School Committee - June 4th, 2025

001[Music] Good evening and welcome to the June 4th um school committee meeting. Um we will start with uh the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So, we're going to start by approving the um agenda. Are there any changes? Lizzy, if yours um yep, one change is that um we will be postponing um ask me to June 18th. Okay. But we'll be reviewing um in executive session that voting on MEA units B and D. Anything else? So the agenda is approved. Excellent. All right. Great. Next, we'll move to public comment. Uh in accordance with school committee policy, we welcome members of the community to share their perspective with us

002during public comment. We've set aside up to 15 minutes for this part of the meeting and individuals may speak for up to three minutes each. While the school committee does not respond directly to public comment, there may be opportunities for members to address issues that are raised over the course of the meeting when relevant topics are on the agenda. We strive to engage in respectful discourse during our meetings and ask that the public comment speakers keep that in mind. Speakers should uh come up and introduce themselves for the record or if they're on Zoom reduce introduce themselves as well. Do we have anybody um here for public comment? Hello. Hello. I'm Katherine Connan. Thank you all for having me. Uh and thank you for all your work you do in the school committee. Uh I

003want to say I appreciate continued discussions around f French programming in the coming months. Uh, regarding French, I would s like to suggest that the second lottery that is upcoming for the open spots um include those already enrolled in a French program, meaning that this could allow families in single stream classes at schools with weight lists to move to schools with a two stream openings, thereby potentially freeing up seats at schools with weight lists. And while the structure and capacity of the French program is important, uh I believe the core issue is this unusually large cohort of current kindergarteners. And it would be helpful to have an updated projection for first grade enrollment across the district. Earlier data had indicated that many classes are already near or at capacity, uh leaving little flexibility for incoming

004students, and I'm curious of the plan to address this. Thank you again. Thank you. Hi, good evening. Um, I'm Zadeie Rose and um, thank you all for your service and for allowing uh, citizens the opportunity to speak. Similar to the previous speaker, I'm here to address the large class sizes um, of our rising first graders. I too would like to know what the plan is for these classes. Um, I would like to acknowledge that our advocacies likely will not come to fruition for next year. Um, and at the same time, I want to ask that the school committee look closely at um, their policies around class size. The contract says that we'll strive to keep class sizes at 25. Our French classes historically start at 26. I know there's often attrition in our French classes,

005which is why the higher number for these students, but the state average is 20. So, let's strive for the state average is my advocacy for tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi everyone. Um Joanna McCarthy, 341 Highland Street, um mom to a first grader at Cunningham with a disability who accesses special ed services and also the co-chair of uh the current co-chair of Milton CPAC. Um you might recall I was here uh at public comment two weeks ago. I was rudely interrupted by that three-minute timer, so I thought I'd come back and finish my comments. Um, I spoke about CPAC's mandate to advise the district on matters that pertain to the education and safety of stu of students with disabilities and about CPAC's ask for partnership with your committee to take up this role

006specifically with you. Um, as a reminder, I was noting consistent systemic and thematic challenges we've heard and experienced. The first of those being uh staffing um appropriate staffing to meet current IEPs and 504s of current students. The second um I'd like to talk about is coordination. It's evident and apparent to families that the management of special education classrooms and programming often exists within the ecosystem of the building. We see opportunities for the district to centrally oversee program design and coordinate resources and staffing. We will be consistent in advocating for an equitable and appropriate delivery of services no matter what building our child attends each school day. The third is the third challenge I'd like to talk about is or touch on is communication. CPAC is eager for opportunities to partner with the district to improve

007communication with special education families. And we want to be loud about the communication when it happens to be ineffective, absent, and disjointed. One thing I think families are hungry for at this time is a clear understanding of the programming and strands of special education in and across our district and schools. I do know this is on Miss Wetmore's radar screen. So, finally, as a council, CPAC's working objectives continue to be parent forums for support and community, building relationships with school and district leaders, and district inclusion practices. If there are specific topics and challenges upon which your committee would like our CPAC input, please let us know. We do intend to meet this summer to further refine our specific 2526 school year goals that we have as a council. And we look forward to actively working

008with your committee with our interim and the next superintendent and with Miss Wetmore as director of student services to resolve issues which the council has observed as themes. and thank you for your your time tonight and and two weeks ago uh for continuing to champion for our children, your district, your students in this district and in the community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is everyone anyone online? If anyone's online to participate in public comment, can you raise your hand, please? I don't see any hands raised, but just give people a few more seconds. And I I see it here. Clearly, we have a projector um issue in the room, but I see no hands raised on the Zoom for public comment. Great. Thank you. Okay, before you jump into your report, I realized that

009I didn't welcome you. So, welcome John, um I want to welcome John Failen to um his first school committee meeting. Um and this is your first official week work week of work I think. Um John is joining us um Mr. Failen joining us as the interim superintendent as everyone knows. Um and he's not a new face to the Milton public schools. Uh he's a lifelong educator and he was the assistant superintendent of curriculum and personnel in Milton from 2008 to 2014 after which he left to become the superintendent of the Belmont public schools. Uh holding that position until his retirement in 2023. Uh most recently he was the COO of a nonprofit that supports young people with disabilities. Um we're really happy to welcome Mr. Failen back to Milton Public Schools and we look forward

010to the opportunity to work with you over the coming year. Thank you very much. I appreciate being here. Thank you. Um, so now if you wanted, we have the superintendent report. Sure. Um, uh, thank you for the welcome. Um, my name is Sean Field. I'm your interim superintendent and I'm very, very glad to be here. Um, we had a couple of big events in the last few weeks, but I wanted to highlight the class of 2025 graduating uh, outside and thank Regina for attending the graduation on behalf of her role as interim superintendent. Um, the administrators and staff uh, and the students and the families were amazing. So, we're so glad we had a great day. I have to say my calendar is also full of all the other events that are happening across um

011the Milton public schools. I was at the Cunningham and Collie card and almost ran over to the duck dunk tank for our grade five day at Cunningham, but decided not to uh to be safe uh on my first week of work. Um so, uh congratulations to all of our students who are moving up in the first few days of the last days of school. Um, in my first full week, uh, I'm looking forward to getting to, uh, meet everyone in the Milton public schools, uh, get into schools, get into classrooms, and that has already begun. Uh, I have met everybody at the cabinet level, um, in my, uh, hours that I put in in the month of May. I've already met every single um, building principal. Uh, I was at the Cunningham and Collicot to

012meet the staff today and the students and walk the buildings. I will be in Glover in the high school in Pierce in Tucker tomorrow and Friday. Um and at staff meetings at all schools next week. So by the end of the second week of work, I will have introduced myself to every administrator, every teacher in professional and Milton public schools as well as the students walking through classrooms. So very excited to be here. Um, and I also want to before I move to the next part, thank Regina who has been the interim superintendent for the month of May and the assistant superintendent for curriculum uh for the school year. Uh, I have to say without her bridging this work uh even though I've been in Milton before uh her support, her knowledge base, her professionalism,

013her ability to understand things that move very very fast uh and explain them very very well uh and support me in my transition is deeply appreciated. your professionalism in the way that you conduct yourself every day uh is truly appreciated. So, thank you very much. Um from you too. Um I want to just bring up that tonight prior to this uh meeting we had our recognition of those who are retiring from Newton public schools at the end of this year. We recognized Marty O'Keefe McKenna who was present. Uh Jason Sherer who was a custodian here at the high school who was not present. Bonnie Johnson Tucker uh special educator. Lisa Mcdana who worked in our business office, Christine Hodkins, who I was in her classroom today, uh, not only observing her teach, but looking at

014pictures of her grandchildren because I haven't seen her in 11 years, and Wendy Kelly. So, thank you to all the retirees and thank you for the school committee to supporting the and celebrating them tonight at the reception prior to our meeting. And that's my report. Great. Thank you. Uh, so we will now move on to the chair's report. So the first thing um my notes sorry apologize. The first thing that we wanted to focus on is um to um go back um and revisit the or update on the uh French immersion and the first grade enrollment discussion that we had last week or uh two weeks ago at the prior meeting. Um over the past month or so we've heard from members of the community um people coming to um citizen speak. We've gotten emails

