School Committee Meeting 04/28/26

001This is Nashoba Valley Regional Technical School District School Committee meeting of April 28th, 2026. Everyone Oh, I'm sorry. Most of the members are here except for one. And let's start off with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. So, 7:02 we'll open open the public hearing on the 2026-2027 school choice. I'll make a motion to open the public hearing for the 2026-2027 school choice participation. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? See none. It's voted. Okay. Is anybody here? I don't see anybody listening. Do you want me to read the memo or do you want to wait until after we close it? Um Does anybody else

002have questions on this? All right. So, can I get a motion to close? I'll make a motion to close the public hearing. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous vote. So, um just to dis- This was in everybody's packet, but just so you know, and this is an annual thing that we have to do. Um May 23rd reform act requires um districts to accept non-resident students through school choice unless the committee votes before June 1st after public hearing uh not to participate. Um and then we have to we You to send the vote information off the committee and then afterwards um my recommendation is to decline school choice participation for 2026-2027 um because it would eliminate occupational technical admissions preferences for our district students. Enrollment projections show all seats would be filled by our

003in-district students and school choice reimbursement is lower than the tuition rate paid by the district towns of Shawsheen Tech. Okay. Okay, do you have any questions? I have motion. Madam Chair, uh the recommended motion I make a motion to accept Mr. McIntosh's recommendation that Shawsheen Valley Technical High School not be a receiving district for the 2026-2027 school year for the following reasons: choice would eliminate occupational technical preferences for district students. Enrollment projections for the 2026-2027 school year projections show all seats will be filled by in-district students and maximum payment under school choice is less than the district towns pay to send a student to Shawsheen Tech. I'll second. And I see opposed and abstained. Any other comment? It's to do the reorganization. Oh, and I knew that was coming next actually. I knew that was

004supposed to be next. So at this point in time I will I will take over as chair pro tem for the sole purpose of reorganization of the school committee. Just as a reminder to people, all votes for positions uh leadership positions of the school committee must be done as a roll call vote. So as people are nominated and accept nominations, we will have to do a roll call vote for each role. Um once the new chair is elected, again I will step back and I will let the new chair take care of vice chair, secretary, and treasurer roles as well. So, um at this time I would entertain any nominations from members for the role of school committee chair for the next 12 months. I nominate Ron Fusco as chair. I'll second. You accept? I

005accept. Good question to ask. Yes. Um with a roll call vote, Ms. Heberlein? Yes. Mr. O'Donnell? Yes. Ms. Gillis? Yes. Mr. Hutchings? Yes. Mr. Fusco? Mr. Fiori? Yes. Ms. Dorr? Yes. Mr. Moffett? Yes. Ms. Muse? Yes. Thank you. And again, Ms. Lawson is not with us tonight, so 9-0. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, man. Now you left him No. There's Ron Ron We're renaming him. Now you're Let's try that again. All right. There you are. All right. Okay. organization here. Okay. Um before I have a few comments, let's move on to the to the rest of the uh officers. Um So, I'll accept any motions for vice chair from the committee. I'll nominate Karen Hubert as vice chair. Second. Okay. Roll call vote. Stacy Hubert. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. You don't love me

006anymore. >> be serious. You're going to be serious. Yes. Yes. Yes. Unanimous. Thank you. All right. Um the position of treasurer. Is there any nominations? I'll nominate Ken Moffett for treasurer. Second. Other nominations? I nominate Stacy Hubert. No. Ken Moffett for treasurer, do you accept, sir? Sure. Okay. Stacy. >> Yes. Brian. Yes. Brian. Yes. Yes. Yes. Charlie. Yes. Charlie. Yes. Yes. I'm a yes. And congratulations, Mr. Treasurer. All right. I know. And last but not least, position of secretary. Are there any nominations? Secretary, let's see. Do we know why when was secretary, do we know if he would still want it and he had I I have said actually. >> Oh, I apologize. It's okay. Well, she was the one the year before. Do you want to be secretary? Do you want to do it

007again? I'll re-nominate Stacy Hubert as secretary. Second. Accept? And yes. What was the second? I'm sorry, what was it? It doesn't matter. I'm sorry, what is What is Um vote for secretary, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, ladies. Okay, folks. that's done. Appreciate that. Um So, this is my second go around as the chair here. And I thank you for putting your confidence in me. Just got reelected with Kent and myself. We're back for another 3 years. Uh And we And I appreciate everybody giving up your time and effort and for the love of Shawsheen and for the kids. And um I know it's been kind of a crazy year, but we're going to we're going to get through this. All right, so um let's just um keep keep

008going forward and um we'll work as a team. That's what it's what it's all about. Okay. Thank you. Uh public comment, there was nobody signed up. Student student rep report, she's absent. Yeah, there's no way it doesn't doesn't get recorded. Okay, no problem. Okay, so that leads us to uh next item, which is our treasurer's introduction and report. And if we have And if I can get the uh the Yeah, there's a whole bunch Yeah, I know there's a whole bunch, so I understand. And you know, I'm Jim, but So, I I'm I'm happy to introduce uh Jim Williams, who came on board October November? November? November? Um as our as as your district treasurer. He's He's actually one of the few direct employees of the school committee. Um you know, Jim's been working in

009the background. I know he's he's here he's once a week um and he's been doing some other stuff. And I will turn it over to Jim and uh let him introduce himself and talk a little bit about what he's doing. Good morning. Jim. Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me, everybody. Um so, just a quick background on myself. I have a little over 33 years of experience in accounting, tax, audit, finance. Um I'm licensed certified public accountant in the state of Maine. Home for me is I'm sorry, Massachusetts. The home for me is in Windham, New Hampshire and that's where my practice and I have a tax, accounting, advisory and bookkeeping practice serving close to 400 400 individuals and and companies. And they're they're throughout Maine actually Maine and and New Hampshire. More relevant

010to to my role here or exact replica of it for the most part is for anyone that's ever heard of Crest Collaborative. They're up in Andover, Massachusetts. I've been there treasurer for eight years and a few months right now. So Crest as as I'm doing here, I handle the bank reconciliation, meals tax. They also have sales tax from a woodworking shop. Coming in and reviewing the warrants which which means looking at the check and the supporting documentation such as an invoice and that's purchase order. At Crest I actually sign the checks as well. Technically they come off the printer with my name on it so sometimes concerns me. But but I do the bank rec so I know everything is running through the account. And then I have checks that Okay, at Crest I also

011manage the investments which I'll talk about a little more in a in a minute. I feel questions from their three staff accountant accounting person, payroll and accounts payable billing person. I review the audited financials each year. Typically there's no comments but few minor issues last year. Just cosmetics and then so I always you know, reach out to the firm to to point out things that I that I think might warrant change. I also manage the or review excuse me the the budget as prepared by the director of finance and I don't get into too much details, but I but I review it for accuracy in terms of, you know, if there's a schedules listing a whole bunch of expenses, and then there's a total of those expenses on other pages. You know, sometimes I found

012like, you know, it didn't quite come over right or or whatnot. Um And um and but I just review it from a high level. Look at it compared to last year's budget. If I have any questions, I just go to the director of finance who who prepares it and then passes it off to me before it goes to the ultimately to the finance committee and then the board of directors for approval. Um so, here at at Shawsheen, I've been just like at Crest, I've been doing the the warrants. Uh they're they're twice a month, uh second and fourth Tuesdays. Reconcile on the bank accounts. There's a There's like a handful. And then some of the bank accounts, you know, there's there's just three with with most of the activity. The others don't have much going

013on with them. Um the the largest two, um working with Mary, and we're just finding some efficiencies on on how to record things a little bit better. So, um there were just certain things she was reconciling prior to me, and there were just certain things where she could lump certain things together where they in as she made entries um because she was reconciling account, and that would help her. But someone else reconciling is It's like Mary would say, "Hey, what's this number here?" Because cuz I've got one number here, and I've got four on the bank statement, and sometimes they don't equal. So, so we're working together and and moving forward with that. Um and and she's great to work with, and and I I think she's very competent in in what she does. Um

014so, and then the other thing, too, is the bank reconciliation have been done in Microsoft Excel, and that's just it takes a a lot of a significant amount of extra time. It's It's very efficient very inefficient, excuse me, to to be doing those in Excel. So, so I originally, you know, spoke to Mary, and then and then we got Tony's approval, and and uh purchased the what's called the cash management system from Eunice, the the system here. So, so we're we're moving forward to to implementing, you know, bank reconciliations in the system instead of offline in Excel. And that's going to help things, you know, tremendously from a from a time and efficiency standpoint. Uh also in Eunice, and I'm not sure you guys may or may not know this, Mary has been working a

015lot with with Eunice. Um I know she had like a 4-hour call with them or 3 and 1/2 hour call just the other day cuz she said I couldn't talk to her in the morning if I needed to get a hold of her. So, so uh and and they're implementing, you know, billing and accounts invoicing billing and accounts receivable. And and without that, we couldn't even use the cash management system to to do the reconciliation. So, but that that and that had already been, you know, started or or at least approved uh before I before I started here. It had nothing to do with, you know, let's get this because it's going to be necessary if Jim's going to start doing anything, you know. Mary had the the wheels in motion on that. Um in

016the Let me see. The other thing is in the in Tony sent a message to Prem who manages the the OPEB investment funds. And um I'm going to be speaking with them and and Tony sent like an introductory email and given them authority to to you know, we're giving them the authority to speak with with me and introduce me as the new treasurer. Um at Crest, I I have a company I brought in four companies when I came to Crest 8 and 1/2 years ago. Their their OPEB fund was sitting in a money market account. So, I brought in three investment firms and and Prem. I don't know if they're an actual investment firm. I don't quite know. Really like just a state agency. I'm not 100% sure. Um even though at Crest, the the

017job description of treasurer um and and definitely the investment policy, the former investment policy states that the treasurer is solely responsible and has discretion to manage the investments move in what they're invested in when to move things etc. Um I still included the director of finance there cuz I was brand new and he was just So we brought in four firms I mentioned including including Prim and what I was hoping was the firm that that I wanted to go with he he would I would I would have overrode them otherwise but but uh cuz because it's it's my decision ultimately but fortunate it went through the way I hoped. He he out of all four firms he said here's I would pick them too and and and here's why. So nothing against Prim by by

018any means so and so I'm going to be meeting with you know at least at first on the phone with with Prim possibly like teams but I like to you know get a face-to-face meeting with them and in the eight years the company that I brought in which is from Worcester they've done a great job so and I present the results of what's going on in the OPEB trust fund at every board meeting. So so I have by month and by year for eight and a half years what what returns we've gotten and then and of course I'm going to I think Prim basically my understanding Prim basically does state they have a piece that you can actually manage for municipalities and stuff so that's like they're doing like management outside of the state stuff.

019Okay. So I think that's basically like my dealing through understanding of them so I think that's would be something we can potentially I mean I have a background on the investment side of things we could chat but I think that's if there's that probably more regular reporting about like how the stuff's being invested that's probably like if there's an investment policy statement and regular reporting I think it's probably kind of on a quarterly basis. Yeah yeah. There currently is not an investment policy in place but we'll we're we'll be getting one in place so I assume that that Prim has they have a template and and they'll tailor it You know, for Wachusett Valley so cuz that's when I when I brought the firm in from Worcester when I engaged them, that's exactly what they

020did. There was just a There was an investment policy, but it was old and it wasn't uh it wasn't it was outdated and it didn't have uh references and you know, in language from the current laws like chapter 32B, which we do all this balls over here, so. So, and and the investment advisory firm has you know, has pretty standard you know, templates that they customize to and then they'll tweak it further. You know, to kind of put a bow on it for based on each organization, you know, and she had said that >> I think you can do both. You can basically have a firm manage it like the you'd still have your investment policy statement in your website. You can have the firm run everything for you. You can You have the choice

021of hiring outside managers. I mean, there's been firms that kind of done a blend. Okay, but I think that's I agree that's probably something we should kind of you know, sit down with us with you with finance committee. And I'm and I'm not saying I want to move from the firm. I'm just saying No, no, I but I I agree that I want to I want to compare. I I have eight and a half years of data from from the from this firm. And And their goal was uh 5 to 6% return. Now, you know, I personally um you know, in in my funds that I manage myself with could be good, bad, or indifferent, but I you know, I wouldn't be happy with 5%. But they're you know, based on it's a school system,

022they're very restricted into what they can what they what they can invest in. So, the target was 5 to 6%. That was pretty much around the uh I think everyone was kind of in that all four firms I brought in when they were talking you know, when we when we interviewed me and the director of finance and and after eight and a half years, they're at 7.9%, so. And that includes a minus 13, I think percent in uh Well, they get regular regular reporting on that like the investment your point at the actuarial stuff. Like if you look at a lot of these retirement type plans, whether that's pension funds, OPEBs, they get regular reporting on the performance, how the funds are doing, the investment policy. Like there's all things I think we that's a

023good point you look at actuarial stuff. Sure. So I think that's probably something the package should be regularly put together. I get it. I get a report for I get a report from the investment consultants that's similar to what we get. And again that's where I summarize monthly. It's by year and then when a year ends I collapse it and the current year it's always month by month and I show them the various types of ins and outs of um you know so contributions interest dividends capital gain distributions any realized gains and losses from trading they've done and then the unrealized gains and losses from the change in the market you know and then it has a column for you know the change for the month which is a combination of all those things and

024then and percentage change and then change year-to-date and percentage year-to-date. So so yeah that that is something that I presented to the board. They have seven I believe it is meetings a year so so several of them I'm actually presenting in a couple months or a couple months with David so. And the firm I speak with them informally if I have a question or they want to make me aware of something or they want to bring something new into play. I'd say probably two or three times a year. And last about a year and a half ago they brought in a year and a half maybe two years ago they uh they uh wanted to go with some private equity investments and uh and I basically told them you know when they came on board

025that you guys are the investment experts you live breathe and sleep this stuff. Your firm has a whole data analytics team and you know etc. etc. like any investment management or advisory firm so so I said I'm going to go you know we're paying you for a reason so I'm going to essentially sign off unless I think you're you know unless they said hey we were putting 90% of your stuff into private equities then right I'd say you're crazy but but you know they wanted to put it was like 5 or 8% so so >> Yeah but they should have a good idea like we could look at other school systems and like what they're actually So, I think it's I'm glad you bring that up. I think that's something if there's stuff that's under

