School Committee Meeting 05/27/25

001All right, this is the school Chashing Valley school committee meeting May 27th. Uh the roll call. Everyone except for Sarah is here and she told us she would be not here and even Sophia is here. All right. Um Ron, you want to pledge allegiance? Sure. 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. Please stay standing. I'm going to do a moment of silence for the loss of one of our staff members, Tom Seo, who inspired students in our electronics and engineering department as well as on the soccer field as a longtime varsity coach. All right. I would also like to express to the Savo family the condolences from the school committee and the

002entire Shashin staff and students. I guess we have an introduction. So, I would just like to make a quick introduction. Some of you have met her on your way in tonight, but Nicole Stouty has joined us. Um, this is going to I I hate to say Karen's replacement because I don't think we're going to actually replace Karen, but this is um Karen's successor. Uh, she's here tonight. Um just for a quick introduction, she will be joining us for the June uh school committee meeting, be here for the whole event. Um her first day with us will be June 16th. So we'll have a couple of weeks of overlap uh with her and Karen for her to learn the ropes and figure out where everything is and uh ease into the transition. So Nicole comes to

003us from Triton Regional School where she currently works uh as the executive assistant to the superintendent there. So she has a little background, a little little experience with the role. So um Nicole, welcome. Welcome. Looking forward to working with you for many years to come. Very excited to be here. Thank you. Sophia, you are up. Our student representative. Good evening. To begin, I'd like to congratulate our 12 students who won gold at Skills USA state competition, as well as six silver students and six bronze students. Furthermore, April 17th, DVC held a successful portfolio show which allowed students to show off their artwork. April 24th, there was a co-op update that showed 195 employers provide 65% of seniors or 213 students jobs. A total of 91,848 hours earned students about $1.5 million throughout the year. Another

004great success was the Little Mermaid Play. The turnout was great and the performance was phenomenal. Culinary arts prepared pulled pork tacos with watermelon barbecue sauce and mango for the Day on the Hill event at the state house. There they served legislators and school committee members statewide. May 15th, junior prom took place at Burlington Marriott. Burlington police and hotel staff complemented the behavior shown at the event and it was overall very successful. We are now looking forward to senior prom this Friday. May 17th, we worked with the Red Cross to hold a blood drive program from 8:00 a.m. to 100 p.m. May 18th, 14 seniors were recognized by the Bara Elks during their senior of the month program. In continuation, we had multiple students compete in the Massachusetts Travel Trades Association competition. Five students earned first

005place, including a group of three, two in second, and two in third, among all divisions. For seniors, May 28th, they will return their laptops and pick up their graduation cap and gown, as well as their yearbooks. May 30th, eligible seniors may sign out. Burka seniors can also visit their elementary schools for for a 9:00 am breakfast on the 30th. June 2nd, seniors have a mandatory assembly. This includes breakfast, awards, graduation rehearsal, and tickets, and yearbook signing. Wilmington seniors who registered prior to last Friday have also be been given the opportunity to visit their previous schools on June 4th. This week is also spirit week for seniors. Today it was beach day followed by kindergartener versus senior citizen decision or career day and dress up day. Further, the business shop is hosting an online popup store

006which makes purchasing school attire accessible to all. The store will close on June 1st. Lastly, there are multiple students preparing for their graduation speech on June 5th. These students include the class president Dale Gardner and for the first time ever co- valid Victorians Onyx Pacquin and Kellen Trot. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Have a good night. I see nobody commenting. Okay. Class and club update. Kevin Good evening everyone a copy of my speech I passed out excuse the speech format I just wanted to make sure that I uh captured everything didn't want to forget um to those you know listening at home if I I did have a conversation with you didn't make a cut personal yet but I try to give spread the love here. Um, good evening school committee members. Thank you for

007inviting me here to speak about Joshin's clubs and activities. As the clubs and activities on to the principal is a pleasure to talk about the wonderful extracurricular accompl accomplishments of our stu Josh Shasheen students. Many studies show that students who get involved in their school community are more likely to graduate and be successful in the school because of the connections they build with their peers and friends. At Shasheen we currently have 26 student clubs in which our stu our Shasheen students can participate in. Between these 26 club we clubs we have approximately 630 students participating in the various clubs and activities throughout the year. These clubs and organizations offer opportunities for students to develop important and tangible skills like leadership, time management and service. Many clubs have service components and work to give back to

008the surrounding communities fostering a sense of community service that builds important relationships between the schools and sending communities. The diverse list of clubs vary from clubs that focus on developing individual talents and support groups like art club, math club, chess and checkers, GSA, literary magazine, orary club, teen dating violence, and the Rams book club. to more outward facing clubs that focus on community service and excellence like student orientation, national honor society, skills USA, and student council. Students can also get involved to create great experiences for their class peers through their work as class officers, yearbook representatives, school newspaper, and anti-bullying members. This past year, the work of the students supports the evidence that suggests school clubs and activities enrich not only student life, but the school culture in general. Some highlights um are as follows.

009Obviously, there's a lot more that went on, but these are just some of the highlights. Um the anti-bullying club led by Sophia Galant, the student representative, created a little library for our Shasheen preschool. The library was built by the cockpit shop and will provide opportunities for our littlest rams to start their literary home. The National Honor Society recently organized a successful community blood drive at the beginning of the year and sponsored another successful shash trick-or- treat event in the fall. Our busy student council uh members work hard to take care of the recycling the school building as well as organizing food and clothing drives throughout the year. Most recently, student council and student cabinet members were instrumental in bringing our own community resource room to Shasheen to our to help our families over. Our student

010orientation mentors successfully orientated the freshman class and started a new tradition of Shasheen trivia during home room as a way to foster community and school spirit. Our yearbook students and staff successfully adjusted the yearbook timeline to ensure that all seniors get their hard coverver book yearbook in time for graduation. This was a huge undertaking with new timelines and expectations. So, a huge shout out to the yearbook students and staff for making this happen. If you like mermaids like my daughter in the Sophia's introduction, the drama club recently performed The Little Mermaid two weekends ago before two pack crowds. Both actors, crew, staff, and staff worked hard all year to put on a great performance. Competitively speaking, we had 155 uh students compete in our district Skills USA competition and 54 participants continued to shine and

011dominate the state competition, bringing home 12 gold, six silver, and six bronze medalists at the state conference. More Skills USA news to come as the 12 gold medalists travel to Atlanta in June. Aside from aside from winning medals, our Skills USA students run a very successful Toys for Tots fundraiser during all of this. Our robotics team competed in three competitions this year and were able to walk away with top spots in the various competitions and they're so dedicated. I just got an email asking for some summer room space so that they can start preparing for their next season. Um, and 75 members of our esports team play video games after school. They had two seasons this year and reached the semi-finals this past season. On the leisure front, our 45 ski club members skied the

012Mount Watus slopes in January and February of this year, and 39 traveling rams had a successful trip to Italy over the break. Looking for a stress relief? Shasheen offers weekly yoga sessions in the AM to students who are looking to de-stress before the start of the day. And in June, our sportsman club is getting ready for a fun day of archery. Um, last but not least, on Thursday, May 15th, you heard about the junior class, the junior prom, which I attended. And to echo Sophia, they all the staff members complimented how great our students were. And we're looking forward to senior class prom this Friday at the beautiful sea cla uh the sea glassass. Um I also just before I end want to thank the club advisors for their work this year. You know they

013they get paid a state stipen obviously but if you did the hourly rate they get peanuts. they, you know, they do a lot of extra work behind the scenes, a lot of logistics, a lot of interacting with students, building, you know, new relationships with with students. Um, so they, you know, owed a lot of credit to a lot of the success behind this the student work. Um, and that's about it for my update. Does anybody have any questions or comments? Brian, of course. Thank you for all the work that you do as a result of your um involvement with all the clubs and activities and it's it's a tremendous variety. I'm just curious, are there any things that students have expressed interest in that maybe are thought about, contemplated for the future or haven't quite

