001e e e good evening everybody thanks for your patience um we just dealt with a little glitch getting the zoom up and running but um we'll call the meeting to order and start with the pledge of allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stand one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all okay so um the first thing we always do up of course is approve our agenda as we look at the agenda tonight does anyone have any changes or deletions that you know of give me just one sec no okay um so next is public comment and I know that um I've personally heard from at least a few people who are intending to speak this evening for public comment um I would would like to
002if it's possible because I can see in the room and online we have a number of sort of larger number of people joining us than typical can we please just get a sense of how many people are hoping to participate in public comment if if you're here in the room raise your hand okay if you're online can you raise your use the raise hand function please okay so I see one person online and a number of people in the room um all right what I would like to do um I'm just going to say upfront is I know that some of the people who've reached out to me um I believe are coming to speak on the topic of the calendar and tonight is going to be the sort of time when we have to
003make a decision and move forward on the calendar we had previously committed in December to um at that point we invited folks to come to public comment and we had said we would hear people who wanted to come and share a viewpoint on the calendar even if it went beyond the time um allotted which is typically 15 minutes total for public comment for three minutes a piece um I don't know of everybody who's intending to speak how many people are uh hoping to speak to the calendar issue um I do know that um I was contacted by a pair of students who are hoping to speak together for a total of six minutes as two people I also um had been in contact with Rabbi Benjamin um and had agreed ahead of time um at
004my discretion to allow him up to six minutes to speak just out of respect for his position and his engagement throughout this process so my question for us here is what is uh knowing that we have a lot to get to and particularly our budget of course is an important topic um we can just kind of start uh with the folks who reached out ahead of time um and then go from there I would also entertain a motion to extend our public comment for tonight um at least to ensure that everyone hoping to speak on the calendar is able to be heard because this really is sort of the last chance I move to extend public comment so we can hear from everyone that is present and wants to share their views okay I'll second
005it for discussion do we need a time do we need to Define what we're extending it to I don't I think typically um with I'm pretty sure Within it could be like another 15 minutes would be the that's what I would um I think you can set it extend it to so I would you can set the the extension period yeah and I think just judging from the temperature check of those who are here I think if we extended it for up to no more than 30 minutes that should suffice for the people who are here and of course you know you uh individuals are always for our policy welcome to speak for up to 3 minutes given this I am going to just tell everyone ahead I'm going to set my clock timer I'm
006sorry that's rude I think it's easier than me trying to politely interject for you to wrap up and of course you can speak for less than three minutes that's also always fine uh for folks so actually we have a motion and seconded all in favor of that motion to extend public comment up to 30 minutes total okay that's approved um and so just a reminder before we get started if you're coming if you're new to um speaking at public comment please come up introduce yourself and state your address for the record um and then uh we welcome this opportunity to hear perspectives of members of our community uh we do not respond directly to individuals who share perspectives in public comment um if what you're speaking about is something on our agenda that we are
007going to be discussing during this meeting there is an an opportunity for members if they want to to respond to points or questions that have been raised in the context of the discussion on our agenda and that's um that's a way that we are complying with open meeting law um while maintaining public comment um and so with that um is anybody hoping to go first if so great thank you come on up okay let me just sorry okay um great can you go ahead and introduce yourselves thank you so much for coming um hi I'm Maxi Lauren uh I live on for Fairfax Road um I'm currently a senior at Milton high school and it's my 13th year in the Milton Public Schools um and I work at uh the um glubber ASC program uh
008my name is Brady stent I'm also a senior at Milton High School um my address is 38 Norman Street uh and I uh this is my 12th year at Milton public schools and I play varsity baseball um both Bray and I have taken many AP and honors classes um throughout high school and probably have like very few like 10 unexcused absences between the two of us um and we through this we really understand the significance of missing just one day of school um in my freshman year uh brush Shana landed on the third day of school and I decided to go to synagogue to celebrate the new year unfortunately my uh my biot teer had a very important lecture that day that kind of caused me to to fail the first quiz of the year
009um even though teachers aren't supposed to give homework on holidays um he um on rosashana my sophomore year um my chemistry class um I'm miss school to go to um services and um she had given homework that day and we had a big test the next day so instead of focusing on um being present in synagogue I was worried about failing my Chem test the next day um we aren't asking for rushana off we um but the idea idea of missing both days of school within like 10 days roughly of each other is really daunting um especially because yam kupor is a more serious holiday that involves fasting and reflecting on your actions for the past year in witnessing just kind of all these discussions um we wonder really well um whether the opinions of
010a lot of MPS staff especially in the high school were taken into consideration um when deciding the school calendar because after speaking with many many teachers I don't speak for the teachers but um we wonder whether their opinions and beliefs about what best F benefits the students um was really taken into account as we do believe um truly like those M days in high school are like the most um impactful so I do encourage you to like talk with the teachers and definitely talk with the teachers union um because I know personally that one day of missed BC Cal is definitely going to set you back the entire unit um um it's just we kind of feel that it's pressuring um Jewish students and staff in um built public schools to pick between their education
011their jobs and like sports and clubs for their faith uh yeah um and I know that I recognize the importance of really referencing the other school districts and like creating the calendar but I also think it's just as important to um create like our own path forward whether that in taking into our account the very unique diversity of Milton and not just saying oh Newton has all the H like Newton uses all the holidays Brookline has none and all that I think um I just think having taking y off the calendar is just quite unreasonable to a lot of Jewish students and we don't want to go back 30 years um and I just want you to take consideration all that we've said sorry no um thank you hi all my name is Casey corkran
012uh I live at 95 Grand of place over in East Milton right by crane field um so I'm I'm also a member of the congregation and uh uh my students also my my children students and a former teacher also have similar concerns about um the holiday but I'm actually here tonight to talk about the executive order that came out um banning all transgender athletes from participating in sports um it has to do with Title 9 which is an area of work for me they talk about it most often at the Collegiate level but Title 9 as probably most folks know here runs the full K to campus gamut um this executive order is probably not legal but they're looking for schools to comply in advance that is the goal this is another step in the
013attempted eraser of lgbtq students this is not about sports I believe Milton Public Schools needs to come out and say loudly that we support our trans athletes our lgbtq athlet all of our athletes but particularly our lgbtq athletes and that we will defend their right to participate in school and Athletics fully and as part of our community valued members of our community and Title 9 currently does offer these protections again it is most likely about complying in advance it takes a long time to change those title n regulations um there are real risks for our district and not complying with the executive order they've already threatened lawsuits but this is a time for us to stand up uh for all of our students and say it loudly and clearly uh that we will protect their
014rights their full rights as full members of our community thank you thank you good evening again I'm Rabbi Benjamin I live at 29 winr Street here in Milton so now it's time for some real honesty and complete transparency as my father of blessed M would say often times there is a reason people give and then there's the real reason the real reason here is an intrinsic bias and privilege people who are part of the majority they're comfortable they're cozy part of Milton's dominant culture and that feels good convenient and easy because it is it is what we are dealing with here is like a a person when they walk into a home that has an unpleasant smell but the people who live there have no clue only an outsider smells it and let me assure
015you that what the four of you intend to do smells really bad even more it's a lie time and time again you have said that your goal is to remove all cultural and religious holidays as days off from the school calendar to only keep National and state holidays and yet you have protected December 24th Christmas Eve day as a day off you have taken advantage of your privilege your majority culture status to Jerry Mander to rig the calendar in your favor and it stinks let's take a little three question honesty transparency survey m CH I know you have said that you take data seriously I will keep track of the data with this chart and then I'll give it to you now I know that citizen speak is not the time for any back and
016forth conversation but if you want you are permitted to answer questions let's see what you decide here are three yes or no questions some people are visual Learners so you have a hand out question number one does having December 24th as a day off from school help you experience Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the way that is Meaningful to you question number two yes or no would you Advocate that winter break begin on December 25th and extend past January 1st as long as the same number of days of school are off and question number three again yes or no would you like to see two days off per school year per school calendar year that honor Milton's minority religions and cultures so I think this is going to go pretty fast start with you
017chairperson Carol question number one yes or no we're not going to be able to engage in the back and forth now but I think if members want to respond to this when we have the um discussion on the calendar we can do that okay my guess is that for question number one the answer is yes having December 24th off is a benefit to you personally would you advocate for winter break to begin on the 25th no you wouldn't it would take away from something that you want that's something that matters to you and finally for the third well we know where people stand so if the four of you go ahead with your proposal to remove all minority holidays but keep December 24th which let's remind everyone is not a national or state holiday you
018will be using the power of your dominant culture majority to dominate all others as you School Committee Member Serio mentioned a few meetings ago it will be the tyranny of the majority the point of the Milton Interfaith clergy's proposal to designate two school days per year to lift up and honor Milton's diverse communities is not about satisfying people's culture cult Al or religious needs or observances that is not possible or practical you're right about that it's not about them it's about you you the people who were elected to represent our town and the values you want our town to reflect what you do here will have a significant impact on Milton's reputation right now we have Town leaders who have stubbornly refused to find a realistic solution to the MBTA multif family zoning requirement other
019leaders who continue to stall the building of 35 affordable housing units on the governor Sten property and now this erasing all holidays from the school calendar except of course the one that matters most to you will bring a trifecta of Shame on our town you can do it no one denies you have the power to make that happen this is a turning point in the road for our Town's reputation what you you our Representatives choose to say about ourselves and what others will say about us you can complete this Trifecta of callous disregard toward those who in One Way or Another are not part of the In Crowd or you can stop it in its tracks by lifting up and embracing generosity of spirit compassion concern and kindness you have that power too in my
020tradition a connection is made between smell and reputation after all sweet or sour we smell things before we get close enough to see them do what you want Milton's reputation as a community that values belonging or belittling diversity or denigration it's yours to decide thank you maybe um is the person online um still interested to participate if so can you raise your hand again please if not we can come back to you okay we'll come back um next person in the room would like to step forward thank you hi good evening good evening my name is Jo Clark I live at 26 heral Street um I'm a town meeting member and Precinct 4 and a member of the pier site Council um professionally I do I'm a public health professional and um work with a
021number of adolescent health programs and um several programs um uh promoting Behavioral Health um access to for students in schools I want to speak to the school budget which I know you'll be um discussing later this evening and just tell a small story that I think is um representative of things that are happening all across the school budget um last year Pierce uh requested an additional half an FTE of a um School adjustment counselor and they didn't get it there wasn't money for it um and so um that additional half position wasn't filled this year it's not even on the request because we're looking at a level service request that position isn't there and in order to have level Services um we're you know just keeping the positions that we have and trying to maintain
022um and that request from last year continues to go unfulfilled but it doesn't mean that it isn't needed um and in fact the 2.5 FTE of school adjustment counselors that we have have at Pierce are well under uh the ratio that the National Association of school social workers recommends for a school as large as Pierce um so here we are looking at a level Services budget that doesn't even get us to what we really need to serve um our students in the way that we would like to see them served and so um I want to thank you all for the work that you've done to put together a school service budget a school level service budget um that will'll do our best um for our students um but one really emphasize that if we
023are not able to get that level Services budget um that is just the barest of floors and um the the needs go far beyond that and something below a level Services budget would be devastating to our schools um and so I really thank you for the work that you've done to get to that point um and really hope that we will see that level service budget recommendation come out of the school committee and be supported um at all other levels of town government thanks thank you okay hello my name is Christine turnier I live at 16 Parkway Crescent and I am a town meeting member and I have two children who are in the Milton Public School System um I brought this sign because I have forced them to stand out in front of Select
024board meetings holding this sign um um and I wanted to bring them here in any little way I possibly could um because ultimately the school system is about my kids it's about your kids it's about all of our kids and um it's way past their bedtime um my daughter specifically asked if she could come and I said no she had to do her homework so um I just wanted to come here and say that I support the school committee and the work that you're doing to um achieve level funding for our schools um I think that um as you know we need adequate funding in our schools I'm not talking about extravagant funding which I know there's always a lot of um a lot of discussion around uh you know surgical audits of of our
025budgets but the truth is there's so much more we could do what we really need is level funding at this point in time um I I um I think it's important that all of our children have access to Quality education and um there's a lot that we could do in order to to achieve that um and I know that that they all deserve this um this isn't the first time that we have had tough discussions about our budgets I'm pretty sure we will have them again um but it's really important for us to even just maintain what we have because there's it's already clear that there's such robust need across all of the school systems um I want to thank you so much for everything you do to fight for our kids um and to
026fight for our teachers and everything that they need and they deserve they deserve so much more I was sort of joking that I would like if possible I would shower them with Furs and diamonds for everything that they're able to do on the shoestring budgets that we already give them um there was a comment made earlier about the ceiling and how the ceiling is high in terms of what we ask of our teachers but our budgets keep getting cut lower and lower um and so everything that you do to fight for our teachers and to fight for our kids is very appreciated by those of us in town I also wanted to thank you um um for the transparency that this committee has tried to give because um that can be a really tough thing
027in this day and age because if we don't have the information we need to support you and to support our schools there's a lot of misinformation that gets put out by um by a lot of folks about what um our budgets are used for so um thank you so much for everything you do um on behalf of my children who can't be here to hold their signs thank you um for everything that you are doing for our schools and if there's any way we could possibly do more you absolutely have um my support and my kids support it would be wonderful thank you so much one second left anybody else if you were online and would like to participate in public comment can you please raise your hand again okay I see no hands raised
028online one more um chance for anyone in the room okay if you want to I mean we have we extended it we have nine more minutes on what we extended it to if any body does want to speak but no pressure so lesie McCarthy a town meeting member um for a uh Tucker parent um active member of the Tucker PTO um I hesitate to speak because I I know I've spoken before other boards in the past but I just echoing what Christine and others have said thank you for your support and all of what you're doing to fund our schools um I've been witness uh to what level spending looks like at the schools um over the past few years as I've um watched my kids learn and watched um the teachers um really do
029everything that they can with with um less and less funding each year and so really appreciate um all you're doing to advocate for our kids um and I think a lot of people have said oh you know maybe parents can fund or people can fill the gaps um if if we can't if we can't reach level funding that just doesn't it's not an equitable solution for our town and so really urge you um to keep continue to doing the hard work um to know that you have the support um of me um and of our community for all the work that you're doing so thank you so much thank okay thank you to everybody who came to speak tonight um definitely appreciate your making time and effort to come share your views with us um
030so with that we can um conclude public comment and um move into the superintendent report great so first of all we still have school tomorrow thank you I know there are Facebook messages out there saying school has been called that is not [Laughter] true uh we are watching the the weather for anyone listening we're watching the weather and are in consultation with the Department of Public Works and we'll make a decision in the morning um if things change right now based on the current weather forecast we feel like we've got this handled the U DPW is going to be out early um they have some contractors coming in so I think we're going to be okay so just want to let everyone know that's where we're at with that um I wanted to mention uh