026the purview of the school, like by your That's policy statement, regular reporting. I think it's a good thing to kind of look at to make sure, you know, that everything's properly managed, you get reports around the actuarial performance, you're following policy, which you're hiring the right So, I think that's a good thing to kind of Yeah. And twice a year I I meet with them. So, semi-annual review in person. And they come with a with a binder for anywhere from 20 to maybe 25 pages. There's a lot of a lot of data that's all the investments by by type, you know, bonds, private equity, all this and that. And some of it is still over You know, the detail a little bit of that still in my head that you know, being at the granular

027level, but that's fine cuz they they know what they're talking about, and they're and they're doing a great job. So, and you know, and and there's historical data in there now. They've got 8 years with us, and you know, and they compare everything to the market. Um and um and uh and there's and there's like graphs and charts and so So, we actually spend probably about around an hour and a quarter, maybe sometimes an hour and a half going through everything in detail twice a year or so with uh with two of the folks from the investment advisory group. And that's all I have. Um yes. Um is because of the somewhat limited nature of your role with Shaw Sheen vis-à-vis what you've been doing with Crest, if you if there were more more time,

028hours, however you uh days, whatever, is there any particular in the treasurer role that you don't think you're able to get to or address now in as much detail, or do you think it's inadequate? Maybe that's putting you in a Yeah. No, no. unusual position at this relatively early uh juncture, but any thoughts on that? So, are you saying do I have the time to >> I mean, right, in terms of the activities that you've been asked to do, is it adequate at this point? It is. It is. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Two questions. Um you mentioned a policy. Is that something that the policy subcommittee needs to meet and address? Is that a school committee policy or No, it's a it's an investment policy. So So, um most organizations, not all but most include

029Crest, don't have an investment committee. It It came up. They just wanted the CEO. They bring it up once in a while with the board. So, no, we're fine without it. Yeah, and they just don't believe in creating extra I I don't see any benefit at least at Crest because you know, to the to the point of I think it was the the the secretary or the vice chair, I forget. Um you know, they they have me in charge of managing everything, but they know I can't manage that stuff. I'm a CPA. I don't have those kind of licenses and take those kind of seminars and stuff, right? So, so I brought in a firm. That firm came in and met you know, and you know, and and did a dog and pony show, if

030you will, for the for the board and you know, introductory things. So, so we they could put faces with names as as I mentioned. There was just three people on Well, three that work directly. There's a lot of people behind them and under them, of course. So, so they they came in and met with the board as as well. Um and um so it's just So, they they decided not to do an investment committee because they they felt that you know, these guys are experts. By the way, the the company I brought in at the time, and that was 8 and 1/2 years ago, they were they gave us a a list of of clients that they have, too. And and there was a separate um section for open trust funds. And uh and 8

031and 1/2 years ago, almost, they were there was 125, 127 open trust funds that they that they manage. So, so these guys are you know, you know, speaks for itself. I think it also depends on the size. Like if you look at like towns like Burlington No, I'm not saying we need a subcommittee. I'm saying do we need a Does our policy sub committee need to create the policy that you were mentioning? No, that would be separate. Yeah, I think you're talking more of a business office. Like the process and procedure. >> It's more of the procedure. I think it's the fund type plus if you look at like towns or cities, they'll have an investment committee. Like Burlington or part of the sex, they have an actual investment committee because you're talking hundreds of

032millions of dollars and hundreds of employees. Whereas this is like a small I'm not saying small, but it's a And then you were saying with Muna that you've added the cash thing which was it sounds like an additional fee. Is the new usage of Muna to do billing and stuff, is that yet another fee or is that built into what we're already paying for? We were already paying for the billing and that was a piece of it. It just hadn't been implemented. And just just to elaborate a little bit more, we do have members of the business office staff. So we have I believe they're they're either three or four hour chunks. I think we have five or six of them to utilize during the year. So I mean Miss Rubio has been been kind

033of a point person on it, but also Miss Dalton Miss Hench has and Miss Stout have also been part of those trainings as well as to try to get everybody up to speed on how the system works and what the what the capabilities are. Okay, thank you. And also you mentioned an an additional cost. If I'm I didn't like see the quote of the those or something, but Mary told me it was $1350. >> Yeah, it wasn't a huge like a huge year. Right. Yep. >> Yeah, so so Good price. Thank you. You're welcome. Mr. Chair. So Charlie, you volume up you want to be on the reconciliation of the accounts um because we don't have cell phones and it's kind of been cumbersome doing that. Can I ask does and I don't know if

034you got the answer to this, does everything look like it's going to be okay or is it you moving over and how far along I would all the accounts So, everything looks fine so far from the way I do it in Excel. In other words, I don't see any issues or any concerns or Um in terms of uh integrating that new module, that that hasn't started yet. So, we're probably going to Mary still working with the billing and everything and that I can't do anything in the in the cash management module until until they're they're doing invoicing and cash application and deposits and everything through through that through that system. What we see is the direction of the accounts, everything seems to be okay. Yeah, but from the number doesn't seem like there's something missing

035or whatever. No, there's there's just one there's just one one account that um and I can't remember it's either the vendor payable or the deposits, right? Account you know, and I've mentioned this to Tony. There's just there's something that has been carrying for years as a reconciling item. Reconciling items should should clear themselves within that generally a month, you know, a couple months, you know, worst case scenario. Um so, there's there's just a some fairly large reconciling items and and I talked to the manager at Cbiz, the audit firm, probably two or three two months ago. Maybe it's times go by so fast I can't remember. Maybe three months in back. So, so and and I'm going to be talking to him further doing the 2025 audit now and and I told him that, you

036know, that um that as part of the audit, that my expectation at least would be as the treasurer that that they they clear these things out. Any adjustments that they have to, you know, propose, they can't make adjustments, they can only propose and then and then, you know, show us you know, and so yes, we we agree. We accept it. We work. So, yeah, so I talked to John, the manager there, and I'll be speaking to with him again as well. So, um because I want to make sure that that gets taken care of because he he didn't quite How long have they been around now? Just a couple years. I think this is our third cycle with them. >> cuz he wasn't 100% sure what what those what those were either. He said yesterday

037but I understand what you're saying. They've been around for you know, for a number of years, so So you don't want to knock you don't want to read this one. What's that? You don't want to read this one either. It's a catch up It's an update Oh, oh. Nothing to do with you. No, nothing to do with you. See busy, yeah. Not to knock C busy, but just a just a speak the truth of the week, um they've been around three years. Maybe they don't do what it took us to get there on the sit there and I'll sit for it. I These items have been hanging around longer than three years and and again, not to knock them, but it would just given you know, the committee on its feedback is um surprise, let's

038say, that the first year I mean, it take care of it. >> of months. So yeah, it's it's We're talking big enough amounts that it should have been you know, even the you know, the firm that I work for we would have we would have done it by you know, I mean, it's not like 911 service fees, but it's not you know, millions and millions of dollars or anything anything at that level, so but it's it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. That makes you feel any better. I talked to somebody in my town about prior auditor in Dennis and they said that on a board they were on they had similar issues with what we went through. So That's the predecessor to these. Well, two So Jim, um right now you work twice a week

039with us. A lot of which is No, I'm in twice a month. I quite It's twice a month, the second and fourth Tuesdays. >> Thank you. Thank you. That varies a little bit. Sometimes I'll you know, I'm to try and get the back work and stuff caught up and under control so you can come in more. Um and I'll continue to do that. I estimate next week I can't come back in this week but I'll make next week not a week where he comes to one but I know that's fine. >> I got to do that reconciliation stuff and Now my comment Jim is that I am so so impressed with the work you're doing and I'm glad you're You want to go ahead and And Ken said talk about we just need to hire

040somebody like yourself. Your reports are detailed. Everything is We know everything that's going on. And uh I just want to compliment you and thank you for I know you jumped in here took your rolled up your sleeves and said let's go. And I've been here like November you started October? >> November correct yeah. And this is this is stuff you send us is amazing and and and uh Keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you. Sir. So this what and and this is this is more for the board than than Jim. Um I know there's been some conversations about frequency of having you I Personally I don't know that we need him here every single month. Um but again I I would like maybe some input or some conversation from the board about you

041know the I think we need to talk. It's not just about the frequency it's also about the information being presented so you talked about like you know being involved with things that have never been touched upon. So like you for your prior job you know with the budget you know talking about like updates on trust accounts and like investments. These are all things that might hopefully that we can talk to other school committees that basically their district treasurer. Yeah I don't I agree I don't think that basically you need to be in like monthly. But I think we need to get a regular frequency and that's going to be driven by a standard packet that's basically so there's informality. It's like not to go too far down the rabbit hole but like the trust stuff

042we had the or sorry the the transportation is a good example that people don't realize there's a transportation fund. And people I think will be helpful for education on a standard like there's going to be a packet as far as like the stuff you're like bank accounts, investments, trust accounts, like regular updates about what those are. I mean I've asked not to throw names around but not you but not anybody in this room but I've asked about the trust thing. I asked about you know, historical balances, transactions, what the trust this is basic stuff that we need to be made aware of. My comments aren't directed at you but there's like there is things that we need to come into the 21st century on like a regular thing that you've come in and stuff I've

043heard I'm I'm impressed with but it's also about that it's informing the school committee that has to go outside the business office and beyond the superintendent so we're getting all the information you're informed. So I think it's coming up with a standard packet of stuff that it makes informed decisions because that's a real problem. And as we've seen with last year not saying that's your but my point is but also that's one piece of it there's like you mentioned about opining upon the audit, opining upon like you know, the budget like you're not going to be doing a 100% review but it's like using as an expert. I think those are things we need to establish because these are things that are going to keep occurring but I think that that is one thing I'd

044like to see is like a standard report on regular stuff like trust, oped, like all that stuff so people kind of see what's going on. Um with that. Yeah. The other thing is that I forgot to to just make a fool of myself and shut up but I talked to Tony about this a couple months ago even though tax season I generally don't have a lot of time but still you know, I accepted this role I can't You said that you go don't don't don't try to call me during tax season. I think You're coming out of it now, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm out of it yeah. I know. But I still you know, when I accepted the role I'm not going to but you know, it's a finite 10 weeks but that's 10 weeks

045I can't I don't ignore for ignored requests. I make the time and I'm and I make the time to to to get in here. If there's anything that could be put off and so forth, uh the bank wrecks I needed to catch up on. Um so, I did push push those off a little bit. As I As it's it's very time-consuming, especially as I mentioned, it's being done so manually. So, that was one thing where I, you know, I told Mary and possibly Tony or or maybe James But, you know, I when taxes comes out, I'll get the And if you want to be in here all day, I'll come back in next week, even though even though there's not a lot of time. And I told Mary next week, you know, if I if

046one day doesn't doesn't get me where I need to be, I'll I'll come back a second day next week. But, um You mentioned that where was it? As I started The transparency report. Uh transparency report. Three more things I've seen you. Yeah, there was something the the trust fund thing. Like the example we brought in, not to another hot topic. We're talking about the uh the transportation thing that we'll call it a issue from last fiscal year '26, but basically knowing what like there is a trust fund and knowing basically what it's used for, what the balances are, historical transactions, that type of stuff. And I think that's it's really hard to make some decisions when you don't have all the information. And I think that's I appreciate you bringing that up, and I think

047a regular update on, you know, stuff also like, you know, budget to actual. You know, been dinged on more than once. So, they just like I think that's an important thing that's will be important as part of establishing a regular I don't like the word, but cadence. Sure, sure. But, typically that's I mean I mean I'm happy to look it over and field any questions, but typically such as at Crest, um the director of finance, all right? He's the one that Like, I'm not I reconcile the bank on her but it's his it's his group that's processing all the transactions, the senior accountant and him are doing journal entries and then just with the freight. So there he kind of owns that so he presents the financial you know, the financial statements and goes over

048the accounts receivable aging, you know, how you guys look the 30 days, 60 days, etc. and stuff like that. They I don't do that because while I could present that stuff, I'm not the one Yeah, it's a separate issue. Yeah, yeah, so so so that like here if you wanted that people to know, Mary Rubia would be would be she should be the person to present that stuff because that's her group and that's you know, she's in charge of that. So and I just remember what I was what I was thinking of that I that I forgot. Um I did mention this to Tony a about maybe a month and a half or two months ago. Um I'm going to um contact a few schools and I'm going to I'm going to ask you you

049reached out to a couple places to see what salary ranges work for or try to maybe get some contacts there. I start there um because this is different than than the past and um and I want to uh meet with two minimum two, maybe even three and and if I can get three, I I certainly will. Um treasures because I want to see what what they're doing, right? What what what they've implemented, what they're going to you know, they might come up with one or two things that they're presenting to the committees that that just weren't on my radar. So so I just want to you know, and I'm the one who showed them. So. The show will have a very good financial reporting system. Okay. I also feel like we'd like to see you

050more now and you know, a year from now we can certainly revisit, you know, at the point in time we have a a business manager in place and we've got to do another budget and you know, we're in a a different place that it might be that we don't need to see you as often. Again, we don't we don't have to make a decision on this tonight. >> No, no, I'm just saying this is just discussion. I mean, we'd like to see you but you don't have to be here every I mean, I I'm thinking quarterly. I mean, I quarterly I think that's enough if he's here in person quarterly. I I think that's enough but that's not my I think a quarterly the quarters of visit or something Is that something? I think that's

051all. I think we'll move forward. We're good now. You need to look at more things. Thank you. So, thanks. It's nice to meet you. Thank you. I don't know. I mean, I No, I mean, if you guys had wanted to vote on it. These are the ones you want. No, I think I think we're just having a discussion. I don't know if you need anything If something big came up, I always wanted to ask him to come in earlier than the quarterly. So, so um Thank you. You continue your work, your great work and we appreciate Thanks for coming in tonight. Uh our next item tonight, we like as we started a uh practice a few years back to uh bring in as many um people administrators, teachers, students just to see what's going on.

