a, you think of it as a Beler. Um, so if you're in the 40 to 60 range, you're typical. So we're not grossly underperforming. We're not grossly overperforming. We're we're about typical for the state.

034Um, but what it comes down to is this. So the takeaways from it was that first of all, achievement in high school exceeded everything we did in 2023. So we made some growth there, which is good, especially among students with disabilities. And that's something that we went into the year knowing was an issue that we needed to address. And so with specific work with some schools and with some departments and we did make some really good gains there. So that was good. The attendance is the biggest thing that we have to struggle with. Um we were those low scores on the accountability the buildings particularly pepper got zero out of four points for their chronic absenteeism. We just had way too high of a rate of absent students in in almost all of our schools

035but particularly in our pepper school students. So because of the way the waiting system works like it drops scores significantly but it's one of the things it's an easy fix. If you get kids to school on a more regular basis those scores come up very quickly. So it's not so much about the you know the performance or the instruction and things like it's really about getting kids in the building and from there everything sort of grows on top of it. Um and then the other thing that's a little troubling is that the achievement score outweighs the growth score. really do focus more on growth, but that's where it again relates to how other students are doing. Achievement scores will fall and rise from year to year depending on how our test was or different things,

036but growth is is a constant measure and we want that growth to be like as someone who's into the data like I look at growth way more than I look at achievement because that's tells much more of story. But it is only one year. It's not a trend yet. But it is something to kind of take note of. If this happens again and it happens again, then that might be something that that interests us. Um I Oh yes. How do they define the accident? >> Uh if you miss 10% or more sweet. So 18 days and that's absent like exclus March 1st. They're comparing to March 1 data from CO. So for the last year, four years, they're going year to year, but they're stopping at March 1st. So we have, I think we're at

03713.6% of our students have missed at least 10% of the school year prior to March 1st. So So this is data from the state. We just got this a couple weeks ago where they reported out that the achievement gap between students who were chronically absent and not chronically absent has a significant statistical difference. So you see in grade 10, 27 percentage points lower, less likely to reach your meter exceeding on MCS if you were weren't here, which makes sense. If you're not here for the instruction, you're not really going to be so low on the test, right? But I I did reach out to to Desessie. Um I have a pretty good relationship with their chief data person. The the platform we use to get our own data um does not have this built in

038at the at the district level yet. don't have our scores that for the discrepancies, but they're working on that because people have been asking about it. It's just not available because it's an outside vendor that creates the platform. But it is, as you can see, these are pretty striking numbers and given where we are, we're probably in this trend. And the other thing too, there's a um 50 did a study about uh from state to state about strengths and weaknesses relative to what parents and families thought. Massachusetts, as you can expect, probably did very we did very well. We did uh we were above the national average in 13 of the 15 areas. These are the two that we weren't as a state. Again, it's not districtwide, but if you're thinking about what are we

039doing to prepare our students? The only places that we seem to be falling short is our confidence in postsecary. So, when we think about what we do in our high school, are we preparing our students? I I mean, I don't know what our district is, but as state, it's not our strongest thing. We're good at everything else, but this is something that as we think about what we're telling our 10th, 11th, 12th graders and helping to prepare them to be mindful that it's it it may need some some work, may need some. So, when it comes to learning results, right? So, how do we measure it? We have the ELA, math, and science MCAST exams. Grade 8 civics will have an MCAST exam starting this year. And something that I I feel like I need

040to point out because I've had some questions about this. I know there's a ballot question. Regardless of how that vote turns out, MCAT will continue this year and for the foreseeable future. It is a federal mandate and instate law. So people are going to think they're voting to get rid of MCCAST and they're going to be surprised when their kids are still taking in the spring. Your kids are still taking in the spring regardless of this vill. So, so some people have said, "Well, the cast date doesn't matter because it's not going to be wrecked." It's going to be wrecked. So, and I've linked in all the relevant information for that. So, just wanted to correct some of the misinformation that we've been hearing up there. We also have our internal assessments, I Ready, which

041is what we use for our early literacy, K3. We have a platform, EXL, which takes care of the rest of the four to eight grades for ELA and all of one through eight. Uh, in math, we don't do the kindergarteners yet. We're trying to find a different version that's more kindergarten friendly. Um but we don't have anything that happen. So ELA again, let's go through this really quickly because you have all the numbers. Um the growth scores again 40 to 60 is the good range. That's your typical growth. If you see schoolwide, each of our schools have fallen within the expected reach. So our kids are on track ELA, every school, every grade. So we're we're doing all right. internally. This has been the really interesting thing for us to see because this is a

042change in our trend is the retention level of the students and by not we keeping the back but what are they retaining over the summer. So at the end of last year, 77% of our grades three to seven students fell at or just below grade level. We still count just below because of CO. 73% began the year at or below grade level or just below grade level, which means only about 4% really had that slide over the summer. It's been much worse in the past. So our kids are remembering stuff over the summer. That's a good thing. That helps us out. That helps teachers out in September and October. they're not reteaching as much or they shouldn't have to retach as much as they may have been used to doing in the past. Um the

043same thing we I write because it's a different thing. 98% went down to 91%. Still 91% of kids coming in day one ready to learn at the grade level they're supposed to. That's a big number. That's a good number. So our early literacy is is starting to turn around. We have new curriculum. We have new foundational skills programming for the kids. It's the data says that that's working. So takeaways again a little bit lower overall than the state but it's the state was uh low in uh declined every grade uh 3 through8 and 10 when it came to MCAST. So we did but everybody did. Um, but the second one is the one again the gap between students with disabilities and students without disabilities closed specifically with non-fiction topics. And that's been a struggle we've

044had for years about getting kids better with non-fiction. Our kids have always been strong with fiction. Kids have not been strong with non-fiction. We're getting there. Especially with our students with disabilities, grade 10 students, the N students outperformed the state 27 of the 34 items and we're statistically 75 items. That's great stuff. And then we've pulled more kids out of the not meeting expectations that lowest level of scoring in our gas. Um, which is good. We're raising the floor of where our kids are. So all these things are really really good. Um, so we just need to support our multilingual learners a little bit better. That just comes with more training, more exposure. This PD day that that they're going to get is going to be a big step towards that. we just haven't had

045the population for for our teachers to kind of get those reps in and learn how to do this work. They'll get there. We we just need to pro provide them that support. The skill block assessment assessment early literacy we've been working Lisa and I this year to to really strengthen those strengthen the data around those get that back to the teachers so they can make their instructional decisions. Um and then just again the choosing of resources, right? Some of the same books that I learned about in high school are still being taught. I'm turning 50 next week. Like that shouldn't happen. Like we should be having new books coming in. Like stuff's been written. It's cool. It's good. Like teach the same lesson and values and themes with, you know, newer material that will engage