031one quick thing I know there are a number of things under my report tonight so I'm going to um and it's primarily budget um so I wanted to just mention um since our last meeting we had a an incident a Tucker U last week uh a lockdown and many of you know kind of the story it was in the news in terms of what happened um and I just wanted to take a moment to um to thank the entire Tucker Community um to thank Milton police um all of our staff parents everybody uh we were in case you don't know the exact specifics U they were in lockdown for 12 minutes as the police were trying to determine what was happening and and if there was any danger uh that's 12 minutes where you're you
032don't know if you're in that building you don't know what's happening you don't know why you just do the drill uh so uh it it was just wonderful in the aftermath of that to see the Tucker Community come together as it always does uh we had a debrief with staff afterwards there's been ongoing support as well um and and everyone kind of processes something like this differently it kind of touches people in different ways U so I just wanted to to thank everyone involved and U we did have a an after action debrief just to talk about what did we learn from that what what went well what can we improve upon um next time talking about communication respon response uh coordination with police so that was uh I think really um positive in terms
033of of kind of learning from it as well um so that was kind of the thing I wanted to share I know um I did also want to just give b a shout out here Saturday February 8th right yes 5 to 7 pm at Pierce Middle School we'll have our Milton's first Luna New Year celebration there will be a lot of um activities fun uh o and crafts and performances and of course a lot of free candies and crackers and we also have some vendors coming to sell their product as well including Mr chance local in East M Square they're selling the lunch boxes and we have bubble tea Tang Hulu if you don't know what Tang Hulu is you will find out when you're there fruit yes oh I love that the candy coated
034fruit yeah um and dumblings of course so yeah it would be a fun event thank you yeah yeah so with that unless there are any questions about the Tucker incident I I don't have a question about it but I will as the Tucker parent at the table here I will just like to thank you and your staff and Tucker staff um obviously a tragic event um and you you know I think our thoughts are definitely with the family um and also I heard positive feedback and for myself just really appreciated what did feel like a different level of proactive Communication in um relation to a scary and um tragic event like that um and especially the way that you followed up later in the day um to provide information sort of beyond what was provided
035in as close to real time as possible I think that was appreciated um so thank you for how everybody there handled it um and yeah never want to see those things happen but if they do happen it's really important that we can have confidence in the way that the district is prepared to deal with it and keep our kids safe so thanks so student representative report is next it looks like they stepped out yeah they probably step out okay I also want to say that I appreciate the way you worked with mton Police Department to make sure that everything went smoothly and you know we appreciate the communication a it's it's always scary um but thank you so much for your leadership and your ability to work well with other departments in this town thank
036you yeah um they're a huge asset to us and to you know the fact that we have two SRO that work throughout the district too and and they do so much it's it's even hard to Define what their role is because they they are they're not um they're doing a lot of educational work at the same time that they're also focused on security and and um and supporting a like a well environment so huge huge asset thanks do we want to skip yeah maybe we'll come back if they rejoin we can come back to them they know they're presenting right yes yeah that's what I thought yeah because I I just saw them a second ago okay so I'll keep going yeah sure maybe the yeah State guidance update so um it's been kind of
037a flurry of uh over the past few weeks a flurry of information coming from the federal government and a lot of questions our community about you know how are we responding what's happening uh we are and we I I think kind of superintendent as a whole tend to look to to the the state and to our superintendent organization who often will when something happens with an executive order or some something U is enacted they will very quickly get legal council involved they will look at the issue and then they will communicate with us and say Here's what you need to be thinking about uh relative to what just happened um so we have been getting communication from um our the superti ass a is Mas so they have been um sharing information with us I
038got something recently about executive orders in in whole and how to respond to them in general so that this went out to everyone just saying like be thoughtful about how you are interpreting those really kind of like research them uh you know the public comment today around um Title Nine and and transgender youth so all of those kinds of things that I think the the main message has been don't be reactive be thoughtful do do the research um engage and then also obviously stand up for what we believe um it has been helpful that uh the Attorney General's office has been putting out some guidance for us I shared with the community was that two weeks ago um the the information on immigration enforcement and I think that was that that was very Timely uh
039every single District was trying to figure out how what we need to share something like everybody's is talking about this concerned about this we we need to we need to send something out so we were actually um in process writing something when and trying to do it on our own and having that guidance come in was very very helpful uh we also shared uh combating hate in our schools uh which came from also came from the AG's office office as well last week uh so we are as we're kind of finding our way through here and um you know recently you've probably seen um a number of of different kind of news reports around the U the Department of Education and funding and so there there's there's not a lot of specificity yet in terms
040of any of that so I think we are watching all that I just want you all in the community to know that that I am watching that with the state and um making sure that we are well prepared for whatever is is um coming from like a statement to something that actually is something that we have to respond to uh so I I think there's probably more of these in future meetings I I think I'll be coming back and sharing more about different things that we're responding to U as those potential changes are made and and and again kind of making sure that we're both following the law and we're also um kind of living our values and standing up for our values so we as school committee members also received access to the same
041guidance through the Massachusetts Association of school committees um and so it's good to be on the same page you know with that and I I would personally just also like to thank you for how you proactively communicated around that piece I think that was really important and yes I'm glad to hear you say you're you know your commitment to ongoing communication um and I think it's just important for us to remember and you know I think this is relevant to our policy discussion later too that we do follow not only federal laws but also state laws and you know Massachusetts laws um offer a number of protections that you know going forward we we with some of the changes in process may or may not be completely AC uh in alignment and anyway that's just
042something we will all have to keep on top of as we go forward so thank you for the updates on that does anyone have questions or uh any discussion on that piece I appreciate the guidance again I I think it's very there's a lot of stuff coming out it's hard to keep Pace with it I appreciate the comments that were made at public common totally agree with again that and while so much is up in the air making sure we are leading with values and leading on um you know the legal experts that we have within our town and also within our states to know what what we can do uh and if there are circumstances where again what we are required to do federally versus and that conflicts potentially with our values I hope
043you'll raise that here and that's a discussion we can have collectively on like how we how we proceed forward as a district thanks second ago if you all see him come in can you tell him [Laughter] to okay sorry okay sorry sorry about that we're miked up so we're thinking we're like trying to talk not too loud okay well the next MHS program of studies let's talk about that and yeah if he comes back we'll try to bring him in um definitely would like to get him in here before we dive into the budget hopefully but uh yeah program studies so this is a two-part agenda topic so this is a kind of like a policy where we're we're sharing it now and then Karen K Hill will be coming back or coming to the
044next meeting to answer questions that you might have um so I'm happy to kind of like walk through this or if you all want to take time between now and our next meeting to kind of review this look at it and generate questions we can also do it that way as well she has slight more knowledge about some of the specificity on some these things but you can try me I have a couple um one question I had was just uh the ability to add any additional graduation requirements I assume that's a discussion we would have on this board and committee and I I guess I don't know if that it's kind of within this context or with another context I guess like one thing that comes to mind is just like you know I
045think people talk about financial literacy the importance of that Within These programs I'm not sure we have enough staff right now and the budgets to fund those positions so I think there's also like that combin combination of conversations and so that's why I think like just whatever conversation around are there additional things within kind of what we think I think having a robust conversation around like what we think really kids need as they graduate high school especially given the opportunity that the lack of now an mcast competency determination provides us um is a conversation I'd be interested in having and talking about what what that means and what resources the school would need to kind of achieve that goal we talked about uh more in the context of adding additional cours work and there you
046will see there are some new courses that are proposed here uh I I think given we thought kind of given both where we are and and what we think will happen which is uh the state responding to this change in the competency determination to to come forward with a a new requirement which then would potentially shift and it's probably not going to be financial literacy right the state wouldn't come forward something like that but that we would want to return to our grad requirements at that point to look at are there additional you know is there additional coursework that we'd want to engage that um we have talked about foreign language World Language as a requirement yep uh that was my second question because the mass core right has and you know most kids do
047take a World Language uh in talking about it we we thought it might make sense to wait for one year and just given kind of where we are right now with our budget process looking at next year that it made sense to to continue to look at that and and bring that back next year is there a concern that there's not enough foreign language the Staffing in foreign language is not robust enough to accommodate all students taking it yeah yeah I just we're within the context of the override if that again is something we should be talking about kind of it's hard to have all these conversations simultaneously but they all just build on each other and impact each other I don't want to dominate if other people have questions but I got a couple
048more I'll jump in with another one I'm sorry Lizzie please go I was just going to voice that I'm looking forward to understanding more about the community service proposed change it looks like a decrease in the overall hours M I actually I don't have access to the data linked in here so that may help explain the proposal for the change or the ration now but I'm just um hoping that's maybe something she can come prepared to speak to I I believe we are an outlier in terms of the amount that we require compared to other districts 35 versus the 15 being proposed current 35 hours versus 15 being proposed sure yeah that I'll just look forward to hearing the process sort of what has led to this recommendation and in order to consider that yeah
049I guess another thing I'd be interested in hearing about is just the the process by which parents are allowed to or students are allowed to like choose the coursework I know that's aligned to this not 100% because it's the courses I guess don't technically matter for the graduation requirement but just question around it's students ability to opt into a course like what what are they required to get teacher approval to be in courses can students and families override that what does that look like just as we continue to think about how we ensure access to rigorous coursework for all students and ensure there aren't aren't barriers if that's what kids want and families want to kind of challenge their children um not children at the point in which they're high school but um you know
050what I mean uh so that's a question I had and the last one I again continue to really believe strongly in access to AP coursework and like just putting rigorous instruction in front of students and forcing them to engage with it and learn from it and Challenge and all the research around taking an AP course even if you don't pass it improves your gradu your likelihood of uh attending and graduating from college and so like is there something around you know an AP forall initiative where we require actually require students to take at least one AP course within their um High School career in order to again kind of increase that sense of rigor increase that college going culture and the op people being able to see themselves within those and provide more opportunities for
051kids whether or not they choose to go to college or or not um that's something else that I believe strongly we should be looking at so I think hearing Mark for me um sort of tells me that we should be looking at this probably a little bit higher up right not so much in the weeds cuz we're now getting into this particular course as been proposed and all of these set of changes that I do have you know implications but really sort of stepping back and sort of given the changes uh with mcast and sort of looking at our graduation requirements what does this mean and what is it that we would be hopefully driving toward and how are we going to get there um in the budget budgetary implications obviously um because I think
052I think the more we are sort of looking forward Beyond this year the stronger case we can make so we can move Beyond level funding and really think about needs right we can't have this aspirations of this wonderful town we want to be and all these offerings we want to have if we're not willing to spend the money and so I think it's important for us so I think taking this probably to a higher level and really thinking about it that way at least would be helpful for me rather than looking at these particular changes in this one year which is how we sort of have approached things um and I don't know if you know sort of in within two weeks time we'll be ready for that but I would encourage us to continue
053to think from that perspective I completely agree with that I I think that's a really smart way to look at it and I think even when we get into a budget discussions I think kind of planning for the future so that we're not in this like hamster wheel every year it would be really helpful yeah I agree I think very well said and what you say makes me think of something you mentioned in the budget process which is again speaking about where you're trying to go within the budget right as you're talking about those needs like what is what is the vision that we really have for the educational opportunities for our kids and how how the budget is building towards that uh I think great great points from both of you okay great so
054we'll look forward to that in two weeks we'll dig into it more is the expectation that we need to be approving it two weeks from now yep okay so maybe you know then the framing you could work with principal kahill to help us get to the point of being able to approve what needs to be approved and also perhaps elements of that can continue Beyond as needed whether that's about the process for AP access increasing that or what have you but yeah sounds good okay thanks all right so are you ready thank you so much for being here tonight we've reached the student representative portion of our superintendance report yeah I'm sorry um no it's fine the um my peer whom I was um supposed to present with tonight um is unexpectedly not here so
055I was wondering um of his whereabouts but um I am ready to speak now so um thank you for giving me the opportunity um my name is Le scos and I am the 11th grade representative representing the class of 2020 6 as many of you all know um and in this new year of um 2025 um as the school committee um Representatives we have sort of made a decision to um come every school committee meeting about one or two of us and um just share some brief updates on um the Pursuits of our student body and um the Milton high school student government so um I'm delighted to be with you here um so first of all um as um a group of um the school committee Representatives um we have finalized our survey on
056the technology policy and um this will go out to students parents and staff members and um as Olivia one of my other peers um outlined um this in detail to you um last meeting so um we are are ready with that and we will hope to send it out very soon and um with that I will like to inform you about our um our other Pursuits um as a part of the uh MHS student government as a whole we are um in the midst of organizing and preparing for um several fundraisers which will hopefully raise money for the um the the big and memorable events that we we've all um cherished as part of our high school careers like prom and graduation and um spring semi and to raise money for all of these events
057we are pursuing several fundraisers um for first we have our um on um March 23rd that's a Sunday um the Harlem Wizards are going to come to um milon high school and um do a Wizards versus staff um game and this is something I think we did um March of 2023 um two years ago and um it was a great fundraiser we had a turnout of over a thousand people um mainly families and um and elementary schools age students and that was a big success and um the funds raised from it were divided among um all four of our classes and this is something that we hope to do um this year and hopefully have a big turnout um and then in addition actually today is when it closed we're doing a Crispy Cream fundraiser
058um which and this is just at milon high school and this is also something very popular something we do multiple times per year and um Miss Bello one of our um School adjustment counselor is driving two hours to Connecticut on a school day to to get these Donuts so it's very um she's doing us a big favor and um it's something that's very fun it's something very engaging um we all love them and um you can get a dozen for about $14 so um that's going to help raise money um and contribute to our overall cause and um I I just wanted to mention also that the um that the class of 2024 last year raised enough money to fund all of the caps and gowns for their graduation so that no student had to
059pay and I I think that this is one of our goals as um the MHS Student Government um to ensure that students are can confidently go up and graduate and um celebrate their time and all of their hard work without having to face that burden um and that's one of our goals um for this year next year and the years coming um and then um coming up next week is our um our Valentine's Day Cabaret and as a member of the music department um that's something I'm very passionate about so um it's next Thursday and um that's something you should go out and um and see and support um and it really sort of s showcases um our diversity and our passion for arts and those are some of the many um Pursuits that the
