001Good evening. We'll call our uh budget and subcommittee meeting to order on tonight. We'll get the quarterly budget status report from Mr. Melany. And uh there's a request in there I believe for some moving some money around transfer officially, right? You have the floor, Mr. Melany. Hold on. Uh the uh ninemonth uh expenditure uh is before you the salary budget and the expense budget. Uh and we've uh projected out uh through the end of your mic Jimmy. Okay. And uh we've projected out uh uh the total salary cost uh going through the year. Uh currently we're looking at um uh the overall picture as a surplus on the salary side and an expense uh the deficit on the expense side and that's why we want to make some transfers. uh the academic classroom teachers. Uh
002we anticipate uh that we'll have about a $1.5 million surplus. Uh due principally to uh more breakage than we had uh originally buted for budgeted for as well as uh midyear breakage that we've had and a few positions that um hadn't been filled and we had long-term subs in them. Uh but they are all filled now if I believe. Uh academic programs, we're anticipating uh a surplus of uh $794,869. In academic support, uh the instructional line, we anticipate a surplus of $267, uh66 $666. Uh the majority of the rest of them are going to be in deficits. the clerical uh in deficit of uh4 $49,131. Uh the directors are in deficit of uh $51,818. Uh that's due principally to uh retirement and paying out the uh sick and vacation days. Um department heads uh a
003uh deficit of $15,624. uh principles. Uh again, this is a deficit 18,478 and there is for um paying out uh sick and retire uh excuse me, sick days for uh retiring principles, specifically assistant principles who retired. Um uh the AIDS line, we're anticipating a deficit of 653,000. Uh we've got a significant number of uh aids that were working out that were not budgeted. uh they're all uh basically special ed and uh on the plus side uh this is helping us to reduce the overall cost of the tuitions uh going out. Uh they're providing much neededed services for the students and preventing students from um being tuitioned out. Uh so overall we're looking at a $621,000 uh deficit uh $621,219 deficit in the academic support. Non-academic support um I'll just go briefly through these. The clerical
004a small deficit custodial we're anticipating a $52,000 deficit. Uh maintenance a small deficit security a small surplus. uh the attendance that's uh principally the bus attendance we're looking at uh $36,000 uh dollar surplus. Uh drivers we're anticipating a 300 uh $3,874 surplus. We're anticipating a larger one at the um December uh quarterly budget. Um and since then we've hired a significant number of drivers. Uh we're hoping to get them all um on the road and take back a lot of the outside uh vendors we're using for our special ed students. So that'll help out in the cost associated with special ed transportation. Um messengers a small surplus. uh part-time clerical behind professional uh there's a $287,570 uh deficit and those are uh for what we call the coders the uh uh certified occupational therapy assistants.
005Uh we've hired a number of them again to provide services to to keep our special ed uh tuition line down and to uh reduce agency costs for when we don't have uh staff that can do it. We have to go to an outside agency which is far more expensive than our own employees. Um overtime uh we anticipate $127,000 uh principally uh deficit principally uh for custodial. uh there's an awful lot of uh work that's being done in the buildings and it requires a custodian to uh be in over the weekends and at nights. Uh so it's um reason we're running a deficit in that line item. Uh and overall we anticipate um a deficit of non-academic support of 89,257. So there's a net uh surplus in salaries ofund1,611,249. Well, if anybody has any expenses questions
006on the salary side before we go to the expenses. Questions? Any of the members at this point? Okay. Um, so, uh, on the expense side, uh, we're basically three quarters through the year. Uh, we've put a freeze on, uh, expenses. Uh, right now, if a school needs anything, we'll obviously meet the needs that they have. uh we'll work with all of them to make sure that uh nobody is uh without any supplies or tests that they need, but uh currently uh we're anticipating um not a whole lot of expenditures uh to be coming out. So um we're looking at uh the largest or the two large items, tuitions. We're anticipating um a $12 million deficit. That's actually a $2.2 million deficit. Uh but we are expect we we're getting an additional $1 million in circuit
007breaker than we had budgeted for. Um so uh we'll need uh $1.2 million for the tuition line. Uh we're looking at uh savings from all our expenses. uh the translation services uh we're using a grant uh that we're uh be using to fund a significant portion of the translation services for the rest of the year. We feel that that'll be a available to us um uh for going after other expenses. The supplies as I said we've frozen. So we have an $170,932 surplus. Uh overall for the expense academic expenses, we're anticipating $826,000 deficit. For non-academic expenses, uh we're anticipating uh fortunately the heating season is coming to an end, although it's snapped back a couple of times this week. Uh we're anticipating a $484,000 surplus in natural gas. Uh repairs, a surplus of 42,787. uh
008the transportation. We're anticipating a deficit of 1,525,000 uh taking into account that we will have uh taking back some of the roots from outside vendors and then um basically uh all the other non-academic expenses freezing for a total of $784,682 in the non-academic expense deficit. Uh so a total expense deficit of 1,610,726. Um and we have a surplus of 1,611,249 which basically balances out uh the two. Um one of the items um that we do have uh we are uh the the textbook line uh we have a significant amount that's available in that line. Uh right now we're looking at airmarking that uh to some purchases Alexia uh specifically but in the worst case scenario that would be available to us to help with other expenses later on. So uh that's where the budget stands
009currently. Uh so what we're looking for is the authorization to to move monies into um the supply uh excuse me the tuitions and the transportation line items uh from the various line items uh before you any questions anybody got you Mr. Mayor, thank you, Jim. Um, so help me to understand on on the first page, you said that the the aids were basically to offset tuitions because they were in-house around special ed, but yet the special ed tuitions has a deficit of 1.2 million. Well, 2.2 million, but we've got circuit break. Um, well, I was u discussing this earlier with the mayor and he asked me to just get a little bit of information. I have it briefly. We're going to present it uh in greater detail uh during the budget meetings. Okay. Our our
010uh tuition line has not increased in the past four years. Uh fortunately now the number of students we have out uh remarkably has come down to the lowest it's been in in probably 10 years. Um special ed department has been working real hard to keep students in and uh the Christopharro Center has obviously been a big help. Um, so the aids are for the the Christopharro Center, excuse me. Are the aids for the the Christopher? A lot of them are for that. Yes. Okay. That they're spread through other special ed more than we anticipated when we did the um not too too many more, but uh there there are just the needs throughout the whole system because we have other special ed programs that aren't uh uh that's you know have the CARES classes elsewhere
011and but so has tuition costs just gone up? Uh yeah. So, um I just took a couple that uh over the from 21 to 24 I I took a sampling and we're going to have a more in-depth look at it. Um but the Beverly School for the Death has gone from $116,000 a year in 2021 to $156,000 a 34% increase over that time. Yeah. Uh the by county collaborative has gone from 130,000 to 185,000. I got you. which is a 42% increase. Y uh the Boston Hagashi school um has gone from 237,000 to 284,000. Yeah. Uh Judge Baker from 105 to 131,000. Uh Landmark has gone up uh from 58,000 to 92,000. Uh the May Institute's gone from 122 to 146,000. Uh the Perkins uh School for the Blind from 122 to 163. and uh
012the collaborative from 70,549 to 79,321. So even the collaboratives have gone up 12% uh where we've held our budget line at zero. So there's been some significant increase in um uh the tuitions. U we constantly getting um notices of reconstructive services from DZY about uh increases in the tuitions at these schools. So um it's be will will students that are going to any of these schools subsequently be managed through the the Chris Farough Center or will we still need to have those schools? Um a lot of maybe I can jump in on that one. I think we've talked about that before with Dr. credent um in that we feel the savings over time is going to be as kids come into our system and stay in our system rather than going out right or tuition
013because the the continuity is very important to these kids. So a change another transition wouldn't be a good Well, I Yeah, I know. I know. I know they're not. So, it's really going forward that we'll see the No, I I was just saying are do any of those schools have like a specialty that no matter what we're going to have to send? Yes, they do. And And so, do any not have a specialty, I guess, is the question that we would keep in house. I mean I of the of the five you mentioned I think um you know uh the Southshore collaborative would would still be using I think you'd be looking more towards like the May Institute or the Hagashi school. Yes. So the sorry Mr. Melanie is correct. The tuition costs in the
014out of district programs have skyrocketed. They've gone up um exponentially. I think I know Julie's going to be presenting on this I think at the um special education subcommittee as well, but we have about 157 156 students currently in out of district placements which is significantly less. I think about a year or maybe two years ago we were almost at 180 and I would absolutely attribute that to the opening of the to Christopharro Center. We probably had about 15 students we would have been looking at otherwise sending out just last year alone. Um you know but but it is it is definitely a program for a certain population of students. It's for students with autism. So we still have you know students with mental health issues. Um you know students with significant learning disabilities things
