001thank you thank you we'll call ourselves to order at 702 uh present Stacy you can say yes yes sorry to say yes yesen yes yes Hey Ron Charlie yes hey nyian yes I are let us please acknowledge that this is your last full school committee meeting this is my last official full public meeting there will you'll be at another committee meeting next week which will be fun but um we really want to thank you for being here for all of these meetings and I want to thank you for all the F yes I'm going to point a privilege can't you're here too right y okay good um and Gwen tosan she cannot be here um I just briefly want to say because um Nancy as the senior member of the Bedford delegation um last month
002when we saw on the chart that the superintendent provided to us that over 30 Bedford kids were had applied um you deserve a great deal of credit for your contributions to that over the years because that's main a main reason I know you got on the committee and you have been there plugging away your job to keep those numbers growing I know it's a lot of pressure it is uh but we will look forward to seeing you at Bedford days and voting days and but sincerely I know you've done a lot meeting with our principles at the at the school oh my God meeting tours doing doing everything you can to be h a real evangelist for for h Shen around Bedford and I will continue and I know you will continue that so thank
003you for everything you've done for me for the committee for Shen um it's great it's great no it's been fun it's really been worth it it was an adventure that I had no idea what I was getting into well you managed to keep it was good keep the information from your likely successor so and you recruited a successor myself y y she's a real she's gonna be good which is great thank Youk you all right we are tonight uh a little bit a different um agenda we are going I would entertain a motion oh I'm I'm very sorry confused would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance on your last uh I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one
004nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all you know when I started school we didn't say under God I I still have a hard time saying before they put it in y it was the 1950 50s under President Eisenhower that was introduced so yes I've encountered that before could uh we have entertain a motion make a motion Mr chairman we open the public hearing on the FY 26 budget second motion to main second any discussion all in favor I I I unanimous okay we are here to discuss the FY 26 budget everyone has had an opportunity to get a budget book if not okay so start chair Mr chairman do we want to go through this now or would the the group prefer to wait until we vote on it on their new
005business what is what is your preferred approach um would it be possible for us to get a the brief overview of the budget sort of the bottom line numbers that we going with to the town and then if we have specific questions we'll discuss them under the new business then will also allow us to move the the to end the budget meeting but also to um move on to some other agenda items that might be a little bit difficult to figure out exactly how long they're going to take okay so I'm gonna go again this has been shared with everybody I know Miss leco had sent this out um last week for review and I think a finalized copy maybe yesterday um but again we'll just go through this quickly um again the introductory letter
006talks about you know our our goal for this the total assessment um we ended up being up 2.91% over for last year's budget um you can all read through all the stuff that's here our timeline again we included this in here just as a reminder for people um our total budget for upy 26 our proposed budget for upy 26 is$ 39 m959 681 uh $681 excuse me um and Jenna has excuse me the business manager has broken this out um by instruction fixed costs capital projects and our debt service payments um again capital budget allocations uh one just over $1.1 million will become will come from the assessments to our sending communities um we've proposed to use $237,500 from excess and efficiency we're anticipating about $130 $130,000 in Perkins grant money um subject to change
007depending upon which direction the federal government goes in um but that's our anticipated number and we're looking at using $275,300 out of revolving accounts to pay for some of those Capital purchases um again just some uh historical numbers here our initial capital budget requests for this year were 2,362 25 we paired that down uh to 1,588 43 and when we back out revolving Perkins in the offset um it's it's an assessment to the communities of 1,459 42 you can see that that's lower than last year's assessment and it's significantly lower than our FY 24 assessment um budget detailed by towns um bedford's total assessment $1,249 188 for FY 26 b r is $1,792 752 Burlington is 3,692 tubry is 9, [Music] 8859 and Wilmington is 7,868 778 for total assessment to the communities of 33
008million 60,4 $159 you can see as we add back in the anticipated Transportation Aid and the spending from the Transportation evolving account the excess and deficiency the Chapter 70 um and the stabilization fund is a transf so that's a pass through for our budget that will go from um the & account into our stabilization fund so the total amount um is $39 m959 $681 current enrollment again I think all of you seen this um our enrollment is off from last year um we have a small sophomore class we have a small junior class we're going to have a little bit of a bubble in there until those those two classes work the way out of the building um required minimum contributions went up and again this is based on the Chapter 70 numbers that the
009state releases um this looks at the municipal Municipal Revenue growth index it looks at income levels it looks at property values it looks at a whole bunch of stuff in those communities um and B excuse me Bedford had a significant increase this year I'm assuming that there was some reevaluation or some update that that happened in that Community um the r and tuxbury were you know low one one% just over 1% between one and one and a half um Wilmington was was very low in their change for the required minimum contribution Burlington um had you know you can see almost five and three quarters those are the State numbers so if we hadn't raised our budget a dollar those are the increases that the state has told those communities they they see them as having
010that ability to pay more money towards the cost of Education in those communities so that ends up impacting when you look at the assessment comparison year-over year you have to remember that those increases in minimum contributions add to that total so bedford's total assessment year-over-year uh went up $215,300 uh B Reas again when you add in that um that the required minimum contribution increase um goes up $53,500 ,550 tub's up 274 includes Capital it includes all the operating expenses it includes Transportation it includes everything acoss the um business manager has broken this out some different different categories here depending on how you want to group things together to make some comparisons and a lot of this information again is just pulled from those previous slides the um over here's the overall breakdown the overall comparison
011between the different categories between up 25 and 26 you can see total required minimum contribution went up significantly that's the money that the towns are expected to pay um according to the state our Capital assessment went down uh Regional Transportation Aid we are uh expect well we're using some we're using the balance of that revolving fund like we're supposed to under um the finance rules and we're anticipating getting a million dollars back um for fly 26 chapter 78 went up um slightly um amount assess for the regional agreement has increased and then our total operating budget has obviously gone up and then the bottom line you can see the difference between last year and this year um is like I said just over it's about $1.1 million increase um here's the summary comparison and with