060student body is um um you're going after and um we thank you for our support for your support especially um with the funding of these events and um your uh willingness to um go out of your way to um to support us so thank you thank you ellias for coming and sharing all that does anyone thank you B for continuing to work with our student refs anyone have any questions this is great when know the Crispy Cream Donuts coming today's a last day yes so they're coming um next week actually um on the half day okay great yes good to know i' have to go and wait to work well thank you for that very thorough report um seems like you all are very busy fundraising um so thank you um and excited to to
061know that the technology survey is going out soon and uh looking forward to hearing the results of course we will share that with you promptly when we receive it wonderful thank you thank you thank you so much have a good night too that was a highlight and we get to segue straight into Bud discussion so but there's an idea Crispy Cream a fundraiser townwide how big do you think Miss Bellow's car is yeah I'll I'll volunteer I'll giant like you know down we got to pay for itself sell them out of the Gazebo Town Hall okay well I know that um Finance subcommittee met today we have a finance subcommittee report a little bit later in the agenda for vendor warrants but I'll just maybe hand it over to you helpful to move them together
062sure or move the 26 budget conversation down to that report either way I think well let's talk about I think we committed to talk about the budget before the calendar tonight just to give it its energy and prime time of our meeting so I think we should just dive into that um but um okay if you if you think if we I guess what I would say is we could move the finance subcommittee report up uh Mark if you want to provide some updates as far as the meeting this morning what what was discussed there and then kind of move into the FY 26 whatever you all think is best sure you want to start with 25 yeah all right uh we have some slides um that Katie put together just going to share the
063right screen the slides are in the finance folder from this morning I'm sorry I can move a copy into I that would be helpful just going forward but go thank you I don't know if I'm sharing the right thing H hold on apologize for those though it's coming up here but uh all right I'm just going to get tired great uh yeah great so we um met this morning uh to talk about the fy2 budget uh we were hoping to talk about FY 26 as well we didn't get much time anytime on that U because we really dove into the fy2 budget um so this is some of the information kind of that is a recap that we've shared previously uh with um this board and with the community as a whole I a couple
064things to just clarify first of all is some people have asked me like how the school already spent over you know 2.5 million to be clear we have not overspent thus far what is happening is that Katie is doing a great job of again keeping our eye on the ball and we are projecting that if nothing were to change as of today or as of a couple weeks ago when she first put this together the Q2 report we would end the year right at the end of June with this def so obviously we are not going to do nothing and so the whole point of this recap and the bringing to the board's attention is just that we're going to need to do something to um again offset the increased expenditures and the particular line
065items and we'll go go through those again uh but just want to make that that very clear we are not we don't anticipate ending the year in the same place we are currently projecting because there's work we'll need to do to close that Gap and at this point we're not asking the town the select board anybody as of right now to provide us additional funding to close any Gap we are working within our own budget to close the gap that we are projecting um again currently so that's just part of the financial process that's why we do Q2 reports very appreciative of Katie sharing this one thing when we started this year within the finance committee that we were very embarrassed may not be the right word but upset about was the way the uh
066deficit Rose last year with like a lack of transparency and public engagement process around that this was coming up really and so wanted to make sure that we were doing a much better job of kind of keeping again the board as a whole uh up to date but also again the community as a whole given it's very Ser like the money we spend is is impactful and impacts students it's a big part of the the town budget it's really important that we take that very seriously spend that really wisely have clear uh and constant eyes on that make sure we're doing that responsibly and that people have trust within that process so again the sharing it of it now is just to try and improve that transparency that we didn't feel like really existed as
067well as we wanted it to last year uh so that's some broad framing I could jump please jump in if there are so uh again recapping in terms the areas of concern that have been brought up around this deficit are ones that have been concerns uh last year and were a part of the deficit that came out of FY 24 special ed Transportation utilities substitute teacher budget those are uh the large ones that kind of KD has particularly identified as being you know well beyond Uh current expenditures and projected expenditures being kind of well beyond what was budgeted uh those are also ones that are just very difficult to curb because special that Transportation are mandated we can't refuse them we can work to try and get better agreements and better contracts for the service
068providers that's also very hard you look around talk to any District transportation costs are incredibly challenging that's a something um many superintendents and school committees like talk about came up last year with NR like the school committee Association was like how do we stop kind of this collusion it feels like within trans portation Industries not to say that's what our vendors are doing but just to be clear uh utilities is another one we just historically underfunded that line item uh and so that's a problem and there's some things we can control within that but only only so much and the last one is substitute teacher budget is again other than um just trying to encourage good health and attendance from staff we know just staff will will be out sometimes for great reasons like having
069new kids uh sometimes for not great reasons like they're sick but just for legitimate reasons that occur and so but those are the the three areas that we are currently over and so we'll need to make Cuts in other areas to cover those uh just to update this board this is the new stuff around like just the initial things we are doing to as we said curb the 2.3 million and Shrink that down to the goal is to shrink it down to zero obviously uh so some things that have been put in place already within the district uh is a purchase order freeze um so all kind of purchasing across schools is frozen pending kind of approval for emergency things from central office hiring freeze similarly right kind of review of all open positions and
070uh obviously central office make a determination if a a role is absolutely essential or required because special education purposes um or other mandates uh there's other work and some of these kind of get into the details around just uh how we are thinking about moving some funds around so we do have some um revolving funds uh that can be used to cover portions of salaries and uh do some chargebacks uh which is a little bit further down uh look at kind of deferring some Consolidated facilities costs so these are needed maintenance and uh facility work that we're just not going to be able to do we need to defer those costs and push those out um so again I I guess one thing just to emphasize with all these things none of these are like
071oh great it was fluff and we're cutting them there are impacts to each and every one of these things that negatively impact a different part of our budget or a different part of our operations uh but these are the things that the district at this point is identifying as kind of having you know having a impact on our ability to shrink the deficit while doing as much as we can to limit the impact on our students uh primarily and our staff uh also um as we look to kind of cut this budget down uh there is point of clarification on the third budget y third but bullet can you explain that because I don't want people to read that slide and have ideas about what that might mean that allocate a portion of can you
072just explain that yeah so Food Service account uh is the food account as y'all can imagine their funding comes from the federal government um for School meals there's also probably some uh income related to students buying second meals I know my kids buy like four breakfasts every morning at same space on their food account so like those things go in staff can purchase accounts and that goes into a revolving account for Food Service expenses that is to go to support the Food Service program those funds have to go to support Staffing and um you know equipment and materials like food uh Pro produce and things that go to service the Food Service account the custodians obviously service the entire building but they also service the cafeteria they do cleaning and support within the kitchen and
073within the uh cafeteria and so um Katie and uh her her creative ways of thinking about how to address this saying some of the funds raised through the food service accounts can go to cover some of the salary expenses associated with those custodians time so FTE and so that is that is time spent providing custodial services for the cafeterias just to be clear we're not taking away any custodial salary no from custodians yes great clarification this is a uh yeah a budgeting um accounting maneuver more so than that is that one is not an operational impact yes thank you great appreciate the clarification uh the circuit breaker supplemental funding that's something that um again Kitty has flagged as it's come out of the governor's uh proposed budget as supplemental funding for the current year because
074the impacts for special education uh costs going up and up is something that is impacting the entire State and so the governor has identified that based upon advocacy across the state uh from schools and school districts um it's not 100% clear given the governor's budget is not the final budget it needs approval from legislature it's not 100% clear how that will end up typically most things the governor's budget is slightly more conservative than the the final budget but that's not always true and then the other piece here that is a of concern that uh Katie's flagged on this is like just the timing because of the the process for the budget approval sometimes can slip past the end of the fiscal year slip past June 30th and so counting on that is something that we're
075we're not sure what the amount is and we're not sure when it would be available so that is funds we are we are hoping can come from the state uh to help close some of the Gap especially with special a transportation but um not sure so more to come on that as I mentioned before uh offsets so Community Schools Medicaid building use these are different um accounts that uh we can charge um slightly more than we normally would to those to help offset within the current fiscal year it's not something we can't do or like to do kind of long-term it's not good Financial practice and those accounts will will run low um so given where we currently are this is what um Katie and Peter are proposing at this time that's also those are
076also accounts that we're going to kind of continue to look on see if there's any additional give within them uh but again part of this is like robbing Peter to pay Paul and so it's helping us in the current year but it has other impacts it's not it's not just no impacts so I do have a question please uh I think when we closed out last year didn't we also do the same with Community Schools if I remember correctly yes last year uh it's Clos the $4 million deficit a million dollar was used across the resol revolving funds 500 from Community Schools 500 from the nutrition program actually building use I I don't remember if we use much or how much we use yeah I remember Community Schools I know we discussed it okay yeah
077so that account as we know we've looked at past years has been historically quite robust but as as we pulled down last year if we continue to pull down and as we are trying to support that director in growing the program to serve more kids and hire more staff and like all those things pull from that that program and so um that's that's the balance uh and the last piece is the subit coverage just if there are ways we can reduce that by asking staff within the current buildings to take on more as a public speaker said our staff already do a whole lot so it always feels um terrible to just ask them to do more but it it is something that unfortunately we're kind of in that situation where we might might need
078to find other staff that currently are within the building and and figure out how we can utilize them better to to reduce that does but to be clear on that piece please they they are compensated for their time right when they are pulled in for a prep period or something of that kind it's just different from having a sub for the whole day well that's that's if a teacher is covering so there are certain contracts where if a teacher is covering that's under the union agreement that's that's collectively bargained and so anything yeah that occurs within the collectively bargained will be followed has to be followed should be followed I just want to make sure listening understands what we're to what we're talking about yeah we're thinking more again if there's flexibility within instructional AIDS
079within any other position support at recess or support any other types of du principles assistant principles who again don't have enough to do already with their huge buildings and small staffs but um yeah just thinking creatively as we need to do in these moments around that um all that together cuts the deficit down um pretty significantly the projected thank you so much uh Selena yes the projected deficit uh significantly so we feel good about the implementation of all those things does not bring it to zero uh and so there's still ongoing work the finance committee needs to do that the district needs to do and uh in consultation with finance committee and then within this group around how the remaining uh balance kind of keeps getting Whitted down uh and again as as we get
080further away from kind of these things it is possible if not probable that those impacts start to be felt more and more by students based upon changes to programs so both that's where we're at right now I have a comment as a school Committee Member who's sat here the longest that I have greatly appreciate this level of detail and transparency to be having this conversation mid year which I don't recall ever having actually and to me I feel like there's a little bit of not maybe maybe not a little bit but a narrative in our community that sort of looks at this conversation as a problem as something that's like bad that's happening now that hasn't happened before and I just think we can probably do more to help the community actually understand that it's
081the inverse of that what we're doing is being proactive to address a projected deficit and to sort of talk about what it means and what we can do about it to avoid being in a situation where we're late in the year you know needing to do what happened last year um recognizing a lot of these costs and a lot of what's driving this are out of the control of our district and are being experienced by districts throughout Massachusetts because of the nature of some of the issues but I would just like to thank you for you know having this detailed discussion and to help you know just to appreciate the transparency of this opportunity to actually understand where we're at in order to be able to do things about it you know and I know
082that you actually had to do a lot of manual calculations to even be able to project this level of detail um because our systems aren't necessarily set up to automatically like provide that information so thank you for for that and I hope that people listening to this conversation tonight that gain the information understand that you know our ability to have this conversation is a strength of our leadership that we have right now it's not a sign of the weakness of our leadership it's actually a breath of fresh air to be able to have this conversation um with that level of detail and to be you know you can't solve a problem until you confront it right which is what we are in the middle of meeting to try to do and FY 26 is a
083big part of that so that's we talk about that but can I just add just a little bit of the conversation that we had earlier today and if we go back just kind of to the the recap side um some of what we talked about earlier in our meeting is of course the specifics of looking at the deficit but it's also looking at our practice and our budget practice and just ensuring that we're taking steps to establish some found business practice um and that everybody's kind of aware of what that looks like so that we can provide accurate transparent numbers throughout multiple points of the school year although the number right now is a projected deficit being able to talk about it now gives us the ability to address it and as you had mentioned
084going forward as we establish that practice we'll be able to address it even sooner next year some of the other points that I wanted to make just that we had talked about earlier is when we talk about areas of concern and then looking forward to the fiscal year 26 budget one of the areas that was a part of our process this year was not only looking at the Historical budget numbers but looking at the Historical expenses and so I think a part of the past practice in some areas typically around General expenses was not to look at what the past actual expenses were but to just carry forward the the um historical budget numbers and so in some instances if we had ran a deficit in the past year we would just be carrying forward
085a historical budget number that wasn't appropriate and didn't represent our past expenses and so a big part of the work that we did in creating the budget for fiscal year 26 was truly to have the level service budget be representative of expenses that we had incurred in some instances we looked at Utilities in The Substitute Teacher budget over three years over a span of historical data and so in taking that information and looking at the rates and looking at utilization and looking at a number of different factors that's the information that we use to then build fiscal year 26 the level service budget number we know is 99.44% but it reflects kind of the right sizing of us going through that process and so that process is going to continue it's a lot of work
086that we need to do but I just want to make sure that everyone realizes that that work is happening that work is truly occurring every day um and so although we're and we also talked about we we it's a unique position to be in because we're truly focusing on two fiscal years at the same time we're administering a budget we're creating a budget and in the summer we'll be closing a budget opening a budget and creating a new one and so we're always we need to be strategic about living in multiple years we can't be just talking about 25 we need to look at that history we need to incorporate the history we need to closely monitor the current year and then we need to be able to project for the future and I think
087I know that everyone but it it's really important to do that because it's just supporting all of the work of the district um and so I just we talk about it so much there's so much work that goes into it at finance subcommittee and and um and it's really important we understand how important it is so I I just wanted to add that just because I think that sometimes um I just want everyone to feel confident and people to know that that um there's a lot that's happening behind the scenes to make sure that that we're um being really responsible about our our budget practice can I just add I think you know I think one of the things that's been great um and important is that by having somebody new come in you almost
088have to look at things fresh in the sense of you it's impossible to have a carryover budget because you have to know you have to get in the weeds and know what's being carried over so you're literally looking at every line at every expense at everything so it's almost like not necessarily an audit but it's a complete fresh perspective or complete fresh fresh eyes looking at this budget so it almost is it's not a zerob based budget but in a sense it's looking at it completely that way because it's like what what do we need to what do we need to budget based on the past expenses as opposed to to your point oh I know we had this last year we're going to carry it over this year but not but you don't have