046you. So we're working towards that. Uh math, same thing. The the gold scores were almost all within the range. Small was 39 right outside. It's a rounding error. It's basically there. Um, so we we're right on on track with those. This is with a newer math curriculum. Most teachers have just finished their second year with it. Few teachers with their third year. Um, but this is really good to be back in the typical range two years into an implementation. You don't see that very often. Our internal data, this is this is the thing that's going to haunt us for a couple more years and there's nothing that anybody's been able to figure out what to do about it. I broke down grade levels by which kids have not had any COVID interruption to those who

047have. Right? So our grade three students last year started postcoid. So they didn't have they they've gotten the appropriate grade level education I should have gotten so far 97% of them were at an grade four the ones where they had the last class to have 2020 in their disruption also 97%. So they're recovering because they didn't lose as much. They lost some kindergarten, but that's e more easily made up with the way grades one and two are structured. But you start to see the drop as the kids who missed half a year of foundational skills. It's it's compounding over time. And I'm in a lot of like group discussions about what to do and no one has this answer. Everyone, everyone's tried. It's not seem to be working. So again, we're not alone. We just

048don't have a we don't have an answer yet, but we're trying. Teachers do the best they can. But this is something that until that that class of kids cycles out, it's going to be a few more years, it's it's going to keep showing up. And so as long as we understand that and like and take that into consideration when we talk about, hey, again, it's we acknowledge it, we do the best we can with it, but it's it's going to really hard to completely uh reverse that trend. Uh again, we made games in grades three through five. again, our elementary, they're they're taking on this new program. They're doing really well. I say only increased in grade three. They were down in every other grade. Um, so that was that was a good thing, too.

049The second one is the one I like the most because it's the quality of the questions that the students were answering. As I went through over the summer, the item analysis data, our students are doing much better than the state in questions that are like at second level that make you think. The interpret questions, like the patterning, like those sorts of things that are a little bit more higher level. Our kids are actually doing really well with this. They're struggling quote unquote with like the worksheet questions. It's like, okay, but we can fix that or, you know, there's reference sheets for that or, you know, Google will help them with that. But the thinking questions, they're actually doing pretty well and that's an encouraging sign that speaks to the way the teachers are engaging with

050this improvement. The uh students with disabilities at the high school doubled. You know, Paul Thompson and I worked on on this beginning of last year. This was something that we specifically talked about as being the focus. He crushed it with a stat. Went from 9% combined between meeting and and exceeding to 19, right? the state is still at like 12ish. So the high school did a really really good job with those grade 10 students with disabilities last year. Definitely wanted to shove that out there. And again, we also had fewer students in the not meeting expectations. So we're pulling we're pulling up that um steps again the multilingual uh learners um hitting that data a little bit more to drive instruction and then that consistency of experience as they progress through the grade levels. making

051sure that every teacher gets kids in front of them who have done the same thing the year before. Again, that's that's come uh science data just quickly, five and 10 saw an increase 8 to five. That's the state. Um again, improvements with students with disabilities and the grade 10 scored all above standalled in all with qualifying subgroups. We don't have a high enough population for a couple of them, but everyone we did have enough. We were better than the state AP exam data. Uh just there's a quick uh interesting and I like this the in the increase in participation was up 30%. The number of tests up 46%. the number of tests scoring to be or higher fell but it is I I believe a sign that more students felt safe to take the test

052and take that risk and that's what we want out of our kids right and that's why digging into the data that second level is important like there's there's an easy world where you say I just went down five so something's wrong I don't think so I think it went up five because kids wanted to take that test what is three so that if you pass the AP test with a three or more you would essentially thought one6 sorry you potentially don't have to take that class it's called in college children there's not that but um in in many communities there's sort of a gatekeeping to it it's like don't take the test unless you can pass it and there's a lot of anxiety that's attached to that here it seems like more students were encouraged

053to take this test give it your best see what happens I love that that's the kind of attitude we want these students have >> doesn't that cost more It does. >> How much does that cost? >> But if they pass it, you don't have to. >> How much does it cost me? I ask a question. >> 80 bucks or something. >> But again, if they pass it many, there are many colleges that will accept that in lie of a course, a college course, which we all know. >> It's a great benefit. >> Yeah, I do think that there does need to be some work around with the surprising And so then I'll just leave this in in to look at the um elementary schools and middle schools and high school each identified where their strengths

054and supports were and what areas they were going to be targeting for this year. So that's I won't read through the whole thing. Um but a lot of it is about sort of the training and the collaboration time between teachers u the the modeling of effective practices and um paying attention to what groups are in need of more support and how do we we provide that. So that is it >> any question >> you won't get asked questions. >> You can ask the question if you want. I guess I'll address my other questions to Gary. >> I just wanted to come in and say thank you for bringing in the EXL and the I Ready that you gave us that uh workshop on and bringing that with this data. Thank you. >> To to me

055that's a better indication of how our kids are doing because it more ties to what they're doing every day than you know something that happens the year's not done yet. >> Yeah. But it's still something that the school committee never had sight into. So thank you. >> I know my kids come home and tell me they were on I Ready or I so they are good to All right. Anyone else have more questions or on to the FYI 2024 final general fund expense report and excess and deficiency? Nancy, >> please. >> Good evening. I'll be I'll be quick. Um but I did want to provide the full committee with last year's activity for the the budget including the certification of the excess and efficiency which has happened actually it happened pretty early for us. Normally

056we get that sometime in January February after the tax rates are set. Um we did get certified at 1,87226. Um this is about 800,000 less than last year's certification. Um the END number is made up of the activity of the general fund um year-over-year. So it's made up of expenditures um in excess of what was budgeted and revenues in excess of what was budgeted. Uh so this year uh of that 1 million u and also we carry forward if we had any END from the prior year that would be added to it. As we know this that didn't happen this past year. We did use the full END last year to support the budget. So that gets reduced that that was reduced out of the number that we we um certified this year. >> So

057we have revenues coming in um about 620,000 over what we expected. The the majority of that came as investment income and I think that has to do with some of the ways that the funding was um the accounts that were set up. um our treasurer, Michael Hartnett, um moved some things around this past couple years and that's increased the investment income significantly. We did get a um return of funds from the Valley Collaborative of right around 150,000 last year. So that's part of that 620 um and then a little bit more in the Medicaid reimbursement almost 70,000 more than we were anticipating. Um so that the excess of um the expenditures and the revenues over is what made up the million8. So you have that in your packet. Um the detail to look at if

058you'd like. Um you can take note that one of the things that's on that expenditure report is is a expense column, but then there's also an incumbrance column. And the formula is a little funky as far as how it calculates that because you're actually um kind of closing out the prior year's encumbrance and adding the new incumbrances. So it it sometimes doesn't look like you think it should look, but um it's a little more complicated of a formula. Um the state did certify the number early as mentioned. The department of revenue does that and goes through the whole um off the whole financial statement. Um it isn't we've had our audit. The audit isn't complete yet, but it's almost there. So, I just wanted to update you on last year's activity if there's any questions