014gotten off the ground yet or Yeah. So, students have various interests. Um, I know recently there's been some interest. This hasn't been brought up yet, so just surprise spoiler warning. Um, so you know, someone wants to do paintball. Other kids wants to like dungeon and dragons. You know, there's a lot of different um interests that student have students have and we're open to, you know, hearing the proposal and, you know, making sure that that it's feasible long term that we're able to kind of support kids like that. I know the like the yolk club was a fairly new club that's started recently that kids wanted to join. So, we're always open to new new things. Thank you. I just wanted to comment that as a uh operations manager for the Burka Community Food Pantry. Uh

015you guys have done drives for us. The National Honor Society Kids volunteer there. It's always very well received and very appreciated. So, thank you. Anything else? Yeah. And I just want to Kevin, thank you for all the work you do. It seems like I really our kids have so many opportunities, whether it just has to be a tons of stuff for the kids to do. I wish more kids 6:30. I wish it was more than that, but that's good. Thank you. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of variety. You know, there's a lot of students that gravitate towards like esports, chess and checkers, GSA, and you have other students that are more interested in community service. So they do get involved in student council, class officer stuff, you know, so there really is something for everybody.

016Excellent. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Consent agend decided I mean, if there's anything somebody has questions about, we push them now and then just one one our our billing cycle doesn't seem to line up with with Katie Moff who is our education law. Um it seems like every month it looks like we're a month behind, but it's just how she posts the account. Um, so Karen's been very good at helping me decipher um what what has been taken care of and what hasn't. So for whatever reason, we can't seem to get that timing down quite right. Anybody have any comments about the U the other disposal that's on the consent agenda, right? Yes, it is. The um kind of interesting but all is solved. So, we used to have a

017water softener here that used those materials. It's my understanding the water softener was taken offline a number of years ago uh because it was malfunctioning. It wasn't working correctly. So, we've been storing the salt. Um and maintenance director was asked kindly asked if we can uh put it up for surplus disposal so he doesn't have to keep moving it from one spot to another um and hopefully free up a little bit little bit of space for them to store some other things. And no one's interested in it. something that anyone else. So, I mean, we'll put it'll go up um on on that site and if anybody's interested in it, they can with the hope that someone bids buy the whole lot for 50 bucks, you know, whatever it is. If they they want it

018and they need it. Sounds interesting. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, I need a motion. Make a motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I I be approved. So, everyone really handed out those papers nice and fast and quiet. There's two things that came around. So, the first thing I'm going to draw you to is what I always show you. Um, it's a monthly update on where we stand in each department subtotal, but really on the back where we have the grants and the fund balances. Um, just so you're aware too, these are based off of reconciliation that happens at the end of the month. So, that's why I'm showing you from April at April 30th just to try to keep us consistent with reconciliations. um masonry project after I printed these I think that

019last 12,000 cleared. So that whatever invoice was against it is now out of the system. So that now is pretty much spent. So that 390 is spent. Um FY25 Perkins is all spent. We talked about the other one that was all spent last week. skills capital that was for a million that was a 40% 60% 40% split on fiscal years. So we're on track for spending for this year for what the agreement was. Um we still are waiting for about $6 million in funding between busing um the state that's go that we've got the hip that's going to come in tomorrow from the state and then our towns as well. So, if you notice on line one on this page, the very first thing where it says NA, that always shows us our budget, which

020is what we voted on. Our yardage date, which is what we've spent to date, and then um the available budget is -6 million. That's the money that we're still expecting to come in between the districts and the state. And obviously in that line, nothing's encumbered because that's revenue. So that's an update there. The second thing that I have for you with the title two software text and supplies as of 523 2025. I wasn't at the last budget subcommittee capital subcommittee meeting because I was at the MASBO conference. Um but these are the actual moves I think that were discussed at that meeting. I broke it out the same way that I did salaries. I have a line to put everything in and then redistribute it to the accounts that um overspent and I'm anticipating about

021$123,000 left after all of that. But it changes so fast that that numbers we have have to remember it's approximate because once the check clears our numbers change. So I I believe you might be voting on this piece later but I just wanted to explain and then make sure everyone knew I wasn't at that meeting because of the um conference. Anybody have any questions? [Music] So just contracted services is left. If this if these transfers are voted on, those are the only accounts we voted on salaries already. Yeah. Okay. So that'll be just to be clear, the 123 is what we're looking to move to like a temporary. Yep. So you'll see that all if you look at lines like 1 through 55, you can see I'm moving it all to that line where everything

022is going to remain. So and I I put the numbering so you could see it. So from line 1 to 55 on that first page, the organ object is 1192304 with the object 5006. So that's my holding place now for this because it was a supply line that we weren't using. So I didn't have to create a new supply line and then the difference will live in there of 120 123,000. But the difference between this and the budget one or the salaries is that's not going to change because n these are completely different objects. No, I understand that. But I'm saying like the difference between this is like to your point about checks. The one with salaries basically is not going to change. That's basically so we directed you $100,000 in that temporary salary account.

023Yeah. That's going to stay. to your point, his number changed. The only thing with the salary account is that anyone that's paid hourly from the point where we transferred it to the end of the year, we'll pull from there if it's not a grant because we pulled all their money into one spot. Okay. So, all these temporary accounts like this one, the one we do in June, potentially could all have adjustments depending on year end variables. Yep. Exactly. because we haven't stopped like maintaining our areas and cleaning things and there's still things people need through the rest of the year. What concerned me in Jenna was and we decided to budget something the number of accounts that went into the negative and I think we going to clean up which is right which is clean

024which is what this is and that's common Ron like it's not an uncommon thing and that's how our system structured. I know I've said that before some of those departments I know it's unavoidable. Yeah. and I know I know. So, at the end of the day, it should work out, right? You have to look at the details and the overall picture, you have to look at both. Okay. But just to be clear, going forward like if you had like an athletics like situation in this new world that will become parted so you could they will not be able to spend over their line. Yeah, we just wanted people departments to make sure they knew exactly what's going on, right? And not to I just don't want to have departments give you POS. Yeah. And then

025we find out that they really should have done that. That's all. And it's up to obviously us too to communicate that back to them. So yeah, I think I know there's a timeline discussion tonight. I think all that's being hashed out later. Um, but yeah, I just want people the departments to know exactly what's going on. You to tell them you can't know, you don't have the money for that. And then we I shouldn't be looking at a negative 30 31,000. That's altered. That's what bothers me personally. I don't know. You can't speak to that. And I know and that's this that's been the structure and we're working on changing it, but it's impossible to change in a year this time. And I'm trying to put the correct amount of time into it so it's

026accurate. Right. I know there's a lot of things going on here. Yeah. I mean, the important thing is that I'm assuming you do the timeline later tonight that's all being communicated to them so they understand next year. It's not a big surprise to them. I do have one. I just remember because I don't really see it in here. I see like graphic art, you know, 25, but in reality there was another part of that that was right. Yep. And there's got to be a way to figure that out beforehand. I mean, either they put it someone put it in the wrong place at the beginning or so next year, and this is I I think I've told you guys this before too, that budget book with the operating capital budget are I'm hoping for next

027year I've gone through and aligned our orgs and objects directly with that document. And that's not how it's been. So, that's going to be new next year and I hope it's like it'll be easier for us to see these things versus having like you guys tell me how much money for a salary. But then when I go to put it in here, there's different lines for those salary sums. So, I'm I'm I've worked with payroll um Heather Dalton and payroll to make sure we have all the same pay codes and it's going to map directly to that book. So I'm looking forward to when I print something with more detail, those memos will align exactly with our budget and that has never happened before. So it's taken me a couple years to have the insight