089that history in a positive way to do that so you had to come in and look at it new so I think that that's really been a huge benefit and and that you you know you had your eyes on it early and to be able to say and to be able to do this now and be able to come to us and say hey here are some things that I'm seeing we need to be on it now and you know and we did talk about it and I just do think it's really important to reiterate is that this right sizing is Incorporated in the numers that you're projecting so we're not saying it's you know that we've um we're presenting a budget for next year with level service but it doesn't account for this so
090it's not like oh that number plus oops this this incremental amount that's been taken into account like the budget was built with those with the exercises that you've gone through for determining what it is so it's not starting at a deficit next year with that number um so I just think that that's important to not but thank you k well and I hope also that folks recognize what's at stake MH that if given all the hard work you put into FY budget just level service that if if we don't get that approved at that level the conversation at this particular juncture next year will be worse than right now so I think that's something that I hope uh we can continue to emphasize and make the case for why the need what you're presenting is
091there and that it's addressing a historical issue it's not something that is just this year uh it's been there we just didn't have sort of someone walking us through this process that would point out all these uh critical issues with the budgeting process and so um I mean it's up to us obviously as the committee to continue to voice that and make the case and I would look to our wonderful folks who have shown up today to help us sort of continue to make that case um because it's important and I know that not everyone has an opportunity to sort of go through every presentation and understand it but it is important for us to continue to message that it's just another thing I I wanted to add relative to this too is the fact
092that the the practice of not nailing and and really understanding each line item and not having reserves is is a near impossibility right so one of the one of the issues we're in right now which we are facing and and working on and it's a multi-year process is rebuilding our Reserve so because we had to zero those out at the end of last year we are in a process of rebuilding to be able to respond when we do have increased costs that's what they're there for um and so that is a a you know part of that that change that Katie is mentioning is having that having that Reserve account as well to be able to to to utilize that but to to have every line item be exactly where where we expect the expenditure
093to be and not be able to rely on reserves if we don't get it just right I just want to add that um we are so grateful to have you here this year for this process because I think we would be completely lost without you um and would not be having this conversation so I appreciate all the work that you are doing and saying hey we need to do this right now in order to close this Gap so I appreciate and I look look to your leadership to kind of guide us and we hope to continue to support you I know we've talked a lot about level service tonight um heard comments about level service I do worry that level service is not good enough because there are a lot of things on our needs-based
094budget that we also need to fund because that prevents us from getting to where we want to be right and so I think I caution because last year was also level service this year is also level service you know so to kind of reiterate to the community that we need more than level service because there are things on our needs-based budget like that Ela curriculum that affects every student in elementary school so I hope families understand how important that needs-based budget is not just level service so um there are you know because we went with level service last year and there were a lot of cuts that we couldn't have you know every uh site Council presentation uh principles come in and they talk about the needs um that weren't met and the impacts they
095have and I think Mark you made a good point earlier to kind of understand like it's not just a teacher gets cut here we don't have that but what is that impact you know on your student and the experience they have you know each year those students lose those that those resources that's a year they don't get back I mean we had students earlier that talked about they've been here for 12 years or 13 years they're only here for a short time right so if they don't if they that year of not having that resource is huge so I just want to say you know I mean as you know I will always push for needs based budget over level service because I think that's how we grow that's how we improve we change our
096practices we have great leadership and we want to continue to support them and uh if we if we can't make that happen I think we're going to be in the same boat next year wondering and we've lost another year so and I want to make sure that our teachers are supported we you know they are incredible assets to our um district and you know I appreciate when my kids come home and talk about their experiences with their teachers and you know getting excited about reading books and you know all the way they're challenged and encouraged and uh um I just you know I um I just want to make sure that the um MPS teaching staff knows how much they mean to you know and I'm going to speak for myself how much they mean
097to me so I will do everything I can to advocate for them thank you very well said I think that's transition is well into syy 26 but before that just to let the committee know the finance committee is having another uh having a meeting on Monday on FY 26 because we weren't able to get to it uh at our most recent meeting we talk about fy2 but then we're having a follow up on the fy2 coming back from February break so I think there will be more more information to continue to share with this committee um and then also obviously the the select board has invited us to a conversation next Tuesday and I I assume this is kind of the same information we will share with them at that time to keep them a
098breast if they're of interest to this issue we are dealing with yeah and so on next Tuesday we'll talk about up quick updates on f25 the way I think you just did helpful very helpful clear up some I think Mis information that might be out there um and then you know roll into the FY 26 conversation which uh just this is a little bit of an update here we have a couple like scheduling pieces we are um I haven't been able to share this with you all we're here in a meeting so I'm going share it uh Tuesday night uh select board meeting is going to be crossposted as a school committee meeting a joint meeting for the portion of their meeting which pertains to the school budget so we thank the select board um
099thank chair Wells for um sort of agreeing to go with that format it's somewhat unconventional it does though allow us as the school committee those of us who are available which I don't may not be all of us but I do believe that we are able to present a quorum at that meeting so as long as we can have that four of us uh then we are able to have a meeting where um you know hopefully we can participate in answering questions and sharing perspectives you know in the course of the discussion following the presentation aspect that we'll be able to have from both Peter and K there which is really great so that is definitely going to be good um the community budget Q&A session that is listed here that is I I want
100to thank Peter and Katie for this is a uh something that's kind of coming together in a really busy week but we are going to be able to hold that on Monday at 5: p.m. I think we're going to do that here at the high school um that is not something all of us need to attend I think we were thinking similar to the community coffees that we had around the calendar where you know there will be a couple school committee members there I think if more of us want to attend um we should know that like very soon in order to post that as a a school committee meeting if um four of us do want to attend but the point of that is really not to give a big presentation but just to
101try to answer questions that members of the community may have either they're listening to this conversation or they didn't get to but they want to like come and ask questions of Peter Katie um whoever else might be able to be there so that's good and we are we'll be able to have additional sessions of those following uh but that was like the only option for a time that we're able to do that next week um so that's just an update on that but um as far as FY 26 goes so Mar you're saying you're meeting Finance on Monday morning to go into more detail on FY 26 y just and from there we will be able to then based on the detail you go into on Monday you will be able to bring that with
102you to this to Tuesday select board meeting right yeah I on some level that will be important to be able to make the detailed requ you know to provide texture to the request for FY 26 yep okay but then as for right now I mean we've seen what do you want to talk to us about it as far as FY 26 for right now so we haven't we haven't made any changes since we left last presented FY 26 um the updates for FY 26 are kind of the work we're doing to build the non override budget so we have been meeting with principles um many times as we look at what our non override budget looks like um I'm meeting with staff this week so I'm going to each building and talking about where we
103are in the budget process giving them kind of a an understanding of um what's coming up on the 11th and then kind of future work we're doing as we kind of move towards an override um we are uh part of that process of of developing that U budget for the the non override is really really like taking time with our principles to make sure that the positions that we're putting on there have the we're kind of thinking with the student lens and student impact as our as our kind of main lens as we put that together um we're talking about both preparing that and also the process we're going to use to to share that with staff as well next week so our plan is next week to have that completed and and excuse me
104and shared with staff um we are also um talking a lot about communication and needing to share more communication from The District in terms of kind of the process ahead and the the steps that we're taking uh we sent something last week we are we are kind of talking about a weekly communication on the budget U sharing kind of process sharing kind of the factual information of U kind of where we are and and where we are in that process to help people better understand I know that has come up tonight from many of you that that there's lots of of noise around the community around what is and what is not so I think it's important for us to to to Really share you know here's exactly where we are here's the the work
105that we've done and here's the work that's ahead and and really really helping people to understand the budget as a whole so that is something that I'm working on with with our communications director Stephanie o'keef to to to put it in a in a kind of a format that people can really assimilate and understand so what does a non over budget look like I mean is there a number that's being given that you're saying I'll work to that I just that I don't understand yeah so it it's the budget it's the de facto budget if the override fails so if there's an override and let's say the override is x million and it is not approved then the non override budget is the budget that if the override fails that that's the budget we have
106so it would be whatever our Bud current budget is plus two and a half percent because that would be or whatever the the ma correct is that the way we'd be looking at it I mean I don't I'm just trying to how do you I just don't understand how you get to that number and maybe I'm not understanding the process jman I mean it's a bit like any other budget and that it's one number for the town still it's obviously much less number the town is projecting 3.2 million uh 3.3 million is kind of the amount of additional Revenue gained from a non override that's obviously significantly less than the 9.5 million um that combined kind of town shared services and school needs for level service um hence the need for the override but um
107that's the additional funds how those funds are divied between schools shared costs Town departments is like as I said any other budget year in that it should be a collaborative conversation between us and the town uh around how those are split there are some things that the town will say are like fixed costs for them associated with health insurance increases or things like that there's going to be additional increase in unemployment insurance uh funding that they'll need to um invest in they have free cash of 4 A5 million and so how that plays into whatever funding is next year and where that goes number I mean I guess that's my question so if the if if it's combined and we know that there's 3.2 million in Revenue additional Revenue that that goes into that that
108we're accounting for but then where do we get like where does the number come so does the Town Administrator say this does the select like who determines what the split is and when do you get the number so that you know how to build to that so again technically the town ad administrator in the select board cannot tell the schools what the school budget is so we establish that school budget uh but it has to be collaborative with them at this point they've I think expressed in Nick's presentations around like a 2% increase um from like our current budget right which is 69 million around that is kind of what would allow for a non overrides I guess a followup is that the Assumption you're using to have these conversations gu is that it okay
109thank you and so on Tuesday with the select board one of the things we'll be able to do with FY 26 since this is our first public meeting with the select board is the opportunity to present to them our level service and our needs-based budgets which we have already seen here since we have been discussing this for quite some time already but that's part of the content that they will will have their first actual opportunity to hear as far as like you were pointing out Anna what are the needs and I assume you're going to do this with warrant on Friday right yeah we've already done this with warrant we've had the presentation with warrant today almost the entire I'm sorry to be clear because I appreciate that uh warrant subcommittee to the schools so
110not the full warrant yes so we've already we've already had a meeting with them in January presenting the needs-based budget the level service budget this is a follow-up meeting that we've been trying to schedule for a while and people schedule crazy around you know because essentially we we met and took the full time to present and so now trying to follow up to answer questions again as I was um interrupted myself uh they attended most of them attended our meeting today so they also got the sense of the FY 25 piece so we anticipate on Friday there might be some questions in fy2 as well but also again FY 26 I just I want to make sure the needs don't get lost sight of you know that's really important and even if we're not you
111know at some point which we've done need to prioritize the needs and I know that when you initially presented that to us it was just level service needs based without um prioritization among the needs so yeah my only clarification on that would be I think they did prioritize the needs of these are the need like that wasn't the complete list of needs for the district that was the prioritized needs were the just two years right yeah thank you I guess I'm talking about drilling further down into to even prioritize further prioritize the priorities yeah and I think as it was said in public comment earlier there was position that wasn't filled for Pierce and there's nothing on the need space for next year for peers until the following year so again just want to be
112mindful that when we are prioritizing needs that we're being thoughtful about and you know and I would push that you almost already did that because the needs presented to us were not no out of this world no they're like they're almost like just necessity they're the needs that we've been deferring for many years and those needs get more and more and and like important and you could see the you know the impact of not having those and I think that's where it's really important to communicate that right like what what does it mean not to have that right it's not indicative to the town and our approach to budgeting I must say because if we approach as a town our budgeting only as level funding to begin with we're never looking at our town and
113seeing what is it that we really need so that we are that town that we want to be but that conversation I feel like always gets derailed at least since I started here in my role and I've been in those conversations it's like no let's go with level funding because that's a much more conservative way of approaching it which I do agree you don't want to get out of control but you also got to allow yourself to Aspire and that aspiration hasn't really been part of the conversations since I've been sitting in my room right and and I I don't necessarily know if it's they're even aspirational positions I think they're just not for us no I mean they're not and I think you could you know it's so important to communicate the importance of
114that and what not having that means right and the impact that it has and I think I think that's where and I've mentioned this for it's like when we get into things like per pupil spending that doesn't translate emotionally right it's just a number right and I think it's so important to understand what that means you could say hey we we spend less but you know and then people will come back and say well you know you guys went over last year and you have a projected deficit this year blah blah blah it's not a strong argument but I think the impact that those positions you know I know principal kahill has come here two years in a row two of my three years then asked for the same positions that we have not been
115able to give her so um and the impact of those and and what the students want right that those classes are oversubscribed because that's what they want and we can't you know when we look at things through a student lens right like we can't give them what they're asking for right we're not giving them like more than they need they're just asking for Bare Necessities to understand you know like um so I think that is so important to convey because and that's what we miss like sometimes when we talk about budgets it is numbers right and like sometimes numbers they go over my head you know I'm more of an emotional person like who understands and kind of tries to make connections so and I think that's so important to convey because it is an
116emotional con connection and you're investing in the schools you're investing in the students you're investing um you know in in families you want them to get return on their investment because you're asking them to invest money you're asking them to say I I'm going you're asking them to pay right and you're expecting something right you're you're paying for a crisp Crispy Cream donut and you expect a donut not no donut right like so so so that's what we're asking for right like you you're asking them to pay right right I get it in some cases it's a lot of money but you have to show them return on investment like what are those Investments doing for these students and I think that's what we need to convey more of and when we just talk about
117numbers those th that key piece of information gets lost we've had the opportunity to meet with staff as Dr Barrow said um throughout the week and I think having the time to be able to hear from them and hear what the impact because we've talked a lot about um the budget this year and the steps that we're taking to address the budget this year and then just talking about and looking at next year and for me um because I don't always have the opportunity to engage with staff and that way hearing them talk about the impact of not having certain tools that may be really helpful for them and just almost like that feeling of like in some instances like this like please like we want to we're here with these students we want to
118do right by these students we want to do a really good job and for them to say like it's really going to impact me if I can't have this it's really going to impact me if I can't have this curriculum material and I'm feeling like I can't do my job and to sit there and to to listen to the staff and not our support staff and teaching staff and even you know all of the maintenance staff and everyone that truly the people that make these buildings run on a daily basis um that's they I wish I could have them come here and present the budget because that I just feel like it's so important and it really is just eye opening um and so I've you know we've talked to them and we've said any