012the percentage as you can see capital is our Capital requests for f 26 are way down that was intentional there was um numerous conversations with the the facilities uh Capital planning committee and the budget committee around um being invited into the msba pipeline line um and kind of rep prioritizing some of the things we had in capital and and kind of holding back a little bit if you will till we find out more information about the timeline and when we if we get accepted when we get accepted and what that's going to look like so some of those things that that we had kind of had on the on the front burner we kind of put on the back burner um operating assessment went up required minimum contributions went up again 2.9 2.09% chapter 7
0138 went up about 2.88% um and again you can see that the transfers of the passrs for um transfer to the stabilization fund and then budget had also um voted on my recommendation to use $237,500 from E and D to offset some of the capital costs that funding for FY 26 again uh business managers put together um some graphs here illustr our funding sources where that money comes from how that's assessed and how that all builds towards our total budget um state aid history um you can see has been pretty consistent over the past 10 years there's not there's not had to lot increase there um this leco has has um kind of reformatted some of those enrollment and assessment grants instead of being a table has created some graphs this year to help illustrate
014enrollment versus assessment numbers you can see that for all five sending communities and then uh we get into the capital budgets in here people should have seen that already we did vote on that I believe it's a January meeting there shouldn't be any surprises that is the all the same information that was shared that's projected out over the next five years there's detail sheets that follow that for each one of those fiscal years behind it more in more details spell out exactly what those requests are for um and then um on on page 28 um the business manager has has provided a comparison year over year uh including the difference in the dollar amount and the percentage change um so we follow that down those are those are kind of some broad categories based on
015um you know the different departments and the different um cost centers that we have within the building that does that it does include salaries that includes materials that includes supplies it includes contracted services so when you look at you know like carpentry uh $583,500 by the budget subcommittee that February a couple weeks ago maybe two weeks ago um and approved by by them to move this forward um so again this spells out it lists the uh the FTE or full-time equivalence for each department how many people are budgeted in those line items and again this breaks it down into further detail what what's budgeted for contracted Services what's budgeted for salaries what's budgeted for supplies textbooks tools um so again there's there's a ton of information there and then starting on page 39 uh we
016have the salary projections for FY 26 we and I I think everybody knows this but just just to reinforce um teachers contract has been settled um for the next three years the par professional contract has been settled for the next three years and then the educational technology and maintenance contract has been settled for the next three years so those those new uh salary scales are included in this um the the committee um implemented a a system or structure for the admin pay scales last year those numbers are reflected in this as well um our non-un employees which I want to say is maybe two dozen of people that don't necessarily follow those those have been increased as well so we've we've tried to build as much stuff into this as we as we could we
017projected um a salary increase for clerical and for actually calf isn't in this because they have their owning fund but we projected a salary increase for the ones that we haven't settled at this point in time so this should be pretty accurate and again we I think we all aware that you know as people retire and move on to different positions sometimes we're able to hire a teacher at a lower rate of pay sometimes we can't find somebody for a low rate of pay and we actually end up spending more money out of that budget line item so there there'll be some balancing of this um as we come back in the fall and finalize all both roles and positions um and again that that carries right on through um we have the the Chapter
01870 summaries for shashing Valley Technical School we have the foundation budget calculations for shashing in here you can go through and look and see how many dollars we get um for each one of those categories based on student enrollment um you can see the breakdown of the required minimum contributions to the district for our sending communities um again all of this comes directly from the Department of Education the office of school Finance um but again we we put this in here for our sending communities to reference the business manager also included the summaries and the foundation budget calculations for all five of the sending communities if you interested in your community or you want to know how your community compes to edford or or whatever dat all that information is in here and um that's
019where it ends okay there any questions on well we're still part of doing uh here in the formal public hearing any particular questions comments for the business manager for the superintendent they'll be a second opportunity if you wish to ask anything or make any comments when we actually vote in the business section of the meeting if there's anything now that you believe would be appropriate to address Taran I do is just just want to say thank you to business manager superintendent and the budget subcommittee for all their hard work I mean the whole school really just one note because I know you're gonna get the question I mean I don't want to make it reprint but is it helpful when you go to the towns because you know you're G to get the question about
020funding the stabilization fund because you know where that's going so they're gonna they're definitely going to ask so I don't know if the de because it's in the budget it's in the you're going to trans for so you're going to get a a question about stabilization funds I don't know if it's like a separate you could bring to the town but the stabilization funds already been establish no I know but they're goingon to ask questions about it I'm just saying like background it's going to be like a refresher for them like particularly one town that doesn't know about it yeah just saying like doesn't have to be the town manager knows about it yeah I we can talk about I'm not sure exactly just but yeah yeah yeah absolutely we can do something I I
021think part of this is going to be educating all of our sing communities about what that is what that means and what we're trying to do that too so yeah maybe he doesn't need to do thisbe a supplement or something we can talk about that one any other questions I just have one um the level funding of the transportation item is that based on an assumption or caution or any reason to believe that it will in fact be level from last year um I went to the maava not maava the masbo conference a couple weeks ago and the state was there and they said that their target is 95% reimbursement okay so that's good to know for next year um the 5% is on us okay and and we do we do typically try to
