School Committee Meeting 04/07/2026

001All right, good to go, John? Yes, sir. Yep, all right. Cool, we'll call this is our meeting for I'm a board of regional school committee. Order, please. Rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Uh thanks, everybody. Uh first item on the agenda is thank the recommendation for taking the La Crosse game came up and said she's going to, so we'll reschedule. So, she had a defense away game, so she couldn't be here. Uh next up, Al, do you have an introduction? I do. So, thank you. Um so, a couple things, just an update on the Furlong Memorial principal uh updated search. Um so, the hiring

002committee narrowed the process down to two candidates. On Thursday, March 26th, Dr. Connolly and myself interviewed both of those candidates. And then, Friday, March 27th, I offered um the principal uh sorry, I offered the principal >> [laughter] >> I offered the uh yeah. Was that That principal Sorry, I offered the principalship um to Christopher Tcherkezian Tcherkezian Tcherkezian. Um and Christopher is um signing his contract, and we welcome him. Um I'll give you a little background. Chris is currently an assistant principal in in Medway. Um and he also was a principal at Beacon Charter School in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Um he has a background of experience, also has as an instructional technology coordinator, and also as a classroom teacher as well, too. So, we're really happy and welcoming Christopher um Tcherkezian um to um the community

003of Furlong and Wilson as new principal of Furlong and Wilson School. >> [applause] >> DOES ANYONE HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY? YES, SIR. ANYTHING YOU WANT TO SAY? UM just very excited to be here. I've got a great team of faculty already, and um John and I have started working together, and we're going to continue to work together to make sure you have a smooth transition. So, thank you, guys. I appreciate everybody's time, and really I'm looking forward to this. Thank you. So, we're really glad you're here. Thank you. Um I know that we've already started working on that transition plan, which is so important for for both um John and yourself. Um I know the staff is excited, and the students as well, too. I know there's some events coming up that we'll be going

004through with John um to invite you to as well, too. So, so welcome. Here is a little welcoming gift. Welcome to Tantasqua. >> [applause] >> THANKS, AL. UH OKAY. AL, who's who's introducing the speech and debate Sure, Mr. Camera, do you want to do some Yeah, we have uh two clubs coming here to uh propose for some new clubs that we're going to be offering. Uh it looks like in order here on the docket, we have uh speech and debate coming in. So, Mr. Alvord and uh Olivia, want to come on down to the front? All right. Hello, everybody. Today, we are proposing the creation of a speech and debate club at our school. As students who are interested in public speaking and debate, we have found that there aren't many opportunities here at Tantasqua

005to support our interest, and we would like to add a few more to this list. Critical thinking and public speaking skills are necessary for every student's future. The skills that students will develop in speech and debate club strengthen a student's ability to communicate clearly and persuasively, which is an essential skill across nearly every academic discipline and career field. Additionally, debate encourages students to engage with important societal issues and to discuss them thoughtfully and respectfully, fostering civic awareness and prepares students to participate in meaningful academic public conversations. Not only does it empower our students, but it also provides an equal benefit for the school itself. Entering the world of speech speech and debate will expand our school's horizons and improve our academic credibility among other local schools. We ask for relatively few financial resources. The primary

006expenses are membership in debate organizations and tournament entry fees. Entry fees can be paid individually, so the people that want to enter tournaments can pay for themselves, but it would be great if we could have some funding for entering debate organizations. There are two organizations we are interested in. The first of The first one is the Massachusetts Speech and Debate League, which allows schools to participate in regional and state competitions. The first year would actually be free, but every year after would be $50. And once our team develops, so that would be after a couple years, um we can enroll in the National Speech and Debate Association, which provides additional opportunities for recognition in national events, which would cost $149 annually, but once again, we wouldn't be joining this the first year. We both as

007students are incredibly passionate about the art of argumentation and public speaking, and we are sure that if given the opportunity, we could help so many other students see the appeal in what debate entails. 20 students are currently enrolled in our Google Classroom, and once it's official, we can reach out to more and gain more members, so there's plenty of interest. And we also have an advisor lined up if we are approved to begin. We just like to end by saying thank you for your time, and we appreciate your consideration. Thank you. Uh is this a vote we're voting to approve this, or is this what Yeah, yes. All right. Uh can I have a motion, please, to approve the Tantasqua Speech and Debate Club? So moved. Jess? Second. Lisa, I heard first. All right, anyone

008have any questions? Great job, ladies. Good speaking. You have a nice presentation with the slides and everything. So, great job. Public speaking is so important, right? Uh even more so now, you know, everything with technology in terms of being able to have face-to-face conversations and interviews now, it is extremely important. So, we're we're glad you're doing that, and even being able to debate and debate in a in a respectful manner and have difference of agreements, uh but still do it respectfully, learning to do that is an incredible thing. So, thank you. Thank you. All right, anybody else? All right, wait wait second, Olivia. Just stay right there till they vote. >> [laughter] >> All right, all in favor? I. Anyone against? All right, my favor is all, the motion passes. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >>

009UH UP NEXT, WE HAVE ONE MORE CLUB FOR A Tantasqua Food Pantry. We have uh Mychaela Green and Sophia Green to present. We have a third person in our group, also, Bailey McNamara, but she's not She'll come any minute, but we can do it without her. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak today about something that matters deeply to us, the idea of opening a food pantry right here at Tantasqua. For many people, school is a place of learning, growth, and opportunity, but for some students, it can be also be a place where they carry a quiet burden that others don't see, the uncertainty of where their next meal will come from. Hunger doesn't always look the the way we expect it. It can affect classmates sitting next to

010us, friends we laugh with, or teammates that we practice with every day. We believe that no student should have to focus on an empty stomach instead of their education. That's why we feel so strongly about starting a food pantry in our school. This isn't just providing food, it's about creating a support system. It's about making sure our students feel supported. Our school pantry would offer students and families a reliable, private, and judgment-free way to access the essentials they need. Imagine a space where students can discreetly pick up groceries after school. Imagine the relief for families who are struggling, but don't always have access to transportation or local resources. Imagine the message it sends that at Tantasqua, we take care of our own. And the best part, this is something we can realistically accomplish this year.

011With support from administration, staff, and students, we can organize food drives, partner with local organizations, and create a sustainable system run by this club. Even small contributions, one can of food, one hour of time, can add up to something truly meaningful. This initiative would not only address a real need, but also bring our school community closer together. It gives students a chance to lead, to serve, and to make a direct impact on the lives of others. We are not just asking for approval, we are asking for belief. Belief that this school can be more than a place of education. It can be a place of care, empathy, and action. Let's make this happen. Let's make sure every student at Tantasqua has the support they need to succeed, not just academically, but it in life. Thank

012you. CONGRATULATIONS. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> CAN I HAVE A MOTION, PLEASE, TO APPROVE THE TANTASQUA FOOD Pantry Club? So moved. Jackie? Second. Ben? All right, any questions? Do you have a space layout? Um yes, we're going to be using the closet right when you walk in the entrance to your um right. We have that layout. A lot of people don't know, but there's a door on the side in the like What's it called? The connection area between the going inside and like outside. And And people will be able to make donations, right? To be able to provide, right? And we'll get that out to the community. So, if you have some canned goods or things you want to donate to them. >> Yes, yes, definitely. >> [clears throat] >> Someone said something. Sorry, I

013thought All right. Everybody good? All in favor? Anyone against? Okay, I'm in favor as well. That motion passes. Thank you. Glad you COULD BE HERE. >> [applause] >> UH I THINK THE NEXT ITEM WE'RE GOING TO POSTPONE AS WELL. YEAH, Matthew's not here tonight, so we'd like to recognize him at the the next school committee meeting if we could. Sure. All right, that brings us to Aaron and our budget updates. Okay. All right. We're going to have our start and then we'll lead you right into you, okay? You good? So, good evening. So, at our last school committee meeting on Tuesday, March 10th, we presented a budget at a level service that also included the addition of a grade five teacher. That was a new FTE for Boylston Elementary School. We also heard school committee

014vote on We also heard that school committee voted on that addition of the following priority one positions. And I know that our admin team has been working extremely hard. Had a quite a few priorities that we wanted. The particular ones were priority one that school committee voted on. That was the addition of a biology teacher at Tahanto, a reading specialist at Tahanto, ELA coach for both elementary schools, and the additional full-time nurse that went from a 0.4 to a 1.0. So, all those additional priorities were put on that as well, too. We also I also heard very clearly from school committee and the members to say, "Come back at our next school committee meeting and be prepared to tell us what you would cut in order to make this work and how to make this

015addition." Remember, we came to you with a budget that wasn't able to be fulfilled at a level service. We added that fifth grade teacher on there Boylston Elementary, put that into the budget, and then we also had the addition of a school physicians. The admin team, Aaron, myself spent hours, days, weekends going through this budget. We actually even spent Easter evening finally getting some information from Boylston. And we became very skillful and thoughtful about the cuts and decisions that we made. Again, I can't stress enough that we're not in support of any of these reductions. We are not. But our goal was to reach the number that both Berlin and Boylston provided to us with school committee. And just for clarity, we received the number from Berlin that was voted on at select board meeting

016on on Monday, March 3rd. We got that number from Berlin. I appreciate the students in Berlin that when they came to the select board meeting, the way they spoke. I also appreciate the thoughtful questions that the select board of Berlin asked me about specific positions that we're putting in place. Last night, April 6th, we attended FinCom and select board meeting of Boylston where we received a voted upon number that actually changed slightly from this morning. So, the number that you heard last night at your select board meeting that they voted upon, there was a slight change that took place between last night at 11:35 and this morning. And Aaron will go over that as well, too. Literally, that change took place. So, it's consistently been a moving [clears throat] target for us. The new number

017this morning was confirmed by both Howard and April. So, we have a new number that we're presenting to you in this budget. Again, I can't stress that we are not supporting these budget cuts and reductions, but we're also not wanting to put our school district in a position where we're dealing with a 1/12 budget from the Department of Education. Aaron's going to go through our budget presentation. I want to thank Aaron for the work that he's done, this admin team that we've put hours in trying to make sure those numbers are meeting what Berlin and Boylston gave us. I also thank those that have attended the meetings along the way. Those were important meetings both in Boylston and Berlin. Those are important things. I wish more people showed up to those meetings cuz that's what

018really we needed to hear and see our concerns that we had and what this position was going to put us in by the numbers they were reaching for us. So, Aaron will walk you through his budget presentation and we'll be able to answer some questions for you as well, too. Um let let me start with um Al mentioned there was a small change this morning. Um in light of the vote last night and I think some comments about vocational transportation on the Boylston side, uh I reached out again to our transportation provider. Um as we know, the numbers for vocational from Boylston have dropped significantly. At this point, um there really are very few students um going from Boylston to Assabet right now. Um and that can be accommodated on a van. I wasn't certain

019what the cost of that was going to be. I left the placeholder in because of even a van can be fairly expensive, but if you can ride share that van, uh you can reduce that cost. So, my call to them this morning um led to, you know, what what what can we get the pencils down to if there's some ride sharing or things like that. So, they were able to reduce that cost. I got in touch with Boylston. Um I guess I want to thank Jess for for bringing it up. It it it dawned on me like, "Let's make the call and do it." So, I did make the call. So, that ended up being about $31,000 um of savings. So, that salvages a little bit. Um you know, I think it's really important to

020be clear that I mean, you know, we've we've heard it over and over. I heard it since the day I got here that Boylston is at their limit. Right? And and that's not going to change without something like a 2 and 1/2 override. Um they've said that very publicly. I'm not I'm not like sharing any big secrets, right? Um so, taking those numbers, the work we've done with the admin team, uh we spent this morning and and that's part of the reason we're waiting for final numbers, waiting for answers is why, you know, maybe you didn't get very specific items in uh the drive, right? And the hope is that we need to talk to staff. We need to be mindful of not creating havoc until we have that opportunity to talk to those individual

021staff members on a one-on-one basis. Um so, going [clears throat] in where we are now, um from an operating budget standpoint, um I think I skipped this slide, but there's just a title slide. Um we now have an operating budget of 25,696,973. Uh total change 1,283,583. Um you may recall when we started this process, we were over 10%. Someone reminded me of that uh today as we're meeting. So, we have sharpened pencils, we fought and fought. And I want to be really clear. Many of the line items that you will see cut um you've seen cut before and you will be seeing cut tonight represent risks, right? We are taking away any possibility of there being safety nets or, you know, we're hoping we can do this. This is This is it. There's no There's

022no anything, right? Um So, as we look at this, um to get there, there are some offsets. I want to be clear and I I I owe a small apology for this. I was a little aggressive in terms of um having our E&D certified. Um and I included E&D in our last um item. Uh I have spoken with DLS. I've been speaking with our auditor. Um something has changed at DLS and they are asking for a lot more detail on capital accounts, right? And you'll recall we have some of those issues with the debt service portion. So, I'm having to I've met with them the other week. We're going through that. We're walking through it. Technically, I can't put E&D on the table until it's certified. I believe we will have a certified number. Um

023we're working towards that and I will provide a better explanation um ideally at the next meeting. I know we've been like pushing out um but um you know, the it at the end of the day, we are blessed to have some money in our school choice account. So, I am just for the time being using school choice as a placeholder. So, it's going up. I can absolutely assure you I can share that with anyone who wants to know that we are putting based on um budget numbers from the state and actuals that we are putting 200,000 into E&D this year safely. So, as we work through that, I would not take money out for operations that we weren't already putting in cuz that would be non-sustainable. And I don't want to come to you with

024a an entirely non-sustainable budget. I may be a little aggressive, but I'm not going to be non-sustainable if I can avoid it. Okay? Um so, we get into these direct offsets. We also have the IDEA grant. Um I am hopeful, knock on wood, there are some people who are concerned about cuts to some of the federal grants. Um that is not using our full grant um necessarily to offset. There are some other things that sit off budget that get funded out of that grant. We can can play with those numbers, but um that's a pretty big number and if somehow that's cut at the federal level, there's some risk there. We have some real risk. Uh we do have Sorry, going back. We do have some balance in our circuit breaker account that we could

025use if we needed so. Didn't want me to go back a slide. So, then we go back into a lot of the same items from before. The first slide you just saw is budget offsets. Those directly offset the budget. These next category reduce the assessments and they all do the same thing. They reduce the overall assessments that the town pays. They just sit in a different place in our budget. So, I try to recognize them separately. So, chapter 70, chapter 71, most of this the the items with stars come from the governor's budget. Um if we had an updated budget from the house, um which is the next round, I would try to incorporate those numbers. Uh but we don't. So, we're not able to incorporate those yet. >> [clears throat] >> So, as we

026get into this, we talked about we've sat down with the budget and we poured over it with administrators. We tried to listen to as much feedback as possible. Uh Berlin, [clears throat] um we really got to the point where um the the town uh listened to a lot of what we talked about. Um the select board supported our original sort of budget with some cuts. We did make some cuts to get there. Um but we're in a we're in a a place where not making tremendous cuts. We are making some of the risk cuts though, right? So, you'll see there's some oc- occupational therapy contract services. And that's usually there in case we have extraordinary needs, significant needs outside of our ability. We're really just going to need to try to work within our current

027um OT staffing. Um and and that's just based on some numbers we've seen in the past. We had in there and we've carried we've carried that over to support that. Um I've done some deep dives into a few things. I've worked with Joe. We did renegotiate uh our Xerox copy, so we took down our copier. Uh and we did agree to take some cuts at the central office. Um these are net cuts, so the the FTE count to Berlin looks small and and it's not an extraordinary cut. We don't have a lot of staff at the central office. But we're looking to cut some finance office, my department, uh as well as some staffing in Joe's office. Um there is money that is uh we had allocated for curriculum review. Um we will put that

028aside and if we can try to find another source for that money, there sometimes are grants. Uh we've also um I reached out to Senator Kennedy or actually they reached out to us with some potential earmark grant money. We went back to them and said, "Hey, we'd love some money for curriculum." And they said, "Well, maybe not right now." So, we are working diligently to try to find money and we will commit to not doing this unless we can find an alternative source. So, that comes to a total of $122,000 of savings all around. Um then when we get to Boylston, Boylston had a much tougher number to meet. Um there were a lot more challenges. This is this comes from the fact that they're at their levy limit. They cannot tax more without doing

029a 2 and 1/2 override. Um if we were to put more on the town meeting warrant, um they would uh indicate this subject to a 2 and 1/2 override. Um at this point, the likelihood that a 2 and 1/2 override is going to go through with no preparation um is pretty low. Um so, we have been working to get to their numbers. We said there was a little bit of movement um from a few things, but this is really where we are with them. So, we're looking at two special education paraprofessionals. To be honest, we really reevaluated needs. We looked at um you know, what we were holding for potential and and we felt that those cuts were um tenable. Um then we really get into a lot of the items that say cut for

030budget. We just had to decide like what cuts can we make that won't impact required services. It's shocking how much of our services required, whether it's due to IEPs or courses or specific um curricular needs. So, um kindergarten paras are not mandated. They're not required. Um there there are three at present. We would cut two of those and bring that to one. It would be a shared para across um the three classrooms. And I was going to jump in on that. So, as well, right? Our numbers are low in kindergarten at Boylston, which we were mindful of, but we're also looking to do some support from some other paras that might be working at Boylston Elementary. We'll be revisiting that schedule with um with Janelle and with Rob to give some support to those those

031other um kindergarten classrooms as well, too. Yeah. Um uh we had initially, when we were looking at things, cut both tutors in that school. When we received some money back available from the town, um we realized we we spoke with Rob and asked him um he he spoke with some staff who felt like they really wanted the tutors back um to whatever degree possible. So, we initially cut the two tutors. This brings back 1.8. There's a little bit we're not going to be able to get back, but we think that's potentially sustainable. Uh this would reduce the adjustment counselor to 0.5 right now. Um I know we've we've received some feedback on that. It's a challenging decision to make. At the end of the day, when we think of equity, uh right now Berlin does

032not have an adjustment counselor at all. They have nothing. Um so, it's it's not we don't wish for this. This is what um we're looking at how we keep the pain um at least minimized. Um And just a little further on that, right? So, I know we received some emails from you guys [clears throat] did regarding the adjustment counselor position. Tough tough decision for us to make. You know, we we when we spoke with Rob and bringing back the tutors was his priority uh for that point. Again, we'd want them all back, but the tutors were we know as giving those students our tier two, which we need with our MTSS, so that we're keeping them from not going down the pathway of necessary for our an IEP or other things that they might need.