119advocacy that we can bring here any information that people may need so that they really truly understand how important this is for our staff to feel empowered that they can truly help it and just make a big impact on our kids is it's all work that I think we really collectively feel like we're putting a great value on so I just I just wanted to mention that because hearing from the staff like it it really is um it means a lot to them this is really important to them so um and it's it's tough to tell them that they're not going to have access to things certain things this year because you know we're just really trying to address the deficit but I'm so glad you brought that perspective because I feel like you know
120we we all sit here at our tables um at different boards and make decisions but don't realize what that impact we might make a decision tonight you know right now for the immediate need right like let's just get through this year and we'll look at it next year right that's what we did last year or what we had to right and then here we are again so I think when we when we make these decisions it's so important to have that perspective from the STA you know from the staff to understand what is it that motivates them and drives them to push our students and you know get to excel right and if we can't provide those tools then and we don't show that we're supportive of them how how do we expect them to
121be supportive of our students and to you know Empower our students right like so it is all connected so I think when we make decisions here we have to think long term Beyond FY 25 or 26 right like we have to think down the road like what are these decisions that we make here every single day every single week right that you know subcommittees in our committee meetings at our various select board you know they make the impact lasts Beyond and and then we're kind of backtracking backpedaling and trying to fix those issues and that that's kind of you know a lot oftentimes we're just like in this vicious cycle and I think it's so great that you're kind of looking through and what I would like to see is kind of a plan for
122the next five years right like what does Student Success look and what do we need to give you to make sure like what do you need right from us in terms of and for us to advocate for is so so important because like I would hate for anyone to have this conversation and figure out like oh my gosh we have to put a freeze on this and this and that and like we can't afford to buy paper in the district you know like it's just it creates a pandemonium and it's just it's ridiculous that we have to do that but I appreciate you saying we need to do that so thank thank you for you know being vocal about it and thank you for you know Peter and his leadership and team for supporting all
123of this and standing by it and bringing it to our attention um it's so so important and I'm I'm just grateful for everybody's honesty and transparency in this process sorry I talked a lot you were on fire love it it will be really good and important for us to bring this discussion to the select board who has you know to give them benefit of the doubt they have a lot of pressing issues that they're considering at all times on behalf of our entire town right and you know we are the elected officials that represent the town focusing on schools we have an opportunity and a responsibility to sort of help inform them about you know the actual impacts the implications the consequences of these choices that they they may not have time or wherewithal day
124to day week to week to actually even understand and that's not actually their role that's our role so we get this chance to kind of bring that to them and help them connect with it like you're saying you know and I think thanks for sharing that piece about your impressions from the staff right like we all want to do right by our staff so they can do right by our kids I mean that's the bottom line of this whole Enterprise that we're all part of like so helping members of the select board understand that too that is that is like the opportunity slash responsibility that we have um and I think that's been one of the one of the challenges of starting out this process with a big number and then focusing on the number
125and not being able to focus enough on right on what is that number what who are the people how does that impact students what is the yeah what are we even talking about and I think I mean I'm I'm glad that we'll finally have that opportunity on Tuesday because we've been we've been talking about that for a month at least here yeah right and it is it's it's about return on investment but it's it gets simplified to like being about the cost yes but when it what it is needs to really be is like a cost benefit analysis like I was an English teacher English major but I had to take econ and grad school to get my doctorate like I understand enough Basics you know what I mean like we need to be able
126to talk about it in that context it's not only what it's going to cost us but it's what we're going to get from it to your point or or it's like the opportunity cost of not doing these things when we have you know some of the the same people asking questions about you know our our rankings that are you know thinking we shouldn't get any of these needs that have been identified so it's it's it's it's really interconnected but and but I think it's also and you know and I just appreciate what you said and Katie um you know even in our meeting today when you when it boils down to when you're talking about memberships or subscriptions to a program I mean when you're that granular but you see it's but it's also I
127think it adds context and I think to your point the select board is responsible for a a lot right and they're looking at it as many things as a number and what's a number that can work with the town and I think it is important to recognize like what this number represents from the standpoint of the people of the programs of the opportunity of the growth and and the people impacted because yes then that equals a number but we're starting with the number and then oh what does that mean do you know what I mean and I think that it's just a backwards way to think about it and I understand it's about a budget but we are past the point of talking about it as a budget and I think there just needs to
128be more context around it so that great the importance is recognized so thank you finance subcommittee and that was our brief report Katie and Peter for your work on all this so have some productive meetings and I guess we should also say we are working on an updated FAQ document that will be shared with the community to provide some of this context I think we heard Katie that was like we heard such positive feedback from how you developed a version of an FAQ document for the warrant committee to support them at the beginning of our process collaboratively working through the budget with them this year and so I think it's great to kind of have a version of that type of a document that can be shared with the community because as we see with
129our um um you know people who come to public comment people who stop I'm sure all of us like out and about in town people want to understand they want to be helpful to this process and I think we can support them and so they can support us by making sure they understand like the terms the timelines the implications of the various options that are before us so that will that's in process and we'll certainly share it to the community as soon as we're able to do that through Communications from the district and then um also along with more information about the Monday 5:00 p.m opportunity in person at the high school with additional options opportunities like that in that vein to follow uh we just want to get started you know to try to
130help build this awareness in the community so that we can um yeah keep keep the momentum going so so except the high school on Monday night yeah I don't know exactly where yet yeah um so yeah we'll share that out as soon as we know um and if you do want to come to that can you maybe follow up with me after this just so that I alert Charlene to cross I mean to post it rather not that will be in deliberations in that setting but just to be on the safe side for our um open meeting stuff so great is that uh everything except for vendor warrant anything else any that's everything except for vendor warrant uh and I don't have the motion in front of me so if anybody else would like to
131make oh wait here we yeah um it's 29 and 30 right yes so I I know have uh I will make a motion to approve vendor warrant 29 in the amount of 96,4 185 payable on 130 2025 as well as vendor warrant 30 amount of $131,400 just U since you vender warrant 30 so apologize all in favor I'm sorry got it just in the naked time okay thank you all right thank you so that was Finance so that just uh chair's report um okay District calendar we've talked about this um we have a draft calendar in our folder that reflects the previous conversations that we've had um we are hoping to take a vote tonight uh this draft that we have now reflects feedback from last time regarding the timing of half days early releases
132and um I think I would like like to just open up for discussion at this time um as we hopefully move towards taking a vote on a calendar so I I know we obviously had um some public comments regarding the calendar so of course we can respond to anything that we heard tonight um and whatever else is on our minds about this can I just separate from the holiday thing the question on the Cadence for the half days yes just to make that clear typically we're talking about looks like the second Wednesday of the month with the exception of November I assume that was to spread out and not have two days in a row on that week of Veterans Day and then any thoughts on March 3D uh but that's not a early release
133actually so in the oh is it sorry I think that might be a it's just it's a lighter blue it's a I should update that my bad oh yeah be early dismissal thank you again Anna for the graphic design pronographic design it's just on the yeah the on the right side it's an orange yes sorry that's my bad it's supposed to be it was it was a last minute no I was trying to just get it in right before the meeting you're fine I just want to make sure which one was wrong the blue it's supposed to be blue it's to Blue sorry any reason for that being I don't know what March 3rd is reason for Tuesday that's the the inservice day we have yeah so it should be orange actually so it should
134be orange on the calendar itself okay it's a day off yeah okay so our two our two full PD days are both Tuesdays first Tuesday of November first Tuesday of March gotcha okay yeah and then the early release days are all scheduled for Wednesdays yeah yeah uh the was one that was after yeah sorry the after school the 19 parent teacher conferences on March 19th that is a normal school day yes just with conferences after the end of school right I definitely do appreciate that revision you know since the last time I think the ability to be more consistent um will be helpful to people yeah one good question in terms of the 19th though that's Eid does that affect sort of who parents who can attend yeah that's a good point March 19th mhm
135is that contractual I it's at least um annually at that date it's a carryover u i need to and see if it's contractual I don't believe it is on that specific date yeah so then that we should avoid that right sure sorry they have time the parent teacher conferences after the report cards are distributed so it's does it necessarily have to be the 19th like the week after yeah I don't know if the report card date is that might be a reason it couldn't be earlier necessarily but maybe it could be later well we could just decide to to move it off of that date and we can find a new date yeah yeah 100% okay that's great question thank you should June 19th um highlighted in yellow since it's a juneth well the last
136day of school is I guess that would become relevant if we have snow days or snow days according to this calendar still call a snow day for tomorrow um then that would become a day off only in that event would that it would probably be good just to highlight it highlight it [Laughter] done okay um other [Laughter] other comments sorry that's what you that's what you sound like I'm just going to go ahead and say that um a ver I've said before I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of this whole process we've been at this for a very long time I appreciate everyone here at the table I've thought about through this experience I don't know like anyway it's challenging to say the least I'm just going to say that especially considering continued input um even
137since our last meeting um in particular for me I I think I think we're all impacted by the learning about the impacts of our decisions whatever about whatever topics on our families our students um for me I'm particularly sitting with the input from our clergy in the Milton our members of the innerfaith clergy Association in Milton who have shared their input with us that has I'm going to personally share just had a really big impact on me in terms of how I'm thinking about this um decision and I am I appreciate the work of going in you know of this calendar and I'm um certainly planed to of course as we all always would go go along with the majority of the committee and also I I'm personally not able to support this version of
138the calendar um having had the opportunity to sit with and think about the request um from individuals that I think through their positions I pleas trust in when I'm trying to understand the impacts of our decisions when it does come to the religious holidays and cultural holidays and um I I don't find myself able to Discount their um perspectives um and so that's something I've thought a lot about in the past couple weeks um even since we had the opportunity to touch on it a policy um you know which and I don't know if Anna you want to like provide any I don't wouldn't say we really we didn't certainly come to any decisions in that discussion we just had the chance to sort of continue processing a little bit you know um where we
139were at and I think we all have different perspectives on it so I will just share that's that's really where I'm at I don't find myself able to um I I think that the the scenario of two days as imperfect as it is to me is I'm like not wanting to let perfect be the enemy of the good in this Dynamic um because there is no perfect solution we've already come to understand that and um I think that um you know as as I do understand the potential confusion of that scenario as proposed in terms of two days set aside each year for observing holidays with a day off um I think that that solution does mindfully balance the impacts on students student learning um you know as a in taking into account the inclusion
140factor of that has been discussed at length so that's where I'm at I um I I as even though it has potential to be confusing like members of the Milton Interfaith clergy are telling us that would not be confusing for them that that would be valuable for them that would promote inclusion given the limitations we have around prioritizing student learning and not going too late into June for our school year so um that's where I'm at yeah thank you Lizzy for sharing that um I also have sort of sat with this again and I don't want to be labor my points that I think I've already made um time and time again um I do sort of was reflecting on the students and what we heard them say today and thinking about you know sort
141of the progress I think and the statement that Milton made decades ago by recognizing a uh a group um that has to be recognized um in this way and I feel like we're we're we're erasing progress and while the sixth solution of recognizing at least you know having to floating days wasn't perfect or it's not perfect um and yes initially it may create confusion but the reality is that most any policy or any you know it's usually confusing for folks and it's about how you put it into practice and the information you do and uh all that you do to communicate and make sure that people understand and know what's happening um so I think there's a way to get around um sort of that fear of confusion um and I also cannot support the
142calendar in the way that um it's uh being presented today I have a question um so the six the scenario number six um first um I don't think I recognized the extent of my concern was originally that um not all faiths were being represented in the six scenario that was my original concern I think I my question about this is when I think about the students who spoke is does this scenario answer that question that they have which is so assuming they take off a religious holiday and they they were doing that and they found that they were missing school how I'm Wonder like with this six scenario as the floating days how does that change that like how does that how does that address that very same issue because I so we're saying that
143we recognize those two days and I'm not this isn't is a disagreement I'm just trying to understand how that scenario is any different than what they just explained which was they were taking two days which they are entitled to take yeah does that change that I think that it changes well so first of all to the to what the students shared I mean that is that is a piece of this that goes beyond the calendar corre that whatever the calendar is we can and will do better on having practices in place consistently that help students now and in the future not experience those those negative experiences that those students were sharing with us regarding um you know tests like and things of that nature that are able to be planned around so I think that's
144we've heard a commitment already that we will be able to work together as a district to like do better um with that and it's a it's a work in progress as we even see just from flagging Eid you know on the T it's a constant work in progress with that but I think whatever we need to get through the calendar piece so then we can actually hear and maybe work with Dr Shavers to like understand like what types of practices can we put in place so but the the you're right like adding two floating holidays actually won't directly address what those two students who were identifying themselves as Jewish students who were talking about the experience of missing school or pra Andor practice for both rashash Shana and yam kapor Milton has never had both
145of those holidays off as days off um and that's not been on the table you know so we wouldn't be directly addressing what they were sharing with the calendar per se even with the sixth scenario but I think what was shared about the sixth scenario from an Interfaith group was that the goal there was to foster a communal sense of inclusion through a recognition that we do even if it has to be on a rotating basis where we only take a day off every couple of years for my community's holidays or your commity whatever the Comm you know of the five that we've identified at this point in time which could be added to in the future but anyway I don't so no I don't think it directly addresses it but the point is it
146was trying to find like a middle path where it's not all or nothing and and I appreciate that I I guess I and I'm not I think I just want to make sure that there it it there's a part that feels like there is the um almost like the adult scenario of the of the sense of like what this is saying from the standpoint of inclusion which I completely appreciate and then there's the practical application from the students that we've heard that still say I'm taking this I would be taking this day off that is not a an that is not recognized as a holiday and the implications of that so I want to make sure that if and and I and I appreciate like it it doesn't have to be perfect but I just
147does that address the issues of the students in in any way like will that will that do that or is it more about the recognition does that make sense I mean it's just because those are the comments made by the students and I just want to i a littleit of both right it wouldn't address it for them every year right but at least there would be some years that it would address it and it's not perfect now combined with changing practices in the schools so that there isn't an important test the day the next day could help mitigate some of that um but I do think that the conceptually The Proposal was that as a community of Believers we can all sort of make almost like the same sacrifice over time right this year it's
148not my year but I know that next year it will be but there's still a a value being placed here of saying we believe in belonging we believe in inclusivity I think going back to this it takes us back to a time that you know we just kind of said no you know what this is the way it is and this is how the rest of the the country does it and we're going to continue to do that but I think there was work that happened here in the town that got us to observe these you know yanor and uh rosashana and now we're going back I think that's for me that ultimately that's where I have a problem of going back um and do think that we had a potential solution that wasn't perfect