015um about the French immersion program um the classroom allocation and the first grade enrollment. At our last school committee meeting, we had this as a topic of discussion and um in that meeting, we uh talked about bringing it up to and um either this school committee meeting or in a future school committee meeting and asking all of the members to submit questions or areas of interest or topics around um French immersion so that we could understand really what the scope or the why of that presentation would be. Um the questions were very broad ranging. they were very wide ranging. Um and in uh and in meeting with Mr. Failen and thinking about the agenda, one of the things that became apparent is that we need to give this the thought um that it deserves and

016that in moving forward with any discussion around French immersion or really any topic that we want to make sure that we understand what we're asking and what we're answering and the why for the presentation. So given that we've talked about we are having a um summer retreat uh summer planning retreat where we'll go through the goals we'll talk about the topics the presentation setting our goals for the 2526 school year and in that we will um discuss French immersion and the way in which that in the way in which we want to address it. So are we looking at it as an overall presentation? Are we looking at it from a policy standpoint? Is there data that we're looking at and that will give us the opportunity to give it the time that it deserves?

017um and um also allow us to gather any data that's needed that comes out of that presentation. Um the more I would say the more pressing matter not the French immersion isn't but I think there's no real decision or or or decision that was going to be made or needed to be made this year but I think the bigger conversation or the question has been around f first grade enrollment. We've gotten questions and I think there is still a question as to where that stands and how many cla how many classes we have uh for French and for English and I just thought that it would be helpful to uh maybe for you to weigh in and say where we are today, what we're looking at for that allocation and then sure. So um the

018uh French immersion program has been uh in existence for a long time. uh having a choice program in a a public school district really has to have protocols and procedures in order to make the choice program work and continue to thrive. And I think that the protocols that have been set in set in place several years ago uh have worked. Uh but that does not mean that they can't be challenged or can't be discussed or can't be thoroughly reviewed. So I think that's something that we might want to talk about. And I think the the the issues around 26 being the class size number for French uh which is different from uh what it might be in English. If that's a conversation that we want to have, we should have it. Um the the effect

019of the class size going from kindergarten to one has been exacerbated by the larger kindergarten group moving forward. Um and we are also looking at our current K numbers coming in for next year as well. Uh in terms of the sections of French, we always have had five or six. And I'm looking at a chart that shows uh five sections in the 2526 year, five in the 2425 year, and it went up to six in 23 24, but then back down to five. So, we're basically keeping the the enrollment steady for our French program, which I think is really important. We need to keep the program robust. We need to keep it uh something that uh works for the students and families that choose it. And uh I think it takes what I would call

020constant gardening to make sure that we're making sure that all the pieces that make the English program work and the French program work are tended to. Um so right now uh no one likes to say that there's 27 students in a first grade class. Um but that has been historically the way that the the program has worked. And what we do experience over time uh as we look at the 2425 class grade averages for grades one through five as we sit right now in the school year um in first grade we had 21 in English and 26 in French but the cohort that's in fifth grade goes to 22 in English and then down to 21 in French. I'm sure there's a lot of variables that would play into why that may be different numbers,

021but it speaks to the the rationale behind the original premise of the there is an attrition that takes place in French over the course of the five years of elementary and we always are trying to account for that as we were looking forward because no one can enter into French usually in grades 2, three, four, and five unless they're coming from a a French-speaking program, but everyone else usually goes into the English program. So, we're trying to navigate that and balance it as we go. Um, the French program is a hallmark of the district. Uh, it should stay here for a long time. The supports that we provide our students in the English classroom with the science program and the ability to service our students uh well on that side as well are important. Um,

022but if people have questions about it, we should talk about it and I think that to that point we can do that next year. Uh, class sizes are a challenge. They do fluctuate a little bit and we can keep an eye on that. The class sizes for September will continue to move and grow and shift whether that's families choosing to not be in French and stay in their home school or folks continue to move in. Uh we get calls from across the country. Uh in emails from across the country, can you do you have this program? What does it look like? I'm moving here. Uh I my new neighbor on my street uh who moved in last week said they only moved here to move to Milton from out of state. So, it's great that

023we have that reputation. We have to sustain that good work and that that um that good news story that that projects. Uh keeping an eye on class size will be important. Uh and keeping an eye on how we can navigate healthy English strands and healthy French strands is important moving forward. Um so, uh very very glad that we're able to sustain it and keep it in a in a very high level. Uh Zena Hamater is a great advocate for the program and we will be meeting I'll be meeting with her tomorrow afternoon. Um, so the the numbers are healthy. Uh, the class sizes in some areas are challenging. Our kindergarten class sizes right now at the collard as an example feel high. We have to take another look at that. And I want to let

024the public know that all K and grade one assignments will go through my office moving forward. I will be directly responsible for any new students coming in this year. How the placements are done, how we work with families in order to make sure that they understand what we're doing and why. and going forward that will be a centralized function that will be monitored in a very closer way than it has been over the last few years. Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody have any questions on the update now? Okay, great. Thank you, John. You Yeah, go ahead. I don't have an update on his but in terms of the policy discussion. Yes. I know like one of the original pieces was that question on the policy change that was requested by the one person around like

025the preference that is currently given under policy for current K2 uh Milton public schools families versus just families of the town within the lottery process. Is that something that we are again talking about? I I know there was initial policy conversation um the one I joined is that one. Yeah. Just wondering if it's that's pretty. So it's on our agenda for uh Monday to start discussing and I think some of the points that John brought up um with looking at, you know, this is how it's been done so far, but maybe we should, you know, look at it again to see can are there things that we can do better because I mean honestly, like I've seen all the emails come in. I've seen the petition. Like I I you know, I'm just trying to

026find a solution. So at the end of the day, I would really like for us to just look at it holistically and look at every part of it versus just that one portion of it and just see if there are things that we've learned and just looking at the data like, you know, if there are certain schools that tend to go, you know, have more students interested in French, do we keep more classes there? I don't know. like how however we can make it work um so that um less students have to change schools because at the end of the day it is it is nice to be able to stay in your home school and I as you know having had my girls both go through French immersion in our home schools I do

027feel like you know I want to be able to give people the opportunity to have that if um for anyone who wants it. So, whatever we can do to kind of see and take a second look at some of those things and see what could work, you know, uh if there are little tweaks that we can make, I I would I would love to do that. So, it is on our agenda for next week to start thinking about and it would be a long process, but we kind of as we talk about the summer retreat um discuss this at the summer retreat, I think it would be helpful to just kind of look at that policy. I think it's going to take a take some time to go through it um to just make sure

028once we have the presentation, look at all the data and see if there are any tweaks to make, but it's I hope we can work on it this coming year. Can I just pick up question? This is also exacerbated by the fact that you just ask the town, right, for an override, right? And then you, you know, you hold a sign, you talk to your neighbors, you deliver flyers, and then you go into school and find out that something's less than what you it was when you started. And I just want to acknowledge that. There's three people in the audience. There's people watching this. That was a very real feeling. Um, it wasn't connected in in the world of how we organize and operationalize the work, but it was connected emotionally to how people feel

029about what they were trying to do for the school uh and for the school district and for their families and for their neighbors. And it feels like that rug got pulled. Uh, I understand the feeling. I acknowledge it out loud. Um, and there's an operationalizing of the policies and how we do this work in order to keep both programs healthy and keep enrollment as best we can in class sizes that that has a reason to it and a rationale to it that I think is is good. But I would gladly sit down and talk about it and spend time making sure that that we challenge our assumptions on that so we come out with either a better product or a better feeling about what the product already is and how you operationalize this. That would

030be great. Thank you. You're welcome. I just think there's there's two things that are both related to the French program that are getting merged and again maybe they should be merged because there's an overall pro problem or like opportunity to look at kind of the program but I think they operate on two different timelines is I think the enrollment p thing of like how many sections do we have what are the class size and French all of that is something that from my perspective it needs to be settled I would assume on a timeline by like budget season, right? That needs to be considered within budget season and it needs to be done before enrollment offers are made, right? The lottery is run for families because at that point you're kind of setting those things.