033So, we we felt Rob felt as the principal, the instructional leader, that the priority was to go with the tutors. Yeah. Just a little history on the adjustment counselor, and I know, you know, tough like like Aaron said, you know, we don't have an adjustment counselor full-time um at We don't have any adjustment counselor at in Berlin. They have a full-time school psychologist. There is a full-time school psychologist in Boylston as well, too. The history of an adjustment counselor um in 2021, it first came on board um in Boylston. 2021 with ESSER money that was used in a full-time position. 2022 to 2023, ESSER money again, not a full-time position. 23-24, it was a a 0.6 FTE, so it wasn't a full-time position there as well, too. 24-25 was 0.6 FTE, not a full-time, but

034partly there. 25-26 this year, um we moved it to a full-time FTE position. Um that was a change. That's the first time that had that change making the full-time position decision I made. But looking at this in 26-27, we're bringing that back down to a 0.5. So, I just want you to know a little bit of history of the adjustment counselor. Last year was the first year that it [clears throat] was a full-time position. Um It was funded with a grant and it was full-time during ESSER. ESSER. Yeah. Oh, right. Right. Yeah, speaking of the ESSER grant funded. Yeah. Um so, this would also um cut the the instrumental teacher that's there. It would stay at Berlin. The 0.4 remaining would stay at Berlin. Um this is again something that's an extra. It's we're not

035mandated to provide this, so you know, we have to start thinking about where we mandate to cover what covers our core items, um the needs of all students. Uh instructional technology. >> Sorry. No, I'm so sorry. I apologize. The band teacher is so one of the things we'll be looking at in Boylston is that people can still have that opportunity. We'll be looking to see if that's opportunity can happen either before school, after school, where they can take instrument lessons as well, too. So, we're not putting it on We're not taking it away. Just taking away during the day. We'd have to be looking at how that could be provided. Like I said, >> are costs associated with >> provided like that. They would not be That's right. We would We would provide People would

036have to pay for it. Yeah. So, we could provide the space, but not the And a lot of people a lot of communities do that, right? Before school, after school. We don't pay for it, but people can take those lessons and have those provided through uh a private fund. But so, there would be no more band at B S. >> That's correct. So, um moving on, instructional technology. This is a lot most of our money to repair and replace Chromebooks, devices, uh laptops, projectors, you name it when they're damaged or break. If at some point we run out of devices, we will just not be a one-to-one school. We'll have to figure out how we operate um as something other than a one-to-one school. There'll have to be some degree of sharing. Um there are

037already conversations about whether elementary students truly need to be one-to-one, particularly the lower grades. So, we thought this is a line if we have to really start digging for some savings, um we can look at this. And we will um really try to push the envelope in terms of how long we keep things like Chromebooks uh on the floor. I know um they did extend the licensing a little bit in the lifespan on Chromebooks recently, so there's a little bit of room there, but this does, like I said, this creates risk. All of these things create risk. Um as does cutting psychological consults and evals. Um we frequently have to do outside evaluations of students when their parents request them. Um this doesn't eliminate the budget, but it significantly cuts the budget and we hope

038we can work within the number. Again, risk involved. Um this is something that could be covered. We could come back to school committee and say, "We'd like to dig into that circuit breaker reserve a little bit if we had to." So, there's some room to be able to to maybe leverage that, but with some risk. Um there are some instructional coaching stipends that have kind of lingered. Um with the addition of the ELA coach. Um and we do have a math coach in district. We were thinking those would no longer be necessary, so those are small. Um Janelle was willing to go through and say and and look at some items and say, "Like, what can I take more risk on, right?" Instructional materials, I can fight not to spend money on instructional materials. Technology.

039Um again, a lot of that technology is going to be IEP mandated, right? But we're really going to try and not spend on anything we don't absolutely need and isn't absolutely mandated uh by something like an IEP. Um professional development conferences, again, um you know, the needs uh to attend conferences [clears throat] and things like that is very important for our staff. Janelle looked at that a couple more times and said I could take a little bit of money out of there. Uh you will see unemployment insurance showing up everywhere. Um I as long as we don't do additional cuts beyond anything on here, I think we can be okay with this unemployment insurance number. The challenge is, you know, it it it people can fight for unemployment for anything. Um I've had people who

040left of their own accord who then went and applied for unemployment and they got it. Um it's hard to to stop. Um copier contract, same thing. Um Joe worked really hard to renegotiate a little bit of that contract, figured out where we could eke out some savings. Um telephone, there's a little money that as I was digging through, going through every single line item that I think we could pull out of that. Um Dan offered up a little bit of money um from some maintenance lines. It's not huge, but again, we're looking for every single uh little thing. Um we may not be able to do all the grounds maintenance we want. Um we may not be able to maintain some of the equipment in the way we might want to. Um we may not

041be able to paint when we need to. Um those are just things we'll we'll give up. Um again, the cuts to finance office staff, you'll see in all uh the net is a a 20% cut to a single staff person in finance and tech. Uh curriculum review, that is gone. Um so, you will see there was a page one and this is page two. Total savings, $335,548. That's a big piece to have to cut out of our budget. And that's not as Al said, we don't want to cut a nickel of this, but we just don't really have a choice. We're up against a wall. So, Tahanto, recognizing that there was a lot of concern about some of the cuts that have happened at Tahanto in the past few years, um some of the staff

042that were lost there. Uh we really tried to be mindful of digging deep into the things that that weren't necessarily staff based and and trying to see what we could do though to help support the budget overall. Um so, we did as we looked at paraprofessionals and really tried to ask some of the questions and say we're going to take more risk. We said, "Well, we can cut a para." Um doesn't mean, you know, the problem is that everything with special education is IEP based. We could get an IEP tomorrow that says we need that para. We may have to come back. But every one of these items, it's in that category. Uh instructional technology, same thing as both other schools, we're taking a cut in that, hoping that um we're able to deliver services.

043Some of that occupational therapy, contract services, instructional coaching. Uh Joe dug deep into I want to say it was seven different supply lines. I'm not lining all of them out. Um but he really said like we can work with um these other lines and we can just eliminate these. We just don't need them. I I mean, we could use them, but, you know, we can try to live without them. Um the net net of unemployment insurance when I did it out by the numbers, actually puts a little bit more back into the Tahanto budget, but the net net if you look at all three cuts, is a total cut of $20,000 district wide. It's just that the way it played out in terms of the how it would be assessed to the various schools. Um

044our next item um really is contingent, but but I'm hopeful that the school committee will do it. I think we'll be bringing it around in the next meeting. Um it would be increasing our athletic fees that have not increased in many years. I think I talked to Lisa and she couldn't remember the last time those had increased. Um so, this takes up the the the per sport fees and then the maximum by a little bit uh and brings parking up a little bit as well. So, we have not brought that in front of school committee yet cuz we haven't we hadn't had a chance since that last March meeting. We did speak with Rich and and Lisa and Julie, our athletic director, about the cost for athletics and the cost for parking. Um so, we

045feel that, you know, and we'll also be talking later on about some other things. I know Lisa you brought up about rentals, right? We're looking at all those things of ways to bring in some additional revenue into our district as well, too. So, this is minimal. We compared Jen did some good work in looking at other communities, other districts, what the cost are for both parking and for athletics. We're we're right in par with everybody around us is as well, too. But we'll be bringing that to you at the next school committee meeting to vote on, but we had to get it in preparation for the budget. Yeah. Um we've shared that that we know we have to have a conversation about our building use um fees and policies and things like that. That's just

046a lot more than we can bring to the table right now, but we're confident that that this change would would bring and and we're hopeful the school committee will do it. We're willing to take that leap. We're going to sort of committee to work with us on this because we're we're losing money some events that we're having, right? They're all great events, right? We're excited about it. Um but we do a lot of things here. The play, if anyone went to the high school play where where they did the spelling bee, it was fantastic, right? People were there, it was wonderful. But we had custodian coverage for Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday, right? In terms of get keeping the building open, keeping it maintained, cleaning the bathrooms, all of that. We're not going to

047charge our students, right? For those productions, but yet where where does that money come from? And sometimes that even the rental we're charging people, we're losing money by paying our custodian what we're paying what we're charging for rental fees. So, we really it's huge. Jen started to work with me to to start looking at that with our our secretaries as well, too. We really need some help from school committee and some other members to really look at that cuz right now some of the events we're having we're losing money by letting them use our buildings. But didn't you charge did you charge for tickets to the play? It's a great question, Peggy, right? So, we charged tickets for the play that goes to the the the the group that's doing the play. >> It goes

048to the club. >> to the club. The booster's club for the the helps produce the plays. That's right. So, so it doesn't go back to the district. >> to the club, it doesn't go to the district. That's right. Okay. Yeah. And and that's one of the things we do well, right? We we say, "Yes, we want you to have events here." We we we give you that free because we want them to be taking place here, but we still have to pay for our custodians and things like that. So, uh copier contract, finance office staff, tech support staff, uh curriculum review, same things you've seen in the other budgets. So, things we're willing to um do what we can. So, then we get into updated assessments. So, when we get into uh Berlin Memorial uh

049and Tahanto, we're looking at a total uh Berlin Memorial assessment of 4,918,497. Uh their share of Tahanto at 4,090,840. Total assessment of 9,009,337. Uh just a reminder, our March 10th Berlin operating assessment was 9,166,930. So, we feel like that um represents some solid cuts um on behalf of uh Berlin and um as we said, I think the select board has agreed to support that number. Um so, we're hopeful that that will go on the warrant to him we'll have there. Boylston. Again, [clears throat] uh steeper cuts in Boylston based on uh some of the challenges. Uh net Berlin Elementary of 5,346,791. Tahanto assessment, 7,672,891. Uh total of 13,019,682. That lines up with uh the number we see received from the town this morning. Um factoring for that that small change in transportation. Uh again, reminder

050of the March 10th number. Um someone did bring up there was a question about the the difference in the percentage changes to the Tihanto assessment just to catch that ahead of time. There was a shift in minimum local contribution towards Berlin as well as an overall number shift towards Berlin. So when we do those calculations, that becomes a net net shift to Berlin absorbing a little bit more of the Tihanto piece of the pie. Oops. So at the end of the day when all is said and done, I know there's going to be some commentary and potentially some questions, but as we did before this would be the requested motion. Any questions? I have a bunch. Yeah. Thank Do you want me to go first? Um >> [clears throat] >> We want to do our

051discussion before public comment. We want people to weigh in on public comment. >> I have like some clarification questions. I thought maybe for um so first off, I know I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you know off the top of your head like about what our school choice balance was without before we take this 910,000? Is it like 2 million or 3 >> Um so yeah, it was so where you have after this this year you will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.4 million. >> After we take the 910,000? Um this this is not including this this budget. This past year you agreed to put um a significant amount because we did not have E&D certified. And again, we're not we're we're we're struggling with that the moment. It's

052the last thing. I think I mentioned that I really see this is like a two-year plan to get to to sort of fix some of the challenges we have. This is the last thing outstanding. All of our other reports, everything is in time. Um and it's just some nuances that we're we're debating and they've had some I think changes to how they consider excess and deficiency. So um and we had those challenges with the capital accounts and I I didn't really factor in how much that would play into our E&D balance and and those calculations. Okay, so about 2.4 million in school choice before taking the 910 out. And then what about E&D? But obviously before you certified the 200,000, was there like a a million in there or >> So there there's probably somewhere

053in the neighborhood of 700 and some thousand dollars at the end of 2025. Now you the number we eventually get certified will be somewhat reduced because of some of the challenges in our capital accounts. You will see the very Once we look at this and maybe I'll go to next slide in a minute. Um that we are requesting a rollover of some capital funds. One is the playground I know we've talked about. That is something that wasn't done in the past. So what happens is when you roll that money over um without getting say approval of school committee you now have an unbudgeted item that you're now spending money on. And I didn't want to get into all of this, but DLS considers that a negative variance and they take that out of your excess

054and deficiency. By properly approving the expenditure we can then preserve that as a budgetary item. Um and I I will say in speaking with our auditor he sees he sees things a little differently. So everybody's seeing things a little differently and this is maybe the conversation I didn't want to necessarily get into the details on, but he sees our capital account as the way I've always seen it as well as a special purpose fund. And that money can be go across fiscal years. Um so there's some that's where the nuances come in and and again, I didn't understand how they would play. I didn't understand that DLS might be sort of seeing this differently um this year as they they haven't in in past years they've dealt with us. So it it kind of is

055what it is. Okay, and then just one last question. So the ads that we made um last month uh the bio teacher at Tihanto, the reading specialist at Tihanto, the ELA coach at BES, and the recess aides, was that everything we added? No, not the nurse. The nurse. We added the nurse. The nurse, the floating The floating nurse, yeah. Those are still in the budget. Yeah. It went from a point four to a a 1.0. >> So we're So we're taking the float nurse full-time. That's correct. Yeah. Okay. So all of those are included in this budget. So these cuts that you've listed here are affording us Yes, the ability to have those things, yes. >> Okay. To some degree. I just wanted that clarification. And make it that ELA coach is both for both

056Berlin and Bolton. Right. Okay, yep. So let me just know we have shift models. >> Oh yeah, just like the math coach. >> That's right, yeah. All right, but the reading coach is just high school. The reading [clears throat] specialist, right, difference between the coach and reading specialist. Sorry, I didn't mean it. But the reading specialist will be just at the high school. Our middle school high school. And the float nurse is the Tihanto budget or district? >> Float nurse covers all three schools. Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right, that's it for me right now. Aaron, do you have a last slide that you want to show us? Um there's one more slide and this is the rollover. So one final request is procedural, but is is the rollover. So I would be requesting in addition

057to the budget this will allow me to roll over these two items. Um and we realistically by the time we get this money approved often times in May things like the elevator controls are something that that take months to schedule out. So there's no way we could get it done over the summer as much as we tried and there's no other good time to get that done because it shuts down an elevator. If we're without an elevator, the school shuts down. So Dan um will get those elevators controls done this summer for sure. Uh the BES playground And again, our our auditor said, you know, in the past this has always been multi-year, but I'm I'm making sure that we sort of perfect this going forward. Um the BES playground equipment I know I apologize.

058Someone's not going to see me. Um uh the BES playground equipment I know there's conversations about fundraising and getting some additional money and and you've been part of those conversations, Megan. Um that had sort of left us hanging on to that and knowing that we were going to work on that um ideally by this summer. So I want to make sure those that funding is available and no one questions the availability of those funds. So I would request the school committee to roll over those two items um for the upcoming year. What happens if we need to do the playground equipment before June 30th? What happens if we need the 30 What happens if we >> If you have to do it what? What happens if we vote to roll the 30,000, but we actually

059need it before June 30th? You can still use it. >> Okay. Yeah, yeah. You you have it for you have an approval for 26. This will give you the approval for 27. I think it's very likely you're not going to be able to get all the work done before the end of June at this point. I mean, you know, the ground's just thawing and and scheduling people and I know there's So we the best time is the summer. I mean, some I've done them I've done them in the the fall a little bit when you couldn't get a schedule them during the summer, but those are less impactful than the elevator controls, right? Like I said, we we would um we would fence off the playground equipment area and just keep people out of it.

060That if we had to have people come in do it in the fall. But the elevator controls we would have to shut the school without an elevator while that work is being done. So this is a a lean budget, right? And I'm sure you're paying attention to other communities around us, the cuts that they're making, huge millions of dollars, 70 positions in some school districts and my colleagues are making making cuts. We don't want to make any of these. I know it we keep saying that, but it was asked of us to look at the cuts that we need to make at the same time adding these four positions that you that we wanted to vote on to add in there. So again, we we we didn't have much guidance. We had a lot of

061time that we spent really being mindful as you can see. I mean, there's there's nothing else there. We really trimmed as best as we can and these numbers work with both towns have given us. So here we are coming to you and saying, here's where we're at at this point. Those are the numbers this budget we're representing to you right now works with both towns' numbers at this point. All right. Aaron, you're you're all set with your presentation. Yeah, that should end it. I think I have a thank you slide. Hang hang out there Oh well, actually yeah, whenever you want to hang out there, we're going to open it up to public comment if anyone want to make a public comment on anything on the agenda. Proceed. Proceed. Anybody? Just one signing? No, sorry.