149but it was sort of about being inclusive and recognizing the diversity that we have in the town I agree with you on going backwards like and um and I think that's a valid point I still don't agree with the six scenario um I still feel like we're missing some key pieces of information which is we don't know about the the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Friday before Labor Day like we don't have that information and that could probably impact you know and get us closer to a more perfect solution than a solution that's not perfect and could cause issues and confusion just as we saw today with March 19th so um I think there it creates a lot more problems and I get it over time you can get people to adapt but the fact
150that it changes every year is not um is not going to be easy but if if we were to have those pieces of information and this was kind of my perspective from our policy and we just had a general discussion on the topic uh didn't come to anything but my recommendation really was was can we wait till we get those two pieces of information on those two days and then expedite so basically just looking for an extension on the religious holidays I'm fine with going back to the calendar that we started with where those two holidays are still recognized uh but then to add those additional days and my goal like honestly I do want to add those days right like if there's a way for us to work but since we don't have that
151piece of information I don't want to put like a you know kind of an okay solution in there for now just to get us through because I think we'll run into other issues um and then I think simultaneously what I'd like to see happen is a policy around adding additional holidays could we just think it was the Franklin example that listed all the holidays in the back so if there are more that need to be added um I think we could include them and put an explanation of what those holidays are because that's the other thing I would love to see which I don't know where we are with it is you know um how we are we recognizing our students that celebrate these holidays and how are we learning about that we've been talking
152about that for a you know I would see like almost two years now um Lizzie I you know and I haven't seen anything so I would like to see that yeah that's part of the initiative that I think right so I would like to for sure rather than just kind of like we would like to see it I would like a Time line for that and when that we would like to see it and right right because we've we've talked about it but I think that's a huge part of this and that's a huge part of recognizing cultures um and so in addition to listing holidays how are we making sure that you know when we talk about being inclusive how do our families you know um who might feel different in this community feel
153included right are they are they looked upon it's like hey you know your of our community we love having you you know and not differently because they look different or whatever I mean I've I'm going to be honest I've had my own experiences this year with my daughter at school you know so um that have been very challenging so it's really important for me that those things get prioritized soon because if she's experiencing I know other kids have so um I think those are things that need to be recognized um and prioritized because that also goes hand in hand when we talk about being inclusive right and if we don't have that piece it's just a day off that no one knows anything about right so what are we doing and how are we um
154recognizing our peers and making our students feel like they're part of this community we can talk about it but what are we doing in practice you know and I I would like to really see the practice piece can I ask you you said like the data or the information on those two extra days right the Wednesday and the day before for assume that's around like again the union negotiations right because right now those are within Union contracts and so obviously something we've talked about talking to the unions about um so if hypothetically those were removed were you saying that those are removed as obstacles in terms of not being able to have school in those days because of the Union contracts am I understanding you're right that your IDE deal in that scenario would be
155that to then come back to the calendar and add these two days back and the three additional days we discussed to like add all five days to the calendar I mean ideally that's what I would like to see happen because I think that was kind of where we started from and I thought that was a good good balance I don't you know I mean I I don't want to get into the habit of you know a group comes in and they want a holiday and we're going to figure out how to add it I think for us as a committee it's our job to represent everyone in our town so I think I think even if it's um I think when we look at it from that point of view it's like we're being proactive
156about adding these holidays and we've added it and we've created a policy saying here are the all holidays we've haded if you want more potentially we could list them and explain them so it's not just you know no one knows what it is but really what you know and look to and learn from what other districts have have done in terms of explaining them and Contin and bring that to the classroom and you know and uh create meaningful experiences for our students so that they're learning to accept on because at the end of the day that's that's the goal here right to be inclusive so um I mean I agree with you know removing you know after hearing all the discussions and I appreciate um I appreciate the passion that community members have brought to
157the importance of their holiday um so at this time my recommendation would be to keep the calendar as is with as it was before we voted on it uh was it what it was last year and then get those that piece of information from Once Union negotiations go through and then expedite the approval of next year not this next year uh upcoming school year but the following Year's calendar like could we vote on it earlier in the year um like in over the summer or September for the following year so that we are you know making a pack to say hey our goal is to add these holidays and we'll make sure we figure it out you know so just really just buying some time I think from our subcommittee meeting we did talk about
158the two concerns right the first concerns is what Anna you have mentioned about the the contract we cannot change the day that is already in the contract right now right so we cannot have that Friday before Labor Day or the Wednesday before Thanksgiving all um taken away and put school back in there um so at this point for the coming year School uh school calendar we have to keep it the way that the contract have written right and then the second thing that we didn't mention in the in our subcommittee meeting is that I think we have the consensus understanding of how when whatever holiday we put on the calendar we we are excluding some people in the community it is is never going to be a equal way of representing inclusivity right right and
159is it's not what we have pledge allegiance to I I just have trouble like justifying having any holiday off is equity and justice for all like how can you explain that like how does that have having the the two days like next year we have these two days off then another year after we have another two days off how how is it equity and justice for all so that's why I think we should go with the the revised calendar that we have in front of us with no cultural holidays or religious holidays of we recognize it in our calendar and PE people can choose to take whatever days they wanted to observe and that would be fair for everybody cuz we can all choose the day that we wanted to take off it could be
160more than two days more or maybe 3 days we triat it the same way that excuse abent would be like we will get sick sometimes our kids get sick sometimes when they're sick from school and they can't go back to school is there is our students responsibility to catch up with the the teacher right so we we treat it the same way as a excuse option and student observe whatever holiday and cultureal belief they wanted to and I think that is the most Fair Way for all the students sorry just clarification question similar to this like if the the two contract days weren't in the way of this do you think and I know they are so it's hypothetical but do you think is that still like your position would you be more open to
161adding days if those were not or again to the point you made there's no way to add enough days I also wanted to remind us of what some of the teachers uh feedbacks have sent to us about is that having a day in June first of all the weather is getting hotter and hotter nowaday and our school does not necessarily have the the uh the expected veneration cold cool enough for the student to feel focused so having extending the school year in later in June is not going to help with the learning result especially for student who take AP classes because the AP exam is in first week of May so adding those days in June does not help them have actual time to prepare for the AP exams so I think like the Fest
162way is just that we we try to condense our school year in this most comfortable month to to make sure that our student and our teachers are having this the comfortable environment to to teach and to learn I think that would be the ideal way of doing it so does this the sixth scenario assume um if I'm understanding it right it's saying it's the proposal that we made but instead it's so the it it's the calendar that we just recommended but instead it's adding to floating holidays correct as opposed to that next year would be Dali and Eid and the year after that because Lunar New Year is on February vacation next year this was what they shared with us right that next year devali and Eid would be days off which means it October
16320th and March 19th and then the following year would be um yum kapore and Good Friday and or that it would require every year that in the process of the calendar drafting attention is paid to when the holidays are falling and whether they're on weekends whether they're on other vacation weeks so for sure the premise of that scenario as presented to us was is requiring like App application of a commitment when one year to the next that doesn't look the same from necessarily this year to next year which is where it's yeah it's reasonable to point out that that could result in confusion um it would as you said Selena it would require clear communication and rationale shared year over-year um that's my understanding of it but I think one other thing I just want
164to name it for the record of our discussion so that it's raised is that and I'm not I don't think we need to respond to the uh questions that were posed To Us in in in public comment however we haven't named in this discussion that our calendar does include Christmas Eve off as part of our winter break and so we have had the discussions here that were not adding days off but that has been raised over the course of our debate so I not debate whatever our deliberation so I just want to make sure that's acknowledged you know and it's it I think that is a very um common and traditional timing for winter break everywhere around here and it is because of the Traditions that we follow in this um culture that we live
165in which um does as has been raised for us you know inherently sort of value um Christian holidays but um just want to make sure that's at least acknowledged um for the record and I think at this point I I appreciate that I think we've all had the opportunity Mark I don't know you've asked clarifying questions you haven't necessarily shared your thoughts I think we should all have the chance to share whatever final thoughts we have and then I do think we need to move to a vote on it um because I I can see even as we're thoughtfully participating here this is never going to be resolved so I I feel like in my work oftentimes I'm working with groups and we're setting Community norms and one of those is like um to accept
166non-closure I mean it's hard because we have to come to a point of closure even though this is a process that I can tell we all are struggling with on some level with finding closure just because it's imperfect but I do feel we need to do that so I'm just time checking us to like move toward being able to take a vat um because there's not much else I would like to try and get our friends out before it's too too late um we do have a couple other things and not to Discount this but it no matter what we choose here what we've already I think have a consensus is we will be this is not like oh great solve that never have to think about that again in Milton like no we'll be
167thinking about this next year and going forward Mark do you want to add anything um sure I can share my developing thoughts first of all we got great kids in this District they are just really uh again well well kind of said I thought their um comments were were important you know I have young kids I've obviously been to high school I work at a high school uh I was there today um but just again being reminded of that perspective of the impact that these have I think that that's true I don't think any of our scenarios that we're currently talking about uh address what they are talking about so I I again struggle with that a bit uh of how to to support them because I think those rigers are are real and challenging
168and I again want them to both celebrate their faith and feel the ability to be in the moment with their their family and their Community um and still be able to engage in rigorous coursework like APS and sports and things like that so um I think to your point Amanda like it none of these scenarios quite solve that um I think I've said pretty clearly like I just don't have the belief that a day off is is in of itself like this should be seen within our our society and our our town as like this way of celebrating cultures um because I I think having folks together learning together like that's the more important piece the same time I acknowledge that I that is my personal belief and maybe that is not representative of the
169entire community and may especially you know speaking from a place of privilege as was raised by the public comment here um and so you know that that is real and maybe I'm letting my own personal thoughts aside I tend to agree with you Anna that again I'm torn between these two points because I think you speak very well and I worry about like are we ever going to be able to represent all groups all cultures never I think uh I think Lizzy spoke well though of something an argument I've used before in other uh conversations and others have around not letting the perfect be the enemy the good though and I don't know if we'll ever get perfect and I don't know if removing all culture recognition is also perfect um and then I I
170think I'm generally with you that if we didn't have this sense of because I want to be responsive to the community feedback we got and the community says we do not want to extend our school year and can't do it longer so I'm generally with you on if we had that ability so I guess that is bringing me and your your point of like just reverting back but that's bringing me kind of full round to say well I don't necessarily think the the days off are what they should be if we just assume that's what we we do within our our society and our group and how we recognize cultures then potentially as a bridge as we work through the contract negotiations the sixth scenario is something I prefer above going back to the traditional
171because I think if we're saying we are willing to include these two cultural days within the calendar then to me it's okay well then we should use this as an opportunity to respect the wishes of the groups that have not had that their culture seen that their holidays recognized previously the over 30 years that these two other groups have uh you know the group that the the E group that came and originally kind of started all this and utilize this as an opportunity to kind of recognize them going into next year and again maybe that is our long-term plan maybe we we negotiate contracts and realize we want to come back and add these things I worry a bit that this is kicking the can down the road uh to us next year and we
172spend a lot of time on this next year but maybe that's that's worth doing um because I I do agree that you know being able to kind of pull in all those culture cultural recognitions within the calendar um given the broad support across the Interfaith clergy Association and what that could mean for for those groups uh might would be worth doing that's a big shift I apologize no I because I think you know I think similarly I think it's um I appreciate you for saying I don't think anybody has thought this is an easy discussion by any stretch of the imagination and um appreciate the the passion that people bring to it and the perspective um I you know I said before I I don't I'm concerned that scenario 6 will still bring up some
173of the same issues however there are going to be issues on on any of these scenarios um and you know I wasn't here last year to know the conversation that came up but my you know the understanding of they're wanting to be more inclusion and more recognition and I think scenario 6 does more of that I I I would say that I guess the one thing I would ask with that is is there a way to in some way reach out to the community like after you've done that for a year like what how does that feel like for lack of putting it in another way like if it was about people feeling represented and your year into it and are we dealing with a lot of the same issues that are people not still
174not feeling represented are there still students you know how are we addressing the student thing because you know I think part of it is it doesn't have to be a final decision in that do you know what I mean like we can to the same way we were talking about like does it look different with you know I think it's a good point about the um the PD days you know when we're starting but um I but I just also feel like this is a there's a lot there are a lot of questions I have about this scenario and it would just be helpful I think if there was a way to have a survey get a pulse get some sense of of what this felt like or how this worked for people the next
175year so that it wasn't we just weren't making the decision in a vacuum and move forward and then people like wait you know that didn't really address that or all of these students concerns are still there because because you know we can say that policy is going to change but I feel like there probably was a policy in place for those students before to not be penalized and that didn't work so I just I don't want to assume that it that if we say that then it will also be perfect so you know so so like Mark it it's we are never going to please everybody um I take to heart what people have said um and I feel like since scenario 6 does the most to to to show that we want to be
176inclusive and that we want to um have people feel recognized although they won't it won't specifically recognize their holiday every year so that's just my concern by definition what what we do here one year is never actually like there's never two years with the same exact school committee right necessarily so every year this is It's constant work in progress in that sense um but I appreciate what you just said I just wanted to share one other thing that just was occurring to me which to your point mark about the the survey data regarding the end of school one thing that I haven't focused on yet really but the thing about this scenario is it does it still respects the wishes that the majority of our survey respondents gave which was to not lengthen the school
177year right it doesn't lengthen the school year it keeps the same length of the school year that we have right now you know so that I think is maybe also something I find appealing about it it's try it's it is trying to be in the middle but it isn't perfect as you've all you know explained um so it sounds just from the comments that we've just had it actually sounds like um maybe a motion I just going to make a motion and then we can discuss to to make sure we can vote on it but based on this discussion I think I would like to make a motion to to recommend a calendar to approve a calendar that actually has a couple of changes from what we're looking at here which is that it would
178be what we're looking at for next year it would add Dev October 20th and March 19th Eid as days off in the context of this scenario with work to be done to explain and R and to consider this a bridge in the context of our negotiations being for the future around nove you know other days off the After School parent teacher conferences would be scheduled at another day I would like to make that motion a second um for a point of discussion is this also something we can ask policy committee to work to just I think developing some type of written documentation around what the six scenario is if it is not changed for next year right if it is carried forward what are the addition what are the holidays next year potentially the year