052It's nice to talk about things but to see exactly what is going on at the ground level. So, tonight um I'd like to introduce to you um So, Michael Hurley. I I think this is Mike's first uh official visit to the committee. So, so welcome, Mr. Hurley. Thank you. I I I have known Mike many years as when he was our old teacher. Fixed my car. Did a good job. So, I was uh very pleased uh as he came to lead taking on the uh I think whatever it was. a Remember your father I worked with etc. etc. So, I was very pleased when he uh stepped up and uh was um was hired as the folk director and I hope things go well. So, tonight Mike uh we're asking you to um just um

053talk about the shop selection which you're doing and how things went. Great. Um welcome everyone. Um So, if you're not aware on how this works, I just love to explain it cuz it's a really important part of the process for our freshmen. It's an exciting moment. So, when they're accepted in, when they fill out the application, um they fill out their top choices um what they you know, would prefer for a shop. And if you look closely, it's um electricity and mostly the construction shops and some of the health shops. And as you flow through the chart, um you know, you're going to see those start to drop a little bit. And I just want you to pay attention to this because it's interesting because the numbers really change when they actually explore. I love

054that. Um someone like masonry at what they only have one student and it's going to you'll we'll go back to that, but they've really changed. Um quite a few of those have changed as as we as they do explore. So, that's interesting. Um so, this process, the way it works is you know, the kids come in in September. I think it's September 8th and they do a um 14-week rotation in which they will explore 14 different shops. And you know how our schedule works, it's a one one week of academics and the other week of shops. So, it's a really nice setup that we have. And just keep in mind too that when we get these kids there, they've left their their districts and they've left some friends behind. So, when they come here, this

055is a great way to to meet kids um and to get to know people and recognize faces cuz you're in there for an entire week. But the goal is that you're going to learn something in there um that you're going to be trained on some basic um, concepts of each career area. Um, we always try to sell the program. Um, we we like to answer the questions that kids may have. Um, some of the students may not know much about them and it's really important for us to get through to them. Um, and we're looking for them to, you know, work hard, um, be respectful, show the proper effort and attitude because it's not so much the skill level, it's like the effort. It's like, can we do this? Can we work together? And you're

056going to improve because they do. They really do. So, you have a week to do that. And we try to keep them busy the whole entire time. And then we want the grade in for that exploratory process within a week. So, by the time they start the next rotation, they should have that their grade, whatever they got into that shop. And then they go and go off to the next shop. So, it's it's a quite an exciting experience for young kids. All right. Now, this was our results from at the end of the explore, um, exploratory process at the end of March. Um, so, this is what I'm talking about. There is some changes here. HVAC is 38 choices, number one. Uh, electrical is 32, plumbing 32, tied for second. Medical assisting is third with

05730. Automotive technology, you can read that, 29. 20, you know, 24. 18 for dental. DBC 16. Masonry, um, the one that had only just one choice. Um, they totally changed that around. So, that just tells you that maybe kids don't understand what they're getting into when they get into some of these shops and and the teachers do a great job in explaining it and presenting it and making it a really enjoyable experience. Metal fab, I think, had nine, I believe. So, that almost doubled. Um, so, you know, if you look through the list there, there is, um, some that went up and then some that them down. Sometimes it's cyclical. You just don't know sometimes. Sometimes you have a good year, sometimes you have a bad year. Um but you want to be consistently um

058good in selling the program. It's for the kids and you want to make sure that they're getting um all they can out of that experience cuz it makes a huge difference um when when that happens. So, that's what we have here for the first choice totals. Okay? All right. Now, this is um I should have mentioned Advanced Manufacturing, too. They were also at I think at three and they ended up getting 11 first choices. All right. So, they are filled at capacity. Their capacity is 15 and they're full. And out of that 15, they had 11 first choices. That's That's a good number. Uh it's difficult when you have a you know, half of the kids that didn't pick it number one. That That's going to be a problem cuz you can't say to them,

059"Well, didn't you want to be here?" Because they they could say, "No, I was hoping to get in down the hall." And that's unfortunate. And I can tell you personally, I went to school here. I did not get my first choice. I did not get electrical because someone made a joke and I laughed, which wasn't my fault at all. I did get caught. And my grade went down to an 88 and I was like, "There's no way I'm getting into electrical." And I took automotive. It worked out great. So, I always try to tell other kids like this is not the end. This is just the beginning of your story. Um Automotive did really well. They only had I think Oh God, what was it? 14? And they you know, they doubled it. So, that's

060that's impressive. Um you know, and then this just solid right through there. So, um and they all do a good job. Um but these shops are completely full at at this time. Um now we're we're reaching the sections where we haven't uh quite reached capacity. So, um we got Culinary Arts with um seven first choices, they have 11 open seats. Um design and visual has um 16. ISS and programming web 16. Um but at least they do have the 14 of those 16 at first choices. So that's kind of that will really help them out. Um graphics, um they filled 10 and 10 first choices um with eight openings. Business tech, um eight first choices, 13 filled, seven available. Carpentry was interesting, they really had a rough year. Um and I I will say that

061since that time they've already filled up because once students realized that they were open and they didn't get their top choices, um carpentry was really popular so that that filled up real fast. Um drafting, um 12 filled, seven first choices and electronics engineering with um 11 first choices, 15 filled and three available. All right, so the success rate was it was a really positive experience and we did a lot of things to try to improve this and there's a lot of factors that went into this. Um so for students with their first choices success rate, the success rate went up to 86% um compared to 81% last year. That's a difference of 15 more students. So that's almost an entire shop that we feel like we're able to accommodate kids with. So that's a big

062deal. Um stronger top two placement, we had 94% with um 323 students um compared to the year before at 88%. So we're talking a 17 student difference. That's if you combine the two of them um that's you know, 30 32. That's pretty impressive. So that's that's really a good thing. And if you follow it down, it continues um the um dramatic reduction in no placement. So that means that the student did not get in their top choices at all, and we only have one of those um or three of those this year compared to the 17 the year before. So, if you're wondering why that is, I mean, there's a lot of factors that have went into that. Um guidance did a great job. What they did is they they offered students um their top

063five choices instead of the top three, and I think that really helps cuz when you get past your third choice and you didn't get into the three, you still have two more that you can choose from. So, I think that's a good landing spot um to to get yourself in. The other thing is um the freshman rubrics were um much more consistent and organized authentic um with much quicker instant feedback. Like, the grades were in on time, and the students could see how they did, and they could talk about it. You know, they could talk about the programs they were in. That's a big part of this, too, is the kids they talk, and they um they talk about their experiences, which is great, and it's a way for them to get to know each

064other, too. So, I thought it was pretty good success there um for this year. That's what it looked like. And questions? I have a question. So, I'm just curious about the grading for the rubrics in each of the shops. How does that work? And is it like a new They end up with a numerical grade, or they end up with different categories or >> Yeah, it is uh so, there's different criteria depending on the shop. We didn't do a standardized um freshman rubric because the the shops are just so different, and it's difficult to do that. They are completely different, some of them. But, it is a numerical grade. >> So, it ends up with a numerical grade. It does. >> And then that gets averaged out eventually or or I mean, it it comes

065into play. Yeah, at the end of the year. Right, exactly. Question. Mike, um I think I saw in the numbers after all the discussions we had about auto body um in the fall that the number for first first choice was still relatively low at five, but then there was a big bump based on second or third choice to the point where it's actually projected to be filled. Yeah, so they had five first choices. Now, there has been a little bit of movement since then. Like right now they have 10 and they have five first choices in there and the other five are, I believe, are second choices. Okay. Compared to if if you recall off the top of your head, roughly how many had it last year's class? Last year, I think they made I

066thought it was three. Two As far as first choices, there wasn't any brain. I don't think there was one. Last year there was one year there was zero. I don't remember if it was last year or the year before. Yeah. So So we're better. Yeah. Yeah, there was a there was a good improvement there. Yeah, they made a good effort. They really did. I'm glad to hear that. They tried some because we Yeah, they made a passionate plea to us and this room was filled and I we got bombarded by emails, as you know, and I'm glad they went ahead and I guess, you know, the teachers went presented it. Would you kids twist the kids' arms to take auto body? No. But I'm glad the numbers are trending upward. Can I say that? >>

067think I think they did a good job. They they put in the effort and, you know, they got some interest. They tried some new things, which I think is really important. I think when you saw some boosts in some other shops, too, they tried new things as well. That that stuff helps a lot. Um, sometimes switching teachers can help with shops. It depends, you know, it's just Yeah, there was some improvement there. Great. Thank you. Will you just send that to us? Yeah, that's That's fine. Sure. That'd be great. Thank you for all your efforts, too. All right. So how's it So far, so good? You like You're It's a great way to continue It's a great school. That's right. I know because you you know all about it. I feel lucky to be here.

068That's people want to be here. Yeah. Yeah, cuz all the schools want to be here. Well, there were a few uh obviously there might have been a few students that weren't happy. I'm sure you got a few phone calls and whatnot. Well, yeah. I think that things are working out. I don't think it was anywhere near as difficult as it was in years past. So, I would say this year was pretty smooth. So, I feel lucky about that. So, that's good. How was the communication with the families going? Do you feel like they knew what was coming and you were able to answer a lot of questions ahead of time? Is that reduced the number of phone calls you got? Yeah, I mean, I got to hand it to guidance cuz they did a fantastic

069job with that and I haven't really had many of those yet. Now, we haven't really officially started transferring, you know, students from shop to shop yet. We haven't allowed that like per se, but um that might be a different conversation, but um so far guidance did us excellent job with that. Yeah. This it might be too early for either you or the superintendent to comment on this, but is there anything you can project with regards to the 10th grade openings that might be available based on where uh there are openings right now in terms of the usually the number of spots that we have available for 10th grade transfers is based on you know what what the available shops is that looking any different this year? I It's very It's kind of soon to tell,

070but The flip side of that coin too is is capacity in the academic setting as well. So, I think we're still hovering around three 343 344. Um so, realistically I mean we we may backfill a handful of kids, but that would probably be it because um if we if we made every shop at capacity um we would we would Thank you. I'm sorry. Just from a curious standpoint, how many what It's just a rough percentage of how many kids once they start the shops decide, "Okay, I don't want this. I want to go somewhere else."? Oh god, uh like an actual percentage I can Yeah, just just roughly. Um I mean, you'll see it. I mean, just from being a teacher here, um and sometimes it'll surprise you, too. There'll be some of the best

071kids you have, and you might you might get a couple that'll leave the shop that they're maybe on a waitlist somewhere else, you know, and they they there is an opening. Some of them will say, "I'm going to stay where I am. I liked it a lot." Um It's not that high, really. And one of the things that guidance does, just again, just so everybody is aware, like if if you end up in your second or third or even a fourth choice, you are automatically put on the waitlist for your first choice. You're automatically put on the waitlist for your second choice. So, if if a spot opens up and you are the next person on the list, you have the option. Now, um we are and I and I think this is part of

072the conversation later on that that that Ms. Cook is is maybe going to support and answer some questions around um next year we're looking at, you know, it's it's by the end of first quarter and in your sophomore year, you really have to find a landing spot unless there's some extenuating circumstance or, you know, some health-related or whatever whatever comes up. But again, getting kids in there, getting them settled, and getting them focused on, you know, this this is your career, you know, this is what you're going to learn, this is where you're going to be. And and I think I think guidance does a very good job of getting them that as well. Um and I I mean, I'm not intimately involved in that, but I have not seen huge numbers of turnovers um

073in any one of our programs. Yeah, I haven't either. Like maybe one year doing it, but what Tony was saying about the end of the first quarter, that's what most vocational schools do across the state because it's it's not really fair to the students to put them in a another program much later than that into the sophomore year cuz they've already missed, you know, a couple hundred hours worth of uh content time. It's tough to make up. You know, then there's co-op to worry about, there's safety. Um it's it's hard for the teacher to try to catch a student up like that, especially with you know, the the race is already running and to have them stop and you know, try to retrain while you're teaching everyone else is that can be difficult, too. So,

074but um I think that's what we're aiming for. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mike. Thank you very much, Mike. Keep up the good work, coach Mike. Yes, thank you. Next item we have the uh consent agenda, which includes the obviously we received the payroll approval of payroll and vendor warrants. It's Jim Williams providing to us legal bills from Howard Green Span and from um KM Education Law and the minutes of March 24th. Do anybody have any comments about this? If not, I'll accept the motion. To accept the consent Move to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll second. Seconded by Sarah. Motion made by Brian, seconded by Sarah. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. And unanimous. So, Mr. McIntosh, the floor is yours. Sarah. All right. Um Quick update here. The these numbers are I'm

075I'm going to be I'm going to be 100% honest here. Most of this information I did collect before the week of vacation cuz I knew I wasn't going to be here last week. Uh so, they they may be a little bit out of date. Um we have filled all 330 seats. Um I was I was given a little bit of an update today by our admissions director. I think we had two or three students turnover in the past couple of days. We didn't get to backfill them, but um based on the numbers from before vacation, um we've had we have we we currently have 11 Bedford students waitlisted. We had seven declined. We filled the 33 seats for Bedford. Um Billerica, uh we currently have 56 kids wait listed. We've had 17 Billerica students decline

076for whatever reason, you know, again, sometimes uh they decide they want to stay with their friends. It you know, it wasn't exactly what what they thought it was going to be. Um they want to play on a sports team, whatever it is. Uh so, they filled their 107 seats. Um Burlington, uh we have seven We currently have seven students wait listed. Uh we did have 22 Burlington students decline. So, again, there there was definitely a lot of application There was a lot more applications that came in this year, but there that seems to be the one community this year that we've had a lot of turnover as far as um students getting accepted and and not um not moving forward with the acceptance. Uh Tewksbury, 17 wait listed, 16 declined, 78 seats. Wilmington, we have

07727 currently wait listed, uh 15 students have declined. We have 58 seats. And if you look at the totals, uh we Again, we're accepting 330. We still have 118 students on the wait list. Um and out of the that first batch, if you will, that was accepted, 77 of them um de- de- decided to to go in a different direction and and make a different decision. Um enrollment numbers, uh we are down one since I reported back in March. Um they're holding pretty steady. Like I said earlier, um when Mr. Hurley was talking about the um uh the shops with openings and and and to Mr. O'Donnell's question, uh 344 ninth graders, if if they all stay and nobody transfers out of here at the end of the year is is a pretty big group

078for us to handle um as a sophomore class. So, again, we we may bring in, you know, five or six kids and and maybe maybe try to get back up to that 350 smart to start next year, but it won't be uh we won't be bringing in a a big group of kids. Um co-op update, um again, this this is this is a little dated at this point. We have 195 seniors out, which is 65% of the senior class. Almost 93,000 hours worked. As 459 employers and just over 1.5 million dollars in gross earnings. I believe that there are also 30 juniors that are now out at this point and it's my understanding that there's probably another 20 or 25 students in the junior class will be out in the next week or so as

079well. So, our senior numbers are our senior numbers are holding strong and the class of 2027 is now moving its way into the pipeline and starting next month I will have I'll have an update on both of the 26 update and the 27 update this year as to what those numbers look like. Corey quick Yep. I apologize. Actually, slide before that you talked you talked about you might be increasing the amount of freshman that I say a handful or something like that. So, this year this year's current freshman if we lose any more kids before the start of next year we will look at trying to keep that. We may backfill some of those spots. I'm going to be honest in the last 3 years typically when we reach out to families that are on