062Anybody? No? I tried to use a a teacher voice. I don't project very well, but I feel compelled to just speak. >> just uh start with your name and town. >> Sure. Um I'm Carrie LaFrancois. I'm from Boylston Elementary School. Um good evening, members of the School Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak speak tonight. My name is Carrie LaFrancois. To the kids I'm Miss Carrie and I'm the school adjustment counselor at Boylston Elementary School. I'm here to express my deep concern about the proposed reduction of my position from full-time to 0.5 and more importantly, the significant impact this decision will have on our students. As an adjustment counselor, my role is to support the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of our students so they're able to access their education. This work is not

063supplemental, it's essential. When students are struggling struggling with anxiety, emotional regulation, peer conflict, or crises, they cannot fully engage in their learning. My role is to help remove those barriers so they can succeed both academically and socially. Reducing the school adjustment counseling role to 0.5 would mean taking valuable support away from the students. As it is right now, far more than 0.5 of my day alone is working with scheduled students on an individual or group basis, many of which are not optional. They're legally mandated through student IEPs and 504s. These are students who rely on consistent, structured, and frequent support to function successfully in the school environment. If my role is reduced, students would lose access to these pull-out or push-in supports. This percentage also includes the tier two students who have been identified and

064require counseling intervention to teach skills such as emotional regulation, coping strategies, and problem-solving, who may need structured daily check-ins, a short-term group, or push-in support during difficult parts of the school day. And that does not even capture the full scope of my daily role at BES. In addition to those direct services, the daily work of the school adjustment counselor at BES includes supporting students who drop in and are in need of immediate help or support, facilitating peer mediations, attending IEP and 504 meetings, consulting regularly with the teachers, communicating with parents, collaborating with outside therapists and agencies, conducting risk assessments and developing safety plans, responding to students in crisis, and delivering classroom-wide social-emotional learning lessons. Out of the 300-plus students at BES, about a third this year have received some form of counseling intervention, and the

065numbers are only increasing as we receive more and more referrals through our instructional support team meetings each week. Even in a full-time position, there are simply not enough hours in the school day to address these needs. Cutting this role in half does not reduce the needs of our students. It only reduces reduces the capacity to support them. And this decision, while made with budget considerations in mind, will have real and immediate consequences for the children we serve. >> [snorts] >> It will mean students waiting for longer support, missing services they're entitled to, and struggling in classrooms without the interventions they need to succeed. Before joining BES um the BES team 2 years ago, I worked in a high school setting for 7 years. I've seen firsthand what happens when students do not receive appropriate social-emotional

066support support early on. The gaps widen, the challenges intensify. By the time students reach middle and high school, those unmet needs often present as more significant behavioral, emotional, and academic difficulties. Elementary school is where we have the opportunity to intervene early, to teach coping skills, build emotional awareness, and set students on a positive trajectory. Reducing this role undermines that opportunity. I urge the committee to reconsider this decision. Our Our students deserve consistent, accessible, and comprehensive support. Reducing this position will not diminish their need needs, it'll only limit our ability to meet them. At a time when mental health needs are on the rise, now is not the time to reduce an important role such as this. Our students deserve more, not less. Thank you for your time and your for for your commitment to our

067students. Thank you. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Would anyone else like to make a comment? Yep. Um if we can uh make sure we keep our comments to our 3-minute policy, would be okay. Thank you. Good evening. Um my name is Amy. I'm the school nurse at Boylston Elementary School. I just started here about a year ago. Um I was drawn to this school for its supportive, nurturing, and student-centered environment. Um I do understand that we're facing budget constraints as we look at the next fiscal year. Um and while none of the cuts are ideal, as Al said, um I'm here to speak about the importance of keeping the school adjustment counselor as a full-time position versus the proposed cut to a half-time position. I would conservatively estimate that at least 1/3 of my health

068office visits, and that's a conservative estimate, it might be more about half the student health visits, um are physical manifestations of social-emotional concerns, including anxiety, depression, social difficulties, difficulty with executive functioning. Um the statistics support this. From 2016 to 2020, the rate of anxiety and depression diagnoses in children um ages 3 to 17 in Massachusetts increased 51% from 12.2% to 18.4%. Um approximately 10 to 12% of children ages 3 to 17 in Massachusetts [clears throat] have a diagnosis of ADHD as well. Um the data and statistics continue to show that these rates are increasing exponentially each year with a widening gap in the services that are available to them in the community outside of the school. Um this makes school-based social-emotional and behavioral support even more critical. Um in our building alone, we deal with

069all of these diagnoses and more. Many of our students have legally binding IEPs and 504s that have counseling services or accommodations tied to them. These services alone add up to definitely more than half of the time that a school adjustment counselor can provide. Um so many of our other students fall into a gray area where they're not quite severe enough to warrant a diagnosis, not quite behind enough to need formal support, not struggling enough to warrant major interventions, but the support that our adjustment counselor is able to provide by working with teaching staff um and applying tier two interventions helps a lot of these gray area students get back on track and prevents escalating their needs to a crisis level. Um a half-time position would only barely allow her to serve the students that she

070already has the legal obligation to. The rest of these students in that gray area will no longer be able to get the preventative services that they're getting now that you may not see or hear about. Um and this will likely result in more special education referrals. Um we'll be limited on the tier two interventions that we can provide. Um so I urge the committee to please take another look at the budget. I know it's tight. Um consider both the long and short-term impacts that reducing this role would have on our students now and as they progress through our school system. Um it's a critical part of our daily function at BES, and it's it's a really important one. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Hi. We as have one

071to read our eyes want to read a quick um just comment about the calendar from the BBEA. BBEA. Name and town for the record, please. Yep, Hillary Johnston, Boylston. Thank you. Um after gathering feedback of the draft calendar, two adjustments that the BBEA would suggest are making the day before Thanksgiving a half day rather than a full day off, and not taking off Good Friday. Um for an unnecessarily endorses one religion over others. If there is a concern that people will take the day off for religious purposes, then a compromise could be could be to make Good Friday a half day, which would allow people to access the services in the afternoon. And we thank you for your consideration of these points. Thank you. Any other public comments? Hello, Christina Medeiros, Boylston. Um I did

072want to thank you all, you're doing great work. Thank you for all that. I know how much time it takes to do this stuff, and thank you all um for the numbers earlier and Aaron. Um >> [clears throat] >> I had a I just had an idea, crossed it out, so lucky you guys. Um >> [laughter] >> Um and I thank you for the clarifications earlier. That that really helped. I think that's going to help clarify for parents. But um I did just want to take a couple minutes to talk about the Prop 2 1/2. Um you know, I think we need to have an honest conversation about what Prop 2 1/2 means, and I think both towns need to do this, and school community needs to be a big part of that conversation. I

073think right now, there's this narrative that, you know, it's being like if we stay under Prop 2 1/2, it's sort of some kind of success um on both towns' house, and that's not true, right? Um there are, you know, it's it's a it's really a risk to our schools, it's a risk to our property values, it, you know, our ability to attract families to our communities. Um it's avoiding these overrides um and absorbing and the school absorbing these cuts, it really it just puts us in a much worse situation down the road. I mean, we're just kicking the can down the road, honestly. Um I think staying under the cap is sort of it's cutting, but it's not fiscal responsibility, it's avoiding fiscal responsibility. Um and I think every year we sort of continue to

074sort of accept the towns' numbers and sort of make it work, um we're really sending the message to the select board and the the finance committee that, you know, we have room to cut. Right? That that's the message that we're sending. Um the number that we submitted was some kind of starting position, and it wasn't our real need, and we all know that's not the truth, right? We need these things. Um we're telling them that, yeah, we can manage, we're you know, we can manage all the painful cuts that we're going to make. Um you know, and every time you you cut, you observe consequences. You know, teachers on the other side of the table, there's you're telling them that there's, you know, we're we're just going to make cuts cuz we're going to make

075it work for the towns. Um you know, so I think what I'm truly sort of asking you guys for a commitment is, you know, we need a concrete plan going into next year. Um I think both towns have admitted that we're going to be going to a prop two and a half. Um and that's a a real possibility. I think 50 towns went to prop two and a half last year and and half of them passed and I'm sure the rest of them are all going to go back on the, you know, the ballot this year. So, I think there's a lot of preparation, honestly, that this board has to do with the select board and has to do with the fine finance committee very early on in the fiscal year. Um have that conversation,

076make a plan, work with the select board to sort of, you know, put these questions to the voters because it's going to be very important for them to understand, um you know, why we're going to prop two and a half, what's in that prop two and a half, like what are all these insurance costs, right? It's going to be a lot of effort that needs to go into that and it needs to be a really big year-long conversation. So, that when we come to to the vote and when we come to budget season, that that's already in place and people understand what the vote's about and why we're raising taxes, honestly. I think the the community deserves that. Um I think they deserve to understand why we're asking them to pay more taxes uh and

077there there is obviously a cost. Everyone in this room knows what it is. They look at the numbers all the time. Um but but what's the alternative if we don't do that, right? We're our class sizes are just going to get bigger. Uh we're going to lose really valued teachers. We're not going to be able to, you know, attract good educators. Um our whole system is just going to start to crumble. So, I think there's a lot of work going into next year and I appreciate this budget this year. I really do. Um and the cuts that you guys had to make. So, so that's my sort of feedback on prop two and a half. Um just something quick about the cuts for the adjustment counselor. Um I know we love our math tutors uh

078in the district, but we got really great math scores. So, it may be something to consider that we've been talking a lot about ELA and making sure that we make an investment there and we see the reading scores like that are much much lower. Um and we also don't want to take our foot off the gas with our emotional social emotional supports for kids. Um so, maybe it's something where you guys get creative about. Maybe we because it's tight this year, maybe we share the emotional counselor uh adjustment counselor across schools between BMS and BES. Um I if I was a Berlin parent and there was no adjustment counselor, I'd I'd be pretty upset about that, right? That doesn't seem equitable to me. So, maybe if you guys can find some room on the Berlin

079side to to keep this social emotional adjustment counselor >> [snorts] >> on, I think that would be great um because I think it's a big part of what the kids need. I don't think we should be taking that kind of stuff off the off the table. We really don't. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Hello, Kathy Ladue, teacher, Williston Elementary School. Um as an elementary teacher, I see every day how much our students carry with them into the classroom far beyond just academics. They bring worries about friendships, family, and other emotional needs. And emotions that they don't even have the tools to understand or express yet. While we do our best as educators to support them, we aren't trained counselors. And we can't meet all of these needs by ourselves. Our full-time adjustment counselor provides

080consistent professional support for our students' social and emotional well-being. She helps them to build coping skills, resolve conflicts, and feel safe and heard. When students are emotionally supported, they're better able to focus, learn, and succeed. Our full-time counselor doesn't just help individual students in crisis, she strengthens our entire school community through prevention, guidance, and collaboration with teachers and families. Continuing to invest in a full-time adjustment counselor is an investment in our students' success both in and out of the classroom. And our children deserve that support every single day. Thank you. Thank you. Any comments? All right. Can I Oh, yeah. Okay. Julie Nato, um from Williston. I have two kids at BES and of these cuts, the ones that I can speak to are the paraprofessionals in kindergarten. Um let's see. They I would just

081strongly oppose those cuts because I think it has a ripple effect that we might not think about. That not only are the paras not in there for the students, they're also not there for the general ed teacher who is already overworked because as you know, they lost their one of their um planning periods due to last year's cuts. So, I worry that we might lose those three fabulous teachers to other positions and um they've just been so wonderful for both my kids that that would be a tragedy. Um The only other point I had was I saw the note about someone with the bingo night and wanting to not have served alcohol and while I understand those points, I think it brings in money. You get more people to come to the fundraiser. That's just

082the way of our culture. So, I would support um keeping the alcohol when possible. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? All right. Megan, I know you're looking at me about the bingo night. No, uh I was just wondering I think we can talk about that later. I'm more about the budget. Yeah, I know. We're going to get more about it. Yeah. I didn't know we were going to have it further discussion. Yeah, we are. Um all right. So, if there's no more public comment, then we will move on to our budget. Uh next on the list is our budget vote, which we'll discuss. So, for the committee, now you've heard Aaron. Aaron, do you want come on back up here if we have any questions for you? Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> Um Anybody

083want to start with a suggestion? I think does Berlin have the capacity to absorb I would not They want us to cut another 150, but they gradually approved the number. Right. Like it would it was not approved by FinCom. It was approved by the select board. I would not touch the money in Berlin. >> my other question about the adjustment counselor and the kindergarten paras and it's not I'm just curious. I know Berlin doesn't have kindergarten paras anymore, right? So, so there was there was one there was one this year at at at Berlin Memorial. And there was And there's two kindergarten classrooms, but there was one. The fortunate part about that is our numbers are right now for kindergarten and we keep them low, which is is a little bit helpful. Um but we

084had to make some cuts somewhere and that's where we we're looking at that. What are the projected number? Yeah. Um we It's in the school choice. Okay. It was in the school choice I think it was 26 for BMS and there was no number in there for BES. It said I don't know. 26 total for two classes at BMS? I think so. And Let me pull it up. I don't want to say that. What is it at like this point? Isn't it like you get 80% then you get another 20? John, isn't it like this point you'll get another 20% though, right? For kindergarten? Yes. Yeah, okay. And you spoke to it before, that's why I turned to you. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, it's fine. I Yes, we usually I wouldn't say

08520%, but there will be kids between now and August 30th that will come in. So, right now there's two classrooms with total 26, maybe maybe 30. That's maybe 15 and obviously 15 in that classroom. And that's BMS, but we don't know about BES. BES. BES unknown. BES, we have no idea what the count is for kindergarten. Maybe uh before we get into discussing individual positions to add or cut, maybe we want to think about, you know, kind of go on what Christina said, right? Christina said uh do we want to attempt to go for an override? Cuz so, here's here's the thing, right? Regional school budget, the school committee sets the budget. The select boards, FinComs don't set the budget. Uh but the select boards and FinComs certainly have to figure out how to pay

086for that budget and that means taxes going up and if they say that Williston's at their limit capacity, then it has to be an override or uh you know, we can send this to town meeting. Town meeting could approve it. They'd have to either go to override or maybe town meeting's going to cut some other department in town. We don't know. We don't have any say over that. So, maybe before we get into individual positions adding back and taking out and we decide if we want to even attempt for the override or not. My my thought and I 100% agree with Christina. That's right on the nose what I like we have to start planning for next year, but I think it is too late to plan for this year. For Tonto, we cut cut

087cut cut cut. And last year we cut those positions, we trialed it a year, realized this doesn't work, and then we added them back into the budget. I know these cuts are painful, but if we have our eye on an override perhaps for next year, do we take these cuts now and then have the proof to say this didn't work, we need these bodies, we need an override. It gives us more of a fight cuz what a reason for the fight to show that we tried, we did the best we could. I think it it worked out for Tahanto last year to be able to show that these cuts were not sustainable. My one thing for this year is that we're adding heads to cut other heads. And I like that we've reshaped we're trying

088to figure out what our priorities are as a district. I think that's a good thing. I think that's one thing that we've kind of done or we're we've taken the budget opportunity to do that. But to Beth's point, I like I don't think any of these things are good things to cut and I'm wondering personally do we not add the heads at the elementary school to maybe keep some of the heads that we're planning to cut because there are a lot of heads at BES. So the the path you're going down Megan, I think the the numbers we added someone can correct me if I'm wrong Aaron, I think it totaled about 280,000 roughly, right? Three positions at 90. What what you added? The the ads the ads, right? So the biology teacher >> over

089300,000. >> Yeah, okay, 300, yeah. And what we've cut in this budget is over 500, right? So we could we could eliminate all of that and [clears throat] we're still looking to cut 100 something thousand, right? Mhm. So we'd still have to do something. I think some of the cuts that were made might I'm talking about the heads. Yes. Yes. So there were some things on there that weren't heads. And I'm not I there were some things on there, you know, you guys know better than us about the needs for the sped paras and stuff like that. I can't speak to that, but I just think for the adjustment counselor and the K paras the number they have in the drive right now for kindergarten is 54 kids. That's the same as last year for

090BES, so that's almost >> I don't think there is a number. Is there a number? It says it says it says 54 as in that's what the current one is. I don't know if that means >> says unknown. I have 47 on the incoming kindergartners. Oh, okay. That's what Lynn and I have shared in drive. And that's three classrooms next week. That's that's ones who have already started the enrollment. >> That's 47 right now? That's three classrooms, so that's 15 16. Yeah. Which is comparable to what we have in Boylston as well. Yeah, but they'll definitely get more before you're out of summer. There will be more. They'll be at least 10% more maybe. You're awfully sure of that. Well, I'm just going by I remember when we had this conversation and maybe it was

091two years ago when John and I can't remember who was principal of BES had at the time. It was Ace I can't remember. I know we've had [clears throat] the conversation multiple times that the number for kindergarten right now is not the final. It always goes up. >> [clears throat] >> It's I thought John had said usually between 10 and 20%. Maybe I'm wrong. So are are we going to get into the the minutiae and the details of these types of conversations tonight or do we want to decide first of all are we going to do what we can to avoid an override or do we want to go for an override? Cuz even eliminating all of that, there's still 100 I don't know 150 whatever the number is. We got Aaron you you're jumping

092in. >> I just I mean I just want to say we're not prepared to do an a la carte right now like we did the other and and and this gets really complicated cuz everybody's got different wants and desires. Um you know, my my suggestion for the school committee for tonight is with what you have on the table is we've created a pathway, right? We've worked with the administrators, we've looked at what can get us to the numbers to the destination we need to reach right now for the towns. Um you guys do have some control over some of those line items and if if the school committee would like us to present, you know, an alternative or like like that could be a conversation. Um but like right now I think it's either the

093March 10th number or this number because I I cannot do an a la carte tonight, right? And try to figure out assessments and all of that, how everything in the interplays. But the question is, you know, are you going to go you know, look look for the override if if Boylston mostly and and if not, then you know, you go to a second meeting and you know, all of that plays out in the way it does. >> And and I wanted to go back to be careful about the a la carte thing. Hours hours and hours these people spent deciding what cuts they were going to make, but also and Beth was there with me at Boylston when we went to present in front of the Boylston the the Boylston select board, they were asked

094very pointed questions. If we're passing this budget, is this going to mean that you're going to have the reading specialist? Is it going to mean that you're going to have the biology teacher? They were very clear and asked those questions and I publicly said school committee at this point has voted them in. So here's where I am talking to you about this this right now. Um so I just want to make sure the public when they asked me those questions that the money they were giving to us was going to make sure these things were still in place. >> Right. There was there was three students that came to speak for those positions and that was part of their support of this but So Mike, to answer your question about the override, I personally am

095against doing an override this year. I 100% agree with what Beth said about I think and you know, Christina to her point is an excellent point. You start something like that down like December, November and you get a committee and you got a team of parents to help because you got a market and you got to do signs and you got to So I'm on board with that for next year and I think it needs to be strategic so you're not just asking for like three or four things you're kind of projecting down the road we'll have a better our district improvement plan we'll have reviewed that. Admin team will have time to digest that. Maybe that's something that we do next year. I don't think right now it's a good idea to do that.

096I think we'll be unprepared. I do believe it will fail. I don't know >> Yeah, there I mean after the fire station passed, I mean that was several hundred dollar increase in taxes last year. So I don't I don't think it would pass in Boylston. So then that could potentially be a 1/12 budget. So that would take more away from our kids. So I think our vote tonight is like Aaron suggested March 10th or tonight. And if we do want them to do further work, maybe see if you can reallocate something which is an impossible task. I'm not really what you're asking me to do, but uh it sounds like some people might be in favor of that. I There's a lot of support from you know, what a dozen or so emails, multiple people

097speaking tonight in favor of this, but only one person speaking about the realities of the override. Um I know everybody wants the adjustment counselor. Nobody suggested what else to cut instead of that. I would cut the reading coach ELA coach at BES and keep the adjustment counselor. I mean I don't So if we wanted if we want to vote on whether or not to do to go for an override, we could do that and then ask them to maybe consider a plan B. Say that again? So if we want to vote on either the March 10th number or tonight's number, it's our budget. We can always reallocate funds within that budget, right? We can always do that. We can do that in September, we can do it in January, we can do it whenever, right?