059about it for this year. >> Any questions? [Music] All right. Thank you, Nancy. >> Sure. All right. On to the crosswalk, Mr. Our Superintendent, Morgan. >> Yes. Um, so this crosswalk memorandum is something that has been drawn up by our legal council and was also done that this was a project that was done in collaboration with the town of Peil where we had two blind spots entering both the Nissant and the Barnabrook Elementary School. We had received several complaints. something that I brought to the committee back three maybe four years ago at this point and it took um engineering and the project to this point to be completed. Um so again just coming back and asking that Miss Martin as the chair have the ability to to sign off on that memorandum of agreement >>

060and the money was already approved. >> It's we did transfer funds u that year. I want to say 2018 maybe or 19 um to cover the crosswalk work and that work happened and PEO provided a breakdown as best they could. They they they did they were the lead as far as bidding the project and they included everything that they were working on and some parts could be pulled out and some parts couldn't be. So they provided um the letter that you'll see I think it's like at the second page of that letter as the breakdown um and and we looked at that and um came to the conclusion to use the number that's in theou right now which is the total sorry >> 59981 to reimburse capital and we be working on that if the

061committees uh approves the mo the A we'll go forward and work on getting that reimbured to the town >> and this did pass through the finance committee. We didn't discuss it in finance. >> Um just out of curiosity um how much did we put away in 2018 or whatever we had originally took money away. Does this cover does that cover everything? >> It does. >> Yeah. We had 300,000 I think we transferred out at the year that we did that. We've done a few things. We paid actually for the design of the crosswalk um areas. We had did the contract with that engineer. They did the design work and then provided that to the town and the town did the bidding um and they added to it obviously the other things. So it was included

062in a larger project that the town did. But yeah, there's there's more there's plenty to cover that. Can I take a motion? >> I move the school committee vote to designate Lisa Martin as chairperson to execute the crosswalk memorandum agree with the town of Peter the school committee. >> Second move that was and Patrick. All those in favor? >> All those opposed. Any abstensions? Right. And pass it. Next, we're on to the MA mc delegate selection. Is there anyone wanting to go to the conference down at Cape Cod? Anyone? Not everyone jumping. All right. I see no one. All right. Masc resolutions. Anyone want to discuss any of them? They are all on here, but we don't have to discuss them. If somebody wants to discuss one, we can discuss it or we can pass

063on them. >> No one wants to do the resolution. >> We're not selling Senator Delegate. I don't think we really need to vote on they don't discuss. >> Okay. All right. Now we are on to the order business of the district strategic plan and Dr. Ree, >> thank you very much. Um so earlier this year we shared out the draft uh strategic plan. Um as I identified at that time there were three areas, three buckets that we were looking at curriculum and instruction meeting the needs of all learners or all students and climate culture and community. Um after we shared out that draft with you, the leadership team did do some tweaking in terms of just the formatting of the document. Um so the first two pages are really the overview of what we're looking

064at over the the two years and then it goes into um the next three pages are the major milestones. So what you see listed there is under each category what do we anticipate will be the m the major actions or major outcomes that you'll see as a result of the work in that area along with identifying the specific year that that milestone will be embedded as regular practice. That doesn't mean the work ends at that point in the year. the work will continue, but it'll be something that we anticipate will be a embedded practice that will be in place and sustained um moving forward. Um going on to page six, I we did break it down um pages six and seven by school year. So you could see kind of what it looks like from

065a school year perspective. And there's also a link on the top of page six um to a more detailed document that breaks down each of the actions, each of the milestones and shows all the little the substeps that go under them. Um we didn't want to get to that granular level on this core document, but we certainly wanted to provide the link so that people could see the type of work that goes under there. Um so at this point, the the administration is really comfortable with um these actions and moving forward. We um would seek the committee's approval of um the strategic plan and if it moves forward, one of the goals we have is in this fall in the fall doing a family community evening where we um walk through the strategic plan in

066a little bit more detail and we talk about the data sources that we use to identify these areas as areas of need and also get input and feedback from families in the community about what other sour sources of data or what other concerns or things that they want to um make sure we're addressing within those core topic periods. >> Is that visible? >> Yes. >> We wanted to wait until we had the plan formally approved and then and then sent something. >> Does anybody have any questions on the strategic plan? Then I will take a motion and somebody to approve the district strategic plan. >> I move to approve uh the the district strategic plan as presented. >> Second. >> That is Mandy NG. All of those in favor. >> Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? I

067would abstain. I haven't been through the whole thing. Sorry, that's okay. >> All right, we are on to the subcommittee reports. Um, June McNeel with the Ashby Elementary building. >> Um, we just received the electro education study that was grant funded um and that was just presented to us in our last meeting. So, that is available if anybody needs to look it. Um, you'll probably get it on the site, too. We're trying to get all the the studies and everything on the site. So, Jen is taking care of that. >> All right. Accelerated repairs. I know that we're trying to reach representative and to close off those projects. That's the only um finance we are going. So, uh, the first item on our agenda is that the finance committee is recommending, uh, that we appoint,

068and I'm gonna mess up her name, so I apologize. Kathy winner Laris as the community representative to the finance committee for this year. Second, >> that was Will and Patrick. All those in favor? Any any opposed? Any abstensions? Now we are moving on to the FY26 budget. So will going to take over and [Music] Okay. So, um, Mr. Morgan and I have been meeting with the town administrators going over some of these the basics of the budget coming up to the 26. So, um, want to lay out a few items here uh, for the bill right now. Of course, fiscal 25 budget roughly $66 million. Okay. >> I got research. >> All right. Um, as many of you know, uh, because I believe he had his own sign, the letters from the three town administrators

069that they signed, they requested, uh, to us roughly, you know, 3% that they could handle a 3% increase from 25 to 26. Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. >> So, um, in order for us to get to this, you know, 3%. So, well, back up a step here. The talents are roughly 6% uh 60% of our total budget. The remaining 40 comes from the state. Okay. So basic math here, 60% of our budgets coming from the towns. That obviously comes out to a 1.8% 8% increase year-over-year for the budget piece as we know as we've been told and we've seen historically you know the state piece of it think we have predicted at I mean zero um which is you know round numbers for it I know there's a little bit of an increase um but it's

070always been you know low under you know certain under a percent to it. Uh Nancy, we have like your estimates like 310 of a percent. >> Right now, we're anticipating um $60 a student and a reduction in the transportation um due to um going down to 78%. It's unclear what those will be yet till the state sets their budget, but those are the numbers, which is 0.31% increase. state number. >> So 1.8% of 66 million and I done math somewhere. There you go. 1.8% is 1,188. Are we looking for the total >> 1.2 is really close? >> Yeah. So an increase of one 1.2 million. >> All right. So uh let's see what we've already had reported here for today when we talk about END you know as we go to fiscal year 26 first

071you know the first change that we have well yeah increase of 800,000 800,000 on the END because we used 2.6 last year. There's only 1.8 this year. So just from that END portion of it, we're going up 800,000 over what we had last year in the budget. also due to which I don't know how much we did this last time right now due to you know increase in the special ed costs from moveins from the you know language learners you know things like that the already projected increase over last year is about a million new special that that were okay. The other projection that we you know we're projecting piece of it about a half a million dollars in the increase of insurance cost and since we're standing in the building here, let's not forget