015like that that might need an alternative program other than what we can offer in in the district. Understood. I think we're very fortunate. We have a lot we have a wide range of programming and so as a result we really have not I don't I don't know if we've sent any kids out this year out of district. Um so we this actually has been a really good year for us. The problem is just that the cost of the tuitions has really increased exponentially. Got it. Thank you. Mr. Gro, one last question. And and could you just explain the transportation one again? Well, we um uh for this year uh as you know uh we had to u lease out our uh the big buses uh use a vendor for that. So that was a a
016large cost. Additionally, we have a large number of special ed uh students that require transportation that our drivers can't provide 100% for. Um we're looking at plans for next year. will be in the budget for perhaps you know getting some vans 7D vans as opposed to just buses. Um I think now with the new salary uh Quinsey is a very attractive place uh to work especially if we had more 7D drivers uh and that would be a significant savings taking these back from the outside vendors. Thank you. That's it Mrs. Pertios. Thank you. Um thank you Jim for this. Uh so are we going to be and my question my main question was uh the one Mr. I got your ass, but um are we for next year's budget going to be looking to increase
017that tuition line item so we're not in this position next year? Be our recommendation. Yes. Okay. So, all right. That's a good thing. And I do um look forward to hearing more about that detailed breakdown that you were talking about. So, that's great. Um couple question additional questions I had. Um, so for supplies, uh, on the second page here under, uh, expenses, it looks like we have 180,000, I'm sorry, $170,000, uh, surplus. Can you just describe what supplies that's referring to? Um, yes. Uh, there's a number of, uh, every school has its own supply line. Uh in addition to that, there is a um a systemwide supply line that typically what we do is we purchase the paper if we can. We purchase the paper at the end of this year so it's delivered and
018not doesn't come out of the budget. Uh which gives us a little cushion so about $70,000 of that is in their supplies. So we will not be doing that. We'll be using next year's budget to fund uh all the supply expenses for next year. Okay. Um, I'm just wondering instead of kind of reallocating that money, do are classroom teachers kind of allowed to dip into that? I mean, I know, you know, there's never enough classroom supplies that teachers are kind of buying on their own and asking parents to donate. Is that something that teachers could go into at all or? Uh, no, not really. We never we don't we give them uh every school gets an allocation based on its population. uh the principles will allocate it to the individual teachers who will then request
019what they purchase and the secretaries will put those requisitions in typically uh in the summer. Uh they'll load them into the system and then we will uh release them uh in the new fiscal year. Uh in addition to that uh there's the professional discretionary line. I don't know if you noticed that that's uh $450 uh allocated to each individual teacher uh to use for whatever educational purpose they decide. Uh, and it can be supplies in the classroom. It can be uh courses to maintain their license. Uh, and that's why that amount is expected to be fully expended. Okay. Yeah. I just I just asked because I know you only have to have one kid in the system to know how many how many requests of hey, we could always use, you know, Kleenex and wipes
020and um everything. And it's actually oftentimes in the uh the um school supply list going back to for the back to school list. So, I just didn't know if there was a way we could use some of that overage to help with any of that need. Um, maybe in in future budgets to come or something like that. Could, but I mean, right now, if if we were to use that money, we would be in a deficit uh overall, so we wouldn't be able to cover the other expenses, right? Gotcha. Um and my last question was um for the um you had mentioned on the uh transportation that we've hired some new people and you expect that that uh outside expense for transportation is going to come down. How significantly do you uh anticipate that's going
021to be impacted by the new hires that we have now for the current year? Uh not a huge amount. uh we will be pulling back uh from outside vendors for um uh the in in city transportation. Next year it'll be a significant savings because we won't be um uh using a vendor for the large school buses. Our plan right now is to to use our own drivers and um basically get up to the the number of drivers that we've had budgeted before. Uh and I think I think we'll have a very good chance of not even a good chance we will do that. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Anybody else? Mr. Begley question. Um, any moveins that have increased the uh tuitions? We got that. Yeah, we have we have had a
022few moveins. Yep. Significant amount or I I think all of the tuitions right now are pretty significant. Um, typically there's like an April 1 rule. So, if a student moves in um you know prior to um April 1st, then you know that that that district owns that student until the end of the school year. But if you know if they move in after April 1st, then we you know we end up having to pick up that tuition. Thank you. Uh just for purposes of the public, uh this is a large budget. This is something that happens every year towards the end of the year. Similar council remember on the city side we do year- end transfers you get surpluses in some areas deficits in others so this is not on typical so I know it'll
023be in a future meeting will act as a full body you don't need this tonight right James uh no okay thank you very much for the update thank you journ the budget and finance committee meeting thank Good evening. I'd like to call to order the um regular school committee meeting for April 9th, 2025. Um call to order, please. Uh superintendent Mr. President. Mr. Present North High School student. Stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Um we do not have any immemoriams tonight. So move on to open forum. Open forum portion of the meeting is an opportunity for community input regarding the Quinsey public schools. Community in
024this context is defined as a resident of the city of Quinsey, a non-resident parent of a student who attends the Quinsey public schools or a non-resident employee of the Quinsey public schools. After giving his or her name and address, each speaker may make a presentation of no more than three minutes to the school committee. An individual may not exchange their time or yield to others. Residents or non-comm community persons may submit written statements of up to 300 words to the school committee at QSC open forum at quinseyublicschools.com by 400 p.m. of the day prior to the posted school committee regular meeting. Written statements will be posted on the school committee section of the Quinsey public schools website by noon on the day of the posted school committee regular meeting. Is there anyone here tonight that'd
025like to speak for open forum? Oh, you know what? That that Yep. Hi. Hi. My name is Laura Moy. I live at 41 Silver Street. Uh I'm the parent of a Clifford Marshall graduate. She's here. I was given permission to point her out. Um she's now a ninth grader at Quinsey High. Uh my own daughters, I want to speak to the issue of fifth grade in elementary schools. Uh my own daughter's experience was that of going from Clifford to one year point to Central for the AP program. Uh while all of those were great, the transition was incredibly difficult for her. She was sent home in March of 2020 for COVID. So that meant a lot of remote schooling. And then in a period that was difficult and stressful and anxietyproucing having to meet a
026whole second staff and a whole different group of people. I also been given permission to share a story about a friend whose child was at Lincoln Hancock uh which who then went to point uh to Southwest in fifth grade of course. Uh she fell in with a tough crowd that bullied that had access to vapes. Uh she which ended in a suicide attempt. She has now been pulled out of Quinsey schools and is in a Catholic school. Fifth graders belong in elementary school. Let's put him back. A little more old school. Hi, my name is Alexis Ve. I live at 8:15 Southern Arty. I'm the parent of two QPS students, a junior at Quinsey High and an eighth grader at Central Middle School. However, both of my children attended fifth grade at Point Webster Middle
027School. While the majority of their peers were still enscconced in the gentle and supportive embrace of their elementary school, I want to be clear that I'm not here to denigrate any of the excellent work that's done by the administration, staff, and teachers at Point Webster or Southwest. My kids have attended both Point and Central. And what stands out across both middle schools is that middle schoolers will be middle schoolers no matter where they are. And that is the point. Only the fifth graders at Point and Southwest have to navigate the complication of sharing space and extracurriculars with kids who are significantly more physically and socially developed. In every other neighborhood school, fifth graders get to take their place as the eldest students in their building and spend that year developing confidence, leadership skills, and social
028skills that middle school demands. And I have heard all the reasons why these two specific neighborhoods have to send their kids to middle school early. There's housing density. There's demographic issues. And I was told all about how fifth graders follow an elementary school schedule and an elementary school curriculum. And that they're kept separate from grades six to eight. And that it's not sending fifth graders to middle school. It is housing fifth graders in a middle school building. And I'm here to tell you that that's not true. These fifth graders are middle schoolers. They see themselves as middle schoolers. They are treated as middle schoolers. and they act like middle schoolers with all of the questionable decision-making and impulsivity that that implies. They're in the yard with eighth graders between classes. They're sharing bathrooms. They're sharing
029the hallways between classes. They're at the dances together. They're at the school play together. They have to be. They have no alternative. The only alternative would be to have no clubs at all because they can't go back to their elementary school. They aren't students there either. Both my children were also in the AP program at Central starting in sixth grade and that was great. But as uh my predecessor just mentioned, it also meant they had to attend two new schools in the span of just two years. A difficult and overwhelming adjustment that the vast majority of their AP peers did not have to deal with. I've heard in previous meetings members of this body imply that not many parents actually care about this as an issue. And I assure you that just because you aren't