028to un to understand what's going on. But I think especially where we're making some changes with our timeline makes the most sense to have that budget book and um what is actually in immuness all align with the awards and objects and categories. self. But it goes beyond it goes beyond just monitoring too because you also have a situation where you have like some piece of software that they bought or budgeted and you didn't use it and it was 200,000 over. There's the ongoing monitoring but there also should be discussions in the next year's budget about things that cash that came out of that budget versus actual. Yeah, exactly. to say like what's going on like that should be this the budget versus actual would be ongoing but I think there should also be in the

029budget development process when that happens if there's outliers that are are identified during the year those conversation conversation should also be have in the fall with those specific departments basically that you know like to can't have repetition of this you know if you're budget for something the expectation is you're going to do that project and implement it so it's not happening then that's a right another question and like I don't manage that part of making sure people do their part that is not my role but I'm happy to monitor what comes in and any outliers okay I'm going to disagree with you if there is such a big thing let's like it was I I don't remember was it 200,000 it was a lot of money right you should have been aware that they weren't

030spending that and why Didn't they spend it or they spend it in a different way? See, I think I mean to me the buck stops with you. I actually think that we already hashed all that out in a previous meeting and I'm happy to if you guys want to I'm bury this I'll do it. But I think that's why that timeline was constructed so that that doesn't happen next year. And I'm going to do what I'm told, Patty. I'm not gonna I have learned to come here with accurate information, answer what I know and that's all I can do. I don't I can't predict what people are going to do that. But monitoring it is why you guys came up with that budget timeline. So now we have a plan going forward. Like I've said,

031I've adopted the system and worked with it. I'm slowly trying to change it. I made you all aware of those changes that I'm making, just how it's aligning with that book. I mean, we can still talk about it, but we're not gonna you're not going to see this implemented until September when everyone's back and I have my the new budget ready to go. So, I can promise I can say, but in the end, I think let's see how the process starts working in the fall and then we can, you know, finagle it from there if we don't like the way it's going. All right. The only reason I responded was because you said that isn't your job, but in reality it is. No, it wasn't my No, it's not my You misunderstood me. It's not

032my role to go down to like carpentry and be like, "You ordered all this wood. Where is this project?" That's what I meant. Like I don't manage how the teachers use these supplies. Oh, that's hashed out and operating. I didn't mean it that way. Yeah. I just meant I don't manage the teacher end of it. And I don't think that that part would make sense. That's not where I step in. So that's what I meant by my role. I didn't mean it. No, I'm going to do what is expected of me. Okay. Thank you. You're not going to go burst into the shops and go, there's no money for this. Buy this software that department heads take care of that. Get it to your attention after 11. Fine. That happens at a and that Yeah.

033And that that instruction has nothing to do with me. It's fine. You've been very transparent. I want to tell you that with us. I'm trying. No, it's fine. I know that. It's You have a huge job to get this thing. We have a $38 million budget here. All right. And we just want transparency. We want to know what's going on. We don't want these uh ohos at the end of the year. I know that. I know that. You know, so that's all well and good. We discussed this timeline. I hope you've seen it. I think we're going to make it happen here. Thank you. I had no input in the timeline, though. I understand. I just want you all going to be on the same team. Thank you. I I didn't have It doesn't matter.

034You guys can vote on that later. This has nothing to do with me. I will do whatever is voted on. Anybody else? Got one more. Just Okay. On the not to beat a dead horse, but the just on the audit. Yeah, there you go. That's what I do. I run a stable dead horses. Um just on the audit. So, I know we've been looking to go back to, you know, like a a March period. So I guess if we're going into June here, I guess what's the status of the July or sorry the 2024 audit like what's what's the time frame to get it closed? What's outstanding? And I guess what's the audit firm presented to say basically to get us back on track? So what will be future years will look like? I guess

035that's I can give you an update on time. So I heard from him this afternoon. So, we had we had proposed the date of June 10th to meet. They can't do that from their end. Okay. Um, so I again I haven't I haven't had a chance to reach back out to the audit subcommittee. Um, my other suggestion and I haven't heard back from him yet is to have them present before the June school committee meeting. That's not ideal and I know that's not what we wanted to do. Um, but based on the time frame that they gave us, it won't be ready before the week of June 10th, June 9th, whatever it is. Um, but again, I think we want to have it here for the June meeting because I think this group wants to

036vote on it before we roll into summit. We were back and forth. It was probably about 4:30 or 5:00 today. I have I haven't checked my email to see if they responded, but that I that's the timeline piece. I've been reaching out to him about when they're going to present it. I don't know about any of the the background or what's going on or what else needs to be cleaned up at this point in time. Right. Well, then I since you brought something else up, I'm going to bring someone up about E and D. What's happening with D and D? Um, I resubmitted last week and then Thursday I got more corrections. So, that's where I'm at. I'm doing another submitt. Um, I'm working with Mary Rubio, our controller, working on it together to look

037over the numbers. But, I did submit again last week and okay, once you change one thing, there's a snowball effect that I've been dealing with. Um, so I'm working very closely with Bobby at Department of Revenue. Can I ask a question? Well, I'm going to say something. Do you get a letter about END like in June of like this June? You get a letter that says this is what you need to do to start. Yeah. And you have to submit by the fall. I mean that all right. Yes. I Yes. And then by the time I think they do all the municipalities first and certify all the free cash and then they go to the regionals. I mean just this is a long time. I know. I understand that. I'm waiting. You know she'll she

038came back to me Thursday and asked me to check with something with the auditor and that's what I'm doing. So it it's not fast. I can't she doesn't say check with the auditor and I check that day and it's ready to go. It's I have to wait for them to look through things. So she had another thing that she said can you have the auditor you might want to reach out to your auditor to look at this and that is what that's what I am doing. Okay. And that's something that and that's the audit we're waiting for right now. I is that what you're talking about? I'm talking about ENT. I know. But what does the auditor have to do with END? So that's something you do. No. So Bob, so I rep Yeah, I

039wrap. I'm gonna I can send I'm happy to send you the email. AR emailed me back on Thursday and said that you need to talk to your auditor about this. So that's the process. That's where I am right now. I'm talking to the auditor about it. I talked to John today at two. I've emailed him. If you guys want to see my emails, I'll just give you the login. You can check them out. See what the Department of Revenue has sent me. But um I can assure you she told me to go reach out to the auditor and that is what I'm doing. Okay. So when was the first time Okay, I'm gonna When was the first time that you submitted anything to I submitted it on time in November and then they start working

040through all the districts. So that's the first submitt and then So is that the the October 1st report that's done in No, this is different. This is different. Yeah, this is different. So, I' I've met all of their deadlines. It's just she's questioning some things. Um, today CBiz thinks it was that we had that $220,000 audit adjustment last that Daniel Dennison had us do. That is still following us. So, they think that that is where the issue is. I'm not 100% sure. I don't know what the issue is because when I send it when I send it up to the state and I upload it to the site, I know like the numbers that I'm seeing are working because they have proofs built into that spreadsheet. I don't know if you've ever seen it. So,

041I follow those proofs when I when she tells me to change something and everything's working, I'm uploading, but then she noticed something else that needed to be fixed. So, if you want to take a look at the one that she sent me the end of last week, I'm happy to share it with you. Um, it's a lot of back and forth between me, the state, and the auditing firm. And the timing of all that, it isn't fast. Like from the time I hear from the auditor, then I go to resubmit, it's like two weeks. And it's not because I'm not doing what I'm supposed to. It's just because I have to involve outside agencies to get my answer or to get assistance. Jenna, I'm wondering, the deadline was November. you met the deadline. If you

042had submitted, say early October, put aside whether it's feasible to submit it in early October, but say it was and you submitted it in early October, would the whole process have gone a little smoother because they had it earlier? No, because they they have a I think they always start with the municipalities first because of free cash. So even if you gave it to them early, they would still not have looked at it until November because they were still dealing. I didn't start hearing from the Department of Revenue until late January. Okay. Thank you. I guess that's the open question like how I understand like you know like you read the law base says you know by the fiscal year end which is June you get submitted and then you not submit it but you

043align with then you submit by October. But I guess the question is if the audit requires basically the the END again that they're independent processes but they're dependent on each other. So if END needs to be certified before the audit and we want to issue and that's part of the audit to be 331 and we have a target date of 331. I guess that's what my open question is. How do we work backwards in order to meet that? You know, I mean, we're not certain certified by the state, but what we would actually view as certified to get included as part of the audit because if they're requiring that and our target date is 331, I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out how to work backwards in order to meet those two masters.

