001before April break and um VHS or like virtual high school applications are open and more people seem to be applying than available spots are open. Um some people are applying for like AP classes that aren't offered at our school while others are just applying for like fun electives. Um, also the juniors had an assembly with Stefan Hill, a national speaker on mental health and substance use pre prevention where he shared his inspiring comeback story. Um, and finally, exchange students from Japan visited um, and they got to shadow their pen pals from the pen pal program for a day, providing an educational experience for everybody. Um, that's all. Thank you. Thank you so much. Anybody have any questions, comments? Thanks a lot. Good stuff. Okay, Abashek, did you have anything you wanted to add? Uh, no.
002She pretty much hit everything right on the head. Awesome. Well, we have something very exciting for you now. The AHS chorus, and we're going to get out of the way. Hi everybody. As you know, uh, this past weekend, our bands and chorus, um, participated with about 10,000 other students from around the state. There was 165 bands and 96 choruses the middle and high school level um in the Massachusetts Instrumental and Coral Conductors Association adjudication festival. Um we are very uh proud of our music department. The Ashlin High School Concert Band White earned a silver medal. The Ashlin High School Concert Band Blue earned a silver medal. The Ashlin Middle School wind ensemble earned a gold medal. And tonight we have with us the Ashlin High School Concert Choir who earned a silver medal. I'm gonna
003introduce um their teacher, Miss Mary Nameoth, to tell you a little bit about their performance. Hello everyone. My name is Mary Nameoth. I am the director at the high school. Uh so we sang three pieces at Micah this weekend and we had to sing an ac cappella piece, a piece in a world language and a second piece or a third piece and we're going to sing our ac capella piece. It is called connected. Um and it is going to be our one song that is going to bridge into our spring concert and the theme is elevating LGBTQ plus voices. Um and that is on May 15 at 7 pm. Um all right, shall we do it? Great. [Music] Can you ar That's what I [Music] I don't seems like I'm over here and you're over
004there seems like I'm over here and you're over [Music] [Applause] [Music] thereusion and you seems Take the confusion. It's not hard to miss and take the hard [Music] [Applause] [Music] fact. I am a part of you. You are a part of me and together we are one body. I am inside your head. You are inside my heart. We together perfect from the start. I am you army. That's what I said. I am you army. It seems like I'm over [Music] here. Seems like I'm over [Music] here. It's not hard to do. It's just the hard I am a part of you. You are a part of me. And so together we are one body. I am inside your head. You are inside my heart. We together perfect from the start. I am a part of
005you. You are a part of me and so together we are one body. I am inside your head. You are inside my heart. We together perfect from the start. I am a part of you. You are a part of me. And together we are one body. I am inside your head. You are inside my heart. We together perfect from the [Applause] start guys. Sure. [Laughter] That's the best part of the whole night. Anyway, it's only going downhill. Oh, we got can approve a good trip to Quebec City. That'd be great. Yeah, I think we have to do the war and approvals first. Let's get it over with. Yeah, that was great. Mhm. So good. Good way to start the day. Yeah, we're in much better moods now. All right, Paul. Warn approvals, please. Right. Uh,
006between March 13, 2025 and April 9th, 2025, I, Paul Kendall, authorized by my signature payables in the amount of $944,21427. This includes general fund expenses of $655,94168, revolving expenses of uh two $271,31027, grant expenses of $16,899.39, and meals tax expenses of $62.9. Thanks, Paul. Okay, now we're at the out ofstate travel proposal. Alex, can you hear us? Yes, I am hearing you all. Good evening. Hello. We hear you. Introduce uh Alex Waldron. She's a French teacher at Ashlin High School and she's proposing a trip to Quebec City uh in combination with Maynard High School uh next February. So, Alex, I'll turn it over to you. So, um, thankfully I've, uh, I have some really good friendships that I've established over the years, uh, with Maynard High School folks because I, um, started my career here
007in Massachusetts as a teacher there. And the teacher um in Maynard, the French teacher does this trip to Quebec City for Winter Carnival, which is a really um wonderful cultural experience um for students to be able to partake in. And he's been doing this for several years. He does it every other year. And this past year, he was not able to um get enough signups because Maynard is a very small school. And so when there are other trips going out the same year, which this is the case for this past February, um it's tough for people to be able to fund several different things. So he was proposing to table it till next year. So he's going to try to he was wanting to um propose it again. And we happened to bring it up
008in conversation and talk about it. And um he you know I said that would be really fun if we could do a trip like that because I have been teaching about Winter Carnival for many many years and it's a wonderful way for students to be able to go and see what this cultural experience is about practicing their French in a real life setting. they're going to be able to um you know I would give them little tasks and things like I have all these ideas of what I want them to do while we're there um and we'd be able to join forces with um this teacher group and he's he's experienced with this particular company Jump Street Tours. He says it's fantastic. They even provide um nighttime chaperoning as part of the whole package. So
009we don't have to stay up till you know I've taken many trips over the years in my career. And that's the most unfun thing to have to do is but it's important to check in on the kids, make sure everybody's safe and sound all night long, so forth and so on, you know, taping doors, all that stuff. We don't have to do that as chaperones. Um that is taken care of for us uh through this tour company. They also offer many different um ways to finance this trip. There is a an initial um deposit of $249 per person and then the final payment is due 60 days prior to departure and between that they can set up payment plans based on preference of the group. Um that would be something you know to talk about
010with families monthly payments or bimonthly whatever um is the preference and um that would be something we could discuss with the tour operator uh once we have uh proposed different scenarios. They'll have access to a portal um that will take them to Jump Street which is the name of the tour company. It is a bus trip. So, we would be leaving on the very early morning hours uh on a Friday um Friday, February 6th. Right. I don't have the date. It's the 6th. 6 through9. Yes. February 6th. Um, so they would uh be picking up the uh the Ashland students first and then we would head to Maynard, I believe, and then we would head to um on the road and then it's a luxury motor coach. Um students would arrive there um sometime in
011the afternoon um and then we would be checking into our hotel. Well, the hotel is not uh yet booked because they they're waiting to see what the size of the trip would be. Um but then as soon as we would get that information, we would share that with you, of course. And then there's all kinds of activities that are planned as part of this um wonderful cultural enrichment experience. And in between, like I said, I I I have these ideas for what I would like to do with the students to have them do little tasks with their French because although it is open to anyone, of course, um I would like to um open it up primarily to French students first and then uh based on numbers, we could open it up to anyone else
012who was interested. So, it would be a lot of fun for the French students to be able to have these little tasks to do and practice their language um skills. So, they would be doing all kinds of stuff like um toboggoning. That's 7:30 p.m. the first night we would arrive. Uh they would be going to Chateau Frontanak, the area. That's the big chateau that everybody thinks about. There's a big wooden tobogon run that they would go to. And my, by the way, my son, who is now a senior at Maynard High, went on this trip, um, when it was run, the last time it was run, and they had a great time. Unfortunately, that was the year, if you recall, um, that there was this huge freeze where it was like -20° here and it
013was like50 up there. So, I don't know if you remember that that was a year we had no peaches and stuff because all the buds were frozen off in February and it was pretty bad. So, unfortunately, some of the outdoor events had to be cancelled because it was too cold even for that. You know, the the teacher, Mr. Trudeau who was unable to be here tonight because he had a prior engagement um was he he has done this trip so many times and it's like a science like he knows exactly what to do and he is very good about communicating with parents and that's what I would be doing as well. Um and he was sending us updates about the windchill factor and it was pretty scary stuff. It was so cold. But he has
014these packing lists so that everybody knows what to pack so that they're going to be super warm. And I, you know, my son had a wonderful time. Even though they had to adjust the schedule and and do some more indoor things, they still got to do a few outdoor things, just not as many. But generally speaking, hopefully we won't have that kind of weather this time around. Um, and then uh the next day, Saturday, is a full day. So then, you know, they get their quason and their chako at uh in a quaint cafe in the morning for breakfast and then they go explore Quebec's old city, the Cartier Petite Champlan, and then they go to the Winter Carnival. It is the opening weekend of the two-eek winter carnival. So, the Bonom Des who is
015the the funnyl looking big snowman, you know, of uh Quebec, the uh he's the mascot of the whole event. So, if you ever go online, you can check it out. Um what is Winter Carnival? And then you'll see this big old snowman. He's enormous. That's the Bonham. Uh so, they get to take pictures with him. That's that's like a highlight. It's going to be fun. And then they get to explore and it's like a carnival atmosphere. It's really fun and there's parades and there's um typical like uh maple sugar candy and and things that they can learn how they make it and then maybe try it and it's just like you know all these different kind of cool things that are very very authentic. Um then they're going to do like a scavenger hunt type
016of thing there as part of the activities in the afternoon. factf finding mission in old Quebec where language history and cardio skills are put to the test. Then they're going to learn some history uh about some of the battles that took place in the plains of Abraham and in 1759 1760. We're going to learn about that. Um they're going to go into the deile darn which is the parade. Uh they're going to get to see what that's all about. Um and have a nice dinner. So the the trip cost includes breakfast and dinners as a group. We all have that together. And then they would need the students would need to bring some spending money for on the on the-go kind of uh lunches and snacks. And it's not uh anything that's going to be
017super expensive. I remember it being very manageable for my son. you know, he gave him gave him a few bucks and he can buy his Skittles or whatever he wanted and then have some good lunch with his friends in between. Um the next day is another full day Sunday. There's more activities and they get to um check out some of the other areas in the vicinity. The quot Dub, which is referred to Quebec's bread basket, has deep agricultural roots. So, we're going to learn about that. We're going to um do some art, you know, observation. We're going to observe some beautiful mosaics and a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta at the Saint Dan Debor Pre Shrine. Um we're going to check out the tallest waterfalls in the province, the Mon Ms, and learn about some historic
018battles and uh you know, different legends. And then we're going to go to Valkier. That um is the um there's some some fun slides there. The avalanche, the Himalaya inner tube rental is included. Uh then they're going to go to a sugar shack and they're going to um check out the tradition of maple syrup production and the sugar shack story. And then the Arabier dug the authentic French Canadian Caban auk which is the sugar shack um that they're going to actually go and have a 17th century meal and get down to traditional songs and dances um and they're going to try to make their own maple butter. So uh the next day then we go to the hotel. So, the days usually end around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. And that's where I envision having uh