030hearing it doesn't mean they don't care. When I met other AP parents at Central, many of them didn't even know that Clifford Marshall and Lincoln Hancock end at fourth grade. And when I told them about that, the universal response was dismay for the kids and relief that it wasn't them. I think if you tried to make the new Squantum School K to4 or you told Beachwood or Marry Mount that their students were going to middle school in fifth grade, you would find out how much people in this town care about that. I think it would impact how they vote. There are new school buildings coming online, including the new St. Mary School. And I think you have an excellent opportunity to do the right thing for future fifth graders of Quinsey. You can restore equity
031to the educational experience of kids in Quinsey Point and West Quinsey. And you can give them back a year of childhood that's been stolen from a generation of kids who came before them. And I'm not asking you to do this because it benefits my family. That ship has sailed. I'm asking you to do it because it's the fair thing to do for our kids and it is the right thing to do for our city. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you members of the school committee for allowing me to speak. My name is Deborah Riley and I live at nine Langrain Street. I've been attending many committee, commission, and board meetings in recent months. Oo, sounds terrible. in an effort to be better be better informed and engaged citizen and to better understand how our local
032government operates. I have not attended a recent school committee meeting for a number of reasons. The most obvious is that this is an elected body rather than appointed. So, you've been chosen by the constituents to represent our interests. Another reason is that the meetings are live streamed and recorded for later viewing. Thank you to QAV for providing that invaluable service. Finally, I no longer have kids attending Quinsey public schools, so my interest is more as a taxpayer than a parent. However, I still pay attention. I pay attention to the business that comes before you and the decisions that are made here, including the three times that this board ignored the overwhelming public support to recognize Luna New Year on the school calendar. I come here before you tonight concerned that the agenda for tonight's meeting
033was not properly noticed to the public as required under the open state's open meeting laws. Seeing the council meeting scheduled on the city calendar, I looked yesterday for an agenda. There was none posted. I checked again earlier today and found none. The only way that I knew that this what was to be discussed here tonight was that one committee member, Courtney Pertios, posted it on her Facebook page. While some of you are announcing your re-election plans, the public is left to wonder exactly what you've done in the last four years. The state's open meeting laws exist for a reason, to promote openness and transparency in government. The notice must include all topics the chair can reasonably anticipate will be discussed and specific enough to inform the public of the topics on the agenda at least
03448 hours in advance. How can the public participate if they can't find out what is being discussed? How can we feel welcome to submit public comment when this body voted to reduce the time available from 5 minutes to three minutes and the deadline to submit a written statement as was previously announced in this meeting for the record is 4:00 on the day prior to the meeting. This is an evershrinking public forum. The responsibility does not fall on some behind-the-scenes IT person or clerical personnel. It should be as prominent and easy to find as entertainment and open space announcements. I ask you to postpone the business plan for this evening so the public can exercise their right to participate in an open and transparent process. Thank you. Is there anyone else? Hi, Mayor. Uh, Vice Chair
035Kho, fellow members of the SU committee, uh, Superintendent Movie, uh, I went on the walk this weekend. It was great. The turnout was amazing. Uh, we bumped into Principal Mitchell during the walk. She had over a dozen students at Southwest. I think the school bus was a great idea. It made it accessible for them. and then also bumped into principal Loftess at Peacefield. Uh flowers there were beautiful. It's great to see our school leaders out in amongst the community during non-school times. And then uh touching on last meeting's topic about Delza. So, as someone that's with children at um Lincoln Hancock, having and knowing that the space issues there making delices in the hallways, classes in nonsecured areas, and then we have a city building not being use where we could renovate and make that
036usable. So I would like the members here to have that discussion and then say I do. So on that and then also uh tomorrow linking Hancock we have our multicultural day. I'll invite you guys over. We have uh linking pride there. Thank you. Oh my name is Kai Kylie from 42 presidents. Thank you. Thank you. Well said. Thank you. Next, we'd like to go to the uh superintendence report. Great. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Hope everyone is doing well. Uh first item on the agenda is our MSBA school survey. The Massachusetts School Building Authority periodically collects data on the over 2,000 public school buildings throughout the state through their dennial school survey process. The first step in the process is a written survey approximately 150 questions for each of 18 Quinsey public school buildings which
037was substantially completed today. Squanum is not a part of the survey as it's um a proposed new building uh and is uh in the queue for replacement. Uh the second step is in-person visits at each building from the MSBA staff and an outside consulting firm which will happen over six days beginning tomorrow. These visits are largely focused on building mechanicals and the visitors will be accompanied by public building staff members. Of course, the public buildings department led by Paul Hines has been um excellent in this process and getting all of data that we need as well as Mrs. Owens uh coordinating all of those efforts. The school survey process is mandated by state regulation and the information gathered is used by the MSBA in evaluating statements of interest for future projects. Of course, as always,
038thanks to the MSBA for their support for the Squanum Elementary School project and the many other Quinsey public school projects. They have collaborated with us over the last 20 years. So, um obviously we'll update you as um the process moves forward and is completed. But again, special thanks to Paul Hines and the the public buildings department. Next is the high school athletics update following on following up on the athletic subcommittee from March 12th. Information about establishing a co-op high school ice hockey team and a short survey was shared with the parents and guardians of current players in grades 9 through 11 and Quinsey youth hockey players in grade grade 8 of the survey was shared with you. Out of 38 players surveyed, 28 families have responded positively supporting the co-op plan with 21 families or
039over 75% in favor. In addition, athletic director Kevin Mahoney notified me last week that due to the high interest in spring track for this season, Quinsey High School and North Quinsey High School will be split into individual teams. And this is a good example of the co-op process at work. When interest declined in this particular sport, the co-op team structure allowed students from both high schools the opportunity to complete com compete and be successful which led to increased interest and participation over time and of course the need to split the teams because they're too large. So back to a Quinsey North Quinsey High separate teams. Uh that is our hope with the hockey program uh moving forward. But I just wanted to update you on the survey and the response and um and uh the
040status of the hockey program. Mr. Superintendent, I I just have a question. Has is Mr. Mahoney going to put that request in? Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Could you let us know when it goes? Of course. Yeah. And we'll let you know the um decision as well of the uh MIA and the league. Thank you. Uh last Friday, students from both high schools were part of the 78th annual Massachusetts Student Government Day at the state house. High school seniors from all over the state participated in a legislative session in the roles of their city or town state delegation. Quinsey High School's Leila Belelfade filled the role of Speaker of the House, Ron Mariano. And of course, she did a great job. And Rob Embryce was representative Tachi Chan. Uh, North Quincsey High School's Amy
041Tan was Senator John Keenan and Lillian Kerry was a Senate alternative. The students debated Senate Bill 335, which is focused on ensuring distractionfree education for youth through the restricting of electronic devices in schools. Of course, the school committee is way ahead in that area. And of course, we look forward to the future careers of these outstanding students. Congratulations to them and thank uh and obviously thanks to them for their participation in this event. I have to say the state delegation was very impressed by how our students performed at the state house. So so that was great. Uh April as you know is autism acceptance month which celebrates and honors the experiences and identities of individuals emphasizing understanding inclusion and support moving beyond awareness towards meaningful acceptance. Autism Acceptance Month recognizes that autism is more than
042a diagnosis. It is a community and a lived experience that encompasses both challenges and triumphs. Throughout Autism Acceptance Month, Quinsey Public Schools will participate in awareness events and share educational resources that create pathways for neurodeiversity inclusion. And at your places, you'll see that there is a t-shirt for you from the Richard D. Christopher Learning Center. That is a small um thank you uh for this committee's uh dedication to our uh autism population here in the Quinsey public schools. Obviously, your support of the RD RDLC and the amazing things that happen at that school. Thank you, of course, to the assistant superintendent, Dr. Perkins and uh special education director Julie Graham and all of the staff and um uh students at LDLC for making that a reality. But again, it it is all because of your