098We've done it in the past. The question really is, you know, do you want to work with the towns to come to what they can afford? Do you not believe that's what they can afford? Do you want to try to go for the override or do you want to go with what looks like would be supported by the the town select boards and FinComs? You're asking me? No, I think that's the question I'm putting out there. Like that's what we're voting on basically. Yeah, I'm fine with keeping the number, but I'm not I like I said, my I don't want to make more work for you right now and I know we voted literally minutes before town meeting reducing the budget. So I know as long as we, you know, aren't increasing it, we can

099do it next week, we can do it week after, we can do it the day of town meeting if we want, but I guess I'm not okay with walking out of here tonight with the budget as listed because to me that means that we have voted to take that adjustment counselor position down to half time and we've voted to get rid of those paras and we've you know, and we're keeping in some of this other stuff. I personally, if you want to get into the nitty gritty details, I agree with keeping the bio teacher and the reading specialist at Tahanto. Like I said, I would probably look at that ELA coach at BES and that float nurse and see, you know, if we can keep some of the K paras and the and the um

100the adjustment counselor full time and and trade off these two, you know, So so that's my personal thing. Like Aaron said, the a la carte conversation is kind of off the table for tonight, but we'll look at it in the future. We the the motion out there there's no motion on the table, but the motion would be for a number budget number. But the committee could collectively provide us with some direction requesting us to look at, you know, if there is one of you approve four items, if there's an item on there that you know is impactful to that one item to to Boylston or what have you, you could direct us to look at that for the next meeting and we could have that conversation. I just it's really hard to do an all

101a cart with so much on the table, right? Cuz I'll tell you for every email, you know, we're getting over an adjustment counselor, there's every single item that we particularly if it's staff, right? We have emails on it, right? As do you. So, we can't do it all. So, I think we need we would need clear direction from the school to take the vote, but to then improvise with some direction as to what you'd like us to look at. And and just being able to be able to collect, you know, like the ELA coach, right? If that's the direction you guys want us to go in, that impacts Berlin's budget as well, too. So, we'd have to go back to Berlin and have a conversation with them as well, too. Because they voted their budget

102and we met their number, right? So, it it's it's a complicated puzzle. You guys all know that, but Well, we might select the number that they begrudgingly agreed to and not the Maybe not begrudgingly agreed to. They fully supported it. They were very good about it. But the FinCom Berlin FinCom was They were split. Two two. Two two. So, what does that mean? A failed vote or Yes. It's not considered not supported, but they were very good last year at the meeting at standing up and acknowledging that it was a two two. They did the same thing last year. Oh, so it's a >> They were very nice about standing up and acknowledging that it was two two. It was not like a fail. And and I can't stress enough they asked really thoughtful questions.

103It it gave credibility to the work that we did here, right? They really did. Um so, I I have to acknowledge that. I sat for hours in some other town meetings and no one asked me any questions about some of these things, which was which was difficult for us as well, too, but very thoughtful questions from Berlin about what would this look like for a reading specialist? What would this look like for the for the coaching model as well? Yeah. So, so in Berlin they have So, the Select Board FinCom seven people total they would recommend or they would recommend something at town meeting. So, what is that? Some five of the seven actually are in support of this number, so. So, it's a mess. I mean, it's it's not necessarily that cuz they're split

104on different boards, but of the seven people who are giving a recommendation, five of them. Yeah. So, I mean, every single email I can identify about how we our children have used the adjustment counselors and then more and more in need over the elementary and it was not addressed in the elementary it gets worse in the high school. So, I feel that and I don't argue with any of that. Um you know, I think to cancel out the paras in kindergarten for an ELA coach is like it doesn't make sense. You know, we're we're hiring a new superintendent who literally lectures around the country about ELA and reading. Um so, I don't know if next year is really the year to also bring on an ELA coach, which we literally hired a superintendent for that

105knowledge in that area. This is what we said at the March 10th meeting and then we added it on. No, [laughter] we had this conversation I know, like yes, I know he's the superintendent, but I was hoping that he would share that knowledge with us and not just the nation. So, So, I would like to bring that up again. I mean, he probably will, right? He'll probably absolve it. >> No, I fully and that's that was my mind as well. Like that that that's why I did not think we should add it. He's not going to be in the in the buildings coaching. Like look at how much work like he's going to be the superintendent. He's not going to be the coach, right? Like But he could mentor to her point so that the

106teachers have the professional development. Or work with the tutors Yeah. Dr. Dr. Colon and I have been working really closely. We're looking forward to working closely together, but he's never been a superintendent, right? So, there's a whole transition for him. Different being an assistant superintendent. He's going to do phenomenal work, but he's going to have to learn this job and and the responsibilities that go along with this job as well, too. So, to say he's going to be the ELA coach at the same time might be is is a big stretch for him. No, I know, but like we're looking at a new curriculum hypothetically ELA curriculum. We're getting a superintendent with ELA knowledge. So, I feel like it's a little premature to be hiring an ELA coach as well within kind of that transition

107year while taking out the one-on-one individual help within the classroom at kindergarten, which is the foundation to their education. So, and you know, and and I mentioned last meeting, too, like we know that there's no more nursing needs within our students, but maybe the 8 FTE would be something to consider acknowledging we do need more, but there's a whole lot of need everywhere, so you know. We were really trying to be equitable as well, too. And I know, you know, equal doesn't actually mean equal doesn't actually mean equal. We we got that, but we're we're really trying to be mindful of what's happening in Berlin in the schools and what's happening in Boylston elementary schools with paras, with with all the support they're getting. There's there's still need in Berlin as well, too. So, we're

108just trying to to be mindful of that when we made those decisions. Um we we absolutely think there should be a full-time adjustment So, we should be two a full-time adjustment counselor in Berlin as well, too. We just needed to make sure we reach this number here that Berlin and Boylston has given to us at the town. So, now to Aaron's point what we said, you you got to if you if you vote on this number that we've given you here and if you want to send us in a direction a little bit, not opening it up completely, but saying, "Okay, would you revisit maybe looking at this piece of this pie?" Then we certainly can, but just know it impacts Berlin if you're touching the elementary schools. And we got pretty clear direction from

109you guys about making sure we leave it out to because they've experienced in the past the cuts. So, we're we're being careful with that. Yeah, I definitely think the right move is adding back the positions that you took away from Tahanto. I think that I'm I personally I hear what you're saying and I don't want to put you on the spot tonight. I don't think that's fair. I don't think it's right, but I guess my question is why can't we, you know, give you guys give you some solid direction. I don't know if we have to vote on that or not and then take a vote on the final final like next week or the week after or whatever what if we're meeting again before town meeting. I don't know if that's the case. I'm

110pretty sure they're going to print soon, right? >> Thursday. Thursday. Yeah. What's going the warrant? >> signs it. Yeah, but I thought Boylston I don't Berlin is they're already printing. I think we got it in the mail. What did we get in the mail today? That something? Yeah, no, it's the warrants are already final. Boylston said that I can't speak for Berlin, but I know Boylston they voted it. The warrant is final. It's going to print with Somebody's going to have to make an amendment on the floor, correct? At both probably at both town meetings. Um So, yeah, we've done that in the past. I feel like that's happened almost every year where we've had to make an amendment on the floor. Actually, I think last year was like the we didn't do it. >>

111so all all right, so please slow down. Yes, okay. All right. Are we going to vote for this number or a different number or not vote for this number? I would rather not put Aaron on the spot and ask discuss more. I mean, Jackie and Lisa haven't said anything. I don't I would Do you guys have any input? I mean, is it's this number number or we can spend time going through a different number. I think we should vote for this number Okay. and then maybe provide some direction for maybe switching things up. All right, so you're hearing direction around ELA coaches and and whatnot. You're hearing we're having conversations. So, could I have a motion, please, that the Berlin-Boylston School Committee vote to approve an amended FY27 operating budget of $25,696, $973 that includes

112following offsets to reduce the budget. School choice $910,000, circuit breaker $926,000, IDEA EA grant funding $270,000 funded through the following projected revenues. Berlin Berlin operating assessment $9,009,337, Boylston operating assessment $13,019,682, Chapter 70 state aid $3,229,646, Chapter 71 transportation reimbursement $356,602, Medicaid reimbursement $35,000, investment income $35,000, charter school reimbursement $11,706. So moved. Beth. Second. Lisa. All right. Any final comments on budget? We know we're giving no direction around the ELA coaches and whatnot. >> So, just to clarify, we're only voting on this budget. We are not voting about these We're voting on the number. Just the number with the authority to like relook at things. >> And you gave us some direction about looking possibly at the ELA coach and we will look at that. Yeah. And adding back the adjustment counselor and the kindergarten paras.

113Within this number, Aaron. Within this number, yes. We have to figure out obviously And we're not going to be able for clarity to bring back all the paras, bring back the full-time adjustment counselor all based on the ELA coach. That those numbers I can just do quickly won't work the way Yeah, but I think creativity like maybe 8 of the adjustment counselor >> Listen, we couldn't have been more clear. We please Easter Sunday night. Can I just tell you what my wife's thinking right now when I was there? But we were making these cuts that night. So, we are really Well, we will be continuing to do that. Beth, you want to say I just want to acknowledge that like they didn't come to these numbers by just like what can we cut? Like they

114worked really hard to get to these numbers and I don't want them to think that we are like looking down our noses like how dare you think of that? That that's not this. It seems very dismissive the way we're like, "But not [clears throat] this, but this." It's like they didn't come to that without doing research about why they could cut that versus something else. And it's a little insulting to for them to imply that like everything's swappable. No, I I I'm sorry if it came off that way. I don't think I you know, I very much appreciate all the time and effort and hours and not hours at home that you guys have spent on this budget. I think it was a little alarming to hear, "Yes, we wanted these things," but then there

115was no discussion about what we were taking away. So, that was a little surprising. So, And we did we did ask for a list >> for sure. Last last meeting, I think Megan you asked for a list of bring me a list of cuts, right? Yeah, I didn't think we were going to get it 2 hours before this meeting though. So, I That was the first time I saw >> came in 11:35 last night. No, 11:35 [laughter] last night. Yeah, and I totally get it. Yeah, and I get it. I I It would have been nice to like had we had the lit like when we had the last discussion, I thought we were meeting on March 24th and I thought we were going to have a list and then I thought we were meeting

116again. I think it was supposed to be April >> had met on the 24th, we'd be We wouldn't have this meeting coming up and No, but we would have had the 14th, which is next week. No, I totally get it. But like in my head when those discussions were happening and we were voting on that, that was the last time I knew what was That's what I thought was going to happen when I made those comments. So, had I known we weren't going to come here until tonight and I wasn't going to see a list of cuts until 2 hours before the meeting and have no time to ask questions or understand, you know what I mean? Obviously, I absolutely mean I understand how If you have further questions, this is the time to ask.

117Like this is the public meeting where we go over the budget. You're saying you didn't have time to ask questions. We have all night. Ask your questions. >> [clears throat] >> You know, you you're saying you don't have time to ask questions. If I can say I mean I I understand for everybody in the audience, for everybody watching at home, for the school committee members, these are emotional cuts. These are about your kids. These are about, you know, making sure they have the social emotional skills they need to live through life. Um what have you? Like we don't do this lightly. We're we're trying to, you know, we we come with everyone tells me, you know, needs based budget. We've all heard needs based budget, needs based budget. We bring forward a needs based budget

118and then they say, "Oh, you have X dollars or X percent." Well, okay, I spent all this time, right, working with administrative team, creating this needs based budget and at the end of the day, we're just going to go back to that default of well, you get X dollars or X percent. It is it I I understand like it's incredibly frustrating for you, frustrating for me if everybody says this is what we have, this is what we're going to work with, but we all chime this like needs based budget, right? Cuz we were trained to think that's, you know, and if we're not going to accept the needs based budget, or at least accept that it's really important to acknowledge that even if we have to make cuts, the things we're losing and how important

119they are how vital they are to kids, right? So, the social emotional skills are so critical. We talk about you know, emotional intelligence and things like that in kids. It's It's really challenging to make these cuts. So, I don't like whenever like people get emotional and things like that, I I totally I completely understand and I want you to know that Al and I talk about this. Like we understand there are going to be emotions that are going to run high. If there are cuts at my children's school, my emotions are going to run high as well. So, I don't take that like there's no reason for anyone to think like if you, you know, get hot over this, I understand that. That's part of the world that we operate in. The the difficult part

120of this was the timeline, right? So, we got Berlin on March 3rd. We got Bolston's last night and then this morning we got another number from Bolston. Even after you guys walked away from that meeting last night, that the number changed again. So, we were trying to make a timeline and being respectful to the people of the cuts that we're making so that we've all worked in school districts where people are seeing for the first time a para is being cut, a school adjustment counselor and not having the individual conversations that all our admin team had to have with those people before word got out. We live in a small community. Once someone finds out, it goes out. We just were being trying to keep that timeline, being respectful to the HR piece that we

121don't have a central office, right, and making sure that we we're we're talking to these individuals so they're not seeing it there. These These are tough. These are tough. Um and again, we want it all, right, but we need to make sure we're making cuts that we can also live with that if it if it doesn't work out the way we want, we're still going to be able to open up our schools in Pottery in the way we can to keep our sick kids safe and provide a good education. And thank you that because the hours that these guys I know I keep saying that, but the amount of time that they were not in their buildings and that were in my either on the office or on a Zoom call and not doing the

122jobs that they were supposed to do because this is it. When you take a look at central office in the entire district, this is it to your right hand side with the additional one more with Chris on it. So, everyone spent a lot of time not doing their job. We are not business people, right, but we put a lot of heart into deciding what we're going to make cuts on. So, I appreciate you saying that because we didn't do this lightly at all. Uh there's a motion on the table. Lisa, Jackie, do you have anything to add? No. All right. I would like to say one thing. So, so in guidance, what I would love to see is maybe the nurse moved down to .8 FTEs, the ELA coach strucken at least for this year,

123one para going back to BES, and the adjustment counselor at .8. And you know, like it breaks my heart not to mention band at all because I think that again is social emotional health of our kids, but at least we still have music, but hopefully that's a temporary one year thing until we organize an override. So. But I just have one question, Mike. So, we have this motion on the table for the number. So, we're going to walk out of here tonight and no one's going to know what's We don't know if we're going to take have an ELA coach or not have an ELA coach or we don't know if we're going to have a .8 or a full-time adjustment counselor. I guess I'm confused walking out of here voting on something I don't

124even know what I'm voting on. I'm just voting on a number and saying you guys make the decision or how Explain to me what we're voting on. >> what everybody is saying they want. No, I would like another meeting to solidify budget is going to be finalized. I mean, this is our That's what we do. That's one of our huge major jobs. So, you know, like that is shaping the education of our children and and I do really appreciate the time and effort that's been made. Well, I think we have to bring that back to you, right? So, we're we're taking your direction, right, that you would rather see the ELA, you know, give up the ELA coach and and then this would have to be if there's a consensus among the committee. I don't

125know if you need a vote or not, but you know, consensus of some sort or a vote to provide us direction that you're comfortable making the cut say to the ELA coach and/or the following, right? Maybe the nurse saying, but you know, it can't just come from one individual. I I think I had this conversation at Berlin FinCom, right? Beth was there. We we don't we work for the committee as a whole. So, the committee is going to have to make a decision. If you're going to give us a direction, this is the direction you want us to go. And and I'm >> Right? And I'm hearing different things, right? So, I'm hearing adjustment council .8, bring them back a para. So, I I think we just need a little bit more clear direction if

126you're going to get that specific with us. What are the priority What's the priority? So, A versus B. Are we going to discuss these things after we vote on this number? Well, we're trying to figure that out, Lisa, cuz it we've got what, less than a month to town meeting, right? >> [clears throat] >> Um what was the number? Is Is this number here, this 13 million 19,682, is that the exact number that Bolston gave you? That's that's The exact number. That's not the number FinCom gave us last night, right? But that was the additional like Aaron said of the transportation money. It was about 31,000 more this morning that came to the table. So, last night it was like 12 million 900 and 90 something. 988. 988. Yeah, that's exactly it. So, what was

127the what's the official number? That they That's it. It's it's this. It's 13 million. Yeah, it's correct. 13,019,682. Okay. That's exactly it. And just to be clear, the It's exactly their number. That's what we'd be voting on. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure like that we're voting on the corrected number. The like that's the number. >> That ties to what they're they're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like maybe there's like 50,000 I don't know. Like 10,000 somewhere. I don't know. In Bolston? No, but I'm just saying like is this like I saw those cuts and I was just clarifying that that is the exact number that the town That's all. So, rather than have another meeting about this, why don't we just figure it out now? Sure. But we have a motion

128on the table for this budget. We can amend it twice. Okay. So, I mean, I would like to amend it I mean to say that But [snorts] Aaron, we have to meet again. I'm not going to make an actual amendment, but we can amend it right now because Aaron just said Here's Here's what's happening. It's not It's the number would be unamended, but it would be an additional clarification of where the Here's the problem that we have, okay? We have 1 2 3 4 5 6 people over there, 7 and 8 people who have spent what, 40 hours since Thursday night on figuring out the best way to use the money that we have to run the school, how their combined Sorry if I'm going to age any of you, but A lot. 100 years

129of experience >> [laughter] >> He's looking at me. You can call Al 75 again. Licensed, yeah. >> [laughter] >> Seriously, 75. Licensed in their fields, right? Not a single one of us here has an educational license. Okay? Not a single one of us here has run a school. Not a single one of us here has has run a district. They're saying this is what we need to run a good school. If we had all the money in the world, we would have all these things back. Right? Who am I to say an ELA coach versus a .2 What what 5 hours of a nurse? I don't know. Nurses are expensive. They are expensive. Let's get rid of the float nurse and just have a nurse at each school. I mean, we could have that conversation.