019in the evenings like a little um like a recap sort of like you know what are some of the things that we did and you know I'm going to ask them to do some journaling. So, I have some ideas about how I'm going to tie the curriculum into this. And then on Monday, we get up at 7:00, have our bre or we get to breakfast at 7. Um, and then we're going to pack up our luggage, but then we still have some stuff going on. We're going to do some cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Uh, have some lunch in Old Quebec. And then we're going to leave around noon, 12:30, and stops for dinner on route. Approximate time back at arrival at Maynard High 900 PM and approximate time arrival at Ashland High is 9:45 PM
020on Monday, February 9th. Then you're back. It sounds amazing. And you've given us so much detail that probably my colleagues aren't going to even have any questions. Usually they're peppering people with questions, but I think you've answered all of them preemptively. So, uh, it sounds amazing. Almost all of them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Mr. Kendall, I know he always has a couple always has the same question. I I know what he's going to ask. It's always the same question, but I'll let him do it. I don't want to take away his thunder. Uh so, one of the things we always ask uh particularly with uh the trips that are uh on the more expensive side is uh how are we messaging the kids and identifying those that might need support uh to make sure that not
021only do we offer the support, but that doesn't preclude them from even raising their hand. and and you know, you you know, you think about a trip that might cost $1,000. Some kids just wouldn't even think about even asking their their families for for that kind of money, but we want to be able to identify them. And then even you mentioned uh that the uh you might need that they will need some money during the day for for lunches and things like that. And you know, making sure we can identify those kids and provide those supports. So, I don't know if you've thought about how you're going to message that and and make sure you uh you know, we identify the ones, you know, get everybody that's interested to raise their hand and then we'll
022figure out how we can support the ones that may need it. Uh yes, I uh absolutely totally agree with um making it as equitable as possible so that everyone can partake and I completely understand that. That's something to um be careful with the messaging. absolutely want everyone to feel like, you know, if they want to do this that there's a way. So, um I am going to investigate further who I would need to speak to um in more detail. Uh, for example, I know like I'm not familiar with the whole procedure of that part of it yet because um I've I'm more familiar with other districts that I've worked at in the past where you would I'm assuming it's something similar where you would talk to the counseling department, guidance counselors um who work with
023students and who are familiar with situations in terms of like who is eligible for uh free and reduced lunches and things like that to identify students that might be on the list who are interested and you know to be able to reach out and make plans. So I would definitely investigate that. Um, in the past I've done some little fundraising so that we have uh like we would fund raise for like the the the incidentals and you know to have some spending money or to be able to um cover the the tips that you would want to give to the driver and that kind of thing that comes as part of this. So, um, I've done things like, you know, the restaurant fundraisers where you go to, you know, you sign up with a restaurant,
024they give you a percentage of, you know, those are pretty easy. There's no overhead there. Um, so I'm definitely open and willing to think about ways to make it something that is um, within the reach of every student that is interested. Awesome. And I also plan on Yes. I also plan on speaking to Mr. Chidau, the the teacher at at Maynard High, to see what he has done in the past for some ideas. Awesome. And and Jim, this is probably more a question for you. Uh given that it's a joint trip, uh I assume we'll want to, you know, cross Corey with with the chaperones and and people that are involved in from both schools. Yeah. As I said, the department head over there is questionable. Yeah. Just sort of for those who are listening,
025it's my wife. Uh right. And we'll each have to take our own votes, but at least in Mayor they've taken this trip before, so they're a little bit more familiar with the trip than we are, but it sounds wonderful. We've got all the details and uh we're happy to know that um you're mindful of the the cost and how to talk with the students. And so there are no more questions. I'll take a motion. Move to approve the out ofstate travel proposal for the trip to Quebec, Canada of February 6 to the 9th of 2026 as presented. Second. All in favor? I I have fun. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Uh, thanks. Next up, we have our um public hearing FY2026 school budget. Um, just before I open the hearing, I'm just uh remind everybody of
026how uh what the process will be. Mr. Adams is going to fill us in on um the budget process, how we got to this point. I I will can tell you that I'm looking out at the audience and you probably can't see them from home, but all the administrators are here um and they have been working on this really hard all year uh with Mr. Adams and we've had a number of meetings ourselves which Mr. Adams will tell you about. Um then he will present the budget and then I do see that there are a number of people online and in the room that may may want to comment. Um if you do, I just ask that you keep your comments to three minutes so that it gives everybody a chance to participate. Um and
027then the committee we will have a discussion and a vote on the budget. So I am going to open the meeting now for the FY2026 school budget. Mr. Adams. Great. Thank you. Uh first you mentioned it. U thank you to the administrative team for being here. Uh this is a process as you know that really starts back in November. Uh so we're typically in at least two budget cycles, sometimes three at the same time. Uh and this year uh in earnest we started in in November and really up through last Saturday right so we've had our meetings we've had two school committee meetings separate budget meetings then we've had two additional meetings with what we call the tri board which is the select board the finance committee and the school committee so uh we've been
028meeting uh throughout every month from November through April and here we are today where I and present a number to you that hopefully is acceptable where we can then submit that to the select board uh as they vote next Wednesday on an overall budget that will go before town meeting. So just some you know guidelines and I mention this every year you know what are we trying to do with our budget? One we have to understand uh that it needs to be fiscally responsible but meeting the needs of our kids, meeting the needs of our students. Uh we we believe in maintaining the staff and programs that we currently have, but trying to increase opportunities for kids as well and make our programs better. Um sometimes we include new personnel, sometimes we don't. And we'll
029talk a little bit about that later on. Uh provide adequate funding and programming. We've got to understand we've got a lot of different buckets of how programming is funded. And we'll we'll talk a little bit about that because I know there's concern, right? There's concern uh from a the lens of state finances but also uh the economic concerns uh at the um you know country level and what could potentially happen to uh those funds and but also meeting our goals, right? Meeting the goals that you put forth uh in our mission, our vision, our our core values. I always like to talk about how or what the size of the Ash public schools is because I don't think people quite fully uh understand uh the the size of of the organization itself. We have 379
030employees uh five schools obviously 221 full-time teachers uh with uh $16,000 16 and change that funds per pupil. So the the cost to fund a child to to educate a child in Ashlin is about 16,000. This numbers is always a year behind if people are trying to look up that data. Uh our 2024 numbers will come out over the summer. We get about 11 million total state aid and funding. I'm going to skip over this just for sake of our objectives. Obviously equity, social emotional learning, resource management, curriculum program. A lot of the budget stuff obviously comes under that resource management. How are we managing what we have? This cuts right to the chase for everyone watching. It's the budget I am proposing is almost a $2.5 million increase over the previous year and that
031equates to a 5.95% increase. Now, this is just the number that the taxpayers vote on. This is not what it costs to operate the Ashlin public schools. Uh which the next slide will show you that this this is what we're asking the taxpayers to help fund. Uh and as you can see and I and I want to be you know clear about the gratitude that I personally have and I think and speaking on if I can on behalf of the school committee uh and the administrative team and I mentioned this at our admin meeting on Tuesday. We are a very fortunate community uh in terms of education and how the town views our education and their willingness to fund education. A a a 6% increase without asking for that dreaded word, the override um is
032an amazing accomplishment within a community. And if you look 4.83, 6.08, 4.8, We are consistently in that four and up range. Well over it's closer to five every single year since I've been superintendent. Um Mike, can you let some of those people? Uh thanks. Uh so that that goes to show, you know, that relationship that I think the school committee's built with the finance committee, the select board, and Michael Herbert, the town manager, we've been able to fund many of our programs. Uh and I'm I'm very thankful for them. This number that you're seeing is a number that that through conversations with the select board and the finance committee and the school committee is a number that we came about on Saturday as the tri board as the three groups. This is a number that
033I presented uh and that they actually fully supported and I want to make that clear. This slide here Mr. Shakyra gets a little, you know, looking at the slide, 79% is is greater than half of the of the of the pie, if you will. But, uh, you know, his OCD kicked in yesterday. He's like, "Jim, I" and honestly, I couldn't quite figure out how to adjust the pie. Okay. I just I can get the I can get the actual percentages in there. I mean, right. So, so if his eyes turn away, it's my fault. Um, but but you know, a little bit of levity, right? 51. Actually, our salaries are about 79% almost 80%. Right. That's that's what it is. Um, with 15% going to contracted services, that's a lot of different things that make
034that up, but but out of district special education costs um are are included in there. Uh, we have um transportation, technology, etc. But the number, and it might be hard to read on the screen, uh, that that I really want to point to is that 48,787,000. That's what it's truly costing to run the National Public Schools. Because the budget we're asking for at town meeting is at 445. That is what the taxpayers are paying for. The remaining, you know, funds to pay for the school come from federal entitlement grants. They come from school choice. They come from fees that we charge families for transportation. Uh they come from state aid. Uh there so there are a lot of different things that come into this. There is a fear that things such as title one, title
035two, title three, title four, the ESSER, excuse me, the IDA EA money uh which is for special education and they fund a lot of salary positions. So let I want to they fund them. there's concern that those funds could go away under the current um you know presidency in terms of what they're looking at in terms of the department of ed and the funding uh if if districts and and states don't fall in line with their beliefs. Uh I'm not quite concerned for FY26. I would be more concerned about FY27. Our numbers were about a million million two is what we rely on. And if those funds go away, we will have to figure out how to absorb that in our current operating budget because those are salaried positions. Those are teachers, those are educators.