080the waitlist the programs that we have openings in aren't always the choices that those families or those students want. So, even when we do try to backfill those spots, when you tell them which programs have openings, some families say, "You know what? I'm I'm I'm just not interested." Will you say if you can't keep that class, will you go to the upcoming incoming eighth grade class and increase that number? No, just because just because the way the groups work in academic and like you have two groups in academic simultaneously. So, Miss Miss Cook has has told me that we are pushing our capacity where we are and that we that's why we went down to 330 for the incoming freshman classes. We All right, Louis, that's why you went down. You should know where you

081we said that where there's so many waiting eighth graders right now waiting to a handful of them might be coming up Again, we We have this we don't necessarily have the resources dedicated by grade level. Um so we have to look at when you put those two groups together, what what are we doing, what are we delivering, and how many students do we have to follow? Okay, thank you. Joyce, just one one quick question. So, with the lottery this year, Yep. Okay. So, how does this go now? Let's say like uh four kids back out between now and we go to the Who are you going to So, do you go back to the town where they were from first? Or is it Or is it both? How does that work? >> No, so there's

082like a And And there's there's been some discussion around that, and I think the policy subcommittees going to have to take this up again. Um in the past the the current policy was written to mirror the one we had in the past. And in the past Burlington I'm going to I'm going to be 100% honest, Burlington Bedford didn't fill their seats. And the policy was written the way that it was so that we could backfill those seats to make sure that we had a full class in the fall, so we draw from the other three towns. If this trend continues, which I I think it's going to, if Bedford's filling all their seats and Burlington are filling all of their seats, we really need to look at that changing that time frame. It may be

083Again, I'm just going to spitball, maybe it goes to June 1st or or May 15th or something like that because in the past it didn't really have a huge impact. Um but now what happens is after April 15th we go to a combined wait list, which is all five towns based on the number of the order that the kids ticket ticket was drawn in. Um so, there's there's going to I think there's going to be a few pain pain points to that this year. Um unfortunately, that was something that we we didn't see coming and and it was kind of an unintended consequence, but um I I I'm not sure who's going to end up the chair of the policy subcommittee, but that's definitely a conversation we need to have over the summer and look

084at adjusting those dates. Thank you. Um So, again, just to break down by by community, Bedford we have four co-op students, four in Acton, 77, Burlington 17, Tewksbury 45, Wilmington 52. And as I said, that's 195 out of our 298 seniors, so that's uh I think that's a a pretty solid number for us. Um again, this is the same There's nothing that's changed here. Um again, we did get I and I think I shared this with everybody. We did get the formal extension letter from MSBA pushing our date back to May 28th. Um so we do have the documentation of the paperwork to to validate that now. Uh update on SkillsUSA. This this kind of fell in between meetings. Um I I 100% honesty, I had the information at the March meeting, but the kids

085hadn't been informed yet. So as much as I love all of you, I didn't want to come and say these are the numbers of gold medals that we got in these contests and then have the kids find out 2 days later. I didn't think that was really fair to the kids. So here we are. Um we had 140 students participating in district competition. Um again, that's done differently than it has been in the past, but that all takes place here. Uh Skills now has an online platform or whatever you want to call it where kids log in on their laptops. Um they're all down in the cafeteria. Our vocational staff is down there to kind of supervise coach and and do things like that. And the first stage of this, the district competition, is all

086it it's really a written a written exam or written um uh assessment based on their career areas. So uh coming out of that, we had 47 students that were awarded medals at the district level, um which includes 21 gold medals that spread out over 15 contests. Uh some of the contests, there are you know, some of them are their teams, some of them are three-person teams, some of them are four-person teams. So there's there's kind of a mix of these things. Uh we had eight silver medals in in eight contests. Again, those must have been all individuals. And then we had 18 bronze um across 13 contests. Out of the 47 of medal award winners, we had 30 students that qualified for the state conference. Um we also send students for leadership competitions as well,

087which is, you know, public speaking, job interview skills, other things like that. I believe we have 49 students that will be going to the state conference, which starts on Thursday. Thursday night's the opening ceremonies. Friday during the day is the competition and then Saturday is the award ceremony. And that all kind of takes place in and around the Best Western in the Royal Plaza, excuse me, in Marlborough. We We will be hosting the graphics. There's three different graphics competitions. We've been the host site for those competitions for the last 2 years and we'll be doing that again. So this Friday our students have a half day, but we will have all of the state competitors for graphic arts sublimation I'm going to butcher that one. It's It's It's It's a processing piece of it and

088then screen printing will be here. We'll host those competitions on site here on Friday. Um, just break down by community. So Bedford, we had two medalists, one silver, one bronze. Billerica, we had 20 students with medals, seven gold, two silver, one bronze. Burlington had five medalists, two gold, two silver and a bronze. Tewksbury had 13 with eight golds, a silver and a bronze. And then Wilmington had seven medalists, four gold, two silver and a bronze medal. Um, update some of you were here, actually a lot of you were here on March 27th with our visit with Commissioner Martinez. I'm happy to report that a picture with with the Commissioner and one of our dental students is on front and center of the Commissioner's weekly newsletter that went out today. So um, if you get a

089if you want to you want to dig around online, actually I I could probably forward it to the committee members if you want to see it. Again, he met with leadership team and then members of the school committee. We did do a tour. We had a focus group in here. We had a group of student leaders that sat down and talked to him. He met with our department chairs. We had a little round table. I know some of our parents had some conflicts at the last minute. So, I think we ended up with one or two parents. But again, a lot of positive feedback from his office. I know he's been out to some other vocational schools since then. He really seems interested and invested in what we do. And he's really In my opinion,

090I think he's really making an effort to try to understand what he can do to support vocational education and kind of help us to move move things forward with us. So, I I thought it was a great visit. I don't know if any of the the committee members have any different opinions on that, but we were happy to host him. Um Excuse me. Social media update. Again, just to keep people in the loop. This is provided to us every every month by O'Malley and Hell, which is the the company that we've hired to do social media outreach. Public relations, if for lack of a better term. You can see most of our most of our values were up in March. You know, the views, the reach, the interactions. So, again, we're continuing to see positive

091results by having them. I will I will make a shout out to Mr. Bennell, who is kind of our faculty liaison, who does a lot of collection of photos and information and and is is a great resource for us to have to to work in tandem and work partnership with us. He's he's been he's been instrumental in making this work. So. Hiring update. List of open positions. I did complete I was We have three finalists for the director of support services. I finished the third interview this afternoon. Um I will be reconnecting with Ms. Cook and we'll we're going to have a follow-up conversation about uh next steps and where we go and it's actually on the agenda for later. I want some input from the committee about how how we bring those candidates forward

092and how it's going to be structured. Um business manager interviews start tomorrow night. Um those should be completed this week. Um I believe I have a recommendation from the principal on auto tech. Um I I know we've been interviewing Mr. Early's been interviewing candidates for advanced manufacturing. Um I think we may have one candidate for that as well. So far we're working on a second one. Um I interviewed a science instructor today. Um again, haven't haven't got a confirmation as to as to whether that individual is going to take the role or not. Um we're working on carpentry support services paraprofessional, um metal fab, and then um HVAC. We do have applicants for all of those positions. Um some of them we have multiple applicants for. I believe there's only one position that we have

093one candidate, but Is it dental or not? Um what's on the next one? Um so filled positions. School psychologist, um we hired uh Sydney Bernard. You may recognize the name. I know her I believe her dad is is very involved with the swim team. Oh yeah. Um and has has been a long time coach here or mentor or what what a volunteer whatever he is doing. Um and then yesterday um we had had dental candidate sign. Um Colleen Kelly is actually Pat Kelly's wife. Um will be joining us. Um Pretty good. Pretty good? >> No. Okay. Um and Mr. Kelly is is one of our math teachers here, so um she is right out of industry. Um she is already she already has her preliminary certification. She's already started to take course work. She is

094really um I think a real solid fit and very very very excited and very very happy to be joining the team down there. So I think there's good things to happen with there as well. Um I may be opening a can of worms here, but I'm going to do it. Um so there was there was information left. Um Mr. Dowdy had made some copies. Um again, I I didn't have this to get out with the packet. Some of the stuff literally came in this afternoon, so I do apologize that people could have gotten it ahead of the meeting. Uh as far as FY 27 budget goes, um you know, obviously Bedford has met and and voted on and it's gone through town meeting. We're ready to go. Um Mr. Fusco, Miss Gillis, and I have

095been to uh Billerica Finance Committee. Um They had um indicated that they were not going to support our budget being moved not being moved forward. They weren't going to support our budget at town meeting. Um we were told last night that they they were actually meeting tonight um and we were back on their agenda. So I'm not sure why or how or whatever is going on, but that that is taking place probably right now. Um Uh Burlington had postponed a vote on our budget. Um I believe we're supposed to be back there tomorrow night based on the information that that I was to be shared with me. Um Miss Newsome, Mr. uh Hutchins were in in Tewksbury last night. Um Tewksbury's Finance Committee uh did not recommend moving forward our budget. Um Wilmington did after

096after some um considerable conversation back and forth, um they did vote uh to support the budget to move it forward to town meeting. Uh feasibility study, again, Bedford has come out and supported that across the board. Uh Billerica's Finance Committee um did not support it, uh but the Select Board did last night. Mr. Fusco, Miss Gillis, and I were We're all here. Um, they came out in support of of the feasibility study. Burlington's Ways and Means Committee voted to support it and the Select Board voted to support it. Um, and Tewksbury, I do not Miss Muse, you were at the Select Board meeting. Did they Did they vote anything? It didn't vote. Okay. And then last night's Finance Committee, I know they they did recommend it. Right. They did not. Yeah. Um, and then Wilmington

097has has recommended it for their town meeting. So, we have a really mixed bag of different things that are going on. Yeah, there's a lot of Sorry. Just to clarify, in case anyone doesn't aware, this is what we're discussing is Fin Com's Ways and Means and Select Board's recommendations. It's not going to town meeting. With the exception of Bedford, no town meeting has seen it yet. So, we have no official votes. Um, and these These recommendations are just a piece of information that are given that are given to town meeting members. All right. Or I just want to say I can't think I I'm trying on our behalf. We We gave it our all, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate every minute of your time. We gave it our incredible effort to the Finance Committee. Laying

098it on the line, Ryan. Sweat and tears. And I it's this scrutinizing us. We knew it was coming. The town manager called us in a week ahead of time and said, "Get ready. We go." We're ready. And so, yes, it wasn't I know. It wasn't a fun meeting. So, that went through. And then they liked it so much they brought us back for the feasibility meeting, which is another interesting. So, but last night was a win. And uh, we we made a good presentation after waiting 3 and 1/2 hours. Um, and we got the vote. So, um, it go again, these are just recommendations. And what just the town meeting will then have the final say, Sarah. I know. So, um Yeah, but to put it on the table, Ron. I mean I Me and

099Stacy met with ours and it's not good I mean I I'm not going to say I agree 100% with everything, but you have to have good relationship with the finance committee. And to put it on the table like this stuff we knew were coming like we have got to see a significant improvement in next year. We cannot do this. And I mean I agree. can't do a process to manage our budget, what confidence do these people have to give for like 350 million? And that's that's the spin we have to do. And it's really hard to present that. And I mean the stuff that we talked about with like our two finance people, it's all stuff that we know about. But it's like it's like Groundhog Day. I mean we're talking about the same crap

100we talked about last year. I mean even the consultant we brought in, I mean it's like discombobulated. Like it's like you got salaries being done by one, you got the budget being done by another, you got not to go down too far with the E&D, but it's like like we got to have some significant improvement in this. Like this has got to be done. I mean we can't be talking about the same basically next year. Like it's like and I mean not to go for too far with the business manager, but like basically like with the new person coming in, this has got to get We got to work with these towns to come up with a better process so they understand. You can't go into these meetings to basically go that and the timing

101is just awful. Like as far as like you're trying to sell a feasibility study. Like the guy from Burlington had a good point. He said it is hard enough in a year on a regular basis to sell a project without having this nonsense. But going into it makes it much more difficult. So, I mean And one thing just to add to that, even though they did approve our feasibility study, they told us that they are revisiting it and possibly not approving it. So, it's super unfortunate. I I I try to reiterate like and we both have I hate to lose sight of why we do these things, which is obviously the kids that are here, and I feel like it's majorly lost and it's it's extremely upsetting to me. Accusations and things that have been

102said and Ken straight, we know. We are not unaware. Um but I do think sometimes these things get lost in that translation of why we why we why we're doing what we do and that it is it's unfortunate. Thank you, Charlie. Yeah, and and I understand that and I think what you're talking about with the kids like we had some issues with our finance committee. They didn't know what happened with our budget was and just to what at the end of the day, I think cool head prevailed with the motion on that. It's about the students. So, hopefully you say they're going back and revisiting it. I hope it's if they they're going to reject it just because they didn't like some stuff. You know, I think I hope they're going to keep that into

103consideration like I said because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. Exactly. >> I mean, and I I'd like to think when we showed our finance committee we're trying with we're working on it. Hopefully your committee will understand >> mean, you told her not to use a Seinfeld reference, but half of it's Festivus. Like I talked to the guys multiple times. It's like at some point you got to approve a budget. Festivus. Festivus. No, I don't know Festivus. Never heard of Festivus. Oh, yeah. I know I know the Festivus for the rest of us, but I never Yeah, that's the Festivus. I heard of Festivus. But the point is is the point you made was you got to approve a budget to be able to Come on, you used Seinfeld once.

