School Committee Meeting 3/25/25

001fundraiser for the MSPCA robotics club went the two-day stage competition in Framingham over February break and earned the judges award. This is the first award for the team in over a decade. We also held many sports achievements over the winter as you guys just heard. Um I did highlight Elliot Hong and Karen Foley. March 4th, the class of 2027 had a course selection and MCCAST preparation assembly and will soon speak to their guidance counselors to look to lock in classes for junior year. One of the opportunities given to these students is the choice of concurrent enrollment classes. Um, this will allow students to take prerequisite courses in high school rather than taking them in college. To take these courses, you must receive an ELA, PSAT, or SAT score of 480 or higher, 85% or higher

002in the subjects in the subject specific course, 3.0 or higher GPA, and a subject matter teacher recommendation. Tuesday, the se Tuesday the 17th, the anti-bullying club held a St. Patrick's Day party, which included bingo and many fun prizes. They'll meet again April 8th to make your own comic books. Last Friday, we held our annual gondola. I don't think it was last Friday. I think it was the Friday before, excuse me. Um, we held our annual gondola race in which students create boats out of cardboard and duct tape and race them in the swimming pool. The purpose is to support the traveling rams who are going to Italy this year. After the race, the participants and guests enjoyed a pasta dinner. The guidance department has put together numerous visits from local colleges including the following. Middle

003Sex Community College, Fitchburg State, Savannah College of Art and Design, University of Rhode Island, Plymouth State, Northern Essex, Bishop's University, UMass Level, and Curry College. They've also scheduled visits from the US Air Force and provided a list of recommendations to ask admission representatives. Guidance has shared that UMass Lovel is offering free tuition to eligible students and so is Harvard. Sophomores received a PSAT assembly yesterday, March 24th. The registration for the exam ends March 28th. Students will take the test April 16th. The SATs will take place March 8th, May 3rd, and June 7th. The the SATs cost $68. to practice. Students are encouraged to use Khan Academy and Blue Book. This is a week 14, the final week of Exploratory for freshmen. This weekend, they will choose their top three favorite chops and be placed permanently

004by the end of next week to begin their shop April 7th. Class of 2029 is preparing for their placement testing, which will take place April 5th. April 12th, students will or Shaen will host a culture fair for students and they will potentially gain extra credit in many of their history classes. April 28th, freshman students will receive a health screening regarding the use of alcohol, nicotine, tobacco, and drugs. Drama club has been working closely with our music club as they prepare for the showing of The Little Mermaid Jr. They have also incorporated carpentry, DVC, graphics, drafting, culinary, and cosmetology. Shows will be hosted May 9th at 6:30 and May 10th at 10:30. Lastly, this week as ELA MCCAST week, sophomores will take the test March 25th and 26th. Sophomore class rings are also ready for pickup

005as of yesterday, March 24th, for those who ordered them. Thank you. Thank you very much. Don't miss me too much before April. Thank you guys. Good luck with your speech contest upcoming. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I do not believe we have anybody for public comment. Correct. All right. Moving on to the consent agenda items. Um three items. The bill for attorney Greenspan. the bill for in the amount of 2777 KM education law in the amount of 116875 and the minutes of February 25th, 2025. Do you have a motion? I make a motion we approve the consent agenda. Second. We have a motion and a second. Do we have any discussions, questions, comments therein? Is that what the consent? Oh, thank fair enough. Just if S may know for some of her other public service,

006the consent agenda usually be sort of standard boilerplate items that we try to put them in one item rather than taking multiple votes. Thank you for that reminder. All right, we have there could be other stuff under there. It's not just minutes or Yeah. And you can always pull some if there's something you want to discuss more, you can always pull it out and and have that conversation. And these are legal bills, right? That Yes. Well, the cam that's actually this one here is actually our special attorney. Oh, Mr. Queen Span is our attorney. CM Education Law is a special ed legal service. That was actually changed recently. Prior attorney. Thank you. We have a motion. We have a second. Any discussion or questions? Seeing none, I'll take a a vote. All in favor, please

007indicate I. I. Any nays? Any abstensions? Okay. All right. Thank you. So, there's a folder going around. It's my turn, right, Brian? You definitely your turn. Okay. I just jumped in, but I didn't tell me to jump. Keep it moving. Keep it moving. Okay. So, there's a few things in this folder that's going around. Um, one of the items we're going to talk about in a little while under new business, but first, Brian requested that we take a look at our Shasheen federal grants. So, you're going to see the sheet that says Shasheen federal grants update. That's the first one I'm looking at. Um, I went back to FY23 for that information. And I also included how we spend these grants. And then there's behind that sheet there's an explanation of what these grants are.

008So you can I didn't make sense to doubleside it in case you want to look at it side by side when I talk about the grants. So you'll notice for federal grants we receive about $750,000 a year on federal grants. Um they all serve a different purpose. we um the IDA is for individuals with disabilities and you can see that that is the one where we get the most money. So that that grant would have the largest impact if it went away. Um some other grants that have come along the IEP grant which I that one did not exist I don't think in FY23 but it's not something that we've received every year. They they updated that and for those of you that don't know they updated the I IEP format and they had given

009grants out for two years for districts to kind of come in compliance and provide training and professional development for staff to to get up to speed with the new format. Right. And then um title one which is another grant you've probably heard about because I think we talk about title one a lot. That's you know about 100,000 we get for that every year. And you can see the categories that all of these grants how they're paid out. So professional salaries is anyone that is working on a grant and receives MT is paying towards MTRS retirement. Professional salaries that are nonMTRS are mostly Paris. Um other salaries like the grant writer. Um some random things might come up through other salaries depending on the grant. Contracted services also is grant dependent supplies and materials, other expenses,

010equipment. Um that's our capital line and then MTRS they can pay a portion of the um benefits. So, I can't predict what's going to happen with federal grants over the next couple years, but it's good to look at where we stand now and maybe next budget season. We talk about we'll probably have more information by then, but if we need to replace funding through the general fund if grants go away, that would be a major discussion that we would have to have. And we wouldn't be the only district having that issue. if it's if it does happen, I think it will be among most schools. So, any questions about grants? I I just want to say I really appreciate you doing this because I think it has become in light of the unpredictability to say

011the least of uh directives coming out of Washington. Um, many states are preparing for the fact that maybe grants that they would normally give out at the local level will not be funded or available or will be held up in some fashion. And there is a lack of predictability to it to say the least. But at least it helps us to know what our level of vulnerability is um should something unusual happen. the other day seen that there was some concern from school districts along with local food pantries, you know, had a source of revenue um that they use for cafeteria programs that were apparently on the chopping block. And so they were having to reconsider again how they might fund those in the absence of the established federal funding. So this is helpful for

012us to know. We're not as vulnerable as some districts, right? But there is a level of vulnerability there. And the um Perkins grant, the FC 400 strengthening career and technical ed, we do get a lot of equipment through that grant as well. So that would make you know, we're just anticipating anything could it could go in either direction. And when we have an idea, if we get to the point that we have to replace some of this funding, then we'll have to talk about it then. It's always been like that every year. You never know. Yep. Um I think it's fair to say there's a little more unpredictability right now. Maybe in your mind, not in mine. Go ahead. Well, there is when you're transferring basically what they're talking about doing when you're transferring basically

013closing the part of education and basically transferring it over to the Small Business Administration. I mean, I think there is some concern there, especially where you look at the last three years when, you know, 60% of this is coming from this grant here. To me, that is a raises concern. So, so Jenna, what percent of the overall budget is fed are the federal funds? Do you have a sense? I mean, so the we don't really mix it with the general fund, but our budget's about 38 million. So, then this is what just a small percentage, right? And it would be above and beyond that 38 million. So, it's not budgeted in when we do it. It's above and beyond that. Yeah. I mean in the grand scheme of things I mean if you're talking not

014to play it down 38 million right it's a couple it is it is but it is still in court not it would affect think decisions that we would make about money going into other funds and things like that 2% right and then the other thing I just want to draw your attention to is the munice report that I give you monthly um we're going to get into more detail with this later I won't be speaking about it the subcommittee will be speaking about it. But I wanted to include this because I think there'll be some changes between this one and then the next time that we get together. And then on the back, I left the grant stuff out just for this meeting since we already discussed federal grants. Um in the bottom you can

015see all the balances and all our accounts at the close of February. Any [Music] questions? Anything else for general at this point through the chair? The um lunch program. What are we hearing? Anything? I don't think that's been decided yet either. So, I have I'm trying to find something. That's at least a million dollar program. Governor Healey, I don't know what's in her budget, right? And breakfast and lunch. Students get free breakfast and free lunch. So, I have to say, and I don't know how anybody else feels since we've gone to this free lunch model, more kids are eating. We have we're producing more meals in the kitchen. Like, Pauline keeps track of all of that. So, students eating is really great in our eyes. Um, and it's doesn't have any stigma attached to it