072the principal. So that's anotherund 50 for the high school principal that we don't have in the budget. So already at a change of 2.5 million before we go to anything else at this point. 2 and a half million on 66. Randy with the calculator. >> 68 and a half. >> Um Oh, the increases the new budget that yes, >> it's 3.8%. Okay. Because the towns are 60% of that. Divide that by6 please. >> I'm sorry. 3 3.8% your >> 3.8% increase. 60 60% of it's on the town. Got it. >> Yeah. which means their increase is in order for them to cover this. >> I know um sorry I'm looking at it's 2.28 for the whole budget. Uh >> just over 10. I mean >> that's what that's what it's projecting right now. And we

073haven't pulled all the department requests yet, but just as a the simple few things that we're looking at 633. the difference here. So I go back That's correct. You're kind you're there in concept. >> So delta 4 and a half%. Right. They said they could do three which when it calculates to our budget is 1.8 8 or 3.8. So it really influences the pound of roughly six 4.3 4 and a half% off. Okay. So, we're gonna ask for an override. >> I think you're slightly off on that. It's uh because the town's going to go up 3% to 6.3. The difference for the the towns are going to see 3.3%. The 1.8 our budget is going up 2% from what it can for the 3%. I think you got those numbers crossed. And 6.33 >>

074is to the 3%. The town towns will see 6.3 >> for the budget. Full budget >> full budget. Theirs is >> right. So 3% towns going up compared to 6.3%. So it's 3.3% of the towns are going to see above what they um they're asking. >> Right. But you're saying the same thing. It's just you're adding that three until the three. 3.3 onto the three just the 4.5% should be 3.3. Sorry. >> And each panel when it comes down to the numbers different. >> Yeah. Correct. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. So, but if we're going to ask for something obviously they'll figure out we'll figure out piece of it. >> Yes. >> But that's where we're at. Okay. So sort of first option you know asking for something in that direction just based

075on this group of changes nothing else. >> Okay. So in order to try to resolve this right what's the next step right option B kind if we say that the average cost of a teacher is 80 85 plus benefits it's called close to 100 as it's been you 100 per in that direction. Don't know obviously you know when it comes to the individual personnel side stuff not clearly not going to discuss that here that's like the executive session of the scenario. Okay. But if we cut 25 teachers, we're talking huge increasing class size, right? Maybe some missing of programs, other things there. Okay. Obviously, some of the stuff that we were going through this last year, you know, just talking about cutting some of those programs, we had, you know, people that said, "I'm going

076to go to private schools. There's a drop of moment a drop of moment obviously more problems for us each time we go. All right. Next one is the cutting abilities. And you know, we talked about some of that piece of it. You know, what some of them would cost us last year for it, but I think we're talking not just one here. We're talking multiple. The reason to talk about this now and to discuss this now is we have to talk about the appetite for this piece because if we're going to go this direction and do this, there's a lot of work that needs to be done to figure out the structure of the changes That's you know we want to walk on capital and get more money from the state try to raise their

077numbers. I think that's a math problem we're sitting at. I I think there's a lot of other options that are out there, not necessarily one magic bolt that's going to hit $2.5 million or anything that we need. Um I think there's a lot of areas that the school district can take a look at and I think there's a lot of areas the school committee can sit here and make choices on. Um I think cutting buildings got to be on the table. Uh I'm not going to take it off the table right now, but um we need to take a look at all of the ramifications of what cutting buildings means uh to the uh capacity of the district to grow in the future. Whether we want to bring in more special education programs to help

078our special education budget and or create a revenue source. Uh if we have another um small surge, we've had bubbles go through here before. um what it means if we close a building, will we ever be able to open it again? So, there's a huge conversation to be had other than are we for or against cutting buildings. There's so much information that we don't have. I think it needs to be a conversation, but it needs to be a full conversation. I think other areas that we can try and take a look at is can we bring in some special education programs? Um it's been brought up to my attention, I don't know how big it is in the district, have a dyslexia program. I know I have a friend in another state said that's an

079easy program. Uh again, don't know the circumstances in the district, but is there anything that lowhanging fruit that we can bring some kids back into the district for the program? Are our numbers high enough to make it worthwhile to save the transportation costs and the tuition costs to offset what the program will cost here. I think we can take a look at our one-on-one um technology. We spend a lot of money to have a Chromebook for every single student. um maybe it's time to consider uh bring your own devices. There's a lot of students, I know a lot of kids came through here, especially at the high school, they were begging to bring in their own computers and not use the Chromebooks. So, why should we, you know, maybe it we look at that and

080we can um have a smaller fleet of Chromebooks and decrease some of our budget that way. Um I think we can take a look at uh any grants that we have to have matching money for. Are those programs pros and cons? are they worthwhile versus a teacher versus a building. Um we need to take a look at everything on the table. It's been forever um actually it's never been that the school committee has uh taken a look at programs and what we what each program costs other than the big things like um athletics, but what about other programs in the district? I'm sure the administration has looked at it over the years, but with what kind of an eye if we're looking at this from a cost uh perspective and what we have to cut,

081we might decide to cut something that, you know, ordinarily we wouldn't. Um I think all of that needs to be on the table as well. >> Why weren't these things on the table last year when we used all B&B? >> Um frankly, because uh I will tell you that it's just ne never been anything that's been coming up um on the radar. We've usually um 10 years ago or 12 years ago when we had the override that kind of solved the problem that we didn't need to do this. Last year it kind of came up and I've been trying to think of different ways to do it and I apologize I wasn't fast enough. Um but these are ideas that have come this year because you know what using our END last year um I

082even said it that that was a stop gap. It was not a solution. It was something that if we didn't get the override that we were going to do so we didn't have to cut the teachers and that we were going to try and think of more ways uh to help our budget or get more money. And that's what I'm doing here. But also an override is on the table as well because we need money. It's just a matter of we have and everyone faces the towns face it too is there are costs that are beyond our our ability to control like health insurance and other costs that go up by more than 1.8% for what the towns can see from our budget because the state's not uh kicking in. There's only so much that

083we can cut and still have a top rate educational program. So these are some of the ideas that I have come up with this year to start looking at. Um and an override needs to be on there. We need to thoroughly investigate uh what cutting buildings would do and what the benefits and the uh detriments are for that. And we need to take a look at all these other areas in our budget as well. >> Yeah, I did that last year in more detailed writing. I'd be happy to talk with you. I know we have that third party study as well. So I know that was all discussed. >> Uh no, we have not discussed buildings. We discussed the condition of the building and what some of the savings would be. We did not discuss