022be conservative with that because again these numbers coming out are the governor's budget right and it has to go it obviously has to go through the legislator and get final approval so we we do try to air on the side of caution um with with what we what we budget for that out and I I think the superintendent uh provided a list of fincon meetings and uh town meeting dates that if people want to know that they're if Shen's coming up or there's a need to be there might be helpful and obviously if you get some further information um you'll let us know um if there is nothing else to be questioned at this point we want to a motion to close the public hearing on the budget no motion second moved and second it
023any discussion if not all in favor of closing the public hearing on the budget all right thank you and again thanks to the superintendent and to the business manager and everybody that helped them um okay next item will be the student representative report uh sofhia okay good evening on January 22nd we held a College and Career night for junior parents and Guardians during this presentation we inform these parents of the different paths their students can take After High School furthermore the guidance department is hosting College admission Representatives beginning at the end of January through early spring these presentations and programs are vital because like everything in this world things are changing at a fast pace and keeping the families of our students informed should be a priority UMass Boston announced free tuition for eligible students
024it combines University state and federal aid to provide as much support as possible the New England High School journalism collaborative is offering a fre week workshop for students of underrepresented populations it will take place at Simmons University in Boston and include Partnerships with the Boston go the Boston Globe Regis College New England newspaper and press Association the deadline for this application is April 4th student committee released a survey on January 31st to determine interest in a shashin swap event it would allow parents students and faculty to donate unwanted lightly used items and for students who are in need of those items to receive them this is part of the committee's year goal to best Aid low-income students based on account account accountability data reports although not limited to low-income students it can be an effective
025way to support the shashing community and ensure students have access to what they need February 1st the financial aid application opened for seniors interested in college completion of this application is also required for those who choose to go to a community college this enables opportunities for all and provides accessibility for these students furthermore it promotes secondary education and evolution of growth and learning as of February 7th the sports the spring Sports signups are now open athletes must apply prior to March 14th along with a recent physical and two concussion protocols Sports include tennis baseball lacrosse track and field and softball also February 7th the class of 2026 set a flower gram fundraiser and sold over 4,000 flowers they work with Bay State flowers in Wilmington as this is their 16th year with the fundraiser the
026proceeds will go towards the class of 2026 Year events such as prom which will be held at D danversport Yacht Club May 2026 seniors have been given the opportunity to receive three prom tickets if the student sold $250 worth of ads by February 12th They will receive a free prom ticket as of February 14th students are now able to apply for the summer at chaen program this program includes 25 25 offerings including Sports stem academic and Vocational classes as well as various enrichment courses middle sex Community College invited chosen students to a screening of the 6 tri8 about a troop of about troop 6,888 an all black all female World War III Battalion on February 23rd after the screening local women leaders share their stories of resilience and courage math club is meeting tomorrow February
02726 and has students who will participate in a competition this Saturday at UMass LEL the class of 2027 is hosting a calendar fundraiser calendars can contain gift cards and are $10 each buyers can win multiple times as their name is not removed after winning calendars must be purchased by today 225 winners will be chosen daily and be contacted via text or email for each calendar sold the class of 2025 gains $1 towards prom or other senior events students who want to take the Seal of by literacy test have until February 28th to apply the test certifies students who speak another language as well as celebrating the value of language diversity particularly for shashin students World Language is extremely important considering that most of of our trades work with the direct public we should be bilingual
028according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 27.3% of construction workers identify as Hispanic or Latino ethnicity many of them speaking Spanish I cannot stress enough how important it is to be well-versed in other languages which is why the Seal of biliteracy is an especially exciting reward to those students who put in the effort of communication student council will begin collecting gently worn formal dresses for the bell of the ball program beginning March 3rd this program allows students who cannot afford prom gowns to obtain one I personally adore this program because under no circumstances should it be expected for students to spend hundreds of dollars for the prom experience traveling Rams have announced their 2026 trip to Costa Rica they are hosting an information night March 6th as someone who went to Costa Rica with my
029middle school I can tell you the experience is like no other you get to explore the world and immerse yourself in different cultures as a teenager which you just can't get later on in life and finally Sports the cheerleading team won the CAC league title held at greater level on Saturday February 22nd and will head to Regional competition on Sunday March 2nd at Bera High School the wrestling team attended the two-day division one state tournament at North Andover High School and won its first ever division one State team title on Saturday February 22nd they will travel to methan high school on Friday February 28th for the first round of the all states tournament boys basketball team defeated Bay Path Regional on Friday February 21st and greater Laurence Tech on Saturday February 22nd to win the
030state vocational title the team has earned the number four seed in the MIAA division 3 state tournament and will host the winner of Tuesday's number 29 Worcester Tech versus number 36 Norton High School game on Friday February 28th at the Mark Donovan gym at chosen the boys hockey team defeated Blackstone Valley to earn the state vocational title on Saturday February 22nd they have earned the number 10 seed in the MIAA division 3 state tournament and will host number 23 East Long Meadow on Thursday February 27th at 7 pm at the Holland Borg rink last girls hockey team has earned the 20th seed in the MIAA Division 1 state tournament and will travel to number 13 natic high school on Wednesday February 26th sopia comprehensive as always but you left at least one thing out perhaps
031out of an abundance of uh caution the L club uh speech contest I understand you finished first place yes but don't knock on wood I still have to go to States and when are you going to do that um that's the first Saturday of April in the cape excellent congratulations thank congratulations on that that's you so much yeah great accomplish like I said I still have to go to stat you can't jinx me now we won't mention it again until you come back and tell us but next time if you win you can please include it in the report that's right yeah thank you so much job I just wanted to add I give a shout out to a former student rep Taylor tilsley uh who qu who's wrestling U collegiately at the sacred H