179after like I would assume we could lay out kind of the next create a proposal within that group for the next five years from like the clarification transparency standpoint of like this is how the Cadence will work as these groups look at how their holidays would be recognized within the sequence of kind of time and explained it a little bit better you know within written if people ask like we can direct them to the document around like the reasoning behind this and the goal of it and just try and document that both for the public and then also for any new school committee members who come in and say like what are you doing here why why did we do this thing like we are doing from folks 30 years ago it would be yeah
180that would be a necessary sort of process towards applying this new calendar yeah so just to kind of clarify so if there were potentially more holidays added do you just put it into the rotation is that how it would work okay that we wouldn't have no more than two days off per year so just can we play that out for for a second so then how what becomes the determination you know and do are and within this are there ever like so say there's a sixth scenario I think how does that begin to that's beyond the purview like that's I feel that's beyond the scope of this discussion I feel like I'm just curious just for clarity like how that would work so if you have a student who is four years in high school
181so they might only be able to celebrate their holiday once during that time MH or potentially twice so what happens and how does that fit in with sports because we always talk about sports as well right scheduling so have we had conversations with you know the athletics department and like Town Sports and all the volunteers that do that parks and wreck like how does that fit in because I'm just curious like if if we are because that in order to make sure that policy is carried through that it's not just written here and we rewrote something but it it's not put into practice we have to make sure that those you know stakeholders are also part of the discussion because we need to make sure that we're completely being Equitable right like making sure like
182because we can probably make sure that a teacher does not schedule a test but then what if there is a game well that's where we would look to the administration for procedures that are put in place to make sure that that all of that is happening on the ground cuz from a governance perspective we set the policy but then we would be asking for you know is that all of that how is that being done how are you making sure so but wouldn't you want to know that piece of information before you set the policy though because what if they come back and say we can't do it it's impossible we don't have the the field space or the you know we have the Cunningham kot gy we have you know we've limited indoor facilities
183in our town and limited Fields so yeah but isn't that isn't that an issue regardless right so there could be days when they would have to schedule it based and you know because a lot of students have to rotate through they can't just say we're not going to have any sports this day because school committee set a policy yeah I'm just saying I think I again I think it is agree with Lizzy and that I think it's somewhat outside of the the calendar piece because I think if we're identifying like these are the holidays kind of within the calendar the ones that we've listed on the right whether or not their days off or not I think we what we've talked about is on those days there should be this General policy of excusing kids
184days off right not having tests on these days not having large events like we just talked about with the parent teacher the parent teacher conference right and so like whether or not there's yeah I think whether or not we have Good Friday off or dwali or whatever it is or none of those days off and go for every day like that that is a problem or a policy that will need to be worked out implemented refined by the administration to selenis point kind of in all those situations I think you point you made earlier is like maybe having scheduling a follow-up conversation after we get done with move the calendar forward to say okay now and you've made this point too now we've got the calendar let's talk about the implementation of like how do
185we protect Sports wise can we bring in the athletic director how do we talk about this curriculum wise and let's bring yeah I think those are important pieces to have to make sure that we can we can whatever policy we create you know can easily be carried out you know yeah and it's not I don't I think that's just part of that's like how we will support the implementation of this and I think we all re recognize we can't just flip a switch and like have this all be that way it's about culture it's about logistics it's like two huge things that take a lot to shift and it will not happen overnight and it will be something that we're working I hope like in good faith as a district to really move make progress
186on so that next year we've made progress probably not perfect but you know it's just part of the ongoing progress and I think policy-wise like we can Mark I appreciate your sometimes in policy we work through like procedures in addition to policies this may be the kind of thing that should if the majority of the school committee votes it which we haven't done yet but like if we were to do that then we would probably look in policy to work through procedures to work through policy like relevant policy if we had to if it was a policy level piece and then you know work through it um but the calendar is our first step right now you know given where we're at in this process of needing to actually approve a calendar honestly um and
187so then I think Amanda's recommendation of making sure you collect feedback in the next year is so crucial because you have to make adjustments I think I think in the past looking past three years like we did the late start days we did this we tried different things yes and they didn't really work and I I think at that point like we will get the feedback you know uh in some form or other and then we'll have to make adjustments so I think that's going to be crucial and figure out and have these discussions and I'm glad the student reps are coming in because they're also able to tell us their perspective and the hardships that they face when they have to you know and also get better about um scheduling so um I think
188I mean I was I get in some instances we might not have the perfect solution so I get it and I don't think this is anywhere near perfect honestly um but you know I guess it's worth a shot I think it'll be good to collect data no matter what we do honestly since we've uncovered through this process so much I think that's important for us to do whatever we're going to do right if we're changing anything we want to know how it impacts and make sure it's changing for the better for people so I think yeah I would just caution folks not to uh sort of for the committee of next year to not sort of do a survey of a well no of a policy or you know that really you know order for
189it to for folks to the community collectively experience it you would have to give it a couple of years that's true that's true to make because if you asked me that year if I felt fully included but it was in my holiday I might say no I might say no so then there's already a bias there right you have to give it a few years of implementation before you begin surveying folks now you might want to do a survey around did you know the holiday did you have enough information because then that just tells you that there might be more information that needs to be given right so that there isn't confusion so I just think in terms of the I just be careful with what is asked with something that's supposed to take a
190number of years before collectively the community uh experiences the impact but I think with the six scenario it is absolutely crucial that you do the recognition in schools it's so important so that students feel they're not waiting till year three to be recognized to be to be seen yeah absolutely for sure yeah so I think that piece needs to be expedited honestly and uh we work on that this spring so that we're ready for some positive changes around that because I think I think when you kind of roll this out I think that would be really important for people to understand that you know it's it's not just you know we're just approving this calendar because we're already in February and we don't have a calendar for next year but really we're doing this in
191a way that's toart right we have this part and at this moment this feels the most inclusive way of doing it but this other part so that you know we're not waiting 3 years to be seen M so I I I'm like I'm just really really struggling with it like I I we talked a lot and I think it's you know I'm playing it out so we have the calendar part of this is like if I'm if I'm a parent or a student and I get it and obviously there's communication around it but do you is there the need to say this then like projecting like okay then this would be the calendar next year and the next year so that people know that they're included that I just there's and you know and I
192know that there's a timeline but I feel like the more we're talking about it like the it's bringing up more questions for me with the six scenario like there's they're just like logistically and procedurally and I know we can say that those things have to happen later but I I think that's where you we get stuck and this is a very new it it is a very new scenario and and and I know I probably sound like I'm all over the place but I just and you also need an even number of holidays to add now we have five and we would if we're alternating two what happens the third year what's the holiday you pay do the fifth and the first okay and then the second third and so yeah I mean rotate you
193will rotate them so it's not going to be deali and Eid one year it could be Dali and rashash or I think it's a something that I'd encourage the I would look to the policy committee to put something together that again explains that not just for us but for for the town that I think you could go ahead and map it out based upon you know I mean we could draft calendars two years in advance like some districts do that have may we could vot 27 calendar that they would be approving now yeah or even just on the back of this calendar is essentially a write up of this is how we think about represent holidays within the scenario these are the five holidays this is the for the next 5 years here's how they
194will fall I think those are things that can and should be included I think the other thing is you mentioned with like reverting back to the original scenario is that I could see a scenario in which the school committee brings this up again next year because the negotiations right uh those groups are amable to removing those days and then that opens up other doors which again has been shared before is like those doors right now are closed m not sure if they will open if they open then those are different possibilities and different conversations but we could also put calendar for the next three years and make sure that all all five days are recognized and so that people know that hey my holiday is not on this calendar this year but it is next
195year and so on and so forth and just vote on it so that we could do that within the next we could do that like before April you know and then and then that way we can wait to your point collect feedback in 3 years right like did how did this process go but here's our calendar for the next three years so okay we made in seconded a motion a while ago I I guess I would like to know can we vote on that motion remind me of the motion again that we we are going to do the two-day rotation motion well the motion is just for the calendar as you see with adding dewali and Eid as days off for neck not at sorry these don't have any holidays right now so adding the
196two that we had previously and then adding no not the two previously just adding two days y for next year yes sorry I'm already confused yep and so that's I'm a very visual person I have very hard time to imagine what you look like from year to year from now on like with the two floating holiday thing it just very confusing it would make the the last day of school would be 1th the 17th for next year year yes so the other thing too is like we would have to depending on when those holidays fall every year we will have to make sure that we're still staggering those yep half days and PD days because what I would like to see less of is you know not full weeks of school because I think that's
197going to be really challenging MH and maybe I don't know maybe some months might have to have two PD days if the holiday depending on when the holidays fall you know yeah and and just that's in the context of you know here March 3rd is the last PD time for the district all the early releases and PD days are completed by March 3rd because it makes sense from curriculum instruction standpoint to frontload that time in the first half 2third of the year so it can be benef official in the year so that's also a part of it you're going to have more interruptions early you know in the first half of the year so that's look I I think um I think there's more we can do clearly to move for move ahead um I
198think we should take a vote if we have a tie we have a tie then we'll have to figure out what we're going to do but um are people comfortable with that recognizing that another one of my community agreements is finding comfort with discomfort so there's that too um easier said than done all right last qu Last Words yeah last question and and this probably points to where my brain is I'm just gonna ask it this has to be voted on tonight this has to be decided tonight you date the colors real quick and they one will project it you want to see I don't know how easy is to move the last days the days I don't think you need update on the right people are waiting on it so like historically we're late
199right now I think normally it's January that we've done this so yeah we are late but always late that's why it's always I think my question it's back to the idea that we could keep talking about this every meeting for the rest of the year because it's just that hard there is no it's we're it's not like we're going to land upon a perfect solution that we haven't found yet whatever we end up choosing to do is going to be imperfect it's going to be upsetting to some people and we just are going to have to do our best to make it to to implement it in the best possible way so Anna was being a wiiz and just for visuals was just trying to update the actual picture and then I just um at
200this point I know it's getting late and the things we have left to do hopefully are pretty straightforward and not super time consuming oh sorry guys knowing that we have so much on our plates still with the budget for the next couple meetings I just feel like if we can so what was that achieve a consensus of some kind tonight I think that's kind of slly the bottom of June cut important to be able to do I'm sorry to this in Des in design I know all right I appreciate having the visual I still cannot convince myself that this is fair if if Chinese you is so important to me I will take my kids out of school regardless of what but I never did I cry because this is it means a lot but
201to be honest with you whether or not Luna New Year recognized on the calendar of we have adopted different ways of celebrating this day we don't have to take our kids out from school on that day instead we bring the celebration into the school I think the marginalized group will always me marginalized the with the five days that we have on the on the calendar conversation right now there are still going to be a lot of marginalized group who are not represented in the schedule how are we going to be justifying that is Justice for everyone so I I just cannot convince myself agreeing on any calendar that using the name of equity and inclusion but as a two is actually when you look at it in another way it is not equity and inclusion
202for everyone when you think about every everyone anything that we recognize on the calendar it is excluding someone so instead of having us make this decision of what should be included in the calendar let the people choose what they care about and take those days off especially at this time that we do not have a contract for the future years we don't know what the teachers want the we we have to accommodate what the teachers want because without the teachers our students are not learning right if we do not have enough teacher in the school running the show even our students show up there's no there's no result coming out from it so we still have to please what the teachers really want and without the contract the renewal contract all the those new things
203we trying to add into the future years it doesn't make sense so instead of having these two floating day I would suggest us to go with what we have in front of us the final version with no days off with whatever the contract have said told us to do collect data in the future year and then look at it that those data again they again if as I said if this day is very important to me I'm going to take my kids out of school anyway but if I can find an alternate alternative way to celebrate it I will do it because education come first so I think we should go with this new fi the finalized version that we have in front of us instead of putting back the two folding days let's have
204the contract finalized let's collect the data from next year on how how many how many percent of our student body and and staff and and teacher teachers are going to be out on these different kinds of holidays perhaps these holidays are not the most common times of among our students and staff and student body perhaps there something else inste it could be this one day right before the end of school that just hanging there or or maybe that is this Friday right after the winter break so in I think we should just collect the data from from a fresh level ground and then propose any changes or suggestions on holiday observations that's what I want to say thank you B and I think clearly it's just very heart Bel thank you for sharing your own
205family's experience and we all recognize that no two families are the same we're all sitting here with different perspectives I hope I've conveyed appreciation I don't think I ever could fully like not for nothing but we've been grappling with this very difficult topic that is emotional that is personal we've been experiencing a lot of personal Outreach emotional Outreach we're sitting at this conver conversation respectfully I think listening and trying to do our best even with very you know some different perspectives and ideas and and I just appreciate your vulnerability with sharing that I think what we should do is we have a motion on the um table we should vote on that depending on the outcome of that we can make another motion we need to get to a place where we have four five
206or six people in favor of something in order to be able to move forward and I it's painful I I really you know I know that um so let's just see what we can do so that we're able to move forward and this isn't the end of it thank you for your patience you've just had to sit here this whole time I'm really thank you for that um can we take a vote on the motion that we have with which which Anna you reflected actually here and B you made a um you were sort of moving toward proposing an alternative motion yes so depending on the outcome of this vote here we'll see about that okay so um all in favor of this calendar that we're looking at here which reflects adding two days off
207which it which are floating days on on a rotational basis with work to be done to flush out that procedure for our district going forward all in favor of this scenario okay all opposed and I'm going to say that b you made a very strong case for those marginalized groups right like I I celebrate a lot of several holidays in here that are not even listed um on the side so I I do uh I remember in the survey we had a Syrian New Year which is important there might be a few people that celebrate that this you know in our community and uh so um we're never going to be inclusive so to your point making an argument on this the sake of being inclusive doesn't this isn't it so I'm so I appreciate
208your perspective thank you so that motion fails so um would someone like to make another motion to see if we reach a different outcome I think the other motion B sounds like you're ready to make that motion which is to revert back to the draft we started this evening with yes I want to make a motion to approve the 2025 26 Calendar school calendar that's presented to us um in the folder with no holidays off for the next school year so that we can collect data from the community from our students and teachers to make sound decisions in the future school calendar I just wouldn't know if the Christmas Eve remains here M could I make a well maybe we have to wait for that but that would be my question is could could it