130I mean, this is what Lisa, Janelle, John, Rob, Rich, Al, and Aaron have said is the most efficient way to run the school this year. So, if we want to question them, let's question them and say no to all this and put a number out there. The priorities we gave you, the one, two, and three, we didn't know at that time it was going to be that expensive taking something off. Let's be clear about that, right? We added those options, we were hoping that people were going to go to Boylston and Burlington and fight like heck to say, "You got to give us more money. We need more money. You got to look at us just like I had to have those conversations with John as opposed to Rich as opposed to Rob and say,

131"This is where we got to make cuts here." We were hoping that when they went to the fire and the police and the highway, they'd say, "Okay, we're going to we're going to shift some money to give more to the schools." But that that didn't happen, right? They they gave us their numbers. Burlington went back and forth with us, gave us a little bit more money, but we wanted those priorities not at the expense of losing the things that we had level. Again, I'm going to go back. We we we didn't just present a level budget to you, we added a fifth grade teacher in there. And I wonder if this conversation in Boylston would be a lot different. What we should have done is put that fifth grade teacher and say, "Okay, that's part

132of an option in small too because we all decided that you didn't think those class class sizes were good and we don't think so either. But we added that fifth grade position and $90,000 FTE for the most part into that budget. So, that's what makes us have the trickle effect in Boylston as well, too. Right? So, it's not level service in Boylston. We added that fifth grade teacher at the expense of taking these things out. And we're adding an ELA coach and a float nurse [clears throat] and a bio teacher. All right, and then we're adding some stuff at Tahanto as well. And and I I think maybe there's some confusion. We would certainly like if if you ask us to reconsider things, right? We would still have to come back to you to demonstrate

133that swap we made. We're not just going to arbitrarily do it based on this. We would have to come back to you and say, "We're making the following changes but within this construct, right?" You're you're providing us with the barriers that we have to work within. So, I'm you know, assuming that that the two things I've heard is the ELA coach and some of the float nurse, right? We would then go back, work with the administrative team, and talk about what that would look like, right? We talked about this is one path to get to this destination. We're still going to the same destination but we would look at whether what's an alternative path that adjusts a few things, right? And and that's, you know, as much as our experienced district priorities come into into

134to play, too, right? It's not just about what we think is the most efficient use, but there are priorities. If something's a priority for the community, we want to be able to push for that. We want to be able to to work within the construct we're given and make that happen. So, it's not it's not just about like, "Okay, we're going to come to this number and we're going to run off and disappear with a bunch of money. We're going to come back to you and say, "Here's the plan to get to the same destination, but it's just a different path." Does that make Is that right for the word maybe missing? on the number that's presented tonight, right? That gives a clear message to the communities what this looks like with that number that

135we're presenting to you tonight and then come back and have a meeting because these are might just be some small adjustments that we're making, whether it be the ELA coach, we'll go back and revisit that, looking at the adjustment counselor, looking at the paras, see where that can fit. And that might be a a quicker meeting that we have. And we've had those meetings. Sometimes we're say, "Okay, you voted on this budget number, but here's what it looks like with the changes the changes we took place here." And we've done some of those meetings sometimes at noon, right? Where we had a run that by people as well. And hopefully hopefully you would have a presentation in the drive. Everyone looks at it. Everyone comes to the meeting knowing what it is and is prepared

136to say like, "You're on the wrong track. I don't agree." And then we'll have an opportunity to veto, right? If we don't agree with the presentation for how you're moving around the positions or not. You just Are you just going to move it around and I just don't want to come back when we're having the next meeting and say, "Okay, we don't really want that. Let's go Let's go and put it But it would Well, it would be in the drive [clears throat] early enough before the meeting that we could Well, I'm suggesting we figure out what that is now and then we can, you know, figure out how the numbers are going to work because Yes, I think that's I don't want I don't want to keep having meeting after meeting after meeting where

137No, we don't like that version, come back with another version, right? So, Right, I agree. I think we should discuss what we're going to do and then you get the solid numbers and figure it out. >> Yeah. So, if we were to cut, let's say we do cut the ELA coach and we already got this number approved by the select board in Berlin, does that that would then open up for some of these cuts to be added back in? That it sounds like it would be a lower number in Berlin and then money to add towards the adjustment counselor. Regardless of what the We're not talking exact figures, Erin, but Yeah. Just the idea of cutting the ELA coach, it's split between the elementary schools, right? So, [clears throat] a portion of that What what's

138the What is the split for that? It's about 65/35, right? Roughly 60/40, right? Uh yeah, so the Boyl- the Berlin assessment would drop. Mhm. The Boylston wouldn't really It wouldn't drop cuz we're just reallocating that money to another position over there. >> The money wouldn't change. So, that would be a second budget. You could add back in one of your paras in Berlin if you wanted to. Whatever the Well, that's what I'm saying. Like so, if we cut the ELA coach, then that opens up some of the money that they would have to cut in at BMS. BMS. Mhm. So, may I ask questions? So, obviously we're not in the curriculum department, we're not a principal, and I know when you were given more money back, supposedly, you know, that you chose tutors, like one-on-one.

139So, I'm wondering you know, you were operating under the assumption that ELA a coach the ELA coach was something we 100% wanted at the detriment of other positions. So, if you hypothetically if you eliminated that assumption, would you What are your feelings Do you feel like the ELA [clears throat] coach would make more impact than paras or more hours in adjustment counselor or I mean, you asked it Rob cuz it immediately impacted Boylston. It's BES. Yeah, BES, Lisa. Or Lisa cuz yeah, you're the coach. John, you want to say something, it looks like. I you just have to remember Maybe keep it short. that the changes you're considering at BES impact negatively the changes that we'd like to see in Boylston. Um you know, just I'll add this. You You've heard me say this for

14013 years. The [clears throat] most important thing we do as elementary educators is teach children to read. The most essential addition to this budget, bar none, is that coaching position. Coaches aren't tutors. Coaches aren't administrators. Coaches are people who come in and push you to get that extra 2% that little trick you might not know to take your kids' success to here to here. They're the people who are going to hold us accountable. Yeah, we're getting a fabulous superintendent. Not that the current one's been great. Great new guy. I was excited just to meet him in person. But he is not going to have the time to coach. He's going to expect that person to be there because we have to do better for children. Our whole strategic plan starts with we do what's in

141the best interest of children. And I guess we have to insert the word all, not just some. You're right, this stinks for him. Rob and I talked about this. This stinks for for Boylston. This These are tough cuts. But you have to think big picture. And you have to think long term to your point. You're absolutely right. We need time to get people to a place where they can do a a proper approach to what we have going on. And they're not very popular. But you accept mediocrity to hire more paras. I think it's a terrible mistake. At least for my school. But can I just ask the question? If a kid doesn't want to go to school, how are they going to learn how to read? Or if like the kindergarten teacher is like

142cleaning up a kid who pooped his pants cuz I literally that happened to me with Mrs. Pasquale one day because there's no para in the room and I was a volunteer in there, then what's happening to the other 20 kids in the class cuz they don't have a helper in there? So, I guess I totally agree with you, but if we don't have our bare bones minimums that we need, so that the actual teacher can function or the actual child can function, does some of that high level stuff even matter at that point? I don't know. I'm not an educator. >> adults than that. Like there's one-on-one There's other adults. I I've been in a kindergarten classroom, man. Sometimes [clears throat] there's more adults than children. Like there's a lot There's one-on-ones in there, right?

143>> didn't have kindergarten aides. Not even No one-on-one aides in the whole classroom? >> And for for There was no one-on-one One that that The volunteers come in at BES. The kindergar- But the kindergarten aides weren't a thing until just a couple years ago. Two years ago. Three years ago. >> My kids got the classroom for the for the student. No, I'm talking about I'm talking about the classroom. Take the emotion out of this discussion, okay? >> no emotion out of it. This doesn't affect >> speech was emotion about pooping pants, okay? No, because I mean our kids are beyond that. >> My kids are beyond that. I have absolutely no My kids don't even go to the Well, what we're what we're talking based on what John just said emotional attachment to this. We

144don't think they made these cuts with the best interests of children in mind. We think that we can do better for the children. Is that what we're saying? No, I'm asking for clarification that they were operating under the assumption that those were non-negotiable. That's That's a fair question. That is a fair question. It's something we added in. Like That's She's asking like did you agree with us adding it in? Like that's a fair question. >> Right, because we added that in and again, when we at least I know when I did that, I thought we were meeting in two weeks and I assumed we were actually going to take it out or one of like as it One of the towns is going to come back. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You

145assumed >> let me finish. You assumed we were going to take something out two weeks after we voted? >> let me finish. Or that's because the town was going to have some more money or we were going to move things around. >> told us in December they had $500,000. We're also voting on the ceiling. So, we wanted to come back and have further discussion. They They also wanted to Yes, our ceiling budget that they made Put your down. Okay. John. I just a suggestion if the chair will entertain it. Maybe. Go ahead. Can we take a 5-minute bathroom break? Yes, but I did. >> to do that? All right, let's do that. Thank you. All right, we'll take a 5-minute break. >> [laughter] >> I believe you. Okay. All right. So, we'll come back to

146our meeting. Thanks, John, for suggesting nice little break for everybody. Appreciate it. I needed a cookie. >> [laughter] >> Glad you got your cookie. Uh Al, you have something real So, I just wanted to introduce you Bailey and I know she was on the agenda, Bailey McNamara. Um she's from the Tahanto Food Pantry and I know she's running late because you were where? You were >> I'm at game. >> [laughter] >> Um but go ahead, I know you want to speak to school committee. I just want to say thank you for your approval and support and sorry I was late. Um but yeah, I just wanted to say thank you. It's really important to us. Thanks, Bailey. Thank you. >> [applause] >> So, can go ahead and Bailey don't sit down just yet. Sorry. >>

147[laughter] >> So, can we just remember why we're doing this work we're doing here, right? I know the emotions are running high and people it's but this is it, right? Let's not forget about our students, right? The Baileys and everyone else that's in this school district, right? This is the reason why we're here every single month doing work we do. And I know it's not easy work. It's you guys are all volunteer. I appreciate the work you guys are all doing. It's all volunteer work, but this is the reason why. So, let's try to remember that when we're doing this budget conversation. >> does a nice She does a really nice job. This isn't not just a food pantry. She had something set up at the basketball games for Morgan's message. She is very involved.

148She follows through with things. It's really nice to see a self-starter doing all these stuff at the school. Thank you. Thanks, Bailey. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, we currently have a motion on the table for the budget number. Al, the committee seems like they want you to revisit the individual line items, but I don't know if anybody wants to go above this budget number, below this budget number. So, can I make a recommendation that you vote this budget number that's here with the direction that we will go back and look at this ELA coach with with everybody here and see what that looks like if we were able and I don't necessarily agree with this, but I'm going with the direction. If you had Boston ELA coach at this point at Berlin, right?

149Just putting it in Berlin and working there. And what that would look like for having a part-time ELA position, right? And there are people that are out there that would do this work supporting us and maybe not be there in Boylston, but be able to revisit whether be the Paris or the adjustment counselor at Boylston based on that FTE and having a 0.5 only of the ELA coach. Does that make sense? And we got to look at those numbers. Let us have a day to look at this. Maybe we can do a a meeting on Friday in a in a quick turnaround so you guys will get it into the drive to you. It shouldn't be hard for us to do even if we do it on Zoom that we can publicly put out there

150to everybody and we can take a look at that changes we make. They'll only be changes in those two things. See what the numbers look like and therefore then we can really get this thing put to so we can then make decisions and so people can make decisions whether we're going to do some hiring or people going to stop looking elsewhere. Because it's going to be really hard to keep people when they're working 0.5s and 0.6s. They're going to go somewhere else when they come up full-time. So, that's my recommendation to you. Is Yes. I I agree that we should just vote on this number, but this might be the time for me to bring this up. I just have this burning question cuz we keep dancing around maybe not being a one-to-one at the

151elementary level. And have we considered that and if we did, it seems like it would have a big impact on the budget. Um 30,000 A lot of those costs right now sit in capital. That's the the big device replacement number sit in capital. Um you know, so it would be hard in the short term. I think we could do some long-range planning around that. I don't think it would change anything in the immediate this year budget, but as we go forward, we absolutely could look at that. Didn't we take 20,000 out from operating? How does that that that line I Well, so we we've already So, there's there's only in terms of like replacement and repairs and things like that which happen quite a lot. Um we've stripped that down from 25,000 to 5,000 at

152at Boylston Elementary. I I'd be really hesitant to cut that further. Um so, I there's not really much to give there. Um you know, Again, we I I try to go through every line, you know, trying to do that needs-based approach. What have we used every year? What you know, what makes sense for for coming years? Um you know, and then we we had to do this with with cuts in mind, right? And that's what we did. We we doubled down on that cut. We originally pulled 10,000 out of Berlin Memorial, 10,000 out of Boylston Elementary, and 10,000 out of Tahanto. Um And then [clears throat] because of these cuts, we said, "Let's just double down on Boylston Elementary." And if that means they can't be one-to-one, that may be the nature of the beast.

153The other reality is the nature of our district. We operate as three districts, not one. If in a normal regional district, we would share devices across the district. Because of the way we operate and and sort of the financials of our regional agreement, we don't share devices across the district. So, you know, we have to plan for I've talked about the law of big numbers, the law of small numbers, right? When you're operating as one big district, I would put all that money into a pool and we might be able to cut that a little bit more as a pooled number, but if we're having to do those individually, it's really hard for us to say we're going to cut those. And right now, as we talk about this, right? Berlin's not going to give

154up that number to to to to take care of Boylston, right? There's always those conversations about we don't want our tax dollars going to pay kids from here or here. And that's where we end up stuck a lot is instead of treating this like a true region where we could be looking at some of those efficiencies of scale, we can't because of the way that's interpreted, right? I I I wish it were other and there there there can be conversations about looking at the regional agreement and conversations about how people see things as well, right? Like we've decided collectively that we are one regional school district and we educate our kids together collectively. That but but the choices we've made through the regional agreement that we're not really doing that. Al Al says it a

155lot. We're we're not one district, we're a collection of of districts. We're a district of schools, and not a school district. So So, I'm going to [clears throat] appreciate Lisa I'm My direction, I think, I want to make sure I'm going to be looking at the ELA coach, maybe going from a 1.0 to a 0.5, where the 0.5 would possibly just be at Berlin, working obviously with my curriculum director, and our new our new superintendent. I'm looking taking risk there to John's point, educationally, looking at that nurse that was a 1.0, and possibly when it was a 0.4 before, we brought it to a 1.0, there's a risk there that we'll maybe add one more day or two more days. And then looking at the adjustment counselor, maybe we can add some time in there

156as well, too. So, if we have that sort of narrow down, look at the ELA coach, nurse, the adjustment counselor, we can work on that in the next day or so. And one more kindergarten para, I think, in Boylston. Do you want to number these? Do you want to number those three things? And cuz I feel like that's that number is not going to get you there, but if you want to order them what your priority is, and then give him direction so he can You're cutting the the ELA coach, which we put in there at 90, you're cutting to 0.5, so that's you're saving 45, right? >> But wait a minute, but what's in there for Boylston now is probably like 0.6. Yeah, so you're Yeah, so it's it's right now it's 0.6, 0.4.

157So, you're looking at saving >> 54,000, 36,000. Probably right? Yeah, roughly 30. >> Yeah, 0.6. 0.6 in Boylston, so you're saving And you're eliminating that 0.6 from Boylston, right? So, that's Yeah. Whatever the number is. What's the It's like 48,000. So, I I really want to be careful doing it this way publicly, right? But we're not we're not looking at Yeah, you're you're talking about 54,000 of savings for that. I don't know what the The adjustment counselor number that's on this budget right now is 47. All right? The nurse is I don't know what the nurse was. 0.2 from that, and you want to add in One K para. Which is what, 25, 30? Roughly. Not giving you exact numbers, right? Should we get back at least one K para, and the And so, to

158Beth's point, can we just prioritize this for me? So, the first thing would be looking at making the adjustments with the ELA coach, right? But the hopes of and making the adjustment for the nurses, and that would be looking at the para or the adjustment counselors. What are we looking at for you, Beth? Okay, we need both. I I think you need I think you need to have your priorities, and then you need have Rob have to say what his priorities are, cuz he is the admin. He is the person that really should be deciding, but if you want to point him in a direction, I think we need to be I don't think the numbers the math is mathing for Yeah, and but then again, if if the decision with admin is that the

159ELA coach at the elementary school is more monumental than other things, then maybe taking the 0.2 away from the nurse can give 0.2 to the >> I think we've heard from the admin that the ELA is monumental. It was it was a No, we heard from the entire administration team by putting it under the priority one number, and then we discussed it on March 10th as a school committee priority. On March 10th, right, but they didn't know we were cutting things from their standard. >> they did. What? Well, we should Well, no, we did know that they were cutting because you even said that the order of cuts in the past You didn't know the number of cuts, right? Or specifically what they were going to cut. So, let's So, let us let's talk to

160Rob. I'm being respectful to Rob, not putting him on the spot. He's not making this decision in isolation, right? He's talking to his staff, he's getting input from his teachers, and making the decisions about what what what he needs to look at in terms of of the adjustment counselors and the paras as well, too. So, that's a conversation he's going to have. Let us work with this. Let us work with the conversation with Boylston with Boylston, and we can get back to you in the next couple days. We can schedule a school committee meeting on Friday, right? We can pull that off, um and not Friday afternoon, I know I wouldn't do that to you on on the volunteer schedule you guys are happy. Maybe a new time, and we can get that out there,

161make the final decisions, but the number of voting line will be that number. We just got some play with the ELA coach, nurse, para, and adjustment counselor. Yes. All right. That work for everybody? Yeah. Mhm. Even adjustment counselor 0.6, that would be three days of the week, hypothetically. >> I think that's what we're going to look at. It might not be able to So, we can't bring them all back, right? Cuz the math doesn't work to Beth's point. But let us have some conversation. And by the way, our our admin team is willing to have any conversations, but they also want to be respectful to have the process they have to go through talking to their staffs as well, too. So, I don't want you to think by being quiet they're just waiting to No,

162and I don't feel like if if the collective feels the ELA coach would be more effective at the ES, I don't want them to feel like they have to get rid of that for there's others. So, like I want the educators to make the decisions, >> Yeah, um and thoughtful decisions, right? So, you have some time As it always is, but I you know, you're operating under the assumption that those were non-negotiable. We were We were thinking that that's what you wanted on top on top of that as well. We also haven't really discussed it, but we got multiple emails today. Um some from educators at the school, and we heard from multiple educators here tonight that were in favor in favor of the [clears throat] adjustment counselor over the reading specialist. >> they're in

163favor of I assume I assume I didn't hear anyone offer what they something in lieu of. So, I don't want to like jump that far ahead of it. And what I don't want to do, and I'm being respectful to you guys about it, I don't want to start all of us getting a million emails We're supporting the adjustment counselor. No, we're supporting the kindergarten paras. Cuz that doesn't put us in in It's a even more difficult decision, right? If it's not These are all tough cuts we have to make, but we have to make something that that are are in the best interest of our our kids. And this is being voted in the hypothetical assumption that we're going to be working towards a two and a half probably all right for fiscal year after

164this, and hopefully reinstating Getting back what's been lost. And and Christine's [clears throat] message is right. There's this whole message that felt there were people saying it's never going to pass, it's not going to pass. I heard it here, I heard it at the the town meetings. We have to change that mindset. Like there's a reason why we have to do this work to make sure it does pass. Yeah, I mean, two years ago it did, right? We got the support, and we pushed the limit for that the towns gave us. The landscape is changing. Like it's >> absolutely is. There was a motion that failed in Boylston last year, so this would not be the year I feel that it will very very pass, but perhaps next year would, you know. >> And we