031And so that's a kind of February March timeline. The other piece is this idea that currently our enrollment process gives preference to families who are enrolled in K2 in Milton public schools above other families within town who have kindergarten students who are enrolled in other um programs and other schools for kindergarten which I personally think is not fair to residents of the town who are taxpayers. Right? I don't think there should be any my personal opinion is there shouldn't be any preference that we give to Milton public school students for a first grade seat. But I think that if we don't change that policy that timeline impacts families much earlier because they likely aren't going to want to switch their kid mid year. They're going to start the year with their kid enrolled understanding what

032the implications are potentially for again staying at their private kindergarten program or whatever it might be. Um, so that that is the concern I have with delaying the conversation on the, you know, the eligibility for the initial lottery phase conversation for the French program is just I I don't think those timelines are aligned. I think that Yeah. And I think we were going to be getting some legal advice as well on that policy, right? So I'm not sure if that's got come back or not. Um but maybe that can be discussed on Monday as part of the French immersion policy discussion. Um I think in the immediate term there was a sense that because there are remaining seats in the program currently the people who had raised that issue as their own personal challenge they

033they are likely being accommodated correct um for next year. But you're raising a good point about families who are making a choice of whether to enroll their child in kindergarten to be eligible for first grade a year from now. Yep. And that I don't know that that's something that we had totally um thought through yet exactly. But anyway, that's Yeah. So a good thing to consider. Yep. and and the I think at our last policy meeting we decided to wait for John to start to kind of have that conversation around all of that. So we kind table that policy at the last meeting. That's a good point. Anyone else? Great. Thank you. Um the next update is Sorry, my notes are keep going back and forth here. Um uh the town meet so town meeting

034is being held on it's like seven days June 16 17 18 23 24 and 25 um two things to note of that one we are scheduled for a school committee meeting on the 18th so if it goes to the 18th I don't know how that impacts us and what we do only just knowing that several people are also town meeting members and is there any I don't know process around is there anything do we I don't know if you know so that currently we're scheduled for a school committee meeting on the 18th town meeting is also scheduled 10 for those days whether or not it will go three days I I know what we all hope it wouldn't go until the 18th but um but I but the so I think that's one thing to

035consider I don't know how that impacts us Um, but the other piece is while we don't have a there's not a there specific school committee warrant, I think that we need we would need to be there based on article one with the if there were questions about the transfer of funds. Correct. So, um, right now the article one is to see if the town will vote to amend the appropriations voted for the FY25 reserve fund by appropriating $300,000 for the fiscal year 2025 to the reserve fund. um uh to address any um any budget um issues within the town. So if there's we would need to be there to speak to any allocation that would be um allocated to the schools. So, so that's so that's one piece of it that we we while the

036article isn't specifically the warrant isn't specifically about the schools, we would need to I think that we should we need to be there to answer any questions related to that. Um, but then I guess would that if it went till the 18th and that came up, would that also qualify as town meeting? So, that just might need some I mean school committee meeting that just I think would need some clarification and I'm not sure who to ask. Mark, I mean, I think we could make the determination. I don't if town meeting goes to the 18th, I don't think we can meet, right? I don't know if MATV would have capacity. That's another piece and we're required to publicize. So, my I guess my offthe cuff recommendation would be say like I think we keep that

037meeting in hopes that it only needs two nights. Guess there's a a conversation as to if we want to commit everybody here to three nights in a row. Uh even if town meeting doesn't go three nights, right? That would be three nights for I think everybody here. But hold the 18th. Um and then we could hold time. I don't know if people are available on the 25th. That's obviously the first week of school vacation. I'm shaking shake hands. So does that mean then we would want to try and meet Yeah. next week. Are there things that are pressing that we can't Yeah, that's what I don't I mean I know you had some executive stuff sessions. We do have to approve we'll have to approve asks me. So if we don't have a meeting on

038the 18th and that's because their ratification was delayed and we will vote take our vote after that which I believe is happening next week. Um, so if that's I think though we could just find a virtual time that everybody or a quorum of people would be available to to do that if needed. I mean, I think we have a first reading of a policy tonight. So, we wouldn't be if we didn't meet on the 18th, we wouldn't um be approving that policy, right? Um, but yeah, I guess I don't I mean, is there like I I feel like if if it's that um contract, could we do potentially like like an 8 a.m. Zoom or something and just vote on that? Yep. Yeah. Okay. And then I mean, yeah, potentially even do like just the

039public session uh portion of that. Could we if we needed to vote on that policy? I mean I I don't see we can potentially push that till we get back in August policy. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So I don't know. I Yeah, maybe we just post for the 18th and then hope that town meeting has wrapped up and we are able to meet on the 18th. Okay. And then if not like regroup and identify a different time a time that we can post a meeting just even if it's a morning meeting right on Zoom just to accomplish the vote. I mean that's one way to go about it. John, did you have I was only going to suggest that uh there are times where school committees meet before town meeting in their own separate meeting

040and that's true. Especially if it's just around the voting of a contract. Yeah. who can meet at 6 p.m. You can meet at 6 p.m. going, you know, go into public session and then let folks, you know, go into executive session, talk about the contract, come out and vote it, and then we could be here and we could walk right into and if we match that up with the night that we think they're going to be talking about the finance article, then that could be a a good use of time for everybody at the table. Yeah, that's a good point. And I think the finance articles first night, so that would be the Monday 16. Yeah, 16. So we could look at changing it to the 16th prior to facility advisory on the 16th. Nine

041hasn't updated the invite. Should we check and can we just put that as a note that we'll check and see if the if that the 16th would work at 6:00 p.m. prior to town meeting and then we're then we don't worry about the risk of cancelling. Yeah. Okay. I'll have Charlene check that out and communicate with everyone. Thank you. Great. Okay. Anything else on town meeting? Uh, great. Um, just quickly, this is more for the community than us since we were all there. Just giving an update on the governance um retreat that we had. So, we all met Monday night and uh for a quarterly governance retreat. um we try to do those quarterly and this was an opportunity for all of us to introduce ourselves to John and to then uh assess our goals

042and see how we did in meeting those goals for this year and then begin to think about the goals for the coming school year. Um I think we had some good conversation around it. The goal would be to look at the summer retreat then to really begin to flesh those out think and um have some conversations about not only the goals but also probably it's okay the topics and the present you know what we want to look at for the coming year um as far as presentations or topics like we were just talking about French immersion or their policy issues. Uh we also um looked at the school committee handbook um that was created last year. So just looking at some tweaks to do and just sort of really revisiting the governance of the school

043committee. Um and then finally looking at the outlines as like really how we work as a committee. And then we briefly discussed again the summer planning retreat which will take place on August 6th from 6:00 to 9. And again, that's where we will then work together as a as a committee um with John and and anybody from his team to look at the goals, look at our agenda, look at topics of conversation, presentations, etc. for the coming year. Um is there anything anybody wanted to add or thoughts around those summary treat? Okay. If not, that's the end of my report. Um subcommittee assignment. Oh, subcommittee assignment. Sorry. Yes, I missed that one. That was the first one. So, in the in the drive were the uh subcommittee assignments. Um, pull. They were in the drive

