001good evening T tonight is uh February 26 2025 this is the ashin school committee meeting we start each meeting by reading our um our mission statement um which is the Ashton Public School strives to be a model District that creates a culture of inclusivity for our diverse students and staff who feel safe and supported are empowered with the academic and social emotional skills to pursue their chosen path and embrace their roles as positive contributors to the local and Global communities this meeting is being recorded by waca cable TV our initial uh opening procedures are to review the agenda we will have a moment for public comment if there is any um in reports and presentations we look forward to a presentation from Mendes a Community Learning presentation L warrant approvals superintendent report and assistant superintendent
002report Action items and discussion updates and votes we will be um taking a vote on the new contract for superintendent Jim Adams we have a discussion on budget update for the fiscal 2025 year this year and and adjustments we also have a um potential calendar update for next year which is a proposal to move a scheduled early release day from May 15 to May 8th and our consent agenda which covers the approval of gifts and donations Grant approvals and minutes from February 12th then we will have updates from the members motion to adjourn is everybody comfortable with the agenda as presented yes yes um and I know that Lori is um I think zooming in as we speak um so let's start the meeting with um any public comment anybody would like to address the
003school committee please come up to the podium seeing none and seeing none on Zoom we can move right to our reports and presentations Jenna you could start by introducing yourselves maybe your friends who are with you yes do you want to come up Mrs Glen Miss am please um I'd also just like to thank the families so much for coming here tonight and um helping us to have your kids present today they have done a wonderful job this week preparing to go so they have it all ready to go and they're going to start can can you move that back down edit B and hold on one second while while we're doing all that I also just want to mention that Mrs Glenn and Miss Zita have been an amazing um team in contributing to
004help bring this together um Miss Glenn for planning the project for the whole school and Miss Amita for her willingness to have some of her students come and present tonight so and thank you both for being here tonight Jenna if you could have your friends introduce themselves at least their first name tell us who they good evening my name my name is denou we are in mum's third grade class at the minda school hello my name is jeny hello mine is name is EMT hello my name is Aubrey thank you for having us here tonight we're excited to talk about Community Learning during Community Learning we switch classes and have a new teacher with other third fourth and fifth graders the Community Learning groups meet once per month we have Community Learning so we have
005a chance to meet new people and make new friends it is nice to know more than one teacher each year we are third grade we are third graders so we have only had a few times at Community Learning at the February meeting we had drop everything in play I played Jenga with friends and it was very fun I know that last year the school did many different activities including drop everything and walk we are here tonight to we are here tonight to talk to you about the feather activ we activity we did in December each classroom shared a video of the book Wings the main idea of the book was being unique is good and people need to be true of them to themselves after we reread the book each person created their own feather
006to show how they were unique once we all completed our feathers Miss GL Mrs Glenn put them all together to make a pair of wings the wings were then hung outside of the art room so that kids could stand in front of them and look like a soaring uh Like an Eagle soaring Mrs bro our computer teacher put together a video e for e auy thank you so much for having us do you have any questions thank you thank you all for coming in and sharing that with us anybody have any questions for the kids I have a question what is your favorite part about being with the other grades it's a hard one my favorite part of being with the other grades is seeing how like they react and seeing how like like they
007could tell you things that you don't know and then you could be ready for that grade that's great how many feathers were there I think everyone in the school or everyone in third grade made one we're probably about 600 awesome that's awesome right all in a box and I wasna make something it's my turn did I notice that you guys have your feathers with you do you want to tell us what's on them or just hold them up and show us they look really cool oh really nice great did color copy their feathers and they are on the actual and they have these the inst one oh like we're on a photo opport and yeah I have I have one question about Community Learning just to make sure I'm I understand are you with a