016because everybody gets one meal, one breakfast, and one lunch if they want it. So, yeah. So, the cafeteria money, where's that coming from now? So the cafeteria that's a revolving fund. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Um they have their own revolving. We're using that for [Music] So it covers all their salaries except for the director. She's in the general fund. Well, thank you for doing this. It's made things much clearer. Yes. Oh, good. Okay. So Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. And we'll move on to the superintendent report. Okay. So, uh again, um just trying to keep people updated as to where we stand. Chairman O'Donnell had updated everybody. Uh Bedford's town meeting was last night. Um our budget was was passed by the Bedford residents and again we thank them for their

017continued support. Um you can see Wilmington will be our next town meeting followed by Tootsbury Bill Ricka and then Burlington will be May 12th. Um so we have a little bit of a lull here in meetings for myself and Miss Leco then Fast and Furious the the first week of May. I think we have three of them in one week. So come fast. Um as far as as as finance committees and ways and means go the only one that we have outstanding is Burlington which will take place Wednesday, April 9th, I believe. Um the week before that we have a meeting with the education subcommittee as well. So um Arlington has a little bit of a different approach to it. Um but that's that's the way we've always operated with them and I don't anticipate

018any um any concerns or issues coming out of that. Uh enrollment update we were down two students in March. Sorry, we were at uh 127 uh 1272 for February. Um we've had two students uh we had two students. We actually had three students leave, but we had one student come in. Um, so we had a ninth grade transfer from another vocational school. Um, and again, it was a kind of a net loss of two students. You can see grade 10 and grade 11 still continue to lag behind um pretty significantly when compared to the ninth grade and the 12th grade. So that we've got to work that bubble out of the system before we see those numbers rebound significantly. Tony, what grade were those two students, those three students that left? Well, I don't know

019off the top of my head. I do I do know we had a ninth grader come in. I think one was a junior. Um, but I'm not sure about the other two. Thank you. How many kids on the wait list? Sorry. No, that's okay. Um, so co again co-op update. Um, 84,636 hours work. This is just the class of 2025. Juniors are not eligible yet. They'll be eligible uh in a week or so. So that again, we'll start to include the class of 26 in this as well. We're up to 65% 209 students are participating um supporting 183 employers and the class of 2025 has earned 1,49,535 to date uh in gross earnings. uh breakdown by community is five five of our Bedford students participating 72 students from Bill Reka 15 from Burlington 48 from

020Tukbury 69 from Wilmington and like I said 209 out of our 321 seniors or 65% is currently Can I ask how does that compare last time last year at this time? Is it a little lower? Um I think we're in line where we were last year. We're a little behind where we were two years ago. Two years ago, we got close to 70% with the seniors. Um, this is this seems to be closer to actually last year, I think, might have been like 62 or 63. So, we're similar to last year, but a little behind. All right. 20. Just out of curiosity, the 35% that don't go out. Yeah. Are they any reasons why? Some students are ineligible based on attendance or grades. So, that does that does knock some of them out. Um, some

021students, you know, again, some of our some of our student athletes choose to stay in um because of the practice schedule and other things that go along with that. Sometimes it's a family decision and, you know, the family just comes out and says, you know, I I I don't want my kid participating in co-op. I just want them to, you know, to focus on their studies and and, you know, and to be engaged in what's going on here. Um, sometimes what happens is we have kids that go out and and may may get laid off. Um, I know in some of our construction programs, the numbers are higher for them in the fall. And then as the, you know, as the weather gets colder and that that business kind of slows down a little bit,

022we'll see masonry kids come back. We'll see carpentry kids come back. We'll see, you know, some of those some of the trades that are slowing down for the winter won't necessarily keep our kids on long term. And and sometimes kids go out and, you know, they're they're just not a good fit for that particular employer or that particular business. And um, Mr. Smith is really good about, you know, if a kid a kid isn't successful to try to figure out, you know, what it is and what they struggled with and then try to find something that's that's more appropriate for them to get them back out if we can. Do we keep track of our wages for the kids? Like, do we know what they earn? I know they're 1.4 million, but Yeah. So, right.

023It's probably by field or trade. Yeah, there's there's a there's actually a co-op contract for each employer. Okay. So, and and in that it specifies the work hours, it specifies the the pay rate. Um, we collect information on their workman's comp insurance. We go out, we do a site visit to make sure that, you know, it's it's a it's a safe working environment for the students. But yeah, all that is tracked through the office. And and Tony, what's their schedule? Is it do they do this every day for months on end or do they do it a week and then academic week? Is that what it is? Yeah. So, it's it's we have it's like their shop. Yeah. Yeah. So, they're normally their normally scheduled shop time is when they would go out to work.

024So, it's every other week. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever heard, it might be anecdotally, is transportation ever an issue? We've had some kids that that's come up as an issue and we did have some conversations around Title One. Um, and if there was a way that we could possibly use Title One funds to try to to try to help out with that. Um, we found the answer was no. Um, so again what what um what and again this is anecdotal but I think what ends up happening is we have kids that kind of carpool. So, you know, if they if they're working somewhere, you know, at the same place or close to where one of their friends are, you know, sometimes they'll share. And I think sometimes students do that just to cut down on

025the cost of gas. They'll get two or three people together and they'll kind of do that piece. But yeah, it has come up a couple of times. Um, it I don't hear about it a lot, but I know we've had we've had a couple of specific instances where it was a little bit of a struggle for kids. Do you feel like there's enough opportunity for them to have like if everybody wants to go, do they have that opportunity to go? Yeah. And I know I know Mr. Smith actually gets a lot of inquiries um that we don't have to have kids to place for. So I think I think the demand is there and again I think it's just finding um we don't want to put a kid out and not have them be successful.

026You know, it's not good for the kid. Um it's also not good for a relationship with an employer in the future if we have another student to place. So, it it there is a little it's a little nuanced to figure out exactly, you know, who's ready and what they're ready for and where they can go. And some kids, you know, are successful regardless of, you know, where they end up and what they're doing. And other kids need a little bit more of a a structured atmosphere, a little bit more structured environment. So, just to share, I had three kids who went to Shane. They all went on on co-op and had successful co-op experiences. My oldest actually started his own plumbing business and is now a employer. Oh, that's cool. That's great. Full circle. Yes,

027100%. Uh, admissions update. So, offer letters went to 350 students on Friday, March 21st. Uh, I'm sure there's people here that have heard um from some of your constituents already. Um, I they went out at about 3 o'clock. I started getting emails about quarter after three. Um, so it didn't take long. Um weight list students again will continue to be monitored. Offers will be ma will be made based on communities. What I mean by that is in that admissions policy up until April 15th uh each community has an allotted number of seats which I think is the next slide which I'll share with people. Um after April 15th we just go to the list and regardless of which community that students from um whoever has the highest score is is the first one offered admissions.

028Um, so again, right now we are we're monitoring that. Four out of five of our communities this year filled their quotas. Um, and the fifth one came pretty close. Um, so this is this is definitely a change. Uh, even over the the three years that I've been here, um, we've seen some real spikes in applications and the number of students that we're offering um, admissions to. And it's it's having a trickle down effect because now there's there's weight lists in almost every community where before it was it was two or three that we really had wait for. Uh placement testing scheduled for April 5th. Mr. Pigeon is working on that. I know he's getting everything set up. Um and we'll be testing those 350 students. Again, we use the testing to help um schedule them

029here so when they come in, we know, you know, what level English class should the student be in? you know, where do they get placed for social studies, for science, for for all of the academic classes? Are all the weight listed students invited to participate in placement testing or We decided not to do that this year because um the consensus with the team was that it led to a lot of confusion last year with some families. Um why was I invited to test but I'm still on the wait list. Um so we that was kind of a one-time experiment. Um it didn't really quite play out the way that we had anticipated it. So, we're going to start with the 350. Um, and then again, if there's there's two more sessions that we already have

030scheduled. So, as we backfill students, we can add them to there's two afternoon testing schedules um coming up in in the month of April as well. And if a student indicates that he or she does not want to sit for the placement test, is that commensurate with a deciding not to accept metriculation or That's the way we've treated it. I again we can't we can't develop a schedule for a student without them participating in testing. So, um I I think I can I can think of one one student we had um I don't want to call it an issue. We had a concern with last year um which I think again the family ended up making the decision that you know the student was going to stay in their sending district. But um most of

031the time we don't have any we don't have any issues at all with the kids showing up and it's uh it's a Saturday morning. They they come in they're usually in here early starting about 8 8:30 in the morning. Uh most of them are done by 10:30, 11 o'clock and they're out of here. So yeah. So Tony, do the departments um I'm sorry. The departments do they create their own test or is it a standardized test that So we had moved to a standardized test last year. No, I shouldn't say standardized, a commercially produced test last year. Um and the company that we're using, I don't know if they got bought up or they went out of business. Um so we are back to kind of our homegrown version. Um, we are looking for something

032that is a little bit more um um norm. Thank you. That's the term I was looking for. So again, we can we can start to utilize that from year to year. Um, and we're not we're not spending as much time scoring and and classifying and grading results. It makes sense to ask the other school districts what they use for for in-house testing. And we've had some of those conversations. Um it it people are kind of all over the place. Um and again I've I've been working with our director of academic programs and I know she is also reaching out to try to get some more information around that as well. Um that is that's kind of a work in progress. Some of the districts don't test going into eighth grade. They going into nth grade.