044for this meeting. Did everybody see them? I found them. You found them. Okay. Did anybody So, did anybody have questions around them? Do we want to walk through them? So, we could just do that. So for the subcommittees we have for finance subcommittee we have uh Mark, Nathan and me. For the policy subcommittee it would be Anna, Lizzie and Bao. For the facilities advisory committee it would be Anna and me. Um Ba would continue as the liaison to the student advisory committee for the school committee. Um Mark and Lizzie would continue on the bargaining on the bargaining team on the joint town school subcommittees. Um Lizzie would continue on the town capital improvement planning committee. Um Mark and uh will be on the school building committee and Nathan will be joining him there. Bao will

045take on the uh the Milton Foundation for Education representative. Lizzie will take on the Meg Milton Access TV representative. Anna will continue on security and safety advisory committee. Um the we will uh there will be a new community representative on the climate action planning committee. So um uh um Nick Milano provided that update. They were they were voting they will be reaching they will give us the instructions for how people can reach out to submit their resume or their interest on that. Mark you continue on the as uh on the vendor warrant and then the appointed representative administration that had nothing to do with the school committee. It's the superintendent on that. Any questions concerns? I just want to confirm that finance will still be cross-osted so that all members can attend. Yes. Great. Y

046is that true for policy too? Crossosted. Posted. Yes. Find this is the only one that's um currently the only one that is recorded though. Got it. Okay. Um Mark, are you ready to spend a lot of time together next year? First of all, um, do we have we I know it's not on the list here, but I'm thinking about the person during public comment. Do we ever have a school committee representative to CPAC? We before I was on school committee, there was a representative. I I think one of the things this is and this is just my opinion. I think one of the things that would be helpful to talk about maybe in planning would be that role like sort of what what is the role is there or is there an opportunity for like

047because I think historically there was a representative who would go to the CPAC meetings and sort of be there just as ears and maybe bring things back. Um I think there's the need for the communication and to hear things, but I then I think we just would need to be clear on what the charge is like what the role of the you know the school committee member is when they're there because some of it they're talking about like if there are systemic issues or things coming around. I think we just need to be clear as to what we can do in being there or is it in carrying it forward or is there the better opportunity for them to come and report quarterly or what? So I think it's just something that would be worth

048talking about because sometimes I think you have somebody as a representative on something but then they don't know what they're supposed to do by being there and you sort of it's more then it's almost more frustrating for the committee because then they're like well you were there but you didn't do anything. So, I I think there's I think there's value in in in having representation, but I think I I would love to hear from everybody on like what feels like the best way to do it to, you know, sort of address some of the concerns that the previous speaker had on making sure that that there is that collaboration. I think that's an important conversation to have over the summer as we look to next year because that's part of the broader sort of questions

049we'll be considering about communication, our own learning as a school committee, how we're staying informed, um about some of these important issues. Like I think a lot of those concerns are um you know really important for us to think through when we're planning our calendar for example right which is what we'll be doing over the summer. Um I mean having so yes there was at one time a school committee representative to the CPAC I as you were sort of mentioning I don't believe that was very clearly defined and it didn't generate much reporting or actual conversation or certainly not action at the school committee but it I think was a meaningful symbolic connection at least there has been a task force this past year that you were a representative of school committee on and if

050that is not continuing then I think it is a good question sort of what is going to be the next iteration of like an infrastructure that supports us to stay informed to make good decisions regarding Right. Right. and and and I and I I actually ran into Danielle and she said that they do intend to um she's going to talk to talk to you about talking she did think that there's value in um re you know reinstituting the task force but again I think even I think there was it was interesting but I think for me there was value in it more from the honestly from a personal perspective like of understanding how things work and and understanding the role of things. But but again, I I think sitting there, I don't know what if

051I knew what my role was as a school committee member being there. And so that's I I just I think, you know, I think it's that way with anything that's that's not as defined as these subcommittees are. I think it would just be very important to be clear about are we there as an ear? Are we there to make sure that we're communicating something? Are we there to come back and discuss policy? You know, bring things back like there might be a policy issue. So I think there definitely think there's value in it, but I think it would be a good time in that planning meeting to talk about that role and how we as school committee members on something that's less defined what our role is. That that all makes sense. I I would

052just note we have representation on MF and Milton Access TV, which I think are independent organizations, you know, community organizations that are that are not part of town government. So I think we have a um you know precedent for it. We've had representation on CPAC previously. Um so yeah clarifying the role exactly but I don't even know if CPAC wants school committee around on their board. Right. But I was just trying to make sure that we well I think she was just seems like an obvious missing one maybe on the list. Right. Go ahead Mark. No, I mean just I I've actually had conversations with folks in CPAC and you've have way more experience than the rest of us uh being on it and uh chairing it and all the things, but the folks I

053have talked to I think generally the feedback when I've asked that question has been like they don't seem they they individually haven't seen much value in like what a individual school committee member being on that would would contribute. Again, I don't know if that's representative of everybody who is on CPAC. Um but I think it gets back to all the points you're making. So I think just everything you're saying I I agree with just in terms like what what is the value? Are there other ways in which we can create because I I agree with you I think the sentiment you're getting at which is like how do we create closer ties not hearing the public comment but like how do we ensure those voices feel seen and heard around this table and like we

054have some connection to that. Yeah. And so I don't my head don't know if like again having a school committee member attend CPAC meetings is that because of all the issues that you've raised but if the idea of like having more regular kind of reports either from a CPAC representative not to put more work on them or from the superintendent or um the right uh director of special education like what any of that I think would sits well with me but again I think it's a great idea to have convers further conversation within the governance over the summer. Yeah, because I also want to make sure that whatever we do, they find value in it. Do you know what I mean? So, and that we're managing their expectations of whatever our attendance or involvement is.

055And so, I I I agree. So I think having that as a discussion and then maybe in the meantime I know that the previous speaker um talked about reaching out to Danielle or reaching out to administration and if there are issu you know if there are things that come up there that might be a good place to if there are thoughts about how we could be involved or communication or you know anything. So I I think it's a I think it's a great point to your in bringing it up. Um, but I think as with everything that we do, I just want to like what's the why and you know, is there a clear expectation or understanding of our role? So, I think we should bring that up, talk about it this summer at the

056planning. Um, any other questions about the subcommittees? So, we need to vote um to approve the assignments. Uh so I can do I'll make a motion. So I'll make a motion to approve the Milton school uh school committee subcommittee and advisory committee assignments for the 2025 2025 2026 school year. So moved. All those in favor? Great. Passes. So Mark, the one thing on that then we just have to for the school building committee, right? That has to be sent to them. Isn't that on one of the forms that you have to indicate who the school committee reps are for the Yeah. When we submit that. Yeah. When you submit that. Okay. Yeah. That's not That's not But I don't think there's anything that needs to be signed related to like Nathan signing his name or

057anything, but we'll have to I'll communicate with Sean that the new rep. Great. All right. That ends the chair's report. Um Okay. for the contracts we're gonna go into. Yeah. So, um the next part will be um to adjourn to executive session um to discuss the um contracts and then to return to open session to vote. Um, so I will make a motion to adjourn to executive session pursuant to Mass General Law C30A section 21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with MEA units B and D. If an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the committee as declared by the chair. Is there a second? Second. Second. So, so this is a roll call a roll call vote to adjourn to executive session. So, Mark, Mark, yes.

058Anna, yes. Amanda, yes. Ba, yes. Nathan, yes. And I'm a yes, too. So, we'll adjourn to executive session and then return to open session. All right. So, we're now back in open session. Um, Mark, the finance subcommittee, we have the vote. Oh, the vote. I'm sorry. You're Yep. I skipped right over it. Um, I can make the motions. Okay. Uh, I'll make a motion to approve the memorandum of agreement between the Milton Educators Association Unit B and the Milton School Committee for a period of July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026. Second. Great. Uh, all in favor? Fantastic. Uh and I will make a motion to approve the memorandum of agreement between the Milton Educators Association unit D and the Milton School Committee for the period of July 1, 2025. Sorry, I think that should

059actually be um September. Let's pull it up. I'm sorry. Let me let me double check that the motion September that yeah the for for unit B is July 1st to June 30th but unit September 1st sorry yeah I just pasted that okay September 1st to August 31st sorry start over maybe okay uh I'll make a motion to approve the memorandum of agreement between the Milton Educator Association unit D and the Milton School Committee for the period of September 1, 2025 to August 31, 2026. Is there a second? Second. All in favor. Fantastic. Uh, sorry. Now, now now be fine. Um, all right. Uh, FY26 community school salary chart. So that attachment was provided. Um Katie is not here um to share more information. We talked about this a bit at the initial finance committee meeting.