084at all. Does anybody know about how to reopen a school building? What we need to do? Can we if we ever reopen that building or either of those buildings >> because we may need space in the future? We may need to have a need for it in the future. >> There's other better ways to get space than reopening a building. >> Oh, you want to build again? That's going to be even more expensive than keeping this >> depending on the amount. If it's just one bubble, there's there's trailers. There's there's lots of other less expensive options. But there's other but there's other things than just >> okay let's go through the one and then let's start with >> let's have let's let's do this in a very calm way and a systematic I don't have

085all the information here at my fingertips and it's just going to be a back and forth back and forth without let's sit down let's get this organized have a list for pros list for cons get the administration's opinions where they have can put us thought into it get information as far as uh what cutting buildings uh can really do and then we can discuss when we have facts in front of us. >> If we need to cut buildings, when do we need to know why? >> Sooner than later, probably. >> So, we need to have these conversations starting, but tonight's not the night because we don't have information here. I would say let's have it on the table and let's get some maybe a subcommittee together or a couple of people that want to work

086on this and get information for the full committee to discuss. I think this should be the full committee. I think this is extremely important. I think we should all be here. >> Okay, that's fine. >> And as far as ideas, like I saw with some ideas, I'm not sure how any of those get us close to 2.5 million. And I don't think any of the towns have any appetite for override. With that being said, I know the Ashby building needs a lot of work still. Is there going to be a secondary override in Ashby for that? Like I don't I don't understand. Like >> right now that building is working. They have spent money. It is functional um and it's not a safety hazard and um there's no reason that it needs to be shut

087down. >> It's down to one boiler that goes >> No, that's been replaced or being replaced. >> It is being replaced. >> Yes, it it the money is there. They have a I don't know contract yet or um it's Oh, it's Yes. >> Okay. So, they have two boilers >> currently one. >> H >> currently one. >> Ask us next month. But if we're considering closing the building >> order, please. >> All right. Rand or J. Hand. >> Uh, yes. Just to call for order because typically we don't have meetings with people shouting back and forth and Randy had the floor. Um, but I guess since you called on me, I will say that Randy has a lot of good ideas here that should be looked at. Um, we jump right to extremes. that there's

088no information in the packet or the agenda to even truly have a discussion about this yet. Um, and in fact, although Patrick seems to have mentioned a building, we're building plural was mentioned. Um, and I'm wondering what that is about because there's no information for us to even start talking about this yet. Like what buildings? >> Don't know. The question is, do we give the administration the direction to look at, you know, making changes in that direction? >> Okay. Well, I would think that because it's going to take as long as understood, but >> I would much rather go back to the towns first and and really hear from the towns. I mean, if this is something that we want to look into, I think part of the finance report, we've had multiple meetings with

089the town administrators. They're telling us what their appetite is for the year. >> Right. >> And I'm telling you, there's a huge gap between these pieces already. >> Cor 1.3 million. Is that it? The 2.5 minus the 1.2 >> change. Yes. So, >> so 1.3 million is what we're looking to make up right now. And you said that would be about 25 teachers essentially. >> Two and a half million. >> Yeah. So that's actually even more than what we would >> I mean just doing round numbers because we don't have fun in stock yet, >> right? We're just getting >> right. But it's not a hard cut and dry. Either we do an override, we fire 25 teachers, or we close multiple buildings. like this is not I mean there's so many other things that

090need to be looked at first of all and I think until we start diving a little bit deeper into some more options we don't jump right to extreme >> just to clarify that that 2.5 does not have any of the collective bargaining agreements in it as of yet. It also does not have transportation increases and all of those are built in increases. >> And that that 2.5 is the total number though. That's not >> that's just not this is just where we're at today, >> right? No, no, I just mean the overall budget. It's not like the 60% town share or whatever. >> Right. Right now, just with those items, our budget is $2.5 million over where we are right now in FY25. Right. But it doesn't >> which the town would pay about 60%

091of which would be about 60% of that 2.5 >> plus the other class that we revenue as well. >> Yeah. >> But the assessment instead of it being the 3% that they requested is is actually right now it's 6.3 with us without those other items added in yet. on the Zoom 212 meeting call that we were on, it did say they I forget the person's name who said it, but they did say that it's really not good for a regional district to close a a school or for a town not to have a school in it. It was in the presentation, but Julie Kelly um every everybody should have received that. >> Yeah. >> And that that Zoom call I believe it was recorded. So if anybody wants to go on was not watch it.

092I know that we need to investigate these things. Um, and Randy does bring up great points on to what we have to look at, but we do have to give the superintendent a direction on how to go about this and we have to act quickly because what we we can't come to April and not have a decision on things because we ended up there last year with the overrides and they took us until the beginning of this year to get solved. Um, I do know from the towns because I've talked to town leadership, they are not in a they do not want overrides. They're not in the in the mood. The town's people are not in the mood. I mean, every town meeting that I went to, there were several disgruntled citizens that said no

093more to the schools. >> And I know that that's not correct. Um, but we need to really listen to our citizens and figure out the next action plans for these. And I know that our towns do not want to lose a school. I know that. But we do have a lot of real estate in our district and we do need to figure out a plan going forward. Um, our schools are going to need repairs going down the future. We know that Hawthorne Brook needs repairs. We know that our high school already needs repairs and it's a newer building. So, we do need a plan for the future, too. And I know that these discussions are tough and I know that they'll get emotional, but we need to keep quarm amongst ourselves because how are we

094going to stand up stand with the citizens to what they decide? But we need to really give Superintendent Morgan and his team what direction this committee wants them to go in. So that being said, >> but it's very hard to do that without any information and I agree, but we need to act quickly to get the information. So the things that you've outlined, Randy, I don't even know where to begin, but we need direction probably before the beginning of the year for Brad to go. Probably by even December 1st because doing any of these is going to require a lot of time and we're going to have to get the support for them, too. So, anyone have any proposals on how to go forward? Um, I'm happy to put in some extra work. Um, unfortunately

095I do need uh administration's time um because I just don't have a lot of the answers and things but uh put some numbers to some of the ideas that I had to look into um and see where what um ballpark some of these cuts could possibly make or these trade-offs could possibly make. Um, I think it would be good for somebody to put together um like pros and cons um at least for staff cuts, for building cuts, for program cuts. Um, so we can take a look and see what the tradeoffs are um for different decisions that we make. Um, anyone else? >> We do. I I think at this point we do just need any more information. I mean, as far as looking into any of those, we need to know what are we

096looking at? Are we looking at multiple buildings closing? Because that's what was mentioned. And if so, what are those buildings? I would like to have that in front of me and say these are the buildings that we would look at closing. These are the buildings we would not look at closing. You know, something like that to even start this conversation. I don't like the idea of flying blind and say yes, please pursue any of these without having any clue what we're talking about. >> Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of details that still need to come, but without saying we're willing to take this step and go that direction, you know, because it doesn't make sense to spend a whole lot of time, you know, all the time takes to go figure option C out

097if >> I mean, what what are the potentials for option C? I mean any any any information I'm saying I I I would not want us to give any directive to pursue something that we don't know what we're talking we don't know what is being pursued. I mean, you know, what are we talking about closing here? And and if you don't have an answer yet, then we don't have enough information to give directive to >> I mean, how we can't get all that deep into it. >> No, we can't we could we have seven buildings. >> Yeah. >> Buildings is plural. I know Patrick likes to bring up AES a lot. What other buildings are we talking about closing? If nobody can say that to me, I'm not going to give a blessing or a

098directive to pursue it. >> We're just saying, are we going to go down the path of looking at that or are we taking that off the table? >> I think we should take that off the table to start with while we pursue any of these many other options that should be looked into. And if we exhaust all of our other options, then perhaps we start looking at more options. >> Okay. My concern is we had a lot of discussion about some of the user pieces of it. None of them came anywhere close to two and a half million. So you have to think bigger than that. >> May I say something? >> Yes. I I did just want to add that if if an override is something that that we're going to ask the towns

099to consider, it it cannot be a May town meeting with a June ballot vote. We can't wait that long. It would have to be a special town meeting and a special ballot vote so that we're able to plan because even again option C, option B, any combination of the two, you're looking at potentially months of planning. So it can so an override bill would have to be something it can't it can't be like last year. There it wouldn't be enough time for us to open school. Just just a thought um throwing it out there. What about moving um the kindergarten to Hawthorne and 8th grade to the high school? Eighth grade was in the high school when I came here. So um those are options that I mean if we give Mr. Morgan and his

100team the direction to go. They can look at consolidation and movement of some of the class rooms around or the classes >> like bringing eighth grade >> closed and that you know I mean but kindergarten kindergarten could go to Hawthorne. >> You mean prek? You mean prek? >> Yeah, prek. I'm sorry. Yeah, prek. Thank you. We only pre go to Hawthorne. I don't know if California is equipped. That's why we would have to give the direction >> just kind of I don't I don't know that answer. >> But then like the Squanook is central office. We have central office there. We'd have to relocate central office if we're looking at closing. >> If we're looking at possibly closing Hawthorne Brook, we have to figure out where to put those students. If we bring eighth grade

101here, we send the students to miss. If we look at any of our elementary schools, where do those students go to be helped? Those are the directions that Superintendent Morgan needs and besides looking at these other things that Randy has put on the table, >> right? >> Which is all going to take time to figure out and several meetings. I mean clearly a field includer would require a lot of research and a lot of effort. So again, I don't want to give that directive to pursue um any of that if if you're looking at multiple options because that's a a lot of time and a lot of work that we may not want to pursue once we, you know, look at these other options. So I think if that's something that people seriously want to

102look at, we need to have a little bit more direction and say if we move the schools to this, this, and this, you know, or this, this, and this, those are the things I want to pursue. Not let's just look at all of our buildings and, you know, you know what I mean? I I would I would like more details before we say waste admin's time if they're pursuing a direction that we don't want to go. >> So, let's get some more details on that piece. And in the meantime, I think we need to take a serious look at a lot of these other options about bringing some more special special education programs back. One of the issues with spe bringing special education back is that I know that because it's specialized training for all

103of these and it's going to bring on more money to our special ed costs for these specialized training teachers. Is that something that and we >> and that's something we need to know how many students if we have yay amount of students being sent out a district for a certain program then that's probably a program that we want to find out what would the cost be to bring in >> and bring those students back >> because if we can bring if we have enough students to um support a teacher then we save on the transportation costs and that pays for program >> and gives us lots of savings. That's the whole reason for bringing in special education programs. Um it but it all depends on what our population is going to do. >> Just a

104completely random idea that I just thought of right now. The way that we combine something as simple as PD with another district like Lunenburgg, is there opportunity to find out what neighboring schools have for resources like that too and potentially combine programs? We have reached out to Graten and Dunel. They have no interest in consolidating some of our services with us. >> Okay. Well, perhaps we have a relationship with >> they are not interested as well >> as consolidating some of like our central office and things like that. >> Well, I I'm thinking more special um ed special services if they have, you know, certain teachers and staff that, you know, are more qualified in certain areas that could somehow be shared for something. just an idea. >> It looked like a almost like a

105tuition >> our own collaborative almost like yeah we have you know program A and because couple districts around us don't have enough students bring it here and then a different program if whoever has the more students but not enough to program if we have enough we send them there. Um, >> I do think that I think one of the things that we have to be careful of is I mean bringing students back into the district is is always a good thing, but something that we could run into is that if we bring back a percentage of students that are considered inclusion students, we could start to eclipse the 50% uh barrier in classrooms, which can be a problem. If you have students, if you have a classroom where over half of the kids are on

106the 18s, that can sometimes be problematic and it is not something that is recommended. I don't know that Dr. Ree, if you have anything you want to add on to that, but that could be something where our numbers are high right now. Um, and in some cases, we are I would guess we're close to close to that number. we do have cautious enough to go over that 50% threshold in an inclusion setting. >> What happens at the after 50% threshold? >> Um I I would have to talk to I would have to talk to Jesse. It it is not something that is not something that is recommended in that. >> Um so at this point I mean there are a lot of good ideas out there and just having this discussion we're starting to have

107some more ideas which is great. Um, so perhaps maybe that's something we can schedule is just a way to talk out a lot of this but even invite the public to give some input to something like that just you know another >> I don't know more ideas essentially and diving a little deeper workshop >> yes thank you but this workshop has to take place quickly >> right like n >> but at least now the conversations are starting Because like I said there was nothing in the packet about this. I asked through email times what is this conversation about. So coming to the table I have a blank slate from >> well and and that's fine because I think we want the discussion to happen in a meeting and not over emails and not >> no

108no >> you know so I think that's why like when will and I had chatted we said let's bring everyone together so we're together and see each other and can have this conversation and get it start just getting it started right we're not saying I'm going to go home and go to bed and think of something right before I'm falling asleep something three days from now. And I mean, Randy had a nice list prepared from, I'm sure, finance subcommittee meetings, but I think, you know, to to really have a good conversation, we need to know that this is the conversation we're going to have >> before we have them. So, >> and so that's why this is the start of the conversation, >> but we need to act quickly. That's because we can't take all

109of um the superintendent's time or NY's time going down a rabbit hole that we're never going to right do. So given that anyone have a proposal on what they want to do? Um, I recommend we give the superintendent administration direction on showing us options B and C items other than override. >> Options B is cut >> cut staff. >> Yep. >> And option C is buildings and perhaps staff too because you may not get to the number we need because we have contractual obligations. is everyone and look into because that would be looking into these bigs as well and things. So, so a point of clarification when you say administration to show us do you mean the the point that I was asking like this is you know potential to close this school or this

110school or potential to move >> students here and there without actually pursuing any of the information yet so that >> we so that we can give admin an indication of which direction we would want to go >> once we hear this >> once you hear the whole caps. >> We're just asking them to do a feasibility study essentially. >> No, I just think so. >> What? >> We wouldn't know because that would involve probably a lot more work than than we don't want to send admin doing a bunch of stuff that we don't might not want to pursue at all. So, I think we need to hear what buildings and what um say redistricting students around options there are before we determine if we want to actually do a feasibility study on any of them.

111>> Why why would we why would we make that option? And I'll leave it up to to Brad and his team who understand the buildings, who understand what we can and can't close and why we can and can't close it. Why would we not leave everything for them on the table to decide what could and could be done? >> Because that's a school committee does. We give them a direction. >> And the direction would be to look into closing building. >> Not everything willy-nilly. No, it's looking into specific of one building or another. We're not going to have Brad take all his time looking at a whole bunch of different scenarios that we might not want to entertain. I'm fine with him showing us some options, but doing a feasibility study or exploring these other

112avenues any deeper without >> going through the school committee doesn't make any sense. >> But how would he show you options without looking into the feasibility? >> He would say option one is close Ashby Elementary and move students here. Option two is close and move students here. Option three is close this school and that school and students here. He would tell us what the different options might be that admin wants to look at. And then we would say, "Oh, let's look at this one, but not these ones." >> I think we're saying the same thing. >> I don't think we are. >> It depends on what you're talking about, what level um of information we're asking to come back this first time. I just want the most basic options, the very simplest information without a

113feasibility study or taking up very much time. >> There's also three members. >> Exactly. >> Sorry. Um there's also three members not here to right now. So first we have a motion on the floor. >> Second. >> Right. The clarification though was what does show us mean? I mean what perhaps Superintendent Orian what what do you envision showing us? Are you asking GV to come back with potential um recommendations for buildings and great configurations in those buildings >> and cutting staff? I guess if that would be the other option if you were just going to show us a layout of like these are the potential options >> or or these are ones that we'd like to go down and look at on whether it's actually fully feasible. >> Yes. I mean, the staff I I've

114already pretty much looked at. Um, and I mean, I can I can share that. If if we reduce 15 staff, it gets us to about 1.4 in class sizes of 29 to 34. If we go to 20, if we go to the 2.5 mark, we're going to be close to 40 in our in our classrooms, which is Right. I mean, we've already cut staff, >> but again, the the way to cut this money isn't all cut staff. It's not all cut buildings. It's not all cut. >> No, but it could be a combination of that. >> So, what we're asking for is um you're asking us to give you a direction on what to look at so that you can go down the hard road of doing the full feasibility on how things would work.

115>> Yes. Yes. >> We're asking for one step before that. So your gut right now is I would like to explore these things because I think this option might be the best that we might kind of have a good outcome if we go down there. And this is another possibility between cuts, buildings and programs or other things. um so that we can sit here and weigh the pros and the cons of those avenues and then give you the permission to go down um the the um the extensive uh look at and energy of figuring out how it would work. So, I'm going to propose this for me overlooking seeing what buildings we could cut or look at potentially so that we can give um Superintendent Morgan a better view of what we may think of

116is that we know that we have two buildings in Townsen of Squanakook and Hawthornebrook. We know that Hawthorne Brookbrook is going to need extensive repairs and we know that Squan Cookook is not fully used. Would we want to send Brad down the direction of looking at Squan Cookook and Hawthorne and taking one of those offline? And the other option is also add Ashby in to counterbalance the others because we know that Ashby still needs work even though they have progressed in work but we know that Ashby probably is not going to go for another override as well. I mean, Ashby is safe and functional, and any of the immediate things that were talked about a couple years ago have already been addressed by the town. Um, but sorry, I just lost my um >> It's

117okay. You can come back. >> Sorry, it's okay. Um, but do we want to look at Ashb in a consolidation point of view to get more of our kids together so everyone's consolidated >> kind of thing? That's where my approach is is that we can balance out our special ed programs across the district where we don't have to keep everything at Barn & Brook because right now they have all of the special programs and so and it's taking a strain on that school whereas if we could spread out maybe some of those programs we wouldn't have as much of a strain but we'd have to see what we can do with Again, I' I'd just really like to see what the actual options might be before any of it is, you know, I don't want

118to send him down a rabbit hole that nobody wants to pursue. So, >> I'd like to see it on paper of a couple of different layouts um and some reasonings, pros and cons, uh just high level pros and cons of what it means. Okay. afterwards. So again, we have a motion on the floor. Do we want to take a vote on this motion or and I think it was having superintendent look at the puts of staff and the possible cuts of buildings with a proposal behind it of what buildings and the reconfiguration and consolidation or whatever name you want to put around this. So just showing us potential options without >> without wasting his time doing our like usability study like that big >> not getting into the like busing routes. We're not going to

119like >> schedule busing routes right now >> and potentially a variety of options so we can try to start to narrow it down. >> Yes. >> And also the other options that Randy mentioned. Yes. >> Are we ready for a vote? >> I am ready. >> All of those in favor. >> Anybody opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Now that a workshop was proposed, um we can have a workshop with the committee when is everybody's schedule to an open date? >> What about Thursday November 7? Next week we have Halloween night. I am the way until >> and then we have a meeting on the 14th. >> Can I make a suggestion? >> Um it just there's a lot of night events right now especially here at the high school. Um and we do have various

120subcommittee meetings as well. I I would suggest if at all possible just having the school committee meeting and the workshop be for the school committee meeting. >> Okay. On the 14th. >> Yes. Just because >> the the night events at this point in time at the high school are almost every night. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, are you guys okay with an early meeting? Um what time do you want to start that? And that's where the information can be reviewed. The December >> and maybe maybe share ideas with um just bounce ideas off maybe a finance committee meeting in advance. I don't know. >> And hopefully I mean with that being three weeks out hopefully we can get fill in some of these numbers that Randy was asking about. So on the 14th, you

121guys want to schedule a workshop? What time do you want that to start? Our meetings at 6. >> We could try five. I don't know if everyone can make >> Would that be enough time or do you want four? >> I think four makes it hard for people to get there. >> Are you saying you want to do this right before the school committee meeting? >> Yeah. How does that give us time to go over everything and then actually be ready to vote on things? >> Well, we'll discuss some in finance. >> Okay. >> And then >> I maybe maybe suggest that the meeting be at 7 and the workshop be at 5. So we can make the meeting a little later >> and then we can make the workshop a little later as well

122and maybe have two hours to an hour and a half >> to figure out >> to go over some options. >> I I I mean obviously time is of the essence, but we are going to need time >> to gather the information, >> right? Um I I I guess uh to Patrick's point of um discussing all this and then going through a meeting to vote on it doesn't really give people a lot of time to digest all the information. As well as we were talking about the workshop being more for generating ideas. um which obviously if we generate more ideas on where we can make compromises then we're not going to have any details um and feasibility and numbers [Music] >> when we meeting >> um like sorry December 12th oh December 12th [Music] And

123we can always do I I don't know people's availability on the weekend on a Saturday morning or something like that just to kind of sit down and do a brainstorm. >> Make myself build right. I think there's a later day to go through Ry's email and go through every point and and have figure out if there's anything there that is a actual cut that can decrease money because I think even on top of BNC 3 million that I mean Randy has some good ideas in there. Do I think it's three million? No. But every good idea that she has might save a teacher. So, absolutely, >> Brad. How long to gather your information on some of these? >> Yeah. And again, to brainstorm some new ideas, we don't need to have Brad doesn't need to

124have his work together. >> Um, I would say a week anyway. Can you meet up do your workshop on the fourth day? The 4th is a Monday or you know or something there. >> I I right now there's nothing scheduled here at the high school on the 4th. So I I could do that. Just throwing at dates. >> Do you want to do a workshop on the fourth? Does everyone seem to work >> in person workshop? >> We can do it in person. We can I mean it's a workshop. We can zoom in. Uh will if he wants to join? >> Yeah. >> Oh, are you out of time that whole week? >> Yeah. >> Would you be able to join? I do think and again I'd have to check with Nick unless someone knows

125the answer. I do think we should try to do the executive session. I mean to do it in executive session where people could potentially be identified just by talking about reductions. So close workshop and executive session does that >> I wouldn't want someone new just because we start talking about positions people know where they are listening you already >> is the workshop more for just brainstorming new ideas though we're not necessarily identified there's >> potential staffing reductions and talking about potential staffing reductions. I wouldn't want someone to be able to identify who they are. >> Right. I understand. But um but our workshop isn't where you're presenting various options to us. It's where we're trying to come up with more places to find money. >> Potentially some of the suggestions that Randy wanted us to

126look at. We're looking at program. Okay. >> When you're looking at those programs, that might be where it gets a little touchy. And it's not that we're trying not to be transparent. >> No, I agree with you. >> But we do need to protect the people that we hire. >> Right. I just want to differentiate between the brainstorming workshop where we're just kind of bouncing out ideas and, you know, other things that we can look at compared to like what options are we exploring further as far as the the bigger potatoes. So yeah. Is there a time that's better for you or or that week? >> Um, are you guys? >> Yeah. >> I mean, Wednesday, yeah, I mean, Wednesday is better for me than six, but certainly Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday's the only day

127I can't do >> excellent. I mean, I I could do five o'clock, so I guess I could do it 5 5:30 in that time frame. >> Yeah. >> On Wednesday, >> six. >> Yeah, we could do 5:30. That would be great. 5:30 on Wednesday. >> And that will be a closed executive session workshop for the school community. >> And it's in person. >> Yep. In person. >> Okay. >> And then your follow-up meeting will be a regular scheduled time at 6 p.m. on the phone. >> And we necessarily do not have to have it in the LG item. We could pick a different room. Well, we could always do it at the central office if that's easier. We do have um the PD room in central office. What would work easier for for everyone? >>

128Or I'll be following remote as well, I guess. >> Okay. >> I mean, we can have a closer room. We'll figure a room out. >> All right. 5:30 on the 6. >> 5:30. Was that the sixth? >> Yeah. >> Yes. Okay. All right. Are we done with the budget discussion? And now on to policy. Randy. Um policy. Um so there's a number of the ones here for adoption. I am pulling JIC student discipline. We had a comment from a community member um that we discussed in our last policy subcommittee meeting and we're going to make some small changes to that policy. Um so I'm going to read them all together. If anybody wants any of these pulled out for any particular reason, let me know. Um, but I'm going to make a motion that the

129school committee approve for adoption policy DJ-1 Regional School District Purchasing Authority, DJ-1 Regional School District Procurement of Requirements, IHBA programs for students with disabilities, IHBD, Compensatory Education, IHBA, English Language Learners, IHBF, Homebound Schooling, IHBG homeschooling, IHB, sorry, IHB remote learning, IHCA, summer school. Second. Great. All of those in favor I. >> Anybody oppose? Any abstensions? I >> I didn't do my homework. I hope It's okay. >> Okay. And then we have just a couple for um for first reading. Um the JIC all the way through the EHB. We're pulling. We we did not get through those in our last meeting. Um so I move that the school committee approve policy um IIB class size, J instructional materials, and JL library materials selection and adoption uh for a first reading. >> Second. All of those in

130favor? >> I. >> Any abstensions? Any opposed? Any abstensions? >> Moving on. Mr. Mc Phillips with the warrant committee. Any report? >> Warrants come in. I review the warrants. I sign the warrants. >> Okay. >> Um, negotiations and personnel, teachers. I have no updates at this time. Uh Randy Native negotiations of non-teers effort community outreach and town liaison anything with ash anything with pepp um anything with town >> uh we do have another uh some administrator have administrators and And then we are on to other business. Any any other business? And it is 8:30 right now. So we timed this out really well. >> Yeah, I was gonna say I have one quick thing. Um it doesn't necessarily require a vote, but I had meant to bring it up at the last meeting and I

131apologize. Um there is an ongoing wellness committee that Katherine Hamson um has has started last year and with this on our wellness policy and making sure that we are looking at the district on implementing everything in the wellness policy and improving wellness in the district. Um it's a committee that has a cross-section of um I think there's a community member, there's uh obviously nurses, there's um um health or gym uh teachers, there's other teachers in the district. I'm I was on it last year for right now. I just went to the meeting that was today, but wanted to open it up. If anybody else wanted to be on this committee, um you know, please speak up. I'd be happy to give up the spot for somebody new if they would like to. If not, then

132I'm happy to serve. I'll take that out. I'm happy to serve, but I wanted to bring it up and make sure. >> All right. Um, I will take a motion to adjourn. >> That is what >> do we >> do? We is it okay if we allow Chuck to talk? Is everyone okay with that? He's a representative from April. >> First of all, I appreciate everyone's on the committee's dedication and the stuff that you do about it's not fun and we are doing that as well. when the PA and the group got together with the leadership sense that it wasn't because we want to do more. It's because they thought I I would ask you guys to look two lines below where it says G3% and 60% and 40% state and zero increase. The state

133have money. They just don't have. And I think we need to make that loud and clear to all of our constituents. I certainly have that clear. It is not for a lack of trying to reduce costs. We both have a revenue. If I can speak for in other towns, we're constrained to 2 and a half%. That's what we're constrained by. You guys are constrained by the funding from the state. And unfortunately, the state has chosen not to fund local aid for municipalities and has chosen not to fund the school. And I think as you go through this deliberations, we have to keep that in mind. And as you're talking to constituents, we got to let them know we are doing everything possible. I don't think Brad has that much. I don't think that there's thousands

134of people sitting up there. We don't need It's a it's an important task that this high school brings for our communities and I really wholeheartedly thank you guys for your efforts but we are missing that third leg of the school. You guys are doing what you should be doing. I believe the towns are doing what they should be doing the same right now. I just want to >> thank you. All right. Now we have a motion on the floor to adjurnn. Will >> yes. >> Who second it? >> I pass. >> Okay. Patrick. All of those in favor. >> Anybody opposed? Any extension? Thank you. Thank you everyone.