008different teacher each time yeah okay so you get to meet a different teacher every single month no oh yeah so you get to so you get to have create a relationship with a new teacher throughout the whole year yeah awesome that's every adult in the building is there everybody great they actually move around the building with great success I was nervous about that what it would be like when all of a sudden all six moved but they do it so do you move to a different classroom when you do Community Learning yes and are you with your s you guys are all in third grade are you with your same classmates from your third grade class or with other third graders and fourth graders different groups there's like groups that's great so you get to
009meet a lot of new friends too that's wonderful that's great what are you going to pass on to the incoming third graders because you're almost fourth graders that's awesome and them off after do any of you all want to add to that what you might pass on you guys did a great job thank you for coming thank you for [Applause] coming I know you have the earliest time free to leave watch nice job you thanks for coming oh I know gets older better we just we'll give it a minute to S down Miss tosy can you hear us okay yes thank you I can hear you I don't know if you can hear me though I'm around a little bit of noise you have no idea it will be thank you thank you good night
010everybody oh as you should be they were wonderful what we used to yeah all right let's move on to the next item on the agenda warrant approvals Paul right I do have it up this time between February 13 2025 and February 26th 2025 I Paul Kendall authorized by my signature payables in the amount of 51194 this includes general fund expenses of $ 363,462 7 revolving expenses of $133,300 and Grant expens of $1,736 and meals tax expenses of $775 thank you Paul Jim you have superintendent's report yeah just a couple quick things one I want to publicly thank uh for those who don't know uh esmer uh castar director of communications uh is taking a job uh with the maror public schools uh as their uh director of communications and I just want to publicly she
011her last day is Friday I just want to publicly thank her for the work that she's done uh We've we've moved quite a bit forward with our um goals of communication and consistency within the buildings in terms of our our weekly newsletters uh the work with the logo uh the the platform of s'mores but also then she redid our website and She's continually updating that uh we do have a new one coming on board in in July so uh that's pretty well done uh we'll have some clean CLE up work to do and some training for our admin team uh so we can actually individually post from each building which is what our goal will be um so that's exciting but again I just want to say thank you to her um and lastly um
012well two things one uh we have a tri board meeting this weekend uh with the fincom and select board I met with Michael Herbert yesterday for a good length of time just to talk about you know where we are with the budget process and um you know we feel that you know as a as a town and you know General government and schools that that there's a lot of work still to do with the budget um but but there's still some optimism uh and that was curbed a little bit today uh when I just was uh just got back actually from uh spending the afternoon with uh Senator spilka uh in in Boston uh about six superintendents we went in met with her we do this on a yearly basis right around this time to
013to check in as as the new legisl process is beginning um you know generally the the governor's first iteration of the budget is out and and going from there and and what I can tell you I took away is that it's going to be a tough year financially um at the state level um and that when we're talking about compy determination in mcast uh that that was a question I had asked is there going to be some sort of um process so there's consist consistency across the state um right now there there isn't anything that is going to be implemented currently um there will be some uh public hearings on um some proposals that desie is making but desie is going through a shakeup as well the the interim commissioner uh has resigned and will
014be done in a couple weeks uh they'll hire an interim commissioner then eventually a um a full-time commissioner starting end of March will be the um appointment and so there's a lot in flux if you will but other than that um that's all I have for for my report thank you we have any questions for Jim all right move along to Mike just a couple quick things that we we had a vacation last week so there's not a whole lot to add in terms of from the curriculum lens but a few just congratulations uh over the weekend I was able to attend uh the division three um state champion wrestling event and I want to send congratulations to sophomore Logan Costello uh who is named state champion as well as senior Adrian Guzman who uh
015won state championship honors for the second year so congratulations to those two um few events that are happening that are worthwhile mentioning tomorrow the PTO is sponsoring the clocker classic which is a wonderful event allowing our staff members to play in a basketball game the kids always enjoy watching them play that begins tomorrow at 6 p.m at Ashlin High School uh and uh it's asked for a $5 donation upon entrance um the Ashton high school theater Society is putting on their show this weekend uh of anything goes tickets are on sale our general admission is $199 you can purchase tickets at a ahs.com up to one hour before showtime and tickets can be purchased purchased at the door for $15 uh the show is Friday February 28th and Saturday March 1st at 7 p.m. and