043support that we're able to have such a great uh school and of course that is the best honor in my opinion with regard to autism acceptance month. So thank you for that and enjoy your t-shirts. Next, the Quinsey Public Schools high school robotics program, Team Hyper, recently competed at the first robotics competition at the University of Vermont. Team Hyper had a very successful showing as they competed in 12 qualif qualification matches and earned a spot in the playoffs, finishing an impressive sixth place out of 32 teams from across New England, which is amazing. Congratulations to the students from both high schools on the team along with the five alumni mentors who made the trip in support of the team. Our alumni mentorship in this particular program is really amazing. Uh it's a dedicated group of
044alumni who participated in robotics back in the day and continue to be uh a huge asset for us moving forward for our students maintaining those con connections and of course making sure the program is successful and our students are able to successfully compete and succeed. So thank you to them and of course all the staff who make that possible for our students. Quinnsey public schools um and City of Quinsey events. The historical walk, as was mentioned at the open forum, was held this past Saturday, April 5th. And although the weather was cloudy and chilly, the turnout was really outstanding with over a thousand students, parents, staff members, and administrators participating. Special thanks to executive director Keith Sagala, director Michael Morani, the principles, administrators, assistant principles, SLT, Quinsey public school staff members who are all involved
045in the planning of this wonderful event. I think our students and our families had an amazing time and certainly thanks to the city and the parks department and the um and the uh Adams uh historical sites for making that a reality for us as well. So, thank you all. It was a great day. Today was the annual Quinsey High School cultural fair where students shared their famil family's heritage through sharing food, music, and cultural dress. Thank you especially to Assistant Principal Ed Smith, the Quincsey High School staff and students for organizing this great event. Dr. Perkins and I had the opportunity to go there today to uh view the event and it was amazing. So many different uh cultures, so many different amazing foods. Um thank you again to all everyone who made that possible.
046Uh the spring concert season continues with the combined high school band concert which will be held on Thursday, April 10th at 6 p.m. at North Quinsey High School and the Combined High School solo and ensemble recital on May 7th at 6 p.m. at North Quinsey High School. A full schedule of spring concerts will be shared at an upcoming meeting. The Point Webster Middle School Drama Club is presenting Honk on Thursday, April 17th at 6 p.m. in the school's auditorium. A parent academy on developing math fluency for parents and guardians of students in grades three to five will be held on Tuesday, April 29th at 6 pm at the Clifford Marshall Elementary School. Uh the city of Quinsey's annual clean a greener event will be held on Saturday, May 3rd from 9:00 a.m. to noon at
047school and park sites throughout the city, followed by the mayor's appreciation cookout at Pageant Field at 12:30. Hope to see you there. And finally, there will be an English learner parent advisory council meeting on Thursday, May 8th on Zoom. We are looking forward to reviewing the new EL curriculum and sharing information about summer programs in uh Quinsey with families. So, with that, that concludes the superintendent report. There's a lot going on obviously in the city. Leo has I have a comment and a question. Um, I just want to go back to item D, autism acceptance month. Yes. Yes. And I want to say I don't know how many of you people saw what happened in Springfield to the ceremony. Uh $6 million is being clawed back from Springfield. and and I just want to thank
048the mayor and the team for making sure that center got built when the money was there and we were allowed to put a lot of the fund into that building and it was brilliant because some cities I mean it was more than a hundred million across the state but Springfield alone I think was 46 million it was 106 million across the state and unfortunately those cities and towns did not spend the asser money when they probably should have and even though they've contracted for it they're still losing it so I don't know what they're going to do glide back. I just wanted to say how forward thinking it was for us to get that done at that time even though it was a difficult time. And the other thing I want to say is the
049historical walk though I didn't do it. I was doing a different walk that day but uh my husband did it with one of my grandchildren and he said it could not have been better organized. Excellent. That's great. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you. I just wanted to also um just uh provide a comment on the Quinsey High Cultural Fair today. It was um I really enjoyed I know every school sort of does their multicultural uh celebrations differently. I know um during open forum we heard about Lincoln Hancock's coming up. Um and sometimes at night it's difficult for families to get there. But I think uh for Quincy High to do it like how they do it during the school day with every grade being able to come down and visit it. It just um
050I was there today. It was I was there last year. It's just it's so great. The kids are just genuinely happy to be there and be celebrating each other's cultures and just the food. They get so excited about the food. food. I got a uh my henna tattoo and uh it's just um it's really really great to see um students be able to take part in it and they don't have to stay after school to do that. So I think that that was a really great opportunity for them. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. Thank you. Lost my lost my concentration. Um okay, next we have old business which would be proposed CVTE regulation changes. Dr. Perkins and Mr. Sagala and Mr. Scala make their way up. You're already here. Um,
051as you were making your way up, we, as you know, we've prepared a letter for your consideration to be sent to uh many people, but including the um obviously the commissioner of education, the chair of the board of education, the governor, um the commissioner of DEZY, and many, many others. So, um, I'll hand the presentation over to Dr. Perkins and executive director Sagala to run through that with you, but I know you've all seen the letter at this point. I think it's a comprehensive letter. captures the concerns that not only this board has but many people have throughout the state. Uh and I think it's important to make sure that the um commissioner of education and the board of education know what the concerns are of this district as well as the districts across the
052state. So with that, I'll hand it over to Dr. Perkins. Thank you. Yep. So, I as the superintendent said, uh you have the letter um that uh Miss Owens very kindly edited for us and shared with you all. Um and so what we're just asking tonight is that um if you haven't read it, obviously that you take a minute to take to read it. We presented on the concerns last week and we would just ask um for your support and ultimately your signature. So, I know that Miss Owens has I think the original uh ready to be signed if you're comfortable to do so. Um and we just greatly greatly appreciate the school committee's support on what we feel is a is a significant issue and um could potentially not only have an impact on
053our programs but also CVTE programs statewide. And then we know many of you have contributed to this letter. So, we thank you very much for your contribution to this draft. Thank you. Um just a quick question. Um so when we got this email um emailed out to us um were there any changes made by my colleagues from the original form that we made or is this the same one? So the edits were made before it was sent out to us just so I know what I'm looking for to change this. The changes have been made. I think the changes were made. Yeah. Yeah. The changes are made. Okay. Y since the last meeting there were changes. We expanded some of the points based on suggestions that people made during the meeting. No, I meant when
054we got it emailed out to us today when it was Okay, that's what I the most recent one we were emailed. I just wanted to make sure there weren't any changes since then because on that email it said for anybody to message over any changes they wanted made. Just clarifying. Thank you. Thanks. Um my question would be, you know, we're going to send this letter. Is there any um physical personto person any kind of um meeting that we can go to to you know support this? There is a bill department of um board of education meeting coming up in May for a vote. There is this is due by the 18th. Yeah. Yes. Oh no. I want to sign this now. Yeah. But I'm I'm asking if there's a No. If there's a time for
055us that we can also go and kind of I really do if we could find out what that number is. Yeah, because I think we should I think we should all call. I think it's this is it's on the governor. There's a lot a lot of opposition to it. So, do you have any thoughts about um going in person to them meeting when they vote? Well, they do have the board of education does have like um I believe like what we have an open forum and you can go and you can speak, you know, in opposition. Um you know, I mean I would I think that's really your your call. I think um Miss Lebo is right. I think a phone call to the governor's office. I think this letter I I do think they're
056going to get flooded with uh concerns. I know that the vocational schools are asking they're they're you know robocalling parents. They're they're really trying to get people out there in opposition um of of these new changes. We have business pockets as well program advisory teams. Yes. Yeah. So if you want to just talk a little bit about that it's not just us. Um tomorrow morning we're mailing out um a letter that we drafted for the program advisory teams to sign and submit together as a team as well as the principles both high schools Quinsey North and myself another letter opposition. So um the program advisory teams m high school administration as supporting the opposition as well. Good. Anyone else? Okay. Do we need a motion? Do we need a motion? Yes. First motion, a second.
