001e two one good evening everybody it is March 27th 2024 I will start by reading our new vision statement the Ashland 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 local and Global communities this meeting is being recorded by waca cable TV and our order of business this evening is open session call to order opening procedures agenda review and adoption it will be time for public comment and then we will open our public um fy2 school budget hearing next would be the student Opportunity Act plan accept collaborative agreement modifications appointment of a school Committee Member to the
002Driscoll scholarship committee assist assistant superintendent update superintendent update warrant approvals consent actions include gifts and donations minutes from March 13th and then we will adjourn so um I will take attendance and ask if everyone's okay with the order of business Marcy yep Kina yes yes and we have uh Paul Kendall and Mark Terry are absent this evening but we do have a quorum so we can move forward um I will start by asking if there are any members of the public um prior to us entering into the budget hearing is there anybody who would like to offer any comment Mark I see you you want to make a comment I'll unmute you I you I'm trying yep how's that good Mark we hear you do you want to have a um comment Mark uh yes
003I'd like to have a comment about um one your your mission statement and then it goes along with with um about the what the um College job fair subjects matters are so the with the mission statement is the um is is the second sentence and the third sentence does that be like collec of the uh the town itself South Town atmosphere of what the students go go by so normally this is just time for comment and we don't typically answer questions but I will just share with you briefly Mark that we had really a yearslong process um with the school committee and with other um smaller groups within the school schools and parents and so forth while we were building our latest strategic plan we had outside people working with us and this vision statement
004is a result of all the work that we did over the past couple of years taking input from all those different stakeholders okay then that that answers that and um when you when you do have the college job fairs at this at the high school are those College job fair from the metal West or or over or over the the state itself well school committee doesn't really have any involvement in that but I'm going to assume that the colleges at the job fair are from everywhere all around yeah but I couldn't tell you which ones it's not something that that we run um and I didn't attend this year so I don't know so I'll round out to the point is that I'm looking for this this town to have a a future growth and
005I've been talking to everybody else in on committees about um medical science technology climate control Net Zero things that happened that is happening now in in the world biotechs and stuff like that is wondering are the students being taught in the prep college courses to be ready to go in case they could find jobs around in the Metro West that they can go without going to college to be prep ready for those jobs so again I it's really not able to get into a Q&A but I will just tell you briefly that um part of the work that we we always do here and that we did specifically in the last couple years with the Strategic plan and the vision statement is to make sure that all students are prepared for whichever opportunities they're going
006to be seeking whether they be college or um service or employment directly out of high school it's our job to prepare all the students for any of those possibilities Jim did you want to add something so Mark also we have the ability to send our students to ke Tech as well as Norfolk agie which Supply our students with the opportunity uh to gain valuable knowledge and trades as well as biotech or things of that nature as well so uh so some of our kids yes are getting that experience but ashon High School isn't prepared to do those things at this point okay and to the and very last to Mr Mr shower there these are all questions I brought up for the comprehensive plan for this town and let just bringing it up here just
007to see what answers I would get thank you Mark appreciate it that's it thank you okay thank you Mark okay I am going to now move to open the public hearing on the fy2 school budget um do I need to take a roll call for that thank you Marcy uh just yes for agreeing to open the hearing Tina yes thank you uh we have a quorum we're going to open the hearing um I do want to start as as I usually do um because there aren't too many people here other than our wonderful administrators who are all here thank you um to just tell you a little bit about the process because you're about to hear superintendent Adams present the budget and there's nobody here that's going to be asking us any very deep questions
008about it because there's just nobody here um but I did want to let you know that uh we won't be just easily rubber stamping this presentation this evening that this has been going on all year um the administrators have had many meetings about it with each other with their staff the school committee has had a workshop with the administrators and we've had the chance to ask all of our questions there and we may have some follow-up questions tonight if um something up com comes up in the in the discussion um but I I do just want to make the community aware that um this is a process that has been going on for a while all right Jim thank you very much would you also like to mention that we are going to keep the
009session open yes um I'm not going to close the meeting tonight um superintendent Adams let me know earlier that our final number um is not ready to be voted this evening so we are going to go through the bud pre budget presentation um 99.9% of what's being presented is what we've all been talking about for these many months and it's just that the final number needs some tweaks and we will keep the hearing part of this meeting open until our next great Gathering thank you yeah so as we've done in my 10 years as superintendent we've had an opportunity to come together as a ad team uh over the course of many months starting back as early as as November uh thank you to Chris uh for all the the hard work that he puts
010in uh taking all the data that the principles and directors give to him and and put it in a a readable fashion for our community uh we want to make sure that that all of the information uh can be easily read by anybody within the community uh so what I'm presenting tonight as as you stated is a budget that that still needs a little tweaking um been in conversations with the town manager and what we hope to do is be able to have a finalized number by next Tuesday uh and have a virtual meeting uh with this whole the entire school committee where we can vote on a final number to present to the fincom as well as the select board that's the the ne those are the next steps so so what does it
011look like let see if I can slideshow here so our guidelines are are pretty steadfast in how we approach things uh we want to make sure that we have a fiscally responsible budget uh that we are maintaining our existing staff in our programs uh if we're including new Personnel in programs how are they meeting student needs how are they tying into our strategic plan uh how are they tying into the growth of our of our district not only with with regard to enrollment but the changing profile and demographic of our of our community uh we want to make sure that again adequate fun fing and programming does exist for future reference for folks you know we have about 439 employees 232 teachers uh $155,000 uh is approximate in our in District cost per student or
012per pupil cost um and here are our new Mission uh vision and core values everything we do has to tie back to this so anytime we ask for something anytime we're looking at our our funding sources we want to make sure our strategic objectives uh are being met so we ask that our admin team uh when they request something new uh that it is tying directly back into the Strategic plan I think that's really important um to note because we're not just asking for something it's what's the you know what are the reasons behind the ask so getting into the the nuts and bolts where are we so we ended the year uh in May we received $4 4,211 $2,690 in May currently uh the budget as it stands today uh is 42,1 42,47 that
013that's about a 4.8% increase uh over the prior years as you know we have a standing agreement with the town uh that our budget uh can increase 3.75% so so we're currently 42 2,000 roughly 423,000 over that number at this time that's the work that needs to be done with with Michael uh in the town uh to make sure that that we're getting closer to that 3.75 number which that 3.75 is the 41719 544 so um so folks are out there looking at it it's 3.75% of the 40, 211,000 and please stop me if you have questions I know you've seen this before but I just just want to make sure so this chart's a little different than what you saw in the budget Workshop because I wanted to make it a little clearer for