016Sunday March 2nd at 2 p.m at ashon high school and um the AFI ashon Education Foundation uh who just does a great amount of work for our school system in terms of providing our teachers with opportunities to apply for Grants to support the work that they do is having their annual casino night and that is on March 8th Saturday March 8th at the Warren Conference Center from 7:00 to 10:30 and tickets can be purchased just for $75 so I want to shout out those events uh because they're all really important to our school Community thank you Mike any questions on uh all that um all right next item on the agenda is um superintendent's contract so just for a little context um mostly for the public um we had started having conversations with our superintendent
017uh few months ago about an extension of his current employment agreement um we had pre previously authorized Lori as the chair to sort of have the initial conversations with Jim um she did that and of course Lor's been out of town for um a little bit so you know the rest of the committee met um for our last meeting made some file tweaks to an agreement um and then at blessed sort of gave me the authority to speak with Jim afterwards um which I did we reviewed the changes and and sort of final language then emailed it to Jim um with the changes in it gave him the opportunity to look at it he Subs informed us that he's good with that um he did make some sort of grammatical changes but nothing of any
018substance from the last draft that you all saw um I did go through all that and made sure that there was anything that changed anything in substance um so with that um you know the the agreement um which really doesn't become effect until effective until July 1st um just for The public's information would be six-year contract you know I think reflects this committee's support for Mr Adams now been in the seat for 11 years um you know I think we've all expressed through our evaluations the P strong support for the work he does and the team he leads and things the district has accomplished um so we're really at a point of unless there's further discussion just looking to approve the final version of that contract which I know Jim circulated for everybody to look
019at in advance um a couple days ago but that's just for sort of for the community benefit the background on it anybody want to add anything to that before take up the issue um is so is is the motion for us to approve it and to authorize Lor to sign she's the only one that sign yeah yeah I mean I think that's a good point I really thought about the second part of that but yeah I think we're looking for a motion to approve the contract as presented and to authorize the chair Lori to sign on behalf of the committee so move second second we'll do roll call vote because Lori is remote um Marcy yes Hina yes Paul hi Lori hi and I for me unan five nothing congratulations and I'll take the opportunity
020and I'm sure everybody will chime me with their own two words just to say continue thank you for all the work that you do for this District it's been a pleasure to work with you and continues to be and just him for myself I for all just really grateful to have partner and a leader District that keeps us all student centered trying to move us forward every single anybody else wants to yeah thank you Mark I agree with everything you've said Jim I appreciate you so much and I've been here since you have and um you've been a wonderful leader was lucky to have you trans far you do I would just Echo all of that and say how much we appreciate your dedication and loyalty to the district and I'm thrilled to know that
021we're going to be able to have you on board to to uh for the next several years to to continue the the work you've done here we appreciate you stuck with us Jim stuck with us now well not until he signs it might be the other way around um thank you it's it's humbling for sure um and uh for you all to put your trust in me and and my team and and it's really as a team it's not me um I can't thank you enough um to potentially really round out my career and education here something special thank you okay and uh you can work out of time with Lor to do the signing ceremony when she gets back after bathing in the sign all right uh next item on the agenda is the
022fy2 budget update and adjustments I think um there a slide that was yeah I'm going to bring it up as well look to you and Chris I guess to walk us through this issue I'll turn it over to Chris here in a second I just want to give the context uh of what we do and how we've done this for the last couple of years um so we are in well beginning of March coming up on on Saturday uh so you know throughout the year we have an operating budget that's approved at at town meeting but also we have a number of of expenses offsets if you will that we utilize revolving accounts for to help pay for some of the uh expenses salaries supplies Etc uh through throughout the year and as we get