057I'll make a motion. That committee endorses it. Mr. Gutro second. All in favor? I sign. Thank you. Are we going to sign it tonight? Thank you for your support after the meeting. Okay. Thank you both. Thank you. In new business, um, we have the school nutrition program update with Mr. Defor and Miss Bryant. Oh, no. Good evening. Good evening. Well, thank you for having me again. Thank you for having me every year. It's always a pleasure to come here. Um my favorite topic is nutrition, so being able to share that as well as the work that we do in the cafeterias is is exciting for me. So, thank you. Um, the meal you have in front of you tonight is just some examples of some food that we provide the kids. I have a lot
058of food out there too at the end of end of the presentation. Thanks. Nice. Um, the meal you're going to sample tonight is an example of some of the stuff that we do create in our cafeterias. Um, I wanted to bring in all the cultural stuff that we do because we never try to stick to one type of food, one type of place. We really want all the kids in our cafeterias to experience something different. Um, so you're going to see some appetizers, you're going to see some main stuff, and you're going to see some dessert. So, I'll go through that. Um, to start, you are tasting a Bavarian pretzel with sweet and spicy mustard and an obata sauce. This is in honor of the mayor's heritage, so I thought that that would be something
059to add. Um, one of our head cooks at the North Quinsey High Elementary School side is Lebanese and she always makes the fat salad on our North Quincy High salad bar. So, it's it's a fan favorite. That's the salad you're trying um on your plate. And then we stuck with the basics on this one. Chicken tenders. The kids love it. Um, but how do you make chicken tenders a little bit more exciting and a little bit more diverse in culture? We have three different sauces in front of you. One is the Korean barbecue sauce. Thank you. One is uh the Japanese curry. Thank you so much. Japanese curry sauce and the other is a schwarma sauce. They're all labeled in front of you. Um a lot of different cultures do serve fried chicken. We do
060as well, but in this case it's baked and those sauces are for dipping to trying different cultural foods. And then lastly, um this Valentine's Day, we always do a love your heart option, meaning it's it's vegetarian. Um so taking care of your heart by eating something vegetarian. And that is our love your heart fruit and yogurt bowl with coconut and chickpea chocolate drizzle with a cinnamon maple flatbread. Um this is a vegetarian option as mentioned and it also utilizes beans and legumes which is part of our nutritional requirement that we have to serve every week. So, just to go over some of the stuff we do every year, and this is um something we're really proud of. We've been doing it for three years. It's our work with Project Bread. We received a grant fellowship
061through them, and that means we get two chefs in our kitchens a couple days a week for the last three years, so this is our third year. They offer some amazing benefits to us. They give us some recipe development, um help us be a little bit more creative in our kitchens. They give us some training on culinary um tips and tricks. We explore some plant-based options. Um they've built up our salad bars for us, giving some new fresh ideas on a daily basis. And we do a monthly virtual it's training. We have to do a professional development with our staff. So they get that training in for us and it helps uh we do some team building exercises with them and we do taste tests with the students. So it's been really great and we're
062hoping to get them maybe for one more year. So we'll see. So, one of the things I I realize I haven't really explained much since I've been here, but we've been doing it since before I started and continue to do it through my years here. Um, is the fresh fruit and vegetable program. It has now expanded as of last year. When I started, we were doing three schools. Now, we're doing all elementary schools. So, just to give you some information about the fresh fruit and veggie program, it's a federally funded program for elementary school age children where they can receive a fresh fruit or vegetable option as a snack during their school day. Um, it is fully funded by the government. We don't have to pay for these things. We do have to outsource them,
063find locally grown products, um, something that works with our community and and we get them out to our schools and we serve them. So, some of the things that we do, we've tried mango, pineapple, snow peas, broccoli, grapes, tomatoes. Um, next year we're going to try papaya. So, we're trying to give some new and fun ideas to the kids. The vegetables are not a hit, and we try very hard to get them excited about it, but we're leaning into some exotic fruits to make it a little bit more exciting. But the goal is to allow kids to try something maybe that they don't get at home. Um, and just expand their horizons on different fruits and vegetables. So, we continue to have dietetic interns. Um, it's a huge benefit for us. It's something that I
064did when I was a nutrition student. You have to do a full year internship before you even get to work in the field. And we have expanded the enticement, I guess you would say, to dieticians in the school nutrition world. A lot of times when you go to school, they're pushing you to go into hospitals to work in private practice. Um, community settings like Wick or the Greater FOS uh Greater Boston Food Bank, but when I did my rotation in food service, it kind of opened up this career that I didn't know I wanted or I didn't even know existed and it led me into this world. So, I love it. I get these new and excited interns and teach them how great this job is and how fun it can be and how they
065can use utilize all facets of their interests whether it's business or marketing and then of course the nutrition part. So we get some really great interns and they provide us with some new recipes. They give us some cutting edge nutrition information that they post on our social medias for us. um they give us extra hands in the kitchen which is always hugely helpful and they also provide innovative educational sessions for our children. So each year there's usually an assembly at an elementary school where one or two of um the nutrition interns will come and do a full assemblywide nutrition education program for the kids. So, we've talked a lot through the years about the regulations that school nutrition is required to follow in our meal patterns. But the one of the things that we haven't
066talked about yet is how we got here. What's the history behind school nutrition and and uh how have we fed these kids all through the history of our education system. So, prior to the Great Depression and World War I, meals were usually provided through the local school committee or food banks, state-to-state funded. And it was really just targeting those kids that looked like they needed food and feeding them because maybe those kids weren't walking home to their mom and dad's house and getting fed during the day and walking back. So, it was really just kind of a one-off program that each individual state was working towards. And then in June of 1946, President Truman signed the National School Lunch Act. Um, this was a huge benefit to families around this the country. But the biggest
067benefit that people may not realize is it was it was used for national security. They realized that when soldiers were being drafted into war, they weren't healthy enough to even fight. Um, and a lot of them were sent home. So, they thought, "We need to bulk up these kids. We need to get them healthy, and we need them eating during their school day so that they can they can get to the point where we can use them should we need to." It was also um a way to reduce hunger. That was the other benefit. And then lastly, it supported American agriculture. So farmers were benefiting from this program as well. Then in 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 and this included breakfast in the school day. So this was a
068huge move towards recognizing that a child's day needs to be filled with nutrition to learn. And he was the first president to connect learning with nutrition. and he was quoted as saying, "Good nutrition is essential to good learning." Then in the 70s, fast food entered the fold and crept into our cafeterias. McDonald's and Burger King were allowed to sell products in schools as federal regulations on nutrition standards reduced. And then in the 80s, um $1 billion of federal funds were cut from the National School Lunch Program and the breakfast program. And this is what the the famous phrase we've all heard, ketchup is now a vegetable. And that's when it was allowed. Yeah. And then in the 90s, uh, both packed lunches and lunches in our cafeterias were poor nutritional quality. This is the, you
069know, enters the trans fat era where food manufacturing companies were looking for cheap ways to keep food on, excuse me, stable longer on shelves. So that was the way to do it. You add trans fat, suddenly a one-mon stable cracker could be a six-month stable cracker. And no one was the wiser. We thought this is great. We'll we'll consume the trans fat. We learned more in the 2000s and as we did some actual studies on the children and the adults that have grown up through these years, we learned that um obesity rate had doubled in children from that decade prior and obesity rates excuse me, obesity related hospital stays were up by 24%. Then in 2010, the Healthy Hunger-Free Kid Act was enacted. This is when I was in nutrition school and kind of enticed
070me into this world. Um, it increased the amount of low-income children that directly qualified. So, we were capturing more kids that needed it. And there was a significant over overhaul of nutrition regulations in our meals. We also had the Let's Move campaign in 2010, which created a public awareness effort to improve health of children. And then, of course, we were all here in 2023. Massachusetts signed free males into law. So, that was a huge event for us last year. and uh Massachusetts was the eighth state to do so. The eighth and final. So, no more no more states have done it, but we still have those eight. And now we're here in 2025 looking towards 2026. And we don't know what the future holds, but we are happy to continue to do what we do.