036Uh Title One, for instance, you know, a math teacher who's helping our students progress because they're not at grade level or whatever it might be. Um it's an important thing to look at, but like I said, for this year, I think we're going to be okay. Just on this side, Jim. Sorry. Uh, chapter 70. Yeah, that's part of that's part of the correct. So, just be clear on Sorry, let me be clear. Yeah, the chapter 70 funding, which is the state aid that comes in, uh, is part of that 44, but it's the school choice, it's the federal grants, uh, and the the state grants. Those numbers there, uh, are not part of that overall number. We've already taken them out, if you will. Now, this is a crazy screen that you can't read probably
037sitting in the audience who are here. Um, but the one thing in my 11 years is I've tried to be as detailed and as um, you know, for lack of that that term everyone hates to loves to hate is transparent. Um, but I think it's important I think it's important that folks know where we are and how we're getting to that bottom line number. And for me, um, I'm g just try to move this out of the way. Mike, people were trying to get in. They were on my screen. All right. Sorry. No worries. Nobody put it back up. We're good. Okay. Not anymore. It was I just took care of it. We're good. I know. Okay. So, when we look at this stuff again, 80% relates to salaries and we have contractual obligations. We
038have five unions that we negotiated contracts uh last year. So they're in year one of of three-year contracts. So all five of them are in that first year. So next year we're we're taking into account all of the salaries, the cost of living increases. Teachers and and other professionals within the community go from or within the education community go from steps and lanes. So steps meaning years of experience they're going down. Lanes meaning meaning professional development that they may have received. So they move over possibly. So if they go from a bachelor's degree to a master's degree, they're getting more money. And so so those are all things that we factor in to the steps and lanes in the negotiated contracts. But what we also do is we know that there are folks who are
039retiring and we have to take into account when when they're retiring, are we able to um hire a position at a lesser cost than that individual retiring? And the answer is for the most part yes, not always. I think it's important to understand that there are certain uh teaching positions that we're not going to be able to uh replace at a lower cost. And I always use like physics or chemistry. Not that we have we're doing that this year, but those are positions that typically most folks are coming in with really advanced degrees and with a lot of experience. Therefore, you're not hiring someone at a bachelor's degree coming out of a university or um so so that's something we have to look at. Uh and I know the principles are always we want to
040hire the best people. That being said, we've got to be thoughtful and conscientious of of our our salaries and our budgets because we're not making we don't have revenue sources streams, right? We're not making widgets increasing the number that we're making. So then there's uh out of district tuition. um you'll see we have a we have a decrease in our number and Britney's here and um we have done a great job of building programs internally but that doesn't mean we can always educate all of our students in the district. We try we we want our students to be with us but sometimes it's just not possible. Uh and many of the costs are to private schools where you'll see they two years ago uh they had a 14 to 18% increase in their own pricing
041that they were allowed to do at the state level which gets pushed down to local districts. So we've got about a $557,000 increase. And you know it's one of those things it's a moving target. This could change dramatically tomorrow. We could have, you know, students move out, thus reducing that number. We could have students move in, um, thus increasing that. Or we could have students who are currently in the district who we we have been working hard and we just haven't found the right fit for them and and we just have to understand that that is something that um is always um out there. uh Erin Lash Chappelle. I obviously she's been here twice maybe already uh three times. Um talking about the uh Ashlin Middle School schedule uh and um that was her big
042charge at the beginning of the year and she's still with us at least. I'm thankful for that. Um, but it came uh with some potential savings and I want to stress that the folks who are part of those half teams, no one lost a job because of our change in our schedule. We had retirements in different buildings as well as one in the high school, one in the middle school where the teachers who were part of those teams were able to go into the go into those positions. So, but there's a savings because the retirement of the teachers who who were leaving, we didn't replace with someone outside and keep that position. Um, so it was it was two full-time teaching staff districtwide. You know, we're we're looking at reducing um about 16 positions in
043this budget. This is not um you know to a tune of $630,000. um our communications director, Esmer Kasus. Um that position uh we eliminated. Uh we have um pair of professionals that are um some that we had positions in the past where uh we didn't fill the role so they were on our books uh and we've we've moved them off in this budget. Uh that doesn't mean in September the principles in Britney might come to me and say hey we've got we've got needs and we've done that in the past where we've had to add um but to our best analysis at this point in time uh we we've got this flexibility in addition to that um we're moving more to an uh a model of moving away from our dual certified teacher model that
044Warren and Mendes which is uh where a teacher uh who is special ed certified as well as general certification is the special ed leison on for that for students within their classroom. Um and they have an ESP attached to that that room. Uh we are moving to the model we have more at the middle and the high school where there's a uh a special education certified teacher who is attached to um the building andor grade level. Um we believe it's going to be better for our students. um in the first year we've had this conversation in the first couple years it might be a cost savings but uh in long run it may not because of of the way uh teacher salaries escalate more quickly than um ESPs. Uh but we believe it's the best
045model for our kids. Um you'll see we also have some new personnel uh partly because of the uh needs of our of our students. Special education teacher at the high school uh Mendes special education teacher in the warrant that relates directly to the the ESP positions that that were um removing replacing them with special education teachers. Okay. So that's that model. increasing OT uh and speech language. Um there's Oh, you know what's not up there? I see it, Jenna. Yeah, the band. We do have a B. It's It's ESP. Uhhuh. I just caught it myself. Yeah. Yeah, we do. And And it's it I know it's it's factored into the overall number. So, there's a band position, just so we're clear. uh at the Mendes School. Um because with the scheduling change at uh the
046middle school, uh there's going to be a full-time another full-time band music person at at um the middle school. We backfilled another full-time position giving more opportunities for Mendes kids. Uh so that is in there. Um I just I've looked at this 15 times. It Yeah, it Yeah, I swear it's in there. Um there's another slide that shows it's in there, but I I apologize. As long as it's accounted for. Yeah, it's accounted for. That's the question. It is. So 337 figure is accurate. Yeah. So increase in facilities expenses obviously running the buildings, heat, trash removal, uh overtime hours, things of that nature. Um increase in technology, um you know, we have site licenses for many of our our buildings and and student software, etc. uh that goes up every year. The next big line
047item is that $776,000 transportation. Last year to balance the budget, we looked at our transportation uh revolving account and we decided we needed to to utilize those funds to help um in the end balance our budget. We're trying to put that money back into the uh overall uh operating budget. Uh so that's what that's doing here is less reliance on uh revolving funds. So in the end it's the $44,350,743 is what we're looking for in terms of the budget. I think it's important to talk about student enrollment and where we are. Um, and we've we're flat right now and we're projected to be flat over the next couple years. We had a 12% increase over the first um, six years of my superintendency and we're still wondering, Pete still says to me all the time,
048where are all the kindergarten kids? Where are the first grade kids? Because we're we have low numbers, 183. Uh, we're projecting similarly that those numbers for next year. We initially about two years ago were expecting 205 to 210. So we don't know what's happening um to be honest and when we use projections from this company NASDAQ um they're they're not perfect um but you can see coming out of COVID we increased a lot. We had one more big year in 23 24 and this matters to us because the state aid uh is tied into enrollment but it's also tied into uh how we identify our students are the English language learner students special education students low-income students um and it matters in terms of our funding. Can I just go back a paragraph for a
049second? I'm looking at the increased personnel number we talking about in the Mendes um band position. The numbers in that block do add up to the 337. Yeah. And so I just want to make sure that the final final number is correct. Yeah. Okay. It's.5 currently. So essentially it's a 1.0. If you look at the the 92 it's the movement within all that is four different. Okay. So when it drops to the bottom Yeah. And I'll show you that in a second. And that's why we moved it out of there, Chris. It's in the next slide. We moved it out of that new personnel as part of the scheduling change. Yes. Otherwise, we added it there. It's right more money. It's right here. Right. Right. It's on this slide. And and I, you know, knew
050I always count for everything. It's there. Why do I doubt myself? No. So, um, but so because of the new schedule change at at the middle school, um, we're adding a wellness position and a unified arts position, uh, and again, folks would be like, how do you why do you get so granular? $63,000. $63,4. Well, that's our contract. And so, we we sort of slide in the numbers that that we have based on master's degree 2. That's what that right, Chris, that's the number. Okay. Um, so we've got two positions. Well, we also had a reduction of two world language positions at the middle school. Um, we have we have a retiree who's been working with us. Uh, and then the way we're working with world languages, if people were following along throughout the year,
051uh, we've struggled filling these positions. So, the schedule itself will move to uh, the ability to take some have some French experience at the middle school, but 8th grade will become primarily a Spanish one like you would get at the high school. um that curricula. So, we're moving in that direction. Ban moves to full-time. How does this impact That's the That's the Mendes band position. It's here, folks. It's here. Uh it's here. Thanks, Mark. Um reduction of an EL teaching position. We have again, we have movement across the district every single year in terms of the number of students uh who are in um English language acquisition. Well, we have a retirement and because of that retirement, we don't need to fill that position. We can we can move people within the district. Uh so
052it's really in effect a retirement savings. Um we have a retirement of special education inclusion teacher. Again, I talked about um that position. We had someone who was uh in the middle school who can take on that role. So, we had already accounted for their salary, but we're now we can back out the salary of the person who's retiring. So, so there's a lot of, like I said, there's a lot of moving parts to this um that, you know, I sometimes will call the principles and say, you know, are you sure we've got everybody accounted for? And call Chris the same way. But we feel really good about this. Um, but there's the savings for that. The one thing I didn't talk about on the the slide with all the positions was a a staffing