023closer and closer to the end of the current fiscal year that you're we're in we start looking at balances and to determine okay are these balances what are the discrepancies positive and negatively right and and how how do they fall within the overall uh budget approved at town meeting and then if we've got some favorable variances and and and Chris can speak to these in a moment if we've got some favorable variances how do we then look at those variances that are part of the operating budget and move some of the one-time fund expenses that we would you know count on using like revolving accounts so it could be salaries could be supplies it could be other things can we then shift those into our operating budget thus preserving the revolving accounts for future use
024um and and that's sort of that's what we're proposing tonight uh there there's some significant funds that we feel comfortable and I and I will say Chris and I are going through this on a weekly basis uh for him it's a daily basis like literally tying the numbers out um so and we're both pretty conservative individuals when it comes to our budget and making sure that if we're going to move some of the the expenses from the school choice lines which you don't have all the school choice lines if you want to go back and ask for those specific details we certainly can but it's probably a hundred different line items that could it could impact um we could certainly do that um when we provide the budget book if if you go back and
025look at the back of the budget book we have a number of school choice line items there already um so I will you know transition it to Chris here but that's what we're asking to do tonight is to be able to authorize us to make some adjusting entries to our current um budget and you might uh get to it but just you have a a school choice uh number now but understand what what the what the forecast was to use yeah yeah so yeah so and that's what c will he'll I did asked him to make sure he says exactly what we had um you know set aside for school choice this year so Chris do you want to take this over do you want me to hand your call it's sorry you will get
026to that to that part once we talk about what we're asking to to use um so you'll see the financials um in front of you too I think in your your packet so I'll just speak to what I see on my screen which is similar to to this but uh um just to give a quick overview you get the original appropriation which is our the the approved budget we have transfers the the dollar in that transfer is essentially Po's funds that roll over from one year to the next so it's it was already committed um Let Go 24 we roll it over because it's committed expense and it's U you know we pay um but it's not an addition to our clear it's more counting mechanism so the Year date expended versus uh is self-explanatory
027I think already spent cumbrance those are already committed expenditures that we have on our ledger so they're either salary dollars or they're purchase orders that we've placed with various businesses and Chris that encumbrance just looking like the first line of 534 that's an encumbrance against the original appropriation of 1. 1457 not not against the revised budget figure is that correct is that right so like where we're showing in here transfers and adjustments bumps the revised budget up you're not the encumbrance is not against the 1.6 figure it's really against the original it would be against the um the what the encumbrance says it's 8 889 plus 53 4,000 gives you a total dollar amount and then the variance would be to the 1.6 yeah go ahead y six okay okay that helps thanks Marcy that's
028correct yeah 92,000 in March yeah yeah thanks Marcy do you have an accounting background do you explain these types of things all day this on a daily she speaks numbers sorry Chris go that's fine so and then uh anticipated we don't have a book yet meaning we don't have a purchase order yet out on it but I just know it's going to happen so I anticipated on the so or I anticipated on this report and then we have an available budget of which I I thought there were seven categories that be beneficial for us to to talk about so you can understand where the variance is that we would like to essentially transfer um in summary I'll get into those details but in summary as it stands today we looking at a $1.2 million um
029favorable bar uh variance to budget knowing that still several months of school so there are seven items that make up that 1.2 variants of which I'll just go through them 92,000 salary administrative there is essentially 1.5 positions that have filled the administrative area the salary instructional majority of that is it's 444,000 majority of that is retirement savings so hiring ow this this school year and um we also had an unfilled R teacher this year special ed salaries a favorable $500,000 variants the majority of that is unfilled esps and we have a one position there is um maintenance contracts 86,000 unfavorable majority of that is fire alarms that we continue to have expenditure Budget on a literally a day-to-day basis just with having electrician is it that the high school correct yep and which we uh