033They use previous year's classes where I believe at one point we were specifically testing. So it was sort of a a clean slate. Everybody was getting was taking the same test as they entered. So it was I mean we we have five kind of like large larger feeding middle schools but I mean I know when we've looked in years past we've get we've gotten kids from 12 or 15 different you know middle school programs. So again to find consistency across you know some of our smaller faith-based programs versus you know our our middle schools versus you know it's it's it's not and there's some charter school students that apply. It's not real e it's not real easy to to fine-tune. Um, so that's why we've been using that metric. So just to add, nobody gets

034cut. Everybody Nobody gets No, no, no, just it's placement. Yeah, this is just for our weight list. Everybody if you don't if you don't if you're not accepted the first 350, nobody is told you can't come. Everybody's put on my math and English. Yes. Yep. Testing because I used to monitor prior to those. Yeah. And part of the conversation has been is there a way that we can develop something that would be like English social studies and science to kind Yeah. When I first started working there, I Why are we testing? Because we don't know what these kids come in with or kind of put them on an equal playing field. Yeah. So, we can schedule their classes that way. So, yeah. So, it has to happen. I think it's a good thing. Um for

035the kids that are weight listed, when what can we tell the people that have reached out to us? So, um I know as of this morning, we've had we've had 10 students that have um withdrawn isn't the right term, but have said thank you, but no thank you. Um the people that are on the wait list, my best advice is is be patient. Um we went through I want to say 75 or 80 kids on the wait list last year. Um, now I'm not saying that's going to happen again and that that's no indicator of, you know, a future performance here, but typically there is some movement. Um, we have kids that, you know, apply to, uh, maybe two or three different schools for high school and then we'll sit down with their family and

036make those decisions. Um, so again, there's definitely a possibility. Um, and that is monitored in real time. Um, Mr. Pigeon and Miss Ferguson are very good about being on top of that. Um, and I know I I believe they're planning on updating um 10 or 12 families this week as to whether they've moved off the weight list or not. So, some of those may change. So, again, just um in anticipation of of some of the questions that came up. Um so, we accepted 30 31 Bedford students. We listed zero um because Bedford was was allocated 35 seats. So, there's there's four there's still four open Bedford seats. We have to hold those till April 15th. Um if a Bedford student comes forward between now and then, they're kind of automatically in um just based on

037community allocations. Uh Bill Rea uh we sent acceptances to 114. That is that is their 32.44%. We have 78 students weight listed from Bill Rea. Wow. Um Burlington we accepted 57. We have 21 weight listed, which I think may be the first time in in many many years that we've weightlisted Burlington students. Um, and again, that that's the the 57 is their 16.32% of enrollment. Um, Tukbury, we accepted 83, weight listed 41. And again, that that 83 is is their percentage. And then Wilmington, we accepted 61 and weight listed 33. Um, I will say I I've I've probably had maybe 15 or 20 appeals already. Um, in looking at them, the scores this year are very high. So, even kids that did, you know, there's kids that didn't get in with an 83 or an

03885. Um, so it's it's really um students are doing well. Families are taking this very seriously. Um, I think, you know, the message has got out there. if you want to go keep your grades up, have good attendance. You know, all of those all of those messages that we've shared, um are definitely getting out there, but now what it's doing is it's compressing that that delta, that range of of who gets accepted and who doesn't. Um and I think that that's um that may be a source of frustration for some of our parents as well, which again, I completely understand. My kid did really well, you know, they scored a they scored an 85 on, you know, the admissions criteria. Why did they get in? It's because the whole the whole pool of candidates is

039and they do on the appeals like if if it's medically related attendance. So is that considered? We don't accept appeals directly from parents or students. Okay. So um what they'll do again when I get when I get emails I will look up all the criteria all the scoring criteria. I'll share it with the family. I'll say this is what was reported to us. um if if there's something that's in a discrepancy here that you don't think is accurate or correct, please reach out to the middle school and then I always put a note in there, you know, if you if if you're unsuccessful there, you know, please reach out to my office and we can set up something where we can we can look at it in person. But we again, we don't we don't

040have people come in and hand us stuff and say, "Here's here's 23 doctor's notes for my kids attendance. Can you update them?" you need to go back to wherever the middle school is, have the middle school change or update that information and send it back to the admissions office. Everything is done through the admissions office. Make sense? Thank you for the detailed explanation. Um update. Uh we've had a couple legislative visits. Um, and Ryan and I were talking about this the other day and I realized uh that I hadn't really shared some of the stuff out so I decided to include in my update. Representative Mark Lombardo who represents Bill Raa was here uh February 18th. Um Mark came in and we had a conversation about uh you know with the things that he can

041do at the legislative level. Um asked about some priorities moving forward. We had a conversation about MSBA uh and the building project um which was a good visit. Um, I hosted Representative Ken Gordon on March 14th. He is the new house chair uh chair of the joint education uh committee on education which is a rather prestigious role um in the in the legislature. Um he was here. We had a nice conversation about capital skills and the lab modernization grants. Um I took the opportunity to show him the work we're doing in metal fab talk to him about our masonry expansion project. Um he is um very in tune with some of the things that are going on, some of the discussions that are going on about admissions lotteryies, uh about the expansion of seats, um

042about the funding formula and increasing the reimbursement rate for MSBA projects for vocational schools. Um and um we had a we had a good we had a good visit and he has already reached out about getting more involved and coming to more Shasheen events. So, um I I anticipate seeing him around here more and hopefully this is the the sign of more things to come. So, it was a good visit. We had a good conversation. Um just an update from the board of elementary and secondary education. I I had sent stuff out to this group. Um I've sent stuff out to staff here as well. Proposed changes of the regulations are out for public comment. Um there is an online form. Uh, and again, if people need it, I can send it to you and

043you can you can forward it to people. Just please let me know. It is um it's been changed at least twice that I know of. Um, so it seems like the board of education and or the the department of education are modifying the format as they go for public comment. Um, I'll keep my comments to myself. Um, that is that is one way to provide uh feedback. You can also, you know, you can also write to Katherryn Craraven is the is the chair of the board of elementary and secondary education. Pat Tutweiler is now the commissioner and the secretary. Um, again, another strange thing. Uh, the governor's office, the lieutenant governor's office, any of your local legislators. Um, you know, we've I've sent out stuff um, you know, on behalf of the school and and

044kind of sharing some of my views and and advocating for things that I think should be in that or not be in that. Um, a resource that was shared with me last week that I wasn't aware of, the Governor's Constituent Services Office. Um, I was told that that is the only resource in the state that the governor actually checks in with on a daily basis. So, if you would like to call the constituent services office and explain to them your concerns, um, things you like, things you don't like, whatever it might be. Um, I was told that that's a very good way to get that information in front of the governor because it is checked on a daily basis. Um, the current proposal, I think everybody here is aware, but I just wanted to to

045just reiterate this is what they're what they're referring to as a weighted lottery. So, essentially, um, if you don't have more than 27 absence unexcused absences, uh, you get an extra ticket, an extra weight in the lottery. If you haven't been um not convicted, if you haven't been accused of a 37H, 37H and a half or 37H and 3/4, which are all very serious offenses, if you didn't get accused for any one of those things, you get an extra ticket in the lottery. Um if you haven't read the changes that they sent out about student interest and how that's demonstrated, please do. Uh the Department of Ed is looking at mandating additional openhouse dates for districts. Uh mandating how we share that information, which could all have budget impacts on what we have to pay

046for as a district and how it has to go out there. Um and there's little or no uh consequences for sending districts for not sharing information back and being reciprocal in that relationship. So again, there's there's a lot of stuff going on. Um, the thing that I found the most alarming was it came out on February 25th. They put out kind of a version that I think nobody loved, but a lot of people were like, "Okay, we, you know, this is tolerable." Um, came back on March 10th and kind of had some wholesale changes to that and it didn't even look like the same document. Um, I think that that really kind of um put a lot of people on edge. The the one thing I can say is the more voices that they hear

047the better. Um, I'm sure that the proponents of the lottery are also mobilizing on their side and I'm sure they they're providing their feedback about the reasons that this is important and why it should go through. So again, um, you know, I would encourage people to get involved. U, I'm sure everybody has a different slant on this. Um, I've looked at, you know, I've looked at this as a superintendent. I've looked at it as a parent. I looked at it as a vocational school graduate. Um, so I've I I think I sent them like a three-page letter by the time I was all done. Um, but again, those are those are perspectives that they need to hear from. Um, and the more people that they hear from, I think the more informed decision they're going

048to make. So, um, the what exact two parts of this. What exactly is the online form? So, it came out from so the board of education put out it it's it's like a Google it's not Google, but it's essentially a Google form where they ask you for your email address, what your role is. Um, initially it had kind of like a uh a ranking system or a questionnaire about the things that they were doing. They took that out of the air. There's some text boxes where you can provide comments about specific things. Uh, and I want to say there's one or two sections at the bottom where like you can give an over your overall perception of what they're trying to do and then there's one that basically just says, is there anything else that