053proposal at Pitway, which we've we've talked about here publicly. Sarah's done a heck of a job uh at Pitway. Uh but it's a job that really after what how many years now? Six. Yeah. After six years, what we know is the needs of our community, the needs of our kids, the needs of our teachers, um is just too much for one individual to be the special education coordinator in that building to do testing, to do training, to to teach, to run meetings in addition to being the principal, if you will, of the building, uh and evaluating staff, managing the day-to-day aspect of it. So, we sat and this is one of the proposals that Sarah had given us and we think it's the the right move. It's it's having a full-time uh director while having
054the special ed coordinator position. It's the model we had six years ago. Um and you know, we we gave this a go, but we feel this is the right time again to to switch back. Uh you've heard me say if we had space uh it'd be great to have the prek attached to another building most likely a warren where the principle of that building uh becomes the principle of the prek as well. So, u it's it's it's part of we we're acknowledging $75,000 within the operating budget and the other 25 would come from the revolving account from tuition paying students. Mendes, we just talked about this full-time band teacher. And I don't want to blavorver the point, but the folks in Ashlin, you get your money's worth. I mean, that's the bottom line. We're at
055$16,239 uh per pupil. Uh I will tell you Hollist uh they're below us. They will move ahead of us next year. They passed an override uh this past year for the first time in a while. Um a number of those districts have passed overrides. Uh obviously we have not and we're not looking for one. I'm just I don't want to belver the point, but every year I we've hovered in that same we have been in the bottom 10% per people spending um since I've been here in 16 years. And just for anybody who's sure presentation later, the the chart you've got up there, FY23 numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Again, are these the most current? These are the most current that that the Department of Ed can shares with us. the FY24 numbers uh will come out
056in the fall um because all the stuff all the work Chris is doing with the audits and making sure all that data is is into the department before they can calculate it. It's a year behind two years behind. I talked about that special education number. Um again, we have we're decreasing the number of students. It's just the cost of some of these programs are are great and that's I mean that's the reality. It's it's up 19 and a half% from the previous year in terms of the cost, but our student population went down. Um and and we're really, you know, looking at this. We're constantly looking at this. You know, I can tell you Britney emails me every single day about this. Uh and we're working hard at at again identifying and making sure the
057kiddos that we have uh are in the proper place. Some belong with us. Some we we can't do the best for those families and those students. And you know, we just have to recognize that. Um, this is the slide that scares me every year because we are heavily relying upon one-time funds, right? We're heavily relying upon building rentals, uh, international tuition, school bus revolving, and school choice. And I'll just talk to these a little bit. circuit breaker for those who um are listening. Uh this is a reimbursement that the state sends to districts for their special education students who are educated outside of your community. Uh and and I try to keep it really simple uh in terms of of the formula, but let's assume a student uh costs $100,000 um to educate outside of
058the town of Ashlin. And the the per pupil cost according to the state is say 10,000. And so at four times that 10,000. So 40,000 of the first 40,000 the district is responsible for. So that leaves a delta of 60,000. Well the state that's the piece that the state would reimburse and sometimes they fully fund it. Well, fully funded in reimbursement is 75% under Mass General law. Uh the the note I got today from uh the state senate is we don't know if it'll be fully funded next year. Uh I've been I've seen it probably Kelly you've seen it as low as 25%. So just think about that. Let's assume that 60,000 was reimbursed at 70% because I can only do the math easier. That's 42,000. So there's still another 18,000 that's out there that
059the district is responsible for. So now that 40 plus the 18 is 58,000. That's how it works. So every child, you know, we have to go through that calculation. Uh so this is always a year in in a rears. So we know we have this money the 1653 724 building rental. I I want to be clear to folks who are listening because I I know I've had emails and we don't rent fields. The fields are not rented by or through the Ash public schools. All field rentals go through the the town uh Department of Public Works. Um many years ago, it was probably 11 years ago actually, um uh when we had uh then town manager um Tony Skiavi, um the town took over all field rentals uh and so they have an enterprise fund
060that they utilize that they collect the field rentals, etc. So, we don't have those funds to pay for school related concerns. we have building rental uh revenue that we do get and we can utilize that for anything that relates to the building. So it can be custodial fees, it could be um you know fixing floors, lockers, whatever it might be, but it has to specifically relate to the buildings international tuition. We used to have students pre-COVID um where we tuition students in. You can see we're utilizing that money this year to help offset salaries. School bus revolving uh for those families who pay a bus fee. This is where it is. Um you know, last year you could see we anticipated uh spending a million dollars out of those funds. This year we're reducing it
061to 300,000 which is traditionally where we've been but but we needed to do it last year to balance the budget. Then school choice. Uh we'll talk about this later. uh school choice are funds that come into a district uh for students who live in another community who attend schools in the Asham public schools and it's $5,000 a student. Now, if a student has an IEP or uh ELLL services, English language services, we do get some monies from that sending community to offset the additional needs. Um, you can see we're relying on upon that for a million dollars next year. That number will continue to go down. We're anticipating 200,000 in revenue. So, just do the extrapolate it out over a couple years. Those funds will be gone. That being said, um, we typically budget about
062500,000 in uh, school choice funds to be utilized. School choice can be used for anything that impacts the district. So we have we have full discretion on how we spend those funds. Um I know you've all seen this you questions on that after if you want. So this is a slide I am always hesitant but I think it's important that the community understands the picture of where we are and the things that we have not included in this budget that are necessary and there are components of this and this is not in rank order. I want to be clear. This is not meaning this does not mean the first thing if you gave me $100,000 the first thing we're going to do is add an elected teacher at the high school because I'm telling you
063that's not the first thing we're going to do, right? I mean, you'd have to flip it around a little bit and you'd have to say, "Okay, what's the most important component for safety uh of our students, right? what what do we need to do to ensure our students are safe um and have buildings that aren't leaking, they have heat in their buildings. Those are priority items. I just list them as I was um going through previous iterations of our budget, not only from this year, but from the past five years. Um you'll notice things like uh the gym floor at the at the middle school We know it's dangerous. It's unsafe. It's slippery. Uh it's something that hasn't been replaced that needs to be replaced. Is it something we can replace within our budget? Those
064are conversations that that Chris and I are having then that we will propose to the school committee that that's the first thing we take care of if we can do that within our budget. Meaning, could we use building rental funds if we have additional funding there? We have capital that the town has appropriated to the public schools for items that may not be able to be done this year, but so could we reallocate those funds to take some things off from this list? And this is not all-incclusive. I also want to, you know, mention that we've probably got another 20 items that easily could be added to this list. But when we get into turf replacement, um, things of that nature, I I want to caution and and just talk to folks as plainly as
065I can. The Asham Public Schools does not have a capital line item. We don't have that line item. We don't have access to the revolving funds that come in through rentals, through through field rentals. I know because I was the one at the high school when the high school built the fields 15 years ago. Um what the intent of the enterprise fund was for renting out our turf fields. It was to gain enough revenue that in 10 years down the road we could replace whatever that field was. It didn't work out that way for lots of reasons. One, COVID hit. two, uh, other communities built turf fields. And three, I believe because we have grown exponentially as a community also in this time, we have many more sports and youth sports and activities that are
066utilizing and need to utilize our fields. And so, we've actually had a decrease in the amount of rentals as well. Um, but I I just want to caution folks, this is important. It's a safety issue, too. And we have to figure out how to do this as a community. It's on my list. It's in the school anticipate needs beyond because from 700 in the morning till whenever that last group is off the field or any of the fields, they're school property and our kids potentially could be unsafe and that's why it's here. Um, I don't have the purse strings, if you will, to to to fix this. Otherwise, I would. Uh, our budget that we're showing is truly an operating budget of the school system. You may ask, okay, what about athletics? Aren't you funding
067athletics? And we do with user fees, but they cover just enough to cover trans, not even transportation, but coaching salaries are picked up in the operating budget. uh transportation, uniforms. We're use utilizing 250 300,000 every year in school choice to help get athletics through. That's significant modular replacement. Again, if you ask me, how do I rank order? See that boiler at Pitway? Probably number one. We got to have heat. Roof replacement at the Pitway in the high school. The high school's 20 years old, believe it or not. And I still hear people say the new high school. Yeah, it's new. 20 years ago. Uh, and we we have concerns about failing roofs at Pitway and the high school. Um, object, you've probably never seen any drips in that high school. Only a few. Right. So
068again, as we look at things, we are we are trying to pluck things off this list the best we can. At town meeting, you know, in the fall and when they start um at the in the fall town meeting, we figure out how much free cash is available. Uh and then it's divvied up into a variety of buckets. Uh some of it goes to capital and Chris and John Murray, our director of facilities, they meet regularly with town management uh to determine okay what should be on the capital list from the school side and then they rank order them and try to figure out what's the best way always keeping in mind safety number one making sure we can open our buildings. You know the story we had at the beginning of the year and
069many people don't know it about the fire alarm or fire at at the high school, right? Failing throughout the summer and trying to figure out how are we going to open the building. It's $425,000 to replace that this year. Unexpected costs. That's what we're doing this summer. But those are those are things that we have to be thoughtful of. we couldn't open the building otherwise. So budget timeline again uh it is a um quick turnaround for you all. Um but I feel comfortable because we've seen the numbers we've been through the numbers with uh the tri board with the select board with the finance committee. They're fully on board with the number I'm asked you to approve tonight. So I will sit down and take questions or stand and take questions. But if folks want