060Um we had some follow questions. Uh she did send us Amanda and I a bit of an update um yesterday morning. Believe it was yesterday. Uh we were unable to have a followup finance committee meeting doing due to posting error on my part getting it Charlene in time. So we did not have a conversation about it and haven't talked about it. Um I generally again this document is related to compensation for folks in community schools that um compensation is outside of the overall school committee budget, right? Because that's a standalone program that is funded through the payments of those who utilize that service. Um I honestly had a bit of a question for Katie uh that I emailed just today. Um, so I guess my question to you, John, would be, is this something that

061we really need to vote on today? Maybe you don't know, or could we, you know, include this in the June 18th, assuming that we can talk about this just next Wednesday as a finance committee? I don't see any reason why we couldn't um vote it on the 16th before that. Okay. Right. That would be my Okay. My suggestion. But any questions that folks had on the salary table, the compensation chart as it was shared? I do have one question. Um, I assume there's one director of the program, right? Yes. So, okay. Okay. So the hour so the dollar amounts are hourly rates and then what's the pay period for the salaried roles below? Is that bi-weekly? Yes. Okay. Um the one thing that stands out to me in this is the director's salary which has

062roughly 60 to $100 increases every step until you get to step Yeah. to clarify those actually aren't steps right these are historical director compensation that is a negotiated contract so that's why under I is one of the things I don't love about the the chart itself is it used to be within the table above she separated it but it it's not clear okay but essentially the director's compensation is separately negotiated uh not a union member so they'll talk to the superintendent the assistant superintendent and they'll come back to us with the recommendation for that similar to other director positions. Uh and then the roles below assistant director, program supervisor, inclusion coordinator, all of those also aren't on don't have steps and lanes. That is just the the most recent number. Yeah, it's what it has

063been historically. And the most recent number is the current number. Uh but there's there's no step in lane system for those. That explains it. uh and the assistant director. There's only one because this is the first year there's been an assistant director for the program. Um so well then I'll ask my question in a different way. So I guess I don't know, you know, maybe the first director salary listed there had been in the role for 10 years or something. I don't know. But there is um there are significant jumps in pay. Maybe it's a market correction. Um it could and maybe you don't know the answer to this market. So when we talk about on the 16th could just be helpful to know what's what's driving such a large increase in compensation. Um yeah

064I think we can talk about it. I on the 16th vote, we to be clear, I don't think we will be approving the director's compensation because the director's compensation will be individually negotiated separate from this, but I think it's something that can be discussed within the conversation of community schools as a whole. Um, but yeah, that is a it will not be included within kind of whatever motion or um vote we would take on the 16th. Okay. And you mentioned this is bi-weekly pay and is it like um annual salary or is it just 10 month? Um uh they it's a good question. Um Katie would know the answer better than me. I assume the I'm not sure what the working calendar is for the director of the program. So, the uh the uh community

065schools has a school year program and a summer program and that job I believe is a full-time 52- week position. And then I would assume the assistant director would also be under that work year as well. Yeah, because I run the summer camps, things like that, but I don't Yeah, exactly how many time weeks they get offer. So that is also information we can clarify the next finance meeting and make sure it's clear coming into the 16th. Yes, we're meeting on the 11th, right? Yes. Believe that's already posted. So again, apologies for like that. Any other questions on this? Mark, can I ask you a question? Oh, please. Um, was your hope to have a a finance committee meeting prior to the 16th so we can unpack this further at finance? Yeah, we have one

066on the 11th. On the 11th. Yes. Thank you, Charlene. That's posted. All right. Uh, next item is the approval of vendor warrants. So, I will hold the motions here. We have two vendor warrants to approve. I forwarded over the um PDF files uh to everybody. So, I think we're we're on top of that. Um, so I will make a motion for the purpose of at least discussion. Uh, I'll make a motion to approve vendor warrant 46 in the amount of 251,68025 payable on 52925. And I'll make a motion to approve vendor warrant 47 in the amount of $156,97165 payable on 6525. Is there a second? Second. Any questions or discussion? All in favor? Okay. Thank you so much. Uh and last item is the FY25 budget update. So, and just general kind of finance committee

067meeting update. We did meet as a finance committee last Wednesday uh on the 28th to get kind of the um next updated report on the current budget FY25 forecast. Uh Katie shared some information on that in terms of where she is currently projecting the um school district to end. The projected deficit has increased beyond kind of where uh she had it coming out of quarter three. So coming out of quarter three um she had a a projected deficit of kind of just south of $700,000 um which was aligned to the uh obviously town meeting article in terms of the additional funds towards the town reserve account. So it's now looking to be kind of closer to that million dollars which was the initial request for the select board um to allocate. uh we were hopeful

068we could keep it under that that um based upon our current projections and some unforeseen cost coming in doesn't appear to be uh possible. So it seems like the school budget deficit projection is is increased. Uh the one positive is that we are just running out of time and so unexpected costs continue to shrink, the exposure continues to shrink, but uh it's obviously not positive news. We had initial conversations on what that means for uh kind of the chair referenced previously town meeting and the warn article that was already on the town meeting for the additional 300,000. Uh this information's been shared with the town. They were at uh the initial meeting. Um you know Amy and Katie and Nick uh were were chatting prior to John coming on and I'm sure John is now

069integately involved in that. I'll pass it off to him in a sec in case he has anything to share. Uh but anyways, they'll be working closely with the town on figuring out exactly the the mechanisms for kind of moving forward with this. Uh we expect an update on that. Also at the June 11th finance committee meeting. Um so that is kind of the unfortunate update within the FY25. Uh some of the costs that were increasing beyond kind of what Katie had originally projected were around sports and club stipens. uh some unexpected transportation costs related to students um coming into the district or situations changing within the district related to mandated transportation costs um and just some continued kind of process problems with uh expenses that did not have POS associated so it was not in

070the system and therefore was not able to kind of uh fully capture those within prior uh projections. substute coverage uh was another one that she flagged within that finance committee meeting as a a place where costs continue to to increase more rapidly than her projection had. So, um those are we did have a discussion of like what this means for the FY26 budget and possible budget impacts. Um we continue to monitor that and figure out like how are we making sure we are being right sizing accounts so that we're not entering next year with similar problems. And I think John and Katie have been discussing that and have ideas on how to um adjust for next year and ensure we we don't have uh again we're not putting ourselves in the same situation. Um and

071then um again separately just within the finance committee we talked about the um townwide tri board discussion. The select board discussed this a bit at their meeting too. um but talked about the tri board and the updates we had based upon a meeting that the uh chair of the select board and the chair of the warrant committee and Amanda myself uh Amy, Nick, and Katie all attended a couple um week or so ago. So, uh that is progressing. Uh also I got an update after the finance committee meeting about the town's uh RFI around financial kind of best practices consultant. That is something they apparently have already put together already put out are currently receiving responses related to. So uh I have not personally seen exactly what Nick put together and put out. Um the

072town did that but it's good that they are moving forward with that. they clearly believe they have the the funding to kind of move forward with that contract and are are receiving um receiving proposals. So, um from discussion with Nick, I assume we will get those we will be able to look at those proposals as well um and be able to provide some input uh in terms of the selection of the the consultant that is is um hired. So, those are the updates on my input. Anything? Um so first of all I want to thank Katie Blake for her work this year on the budget and um providing clear understanding of the status of the school department's budget throughout the year and especially in this last uh quarter. Uh my experience with closing out any