071So, just to give you some benefits that have happened since we've been a free mail program. Um there's no overt identification at the register. Of course, we never did this to begin with, but there's always that conversation that could happen that the cashier can't control between two kids. Um, so no longer should a child feel uncomfortable going to the lunch line worried that people might know that they're the free student. Um, so that removes that stigma. It increased the um participation, which in turn increased revenue for our program. It allowed us to hire more. Um, and then there was no more unpaid meal debt. So there's no longer a national conversation about a child being scolded at the lunch line for having debt. We don't have to worry about that. And then from a parents
072perspective, there's money being saved, there's time being saved. Um it boosts revenue for your schools. It creates a cohesive environment for children to learn and it builds that community. So I thought I'd give you a chart of how the meals have increased through the years. Starting in 2015, between 2015 and 2019, we were steady around a similar amount of meals, both breakfast and lunch. And as you can see, our co years were a little bit crazy because we had low attendance due to CO. And then from 2021 up till now, we just keep going up. We think we can probably hit over a million meals uh for for lunch in this school year. Um and of course, our breakfast goes up as well. So people are utilizing this service uh whether they need whether they
073have food insecurity in their home or not, they're utilizing this service. So it's a really great thing. Um and we're finding that all of our schools we're just serving everyone and it's it's great and we've been able to hire more and we've been able to get a little bit more creative with the funding with the food that we supply. So again with the funding that we've received, we've bought some new equipment. We last year I told you we bought a food service truck. So that's up and running. Refrigerated food service truck. It's working well. This year we bought a van, a refrigerated van. This is to help with the increased fresh fruit and veggie program. So we have a separate driver who's been hired part-time to get the fresh fruit and vegetables in his van
074and just distribute it throughout the district. RDLC is food service kitchen, full service kitchen. Now, this isn't a part of our funding, but we are so psyched to be able to feed smaller children from a a kitchen that can do it all versus pulling it from North Quinsey. So, in that regard, we're able to create some fun menu items there. Instead of, you know, the mac and cheese coming from North Quincy High, they're they're making the mac and cheese there. It's fresher. The kids can smell it in the hallway. It's just a whole different experience. Fresher ingredients, and we're able to create more variety meals for everyone. Um, so it's not just one option, there's a couple options daily. And then we have better options for allergy meals. And then the exciting news I wanted
075to share with you, um, we're going to take some of the extra revenue that we've received through the free program and we're going to build a whole new kitchen at Lincoln Hancock and pull that from the satellite program at North Quinsey High. So that's about 400 to 450 meals a day that will no longer be satellited through the North Quinsey. It'll be cooked in the kitchens. Same thing, fresh ingredients, more options, more variety, more allergyfriendly things. And this is just the architectural design of how it's going to be. We're going to take the the closet storage space behind it, knock down that wall. We can build a whole new um walk-in refrigerator, a combination oven that both steams and bakes um food. We get a dishwasher, three base sink, tons of tables, refrigerator, uh warmers,
076milk coolers, registers, a whole serving line. It's going to be really great. So, we're hoping that's going to be completed by September. Um Superintendent Mulvy and Paul Hines have been instrumental in helping move this forward. So, I'm excited about it and I can't wait to to see what it looks like and get it going. So, I thought I'd share with you some fun pictures of things that we've done. We always try to create something fun. If it's a holiday um or if you know if salad bar options and uh salad bar meals that kids have created for St. Patrick's Day, we had a nice little u yogurt with some green sprinkles and an Oreo cookie. We've for um April Fool's Day, we try to do something a little bit corky. This year we did um
077meatball cupcakes with mashed potato frosting. Kind of get the kids giggling a little bit. Have a little fun with the holiday. We do a big spread for Lunar New Year's. Every day is a new different uh Asian-based meal. Whether it's barbecue chick, uh, barbecue Korean chicken or chicken cats, which North Quinzy High has created, um, we really get in there and try to figure out what are the kids eating at home, what's what are the cultural dishes that will excite them, what will they not expect us to be able to serve, and then we try to do it. Just some pictures of the team. Thought I'd share. And I just wanted to run down a list of some dishes that we've created this year that the kids really liked. Corn beef and cabbage sandwich for
078of course St. Patrick's Day. Chicken and veggie dumplings for Lunar New Year. Chicken tahini rice with the fat salad that you've tried. Um chicken katsu curry barbecue chicken or Korean barbecue chicken. Chicken or beef not so fried rice. Um adobo chicken from the Philippines. Schwarma chicken bonme sandwiches. Soy ginger glazed tofu. And then if you all are familiar with the viral Tik Tok trend of the one pot feta and tomato pasta that was big hit too. So we try to get some fun stuff in there and that is it. Thank you so much. It's great. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Any questions? Mrs. Partios, thank you so much for uh for the food first of all and for all the work you put into the program. I um I'm always impressed with the way
079you talk about it and you can tell you have just a love for this. Yeah. uh field and that you're definitely in the right leading the right uh department. So, and I also kind of share that um health kind of food healthy food background. So, I I appreciate that um bringing it to our kids in so many different ways. So, thank you for that. Um couple questions. Uh so, how how many of our schools are having fresh meals made there and how many of our schools are just reheating the ones that are coming that are packed at is it north? Yeah. Yeah. So um se the five middleles are they have their own kitchens so they're cooking the two high schools are cooking uh RDLC is cooking and then all the others so it's 10
08010 schools are getting the North Quinsey High satellite food. Okay great thank you I uh wasn't sure and you know this uh Lincoln Hancock remodel is definitely an attempt to start to whittle that down too. So is that the plan to sort of keep trying to funnel some uh money into renovating when you can when space provides? Um, I'd hope that my time here, my legacy would be that we could we can rid ourselves of the satellite program and get as many schools on this own kitchen process as we can bring us to the to the new age. That's awesome. Um, so thank you for that. Uh, how much of what you do is dependent on federal funding? Um I'm just sort of looking ahead and I'm sure you are too just being anxious about
081how many of these programs that you're able to offer now are we going to still be able to fund and carry through. So it is a it's a complicated question because the federal program C which is that uh there's the direct certification process of a of a person's financial status. So instead of us looking at a paper application where a mom and dad says I make this amount per week or this amount per month, I need free meals, we don't do that anymore. We do through a direct certification. So if mom or dad u apply for SNAP or need housing or on Medicaid, all these different services, they find themselves on a government database that we can then see and then we certify them as free or reduced based on that. And then if we
082have a certain amount of ident identified student percentage, it's an ISP, then we um we can say we're X percentage C. And then the government looks at our percentage and says, "Okay, you qualify to call that school a C school." Well, in Quinsey, we're all C, but that's because during COVID, they went from 40% to 25. So, we fit C everywhere. And if you're a C, you get your money from the federal government. Um, what chatter I've heard out there, and I don't know if this is going to happen or what's going to happen, is they might higher that threshold. Um, which means that then we wouldn't fall in a C at some of those schools, and then we'd get our money through the state government. And if the state government can still do it