070to have questions, I should probably sit. Yeah, I so people can come up to the microphone and anyone who's online as well. Um I'll start with anybody. Is there anybody in the room who would like to offer any public comment first? If you wouldn't mind coming up so we can see you and hear you, please. And then I I'll move to the folks online who might want to participate as well. Next, my name is Diane. Good. Good evening. My name is Diane Um Holtz and this is Heidi Hansen. Hello. Um, we're with the Ashlin Music Association and we want to start by saying thank you to all of you and to the administrators looking at these numbers. This is not an easy job and and it represents a multitude of hours that you've put into
071it. So, thank you for all that you've put into making our schools um a a bargain at excuse me as was um displayed on that slide. Thank you. So, um Heidi had pulled together some numbers that we just wanted to make you aware of regarding the music program. Oh, and oh my goodness, we're absolutely thrilled about the changes at the middle school. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. uh for just elevating the the the the music programs and as you saw today, we were just so excited with um the all the awards that our our music programs took this past weekend. We were just absolutely so proud. Yes. Very proud. So, thank you very much for the changes that were made to um for the music programs at the middle school. Thank you. Thank you.
072Yes. And I I don't know if you've heard, but the the middle school wind ensemble, who also won a gold this weekend, is getting an opportunity to perform at the Groten Hill Music Center on Sunday. Um I'm personally proud. My son is going to be there on stage and I could not be more thrilled and elated. So um again, thank you for the investment um in in that um music education. And um as you may or may not know, the Ashlin Music Association provides uh funding to support those programs that are not included um expenses that are not included in that very lofty um budget. Um and so we have made an effort, Jim, thank you for meeting with us to help make visible what some of those expenses are because honestly I think that
073they haven't been visible in the past. And um we just a couple of things. Um if we think about all those capital expenditures, that's a lofty list. There's a few things that we just ask for consideration as you move forward. Um and one of those is um the AMA has donated instruments to the schools, the school-owned instruments. The maintenance and repair of those um is about we spend about $6,000 a year. It seems like such a m small number when you look at all of that, but that goes a we raise money from parents and through grants to fund that consideration for some funding in that space would make a huge difference and allow the AMA to focus our funds on providing new instruments or donating new instruments and opportunities such as we had this
074last weekend for students. So that's the only other thing that we ask for consideration which is a very tough job. I keep pointing up here because that's where I was looking. But u we just want to say thank you and express our gratitude and appre appreciation and um for your support of the music programs and thank you for your comments. I mean that is the point of the budget hearing for us to hear things like that um and for consideration as we move forward and figure out how it fits into the whole picture. Yeah. So I appreciate that. It's a tough job. I totally get it. Um so thank you. Thank you very much and congratulations to all of the winners of awards and and to the teachers who are working with them and the
075parents who are supporting them. So, okay, anybody else in here before I move to any online comments? Uh Jim, I have a question actually. Um you mentioned that the school bus revolving expenditures for 2025 is going to be around a million dollars uh when it's typically around $300,000. Do you know why that is? And um yeah, if so what I do so last year during the budget process uh we had um we've accumulated num a number of dollars over course of say 10 years uh through um the bus revolving account. So we would typically just use 300,000 from year to year to year. Uh but last year we looked at our budget and said how are we going to balance this? and we had some excess funds in there, so we utilized those. Uh, that's
076what made it the million dollars. Um, this year going back to 300,000. We easily could have used another, not easily, I mean meaning to balance the budget. A million dollars to pull out of there. We didn't have that same amount of funds to do that, but we had that last year. We had the ability to do that without asking the community to pay for more. But yeah, it's a lot. buses are probably 78 to $80,000 per and that doesn't include any uh athletic transportation. That's just their daily runs. So, it's pretty expensive and we we have very few. So, when we have opportunities to have transportation companies bid, meaning to go out and say, "Hey, we will take uh Ashlin as their roots." uh we typically get this many um to say it's um interesting
077out there in the transportation world would be an understatement. So that's what we get. We get one one bid. And what what were the results of spending that million dollars compared to the balance? That's all it was. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't anything. Yeah. It was nothing nothing special. We didn't we didn't have to cut anything. It could have been teachers. It could have been um other other things for sure or more um utilization of spe uh school choice money but school choice is something we can always move forward in terms of any again you got to be strategic in how you utilize funds transportation is only for transportation I can't use that those funds for anything else so every year to keep things the way they were the year before it's called level service so
078to have the same amount of teachers and the same amount of services doesn't costs the same amount of money. Once you get into the next year, it usually costs more money because uh we've negotiated a teacher contract where there are raises. I would say that's probably the biggest expense that goes up, other heating, building, but just to keep it level, just to keep the same services that we had the year before. We have to spend more money than we spent the year before and that's without changing anything. So, there has to be some kind of mechanism to get that extra money. So that's either done by cutting positions and then you're not at level service anymore or it's through looking at our budget and seeing where there might be savings. Sometimes it's through retirements. And
079if you can't get there that way, then you have to start looking at our revolving accounts and see which ones can be used to offset that so that we don't have to go below the level service. Does that does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So, I'm gonna look at the folks online and I guess the best hand way to let me know. Yes. If you could uh Sure. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, please. Yeah, we have a couple more people in here. No, you don't need to be. I just didn't know that you wanted to come up. Yes, please. We didn't. Um, hi, my name is Liz Aley. I have two boys that are at the U middle school and we just and I'm on the AYB the Ashlin Youth Basketball League board along with Laura
080Yoni who's the president and I just wanted to present to the group that um who are very much in favor of the athletic fields at the middle school being fixed as well as the um basketball courts. Those very much affect our program which serves about 500 youth from grade first grade through 8ighth grade. We had um about 45 different teams between in town and travel serving the youth through um we started in October and we just wrapped up the season. So it's been a really great league and we have been some of the contributors to that fund of um paying for the rental space. But um so we're in favor of favor of that. We just wanted to voice that. for the gym floor especially. I think uh so Lori um the president of Ashley
081Basketball um I've talked to some of the people in this room about the floor safety uh we've had some injuries this year due to player safety of the floor. I think we all know it's in kind of disrepair at this point. So we're hoping that that you know I know it's a big number. I know $150,000 is a lot, but um we have close to 500 kids in our program um throughout these months. Obviously, the winter months in New England, it's a big impact. If we take one gym offline, you know, we've talked about it's it's not to the point of player safety that I think it should be taken offline, but it's pretty close. And if we're taking that gym offline, it's going to really negatively impact the youth of this town. So just
082wanted anything we can do to you know we just wanted to bring it to your attention. Anything we can do to help you um we're willing to hear all no different we've kind of approached different people in this room. So just wanted to know you have the support of us. No and again that's the point of the hearing and I it's a good time for me to mention also that um I did I think we as a committee uh did receive a few letters um within the last couple days along the same lines. I just want to if if you're listening, folks that sent us letters, we've all seen them. Um it's very similar input um a concern for the fields um and the safety of the floor and everyone has seen those letters and
083there's hopefully Mr. Adams made clear tonight there's different funding mechanisms involved in um you know the the floor in our building is one thing and then the fields are another. Um all of them some involve some assistance from the town probably on a capital basis because of um not being able to pull so much money out of our operating budget and also because of the way it was set up years ago but just so that's kind of where it stands right now. But you're not the only ones with the concern and we share your concern. I mean we're not we're not sitting here saying that those spaces are are okay. So Jim and Lori, I guess logistically because I think a lot of people on the phone are like share of the things that you
084brought up with the turf or the fields or the and and there's a lot of us who want to, you know, do something. Can we just tell everyone publicly like what the mechanisms are like what meetings should they go to to advocate for you know the capital needs including town meetings select board like how do people get on agendas and then how does that come back to the school committee because I think that's I think a lot of people feel like they go to one place then they go to another place so I'd be remiss not to bring up like what's the mechanism for people in the around, you know, who want to voice a concern to to follow. Yeah. And like and Jim and Chris can add in, but I I know um at
085least for the bigger capital projects, right? The Jim, you touched on it a little bit when you were talking, but the process has been for a while now. I mean, a lot of this history goes way back from when the fields were turned over to the town and there was a field committee at one point, many years ago, which has since dissolved. Um and and that committee had people on there from the schools and from the town and that's where all these kinds of discussions took place. Um now that that's no longer a thing, I think it's more of a it's it's it's a process that occurs, but it's not committee. I think it's Chris maybe and or is it you Chris and some people on the town side that get together and to take
086a look at the list of capital needs and the list of money available and they make some effort to prioritize the needs across the entire town. Um like Jim was pointing out earlier like the boiler is going to have to come before some other things perhaps. So it's that kind of a conversation. Um, so certainly going to town meeting like letting people know that that is something that is your priority and that you would like to know where they believe it stands on the priority list and more information about that. Um, going to the select board when it comes to those bigger capital expenses, we do not have a line in our budget for capital. So anytime we're asking for anything, it's through that process that involves a yay or nay from the town, right?