014folks uh in terms of what are we asking for and how are we going from that 40, 211,000 number to 42 m42000 uh so this year hopefully will outline it a little more um clearly for folks um so I will have a couple people jump in Britney I see you online uh and Kelly's here as well uh to talk a little bit about um the the new programs that we're looking to create but I think it's important to highlight a few things first one uh if you go down to increase in Personnel due to eser Grant fund loss uh we've all heard of the fiscal cliff coming from all the federal and state AIDS uh that came through the covid time period uh we have about 672 671 735 of uh salaries that are attributed
015and have been attributed to the Sesser money so this year that money runs out you can see the folks who are being paid out of that counselors uh as well as our Middle School half team that we created um as enrollment was increasing uh so those are positions that we want to keep but now we have to account for them uh in the operating budget um Brit are you available right now yes awesome thank you do you want to talk about the um the 18 to 22 program sure and I'm sorry I don't know what's wrong with my camera but it won't let me turn on it probably knows I look tired so worries um so the 18 through 22 program um in ashin specifically was you know is hoped to be created for our
016students in District who have been receiving our in District program for the duration of their educational career in Ashland um some students require additional support as they transition out of high school into you know their independent adult lives that require additional support from the school district um these students because of not having an in-house in District program have largely had to go out of District to continue to have that support which you know in my professional opinion isn't necessarily the most fair thing for our kiddos we want to create them um opportunities to grow in their community in which they live and our community in initial Outreach has been largely receptive of supporting job placements and career opportunities for our young adults um lots of um support from gym facilities um local restaurants um administrative
017support just really really excited to support our students and give them what they need to feel supported as they transition into adult hood thank you can you also talk about the reading specialist sure um the reading specialist at the middle school is coming from a request of um you know growth in special education numbers our fifth grade population transitioning to the middle school is pretty high in special education population about 30% of the students currently enrolled at Mendes are identified as needed special education support um so this role will primarily support that fifth grade transitioning into the sixth grade and they will largely be a a manager with a focus on supporting reading and um growth in that specific area with the hopes that over time as student numbers reduce um through you know more
018cohesive identifi identification and in support and intervention that they could be available to support all reading needs grade six seven and eth thank you I'll stop there to see if anyone here wants to have any questions for Britney or if you have any none okay great thanks Brit no problem could you come up thanks I'll have uh misser just talk about the the bright program and and the costs associated with that I think so yeah the computer is asking join but no okay um so the bright program is something um that Brett and uh Jen Taylor and I worked together along with um our iip coordinator at the high school uh looking at some different ways to meet the needs of some of the students um we have a rising population of students that have
019um very extensive long um hospitalizations um due to primarily mental health um but the potential is always there for other medical needs um as well as students that are withdrawing from high schools withdrawing from high school without a diploma um and um we have been looking for creative ways to meet those students needs in terms of providing them with additional supports um and case management um for those students that are transitioning back to school after along hospitalization um looking for a different way to to keep them uh caught up to provide them with direct instruction which they don't receive now um within their academic subject so that they can stay on track um to graduate um and with our students who um are potentially looking at withdrawing from high school um looking for ways to
020to be more creative many of them um we know are working full-time already um and looking at some potential work um study credit uh to build into getting again the academic um reinforcement that they need to complete their graduation requirements um you know we know that many of them are just a couple credits away from graduating um and are leaving for work so I'm hoping to be more creative in in getting all of our students to a diploma um the bright model itself has been around for 20 plus years um and the model um which we hope to um get support from them they offer a nice um system of support when you're starting a program um their model requires that you have uh a counselor that works with the families um to provide kind
021of that really wraparound support not only the academic support but the other um clinical piece of working with students um so our vision is to um require that students that are part of this program would also have a clinical component in terms of working with an adjustment counselor um around some of the mental health needs um that will help them be more successful with the academic piece and then an ESP um is associated with that program as well um in order to help with the case management we see this um potentially falling outside of typical school hours to meet some of those needs of the students that struggle with coming into the building um and an ESP would help with that management of the after um School piece um of coordinating with the classes that
022they are continuing with within the high school and any classes where they may be doing online or outside of Ashton High School teaching um classes questions all right thank you and Mike just can you touch Bas of the literacy coach sure um as you know a couple years ago we we um employed Kathy fari is our first literacy coach and she's she's been able to bring us um some really invaluable work in terms of improving our literacy instruction and with that we we started to develop our our data team meetings at at Warren and then now at Mendes and the amount of the amount of u staff that Kathy needs to work with is kind of insurmountable at this point I mean she's working with over 70 staff members um and in order for us
023to really be able to make the strides that we want to make with literacy and to continue to see improvement in our students um we feel like it's it's really important for us to have one more person in that role at this point um you know right now Kathy is traveling between the two buildings um if we were able to house her in either Mendes or Warren and then bring a new literacy coach to be able to work specifically with the other school it allows for some continuity in the building and also for those two to be a to collaborate with our uh building administrators to really um step up our our literacy instruction and continue to see great strides for all of our students as you know you know early literacy development has been
024at the Forefront of our thinking here for quite some time and we are making wonderful progress but I think the addition of yet another person to be an instructional leader in that capacity will will really help us to see continued improvements questions on that no great Chris uh you just talk about the facilities expenses hello um for facilities we're seeing uh a few increases one of the incremental ones would be a rent increase that we have associated with our maintenance team they are uh they they were housed at the Mendes school and we needed to find a new location for them so the plan is for the foreseeable future that they would be located um off of munko road so there's an incremental expense of a little over $50,000 associated with that the other expense
025is an incremental FTE of a 1.0 but it's really split between two buildings Mendes School we've had you know it's it's increased square footage so we're looking to increase the FTE by 0.5 there Warren school in the past we increased the square footage there and we didn't really catch up in terms of the Personnel so we're looking to see if we could increase that by a 05 FTE as well excuse me as well the other expenses are adjusting for well utilities first we uh need to recognize the inflationary expenses um associated with utilities and the other one is contracted services and supplies we're looking for a 4% increase in those areas as well great thanks so the the largest piece that you haven't we haven't talked about is really the the second line down the
026uh increase in salaries due to contractual obligations the 1.8 million uh we are still in the process of negotiating with uh two of the units we have five that we've been negotiating uh so uh those are not public yet uh we haven't voted on them nor has the uh applicable unions uh so uh we have a placeholder for some of the the reserves there as well as the retire anticipated retirements we have I think 10 or 11 folks who are retiring uh so we want to recognize that those are positions that will be replaced uh but we anticipate some cost savings uh in terms of just the structure of the salary so so as you can see uh we are also increasing the use of our revolving accounts um from the previous years by 1.69