104But yeah, okay. We'll leave that out of the notes. Uh the point being is is like you got to approve a budget and then move forward to get this stuff like remedied and fixed. But it's like it's it's frustrating because stuff we've asked for like we knew going into this stuff with the transportation stuff, the stuff they're asking is like stuff that it's all spin. I mean, I'm on B-CAT's board. There's two guys on that board that are on finance. I talked to them. I said, "Half of it's about the spin, and we've got to do a better job in the presentation." That's part of what the problem is. And it's like some of the stuff these guys are bringing up, whether you agree with the personalities or not, is legitimate. And going forward, and

105this year is make or break. I'm sorry to say it, but it's make or break. All right. I Well, concurring with Ken that's um having watched meetings in all of our towns, um some of the points are valid, well made, thoughtful, but I would also say two things. Uh One, it's important for people It remains important for people not to conflate short-term budgetary issues with the one chance we're probably going to get in the next 5 to 10 years to get a feasibility study through. And I have deep respect for what people do on finance committees. But for the second time in about a week or two, when somebody who's on a finance committee in a given town offers the solution to our any problems we may have, maybe you ought to go down to

1061,000 students. We saw the numbers the superintendent was offering us. That takes some some of the credibility away from that person's analysis. Oh, and by the way, his kids got in and went here, but we should reduce the number of chances for everybody else. So, all of these points are valid. They are valid, and they were made. And we also know that there were people in a couple of our communities who have personal grievances that are completely detached from any concern about our students, our staff, or anybody else. And they have decided to make an extra effort. I've never in the years I've been involved in town government, I've ever heard members of finance committees in a regional school district say, "Oh, I've been talking to the ones in Wilmington." It do This goes beyond

107rational discussion. They have been good points made legitimately by the finance committees. We know some of the mistakes, but some of the things that are being offered at these meetings suggest a just a detachment from the reality and also disproportionate response. We've all been involved with town government that have had issues and problems. But the proportion is too when people start saying literally, "Well, we got to teach those guys a lesson by denying a feasibility study and maybe they can come back for another year." And the same town manager who was a diff source of difficulty in one town now after some resolution of his situation is now a difficult town manager in another community. We cannot just step back and say So, what I'm the final thing I'll say again. I urge our families,

108our alumni, and the people that support them you have the final say going out to these town meetings, not the proverbial insiders. We're insiders to a degree, finance committees, boards of selectmen at times. Um there's a much bigger picture here. And however people Same thing I've said the last time. Um yeah, we can all work on these relationships. But I also expect people to meet us halfway. And I what I've been witnessing on some of these things, including watching colleagues last night, is again conflating I've got some concerns about some relatively minor budgeting questions which I didn't get answered adequately. Your feasibility study should die. But I Give me a break. But to your point, I did challenge the one guy that was overruled. But the one thing I will agree that basically there needs

109to be acknowledgement that this is this some of the financial issues go back beyond four years. >> Absolutely. >> need to publicly acknowledge that that is a problem. And that's what they're highlighting. So yes, I agree in the fact like the guy you're referencing that where is 1,300 whatever that that is ridiculous and I tried to tell them and they overruled them on the which is kind of annoying now that they did approve the feasibility study. >> of those and every one of those came out. >> so but that's that's the same thing. Like we had one guy that we I I argued with basically saying like the same guy that I ran into him at the town election and he was trying to tell whatever that's a separate issue. But my point being is

110is like I tried to tell him you got to separate the two and it's the same thing with the budget. You got to like Sorry, we'll go back to the Festivus list but basically you got to get a budget to get approved for putting aside to get that done and then we can come up with the list of stuff to get resolved and work on that. But they are right in a lot and Paul Livisey touched upon this, this stuff goes back multi-year. This is not a current just a current administration. This is multi-year problem. Even our new district treasurer just >> No, yeah, that's right. I mean I enforced that in the meeting tonight. But I mean there there has been this narrative out there that this is a completely in the last three

111to four which is complete This is basically multi-year stuff which is what these guys are also touching upon, right wrong or indifferent. So that narrative has to be put out there that this is a multi-year problem and it's going to take more than a year over year to get fixed. So I completely agree with you, Brian. I agree that a lot of these guys have their own personalities and whatever. I've gone toe-to-toe with a few of them and it's like, but there is things they're bringing up to create a partnership with these town again, whatever you might want to word it, but I it's just it's unfortunate and the guy from one of the guys in Burlington made a comment about like I said, I may be losing my marbles here, but year over year

112it's tough enough with a feasibility study, but it's even tougher going into a year where you have you don't have that. Yeah and yet and I I hear that, Ken, and I will say You may think I'm nuts, Patty, but it's As I listen as I listen to all these meetings and I hear Like I'm going to get I'm going to tell you I'm going to tell you, Brian. Me and Stacy literally spent like 4 hours on our Sunday, which I'm even more annoyed about the fact that they sat on it and then basically like Boom. I was at a lacrosse and all of a sudden I'm on the phone with two finance one guy for an hour and a half and then basically 2 hours on Zoom. Like half of my Sunday was shattered.

113Like I'm not saying that's fine, but point being is is this is it's We want a better communication. So I'm 50/50, you know that. Because because I agree with you. They want us to say this. They want to be heard. I'm sure they're listening. We know. We understand. We're taking responsibility. These things are said. We We all, I think, agree to that. But to punish us, not us, children, is the point that burns me. Do not punish these children and take away this feasibility study. >> They want me to go on May 11th and town meeting and walk up and freaking ask you to public apology. I'll take that over a witch I agree with you, Ken. I would do the same thing if it was to satisfy as I publicly like >> It's unfortunate

114that we we I will take the guilt. I will 100% take the guilt if it meant saving this feasibility study and moving forward. If if that's what they need to hear. I'm with you 100% but but just I don't want this to be a punishment. >> And that's where I think we're feeling the same. It's very frustrating. And to hear in a couple of cases two communities that and I'm thrilled because I know they needed them. Couple of communities that have built new high schools in the last within the last 10 years. I love those buildings, much needed, great. And then this oh but this is the year we're going to we're going to draw a line because and and this is where I say separate out the operating budget issue, feasibility study. The feasibility

115study, you know, all 10 of us can get booted out and it's a time and that's that's the way it should be. But the feasibility study is this long-term project and we got to the point of last night that a town administrator who's extremely experienced and thoughtful and knowledgeable was basically kind of almost mocking the idea that rejecting a feasibility study, oh yeah well you can just get straight that out you know, you come back in another year or two. That person is being disingenuous with his community and with everybody that's listening to the meeting. That's all we ask. Meet us in good faith. Hear the problems. Our finance committee chairperson came to the school even though we have the fewest kids in the building. Came to this building last summer. We sat down and

116met with us. I've been watching these meetings. I've never seen any of these people anywhere at a discussion about the schools' future and it fell Forgive me, Mr. Chairman, on your first night back. Thank you. Congratulations. But, as we And again, I we all have been on enough town boards. We know this is not easy. But, let's People need to be up front about what their real issues are. And when somebody moves from community A to B and then says, "Oh, I got the same issues I had in B." And we have people, you know, nobody goes before and asks for a new fire station and has somebody from the FinCom look and say, "Well, you just need fewer firefighters." That's what we got in some of these, like, "Oh, we have too many students

117who want to come here. Oh, you should make the building smaller, then it would all work out." Well, that was my counterargument for my friend on the Finance Committee. I said, "Do you like plumbers? Do you like electricians? Do you like So, if you reduce the school, well, it's a thousand." I'm like, "Well, it's 1,300. They're going to go to 1,600. So, do you not like Next time you go to But, they're all asking for more seats, so you've got to love that. Every single town wants more seats. But, they want to take away from the students and they don't want to So, I don't know. They'll tell us they love vocational ed and we said we said, "Yeah, there's such a demand." But, I double-edged sword. Like, "Wow, you know, this, that, the other."

118And we know folks was going to be turbulent and I know, Ken. We We said Tyrel said, "We're working on this. Yes. There's a lot of work to be done. We are working on this. We are not blind to the prob- what's going on out there." We've been sit- I've been we've been hearing about this 10 months or now. More. Yes. We hope to have a new business manager in place soon. Um you know, what's been going on with Paul Livingston, you know, trying to hold the fort. Jim Williams, you know, so that's where we're at. You know, and I know we've been going to these meetings and taking a beating. I know. You know, they're looking at our budget, right? They said, "Oh, it went up 7% 6.9%." It's a five, but whatever. There

119was a six something. Whatever. And um But they don't count when they do the budget, their budgets, everything else in that, you know, in the warrant that, "Oh, we're going to buy trucks, or we're going to do this." That's not in their budget. But that's in our budget. Right. Everything is in our >> Capital Capital and operating. Right. And we do not go back in October and ask, "Oh, by the way, we forgot to put something in. We want this." >> some more money. Yeah. I mean >> Anyway, I think it was last year or the year before. $500,000 between the town and the school, they forgot a contract. Both of them forgot a contract and brought it back in October. And I'm like, "But you're going to punish us because there was a little

120error in the way we did our budget last year, so we tried to fix it this year." And so it make made our uh it made such an increase. You know. Well, the bottom line, thank you, Betty, is um town meetings are coming up. Yeah. The article might move this. Town and I Last night uh they made Yeah. I can't Concerns about timing. It's scheduled for the 9th. We're trying to figure out how we're going to be in two places at once with the vice we're doing. But last night they talked about me moving it. I know the next few weeks are going to be very busy. Beth, if you're all set, you're off the hook. So So we'll just go from there. All right. You will buy any seats. I know I have people

121in our town who will buy seats. Other towns aren't supporting uh Yeah, Yeah, will more than I. I do want to say thank you to Tony, thank you to all of you. We've all put in a lot of extra hours this year. You know, I last year, previous years, we went to select board maybe once and we went to FinCom once. We've already been to FinCom twice and select board three times. Um, and that doesn't even count the town meetings. And you know, Ron's right, they have a lot of complaints that are a mixture of legitimate and yeah, hard to understand. I'll leave it at that. And you know, they're not fun meetings for the most part. And I you know, I just want to say I appreciate all of you and Tony for, you

122know, a lot of extra nights and a lot of not fun conversations. Well, mention that we had someone on the building committee come with us last night to speak. And it was Chris Wood and he was amazing. Great job. >> And he immediately said, "I don't know anything about the budget. But I do know the feasibility study. You know, and and he was amazing. And if anybody listened to him, they should have voted yes. Not for the feasibility, but they were so they're so intense on the budget mistakes that we may or may have not made that they can't you know, can't look at the feasibility study. Even though they're going to try to get one done. Thank you, Pat. Not to to Peter that was so we know the budget. We know what's going

123on. I appreciate it. We know that and I try to go home and talk to my wife and she says, "That's enough, okay?" So I know we our families have been hearing it and around town. Ken, I apologize for this. Louis, Sunday I read those comments. Um, we know the feasibility study. We hope that the town meetings work on that because as we told the finance committee, we need to look internally what's going on. We've had comments like, "Oh, you don't need a new school." And I didn't say we're building a new school. You know, and uh I said, "No, we got to take a look at this building." And and anyway, but they were they were through. They They've seen this, the Building Committee Finance Committee. Um go ahead, please. Um you know how

124how you have a Facebook page and all this? Can we I don't know if it's an external page. Oh, you know what I mean. The school will have a The school has a Facebook page. Can they at least put on it that, you know, the town meeting dates and it's important to These both have to be on I think it's out there. I saw that. I was pleased to see that. The word is out on the street. Someone has trashed the page. Yeah. It's all over now. It's all over. And at the Building Committee meeting a couple days ago, we talked about, you know, publicizing sort of that timeline as it Yeah, let's go over it. and and encouraging public comment because I think one thing that we heard was, you know, a misperception that

125we're just going to ask for a brand new school and we're going to spend a million billion dollars on it and we're not going to listen to anybody. And and that just couldn't be further from the truth. You know, we realize that asking to, you know, go up to a much higher enrollment is unrealistic. We realize that all our sending towns are spending money on other things and we are going to ask for public input but and ask for various commit town committee input, you know, and we're going to, you know, spread the word and ask for input. We are not, you know, sitting here going like this and and think that we, you know, have a money tree. We realize that nobody has a money tree and But in our warrant, do you have

126an explanation of why the feasibility hour says for a new school? I wonder what it says. It's a date. They have a little blur. You're saying it's the wording for it. New school. I I hear what you're saying. Yeah, they have a little blur to explain to everybody what that article is. In the in the warrant explanation. Right. And it says to build a new I have to find the feasibility study. That is like, what? Yeah, I know. That was not submitted by us. No, I know it wasn't. It was written by Yeah, that has to be just explained at town meeting. Right. So, up first up first Charlie is Wilmington and uh So, yeah, I'll I'll get I'll explain that. I'll say a prayer for on Saturday morning. So, go ahead. We got Um

127so, just just to jump back to this um and again, I know people may not need time to read through this. So, please if you have questions on this, reach out to me. Um in that in that handout packet whatever you want to want to say was in front of you. Um the the first item here is an update from Cbiz on the FY25 external audit. Um again, um we're we're looking at another year where they're planning on delivering the audit findings in June. Um I mean, I I will reserve my I will I will keep my festivities listed to myself about Cbiz. Um This is the final year of that contract? It is the final year of that contract. Yep. Um the second the second page here is an update on the student activity

128audit, which I believe they started like last September. Um and now they're saying that they should have the draft reports to us the week of May 11. Um again, not not really super impressive from what I see, but um it is what it is. Um E&D certification, um I did have a conversation with Bobby Colbert from the DOI this morning. Um I know that it has been resubmitted again. Um I did see one email this afternoon. She was asking for one document to be corrected. Um I have not seen any other feedback when Well, I mean, I came in here about 1/4 of 7. I I hadn't seen anything else. Um so, I will keep an eye on that tomorrow. >> correction, a relatively quick correction that she's asking for? It looked it to me.