087and and the group of people. Yeah. I think one thing to just to clarify in that is when the town meeting appropriates money for capital expenditures, it appropriates an amount for capital but project specific, right? So in terms of making sure specific people know what's important to you and this goes for anybody on camera or anywhere there there's this collaborative process representatives from the school department but town that try to prioritize what where the limited capital dollars are going to go right so I don't know I'm kind of looking Jim to you it's limited somehow so how it works manager's office where some of that feedback needs to go is it select I'd say both. But yeah, so I I mean I'll I'll defer to Chris as he's he's the one who's particularly invested in
088the capital process with the town and with the assistant town manager and the DPW as well as um our director um facilities. But but in the end, should we want to invest more funds in our fields and in our community or whether it's youth sports, the the fields for excuse me the schools, it all starts with the capital and it all starts really with what's going to be allocated uh through the town. And I think it's always important to go to a select board meeting, go to a fincom, go to go to meetings and say ask to be put on the agenda and and say these are our concerns within the community. I know there was the community planning process that was going on and there's um a recreation component of that. I don't know
089where that's headed, but those are avenues to have a voice and I think sometimes the voice doesn't always get heard if if you're not participating in those roundts, if you will. But certainly the town manager, I mean, listen, Chris and I, Mike, have had these conversations. You got two people who have youth youth children in the youth programs. We get it and I understand it and uh we want to support it and but we don't have that capacity unless the town gives us the capacity. That's where it comes from. Yeah. And I would just add so definitely reach out to select board town manager. Um, but also reach out to listen because we know we can articulate a lot of the the needs on on the schools and they're real as as you know. Uh,
090but there's also real municipal concerns too, right? Um, you know, in during our our tri board meetings, they're talking about the need for a third ambulance. Right now, routinely 50% of the time they're both ambulances are out. And so if we had another call, we're, you know, mutual aid and we have a lot of demographics in in the community that would that are that have fear for that. So there's there's real needs and and and so it's striking that right balance and and these are big priorities and and they're and they're town assets, right? So um you know they're they're for the school they're in school day and during school programs, but they're they're you know, first foremost also town assets. So it's important. Uh so I I would definitely recommend select board you can
091send it to finance committee because they're involved in some of those conversations as well as um and and go there to voice your your opinions and make sure you're you're heard but also listen to um it's not as one-sided because we you know we can articulate a long long list but I can guarantee you the the town departments could could articulate probably an equally long long list and and all of it's important right it's all important so like the big part of the discussion is how do we get to you you know, the list and how it should be ordered. But the other thing is, and we did talk about this a little bit at our tri board, and this is a conversation for every single person that's involved in this community, whether you want
092a better music program or better fields or better uh more teachers and more electives. Like, we need to start having some real discussions about what we want as a community, who we are, and what we're willing to do that. Because at the end of the day, every single thing on that list is important. And the truth is there's not enough money to do all of those things. There might not even be enough money to do half of those things. And there might not ever be enough money to do half of those things if we don't figure out some other way to operate because there are only certain amount of taxes coming in and certain amount of fees or how whatever else they collect. And it's like our own family budgets. You know, at the end
093of the day, as badly as we need it, there's no not necessarily a financial ability. And I'm not saying what it is. I mean, obviously, there are things that we do and can take off the list. But there's also a bigger conversation, I think, about, you know, what what's what are the priorities of all of us in town. And are we willing to start talking about, you know, overrides and things like that. I know that's a curse word, but um you know, otherwise we go round and round like this every single year, right? And I think our point of just we're willing to we understand you guys are in a you know a difficult situation with Ashlin basketball. We do pay rental fees to rent the gym and it goes back in. So it's you
094know we're willing to try to get as creative as possible like knowing it's a player safety issue. How do we use the rental fees we're paying to kind of eventually and as Jim mentioned that in particular we we do have some funds that can can help. It's not just going through just the capital. Yeah. And you guys have a like people have said, we're so grateful you guys have a hard job. We're just trying to work together as this is not an issue of us not agreeing that it's a serious problem. We're all on the same page about like that it needs to be addressed. It's just figuring out how to get there. All right. We don't want to take up too much. Yeah. Thank you. But to Marcy's point, if if that helped answer,
095you know, some of the concerns or questions that some of uh the folks online had, but certainly willing to keep going with whatever uh input anybody wants to give. So, I see people, but I don't see hands. I do want to make sure you all have your opportunity. Anybody feel like they need clarification on anything else or want to just give some input? I see him. Jason. Jason. Hey everybody. Uh, I'm Jason McDonald. I'm with the Ashlin lacrosse, but also have coached every sport that we've all been talking about. So, um, I like I said, I have three kids and I've coached everything. So, um, just, you know, same thing on the on the topic of the fields though, just help me understand what does what do other towns do? How do they handle this?
096Is it always a town kind of thing that they're they're managing it and they own the budget for it or because we're all advocating for, you know, the best for our kids and our facilities and and all that, right? And we're all paying rental fees, right? I don't think anyone's getting anything for free. And we only get it at 6:30 a night. So, like it's like 12 hours of school property, right? And so we really want this to to we're really trying to emphasize that we want this for for that. But anyway, sorry not to belabor it, but is this normal? Um is there a normal is there a recommendation that we should also be advocating for if there needs something to be changed, right? We talked about field committees have decommissioned and all that.
097Like should the schools manage this? Should we be considering that in the future? Um and or or not? I guess simply put I'm gonna let Mr. Adams take that one. It's a loaded question, Jason. Yeah. In terms of whether the school should take it over or not. Um it's uh but we've been talking it's a conversation that's been happening for years and and and you know, you want to call me, we can we can sit down and talk about it. Um but that being said, every community is different, right? So many communities have wreck programs that are really robust and then they have folks who are part of those wreck programs. So field maintenance uh individuals uh who are grooming the fields, mowing them, watering them, attending to them on a regular basis. We're not
098there. And some communities have it's their school department. um some don't rent out the facilities to non um community- based organizations as well, right? I mean, the notion that we're going to rent out these facilities and make enough money to replace turf andor keep them at a level that is respectable andor safe is ludicrous in my mind because I've looked at the math. Uh that being said, how do you infuse capital and resources through a town to ensure that you have uh dedicated personnel to these fields? We don't have we have one person in the in the public schools who's who is quote unquote an assistant to the athletic director uh who isn't necessarily a uh an individual who has um aronomy and and field understanding. Uh, and then the town's got two people, I
099think, they they pay for out of the uh, enterprise fund of renting field space. That's clearly not enough, right? It's we've got a lot of fields. We've got a lot of space. There's separation between school fields and town fields. Community center, it's different than, you know, Huntfield. It's different than the Warren School. So, so it's not a It's not a simple answer. Um, and or sol. I just want to make sure we advocate for the right things, right? Like if you're like, "Hey, we can fix this problem. There's ways of doing this if we had the jurisdiction." Like, great. Let's go fight for that, right? It's back to manage this, then make sure we're talking to the right people, right? And we'll we'll stay out of your No, no, I don't have any hair. Um,
100so but but that being said, no, I think it's important that we have dialogue and I think while there there's really great intent on a lot of organizations and I've been a part of it in my own community, we want whatever we do, it's got to be long lasting, right? It's got to be it can't just be, hey, let's go fix this because we've got a really dedicated group of parents right now who we can get this done. Okay, it's great for a band-aid, but how does it you know, long term, it's it's really a community issue. It's not a school issue. It's not an athletes soccer, baseball, lacrosse. It's not their issue as much as it's a community issue in what we value, right? Yep. No, totally agreed. Appreciate it. Of course. Yeah. Thanks.