027million um 1.61 n million just to again i' just like to show this because you get to see really where the increases are almost 2 million salaries um and the contracted Services um Chris it's down 5% partly because uh we're we're shifting some of the salaries up top is that correct um how you move things around with the the the reduction in contracted Services is actually it's it's due to the the way that we're handling the offsets so so the offsets are moving the the credit that you that you saw of the 1.6 million a few minutes ago some of that is um uh there three there's a few hundred, worth of uh um Contract Services for our transportation that's probably the largest variance there student enrollment we we share this all the time we're
028we're still anticipating growth uh within the district we have we've slowed down a little bit uh Pete we're still at50 there 150 for kindergarten for next year which is kind of again scary uh because because we're in participating 205 uh so there are a few out there and uh this happened with the current first grade class was pretty low and uh but we don't anticipate it I just received actually today our new NASDAQ projections and they're actually projecting from the fall to the spring actually another slight increase so I've got to go through that it just happened I was like huh that's interesting from last fall to the spring or next yeah from this fall to the spring so they do a projection in the fall and I haven't do it twice a year now
029uh because we were seeing such a variance uh so that the spring numbers just came in and they're still anticipating the 200 plus for the kindergarten So based on birthing rates people moving in bless people moving into town Etc um it's scary a little bit uh 2728 uh 28 29 getting up in the 3,000 range bless youc uh I'm sure Jenna is scared at 725 over a Mendes building we just brand new at 635 we built it for um but as we've said uh we did build that facility with tremendous flexibility so we have we have space that that we can currently move folks into I show this uh because we talk about how well we achieve it's a double edged sword um within a community um but we are on average spending $1 15,928
030average is 19,000 you know 600 almost um so um the bang for the buck is pretty real here in Ashland and we've talked a lot about that but that being said we are coming up against that fiscal cliff or financial cliff for us with the use of our revolving accounts we've been able to maintain this um for quite some time at least in my 10 years uh but this number uh certainly um needs to increase moving forward special education um always a moving Target and you'll notice that that in this slide I I adjusted it from our our budget Workshop to to be clear that while we have stud 38 students that we project to out be out of District students next year that's a decrease of five it's it's a decrease because we have
031some students that are out who would come back one at least one who would come back in for the 18 to 22 program okay we've got two students that are currently in-house that are going would be a part of the in-house program they would have been added to this uh and then there are some other students uh whom we've brought back in uh and that we anticipate keeping it's a moving Target Sarah knows best you know in terms of all the early intervention and the in the the prek students and all of the testing that she's going through uh so we settle so early on our budget that this could uh impact Us in June and July uh with students moving into the community but I wanted to show the reason to this community why
032we build programs I think it's really critically important and here's just an example this is the anticipated District savings for us building an 18 to 22 year old program uh in the first year we anticipate three students and that includes one student coming back in two who are currently in our district and as Britney said we've built programs in my 10 years actually for these these students to stay in our schools the entire time MH um we're not always successful some students are are better served not in the ason public schools that's um we recognize that and then it could escalate from three students to six students to nine up to 13 in about five years but to build the program it's about $222,000 so that's the educator that Britney was talking about and two
033pair of professionals but also spending $25,000 to fix the room the classroom uh which would be in the Middle School uh to to make sure the buildout is is perfect for their needs approximately if there were three students that we would have it except for the 18 to 22 would be approximately 226,000 so the first year is of anticipation of of $24,000 savings obviously these are estimates we don't fully know what the true cost will be um and then year two I just want to give another example we would add another pair of professional um because the numbers go from 3 to six so the the approximate cost goes to about 250,000 and and I took into account a little bit of the cola increases that are going to happen with the contracts so again
034it's it's an estimate but it's a it's a good guess right but then add in three more students of if they had to be outplaced to 450,000 so now we're looking at Savings in in year two of about 200,000 um again trying to build programs keep our kids in we all believe that we want our kids to be part of the ashon public schools the 18 to 22 year old program part of the ashon community working in the ashin community um you know we see such a value in that U this is just an example of why we do that um not only is it great for our kids but it's financially um responsible questions on this because you have not seen this I have a question yeah of course um shocking and um first
035I just want to say this is great this is great I I I really like how this is laid out um for the six students it the cost doesn't double so are you looking from the three in terms of the amount of money we'd save so does the cost vary to student so I'm just looking at um sorry I'm going too fast but for the three students we have an approximate cost savings of 226,000 the approximate cost to send them was 226 226 okay so then if we're doubling it yeah I I I could have easily made it 250 or 400 well it's 452 right yeah okay so I was I was doing in my head 250 25500 but it's rough okay yeah that's why I was just using that estimate and we don't know
036we wouldn't know exactly what the cost would be because it depends per student right because you could have one that could be a lot more cost it depends on if we were at accept or another uh placement somewhere we had we had we had one student who they moved it was out west they did an 18 to 22 program um where it was just a different cost so it was it's so it's dependent okay this is excellent though and okay thanks and not to interject but in addition to depending on where there's always an increase in terms of tuition at a percentage rate so I'm sure that's a piece of that increase yeah and if it's private it could be 14% we never know yeah I think this is so great because as a person
037who you know started so many years ago having kids I had no idea that it cost us much money for the schools to like send students um to other programs so I just really applaud everyone's work on you know generating the program thank you if this one shocks you wait till the next slide so we've built and it's hard to read uh we've built a number of District specialized programs uh from you know paway to the high school MH and currently we have 141 students participating in these programs and the cost to uh have the the programs and these are true costs in terms of salaries um is about $3 million uh that we we have in Ashen so I try to give a a a real um synopsis of what happens if we didn't
038have these programs right what would it really look like uh what would it be costing the town um even after circuit breaker after some um funding coming back from the state we never know we've we've experienced and Don is probably Donna FL is from accept here tonight and has probably experienced that in her career in special ed 20% 25% reimbursement for circuit breaker up to what's required 75% so we want to make sure that the community understands that these programs we've built you know next year just anticipating these 141 students um the district is saving approximately 10, 665,000 if again that's an assumption it's a big assumption that every kid would have to be outplaced right but it's sort of the the the process I want folks to see why we build programs uh not
039only because we want kids to be in our district that's the most important piece but there is a financial um savings to also building these programs um so so this is you know again this is just a a quick analysis of of where we are questions on that one no it's helpful to see those yeah good so this is where the rubber meets the road so we can actually balance a budget this year is in FY 24 we're spending about1 .3 million uh in revolving funds and for those who are listening uh revolving funds are funds that we pull in for fees Andor uh circuit breaker from the state so a reimbursement for partial special education out of District costs we charge for building rental we charge for busing um we charge International tuition when
