School Committee Meeting 2/10/26

001And I actually >> All right. Well, I will call this meeting the brother regional school committee to order. Everyone please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Uh thanks everybody. Uh, first item on the agenda. Tal, do you want to take over here? >> Yes, if I could, please. I'm just going to move over. >> So, ladies and gentlemen, it's my honor to introduce you, Avery Gen. Uh, Avery Gen is a sophomore here at Hanto High School. Avery on January 20th, third quarter, great game. Um, scored her 1,000 point. um in basketball um which was absolutely outstanding. Her name um now officially goes on the banner and our high

002school gym. Um I want to thank her and her mom who I know is here. Proud mom Sean as well too um is with us. Um but also a lot of people thank her coach Dave McCarthy, our athletic director Julie Lou Julie Lee who completely organized the event. Um, and I hopefully some of you got the chance to see um the in the newspaper or never mind being at the game itself, but um it's quite an accomplishment for a sophomore at a high school to score her a thousand points. So, congratulations to her. So, we want to recognize her with a certificate of her scoring her thousand point um on on January 20th. Again, congratulations. And this is just a little something from us um school committee and admin team to congratulate you and keep

003up the great work. Congratulations >> and her parents put a big spread out afterwards. >> Yes. Very impressive. Thank you. >> You want You want to show people what you got in your gift? have to put pressure on you. Sorry about that. >> Oh, we got some candy. Some shaking flour. >> Got basketball. >> Absolutely. >> Just some small. That's it. Don't be looking anything. >> That's all it's just something to to thank you and to say how proud we are on you. So, congratulations. >> Thank you. Thank everybody. >> Okay. >> Our next item is the consent agenda. Before we get to that, I want to ask Jess if you want to make an amendment to the meeting minutes for January 20th. >> Um, yes, please. So, I would like to make a motion

004to amend the January 20th Zoom meeting. Um I unfortunately lost connection frozen during the vote. I did email so it's um >> public record. Thank you that it did go vote by as well. >> All right second. >> Anyone want to contest discuss it? And just for clarity, you're talking about Jessica is >> so this was a vote for >> hiring the superintendent and we did it but not hiring but signing the contract to the contract and we did it via Zoom. >> Unfortunately with technology sometimes you have issues and Jess is fro connection got frozen so we couldn't actually hear her vote on the Zoom and so this is just to correct the record that Jess did in fact vote. >> And actually Dr. Bren Conway joining us today as well too. So we

005we want that in the public record that you had a union as well too. So congratulations. >> Okay, that motion is to amend the meeting minutes. It's been seconded. Anyone have anything to say about that? >> All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone against? >> Okay, now can I have a motion, please? So that motion passes. Jen will fix those minutes. Could I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda as just amended for the January 20th minutes? So moved. >> Beth second. >> Lisa. All right. Anyone to comment on those? Anything else that's in there? >> Okay. All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone against it? >> All right. So, that passes as well. Next up, uh, some policies. I have a few things to say here about these policies. I thought it

006was a, uh, an appropriate time to point out a few of these policies. to sort of govern how school committee operates and members behave based on recent circumstances, recent events, especially given the fact that we have uh three candidates for an open seat on the committee tonight. Once you take that oath of office, whether we agree personally with policies, norms, procedures, uh that's what we're signing on to when we take that oath of office. So we all wear multiple hats as committee members. We're parents. We're volunteers in the school. We're committee members. But once that oath is taken, you have to be very careful to keep these separate and maintain that separate disconnect between our different hats. So a few of these policies here, policy BBA, these are all online if anyone would like to

007read them. I'm just going to summarize them here. This concern concerns school committee member authority. As we all know when we sign up and we take our training individual members have no independent authority on the school committee. The authority only exists as a complete body. So we take votes, we have meetings. They're properly posted according to open meeting law and that's what we do. So as individual members, we should not be representing ourselves or exercising any authority in the school buildings or in the community outside of that context. The next one, BHC on the list concerns committee to staff communication. So this governs interactions with staff and visits to school buildings. And there might be many different reasons where in the school buildings personally. Uh school committee business should not be one of those reasons.

008It should not be conducted independently in the building outside of the committee or the superintendent. uh informal encounters like uh pickup and drop off, other volunteer events that we might be in the school for are not appropriate settings for discussing school committee business, complaints about school personnel, anything else. Our role as a committee is to hire the superintendent, which we've done, oversee him, evaluate him, policy and budget, and that's oversight of budget, not day-to-day operations, day-to-day management, or implementation of those budget items. That's up to the superintendent and his staff to take care of that. Uh so just a reminder that when we are in the school building whether we're there for any other reason or not we can be seen as a school committee member in a building and that air of authority travels

009with us wherever we go no matter what. Uh it would be inappropriate to conduct any school business there and often times when we do it could make staff uncomfortable. We want to make sure that that is not the case. Nobody likes a micromanager. uh follow up uh following the next policy BHE electronic communications. So this covers all sorts of different electronic communications when and how to respond. School related communications that we receive individually as members per this policy should be shared with the superintendent and the committee chair. Why? Because individual members don't have authority to act on any complaints or any communications. And this ensures that the correct channels are informed and if it needs to go on an agenda for a meeting, it can go on an agenda for a meeting. Or if it

010needs to be handled by the superintendent, it can be handled by the superintendent. Members of the committee should avoid speculation, discussion, commentary regarding staff attendance, pay, employment status, or any other employees future plans to resign. It's simply not appropriate. The next code of ethics. This governs professionalism, collective responsibility, respect for comm committee decisions. Once a vote is taken by the committee, members are expected to support the will of the body. Even if we disagree personally, all of us have probably been on the side of a losing vote from one time or another. Even if we're on that side, when it comes to the committee decision, we're bound by that oath that we take and by this policy and our code of ethics and the training we take from MASC and a million other reasons why

011we're to support the decision of the committee, even if personally we're not against it. So any public or private efforts from individual committee members looking to undermine committee decisions after the fact. Uh for example, if we vote on overnight field trips and we vote for that and then are out there publicly trying to undermine that decision, that would be inconsistent with this policy. Uh finally, KB is public complaints against school personnel. If you if anybody wants to complain about school personnel, I mean, I'll be the first one to lead the charge if you want to do it, but just do it correctly, right? do it in writing. We're not going to hear them if they're anonymously made and they need to be directed to the administration for review. Individual committee members again are not authorized

012to handle complaints independently. So communicating them or communicating unverified complaints, informal complaints to staff without following this process is also inappropriate and contrary to this policy. So, for example, if you tell a staff member they have many complaints from parents about a decision they made, >> that's just plain old mean and inappropriate and unprofessional, if it's even true. So, now that I've said that, most importantly, I want to make sure that our district employees are aware of these policies and are familiar with these policies because these policies exist for everyone's protection, right? It's the proper way to to handle things. So, if you feel that a committee member oversteps their boundaries, engages in appropriate discussion, or makes underhanded threats about how long they have left on their term of office compared to the remaining time

013the superintendent has on his contract or attempts to involve staff matters. Staff matters staff and matters outside their role. Employees need to feel comfortable saying no and redirect us to the proper channel for that. The district runs lean. Everybody performs multiple jobs. And when a committee member acts in a manner inconsistent with policy or procedure and takes away your time, it's like stealing from taxpayers who contribute and pay your salaries. Staff time is for students, not for indulging boundary issues from adults who should know better. If you need to say no, say it. We'll survive without the latest gossip. And I'm confident that most of the committee would support you in doing so. And that's what I have to say about that. Next, we have a statement that Jess would like to make. >> Um,

014so I threw my back out, so I may get up and down throughout this meeting, so I just apologize for that in advance. Um, it's tough to get over, but um, so the statement is my own. Um, it was floating around in my head, so didn't read it beforehand, but I want to make a statement of gratitude for the staff that we have here, um, in Boilston. Um, I myself attended BES and Tanto Man High School and you know I'm a proud graduate as is my husband and my brother and my sister-in-law and and I'm really thrilled to be able to have moved back to Boilson back in 2019 to give my children the same education and upbringing. Um, I am very confident in the staff at the elementary school, the middle school and the

015high school. some of the high school teachers I had back in the day and it is still weird calling them by their first names but you know there are lessons that they taught me that I have integrated into who I am and who I am as a professional and as a parent you know when I come to school committee meetings I still think about wearing blue or red from Mr. which equ you know later on later on in college you know I took a doctor patient relationship class that taught me to look at who asks how many questions and who controls a conversation where am I standing am I standing above people am I sitting below them am I showing them dominance or you know so it's it's really important the education that not only

016by the standards the master's educational standards that they're teaching us but the passion and the caring that they put into their education Um, we've had some exciting times since I came back to this district and when we moved back, I told my husband, I'm going to keep my head down and out of small town politics, which is hilarious. um until I couldn't. You know, my parents moved out of Won because of small town politics and how ugly it can get in small towns. But I brought my kids back to this town because there are so many incredible parents, people, staff members, and I trust them for the education of my kids. And I have learned over the last three years that my, you know, I probably got more done not on the school committee um

017because of electronical communications. I can't say anything of substance in any emails. Um you know, open meeting law, we can't say any substance outside of meeting laws. And so I know that as a parent that really really frustrated me to no end. And as a committee member, it frustrates me to no end. Um but those are the rules that we have to abide by. Um I have tried to learn the rules so Robert's rules so they can be utilized to our fullest. But we have tried to hire incredible staff members and I'm really really excited the direction that this district is going to and in. And you know, we all during budget season row in the the same direction and I'm very hopeful that we continue to do that. I am not perfect. Again, I'm