049you want us to consider as part of this process? There was also a form letter of sorts that you sent out. Yeah. Um, how effective like obviously if I can get Patty Muse to send a letter, personal letter saying this is what I don't like about the or I know most of us are against it. I'll assume Patty is against it. This is what I don't like about it. This is why details etc. Is that more effective than someone just copying and pasting the form letter and sending that out or is sheer volume matter? I mean, I think anytime it's personalized, it's probably going to have more impact. Um, that so two things. That form letter was shared before the board released this online form. So, that was kind of an attempt from from groups

050to just say, "Hey, you know, when they ask for feedback, here's kind of a format for you to follow." Um, I do think it's more impactful if it's personalized. But I also think that, um, the more people they hear from, the more impactful it's going to be. So, it's it's kind of a little of both. Thank you. And do you recommend using the the form that you sent in that email or emailing the board? I did both. You did both. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's up to you. I mean, whatever is more convenient. Um, again, I realize people also don't have limited amounts of time and resources to commit to that, but again, you know, I'm trying to provide as many different options for people and then then whatever whatever fits, you know,

051for your your approach and your style. Have you sent out the version that was changed on March 10th or so? Yes, I think that version I sent out was that one. Y know one point it was if you had too many absences or too egregious in a discipline issue, you couldn't even apply. So now you everybody can apply. So now everybody that applies gets a ticket. If you don't have any serious disciplinary violations, you get a second ticket. If you haven't missed more than 27 days unexcused, it's not excused. It's unexcused. You get another ticket. Yeah. Well, the state's definition of chronic absenteeism is 18 or more days. So that is so they're essentially saying that a kid that the state labeled as chronically absent is entitled to an extra entry into the lottery which

052does not make any sense at all to me but and you do have to request to go. It's not just every single eighth grader in the next fall will be you do have to say I want to be included. They do have to apply. Yeah, that's been included. Yeah. And then the um admission material that you guys have within the school that wouldn't apply at all or when you're looking at students or the selective criteria. No whatsoever. And what what we what ultimately this could potentially lead to is uh we would have to we'd have to do at least six lotteryies. We'd have to do a lottery by community. Uh unless somebody didn't fill their seats and then every kid is in. But any every community that had more applicants than we had seats, we'd

053have to draw a lottery for that community. the weight list for that community would be based on the lottery numbers and then we'd have to draw um we'd have to draw I'm sorry the um accepted students for those communities would be drawn and then we'd have to throw them all into a bucket and draw our weight list from whoever was left over is is the way that they it's been proposed. So you're not automatically on the weight list either. You are you are you are but right like by now we honor by now right now we honor the regional agreement and say Burlington's got 16% you know go has got 32% whatever it is the way that they're proposing this is once you've drawn those initial allocated slots you throw everything into a bucket and

054then you just start picking names and your weight your weight list could the first 50 kids on that weight list could be all Bill Rucker kids all Bill Rus um finance committee will love that. So again, there's there's going to be some growing pains and some issues to this regardless of which version. Maybe I was going to mention this during the division 8, but maybe now appropriate. Um Charlie, I think had some more of these and I should have made some. There is an organization of vocational folk, school committee members and others, mass voke coalition um.org M ma votechcoalition.org one more time ma boc techcoalition.org or they are posting a lot of material, sample letters, communications issues. Their sort of guiding philosophy is they want to see the state um stick with the 2021 changes

055which aren't all that old. Um I would just add for what it's worth to what Tony has said and I think this is one of these issues where there are people across the spectrum who no matter where they fall if if you watch the meeting or the portion of the meeting on March 10th and you saw the degree of changes they had made just from two weeks earlier. It's a little disturbing in that we you know there was a discussion about 10 absences and people were even begrudgingly okay all right and then suddenly 27 absences over a a year and a half school years and the other changes the weighted lottery etc etc to the point where I think it's fair to say even some of the members of the committee of the board who

056put it out for public comment were feeling uncomfortable some of them expressed their discomfort. They expressed some discomfort with the data that had been used and the fact that there were of the 29 voca, you know, full-time vocational schools, CTE schools that were really being studied, problems had only really been identified with one or two. And that remained troubling for some people. And I don't think I think it was also troubling to some people watching this because I I heard this at a meeting I was at not too long ago. Um, Commissioner Johnston, who I I don't doubt has good faith and good intentions, is heading out the door to Pennsylvania. And this is sort of like his last one of his last major projects as he's heading out the door, leaving this project behind.

057And again, I would say in as recently as this morning's letters to the editor, you will see people making comments. The Globe did an editorial the other day, there is a lot of unusual interpretation of data. Let's let's put it that way. But I think if you just watch the meeting and see that in two weeks some folks go go behind closed doors, they come back with a radically different set of proposals. Now, it is out for public comment through April 18th, I believe it is. So, there is possible that some of this input that they get will make a difference. Um, also available on the Mass Vote website that there is some legislation that's geared towards trying to get this back to local control. I mean, again, some of the issues that the the

058proponents of the opera lottery have raised about certain schools are leg I personally think are legit. They do not appear to be legitimate for the vast majority of vocational schools. Um, and so there's some folks that, you know, I personally, maybe some others would normally be aligned with politically or on education policy, whatever. Not necessarily here. um on on this one. And yet there's a sense that this will probably move much faster through the education bureaucracy than it will ever move through the legislature because we know how fast they are or aren't. So it's it's definitely worth looking at some of the material and contacting reps, contacting governor's office, whatever. Um, does there still have to be like a town vote or like an agreement? No. If the board of education votes on this, it'll

059be implemented statewide unless the legislature steps in and says time out. and Moran and I think Scandlin I think had put forth a bill saying that that the the board of education even if they make a decision should be suspended until legislators had a chance to review this and where they want to go with and a couple and and one of the more interesting things I think about that February I know again there's only so many hours we all have to to watch tapes of public meetings but one of the interesting things about the March 10th meeting of the board were the I think three uh vocational school superintendent who basically, you know, said one in particular, particularly strongly, um, you're basically saying that we're doing something that is almost intentionally, uh, dismissive of certain

060groups of kids and show us, and you're not showing us. And they they basically indicated a level of personal and professional infelt, and I understand that. um you know and and they all had their anecdotes about you know I accepted four four ELELLL students only two of them chose to come to my school but then the department of ed says oh you only have two kids that's disproportionate to the number of ELLL kids in your district or the other there's so many examples like that so anyways um it's open season for comment please advocate um onto a happier topic Skills USA district results. Um, again, this this happened, I think it was March 13th, I believe, was the day of skills of districts. Uh, we had 18 gold medal winners. Um, 14 silver and 25

061bronze. Um, we've had 38 students that have qualified to move on to the state conference. And that doesn't include the students that go for leadership events, job interviews, prepared speech. So, um it'll probably be closer to 55, I'm going to say maybe a little bit more than that when all said and done. 57 students total had earned medals um at the district level. And uh we had an assembly yesterday afternoon um on Monday, March 24th to recognize the students from Shasheen that had won uh some type of district award. Um breakdown was as follows. We had three Bedford students, two golds and a bronze. Uh 17 medals from Bill Ricka, six gold, two silver, and nine bronze. We had three winners from Burlington. All were silver medals. Sukbury uh was our our big winner with

06220. Seven gold, four silver, and nine bronze. And then Wilmington had 14 with three gold, five silver, and six bronze. So, uh, more bronze medals this year than I think probably the past couple of years. Um, but still, uh, nothing to sneeze at having 38 students that have qualified for the state competition. So, that's that's a definitely a a win for us and and a another solid accomplishment for Shashing Tech. Um, and then just some some updates here on the masonry project. Um, the footings went in. This these pictures are a couple weeks old now. Um the foundation went in was poured. The the forms are all stripped off. Um they are out there. They actually the uh they they've infilled they're ready to pour the floor. I was told today they plan on pouring

063the concrete on Friday. Um and sometime towards the middle of next week, they are expecting the company to come out and erect the building. So the steel people will be here. Um they said Wednesday originally, now they're talking about maybe next Thursday. So, that project is definitely moving forward. Um we're making some some significant progress on that. Um and again, I will keep people updated as uh as that moves along further. But um from the the February meeting to now, uh we went from couple of holes in the ground to the foundation done and the floor should be in Friday. And uh again, the BL uh the prefab building has been on site since I don't know, maybe September or October. So, it's all here. It's all ready to go up. Um dusty. Yeah, we

064might we might have to dust it off a little bit, but it should go up quickly. Um they told us initially that it's about a week or week and a half to put that building up complete. So, um by the next school committee meeting, hopefully I have some pictures of that space all closed in and us maybe even starting to wrap up some of that project. for Sarah's benefit. You're wondering why we get we got hung up on a lot of red tape. So this thing process got dragged out a little bit longer than it needed to I'll be wait I'll be there when we cut the I was say we'll have a nice ribbon cut. So we'll get to the finish line. We invite the town official who town officials. Who's left? I don't