073any fiscal year is that there's a lot of work to be done between May through July where we have for the public's knowledge we we put purchase orders and encumber expenses that we believe we'll be expending in a certain category and then we have to go through each one of those incumbring catey expended that. So the the nice part is when you encumber an expense, you can't go over, but there are a lot of times where we encumber a a set of dollars that we actually don't spend the full amount. So Katie will continue to comb through those POS to uh pull out any uh positive numbers that will come back to the general budget to be able to shrink that deficit that she's working through. Um and so that does take time and I

074think working with the town on that is going to be very helpful. We have a meeting uh with Nick uh this week. Um and we'll be starting to meet with uh Nick and his counterparts uh either weekly or every other week. Um this is a uh it's not a surprise that the numbers shifted from Q3 to Q4 as we close out. I know that uh Katie put in some fiscal um conditions for all folks who have the ability to expend dollars and or higher. uh we I will say uh unofficially that we will continue to operate like that moving into FY26. I want to assure the public that the fiscal uh transparency and accountability measures will continue to be tightened and and brought to the public the uh the way in which Katie and I

075will work together uh with the town side but also internally in the Milton public schools about uh how we experience hiring, how we experience folks who have the authority to expend dollars through POS and incumbrances will be monitored uh much more uh is scrutinized and monitored in a way that is a little tighter than normal. Uh and that's because uh that did seem to be something that needs to be tightened up and I think the public wants to know what are you going to do about that. So those controls and checkpoints uh that Katie has adjusted already will be utilized right from the beginning of the year. We're not going to wait until February if we're worried. We will start that way which will be a little bit different and it might seem a little

076bit um micromanaging to the folks who have been used to being able to have their own ability to uh spend in a certain way or hire in a certain way. Budget is coming back through central office in a very very scrutinized way. hiring is coming back to central office in a very scrutinized controlling way only to make sure that we have all the checks and balances in place to assure that when someone says you know where are you in the budget how do you feel about Q1 how do you feel about Q2 that we will have an accurate description of what that looks like and I'm glad that our finance meetings are uh posted for a full committee and subcommittee and I'm glad they're recorded I don't Oh, am I muted? No, it's okay. I

077don't Well, your audio should be muted on that. Yeah, it is on the bottom. It looks like it's Yeah, it should be on, but that's just for this device. This device shouldn't be recording audio because it be sorry. And now I don't How do I get rid of this? Sorry. Uh, you want me to knock on the door? Well, hopefully people can be. Yeah, I don't know. We can we can just ask that audience if they that person can hear us. So, we still got minutes. We have Who does the minutes? We're checking on the audio right now. I don't know. Um I didn't know if you had um the woman I don't have the cell phone of the woman that test. We can just text and ask her if she No. I don't have

078her cell phone. I hope we don't do everything. Email her. How did we come back? Let me see if she has it on her email. Can you see who's in the audience on line? Mhm. Yeah, it's I think they might have whatever the issue was. Oh, good. Okay. Sorry about that. Um hopefully if there was an audio issue, we Milton Access uh tried to remedy that. So hopefully it's been fixed through the Zoom. Sorry. So, um, so for FY25, we'll continue to work with the town. We'll continue to support Katie in combing through every incumbent PO to achieve whatever kind of balances we can then take from those accounts and put into the general account uh to reduce the amount in this gap. Um, and I'm fully confident in her ability to ensure that that

079exercise takes place with fidelity. Uh, that usually is something that would go through uh longer than June. that is usually a July exercise. The town and the schools will close out together. Um and we will continue to work and partner uh with the the Nick and his team at town hall to um ensure that we're on the same page for this process. That may require uh town meeting votes or some other types of articles I think people are talking about regarding the the the uh vote that's already ready for town meeting. But we'll clarify that for finance when we meet next week on the 11th. Thank you. There any questions? Yeah. Um I appreci I John I really appreciate that mindset and approach of sort of bringing tighter controls through the central office. I think

080that's great. Um I just have a couple of questions about the the drivers of the deficit uh increase. I'll just list off a couple. One is is the are the $300,000 the the the $300,000 increase in the projected bud budget is it driven by larger expenditures like are the is are the is the is the is the $300,000 coming from the deficit the pre-existing deficit drivers or is it new costs we weren't expecting? Um that's one one question. Uh second is I heard I heard you list off like substitute coverage and POS and you know several months ago I I thought my understanding was there were sort of constraints placed on those specific kind of expenditures like substitutes and POS and I I don't know what else. I'm wondering did did those constraints were those

081constraints not adhered to or is it something else? I have one other question but then we can start with those. Yeah, I can again I'll do my best to Yeah, I know you're not the you're not the assistant superintendent for finance. I know that's Yeah. Um so, uh first question on the drivers. Some of the drivers are the same. Some appear to be different based upon the information that has been shared. So, as you say, sub coverage has been a driver, seems to continue to be a driver. We have not gotten information with a breakdown of saying these are the dollar amounts that equate to this increase projected deficit. Um, so that's, you know, information we have uh we talked to Katie about and asked to have a little bit more clarity on exactly what

082those dollar amount drivers are, but um that is new. There are some other ones that are not ones that we have previously talked about necessarily. Um I think stipens compensation in in general salaries you know is 81% of the budget. So the stipens associated with the sports and clubs that have gone over within that bucket that's potentially a driver but um obviously those are tied to spring sports overages that that was going over what kind of she was projecting. So that is very new. um the transportation and special education transportation as a driver we talked about previously. uh what she mentioned in the meeting um last week was more related to foster and homeless student transportation which is obviously a mandated cost that uh can come up at any point during the year unfortunately uh

083uh when a student's situation changes we are obligated to provide that um service kind of immediately and so that was a place that you know I assume she was assuming kind of a more positive um view on that and unfortunately the situation changed for her family and So that that cost is is one that was unexpected. So those are some of the examples. Um in terms of the POS and the the controls in place, I can't speak exactly to to all of what you're saying, but my understanding is some of these things are are purchases that occur every year really started at the beginning of the year. But again once again she was unaware of them because they were not a PO is not placed they were not encumbered but they are cost the district

084incurs kind of on an annual basis. So an example that she provided was the district physician uh we pay a physician to be our district physician as a cost that occur occurred every year but was not encumbered and was not included kind of within our projections. So um but I think getting more clarity on from the finance committee side on like what are some of these other drivers uh I think is a good question. The sub coverage in particular the only um restriction that the committee and the the school department I believe put in place related to sub coverage was really around high school sub coverage of trying to consolidate students. There was discussion of doing that at the middle school level. Uh and the determination was was no that the savings wouldn't be that

085that significant and the negative impact to students given some technological um other um space issues and uh programmatic kind of problems that they would have with implementing it in terms of negatively impacting student learning uh was not worth it. So the only thing that was changed really was uh for the high school in terms of kind of large group sub coverage. Uh so uh we didn't get any further information kind of at that last meeting as to if there's a particular campus that is driving this up more if that is still more the high school or more Pierce or the elementary schools. Um so that that's not information I have. I'd like to add that um the great questions and thank you Mark for answering them so uh so well. uh keeping in mind that

086this is Katie Blake's first year uh in the district working with a budget that was not her budget, i.e. she didn't create the budget walking into fiscal 25. So to those small pieces that happen annually, the physician being one of them until until Katie goes through that full cycle, some of those things would not be become aware to her unless someone brought them to her attention. So those those pieces were some of the drivers. The the transportation for the the child who we have to accommodate uh is is also a driver. Uh substitutes we're going to look at. We were only able to make the uh reduction at the high school. We are reviewing uh sub coverage for the middle school and going to take a harder look at that over the summer for how