040we used to have international students um and then we have school choice now school choice as you know we've reduced the number of spots because of our enrollment uh has increased therefore we have less and less or fewer and fewer spots every year but we're anticipating spending $3.7 million this year uh in revolving accounts to make our budget work that's a significant increase uh $2.4 million overall so um question y but in the last meeting didn't we choose to repurpose some of those funds so when you were at this same point last year you really have't increased 2.4 you found savings that helped you that's a great point and and I'll show that next slide that's that's really good point at the last meeting we talked about re um making an adjusting entry if you
041will for the accountants out there but to to say that we were um utilizing funds from school choice funds for instance say $100,000 I'm just useing an example $100,000 to cover a salary of someone and we had significant savings th this year because we haven't filled all of our positions within the operating budget that was passed at town meeting therefore we don't need to use the $100,000 that we had allocated and now that $100,000 can be appropriated for next year so that's what's happening uh so all of these actually school choice building rental transportation and International tuition all of those were had funds allocated for the fy2 24 budget that we didn't need to appropriate so after the savings that we've had that's a good point so yes this number would have looked a lot
042different and this is what it would have looked a lot different oh so yeah sorry it's all right stole your thunder no worries um so our beginning balance anticipated is almost $6.4 million that number would have been 42 Chris yeah what 2 yeah two million less yeah two million less so that's what we would have started started the year with had we not been able to repur reallocate the funding into the general operating budget we we have anticipated revenues of next year of 2.1 and the one thing you'll notice is there are three numbers that are consistent the 1.5 million in the circuit break for anticipated revenues projected in balance and the budget offset that we don't know what we're going to get during um fiscal year 25 um which is really reimbursement from from
043fiscal year 24 so we're just being pretty conservative and saying we're going to get about the same amount of money um we don't know so this will have to be adjusted as we go forward um everything else is stay pretty status quo the International tuition will will be uh used up uh we will not have that in the future uh you'll notice School Bus revolving we're not increasing fees we're keeping everything the same uh school choice uh we anticipate years ago that was almost a half a million dollars a year in Revenue uh it's starting to you know decline so as we go forward that 4.7 million is what we're looking at for available for FY 26 um even after the huge spending of of 3.7 this year that make sense everyone yeah okay and
044for those people out there school choice we can use for any purpose okay anything else has to be specific circuit breaker special education um building rental for buildings maintenance facilities uh School Bus revolving for for transportation costs Etc so the one question you all ask of our of our admin team um which you did uh at our last meeting uh was what are we not funding and what does it look like Beyond fy2 and this again is a pretty conservative number um but there are teaching positions that we're looking for there's additional um the turf needs to be replaced at the the middle school as well as at the high school um most recently our fire the fire alarm uh at the high school uh it's been going off 15 years I think Kelly right
045around there uh every day it just beeps on us um there's you know we've we've spent a lot of money from an electrical standpoint but it needs to be replaced and uh serviced um that's a $425,000 price tag that Chris and John Murray are working through and and we're going to try to figure out how the funding will work to to get that but again safety first right we want to make sure that um that we're meeting the code set by the ashon fire uh State as well um boiler Replacements roof Replacements at pway as well as the high school um so modular Replacements so it's about a $5 million price tag if we wanted everything uh this year um so it's it's pretty significant I the modular replacement uh Pete we've had those 10
046years is that right 10 like yeah uh and they had a 5year lifespan when we bought them because they were already refurbished so so that's really where we are uh what's next is not closing the meeting uh making sure that uh by on Tuesday of next week uh we will have a final number number to to vote on I do anticipate it getting closer to that 3.75% that the town is asking for U there are conversations uh being had to discuss the use of our special eded stabilization fund and how much we can um withdraw from there to help offset that that Delta uh as well as you know we will certainly look at uh the the variables of out of District uh costs um students that we you know were conservative again in our
047approach saying okay we think this kid might need to be outplaced but as we move throughout uh the school year we're oh they okay they're settling in they're doing okay we may not need to so the clarity is coming uh you know I know in five days you're like how much more clear are you going to be but every day you know you know Britany and those who work in that special education field will tell you just every day is a new day and we just don't know what is going to happen uh so we have to be uh a little flexible with that uh so we will have our um numbers sent to the town next week and then we'll have a process from there the select board and pom for a May 1st
048town meeting this year I believe I was just going to ask the date yeah it's May 1st if I'm not mistaken questions Chris can I make a quick comment sorry I said $2 million less on that uh that other uh revolve account is actually 1.4 I apologize for Miss uh misspeaking okay on that slide going back to last week it's the conversation that we already had yeah oh I not adjusted no it was my fault I I said out loud oh okay I got you 2.0 and it's really 1.4 so I apologize fair enough good and that's that okay good and thank you we're going to keep the uh hearing open as we discussed in the beginning can I ask um actually the ad team you're welcome to leave um but also adjust adjust the
049um order of business so Donna FL from accept can can present before Mike does the SOA sure get her out of here as well she's got a long drive home as well we have consensus for a change in order here absolutely yep thanks everyone I'll pull that up on slide thank you thanks everyone appreciate it hello hi thanks for having me here this evening um it was fun hearing about uh the students that we've shared in Ashland over the years and times um some of the students our mission is always to try and prepare students to go back to their District because we too believe that students belong in their Hometown so we're always happy to be able to do that we've certainly had those successes with some of your Ashland students which is nice
050so I came here to kind of talk a little bit about so accept education collaborative is one of 24 collaboratives in the state so I thought I'd just kind of talk a little bit about um what a collaborative particularly for your uh listening community so a collaborative um provide services for their member districts and we utilize our business managers the curriculum instruction assistant superintendant and the directors of um special education as sort of our guide to focus our initiatives every region that we Metro West has some different needs so the services that we provide to our 16 member districts of which Ashland is one includes special education programs specifically um social emotional learning uh autism we have students with intellectual disabilities we provide language-based learning sldd um so a number of areas that we have
051programs targeted for prek 3 years old straight through to students that are 22 years old and our mission and goal as I said is always to the best of our ability have the students return to District if not to the best of our ability what does life look like once they leave accept right and they become adults whether it's high school or it's um at 22 years as um Britney and Mr Adams were discussing in regards to programming so other things that we do is we provide special education transportation for you need me to lean in okay seven of our 16 member districts which Ashland is one so we provide the out of District transportation for those students we also provide homebased services for parents and students who have autism we provide School behavioral educational
052consultation and Assessment Services we do that in the home or we do that within school districts sometimes parents are looking for that third party to provide an assessment and we do do that kind of work as well for schools we do lots of external professional development we um create professional development specifically for districts so for example ashin might want to hire us to develop you know specific areas or all their professional development for the year we have educational technology um Online High School classes which Ashlin also utilizes us for that and the software security we do Medicaid reimbursement which I believe Ashlin is one of our customers as well as well as grant writing so those are all the services right now that we do and we're always working together with districts to ensure that