065know. Yeah, we're having a little issues. Anyway, questions. All right, thank you very much. All right, we have a subcommittee reports. First, I'll go to Kent. The organizational development subcommittee had a meeting uh last late last month, earlier this month. Sometime we had a meeting 20 March 5th I believe is correct my days. Uh yes, we had our meeting. Actually, it was March 4th, whatever. March 4th, we had a meeting of the organizational development subcommittees, myself, uh Taran, and Brian, and Nancy was on it, but she was off, three of us, and Tony attended. Um, so we discussed the uh review of the administrative pay structure we did last year. Just kind of a review kind of what we did. So Tony was gracious enough to um go review that for us again, which I

066think looks in good order. Um and then Tony is going to talk about the uh fiscal year uh administrative organization be kind of presenting not a vote more just oh just an update. Yeah, just an update. So we had talked about and and actually the posting has gone out since that meeting. Um, so, uh, we had a conversation about we we currently have a director of communications and community outreach position. Um, so prior to that restructuring is we're going to, um, we're not going to bring that role back next year. Um, but we're looking at adding somebody as a director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Uh, we had some conversations about how to um, how to parse out some of the some of the job responsibilities that went along with that role. Um, as part

067of this change, our current director of, uh, data admissions and assessment, so uh, Mr. Pigeon will no longer be doing MCCast. That piece will switch to this new role. Uh, Mr. Pigeon will pick up some more of the recruitment and outreach stuff. Um, the project explore piece of it. It just made sense to kind of align all those things with one person so that he starts with seventh graders and seventh grade families and parents. He goes out and does the eighth grade presentations, does the interviews, um does all the acceptance stuff. So, um we're working through that. Um we had a conversation about um bringing on um a PR firm to do uh to continue with the social media postings, the the website information, you know, some more of the outreach stuff, um which we

068plan on starting um probably May 1st at this point in time. So, um, all those conversations took place about what that's going to look like and how that role is going to shake out. And, um, the leadership, I went back to the leadership team, the leadership team and, uh, work to, to write the job description and to kind of fine-tune it, you know, and to work through some more of those things. So, believe it posted last week, I think. So, um, we've already got some applicants for it and then the, uh, the leadership team will move forward. The position will report to the principal. So, um, again, it's it's um it's a little bit of a change in structure, um, where our director of communications and community outreach was more of a I don't like

069the term district level, but I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. It was more of a district level position. This will be more of a a building level position that will support um the administrative staff. And um we have some we have some plans moving forward as we move into a new schedule. Uh updating curriculum, realigning curriculum, making some changes to the social studies offerings, some changes to the science offerings. Um and this I think this person will be instrumental in pulling all that stuff together. So just one of the questions about like you're switching to everything's been done through one person doing the out like the updates. is going to be like so one of the things that was discussed was about the PR firm like from an oversight

070perspective is going to monitor that and kind of manage that process. Is there any like concerns about the fact you're going from in-house to basically you know not being farmed out but I mean it's a firm doing it but you still need some level of like you know oversight. So has that been discussed with like who's going to do that? What that process going to look like with the team? Yeah, like general business. I I haven't got to that point yet. I have I'm I haven't had a follow-up meeting with the PR firm yet. So, I need to find out from them kind of what their structure, their organization is. Um, and we had talked about they they had talked about a couple of different approaches that they've used at other schools. So, again, having

071that conversation with them and then going back to the leadership group and saying, you know, here's the options that we have, which one makes most the most sense? Um, and and we'll figure that out. Y I got two questions. All right. Um, is someone losing a job here? Yes. So, are they moving somewhere else in the building or No, no, the uh that position was was notified last year that that was going to go away. And the other question is what is the increased cost to us? So, there shouldn't be any because the person's going to fall in the same spot on the salary scale. And then we looked at the budget when we were going through this and there is money budgeted next year um under the current um communications and community outreach budget

072that should cover the cost. Yeah. Should cover the cost. Yeah. Can I just ask a question just a leadership team? Who's on the leadership team? Sure. So um again we and sorry that's okay. So on on Monday mornings we have a leadership meeting. It's myself, Jenna, principal, the academic coordinator, the vocational coordinator, the director of data admissions, our director of support services, our assistant principal, our director of educational technology, our director of guidance, our facilities director, principal. Did I say the principal? Yes. Yeah. So, that that's that's the leadership team. And I think I said you. Yeah. So, it's a big group. It's a big group. Yeah. And it's every week. Is that every Monday? We meet every week. Excellent. And then the principal also have she has she has weekly meetings with the directors

073as well. So um we have I mean I I refer to them as operational and instructional meetings that that for some reason that those terminology hasn't caught on here but that's okay. Um you know so again the the full leadership team is more about what's coming up what does everybody need to know about? Do we have to involve facilities? Does it involve edtech? Whatever it is and um you know the the director's group is more about you know what what are we doing in classrooms? you know, how are we impacting students? So, thank you. I have a follow question. Sure. Another follow question from the meeting was like maybe you guys can take a look at I mean, not that you need a one position basically dedicated to that, but there's a lot of events

074like Brian mentioned Bedford Day. There's a lot of stuff that gets out that that position was covering, you know, especially if we're going into like MSBA or like so I guess I'd like to hear like what's going to be the strategy to kind of handle that because there's a lot of like stuff like who gets out there and does a lot of that work. Yeah. Yeah. that was part of the conversation. Um I won't say I won't say that we've they finalized anything but yes. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Um thank you uh Kent. Um budget subcommittee also had a meeting. Thank you Mr. Chairman. We met on March 18th myself, Patty and Charlie. Um Tony asked us to uh put together to um discuss um recommendations for the fiscal 25 line item transfers which will

075be discussed uh under new business tonight. Uh Jenna gave a uh very detailed explanation and I think we have more clarity on how we're handling everything. Uh we uh discussed that um we will um entertain a um me a meeting in May. Uh superintendent asked us to um schedule a meeting. We haven't set out on a date yet, but the superintendent's asked us to reconvene in May to discuss where we are um at this point. So, um um we the I don't know if if um we'll talk about it later on about how we're going to um hold off on the POS of April 15th to kind of just keep everything in line. No, no panic, but just I think we're we keep tweaking it and I like we like what Jenner and Tony are

076doing. So, uh we um disc left the uh left it open um um after tonight uh to uh this schedule a meeting in May to continue our discussion. Thank you. And we Ron Fit will vote on the actual budget line transfers a little later on. Well, the other key part is just basically like you talked about which is good is basically is having like a regular check-in basically to monitor. I mean like one thing would be like salaries to basically make sure as that stuff comes in like you're getting updated information and that's part of like the monitoring of the stuff. So it's good to have a a good budget process you establish for the next fiscal year but you need to monitor stuff. So like you know Charlie wrong point last minute the budget

077so you're not going over and that's being kind of monitored. I mean salaries is going to be probably mostly fine but there is other stuff like you guys pointed out like uh contracted services or stuff that could good monitoring process that was the other part. Yeah. And and again, that's that's something we discussed that may need to have more of a formalized kind of proposal as to what that's going to look like going forward. Yeah. All right. Thank you. And the last bulleted item there, the division 8 meeting on March 15th, uh Saturday the 15th, Charlie Fiori and I were down at Tri County VOTE in uh Franklin. Um I already mentioned that a major part of the which is the for those haven't been familiar with them group of school commi vocational school committee

078folk and some superintendent and other folks in this case they also had a couple of the state reps um that were referenced earlier who involved in admissions and some of the other legislative issues. Um the the admissions matter that we already discussed was a certainly a major topic of discussion. The other major uh point of having the meeting at uh Tri County was that they are currently at the early stages of the building process. By early stages, further than us. They actually have a big hole in the ground next to where we met. But um they have a really good website. If you go to Tri County um uh website um covering the building project um they talked at the meeting. I won't go into it here. maybe appropriate as some other meeting uh we

079have on on the MSBA process a project. Um a little about some basic really useful things that they did and how they dealt with the town maybe avoiding some of those issues with conservation commissions and permitting other things that happened um and how they put their building committee together etc. I say they their project seems to be going well. They went through some of the same efforts. I think they were two or three times easily before the MSBA as well before they got the the go ahead. So, um it's it's a good one. I believe the the superintendent mentioned that you are now part of a group of supendants who have building projects at one stage or the other that are getting together. It's been going on for about a year. So, y um so

080they're great sort. So if you just want to sort of watch a building project sort of and go through its phases, the Tri County down in Franklin um which has let's say 11 I think 11 towns. Yeah. Um so how many kids? About a thousand about a thousand kids. So it's it's smaller um than than us. But and the project seems to be going well. They have a an architect who's getting fairly uh well acquainted with um I know this is not their only Voke tech, but I think they have right now. Um they also have a school construction contractor or CM contractor who um has done some VO work um that has been very helpful to them. So it's a you know there's definitely folks we can check in with um to see how

081the process is going. So, um I think the division 8 group will next be having a meeting sometime in middle of uh April. They haven't confirmed that yet. Um so either worth it's check it's worth checking the MASC website or your emails. There seems to be some inconsistency with which their emails get out, but it's it's always good to meet people from other places. All right. Um that's on their resume. Yeah. No, if you go to Tri Countyy's website, go to Tri Countyy's website. Okay. Any old business? All right. We've taken care of all the old business. There's all right. New business. Uh first item comes even before the items that are in the bullets because I think uh memo was left for us today. uh that a minor change in the current 2024 2025