018speaking for myself. Um I've learned to sit on emails for 24 hours and I try to be respectful and I try to be respectful to people. And I I personally have reminded myself I can't let hate consume me. I can't let anger consume me. You can be angry at someone but still be respectful because you want them to do better. to be able to come back and have another conversation. So, I recognize that I have been through the five stages of grief this year. Um, but we have to work through that, all of us, and and be good for the kids and talk to each other and try to get better and continue to be better. And to quote Al, you know, we are incredible district, but we could be even better, too. And I'm

019so excited with the staff that we have. Aaron in the finance seat, you know, Lisa now in in the curriculum, which again, I don't speak badly about any prior curriculum director, but these are staff members that are so passionate what they do that I trust them and I'm so excited about the direction our district is going. Again, we can do things better and we can, you know, looking at the strategic plan surveys. We can think on that and and do our own um the superintendent uh subcommittee will be looking at a self-evaluation once the protocols are cemented. So, we can can look at ourselves frankly and try to improve ourselves. So I just ask everyone to try to maintain respect even if you have anger. Everyone is going through something right now. You don't know

020who's struggling with chronic pain or someone dying or um and so as as passionate we are and I'm guilty of it too. We have to try to maintain respect so we can all continue going in the same direction. >> Well said. Very nice. Can I add a little something to that? And I I think it's quite the theme that you're hearing, right? And and I really appreciate that our admin principles to the to write a me and I know superintendent is hearing this message loud and clear and that our future school committee members as well too are are listening to this theme that's you know resonating throughout our our our opening today. Let's not forget the reason why we're here every day. It's Avery. It's all the students that are not schools and sometimes we

021forget about that. Um, I I I'd like to start off by saying I've always said my job as superintendent has always been, and you've heard me say this multiple times, is to keep our children safe and to provide them a high quality education. I think you've heard me say that multiple times. Um, I'm adding to that statement a little bit over this last couple of weeks. And my job is also not only to protect our students, but also, I'm sorry, say also protect our staff and make sure that they're feeling safe and secure. Right? We know people get their salaries. this public record, but it's not about just their salaries. It's about coming to work and feeling safe and feeling secure and and feeling confident in the jobs that they're doing. Um, I'm being made

022aware these last couple weeks of experiences um that are inappropriate and and being disrespectful having conversations and exchanges that are taking place in our district with staff, with teachers, with principles and administration. And that is just unacceptable to me. I use this expression all the time. you know, you're entitled, and they hear me say, you're entitled to opinion, not the facts, right? The facts are pretty as is. Um, and and the facts will be very clear what I've experienced in the last couple weeks that we're we're seeing happening. Um, and I'm going to give you a few of them without giving too many details, but you know, even in this last week, I I've had an administrator feel that their job was was threatened. They they felt like they were not securing their jobs from

023from people. I've had administrators spoken so disrespectfully to that they they felt completely inappropriate. They felt that the conversation wasn't appropriate and they should not be feeling good about that. I've had staff members being spoken to in a disrespectful conversation. Um that when the meeting was over, they were they actually were crying and and and calling me as the the super superintendent. I know this past week dealing with H's classroom, I know that's an issue that we're dealing with and we have a meeting coming up tomorrow, but the level of parents being angry towards me, you know, two hang-ups on me when I'm talking to calling them on a Friday night trying to explain about the communication about each classroom, using inappropriate language and and I'm not saying, you know, because I'm the superintendent, they

024shouldn't be saying that. But you will never hear me as the leader of this district speak inappropriately or using appropriate language like that. And I would never expect anyone else to be doing that in our district as well too. And you would never hear from anyone here until the right of me. And if they did, then you need to have a conversation with me and I'll be having a conversation with them. It completely appropriate. These are only a few examples and truly are. There are only a few examples, but they've brought this to my attention, and I want to make sure that not only is my job to make sure that our students are being safe, but also our staff, they're being safe. I've also had the same conversation with the union. I know the

025union has brought it to your attention as well, too. They're concerned. They want to make sure that they're going to be kept safe and that conversations aren't going to be escalating and and they're concerned and they know I'm having this conversation with them as well, too. This type of behavior wouldn't be allowed in your doctor's office. wouldn't be allowed in in in in hospitals and wouldn't be allowed in dentist office, in any other professional setting. These wouldn't be allowed and we should not be allowing them to be taking place again. And and the joke in my the the team over here knows I'm a shopper at TJ Maxx and I was at TJ Maxx the other day and they were escorting a woman out who was vulnerable and arguing and they were taking her out,

026taking around the store because we just can't take any chances nowadays. We need to make sure that we are providing safety for all of our students and for all of our staff. So I'm asking everyone here on school committee and I'm asking every team to not allow this type of behavior to to be taking place in our district. It is unacceptable. We can do better. We are the role models for our students every single day that takes place. I also want you to be clear I also want to be clear that I've spoken to our attorneys as well too and to see exactly what I can do in terms of when we when behaviors get um inappropriate as well and escalate to that level and and there are options I have and I certainly don't

027want to go there but there is there's no trespassing not allowing families to be able to come they drop off their kids they pick up their their students but they're not allowed that and I certainly don't want to do that but I also want to make sure that we're keeping our buildings safe from adults that might not be having the best intentions when they're coming into our schools as well I want to be clear though and make sure you understand this is not the majority. The majority of our parents are are absolutely in our families are are wonderful. They're supportive to our principles. They're supportive to our admin. They're supportive to our our our teachers as well too. And I and I thank them for that. Truly, they have been nothing but completely wonderful. So,

028I want to make sure I'm clear about that. But there are things that I am concerned about and I think you're hearing it from our chair. You're hearing it from one of our school committee members that we need to make sure that we are keeping our buildings safe. We're making sure that we're keeping our admin, our teacher safe, and most importantly, keeping our students safe as well, too. With everything going on in our world right now, we want to make sure that we're we're doing that. I never want to be the superintendent that someone says that you knew that was taking place and didn't do anything about. So, I'm asking us as a school committee member and asking this community, we can do better. We need to make sure that we're keeping our people safe

029and confident in the work that they're doing each and every day. They're doing amazing work. Brent, Dr. Brent Connley's should is should be extremely thrilled with the team that he has coming up as well, too. They've worked extremely hard and I can't thank enough for the work they've done. So, I I felt like I needed to to talk to you about that. We deserve to do better for our students. We deserve to be better world. what chairman uh taught said if you have a concern use the communication plan that everyone here voted on you all voted on if there's an issue with anyone follow the chain if there's an issue with me follow the ch come to school members about it as well too there's a proper way of doing things it's okay if we

030disagree but let's make sure we do it properly and showing an example for our students as well too lastly when I have the school committee members here I respectfully talk to you um and submit my my goals for the 25 26 school year. I know it was a conversation that took place la last scooping meeting. I know it's February and I'm an interim um superintendent, but I have goals and the same goals that we've been working on and things that we've been doing. So, I'm not sure where you're going to be in terms of your goals, but I hopefully my goals will align with yours. I have copies for you. Please look at them and reflect on them because that's what I'm doing each and every day. This is my focus that's happening with this.

031If you have a problem with the way I'm doing my job, let's do it publicly, right? Let's do it with the goals that I've set. Not conversations that are happening on on on the soccer field, happening in schools, happening in classrooms, happening on on the email. If you have an issue with the way I'm doing work, let me know. This is why I have goals and I have them here and I will share them with you as well, too. But that's the proper way to do this. I'm trying my best as your interim superintendent. I have an incredible team that's trying hard each and every day to make sure we're providing a high quality education for each other. So, I respectfully submit my goals, take a look at them, look at them, and feel free

032um to give me comments on them at the next school committee meeting as well, too. And I thank you for nothing, too. Appreciate it. And I thank these gentlemen to my to my right, ladies to my right, um and our and our teachers and staff as well. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, our next item is our school committee vacancy. So, we all know Lori uh Lori Hart is no longer on the committee. She vacated her seat that is up for election in November anyway. So, when there's an there's time left on an unexpired term, we can appoint a member of the community to that seat. So, that was a Boilson seat. So, we have three Boilson members here tonight for that seat. They have submitted their uh letter of intent, resume, and whatever other documentation they

033wanted to submit. The deadline was last Thursday at 5:00 pm. Uh so we're going to go through we'll call each one of you up to the center table. Uh same order that's on the agenda. Each committee member will ask a question and answer it however you feel like answering it. You can start with a opening statement if you'd like. And uh after everyone's had a chance to go through, we'll go on to the next step. So uh we can start with Christina Calo Madaras. I'm sorry if I pronounced anyone's name incorrectly. or >> uh no that's public >> I don't think anyone's ever pronounced my last name proper >> sorry terrible I barely get my own name I call my kids wrong all the time so um >> feel free to make an opening statement

034and then we'll ask you some questions >> sure yes I do have an opening statement prepared and I am mindful that this is a very long meeting so if I do look down at my notes because I have lots of notes and I want to make it as fast and as efficient for you guys as possible. So, um, good evening and thank you to the school committee for the opportunity to be considered for this seat and to everyone for being here tonight. My name is Christina Maderos. My family and I have lived in Boilston for about seven years and all of my children attend district schools, two at Bees and two at Tanto. So, this district is very much part of our everyday life. I'm originally from Hudson, Mass, where I grew up in a

035working-class family with strong ties to the community. During that time, Hudson was a place that believed in invested in public education. The schools and teachers were deeply invested in students, and I always felt supported to explore whatever path I was interested in. I also have fond memories of the kinds of experiences that make public school special. Art fairs, science fairs, chorus concerts, drama clubs, and musicals, and all those moments that made school feel like a community, not just a classroom. In particular, my teachers encouraged young women to explore math and science at a time when that wasn't the norm. And that made a lasting impact on me. Being the first in my family to go to college, that support was foundational. It shaped my confidence, my career path, and how I see the role schools