032University she's qualified for the national tournament she joins Jake Ferry and my son Joe Fusco the only shashin graduates who competed in college who were made it to the National level so I just wanted that was out there her proud mother put that on Facebook and so um we congrat I know she did a fantastic job just as sopia does so just wanted to acknowledge that thank you great thank you can I say something real quick please I didn't know a thing about wrestling till I came here I didn't know kids wrent and my granddaughter who's a senior at Lincoln subur was at that tournament in North andola last weekend Oh and they're going on the I'll tell you this is what I say I learn when I come here absolutely I know nothing about
033wrestling and now I know everything and wrestling at uh at this school is a Showtime with the lights and all of that so it's all something extra a it's great all right uh we have nobody signed up for public comment that I know of and seeing no one we will move to our consent agenda items now we we have paper for the first two items um the legal bills in the amount of 1870 from attorney grain span 2005 from km we have the approval of the minutes of January the 28th the last item the superintendent will give us a very quick explanation of the acceptance of the mass cultural uh cultural Council Grant um just Tony you want to explain that so um our um Performing Arts Club I know that's not the term for
034them uh drama club what whatever the correct term is had applied for uh a grant they actually got $1,000 from Dela and $1,000 from tubry to help support their upcoming performance of the little the little mermaid um and my understanding is that th those those two grants would be used to to buy uh to provide costumes to buy materials and to do set decorations so um again as as the the policy is become for the committee um any grant that we receive um we ask that the committee vote to accept um and give us give us the blessing to move forward with that spending that money excellent nobody does more than with less than the drama folks all right do we have a motion in support of the consent agenda items so second second it
035the sisters over here all in favor please say I I any opposed any extensions nine z and support okay all right um we have the business manager's report uh to the extent that you have even more after all the budget information this is just an update on fy2 some of you already have this because I gave them out during subcommittee some of you do not have it it's it's the standard sheet that I've been providing for the past couple months so just as we showed the FY 26 budget summarized by department and categories this is totaled by department and what we have spent so far to date and also what we've received so far to date in revenue from our towns um first page second page Broken Out by Department you'll notice the elll I
036remember there was concern about that at the last meeting that salary l item has been fixed so now you'll see that now we're over budget because one of the salaries was higher than we anticipated but the last meeting it was concerned that there was Zero spent from that those those two salary lines were moved to the appropriate line item to elll and then I've added all the update on our fund balances so I figure now we're on month four of this you get to see how these balances change over four months once everything is is reconciled some of them don't change at all some of them get interest I think one of the more active ones is our involving accounts and Student Activity accounts and then update on um where we've spent our grants to
037date so we've started spending down the masonry Grant started spending down early college which I don't think we had done at that last meeting Ida um skills Capital Perkins I know you guys can read all these numbers you have them in front of you the fy2 Tia has been closed we've spent that 10,000 and um we're making progress on that million for the skills Capital lab modernization that's a big project but it's exciting project for those students in metalab and then the bright program we just started spending down as well because what what date did that actually start uh January 21st January 25th something like that so most of the money spent so far on that bright program went towards supplies and setting up the Romany atmosphere for the students and the rest will go
038towards salaries for this year and then a portion will go into salaries for next year so this this will carry over into FY 26 as well as the skills Capital will carry over into FY 26 so those are the major bullet points and all of our major funds are represented here all of our funds actually this is everything I grabbed the citizen balance this morning to make sure that was in there so you know how much we're holding at our Citizens Bank okay I mean some of these issues were touched on a little bit in the budget subcommittee meeting that PR immediately preceded this meeting and but if there any questions comments for business manager Lesco or Jenna Jenna call Jenna or [Music] anybody not seeing any okay good all right and I I think
039budget subcommittee has another meeting next month where the week before this meeting um the full school committee meeting where they'll be looking at uh year-to-date issues in a little bit more detail okay thank you very much all right superintendent report make this quick um budget timeline is in here again just for reference um we are on track we did have our public hearing and um with any with any luck and success here in a few minutes we will vote to adopt the up 26 operating budget so we'll be able to move on from this enrollment update um we are down three students from last month you can see uh in January we had 1275 this month we're looking at 1272 um I believe it was one freshman and two Juniors um I'm not sure exactly
040um what the circumstances were around that or how that played out but I do know the guidance department has been trying to do followup or exit interviews with students that we draw um we have some success sometimes when you know sometimes a kid will go home on a Friday we'll get a call from a parent on a Monday saying my kid's transferring um so it's sometimes it's a little tough to get to grab that information but um we are holding steady um and again you can see our freshman class is still very strong it's almost 350 students and like I talked about earlier um we do have we do have a little bubble with that 10th and 11th grade with two small groups um that until until we kind of process them through the system
041our enrollment numbers are going to kind of be in that that high 12200 low 1300 range uh Co-op update 72215 hours worked to date uh we have 64% or 206 of our senior students participating in Co-op supporting 183 local employers and our students have have grossed 1 million $ 24,28 today so again these are these are pretty much in line with the numbers that we've seen the past couple of years um I want to say last year we had a few more kids out um and again I mean every Year's a little bit different depending upon student interest and you know employer needs but I think we're still on track to uh to be able to say that we're we're doing a very good job of supporting our our local economy here um again spe
042specific numbers by Community Bedford we currently have five five students out Bera is 73 Burlington is 13 tub's 49 Wilmington 66 um and like I said 206 out of the 321 seniors are currently participating in um applications closed on February 1 so I had Mr pigeon our director of data assessment and admissions pull these numbers for us um he went through and actually did validated applications so you'll notice that some of these numbers are actually a little bit lower than the last report what we did is we actually went in there and pulled out out of District students that applied students that had withdrawn applications so we didn't count everything when you count everything that got submitted I think we got like 607 applications but we we purposely called out the ones that you know