082school calendar needs to be made which uh coming up very soon well relatively soon. The May uh second is going to be uh an additional half day for teachers to attend state skills USA competition. Um, any questions about this or why it's been necessitated at this time? So, this this was brought to my attention literally this morning. So, again, I apologize for the short notice. Um, this is something that that has happened every year that I've been here, and it's my understanding it's been going on for a number of years. Um, we we typically have an early release day for students on that day so that our shop teachers and our academic teachers and our support staff and everybody else can go down and actually see the competitions. Um, I will say uh it was

083well attended last year. There was uh there was people that I was surprised to see down there um because I wouldn't I wouldn't have thought. But again, they make connections with students. They go down um you know, they're there to support students. They're there to encourage them. Um, you know, it's it's a great opportunity to give them a chance to go uh down to Octton. Um, you know, if if the kids leave here at 10:30, quarter of 11, they get on the road, they can get down there just before lunchtime. Um, and you know, there there's usually still a few hours of the competition left. Um, again, I think it's a great um community builder for our school. Um, and I was I was very I was very uh pleased with the number of academic

084staff, the number of guidance counselors, the number of support services people that made the trip down last year. So, if we can continue that trend, I think it's it's well worth the change in the schedule. That excuse me. Go ahead. Sure. We missed this last year when we did the No, it was Yeah, I think so. Okay. I just looked at this I looked at our proposed calendar for next year. We have it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Somehow it fell through the cracks. Yeah. Okay. So, the the students are competing. They leave. They leave like Thursday, right? They go Thursday after school. They stay overnight Thursday night. Special day Friday for staff that wants to go down there and everybody else is here. And Friday is also the day of the competition. That's the

085main competition day for the students. So, from probably about 8:30, 9:00 in the morning till about 2 2:30 in the afternoon, the kids are actually in those competitions and doing like I said, it's it's a great I mean, again, the more people we can get down there, the better I think it is. It helps helps everybody understand the process. What is the current last day of school since I do believe we had some snow days? That I believe is is the last day of school. Yeah. Is it the 20th? It's the 20th. Thank you. All right. Having heard the explanation, uh, do we have a motion for the change in the May 2nd? So move. Second. All in favor, please indicate I any obstensions. All right. Unanimous. Perfect. All right. Moving right along on the

086calendar. Uh, we have the 2025 26 school calendar. superintendent is prepared. Um, I'll just mention this relatively minor change because it I noticed it and I asked Tony about it and he had a quick explanation. The uh fall town uh the fall open house which historically has been a weekend affair has been moved to a uh evening event um which is consistent with the change I believe we made to the teachers contract uh through the last negotiations. Um, I don't know if there's anything else unusual or things that people want to ask about with regards to the school calendar. Well, I'm sorry. I guess I missed that. The um that was the negotiations. Yes. Because it went to a Sunday for years. Yeah. When I first started it was a Thursday. So, now we're going

087back to a Wednesday night. Do I read that correctly? It's either a Wednesday or Thursday. Looks like Wednesday on November. November 5th on a Wednesday. Or is that is the length of it the same? So it's going to be it's going to be the same number same amount of time. 6 to 8 7 to 9. Okay. Yeah. I I'm not sure if the exact but it will it will be the same number of hours as the Sunday one was that on the table with negotiations I assume. That was that was one of the things they asked that. Okay. So they switch years ago they switched it to Mr. Lion switch it so more people could go on a Sunday. But I'm I mean let's you're okay with that? They're okay with that. Yeah. We said

088we said we give it a try. Let's give it a shot. Okay. And thank you. Just one other thing to point out here and again, Brian, I don't know if you and I had had this conversation or not. Um, in June, you'll notice uh that graduation is on here for the 11th. Um, the reason for that is in 2026, Skills USA Nationals is the week of the 1st through the 5th. Um, there is a conflict with the World Cup. So, the World Cup soccer tournament will be in Atlanta during the dates that Skills is normally held. Um, they knew that when they relocated to Atlanta three or four years ago and were told that that was something that would not be rescheduled to accommodate them. Um, so we looked at the calendar and and what

089what we the reason that we pushed graduation and the prom back to the following week was if we have seniors that qualify to go to nationals, we don't want to put them and their families in a place where they have to choose between prom and graduation and going to Skills USA. So, this should be a one-time thing um from what I've been told. But, um, we did make we did intentionally make that change and push it back. The kids will still get out on the same date, so senior sign out isn't going to change. it'll be the same time. It's just graduation will be a week later than it than it normally would be. Um, but again, I I don't want to receive phone calls about, you know, my kids got to choose between, you

090know, going to Skills USA and going to their senior prom. I I don't want to I don't want to have to deal with that. So, yeah. Wow. Okay. I think that's the uh a lot of Disney movies are based on those conflicts where the kid must has to be in two places on one day. So we don't want that here. All right. Do we have a motion to approve the 2025 2026? All in favor of the calendar as proposed? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Vote unanimously. Hopefully we caught everything. All right. The next item, um, Mass Association School Committees official and alternate delegates and for school committee meeting. School committee. What did I say? meeting. Oh, meeting dates. Thank you. On top of things. The list of the school committee meetings has also been

091presented. Um, so thank you, Patty. No discussion necessary. We're meeting the same month. All right. Do we have all in favor of the proposed dates? Say I. I. Any opposed? Good. Any abstensions also? Thank you very much. All right. Now, Mass Association School Committee official and alternate delegates. Um for Sarah, our newest member, um there is a annual conference of school committee members. Um down it is I think this is the last year they're planning on it being on Cape Cod for a while. I think there was a tenative plan to move it off Cape Cod, but they haven't picked a new location for the next year, but we don't have to be concerned about that yet. So, Norms, let's go somewhere around there. What's the date of the conferences? Yeah. Um, it's the 12th

092to the 14th and it is going to be as of now at the Cape Cod Irish Village at the Emerald Resort and Conference Center. Um, customarily we've had several folks here have have attended. Some have attended once or twice, some have attended several times. I think um, we always have an official delegate for voting purposes. Um, and we usually alo have an alternate. Last year, I think Gwen was going to be our our official delegate, but the last minute changed. She needed to change her schedule. Patty once again stepped in. take take this on and we appreciate that. Um, so is there someone who would like to um and again when we get closer um Karen or someone pretending to be Karen Karen we'll we'll send the appropriate information registration and payment and all of

093that stuff. Um we'll we'll handle that. But if is there anybody who would like to volunteer to be a delegate and then an alternate alternate delegate alternative mentioned when she walked in the door. What's that? Karen mentioned it when she walked in the door. I don't mind being the delegate. I just never managed to be able to do it. I never Are you Karen? Are you volunteering? Not willingly, but if nobody else will step up, I will. Maybe I'll actually be able to do it this year. that this is unless there is opposition. When do you want it? Okay, I'm not twitching your arm. Yeah, you are. And I like going to the event and I probably will go to the event, but I like last year had that closing. I know. You never know

094what what you're selling that week. Yeah. And I can't miss that. So, it's like I don't know. I'd rather if somebody else wants to just ask. All right. So, we have a bind a delegate potential. And do do you want the alternate or you prefer not to due to the Well, I I I'm likely gonna go I like going to the event. All right. Take the alternate. I'll do the alternate. All right. We'll call Patty in a closing as we as an honored lifetime member uh of the organization. Cy's always available. Always there. Um, so if we can just do one motion with maybe these two motion that Ter and Gillis be our delegates to the MASC and Gwen Lawson the alternate okay second second all in favor please indicate I I any opposed any

095abstensions thank you to both of you very much I'll oppose this we have some other issues no it's Okay. Okay. The next the next item is the budget line item transfers that Ron referenced that emerged out of the last um both out of the last school committee meeting and the budget couple of budget subcommittee meetings regarding things that need to be done to make sure that we make it to the end of the school year able to pay all of our bills. So Jenna had included this in that black folder. It is the one that's that's uh salary not landscape portrait portrait not landscape and again just to to kind of reflect back on some of the conversations at that meeting. Um we are we have some salary line items that have surplus monies in

096them. we have some salary line items that are overdrawn. Um, and what this plan is is the plan is to capture all of the surplus. Um, and then also um use that surplus to then balance out or zero out anything that is overdrawn. Um, again um moving forward in future years, we plan on doing this in the fall with September October meeting potentially. Um, again getting kind of resetting that within the budget so that we can keep a closer eye on which accounts are are coming up on uh, you know, their spending caps and which ones, you know, we're we're in danger of going over. We can have a better sense as we move through the budget and in a real time kind of setting. Um, we do plan on coming back to this group

097as as Mr. Fusco had said in May. Um, we have told departments that they have till April 15th to spend down their operating budgets. um we will likely come back to this committee in for the May meeting and ask for some transfers um in and out of those accounts as well to try to balance those things out and then hopefully uh have a a much better picture as to where we stand financially um going into the first part of June. Um so we we'll know if there's if there's any summer projects or anything that's outstanding that needs to be done um we can prioritize that and possibly even get that mobilized before the end of the school year. So that is kind of the the bigger picture of this, but this is this is step