044Yeah, I'd love to work with you on that. I would love to work with you on that, Ken. But I that's exact I'm the go-between between the two entities and they everyone is we're not their only client and we're not the state's only client. I go between both of them. I don't know if you guys want to see more. I'm happy to share with you what my last one was. If you want to see like the types of communications, um I'm happy to share that with you. This last submitt was over $75 from a grant that was overpaid and ended up back in our general fund. So that had to be fixed. So sometimes the auditor will tell me you need to have the comproller make this journal entry. So then we do that. It

045changes the whole piece and then I have to backtrack all my numbers, all my figures, which I've done multiple times. So J Patty uh we're talking fiscal 24. I'm just getting my head focused on this. Okay. I know we I and dealing with you always got to go backwards. So we're talking So we're fiscal 24 the audit is if I'm not if I'm correct not done yet. Audit on 20 23 we got done. Yeah. Okay. Fiscal 24 audit is not done. They keep coming back with little things. Okay. I understand a bunch of little things and then that'll So then we should at the end of the day should have the EMD cleared up by then. I hope so. I mean I plan on resubmitting once I understand. I understand. So by the end of

046this June 30th we'll have Okay. The auditor does things different than the department of revenue. I've told they use two different accounting systems. I was trying to figure when the department of revenue tells me check with your auditor on this item. That's what I do. And if that's tying everything up then I'm sorry. It's just going to take a little longer before we get through it. We get that, Jenn. Back. I get that. I'm not trying to prod here. I guess we're just trying to basically say longterm getting the on firm change, whatever. There's going to be a couple years. I guess the main goal here is what is the actual and you don't have to answer now, but it's basically what is a good target date for the audit to be completed. If if

047basically EMD is part of that and we can't do that, then 331 is not a valid target. So I guess that's the other thing to come out of this long term. Yeah. Is from the state and from the auditor determining what is a actual legit target. So if 331 is not then you shouldn't be held to that because basically that's not fair because basically like if you're waiting on stuff from the state and you're waiting on stuff from the auditor. I guess that's the other main thing. If people have this magical date that is going to be 3:31 then we need to kind of take that back and say what is a good target and maybe that's in the past. Maybe that's why it was 6:30, but because basically you had all this I don't

048I'm just 3:31's the federal deadline. Okay. So, they're always looking for they're looking for that audit for I mean we have we have a night school LPN program. Um all the all the PEL grants, all of the federal financial aid reporting. They they start they start emailing the first week in April saying we want this information. You give them an estimate. you give them like a preliminary which they're not I mean we're we're going to end up on probation with the federal department of education because we haven't been submitting our paperwork in a timely manner. I had to ask for qualification. I guess that I guess that's what needs I guess that's what needs to come out of this Tony is basically like what is a legit target based on all the known variables give

049or take like you said about like if it's you know with the if it's the END again is a separate process but what is a legit target to meet all those variables that's what I'd like to see both of you take a look at come back with and what is a legitimate target based on federal uh you know requirements banking like what is that target and what can we meet I think that's a great conversation for the auditor when we have come and present on FY24 because again I don't think that's within Jenna's control it's not within my control that's something that they have to say this is what we think is a reasonable timeline to get and we tell them basically these are Jenna has to submit for federal whatever and then get a

050rebuttal from them if not part then we need to flush that out so yeah we can discuss I mean they have way more they have way more clients than just us so they're going to be able to tell us you know this is the timeline that we can work within this is when we can get it yep So that's probably a good conversation for them when they do that. Yep. Anyone else? Okay. Superintendent report next to the last school committee meeting. Oh, sorry. Thought I had it all set up. [Music] All right, let's try this again. Um, first of all, FY26 budget. Um, thank you to everybody uh for your continued support. We did receive approval in all five of our sunny communities. Burlington, uh, Wilmington together. Um, actually, we were at Tukbury as well.

051We went to all of them. So, we were we were at all five town. I was trying to think of where we were and what we were doing. We were at all five town meetings. Uh again, you know, we we get some we get some questions about um enrollment increases and numbers changing and some other things like that, but I think all in all um was pretty supportive. Um and again, like I said, thank you to everybody that that made that happen, people on the committee here, our staff members that advocated for that, our community partners, uh everybody that that pitched in to make that a reality. So, um we are all a go for July 1. um enrollment update. Uh since the April meeting, we've lost two students. Um I did follow up after

052the last meeting and ask some questions. Um and again, um based on the feedback they got from the guidance office, they are doing a follow-up survey with parents. Uh they've had um they've had okay results, but again, you know, a lot of unfortunately a lot of people when they decide to withdraw their student, um they don't really give us a lot of feedback about reasons or where they're going. one of the um one of the students that had withdrawn at the last meeting had actually moved out of the country. So I I thought that was a pretty good excuse. Um my understanding was it was a handsome student and his parent his parents or parents got redeployed. So um unfortunately the kid didn't really have much of a choice but to follow them. So uh

053we're holding pretty steady. Again we have uh we still have 348 nth graders. Um, I was unsure if we'd see a little bit of a dip in that after, uh, freshman shop placement. Um, it seems to have held pretty steady. Uh, I know, uh, Mr. Pigeon and his department has plans to do some targeted ad campaigns to maybe maybe add 10 or 12 students for the fall, uh, within, you know, within some certain programs that might not have full enrollment at this point in time. So, um, you know, keep an eye out for that. If you know, uh, you know, anybody that's interested in in one of those those programs, um, we'd love to have them. And again, we're going to try to we're try we're going to try to get to like 355 360

054um, for the start of 10th grade year and then we'll we'll roll with that group all the way through and see uh, see how many end up graduating in two years. Hopefully, we won't have any more um, 300 classes that we have we seem to have that are working their way through our system. uh co-op. So S Sophia did uh kind of update people on this a little bit. I think my numbers were a little bit more updated than hers. Uh this is class of 2025. This is the seniors that are going to graduate. So we had 102,15 total hours worked. Um we were up to 213 students which amounts to 67% of the senior class supporting 195 different employers. Um, and students earn 1,700,210 of gross earnings. Um, we do have a a little

055celebration plan on Thursday morning uh to recognize those students that have accepted full-time positions with their co-op employers and intend to stay on with them after graduation. Um, this is the second year that we've done that and and we're exploring ideas and I and ways that we can possibly expand that more for next year. Um, again trying to uh make the point that that's what we're here for. We're here to support our local business and industry and when students find success on co-op um you know and then decide to stay with a local employer uh that's definitely a win for for everybody involved. So we want to make sure we recognize that. Uh class of 2025 again five Bedford students, 74 Bill Raa students, 16 Burlington students, 50 Tukbury students and 68 Wilmington students. Like

056I said, 213 out of 319. Um, I rounded up to 67, but it's 66.77%. And this is the first month for our update on the class of 2026. So, our juniors are eligible. Um, we already have 26% of the junior class participating in co-op, and I think this is either the second or the third week that they're able to go out. So, we're off to a roaring start there as well. Um, based on the numbers that Mr. Smith had shared with me 2,835 hours work to date. Um the students have made just over $45,000 um on their co-op placements. And when we look at the breakdown there, we have two Bedford students, 31 Booka students, three Burlington students, 18 Tubberry students, and 23 Wington students. Um so we are slowly creeping up. I know there's