036play in opening doors for students. That experience is a big part of why I wanted my own children to have similar opportunities. Honestly, I thought my husband and I would both end up in Hudson as a lot of my family have, but hearing about the strength of the schools in Boilston was a major factor in our decision to move here, like many families who've chosen this community over the past decade. It's why I care so deeply about supporting strong public schools and contributing thoughtfully to their future. Uh, a bit about my professional life, I work in corporate finance and business operations with a strong focus on budgeting, planning, and managing priorities. A big part of my work is asking good questions, collaborating with different stakeholders, and making thoughtful decisions when there are real trade-offs, skills

037that I think translate well to the work of the school committee. I'm putting my name forward because I care deeply about our students, our educators, and the long-term strength of our district. As a parent who's attended many BBRSD school committee meetings, I've seen firsthand how the decisions made here directly affect classrooms, staff, and families. And I take that responsibility seriously. Over the past year, I've been very intentional about preparing myself for this role. I've met with district leadership to better understand what's going well and what the challenges are. Spent time digging into the district's budget and long-term financial picture, and I've been actively supportive of our school budgets because I believe strong, well-resourced schools are the foundation to a strong community. I also serve on town school council and the district strategic planning committee where

038I've had the chance to work alongside administrators, educators, parents, and students and really learn how the system functions as a whole. All of that has reinforced me for the school committee's role as one of governance and stewardship, setting the direction, ensuring fiscal responsibility, and supporting the superintendent and administration so they can focus on teaching and learning. If appointed, I would bring a prepared, curious, and collaborative approach. I believe in listening carefully, being open to different perspectives, and asking thoughtful questions while keeping students at the center of our decisions. Most importantly, I would bring a calm, respectful, and transparent approach to the work. I understand the school committee decisions affect the entire district, and I'm committed to building trust, encouraging respectful dialogue, and serving the community as a whole. Thank you again for your time and

039consideration. I would be honored to serve. >> Thank you. So, uh, we'll each ask our question and we'll just start here. Lisa, we'll go around the table. >> Well, I think you answered. >> You did. Great. I was just gonna say, why are you coming forward? >> Yeah, sure. Um, so yeah, I think I I mentioned a little bit about my personal experience with public life education. Um, and being involved in the community. Um, I come to these meetings, I see the important work you guys do, um, and how that affects the students. Um, this just felt like the right moment to step forward. I had been thinking about running for a while, so this is great timing. Um, I've done the preparation. Um, I've collaborated with a lot of administration and teachers. Um, and

040a lot of them have said, "Hey, you've joined that school committee." So, I sort of took that as a a positive note. Um, and I want to support the work that you guys are already doing. Um, not coming to disrupt or anything. I think we're have we're making great progress and I'm excited about some of the stuff that um, Rich and folks are working on. Um, and again, I'm going to listen. I'm going to learn and um, keep stuff focused on students. >> Yes. Um, so when I joined the school committee, relationships were sometimes thought to be a weakness, but sometimes a strength. Um, how are your relationships within the district um going to benefit you or challenge you when you're put in a position where you have to make decisions about the >> Yeah.

041Um, that one tough one. It's a tough one. And I had thought about that a little bit. Um, you know, I think in my professional experience, and I won't go into it because I guess it's seen my resume. Um, I have to have different types of relationships with clients. They have all different kinds of personalities and all different kinds of priorities and things and, um, you know, there's confidentiality and all those kinds of things. And I think that, you know, 15 years in consulting has sort of prepared me to be a great mediator. Um, I can take my parent hat off at any time and I can be very objective. Um, I've been told that I'm I'm very good at looking through the lens um of other different perspectives and and really great at trying

042to bring everybody to the table and having conversations about um, you know, what do we have in common? What do we need to work through? Those kinds of things. So I think um you know just a combination of my professional experience and knowing um I I'm not I'm not going to have any less of a relationship with my sense teacher but I I am very clear. I've done a lot of research as to the role of school committee so I know what we can do what we can't do. So I think I'm pretty prepared for that. >> Thanks. Uh so my question regards budget uh so regarding budget decisions what's your process for analy analyzing budget spending and determining whether it's a worthy program or not and I know you you told us in your

043letter that you're uh the co-reasurer of the education collaborative the PTO group >> uh PTO and BBC >> yeah BC yep uh so if you could explain a little bit about your role there and what the processes that the BEC follows when deciding to spend on one program over another. >> Uh, sure. So, um, in VTO we um had a board and that board would review certain expenditures and things um that were over, you know, certain amounts of things, but we had bylaws um that was all laid out ahead of time, what we would fund raise for, what would we use funds for, and every time that we were going to make an expenditure, we would all like reference the bylaws and make sure that, okay, this is in our wheelhouse. Um, this is what

044we can spend. This is the process we're spending over a certain amount. Um, all of that was laid out. So, anytime we made any kind of fiscal expenditures or we were thinking about um items to be spent on, that was all laid out already. So, we would all we would go back and reference the bylaws of what we could spend and what we could spend it towards. Um I think parents are passionate about what they want in their school. So, if there was someone really vocal about what we wanted to spend, we had those bylaws, right? We we all always have that to fall back on. Um and as someone in finance, you know, there are accounting rules and Janice and all that kind of stuff. So, I'm used to following all that kind of

045protocol when we're talking about budgets and finance or forecasts and costs and things. So, >> thank you. >> My question was, how will you balance your loyalty to your individual community with the needs of a regional district? >> Good question. Again, I think it goes back to that, you know, being able to take your parent hat off, right? So I take my Boston hat off and you know I understand that this is a district to school committee um and we have to think about what's best for all um all of the kids in district. Um there's obviously going to be um conversations about what we do for Berlin, what we do for Boston. I think it's about having a conversation about everything and thinking about how do we prioritize things? What are the most urgent

046things, right? I think those are more practical conversations. Um, I think people can get passionate about their talents and their own kids, but you do have to think about, um, how do we spend most effectively, how are we going to, you know, put the funding to the things that are going to have the most impact on the most students. So, I I think it comes down to, um, my finance background really allows me to have a very analytical, you know, standpoint, making these types of things. Um, again, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to have some emotionality or or things that I favor, but again, like, you know, as a as a parent, I'm allowed to have that. But when we're having discussions as a school committee member, it's very clear to me and

047I have the experience to be able to have those kinds of thought process and conversations outside of my own personal views. >> Okay. Okay. >> Please briefly discuss how one of your specific previous work or volunteer experiences could be beneficial to serving on a school committee. >> Question. >> Um, I guess if I think about, you know, If I think about spending time as the treasurer um on PTO, obviously that has given me an insight into sort of public finance versus being in the private sector, right? I'm very aware that um transparency is extremely important because we're dealing with taxpayers money. Um, I think having that experience of um, fundraising money that came straight from parents, um, we want to be very mindful of where we're spending that money and we want to be very

048transparent about where we're spending that money. Um, you know, a lot of times when we ask specific fundraisers, we're very clear in advance this specific fundraiser is going towards this, you know, for a playground for instance, right? And that money would be allotted and set aside to be spent on a playground. Um I also think u my time spent on the strategic planning committee has been great. Uh you get to see lots of different points of view. I think the most interesting one to me was um students feedback. I think as a parent oftentimes you get into some like the best I've experienced and um when I was able to kind of sit there and listen to what those guys feedback was or what their experiences were, it was like wow I did a complete

049180. um I was like that's amazing like we could we would not be able to do this without you being here. I think that's one of those experiences to me that really instilled making sure that the students have a voice in our policies and decision-m um the community has a voice right because I think we do get kind of set in our ways about you know the way we think things should go and it's important for us to all use our strengths um in this job but again um it does not it does not fail to to remind me that sometimes like, okay, I need to step back and I need to listen and I need to hear what everybody else has to say. And I'm I'm typ that's typ that's my typical approach usually

050because I kind of want to I don't know if that's my inquisitive nature, but I want to hear everybody's points of view first and kind of do a little bit of analysis in the back of my mind first and then sort of um make my recommendations. So, I think those two experiences are probably the most relevant in the community for this. >> Okay. Thank you uh very much for coming in >> and again I apologize if I get the name wrong but next we will hear from Terara Sledko. All right. >> Pronunciation of my last name. That is not normally what people >> What' you say? I got it right. >> Correct. That is not um good evening. It's nice to see all of you. Um it's it's kind of interesting to be here and

051having the opportunity to speak to all of you because I'm normally um just in the wings paying attention either taking I'm an obsessive noteaker so I'm always taking notes in the back or sometimes from home watching everything through um through YouTube. So I try since uh sorry I guess I kind of just stumbled right into my opening statement even though I don't have it planned out um terribly accurately apparently. Um, so I've um I moved here in 2022 with my family. Um, I knew about the district. I had prior knowledge about the district. Um, so I knew what a good school district it was. I knew how caring and loving um, the teachers are and invested they are in their students and how the community cares about making sure that the that their students education

052is paramount. um to help set them on the path for the rest of their lives. And I often consider that education isn't just the grade that you get in the classroom, but there are all the other soft skills and the determination and the growth that you experience throughout your education. Um and boy, the Strand Regional School District really um prioritizes all the ways their students grow and not just academics. Um, so that was part of the reason why we chose to to move here. Um, I do have a little guy in the district. He is a first grader this year. Um, many tears were shed last year when he became uh a kindergartener, but um, I'm going to be around, right? He's he's young and I want to see him graduate from Dantis. So, I'm