098one at this point in time. Can you just highlight from the last meeting like basically like like most of them are basically they're just like leveling out whatever the budget align with what the current salary is. Can you just point out like any ones that are like basically swapped so people are aware? There's nothing one to one because the values don't match up. Um, but the plan is to put everything in that 1022111 line. And then when I move it out of that line into the departments that need more money, the leftover is in this bottom line where it says um on page two, there should be about $101,000 remaining in that category. No, I understand that. My point is is basically like you have some that are like basically if you say like take

099ELLL basically you budgeted X you now know it's actual is this there's some that are like and we've met last time there was some that you had stated that were basically like you know in the wrong buckets. Is that something you just point out to people so they're aware of like that it's not like just saying okay this was what we budgeted for this salary and now we've got the updated salary so that's what the delt is but there's other ones like you like pointed out there's some that are like wash outs um go ahead I was going to say so like I know line line four the athletic administrative assistant that there was actually two lines in the budget for that so what ended up happening was the line that the money was budgeted

100into wasn't the line that it was drawn from. So when you go down below, I don't think it's it's labeled the same way, but essentially we were pulling from a different line item. So again, some of this is also cleaning up that system and making sure that things are charged appropriately to where they're supposed to be. Um I know there was a bunch of clean up and guidance that we did. Um for whatever reason, it it appeared that every time a new guidance council was added, they created another line item separately for those salaries. So, some of this is pulling or rolling up all of that stuff. Um, I know when you go down and you look at some of the like the um line 27, the feras again, that was one um that was

101built to the wrong funding code. So there it looks like there's there's a lot of excess, but then when you go um further down into this and I forget where it was it actually I think it's line 78 um you can see that you know there's a $237,000 deficit versus the $212,000 surplus. So um there's there's a lot of that stuff that we are still working through and cleaning up. Um, and again, as we move into next year, the plan is to do this much earlier in the school year so that we have a much better sense as to um whether that stuff's getting pulled from the counter or not. And I'm also looking at the structure in newness. We have a lot of lines that aren't used or repetitive lines maybe with just one

102little thing off. So, my goal when I enter the FY26 budget, it's going to look exactly like our operating budget. So, um, Heather Dalton and I are working on combining lines. So, it will mirror exactly what we have in the operating budget that we present to the towns. So, be able to match those up. So, some of these lines will just be unused. They'll still be there, but we will not put anything in them and we will not use them. So, Heather and I are getting on the same page for that. We've started that process. It's a big project more for her. she's actually pulling every single name so that we know we didn't miss anybody and I think it will be worth it in the long run. So this isn't that um there was

103some great problem say for example with the special ed par salary other than maybe some slight adjustments for cola or whatever. This is just it was literally put in the wrong place. Right. Well because there were multiple lines for multiple paras and there were initials with these lines and I could didn't tell couldn't tell who they were intended for. So So Patty said it was a mistake. I made a mistake. I'd like I'd like to go back and You call that Jenna. We called it a Jenna. It was a Jenna. It wasn't a mistake. So, I didn't create the line, but payroll and I did not communicate which line was going where. So, we're working on that right now. I'm owning it. I'm not going to call it a mistake. No, I agree with Patty.

104It was a mistake. So, we're restructuring all the salaries for next year and it will exactly mirror what the operating budget looks like for everything. Thank That would be great because we get all concerned about and you explain what this overage is and I'm like, "Oh, what are we doing here?" And we might still have to make some moves because they're projections and people will be hired and will retire and all those things happen. So, there definitely will be moves, but I think it will be the list will be a lot shorter because we're going to consolidate a lot of things that haven't been consolidated. Just for everybody's benefit, can you just explain what the three were outside that weren't there's like coaches? Although I didn't include coaches, salary, so I took out athletics, substitute,

105teachers, advisors. Yeah, because those aren't encumbered. So include them. Learn that word. And because you don't have final Yeah. The year's not over yet. They haven't been paid for everything yet. So that's something we can revisit like in May or June like we discussed. Income. I don't care. I know. I don't know why they haven't been, but that's definitely something we need to look at. Okay. Okay. And I think it's fair to say that as the budget committee discussed, there's also hope, you know, put some additional responsibilities at the department level to monitor expenditures throughout the school year. So there's a little bit less likelihood of a squeeze um at the end of the school year. Um, all right. Having no other discussion, we'll have a motion to accept the budget line transfers that are

106detailed in the chart provided to us. Just before we do, wasn't in past times we did this, wasn't there like a formal thing put together like a write up the end of year transfer? Yeah. And I think the difference with this is we're not transferring from one fund to another. So, we're not going from like general to health insurance. That will come later. Yeah, we're at the end of the year on it's like because we're doing fun. Yeah, got just to mention that we voted the budget committee voted um unanimous to adopt this. Sorry I didn't say that, Pat. Thank you. Always have my back. So, we'll see if that trend unanimous approval in the subcommittee meeting. Thank you. We'll see if that trend continues. We have a motion to approve the transfers. identified. It's

107been seconded. All in favor, please indicate the I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, thank you very much. Okay, the next item, the results of the superintendent director evaluation. I know Karen um sent these to the committee members. So there we uh we want everybody to have a chance to take a look at them, look at both the individual comments as well as the uh sort of consensus scores. Um and having said that, I you know, we don't have an item to vote on here per se, but I think it would be it's appropriate to have a discussion. Um, if people want to make specific compliment comments or compliments, whatever, or other statements that either mirror what you put in your evaluation or what other people put in their evaluation, um, and just get a, you

108know, sense of the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, so going over this, uh, I I really, thank you, Karen. I really, you know, I know, as a teacher, I have a retired teacher there. I enjoy doing this, sitting down. took me a couple hours, took my time. Um, I think we really have a great superintendent here and I thought look back at all everything he's done, what he's done, uh, what he's accomplished and what he intends to do and I just want to reflect that. Um, so Tony, I just want to say keep up the good the great work you're doing. Um, we the enrollment is up, the the the um, uh, morale is up. Uh and I just uh going through this whole process here uh trying to uh uh we've improved some

109of the programs MSBA I mean um yeah we we there's some maybe some few things to do in the still we talk about the schedule your work is not done and I as you and I talked you're not going to you're not going to build Rome in a day. No it's like you know I think you just come in here this is what going into your third year now the end of my third year end your third time flies baby when you're having fun. So, uh, we're we, you know, people people say to me, "What do you think about him?" I said, "I I think he's awesome." I mean, you know, and, uh, we're lucky to have you and, uh, um, so we just hope you stay around here for your career because, uh, I

110think what you've done so far is is fantastic. I try to reflect that. Um, uh, and, uh, just, uh, the the whole culture here, I'm looking through some of my notes here. um the uh performing the management style. We're going to uh re restructure things. I think the schedule is something that's hopefully I'd like to see by the fall of 26. Um and then your continued growth um just to uh to keep uh keep learning because we're all lifelong learners. So Tony, so that's my um my two cents on the the table, Mr. Chairman, that uh I'm I'm very pleased with what's going on here. I'm very proud of you. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Other I actually really want to thank Karen for all the work you did and reminding me that I

111was late. I feel bad. Was that a mistake? [Music] No, it was because you got to do your homework bad. You never You always I was busy. You never did your homework on time. My life is busier. No, I understand. I understand. I understand. Um, and I would like to thank you. Decent job. No, you've done a good job. I don't want to be That's a good compliment from you, Patty. Thank you. I appreciate that. I know. Could you read you read about their like these school committees like going after superintendent and I read in the paper today, school two school committee members, I don't know what town it is, are being sued. I mean, so I mean, uh, to just say, I think, you know, talking about the numbers of applicants just goes to

112prove that you're doing a great job because we're all hearing how many people want to come here, which is, I mean, that's wonderful. It's great. Thank you. You're luck. Our our town's high school project will probably give you more. The high school project. No, I will say like the career that the career tree thing that's that's a really good uh there's been a lot of intentional like you know the the changes in the recruitment team video we developed the career tree and you know I'm I'm glad to see that those things worked out as as planned. I I can't take all the credit. I mean Jenna's in a lot of those meetings that the leadership team has come together and people have rallied around that and people have taken it seriously. Our staff members that

113go out and present stuff um they are all on board. They're into this 100%. So, um I I appreciate the compliments, but it's it's definitely a group effort and it's something that we've got a lot of people to kind of come together around and I think um we're seeing some really good results. So, and the same thing with the MSBA. I mean, everybody, Jenna, everybody, you get involved. I mean, a lot of fact we're in that round is pretty good and hopefully it'll continue. So, it's a lot of work from you guys. I say that's really commendable everybody in the school to take part in that. Anything else? I think so. Just thank you, Mr. R. Bringing the kids in here from Burlington especially and I know you tried all the other towns with some

114success. The tremendous exposure the PR is is huge. I mean, you know, and when I first started working there, people didn't even know where this place was and they were like, I'm not going there, you know. Then they come in here, they go, nice place, you know, you know. So then uh the MSBA thing I never thought we'd get to they let us in the door. I mean Mr. Jackson Brad. So we tried like I said we're never going to get this in. They open the door. I said come on in. So that in itself is an accomplishment. Yeah. Thank you. It's a great first step. One of the things I wanted to to add to all the comments people made. Um, one of the things I particularly appreciated this year is it is, as