057usually a big push the last couple of weeks of school because kids like to uh like to get summer co-op approved so that they're they can go and work in their particular career area and be eligible to uh use all the tools and equipment for their employers. So I would not be surprised to see that rise before the end of the school year. Um admissions update just to keep people um in the loop here. Uh we have churned through some of the wait list as of um as of Friday. It has today's date on it, but I pulled the information Friday. We've had 90 students that have declined um were offered admission and and decided that they had changed their mind or they wanted to stay in their setting school or some of them may

058have gotten an offer to go to a different school whether it's Central Catholic or wherever. Um so that has reduced our weight list to uh 86 students. Um so again we are working our way through those things. Um, and you can see the numbers, you know, as far as the number of students that have declined from each community. Um, but reckon Wilmington both uh kind of tied at 22 for the most declines and then Burlington at 19, so experience 16, and Bedford at 11. Um, the weight list is now combined by score. So after April 15th, it's not done by community anymore. It's by rank score. So, the kid with the highest score, regardless of which community they're from, gets the next seat. Um, we've we've accepted 33 students off that combined weight list since

059it got combined about a little over a month ago, a month and a half ago. Um, we've also received 10 late applications that per our admissions policy, we won't we won't review until after July 1st. And then after July 1st, we will look at um where they fit in that ranked order. And then again, if there's more spots that open up over the summer, those stu those students will be included in that um that admissions group. Excuse me. Uh project updates, masonry expansion. The the building uh is pretty much done. Um our masonry students and our staff members are doing there's a a brick facade that goes around the lower three or four feet of that. Um so they are actually out there. They were out there today. Mr. Foster was out there with the

060kids today. Um they're finishing up the brick work uh and then um our general contractor will be back to uh do some final grading, reinstall the sidewalk, um do all the paving and everything out there. So we're coming up on the end of the school year. I know um our facilities director was going to reach out to him and see if that was something that they wanted to wait until after the last day of school to do um or if they want to get in here and get that finished up. Um, we've issued purchase orders for the sprinkler system, the fire alarms and smoke alarms in there. All of that stuff is in process. Uh, the one outstanding item we have, the overhead door for the new building hasn't been delivered and installed yet. So,

061um, we are waiting on that. Um, but all of that stuff is moving along. Um, we have plans to, uh, work in there over the summer and finish all of those things. And our plan is to open that building, um, in the fall when the students return. the metal fab renovation. We've awarded pretty much um all of the renovation contracts. The the company's going to come in and do the floor, the painting contractor, uh the second phase of ventilation. Um our electrical, some members from our electrical department will be doing um a lot of the electrical and wiring work over the summer. So, we're in good shape with that. Um we have a piece of equipment that I believe um purchase order is going out with may have gone out today or tomorrow. um which

062we're trying to get delivered uh in this fiscal year. And as Jenna had said before, um that budget was split between FY25 and FY26. So we're trying to make sure that we meet our spending threshold for the FY25 piece of it and the FY26 stuff will kick in over the summer. Um the business technology/bakery renovation project is coming along. Um all the walls have been framed down there. Uh we did run into a little snafu. Um, we've had to keep the boilers on longer than we anticipated because we've had a bunch of cold nights. Um, and there's two heaters down there that have to be moved, excuse me, can't move the heaters till we drain the water out of the boiler system. Um, so hopefully this week we can make some progress with that. And

063then, um, again, we have plans to, uh, for the, uh, the the fire and smoke alarms to go in there and all of that work will get finished up over the summer. Um, I had reached out to the staff down there. um this afternoon to try to set up the time to go down and do a walk through around um their technology needs, what how they want to have things set up and where we're going to put projectors versus whether we're going to have touch screens or or whatever they they want to do. Um and then the cosmetology classroom remodel. Um the countertops are in. Um the um the painting in there is just about complete. I know that they've scheduled to have the glass company come in and do uh the mirrors as soon

064as the the painting update is ready. um our one of our electrical instructors and her students will be running we're going to have to we're going to end up putting a sub panel in there. Um so they're working on getting that up and in and the wiring run for that. Um we've decided to change out all of the lights in that classroom. They had the old style fluorescent lights with all the slats in them. You probably had them in your classroom 30 years ago on um so those are now gone in there. Um we do have plans over the summer. We're also going to replace all the ceiling tiles. So that that place will be nice and clean. Um I believe most of the equipment has been ordered down there um that they had specified.

065So we should have four nice new instructional spaces um for um four of our shop programs when we roll into September. So I'm excited to report back on that stuff as they get finalized. Uh other updates. Um the board of elementary and secondary education voted, I believe it was last Tuesday, it was a week ago today, uh to adopt a modified lottery format. Um I I believe there was two people that voted against it. The rest of the board voted in favor of it. Um, I I know there is a budget amendment on the House side to pause that particular the implementation of that and do a two-year study um led by the legislature and a team of people that they're going to pull together. Um, obviously this is going to have some impacts on

066us depending upon what this how this timeline plays out and whether it gets paused or not. Um, my personal opinion is that there was a ton of public comment. I don't know that they really paid much attention to anything that was shared. Um I read through a lot of the stuff that was posted online and there was very few things that were pro lottery but that was still the uh direction that the board decided to go and voted you know pretty much I won't say unanimously but but heavily heavily weighted towards adopting it. So um more to come on that as we go through the process. Uh Sophia had also talked a little bit about this and I think Kevin talked a little bit about this. Um tomorrow when our seniors get their caps and

067gowns, any any kid that has bought their yearbook will actually get their yearbook tomorrow. Um which is the first time my understanding in probably 20 years that we've done that. Um typically the kids would get the inserts and then the books would be delivered in the fall and they had to come back here to pick them up on homecoming weekend or whatever it was. um sometimes it doesn't work real well. A lot of the kids don't come back and get them. Um so and and again I think having staff here and having their friends here that can you know can sign this and can write things in this. So um we intentionally plan to give them out tomorrow so that they have Thursday and Friday um in their academic classes with their friends and they

068can see their teachers and then um they can also bring on the class day on Monday um and see shop teachers and see other people. So, um, kudos to, um, Miss Ullette, um, and Mr. Hirs, uh, and the students that work with them on that. Um, that was, uh, I I don't think they had actually finished working on last year's yearbook when they started working on this year's yearbook. So, I know there was a lot of extra work there for for them and the students. So, um, you know, congratulations to them. Um, and then the last thing, just a reminder for graduation, um, just like we always do, um, five o'clock in the guest dining room. Um, I have only heard from one committee member about special requests for people that they'd like to present

069diplomas to. Um, I talked to Jess Cook's secretary the other day. She said she would get me the the uh the program as soon as it's as soon as it's ready. Um, and I'll work on assignments for community members. Um, and what time do we need to be here? I think yeah should have spots out front for people to park. I think Sarah might be the only one that wasn't here last year for graduation. Um and her and I have already had a conversation. So um hopefully but yeah um fingers crossed we don't have any weather related delays and we get this thing off when uh Thursday night um as planned. But you know potentially depending on what rolls in next week maybe Friday. Look at my weather app right now says sunny 87. Perfect.