101Thanks for all the clarity. we we all really do appreciate like we don't we don't often talk about things like this and it's and and if you don't go to to to a lot of these then you miss a lot of those those details in between but it's at that boiling point or boiling cover point like we really want to get like the who do we talk to and you're starting to really give us that that guidance and we appreciate it. So thank you very much. You're welcome. Anybody else in the gallery here want to offer some final comments? Next thing I'll be doing is um offering the uh committee some time to discuss and then closing the hear after we vote. Last call. Okay. Seeing none, I'm going to open it up to the
102committee. I know we've had several meetings had a a few words tonight. Anybody else have any more concerns or comments about the budget that was presented tonight or the number that we are being asked to vote on? No, nothing new. But just uh again, as we as we it is detailed. You guys put a lot of work into that. um everyone in the room does and I think that's why we can have good conversations at our tri board meetings because uh if they ask a question uh even if it's not on the slide it's it's something up and we've all you know been turning over the rocks and doing that and I think town has you know everybody on the municipal side's been doing that as well. So just just thanks for for all the
103hard work. I mean I I would echo that sentiment. I think um a lot of people put in a lot of time particularly this year. It's always true but more so this year because of the challenges that I think we see as community financially. Um but at the end of the day I think we're able to get to a number like the one you're presenting um is because of the collaboration that exists. The overall positive impact everybody involved not just in their sort of silo but for the community as a whole and so I think appropriate gratitude the the collaborative efforts from the town manager's office and selectment finance committee um school administration here for everybody who's who's sitting room I think done an excellent job coming up with a solution given all the circumstances
104um and I I think it's it's worth noting I said this when we were talking about the restructuring but as much as we're talking about this is economic problem and it is there's a lot of really good stuff that is being accomplished at the same time. I'm sorry Erin stepped out, but um you know I think it bears noting that there was a need and a demand um driven in part by economics and part by education but the result that came out of that effort I something a notable improvement and what we long term for our kids particularly at the middle school to some degree also does the enhanced commitment to ban there and I think it's just it's also worth talking about the positive rather than kind of feeling what are we not doing
105that feel has been the the theme of this conversation to some degree and what more do we need to do all of which I agree with but I I just want to recognize the efforts of all the people involved Chris all you folks that are sitting out here in the in the audience all our principles and other administrators managers office and and I guess while we have uh the the audience and I think uh Jason mentioned it and some other people One of the uh things we did talk about at our tri board meetings was um I mean Jason mentioned getting the details here, but um we really talked a lot about how we engage the public in the dialogue to understand not only the challenges but also to get the priorities and feel for
106what we want as a community. So if you're willing to spend some time that then that you know I don't know how we're going to you know it's it's a it's a everything we're talking about here you're only seeing one piece of it that everything you talked about at the tri board is exceedingly complicated and we've all you know I've been doing this for nine years and you 10 years something like that it we've all been doing this a long time and it's complicated for us so we're really looking to try to figure out how we have conversations about priorities with uh uh with the community and also making some of this consumable both from uh the school side but also just in general the municipal side as well and how these things work and
107and and that because that that merging of an opinion and and priorities along with what's at play just understanding broad strokes of how these things interplay. So, if you're listening and you are willing to spend some time, hopefully that's something we can get off the ground and at least start pecking away at uh in building up some collateral of just some some educational materials and also some dialogues there. Um, I'll just echo. I'm consistently impressed with the level of detail and dedication and amount of Saturdays people put in coming to talk to us about what you need in the budget. And I feel like a lot of the reason we're focused on or had conversation about the capital budget tonight is because you did such an awesome job articulating the need for the operating budget
108and the level of programming that's been built into the schools and the level of cost avoidance that comes from that programming is something I didn't fully appreciate until I, you know, became more involved with the school. So I really my hats off to all of you all the way from Pitway up through the high school. Um you know it starts it starts there and um there's a lot of work and that's the reason we don't have to hammer out details of how many teachers do we need here or there because you told us and you laid it out for everyone tonight. So, I don't want to get lost in all the important talks about capital without acknowledging the amount of work that's gone on to, you know, come forth with a really solid operating budget
109that's super thoughtful and um and we're blessed to have like on from the school, I'll tell you because uh I do this on the daily and it's really easy to follow if you're a numbers person and you're not a numbers is actually really easy to follow. So, because you laid it out so well. So, just um I have to give a shout out to It's true. I agree with all of that and I I won't take up more of your time like regurgitating it. Um you know, there's the micro and it's all the work that's been discussed here tonight. And thank you. Also, by the way, like a budget is a is a a document that represents our values. And I know you all started with our our goals and our vision for the district,
110which we also worked hard on and that you everything that you built is around that and made sure that you could trace everything that you recommended back to that and we're really proud of all the work you do. And and that's to me that's that's kind of the micro, but then is there was the macro of having these conversations with the other boards in town um on the uh the two Saturdays. And I think that one thing one way that that's helpful for us and I think it's part of what's happening in this conversation tonight about some of the greater capital needs is that we don't necessarily understand some things until we sit down with other people that aren't in our little silo here. And that probably goes in the other direction as well. like
111we're pretty clear on everything that we need because of all the hard work that we do and we're so sure that it needs to happen. But then we sit down with other people in town who by the way we're all one community. I mean, we've been elected to represent schools and other people have been elected to represent the greater town, but we're all one community and we have to make sure everything we do fits into a a vision for our entire community and we have to understand um you know how what we're asking necessarily affects what uh somebody else is asking when just like in your own little micro family, you can't please everybody all the time. But so that's been really helpful to just for me, I'll speak personally, but I'm pretty sure for
112everybody else to just be educated on what the other needs are. We don't think about like what the police need or what the fire need or what's going on at the senior center. Not saying I don't care about it, but that it's not my job to really dive into that. And other people are doing that and not this. So it's not until we and again this is no judgment because I raised four kids and I did not come up for air for like 20 years and I did not go to a single meeting. So I'm not but but until I do or I did I don't really understand like all the different things that are at play and the nuance and the actual amount of money involved to do x y or z. So I
113I think that's why it's really helpful that we have these conversations and that no please know that we are advocating for all these things as well. Like everything that's been discussed is on a list that we fight for. Um, and it's just a matter of, you know, being considerate of other priorities and also making sure that we have ways to get money, which at the end of the day, you know, that's that's what we need. So again, thanks for all your hard work and I will take a motion to vote on the budget number. Close the hearing first. Move to close the hearing. I'll second. All in favor? I I I move to approve the budget of $44,350,743 for the 2026 fiscal year as presented. Second. All in favor? Marcy? I I All right, we
114have a budget. I know. It's important. Okay, thanks for all your input, everybody. We really do appreciate it. Uh next up we have appointment of a school committee member to the Driscoll Scholarship Committee. Uh yes everybody uh you're welcome to stay but we're not offended when you leave as soon as you possibly can. Have a good night. Thanks again everybody. No I was ready to go the motion to right away. I know we're not done yet. Couple more little Yeah. Driscoll. Um, I think I did it last year. It's it's one meeting. Um, it's getting together with other people on the committee. There are like three or four other people. Applications come in. I think we did it by Zoom last year pretty quick. And we try to avoid people. If you if you have
115like a junior or senior or somebody that might be applying for the scholarship, you should probably not. Um, I mean I think I think it's really just seniors, but I just knowing a number of the kids now because at the senior you want to graduate. Yeah. I'd prefer not to be. Okay. I don't have an interest. No interest. Are you willing? It's just I mean I don't I don't mind doing it again. I'm just making sure to say because your daughter's my daughter's a junior so I should One thing I I think I should do it. I other than uh I do know I move to appoint it. All your vote. All in favor? I Okay, it's me. We have to appoint Mary Lou as well. We've done that in the past. I move to
116appoint Mary Lou Hunt as well. All in favor? I All right. Excellent. uh ultimate frisbee head coach athletics type end negotiation. The ultimate frisbee as you know is a varsity sport now and just recognizing the fact that it's going into our stipen position. Chris worked for the union. You you've tracked whatever that stipen is to sort of matching up with other correct. You have yes. So and so what's that motion that we to accept the ultimate bead head coach athletic statement amount. What was it? Do you remember? Yeah. What was the number? I don't know. Yeah. Even uh No. $3,370. Uh well, $4,280. I'm assuming Mosh is at or would be at the top. There's There's three of them. There's three. There's three. There's three steps. I move to approve the ultimate frisbee head coach
117athletic statement. Second. All in favor? I just a memorandum. I shouldn't have any. Sorry. Okay. Yep. I'm going to open the hearing for the school choice participation for the 2025 2026 school year. Okay. Let me pull this up because it's a little more complicated than still here. Okay. So, as you know, each year um as required by law, we're supposed to come before the school committee to see if school committee will participate in school choice uh for the next school year. So any student who would have already been in school choice uh is still in school choice. So but the district could say hey we're not going to participate moving forward. Uh those kids would still be allowed to be here. Um traditionally what we have done is we have looked at uh choice slots
118by grade level and we approved them by grade level. Uh so what you'll see on this uh document here I shared with you is this is anticipated enrollment for next year. So we're anticipating 190 at the K level. They only have like 156 that have registered currently but we're assuming it's going to get to that number. Um in the so then it slides down. So first grade is the current kindergarten class. Okay, that makes sense to folks. And just and then um elevators down. So in the newly enrolled students, so 2425, you'll notice five and then so go to the first grade five and then parenthesy five. That means we had five slots open and five filled. But but this doesn't track ones that are current. That's correct. These are just new seats that we
119added. Correct. It was just last year. That's correct. Great question. Yes. And um that's why you'll see as you get lower like 10th grade five and zero or current 10th grade we open up five spots. We we have I think three students in in school choice. We open up five more. We didn't have anybody. So um so when I'm proposing again we have about a fill rate consistently of about just under 50%. So to me a fill rate is we open up 50 seats 50% 25 seats across the district. We've had inquiries probably of about 15 students right now. Um we always set that we have to get information out to these families uh whether or not we're going to participate in school choice uh and they have until June 1st uh and then it
120closes. Um, and it's it's not it's lottery based. If we have uh more than the seats that we open up um and otherwise uh if you apply and there's no lottery, you automatically get in. Doesn't mean you have to come. I'm just saying there are seats available. Um so you'll notice it's a it's a a market difference than I've done in the past. I'm proposing uh 75 total seats across the district. um knowing again uh bill rate is going to be a lot lower than that. Um and adding spots even to class to to grade levels that have higher numbers than we have in the past. And you may say why? Um, again, we've had maybe one or two inquiries across some of these grades, and some of them are are educators who work in
121the district as well. And we don't we don't give preference to them, just so folks are understand that. Um, but, you know, I I do believe if we've got educators who are in our community, we I'd like to offer an opportunity, just no guarantee, but it's it's a it's at least an opportunity if we allow for seats to be open. That's all. Um and you know again there may be three three grade levels that that was what I was because because typically if we typically I've done about 240 I would have done it but there there would be zero there. Yeah there would be uh I don't you know I don't anticipate but again we've had movement our numbers fluctuate continue to fluctuate like they fluctuate all the time. Listen, it it's it's it's one
122year I've I haven't done this large of a ask before. Honestly, I I look at our choice revenue. I look at, you know, it's it's opportunity. I also look at is it really costing us anything to have students in those seats? The answer is really not much. uh if we have uh 242 kids spread out upon 10 classrooms 245 it increases it by.3 right so so per classroom look at that yeah chart y different color yeah yeah but um yeah it's just because it came from another so I I can certainly have 40 like really would. Yeah, but flip side is you're not adding six seven. No, no, no. That was last year, Mark. It's the FAR column. He's adding them everywhere. That new enrollment. This was last year. I didn't add in these words.