053if there's anything else that would make like the little bitty is here that we could collaborate on that we do so that's kind of a collaborative in a nutshell we are turning 50 years old in the fall so we'll be celebrating 50 years of being in business and providing services for communities students and families um one thing that it's always nice is when another district is interested in joining so we sort of expand our wealth of you know having the superintendent tell us what they need as well as other leadership members telling us what they need so what I'm coming to about now is we have to amend our collaborative agreement if we're going to um include Westboro who specifically is the district that is looking to join us we did have two districts that
054wanted to join us but in thinking in terms of what's best for the collaborative what's best for the districts that are already members and what can you provide the decision was made by you know the board you know with some input from me as well that westbar we were going to accept in the other District that we're going to have come back later so it's not like we just have everybody come we want to make sure this is going to be a true partnership and that they really want to participate because it does require um time of your superintendent to come and participate at our board meetings um budget hearings and other different areas so the original agreement that they had was made in 1976 the most recent um agreement was back in 2015 when
055I believe it was Wellsley and Needum it was Welsley and Needum had joined so we had to go through the process then um on the next slide we can talk a little bit about what the process is so basically what happens it's really like a year along process we start with the district that is interested in joining us they come to the board meeting their superintendent the uh chair of their school committee and sort of present their reason for like why do you want to be part of us why do you want to join us and the board is able to ask some questions about that then they take a vote to say do we want to move forward if they get 2third of the sitting board members saying yes we move to the next
056step the next step is coming to your school committee and having a conversation with you so I can answer your questions um we can talk about the rationale for it and then we're looking for a simple majority of school committees when we have 16 that would vote Yes to include this new member um and that's why it's important that I want to share with you that you know really as a board and as a collaborative we really vet out who is going to join us because there is a financial impact for the collaborative as well over the course of um two years of being a member you get a 20% discount for all the services whether it's tuition for your students the transportation the professional development so you know that's a I don't want to
057say a hit but you know it impacts the bottom line of running the collaborative basically but for us that's why it's so important to ensure that they are going to participate um and finally when we're done we have to rewrite the collaborative agreement so that we have some updates for you um and we can review that a little bit then it goes to the commissioner of education and he or she makes a final decision as to whether they're going to sign off which they do but so the changes that we made um again it there weren't a lot of substantive changes I would say there was a lot of word smithing and sort of updating Things based on some of the subtle changes um that were made to the law for one reason or another
058but you know the first section of course includes West Barrow as a member district the second are the conditions of the membership so what we did is again the importance of the superintendent participating in the work that we do we wanted to really kind of beef that up a little bit to really ensure that people understand this is a commitment you know this is your collaborative this is your decisions um and you need to have an influence whether it's over the budget or the program services so we beef that language up um because we've had a few issues over the last few years you know whether it was Co or not but we just want to make sure that that level of importance is really there um the general Provisions was removed from the table
059of contents as we don't need that any longer so that's just a delete there and then we replace the date um again the word smithing by um some of the Desi Representatives so really that was all the changes that we have in there um and the primary one being just to add West borrow so the next step is a vote of the school committee and then a signature of the school committee chair um I think Jim has the paper that we can forward to me later but do you have any questions about what we do or anything about the amendment I mean obviously you've thought this through and um determine that this is best and is there anything other than the um discounted or loss of revenue for the next couple years is there any
060other reason why you wouldn't want to do this so um there is um hypothetically I can talk about why maybe you would say no to one and yes to another so again the importance of having the superintendent come and the chair come and really talk about um what can you contribute to the collaborative what you can contribute to the members that are there because the members don't just come for the board meetings it's a real collection of professionals who bounce ideas off of each other they work together as well and contribute to what the work that we do and the same thing of applies for our job alikes which would be the um assistant superintendents of curriculum instruction special education directors business managers you know they all come they work collaboratively together um sometimes on
061new initiatives that they're creating so you know we're really looking for people who are going to participate and maybe you have a superintendent who is leaving in their third year of their contract and so you don't know who's going to be there and you don't want to make a an agreement with somebody who's not even the superintendent yet because you don't know if they believe in collaboratives um are wanting to participate you know same thing with the school committees um you want to make sure that you have a good understanding of why a school committee would want to be part of this as well so it it's really that um piece of interviewing them and really looking at the structure of that town is vital to our making a decision like I said we don't
062take it lightly and we did accept one and we rejected another another so thank you that's helpful yeah and just I mean I I have you know no uh real problem adding Westboro to it but since you mentioned you AC you you know the decision was to accept um Westboro but not another town what was it can you just share with us what was it about um their inquiry application whatever I don't know what they call it when they seek to join the collaborative but um can you share with us what what you feel just very briefly because I don't want to identify um anybody but um both the director of special services as well as the superintendent um we leaving the district so those are two key people that we need to have committed
063to the work that we do so um I had a long conversation with the chair of the school committee because they were obviously pretty disappointed that we said No at that time and you know I said we're not saying no forever come back you know come back bring your new people have a conversation with us again and we'll make another decision potentially I'm actually more interested in what is it about Westboro like what what like what what are the factors because I'm not familiar with the discussion what are the factors that that make you decide to say yes to a district sure do you want it sure I can I can handle part of it as well because uh what Donna is presenting is you know westbo and any other District that has come before
064the the board and when I say board it's all superintendents of the collaborative District right so we're intimately aware of of the reputation of a district uh their needs within within uh their District but also what they can provide to the collaborative um as well uh and I would say westbo is a very similar Community to the other um towns within the collaborative um say one city right Framingham uh so and it's that that Central you know Metro West um community that we felt really comfortable with uh that it's it's a a district that has has everything together um while Amber is retiring um it is what but she wasn't unexpected surprise yeah it was but but it's a but there's been consistency in leadership uh in their district for a long time um and
065again she's been coming to the meetings for a year and and and listening and not a voting member but someone who was there providing Insight um okay those are the things we're looking at at least from a board standpoint how are they going to benefit all of us right and you know so yeah we overall we were just impressed with the presentation from you know the people that came the three people that came in on the interview and they're very creative in their approaches to education um and students so we thought that would be a great benefit for all of us thanks anything else so what we need is just a a vote to uh approve the Amendments and allow West burn to collab you guys are going to be just going to say I'll