129I mean, again, I that's not my expertise, but it did look like it was it was something that she had reached out to to uh Ms. Rubio um and it was just asking for an updated document. So, hopefully that can get get If it wasn't done this afternoon, hopefully it's done in the morning. So, we got the I'm really frustrated and aggravated with it. Because as you know, I sat down with you and Paul for an hour and a half like a month ago. You showed me Oh, yeah, we got this little bit to do. We're going to send it and then we're going to be able to send it to Andrew Andy who is from the Paul's company, his boss, who's the great guru of it all. And he makes sure everything's perfect before

130he submits it to DOI. And it should be anytime. And then since then over 3 weeks since it's submitted and constant stuff coming back. Look, my question is how competent are they? In plain English. And I wonder how much further we need to even use them. If we have to. I don't know if we're tied into a contract with them or not. It is a month-to-month contract. I will tell you that even having them here 2 days a week, um there is no way on God's green earth that we can manage the day-to-day and week-to-week stuff with I mean It's it's just impossible with the staff that we have. And again, I I I mean I've told you all this from day one, all of you that were here. That is not my background, that

131is not something that I can step in and do. Um I just I don't have that that experience. >> My main frustrated point is because what they said. So, if he was such an expert, I can't believe he they keep coming back and ask them for what because that's what we were paying them for to make sure everything was done. So, we submitted it to DOR and they're going to look at it and maybe one little thing here or there, but it's been a lot more than that. So, that Frankly, I don't think the guy didn't know what he was doing. Even though they say he's an expert. I just need to voice that. I'm very frustrated. It also turns it good to with the feasibility study because that's what As we've gone into the

132towns, we've talked to them hoping for this, this, and this and that hasn't come out either and it makes us look like a bunch of idiots. And I've gotten tough questions in every single one of the ways and means and finance committee around that. And again, every time it's I I mean I don't have any answer. And but unfortunately, I Is it last thing This is not what I was last night. I said, you know, we we have a part-time interim business manager, and unfortunately, this has taken way longer than than I expected it to and I think anyone anyone of the committee expected it to. Um but again, when, you know, we went out to look for an interim business manager, we had zero interest, with zero applicants. And when we went out to

133search for a company to do this, we had one response. Um I mean, we're talking about the same >> but I mean, maybe it's but maybe Tony, these guys like to maybe I'll dovetail off what Charlie's saying. I think it's time, I know people you're it's all about fiscal responsibility, but we're talking decades of like I think it's high time that I mean, bringing back, but it may be time to get somebody in and dovetailing off the business manager, so like coming in. I think we need to actually hire what we call a consultant. Like beyond like we're going into the scope here where we're bringing in a business manager. So, if we're going to support this person, I think we need to put it out to bid. And whatever that dollar amount is basically

134for them to come in and deal with this mess, to reconcile, to handle one part of it, and then also to come up with policies and procedures, and also to be here to support through this thing. Because to Charlie's we're talking about the same stuff. I understand that basically we position this as a business manager, but maybe we have to reposition this as a full a consultant. And what that cost is because that's going to make or break the business manager. You can't saddle this person coming in. I think we need to reposition this as somebody coming in to basically untangle this mess, all the consult look maybe go back and look at what's been done, all the accounts, working with the district treasurer, working with the business officer, or business man new business manager,

135business office. That's the position. They come in and make recommendations on policies and procedures, and they're there for support for a certain period of time because the Charlie's we're talking about the same stuff. I mean even this audit for Christ's sake. We're supposed to have this I mean Paul said at the meeting in I think it was February or uh whatever it was the last meeting that some of the issues we're having. And it's the same thing with the information. How we can make decisions if you're not getting the information for Christ's sake. That's the first freaking time I've heard. I mean I've heard things about Cbiz but that was the first time for PMS I had heard that there was issues with the audit. So it's like if we're paying these guys to basically

136do this stuff, it's not getting done. The same stuff you got on your list here is talk about Festivus list is the same stuff from last year. So we can't go into a business manager with that with the same crap that's going on. And indeed, we we look like idiots going into these freaking town meetings where we're saying, "Oh well, we got a $1.5 million feasibility study and we might potentially have it but I don't know what the number is." Unfortunately. Yeah. No, I I I I get it but I know Joey, you can't produce this. I know I know it's frustrating and we we don't have the answers, Ken. >> But I but I think it's it's high time to basically put out a formal bid to a real consultant who basically can do

137untangle this mess, make make recommendations on what are best practices in a business office for a school and be on retainer to support the business manager to lead that stuff so that doesn't get saddled with that for a certain period of time. And I'm sorry, whatever the cost is, the cost is. Yes. >> And we may have to pull money from other areas to fund it. And I'm sorry, it's got to be said because this can't be happening next year when we talk about this because I don't want to be in the same discussion next year with the business manager with the same stuff. >> No. So it's like I'm starting to get frustrated but to dovetail with what you're saying, this has got to get resolved. Just to re- And again, I'm I'm not

138I'm not trying to stoke this fire, but just to rewind and and just as a reminder to people, when we first brought TMS in, we had also contracted with the Collins Center out of East Mouth, Boston, um to do something similar in parallel with Cbiz. Um and then we decided to go in a different direction with that because again, at the time and then hindsight's always, you know, 20/20, but at the time we were told that there was overlap with the services TMS was providing, and that TMS was going to do the majority of that stuff, and that we didn't need that service. I can reach back out to them. Um I don't know if that's getting at what you want, but maybe maybe that's what we need to I asked I asked 2 months

139ago for them to put this thing together about this report, which would have been help Yes. This was helpful. That's taken 3 months to get an answer. I asked basically the woman in our finance department asked what the transportation number was. I couldn't even get an answer. Like and they literally asked the same questions. So, back to Charlie's point, you think you're burning at a burn rate of $15,000 a month. Like Like if we're going to spend that, we might as well give it to I want to say that I'll see if you want Tony to reach out to the Collins Center. I think we need to put it out to bid for a full-blown like reconciliation, best policies and protect uh then making recommendations as well as basically being there to support the new

140business manager during that period. Because you can't saddle the upcoming business manager. You have to have a consultant to lead this process. Because this is going to take more than beyond just the business manager. If people think this is going to go This is going to go away as soon as the first the biz manager This is going to go multi months. And and with that, like I said, we have we definitely need to support and give whatever help we need to whoever the business manager. We're doing interviews for them the next 2 days, but from the I've seen, you know, the the what they submit for resumes, they all they don't all have the exact especially in this district. They've all they have better in this or better in that. So, we may need

141to wait till we get them in here and let them tell us where do you need help and make sure we get whatever it is, we'll give it to them. But, we may not want to They already know what they need help Well, I just One has more strong suits than the business the whoever the business is. This isn't an agenda item for the next meeting, so I think we need to be very careful about how far down this road we go. We don't want to Continue Well, what are you guys going to say? Um, so I'm sorry I opened a can of worms. Yeah, that's all right. I know. Things need to be said. Everybody's hopefully will feel a little better, but And and Mr. Moffett has already mentioned this. So, in here is

142the TMS uh 2017-2018 budget recommendations. Um, again, I I got that yesterday. Um, again, I share the frustration and the FY26 budget and that that budget comparison, whatever you want to call it, I got that yesterday as well. Um, there was a question about transportation revolving fund. I do not have historical balances, um, but I'm happy to to to to share the concept behind this. So, we do have a transportation revolving fund. Um, the way the process works every year is we're giving up we're given a projection in January as to what the state thinks that funding will be for the upcoming year. As all of you know, um, this the budget doesn't usually get finalized till July or August at some point in time as it goes through the the House and the Senate

143and and the the governor's office, they haggle and they horse trade back and forth. Some years we actually receive more transportation funding than what we anticipated. So, what ends up happening with that is if we get an excess, it goes into that transportation revolving fund. The way that that fund is uh created uh maintained, whatever it is at the state level, we have to spend that money in the next budget cycle. So, it's not a fund that we can squirrel away millions of dollars and we you know, we can't let it build up over time. So, um in in in one instance, what we did in '26 was we spent the balance that was out of that, which was the right thing to do. But, because it wasn't included in the total overall budget and

144then backed out, it it wasn't done the same way that it had been done historically or the same way it was done this year. So, um I I mean, if people if people really want to see what the historical balance is, I can try to do that. That's going to take some digging um from business office personnel, but if that's something that people really are interested in seeing, um I can find that information out. Um I just didn't have I didn't have that for tonight. Um but, again, that's what that transportation revolving fund is, and that's how it's supposed to operate. So, that when we do get excess back from the state, it benefits the the sending communities the following year by the overall rate um what we're asking them to contribute. Um if if

145if they if it all works the way it's supposed to, that is a pretty seamless flow. Um the one thing to be that that is concerning, um we haven't run into this, and knock on wood I hope we don't. Um in the past, you go back 15 years ago or so, um the state has also axed the percentage of reimbursement, and people have gotten a way less money than they were anticipating, too. So, I I hope we don't find ourselves in that situation, um but that is also a reality that sometimes happens. It originally was supposed to be 100%, but it never actually is. >> never I don't think it's ever gone above 85. >> Right. Can I just make one comment? So, Ken was saying this would have been helpful, and it's dated equals

146six. So, why we didn't have that >> even catch that. >> when we went to the town when we went to these meetings is another question we should really ask. Because that would be have been very helpful to us. So, just saying. I didn't even I didn't even catch that. Um town meeting dates, um as as Mr. Fusco had said, Gorecka is currently scheduled for Thursday, May 7th." We were at the meeting last night. There was some conversation about them possibly moving it to the 19th. We'll see what what happens and we'll have to adjust accordingly. Burlington is Monday, May 11th, which originally would have been the last one of the season, but we'll see what we'll see what happens with Billerica. Tewksbury is next Monday, May 4th, and then Wilmington is this upcoming Saturday,

147May 2nd. I do want to add that when Billerica was They started discussing moving the date, and one question they asked us specifically of us was, "Does moving the date affect you guys and your feasibility study?" And Tony's short answer was, "Yes, but not to the point that you can't do it." And so, their answer was, "If they move it, they will take that information in mind, and our feasibility study is warrant article 22, so it would not be in the first day. Sounds like they would specifically move it so that it is addressed at the beginning of town meeting so that we have an answer." So, we were very appreciative to hear that. And we'll let you know if something So far, I have not heard of another date. I understand you think the

148feasibility at least article will be on the 7th on the first day or on the 7th? If it doesn't change, it's article number 22. I would say it's going to be at least the second day, probably not the third, but at least the second, which is 7th. The 12th or 14th? If town meeting doesn't start until the 19th, they will take the warrant articles out of order and address every hopefully address everything on the on the 19th. Yes. Town meeting members are elected, moderator is elected. Yes. And I am a town meeting member. Ron is Burlington, Bedford, and Tewksbury are all Moulton. Burlington and uh Got you. I can't hold two positions. Questions? I think we've uh I'm going to skip the questions slide. Am I allowed to ask any more questions? Uh I hope

149you feel a little bit better about it, but we still have work to do, a lot of work to do. We know that, we know that, we know that. Okay, subcommittee reports. Um Principal Kokinos has been waiting patiently. Yes. Um Glenn asked me, she's out of town tonight. Uh she asked me to present the We uh curriculum curriculum committee met uh 2 weeks ago and uh we talked about the um changes to the handbook. Um so, Jess, um do you want to um address anything we need You know, the change Everyone has a copy and um changes are in um red. Some of the highlights we talked about um as I as I go through here. Yeah, and just as a reminder, Mr. Chair, the uh the curriculum subcommittee did vote um to move this

150forward as presented to the full committee after their review. Yes, we reviewed it with uh administration and we voted to to move it on. Those If everybody's ready to the packet, um there is um changes that have been made here and I'm not going to read them all. If anybody has any questions, um just direct them to Jess. Jess, yes. Tara? Can I ask Principal Kokinos a question? Absolutely. Um perhaps with the parking privileges? Yes. Third offense is suitable, lose parking privileges. The question that came to my mind is is that permanently? Is that for a year? Maybe you want to consider putting a timeline to that so the student could potentially get have a parking permit for a year plus, you know, if they get it as a junior, so in the student's life,

151and then, you know, so just I don't know, maybe you don't need to but I just thought I'd mention it. Yeah, I think the intention cuz these aren't like small infractions, you know, it's like very egregious. So by the third offense, the idea is, you know, you've lost your privilege to drive. So that was the intention there. It is rare we have something to that level happen. But I will say we got this section feedback from the student cabinet as well as the parents and students on the school council. One of the biggest concerns this year was the safety of the parking lot. So they wanted to see more clarity on consequences and and Bob Lawler's folks are also going to be adding some speed bumps or things to help with that parking lot cuz

152we have more people coming in and out of this building every day than it was built to accommodate, so. And you Yeah, you didn't say what speed bump or stop sign down by the healthy Yeah, what's what's going to be transition. Um those speed bumps will also act as um crosswalks, one connecting health sciences over to the maintenance shed or the garage, and then another leading into the football walkway. Cuz that stretch is where people really speed, so. Do I come to town meeting and bring that up? I think you would be for the feasibility Yeah, for the feasibility study that might Is there anything I can do to support the feasibility study just right now? I like your suggestion though on your So a major big a big change was the new section of

153part four of the shop selection and permanent shop placement. Not I'm to read that, you can see we went over all those changes. Any questions, Sarah? You want to wrap up the meeting, Patty? Any comments, questions, ladies? Okay, so with that in mind, we moved it to the committee. I will accept a motion to approve Um I'll move. I'll second. student handbook. Second. I'll make a motion to approve the 2026-2027 student handbook as presented. Second. Seconded by Patty. All those in favor? Aye. All those not in favor, thank you. The other document you have in your possession is the school improvement plan. And this was presented to us. You have copies of it. We went over this. The concerns we had as indicated, the uh MCAS stuff. No surprises. We know that um the first

154group that took it, obviously, has just told us uh you know, they look at that that test just and go, "Yeah." Uh we hope that things change and some What were some of the positive comments can you make about the child? Yeah, I I'd say so as Ron mentioned, you know, we weren't surprised with the decline in MCAS achievement. That's just comparing like the overall score last year to the next. And these were the students who took it at right after the vote happened. Um and so we do think we've done a nice job with messaging with the current group that's taking MCAS. So we can see a little bit change. But but the thing that we always look to is right below all the red where it says ELA and math MCAS growth. That's

155where they're comparing those students from when they were in middle school versus 10th grade. And this is telling us that all of our students, regardless of what subgroup you're looking at, has had either typical growth or exceeded typical growth. Um and so that to me is saying, "Wow, these students we have in front of us have really improved." Um I think we're also really proud that we continue to exceed our targets on four-year grad and extended engagement rate at the end of the calendar year. So, and staff are working on great means to continue to improve this and we expect to continue to see improvements. Any other questions? Patty, tell me good. Yeah, I'm good. Tell me that. Okay, then. I make a motion to approve the 2026-2027 school improvement plan as presented. Second. Second

156by motion made by Tom, second by Pat. All those in favor? Aye. All those unanimous, thank you. Okay, moving on. Building Committee, Mr. Fiori. Yes, um I know you're we're going to drag things out, but I got a couple of things I have to say so just bear with Some of it might be repetitive from what we've already discussed, but I just feel I need You don't really need to do that. So, as it was mentioned, we got the extension from the feasibility side. That letter was dated on the 8th, so at the time as Tony said at the town meeting, it postponed because I didn't have time to get it in. We got that extension letter. I was there we received on April 21st a letter from the SED basically the that has to

157do with our CET programming that we had submitted to the building authority for their approval for on what if they the numbers we submitted supported it building authority, but they're also saying they reviewed all that documentation and they also agreed with what we submitted and the amount of students we could get it get it done. Um so there was two important things that we had from correspondence at the um that I'm aware of. I don't know if you have anything else Tony on that part. And um like I said, we had the building committee meeting yesterday and um and I know what Pat Sharon is as it has been mentioned that people are talking about this feasibility study for a a building. Well, it's not a new building. It It might be It could just