070Well, I'll be roasting fingers crossed because you know we're going right to the frying pan. Yeah. So, anyway, and that's all I have this the policy admissions policy lottery that Bessie approved if it does, you know, regardless of whether it gets delayed or not. Um, did it address any concerns about um, town specificity so that Bedford doesn't get three of her kids one year and all 35 of them the next? Um, and did it look at the kids have to at least apply? Is there an interview? Are we even looking at anything? So, it it did address the community cap piece. Um, which I I'm I'm glad because I know I I've talked to just about everybody here about what a nightmare that would be for budgeting if it didn't. Um, my understanding is if

071this thing gets implemented on the timeline that they're talking about, we'd have to actually do six different lotteryies. We'd have to do one for each town. Um, and again, basically if Bedford had 35 seats, we'd pick 35 names from Bedford. Whatever Bill Rick's a lotment was, go right through that whole thing. And then it's my understanding we'd have to throw every bingo ball that was left into a big drawing and then draw a weight list based on all the numbers that are thrown into the the weight list lottery. And then again as a kid as kids decline if you know five kids from Bedford said I'm not interested we got to go through the weight list lottery. We can't I don't think we can do it by town. Um there are some things in there

072that I don't think that people knew were included. So, there is a caveat in there that says that our all of our sending middle schools must allow their students to attend tours during the school day as long as we provide transportation for them. So, if they implement this in September, um I I can tell you who my first three phone calls will be to and say, "Oh, yeah, by the way, yeah, uh you're sending your kids over this year and you're going to see what we're doing." um they really um watered down is not the right term, but I can't think of anything else at this time. Um so essentially the way that it's worded is if you miss less than 27 days between seventh and eighth grade, so a year and a half of

073school, you get an extra ticket in the lottery. So, it doesn't say that you're excluded from the lottery for missing 27 days. So, you could theoretically miss 60 days, 70 days, and still get your name entered, but you get an extra weight for 27 or less. Um, I don't know exactly how it was worded, but the last version I saw essentially took out all the discipline language unless you were convicted felon. Um, other than that, we can't consider that. And if you're not a convicted felon, you get an extra ticket in the water. So, it it's going to be kind of interesting to navigate some of these things. I believe they left the application process intact. Um, they did try to streamline the like the date. So, like everybody in Massachusetts has to open applications

074between September 15th and October 30th and it has to close between and I'm making these dates up, but like between February 15th and March 31st or whatever it is. So, they they tried to do some of that stuff. Um, but there's a lot of stuff in there that we're gonna have quite a bit of work ahead of us to figure out um how to make this work. I have a question. Somebody is saying, "No, we're not doing it." What happened? Funding. Can we secede from the union? I mean, what if all of the um schools got together doing it? They're going to throw us out. Right. That's a good That's a good question. You know, and I'm I read this. I don't know if everybody read this day on the hill update because these are

075the brains that are doing this stuff. All right, Representative Bruce Ays. So, he's talking about uh vocational education. The demand is there, the capacity isn't. We need to invest in physical infrastructure, labs, facilities. Okay, we agree with that. Put in a couple more schools. What are you doing? Right. Oh, all that. No, we're not going to do that. Make more families aware of vocational programs as an option. Remove barriers that discriminate against ELLL, students of color, and students with disabilities. Okay? I don't know where that happens, but it doesn't happen here. So I know students who have disabilities that are in the school and the parents tell me right they I was not asked about my kids IEP 504 anything until they were already accepted. We have the highest percentage of students on IEP than

076any school. You know, all vocational schools have, you know, so this is someone who has not been educated in this at all. Put in place fair inclusive admission practices and recognize kids who want to go into the trades, not just the kids whose parents want them there. All right. Okay. Okay. Let's vote for this guy again. Come on, baby. Tell me how I feel. Tony, I told you I read that MASC daily. My son got me hooked on it this morning. I'm reading my coffee. National news first bullet point. President Trump muses about sending three is this billion three billion in Harvard grants. Taking the money away from Harvard. Let's give him to trade schools. He said, "Yeah, so Trump, you know, be whatever your views on Trump or not, he loves vocational ed." So,

077you know, anyway. Well, anyway, I don't know. I found that interesting, Brian. Whatever. That's one of his things. Um, we didn't speak to um Sorry, Brian. Go ahead. Technically, does the committee have to vote on whether they we go with a weighted lottery? That's ridiculous. the whole thing is as opposed to the blind lottery which is even more ridiculous. And I'm sure as the days wear on they're going to come out with some guidelines around what they want. I'm I'm sure we're going to have to update our admissions policy and it's going to have to reflect all of these changes that they've implemented, but I haven't seen that guidance yet and I'm not really in a hurry to search it out. Policy subcommittee don't be surprised to get a phone call over the summer. So

078Tony, I'm not moving forward. I had the um at the at the Elks Brunch, I had the pleasure to talk to uh Nancy Katigan, Mark Lato's aid, Nancy and I that worked with him 15 years and helped me get the citations and I told her, "Please tell Mark, vote, vote against this." I spoke to David Robinson from Mington. Just my two cents. Uh I said, "You gota you got to do something about this." I mean, whatever. Yeah, I mean the thing is um try to slow it down a little. I've heard they have the votes in the House to override a potential veto. I heard the question is the Senate as to whether that's it. The Senate's like we're not even I know I just think in the big picture that people I know to

079the more I hear about this more read about it and Patty I mean yeah they create this monster they're going to six months from now they're going to say what did we do? I don't know. Anyway, all right. Thank you. Subcommittee report. I mean, do anybody else have any comments? Oh my god. Subcommittee. I'm gonna read that one. All right. The budget subcommittee. Budget subcommittee, Madame Chair, met on May 13th. Uh all members except Mr. Fury were present. Um we approved the budget timeline uh unanimously. Um we had it was actually um a joint meeting with the U facilities and um Brian O'Donnell was nice enough to step in as chair. We did a MSBA building committee discussion. I don't know. Brian, if you want to add anything to that. No, we just had some

080general discussion about uh thoughts superintendent and we all had about putting the building committee together at some point since our period for starting the process is technically August 1st. We also discussed a potential vote on budget line item transfers which will be discussed tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, we got the facilities done, too, right? Yeah. All right. Any old business that anybody wants to discuss? Do you have the subcommittee assignment chat? I work on them. They're in type. Okay. So, basic, it's pretty much everybody has me. There's a couple changes and not everybody got back to me either. So that's not the issue. Okay. All right. Um vote out of state field trips. Yes. So um Mr. Bag's request did not make the packet, but he did we did put copies

081out for everybody. Um, and that is the one that's referenced in here, which is the Costa Rica trip during April vacation of next year. Um, I believe everything else in here has been filled out by the appropriate staff member. So, culinary instructors want to do a tour um at Johnson and Wales in Rhode Island to be determined in May or June of 2026. Culinary instructors um they they usually do an annual trip to Canopy Lake Park uh to look at the food concessions. That's usually May or June. Um, Mr. Scho, one of our plumbing instructors, is requesting permission to take his students up to Nashville, New Hampshire to get certified. Um, Viega is the company that makes the the crimpon fittings. Um, and they will press Proessress. They'll do the uh, well, VGA is a

082little different. Proess is like a brand name. Oh, okay. Um, but, um, they will they will certify our kids for free if if we transport them up there. Um, we already talked about the Costa Rica trip for traveling rams. And then the last two are the uh the New England wrestling competition and the National Wrestling Competition in Virginia. Um I think this is pretty standard. I think the plumbing one might be a new one, but I think the other ones show up every year for this list. So also the kids graduating with those certifications is definitely a bad for I we have to research that more. I'm not I'm not sure. I'll make a motion that we approve the um student out of state field trips for the school year 2526. Second. All those in

083favor? I opposed. Any extensions? That's approved. Budget timeline approve. Yes. I This was brought up I know earlier I I don't know if it was Kent that brought this up or it was Charlie. Um again this is uh kind of a work here to lay out some steps and some planning things for next year around how information is shared out to uh lead teachers u directors department chairs um to make sure all that information is communicated um early and often. And then some follow-up timelines during the school year. Um some proposed dates for transfers of salary items. um you know a date to look at actual budget actual um versus budgeted numbers for the FY207 budget. Um and again just going through and kind of spelling out. So um we want to do salary transfers