165have to look at all these priorities these principals and directors put in. All of them should be in place if we want to be a competitive school district where new families are looking at us and going through Aaron's last slides, they'll all right, and they're deciding what where they want to move to. It really is based on where how well the schools are doing. We know that, right? The majority of you moved here because of the school system that you're in. My oldest is doing that as we speak, right? He's He's looking at a home. The next conversation will be, "What's the school district like, Dad?" Right? So, that's what we do. So, we have to make sure our school districts are being successful. Agreed. All right. Uh so, this is a budget vote, so

166we'll do a roll call vote. Uh Lisa? Uh wait, is there Do we were we going to amend the motion, or we're just We're going to vote the number. >> We're voting the number. Do you want to change the number? And you don't want to change the number. But what about having a meeting on Friday? All right. Should we Do we need to put that in the motion is the question. I don't think we need to put that in the budget motion. They know what's going to happen. We know what's going to happen. >> [clears throat] >> For purposes of the budget, we don't need to, but you know, and this school committee can acknowledge the direction separately. That's fine. It was difficult not having a meeting two weeks after when we thought we were,

167so that's just kind of my motivation for putting in an amendment. So, I I I I understand that it was tough. Did you just Had we had that meeting, it all would have been wasted because the number changed 15 times between then and now. Lisa's like nodding her head like crazy. Yeah, go ahead. I I think that if this is so very complicated because We didn't have numbers. We didn't actually have a number until this morning from Boylston. So, we were working on assumptions of non-reality. And I think that that is such an important thing. So, in order for us to And I And I keeps resonating. Christina said we we keep saying we can work within the budget that they're The towns are telling us what our number is. It doesn't work anymore. It

168does not work anymore. And that that is as plain as day. And you know what? Everybody has to feel a little pain in order for the towns to understand that we need more money. If that is what is happening, because they think that we can make do. They think we're lying, or whatever they think. But they're giving us these numbers at the very last minute, and say, "Work with it." Well, there's nothing to work with. If we don't do that, we're cutting a teacher. We're cutting a fifth grade teacher. So, then now at fifth grade, you have 33 or 35 in a class. Or we're we're cutting a second grade teacher. I mean, what have you? There There nothing to cut at Boylston, nothing. Or at Berlin, or at Tahanto. And really at Central, there

169is nothing to cut because I talk to people all the time and I'm filling out grant applications and they're saying, "So, list the members of your team." Me. This is the team. So, I I think we really have to understand that this is no longer acceptable and the towns have to understand that and it's painful. This is painful. But, it's not going to change if it's not painful because they're going to continue to think that we can make do. And it it it it's we can't. Bending ourselves into a pretzel is not going to suit our case for next year. So, be careful of how much bending you want to do right now. And I think that the the problem also is we have to go a little higher to the state level. Mhm. That's

170right. Mhm. Absolutely. Yeah. Yes, absolutely we do have to. And we I I think I I know when Boylston they they did a good job of that in previous years where we got some grants and some funding for specific projects. I don't you know, so yes I do I agree with you Lisa, we need to 100%. Change some of the priorities at the state level. Yeah, and maybe as a school committee instead of having you know, we maybe [clears throat] we have a subcommittee for that and we as a school committee change some of our priorities and that's something we can do. See, I'm unfunded mandates. So, that's where you need to you talk to your your representatives and your senators because those are the things that are that that we're not even talking about

171here that we have to pay for. All right. Okay. All right, any final thoughts? We cut to Lisa's point we cut three gallons of paint. I mean, that's what we're looking for money under couch cushions, $500. >> But, if we make this vote tonight [clears throat] and there's no going back. Correct. All right, you can't go higher, you can't go lower. Right. The language, are we going to amend the language to acknowledge a Friday? I'm not good at that. That's why Sure. Someone like to make an amendment to that? I'd like to amend the motion um same words, I'm not going to repeat all that. >> Aaron, just pull back up that motion, Aaron. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't see it. Sorry. I didn't change it. Excuse me, we have to be aware.

172Is it going to be an open meeting law violation if we have it Friday at noon because it's not going to be posted 48 hours >> Today's Tuesday. Today's Tuesday. Thank you. It's Friday. It's been a long day. It's been a long day. I don't know. It feels like Wednesday. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, Jess, you want to go with your amendment? Just amend the motion on the floor. >> Yes, amend the motion on the floor with uh comma with the understanding that certain items we looked at again and the committee will meet again on Friday, April 10th. 10th at at noon via Zoom to discuss the specifics. Final specifics. All right, that's the motion. Is there a second? Second. Beth. All right, any questions on the motion? >> [clears throat] >> All in favor of

173the uh amendment to the motion? Aye. Aye. All right, anyone against? Okay, the original motion is amended. Any final thoughts on that? This is the budget numbers, so we'll do a roll call. Lisa? Aye. Jackie? Jackie, are you aye? Jackie? >> Jackie, right now I'm thinking about it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Beth? Aye. All right. Jess? Aye. Megan? Aye. All right, I'm against this budget, so I'm a no, but the motion passes 5-1. All right. The next item on the agenda is Yeah, we vote on the capital rollovers. Oh, yeah, you want to do that? Just need to give me one motion rollover each of those. Got a motion, please, to uh approve the rollover of the following budgets to FY27 as follows. The BES playground equipment, $30,000. BMS replace elevator controls, $192,000. So moved. Beth.

174Second. Lisa. Uh any questions on that? All right, Lisa. Aye. Jackie? Beth? Aye. Jess? Aye. Megan? Aye. All right, I agree on that as well. Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. Okay. Um >> Thank you all. Thanks, Aaron. Thank you all. Thank you everyone. All right. Uh the consent agenda is next on the list. Got a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Beth. Second. Jess? Any questions on the consent agenda? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone against that? All right. Um I don't have anything to report. Matt Dowd is not here. Uh so, Al, you're next. >> So, let's talk about school choice. Um Um can you put that up there for me? Yep. >> Joe? So, this is conversations with our principals and directors um for school choice numbers for next year.

175Let's do Boylston first if you could put that one up there. Um right now we're we're not recommending any school choice students at Boylston Elementary in light of the cuts that we're making district at at at school. We we don't feel it's appropriate to be Let me just under superintendent. Yeah, thank you. >> [clears throat] >> You want Boylston first, Lisa? >> [laughter] >> So, Yeah, so Lisa, why don't you show Well, before we even go on with Lisa, you'll do Berlin. So, we're not recommending anything in Boylston right now. Not in light of cutting too many guidance counselors, adjustment counselors, cutting those positions we have. We're not making any choices any recommendations for school choice right now. For Berlin, if we could go to that. Lisa, why don't you just show a little bit

176how we set this up so people aren't confused on on the way it looks for me, please. So, this column shows current resident um students in each grade level. Um and this column shows current school choice in that grade level. Together, um that makes for the total enrollment um of that um projected total enrollment for the 20 Next year. Yeah, next year. Yeah, it doesn't add up. Or it's Okay. So, do we change >> have the right number there. Okay. Yeah, cuz I cuz I cuz I was going to say cuz the it should be Yeah, it's in the drive. It's in the drive. Um No, that's the one in the drive. >> the one from the drive. It's from the drive. That was Did we send a new one to the school committee? >>

177[clears throat] >> We did. This is an updated Is there an updated one? This is the most updated one that I saw. Yep. It looked yes. So, Joe, do you have um Do you have the most current one on you? So, can you >> the download from >> but do you does Jen, can you send Joe the most current one so he can put that up on the screen? So, the one in the drive is wrong. >> Should we look at Tahanto first, please? Yeah, let's look at Tahanto. Yeah, that's better. Let's go there. Cuz Tahanto [snorts] we've got that. Okay. So, um for Tahanto, so we have current resident in sixth grade are 90. Current school choice is um nine is two. So, a total of 92. So, the projected total enrollment would um

178for these sixth graders moving into seventh grade is 92. Um so, what we are um projecting for >> We're recommending in that grade if you follow that chart, right? Yep. So, recommending um So, these actually for school choice would be the um you know, two coming in Fifth grade coming into sixth. into sixth grade. So, a total of 86 students going into So, this this number is a combination of the fifth grade students that are coming from Berlin and Boylston fifth grade. Okay? And we're suggesting that um that projection would be 84. So, a recommended school choice number of two to bring it to um to 86. For seventh grade, we have currently 72 residents, six current school choice. Um that brings us to a projected enrollment in our eighth grade cap class for to

17978. And so, we are suggesting um two um school choice numbers to bring that to a total of 80. Um and um eighth grade, 83 residents, seven um school choice students currently. Um that gives us 90 moving into ninth grade. Um and we're saying no school choice for that cuz 90 is um that that's a bump. That's a big number. For 10th grade, 66 + 7 gives us 70 um Oh, ninth grade, 52 and 10 gives us 62 going into the 10th grade saying that we'll bump that up to four to 66. Um and um 11th grade or for for the current 10th grade going into 11, 66 and 7 gives us 73. Um saying we'll recommend one school choice with a total for that grade at 74. Um and then we have 60 residents,

18011 school choice um in um that will in our current 11th grade that will be going into 12th grade giving us 71 um no um school choice there. We um rarely if ever recommend um school choice numbers for um 12th grade. Um currently um of our 70 um of our actually um 74 seniors, we have 61 residents and 13 school choice people. So 13 kids 13 school choice students we're graduating from Tahanto this year. So we're recommending nine um school choice spots um at incoming sixth um the um next year's eighth grade, next year's 10th grade, and next year's 11th grade. We've tried a couple different ways to try to present this stuff that's clear. >> I tried to make a chart last year. It's a nightmare. Between like oh I I sympathize. >> So

181we tried the the best but so that's why we we're this was explained the way it was so people have an understanding of how we >> Right. Cuz it is cuz you want to have an understanding of the the current residents, the current school choice, and then what that is going to be for the following year to recommend what we should open up. So that is Tahanto. Those are the recommendations from the administration at Tahanto for school choice for next year in the grades that they offer. And so when kids leave eighth to ninth grade, that could be always revisited. So now, can you confirm that so if of if the rising if they're considering entering that are going to ninth grade, there are seven school choice kids. If of those seven school choice kids,

182four of them decide to go to St. John's, does that make four school choice spots open up for that grade? >> Yes. Yes. So there is more flexibility in these numbers in the fact that if we lose school choice kids, our budget is based off of assuming that there's a certain amount of school choice, we have the flexibility to open up spots when that happens. >> But these are added spots and I think that's the confusing part. If if there are current school choice people that exist, we will always say, "Okay, we have a school choice spot available." Because it it exists. It currently exists. What we vote on each year are additional spots. And and we have to maintain what you're saying that because the the financial part of that, right? We're counting on

183those school choice and the money coming in from that. >> So people should whether they see that we're adding spots or not, they should continue to apply because you don't know if kids are moving out. >> 100% yeah. Please, can I just have one quick question? Could you talk a little bit so is the guest of the superintendent, is that something different? Did we change so can you is that included in these numbers or is it other kids that >> So it's two separate things. So school choice goes through the process and it goes through the public education, goes through all of Aaron's office and Aaron's world. Guest of the superintendent are employees that work for our district. And whether it be a teacher, administrator, or or the union that asked me also and I

184have a I just talked to school committee, even parents that are looking to say, "Listen, we we would like to be guest of superintendents so far kids. We work here. We like our kids to attend it." That's a really good thing. We want to promote that, right? People that can come to work here and bring their kids here as well, too. But that we put that in the language through the union and we put it as guest of the superintendent. So that's separate. So if there's like a teacher or something, they don't have to go through that process. They go This is just for That's right. But I think it's it's a a worthwhile note that we cannot collect tuition that's our guest of the superintendent. Correct. Ah, right. Thank you. >> is our only

185means of collecting And that and that was a little muddy before. So that's why >> Yes, that's why I asked for clarification. So we put the the guest of the superintendent as in the teachers' contract as And that's what I thought. I just wanted clarification. Okay, thank you. And at at some point, I don't this is I don't know if this goes through policy or if this what this is, but can we have a conversation about siblings? Absolutely. >> Prioritizing siblings. I think those There's nothing better than getting an entire family there. That's an engaged family. I think we really need to find a way to start. I don't know if that's a policy or There's multiple things we need to look at but Aaron will will give me a hard time about this but

186he and Wilburn we did twins, right? So if I if you know, one person got in cuz to a school choice, we also took their sibling as well, too, as a twin. Right? So there's ways that you really need to be looking at school choices as a school committee deciding, you know, working with the administration, obviously, but looking to see like family members. So if a family if if Mike gets in for a school choice, then does his sibling get to come in or do they have to go through the school choice policy? That So that's stuff that we really need to talk to you guys about. But there's also I mean it has to be the lottery, too. So there's the legality of that, too, right? >> But there is a a clause in

187the school choice from the state that says that you can prioritize siblings. Before you go to the big lottery. But again, school choice is always a blind fire, right? And so there's a spot because like some of those classes are big. 92, so. You can look at middle school and say that's big, but you know that they're going to leave. So so that's what we're recommending right now, two two four and one. Nine students total for Tahanto for school choice. Question. >> recommending for that 92. What's that? I said we're not recommending spots for that 92. No, I know. I meant like if there's a sibling that wanted to get into a big class like that, I we'd have to when we discuss that, we'd have to talk about how we would handle something like

188that. With those big classes, you wouldn't be recommending spots. It's only if a sibling if there's a spot available. Not not to make a spot for a sibling. I see. It's prioritizing prioritizing for open spots. It goes back to Jessica to say that they still have to go through that process. Does anybody like the numbers? Want to change the numbers? I think they're fine. If they're good, then fine. Shall we vote by school? Uh I have some questions just for the committee. So what as a district, what's our goal for taking the school choice? What's what's the goal that we want to accomplish with taking school choice? There was a document in the drive explaining the perils. I don't know who wrote that document. So what are they? What are the goals? >> Generates revenue

189for the district. >> Okay. With little to no cost. So you have to figure out is it a you know, they're they're not taking up there's no as they call it variable cost adding the kids. It's just >> flow. Yeah. All right. But it's also culture. If there's a decreasing diversity, there's culture, you know, growing up here, there was school choice kids and they added to the culture of the school. And yes, you cannot guarantee that, but they participate in band and the theater shows and so >> that's the argument that I've heard ever since I've been here, right? So if we didn't have school choice, we wouldn't be able to have certain things, activities, clubs, actions. Is that the case? Should I'm trying to make an argument to add a lot more. Feels off.

190Yeah, I mean I'm looking at these numbers. And and if we do add any school choice over zero, what you know, so far we've just sort of had it as a savings fund that we use here and there like we had this whole conversation tonight about how school choice is being used, right? Should we not look at this if if we're doing it as Megan says it's just cash flow revenue generating, right? It it's like we're basically becoming a a for-profit entity like we're taking in seats to generate cash to offset the budget. Should we not have a plan for that money? How we're going to use that money? Should we not have a goal? Or should we just say we're just going to keep it in a fund for offsets against the budget like

191Aaron had today. So I imagine it's part of our school >> Is what you're Is what you're getting at that we should I I agree we should have instead of just accruing it and then saying, "Well, why don't you use your school choice funds to offset the operating budget?" It's not a bad idea to have a plan for Cuz the goal only using it. The goal from five, six years ago was you need to improve the culture to get kids to stop leaving in ninth grade, right? And then the conversation is well, there's always going to be a certain number who just want to leave for legacy issues or whatever issues, right? The parents went to a certain school so they want to go to that school. But there are other kids who want to

192leave. We saw the exit data from a couple years ago. They want to leave because they didn't feel like they were getting a good education. And and I don't know how tonight's budget conversation is going to affect that, but the goal was to get to a point where we didn't lose kids for culture things, right? Sports, things like that, right? So we talked about this last year, right? Setting up a plan. So what is the plan? What what is the goal for school choice? Cuz we want to add 10 to sixth grade, two to eighth grade. We're still coming up with different numbers in those classes, right? Like 86 versus 80 versus 92. Do we maybe want to set a number? 90 I think is the number Julie threw out, right? A couple years ago.