066make a motion to um to accept the um accept collaborative agreement as presented I'll second all in favor Marcy I Tina I I all right thank you you have a good evening so the next item of business is the stupid stupid wow hello a little slip there yeah tell us how you really feel right uh I blame Jeff Marsden and Arman pyus for that the student Opportunity Act which was which was a lot p in 2019 that that really was about um adjusting the funding formula uh for for the schools around um Massachusetts and and ever since um it was 93 was the last time they adjusted um it's not always related to just Chapter 70 so let's I want to be clear it's not just a funding formula uh it's more resources are being
067put into the into the schools uh at from the state and what they want us to do is to have a plan uh to look at students and our students who are not achieving at the highest level they possibly can and or um are are identified at the state level of having barriers as well and what we've done basically and Mike is what we're sharing here is it really is just an extension of what we consider all the work we just did for our our um strategic plan now if you talk to desie they would say well we don't want your whole strategic plan we want you to identify a few indicators that you're going to focus on over the next 3 years so this is our second iteration we had a plan three years
068ago uh and we would come back uh to the school committee each year uh and say you know we need to to modify our plan uh we will without a doubt have des's um input four or five times uh we'll we have to present this to them uh through a board vote here uh by April 1st uh and then uh desie will give us feedback back and we'll change it and I think it was four times the last time and um and it's not there they actually give you a a funding formula to determine you know they don't want you to say $1 million is is additional funding from the S SOA right we don't they don't really say specifically right but they give you actually a formula to say you can figure it out
069if you want uh ours is zero um this year it would be a zero increase just on the SOA um but that being said everyone's still required to fill out um and I think it's a good exercise it's not but it's work we've already done and you've already seen right so I'm going to have Mike just walk you through a little bit of it um and it does just require a school committee approval to submit the SOA okay yeah so so essentially what they really want us to do is look at our data and and figure out along with the data that that the that the state provides um where are our lowest performing students and are there any significant disparities in the performance among our students and as you know we've already identified uh
070some disparities among our students and it's been it has been included in our strategic plan so what you're going to hear today is really nothing different than what we've been talking about for the last year as we've developed that plan um but they asked that you that we um focus on three specific areas uh in which we are going to work to make specific improvements in what we are doing with the goal of trying to um improve um the achievement data for specific subsets of of students uh so for instance uh Focus area 1.1 uh and there are a number of things that we can choose from but we decided to choose these three Focus areas so 1.1 is promote students physical and mental health and wellness and welcoming affirming and safe spaces um and
071uh we are going to specify that enhanced support for seal and mental health as you know that's been part of our strategic plan um we have talked about uh how we are have a specific goals in our strategic plan to ensure that every student has a safe and trusted adult in each one of our buildings that's one of the ways we're going to ultimately try and measure that data but there's also a number of other things that we're doing in terms of looking at our Desa data that we've talked about that Jen Cutler has has discussed with us I'm sorry Jen Taylor I'll probably do that for the next year or so until I get it right but Jen Taylor has discussed with us um so we we are going to continue to commit resources
072time and energy into ensuring the social emotional well-being of all of our students uh Focus area 1.2 is to implement a multi-tiered system of support you'll hear the the acronym mtss a lot over the next couple of years we've already started talking about it uh we've still got a lot of work to do to get there and to be doing it appropriately uh and the ash Public Schools but you know to to develop those systems of support that help all students progress both academically and in their social emotional and behavioral development so the specific uh way we're going to do that is through comprehensive tiered support so we are going to be continuing to work to fully Implement mtss in all of our schools um specifically one of the things that we've started to do
073is work with that S3 team team that we've spoken of that is uh the state grant that we were able to get to work with the Warren school they are sort of our pilot school right now they're improving their data team process they really have been the folks who have been streamlining the intervention process for us again another reason why the the um additional literacy coach is going to be important because that was going to help to streamline more literacy interventions that will specifically impact student achievement data in in the area of literacy um but it's not just about um academic achievement it's also about what are we doing for students socially emotionally and when we have those mtss meetings we're able to put together specific plans for students academically um socially emotionally give them
074additional support with our with our counseling staff and and our our psychologists and just make sure every student is getting what they need all the time and the final Focus area is to develop a coherent and holistic range of programming that is resp responsive to the needs and interests of diverse Learners and we are really focusing on effective programming for our multilingual Learners uh as we look at our data it becomes really evident that the biggest disparity in our success of students in all areas right now is uh the success rate of our students who are English Learners we we need to improve their performance across the board for our English Learners and the way to do that is to um Implement some more effective programming for our multilingual Learners uh one of the things
075that um Christy Arnold is doing and and I'm not sure if she's still with us or not but she's she's implementing um sort of a a new way of looking at everything we're doing so it's the castona approach to to sort of do a assessment of our English language programming right now and she's she's Gathering data to see are we making sure that we're doing everything the right way for all of our students so we have specific goals I'm not going to go through all the data analysis you've seen that already you know um that we have specific data that we have looked at um this is all directly from our our strategic plan it's it's nothing new um so I'm not going to spend the time going through all of that information but what
076I will say is we have specific Target Improvement goals that are within the context of our strategic plan that is going to help us to focus what exactly what we're looking to improve upon um on top of these three goals we're also adopting the three-year Improvement targets that are established by Desi in terms of our lowest performing students groups now we've identified that our lowest performing student groups are our English language Learners uh as desie has as well um I only bring this up because I'm we're still I have to make a phone call to desie to make sure that we're both on the same exact page in terms of um the achievement scores um I I saw a little bit of a discrepancy in what what they supplied for some data and what we
077have so I've got to make sure that we have everything correct what I think will end up happening is just an iterative process as as Mr Adams has talked about they're going to bounce it back to us anyway so this will allow for us to have an open ended conversation with them to make sure that we're all on the same page but I what I think is that the three goals that we have U put forth here are actually more aggressive than what desie has asked us to do um so I I just I just want to have that conversation with them to make sure that it it is actually more aggressive yeah when we were reviewing it today we looked at the numbers and we're we're like wow we're actually well above what Desy
078thinks we need to be hitting for a target number which is not a bad thing but we also talk about it with within the Strategic plan a 3 to 5e window right to hit those targets right so and they and they split it up a little differently too they're looking at um high school and then non high school and when we set our goals we decided to do it districtwide and not and not separate the two so it just it just changes the the number that we're going to be looking for so I want to make sure that's okay from their lens um but we'll obviously try to do both we're going to do whatever Desi has asked us to do on top of these three specific goals so the first is we're going to