043again were kids that would never actually be eligible to attend Shashi but still um Bedford we had 30 applications for the class of 2029 um which is right in line with the number we had last year um B R's number is up we have 100 as of the February 1 we had 195 students apply um which is about 35 more than than the year before Burlington's numbers took a significant bounce this year we're looking at we have 81 Burlington applications um which again is is a big increase took spir is down a little bit 124 versus 130 the year before uh in wi in is down a little bit 94 versus 101 um all said and done we had 524 verified applications which amounts to 39% of the eth graders in our catchman area have
044applied for admissions to Shashi so I think that's a pretty pretty strong statement on our on our part as to what we're doing and how it's resonating with our sending communities um admissions timeline again there's acceptance letters will go out in March if you start to get phone calls or you run into people out and about in your travels um I know Mr pigeon's targeting I believe he said the second week in March um so it should should be somewhere mid- March that those letters that to go up to kids April 5th is our first placement testing date we are working to schedule a couple other ones because uh again we we've got a a bigger group than we anticipated that we want to make sure all the kids have placement tested so as we
045go through that weight list we're not bringing in groups of kids to retest um and then again after June 1st we'll move to our rank order weight list and start offering out um admissions offering admissions to students regardless of which Community they live in sorry I don't know why I struggled with that one um again as reminders based on on these things Bedford 10% of the seats B Rook is 32 Burlington you can read the percentages um and again if people ask you questions we have we currently have five scoring criteria this is the way the points are broken out every kid gets scored on all five of these categories um and that's how we create that rank order list those students that we accept um admissions update um and and Brian and I were
046talking a little bit about this before the meeting uh acting commissioner Johnston made an announcement at the board of Elementary and secondary education today um I was told that they were going to take action on it and they were going to Goot to move it to public comment uh Brian updated me and and let me know that that the board uh kind of put the breaks on that and we'll be visiting it in a couple of weeks yeah after the March 10th meeting it'll probably be submitted to public comment the uh the information that was released last week um spells out that they will be mandating a lottery format for vocational school admissions um the the recommendations that they put for what forward would it only be two selective criteria one will be attendance the
047other one will be discipline um attendance would be um any student that has 10 or more unexcused absences um would be disqualified from the lottery any student that has had a major discipline violation based under the the the 37h laws and 37h and a half and three quarters would be U eliminated from uh consideration The Proposal that was put forward would allow drawings by communities so essentially we would take all the kids from B Rea put them in we draw the 110 seats or whatever it is out of that group we do the same thing for Bedford the same thing and again that was a big deal um because as we had talked before if one year we pull 300 names out of you know we pull 300 Bill ricka names their budget's going to
048go up you know a million percent and they're not going to be able to budget for that so that was something that that's been advocated for um they they did make it um very clear that the the details of this are still being finalized and it's also going to go out the public comment for 60 days so um when we get the official word that it's gone out for public Comon I think it's important for you know people on this committee um if you reach out to local Representatives local Senators if the committee members wanted to um respond and send in things and be part of public comment um the thing to remember is this is a draft if a lot of people come out in support of changing these things or adding criteria doing
049something different this could move in One Direction but again if people aren't vocal about their beliefs and and where they think this thing should go and a whole bunch of people come out on the side of this being a blind Lottery and we just throw all these names into a hat there could also be changes in that direction too so when we get and and I'll email people when we get to that point but I think it's important for us to advocate for what's in the best interest of our students um yes just for clarification I don't remember now how many um or of kids there are but you know say there's we had 194 so the there's 400 Bill Rick eth graders next year approximately 200 of them were interested in applying if it's
050this kind of Lottery are all 400 names thrown in or do the students still have to say I want to be included based on the draft that they put forward the kids would have to self- select and say that you know I'm I'm interested in this they they are going to allow they don't like the term application which I don't understand but they're going to allow an application process so a kid and a family would have to you know fill this out and say I'm interested in attending a school and right now if a students attendance is particularly poor or have they have a discipline issue that doesn't eliminate them it just lowers their score so that could actually affect there are some kids that maybe could have gotten in I mean there are days
051when we've clear years when we've cleared the whole weight list that may not be eligible on us Y and I know there's there's been some ad there's been some advocacy for having a student interest PR of this which whether you want to call it an interview whether you want to you know whatever you want to do um again just to just to validate why the student is interested in going to that school is it just because they want to get out of where they are or is it because there's really a there's a program or uh a you know a shop that they want to be here for because it it informs their future plans whether it's work or it's college or whatever it is so they're Advocate I know they've been advocating for that
052and I think you said that was brought up that was yeah what does a child need to show and or his parent or her parents need to show to show that they're really interested and there has been some concern that if if there's almost no application process application process or something you have to do that people won't take it seriously and then we might get you know Jillian kids yeah you might get that and then you might get a lot of people not matriculating in in um in the fall so that's a concern one of the other things too that I know was topic of discussion with the within the the ma superintendent group was um the current draft reads that the student needs to be eligible for promotion uh and and I will I
053will be completely honest I have I have a fundamental issue with that I think it needs to say the student is passed all their core academic classes um because when you say eligible for promotion that now puts the um the respon not the responsibility but it puts it back to the sending District to say yes this kid's ready to go whereas you know so I think there's there's some advocacy to be done around that and to try to clean that up too for all just in District what's are they toing anything with out of District kids so it still says that you have you can't accept out of districts uh students unless all of your IND District students have been accepted yeah so it is it is really kind of narrowing down n was there