209even be a half day or something Christmas Eve or is that a a must day off I'm just it just in the sense of I I I do think it's and I think that came up at the last meeting that there are people who you know celebrate Christmas eve and those who aren't and or is it the feeling that there would just be nobody at school that would be my my feeling uh I mean I'd want more data on I'd worry about Staffing ratios and the number of students I think like to me that is that's another piece we've talked about previously is again like you don't want to schedule a day of school that people can't show up to whatever whatever for whatever reason that might be culturally speaking within our community if you
210have majority of kids not show up and I don't know we have no similar to the other things in toal's point on like Good Friday other like we have no data actually on how many people this impacts which is kind of why we did the survey because that was one of my concerns about removing Good Friday and um the Jewish holiday as well just like what what is the impact on our our staffing and point that's been brought up by members of the M man of Faith clergy Association at different points as well um for those two days I think that my perspective would be that increased on and so I just I worry about us putting in the district in that position and also doing that without talking to staff so just a point
211of order you made the mo the motion I don't think it was seconded yet okay Amanda seconds is there any further discussion of it I think I think that's probably likely I think it's that's what we're naming is this is not the sick this is not the people around this table that only are participating in the like privileging of Christmas Eve it is something that I think we would really run risk of um not being able to staff buildings for that day and I think that would require further exploration and thought to make that as a step maybe if this is the direction we're moving then that's part of the process that follows from here where we continue to understand what's possible and what makes sense but the Motions made and seconded can we vote
212on it any final comments this is this is our we're a six person board I think we could use a seventh person just but anybody everyone okay all right so all in favor I I'm really struggling with this one I'm struggling on both sorry I to finish the oh sorry fine I don't know procedur if we need to finish the vote where we talk before so that all in favor was two opposed yeah I'm yeah this is why School committees have odd numbers long meetings so I would I would also feel to Ba's earlier point we are leaving someone out and I feel like the calendar as we see it or saw it earlier today and even later today um does not recognize all the holidays celebrated by students in our district and I think
213that's what's missing for me um it recognizes major holidays but I think if we're truly being inclusive right those need to be listed and um I don't know if that data can be collected quickly because I think that would be important I know some of it was mentioned in the surveys um but I don't know I just you're talking about listing them on the side yeah somehow to make it feel more representative of our school Community I think we can continue like that those are I think those are sort of like housekeeping level edits that can continue to be layered on like moving me after school yes I think that's all part of like how we go forward I think that our task here essentially is really just to decide when is The District in
214session when do we have school when do we not have school like so those because I mean we also don't have the Franklin style appendix yet here which I think we've broadly agreed is like something we would like to include which could to your point reflect additional ones that aren't here yet but also with that extra information that's educational you know I think that would be important we'll do that but those are I think those are pieces that happen after we've approved the actual first and last day of school with like what our day off in between for the purpose of scheduling PD yeah planning Etc so I I I I am a little bit um FL mixed with like I'm worried we're at an impass because we just voted for to against that motion
215but we didn't have a majority for the previous motion um and this is stretching my shair sorry was me complicating it skill set so no not sure what to do other than have to move Mo it have to table it I don't know what else to do but I don't know what other information people are needing I don't think any of the information that even tabling it will get us we will be able to collect the data that we need to make an informed decision on this at this point I think that's kind of the challenge so we I I guess we could go with a temporary solution but I don't think we could necessarily phrase it it around being inclusive I think it's just accommodating the holidays that you know recognizing some major holidays
216in here so is that kind of returning to the previous motion I think yeah I would say yeah with those two days all right so then I think we need to re I think we need to revote I'll make a motion to approve the syy 26 Calendar with the edits of adding in Dali as a day off and adding in Eid aler as a day off and procedural edit of moving the uh March 19th uh conference after school conferences and subsequently moving the last day school to June 17 and doing all the followup we've discussed gu I'll second that all in favor okay all opposed okay all right thank you all very much deep respect for each of you just want to say and we'll keep going so policy subcommittee oh geez I think we
217just talked about it for like the last hour and a half um so I think um outside of the calendar discussion we have the um the Title Nine policies um that have been put into our folders I think the um I think we need to do an expedite vote on the previous version before the voting we did back in August um so it's really um so we didn't really discuss it I think there's language in there that um sorry I need to find it yeah policy AC ACR or acab yep can you clarify just what specifically was changed within I didn't see um I don't see a red lined yeah version which makes it hard to even get to a vote tonight for myself thought they were going to put a red line that what
218I yeah this is a reversion back to the previous it's a reversion to the previous but I would still love to see what yeah that means um so maybe we can try to find that I think just I'm just wonder the general framing do we have to take a vote on this today we do why because um there are Title Nine well do you want to answer this question yeah I mean it we've now you know we've gotten word from the federal government that they have reverted the Title Nine Rags back to 2020 or whatever the was right so we want to be aligned with that with our policy correct but I think we did hear tonight and I thought it was a compelling statement that there's a lot of stuff coming down right all
219these orders but the reality is that how quickly we react to it is also an important balance um and while I do think it's important for us to be align I and I would like to see exactly what those changes are and then I'm also curious what other things are we doing to protect our students who are vulnerable um given the changes that have come down um but not seeing that here so I just don't feel equipped to do it today so one point of clarification this isn't an executive order actually it's a court order so that's a little extra like framing that should be provided we got the um the guidance from our legal council it's um it was from January 10th um and it's a a federal court vacating the changes to Title
2209 regulations that the Biden administration had put into place that then were challenged and F and um removed prior to the new Administration taking office so it just to not confete um because I do think that what was raised in public comment is important and that and especially as it pertains to transgender student athletes like that is something that we will have to work through um I my understanding so correct me if I'm wrong because if we don't have to vote on this tonight I do think given the time given the you know the need for the red line we would ideally be able to postpone this all things being equal but my understanding was that there are some current investigations underway that require our policies to be aligned with the most like up to-date
221legal references that's accurate yeah it was that wanting to avoid our exposing ourselves by proceeding in investigations that with with out ofd language in our policies um oh yeah wouldn't the law super law sued if it needs to yeah yeah yes so maybe it's uh so that's why I'm I'm wondering is it I mean this is just what Dr pavich how he kind of represented it to us in the conversation so I know it's challenging because you weren't there and he's not here now um yeah I just I I find it hard to vote on I just have no idea what I'm voting on and it do feel great and again I Title 9 is not like just kind of a serous little thing it's very important protects a lot of really important groups and
222so again I totally understand kind of agreeing with following what we are required to do by law but I think the district can do that superseding policy we can't create a policy that forc them to do something illegal anyways and so I would love to slain this point the opport to see what the changes are and discuss it a bit more to make that clear for us and to make it clear for the members of our community who are you know most impacted by this too we okay with you y all right so we'll do that then we um Qui make sure that we get more precise Red Line versions thank you and bring that back next time um I don't think there was anything else under policy for tonight right yep okay so we
223can quickly move through these other pieces um facilities is next though so you so facilities was pretty um was actually our quickest meeting ever that we had for facilities we um uh we just got an update from our facilities director Tom McCarthy he talked about just kind of um gen hold on one second sorry 14 window um so he talked about uh just a few housekeeping things U boiler Cunningham and kic Cott um lost a rib they had to um they were put able to put in a a claim and was able to get reimbursed for like $188,000 which was great um so they can get it repaired um so no big issues in terms of you know the cold weather um the the you know like they' had like really good um I think
224um this you know in terms of like they've had like custodial staff and so on and so forth have really done a really good job with the snow this winter uh they had some college students who came in and uh painted the school's boy Boiler Room floors like over break which was kind of neat you know I was like that's that's awesome he was able to get some seasonal help um they're trying to continue to try and repair the inverter at Cunningham K cot um so um that was one they haven't we had talked about the Outdoor Learning spaces um uh but we haven't been able to make any progress just because it's been so cold so that's something that's going to hopefully um Matt morang one of our um members who was nice enough
225to volunteer to lead that up he's hoping to in the next couple months just you know be able to revisit that and provide more of an update uh and then I did share with them um the update on the Cunningham third and fourth floor which is also part of the capital um uh committee's report um but you know it was it was unanimously passed through capital and also through a warrant committee a couple weeks ago and we have had full support to get that pushed through so I think in the interim with all the other things that we're dealing with it was great to get the support to get some some um help with the space at those two schools so and hopefully I think we're going to try and stagger it um so that
226if we can kind of time it to start so will be part of February town meeting uh it's on the warrant uh so hopefully it'll get greenlighted and we can begin the work so that the fourth the third floor project third floor will be ready for the September of the following year so of 20125 I mean of this year and then next year be the fourth floor so so that was it was a very quick meeting when does the fourth floor work start when would that start next year but we would order all the equipment that's was the big thing with the lead time on the equipment it start this summer yes but the third floor would start this summer yes sorry so by hopefully by September there some logistical things that were brought up
227like Camp Cunningham and so on and so forth but Peter said he'll take care of all that so we got it wizard we got it yes um but yeah so hopefully by by September you know would um have you know there was some discussion about the library what happens to that you know could kind of exist throughout the building it could be in one classroom and so on and so forth just to kind of get us through that next year and then go into the so that's good that's great yeah that's the main highlight of the capital report is that a support from capital um to move that request forward to town meeting February 24th 25th so hopefully that will pass but it's really good to have their support along with the warrant committee and
228um over the next few weeks Capital will be continuing to hear more about and vote on FY 26 Capital requests as we move towards the warrant for the Maytown meeting so that's all I have have for that update um and then that just leaves evaluation subcommittee so we did meet I I belatedly put it had been in the um I think the evaluation subcommittee folder but I put it in the folder for this meeting and it's really just FYI at this point um this we met Anna Mark and I with Peter to kind of look over the timeline for the evaluation process going forward um from here and uh we have a good plan so we put some dates together here I think you can just you know look over that at your leisure and
229we can Circle back to it um but essentially what we can anticipate is that um it will be um sorry that should be February 2nd we would you know look at the no sorry m m March 2 sorry March 5th that's the next time we're going to talk about this March 5th we're going to look more in detail at the Timeline the rubric the process and get prepared and then it will be March 14th we receive evidence from Peter and from there it will unfold pretty quickly so that we can complete a thorough and thoughtful evaluation process by April um I would suggest at this point why don't we just hold questions you can look through this and we can bring it up NE um at a future meeting to make sure that these dates
230will all work for people um B I know like you have a spring break I don't know if you're like that last year that impacted timing for you march I'm here um okay so March 19th is when Yeah March 19th you're here so we have a meeting that's a meeting where we will have received the evidence and we will have the chance with Peter to ask him questions just to make sure we have full understanding of what's been presented there so um everyone okay on that for right now okay um okay we don't have minutes to approve tonight I think we can just next meeting we have our budget we have Title Nine and we'll see what else we have but any anything else no thank you you it is before 11 sry I want
231to know what Regina's bet was she's really really usually really good at I'm sorry but thank but yes but you know what thank you thank you for all this great discussion I'm I'm I feel like on a number of really important very different things tonight we had really good and important discussion we'll be together over the next week um you can follow up with me individually again about Monday 5:00 p.m. Tuesday 7:00 p.m. with the select board that has that has been posted so um where's the select board um it's at the Council on Aging yeah and we we'll get more information about as I get more information I'll share that with you but my expectation is we are the main agenda item it should be early in the meeting um and I do have
232a question question about that meeting what is kind of the strategy of going and presenting there like what is like I know we talked about some of the areas and I apologize for bringing this up now just like just thinking um we talked about like you know closing the Gap right like that 2.3 or whatever it is but like what when like what is kind of our plan to getting closer to that for you know to kind of justify if it's a level service budget or whatever number they that they recommended or what was kind of proposed out there like what is kind of what is our strategy because I mean it's you know like CU if we're all working towards the same goal and we're helpful then I guess it makes sense but we
233haven't really discussed what the approach is or we just kind of kind of like we're just jumping up with comments like how you're right it's kind of coming together here quickly at the end before this like right before this timing of this meeting I think Monday morning Finance the topic is this FY 26 so I would say for those of is that is that a crossposted meeting for has that meeting been posted already because I was wondering if we could just post it as a school commit cross post it we can't it's not too late because said we haven't had that opportunity to talk I'm just wondering because like there are going to be a lot of questions and there's no I think like there's no strategy to PO so it would have to be
2348: a.m. because it's Monday at 8: a.m. so it' have to be tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. posted which it won't be like I would hate to go in there and just kind of not make a strong case for it or you know and are we all aligned on what the what the case is that we're making you know is it level service is it needs Bas is it you know what and what do we really need and you know what is that number that will not put us in the situation next year where we're need another override you know like we haven't had that discussion so and I would love you know basically like I would love Katie's kind of guidance on that so that we're all aligned on what we're asking for it's all
235very fair I don't like I would hate because I just you know we're going in front of a committee that's going to have a we'll be there's going to be a lot of feedback right like there's going to be a lot of scrutiny there's going to be a lot of things so are we prepared to go in there because I don't feel prepared I'm happy to pretend I am but I'm not fake till you make it well and I do think this is where our finance subcommittee you know they are coming into it with the most knowledge sort of built into the way the it's you're you're totally right it like better would have been to have one more week to have that like full Fuller opportunity we just don't have that so I think
236in terms of what we could do I mean what do you think makes the most sense I think finances meeting Monday morning I would say anybody who can should uh who you know can attend that meeting um I would say we need to probably get an update following that meeting that shares sort of the finance subcommittees like where you all come out with that and that is going to be that is going to be important for guiding us right yeah I mean that was the plan for for Monday morning yeah I mean I think the the presentation the conversation with select board is not much different than we've had around like what is our level service amount what is our needs it's a matter of we've had we've had no conversation with them and so
237I think it's a matter of walking through a lot of things that we've done we've shared previously with this group right we talked a bit about today even but the prior budget presentations that Katie and Peter have done I think my understanding is they are working to refine those to and they will be having like the presentation to select board we will be there to support and to add color and context and um things like that but it's mostly getting the select board to understand where our level service number comes from and also to try into the point thing you were doing so well earlier around trying to convince around that level service isn't like here are our needs and why these are our needs and why they should be considered within this context of
238an override um because I don't to the point you're making I don't think right now they are I think the conversation is being forced towards a not even level service but potentially more of a bud cut conversation and so we want to make sure the town is clear the select board I should say it's clear on the impacts of that which is a lot of what the color they're adding of like this is what it means to lose what you're talking about and for us on our in to say this is why we're advocating for both level service but also needs funding because of what what our kids deserve and what we need to do to invest in our schools okay so if you want to write down a lot of things you said today
239bringing that would be great otherwise forgot it I'll take some clips rewatch the meeting okay all right okay don't worry thanks all right so make a motion to adjourn second second all in favor e e for