079Target a 5% student growth percentile um for our subgroups over over three years um in both in both Ela and math on the mcast and then uh for the access we as you know that that's the that's the test that our English Learners take uh we want uh 60% of our English Learners to meet their student growth Benchmark which means that they have reached the level that we think that they can uh attain I we want to get 60% of our students to be able to reach that level um and then one of the other pieces they talk about in the in the SOA is family engagement uh as you know that's that's part of our that's part of our goal in our in our strategic plan as well they're asking how are we engaging
080families right now what are we doing um that's one of our one of our um strategic plan goals is to improve our family engagement um so one of the things that we're doing is we have to get some baseline data in order to do that so I didn't put a specific goal in there know that we are going to continue to work to do that I know right now our spring conferences are happening at the elementary school for the first time ever we've asked teachers to actually Supply us with specific data about who is coming so we have a baseline from this spring to be able to actually see okay are we going to see a dip in the fall and a dip next spring or are we going to be able to somehow figure
081out how to improve the number of um parents who are engaged what we do have too as well is is some significant data um from the work that we've already done with Lexi as you know we implemented Lexi is the software program that allows us to bring in interpreters um at you know at will uh for for any parent who's a multilingual parent uh and we've had over 500 of those meetings at this point so we can continue to look at that data and to see how that has increased over time as well so those are those are the focus areas this next pie just gives a little bit more about what we're going to do and what we are doing um these are things that again are all included directly in the Strategic plan
082the language is not different everything ties in together I I I may be um too hopeful here but I think this might be the first time that in the long time that we send this back and don't get four iterations maybe we'll only get two iterations uh typically we've tried to take on too much I think and and and this year we've really honed in on these three specific goals and focus because the Strategic plan has allowed us to do that and I and again I keep on talking about the open Architects but it's a whole new thing for us to be able to look at the data in a new way that simplifies how we're looking at it and that has really allowed us the opportunity to to focus in where we need to
083be um the last thing that I should mention is that we we talk about in the document we do talk about chronic absenteeism that is something that we are still targeting to improve and we also talk about our our high school dropout rate uh we're targeting that population as well because we're seeing that our our English Learners and our low-income students are the ones who really need to be targeted for both chronic absenteeism and dropout rate um so those are the those are the two specific subset sets of of of students that we really are focusing on and the department was clear actually this time within the instructions they only want us to choose a couple things yeah that I mean that was our problem we we had way too many one year we picked
084like 10 and they came back and they three or four so yeah thank you so what is needed is just the uh school committee acceptance of the SOA to be submitted to the Department of Ed right I move to accept the S SOA to be submitted to the Department of Ed I second all in favor Marcy I Tina I I passes and great job this is I this it was interesting to to read through and I mean none of it was new because we've been talking about all this for so long but it's it's nice to just kind of see it you know reiterated will be published online that's one of the requirements as well uh from the Department is that we publish the SOA online so excellent done next next now we're down to
085the um Driscoll scholarship um appointment um Marcy if you don't know what that is and there are a number of scholarships that get awarded at graduation or the end of the year and this is one that requires a school Committee Member to be on the deciding small committee right there's there are names of there's five people right um I think it's one meeting uh from what I recall I've done it in the past you you go to the high school you sit down with the people you go over the application see who's met the criteria of the students um and then the decision is made so I don't know if anybody wants to do it or sometimes you might not want to do it if you have like a kid in the graduating class I
086was just going to say Mark and I I don't know that either of our children are applying for it but yeah U but they might yeah or I avoided it even if like I just well and I know a lot of students right exact AB want to be like influenced that way so um I mean I I'd be happy to do it again unless you want to I know some of the graduating class so that's my only yeah C totally up to you so if if that makes you uncomfortable yeah I you can sign me up when is it by the way I should make sure I'm going to be do we know Chris we're going to wait for the committee to get appointed and then um we'll have a um it's a middle yeah
087the answer is no we don't have a meeting scheduled yet but it would be um I'm only asking I I will be out of town for a while no it's not sched be around early you can be very flexible we essentially just uh um yeah we we can be flexible I'm thinking about we need to uh discuss an award and then um we'll issue the uh excuse me and then just issue that we're moving forward with it this year so we'll probably do that and then we can convene as a as a committee okay I mean if you think it's early May I'm I can easily do that if it's late April then I can't okay well we'll definitely follow back up and it won't be April then okay all right all right who wants
088to appoint me so moved second all in favor hi okay thank you Lord that's meks did we I miss the last meeting did we appoint somebody for the uh middle school princi I will get to that during the superintendence okay we're all we're all just jumping right ahead stealing your thunder tonight okay um you're uh Mike you have an update a brief one because you just heard a lot from me a moment ago um we had our second round of administrative learning walks this week uh that's as part of our superintendent goals and my goals um we are going to try and do a better job of calibrating how we are doing our evaluations and today was uh the first day of round two and it really was excellent uh we we were able to
089go into a couple classrooms at Warren there were seven of us that went and then we had some fantastic discussion about what we saw and what kind of feedback we would provide and when we when we talk about the feedback we're always talking about specific commendations that we have for the teachers as well as recommendations and then we we had good good discussion today about wonderings and questions as well and and how we want to try our best to um do a better job streamlining the way in which we are providing that feedback within the context of our teach Point observation data um in this summer we're really going to spend a significant amount of time as an admin team to not be robotic about it but to have a more consistent template that we're
090using to make sure that all of our this summer when we get together but the discussions have been pretty rich and I I've enjoyed it and and I think that the the principles and directors and APS have enjoyed it as well so it's been great um always nice for for uh different principles to be able to go and see what's happening in other schools as well and it's nice for them to to get that um we had a great professional learning day last Friday um highlight is by uh some work that was done at Warren in terms of the uh trauma informed practices that that Jen uh has brought to our to our district and she and Pete met with with staff to to bring that forward I know we did some great work with
091cultural responsive education practices um at at MES um uh and then uh Sarah worked with an outside consultant about some um responsive classroom techniques and I know there was some significant team work that was done um in terms of some collaboration uh for um different teams among issp at the middle school and some departmental work that was done at the high school um spring conferences happening right now at the elementary level I actually ran into uh Marcy today on the way to hers so spring conferences are are busy happening and for our secondary students term three grades Clos next week so I I know that the students are busy making sure yeah I saw that email out and the remind us and my goodness it means the year is winding down um and mcast has
092be gun um the high school students were taking them this week uh and our our middle school and Elementary School students are getting ready to take them in the coming weeks uh we've been making sure our infrastructure is all in place doing test runs everything right now knock on wood is smooth and we should be ready to go good great wait a minute you didn't mention the master reader I'm very curious to hear about literacy night oh so I was not I was I was not at literacy night I know literacy night is always a well in no so as as part of the literacy week yes I was lucky enough to be invited to be a mask reader um I don't think it was ever really a mystery of when it was me the