053really in it for the long haul to be a part of his community and invested in his success, but not just his success, but but the students of the regional school district. Um, I am a teacher by trade. I have pretty much t been in the realm of education since undergrad. Um, I have mostly taught um the high school level or above, although I did do a short-term um short-term, long-term um substitute in a middle school um which I give so much credit to middle school teachers. They are angels. Um that is a level of patience that I don't know if I can possess beyond my own children. Um so um I know what it's like to be in the classroom. Um in the past 10 years I've mostly been working at acting Boxboro Regional

054High School as a classroom Spanish teacher. While there, I've um worked with the department to um really update our curriculum to move away from textbook based curriculum and into um proficiency um and authentic resourcebased materials which allow the students to interact with um things that are written in Spanish or in in the target language but also intended for native speakers but brought to them at a level where they can find it accessible. and working on training with them and what do they want to communicate? How can we communicate without the focus on the nuts and bolts, right? They want we want them to drive the communication car without worrying about all the pieces that go into it. Um and that's been a very um a challenging experience, a very rewarding experience. Um and just to

055see the change in mindset from both the teacher and the student. It gives it gives more students opportunities to um to show growth and to show their mastery of language in other ways. We're not focused on the multiple so much as what can you do with the language? What do you want to say? And we're also bringing in experiences from other cultures, other perspectives and trying to just widen the way the students see the world. and they get so excited. They love hearing stories. Just recently, I was able to share just just to talk about the past tense, a trip that I took to Kadabis, right? And part of that was Jialter and seeing the monkeys and then being excited to be hearing about the monkeys. So, the idea of getting the students engaged and

056being excited about learning um some of my other experiences related to um teaching in my department, I've been a part of various hiring committees. Um I I've also been a part of the um the hiring committee for uh department head when our department when our previous department head stepped down and we were in need of a new one. So going through that process of applications and interviews and sample lessons and questions. So I I have a fair amount of experience when it comes to that as well. Um I care right I care about students. I care about the district right. Um, I have a tendency to if I see that there's a need, I'm going to naturally want to come in and find a way to help. Um, like for example, this fall I was

057very much involved in the the library at BES trying to get in this huge backlog of books so that way students had greater access to um a wider variety of highinterest materials to them. Um, last year I was a part of the BDS school council month meetings. Um, I attend, you know, as many other meetings as I can. I've attended virtual finance committee meetings just to see what that was about, especially last year where the the um the budget was such a big the budget and getting everything under control was such a big um topic and an important one. Um, I I care about the district obviously. I care about Boilston, but I'm also fully aware of Berlin being a part and wanting that to be a part of it and the the idea of

058everybody working together and you know when we had the superintendent um meetings for what was the community interested in and I missed the one at Boilston. So I went to the one at Berlin and I was able to interact with parents there and some of them I already know from daycare that my students and my child attended prior to entering kindergarten. Um, so I just I don't I I care. I'm passionate. I have an educator's perspective. I I try to fill in the holes wherever I can to help out as best I can. >> All right. Ready for some questions, >> Lisa? >> Okay. I feel like I chose the worst question because everybody's answering it already. But why now? >> Um, why now? Because the need presented itself. It's not some It is something

059that I feel like since I moved I've kind of kept in the back of my mind as to would this be something down the road that I would be interested in. Um I'm kind of in I'm despite being here I'm kind of an introverted person. So at first like the idea of you know putting yourself out there can be a little bit scary but the more you show up the more you learn the easier it is especially when it's something you you care about. And like I said I'm in I'm invested long term right? I want to see um the all of the all of the different levels of schooling be successful and I I want to help as weak as >> Jess >> when I got elected some people viewed my community relationships within

060the district as a weakness where I viewed it as a strength. Um, how do you view your own relationships? Um, what decisions are need to be made involving people that you know? >> Um, coming from the introverted side, I I am the type to hang back. Like I am definitely the type to like I'll have my notebook and I'll be taking my notes, but I tend to be more of an observer and um probably in part coming up my show will be a little bit more necessary. Um, but I think I'm capable of holding more than one perspective in um in my hands at the same time, right? And that can be from being a teacher. Like I can see, for example, how a student cares about um their grade being an 89.4 instead of

061an 89.5 that gets them from the B+ to the A minus. But also be able to have the discussion of like, well, let's see what growth needs made. Let's see where we can go from here. Let's see what do we need to do to bring you from where you are to where you want to be. So, I'm I'm happy to create and build relationships. I'm happy to ask questions. I'm always happy to listen. Um I fully admit there's plenty of things I don't know and I'm always willing to ask questions to get help in educating myself along the way. >> Thank you. So, regarding budget decisions, talk to us about your process for analyzing budget spending, determining whether it's a worthy program or not. And if I'm not mistaken, you are related to a full-time

062employee. >> I am. I am related to a full-time employee. My husband is Michael Bla. He is the elementary school um multilingual learning teacher. Um he has been here for 10 years now. I want to say 10 years. So follow on to my question then given that position >> regarding the budget, how will you handle that conflict if a decision comes before the committee such as a financial decision regarding the budget that could impact your family directly? >> Well, I do recognize that there may be some times when I would need to recuse myself or it may not be um ethical for me to to to vote because of G given that. And I actually did because I was curious. I did email MASC prior to applying here to see if given that my husband

063is a full-time employee um if that would you know um be something that would prevent me from applying and per there you know they did they they replied within 24 hours which was amazing >> um you know just saying that there may be situations in which I would need to recuse myself so I feel like I would be very open with the members of the community I would certainly even Um, especially since I rebranding to this, look for advice on when that might be the best time. Um, but I feel like I am also capable of looking at the good of the whole over the individual, right? And I I know that the good of the whole will have individual impacts. I'm not I'm not immune to that. I have felt that in my own

064district. I have I have witnessed that in my own district, right? It's it's heartbreaking to lose colleagues that you care about and you know care about the students because of budgetary constraints but I realize there's only so much that we can work with and that at some point decisions will have to be made. >> Thank you. >> You touched on it a little bit but um how you balance your loyalty to your individual community with the need of the regional district. >> I think it really comes back to being able to to hold multiple truths in your hands at the same time, right? like I can be sensitive and I can I can be fair and admit that I'm going to have certain interests and desires and drives as um the parent of an elementary

065school child, right? I'm going to have different ideas and concerns as an experienced high school teacher. Um but I'm going to always enter things in terms of curiosity. I'm always going to want to learn more about whatever the topic is. Um, I'm going to want to find ways to support my committee members, to support the um the entire district and in whatever um direction that we're moving. I want and maybe it's it's it's a bit um I don't I don't know two rosecolored glasses, you know, like I want the best for everyone and I'm very invested in finding the way to make that happen to make that as true as possible for all those involved. I don't know if that answer. >> Please briefly discuss how one of your specific previous work or volunteer experiences

066could be beneficial to serving on a school committee. Well, I'm an educator. I I know very very well what it means to to be in the classroom every day. What what if and when decisions are made to um cut down teachers, to increase class size, to to have fewer resources um or to have those things available to you. There was a time when I was at AB where um extra people were able to be hired and we were able to reduce class sizes and have that experience as well. on what that looks like. Um, so I can at the very least bring that experience and that perspective to the table to share. And I also recognize it's not the only perspective, right? It's not the only experience that is valid that would be valuable to

067the group as a whole. >> All right. Thank you. Thanks for coming in. >> All right. Our last candidate is Jacqueline Hoffs. Am I good on this? It was a lot easier when it was Murphy. >> Oh, David. >> Yes. >> So, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Jackie Hops and I'm a Tanto graduate, class of 2001. I came to Tanto through the School of Choice program and after graduation, I went on to attend my first choice university. When my husband, also a Tonto graduate, and I began our family, we made the decision to move to Boise, our number one factor was the school district and our desire to provide our children with the same outstanding education and opportunities that we both received here. For the past seven years, I've

068served as the co-chair of the Boilston Elementary PTO and more recently as the vice president of the Boilston Education Collaboration following our merger of those organizations in 2024. During this time, excuse during this time, I've dedicated countless hours supporting our students, faculty, and staff through volunteer efforts and fundraising. I'm hopeful to bring that same dedication to our school committee where I hope where I can help make an even greater impact while continuing to support our students, faculty, and staff, but throughout the entire district. Over the years, I've actively advocated for our district by attending numerous meetings and working to ensure school budgets were approved so our schools could continue to provide highquality education for which they are known. I've attended Boilston Finance Committee meetings and hosted an informal session in hosted anformational session with in

069collaboration with Berlin Link to help keep our communities communities informed and engaged. I have a deep passion for this district and that's why it was truly heartbreaking to feel the need to create a backup plan for my son as he prepared to enter high school after seeing the school budget threatened with significant cuts for several consecutive years. After toring St. John's, we made a difficult decision that switching schools was the right choice for him and his goals. But my daughter is here in sixth grade at Tanto and so far loving her place and she's hoping to stay here for the long haul. Excuse me, sir. One of my strongest motivations for applying for the seat is to do everything that I can to ensure no other family ever feels that they need a backup plan

070due to uncertainty in our district. I've had the opportunity to work with many members of the current school committee in various capacities. professionally, through volunteer work, and even while leading an athletic team together. For those who have not for those of you I have not yet worked alongside, I truly look forward to collaborating and accomplishing meaningful work together for the benefit of the district as a whole. >> Okay. >> All right, Lisa. So >> you did kind of answer what motivated you now to >> now I I actually had contemplated running um when Jess Lori and Adam were but I knew our district was in great hands and I still was in the middle of a term as the co-chair for the Boilston PTO so I decided to wait um for the next term and

071when the seat opened it seemed like the right When I got elected, some people viewed my community relationships within the district as a weakness. The wife see it as a strength. Um, how do you view your relationships when decisions need to be made involving people? >> I also view as a strength. Um, and obviously every any decision would be hard, especially if it's if only someone you know, but as long as you're making the decision for the right reasons for the greater good of the district, I think it's an easy decision to make as long but delivery might be difficult. >> Thanks. Uh so again given your past PTO work and working together with the committee and the Berlin PTO a few years ago what's your process for analyzing budget spending determining whether it's a