158be a renovation of the current building. It could be a renovation and addition. Or it could be a new building. We don't know until we do the feasibility study. So, there's a lot of people out there saying it's going to cost 500 million dollars. So, we don't know that. And these people are just being irresponsible to follow up and they're trying to use tactics to show the whole thing fails, which I'm not happy about, but watching cuz I you know, go to your town meetings and listen to the people. You will also probably understand through people that are just saying no for the wrong reasons and they're trying to talk you into saying no. And I think at the town meetings I mean it was all right. Go to town meetings, just listen to all

159the people and make your own decision. Don't just vote because someone's mad at somebody for lack of a better word. I think other than that, we we have had a, you know, some good things and we talked about being transparent. I fully endorse all of this forward, making sure the different towns know what's going on, where we're at as the project develops, and giving informational things. We talked about each town has a their own like day at town like the Yankee Doodle. I think it's like Bill Reekert. Making sure we have tables at these different things where we can as as the time goes on to explain everything so we're openly open and everybody understands, you know, where it is so there's no last minute things where there's not a bunch of back door deals

160being made. It is That's what we're hoping to do. Um I guess I'll stop right Thank you, Charlie. I had more, but I'll just leave it at that. We had a lot of other stuff. We've had many uh Do you feel like you're a good committee? Do you have a good Yeah, yeah. Committee is solid. Like they said that Chris Wood you said that was it? He was here. He He was great and I'm glad to hear that he went there and kind of helped explain some of the stuff the the church very and the finance of the town and a nice mix of staff versus It's a good mix of the staff and town town representatives. Right. Yeah, it's been going well. Okay. You good? Yeah, all right. Sure. And one thing to what

161Charlie said cuz regardless of which camera he says it into, one point that I think came up in the building committee meeting that I thought was important was um many of the capital improvements or developments that will need to take place are going to need to take place regardless of whether they take place and they can take place in the context of a 50% plus reimbursement from the MSBA or they can be strictly on the dime of the five towns. Some of them though will not be avoidable. They're the you know, the HVAC system. So, just that's one more thing to have enter into the discussions is it is whether you talk about a 400 million or 200 million, what whatever some of these dollars are going to have to be spent regardless and now

162putting the feasibility study around it gives us the opportunity for it to be with substantial reimbursement. So, it's fun to add that. Well, yeah, and I did both. That one is the one that I had in my mind. I was going to talk about it, but it's also we had talked that the board was getting ready to do our own study to see what we need for future capital before we got into this line pipeline. So, I won't say if we did our own what it cost us what we're asking for, but if we don't do it, we're going to end up spending some of it anyways. I don't want that to sound like a a threat to the towns. I listen, if you don't do it here, you're going to That's not what I'm

163trying to say. I'm just trying to explain to the people that something's got to be done. There's going to be money spent. Thank you, Charlie, and thank you to your committee, and let's hope we have many more productive meetings as we move forward. Okay, moving on to old business. Everybody was given a copy of the superintendent's evaluation. This is the media cycle. Thank you Nicole for uh putting this together. Uh the soft software the software package is pretty easy to use, and we were asked to excuse me uh the rank and make a comment and make comments if if you felt necessary. You're if you listed exemplary or needs improvement, you were asked to make a comment. If you didn't do that, you didn't really have to do it. Um so it's as I said

164in doing this, Sarah, you and I have been having about this because I said in doing this when I doing my latter part of my teaching career, this is became a reality because normally when when I'm we were evaluated as young teachers, they come in, they take a few notes, and they go, "Yeah, you're doing a good job." And that's it, you know. And so now we have goals and objectives on these people, and so so and the superintendent is is not free of this. So here you are. So as we sit here, folks, I'm not going to read you you could read the goals that Tony put down and the overall ratings for that first page, you can read down there that the majority significant progress met the goals, six of us, and one

165of them exceeded. Comments on the back. Um some some Sarah, you really went above and beyond. Well, I have to explain that I'm I was so used to writing progress reports on Okay, so all the time. So I read Sarah's >> single one. Sarah, it's okay. You you're doing this and reading it going I know. Uh she she went It's okay. Sarah, great job. Great job. Great job. It was fine. So um the comments that's on page Let's see, page two, page three of the comments. Page four, you can take a look at the other indicators that we decided These are the indicators that Did you know these are The committee decided. The committee decided to get use a template. Yes, yes, okay. This is the template that came off of Destiny. Is this the

166one we No, this came from MASC. MASC, okay. Cuz um in the history of this, um we started using something uh that a few years ago, Pat. Remember that we started using something like this, and I we saw we saw something at the conference, and we brought it in, and then we we tweaked it, and and uh you know I mean the electronic one there. Karen Phillips. And so, it's really easy peasy to try to get through this. >> format. It's really easy. It is. It takes I know, folks, it takes I know I sat down for maybe 45 minutes or a half an hour. Just sit there, and you think about all these things, and you know, it's us us to to reflect on the job that that's that Tony's doing, and you know,

167feel free to say what you want. You could see that uh some areas here needs improvement. Proficient, exemplary, as they as they as they tell us and as teachers, we are all deemed proficient unless we're doing something That's what we had we were we're um we were very scared very great scared half about that. You know, I when I first started talking about uh um you know, the goals and objectives of Oh my god, they're going to tell us we're bad. No, we're all deemed proficient unless you're really doing something we got to exemplary, you got to be walking on water. I'm sorry, but I mean that's that's what it's all about. So, that's that document, folks. You can you can take a look at Anybody have any comments, questions about that? Appreciate all the

168time and effort you put in there, and all of everybody. So, we'll do this again um come next year. About this time next year. About this time next year. Is this the final one? And that'll be it. Um and that's great. So, I have your operating protocol. What do we ask What do we talk about? Oh, we were just trying to find a date to have the that's right. Better than nothing. What's the What's the verdict? Um there is no consensus. No consensus? So there was one day that seven of 10 people were available, but that's the best we got. I don't know if we want to revisit the idea of that October day. I wonder if in the fall >> Okay. then maybe we do it in the fall. >> So the retreat is

169in actually July The 12th is 13th. All right, the retreat is July 13th. We're not changing that. And so this is the Okay, I think we're probably looking at the maybe the fall then, right? Yeah, I know I know there was some conversation about doing it on that Saturday. I say we October 18th, we have a committed to have it. We're holding a District 8 meeting here. Everybody put that in your calendars. What was the date? Octobery Is it a Saturday? Saturday, October 18th. 17th, I believe. What do you have to say? October 17th, I believe. October 17th, District 8. Uh Charlie Ellis asked us to to host these meetings. He's moving the meetings all over the state. Four or five and I believe that's about 9:00 a.m. Does he want He said it was

170He said it was usually an hour and a half to 2 hours. All right. So maybe it's the same day. Um if we can pull that off, this is inviting the person from where Nicole DMHAS Yeah, Alicia Mellone. Afterwards, right? We do it afterwards. So possibility of October 17th. And we'll just work on that. >> want to have Miss Downey reach out and see I mean I don't know if we've checked availability with Alicia. >> We'll check on that Saturday. I can. Do we have a time frame? So I can ask her. Well, let's see. Probably have to be like starting at 12:00. Yes. 12:00 to 2:00. And we'll provide lunch. The ASC meeting I believe was proposed to start at 9:00. Okay. Um he didn't really give us a Usually reps every 2 hours.

171I thought it was yes. I thought it was 9:00 to 11:00 or something. He They They did also ask about the possibility of building tours if people are interested in it. So it may go Oh. It may go beyond that. I I don't know if anybody's interested in touring this building or not, but Well, I think we should provide at least uh coffee and Yeah, that was in he That was what part of his communication and he'll reach out and and try to make arrangements. Yeah, we know pastry or whatever it is. That's fine. Yep. Um and then And um >> He's a chair of the show. Oh, the uh MSC lady, isn't she on it? Yes, I believe she is. Yeah, I think Alicia is. But if she stays, are we going to talk

172about if she can come and work with us that day? Are we going to talk about doing a lunch thing? We can talk about that. You Okay, so we'll reach out and see if she's Let's see if we can do it. Is she on the ATF? Yeah, let's 17 17 17 the call. Let's see if we can Okay, dokey. All right, appreciate your efforts for that. Okay, cool. Um that would be nice to work on that. Okay, uh new business. We are talking first about the uh business manager and support services finance interviews. Now the business manager, Charlie and I are on that subcommittee or on that that selection committee. Brian and Sarah are on And Brian and Sarah are on the support services. So we are going to meet with the uh first candidate

173tomorrow night and two more on Tuesday. Tuesday. Perfect. Excellent. And the time frame is um tomorrow night is that 5:00 is the first one. We're going to go at 5:00. Okay, got you. And then Thursday 5:00 and then another one at 6:15. What Thursday? Yes. So tomorrow is at 5:00 and then we're done. Yes. Thank you so much. Okay, so then All right, so after that we have to We will decide. Charlie, you go first. If you remember on uh the the search committee was asking what does the board want? Do they just want us to bring one name? Yeah. What do you Are you looking for more than one name? Are you looking for the one name that we think is the best at the search committee? We didn't know for sure. But, how

174to answer that, we said we got to bring it back here to determine what the board will have the board wants to work it as far as So, so based on what I was told and and and Ms. Cook, please correct me if I'm wrong. Um when we hired the last director of support services, um Brad brought a candidate to the school committee for their review. Um and the question is is is that Again, I I don't I don't want to make mistakes here. This is I mean, this is not my hire. These are These are your hires. But, I want to know I I don't want to bring one person forward and then have a group of people say, "Well, why didn't we see the two or three finalists?" Um I I just I'm

175looking for some direction as as to how we structure this. All right. Because that we said when we we brought two candidates forward for your approval. That's why we're That's why we didn't know. All right. We're We're We're We're a time sensitive here at the time. We want to We have ideas. I was just going to say that I would appreciate hearing a brief synopsis of everybody who was interviewed. Sort of We interviewed Brian, Stacy, and Tony. Um we think Tony is the best candidate. This is why. We liked Brian for this, but not this. We liked Stacy for this, but not this. So, that the search committee has an opinion on a first choice, but briefly mentions the other candidates. Personally. I'm not on either committee, so I don't know how the conversations have

176gone so far. We just We will discuss that with Charlie with the committee. I think we decided Rather, we could do one of two options, folks. We as a search business manager search committee could bring a candidate to this committee to be the our recommendation, and we shall then meet with that candidate, and then everybody could ask questions, and if you're satisfied, you can vote. You can vote. And also on terms of um the work that the support services people have done we have you have um Three three three finalists. Three finalists that that Jess you have met. I believe Jess recommended to me. >> recommended to me. Okay. You wanted them. So I mean I think maybe I mean we can do the same thing there. one one fourth. How does that sound everybody?

177Because It sounds good. We trying to move We trying to move on this because we the indication was we as a committee If we wait till the 28th I believe May 28th our next meeting. If we wait till the end of the month we might be out of luck folks. I mean because I You asking for both or I'm just saying the business manager I don't know I because that's really I hire but Both of they are both of us. But you have to recommend anyway, right? No what what Yes yes yes the superintendent recommends. So you recommend it. And it would have to start over if he doesn't recommend. That's the way the law is written. He recommends. On the business manager position? >> Yes yes. Both of those candidates? Both of the both

178of the positions. We approve. I mean that's why it's such a I don't know I don't think so. Read the law right now. I don't I want to see that in black and white because I don't think that's the way it went. Because at the then at the end of the day that all of us at either search committee can pick this guy and he can just pick somebody else? Like I don't mean that personally. You're recommending to Tony. Tony makes the final determination. The way the law is written is if the committee doesn't agree with my recommendation they're supposed to provide written feedback as to why they didn't go with the recommendation. That's that's what the I can find I I can find it. I mean I I don't remember that going the last

179time around. Well we did it that way the last time. How many how many applicants do you have for the the manager? Three. We have three Yes, three we were interviewing. Three that you're interviewing for Yes, yes. And we had so many for the other. We had We had 12 or 13. How many? 17. 17 and then we interviewed I think we had a We had a dozen applications, but again, everybody that applies is not necessarily qualified for the role. I think we need to check the law I don't I don't I'm I'm I think it's basically like I'm going to call our No, because there the way it was two different way That doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, I have I can I it up and show All right. Again. Let's

180explain. It's an odd law. That's why It is. And it's a lot of gray area. Let's clarify this. No, but I I read Charlie, the way I mean, I don't have the law in front of me, but they've presented different ways you can basically have the interview process. You the You put the superintendent puts forth the recommendation. And and not for all I know, after we've interviewed everybody, we're all going But I'm just like I'm looking at it as like, wait a minute. Yeah. If anybody in the room but you wants this person and you you get to pick it, then why we even doing it? That's That's what I'm looking at. Has the support services search committee narrowed it down to one person? No. No, we have three. three forwarded to me. I've interviewed

181I finished I did the third interview this afternoon. And you're going to recommend one to us. All right. And I said and I said at our house here, we're going to meet three people. All right. Yeah. And we'll recommend one to Tony. That's what That's what Okay. That was That was different. All right. All right. All right. So, my only question here is okay, do we want to The The other thing that came up do we wait till the end of the month or do we call a special meeting? Special meeting. I was going to propose May 14th. Yeah. That's a Thursday, right? Get them in here and let them know at least if they can't start early. Can we do earlier than that if you're interviewing the business manager candidate? >> We have so

182many town meetings and other things coming up. I'm trying to be cautious about what we And that's why I don't really want to try to do it on a Tuesday because again, if if meetings like Tewksbury starts Monday but then goes into Tuesday, correct? No, Tuesday it doesn't do anything. They skip the Wednesday? Okay. Um but again, like Burlington's going to start on a Monday. I don't know what day I mean, I don't There There's too many things at play here with warrant articles and other things like that. The only date that I saw that I couldn't foresee any conflicts with was that Thursday the 14th. So that That is my suggestion. Um again, it's All right. So check your check your calendars because if we wait till the 28th No. >> We may lose

183a candidate. Which is that Is that the right date? That Tuesday? >> Yes, it is the 28th. No, 26th. That's That's a month Thursday, May 14th. What's that What's that What's that meeting? on the Tuesday. So then they could at least go to the town meeting and say we have a business manager. Burlington's the 11th and again, I don't know if it's going to carry over to a second night, which would be the 12th. So I don't want to schedule it on the 12th because we may still be in Burlington around the warrant articles. And we may still be in Burlington. No, I was talking about the Tuesday, which is the 5th. I I couldn't even Oh, you can't It doesn't matter. I And I I can't make the 5th. 14th works. May 26th is