093students were all pretty pretty clever uh they knew that I indeed was the panda um that's awesome that's awesome we unmasked ourselves last week at a at an assembly and uh it was really fun to to be up on that stage and listen to the kids cheer they had a great time it was it was the it was the highlight of my week listen to them give us a nice FR of when I took the when I took that Panda mask off that's cute thanks Mike Jim sure uh so just a couple things one uh just want to extend congratulations to esar Casas and her family they had their baby over the weekend oh nice so she will be out until July 1 um but everyone is healthy that's great and uh that's exciting news
094wonderful that's exciting that's great then the the next big thing on the horizon for us is our Middle School principal search and I'm not looking for the school committee to appoint anyone but if anyone is interested in participating um they just need to let me know the process will begin on um next Tuesday 4 o'clock we're just having to get together to to discuss what's happening and then the following week uh will be some interviews um we have um currently 12 candidates all right um I guess as of this morning we had 12 candidates U Mike and I will be doing the um we'll take the process of of um looking at them all and seeing who one is qualified to might be worth interviewing uh and and we'll bring those to the um to
095the screening committee uh Jim do you know do we still I know in the past like we had policies that said who had to for certain positions uh for central office positions okay um and we've added it's it's I want to be clear it's not a committee to to elect someone um right we've always included a school Committee Member there's not a policy that states um specifically who has to be on the committee okay but we've always we' always includ for central office like I was on Jenna's so I know that we've always had I I don't the reason why I'm asking if if if you if the decision is to move forward without a member it's fine with me i' like a m but but I think we need to don't we need to
096formally appoint somebody here I I don't think I I think in order for us to agree who that's going to be yeah we could I mean it I'm W you're welcome to hold off on the decision till next week well we can't do it now because there's no um nothing on the agenda when are the interviews Jim are they during so they will be uh after school um it would be closer to 4:00 um depending on how many we interview I anticipate the interviews taking place on Monday the 8th is that the Monday the 8th is that right yeah yeah 10 Wednesday Monday the 8th and and 9th Monday and Tuesday 8th and 9th um would be the first round yeah that's what I anticipate again how many yes okay yeah a word not having
097another meeting before we will we will have a meeting on Tuesday Tuesday meeting which I will put it on the agenda the only reason why if if a me because I've had people I've had other school school Committee Member tell me that it's not part of a policy um but that's fine yeah um I'll go back and review it don't listen to him if somebody knows the policies though I'm just kidding all I'm saying is that we I apologize yeah yeah yeah I'm just kidding if if I just want to make sure if that's how we're supposed to do it that it gets on the agenda 100% that's why I was not expecting it to be a discussion tonight okay just I will put it on the agenda for Tuesday okay uh in addition to
098the open um the meeting the budget meeting keeping the budget meeting open right so I have no problem with that uh and know I will send an email just outlining you've already seen it I've sent you the outline of what the process will look like but now it's really clear when we're meeting um you know next week it's just a uh informal discussion of of what we're looking for yeah okay so uh but I'm pleased that we have 12 candidates uh yeah that's and certainly my initial review of the applications are we've got some high quality caliber individuals oh great excellent yep um so that's pretty much all I have for an update um on that all right uh and I guess we're not doing warrant approvals because Paul's not here no um gifts and
099donation we do have a few we're getting smaller and smaller hard read um National Youth tobacco survey $500 Amazon gift card for the wellness Department um Shaws $862 80 assorted office supplies HS student council there are a number of them in in their supplies for the the department of English science math social studies and unified Arts um in the amounts of $272 $285 191 $28.98 $94.31 and $29.30 uh power cords um for connect computers to the system in the auditorium uh newb cords $131 80 student council donated this uh and one more student council donation to The World Language Department of $277 78 for a total of $3,173 43 and what I do want to say it's the first time in my 10 years that uh I'm impressed that I actually have um and Marcy
100will appreciate this from a tape you know 10y tap 10 key tape wow so I'm really the numbers awesome uh trip down memory lane exactly do we need move to accept we do okay so I move to accept the gifts and donations as presented second all in favor Marcy I Gina I I that passes um had anyone looked at the minutes for March 13th I did miss that meeting so I have nothing to I didn't have any any changes yep all right so then we'll move to accept the minutes from March 13th is that the March 13th y second all in favor Marcy I hi and um I think that's it unless um we have any updates that you guys want to share um I made a list of little things that some of these
101I was able to attend others were just cool things that happened in the district that I heard about but um uh I was at an ashack meeting last week I think the meeting was I think it was last week maybe it was the week before but since our last meeting um and one of the things that they've been working on for a while now and it's kind of up and running is they've created this lending library um with a lot of resources for parents for teachers administrators on a whole host of different special education issues and so that's available um to parents um teachers administrators whoever um you know would benefit from from using those resources they they're all donated um you I don't from different people some from their own personal librar some from
102their professional libraries or um you know books that ashack has accumulated over the years so they've been working hard on that and that's um you know kind of ready to go at the meeting last week we talked a lot about the budget U Britney was there so um you know they were able to ask her a lot of questions about the programming which um you know was great I kind of reiterated our support from the school committee lens um of all of that programming and you know the the work that Britney's been doing um uh you know the the music program at the high school is going to be participating in every year they participate in a a a Festival a music festival um that which will be next weekend but they have a preview
103concert which was last week so so they did it they did a great job there um you know uh gearing up for that um and there were a couple of cool things that you know I saw um on on Twitter or on Instagram that you know were happening in the school um one of the things actually that Britney was sharing at the ashack meeting last week was there was this this uh you know we have best buddies um in United Sports at the um middle school and high school but it at Warren I don't know if it was at Warren and Mendes or one or the other but they had this really cool program called kids unite um that is kind of a it sounds like a midi best buddies program um at the elementary
104school to pair you know our you know kids with disabilities with um with kids who don't have disabilities but they're doing things together um and mik or Jim may feel free to talk a little I don't know that much more about it other than it happened and it sounds really cool U Britney said that there wasn't you know for her she's like I I don't think there was dry eye in the house it was just so great to see all the kids having fun together you know um working together and supporting each other and being really accepting and in in including you know all of the kids that took part so that was really cool to hear about um and then another cool thing that I saw on Instagram was I guess a a computer
105science class was invited to the state house to to present um some work that they've been doing so so that was kind of neat yeah excellent I I just want to hop in quickly I forgot to mention and you you reminded me um today um I was actually able to attend our unified Middle School basketball jamere so we were lucky enough to host um the jamere at at the middle school and uh there were two games that took place um for our students and it was well attended and uh just really wonderful that now we have unified basketball at the high school level unified basketball at the middle school level I know our unified uh track students are gearing up for their season at the high school um so just just another another wonderful way
106to ensure that we're fully including all of our students and uh it was it was a fun event to be at today so sounds like it awesome Marcy oh I just say literacy night was another hot hot place to be in Ashland and uh it's just always continues to impress those kids can't get enough of those baskets so true oh it's a mad house anyway so that was great awesome all right if we have nothing else then we can take a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor I I I good night everybody thank you good night for