054ever Lottery before and does anybody else do it there was not and there's there's two schools that have Implement and there's a third the rumor is there's a third one that's going to do it for this coming year um in Massachusetts in Massachusetts but they're not it's not the format that they've presented to move forward other states do it I don't know how other states do it but so w Wester Tech moved to it but it's done um it's it's a priority system and kids get points within which neighborhoods they they live in so it it's kind of a qualified Lottery and then um I know I know Brian and I had talked a lot about asit and aset doesn't interview the they do they have a bunch of criteria to qualify for it and
055then even when a kid gets accepted um if they don't if their grades don't come back and their attendance doesn't come back it's a conditional acceptance so until they finish out their eighth grade year they're not actually officially enr this right right right there seemed to be a fair amount of concern or where the some Advocates of lotteries think that they haven't gone far enough is on the attendance and the number what is the number of of unexcused absences in the middle school years that should be considered disqualifying some f felt that 10 was too to um too high a number um that you you know and that because of circumstances the kids are in and the lack of autonomy they have so that that might get Revisited whether that number attendance should be there
056at all or if so what is the number that it should be at um and I think you know reading listening between the lines there're still within the Board of Education a little bit of the there are folks that are very concerned understandably about representation of traditionally underrepresented groups and then there seems to be a faction that is concerned about those kids who would do just as well at the traditional comp prehensive high schools and they're but they're coming here and they're coming to a vote instead there was a comment made today during the discussion about robotics you know this kid like this the prototypical kid who you know they could go and learn engineering or pre-engineering at Bedford High School or Bill Rick ey or whatever and but they come here and they get
057involved in advanced manufacturing and get on the robotics team and some people that are still discom uncomfortable with that which I think most of us aren't but there are people out there who somehow feel oh that's a spot that should not being utilized is not being utilized and it's like well that program not need for us to discuss it here but that program is going to exist one way or the other and and the fact that that's a richer environment of those kids with those very different needs and experiences coming together but anyways so if it's a relatively blind lottery I don't see how that helps underrepresented ethnicities that's a bigger discussion maybe I'm missing something right the presumption is that those other three tools the interview the the grades and recommendation the recommendation somehow
058have some built-in bias to them so they think we've tilted in One Direction and they're trying to right and I mean well and there's been a lot of conversation around should schools be compared to the Statewide demographic of student makeup should they be compared to their catchment area should they be compared to so there's and I know the Board of Education hasn't really weigh in one way or another on on what that really means and I think that also muddies the waters in this whole conversation as well so and a lot of discussion about well under the current system some kids look at all of those criteria they find it daunting they think I'm not going to make it through this series of steps so they self- select themselves out of the process and on
059the other end there there was and this is probably a good thing for us um considering some of the issues our some of our towns have had there was there's also going to be a little bit more emphasis by the Department of Education supposedly on making sure that all sending districts make it a higher priority to get all of their kids either in our buildings or act exposed to information because they believe that that's what that's one of the things that will help increase the overall pool is is more kids getting here and they' they have heard a lot of anecdotal information about towns that are resistant to having their kids visit and attend um you know afraid of the kids going to come in and fall in love with the place much and then
060parents come to Har I mean really any other question I mean this is obviously going to be a bigger topic as we move forward but any other questions I just want to make a comment Tony thank you for you know you and the superintendent fighting the good fight as we said you knew this was coming I were you know I was here we work so Patty do on this aition policy but it was always in the background this is coming this is coming I just hope we modify we have a compromise somewhere you know I just put all the kids' names in a hat go yeah who wants to call I know and I think the department of as Brian was saying some of those desie board members like oh gez what are we doing
061here you know and other I don't know so keep fighting a fight here it goes I think it does scare people off a little bit I was on a building whatever for Burlington IED to a one Burlington School Committee Member and a town meeting member talking to them and they were that was what the question I was asking they were asking questions about their kids would be interesting asking about the lottery yeah it it's kind of like they're kind of like wait what's going on so I don't know that's kind of pivots or puts an extra people I don't know it's gonna scare some people off or they're like why am I gonna apply I'm going into a right we're just gonna into be luck of yeah exactly and your point that could tilt towards
062shared by towns could be that Cas I think one of the unintended consequences of this is I mean if you're if you're a middle school kid that has your eyes on child or any other vocational school and you know you have to do well in school and you have to show up every day and your attendance counts and your grades counts and you're and this this may be hamstringing some of our middle schools where kids are like yeah it don't matter as long as I don't miss 15 days or whatever it is my name's going to go on the lottery so what do I care um how they consider it financially tooe where it's shared by different towns I there different towns at bigger well that's why that's what we'd have to draw by by
063population by by assigned percentage within that that policy anyways um just a reminder um um the I I update I sent everybody the evaluation update I I emailed that to everybody last week which I kind of walked through um I don't know if there's any questions on it I again I tried to align it with when you actually get the survey if you line the numbers up like question one is question one on the survey question 10 is question 10 on the survey um I don't believe Karen sent the survey out yet but that should go out this week so you're going to send it out tomorrow so that'll go I put the week of the 24th um and we're asking that people have it have it completed and back to Kon by Friday March