087we implement sub coverage. uh and that's not putting students in the auditorium like was suggested originally, but it's more about the fine-tuning of what coverage is needed for when around a lot of other reasons why we have coverage in schools for teachers who are at meetings or IEP meetings, etc. So, there's a little bit of tightening up that we can do there. Um, and uh, I feel confident now that Katie has been through the full fiscal year and has made the budget for FY26 that uh, every every um, aspect of the budget, she is fully confident in and in control of and understands what the cycle looks like now in terms of the the smaller unique pieces that may be a little bit different in Milton than say in Attleboro or Westport or wherever. Um

088and uh starting with these kind of conversations in July and August for how we want to start to operationalize our strategies again bringing our financial um uh priority to everybody that has the ability to hire andor expend dollars will have expectations on how that's done and how that's centrally approved. in miday when I was here in my role uh as I think it was called consultant but I was coming in and working with Regina and supporting her work we actually put out another memo making sure everybody was aware um and also for those folks who had larger departments facilities as an example came in and met with Katie and we started to go through every one of those encumbered POS we met with special education and went through every single one of those POS those

089are really the big encumbered uh departments that have those kind of dollars U as well as meeting and talking with the the director of athletics. So those were the kind of three variables that we wanted to make sure that we were very clear with that no more money was going to be expended. Um and I would also say that um the coming year in FY26 we will close all POS somewhere around May 1st as a matter of practice not as a matter of concern. If you haven't spent it by August, April 30th, the money goes back to central office. We, you know, that that's the beginning of the process of you bought all your text materials, supplies, curriculum materials, all those things and now all that now we stop it and then we pull that

090money back into centralized view and then begin to look at what the areas of need are. So that that will be a normal practice as well. Okay, great. Last thing I just thinking about the 16th when article one comes up for a vote, there's going to be 15 people at the mic's asking questions like I just did. And I think um I think it would be good to I'm not asking you to speak necessarily, but to like be prepared to talk about what next year will look like in terms of controls. Maybe remind the public that the original projection was a million dollars for a deficit. Um, so we're not, you know, this is this is how we thought it would go and this is how it went, right? Um, I think that'll be reassuring

091to town committee members so that the article passes. Yeah, agrees. Absolutely. And and I think that that's our biggest job. Yeah. right now to make sure stewarding the public tax dollars is done in a way that people feel confident and can ask questions and can get answers or can attend a finance meeting or can watch the recording of it and be plugged into that. It's really important to our parents to make sure that we're expending the dollars that follow to the classroom. And it's important for the folks, you know, I I you know, in this subject area, I want to thank every town resident who voted for the override. Thank you so much. And we we pledged to be good stewards of the funds. And I want to say to the folks who did not

092vote for free override, we are going to be good stewards of the funds. We understand the responsibility and we take it very seriously. And it's important to be able to know how to live within your means and we will do that absolutely next year and we will finish this year. will make it work and we will have a very very um fiscally transparent and thoughtful year next year with controls in place that we can describe. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? It's free uh policy committee. Um so for policy we just have a first reading of policy IC which is in your folder. The only change was adding in um on page one about halfway down um the MPS religious and cultural holiday cycle uh which basically reflects what we decided at the

093beginning of the school year to have holidays on a rotating two days which we currently have but on a rotating schedule so that we're incorporating um incorporating the holidays that we currently recognize but no more than two days and then it also says that if additional holidays are recognized in the future they'll be added to this rotation. So uh just some background uh we will try to um schedule the holidays so that we're um sensitive to other days off within that month for instance. So, we'll just kind of move around which year, what holiday gets off um is off um so that we don't end up with four weeks in a row where there's only four days of school. So, things like that. Um so, just trying to be mindful of of those things so

094that um time on learning isn't impacted. Um so, just some language around that. So, this is just a first reading. That was the only change. And this is reflected on our calendar document. We just wanted to align the policy to include that information. Only question I had in reading over it is um our I think I think our counter historical practice at least is that the the Jewish uh holiday that is celebrated that can change because obviously we were only um recognizing Good Friday and the Jewish holiday. So are we now saying kind of within this that obviously we Yam Kapoor would be the only Jewish holiday that we would recognize within the calendar and obviously would be recognized within years where Yam Kapoor is not falling on a weekend day in terms of a

095day off of school because right now if Yamapour is on a on a weekend I think Rashashana is recognized. So I just wanted that clear. Yeah. Um that would be and I think every year we'll basically have to look at the calendar and see I mean do you does it make sense Lizzie to add that extra day off? I mean that would I mean not extra day off but like the extra holiday. Yeah. I don't think I'm I'm proposing doing the extra holiday. I just mostly wanted to confirm from my own understanding of this that's like why and also if anybody's seeing that that holiday is not included because we're not we don't have both Eids on here. Right. We don't Um, so I think that's right. I just just want to make sure that

096was clear in my head. Okay. Yeah, we would do that. Um, the only thing I would I wonder is do we need to state how the decision is made? Do you know like right now it's sort it says that we're doing that these are the ones that we're recognizing and we say each year two of these holidays are celebrated with with a rotation but I don't think it's I don't think we want to get too prescriptive in the policy. I think I think we want to communicate the intent of like what we've committed to doing but as you were saying Anna like the the particular like process of determining on that rotating basis like which two holidays they're not like going to be a strict order in which because it will depend on the the

097calendar every year. Um, so I guess maybe even saying that I guess I I guess the question is leaving it up to misinterpretation. Do you know like you misinterpretation on how they're chosen? Almost like the way you said it like you know keeping in mind like the calendar sort of what you're looking at in the calendar in order to determine which two days are followed. Like I I recognize it. just I think it's almost like if it's too broad then it then it I don't think you understand the like how and why the dates were chosen as opposed to saying keeping in mind you know not having four days off. I don't know. It just feels like maybe there needs to be a little bit more around the process by which you're determining the procedure

098for determining the the procedure for determining it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I totally agree with the point of like there's a separation between procedure and and policy and get that but maybe within this just adding I don't think there's language right now as I'm seeing it saying that the goal is to create kind of an equal um splits yeah equal distribution thank you of kind of how these how often these holidays are celebrated um so again we might not be guaranteeing I mean are we trying to guarantee that within a threeear period. Each of these holidays is recognized. Maybe not because of the calendar, but that like over, you know, the goal is to have an equal distribution and therefore and if we are or any future school committees looking at that, we can

099look at, you know, what have been the past years been in terms of this and are we following this policy? Are we having this equal distribution? I think I mean then it kind of limits us because if there is a certain holiday that we haven't been able to recognize in three years like it wouldn't be fair because we'd have to at one some point make the determination that we would have to you know recognize that holiday because of when it falls right so I think if we I mean I think we're just going to try to be as sensitive as possible and you know um I think this is something that the superintendent as the first um part of the calendar says would be discussing with the MEA and figuring it out before they bring

100to school committee. So all of that would kind of be looked at before it comes to our table. But the intention will be to be you know make sure there's no half days the same week as you know a holiday and things like that that can be controlled I guess. Yeah. I think I I just I think a bit to the point Amanda is making I think even if we add language in there to say like the goal the goal being to create equal distribution of of these days the committee's goal will be you know possible so yeah I just made a copy of the policy into the folder so if we want as we're if yeah if we want I don't I don't have yeah great perfect language but I don't know if that

101it yeah I mean because I think in like we've all had the conversation. But if I think if you jump two years and somebody's re reading this and then there's the sort of the language that you're using saying that we're try that we're recognizing these if it was and and if it's the idea of um you know equity and making sure that like all of these are are recognized on some sort of schedule. I don't I just I don't think that that's in there if you're coming at it without the knowledge of all the conversations that have been had. So I think just sort of to Mark's point like the goal is to represent all of these. There will be a cycle of doing so. I just think it I just think it just needs

102a little bit. How about if so to accomplish getting to just to if we can work this through right now, can I just like so in add if additional holidays are recognized in the future, they will be added or no, sorry, um on a rotation with the goal of evenly like can can you just articulate a red line to add to this to just have we can work through it in you know in our meeting right now but I think we need to get something that addresses people's concerns so that we can that's the benefit of a first reading I mean that's what this is for [Music] so the one that would just look right do work right at the folder draft yeah there's so in the folder just do it that it says copy