084uh in October. um do um transfers for textbooks, software, and tools in January and then look at at the end of the at the end of the school year what we have left for supplies and contracting services probably in May. Um and again, I'm sure there'll be some things as we work through this that need to be updated and modified or added to or whatever we need to do, but um I think I think this is a good place to start. I think we talked about it quite a bit in the budget subcommittee meeting and I think um at this point it targets the things that we want it to target. I don't know if there's any questions about stuff that's on here. So this will be um presented to the staff at the meetings

085as the school year starts so that they have clear expectations of what is expected of them. Yep. Thank you. Um just one question uh for Jenna. I know you you said you you I know you weren't able to be at the meeting where this was discussed and weren't actually part of creating a Is there anything here from your vantage point that we should be aware of as a potential problem challenge or anything of of that sort? anything you would I mean take exception to or anything that I would take take exception to be concerned about once we go through it I'll have I'll be able to start answering those questions um okay it's like a beta is that a beta it's a year yeah thank you and that's something that all of us can do

086like we think something should change out of curiosity the current buyer these different departments that will respect did anybody say anything to them or how did that did um do you have an answer there is this directed towards either one of you I don't it doesn't matter to me either you have an answer um yeah like I I've said in previous meetings the structure of our munice has allowed people to go into the negatives and that's the structure I've been following it was it was built for 20 years in this program and all this stuff is to change it to the way that you all want to see it. Um, I've just done what was always been done before I changed things, but now we're seeing these issues in the system and that's why you

087guys have done all these things so that we can implement it in the fall and then hopefully it works exactly how we expect it to. I do have a question. You keep saying that. Um, doesn't it show red though in I know you can override it, right? I mean, yes, I can look I can look at any budget line right now. Somebody's doing, you know, putting something in, it comes out red, so they know it's overspent. But that's that's been the philosophy of the school for 20 years was to allow that to happen. So now we're trying to regroup and follow this timeline. I So what I want to make sure I understand. So you're saying the philosophy for the last 20 years or whatever long before you has been to just let these people

088since we've had munice since we've had munessent people have been able to overspend from what I can see uh from following the system for the past two and a half years. So yes, yes, even they overspent and it's allowed because a lot of times it's the timing of things, timing of when things are reconciled or they might have an outstanding purchase that they never going to buy but didn't tell us. So Julia in the spring always sends out what ones don't what ones do you plan on cancelling. So there is a lot that goes into it and it's very dynamic. It changes every every time something happens there's a change. Yeah. No, I understand it's changing stuff can important stuff can come up. You don't they don't plan it for that. But I'm just amazed

089that that it's long before most of us have been on the board that I would say I would say that that did not happen. I mean just uh I mean I was on the audit committee. I was on all kinds of committees. This did not happen before. I mean it may have happened once in a while but you know as soon as whoever puts it in knows as soon as it's in it turns red. So just just out of curiosity, Jenna, just out of curios Sorry, I'm not making is there a way to go look back and see if it's the same shops, for example, spending over every year year after year after year? I could. Yes, I could do that. That'd be good to see. I know there's one department we looked at that

090for at least three years has been significantly overspent. And again, I I have met with them and I've told them that they need they need to give me a budget for how they plan on spending their money for next year before I'm going to approve anything moving forward. Right. And I don't know if it was your job or should have been your job or your job to tell these people, hey, not but like I said, we're working on that timeline for and hopefully they're going to be well prepared. I don't think it's Jenna should be the one to go in and tell them you can't spend this. It has to be separate. somebody higher up for I think right and but like I would assume and I agree with you there but you're the one

091that's going to provide them hopefully if I understand the time their sheets so they know well in advance where their numbers are so they don't have any excuses oh I didn't know that's the thing going I'm going to respond to yours that is her job and I was only the person who put things into munice and I I would call the people and say you are over spent So you better think about this and talk to the business. But about that point, Patty, I've been on this committee for five years and before these guys coming in, so I got to disagree partially in the fact that I don't think I've ever saw even when Brad Jackson was here, before these guys came on board, we ever had a budget to actual discussion. I don't think

092we always talked about like budget creation and that process and that was you know that but if that was something you had before we started when we started the budget committee we got reports on the budget but it didn't go into the depth of it did we didn't go into the depth of what we should be going into that these guys are presenting so that that's where you could basically have that level to basically to your point of going to the bottom level and working your way up like I don't think we in my five maybe you prior that but I don't I've never seen that level. Maybe there was some but I think that's the other part that needs to come of this. I mean the other part is like you look at that

093timeline if you we went to the conference the other thing is it shouldn't be just Jenna's job to basically we also need to determine like at the school committee level what level we want to drill into at this on a quarterly report so we can basically be comfortable reviewing that because there should be some signup. So I think that's got to be part of this as well. So I think that's why this year will be a beta year and basically to and that's part of that time. Yep. Stacey. Sorry. No, that's okay. I I think I mean I think it was kind of said a little bit, but whose job is it? I think that's my question is it has to be somebody's. And if they're allowed to just go in and say, "Well, I'm

094putting this $100,000 thing in and nobody's saying no." Well, that that's a problem. That's a problem. But it's actually who puts it into munice. It's only people in your staff that put stuff in munice, right? Yeah. So, it is at the business office where these things are put. I mean, it's not like it's not like the carpentry teachers, right? It's what he bought in. No. So somebody has to say no at some right point and see this is you know maybe that's saying we need to have a conversation about job titles they're asking for x number of dollars I'm optimistic that part of what will come out of this is that department a will know from the beginning of the school year you can't overspend. Um we are happy to give you you know your

095budget to actuals at any time. Um you might want to sort of go back and look at okay what did you ask for and sort of check in all right is what I'm ask was what I'm about to spend money on something I actually asked for because if that's the case it shouldn't be a problem. I mean if they asked for $100,000 in textbooks and they're buying $100,000 of textbook but that's what's budgeted. It's fine. But if they're like, you know, okay, we've gone to an online program that doesn't need $100,000 in textbooks. We only need $50,000 in textbooks, but we need $100,000 in supplies now. You know, it sounds like from the beginning they're going to be presented with. That's the kind of change that can't just slide through anymore. They know your entire

096budget you didn't go over, but you need to match what you lined up for. And I think by telling them it from the beginning, this is what you asked for. So this is what we expect you to do. And if you can't do that for whatever reason, please let us know. So that then, you know, teacher X can go to Jenna or somebody else in her office and say, "We've had a a a plan shift. We don't need the money for this. We need the money for this." And then Jenna has plenty of time. Say, "Okay, now I need to follow this process to approve it." Like to me, I think this is a really good starting point that is going to make it better for everyone that everybody can manage their own budget a

097little better. Jenna isn't having to police regardless of whether it's in her job description or not. I think ultimately she won't have to. And I I think this has a lot of good potential. And you know, like we're saying, it's the first year, so it's not going to be perfect, but your level said from the start, these are the expectations. This is what we expect. everybody involved, school committee, business manager, superintendent, department chairs, this is the new process going forward. This is the expectation. This is the beta year and this is how you work it out. And there's accountability at this level too. I mean basically if we get these reports and we review them, there should be good reports put together. It may not be you know perfect in the first year but in

098going forward that should be a process that we do that and it may require that you meet more than just I mean I can tell you some committees meet monthly they review to go through budget to actuals. So that probably is another thing needs to come up. It can't may not be for a $39 million budget. It may not work to just do quarterly. It may end up having to be monthly. More communication is always good. I think a lot of that stuff's going to work itself out with the directors and the department chairs and the other things. I think I think the key here is that, you know, from the business office standpoint, it needs to be monitored and it needs to be report, you know, like like again, like if somebody's putting in