06414th gives you about two and a half weeks to do it same format as last if you were here last year you're get email a Microsoft form you're going to go in you're going to respond to the things it gives you some in some of them the radio buttons where you just select the option um there are some text boxes throughout that thing if you want to add comments if there's specific things you want to put in there and again that'll all go back to Karen Karen will compile all that information and we'll have it the review at the March meeting this also gives sayban the opportunity to submit hers before before her term is up how much is it worth to you we'll talk about that offline we'll talk about that offline um just
065some project updates um agenna actually forwarded me the email this afternoon um we did get our excavation um um yeah per um not permit inspection thank you sorry lost my turn of thought we got our excavation inspection today um it's been approved for them to move forward they'll start working on footings and then Foundation this is the masonry building Edition um they have excavated all of the footing areas they've back filled it with the crushed gravel um and they were out they were out there hammering away last week in the frozen ground and now this week it's in the 50s so I'm sure that they're kind of kicking themselves a little bit about the timing but they'll get over that um again here's just some some more pictures from last week that I took when
066I was out there um I would expect that I mean my anticipation is that those footings will probably be in at the end of this week or the beginning of next week and then they'll be back out here to set up forms uh and then to four conrete for um the exter the three exterior walls for that project hopefully soon after um so that that is moving forward we are now starting to pick up some momentum and move forward with that which is a great thing um and an update on metalfab so the the two big pieces of equipment that we bought under the skills Capital Grant um the FY 25 skills Capital Grant are both in both are now wired and operational um the saw on the right has been up and running for
067a few weeks um my understanding is they were coming in today to do all the final setup on the shear so um if they weren't using it this afternoon they should be on track to that using that piece of equipment probably tomorrow with the students so those are those are I mean there's um there's $175 $180,000 worth of equipment just between those those two items um we met the other day we've been meeting on a regular basis about that lab modernization Grant and we are we're anticipating awarding two more two more large bids on that coming up in the next couple of weeks um and we're starting to spend that down as well and uh I think we have a pretty solid plan for what we're going to do in the spring to get ready
068uh and the majority of the work the remaining work will be done um over this upcoming summer sum so um if if you if you're in the building and you get a chance to get down there all the old lights are now removed all the new lighting is in um a bunch of the Surplus equipment has been moved out it's really opened the space up it's it's it's slowly kind of changing but you can see that there's definitely some progress towards updating and modernizing that space just there's anything else okay thank you very much all right the subcommittee which met just before we opened up tonight if there's uh I think you have a recommendation or anything else you want to report from your meeting from earlier tonight thank you Mr chairman we met tonight
069um to review the FY 25 budget status and uh we um will be meeting March 18th this time at that time superintendent MOS and business mesco will come forth with their recommendations for L line item transfers uh we also the audit committee was was a joint meeting and we went over the audit recommendations so we will be reconvening on um March 18th with recommendations at that time from the business manager superintendent and to be to be voted on and presented to the full committee on the 25th thank you thank you that's for the fy2 yeah fy2 going to vote on on the 26 budget yeah that's yeah that's that's new business I didn't know if you were doing that then just right next to each other they waiting on it okay thank you and Charlie
070and the part of the audit there you want to just say we're not not on the agenda no it's okay all right thank you I don't want forget you we uh on our that's okay my um we address the audit recommendations as part of our agenda thank you thank you um any old business items okay could I I do subcommittees I went to Wellness today oh excellent uh and as usual I enjoyed it thoroughly with you guys and uh there were several things I brought up I won't go into them all but the one that really jumped out was this a talk of reduced funding from the state so they might not get free lunches next year so that's a bigie one of the things that came up as an option was maybe approach the
071local pantries and your name came up to b r so each town would have to be approach that was just one way of that possibility that's that's everybody was really upset about that because they felt that the free lunch program destigmatized if that's such word some of the kids that were having trouble getting it and that's that's big the kids not to feel stigmatized for getting Mones I learned about Zen which is a tacco b pouch it's the new vaping say that come to shaen and learn you got to go to the wellness committee um that's basically it uh there was there was a lot going on but those two items really um and the free lunch would if we didn't have free lunches I think that would really really be terrible that do the
072state or not state but fed no the funding they're getting froming St just for clarification it used to be that free lunch was an application process for those of financial necessity and then it became everybody are they going back to financial necessity or going back to nobody gets they don't they don't know W to see let's hope it doesn't come thank you I would think they'd go back to the direct s directly certified there all you have to apply again yeah I they were saying the free lunch was a cheese sandwich you know that's kind of like not what dreams of the lunch every day what no no no no no they got the exact same lunch as everybody else oh must way before way you know like before I went to school no no
073yes no they were talk they were talking about what they were doing before they had been wrapping cheese sandwi I think that was when a student ran out of lunch not when they weren't right when they didn't have if you apply accounts or overdrawn or if there was no money yeah yeah yeah but if you if you were eligible for the free lunch you got still be sing I let us hope that the state provides us some clarity on that and that we uh I think people have become very accustomed uh to the positive effects of of the uh the lunch program because not only is it obviously good for the kids and the destigmatizing but obviously has reduced the paperwork of uh cafeteria folk having to track down small accounts and deal with issues
074of overdrawn accounts and and all of that they made a point of that about saying how much how calm the lunch lunch process is now Brian I haven't heard any news about is not of her budget or what are we do I had not heard that from the state level that there's any okay no this is just a letter she's gotten as a matter of a heads up okay they went back at the payment that's a h administrative from an administrative angle not not good let's hope we have better news for that in the coming weeks Mr chairman all right yes I guess since she the wellness committee report is done I will since we're not going to do a vot I guess I could at least I will at least fill in the uh