072worthy program or not etc. >> Mostly I do a lot of research on the spending and what it's going towards and you know what's going to be the best impact for the district as a whole. Um, and what that's just it's more like analyzing what's going to reach the most students with your money. And that's kind of how I want to make sure you're making the base impact when they have something. >> How will you balance your loyalty to your individual community with the needs of the regional district? I I understand your question, but I don't really view our towns as individual towns anymore since the regionalization. Um I just we're all one district. Um and I see that across all school I mean the elementary schools. I just see them as the elementary schools,

073not Ronald Elementary versus elementary. I think I don't really I no longer view it as separate towns. It's just one community. >> Okay. Please briefly discuss how one of your specific previous work or volunteer experiences could be beneficial to serving on a school committee. >> I would probably have to be the PTO um chair. Um I I got to know the district really well. I've attended many meetings. I've advocated for the students and for the staff through that role. Um, and it's something that I really think has value in coming out. >> All right. Thanks, Jackie. Thanks for coming in. >> All right. Well, thank you guys for the opportunity to share my more about myself and the reasons that I'm applying for the seat. I look forward to meaningful work that we can accomplish

074together. And if appointed, I'm eager to attend one of the March sessions of charting the course and begin group meeting. >> Thank you. >> Um, okay. So, uh, at this point, we'll see if there's any recommendations. >> Can I make a motion? >> Yeah. >> Can I make a motion to nominate Jackie Hopson? >> All right, that's a motion. Is there a second? >> Second, >> All right, so we now have a motion on the table to recommend one of the candidates that we had. So feel free to discuss pros and cons of that candidate. Anyone want to say anything? >> I'm wondering about the process. So are we going to do this for each candidate? >> So the way we've done it in the past when appointing committee members is someone's made a motion

075to appoint one of the candidates to the seat. So then we can discuss that candidate because that's the motion on the floor now and we can vote yes or no. >> Okay. And then like let's just say the first candidate gets four votes then if somebody nominates the second candidate and they get like you know >> so we're a five member board right now so three votes in majority >> so if a candidate gets three votes then they're the candidate that gets appointed >> that's how we've done it in the past. >> Okay. Will we have the opportunity to vote for more than one candidate or we only pick one candidate? >> Depends if the first candidate gets three votes or not. >> Yeah. better be rough. That's all I'm saying. >> So you could

076you could amend the motion twice. >> Okay. >> If you want. >> So the motion on the floor is to appoint Jackie Hoses to the committee. Is there anyone who wants to speak to that? >> I think Jackie is a great candidate. I They're obviously all three are really great candidates and we're so lucky to have an option for three people. I just I personally um jive with Jackie the most. I like the idea that she came here as a I didn't even know you came here as a school choice student. I didn't know that. I like your connection to the town and the fact that you came and that you've experienced it from different avenues. I appreciate um the decision that you had to make with your son and that you're still you you

077lived through that and you it dialed you in more. It didn't make you get more hands off and I think that's a really valuable trait. >> Anybody? >> I think any of the three candidates would be incredible candidates and I'm very excited for the district. Um, I think again I I'm in support of all three of them. I really appreciate everyone being interested and being passionate about this district. >> Um, just if I can just go back to Lisa's point about the process. I just take it back in my head. So last time we did this, I think was actually before the election was yours. We appointed you when I think Bob vacated. >> Yeah, but I was the only >> But you were the only one, right? So before that, >> we appointed Bob.

078>> Before that, it was a while ago. >> We appointed Bob >> when Susan left. >> Correct. But we had a vacancy for months. >> He was again the only one. >> He was also the only one. >> Before that, me, Adam, me and Adam. There were six candidates. >> There was a bunch of candidates. Correct. >> And so the process was they all went through what we just went through. >> Correct. and someone made a motion to appoint one person. That person was discussed, voted on, that was a positive vote. Someone made a motion to appoint the second person who was you. >> Correct. >> And that discussion was had and that received positive votes. >> And so then that was it. That was the two that were appointed. So that's that's the process

079that we followed in the past. So that's the process that we're doing here. So I know we're part in the discussion right now, but I just want to make sure that that was perfectly above board clear. We're sticking with the way we've done in the past. >> Yeah. But we you can talk about other candidates. We're in discussion right now. So I also >> motion on the floor to a point, Jackie, right now, >> right? >> Yeah. So I also agree with Jess. I think that all three would be um really good. I feel like they all bring something different to the table. Um, so Tara, are we able to like say or you just >> We're discussing pros and cons for appointing Jackie, right? >> Okay. All right. So, I think Jackie's PTO experience

080would be a really positive um for the committee. Um, and I do remember the budget that she worked on with Boilston and she did attend a bunch of the Fincom meetings and >> yeah, she ran the whole show with Lake and Kyle was here and the whole presentation for both towns was great. >> Um, yeah, I agree. I think all three were great. I think Christina, your package that you submitted to us was very professional. Really enjoyed that. >> Um, unless anyone has anything else to say, we'll take a vote and we'll see how the vote goes. Um, all right. So, we'll do a roll call vote, Megan, since I'm looking. >> Uh, so I I I feel like I would I could vote for for any of them. So, I'm having a hard time

081just picking one. >> Yeah, it's it's a yes or no one, Jackie, right now. >> Only one seat, unfortunately. >> To have three people apply for is very fortunate. Um, a yes or no on Jackie. Um, and so can you explain to me again if we vote yes for one person, does that mean we can't vote yes for anybody else? >> Uh, no. It depends on >> if the motion fails. >> Yeah. If the motion fails, then we'll have someone. >> So then you can if it fails then you would have an opportunity to vote. >> So if I prefer somebody else over Jackie, I would have to vote no right now. Um, I'm going to abstain. >> All right, Beth. >> Hi, >> Jess. >> Um, I >> Lisa >> I. >> All right.

082I have an I as well. That is four votes. Four and one vote abstain. So, the motion passes. Jackie is Jackie off Jacqueline offices is appointed to the school. Thank you every like I said Christina I thought you our package was the most professional pack we've definitely received looking forward to your continued work on the PTO's and Tara I know yours came in at the last moment so I don't know you personally I don't haven't had a chance to meet with you but I do appreciate your work uh as a teacher um foreign language if you've watched any of our committee meetings I'm a big fan of foreign language and foreign trips and and all that so thank you >> appreciate it papers are due in July for the upcoming >> Yeah I just want

083to put Chad on your >> So before we get to July, uh papers will be available in April. They'll be sent from the state to the clerk. The clerk is Jen now for the school district. Uh so Jen live those in April. Also, as the clerk, Jen is now taking over the school committee's Facebook page. As soon as I can get the owner of the Facebook page connected with Jen to actually hand over that uh transition because they're no longer here anymore. uh bits a couple bits of news about that. So papers will come out in April. They should be available. Uh they'll be due sometime in July. They'll be sent off to the state in August and then the election will be in November. >> And also this so Jack Jackie's position now actually

084runs out in November. >> Correct. Yeah. This is only the unexpired term left by Lori. >> Y and just for clarity, she she has to go from the town clerk. Is that correct? >> Yeah. So, get in touch with the town clerk tomorrow um to be sworn in. There's an oath of office to take and then there's some training to take um ethics and you mentioned you already looked into track of the course. So, cool. And I made them aware last night. We were at a meeting Aaron and I so the town clerk was there that they were squaring people in for different committees last night in the Bolston meeting. So, they know that one of you is going to possibly even show up tomorrow. So, that that can take place as well. >> Yeah.

085And our our next meeting that you can participate in will be uh what's the date? The 24th >> 24th. Yeah. >> Unless there's a meeting for some reason before that that we don't know about yet and you're sworn in. You participate in that one too. Feel free to stay around tonight, whatever you like to do. But we're going to move on with the rest of the meeting. All right. Thanks everybody. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Uh so next up is public comment if anybody would like to make public comment about anything on the agenda. I only see employees and our candidates in the room. So, I don't know. Doesn't seem like there's any public comment. So, thank you. Um, we already kind of covered this superintendent search update is that the uh

086school committee has voted for, approved, and signed the contract. So, we have a fully signed contract with Dr. Conway, who is here in the room with us tonight. >> I don't mean to put you on the spot, but >> Oh, yes. Put him on the spot. Uh that really thrilled. Thank you. It's probably but uh thank you for the opportunity and and the conference um and opportunity actually to to come. I was in district last Wednesday and attended an admin meeting and spent time with buildings in communication uh under Jen and very good we're working on a transition plan and I think there were a couple communications one that went out to staff today and one to two families sort of introducing the you know that's not a resume for instance so very happy to

087share that and look forward to to the weeks months ahead and uh and diving in. So thank you. All right. Thanks. Welcome. Looking forward to it. Thanks for um uh next on the agenda is our student liaison. >> Mr. >> All right. No problem. Uh next up then is Al Gan with the superintendent schools report. Please. >> So first thing on the agenda is Burland Memorial Principal Search. Um so I want to thank the people that have been that first round of that committee. Um they did a screening of their resumes. Um and we had we had a good um group of people that have applied. We're really excited about that. Um we're meeting on tomorrow, I think, correct? um and looking through um the rubrics that people um scored on on the resumes and

088we're hopefully going to be able to narrow that down um to a a group that will then bring forward um for the week of March 2nd um that first round of screen March 2nd March 5th to bring them in for interviews with that same exact um group that screened um the resumes. Um so we're looking on doing that on the 2nd and the 5th of March. Um after that we'll we'll go through those and narrow that down even further. So on the week of March 16th we're our goal is to bring them into the district, get a chance to um spend some time with Mr. Campbell um spend some time in Berlin and spend some time meeting our families and teachers um the candidates and then I'm hopefully going to do the week of March