030we do have Capital funds identified which will be fixing the situation over the summer but there's still an ongoing cost on a daily basis if you will to maintain to we shut off the alarms right do you expect that um that c is is the negative 86 like a budget do you expect that amount to go up by the end of the school year or is that through the end what I did was in it was anticipated for a while and I moved over to encumbered so we put the PO out there so so it's that uh that's what we anticipate that's that 81k to the left yeah a good portion of that 81k is getting us through the rest of the year I just didn't know if that number would get bigger no I
031don't see that getting larger well good question not for the finals correct I say knock on before you know thing tips over on you correct yeah people Transportation this is related to um homelessness prior years we've seen expenditures budgeted for accordingly this year we're seeing less of those those expenses outo District we do have some savings or AO District placements it's it's variable and based on individual needs this number can change and does change you know often on a weekly or or every other week basis you'll see a report on Saturday that I've put together that changes on a monthly basis that we and um impressive the the last one is on labeled sped other and that's directly related to special education increase Transportation have we incurred additional costs because of the lack of esps
032pa pa professionals those vacancies that you talked about before have we had to incur like contracted services to support kids because we didn't have staff for now we did not the share we did in previous years correct yeah we did we did last year we did not the yeah no I understand that yep y yeah so as you know in in terms of I don't want to jump too far ahead but in the FY 26 budget we will be removing some of those additional esps that are currently within the budget that we didn't fill as we didn't F now we don't feel we need them yeah it was a good way for us to look at it too so with this favorable variance the the request right now is we have $629,000 within school choice
033that are it's they're essentially salary dolls school choice that we would like to move into the school fund so we can use you know we we'll free up the available balance in school choice so we can focus on that in our fiscal 206 planning fiscal 26 budget development it'll be it'll be available at that time and we we're comfortable that we can do that so uh so we're we're looking now to use 630,000 of school choice what was the original was 1.2 1.2 so the yeah so we're reducing our our dependency on school choice by about 6 that's correct 29 with and and again if you look at the chart that Chris is is displayed here there's still this remaining variable Val balance right of 600,000 you know we don't feel any we don't feel
034comfortable going any further below this number right now because we don't know what will happen even though we've accounted for and anticipated some even at a district costs um we have a feeling there will be some additional costs that are coming through uh and as we get closer to that June time frame May time frame this number may have a variance again a favorable variance for us where we could then you know reapply some of the say Transportation or school choice um revolving accounts that we're using in FY 25 again to be able to roll forward to FY it it's a it's as I will comment on sary it's a it's a delicate um way to balance your books on a yearly basis there's no way around it um we rely on our one-time funds
035cover salaries uh and that is um a dangerous game uh to play on a long-term basis now we've been fortunate that that we've been able to have significant increases in our operating budget the town has been really gracious and good to us and we've seen increases in Chapter 70 and State funding um uh but that is now drying up we've got to be really thoughtful you know down the road if you notice and reading in the paper natic $7 million override coming up there there will be other communities that have been looking at it in going forward after the federal dollars and the State dollars are starting to dry up so um this is just where we are right now this certainly is is positive news not only in the fy2 but is you've been
036through the budget process with me for f26 it's a big could be a big step in helping us reduce the deficit we currently are have any other questions for Jim Chris I just have one question probably for history but if we move this now is there anything to preclude it if a one-time event came up and you needed the funds can you move it back we can move it back okay yeah yep good question but yeah we we have the flexibility to do that we do have funding still ail yeah so to do this are you looking for us to uh just to approve um the abil the to approve the 629 number was um of school choice funding to be adjusted to the general operating fund so the motion would be to approve the
037transfer of $629,500 then WR correct thank you there second second any further discussion all for the vote Mar yes actually's not on she's not anymore all in favor I I okay thank you both next item on the agenda is the school year 2526 that's next year correct proposed calendar update moving the scheduled early release day from the prom yeah the prom and this is just that it's we do this quite often we bring this back we always when we set the calendar we don't always have the prom date uh so miss aner a lot of people don't have the prom date I I didn't have one either I'm just saying but but may uh May 15th we we had put on the calendar uh they cannot have the date uh the prom on that day