193Right? Like we're at 92 with one class, so we wouldn't do any there. We're at 90 with another class. What 66, right? In 10th grade. What Why don't I add 10 or 15 to that spot? And then we can take that money, offset some future project at the building. Right? Cuz that's 75,000 a year for you know, three more years. If we're looking at school choice simply as a revenue generator, let's crank it up. Is there a reason why that number for 10th grade is >> That number is low because we had to cut a biology teacher last year, so they couldn't afford to have more kids [clears throat] in the class last year. >> the is the reason that we're only recommending four? Is there a reason for that? Like is there are there

194more needs for that grade or So I think I think Rich had a good So oh, yeah. Yeah, Rich had a good point. Yeah, absolutely. That ninth grade class is we kind of refer to as our bubble. We have students that need a lot more support, so we need to do a lot more specialized classes. Sometimes it requires smaller classes to be more successful. And on the other end of that too, we have a lot of gifted students in that class that that we are building AP tracks for. So there's just a lot more moving pieces. We we we even knew that the number existed last year. We were very hesitant to add anything to it just because of all those moving pieces. They're like the outlier class. >> Correct. That's the current ninth grade

195you're saying that is a total of 62? Correct. And that to add to that, I mean we we do have to be mindful of staffing and also, you know, understanding these numbers are made very proactively and thoughtfully in that we know what classes are being offered at the freshman level, at the sophomore level, the you know, junior level to to understand, you know, how many chemistry sections will we need to offer? You know, does that chemistry teacher need to teach you a section of biology or does the physics teacher So we I I know Rich has been hard at work with the team at Tahanto working on scheduling and I think with understanding the section numbers and you know, what will be available, we look at these numbers and even though they they don't seem

196consistent, they match with the staff because we are always tweaking, you know, how many sections of this are going to be offered? How many sections of this will be offered? Math and English are two important subjects where they we have to make sure all kids get the right fit for those. And So >> But also for our lab classes, right? So we there's only so many seats sitting in the lab that kids will save, right? So we have to make sure of that, right? I was just talking to a colleague of mine who was telling me that, you know, he has labs that that cuz of the schedule not being appropriate that they have sometimes more kids that are sitting in that lab than they even have lab seats, right? So there's a whole safety

197component to that as well too. So all of that is taken into account when we're recommending that depending on the grade. Also, that ninth grade, appreciate Rich and I have had the conversation with Lisa as well too that we're still COVID. We're still dealing with a lot of the situation that those kids were at those ages. If you do the math and go back from COVID, you'll see where those kids were landed. 10th grade is a pivotal year, I don't know. Ninth grade, yeah. So the ninth grade, 52 residents, 10 recommending adding four. So 14 out of 66 kids in that grade will be school choice. So that's like 22% of that class is not a resident of Berlin or Bolton. That's that's a lot. So hopefully with our strategic plan and then development of

198pathways, so perhaps that could be considered for school choice funds, creation of pathways and the one-time capital improvements to create the those equipments, so I think it's a really good point that Mike and Beth are making instead of doing there's some districts on the west of our state that's the only way they operate school choice all day long. We need the money to exist and survive. That's what gets these districts sometimes in trouble. Knowing that but you're stealing from one to the other like we as superintendents say in the west of our state, you're taking my kids, that's help killing my budget but helping yours. But if you have a goal or or a mission that through our strategic plan that you're going to use this funding for as a source of revenue, great great

199way to deal with it that All right. Anybody else have anything to say? You want to go to my school? It'd be great if you could. All right. You haven't seen Berlin yet. No, we we spoke to Tahanto then. All right, I'll have a motion to approve the recommended school choice seats at Tahanto at nine. So moved. Jackie? So moved. Jess? All right, any discussion on that? All in favor? Aye. Anyone against it? I'm against it. So that motion passes five to one. All right. Can we do Berlin next? Open you got that one please? Apologize, we made some some changes. So we had these numbers earlier. We were in focus so much in the budget that we realized on our agenda today we had to get some school choice things. So using that same

200philosophy in terms of creating this chart um that Lisa explained here, those are the recommendations that we're looking at for Berlin Memorial. Total of four students that were open spots I should say for school choice. Anyone [clears throat] need Lisa to come up and explain do that again? >> [laughter] >> Should we hold off on this one until we have our conversation on Friday since we we're not recommending any in Bolton because of cuts. We don't necessarily know what positions are going to be cut. Should we hold off on this one? I think we did the Bolton budget. What's that? We changed the Berlin number. Not the number but we could be possibly changing line items if it goes the way that they were I don't think we authorized them to do anything except the

201ELA coach. We said a point yeah, Yeah, I four ELA coach seats with Berlin. Nothing changes in Berlin. So nothing's going to change in Berlin. Our our hope in the direction we're at is we're not looking at Berlin right now. >> [clears throat] >> And you you're confident you can find a half part-time ELA coach? >> I have no idea, but as soon as you guys vote on this on Friday, that will be the first thing that Lisa and I sit down and do is put it out there, post it out there. All right. If anybody want to make a change or suggest anything? All right, I'll have a motion please to add four school choice seats to Berlin Memorial. So moved. Beth, Lisa second? All right, anything on that? All in favor? Aye. It's

202Bolton or sorry, we did Berlin. Do you want to say something about Berlin? No, I'm good about Berlin. Then we're moving on to Bolton, sorry. Have we voted yet? All right, I rushed it, sorry. All right. All in favor? Aye. Anyone against it? I'm against it. Motion passes five to one. All right. Bolton, you So I don't know if we really need to vote on Bolton. If you could just it's we're we're not recommending anything at this time, right? In light in lieu of everything that's happening, right? And cuts that are happening there, we're not making any recommendations for a school choice right at this point. Does anyone want to change that recommendation make a motion? Okay. All right. Do you need to vote on that? If nobody made a motion, so then nothing moved.

203Do you want a motion Do you want a motion to vote on zero, Al? Is that what you're asking? >> You know what? I think I probably would just to vote yeah. All right, do me a favor. Someone make a motion to approve zero school choice seats at Bolton Elementary. Megan I heard. Second. Beth. Okay, anyone? All in favor? Aye. [clears throat] I'm also in favor of that. Motion passes six to zero. All right. So the next thing on my superintendent's report is the bullying prevention planning intervention plan. I know Lisa has been working hard on this. I know it's been in your drive. The only thing that we're looking to do is it's this we should be doing yearly is update to align with the policy. It's just an FYI. It it is our

204bullying prevention plan. You did have it. If you have any questions, we can certainly answer for you answer them for you, but it's really just updating and aligning it to the policy of bullying prevention. >> [clears throat] >> Questions on that at all? Was there any glaring differences between what we had and No, I think the the difference if you stop right there, there's any any of the items in bold are the ones that were added because they appeared in the policy and were not specifically identified in the plan. So I I just made sure that there was an alignment between what was in the policy to be reflected in the plan. Lisa did a really nice job going through this process and putting this in place. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks, Lisa. Anything else on

205that? Nope, that's it. Anybody have any questions? Would anyone like to make a second public comment about anything on the agenda? Yeah, come on. What's the benefit for Berlin Memorial School? Um just a thought on the calendar. Um we always have like parent conferences then we teach the next day. Um, I was just wondering if you could maybe move the professional development to like that Friday after after sitting for hours talking with parents about students and stuff. It's kind of like you're drained and then the next day it might be nice just maybe to have professional development rather than "Oh, let's teach again." I don't know, just a thought. Doesn't affect anything. Or um, maybe early release and conferences like with the Veterans Day. Just something to just make it a easy. Thank you. Anybody

206else? Yeah. Um, just a couple of things on some of the things that you guys >> [clears throat] >> I'm hoping that you'll think about when you talk about moving things around, right? I'm glad you guys got to learn about them. Um, you hear things like nurses are expensive and you know, we can get a point eight nurse and and all that kind of stuff. I also hear talk about like we want to keep our legal fees down. So, you have to kind of like think about, you know, I know you guys want to move things around, but I do want to talk about the nurse. Um, specifically not having a full-time float nurse. And I've already talked to this. I think it's very important to understand that there are a lot of times in

207these schools where we do not have a full-time nurse in these buildings, right? And this float nurse would be there to make sure that we have that coverage, right? Um, we've talked about how sub nurses are probably costing us more money. Um, so having three nurses and then having to hire a sub is actually, you know, not as cost-effective. Um, so as far as eliminating the nurse coverage, you're you're putting yourself in serious legal exposure for the district. Um, we have students with IEPs, 504 plans. Those are legally mandated health services um, that are written into their plans. Um, I don't know how much you know, most parents know, but unlicensed staff can't administer insulin. They can't give glucagon. They can't give any injectable medications. So, if you have if you don't have a nurse

208and something happens like someone has a hypoglycemic emergency, um, the district legally has nobody who can treat that if there's no nurse here. That's literally a federal civil rights violation. Um, a single, and this is Massachusetts statistics, a single medical incident involving a student with a known condition can cost the district $100,000. That's according to the Mass Tort Claims Act, um, plus any legal defense costs and then a single contested special education case, um, stemming from failure to implement nursing services can cost $150,000. Um, the cost of a full-time nurse uh, is a fraction of that legal exposure that we have. Um, so I just want everybody to think about that when we're talking about moving things around and taking nurses out and um, having a point eight nurse. We all know there's no way

209we're going to get a point eight of a nurse. People want full-time job. They need it. We're in a valid economy right now. Everybody needs a full-time job. Maybe one and a half. Um, the ELA coach, I think specifically for that, and I had talked to some of the teachers, um, that were here tonight. And I feel like we're bringing in someone a superintendent with a lot of expertise. I know we talked about like, you know, him affording his expertise and maybe doing professional development. But just in general, I feel like if we're bringing someone in like that, you'd want them to be part of the conversation possibly and plan to hire someone like that as opposed to potentially bringing someone on board. He's going to take six months to get ramped up and by

210that time we haven't even really utilized the ELA coach or had a plan ready for them. So, I I do see some prematurity there and and hiring it for this year. Um, and then maybe including him in part of the plan or conversation around, you know, when and where that ELA coach comes into play. So, that's just sort of my thoughts about that. Thank you. Anybody else? Just making a note. What's that? Uh, what do you mean? So, we have three full-time nurses, one in each school. Right now we have point four part-time sub nurse that someone is currently employed in. Um, and so we do have subs within the district as well, which yes, are not as reliable as a constant sub, but I think it's a nod to yes, we need more coverage

211within the district, but it's not suggesting that we leave schools uncovered. Okay. Any other public comments? All right, on to business items. The first one up is the school calendar. Uh, do you want to talk about it at all? So, we you know, this is never an easy task, right? We give we give it to you a couple of times to be looking at I think you've had it for a little over a month now, um, to be looking at it. We gave it a different sort of look at it this way. Um, Jen did some great work in terms of presenting color coding it, um, but we we put days in there, um, that match the 180 school days that we have to provide for our students as well as adding the professional learning

212days that we have in place for for our teachers with their contract as well, too. Um, I know that one of the comments that came up public comment was about that that non-school day, um, that would be on March, um, next year. 26th. 26th. Excuse me sorry, yeah. March 26th, um, that's a non-school day. Please, I hope you saw what was going on in the news in many districts across our state as well as across the country, the school districts had to close for the amount of the teachers that weren't available on those days. It was all over the news. Um, we were just sort of being preemptive on that. If we're not taking it off because it is Good Friday, we're just calling it a non-school day cuz concerned about staffing. We heard last

213year from Rich uh, and Lisa how many teachers are out on those days and students as well, too. Um, so. And having a half day makes it even more difficult, um, to find subs for that timing as well. So, other than that, the calendar is as it is. We certainly entertain questions. We all worked on this together. Certainly give comments as well, too. >> Is that why you do a full day off in the day before Thanksgiving? You just said it's really hard to find subs for half days cuz people travel. >> that's right. Yeah, I received a couple emails and and texts about the calendar. People saying that they would rather have a half day the day before Thanksgiving and a half day on March 26th. I'm just Um, I'm relaying the messages. Go

214ahead, Jen. I'm curious like so, two years ago we had 10 half days in light of information that many half days allows more connection with teachers. And so, we got a lot of feedback that was very difficult for parents, working parents, um, because you could not truly utilize that day. And so, then this year we combined those and moved those to the beginning or the end of the week. So, I'm curious why we're now shifting back into the middle of the week with those days. Yeah, so a couple of things. We we we went from one end to the other, right? With half days. We realized that we don't have enough time for those professional learning days. So, we're moving it back, right? So, the half days, when you have a half day it's still

215conference day for students, but we're also able to be very strategic. We'll use that word with our strategic plan about what the professional learning's going to look like, right? Mapping that all out. Lisa, myself, and Brent are already working to figure out exactly what that's going to look like for those days. Um, but we were really careful about where we're putting them for families so it's not all over the place as well, too. Um, again, we'll we'll get we'll take comments on this, but we were really it's a tough thing to do is create a calendar. Yeah, I just will like looking at September, there's a Thursday one, October another Thursday one, November there's a Tuesday and a Thursday then a holiday Wednesday. So, I just like as a working parent, Yeah. I appreciated that

216those days were moved to the end or the beginning of the week to utilize that as one of my big days and take my family somewhere or, you know, so in the middle of the week is hard. >> Sure. Then November day actually just remind everyone that we're stopping use of schools. We agreed for that in Berlin. They're going to stop using our schools for polling, right? And I've actually even engaged in conversation with Bolton looking at at that as well, too. Possibility. So, that's why we're now, which a lot of school districts do, we will be doing all our professional learning so students will not be in the buildings when voting is taking place. And Veterans Day is a Wednesday this year. So, we're that's not our fault. >> [laughter] >> But I mean

217like sometimes you stack things like up into like if it's on like a Tuesday you can do the professional like it's just it's bad it's a badly timed calendar between starting so early cuz it's the earliest you're going to it's just the way the calendar fell this year. It's not But I guess I don't know like so why is it 24th chosen not the 25th or what? >> What month are you looking at? So, September. Like why is that a Thursday? And October, [clears throat] why is that a Thursday? And just it just I You could also move the the fifth, the early release for the conferences. You could move that to the 10th or the second. I know a few people spoke a few teachers, I believe, spoke to that. I I get that

218we can't move the PD and I don't think everybody got that or appreciated that that Berlin is now polling place polling. We just wanted to do a PD on that day. So, but you could if you wanted to, you know, I don't know if November 2nd is too early for conferences. You can move it to the 10th. The Wednesday, the 10th November. So, November 2nd or the 10th? Yeah. Yeah. I I I I lost you for a second. So, talk to me a little bit more about that. Is that what you're looking at? >> So, the 5th it's a Thursday, right? You first So, that week I get what Jess is saying. For working parents, that week the first week in November they have a full day off on the 3rd and I we I

219get why. And then it's a half day on that Thursday, right? So, some families, if it was pushed together might be like, "Hey, we're going to take a long weekend and go away." But, this doesn't allow you to do that and it just is kind of difficult for people that work. Or like families that have to work. >> go away for conferences? >> But, I think some people do. I don't know. >> but I if you're going to move it, I would move it to the 10th and not the 2nd cuz then no one's going to go to conferences. Yeah. I guess I was thinking more of the other Thursdays. And you mean and I you're saying move the Thursday the Thursdays to Fridays instead. So, so the only thing I'm going to say to

220you once again, going back to what Beth said earlier, I appreciate parent comments, right, on the Good Fridays and the half days and Thanksgiving. A lot of time put into a planning committee by this group right here that went by month by month, day by day trying to get a calendar. Um I I really was hoping that we have feedback from you guys earlier so that we could have made some adjustments. So, we could have came today to get a calendar voted on. That's the reason why we gave it to you um over a month ago. But, I just know we put a lot of time and really thoughtful about these calendars and they're all I can be smiling cuz I know how much work we put into this calendar, right? So, if there's something

221very specific you want us to look at, but just going all over the place right now is just making it difficult for us. So, just give me the an exact thing you want us to look at. >> Now, I know we we heard some from some teachers about this tonight, but did you pass this by the the heads of the union? >> That's right. It went to the union. Yeah, and the union gets input. Um they don't get to make a final decision on it, but they can give us input on this. What was their input? Similar to about the Good Friday and the day before Thanksgiving. Those are the two things that >> sold on the the Good Friday thing last year, but after seeing the news articles that came out, I I fully

222am on board with the reasoning behind that. And I know I got a little got a little bit of concern from people. So, I'm calling it a non-school day, right, that day? >> happens to be on Good Friday. >> That happens to be a Good Friday, yes. Also, not for nothing, it's literally the flu. I mean, it worked out great for us cuz we had the flu. Yeah. But, it I feel like that time everyone is so sick and I guess I love having that long little break cuz it'll be a nice little break for all the germs to kind of Sure. I I'm sorry to interrupt, Mike. No, it's all right. No, that's a good point. We we dealt with the same thing. Um I I got I got stopped by some teachers, to

223be honest, when I was at the school the other day at BMS because we still have not put air conditioners in there. Some of them agree with me. We do have a limited thing that we don't want to start before Labor Day. Oh, yeah. I didn't even think of that. It's going to be ungodly hot at BMS. It's hot and you want to be in school on June 30th, June 23rd, yes. June 23rd is our last day and I was very >> day? June 23rd. >> No, I mean that on this calendar. So, if you added how many days would you have to add? That is actually And August is brutal in August. I know. They didn't just pick random days. They picked the days based on a lot of information. Listen, June 23rd is

224going to be could be warm this year as well, too, right? So, June's a tough month as well. We're already going deep into June this year and and we were >> Sometimes it's hot in October. What's that? Sometimes it's hot in October. But, usually it's brutal at the end of August because it's been so hot all summer. At least in June it's not as warm in those rooms because it's been cool all summer. >> is going to cool cool off? >> I don't know. I I forgot about that cuz I know it is brutal. We did a tour in September up there and it was almost unbearable. So, so you want to >> to make some more half days in this and then I don't know. We can't predict the weather cuz if we could

225make predictions like that, we'd all be playing the lottery right now, right? So, we can't. But, I'm giving you a calendar. If you want us to revisit, it's not fair to parents, it's April. Like people need to make plans. >> being asked what when the first day of school is. >> We need to let parents know in terms of when vacation Not only that, but I've got to tell you you go deep into June, I'm really concerned about that week in this year in June because summer camps stop. So, if a parent's going to need to be that that week in June, they're going to be out. >> comes back after Juneteenth. I know. So, you're in the whole another issue that you're on the other end of who's going to show up for the

226last few days of school. All right. So, I propose November 5th to the 10th. November 5th. Early release conferences moved to the 10th before the holiday the 11th. That is what I propose. Can you go back to August, too? So, you're taking November 5th Yep, November 5th, wait a minute. November 5th, you want to change that to November 10th. We have to have a motion Would that work? I'm just throwing it out. See if they people turn either way. Confirm either way. I I'm Yeah, I think as long as there's not a very specific reason why that's not That's if it's if it's like, well, it's already contracted with the union that has to be on like a Thursday or something like that, then I I I can we can make that move. I'm going

227to ask Lisa and Jay. Does that seem okay? Uh hold on. >> [snorts] >> That is the second Tuesday of the month. Yeah. School committee generally meets on the second Tuesday of the month. School committee is full of a bunch of parents who might want to attend conferences. Maybe that's why we didn't do Tuesdays. I think that's the exact reason why we didn't do Tuesdays. >> [clears throat] >> We could have our meeting on the 3rd. I mean, Well, we could. We're very busy voting. What's that? Just kidding. >> [laughter] >> But, I'm going to be very busy voting. Yeah, I mean, we don't have a school committee calendar yet, do we? No. So, we have to prepare. Okay. Honestly, I'm indifferent. I don't I I thought the somebody from the union rep spoke about

228that. So, I thought that the union wanted that, but if they I I'm indifferent on that. I I don't Uh that day actually will be the first school committee meeting with the election. We we wouldn't have a school committee meeting after that. >> want to have it cuz it's election day. We have to have it the 10th. Yeah, and that will be the first meeting with the new members, whoever they are. Right. So, you want to leave it on the 5th? We can meet on the 10th or the 17th. Or you asked for the 4:00 p.m. slot? I don't know. I mean, I'm fine with doing an earlier slot, but I don't know about other people here. Lisa, that doesn't apply to you. Apply to you. Think of how many people might wander in and

229listen. True, cuz there would be conferences going on here. I I appreciate like it just we're we're looking for all of our parents, right, and all of our teachers. So, do you want to move it to the 10th? Well, and it would work for us, right? But, what if we need an administrator there at the meeting? They got to be at the school for conferences, right? Yep. They'll be in their buildings. You could move the conferences to the 2nd. And yeah, that's Beth's point. People are going to not necessarily. I mean, they're going to come and vote, too. [clears throat] I personally feel like the experts have spent a lot of time We really have. I mean, I don't know. But, why is the Thursdays in the middle of the week again, like for September

230and October? I don't get that. Like we moved everything on Wednesday. Why isn't everything on Friday? Just curious. I'm just throwing it out there. Instead of moving it to the 2nd or the 10th or Are we talking about November still? Yeah, why why wouldn't we Could we move that to Friday? For our Oh, oh, great idea, Jackie. The 5th to the 6th. Yeah. We've done that stuff. We I think in the past, at least I a few years ago we had Well, gotten away from PD days and stuff like that on Fridays because it was an easy way for people >> So, Friday night conference? So, just open on Thursdays, right, and move on. Go. Go. Thank you. You're welcome. Someone doesn't want to be here at conference. Seriously. >> [laughter] >> And not only

231that, but I got to like 5:00 a.m. It's I was just here for the calendar. I got to go. My dog's missing me. >> [laughter] >> Okay. Uh got a motion, please, to approve the calendar as is. Please. Sure. Beth? Second. Lisa second. Anyone feel free to make an amendment, but otherwise we're going to vote on this. Mike, you you are fine with starting I just said I'm fine. He didn't make an amendment. He didn't make an amendment. We're We'll never start after Labor Day. We're going to be We're going to be way deep in the June. Deep in the June. No, you have to turn Does anyone want to make an amendment to the calendar? I hypothetically would make an amendment to move the September 24th and the October 22nd to the following Friday,

232the day after that. Would that be offensive to people? Say that again. So, September 24th moved to the 25th. And then October 22nd moved to the 23rd. We generally talked about not doing those on Fridays, didn't we, and Mondays? But, that's what we did this year. Did we? They're not in the middle of the week. So, we're we're also talking about professional development days, right? So, making sure that all of our teachers are there on those days as well, too. Fridays are a lot of times people are are And you do teach on that Friday, too. Celebration of Learning was on Friday. Right. No, the green days of PD there's no school days. The green calendar days are all in Yeah, think we had a Wednesday this We only had three and I think there

233was one Wednesday and one Friday. I would not like to make an offensive motion. No, we're not offended. So, if you have PD already scheduled for those days, I will not make the motion, but if if it is not offensive to all involved, then I will make the motion. Jen Jen Jen Jen Jen Jen Jen Jen Jen Jen Jen Jen So, I will say um sometimes it is easier when professional development falls on a Monday or a Friday, it's easier to feel as though it is not mandatory. You can call in sick. That's right. We had talked about this a couple years ago with Carol. The con I understand that. The teacher contract is She's saying it for a reason. >> [laughter] >> She She's not saying it it's not true. So, call in sick.