115I think I put in my comments in the evaluation, it's been a challenging and tough year for the administrative team in that there's a been a lot going on. Um, it's also reached that point where you're settling in, you're able to exert your vision for the school a little bit more. Um, sometimes that goes over really well. Maybe sometimes it goes over just a tiny bit less than well, but one of the things I have appreciated um is that there have been times when I have shared feedback I have received or other committee members have received that indicates hey maybe a little bit more of this a little bit less of that or a little bit different approach to the administrative team relationships etc. And to my knowledge, the best I can remember, you've never

116said no. That I I that can't be. I I I never would say the wrong thing the wrong way. You've generally been acknowledging of something that you could have done or said better or differently or um you know the frustrations or whatever. And I appreciate that because I think as you yourself said there's an outstanding team of people here. We in school committees particularly in the age in the many years since ed reform now are very dependent on their knowledge of schools sometimes for superintendent. So we do have to get some input from other people and I appreciate the fact that that other pe we all do get to have relationships with other people at Shashane and um I think that'll be one of the main things we're looking for in the future is that

117that sense of teamwork and camaraderie that we as a school committee have experienced with you that that is maintained and even expanded upon with the administrative team going forward principles folk directors, academic directors, etc. because particularly in the next couple of years. I know you probably want to be spending less time on sort of the business items of the school and you got you and Jenna are making a lot of progress there. So hopefully frees up some more time. And with the school building project, there's going to be a whole another world of things y to focus on. And it's not it won't all fall on you. There'll be a whole team of people here. and you brought some really great people either into the school, back to the school. But um as I said,

118I particularly want to express appreciation that when I when I've identified concern or problem um you know are defensive, you don't say who said that and why. You know, that's not always the case in our day and age. Um and we appreciate. So that's important and we hope that'll, you know, continue to be the case. And um hopefully you continue to enjoy the job especially like you know all these town meetings. The month of May is not not a not a fun time in my house. I will add to what Brian was saying. I also appreciate I mean we're always told if a constituent, a parent, whatever emails you with a question, don't try to answer it wrong. Don't make some wild guess. Tell the school what's going on. reach out to to Tony or

119to Brian and let them know and you're always very responsive to that. I'll be like, "Hey, can I ask you a quick question?" I usually hear from you within minutes. I'm sure give me a call and and you know, you help me figure out how to best answer a question because sometimes they ask a question, I kind of know the answer, but I don't want to say the wrong thing. So, I I definitely appreciate that and the updates that you said is sort of this happened, that happened, you know, that kind of stuff. Thank you. I will say like for people that have been on the committee a little bit longer since you guys have like the admit I think it's you know a little less the way it was the first couple years. We

120don't need to go there but I appreciate that you guys you and administrator is definitely I feel like it is but I think it's definitely seems like it's heading not that is now but I'm saying that's especially important we're going into like an MSBA project and stuff like that. So it's good to see that you know We appreciate all everything you guys do. So, I I said it during my interview. I'll say it again. I My intent is to end here. So, um I got at least seven more years. So, goodness. Maybe more, but at least seven. That's all right. You say that every day on your way in in your hour 30 minute drive. I'm calculating the calculating the days, the minutes, the hours, the Yeah. No, that's you stop and get gas. You

121check the tread on your tire. I just put the gas in. Whatever it t Thank you. Okay. Um, next item. Uh, future agenda items. Um, I have a couple, but we did we want check with other folks. Do we want anybody to come in and speak in May or do we want I don't know. I'll just throw it on the table. I was going to make a suggest one suggestion and I don't know if there's a a who who's a really ideal person but it would be interesting to hear from somebody who can give maybe maybe a faculty advisor or someone like overview of where clubs and organizations are so that would probably thinking of Kevin because uh I think we sometimes forget that element of our school that we have a growing number of

122groups who represent a lot of different interests um you know, vocational and social and and everything else. And uh we sometimes you see them at the the open houses or school fair or things that like are coming up with the uh cultural program in in early April. So yeah, Kevin would be a good resource. Just a question when April is usually our organizational meeting. Do you want to plan I mean do you want to hold off choice? It's also school choice. Yeah. I just April or May doesn't really and since you mentioned reorganizational meeting yes now that I I know that our um our next meeting is April 29th um the week after school vacation by which time the voters of uh the last town that votes will have made their decision um it'll be

123time for our traditional reorganizing for subsequent meetings. Um so with that in mind um we have tried to establish some kind of rotation between towns and and school committee members to try to keep the chairmanship and other positions moving along. Um, however, I it should note that a couple of people who would probably be next up in the uh the uh batting order or whatever have indicated that they're not interested in pursuing it for the next time. I'm hoping that maybe some other newer folks would be ready to move up the seniority list real quickly. And so if people are are interested in it, um please feel free to talk to any one of us that have chaired for a year, Ron, Patty, uh Charlie um about the position. And um obviously if we cannot

124find anyone who's ready, willing, and able to do that, we'll have to start the rotation again or however we do it. I I think it's personally I think it's been helpful to have different people because you learn a lot. Um there's advantages of longer terms too but um so anyways that it looks like we'll be doing that at the April meeting. So if people want to consider it um you may think you haven't been here long enough but that's not true. You've been here last time even Sarah come on go for it. Last time last time meeting was Burlington. Oh it is Burlington. Les means I think the last election last election is the hotly contested Wilington DC. Oh sorry I'm last last time last time. This may be more a June I know it's

125our last meeting of the year but it might be nice if the if any further information has come down about the food program and like I said I think it may be June before we really hear anything that maybe Pauline could come in. Um because I'm thinking she's going to be thinking about that and talking with you guys about, you know, having a contingency plan if it's not decided by then and and just what she's going to do. It'd be interesting to get an update if possible and maybe the summer program as well. Did you want Kevin to come in when April or May? Um I don't know yet. Either one if sort of look depends on the I'm getting a little bit of a sense over here that the April may be a little

126bit busy. I'm okay with May is fine. May's fine. Do you want to talk about the fresh? Well, I wrote that down, but I wasn't going to say it out loud. But, um, I mean, shop placement will be done by then, too. So, I don't know if people want I mean, we can do Andy. I had it written down and I can also I mean I can also include that as part of my report. Yeah, that's fine. Percentage of kids that get the choice. That's fine. That's fine. But then what this is their last exploratory? Yeah, this week. So they'll have the to be placed will be next week. It'll be the the first I think it's the first full week in April. Gotcha. The first night now are already Yeah, they've picked their first

127choice. They just haven't officially reported it yet. Yeah, that'll go that'll go out Thursday night. So the portal the portal will open Thursday of this week. They'll have till Sunday. It shuts off, I think, at midnight on Sunday. So again, information goes to families. It explains the process on how to log in. You know, what what they're actually doing. You know, they're not ranking their choices. They're picking the top three. Um and then we already have plans on Monday morning to um to come together as again the leadership team will look and see are there do we have 10 kids that didn't respond? 15 kids and track them down Monday morning so that then we can run the placement uh placement program and we're off and running. Well, you have a program that does it

128for you. That's excellent. Sounds good. We brought that in last year. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um All right. Uh, we'll entertain a motion to go into executive session only for purpose only to come out of there for if there's something to be voted on after the issue that will be discussed executive session. Mr. Chairman, second. Okay, we have to take a roll call vote on this. Gwen, yes. Yes. Kent, Sarah, yes. Ron, yes. Yes. Bob, yes. Taran, yes. Daddy, Stacy, yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. public session. Uh we will entertain a motion and I'm sure collectively we'll correct this if we'll entertain the motion um to vote on the pay raises or the identified um non-UN personnel that the cost of living agreement cost living adjustment um will be passed to those individuals as well.

129Do we have a motion on that? Now that I butchered it, some motion. Second. Okay. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? This is for the two individuals. This is for all the non-UN salaries. All nonun salaries because it's a budgetary because it's a budgetary budgetary of all non-unit salaries to the which will include those individuals who were under the direct contractual um purview of the school committee and the percent is should be in there 3.75 3.75% that is the motion there's a second if there's No further discussion. All in favor, please signify. I Any nays? Any abstensions? One abstension. All right. Motion to adjourn. Wait. Do we have to do um the business manager? Oh, that's we included in the motion. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. What about the extension of your extension for her? Right.

130That doesn't have to be that does not have to be voted by the school because you're only voting the salary. Oh, sickly. Yes. Thank you, Kent. We'll entertain an additional motion consistent with the discussions in executive session regarding sick leave buyback. Would you like to make that motion? made a motion to uh extend the sick leave buyback. It's in was it in conjunction with the teachers contracts to the non-UN person. Non-UN personel covered as discussed. Moved seconded by Bob. Okay. They've been moved by Kent, seconded by Bob for the sickly buyback $35,000 cap to be applied to the other non-UN personnel. All in favor, please say I. I. All opposed. Any abstensions? One abstension. Got it. Okay. Now, we need a motion to adjurnn. Second. Seconded. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions?