001good evening the uh finance and law subcommittee shall come to order I'll start with roll call Mrs shavs present Mr Vieira present chairman dallo present first item on the agenda is use of facility see attached memo uh superintendent cabal would you like to weigh in on anything sure thank you so in your packet uh you'll see two recent uses of facility one was Park and wreck they utilized the T High School cafeteria and that'll be upcoming for April 12th I believe that's their Easter breakfast that they do with the bunny and we also will have Equitable advisors there'll be they'll be providing the staff at the gallagan elementary school I believe with financial services that they offer that staff uh can uh take advantage of excellent motion to receive and place on file seconded all
002in favor I opposed guys have it thank you next up we have the warrant uh the fy2 warrant the amount of $489512 39 Mr Vieira thank you Mr chairman I make a motion to approve the bills payable in the amount of $489512 39 seconded any discussion Mr VI thank you Mr chairman I have a question on page two Bas communication in the amount of 5,000 $862 page two yes uh that's actually um better known as comtronics uh comtronics is the vendor that we utilize to purchase walkie-talkies for our principales custodians and assistant principales okay and and this was a purchase for six walkie-talkies for ton High School custodians right page three uh City card na there's three charges $1 19727 129 581 1824 it just just says City Cod na yeah so I believe uh
003City Bank is that yes City Bank City Bank sorry so that's also Home Depot credit services and that were those were supplies purchased for The Culinary out department so it's instead of listing Home Depot Pro card or whatever it's City Bank which is the banking institution behind it okay again the the warrant looks a little different um due to the uh issues we've been having on the side of the house so it does look a little wonky and maybe a little unfamiliar than what we've used in the past and then my last questions on page six agricultural High School KW tuition $ 22,45 and 990 cents yagi School page six 26578 uh so so that is uh that's tuition for one student to attend a northark agricultural School in Walpole so that would be one
004month tuition okay and um I think uh yeah th those are all my questions at this time thank you Mr chairman thank you superintendent anything from you good I just have one uh question uh we have on tonight's warrant the Lions Law Group for 72556 uh we don't have the other sheet the update because I know that uh that balance was down to 13 or less last time I'm just concerned that we had the $50,000 budget for that light on yeah we'll make sure to include in the next packet but we're okay under the 50,000 you believe if we go over well this is around the time of year in April where we come to the committee and start discussing uh what lines we will use to balance the budget and also make the request
005to prepay a of District tuition for quarter 1 so you'll probably have that at the April 16th meeting excellent thank you so motion was made in second all in favor I I opposed eyes have it and uh motion to seconded all in favor I oppos eyes have it we are adjourned thank you good evening we could have your attention please good evening uh the first regular April meeting of the taunt school committee should come to order uh we'll start off with the Pledge of Allegiance if you can kindly stand stes indivisible liy justice for all can you see by the dawn early what so proudly we held at the twi lightless gleaming who BR stripes and bright stars through the perous fight or the real parts we watch were so gallantly streaming and the rocket
006rare the bombs buring in air gave prove through the night that our flag was still there oh s does that star spangled then I yet will or the land of the free and the home of the praise M secretary Fagan please Lord as we begin this session let us acknowledge your goodness and mercy and ask your blessings on all our deliberations we thank you for this opportunity to be of service to our community and to the young people entrusted to our Care thank you secretary Fagan if you could kindly uh call the road yes Mr enus present Mrs shs pres Mr palowski pres Mrs fagans presid Miss Santos present Mr Vieira present Mr Laura present and Dr Dello pres thank you uh first item we have the approval of minutes of March 19 2025 motion
007to moove the approval of the minutes for March 19 2025 second all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have our student advisory committee report we have with us uh student Isaiah Wendell welcome thank you as Dr Dello said my name is Isaiah Wendell and I am part of the Taunton High School student advisory committee I am pleased to provide an update on recent and upcoming events at Taunton High School first the taunt High School youth Summit will be held tomorrow as a full day event approximately 90 students from all grades and diverse backgrounds were recommended by staff members to ensure that student voice are heard from multiple perspectives this aligns with taon High's mission statement to Foster inclusive inclusivity and engagement in athletics both of our both our
008softball and baseball teams remain undefeated an impressive achievement congratulations to them and best of luck as they continue their season our volleyball team competes tonight against Milford away we extend our best wishes to them regarding academics 10th grade mcast testing has been completed and we wish the students those students the best of luck the eighth grade mcast began yesterday but due to ongoing Wi-Fi and connection issues today's second session was postponed till Monday April 14th we appreciate the patience and resilience of students and staff as we navigate these technical challenges additionally Juniors will be taking the SA next Friday we wish them success as well uh Deca International Career Development conference ICDC is approaching and we extend the our best wishes to the 12 students competing earlier this month we celebrated World Language and diversity
009week during the week of March 17th this event organized by our world language Department was once again a great success some students favorites included tasting foods from different cult cultures and cultural dances performed to close the week lastly as of March 17th students were issued ID badges and they are now required to scan them upon entering the building each day for security purposes despite a few initial challenges especially with a rainy Monday morning students quickly adjusted and scanning has become a standard procedure a special thank you to Mrs Lasser and Mrs Fernandes for their hard work in ensuring every student receives an ID badge despite ongoing network issues their diligence is greatly appreciated and that includ that concludes my advisory report thank you thank you so much any comments questions from the committee no motion
010to accept the report uh on discussion I just want to extend again thank you for being here and all the students in the audience because we I like to see the students in the audience this is your voice so any issues you have reach out to your student representative and he bring he or she brings it before the committee so thank you once again all in favor opposed eyes have next up we have public input secretary Fagan in accordance with Massachusetts general laws chapter 39 section 23c we kindly request that individuals wishing to provide public input sign up in advance a copy of the regulation and guidelines will be provided upon sign up and individuals will be asked to State their name and address for the record the amount of time each registered individual will
011have to speak will be determined by the number of people who sign the register and will be announced prior to the start of the public input portion of the meeting tonight we have uh three citizens signed up we'll start off with uh Christine stokeley 7 Fremont Street uh topic or comment to Hamilton Street 8th grade welcome School Committee Member superintendent cabal Community stakeholders thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today I ask for your sincere consideration regarding the decision for the future of 8ighth grade in Public Schools I taught seventh grade at Parker Middle School from 2004 until 2019 both while 8ighth grade was part of the middle school and after they removed to Totton High School I currently teach eth grade at Totton High School where I've taught both eth and nth
012grades over the last 5 years I hope you will take my relevant Middle School and High School experience into consideration regarding these concerns my greatest concern regarding the eth grade decision is that what is best for the well-being of students current and future as well as staff will be overshadowed by the well-being of a financial bottom line and administrative convenience I know that you are tasked of being responsible stewards of funds and that decisions of this magnitude are nuanced and complex as a city resident and employee I thank you for the work you have done in this regard I understand that making decisions that streamline administrative efforts and financial burden are important whenever possible that being said however I implore you to consider the non-financial long-term ramifications of making this decision based largely on cost
013and or what would be least disruptive to other elements of taught in public schools while I have not conducted formal research regarding eighth grade numbers discipline referrals Behavior Trends psychological studies Etc I hope you will consider my 21 years of teaching experience spanning grades 7 through n to be a valuable source of anecdotal evidence worth your time and consideration I firmly believe that eth grade academy where one location houses only eighth grade students is not what is best for students families and staff we have seen firsthand that all of the eighth grade students being in one place has resulted in a variety of issues the years I taught at Parker when a house grades 5 through eight demonstrated the importance of balance the eighth grade was in a position where they were seen as leaders
014in the building providing an opportunity to model for younger students with some even providing mentorship at the high school it is the opposite they are seen as the youngest most immature group in the building taking the sense of maturity and responsibility from them in a situation where there are only eighth grade students in a building they will continue to be deprived of the opportunity to fulfill a role of building leaders where they can gain the leadership skills and maturity that will likely lead to a better High School experience the enormous Behavior concerns among eighth grade students are largely not among other grades in the high school eighth graders typically engage in conflict with other eighth graders issues of cyber bullying and other social media fueled incidents with eighth graders are often with other eighth graders
015continuing to isolate this age group would not solve this very real issue furthermore as a result of these issues it would be remiss to ignore the very likely possibility that teacher turnover at an eighth grade academy would be high the eighth grade is a population of students that has demonstrated to us an enormous need of experienced support and guidance the following data from this sh's taau and high school discipline records illustrates the disparity in Behavior incidents between 8th grade and grades 9 through 12 I apologize this was a letter that I wrote so you guys can't see this but there are um disorderly conduct and insubordination combined this was as of the first week of March 97 were 8th grade combined 9 through 12 131 fighting and Battery combined 33 oh just 8th grade 31
0169 through 12 combined there is a realistic possibility that teachers will burn out quickly when faced with the consistent behavioral challenges we know exist when this age group is congregated and burned out teachers don't stay in their positions please consider the importance of doing all you can to intentionally create an environment conducive to high quality teacher retention and it may prove to be difficult to find teachers interested in these positions and then ultimately to retain them students will not benefit from high teacher turnover and therefore neither will the district and its stakeholders I am a parent teacher and Community stakeholder in the city of Taunton as a resident it is abundantly clear that our population is on the rise and will only continue to grow with the development plans in place witon Mills Etc it
017stands to reason that one of the results of an increase of population is an increase in school numbers it is hard to believe that we will not need more schools to accommodate this in the future and to ignore the benefit of creating a fourth Middle School at the two Hamilton Street property seems like a short-term decision based on financial and administrative benefit which seems to be the best long-term decision for all stakeholders and investment in our future is to turn the two Hamilton Street property into a fourth Middle School this prepares the city for the inevitable rise in student numbers and would provide the ability to redistrict the city to accommodate the eth grade going back down to all middle schools across the city of Taunton most of the teachers parents and even students I
018have asked feel that eighth grade belongs in middle school this solution is likely the most expensive and creates more work for the district in general but is clearly what is best for our students staff families and the community in the long run I truly believe that the eighth grade students in the city will not Thrive academically behaviorally or emotionally in an isolated setting with added transitions between Middle School and High School a heterogeneous grade level setting a smaller group of same AG students without the benefit of these and the opportunity to succeed is building Leaders with smaller class sizes eighth grade students and teachers will continue to be at a disadvantage in the city of Taunton an eighth grade academy will not solve the eighth grade problems that are faced by having them in the
019high school it will only solve the high school's problem of the eighth grade being there thank you for your time thank you Miss stokeley uh we don't comment uh during public input I know you've reached out to all the school committee members I think we've exchanged emails and we would refer that to the administration to the superintendent you have a copy also correct we have a meeting we have a meeting on Friday great love to be here if I am invited thank thank you uh next up we have uh Christy Sanders 75 Steve Drive summmer Street School welcome hi thank you very much for having me today and letting me speak tonight honorable school committee members Educators and community members I stand before you today to advocate for the name of naming of the Summer
020Street School building in honor of our late state representative Carol dhy it is not often that a single individual leaves such a profound and lasting impact on education advocacy and the lives of CH students and teachers alike Carol dhy was one of those rare individuals a beacon of dedication leadership and unwavering commitment to education and social justice Carol D dhy deliver devoted her life to the betterment of Education she began as a teacher in a guidance Council here at Taunton Public Schools where she nurtured and inspired countless students her her passion for Education led her to serve as the president of the Taunton Education Association and later as the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association in these roles she fiercely championed the rights of Educators and students ensuring that education remained a priority for each
021level Beyond her work in the classroom and in leadership Carol took her advocacy to the next level as a head of the teacher professional development um program in Northeast University her efforts strengthened the skills and Educators thereby enriching the learning experiences of students across the Commonwealth as the Taun School Committee Member for 10 years she devoted she further demonstrated her commitment to local education to fighting tirelessly to enhance the quality of Education in our own Community finally as a state representative she continued her lifelong mission advocating for policy that uplift students Educators and families alike but Carol DH was more than just her title she was a listener a mentor and a champion for all she listened with great intent making everyone she spoke with feel heard respected and valued her conversations were not merely
022exchanges of words but meaningful moments where she TR truly understood and addressed the concerns of those around her her Legacy is one of class dignity and social justice one that embodies the very principles we hope to instill in our students naming a building in her honor would serve as a daily reminder of the importance of advocacy perseverance and compassion it would be a tribute to a woman who dedicated her life to the Advan ment of education and the well-being of students and teachers it would Inspire future generations to continue her work to listen with Open Hearts and to fight for what is right let us ensure that Carol dh's Legacy lives on in the very place she dedicated her life to improving let us honor her memory in a way that reflects her impact and
023contributions I urge you to consider this proposal and to so the well deserved recognition upon a woman whose influence will be felt for generations to come thank you thank you Miss Sanders next up we have Barry Sanders 75 Steve Drive Summer Street School welcome thank you um as I said to Dr Dello when I walked in you keep putting this on the agenda and I'll keep showing up that's the deal keep putting it on um my wife is a tough act to follow but I'll do my best um it's no surprise that I'm uh standing here today on behalf of my dear friend Carol dhy our uh what I would call unrivaled uh public servant um you know if you live a life of uh accumulating wealth you can build your own monuments to yourself
024you can buy things to pass on to Future Generations you can build you could build a statue to yourself you could build a building and put your name on it because you've lived a life of accumulating wealth and uh and you can do that when you live a life for public service you depend on the folks whose lives you have touched to build those monuments for you Carol didn't spend her life accumul culating wealth to hand on to uh Generations she did not uh accumulate uh the kinds of material Goods that would allow her to build a statue in her honor or build a building and put her name on it she is depending on us to do that for her and I and I say that and almost want to take those words back
025because I think if if Carol saw me standing here suggesting that we should put her name on a building she might tug me at my uh at my elbow and say sit down you're being silly um but all the good people say that right um and Carol was one of the best what she has done for generations of tonians can't be Quantified one of the greatest joys in her life that she would share with me is is walking in taunt and having some 40 or 50 year old walk up and say I remember you you were my third grade teacher and she would always say I would have to stop and look in their eyes and I would see that third grader sitting in front of me whether they were the a student or the
026little mischievous Troublemaker um she inspired so many and then went on to inspire uh generations of folks who will continue that work through her work at nor Eastern through her work sitting in one of these uh seats here and at the state house um this is a great opportunity as my wife said as so many others have said to make a statement to our community that when you live a life of service that we're grateful for that and we show our gratitude in ways that continue your legacy and I'll end with this I heard it say once that we all die twice we die once when we take our last breath we die a second time when the last person speaks our name we put Carol dh's name on this building and she'll live forever
027thank you for your wisdom for your patience and for your good judgment on this matter thank you Mr Sanders all righty moving now to the recognition of our taught in high school wrestling team and with us tonight we have a special guest very special guest our state senator Kelly duner who would like to present some some citations some certificates of recognition to our champions in many many ways Senate to Duna [Applause] please right right at the podium please right at the podium could one of the coaches uh please um first off I just wanted to thank the committee um and thank you Mr chairman um for inviting me here I think we share a similar philosophy in just making sure that we acknowledge recognize and really honor our students and our athletes for their achievements
028so thank you for the opportunity um and to the students I'm so glad to see so many of you here congratulations um your commitment your dedication um and your discipline is what got you here and these are moments that you guys are going to remember for the rest of your life so try to stay present and I'm glad to see so many eighth graders here as well so I'll read you one citation then I'll spare you guys um from me reading the rest um official citation be it be known that the Massachusetts Senate hereby extends its congratulations to Joshua millerick in recognition of your outstanding achievements throughout division one and in the South sectionals and be it be further known that the Massachusetts Senate extends its best wishes for continued success that this citation be
029signed by the president of the Senate and attested and a copy thereof transmitted by the clerk of the Senate and myself so congratulations to you guys you deserved it so Joshua kingon Kingston Mark Kenny Oscar Jace Morgan conratulations [Applause] congratulations Fabio [Applause] Monon Kingston maxi Brayden [Music] [Applause] mandaville Jackson Lincoln Fiona lefon davan Kelly [Applause] Max Kaufman good job brother congrats Thomas Hoy Liam hins good job keep it up Zoe Harris Daniel Hayne or Dan sorry [Applause] Dan Brian [Applause] Hayne Landon Greco [Applause] conratulations Marvin's Frank car [Applause] Falin Timothy Durango Antonio D Roa good job Andrew Brown good job good job [Applause] NAD Anthony Barbosa good [Applause] job good job Jason adman good job [Applause] hey Steve what are you doing hey [Applause] eln congratulations you get it Thor I think I know you
030conratulations Jacob S good job my friend good job Gustavo Rodriguez bro reaha Joel quos [Applause] perfect congratulations guys congratulations if we uh one of the coaches wants to say anything a couple of quick words I like I'd like to put you on the spot uh good afternoon everyone uh first I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the school committee Senator donor our athletic director Mr Raphael dowy and principal John Harrison for their continued support of our wrestling program and student athletes you're wavering commitment to our team in in the importance of extracurricular activities and shaping the future of our students is truly appreciated I'd also like to thank my incredible assistant coaches Christopher vickory and Joshua Cho for the dedication expertise you two have helped Foster a strong and competitive environment that pushes our
031athletes to reach New Heights and of course a huge shout out to our youth wrestling coach Chris Kaufman the foundation he's built at the youth and Middle School level is truly remarkable and it's evident in success we've seen throughout the program this year has been a standout season for us and I'm proud to celebrate the collective achievements of our team our wrestling program has made history in many ways we won the Mia wrestling sportsmanship award which speaks volumes about the character and respect our AC show both on and off the mat this is a testament to the positive environment we've built here in the dedication of our athletes to not only Excel but to do so with Integrity uh speaking of Excellence we had the honor of witnessing our first ever two-time backtack division one
032state champion and Elijah profet Elijah wor Elijah work ethic leadership and grit have been an inspiration to everyone on this team and we have incredible we have been incredibly proud of your accomplishments in addition Michael Laskowski made history is our first ever five-time sectional Placer he also broke the alltime wins and pin's record this year an incredible feat Michael set a new standard Michael you set a new standard for commitment hard work and perseverance I also want to highlight the outstanding achievements of both athletes winning the prestigious Marshville Holiday Tournament a competition with 36 teams this is no small feat and it speaks to the talent and competitive Spirit you have here and top it off we sent the most wresters to the all state tournament in our program's history um this is season also
033marked the success second successful year of Tom Youth and middle school wrestling a program that continues to grow and develop future Champions Chris coffman's leadership at this level shaping the next generation of athletes and I can't wait to see where they go from here in closing this season's success is a result of hard work passion and teamwork that each and every member of this program has shown for the athletes to the coaches to the support from our school we built something truly special here I excited to watch I'm I'm excited to continue to watch this team grow and see all the future success we have thank you thank you thank thank you so much uh we really appreciate our student athletes and all they do for us inside the classroom outside the classroom and I
034must admit I go to a lot of the wrestling matches I still don't know how they score but anyway we're going to ask for a motion for a five minute recess and we like to take a group picture with all our athletes if you don't mind so a motion to recess motion to recess for five minutes second all in favor I opposed I have we are in recess for five minutes thank you a motion to uh come back into regular order this would be in order did you get that I'm so made in second all all in favor please I opposed eyes have it thank you I I uh would hope we could get a motion to go out of order to uh take in uh H administrative business number one naming 66 sum Street
035in honor of Carol a I would so move that second all in favor so um as we all know we're here tonight um back on February 28th a subcommittee meeting was held uh with uh longrange planning of school Properties chaired by chairman Vieira uh Mr enus a member and myself also a member and at that meeting uh if you look at your meeting minutes uh there were a couple items discussed first and foremost under the superintendent's recommendation to to turn the 66 Summer Street uh School of property because I don't think it was acting as a school lately uh into a professional Learning Center uh that motion was made I Believe by Mr enus uh seconded by myself in moved approval um to name it to place it into a professional Learning and Development Center
036and of course there's so many reasons we did that because uh we are expanding district and not only that uh it's also available for Community use so was a great recommendation by our superintendent and of course that was unanimously approved and then second there was a motion made uh to name it the Carol and dhy professional Learning Center uh I made that motion was seconded and was favored unan uh was favored uh to pass and uh I I made that motion because as we've all heard not only tonight but on many many occasions uh Carol andori uh was a a person uh that influenced so many lives including my own and her entire career uh including her career at North Eastern that a lot of people didn't know was about professional development and I thought
037it was so you know the timing was unbelievable uh we as I said we met uh early on we scheduled the meeting for February 28th many many weeks in advance and Carol passed on February 15th so we had no idea that this was all happening and guess what else was happening on February 28th Carol's birthday so I don't know it's something happen it's crazy but anyway uh so again that was uh voted the report was made out by chairman Vieira and our meeting notes and uh Mr luro then made a motion uh to approve the report with a recommendation from the long range planning and school properties committee Mr enus seconded the motion with all voting to accept the motion to approve the longrange planning of school properties Report with the recommendations and what was
038then what that then happened uh in order to uh be consistent with our policies and procedures I thought it was best to have a what we call a 30-day cooling off periods to allow public input in favor or against and uh of course uh every time it's uh we we've had folks come before us always in favor I have heard no opposition not before us not via a telephone call not via an email so uh you know it was just one of those things I thought was the right thing to do and of course we all accepted that we we we waited 30 days so tonight is basically the formalization of our vote and motion made uh and accepted by the committee on March 5th and today we're here to celebrate uh the future of
039the professional learning Development Center and with us today we have uh Mr Dennis Cook her husband who um a funny story when when you run for election you call people on a list and I called the uh Dennis Cook and I says Hi Mr cook how are you I says I'm so and so running for school committee he says oh nice to nice to meet you b bah baah and I didn't know was there Carol's husband that was a funny story wasn't it Dennis uh but anyway so what else we need to do superintendent now just need a motion uh I guess we need another motion to formalize the process even one more time even though it's already been the motion be to rename 66 sem Street in honor of Carol a it's to solidify
040the motion absolutely so MO motion made seconded all in favor I opposed eyes have it uh let's I'm sorry secretary Fagan let's just make it even more official on a roll call vote so we're going to make this three times official Mrs secretary Fagan Mr Reus yes Mrs shavs yes Mr palowski yes Mrs Fagan votes yes Miss Santos yes Mr Vieira yes Mr Laura yes and uh Dr Dello chairman yes thank you all very very much and we will we will once we fix our our Cosmetics with the building I think in September we'll be ready for an official grand opening a soft opening and at that time we will extend the invitation to the entire family I know many of the family members are spread out uh within Massachusetts New Hampshire I believe so
041we'll have a a nice uh celebration at that time to keep Carol's Legacy alive thank you for being here tonight motion to go back to the regular order of business to be in order so move second I all in favor eyes opposed eyes have it uh next up on the agenda we have the associates for Human Services also known as Taun and area school to Career task presentation with us tonight we have Mr Brian Hannon program director welcome Mr Hannon thank you thank you committee members and superintendent uh it's an honor to be here tonight and uh also an honor to follow the last two agenda items those those were great wasn't sure I was going to how I was going to follow up after the uh wrestling awards and then you mov the agenda
042around made it even more difficult uh so I'm here to talk about the T in area school the career program tonight um I'll start with try to start with oh I'm moving this thing moves in the lights now uh so I'll talk about our funding sources first I'll get into our specific programs uh talk about kind of some things we did over the course of the last year get into some of our data and where we're going uh next week or the week after I forget sometime mid-mon uh this month will be my fifth month uh on the job so I'm I'm just getting my feet under me in this so hopefully I could talk about what we did over the last year as task and kind of give you my vision of of where
043we're going um I've got 20 plus years in Youth Development um specifically with or the majority of with uh we ow of funding which is the federal Workforce Development funding uh with local mixed with Lo local funding to do use Youth Center uh model programming and uh I was brought into to kind of um move task towards that model so so hopefully I could get that across tonight so our funding sources this year obviously from you the the high school and through the school system the mass mentoring partnership uh connecting activities which comes through the Bristol Workforce board our pre-employment transition Services known as preets through Mass abilities uh youth works again through the Bristol Workforce board which is actually the states version of that we that I was just talking about um which we
044also had my last position in in Rhode Island which mirrors uh like I said mirrors that we owe a system um we get funding through Webster Bank uh for for our financial literacy uh work and then we do fundraising and sponsorship we we are going to do a a golf tournament we do various other things as well so what is uh task task is a program of Association for Human Services uh we have a task Council that meets monthly to provide recommendations resources and fundraising support uh on that um Council are businesses other nonprofit Partners School collaborators are represented and we also have um a new member that was appointed by DCF which is important because we do pride ourselves on targeting uh the most hardto serve populations most atrisk populations and I'll definitely get
045into that more uh so we provide partnership between local employers and school systems to expose high school students to Quality Career Development experiences task now has a community business relations coordinator position which is shared with and collocated at the tton area Chamber of Commerce we are all doing our second interviews and Fin interviews hopefully uh tomorrow with three candidates hopefully we'll make a decision tomorrow have an offer out and have that position filled within a couple of weeks um and I'll speak more about that position and that is a model I've operated before in other uh places namely new pedford and uh Newport Rhode Island so task Fosters development of programs and work Readiness opportunities that link classroom in the workplace building job Readiness skills and response to the emerging needs of both employers and
046Educators and connect connecting activities um I'll do the next slide because it's it's big enough that it needs its own discussion these are going to be pretty wordy because it's it's uh Department of Education stuff as you guys know connect activity strengthen our regional support system for high school and students by providing opportunities for career immersion and fostering career Readiness this programming exposes students to a diverse range of career paths informed by labor market research while offering targeted Workforce and skill Development Career counseling experiential work-based learning opportunities and that's really the key for us for everything that's around experiential work-based learning opportunities everything leading to it and then uh supporting you through those experiential work based learning opportunities those could be anything from job Shadows to full-blown internships to paid internships summer jobs and now
047we're even um getting placing youth in traditional private sector jobs and supporting them before those getting them those jobs and supporting those in in those jobs it's supported by uh Elementary and secondary education uh Department Office of Education and office of Labor and Workforce Development so it's really education and Workforce Development for everything we do and the idea is to provide access to development and education opportunities for underserved student populations like I said and that could be anything from rational ethnic populations low-income students English Learners students with disabilities and um students from cities and towns with high unemployment and the key is Task enters the regional data into a Statewide database so that schools are getting the uh receiving credit for the work-based learning activities they're doing both in school and more importantly out of
048school which they wouldn't otherwise be getting credit for and so so what what are some of the programs we offer and how are they different in in this year so so youth works as I said youth works is is a mirror of of the federal system and the key for youth works that I'll explain is that they have to be 200% of federal poverty so it's it's and then they have to have one of seven um um barriers so it could be foster care Juvenile Justice things like that and and the easiest way for me to explain youth works is youth works is meant to and this is I had the like I said Rhode Island where I was previously has the exact same um program and what youth works is for is it's it's
049really meant to and again this has boiled down to it simp terms it's meant to be an on-ramp for kids that otherwise wouldn't be able to enter the existing um services so it's kids who couldn't enter CTE they couldn't enter our summer jobs that we have they couldn't enter the weoa system they need they need a minor league system if you will they need some type of onramp and additional services to get them where from where they are to to what's already available to them because they they just they don't either don't have the um basic skills their basic skills deficient they don't have the soft skills um so so that's what youth Works in a nutshell is it's really that piece for those those kids that are just too far from the existing services
050and this is kind of that on rant for them so the and it provides the best part of it is it's it's paid internships so it provides paid jobs to every year ta youth it's funded through the mass executive office of Labor and Workforce Development administered by the Commonwealth Corporation a quasi state agency and uh implemented collaborating collaboratively with task and the brista workforce investment board uh to date we have 58 youth uh last year was 59 9 and paid uh placements in for-profit nonprofit and public sectors despite losing $60,000 in state funding so we absorbed that through Staffing um and didn't didn't push that down to to serving less kids so as you can see we're only at 58 we're we're one short but the year's not over yet and the key with youth
051works too is as we get additional grants I could go seek grants out for for youth wages and we could we could have a kid enrolled in youth Works use the structure of Youth works so they could get the case management the support services the work Readiness and then I could just use youth wages from another Grant to pay for the kids internship and then we could use youth works again the staff for the followup and things like that to get them to the next step so that youth Works provides a structure we need and then we can back fill with with youth wages from other funding sources M do you want to talk about some of these pictures so this this predates me so I'm going to have to have her explain the pictures
052but these there are some of the activities and and uh programs that the kids R good evening my name is Melissa langum I am the assistant program director with area school to career and what you are seeing are pictures of our students in a number of different activities so twoe top left our all of our students last year were trained in um CPR and first aid and so that is a picture of them going through their uh going through their training and the picture to the top middle is one of our closing celebrations where we were doing uh training with the students on um dress for success and mock interviewing techniques and we were able to bring in about 20 employers where they participated in mock interviews and they were able to ask the students
053um some questions and then give them some coaching and feedback on how they could best improve their interviewing skills to the top right is one of our uh our banking Partners came in to do some workshops with our task makers program and task makers was something that we developed where it was an entrepreneurial based program where our students learned the importance of listening to the customer voice and learning about different uh products what they were able to do this year was partner with an a pet um animal shelter where they did different t-shirts and different paraphernalia to support um individuals who were adapting pets so it was a win-win and so this was a photo of the of one of our banking Partners showing them how they could do things on different types of um
054products and then in your lower left corner we have again some of those students who are also at I believe this was at um Burke oil and so when we would go around to different um employers we would do site tours with those employers and learn what the different opportunities were learn what some of the different qualifications were in order to be um employed at that type of an agency and then we would sell our products whether it was our t-shirts that we were making or whether it was jam and jelly that we have another program that was actually taking place and to the the the lower middle photo is one of our financial literacy days where we were prepping the students to be able to work with another one of our banking U Partners
055at Taunton High School and that was a part of our after school mentoring program that we run throughout the year with with different cohorts and then the lower corner to your right is two of our students were um played at a spa this summer but what they learned through there is this particular Spa developed their own products so they actually had to um have on hats and gloves to be able to package the product so they learned the importance of the little things like you can't just slap a sticker on a bag that you're going to give to a customer and so they had to have these different types of experiences and feedback and they got um one-on-one mentoring with with the employers and so we're been very happy to be able to do these
056types of Partnerships with the Employers in the area and are looking forward to being able to grow the program so we have we have two mentoring programs uh one is a career-based mentoring program uh this program matches volunteer local business professionals with students for oneon-one on a one-on-one basis each one is matched and the mentor and his or mentee meet about twice a month to explore education and career options and learn essential work skills the tour area businesses organizations colleges and trade schools all arranged by task they have individual meetings focused on the needs of the goals of the mentee CER mentors build a relationships have opportunity to make a difference and possibly a life-altering one in the life of young local Young Folks the after school mentoring program we do and it's going on
057right now we have a uh we had a a fall cohort and we have now a spring cohort um and it this came out of a request from the high school there was a a number of Youth I think upwards of 50 youth that were hanging out at the high school after school and just Milling around didn't want to go home for whatever reason um and saw as the school saw as opportunity to do some services for them so they came to us so we developed u a mentoring program and we and we used our uh work Readiness um curriculum that we have and and mix that in so that's going on and I'll get into the numbers I think we've served well over a hundred youth in that and I'll get it I have
058the numbers in a in a later slide but that's going on and that's been very successful and we're going to utilize some of the financial literacy um workshops we developed with some local banks um and some mental health uh folks that are going to do some workshops for us too on healthy relationships and things like that with with that group as well some more pictur this is this is for the mentoring uh pictures mosa I think we have a couple slides of pictures in a row now okay yes so I can probably summarize these um so these are different pictures of our tours and experiences that we've taken our students on so we have gone to places such as the r and vet vet clinic we've gone to the state police barracks we've had some
059students who are interested in law enforcement so we've been able to do that we've gone to um a welding operation we've have we've had students interested in that um work as well and then um I don't know what the lower right one is um but we what we do during the during our mentoring program as he said Is We Tour um area colleges and area employers to be able to give the stud students insight into what is needed in order to be successful in that field in the top left I think is just like an icebreaker an opportunity where the students were able to have some downtime with their mentors to help facilitate that environment and then this is a photo a series of photos from our most recent interaction where we had some Health
060Professions um come and come and speak nurses from nor from Morton Hospital came we had a number of our mentees who are interested in in nursing or diff or understanding what the different paths are that they can pursue was two weeks ago right yes so this was um last month where we had three nurses come and and talk about um the health the health care field at Morton and the students it was like they didn't want to leave they stayed for a long time after the presentation was over to be able to ask ask questions there's some more uh pictures from the different activities of the after school mentoring these are just the the actual sessions of the after school mentoring different activities they were doing I jumped one so our pre-employment transition Services as
061I said earlier they are preets it provide students who have an IEP of 504 a documented disability with the opportunity experience explore the world of work every student is different and there isn't a one- siiz fits-all so we work with each individual youth um find what type of job a career path best suits them uh they can expect a uh three- tier approach from providers to help them build job awareness and confidence uh we provide five core services in their workplace Readiness training stipended and work-based learning experiences counseling on post-secondary education or training self- advocacy and peer mentoring and job exploration and counseling and those really are the services we provide to all youth so that's the that's the key is everything we do we do for for different populations of Youth and I'll and
062I'll get back to that in a little while on on what we're looking to do in the future so there's a Webster bank finance lab that I was talking about before they task planning committee designed a series of six workshops around financial literacy mental health knowing your rights and designed an entrepreneurial panel for local Young of from local young entrepreneurs the goal is to ignite The Passion of our young people connect them with opportunities and resources and provide them with P perspective and experiences that Empower them to achieve their goals and recognize that nothing is unattainable and we're working with uh the high school leadership now to implement those workshops as a series or a day at the school and those workshops will also as I said be integrated into the after school mentoring program
063and that'll be on an ongoing basis and even even the facilitators we have from the banks and from the other uh Partners we have they've said to us if you get one student we'll come so they're they're that dedicated obviously want we want to fill a room and and get as many students involved as we can but um they're that dedicated so we're we're definitely going to make use of them and there's a when we got the Webster bank money there's a there a kickoff celebration so ongoing activities uh we continue to reach out to local businesses develop work-based uh learning opportunities for students that's going to be a lot easier when we have that staff person at the uh CH shared at the chamber and they will literally be housed at the chamber at
064least one day a week um and we continue to hold we had to send this a couple weeks ago which so this was still in development uh this position the community business relationship coordinator is in the process of being filled like I said our our second hopefully final interviews are tomorrow um we're going to continue to provide support to the CTE coordinator and that the CTE coordinator is going to have access to this position so this position is going to work on behalf of the CTE coordinator as well so even even though it's a um a task staff person um they are certainly going to work in support of the CT coordinator um as well as a youth Works coordinator that that works kind of to feed the CT uh coordinator as well work on
065those workshops as I said continue to be available for any student or group of students for resume cover letter interview prep during the school day and I'll get to that again in another slide or outside of the normal school day uh work with the high school and the alternative school to hold career chats as an example the Morton Hospital uh chat we just held and then that career center piece so we're task increase is present at the high school we're there five days a week now and we're two days at the Alternative High School and and and both of those are already paying off the uh Alternative High School we're getting great data out of um already um and IND individual appointments like I said we we offer to any youth if they have a
066resume work with us you need to update it we'll update it we'll help you get a career uh um a cover letter but that's just to get them in and then if they're if they're interested we'll do interview prep with them mock interviews interest and skills assessments we'll do career exploration worksheets Career Development education and soft skills training we'll support them through job online job searches Support Services once hired you know um if they need certain uh clothes or or materials or whatever uh barrier reduction if they have transportation is we work with work with them on that um and we're also a big thing for us we keep hearing from the high school and the Alternative High School is jobs paid internships help with driver's license um so that that's kind of what we're
067focusing on right now and we've already already made some had made strides on that so here's the summary of our data um and keep in mind we're and I'll break it down in another slide but we're this between 24 and 25 we're down $85,000 um and here's the number so connecting activities which is our umbrella so connecting activities could be anything from like I said sitting down and doing a um cover letter and a resume with a kid all the way to um 120 hour paid internship so we're we're a little lower than we were last year but as we get to the other numbers you see like our Career Mentoring was 19 last year 22 this year and again 25 isn't done yet after school mentoring the after school mentoring we did 145 last
068year we're at 196 this year and that number is already it's already higher because we already had sessions since I sent this our prets uh total hours of programming 410 last year 328 so that's down but then look at these numbers paid stiens last or paid internships last year 011 this year students served last year 50 64 this year so those are up youth Works um and again these are all paid internships 57 uh last year 58 this year total paid internships 56 last year 66 this year and then private sector job placements last year 11 this year so what we're doing is what's happening is last year in previous years A lot of times a youth would come in for one of these programs participate and then you know kind of that was it
069what we're happening now is youth have participated in programs in previous years are coming back to us because you know they're the jobs people type of thing so those 11 paid jobs are are almost I think they're all from the Alternative High School and they're youth that we've worked with through mentoring previously that just stayed with Pierre our staff person Pierre um and knew knew he was would help them so he did all that stuff that resume stuff I talked about the mock interviewing supported Job searches all that so they got traditional jobs in the community that that teenagers get but they wouldn't have got them without the work of Pierre so there's 11 youth that are working right now um that got jobs in this school year that and and held them they still
070have them um unpaid internships we had 11 so we're still tracking unpaid internships and and unpaid internships are great we'll still have those as a priority but but the paid internships subsidized employment is always going to be our our Target so goals moving forward transition to Youth Center model historically if we had to serve X number of prets kids we went out looking for pret kids if we had to serve X number of Youth Works kids we went out looking for youth Works kids recruiting for that eligibility criteria the youth works I'm sorry the youth center model is is what I'm did previously is where you recruit kids right they come in you do what you do you do these work-based learning uh services with them and then you figure out behind the scenes what
071category they fall into you serve all kids um and that's what we're moving towards so so it's not we're not we're not doing programming silos we could serve any kid um increase all services by 15 uh 15% as an example I just found out today that it's cleared I was at a conference this morning uh we increased our youth Works contract to 75 paid placements pending so this again I sent this a couple weeks ago but so that is it's it's uh cleared so we'll have 75 slots next year which is an increase continue to collaborate with uh Tac again uh interviews are tomorrow uh secure additional funding increase current contracts secure new grants we put in for cdbg funding for 10 paid internships and five um driver's licensed scholarships um and we're going to
072put in for a weoa even though we we're putting in for a weoa AOS School youth Grant which you might think would have to do with uh the school system what we're going to do is they're going to be uh CNA uh program and what we're going to do is we're going to work with the school and find Rising graduating seniors who don't have a plan they're not going to college they're not going to a trade school they don't have a plan recruit those youth to once they graduate they're considered not school Youth and then we'll recruit them into our CNA program we have already have all the hospitals and and folks and even uh other uh retirement homes Etc um that that are willing to work with us and interview them Etc so even
073though it's an out of school program it'll still benefit the school system and the goal is and like I I said like I've done previously build youth wages into every Grant we have we we submit so every Grant we do we this is what we're going to do here's our modotto we're going to serve you this way and then a line item in the budget is going to be X number of kids times x number of hours times x um dollars per hour and and it'll we'll have built-in youth wages in every Grant we do um further embed priet in the school calendar um and promote the career center services to all students provide equal access to all um our issue at the high school right now and we're working with the school to figure
074it out is it's just there's there's no time in the day right now and we're we're we're doing it we're doing the best we can but when we when my staff is at the high school for five days a week when they call a kid down to work with them they have to call them out of a real class there's no study hall there's no there's no slow time time everybody's in core courses and real courses excuse me all day so we really got to figure that out and make sure we're not if you ask a kid what class do you want me to call you out of they're gonna they're going to say a class they probably should be in right not not a class that they're uh they're they're excelling at usually um
075so we we have to figure that part out and we'll we'll continue to do that and like I said uh promote the career center services for all students because that's really how we get kids in and then start to serve them and then like I said and then we'll figure out how we figure out what uh what what funding sour we we charge them too so we have a little video here for uh representative dhy who is a big supporter of ours and it also has uh last year we brought some Youth and some other uh stakeholders to speak so we have a short video here that'll wrap us up and we can take some questions hello my name is state representative Carol DY for those of you who may not know me I represent
076the third Bristol District which includes most of Taunton and a third of the town of Easton I'm so delighted to be invited to join you today and so sorry I'm not actually in the room with you I'm excited about celebrating the partnership that has developed between Webster bank and the associates for Human Services to be provided with the opportunity to have $100,000 a year funding available for two years in order to help to grow and support their work and its staff its families its children and adults who benefit from their programs AHS is one of the nine Labs across the country to be funded in this way should resources continue to be available AHS will likely see another round of funding I became acquainted with Associates for Human Services when I was a member of
077the Taunton School Board in ahs's capacity working for the tunon school district running the tunon area school to Career program my opinion one of the very best programs that we have made available to our young people careers internships and other opportunities for them to take a look at what the world has to offer them and a special thank you to Kelly aavo as the chair of the task Council for Webster bank which works with youth she put forward task name as a worthy of consideration for this amazing gift with one year behind them AHS can now plan for the future many many thanks to Kelly aavo for raising the Taunton area school to Career program is one that greatly benefits our youth thank you Kelly thank you very much my Aid Matthew O'Brien has a
078citation to offer to Associates for Human Services and Webster Bank in partnership with one another and in celebration of this wonderful moment thank you Webster Bank hello so I take some uh questions and one thing I will say I think I forgot to mention was um I was at the youth Works uh Statewide conference this morning and they mentioned that and this is a big makes the funny we get from the school system and and other sources so much more important and the grants I'm going after and will go after so important the youth works is is a hugely important program and it's been getting cut Statewide for the last few years I think postco everything's getting cut seems like um but they're next year they're they're going from $24 million Statewide this year to
079$14 million next year Statewide so it's going to be it's going to be a huge cut and that and I don't know how folks I don't know how what that's going to look like so I just save that to say that all the funding we get um from the school system and other sources just becomes that much more important and and my job to do resource development and grant writing becomes that much more important so we thank you for your support and and if you have any questions I'm more more than happy to address them thank you uh Mr Hannah for the presentation I'll open up to the committee questions comments Mr palski uh thank you Dr D uh thanks for the great presentation um I I had a question for you if you could
080go to the the slide where it showed the uh the students that you've got on internships uh the chart the chart yep so uh the uh stien paid internships private sector unpaid internships just like they all happen to be 11 is that 33 total students or is that the same number counted in different no those are separate so the stipended uh paid internships at 11 goes with uh the youth Works 58 to make the 66 okay and then the other two the other 11s just happen to be the same number okay gotcha thank you yep thank you Miss psky anyone else uh I just have a couple of comments and maybe some questions too so if we can just on the acronyms maybe I missed it let's see uh woa so that's Workforce investment Opportunity
081Act that's the federal if you know the Career Centers and the uh Mass hire centers that's the adult side of weoa the the youth side of I'm talking about the youth side of weoa that's the the money we get the CNA program on talkot um getting for the out of school youth that would be an example of weoa okay is that related to the cut that you mentioned earlier is this something that depends is that State dollars that's federal dollars federal dollars okay so that's probably on cutting board too at some level well we'll see C cdbg uh Community Development block grant that's City money um under I think housing I want to say I forget what it's under but it's City money econom Economic Development economic develop okay great thank you y so um
082I mean over the last few months um I've been asking and some colleagues also about you folks coming in sooner than later and you know I I appreciate the presentation tonight but but what what keeps me up at night is you know when you have these internships and you're placing and this is a report uh for February of 2025 and it basically says uh 30 internships placed out of the 30 we have uh 15 into paid internships in the private sector I'm sorry some in the private sector some not but for example uh four in TPS Food Service okay um 2 and eight two in AHS which is your organization correct then we have some others and no disrespect to these companies I'm mentioning because this is part of small business but uh honeydew supercharge
083we doogs McDonald's uh and a few others what you know and I'm just going back to your slide here and this is where I I feel the disconnect so will you say uh to expose high school students to Quality Career Development experiences so what I'm thinking about that phrase I'm thinking about an organization in industrial park a multinational a multi- global organization and again no disrespect to small businesses I was a small business owner myself uh so I know the struggles they go through so I'm just saying you know what is the benefit I mean how can we how can we expand our students and expose them like your statement that's a great question so those culinary kids you're talking about were preet so they were um relatively challenged alled uh with disabilities so they
084they were on uh short-term work-based learning experiences in a in a group setting um they weren't able to really go and do uh more in-depth internships and things like that because of the the nature of their uh challenges and then the other ones you're talking about the traditional youth jobs in McDonald's and things like that those are the jobs I was talking about over at the Alternative High School so um as as uh common as that may sound it was it's a kind of a a victory for those kids but and and to the to your further Point getting that uh position at the chamber is what's going to get us those higher level uh internships that you're talking about with with some higher level employers right you know and out of the 30 that
085are on this February report 15 are within taunt Public Schools so you know it's basically 15 outside of you know our own domain which I don't know I don't know if that makes economic sense that's all I'm trying to that might have been the first report uh Chris and I have been working on on that report that might the first one I I sent to him that did have some errors in it and we cleaned it up for moving forward um because we've been trying to be more data driven when I first took over a lot of the reports were like narrative and things like that so I've been trying to be more data driven and we've been and even to my own task Council that every time we do a report that the reports
086have changed because uh like I said they're just too much too narrative driven and and the other the other comment or question is uh you mentioned on two of your slides give me a mment here please about the driver's license and uh one of them States let's see where is it got a lot of slides here uh assist a navigating process to obtain driver's license what does that actually mean so youth in preets can apply through what's called uh vocational rehab and they could get uh funding to pay for driver's ed and then my staff support them through that process so they basically Provide support services and Cas management through that process because again these people these youth are on they have disabilities they're on IEPs 504s and have documented disabilities so they need additional
087one-on-one support through basically most of the things they have to do including driver's head okay so you're only you're only dealing with a certain segment of the student population or no the and the like the cdbg money I get they won't have that won't that population will be open that'll only have to that'll have an income um eligibility so they won't have they won't be have to have a disability or anything like that we'll be able to pay for their driver's at and do the same thing for a general population okay cuz then on you know a slide further down it says the cdbg proposal will fund paid internships and drivers licensed scholarships right so we'll be able to pay for their drivers head and and provide a support through it through case management okay
088for general population again not not IEP or 504 youth okay I I mean you know I I visited the facility uh Mr Vier and I I believe I don't know if Mr Fagan was with us that day at the invitation we did uh visit the facility a couple years back and uh you know we were presented a very very nice narrative and you know all all of all of the things that I thought were going to be delivered and during the last couple of years I'll be honest with you I've been disappointed and that's just one of I'm only one of eight okay but basically what I saw and witnessed and what I thought was going to be the outcome did not match so I've been very vocal about that and I just want to
089make sure that we're protecting the you know the use of funds uh cuz as you're saying it's going to be a tough economic year uh not only state but Federal and we want to make sure that we're protecting you know our students Absolut so that's that's what I want to make sure that we're getting the bang for the buck and I'm all about internships I work at Bridgewater State University we have a very Dynamic uh division on paid internships none of our students go out without getting paid Y and uh whether it's Transportation needs or whether getting an actual salary it's very very important to us because it gives them a sense of belonging and not just going for the heck of it what do you think about that Isaiah right getting paid I think
090that's important because I don't want to work for free either so I I appreciate your presentation and uh any other questions Mr I understand your concerns yeah yes thank you Mr chairman um thank you for your presentation it was very thorough and well detailed um glad we had this opportunity to self-reflect and give input I I do want to mention that I was in 2002 many years ago I was a beneficiary of uh your one-on-one Mentor program which gave me a lot of opportunity to um you know visit local businesses further my career um my mentor Bill Lewis from Bristol County Savings Bank he was a commercial loan officer who's actually retired it was something we were both always very proud of and it was life changing for me so thank you for the work
091that you yeah me is one of the few things that's proven to work absolutely so I uh I support your program and the work you're doing 100% but to Dr dea's point it is always good to make sure that we're self-reflecting and that we're you know continuously improving and uh utilizing our resources and funds to the best of our ability so thank you for being here tonight paid paid good internships will be my is my priority as well good any other comments wishes of the committee motion to receive in place on file all in favor all right I opposed eyes have it thank you so much Mr thank you thank you thank you next up we have the FY 26 preliminary budget presentation and superintendent cabal so Mr Jake is work in his magic and
092our guests are exiting after an ex excellent presentation just want to take this opportunity to just remind everyone this is the first of what will be four budget presentations and the only action required tonight is to receive this presentation and place it on file we're not looking for any formal motions to adopt any of the recommendations or any of the figures that I'll be sharing with you this evening so I provided you with the uh table of contents so we're going to talk a little bit about who we are as a district we'll talk a little bit about our mission I'll give you some updates on where we are with our strategic plan we'll spend some time talking about the FY 26 fiscal background for the state of Massachusetts with regards to revenue and spending
093I'll get into uh something that I hope becomes a little clearer I don't think it ever gets clear but it gets a little clearer we'll talk about uh Chapter 70 funding Trends and growth we'll dive into the budget timeline which we model the states timeline we'll talk about the Chapter 70 Foundation budget we'll get into one of our favorite topics the I attribute a lot of my experience in know how to Joe Martin Dr Clary uh Donald Clary and Dr Cotto know three great mentors who helped know shape the superintendent and the administrator I am today and then we'll talk about to Public Schools FY 26 budget and expenditures we'll talk about how we are respect how we are fiscally responsible when it comes to maintaining our schools and our grounds and then I'll share
094some of our final thoughts and answer any questions that you may have so this is a snap shot of who we are as as a district a couple of items that I want to highlight is since we did this presentation last year the median household income in tton has increased it's approaching $80,000 per per household but also at the same rate the median home uh value is is approaching 400,000 as well so even though income is increasing you also see Home Ownership is increasing two numbers that I highlighted last year and I'm proud to say both have grown by about 2% so high school graduate or higher in the city of tarton was around 82% last year we're approaching 85% so that's a figure that I'm very that I monitor closely as we know two
095two of the two of the main factors when it comes to generational wealth is home ownership and education so the higher education level in the community the more likelihood we have more homeowners in the community as well as supporting small businesses because there is a correlation between education and small business ownership our high our Bachelor degrees or higher is also up about 2% last year that was around 22% so I'm happy to see that those two metrics are increasing when it comes to the percentage of students in the city of Taunton who graduate from our high school this does not include Bristol Aggie this does not include Bristol plmouth this is Taunton High School data so about 52.5% that percentage is about 4% down from where we were preo but we're hoping that we'll see
096that number start start to uh grow in a a positive direction but I'm really proud of the work we've done with two of our marginalized groups African-American students are attending college who graduate from high school at about 47% and our Latino Hispanic are attending at about a 45% clip which is close to that 52.5% number so we're making some good grounds there I won't bore you with our mission or our vision but what I will say is yesterday Mr barado and I received a draft of our strategic plan so very excited uh to get my hands and get my eyes on our strategic plan so it's under construction and we anticipate uh being able to share some of those initial findings with the committee either the first meeting in May or the second meeting in
097May so very excited and our partner are tuned you're going to be very impressed with the in-depth comprehensive thorough report that you're going that you're going to receive now we start getting into the numbers so this is Governor Healey's FY 26 budget it increases compared to last year it increases by about $4.3 billion which is 7.4% over fiscal 25 it's actually 1.8 billion higher than what they projected in fy2 so that's what that second line represents so how is this budget being funded so Baseline tax revenue is expected to grow at about 2.25% leaving about 150 million in new Revenue because when the budget is out of that Revenue there are some funds that have to be some lines that have to be funded the pension fund the MBTA msba funds are taken off the
098revenue that is generated uh during or taxes collected during fiscal 25 for to make the to begin building the budget for fiscal 26 so I apologize for stumbling through this slide a little so with the limited new revenue and rising cost the governor is relying on $2 billion in new onetime and ongoing Revenue initiatives 650 million in the income share tax which is the Millionaire's tax and then also $1.32 billion from the innovation in capital fund via a supplemental Bill filed with house one so this slide just goes to show you what are the projections and where we are when it comes to revenue collected at the state level so through February tax collections are up $2 billion almost 9% and that's about 688 million above the Benchmark or what they projected so that and
099again that's only Feb through February we still have March April and May but I do worry with some of the uh rhetoric especially if you watch the news and you walk you're following the market know I do worry whether or not we'll continue to see some of these taxes collected because a lot of these taxes collected are driven through the stock market or through through financials so taking a step back you'll look at what what the what the state has collected through February as far as Revenue so you'll notice in fy20 that was our Co year just under 30 billion and then you start to see the stimulus funds entering into the economy in fiscal 21 and especially in fiscal 22 where you see $41 billion and then we see the drop when we had
100those extremely two high years of inflation in FY 23 and FY 24 inflation came in at 8% and 7% around 15% and if you look at fiscal 25 $40 billion has been collected $1.3 billion in the form of the ctax so you see we're on Pace of where we were during fiscal 22 which was one of those years where we had significant stimulus in the economy and then just showing the spending and the growth Trends throughout the for the state so going back to again fiscal 20 that was our Co year very modest growth at 4.1% then you see a jump for fiscal 21 22 23 and 24 again with those outliers where inflation was 7 to 8% and then we had modest inflation last year 1.35% this year's inflation Factor as you'll see in
101the presentation is 1.93 so again modest growth the three drivers as we get into Chapter 70 inflation so again per pupil inflation rates are only going to be increased by 1.93% the statutory Max this even if it's at 9 or 8% is 4 and a. half% that's the statutory Max so 1.93 is about the H is about the halfway point but another huge driver is employee and fixed charges Health costs coming in at using a multiplier of 6.13 enrollment Trends AC acoss the state which you might find odd across the state enrollment is trending down but in Southeastern Massachusetts enrollment is booming so across the state it dipped by 308 students in tunon we increased by 222 students as a matter of fact over a fouryear period our enrollment has increased by 9% I believe
102uh Fall River had the highest growth in enrollment uh nearly SE about 650 plus students to their enrollment we continue to see that low-income students the state it's 46 46% so almost half the state students are low income and in our district we're approaching 60% and you see that the governor's budget is funding the fifth year the fifth year of the student Opportunity Act and the student Opportunity Act will have one more year fiscal 27 so when we're developing the budget I think back to Mr Martin you're looking at last year you're managing this year and you're looking ahead and around the corner because you want to make sure that you're in a position to be able to sustain the programs and the Staffing that you currently have in place and that takes sound fiscal
103management and also an eye towards the future in anticipation in anticipating you know the funding sources and the funding resources down the road so this is just a snapshot of the state and these figures represent billions not thousands so you see this Chapter 70 state aid is approaching 7.1 billion and you'll see that for the first time they dipped into the sh tax funds to help uh fund Chapter 70 to the T of 225 million so total state aid 7.3 billion that's an increase of over million and over a three five five year period it's about 400 plus million dollars on average and this is backed by 225 million from the fair share Revenue 206 mli from the SOA trust fund 6.8 billion from the general fund and 44.7 million from the general education fund
104again moving along quickly just shows you how the governor's budget as far as chapter 78 has increased and dropped over the years and just again monitoring inflation the only thing I'll highlight is 23 and 24 those were extremely high inflation years 7 and 8 % respectively so 15% Chapter 70 rates only grew by 4 and a half% so technically we're still paying for 6% that we didn't receive in the former Chapter 70 so that's why it's very important to be uh in a in a position that I'll explain later that we're actually capturing our actual costs in the appropriation and in our budget so that as in future years or future Appropriations we're able to sustain the programming and the Staffing that we currently have in place without re lying on one-time revenues such as
105our revolving account or other funding sources that are not replenished on a yearly basis so the budget timeline we are now in April and this is your first budget presentation congratulations uh in May you'll get your second budget presentation I do not anticipate the figures changing um I really don't I think the figures that you're going to see are going to be pretty steady so last year our F our Chapter 70 appropriation was 94,969 614 this year it increased by 10.5 million let's just call it even so we're going from 94 million in state a this is the check that the state cuts to the city of tarton that is then Ed for education is going from 95 million to just just over 105 million to to use round numbers and I'll explain to you
106why a lot of that can be attributed to the 222 new students we have attending the to Public Schools as well as uh High lwi income percentages we are in the 10th death s out of 12 so again you'll see the breakdown on how this is done so the the enrollment last year was 800 8,235 and that was an increase of 160 from the previous year so for fiscal 26 based on the October 1 report our enrollment came in at 8,457 which is an increase of 222 students so it's a it's a 3% increase but that's 222 students that's almost the size of the gallagan elementary school to put in perspective the foundation budget which is the amount of funds that have to be spent on education in the city of T went from 140
107million to 153 million which is an increase of 13 million which is just under 10% the required contribution for the city increased by almost $3 million from 45 to 48 million so that $48 million is in the form of indirect costs and actual dollars that's what makes up the 48 million so we're not going to get 48 actual million dollars it's indirect services and dollars that will bring you to the figure that I believe puts us at 100% net School spending so when people ask you on the street is the city of taunton's budget from the city ofar in 153 million the answer is no this is what has to be spent on education through indirect costs appropriation in Chapter 70 so I don't want anyone at home thinking the school budget is 154 million
108and of that $153 million 69% almost 70% think 7 out of $10 14 out of 207 out of $10 comes in the form of aid from the state and this is just a breakdown that shows you how the funding goes how the funding is calculated so when you add up uh these numbers you're going to come out to 8,457 students that's how many students we have on on enrollment based on the October one report and if you divide that $153 Million by 8,453 that's how much we spend per student in the city of tha 18,154 what I will say has really been a couple of drivers when it comes to additional chapter $70 your commitment and your support of our vocational programs continues to bring in additional dollars not only to fund The Vocational programs
109but to fund operations throughout the school system you'll notice the high school Chapter 70 amount and the vocational Chapter 70 amount are almost equal that's because of the extra dollars we receive but I also will point out on the low income side that almost a would be almost a quarter of our budget roughly 42 million is in the comes because of the low income population which is 5,49 students so required net School spending this is that tricky triangle that Mr Martin and doc Dr Coto used to speak about years ago so the required net School spending in order to be at 100% net School spending the sub cidi share of indirect costs in dollars added to the appropriation must equal $48 million in change roughly 31% the st's kicking in 69% which is $105 million
110and I provided you and I apologize because it's small but you'll see Elementary we saw a substantial increase again because of student growth 138 students at $188,000 per student you see why we're getting two an additional 2.6 million and the other area I wanted to highlight was in the high school we saw almost 100 new students at the high school again times $188,000 that's .6 million and on the vocational side you continue to be very committed U to allowing the high school to come up with creative programs such as the construction craft laborer that increased our vocational side to 46 students and and that brings out Chapter 70 total to 1.2 million and then lastly the main driver 300 new students qualified for low income and that brings in almost $6 million in chapter 78
111and you'll notice the inflation factors that I provided at the the bottom bottom of the slide deck so again we're monitoring the budget uh last year as as I stated 94 million in the form of Aid this year the aid amount is 105 the city's contribution 45 this year it's 48 and we'll continue to monitor these numbers and update the slide as we go along now we are projecting that an appropriation in the amount of 131 million6 $ 6,516 will get the city to 100% net School spending and again this is a moving Target because this is a projection based on the indirect cost that the city has provided us and with the indirect cost you have to back out transportation and you have to back out crossing guards so if you look on the
112left hand side we have the required net School spending and then we have the arrows so the total has to be 153 million indirect costs subtracting transportation and crossing guards We Believe will be somewhere around 22 million so when you subtract 22 million from the 153 100% net School spending is 131 m665 15 so that is the appropriation am amount we are going to be requesting that's the appropriation we are going to be requesting from the city uh because we believe know that one gets you to 100% net School spending and it also follows the method methodology where we received the previous year's appropriation plus the Chapter 70 increase and again providing you with a I think it's a 14-year look back on the city uh has done really well as far as maintaining 100%
113net School spending you have the goal his far back is fy13 uh the last time the city of Taun did not meet its 100% net School spending and again just showing you how the money and the finances are broken down so the chapter 78 and in the form of 105 million is roughly about 80% the increase is 10 10.5 million which is about 11% the local contribution is going to be around 25 26 million uh which is about 20% so it's about an 8020 split they kind of put it into perspective 80% of a dollar so 80 cents on every dollar comes in the form of Aid 20% is coming from local contribution so as I stated earlier when you're building a budget you're always looking back you're assessing where you are and you're anticipating
114and looking ahead to where you're going to be in the future so that you can make sound fiscal decisions that will not jeopardize or handcuff the district moving forward the last thing we want to do is make a decision Implement a program hire staff that we're not going to be able to sustain moving forward so again the practice that we've always followed has been to gradually grow as our funding grows so the appropriation that we are requesting or expenditures we are going to propose a budget at a later time for recommendation in the amount of 133 milon $716 544 we're going to request from the city $1 131 mil 66516 you're noticing that there's a gap how do we make up that Gap by Circuit break a carryover that we are currently carrying that has
115to be expended in fiscal 26 if we do not spend these funds these funds go back to the state and we know we don't give funds back to the state so in order to balance our budget for next year the city appropriation of 131 utilizing the circuit breaker of 2.6 we have a balanced budget of 133 M 71654 I'm going to spend a little time on this slide because you're probably all wondering why the special education tuition jumped up by 80% so you remember last year was last year of so last year was one of the last years where we moved all our grant funded positions onto the appropriation and we utilized a lot of our circuit breaker dollars know to offset our special education costs so that we could build the Staffing into the
116line item budget so the Staffing that you carried over last year are still in the salary lines we have not reduced any staff all the staff that are currently employed in fiscal 25 are being carried over in the fiscal 26 but what we have done is we have put funding back into our special education lines so that moving forward in fiscal 27 and fiscal 28 we now have the funding in our appropriation to carry the Staffing and to replenish the special education tuition that we utilized our circuit breaker uh to offset those costs last year Mrs moan is projecting about a half a million dollar increase in our transportation following the transportation Cola uh utilities you actually see a modest decrease so about $100,000 contracted Services you see a modest decrease supplies bumped up by
117about 27,000 and we also increased our maintenance line to try to capture true maintenance costs in our budget again just tracking our costs from fiscal 18 to fiscal 26 you see on average the budget increases by about 5% this year represent an increase of 99.82% but again our Chapter 70 you look back our Chapter 70 increased by 11% so that's why one of the reasons why you have that large increase on our appropriation because our Chapter 70 increased so we see a 99.82% increase for this year um I need to go back and fix this slide because this the pie chart represents the pie chart represents how much the department Grew From the previous fiscal year so you might notice the other expenditures is only at $110,000 because it grew by 44% from the previous
118fiscal year typically this pie chart represents the percentage of the budget that these departments make up for the city of tarton so I need to reproduce this uh pie cha I apologize it was a late a late catch uh this this afternoon when I was reviewing the slide and didn't have time to update it but I do want to also point out that on the education funding know that $118 million for those you're watching at home is not just the taunt Public Schools those are taunting students who attend Taunton High School or attend the taunt Public Schools taon students who attend Bristol Plymouth and taon students who attend Bristol agie and in total to educate every student who is housed in tarton it cost the city of tarton roughly $119 million as I mentioned are
119very very proud of our work and I don't think the school committee does a good enough job I maybe I don't do a good enough job of reminding the community that all these projects were funded without any impact on the on the taxpayer because these were all funded through our revolving accounts or through our through the ESS Grant so we did not have to go through any debt exclusions we did not have to utilize our appropriation we've been very very uh very wise with our dollars that once our revolving account gets up to a certain amount we put it back into our facilities and we've also created systems to maintain our facil facilities as demonstrated with the renovation of the track and renovation in the football field which was 14 years old so 7 I
120calculated about $17.5 million since I've been a superintendent that we put back into our facilities um very proud of the work we've done at the Martin school to uh reimagine their gym the Parker Middle School which had issues with water seeping through the floor has a brand new wood floor uh the manate health center I can't say enough about that do the Beford Public Schools is going to be visiting us in the near future because they want to replicate that model in their school system the work you've done to support the culinary art program uh wait till you check out Martin Middle School um nothing excites me more than when I drive through our schools after school on weekends and I see the public using our utilizing our facilities and when Martin school gets done
121you're going to see a lot of kids uh really enjoying a lot of time and families enjoying their time uh Martin School benett school this is probably the best kept secret in Taunton for anyone who's coaching a basketball team they have a new gym flaw so that is a a project that we underwent last year the turf field the track uh the work we're doing to enhance security the baseball field uh again it's it's an Elite field and I had the pleasure of walking the softball field yesterday when you get a chance to walk that softball field and see it's going to if you think the baseball field is something wait till you check out the softball field it is going to knock your socks off but again these are projects that we've been able
122to do without impacting services to our students because it doesn't impact our appropriation so you should you should be proud of that I know I am as a resident and as a superintendent and this work isn't easy uh we got a lot of great Partnerships I was very proud during our last professional day we had Regina Robinson Deputy superintendent over at desie a Deputy Commissioner sorry over at desie she she came in gave a keynote address and she was uh powerful inspiring um again what can I say we have a lot of great Partners it's a lot of time uh it's a lot of hours but I think in the end it's by having this network that we can lean on these thought partners that we can lean on that helps make us what what
123we are which I think is a very a very thriving and competitive On The Rise Urban school system if you have any questions please refer me to any slide I'll be happy to go back and answer them thank you superintendent very well presented I'll open up to the committee questions comments we will have many times to deliberate this at a budget Workshop but Mrs shs please thank you Dr B just just one quick question about to Hamilton Street so has that been um I know we're not doing anything for the next school year but obviously there are going to be repairs and stuff has that been put into this budget so when you when we go through our budget workshop and Mrs moan walked you through actually I need to give a shout out and
124credit to Mrs moan for her assistance and helping to develop the budget so I apologize but and I know she's watching at home so um but uh we did account for the utility costs okay all right so you'll see the utility costs captured in the line item budget and then we'll talk about how we anticipate funding some of the infrastructure needs at the building okay make those classrooms 21st century classrooms thank you thank you great question uh Miss Santos oh just really quick the about the student Opportunity Act do you say it's just one more year of funding for fiscal 27 that's going to be the last year that would be the last year correct and how much is that as far as the budget it depends again it percentage wise it's hard to um
125to break down into the numbers but if you allow me a couple weeks to do some number crunching I can give you a rough estimate of that $10 million how much can be attributed to the SOA okay okay thank you great Mr Vieira thank you superintendent cabal thank you Mr chairman page 22 utilities and contracted Services they they're in the red at n here did those costs go down utility costs well I'll um I'll defer to Mrs moam when we go through the budget Workshop you can explain in the line item why those why those numbers went down whether it was through reductions or whether it was through uh a lower Cola based on what our our feedback or our discussions with our utilities vendors understood and then I don't know if I missed it
126do do we still give uh per per pupil cost what we spend per student in comparison to other districts I didn't SL I didn't put that slide in here because it's kind of one of those uh slides that has a lot of information but I can't provide it at the budget Workshop uh we still tend to be one of the lowest when it comes to per pupil admin costs uh overall in the state but there are some lines where we have made some good Gaines okay and then slide 20 you did I just wanted the public to know that that was your favorite slide in case they wonder my favorite Mr enus is the least favorite thank you superintendent George Washington poor George anyone else well I just want to add that uh I'm very
127happy and excited that uh FY 26 is looking okay and it's all our work around the table here our school committee and a very capable superintendent uh as we always read in the news our communities to the west to the East and to the north uh seem to always hit the front page of the globe and the herald we're not there and I don't think we're ever going to be there thank you to your leadership your your skills and finance I think that goes a long way and I'm looking forward to more deliberations as far as when we meet as a group uh for the budget Workshop uh thank you so much superintendent and uh motion to refer the budget second work guess second all in favor I opposed I have it thank you thank
128you for your trust and support all righty moving on to administrative business uh to public school Staffing update see en closure any action uh comments across the room the only the only thing I'll state is just that we're are still at 99% Staffing despite losing another position at the high school thanks for being here motion to receive and place on file second second all in favor I I opposed eyes have it next up we have a communication from mayor ronell see enclosure I'll defer to secretary Fagan uh yes please well superintendent will summarize it oh no she has it she has it thank you EXC dear commission and board members I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your willingness to serve our community in various roles as appointed and elected officials
129public service is very rewarding and challenging at the same time those willing to give their time and effort and service to our community contribute to the overall success of our city each board and commission serves a specific and important purpose in the operation of city government our combined efforts ensure that residents and businesses have what they need to thrive in t while the majority of boards and commissions are well-run there have been several incidents during public meetings in which guests presenters and City staff have been treated with disdain and disrespect it is crucial that all board and commission members adhere to maintaining proper decorum and respectful dialogue assumptions inaccurate information personal attacks threats and personal bias must never be entertained as they deteriorate dialogue and hinder thought thoughtful fact-based decision making it is also important
130to keep comments and discussion within the scope of your respective roles the purpose of hearings and meetings is to gather information with which to make an informed decision while there will be different in opinions they must be conveyed in a respectful manner conducting meetings in a fair professional manner engenders trust in city government and demonstrates our commitment to the highest standards of behavior accountability and Service as we proudly serve the city of Taunton let us all set an example of professionalism in a dignified environment where people are welcomed listened to and treated with civility I appreciate your continu continued commitment to serving our community with integrity and respect sincerely Shauna mayor Shar conell wonderful thank you I I think that's uh information only um I'm happy to say that our board uh our commission our
131committee uh have respected one another and all the members that have come before us so I don't think that's directed at us but it's we serve on a committee um except when Mrs Fagan doesn't make make her Walnut squares we a little upset but that's behind closed doors thank you everyone uh next up we have the Reeds collaborative communication uh C enclosure informational only superintendent just receive and place onile motion to receive and place on all in favor I opposed eyes have it next up we have a couple field trip requests first is the DECA to Orlando um I've reviewed I don't see anything outstanding I did get a call from uh uh Jesse mcfa regarding uh an issue I don't know if we've resolved that issue um I'll I'll talk to superintendent offline so
132but anyway everything looks in order wishes of the committee I question yes Mr thank you Mr chairman is this a final review or is this one of the 60 or 90 days it's coming up okay April 25th all right motion to approve is presented all in favor I opposed eyes have it next up we have Martin NYC Museum C enclosure and on that one let's see uh that's uh May 10th of 2025 Martin School heading to New York City this is did you get the cover sheet on okay the field trip information sheet or a cover school nurse so this is a uh bus trip uh students will need uh money for food and souvenirs a day trip leaving at 5:45 a.m. returning back at 11:00 p.m. I'm sorry the full doc I I don't
133have the full I have just a just a field trip informational sheet so maybe we can put this on for uh April 16th so do you want that in the form of a motion Mr chairman please motion to refer mon n YC Museum trip to uh the next regular school committee meeting April 16th April 16th thank you uh second by Mrs shabs all favor I thank you next up we have the subcommittee reports first off we'll start with curriculum subcommittee chairman Santos and I am prepared thank you talk um so this meeting of the curriculum and instruction subcommittee met on March 17 2025 I was a call to order at 4 p.m. uh in attendance was the subcommittee members myself Christine and Donna shavs superintendent cabal Miss uh Mr Chris barata Dr John Harrison Miss
134Carol vau Dr Trisha Ma and Miss Caitlyn antrium the first order of business was to review the competent competency determination for the upcoming class of 2025 given that the mcast are no longer a graduation requirement Dr Harrison review the requirements which was based on Desi recommendations as well as his uh research his team has conducted on other Regional School Systems policies it is important to know that there was a collaboration through Regional School Systems through a urban Network survey per uh this was per superintendent cabal other St schools were more than um willing to share their own policy so that each system could learn from each other keeping all of our students on a Level Playing Field as a brief summary these CDs are as follows receiving a passing grade in English 10 engl grade
13510 English receive a passing grade in Algebra 1 in Geometry receive a passing grade in biology these will be in addition to the student meeting all other graduation requirements upon discussion there were only currently a handful of seniors that did not pass the mcast in which this will apply it is also important to note that these CD requirements would apply to any graduates from 2003 to 2024 the superintendent stated that information gathering on students impacted is already underway uh Dr Harrison made a recommendation for the subcommittee to accept the above criteria for the graduating class of 2025 a motion to approve was made by Donna shavs and was seconded by Mrs Fagan motion pass pass unanimous unanimously the second order of business was a review in of the addition of a World Language competent um
136competency requirement to the graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2029 this is recommended by both desie and mass core and is meant to represent a larger scope outside of the compet competency determinations this would require students to pass two of the same Lang language courses languages currently taught are Spanish Latin French and portug Portuguese there will be waivers available for students with special circumstances including any students that may have a language disability the reasons for the change are multiple but Dr Harrison highlighted two key points the importance of developing language diversity in order to participate in an increasingly globalized world as well as the role learning languages plays in the cognitive development of our students superintendent cabal also pointed out that it was important for him that THS students are not viewed as inferior
137and these graduation requirements are also implemented in some of the more Suburban higher income school systems currently 69% of THS students are currently meeting this graduation requirement Mrs shabs expressed concern as to as to how this would be accomplished without hiring any new faculty Dr Harrison explained that eth grade students will will now take an exploratory World Language rather than a specific language course so those teachers would then solely V focus on 9th to 12th grade students if enrollment increases this is something that would have to be reexamined Mrs sha was concerned about how this aligns with college requirements Dr Harrison says there is the possibility that students could be awarded the Seal of by literacy which means that they excelled in a given language there's also the question about what each college requires uh
138Dr Harrison requested that the subcommittee vote on accepting the following recommendations the motion was made to accept the proposals by Mrs shabs and seconded by Mrs Fagan the motion passed unanimously the third order of business was a review of a threeyear lab based science requirement to begin for the graduating class of 2030 Dr maada um clarified that currently all students are required to take three years of science so the only change is that these requirements stipulates that they must be lab based Dr ma noted the national Next Generation science standard advocates for Hands-On inquiry based learning which these lab based courses would provide Mrs Fagan was concerned about how often these Labs would occur for fear that instruction will be lost but Dr Mo assured her that while these Labs will be regular they do
139not diminish instruction in any way Miss bleno also mentioned that these requirements would increase rigor and expectations for our students superintendent uh the superintendent did point out that the high school students have done particularly well on the science mcast recently it is the second highest score at the high school um the final order of oh there was supposed there was another motion right Dr har requested that the subcommittee vote on accepting that following recommendation the motion was made to accept the proposals by Mrs shavs and seconded by Mrs Fagan the motion passed unanimously the final order of business was to receive an update on the arts department piloting of the new curriculum um which is what is the name of it sorry I have it yet the art of Education University uh unfortunately due to
140the networking issues Miss uh Atrium stated that they were not able to start the pilot program on time m Pata says the curriculum developers have been supported of this unforseen circumstance and they are willing to work with the school to adjust the timeline we had a brief review of the program but we have decided to meet as a subcommittee on April 29th to give the Departments act uh across the system to begin the pilot process we will meet with teachers at this time to discuss their experience we also agree that each of the subcommittee members will visit one school to see the teachers Implement these lessons in real time once all that is done the plan is to revisit the curriculum review Once the pilot is complete which is slated for sometime in May at
141this time we will have more to report to the school committee the meeting adjourned at 4457 thank you chairman sh any comments questions Santos Santos motion to accept the report and adopt the recommendations of the subcommittee all in favor opposed eyes have next up we have the cafeteria collective bargaining chairman be thank you Mr chairman the cafeteria Collective BN and subcommittee met on Thursday March 20th 2025 at 215 Harris Street committee is myself Miss Santos and Mr palowski superintendent cabal was present with members of the leadership team and negotiations are ongoing that concludes my report e thank you um wishes of the committee receive and place on file second by second second Mr lur all in favor I opposed I have it thank you next up we have custodians collective bargaining chairman psky uh thank
142you Dr Dello on Thursday March 20th 2025 the subcommittee for the collective bargaining with custo custodians 1144 convened and attendance was the committee subcommittee myself Mr Laura Mr Vieira uh as well uh we were attended with by attorney Justin Gomes John cabal Brandon Mahan Shannon Turner mayheim Ed Martins Peter Torino and Steve Green uh negotiations are ongoing thank you that concludes my report thank you wishes of the committee motion to accept the report second all in favor I opposeed eyes have it next up we have the tea collective bargaining uh chairman Fagan um the tea collective bargaining sub committee met on March 24th uh with myself Mr Vieira and Dr Dello you are I guess away with something so our uh negotiations are ongoing wonderful wish of the committee motion to to accept and to
143rece pleas second all in favor I opposed eyes have it next up we have the high school subcommittee chairman palski uh thank you Dro on uh March 25th 2025 the high school sub committee convened at 12:30 in the afternoon uh in attendance was the subcommittee Steven Vieira Christine Fagan and myself uh also with us was school Committee Member Don shavs and uh John cabal we received a presentation from uh ton High School principal Dr John Harrison uh the title of the presentation is creating a focused learning environment the case for a cell phone free taunt High School um I'm not going to read the entire presentation give you the highlights um so Taunton High School is committed to fostering a distraction free engaged and safe learning environment cell phones have increasingly become a barrier to
144academic success and student well-being this proposal outlines research based reasons and Community feedback supporting a cell phone free policy um the the presentation goes on to site you know data around the use of cell phone and the effect on students um additionally they um they reached out uh for for engagement so uh they had a uh student survey um which 1,180 1,187 students were s surveyed um only 35% of students feel the cell phones help them 41% of students indicate that the primary use of the phone was to contact their parents in the cases of emergencies and Transportation uh students acknowledge cell phone use can be distracted but value access for personal social reasons uh additionally 477 parents were surveyed um major concerns are um 47% of parents and caregivers would like the school to
145be cell phone free 40% do not support the cell phone free policy 133% are unsure um phones are a major distraction from learning with little educational value uh with 60 was reported by 67% of parents and caregivers that feel they are a distraction um 156 staff members were surveyed teachers report inconsistent application of present policies cell phone use is a constant classro management issue leading to loss instructional time most support schoolwide policies such as Yonder pouches to ease to ease enforcement um so taking all that into consideration this is the proposal that Dr har Harrison is putting forth uh ton High School proposal for a cell phone free school all students will secure phones in a Yonder pouch upon arrival phones will remain with the students but locked inside the pouch during during the school
146day phones may be accessed only when leaving campus or after school hours students who violate the policy face Progressive disciplinary consequences emergency communication will occur through the house office um okay again I'm not reading the whole presentation um implementation plan So the plan is as such March of 2025 presented the school committee which they've done through the high school subcommittee April 2025 the plan is to communicate with student staff families in a pre-launch campaign May 2025 would be meeting with Yonder to work out the logistics in details June 2025 Administration completes asynchronous Yonder training with imple with the implementation forum and schedule the initial implementation planning call with Yonder education program specialist um summer of 2025 Yonder will meet with the building leadership teams to discuss the details of the Implement implementation and shipment schedule
147shipments arrive parent Guardians letters sent home Yonder hosted staff P Yonder hosted staff professional development to discuss implementation plans and best practices with building staff um they've also included the draft um um updates to the Taunton High School handbook uh which will detail and control the policy um additionally within uh the presentation uh Dr Harrison pointed out that California Florida Indiana Louisiana Minnesota Ohio South Carolina and Virginia all have statewide cell phone bands within schools in January 2025 Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campell propose the safe technology use and distraction free educational youth act or the study act if enacted this legislation would mandate a bell-to-bell restriction on cell phones and other electronic devices during the school day um additionally Committee Member U Mr Viera presented uh exhibits for the record um attached to the to
148the report um of two examples of pending legislation uh so uh Dr Harrison is trying to get Taun in high school ahead of the curve anticipating that someday soon this might be um a legislated uh requirement um so after uh in uh additionally during the presentation um Dr Harrison uh provided an example of the Yonder pouch and how it worked and you know we plac cell phones in it locked it unlocked it Etc uh explaining how it would work um so concluding the presentation questions asked by committee members and answers uh John superintendent cabal uh recommended a proposed uh motion uh and the motion was to adopt the recommendations proposed by Dr Harrison um and uh to to make the updates to the uh taunt High School handbook regarding the uh cell phone free policies
149uh in addition uh adding the exhibits uh brought forth by uh Mr viira uh the motion was made by Mrs Fagan seconded by Mr Vieira uh vote was passed unanimously uh and that concludes my report thank you chairman wishes of the committee make a motion to adopt the approve and adopt the new cell phone policy for CH High School second on discussion so I had a chance to look through this presentation and I don't know how I can make an educated decision when you have sources that are blank so I don't know if I was missing something those are links they're links I didn't have the links I I was given this I don't have any Source information to all these articles what I did pull up however was a 50-page document that I shared
150with the superintendent today regarding smartphone policies in schools what does the evidence say and beyond that I have other evidence that goes on to say do Yonder pouches really work school districts love the phone prisons and I'll share the image with everybody here and it says students have already figured out how to get around them so there and I have multiple multiple articles uh peer-reviewed uh by very very uh credible sources and I think that uh it's premature to move in that direction because there's one other small item and I know our student representative wants to speak uh this cost $104,500 157 and I'm very concerned uh where that money is coming from so I I think that although the subcommittee we respect the motions and their intentions I think it's premature to adopt those
151recommendations today without giving it some time for us to continue to do some more research and especially when the presentation is made without sources I rely on sources very very heavily and I know a lot of the Educators here also do so um I'm going to let our student representative speak then I'll come back in just a second thank you student representative Isaiah Wendell thank you in my role as a student representative for um Taunton High School today I reviewed the proposal that was proposed by Dr Harrison um I reviewed it myself I all day today I workshopped this proposal I worked with other students staff members there was a lot of academic discourse over this presentation um the way I always respond best to things like that is forming out a draft of what
152I'd like to say about it so I have that and I'd like to read that to you um now please dear school committee members I stand here today as a representative of the student body to voice strong concerns about the proposed use of Yonder pouches for electronic devices at Taunton High School while the idea of cell phone a cell phone free school may seem productive in theory in reality it disregards the integral role that phones play in modern Student Life instead of fostering engagement this policy risks creating frustration resentment and unnecessary limitations let's start with the numbers our school has approximately 2,800 students if each student has two parents or Guardians that would be 500 5,600 parents to take to make this more realistic uh let's adjust that number to 4,000 yet despite the large
153community only 477 parents responded to the survey that's an extremely small fraction of the voices impacted by this decision of those 47% supported a cell phone free school 40% opposed it and 13 were unsure this data does not show an overwhelming consensus in favor of this policy furthermore I have spoken with many students and the majority of their parents weren't even aware that the survey was sent out additionally the students survey that was administered did not specifically in address the implemention of Yonder pouches it focused more broadly on cell phone use in school this raises serious concerns about the legitimacy of data being used to justify this policy other large districts may be implementing similar policies but how effective have they been have the downsides been considered is student engagement significantly improving or are students
154simply finding alternative ways to access their devices without clear answers to these questions moving forward with this decision seems premature another common argument for this policy is reducing cyber bullying and negative self-image but does cyber bullying only happen in school I ask if you ask students the majority of these issues occur outside of school hours making this policy ineffective in addressing the root problem problem Beyond concerns about fairness and enforcement we must address the serious logistical and safety concerns this policy presents parents rely on direct communication with their children in emergencies if a parent needs to reach their child immediately they should not have to call the school and wait to be connected likewise the students have a responsibility outside of school such as Jobs where timely communication is crucial if I as a student
155and a manager outside of school need from my manager perspective if I'm working in my checkout and I need to contact an employee based on we're cutting hours hey I can't let you come in today I have to be able to alert that employee with ample time to let them know that they're not coming in today so then that causes a concern of are we getting in contact with that student to let them know and then on the other hand now on the student if why was able to get that message to the student how would I do that CU they don't have phone access and two if they're not attending school like they're not attending work after school maybe there was a pre-adjusted ride or something to get there I think that comes into
156question too and then is house offices equipped to let all these students go to their offices and make these phone calls um then there's a matter of emergencies if the school were to go into a lock lock down students would not have access to their phones to contact their parents in such a dire situation would they be expected to leave their classrooms to use a phone in the main office that is a major concern that cannot be ignored the requirement for students to lock their phones away all day that all students are equally distracted by their devices and that all students are equally distracted by their devices is simply not the case many students use their phones responsibly for educational purposes research and communication with their families Chromebooks are not a sufficient alternative as they
157are often slow and in poor condition and then there's the enforcement the proposed punishment for violating the policy or not adhering I I apologize is a suspension hearing are we prepared to hold these potential potentially hundreds of students for these potentially hundreds of students are we willing to disturb their education over this if the goal is to create a Better Learning environment how does removing students from school accomplish that without the backing of parents without the known backing of community grader the Greater Community this policy will also be difficult to enforce for all these reasons I strongly urge you as a committee to reconsider implementing the Yonder pouches at the very least I ask you postpone your decision until more students and parents have a meaningful say we are the ones that are being most
158affected and our voices must be heard before moving forward with such a drastic change thank you thank you so very much very well stated and uh if uh we could submit that to uh the record so we can distribute that among the school committee I much appreciate that as I will also submit my documents so uh we have a motion on the floor uh I I mean I don't want to continue on but you know as our student representative just said it's a tool right uh a tool can be a good to can be a bad tool today I sat through a um a uh AI Summit at Bridgewater State University we had a couple Keynotes one being Brian Alexander a distinguished uh author and um from Georgetown who has done much research on AI
159and how the future what the future holds and one of them was uh mental health therapy robots an actual robot that someone can talk to and you know Cal to situation or lost a loved one and uh that will be very near in the future uh Mentor Bots like Bill n Mr science right what's his name Science Guy uh other uh generative AI uh as a co-pilot for generating texts images music all these things come into play so the next generation is here and I think think that uh the cell phones how sophisticated they are uh could serve a great great tool again uh our student representative said it best I think the sample size is so small uh not only from our students but from the parents at large I've been out in the
160community quite a bit just yesterday I was at the Prince Henry uh Man of the Year award or person of the year award I should say and two Folks at my table two parents at my table I just pulled them you know just saying hey what do you think oh absolutely not you know that's something that uh you know let's not police cell phones for example that's was one of the comments so I I think that uh if we could bring this back you know after we have an opportunity to you know perform some due diligence I'm not saying that the sources here are not legitimate but again I do my research based on the sources and hopefully we can bring this back at a later meeting uh before that Mr VI thank you Dr
161deal thank you Isaiah um we really appreciate you taking the time to thly review it and present your testimony a a lot of those questions were asked and we did receive intelligent aners Dr Harris did have a pretty extensive process that he went through to come up with this conclusion it wasn't entirely something that um not saying you're you're implying or anybody's implying he threw it together but it wasn't something he threw together he he went to other school facilities they had um groups they put together to to kind of analyze it as a whole so it was a process so maybe an appropriate thing to do would be to have Dr Harris come in and go over that with the whole committee if the whole committee is uh not comfortable I would say too
162in the past we have used technology for hall passes and it it didn't work they went back to paper hall passes with colors that way they could identify who was in what house and why they were there so we have tried using technology as a benefit and and it was found not to be beneficial you know those same things are some things are are Best Kept um simple I I too talked to a handful of parents and they must have been the opposite because they they were okay with it and I'm sure this is probably going to be one of those tough decisions where unfortunately half of the room's going to be against it and half of the room's going to be for and it's it's probably going to be a 5050 split so um
163it's it's not going to be easy decision to make and it certainly the intent is not to impede the student body or you know to uh take from anybody when I make a decision I always try to think the first thing and I I say it in all of our meetings what is going to directly affect in classroom learning that's my the number one thing I try to consider so I hope you can appreciate and uh respect that and based on what I heard it sounded like that it had a lot of great potential potential to help in classroom learning so thank you thank you Mr VI Mr Isaiah window so I just want to add on to that so I'd like to also commend Dr Harrison and his leadership's team for putting together this
164presentation I agree that cell phone use in Taunton High School is an issue and I think that this is possibly a solution but I don't I believe that there's not enough information to make that decision exactly correct my thought too thank you and I I think it I like I said I don't think it was represented well by parents the the group of parents 477 and then students of that 1,000 whatever odd number it was but that wasn't directly asked it was asked about the use of cell phones within the building I took the survey myself that's important so like I said I'm not in any way shape or form I don't want to um go against the leadership team or anything like that I just want to make that clear that although myself and
165other students don't agree with it there are benefits to it and whether this committee decides to implement it or not there will be both pros and cons to that as there is with any decision sure thank you very very proud of you for your work too isai I want you to know that you did an excellent job thank you Mrs shf thank you Dr Dello Isaiah excellent job I mean because you really went through each of the different areas and um I appreciate you taking the time and being a voice for the students that are there um I just want to address a few things first as a as a former teacher at Toton High School I can tell you that it's very difficult to be a teacher dealing with cell phones in the classroom
166they are a constant constant distraction and they're very difficult to police because they're they're hidden um kids have ear pods in their ears listening to things they're playing with it on their on their on their watches um and it does disrupt the classes now I'm not saying it happens in all of the classes with all of the teachers but it is a constant um Battle of teachers to try to get kids to pay attention because social media is more um entertaining to them than sometimes listening to a teacher in front of the classroom um your your concerns um about you know parents getting a hold of students is understandable because you're used to doing it through um you know through a cell phone um unfortunately we're going to have to go back to the old
167way of what it was when I went to Taunton High School what which is calling the main office but the amount of emergencies that happen are minimum in the building and um when you talk about a situation where um we would be under an emergency situation students wouldn't be able to call during emergency anyway if it was a major emergency they would black out cell phones so you wouldn't be able to call parents to keep everybody safe because they wouldn't want cell phones to be going off so a lot of these things we discussed it in that meeting as to um you know reasons why we shouldn't we shouldn't have them there and um but I appreciate your comments because I think that's important the last thing I'd like to say is the um sample
168size although it may appear small when you talk about how many parents there are Dr I mean Dr Dello has seen many of our surveys M Mr Cal can say we lots of times do not have a big sample size and so that is relatively large sometimes for what we've actually seen I mean I went to the meeting where we discussed um what to do with two Hamilton Street at Taunton High School and I think there was less than 20 parents there so we often times do not get a good representation so it may look small when you're looking at what the major sample size can be but often times parents or Guardians AR responding to these things but I appreciate you I do I did like the um comment that you said about work
169people trying to get ah hold of you because that would be an issue that would be something that we hadn't considered that if you have certain things in line how would they get a hold of you so you really did a thorough thorough job of looking at that so nice job thank you Mr Laura thank you could I hear from the superintendent in regards to this issue as to for the committee members speak first and then I'll be happy to add my two okay well that's my question okay Mr psky uh thank you Dr Melo so Isaiah excellent job and I really appreciate you advocating for the students um well done well well thought um you know full disclosure for years and years I've been adamantly against a cell phone ban because like Dr Dello
170says it's a tool it's a reality we have it we should teach kids how to use it in the classroom 21st century and all that however I'm not a teacher so in all those intervening years I've had countless conversations with teachers and administrators and principles and folks who work in the school and they're begging for a cell phone ban because it is a wild distraction in the class Isaiah you're 100% correct it's not all the kids that are abusing it most kids are probably following the rules and being respectful but you don't need a large percentage of kids abusing it to cause an actual distraction um and the the the take-home message what I wrote down in my notes what Dr Harrison said is I think this is the best thing for the kids mental
171health far too often I feel like we all sit around and we make these decisions and we're prioritizing adult problems over what's best for the kids um and I reject that every single time the adults in the building the adults here we're all paid for this it's our jobs the kids that are going there it's about their education that's all it's about so we're all going to have different opinions things are not easy there's pluses minuses pros and cons I always boil it down to what is actually the best things for the kids learning the purpose of the kids coming into school is to pay attention and learn and if there are impediments to their ability to be engaged that is what I see as a problem so I think Dr Harrison did a wonderful
172job putting this together I think a mistake that we made is we probably should have had Dr Harrison here with the entire school committee uh so to Isaiah's point I don't think we need to rush into this thing there is a timeline laid out um and we got to follow through with that because the intent is to implement this thing for next um next fall you know so in order order to do that you got to follow along with this stuff um but I I'm com I'm not opposed to allowing Dr Harrison to come here and speak more eloquently I I I try to do my best to represent his presentation but to Dr Dell's point you can't click on a link on a piece of paper um but he he did have a lot
173of data to back this up and and and another take-home point is this literally might be the law in a year or so and we might have to do this anyway so Dr Harrison wanted to be able to take control of this and do it in a certain way and he also acknowledges that there will be pitfalls and this will be this will be difficult you know uh he literally said he's like do I want to try to enforce 2800 kids bringing their devices putting them in pouches and cl clipping them and handling them he said absolutely not but he actually thinks that's what is the best thing for the kids health so me as a parent when I hear something like that that's enough to sway me but to be honest Isaiah almost enough
174to sway me back so um you know I I respect uh everybody's opinions here so um if I I'd certainly like to hear from superintendent cabraal on that I know we have a motion on on the floor seconded all that good stuff but I I I I want to make sure that decisions that we make everybody's had the full opportunity to to speak their mind H have their word and it feel a lot more comfortable with Dr Harrison actually did all the work and put all this together uh giving it to the full full committee for them to to to make their decision so thank you Mr bski Mrs Fagan secretary F I had no doubt in my mind that Isaiah was going to put together a great piece of literature here for us to
175listen to um you are one of the pride and joys of this school committee because you have been you come in for meetings you're well prepared you're well spoken and you have common sense and that's all the things I like about you and you do a nice job in Market Basket you know that's where he goes and that's where I see him but I understand where you're coming from and I think I told you that earlier I have a fear that's what what's going to happen is this could eventually end up in one of the higher courts and say do you have a right to to say those kids you can't have that I wonder if that's going to go that way because right now you know I I understand what everybody's saying there is
176a lot of disruption with that when I see those kids that that don't talk to anybody they're just looking at that phone all the time I feel bad about that because you do lose those interpersonal skills that you need to have but uh I I don't I agree with you Nate that I don't have to do this tonight and if it means something to have Dr Harrison come in I'm sure he would like to come in but I also want to know one thing about him too that man is a good man and he's truly concerned about the kids and I've heard more people say how much they really like him he's trying to do the best what he thinks is the best for kids so I can't fault him for that either but it
177does it makes it a tough decision to make but there you have it thank you secretary Fagan uh would the maker of the motion want to withdraw the motion you made the motion Mr shvs okay it would be a second on the withdrawal of the motion I think if she withdraw do we need a second kill I think you just with I think just withdraw it need to vote on it okay then we withdraw the motion uh so uh to come in on April 16th should it be May meeting can we do May 7th again do you want to do this separately I'd like to get the sources and all the information yeah so again would we want to do it with everything else or would we want to do it separately so the public
178can come in and oh it's a separate just a point of information May 7 going to be another budget presentation so I I mean first off we only have one one bid I mean there's there's three companies out there that sell these type of pouches we only have one one vendor Yonder at $104,000 I think we need to explore other options as far as price is concerned if we go that route okay so I think we need a little bit more time uh again May 7th I think it's is reasonable uh to allow our folks to research and of course so I can continue my research search also uh so I think if if so so maybe right now we just uh accept the report and then I don't know under new business or is
179there a date certain again I guess the question form of a motion Mr enus receive and place on file is there a second second all in favor I opposed I have it thank you and and Isaiah I just want to read something to you because you mentioned something about administrators and stuff like that but we we open up our school committee meetings with something very very important some people call it a prayer some people call it something else but we thank you for this opportunity to be of service to our community and to the young people entrusted to our care so we work for you okay we don't work for administration we don't work for anybody we work for the students never forget that so thank you so much for all your work next item
180on the uh agenda special program subcommittee uh chairman shops thank you Dr Deo the special program subcommittee met on Tuesday March 25th at 3:30 the meeting included myself Gil enus Louis Laura superintendent cabal and Cynthia Johnson our communication coordinator who is responsible facilitating information sharing the purpose of this meeting was to provide an update on the ongoing efforts to enhance the district's website making it more user friendly and Visually appealing please remember that this is a significant undertaking that relies on the contributions from multiple people as the information involved is constantly changing Miss Johnson presented the following information family Welcome Center website is completed the FY 26 budget resource um web page is in draft form parent Square feeds are integrated on district and individual School web pages student services web page is being reviewed
181to determine what should be included Food Service web page is frequently updated per state regulations human resource web page is up toate but it's acknowledged that it can be difficult to maneuver athletic web page is regularly updated by Adil texara individual School web pages are being managed by principles and assistant principles other web pages are in different stages of development all forms onlines are now dated and read with the school year on top to easily identify revised dates and School Employees email addresses are unified um the focus has been on updating web pages with higher traffic such as Food Services with lunch menus taught in public school resources that include school calendar and prek information they're streamlining information to remove old documents outdated information duplicate pages and redirecting similar information to the same web page
182they're converting all Word documents and PDFs to edible PDFs to allow users to directly add information to make it easier um easier to use they're adding the to Hamilton Page web page as information becomes available some challenges and some future considerations the contract for our web page expires in June 2026 over the next year they'll be looking at vendors for a new web page that better integrates our student information system our social media platform and parents Square to eliminate the inefficiency of entering the same information across multiple platforms and improve consistency of communication for students and parents we may consider expanding the communication Department to help strengthen our online presence and digital communication strengthening our online presence is C CR critical not only for promoting our initiatives and events but also for building a robust
183and positive image of taught in public schools within the community a well-crafted digital presence will Foster better connections encourage Community engagement and ultimately enhance the overall perception of our organization I'd like to formally acknowledge Miss Johnson for her contributions to this project despite her many responsibilities in overseeing District communic ations a role that requires considerable time and effort she has made significant progress on this demanding and everchanging project the special program subcommittee adjourned at 4:40 p.m. thank you chairman shops questions comments motion to accept the report second all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you again uh next up we have the committee of the whole school committee recognition night uh Dr Dello that's me so uh one of my favorite nights I think one all of our favorite nights of the year
184is uh one of the school Comm recognition nights uh we had a cafeteria full of people uh whether it was students faculty staff community members was a very very proud night and I'll just wrap it up with uh uh the hero um statement so we witnessed student Heroes faculty Heroes Heroes Community member Heroes and heroes that saved lives which was very very touching so thank you to all involved thank you to the folks that nominated the heroes of that night and I'm I'm sure there are many many more uh spread around the schools and our community that deserve that recognition and I'm sure in due time will also be recognized so thank you all for being there wishes of the committee motion to accept the report second all in favor I next up we have
185the elementary subcommittee chairman Laura uh the elementary subcommittee met this afternoon members present were myself as chairman and Mr palowski superintendent cabal and Mr Bara and with principal Jennifer Peters the meeting was called to order at 4:45 p.m. principal Peters presented her Improvement plan at the Joseph tamland elementary school for 2024 to 2027 highlighting the area of focus with the overall goal to achieve an 80% Proficiency in key academic areas improve student performance and enhance teacher impact uh of year one the foundation in capacity building with the academic goal goals to increase Proficiency in writing by 1 point in mcast to reduce students scoring two and three grade levels below on IR on math and Ela scores and to improve attendance and decrease chronic absenteeism along with teacher Improvement which includes training mentorship programs embedded
186coaching and quarterly reviews uh this included of course all continuous student engagement strategies on writing routines high order thinking student goal setting gamification and Tech integration which would introduce learning applications uh again to include parent and Community engagement via parent newsletters which would offer information on lit literacy strategies math problem solving and home support and continue to improve social emotional learning and attendance initiatives the second second year to continue implementation and scaling and again to continue improving the areas of academic goals teacher development student engagement strategy par parent and Community engagement seal and attendance initiatives uh year number three to uh Mastery in sustained growth to further develop targeted instruction for all students grade four students will complete a year-long real world problem solving project project including a celebration of success with a schoolwide recognition
187for student growth and academic excellence in a presentation principal Peters highlighted numerous bmarks to be achieved at each level with the main emphasis of an annual increase of improvement in the areas of academics teacher development student engagement parents and community and social emotional learning and of course attendance in initiatives she presented herself in on a plan in a very positive fashion with great enthusiasm detailing the plan utilizing a multitude of resources to ensure her goals and objectives are fully implemented and thus creating a more effective learning environment which will offer greater results to our students the meeting ended at 527 p.m. this concludes my report thank you wish of the committee motion to receive in place on file second all in favor I opposed eyes have it uh next item is finance and law uh
188Dr Dello uh the finance and law subcommittee met earlier this evening in attendance were Mr Vieira and Mrs shavs uh the warrant uh I'm sorry start out with the use of facility uh an attached memo just two items everything checked off as far as rental fees and uh the folks that were renting the facility uh that was uh received and place on file voted unanimously in favor and the second item on the agenda was bills payable for fy2 in the amount of $489,500 39 and that concludes my report motion to accept the report and adopt the recommendations of the finance and law subcommittee all in favor I opposed eyes have it next up we have new business Chamberlain solar array C enclosure if I may start um I I I brought this back to the
189committee because uh there's been some back and forth regarding the chamber and school project and what brought this to my attention was a a comment made by the consultant that uh there was supposed to be a battery based um backup I guess uh at at the rear of the school and I know we we talked about this in much deliberation because of the health and safety issues and we were assured that there was going to be protection and out of out of the site or accessibility to students and the community at large and it says here that uh the consultant states that the city and School District removed the battery from the project due to its additional $1.5 million price tag and because a short payback on investment was desired so I don't know did
190we have a vote on this I don't remember ever seeing this am I going scile or so Mr superintendent did you follow up on this with regards to the battery that was removed by the city and School District because we wanted to save $1.5 million and it was a shorter payback on investment the only information I received is that it was a decision made between the contractor the consultant and I believe the tmlp okay so it mentions the school district I think it involves a school district I think this is something that we voted on I know it was a very contentious evening that night it vote is slightly passed because of the the return on investment and the payback and so forth so I don't know why we're mentioned here so I don't know
191what we do next and I can speak on the part of the tmlp I am a commissioner that was never discussed with the tmlp I I know the removal of batteries but you know I thought the the risk outweighed the gains and I know those batteries if if you read up on them if there is a fire a hazardous situation there's reports where you know neighbors have to shelter in place because they they can't put them out they'll burn for days explode they had an explosion proof wall so removing them probably made the environment safer but we we never took an official vote to if I don't know if it's required or not so I I don't know what um well I I I think we uh you know car and custody of the buildings
192right I mean as far as uh the vote that we took the action that we took to actually allow the project to move forward but I'll let uh secretary Fagan well I'm I'm concerned about um we started out with 900 panels and then it went down to 570 cuz the tmlp it couldn't handle that load of excess energy return to the grid I don't remember that conversation either I think they kind of let us think that everything was all hunky dory when they came in that day no problem I mean that's the issue and I agree with Mr Vieira about the health and safety P you know piece of it but I mean you you can't state that you know the school district agreed to this I mean this this is an implication that I
193mean first off we we have a return on investment I think it's year 11 before we get some type of return on our investment over 20 years and then it was elevated to 30 years I don't remember discussion because I was so upset that night but anyway uh I mean what do we do I mean is that that fine I mean are we okay with that what's the new what's the new numbers we don't get any return at all is B basically what this is what's the return they can't send it back could I add some clarification potentially sure so the return on investment I believe is on the city side and our benefit was the reduction the in the electricity bill so I believe that savings on our electricity bill that we should recoup
194next year will be a reduction of $100,000 uh that would be cost avoided because of the solar panels and the city due to the financial commitment they had to put up front I believe their Break Even was I don't remember the years but whatever it states in that article so I just think you did a great job Dr dallo clarifying the record as far as um we were somewhat misquoted in in the article and that the city um this was the city project on our building that you all voted to allow the city to install these solar panels on the roof uh with the benefit coming back to us that our Chapter 70 doesn't go down no impact on indirect cost and net School spending uh they get the benefit through the re we get
195the $100,000 savings and I believe we picked up a million dollar roof so uh good job correcting the record and I think the public will appreciate that because I don't think there's any formal action required by the committee because you just directed The Record okay I I I think it would be in order that we get a a a report on the the electric electricity usage right of when does this take effect it started when was the kickoff I wasn't there as soon as we start getting some utility bills from the tmlp I'll be able to uh Mrs moan will be able Mo freus during finance and law we can put it as part of our um facilities report out to start seeing some of the benefits that have we're we starting to recoup the
196savings great I mean and I I appreciate the million dollar roof but you know if it's going to cost us 20 million to get a million dollar roof that's not good economic sense to me and uh but anyway Mr Reus please just record it costs the school department zero it costs the city so keep that in mind yeah but we're all part of the city I believe but sometimes yes Mr I I know tmlp is not zero so the reduction was probably and I'm guessing I'm not a s expert it's it's probably based on the usage at the school specifically so they probably where it's not going to go in the batteries because again they probably said well these AR probably not a good idea to put next to a school which is fine but
197I it it did I will say you know my my peers who supported it I do respect that vote and uh I will continue to respect that vote so um that's all I have to say absolutely great so no further action um next up we have the O open meeting law update informational only so I did send you an email this week uh I actually have the paperback up that there was a change to the open meeting was the governor has extended it through I believe March 28th 2027 was it March 28th 27 sorry 27 that's why she's in charge of communications did they want us to so now you have the paper now you have the paper backup think yes what do you want you have the backup open meeting law to June 30th
1982027 you're getting a copy everybody's getting a copy all right great so that's just informational are we supposed to sign this Mr no no signature required we need Walnut squares Mrs fan uh unfinished business action item update actually can I just one minute Mr chair I don't know if it's um actually an unfinished business or under new business um I had a few parents um uh approached me about the letter that went out regarding uh the Martin school extended day and if we could just refer the letter and discussion about the extended day programs for the whole um school system to long range planning I appreciate it absolutely so second on that that will be all in favor I opposed eyes have it would you like that appear on the April 16th meeting Mr Reus
199it doesn't I would defer it to go longrange plan yeah oh longrange plan okay so chairman Vier can schedule something pretty quick thank you get on top anything else anything else you want to add no uh unfinished business action item update see and closure any items to be removed not at this time great thank you uh press time uh we have press in the audience hi okay great thank you for being here okay great and now are we going into executive session tonight executive session okay executive uh executive session motion to go into executive session to discuss security pro protocols pursuant to exemption for general laws chapter 30A section 21 A4 and not reconvene an open session motion to go an executive session roll callot Mrs secretary F Mr enus yes Mrs shave yes Mr
200palowski yes Mrs fan votes yes Miss Santos yes Mr Vieira yes Mr Laura yes and Dr Dello yes thank you very much everybody we going into executive session have a good night