099a $45,000 PO and there's only 20 $20,000 in that account, you know, I mean, that needs to be a conversation like, hey, you know, you can't do this, whether it goes back to the director, whether it comes to my office, wherever it is, those and I that hasn't been happening. And I think that's that's one of the things that needs to be addressed. Yeah. for whatever reason, neither one of you want to be the bad person. Make them come to the board and let them explain to us why they need this money and then we can decide well if yeah that's legitimate or just because you want the money. They didn't plan correctly is Yeah. Yeah. I I have no problem telling people no. That's if they like I said stuff happen. You got a

100good excuse. I have no issue with that. Let's see if this is going to work. If you if this as we get into this things need to be adjusted. I'll let you know. Let's we're open. This is this is not it's gonna be a learning process. This is not Yeah. Yeah. No, this is not this is it. No, I I agree with that. I just can't I just don't want to predict that it's going to be great if it's I I need to actually live it to understand it. Of course. And a year from now we're going to say, "Oh, yeah. That work, that didn't work." Hopefully it gets filtered down in here that we're not happy the way it's going and guys better take a vote on that. I was I was going to

101ask another question, but All right. Yes. No, it's totally different. All right. Can I have a motion? Make a motion we approve the budget timeline. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. May I add one thing? I think the fact that we've over the last year or two found a good budget timeline for creating the next year's budget and you've lived out for a couple years. I think that's going to help you that we're not trying to completely reinvent the wheel. We reinvented one wheel, now we're reinventing. That's good plan. And I'm going to throw a little which has nothing to do with this, but how about something for um END and audit timeline or something? things that are expected. Well, I think that's what's going to come out of like to their point is

102they can't Well, no, that's what I mean. If the if the auditor basically comes in and talk to them and present and then can't make the final that's that's part of the problem is required to be part of that timeline, then we need to pull that out of them to determine that process. So I think that's the questions you go to them and then just like the budget process I think that's another takeaway to make you know to kind of hammer that out. So I think that's if we get a meeting on the 10th I think that's will be some of the questions you answer. All right. Okay. Budget line item transfers. Do you want a motion to approve the amount? Yes. Make a motion we approve the amount of $123,528.91 to how should I

103word that to budget transfer to a for budget line item transfer. That's all right. Second. All those in favor? I Anybody want to discuss? I'm rushing you in right now. All right. Uh, anyone opposed? All right. Uh, any abstensions? It's unanimous. Okay. Date for summer retreat. You know, I mean, you can't make it the second week. What about everyone else? How is their summer looking? This is rough, but it's okay if we're not doing August. So, Quen, is that the week of the seventh or is it the week the week of the seventh? Yeah, we got together that Friday. I was thinking Friday, July 11th, if that works. Was her that she's our way. Do we like it Friday? Went to Friday, July 18th. I have I actually have a negotiate a clerical negotiation scheduled

104that day. What kind of does it have to be a Friday? The week of the 14th, I'm at the MASS conference. We guys, that's week. How about Monday the 21st or Friday the 28th? Oh, 25th. I'm sure picking a Monday or Friday. I figure for those of us that have jobs, beginning of the end of the week might be a little easier than the middle of the week. Those both work for me. I guess it rub it in. She's away the week of the seventh and he's away the week of the 14th. The 25th if it's possible. Princess, you'll do your best if you me. I'll do my best to be day days. Any day is hot for me because I don't know I don't know that Friday's July 25th. I don't think Hen can

105do the 25th. I think he said the week of the 7th, Gwen's away. The week of the 14th, Tony's away. You said you came through the 25th. When are you away? 21st 25th that entire week 28th. All right, we're going to go to go up to Gwen's house in New Hampshire on the on the six. I would prefer the first, but I can make the 28th. I prefer the first as well. So, August 1. As long as my husband doesn't burn down my That's all I care about. That's what he did last summer. You've come in the past. I don't have vacation plans first. Come on. Everybody else had a different week. You're going to come up soon. I promise we won't talk about the audit. I have I don't have any. We won't we

106won't talk about the audit at the retreat. Okay. What is that? 9:00. Is that what it first work? I drive three hours. I not That's fine. 92 and 9 to 2. 9 to1 9 to2. So August 1st 9:00 a.m. Patty's camp, right? What? At Patty's camp. Is that what I heard? Oh, yeah. You would love that. She has electricity now. I do have electricity now. I'm running water. And a hose with running water. Oh, there we go. Come on. It's all good. I still have the outouse, though. So, that might be an issue for all of you. How big's your place? Can we all go up there? Yeah, I'd love to do it out of here, but we can't. So, that's okay. Just I don't know for all our kids sports in Burlington. It's all

107port. So, I don't know what an actual bathroom is. So, August is good. Everybody, yes. No, maybe. Okay, that's awesome. Everybody's calendars are all over the place. the calendar. My calendar's kind of all set. Oh, it's in the calendar. It's in the It's in the calendar. It's in the calendar. Yeah. Vacation the next day, but I'll just make sure I'm ready to deploy. future agenda items. So, we we have one more meeting in June, then we don't meet in July. We'll have the retreat in August and we meet in September. Okay. Depending on how things play, we might have to get um policy together at the end of August for early September to see what it's going to depend on what we got to do for updates for the new admissions policy. You got to

108update the timeline. Yeah. Again. Oh, hey. Just wait. You got to wait a minute. Reverted. That's why I say wait a minute. I could say never mind. I mean, it took us It'll catch up with us. It took us so long to get the admission policy. We tweaked it. Everyone did a fabulous job. I know. And I feel bad. Remember that policy committee? It doesn't see what it is. Okay, let's go get Christine to bring it back in. She'd love policy committee. Anyway, guess what? Okay, executive session. the summer retreat. What is going to be the purpose of that, you know, to set the to set what we're going to do for the year, but it's also a kind of a get to know people. Tour of the school as interested. Yeah. What is it?

109Tour of the school for those interested. And yeah, and you can we can have that a big part of it if you want that. We'll discuss what are we going to do this year, who are we going to invite this year. Yeah. You know, so we get that out of the way. We can plan do a lot of the planning and actually by having it in early August to have a pretty clear clear agenda so we can focus and get it done, whatever it may be. By early August, some of that renovation stuff you were talking about may be done. So that those you did a tour at the end last year. So if you want to do that again, people can see the completed projects. We started doing we started meeting. Were you on

110the I don't know if you're on the committee yet. We remember and I heard about it um through um members of the Barucka School Committee who I know. This does and I was just picking their brains and they and they said it's it's a meeting. It's a formal meeting posted and it's kind of an open agenda, but whatever you want to talk about and we we talked about at the national conference and we should discuss about AI and stuff like that and policy and stuff like that. So, whatever people want to bring to the table. Yeah, that I did. I passed I passed it to both our director of instructional technology and our director of academics. They were both gonna they were going to get together and discuss it as well, but I haven't checked

111back in with them. Okay. Um it just talks about them getting the monthly the monthly um reports out to the department chairs. It doesn't actually specify which the first month is. Do we know when that following? Uh well then so to start the year it says program and department budgets printed and reviewed during opening days. So they'll get them they'll get them at the return of school year and then what what our plan is is we have a monthly department chair meeting. Um, so what I think what Jen and I had talked about was at those meetings that whatever the update is for that month, we can hand them out at that meeting and make sure that they get in the hands of everybody. So every month they'll get an updated print out. Okay. Because

112it was stuffed in between July 15th and September. So I didn't know. I was curious. All right. Thank you. Yeah, we were trying to we're trying to figure out the format as we went and some of it's probably a little choppy. Do we before we go to executive do we that job has been filled again which director the new director? No not yet we're still we're still doing interview curious you all said I'll make a motion if you will okay make a motion we enter executive session to discuss contract negotiations and litigation update we will return to open session to adjurnn. Um, is there any? Okay. Yes, that's right. Okay. Can I have a second? All right. When