184that a day? All right. So we're talking I My suggestion is the 14th. Sounds fine. Seem good in agreement? Okay, so at that point the we'll have a candidate agreed. We will meet with them and And is this going to be And I'm assuming this is going to kind of be every every member can ask a question a couple of questions of the candidate and then at the end we will then That's an open meeting. So we'll invite one candidate for business manager and one candidate for for support services to that meeting on the 14th. Yeah. Yes. That's an open meeting and then the vote is The vote is public. public vote Do we then go to executive session? No, not necessarily. >> No, and then I would be charged with negotiating a contract. We

185would Yeah, we authorize the Got you. Offer. Okay. All right. All right. So, let's let's let's do that, Nicole, and and we'll put that out post that. >> Um logistically, are we looking at We're looking at an hour for each one? Is >> Yes. Do people think that's a sufficient amount of time to ask questions? And And would you add seven? Seven and seven. And then the 8:00. And hopefully then if all goes well, we'll be done. And and then I just remembered what May 14th was. Let's take a minute of silence. Just to back up Charlie's point, is it possible to get Howard's opinion No, I will try I just got off the phone. I have other questions on So, if since I'm picking up the phone, is he going to charge me? Do

186we have to prove that in the thing it says Charlie? Okay. Can I request something? I'm sorry. Can the business manager be the 8:00 one? Cuz I really can't miss that meeting. Sure. That's fine That's fine with me. Support services seven, business manager eight. How's that sound, Nicole? I know. Okay. All right. Just quick. Brian. I just wanted to thank Jess for the work she did steering It was a fairly large screening committee, 17 candidates, 10 members of the committee. I know I learned a lot from just listening to mostly the people in the special services department the department especially teachers that was it was very instructive and also revealing of a lot of positive things that have been happening down there but just did a great job of shepherding a very large group of

187candidates and a very large group of committee members. Thanks. >> And I'll second that also. Okay. I have a question because it's from the finance I mean committee. They want to know who is on the business committee. Um Scroop. Search committee committee. The search committee? Yeah. If anyone's from Tewksbury. Uh Hopefully there's a teachers. No, I don't I don't think so. Oh, I didn't think they were that they're asking more about who was on the um No, they weren't. You misunderstood them. They were talking about this business committee. It's just because they said It's you're glad I'm in the meeting, right? Everybody want me to Brooke and want me to represent it. We have we have two we have two people um from the business office. Yep. We have uh an academic department chair. We

188have a vocational department chair. Can you send me the list? Yeah, I I can send it to you. We have um you know the two school committee members and then Miss Cook um Mr. Hurley and Miss Johnston. I have a search like Big group. Anyway. I will Patty I'll I'll email you the Okay. Um Moving on folks. Um The uh next item is the Pat and I traveled down to San Antonio National School Board Association. Uh it's my fourth time I went. Patty, listen up. Is that one The new chair in town. I want to move around here. Anyway, um we we we met a lot of people and went to a lot of interesting uh uh presentations. Um and what I brought back that I want to talk about this summer is I went

189to a presentation on us as a committee to putting together goals. We had Tony Doer, teaches Doer. And I really was you know, you listen to these committees Sarah from all over the country. And I wanted so goals and objectives and I I looked at the Baruch to kind of steal it. I told Tara already. Look at the Baruch school committee. And we use that as a template. I think this committee should have goals that are posted on the website. And we should visit those goals and and change. That's something I I took out of I took it out of the took it home took home from the conference. We heard some interesting speakers. A gentleman Zach Cass who his company did the chat GPT. Guys worth millions. He didn't take any money for his

190speech. We heard Deborah Norville who used to be on that front line. She spoke and talked about media. And funny story about it if you saw on a on a different committee meeting a member community member made a did an improv made a comment to a the student rep but it was a long story and stuff out there. So Anyway, so that's what's going on. Next year is folks it's going to be closer to home. It's going to be in Washington D.C. And so if you ever get Where was it this year Lynn? San Antonio this year. It's going to be Washington D.C. And so if you're interested it's going to be in early April next year. So I'm if you think about it. Early April. Oh it's going to be Tuesday I think it's

191the first weekend of April. April 3rd or whatever it is again. Oh it's going to be early. It's going to be early. It's week after Easter next year. It's going to be in Washington. And uh They usually bring in some really top notch speakers. There's some awesome presentations. This whole committee they go I got I love the whole committee that walks around. Tara Patty and I were laughing. We're all wearing and shirts. So okay we should do that. We should wear purple college shirts with your name on it. I said and I love the one one time I went to the superintendent had a shirt. I said, "Tom, I'm going to get you a shirt." Anyway, so but you know, we talked about Boca with all these people and they're like, "That's a great idea,

192you know?" So, we talked to the gentleman We talked to the gentleman. We went to I went to one We went to a presentation on career and technical ed. It was it was fabulous. Um and um so Uh I went to I'll just finish the story. Gentleman from Connecticut who gave to the presentation on and I'm going to say it to Tony Miss um the state superintendents make. So, he was pretty interesting. He had been on the committee for like 40 years and now he works for them. So, that's what's going on from our end of the world, folks. And if you ever have a chance to go, I know this year in November we're going to Danvers. Those who want could go. It's a it's a it's going to be a a day trip

193for all of us. The woman from Marblehead goes, "Oh, you people will be driving back and forth." I said, "Yeah, Mr. K, but we're good to go, you know?" So, anyway, that's what's happening in the world. Well, I did tell that I went to the Division 8 meeting. Who was there? And I mentioned that we should and so I talked to What's his guy's name? Who's Charlie O'Rourke. I was going to say Charlie and I didn't want to say Charlie. And I said, "You know, they need to get to do a presentation at one of the NSBA shows, you know, because You and I that's what we We listen We were talking We listened to all these presentations and I said, "You know what? We can do this." And so I I mean you know

194what it involves. You have to apply and go down there and present stuff and whatever and then they give you a special People are surprised at how we do it. Right. And so that's interesting. So, Pat, I think we might We might come up with something on that. I'm thinking about that and I and they put out calls for proposals. Um and also bring in and Pat and I they they call for the student uh um entertainment bands. They had a band mariachi band from San Antonio that was unbelievable. So, they call for all these things to come in. So, anyway, that's that's what's going on in the world. And you see you just got to see what's happening out here in the in the big picture here. Um okay, we have next here folks

195the uh last day of school. That's always exciting. I just going to be June 24th, 2026 is the last day of school for the 2025-2026 school year. >> Is there a second? I'll second it. Second it. Sarah makes the motion, Sarah seconds and all those in favor say "Aye." Aye. All those not, pass. Done. We have a uh next item is authorization to borrow. Okay. All right. So, this basically the purpose of this folks comes up every year. Request approval for the district treasurer to borrow funds in anticipation of revenue for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2026, fiscal 27. Um each fiscal year the district may experience periods of expenses that may be paid before state aid, local assistance or revenues are received. Just allows the district to meet its financial obligations without interruptions.

196Mass General Laws allows regional school districts to borrow short-term funds in anticipation of those coming revenues. Okay. Um can someone make the motion? I'll make the motion. Do you want me to read it? >> Please. It is recommended that the uh district school committee authorize the district treasurer with the approval of this committee chair to borrow money from time to time in anticipation of revenue for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, pursuant to MGL Chapter 71, Section Section 16G as amended and to issue and if necessary renew notes payable within 1 year in accordance with MGL Chapter 34, Section 17. Second. Is there a second? >> Motion made and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous. Thank you. Point of information. To be clear for public sake, there is no current plan to

197borrow any money. No, there is not. I want that out there. I know I I first saw this a few years ago and I was like, "We're borrowing money?" No, we are not. But now on the other side of the house, Brian, we're going to make um the next I I swear to God we're going to we're going to spend some money. Uh this basically authorizes the superintendent director to expend funds up to the amounts approved by the in the fiscal 2016 2017 budget. 2016 2017 Is that 2017 Yes, 2017. 2016 budget? Just 2016 on that? Yes. Just for 2016. 2017. That's the next year's I'm sorry. It is 2017. So it's the 2017 budget. It's an authorization for next year. Cool. And to budget to proceed with the purchase materials approved by the school

198committee. This ensures the superintendent director has operational authority needed to carry out the budget as adopted. As we know here at Ashworth School, yeah, the school committee approves a budget outlines the district's planned expenditures. To implement the budget effectively, the superintendent director must have explicit authorization to spend within those approved limits and to purchase materials that the committee has previously approved and endorsed. This vote provides authority allowing the superintendent director to manage day-to-day financial operations, maintain continuing continuity of services, ensure timely procurement of necessary materials aligned with the fiscal 20 2027 budget. Can I have somebody make the motion, please? Okay. Ken, please. I make a motion that superintendent director would be given authorization to spend district funds up to fiscal year 2017 approved budget amounts set by the school committee and further and be

199further authorized to purchase any materials in this fiscal year's budget that have been previously approved by the committee. So second by whom? Bob Bob, you just seconded? Good job. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you, Ken. Thank you, Brian. Done. Check. Boom. We're moving on. Okay. Um agenda items that could not be reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance. Everybody have anything to add? Ken? From desk, can we like put out a bid basically for the new audit? Yep. Should it do a request for proposal in audit? Like the the this this isn't this contract coming up with the last year. Oh, you're talking about for the the external audit. Um I was actually going to ask that tonight and luckily you brought it up. But thank you for the reminder. Yes, that that

200should go out. I will follow up with um Ms. Petrocci tomorrow. Did anybody else cuz I have something to tell everybody. I wanted I want to give a shout-out. She's going to get embarrassed when I say this. We had our executive assistant run a 3-hour and 3-minute marathon. So, Nicole, congratulations. I said that's awesome and she said that's awesome and she said I wanted under three. But listen, anybody who could run 26 miles in 3 hours and 3 minutes, Nicole, great job. Appreciate you. Appreciate it. It's a beautiful day to run. You couldn't walk >> I saw her sign student and a sign for and everything. And you couldn't walk Could you walk after the two days? I was running the next day. That's great. I saw some of those films people like being dragged

201across the finish line and stuff like that. So, congratulations. You'll be back next year, right? Of course, you will. >> under 3 hours. I think you're going to get there. Thank you, Nicole. I I sure 3 hours, she qualified. I know. I said, "Wow." So, anyway, that's how many marathons for you now? 27. That's awesome. That is awesome. Anybody have anything else that they could not be reasonably talked about? Okay, for the future, where where are we going down here, Brian? Um it'd be great to hear sometime from the folks. Uh I don't think we've ever had them from our ELL and feel by literacy program. Cuz that's been a growing and important part of our uh life here. And we saw that a lot revealed in the uh cultural program uh cultural fair that

202took place a few weeks ago. So >> Nice. Absolutely. Anybody else Is there anybody else we want to hear I know this year has been kind of really crazy. We talked to a lot of different people. Uh the ELL would be great, Brian. I think anybody else you want to talk to, I don't know. >> Uh I I think we had Mr. Pigeon in to talk about admissions. >> Yeah, we did that. We had Mr. McGrath in earlier in the year. Mr. Hurley was here. Has been Denica and Mrs. Johnson Johnson. Has Denica been here? I think Denica was here for one I think Wasn't she No, was CD. She's been at some sub committee meetings. She didn't She wasn't at one of the full committee meetings. Again, I I don't want to I don't

203want to No, no, no. I understand. I understand. No, it's nice to see name to a face. And they And they do a great job. I mean, the other one, too, is is I mean, we're getting into that time where we're starting to follow up with seniors. >> Yeah, that's No, that's fine. But um I mean, maybe Mr. Carlson um you know, once once they have a better handle on, you know, like what what percentage of our students plan on going on to school next year, who's going right to work. I know we're trying to gather information about kids that are staying with co-op employers. Maybe Jim Fajuno or May. I'm just throwing it out there. I don't know if that's something that's of interest to the committee. Would be Would that be May or

204June for guidance director? What do you think about it? Probably June. All right, I'm going to put that down for June. And ELL, Brian, for for uh if you could reach out to him. >> And in June, maybe we can have um Mr. Costabile with a final sports update. End of the uh spring sports. Spring sports. Okay. Are we going to executive session? Okay. Finance thing the guy did say that all if you want me to do it he said our assistant town administrator and town administrator had firms that had worked with this sort of put out a full proposal for the grant that I went on the board for the audit. Not the external audit. Consultant. Like putting out a bid for like somebody to come in and do like a full revamp reconciliation

205best practices ongoing support. >> That would be super helpful. Okay. So I can reach out to Patrick and the two of you guys can Okay. Then you got a framework and then maybe we can go and gives us a place to start. Yep. When do you want subcommittee requests? Tell them thank you for saying that to me. So we'll continue with our current committees. Please reach out to me within the next before our next meeting. What would you like to be on, stay on and I'll I'll go to work on that. And it's for next year. It'll be we'll do that Sarah. Yeah. Originally it's not it's when I first did this I like to rush rush rush and we have a no no it's okay. We'll continue our work through June and I'll work

206on this and I and hopefully by the June meeting and end of the May meeting I'll have an idea of who's doing what and just reach out to me what's going on where you want to be and um I'm I'm going to ask different people if they wanted to do different things. So that's my plan and so I'll have everything we'll have the whole list Sarah in place before before the June hopefully by the June meeting. that'll be my goal. And then we'll hit the ground running. We'll meet in July as you know, put that everybody said that on the calendar. We'll come up with a whole agenda for that meeting. I've got some ideas I want to share with everybody and of course you know, it's it's a good working meeting. It's nice cuz

207we started this up a few years ago folks after I got on the committee. It's Yeah, I mean it's cuz we want I I just don't want to break in June. I'll see you at the end of September. Hey don't We don't want to do that. Firstly we're going through them anyway. So listen, without any further ado I uh Is there a motion to approve the minutes here? No that's nothing. That's approved for minutes of the meeting last Trying to oust them already? I will accept a motion to enter executive session purpose number four Mass General Laws section 30A Excuse me, see chapter 30A I apologize. Section 21A4 to discuss the deployment of security personnel or devices or strategies with respect thereto. Is there a return to executive session to adjourn? Is there a motion?

208So moved. Second. Seconded by Kat. And a roll call vote. Stacy. >> Yes. Yes. Oh. Taryn. You have a vocal. Yes. Yes. Yes, sorry. Thank you. Yes. Patty. Yes. Charlie. Yes. Taryn. Yes. And the chair votes yes. Okay. We are in executive session. >> Mhm. >> I'll second. Thank you. Uh, we are back in regular session. I will now entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. I'll move to second. Second. All right, the chair will make I'm seconding it. All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried unanimously. Thanks, folks. Goodnight. Thank you. We'll see you on the 24th 7:00. Chuck, I'll see you tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow at 5:00. Yeah, I was on the other one. So, Nicole