08923rd. Um I'm going to welcome Dr. Brett Conway to join us as well too. Um I'll do this final round of interviews that week of March 23rd. to be able to um be able to appoint someone um as the new principal of Real Memorial. This is a key time trying to get this done in March um because as we're seeing on school spring the mountains, they're coming out right now. This is the time of year. Um so us being able to um be able to confirm that will be really exciting for us and be able to get someone to work with John as well too. Um do some transition workers right now as well. So, I'll keep you updated on that, but tomorrow we'll be able to narrow that group down to hopefully a group

090that we'll then bring in for um for the next round is use. The next thing on the agenda is the strategic plan update. Um just want you to know our next meeting is March 3rd. I know that Christine mentioned as well too. It's really coming together really nicely. Now, um the the next part will be the seriously narrowing that down the work that we've done. Um we did a a survey that I have those um that available for school members if you'd like to see that um where we got a lot of feedback from families. A lot of positive feedback came with that as well too. I'd like to share um our next goal will be once we have that strategic plan as a committee um in a SWAT. We'll then stop presenting that to

091the towns um as well too. We I've already talked to Kristen in April to come to um some meetings there and be able to give them a a look at what that strategic plan looks like. Then we'll come in front of school committee um and have give you the opportunity to see that final look at that and to be able to vote on that. My plan is in June of this of this year to be able to hear and um print a final strategic plan um that this way that will drive this district both instructionally as well as financially for the next five years. Um, and that will truly be a gift that we'll be able to give um the new superintendent um being able to lead that direction for our district. So, that is

092the point on that. I'll keep you guys continuous to keep you updated on that. And I thank the people that are on that committee. I know Lisa as well on that committee as well as people in our admin team. Um this there's some heavy lifting we do and some thoughtful conversations, but um again, it's because we didn't have one. If we had one, we'd be updated, but we we're starting from scratch on this one. Um but um I'll share that with you at the next school as well, too. So, thank you. That's all I have. >> All right. Thank you, Al. So, administrator updates, uh, we'll go for an update on Securely from >> So, I just wanted to follow up. Um, Securely was a a platform that we brought in to the district this

093year to help monitor um, student safety. Uh, it provides teachers with the opportunity to, uh, view uh, the students Chromebooks while they're working in class. um make sure that they're staying focused and and on task. Uh but one of the platforms that was built into securely that we that we took on was securely home since the beginning of January. Um in the school newsletters that have been sent home, we rolled out securely home for for our families. Um and this gives them an opportunity to uh kind of control their their their devices at home as long as it's a a Chromebook. going to be kids logged in with with their school issued Google account. Um so they can lock down, they can unrestrict um they can provide time limits on certain things and and just

094provide that extra layer of security and monitoring at at home using um the application that we're providing um them through the district. Since the roll out uh we've had uh 16 families enroll in it. um in this platform that's being offered. So, we have 19 students that are being monitored at home using this platform, but it's 16 families. Um I just wanted to again let families know that we are providing this to them. Um it it's I believe it's still in the the newsletters that go home on a weekly basis. They just fill out a form, I enroll them, they get a welcome letter. Um, I know that that Jessica is enrolled in it and and she has firsthand experience in this platform. Um, but again, it's just another layer of of service that we're

095trying to provide our families in the district. And I just wanted to reiterate that and and hopefully we can get some more comm community involvement if parents want to be involved. >> And Joe, that's built into the cost that that monitoring at home. >> Yes, we're the families are monitoring that at home. >> Correct. So, how that works is we have a set of parameters that are um delegated during the school day and then I think it's at like four o'clock those parameters can then be controlled by families at home if if you're involved with the securely at home. Otherwise, it's the same school parameters that just extend out but after 4:00 between the hours of 4 pm and we'll call it 7 am. uh the families can then have control where they can unrestrict

096some some access or make it even more strict. Parents can monitor the websites that their kids going on. They can look at uh what they're searching on in Google or any other platforms as long as again they're they're um signed in through their school account. We we highly recommend families to sign up for this, right? It's a really good way of paying attention to what's taking place with our our students online, right? Um so, um please make sure and we'll continue to roll that out as well, too. >> When you hear somebody mention because a lot of the kids charge their Chromebooks in their bedrooms. So, that's that's been the recurring issue is kids watching YouTube when they're supposed to be sleeping or whatever. So, I was telling I was telling a family just this

097weekend that they didn't know about it. So if you hear someone complaining about their kid watching YouTube in bed, >> let them let them know that this is available. It's a great tool. It's all included. I'm very excited. >> I didn't ask this for Al's presentation, but does anybody have any questions for Al or Joe? >> Sorry. >> Okay. Thanks, Joe. >> Um Al, is there a particular order to your principles and directors needs? >> We do. Um so right now um just want the public to know and I know that school committee knows we um have our budget presentation that I know that Aaron's going to be presenting um but one of the things that we've created and our principles and administrators and directors have been working on um is really rolling that out

098to you um in terms of what their needs are and what they're looking for um as as in the roles that they have um their budget requests the costs that go along with it and the rationale as well. I know they had um send that off to school committee earlier. So if you had questions, I know some people did ask some clarifying questions for them. Um which was will be helpful. Um so we're asking at this point now we're going to sort of do what we call an elevator pitch, right? So where um it's it's an expression that's used that if you're in an elevator and you're you were going up in an elevator, would be a conversation if you were trying to um talk to someone about an important topic. And that's what we're

099going to be doing tonight. Um our audit first is we're going to have the director of facilities go first, Dan. Um, and we're doing that because Deian and I are probably going to be talking about 4 in the morning. So, we want to get him with the snow coming. So, we want to make sure we're taking care of our conversations early. >> Snow, >> we're not sure. But we would have Saturday, we wouldn't have had that much snow either. Um, so we're going to have Dan come first if that's okay. >> One one thing out. So, all of the forms that have been filled up that they're presenting on that they're giving the pitch on, that's going to be available if it's not available already on the website as part of the documents for this

100meeting. It's available now. So, anybody in the public wants to go look at these, it's on the website under the school committee all agendas. It should be the top link probably the uh meeting documents. So, you can look at these anytime you like and every one of these um presentations you're going to see, you're going to see embedded into Aaron's presentation at the end of the budget as well, too. D want to join us first. Good evening. Anyone? >> Yeah, absolutely. Hello again. I'm just uh represent looking for extra support for custodian staff. Second ship here at Tahanto Regional. Um you know this place get very busy at night that it's actually quiet at night. uh just uh for the cleanliness of the you know bathrooms and locker rooms gym hallways uh just to keep

101the uh place upkeep secure clean a friendly environment for student staff and the community >> and and just clarity on this and I know we'll keep it on two minutes deal so we have a custodian that works here at night that has his section which is up here in the top pilot building but anyone that's at any events here at night and I know that Beth can certainly attest to it with all our games and national honor societies and things that are taking place like they're they bring food, they celebrate, they're wonderful, but once the custodian is done doing his section there, he comes down here that and and people are great in helping pick up and pitching, but we're really looking for another person to really be um taking care of the sections down

102here. All of our games, bathrooms, all of that take place. There's absolutely need and we're looking for that extra FTE if not even here at the high school but if there's an event happening at Bstead one night if there's an event happening in Berlin it could also be in Florida but primarily would be here at the atmospherate that we're depending on like people to basically volunteer to pick up after themselves and and when that doesn't happen there just ends up with there's food in the bleachers there's bathrooms are trashed it if it's come here on a Friday night. You'll see it's tough. >> It is. It's even more concerning on Thursday night when we have to have school open for the 6 a.m. the next morning as well, too, right? >> Yeah. Absolutely. >> Thanks,

103Bob. >> Yes, make sure the door is open for everybody. >> Thanks, D. All right. I do have a short and brief presentation over here just to frame some of the work. But um since our last budget season, uh we've taken a real deep dive into just all of our current resources and how we're utilizing these to uh best serve our students and and the opportunities that we provide them. We've really looked at these through a lens of how do we provide our students uh who are the greatest needs? How do we continue to maintain and expand opportunities for our high achievers? And how do we continue to build college and career pathways uh for our students with successful postsecary moving forward? Um, this work is really taking a careful look at >> just good.