234Anyone can call in sick. There's a practice in there, if you have to call in sick. No one cares about the notes I write, so you know, right? Licensed professionals. Spent lots of time re developing this. We did. And and again, I just want to go back We gave this to you a long time ago. Respectfully, guys, right? So, if you wanted If you wanted to see that, you should have like given it to us in time to suggest amendment or not? We're not offended. I appreciate your feedback. All those in favor of the motion on the table. I. >> I. Anyone against? I'm of course against this, but the motion passes 5-1. >> [clears throat] >> You should have voted against this. I did vote against it. I know, I said she should have.

235All right. Uh the motion passes 5-1. Calendar is set. The first day of school is in these sweltering dog days of summer. August 26th. 24th. >> Yes. No, that's opening day No, it's the 26th. That's opening day for teachers. I have a question. We have the primary on September 1st, so does that mean that that needs to be closed as well? We We talked about that. The primary election with the town It's low attendance, so they are just going to close the door, right? >> Yeah. Yep. They're going to lock the door We thought September they could They could take the bus. Take the bus that day, yeah. It's It's sweltering hot. They're going to want to get out of the building, Megan. Go outside. So, [laughter] Next time get out of the building and

236pay for air conditioning, okay? I know. Hey, that comes out of this Let us know when you send out Really? The trailer's on. Oh, yes, there was the trailer. Was it out? Oh, yeah, it was scary. Really? It was scary. Oh, okay. All right. So, the next business item is The next business item is program of studies. All right. Widow Bay. Rich, you want to talk to Widow Bay, I'm going to write it. Yeah, so in your six documents in there, there's one that has all the revisions, so you can literally look at every single comment of why anything was changed. So, hopefully you guys find that helpful. I did include a one-pager that just has all the new proposals that we have on there, and some of those courses are designed based off student

237choice. We poll our juniors and other classes in terms of who they want Which one do you want me to open up, Jen? Uh if you want to go to the proposals, please. Good. Thank you. So, these are the the new additions that we talked about looking towards creating pathways for the future. We're looking to be very purposeful with our electives. And uh business was our highest ask for all of our students in terms of what they wanted to do in the future. If they were looking towards if they were going to decide like what their major would be right now, that was 17 out of our 70 kids said that they would take that path, so we built in three new business classes to encourage that and build in those opportunities, as well as

238as we try to create tracks here at Tantasqua. Um other classes that we've offered here are some additional electives that help with the humanity pieces, supplementing in terms of public speaking, um you know, create other opportunities that we have here. For the middle school, I think the only elective here is as we're building in a tier two, we have a reading version of this intensive math intensive support. This is the math version. So, um making sure that we're offering for uh both reading and math at the middle school level. If you want, you can also look at what's going to be removed. If you want to pull the removal up, um this does indicate the why. If you took a look at the revisions, but in short, nature of the being, uh we have Steve

239Pacheco who is retiring. Um he had offered this for a number of years. Um you know, we've talked a lot how do we replace something of this magnitude? Uh we're kind of looking at like our world travelers club to help meet some of these uh additional pieces. Uh European history AP really is just turning into AP world, so it's a it's evolving, so it's not really a a switch, but more of a a tailors throw. Uh For these middle school pieces as a kid, these are things that we're just not offering currently, um you know, due to you know, the loss of the world language piece, and uh that's just a course we haven't ran one for a number of years, so it'll be on the back burner for a while. And what can we

240do when languages come back in? Um that's an ongoing conversation. Um you know, we are looking to We obviously, if you look at the research, I mean, building in language in at the elementary school is where that you get your best bang for buck, right? So, that's a bigger topic that we have to talk about. It's not a graduation requirement for us here at Tantasqua, that's why it is what it is. Uh so, unfortunately, that's the nature of the beast with what we have. What do we have currently at the high school? Um so, as of right now, we do offer um tracks one one, two, three, and four um for foreign language in both French and Spanish. So, wait, you said language is not a graduation requirement at Tantasqua, but it is a requirement

241for many colleges. It's recommended for 2 years. It says it right in there. They recommend 2 years, but it's not required for Correct. 2 years consecutively if you're looking at a 4-year college. So, our guidance counselors will work with our students in scheduling that. So, if that is their pathway that they're looking forward to, make sure that they're receiving those. Not to graduate from high school, but most colleges will want it for 2 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Yeah. I'm curious. I know that I think we have access to some college classes as well. Do kids have that ability to do for languages, too? So, we do. Um we utilize Edgenuity. If there's any outliers, obviously, the primary goal is to make sure that we have an actual live teacher in front of our kids,

242um but if it does not align with the schedule whatsoever, and this is, you know, based on a couple different circumstances, we have utilized online to support it. And we also have to just be careful with the union, right? So, we we can't be subletting jobs, uh so we have to take that up. >> It's for like true conflicts. Like my daughter had was offered you could either take French three online or history online, and I was like, you're not taking a foreign language online. >> [laughter] >> It's It is difficult. It's hard. But it's an option for true conflicts in schedules. In terms of the college classes, sorry, I'm going off on a tangent, but like is So, like evening classes college classes, do kids have access to that later on in their school?

243We don't promote Right. So, um Steve, you want to Go ahead, please. Um so, um kids we we encourage students to engage in anything that they're passionate about. It doesn't supplant credits for us, but it looks beautiful on their resume. So, if they put if and on their college application, they love a foreign language so much that they exceed what is offered here, and um to go off campus on their own time, that shows initiative. That's actually something special to write about for college. Um so, we absolutely encourage that and think it's fabulous. We just can't count it on our transcripts. Just many of our kids do night life at Assabet, right? Yeah, yeah, it's great. JAM pathway high school kids, not just from our community, but all others that that are full walking around

244taking those courses that make giving them an opportunity. If If Assabet comes and does Was it eighth grade they came? What grade were they came and did a presentation Assabet for our Yeah, eighth grade. Eighth grade came. So, I'm going to say the program of studies it if you're ever interested, the each graduating class has a Instagram page where it's like what schools everyone's committing to and what their majors majors are, and this is a reflection of if you go on that one for this 2026, you will see business, business, Isenberg school. You'll see that business is it's you get a really good feel for what the kids are looking for. >> When we come at the next meeting, we're we're going to present to you where are some of our college Our kids are

245getting accepted into college. Some impressive Some places. unbelievable the places our kids If you ever want to think about the work we're doing here and the kids walking across the stage and where they're going off to. Well, it speaks volumes of the educators and the education they're giving. Absolutely. Uh I mean, we have kids looking at unbelievable schools that are making choices right now. But I you should definitely look at the page. It's super It's really fun to see where everyone's going and what they're majoring in. I I you'll just from the kids I talked to like decisions they're making. Talking to Matthew Dowd like his choices like how are you kidding me that they're trying to decide it? Uh I talked to the the I get the Lee kids confused. The one that's a

246senior. Brendan. Brendan got accepted to the Isenberg program at UMass. That is the most competitive business school in the entire country right now, and you know, not only that, state school prices, but, you know, being at that level, incredible these kids are getting in. So, we'll be talking about that at that school meeting. Not the one Friday next month. Got I have a motion to approve the program of studies? So moved. Beth? Second. Lisa? Final thoughts? All in favor? Aye. Anyone against? Okay, that motion passes. Um so there's an offer to donate to fix the front sign at Boylston Elementary from Leslie Greenier. Uh the the quote that we have in there is for $5,000 and that's what she's committing to donate. So we have to vote to accept that. Can I have a motion,

247please, to accept the donation to fix the Boylston Elementary front school sign by Leslie Greenier and her family? So moved. >> Jackie? Second. Jess? Questions on that? Excellent. We'll we'll get thank you notes out as well as do once the project is complete as well. All right, uh all in favor? Aye. Anyone against? Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. The next item there, bingo night. I did get an email just before the uh meeting tonight that they're not going through with bingo. So uh that's no need to address that. Um the Boylston Elementary club reallocation. Who's to Rob, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so we have several clubs in our in our budget that are not being used and we have an arts and crafts person that wants to

248take monies from one that wants to run a arts and crafts club, which is one of the things that we wanted to see more of in our school. And um there's money in what they call the comic book account, which is not being used right now, so I'd like to transfer, I think it's it's $1,000 is what I asked to transfer to arts and crafts to make it viable for her to run the program. So this donation is the right way through you guys, right? It's cuz you guys I guess at one point had a lot of that comic book club, you guys had money for that. We approved that and there must be money in that, yep. About $1,000. What grades is that It she's got two sessions she wants to do four sessions

249for K through two and three, four, and five for her four sessions. Only 12 kids, so obviously it'll be really hard to get kids in and and that's one of the So when we I just want before I send out anything, I wanted to get that cleared by you guys. Can I have a motion to authorize the BES student activities treasurer to transfer $1,000 from the comic book club account to the arts and crafts club account? So moved. Megan? Second. Jess? Questions? All in favor? Aye. Anyone against it? Okay, that motion passes, thank you. Uh school choice, we already voted. And the uh Boylston Elementary donation from Ahold Delhaize. Do you want me to talk to that? Do you Yeah, do you have information on that? So I think it probably was a uh PTO

250or I they thought it was Mrs. Haydem thought it was a BEF thing. The check is made out to the school, so I can't put that in the account for the Boylston Education Collaborative, so I Lynn had asked me what to do. I said, "You've got to take it to school committee and vote and they can do whatever they want with it." So it's up to I said nature's classroom buses cuz I don't think any fundraising was done for nature's classroom at BES. I don't know. Okay. So I mean it's up to obviously that's your discretion. I'm not making a motion on that. I I asked if we could do it so that Oh, yeah. But it wouldn't be fair to use it I don't think it Aaron was wondering if it's fair to use

251it for just this current year. If not, can we just divide it over all the current years so it's equitable? So just so we we're understanding where this money's coming from. I think it was Jen and I that did some research on it. We got a check, right, that you guys handed to us. It looks like it's from like Stop & Shop. You can allocate some money. Yes. It's underneath that whole So what we did, we used to be in charge of just grants and the PTO did everything else, right? So BEF was it was a foundation that just did grants. And so what we did is we had people that would go out into the community and they would fundraise. And what happened, my guess is why it's one that's 160. So what we

252do is we get like sponsorships for bingo and for events that we hold. I'm guessing it was like a $1,000 sponsorship that [clears throat] we never cashed. It was from 2021. The check got lost in the mail or something. It's a donation from a company. They had to probably they probably paid it back with interest or something like that. That's the only thing I can guess or maybe it was 2 years ago. >> time frame I in Berlin, Hannaford's had a program where you could designate 5% from your sales. >> That's what it is. And this is definitely this is definitely what this is. It's Stop & Shop. We just started doing it. But you think BEF We used to do that. PTO used to every When they stopped doing like the box tops, That's

253right. Yeah. they started doing this and everyone was doing it. We still do box tops at BES. We still get like I get like $22 twice a year. But you didn't even have to sign up for it. Like you it was just listed. >> is money that $1,000 We we didn't want to use it spread it out amongst all the grades cuz we really don't know what grade should be having it. So Rob will use his discretion to spread it out equally across the grades at Boylston Elementary. Based on how long each grade has been in the school, like what BEF did. Like so the fifth graders should get the higher percentage and the kindergarteners get the smallest percentage. Okay. I don't know how you did that, Jen. Can I have a motion, please, to

254accept the Boylston Elementary donation from Ahold Delhaize to be applied to to be applied to uh nature's classroom funding for the current K through five grades at BES on a pro rated basis. So so I don't think it was going to go for nature's classroom. I think they're going to just use it through the discretion for the grades as well. plus I had to ask if we could use it cuz we were so hurting, but the the answer was you probably can't use it for just this year's class. You have to divide it over But that portion of fifth grade could be used for nature's class. Okay, but for nature's classroom I don't think it's specifically for nature's classroom, but he'd probably use it for the fifth All right, nobody's nobody second that motion. Come

255on. >> [laughter] >> Can I have a motion, please, to accept the Boylston Elementary donation from Ahold Delhaize to be allocated to the grades K through five at Boylston Elementary School on a pro rated basis. To be used as needed. To be used as needed at the discretion of the administration. So moved. Chip, Beth, Jess. Okay. All right, Jess first. Any other questions on this one? All in favor? Aye. Anyone against it? All right, any future agenda item That motion passes, thank you. Any more uh future agenda items? Future agenda items? Are we going to talk about the district improvement plan? Strategic plan? Strategic plan? What did I call it? >> District improvement plan, yes. Strategic plan, right? Yes, we can put that on the next uh uh agenda. We actually made some good progress

256with all the people in the group, so we can absolutely put that on the agenda for next month. >> And that will be May 12th? Yep. We're just so you know, we >> Scholarships. Sorry. That's okay. Ooh, yes. I'm sorry, you're right. May 12th? Strategic plan, [clears throat] scholarship. And and just so you know, we're we're we're we're running out of time frame. We're probably not going to have you be able to vote on the strategic plan by this end of this year. We're going to hopefully have it in place during the summer. Grant and I have some appointments already scheduled to visit communities to be able to explain the strategic plan to them. We have to get input from people in the community, both Berlin, Boylston, and our senior citizens as well as other

257community members. So we're hoping that by September 1st we'll have it Oh, right. Yeah. That was just to get the feedback from them. Now we have to go back and let them see what their feedback looks like in the strategic plan. So we really got to lay it out. It's been heavy lifting. Christine and Lisa and myself and John and people from the select board and FinCom have been doing And Lisa and me, I'm sorry. Anyone want to jump in on that conversation? I think we are talking about adding scholarships somehow to the strategic plan. Whatever you No, it's the Moses Reed scholarship we have to vote on it. So we'll we'll definitely put it on the next uh month to be able to give you some updates on that between Lisa and myself, um

258John, and Lisa, and we'll ask Christine to join us as well, too. I And I don't know if if it's part of it, but you know, the mention of computers not being a one-to-one district. You know, I know MCAS is at grade three and they have to learn to type. That was mentioned at prior school committee meetings. So I don't know if that also can be discussed. I think it would be nice to see some financials on that to understand how much of a priority it would be because we have a lot of stuff in the plan and I think just you know, with the focus on the financials, I think it'll be an important piece for you guys to understand here are the things we want to do, but you also have to look

259at what it's going to cost us, right? I I was talking about eliminating computers kindergarten first and second. No, I know. There there's a lot of there's a lot of um cost-saving initiatives in the strategic plan. So what I'm saying is is like we could eliminate a one-to-one, but it may not make it as big as big of an impact as something else we're recommending. So I think it would be nice like I we don't have numbers right now. We don't have no budget. Hypothetical budget numbers to see how much it would affect, but I think it would be nice to see which ones would make the most impact and how much LOE that's going to take, right? So that we can make a decision on how to prioritize which ones we do. And every

260single thing we're putting in the strategic plan, we're putting we're holding people accountable. Like who's accountable? You got to see a lot of it is school committee, right? That they're holding them accountable to making sure that these things are in place. Oh, actually, can I have the uh master Boylston master plan implementation be an agenda item for the next meeting? Yep. Jen, you got that? Boylston master Boylston master plan implementation. Strategic plan, remember? What else do we need someone to add to the strategic plan? The scholarships. Scholarships. Moses Reed scholarship Beth has to I don't know who's doing that. >> I'm doing it. Yeah, both there's two, right? Yeah, the other one's passed on to the board, right? That one won't that one is done in June, I think. Yeah, we'll have to do that

261one in June, you're right. I think we our early May meeting might be might be too late. Yeah, I don't think we'll have We might not have either. The meeting May 12th we're talking about, so it's just Friday. Good. All right. I'll have a motion please to enter executive session. We may return to public session and vote if needed pursuant to Mass. General Laws, Chapter 38, Section 21A, purpose two, to conduct strategy session in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel to conduct contract negotiations [clears throat] with non-union personnel, Director of Finance, Mr. Aaron Osborne. So moved. Second. Beth? Yes. Uh Lisa? Aye. Jackie? Aye. Beth? Aye. Jess? Aye. Megan? Aye. All right, the motion passes. We'll enter executive session now. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.