123Blank. Yeah. Okay. I'm adding five in every grade level except kindergarten and uh third grade for 10 or 10 seats. So, I guess then the the same question is framed just a little differently. numbers black. Yeah, that you got a 197 in sixth grade. Yeah, I would just not want to offer test. We could I I just we could I I when I looked at under one, you know, I predicted 190 uh but it's lower. I I took those I could I could do 20 at, you know, third grade, too. Um it was just numbers. when you when you get to get to 20, you're talking about one per class, right? Right. And and pretty much every class. Um I I don't think changing the cap from five to 10 in any likely to generate
124probably just isn't. But kindergarten still just have one person taking us up on it. I mean kindergarten is the class the grade level that we tend to get the most and then they stay with us forever. Yeah. you know, five for five, 100% fill rate and and are we confident that the projection for where we are this time of year showing below number for Yeah, it's it's on par with last year this time. We don't know. Yeah, but say this every time Kaden's grade was 183, I think, when he was uh in first grade, right? And what is it about? 220 something. So So they picked up a full class over time over that time. And again, our biggest increase goes from third to fourth grade or second to third grade. There's seven to eight,
12510 kids a year. Is there anybody still on Zoom that would be wanting to give input here? But the rest of the room, the room has empty. The room has I don't think so. But is there anybody who wants to say anything about choice? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Um any other questions? All right. I'll close up motion to close the hearing. Close the um school choice public hearing. Second. All in favor? I motion to Yes. So moved. I got second. All in favor? I I. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. Um, first read of uh BGB policy adoption. Sorry, I'm trying. So, um, this of all the policies that you're going to see the under the consent agenda for policies, this is the only one that had any real change to it. uh policy sub looked at one
126I didn't present because we're still doing a little bit more work on on security cameras. Um but it it's it's not significant but because of the red line if you notice it there was more than any of the others a word or two different in the other policies probably didn't even need to do a first read but I just felt more comfortable had a lot of stricken language in everyone have a take a look at it. This is just first reading. First reading. Yeah. So we have until next time to about comments or changes. Second read policies are on the consent agenda. The other policies again sorry the other policies are there was no substance. No substance change. It's just it's we reviewed it. So I just want to mark them up as reviewed so
127when they go into MASC and uh that we have record of it. Literally the only thing changing is the line at the bottom that says last reviewed for the most. It might be a or a they or an and an or but no substance. That was it. So I'd be looking for move this consent. Consent agenda. Moved. Second. All in favor? I. And then we're at the end. Reports of school committee members starting with the uh pretty much I I don't have anything. I did know Sophia did a good job presenting. She did. Um, that's pretty much all that's going on in this. That's all. The counting days until right. Do you have any plans for April vacation? Study for a lot of AP tests. Well, you know how to take time off. Um, I
128did go to middle school site council, but I went two weeks ago, so my memory is a little fuddled, but we talked about the um school improvement plan, and we had a really good chat about that and what um Erin's, you know, looking to to do, just seeking input and we had a lot of discussion about um the SSPS and like improvement for for students. And one thing she um brought up was setting expectations at the different grade levels, like meaning that, you know, they don't expect a sixth grader to act the same as an eighth grader in terms of homework or um you know, being able to turn things back in for extra credit or retake a test or so. She talked a lot about that with us, which I thought was enlightening. Um
129and she's had really good discussions with faculty about that, too, and how going to roll out their new curriculum and plan and and we did go down a path about how science MCCAST is and uh there's going to be more simulation based but the curriculum we have does that already so there's a lot of about that um so they feel well positioned and Mike could probably teach us about that at some point so yeah the amplify the change you made to amplify the the curriculum we're using for middle school math is is very much aligned with the changes that were made for MCCAST. So, they're utilizing those sims. So, the students have now seen it already and they've done it. So, they're ready come MCCAST time at the middle school. At the middle Yeah. So,
130they were saying that they went I forget what conference, sorry, because I don't have my notes, but um whatever conference they went to, the other teachers were like, "Oh, you know, you're lucky. Again, just like so impressed with Erin just bringing everyone together there. A lot of good sh I'm sure there's things I should say but I I can't most of them can't come to me. So probably since the last I think I missed the last meeting. Uh so we have received the IRA funding uh federal funding. Uh however uh Department of Local Services on the state level had issued a memo regarding that funding um that places likely restrictions on what we can do with it. We thought we would be able to do things like you know things on that capital list, things
131like that. Uh we're still working through um with council on what we can do with it but it seems to and uh essentially they're the memo if read you know the way it's being interpreted is means it has to be you know the it's it's a refund or a rebate of funds that had a particular purpose and they have to remain within scope of that. way to put it in a nutshell. So, so we're still working through that, but we did we did receive it. So, was uh we received the what we submitted for and then the interest delay 3.3. It's got to be a way to make good use of it. Um, yeah, it might it might just be paying bond, paying the bond and and stuff like that, which people are going to
132say, "Hey, my taxes are going to go down, but everybody's probably going to put out like a dollar little bit. It doesn't unfortunately doesn't have that big of an impact as it would to use it for something else, like a big project that we really, but we'll use it for what we can and and make the biggest impact." Um so I I was fortunate to mar my site council at the high school was today. doesn't mean I can remember much more than um than you, but um they they two were talking about the site council just the improvement plan in terms of you know sort of what they've been working on this year just kind of more view and Kelly anticipates coming forward somewhere between now and prepared to present as they have typically more
133sort of a normal course thing than a specific uh agenda item but Um so we talked a bit about that for about half the meeting. Um I think the one substantive thing that I wanted to update people on I missed the last meeting they had but they had decided the last meeting not to make recommendation rating issue at this point um they've kind of tabled it. It's not to say they voted not to do anything, but at this point um with a lot of other things that telling comment of, you know, there are a lot of other things that are causing stress and something try to figure out. Um so right now it's just been tabled um and there were a couple of other points that were related to sort of the re original purpose
134for looking at it which really was all about you know is there something that differently that prod reduces stress and part of it was the way creating forcing decisions that um kids were making because of things that weren't necessarily healthy big picture. Um and so they're kind of more committed to looking narrowly at some of the other issues that might impact that. So um that's where they are with that. That was that was probably the highlight of share with folks. Yeah, I uh the Warren side council uh did me but I missed it so I can't report on that. I do know that they're doing a community read day on Friday. I'm going Tina's going. Mike Jim, are you maybe to be determined? To be determined. But anyhow, they've invited people um from community to
135read to the kids. So I know I'm assigned to four different classrooms that wait. That's all I got. Second. All in favor? I thanks everyone. Thank you. Good night everybody.