104Okay, now we're paying attention. >> All right. Thank you. In short, this has really required us to take a look and uh at reallocating all of our current resources. um taking a look at the courses that we're offering, the programs that we're developing to really ensure that we're offering our students access and equity to opportunities and student choice. Right? There's been a lot of work that's been put in um from the administration level um down to our department heads working with our teachers to really come up with mindful plans to continue growth here at Tahansto. um what we are putting forward for our FTEES and for our request for this year is simply to be made whole. We lost two FTEEs last year that have greatly impacted our operation. Um and while uh the FTEES

105that we're bringing forward today might be a little bit repurposing to best meet our students needs. Now, uh these are the two FTEEs that we were looking for to continue to drive us forward. >> And just for clear, FT is a full-time equivalency, right? So we're that's having the positions are full staff full-time teaching positions two that we had lost. The uh the first position that we have here is a repurpose of the world language FTE that we had lost last year. Um I had shared some data points that you guys can view at the end of the presentation. Uh combination of both our most recent ISL testing that we conducted along with MCCAST testing. Um in short, you know, we take a look at this, we do have pockets uh of students who are

106reading far below grade level. Um you know, in comparison, when you look at uh MCCAST comparison with the state, we're still well above the state average, but our expectations are higher. Um with this reading specialist, we really are looking to provide targeted evidence-based literary uh literacy interventions um with focus closing this proficiency gap. Okay. The difficult part for us when we come over to the uh middle school age range is that our teachers who are licensed in ELA are not skilled and efficient in teaching um uh teaching kids decoding and encoding and phonics skills. And it's like if you missed that piece, those proficiency gap just seem to widen further as we go down the line. Um, we have a pocket of students that really need to build up some tier 2 interventions so that

107we are focusing on closing these proficiency gaps so that they can then be successful and indepth in uh accessing more in-depth coursework down the line as that's the key to opening up at all. Um we would hope to use the reading specialist as well to help uh coach our other teachers in in um providing these supports to our kids and um and also just monitoring progress and hopefully reducing referrals to special education because we're doing the work up front and closing these gaps. Our FTE that we are proposing is to bring back our biology teacher which we had lost in the last budget season. Um, current staffing levels significantly limit our ability to provide supportive classrooms and elective opportunities for for our students. And this is only going to be more impacted next year. Um,

108the uh pieces when we take a look at it uh just in terms of like looking at some of the numbers, our ninth grade class right now, which predominantly receives biology, is one of our smallest classes that we have. It's 62. Next year we're looking at upwards of 90. that's already two sections of biology that we don't have. Um, we also have pockets of students that are going to require more supported classrooms. That's going to require us to build in more uh classes that we did not need to offer this year in terms of like fundamental uh um uh chemistry to help provide those supports. What this does is it significantly limits our ability to offer them electives for other students which are great opportunities that open up doors for them uh in the long

109haul. Um the other piece that it's very it's worth mentioning is science works very differently than it does in other uh teacher licenses. Uh if you're an ELA teacher, you license, you know, grade uh 9 through 12 and you can teach it all. Science is very specific. If you're a biology teacher, you're a biology teacher. you're a chemistry teacher, you're a chemistry teacher, and it really limits our flexibility in being able to offer uh these uh courses to our kids. Um the next two slides that we have are not um budget requests, but I think it's important to to note how these FTEEs and teaching positions uh promote some of our ongoing work and long-term goals that we're we're looking to establish here. Um for us it it is the time where we're continuing to

110monitor all that's happening in the state. Um there's a lot of pieces that are being looked at right now in terms of what is the um of the graduation expectations and the standards that being set forward. um the weight of when we look at like uh seals of distinction and CTE pathways and all these new uh pieces that uh districts are starting to undertake this work to step out of that so that they're providing great college and career pathways for their kids. Um for us uh this is a piece that is time to begin this work and take these initial steps in offering our kids these opportunities so that they're competitive when it comes to college admissions and also being well positioned if they're entering the workforce. Um what we are looking at this is

111a this is the piece where this is a step towards hopefully some long-term goals. This is something that we look to partner with with Dr. Conway as we move forward and has some experience in this and looking at innovation pathways and CTE pathways which I'm happy to discuss and ask questions on upcoming but for us we're looking to leverage our current electives that we're putting forward for kids to offer concentrations for them on both their diploma and their transcript. So um we are have currently undergone the work of uh putting forward concentrations that allow students to really explore college and career pathways uh prior to college. Um some of these concentration areas that we're taking a look at is business, child development, humanities, STEM, arts, uh and tech engineering. Um, these pieces right here really

112provide our kids a leg up when it comes to understanding what these jobs look like, the experience that they need from them, uh, and really giving them, uh, an opportunity to, uh, pursue things that they like and enjoy. Um, you know, giving student choice back into it. I will say a lot of these things we we have a lot of great stuff that's already built in. I mean, we take a look at like child development. And we have a full early child uh childhood education program where kids who go through that, they get a certificate at the very end that allows them to even open up preschool daycare. Um there's those pieces that we have these great pieces in, but how do we continue to leverage them to build and take from these stepping stones

113so we can continue to grow from here? Um I will say that um our u guidance office and our head of the guidance department I mean Rodman has already looked in terms of like if we apply this right now for our current graduates like how many of our students would actually be able to award this on their diploma and it's every single student. Um, you know, there's a lot of work to be done in terms of looking toward the future, work, studies, internships, things. We want to continue to grow and build from here. But I think this is a great starting point that opens up a lot of doors for a lot of work to be done. And we're hoping to uh open this up and with these positions push some of this forward. My

114last piece that I'll add just to give another nod for the bio is if you take a look at our STEM if we're looking to provide opportunities for kids to get concentrations in this area. Um and one of our biggest um places that kids actually want to pursue for college. Um if you're looking at nursing for example, you know, they're going to need that bio, that AP bio. They're going to need that anatomy electives. They're going to need those opportunities to get that fun foundational knowledge over there to be competitive. So all of this intertwines and we hope to continue to utilize these positions to grow in this process. Was I two minutes? >> Rich, can you clarify something? So you mentioned college and career and you said it so fast that I I really

115caught the emphasis of college, but when you say career, are you suggesting that not necessarily a college or maybe not traditional college route? There's another route here for kids that may not be on that traditional college path. >> Yeah, I mean that's really not every kid is going to go to college now. Uh we do want to provide these opportunities for our kids that are looking more for the workforce. And when you take a look at like the idea of concentration um and we're casting a wide net for like business for example this really allows them to explore that workforce get that experience learn those skills um and you know while this is a multi-year process in terms of where do we go from here and obviously there would have to be a lot of

116stakeholders who are involved and want to grow this but um looking for as we do for our child development offering certain certifications that when they walk out the door and they graduate that they have those and that's a key component of it in terms of an area where we can grow. >> Anybody? >> Yeah. Just how excited about the pathways. It's awesome. >> Yeah. >> Oh, I'm I'm very excited. This is this is really like the next step and I I really appreciate the work everyone did to come up with this. >> You guys, >> I appreciate the presentation. It was very sad because the science teacher left. >> Yes, it was >> along with the world language too. >> We're asking to make it back whole again that >> yes. Yes, >> very much

117so. Just for clarity on that. >> So that's the only asks are those two FTE heads. >> Those are our number ones. >> Good. Beautiful. Thanks, Rich. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. >> Chris, did you need a few more minutes? >> Did you want me to get you off? >> This This could be your last one, Mr. Kim. >> I was just gonna say there are many many things that I'm going to miss about my job and working here. The budget teaser will not be one of them. >> Um, ready step. Look, you should watch events. I only have one, but it's very straightforward. Miss Aqua has actually the most important one, but because it's in and around both schools, she's going to address it. We have had for several years a woman who

118comes in, she covers lunch and recess for us. Um, and she's done it. I think this is her fourth year. Every single year we fire her because we can't afford her. And then every single year we decide, oh, wait, we really need her and we bring her back. This past year it was because we had some extra money after the Apple TV people were here and paid us for the use of the gym and the garage to use that money. I don't care how it gets paid for but because Apple TV probably will be back. It's important to take this little job which provides so much stability for everything else you do through the center of the day and just give this poor woman some peace of mind. So that's my big ask and wait

119less than two minutes and not one smile. Does anybody have any questions about Cheryl Riley and her very important job which cost by the way $13,000? >> And and just for clarity, John, having that position where you're looking for allows the teacher to do less duties, right, in in the lunchroom as well, right? Right. Because she covers lunch duties as well. >> She covers lunch and recess. Yeah. Probably more it allows Paris as well. Um but the more important part is because she's got the same rules. All the kids know who know what the rules are. They know how to walk. It's not different every time. >> Good. >> She runs a tank ship. >> She runs on that floor when they walk out of there. Like it's >> I wouldn't any final questions. John,

120you're not free yet. >> So So that allows more planning time, more lunch time. >> It's more >> just say yes. >> Thank you, John. I get the cookie. >> Hey there. Um, often times when I'm here for a budget request, I'm usually talking about a specific population. perhaps um a position that would work specifically students with disabilities or preschool multilingual learners etc. Um but today my budget request for FY27 serves all students across the entire district. A little bit of background in our health offices we have obviously we have a health office in all three school buildings. We have a full-time school nurse in all three buildings. And then in addition to that, we have a float nurse that works across the district and we have that float nurse two days per week. We

121are at the point where we do need to increase that float nurse position up to full-time up to five days per week. Um that person is that that position is essential to the safe operations of our health offices across the district. Our student our student population in the district in all three buildings include students that have um have challenging medical conditions that require the presence of a school nurse in order to attend school safely. The float nurse provides us with that ability in the event that we have absences. Our nurses are people too and sometimes they need to be absent. Although we do have a, you know, a great pool of substitute nurses, they often have other jobs, other equipment, they work for other districts. They're not always available, and they're not always available on

122short of notice. Um, this year alone, we've this school year alone, we've actually had seven incidents um where we've been short on nursing in the district. And having a full-time flow nurse in the district would really help us address that. um because if we have an unexpected absence, we have that nurse available to cover that building. In addition to just the absences, there's a lot more that those float nurses that the float nurse does. There's a lot of screenings. Um there's a lot of um documentation. There's a lot of parent communication. There's a lot of sick visits. There's a lot of medication. And we also know um the school committee has been really great about supporting field trips. A lot of field trips now require a nurse to attend so that all students can participate

123safely. So that is the request is to increase our float nurse position from two days per week up to five days per week. And I believe that the associated cost with that is approximately $60,000 across the district. Any questions? >> Anybody? And you know the amount of paperwork that nurses have to do right and monitoring that. So, if there was a nurse that wasn't out, that would be our lead nurse that would be overseeing and evaluating and supervising the other nurses as well as the paperwork that goes along with that as well. >> Right. Right. Yeah. That there's there's just so many layers um that that are hard to imagine all of those all of those pieces, but certainly the lead nurse has a role um in that as well in coordinating that coverage and