075board on the audit committee we had the audit recently and general we discussed that the the bud I mean at the audit thing that the the action plan that J put together on how to address the different the findings in the audit to um to get in line with what they s their suggestions and recommendations so it's basically just different things that Jenna put together how we're going to do that and as time goes on she'll be reporting back to the audit committee on how everything's going to with those recommendations and howting the lines are yeah second year of the auditor new audit we still we will call them the new auditing firm for the next 10 years um Cons considering how long the last one was here that's probably appropriate all right new Under
076new business uh the first item would be do we have a motion um to vote approval of the fisal Year 2026 shaen Regional Vocational Technical High School school budget and the amount of $39 million $959,900 m645 and to further proportion the assessments to the district communities as follows Bedford 1,249 201118 Bill r 11, 11, Burlington 3,692 15 tuxbury 9, 8859 and Wilmington 7,860 1878 uh do we have a motion in a second on that second moved seconded can I just say something now let moved and seconded it's now open for discussion before we take a roll call Vote Yes say I had a question on this last year and I hate page 11 I hate the percent increase because you're putting down the percent increase for the total budget but anyone looking at it would
077be like well that isn't what that is did you say page 11 though P yeah fiscal year 25 26 assessment comparison which are you which number you talking about that bottom number that the 29 yeah I think you took that out of the final version oh okay because I know I mentioned that before we we looked at it and it didn't seem like really fit there so but I I think these were printed before we made them so I have I did 20 copies through gra all right so the next one at 2.09% we got just the minimum I was trying to figure out it doesn't yeah doesn't fall well there no it do I agree I agree Jen I thought we were done sorry about second I thought it was going to be a
078typo I got nervous but that's fair that's fair yeah okay Charlie soon when this gets approved will you be forwarding it to the finance committees in the city and the town man and and I I already I'm already on I know Wilmington prefers hard copies of this so if it gets approved tonight we'll get we'll get version two printed and get them out to them hopefully before Friday so how many do you have to do because we used have to do like 29 or something to I think this I think we do 15 for Wellington and I don't know how many we do I think the reca likes him in the print version as well so probably I'm gonna say probably 30 35 somewhere in that range take to town meetings no we give them
079to the finance committee time univers any other questions comments about the budget before we take a roll call vote okay and uh I want to I want to thank whoever Tony or Karen whoever prepared that was Karen Karen in a week in which you added two grandchildren you still got this done I really make sure you had it if I wasn't here thank you thank you all right uh we'll take a roll call vote on this stac uh Stacy just say hi hi so confused I yes and I all right I 9 Z all right excellent second item congratulations congratulations I the yeah the second item is just a this is a bit of housekeeping that does come from a recommendation by our auditing firm that we update the language uh on opab guidelines superintendent
080provided a memo in our packet dated February 5th 2025 simply to use a more modern version modern being a relative term here since it was changed in 2016 from the 2010 or 2011 version that has remained on our book so to speak so we are being asked to vote to accept the 2016 updated language and that we should continue to plan to appropriate 300,000 yearly to fund the opep obligation and the irrevocable trust that was established back in 2011 and voted uh on in 2014 all right do we have a motion to update the opep guidelines been moved and seconded now it's time for questions where I'm curious like where is the 300,000 coming from like is that based on no but I'm saying like has that been looked at it's probably a decade old
081300 not 250 take a look at that was just historically no I know it's find it VOC can we take it back to look at to see like if it's maybe that needs to be updated for more seems like it's 10 years old it's not really applicable and the other amount you mentioned about that other fund that was like eight grand or whatever is that in the prior is that part of the the other trust move to the oped whatever that was um so that that's right so when they moved it outside to Prim to that $10,000 remain it was like eight now it's like earned interest it's up to 10,000 so that's sitting in one of our trusts that we need to do something with so is there a vote that needs to be
082to move that back because if it's the same prior was the same that that should probably go through budget we add that to because if it's the same purpose then basically can we move that to be rolled into the other one yeah I would think so and that's definitely up to you guys yeah but this you would have you up that you have to revote this again right if you have out this language is adopting the the chapter 32b section 20 no I meant more I meant more about the amount if it came back and take a look and see that's the annual that's the minimum annual contribution we'll make we can make more than that and sometimes we do c that's our minimum okay got thanks so we have moved and seconded on two
083prongs item here to adopt the 2016 language and to make the $300,000 minimum annual contribution if there's no further discussion all in favor please indicate by saying I I I any opposed any extensions 90 okay uh we have already heard from superintendent I think has already covered the evaluation timeline um any future item future agenda items recommended suggested requested I know Mr suggestion for the opab contribution right so we have one for the opab item we have anybody scheduled to come visit us any department heads that we haven't seen I people to come visit us at our meetings we could I mean um behind this chair freshman exploratory hasn't concluded yet so I mean I think that's a good opportunity for Mr norowitz and potentially um Mr Carlson to come and talk about that process
084that won't be done till early April so that wouldn't be at the next meeting but again if there's there's somebody that people want to hear from I'm glad to um I'd love to hear from John back careful what you ask no kid J we go way back we can get Anthony for variety I mean I could I could potentially I don't know if the committee's interest I could potentially ask um Al Costa to come back and do a winter sport because winter sport should be wrapped up by then yeah but I mean we could also do by season too yeah that's fine I mean it's I don't care we could do that fine if there's any other activity group that has something that they would particularly want to report summer Shen wna share with us
085what they have planned for the summer I can ask Mr the library T in last year that's really interesting she just G an update like what's going on like last year she gave her here like been a while but I mean I'll put that I don't know we probably want to have three or four that's fine maybe two get a good I know we you ask us the question we come up with lots of ideas we got a nice schedule and I know this year we got a little away from it but that's fine we got a lot of all right we're um we'll entertain a motion to go into executive session um for the purposes of addressing two grievance items um so we want a motion to go into executive session only to adjourn
086for purpose only to return to public session for purposes of adjournment I'll make that motion second second okay roll call again we'll start on Ascent Kent Nancy Charlie I I and I okay um what give us a few minutes great thank you