083with all these schools because we have the millionaires tax that covers this, um, then we'll continue as we do. But if the state of Massachusetts says we're pinched, we don't have enough funds in the millionaires tax to keep this free meal program in Massachusetts, then we could go back. So those are just a lot of things. Um the fresh fruit and veggie program is federal. So that could change based on the percentage of students in that school. All they could do is maybe higher the threshold and then we might not fit. And then they pull back some of these programs. If we go back to free paid and reduce, then we kids pay or they don't pay. We're back to where we were pre-COVID. um that does reduce our funds. It also reduces how much
084we serve. So, it does kind of potentially balance out. Um but we'll see. We just don't know. Yeah. Thank you for your thoughts on that. I know how important these programs are to our kids. So, I hope I hope nothing changes. I hope the state's able to cover any gaps if anything happens. But, um thank you for opining on how that might work. Um are we uh so I remember last year when you were in I had asked you about so now that or now for now we're doing where we all have um free lunch that was has there is there still continued communication going out to families about how to get back any money that was previously on their my school bucks accounts. Yeah, we commun after we spoke I um put out communication
085to principles about that. Um, you know, we can always do that annually to make sure parents know, but we don't get too many questions about that. We get maybe one a month and we send our the money right back. They they come to us, we have them fill out a form um and then within a month they get a check mailed to their home. Yeah, that would be great if we could just kind of keep that going. Just I know um at some point it's going to be, you know, if the free meals continue, we're going to eventually get to the point where people haven't put the money on there at first, but we still have those families that may not know. And as the cost of everything is going up, that little bit might
086help. Um, so if we just kind of maybe did another push on that, that would be great. And then my last question was um uh protein uh as kind of the world more and more you know as we evolve you kind of described the evolution of how how society has seen health and and healthy foods and everything now is a little bit more focused on protein and um do we are you trying to get more protein in in different ways or is that something that you guys are focusing on or thinking about or Well that's it's challenging because we have a protein requ we have a meat meat alternate requirement um for each age group. And if you go over it, you could go over the calories, you can go over the sodium. So, you
087do have to keep it within that. Um being a dietician, the nutrition regulations are awesome, but there are flaws. And I think that it needs to be constantly evaluated and checked because we learn more about nutrition and what we need. Um you know, some of the things on a completely different topic is beans, legumes. We know they're healthy. We know what we want kids to eat them. They don't and then they're wasted, but we have to serve them. So there's I think the conversation of of nutrition and I'm on a call with the department of ed nutrition department monthly and we talk about these things um but ultimately those do come down from the federal government and um and so yeah they would have to make that decision so that we can increase our calories
088because proteins can increase our calories. Um we still have to count the milk and the calories but children may not drink milk or they they may have an intolerance to milk. we don't get to have other alternatives outside of soy milk where you know kids like other things or they might have a soy allergy. So there's really there's challenges to each individual children's needs and the nutrition regulations are very blanketed to pick like the most you know normal nout no allergies no other health issues child and it doesn't always work that way. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. It's challenging. Well, thank you appreciate your questions. Thank you very much Mrs. Huber. Thank you for the present. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you for the presentation and the food. It was very good. Thank you. Um, so around milk, that
089was my question. Um, I had been reading something the other day that was saying that there was potential that we could go back to whole milk or offering whole milk. Is that was that like speculation or rumor or is that actually going to happen or I mean, anything could happen, but um I don't I don't see that right now. Um, we are still as of now required to serve skim milk if it's flavored chocolate or um 1% if it's regular milk, but you can also do the skim skim milk um regular milk too. That's what we're required to do. So, we'll see. Okay. And we are still doing the chocolate milk with no problems. We are doing the chocolate milk unless I'm told otherwise. I will keep it in there. Yes. I was going to
090say way back when all the changes happened, I think that was one of the most calls I got was people were very concerned that the chocolate milk was going to go away. And I'm very glad that over the years it hasn't gone anywhere. I think they've done studies. I know in Providence they removed chocolate milk in the in the um the city of Providence and they found that it didn't make kids go, "Okay, I'll just have regular milk." They just didn't drink the milk. Exactly. And then they lost all that vitamin D and calcium in their diet. So yeah, we'll keep the chocolate milk. Thank you very much, Mr. That's true. Thank you. Um, thank you Sarah. Thank you for the food. I I tried everything. It was exceptional. You continue to innovate. Every year
091you innovate. The um barbarian mustard has a real kick to it. That was special for you. Yeah, it was for the mayor. That's quite a quite a kick. Yeah, in the mustard. Um, I I too had questions about the federal funding and the and I know it's Marky in wherever you are, whether it's education or anywhere else in in federal government, but I also know that there's kind of a sea change at the federal level around regulations. And I didn't know if you were aware of any any regulations that were pending that are now frozen or or if there's talk in your world about any regulations regulatory changes that might impact nutrition in in the school lunch program. Yeah, they're they're can thinking about or they're most likely will freeze and I forget the exact
092name of it. It's like the Northeast um grant funding and it's it's basically around local locally purchased food. get a little extra money back if we buy locally. They've u frozen that and they don't know if they're going to continue. We were able to sign something through the the portal, the Department of Ed portal to say we want it, but we're just waiting to figure out what that is. So, at the moment, it's just freezing funding that's not changing regulations, right? No regulations. Yeah. I think that's what's potentially going to happen first maybe is the freezing of funding. I know the fresh fruit and veggie program could be on the chopping block. That's always just kind of an add-on for districts and it's it's a fairly new program. So, uh that I mean we've come
093such a long way since trans fat, you know, I mean and the obesity rates, you know, continue to be pressing and we're in a good place. I think we are in a good place. Hopefully we don't roll back. So, thank you. You're welcome. Mrs. Leo. Yeah. I just uh thank you for the food and thank you for the presentation. Mrs. Mrs. Hubley and I had the chance to visit the kitchens and the lunches at North Quinsey High School and Quinsey High School and it was amazing to see. Um we were there during the week of Luna New Year and the kids absolutely love the food that they were serving that day. Yeah. So it was it was you can see the cultural um the cultural implications. It was great to see and um I know
094that there's some some snags at North Quincy High School because there are so many kids buying lunch and it's not going to be an easy fix that I could see. Yeah. So sometimes they can't get because you're so good, they can't get through the line fast enough because they want so many kids want to buy that food. So um I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about it. It's a problem. But maybe in your tenure you can think of some magic thing. We were trying to rearrange the whole space for you, but it wasn't wor. Yeah, it needs Yeah, I have ideas, but it'll take a while. Take a while. We know you're on it, too. So, uh, but it was really, it was just a great experience to spend that time in
095the cafeteria at both schools. The workers were amazing. Yes, they're a good team. So, thank you. You're welcome. Girls, do you want to add anything to the conversation since you are the Since you are the customers? I'm sorry I forgot about you over there, but I'm glad you got to have the food. I was just that was I really appreciated that. Yeah. I was just curious like is there I know it might be difficult. Is there like a way to get like vegetarian or vegan options? I know some What school are you're at Quincy High School? Um we do veggie patties and onion rings. that's on the April menu. Um, we also do vegetarian nuggets. We try to find some fun sauces with that. There's a kicking chicken sauce, but it's not chicken. Um, and