038they found a facility for May 8th so it's just really shifting at a week for early release day so we can get squared away that's all it is any need for discussion on the point there motion I move to approve the uh proposed calendar update for the uh 2025 and 2026 school year as thank you all in favor I I thank you m Zer thanks you all right um next item on the agenda is the consent agenda um was there anybody had any specific discussion any the consent agenda items can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda so move second second all in favor I I I not asking for opposition because all right and uh reports of school committee members AB do you want to start uh so not much really differing
039from the last time we met um it's been a calm calm few weeks uh we had a nice break we're appreciative of that um but now it's back to work and back to the Grind pretty much it for me sound like an adult back to the Grind Marcy grind goodness um I went to the Middle School site counil that again so a few updates from there um they had their first whole school assembly since Co um which I guess went swimmingly and um Aon wants to have one every maybe going forward but she said they did great a lot of enthusiasm there they had a toy drive and collected over 1,200 toys and we got one week's notice as parents so that's like particularly impressive um new toys went to uh public safety building for
040Toys for Tots and then other toys got distributed through the community their student council has been pretty active Spirit day every Friday I knew nothing about so I got to get on that with my my sixth grader um eighth grade class recommendations are going out soon for the high school and they're having an assembly next week with parents and students about that had 40 students apply into keep Tech so a lot of discussion about um interest in that and prepping families about you know all the things you need to do to think about if you want to apply into keep Tech or other private schools um we had a really good discussion about um like setting expectations and work progression for grade levels um homework expectations what the grades mean waiting a lot of lot
041of discussion about that um and then the um in the CL in that evolve uh evolved from the class schedule discussion because um you know the changes that are being made there and what the expectations of students are and explaining that to them um and then I think for the next meeting we're going to go through the um School Improvement plan and Aon wants to add a new item to each area and um look at what's continuing that's already been achieved and going to be continuing so more in like a maintenance mode and what can be added but um sounds like she wants to have discussion about just um like expectations on uh you know grades and and what that means and from a parent perspective too in terms of like just because you got
042a 95 in a class does not mean you should then be put in accelerated whatever it's there's more to it than that which was really helpful as a parent to hear all of that um you know is a child like ready for the next level at the level you know just a lot of discuss about that so that was good um it also sounds like there's going to be some discussion about if a student um is put on an i SSP or an improvement plan how that gets communicated to parents and and what it looks like going forward because there were letters that went out parents that take a lot of time but maybe the message wasn't delivered in a way they thought was most effective so um she wants to explore that so there
043just a lot of good discussion and I'll just say it again like Aaron is just I just think doing a wonderful job so thoughtful thank you Marcy Hina I don't have any update since our last meeting Kendall uh not too much we had very quick building committee meeting last night uh update on the our tax rebate so our our Tax Advisor has been in communication with the IRS trying to get a status on that so still hopeful that that will move through the system and and to us but uh no timeline on that yet when when does the school building committee kind of officially complete its work well we don't even have grass yet so um and and there's several things but the close out is typically about two years after construction so there'll be
044maintenance and different things with the until the msba process everything wraps up they need to exist although you know some point it might make more sense to ask the select board to or ask members I don't need to be a I don't need eight members to get a quorum to do like last night we only met because we needed to pay an invoice so uh it's it's got It's a lot you know have to get eight people minimum to be able to hold the meeting so uh so at some point it might make sense to to get there we we still have some things that are outstanding that we definitely want the whole committee for but um so I would expect pairing down over the next year and then probably maintenance for another year after
045that all right and uh I I don't have anything for for tonight either anybody else has anything else we look for motion to adjourn we move is there a second all in favor I unanimous we are adjourned 43 p.m good night everybody e