103I I'm going to change the title this is going to Um, this is going to be 6425 edits for it be like every attempt will be made to evenly distribute holiday recognition something like that's a little bit of word salad but um that way we're not it's indicating what our goal is but it's not pinning us into some procedure. Yeah, I like that. On a rotation with the goal of of provide of trying to provide even distribution of holiday recognition over time. Yeah, I mean it's really over so it's a it's essentially um where we're starting out is looking at um and this is again articulated on the calendar document which I don't have in front of me. So it maybe it's just including more of the language that's on the calendar document currently. Yeah,

104because it right I think it was Yeah, it does describe it on the calendar like and it projects out anticipated holidays over the next five um few years for that. Um, I think it would be good to say yet sort of like mention the dist the goal of distributing the holidays and then Anna to your point the goal of um minimizing you know seeking like uh as making it as least disruptive as possible. um to time on learning. I mean those are the two goals really. Correct. Yeah. Could I raise a couple of other items or do we want to keep talking about that particular language? Good. Um in the sentence where it says each year two of these holidays are celebrated. Uh, that's the only place in the whole policy where we use the

105word celebrated um rather than recognized um I don't know if that was intentional, but I'm celebrate stuck out to me um rather than recognized. So maybe just something to consider. I don't have a super strong opinion there. Um and then I guess I like the last sentence of the policy. I was just trying to like think that out like if additional holidays are recognized in the future they will be added to the rotation. Um to me I guess that feels I don't I sort of like do we even have to say that? Um but we also like I I guess we're deciding now that if there's an additional holiday we want to recognize it must be in the rotation as opposed to in the permanent calendar. or or what we really came to is that

106we have two days off a you like I think what that's attemp and what that's attempting to address I believe is that through our process of like community engagement that we did we figured out that we're not really interested in or able to add more than two days within our calendar for religious and culture ederal holidays because we have a priority of preventing the school year from becoming overly long. Mhm. So I think it was not I think the point of that sentence was more so to to indicate that like the if additional holidays were added, it doesn't mean we would add more days off. H okay. Okay. It means that we would have more holidays sort of participating in a rotation through those two days. I don't know. But got it. Yeah. Okay. Inconsistency.

107That's was that's why I put it at the bottom of the June 24th one. No, that's I don't know what you were typing. I just I think to your point about recognized that seems good. We can change it to recognized. So what is this one? Is this not the one? Oh, there's two of them. No, I'm just in the I'm sorry. I'm in the June 4th agenda. That's all I'm in. Oh. Oh, do you want me to just I I just put it there in case folks want to see as I was just typing up the the language I put in the the bottom of that Google doc since we can work on it since we're in a public meeting right now. That's helpful for copying and pasting purposes, but yeah, good. And I did

108change recognized That's a good catch. Are we working? Oh. So, Lizzie, are we do you want to work Anna? Do you want to work through the language for this current reading? Yeah. So, Mark is we're putting something in there. Oh, no. You didn't. Okay. I'm not I'm not sure what that is. I I put something in on the bottom of the June. Oh, I just pasted it into in the into the actual into the actual one. Great. The word version. So, if you guys want to just look at that. Gotcha. And it's in blue. I could have just done that. I didn't forgot we had that. I was looking at the PDF. Sorry. Can I ask a question? Go ahead. Is there is there another policy meeting between now and the next time we want

109to vote this Monday? Great. Great. So, is that what that work would be to review the revisions and come up with a second reading uh at the next full school committee whenever that would be whether it's on the 16th or Yeah. Okay. We can do that. Yeah. But I think we were just working. This is just to make sure that we have the feedback the feedback from the group now since next meeting is trying to not is trying to be a short correct meeting. Great. Where am I looking? It's in the folder. It's called 6425edits version. Also, thank you all for your work on this. You contributed too up front. That's good. Yeah, good. So then, so the question about then procedurally like where would that go? If like the the the where does the

110like is there a procedure that's used to determine what the two days off would go be and if so where would that be? Does that make sense? Well, the superintendent develops the calendar, superintendent's team develops. Right. I would honestly look to them to develop potentially their own so so not being involved in this discussion for the last few months. Um my my vision of this is policies are the the shorter the better because the procedures are usually the meat and meat and potatoes of making it work. So I think once the school superintendent and his team or her team have the policy, it's our job to then operationalize it through a procedure that could sometimes be attached. Okay. So in the policy book you can actually see the procedure behind it. So if folks are

111interested in seeing well how are they how are they operationalizing this? What does that mean for me? They can actually look at the procedure. So it allows the policy language to be relatively directional and clear in its intent and then the procedure can actually be the step-by-step pieces that would make more sense to the to the viewing public if they were not aware of like h how are they choosing these two holidays? What does that look like behind them? You could have a procedure document right behind that. So we can talk about that at the policy meeting on Monday and we can begin to develop that for the beginning of the year. So we can come up with some sort of a annual system for looking at the school calendar from an academic lens and

112then the holidays through the policy and making sure that how we incorporate which two holidays are recognized are done in a way that's respectful, rotates and minimizes the impact on teaching and learning and disruption of teaching and learning. I think that's the general intent. Is that correct? Yep. Yeah. And in that conversation, one piece of that can be guidance as it's helpful could be like again what we approved on when we approved the calendar, which includes sort of a road map a little bit. Um, and so it we we were careful not to make it like a um we're locked into it, but we were just trying to provide a road map for like what people can expect going forward. So maybe that can be like incorporated into the the discussion when you do the

113calendar. Yeah, correct. That's a great idea. Because the more restrictive the policy, the you can't f you can't be flexible. Right. Exactly. So that the policy itself should be, you know, flexible enough to be able to absorb those yeartoyear pieces that we can discuss at the table when we set the the calendar for the future for the next year. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion, comments? Great. Right. Great. Thank you, [Music] Ann. So, next thing we have is um approval of the minutes, which you now have two copies of in the folder. anybody time if anybody had any changes they were quite long. Yeah, just to be clear, the two different documents are the same. They're the same. Yeah, I was just being I was being extra efficient. Sorry, I didn't see it in

114there when I looked before. There was only one small typo of the sophomore student rep's last name and I just made the edit onto it. Great. And I made one update to um the spelling of one of the Uh, public comment speakers names. Zade Bros. Yeah. Anything else? All right. I'll make a motion. Great. Uh make a motion to approve Milton School Committee meeting minutes uh of May 21, 2025. Second. Great. All in favor. Great. Excellent. Last thing is a motion to adjourn. I will make a motion to Oh, actually, I'm sorry. No, I missed our next meeting agenda items. I'm jumping ahead again. Um so the we're talking about meeting on the on uh the 16th at 6 discussing the um ask me we'd have a vote with an executive session right for approving

115the right and then a second reading this no second reading of this yeah of the calendar um And then any mark of we would also provide an update based on our um the the meeting on the 11th right finance update. Um do you have any meetings? Do we need to vote on the Milton Community Schools salary grid? Yeah, I think that would be included in the Okay, got it. Um we're having school building committee. Okay. She'll have facility advisory committee, but if we're trying to keep it a short meeting from I think it'll be a short update. Okay. So, facilities and school building. Yeah, those are happening. I mean, if we don't want to put that on the agenda for the update, we could save that. I don't anticipate anything. Yeah. Okay. That happening. Yeah.

116So, it'll be we'll have an hour six to seven. Okay. Anything else? Lizzie, did you have anything? No. Okay. Great. Now, does anybody have a motion to adjurnn? I would like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Second. All in favor? Second. Oh, all in favor. Sorry. It's okay. Yay. At 9:08. Thank you everyone. Hey. Hey. [Music] Hey. Rip it. Rip. [Music]