096we also have the salad bars. And, um, we do the the yogurts and the cold options, too. What kind of vegetarian options do you wish to see more of? Um, so personally, me and my friends also like we don't eat like meat, fish or eggs. So I guess beans. Mhm. Okay. We always have beans. If you have any recipes where that you like for beans, anything exciting, we're always looking for new things and we're really trying to innovate with beans. We do get um these chickpea ranch crunchers. They're like dried uh chickpea ranch crunchers. I don't know if you've had them. They're pretty good and they're a good source of protein on there, too. Um so we really try to kind of I get that question a lot. So, we try to do these different
097things. So, if you have any specifics, we'll do it. We'll try it. We'll we'll give it a whirl. Especially on the salad bar. We really try to do fun stuff on that. So, I'm just curious. We should. We should definitely. Yeah, that's something we'll work on for next year. You're welcome. I'm gonna go on that day. Let me know when it is. I just Yes, it is. So, the chicken that you've had, we use that. Well, we use it for so many different products, but we've made um chicken katsu curry with it and we're going to put that again on the menu in May. Um we use the fat salad on the salad bar. Um the um the pretzels are something new we wanted to try out, so we're going to get that. They're freshlymade
098pretzels, so we're going to get that on the menu. And the little desserts is something that we do offer as a special every once in a while. So, yes. Yes. Yep. I also have um the recipes too which I can I leave here before I leave something if you want to try at home. You're welcome. Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you. I just want to thank Sarah and her team and of course Lori Bryan who works closely with you. Sarah. Sarah, since you got here, your goal has been to make our food here in the Quinsey public schools not only more nutritious, but also more delicious and as fresh as possible. And that you've made so many um so many strides towards making that a reality, not only just in each and every school, but also
099where the food is made in the packing room. So people may think that it's just food uh carelessly packed up and sent to us. No, it's not. It's it's made with the freshest ingredients. It's made by a caring team at North Quinsey High School. It's packed in the best packing materials. It is stored in the best way and shipped as fresh as possible to all of our schools. So, I just want to make sure that's clear. But the other thing I want to talk about too is just the innovation of the uh facilities that has been happening school by school to the best of your ability. So, the first one, of course, we saw that at the RDLC. Initially, the RDLC would have been a school that received the um the packed lunches. Um but
100through your leadership and the support of the mayor and this committee, we were able to put together a fullervice kitchen um top-notch um at the RDLC. And I have to say when the parents visit and they look at the kitchen as well as the entire program of course, but when they see the kitchen and they see that we can make food that's really tailored to our students who may have soft pallet needs, uh who may have other nutritional needs, allergy needs, and you can accommodate all of that. It's just a huge selling point for our families at the RDLC. And I think that um your work has helped contribute to keeping our students here in Quinsey. And um it's just another component to the a big component of uh all the work that our staff
101does at the RDLC and our SLT here to make sure that um that school is most welcoming to our students and and providing them the best nutrition and care as possible. The second project that I'm super excited about is of course the Lincoln Hancock project. And as you mentioned, we're trying to expand full service kitchen to all of our schools to the best of our ability. Some schools are easier to do than others. Certainly Lincoln Hancock um because of the work and support of uh the public buildings and support of the mayor and this committee, we're able to identify Lincoln Hancock as a facility where that could be possible. And of course, thanks to Mr. Melany and Paul Hines and yourself and Dr. Perkins for crunching the numbers, but without the work of the public
102buildings department who's doing a large amount of that work, we would never be able to afford it. So, the in-house work that the public maintenance department is doing to make that a reality is really key for making all of these um expansions possible. Yeah. So, hopefully this is just one of many to come, but we're super excited about Lincoln Hancock and how that um will um help improve uh food service and nutrition there. But in summary, just thank you for your work. Um, all of these initiatives are spearheaded by you and and we of course are here to support you in the initiative to make our food here in Quinsey the best possible for our kids. So, thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you very much. I I just have one question. Sure. Pizza.
103Pizza. Do we have pizza still? We do have pizza. Okay. We have it Monday, Wednesday, Friday at the high school. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The kids once a week. The little ones. Yes. Good. Thank you. Whole grain. There you go. Thank you. Go try it. Yes. Thank you. Thanks, Sarah. Next on the agenda, we have school choice participation. Um, a roll call vote is needed. Superintendent. Good evening again, everyone. So before you is um my recommendation uh that the Quinsey School Committee withdraw from enrolling non-resident students in the Quinsey public schools for the 2025 2026 academic year for the following reasons. The level of current and projected enrollments at all elementary, middle, and high schools and adherence to the Quinsey school committee policy on class sizes. For that reason, I would ask for the school
104committee vote uh to um to withdraw from enrolling in the non um to withdraw from enrolling non-residents into the school system. Mrs. Lebo like to make a motion that we do not participate in school choice and we withdraw from that. Motion by Mrs. Lebo, second by Mrs. Hubley. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Bealie, yes. Mrs. Cahill, yes. Mr. Gatro, yes. Mrs. Hubley, yes. Mrs. Lebo, Mrs. Perios, yes. And Mayor Ko, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda, we have the consent agenda, which we'll need a roll call vote as well. Um, do we have a motion on the vote? Just on the that motion on this consent agenda, there is student out of state travel that needs to be withdrawn as it's not ready yet for your consideration. And that would be the
105North Quincy High School um to Quiz Bowl Nationals in Washington DC. We'll put that on the next agenda for your consideration. Okay. But otherwise, the consent agenda can remain unchanged. Motion to approve. Second. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Begley, yes. Mrs. Cahill, yes. Mr. Gro, Mrs. Hubley, yes. Mrs. Lebo, yes. Mrs. Pertios, yes. And Mayor Coke, yes. Thank you. Okay. I know that's next year. Um, so before we go to that, I don't know if if this would be an appropriate place, but can um can we have some clarification on the posting of the um meeting agenda, please? Uh, yes. Would you like to address it, Mrs.? Sure. Yes. Um the meeting agenda was posted with the city clerk's office um on Monday afternoon as it always is and it was posted on the Quincy
106public uh schools website as well on the page where is the list of dates. It did appear at the bottom of the page, not at the top where it usually is. It was there. It wasn't easy to find. I did fix that when I was notified that Mrs. Riley had um told Mrs. Pertio it was a problem. So, it did pop up to the top of the page, but it was there posted. Yeah. And it was posted at the city as well. At the city as well. Yes. The only requirement is that it be posted at the city. Anything beyond that is just to assist and and extra. So, we definitely we uh certainly met the requirements of the open meeting law. Thank you. Um, next on the agenda, we have communications. Upcoming school committee
107meetings will be at 6:30 PM May 7th and May 21st and June 11th. Um, subcommittee meetings begin at 6 PM. April 30th for special education, joint teaching and learning and policy. May 14th, 2025 will be a tentative meeting for the F2026 budget and finance facilities security and transportation. The next tentative meeting will be May 28th. Um FYI 2026 budget and finance teaching and learning meetings. Madam Chair, yes. If I can add to that, uh May 6th, I'll be presenting the city budget to the city council. Uh which means May uh I'm sorry, May 5th and then May 7th, the school committee meeting. I'll just give a quick overview. That'll be on the on the agenda for May and then of course we'll start our regular process. Okay. Thank you. Um, reports of subcommittees are none.
108And at this time, um, we will go into executive session. Do we have a motion to to go into executive session? We will not be returning. And we will not be returning. So moved. Motion by Mrs. Lebo, second by Mr. Begali. Um, a roll call vote. Mr. Begley. Yes. Mrs. Cahill. Yes. Mr. Gatro. Yes. Mrs. Hubley. Yes. Mrs. Lebo. Yes. Mr. Mayo. Yes. Thank you everybody. Thank you everyone. Good night.