124coordinating the coverage in buildings when there's an absence. We call her the lead nurse, but she's really housed here in Toronto and doesn't have the opportunity to to work with the other nurses. >> Right. Yeah. Right. The current arrangement, our lead nurse is one of our full-time school nurses, and so she does some lead nurse work for us early in the morning and in the afternoon and in between when she can fit it in. And this is a this is really a great opportunity for some, you know, additional coordination and improvement overall. >> And God forbid something should have to happen on those seven days. Just so you know, like they they cover it, but they also know that we just dial 911 if there was ever something like that. Absolutely. We we want a

125nurse in every building. We want coverage for that as well. >> Right. And that means that our lead nurse is often when we're short in a building is traveling between the buildings trying to sync up to medication schedules and go back and forth. And as we all know, as much as we would like, we can't none of us can actually be in business. This is going to be a dumb question, but don't I thought it was the law that there had to be a nurse in the school at all times or is that just to admin administer medication? >> It's to do with the medication. That's right. Because we don't we we're not able to delegate um medication in general. >> So if there was a if there was a per a period of time

126where a nurse for whatever reason was not in the building and a child need their medication, you'd have to send that child home. >> No. Well, and that's why we have the nurse right now. Um, the lead nurse, Lisa, would be traveling between the buildings to make that arrangement. >> I would say this is a critical position. We given that information >> and there's a ratio that's recommended as well. But >> there is. Yeah, there's the recommendations um that the ratio recommendations actually are from 1998, so quite some time ago. And when they were last done, the recommendation is to have a full-time um school nurse for every 500 students. So, Tahanto is actually a little bit over that. So, the current arrangement of a float nurse two days per week actually helps us with

127that ratio here at Tanto. That float nurse now out of those two days tends to be here at least one day um because that helps address that ratio. >> And we're looking for consistency, right? So, we have a a pool of subs that we use. Um, but that Lisa works her magic in making sure that there's coverage there as best as she can. But if we were to have consistent nurses, they know the students, they know the buildings, they know what medications kept, all of that. >> It's a very different role than it was 25 years ago. It's a much more require It's not like bloody noses and headaches. It's medication and diabetes, >> feeding tubes. >> Yes. Right. Feeding tubes. Right. Right. The list. I mean, I I I shared with you with all

128of you a short list um of some of the challenging um and you know, ongoing medical conditions that our our nurses support throughout the school day, >> but at the same time that those things still exist. The bloody noses that play and follow that >> they do. Yeah. Very complicated. else. >> Thanks, John. >> Who's this guy? >> Thank you guys for having me. I don't mind budget season much because I I truly believe it's what you value. So, you you'll purchase what you value and I'm hoping you'll consider um my two requests. I am currently Boilston Elementary School has three sections of kindergarten all the way up to fourth grade. Three sections across the board. Our fifth grade this year has two sections due to class size. Um, our fourth grade going to fifth

129grade will have 66 students in it. So my ask is is really numbers game. I'm hoping that ask for a fifth grade teacher to offset that class of being 33 in each room versus 22. That's a major ask my request. Um, and my other is very similar to John's. I want the same consistency in my cafeteria, but I think and I think John and both Al were alluding to it. Having classroom teachers spending time in the cafeteria as as as much as I have to have them in there is such a it's I don't want to say a waste, but there's so much more value that they could be doing in my classrooms, in my school, getting ready for the next session um just prepping and being together as one rather than, you know, cleaning

130tables. So, I I totally understand the the severity of having the consistency and the need for that. But I also really want to state how important it would be to have just my my teachers all have to do two d two duties right now. I would love to reduce that by one. So my other ask is is the same as John is asking for a cafeteria worker. And I know there's some confusion with the recess librarian that you guys last year there was some talk about how the librarian that we would have as the par educator just that we were not we were not able to fully staff the cafeteria and the recess with that person. that didn't didn't cover the whole gamut of the coverage is needed for that. So is that how that

131question came up >> and know that when teachers are on duty right that means then we have to provide them a lunch at another time and so that means we have to have coverage for them and they're not in front of the the students delivering their instruction. So that that's a piece of this as well too questions. All right, see you later. >> Thanks, Rob. >> Catching up with time. >> Hello everyone. Thank you for having us u have this conversation. And I want to echo how very excited I am about all the work that's being done at the district level. There's really exciting work to be done. Um, I'm here as the director of curriculum and grants advocating for three important budget requests. The first request is for an ELA instructional coach for the

132elementary schools. This addresses a specific district need that is not limited to Bur and Boilston, but a concern that we're seeing nationwide. An ELA instructional coach would serve as a districtwide instructional leader with expertise in the science of reading, supporting educators in co-planning and delivering consistent curriculum across the district, which is an important factor and would also be critical in leading data meetings that would inform instruction. Um we will be embarking on an ELA curriculum review and ad adoption cycle this upcoming year for the elementary schools. Our current curriculum is six years old. We have seen how important and critical our math coach is in the review adoption um and implementation process for new curriculum. We need this for ELA as well across um the district. Um, which leads into my next request. The money

133for the prek through 5 Ready math curriculum. You've already approved the curriculum, which is an intensive process to go through various different curriculums and understand what is the best fit for our district and for our students and for our teachers. I am seeking the allocation of money to move forward with this purchase. Uh with this we can ensure implementation with fidelity uh the coordinated um curriculum across the district um with our math coach. This will help to provide the structure as well as the curriculum materials needed to build on our current math gains um without um losing traction. Um this is a highly rated curriculum through the DESIE portal. They have a section called cury where they identify all highquality instructional materials. It's also highly rated um in ed reports as well as recognized as

134high quality. >> Lastly, I would like >> just so sorry interrupted. So I know school voted on this already uh a while ago about the math. Yeah, just review it as well too. I know many of you took it home, but for the public, we just wanted to make sure that this was part of the presentation that will be given to both Bolston and Berlin as well. Um so we just didn't want that. because it's a it's a big uh number and we wanted to make sure that that was uh being just brought front and center as well for for the town. >> So the curriculum has been voted on but the allocation of the money needs to be moved forward. >> Thanks. >> Um so lastly I um this is really an ask. It's

135a it's a small number ask for the middle high school. I would like to ask for your support in accessing the AVID um platform. This is a powerful tool in supporting students in writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading skills. It can be integrated into current curricula. Um, it can also be offered as elective courses. This is really money to access um this platform. This program provides instructions uh instruction and tutorials in career and college readiness. And it really is focusing on those middle students. It's not focusing on, you know, our our most struggling students. It's not focusing on our, you know, um, you know, advanced students. We're focusing on those students who need support in organization and um, executive functioning skills and really highlighting goal setting. Um and this particular access for um AVID would

136provide professional development um and opportunities um for curriculum. >> Does anybody have any questions? >> Yeah, thanks. >> The only question I had was I know that we had a previous elementary math curriculum. So, I guess I just and I know I asked the question and somebody had answered it um that it wasn't in the budget, but I didn't we have money at some time in the budget for an elementary math curriculum and do we not allocate like annual I'm like looking at Aaron because it's more of a money question. >> I I am not aware of it being in the past couple years budgets. With that said, if it was in a budget previously, what's happened is that money has either rolled back into whatever bucket of money you would have aortioned. So at

137the end of the year, what makes up our excess and deficiency or free cash is sort of any unspent funds, right? So that money would have rolled back into its appropriate location. So, if you go to slide 22 of my presentation, you will see our ask for this um this funding. >> But to answer your question, we have not seen that anywhere in the budget in the last couple years that at least we've been looking at it previous to us. We're not sure, >> but we we paid for curriculum, but what you're just saying it was like maybe five years ago we paid in full or we just it's not it hasn't and we're not. So our I guess what I'm trying to ask is our previous practice has not been to budget a little

138bit for each year. We're budgeting one lump sum in whatever the contract year is. And >> yeah, >> maybe we need a better >> some of it has to do with the way curriculum works is you know you will buy a system and that that system will sometimes get you access for x period of time at some point um you know that sort of the standards change the methods change at some point you you you update your curriculum um one way or the other and and and I think our current is is past its time. >> Joe, I'm sorry. Joe, if you want to chime in here, math coach, you want to talk a little bit about this at all? >> I think I think she's right. >> It's always been a we'll wait the

139three or five years and then we'll just throw that one uh budget item. I think planning knowing that in three years, five years, whatever the contract is, knowing we're going to have to reup that contract is probably a strategic idea to start taking a little piece each time. >> Um but that's part of this big rebuilding. >> I have a reserve account for curriculum or something like that. I don't know what if like you have a >> with the ELA coming up as well because I'm assuming that hasn't been >> right that hasn't been appropriated for six years and so just as Erin said that so the um Envisions was a fiveyear um you know program and we paid for five years. we're pay this one is three years and then then at that point

140the whole district will be on a math cycle. So then we can pick a curriculum that aligns prek through 12 and that's always kind of been a sticking point because there were different curriculums revolving at different times and the alignment hasn't been there. So this cycle will help to align But that means in three years you're going to have a bigger, >> right? >> Yeah. I guess my point is instead of having this huge $110,000 ask and then next year it's not in there so we use it for something else. Can't we ask for like $45,000 a year over three years or $20,000 a year for five years and you know it's built into the budget. I know we need the cash to pay for it, right? We have to pay for it upfront. So

141I get that. But if it's built into the budget so we have a little bit every year. It's not a it's because it's not it's a curriculum. It's not something new. It's not like, oh, we're adding a curriculum. It's just a new curriculum we have to move forward with. So, I just feel like because I know how the towns are going to say, oh, this is what we have to play with this year for new stuff. And it's like, well, this isn't really new. So, I I don't know. Just something to think about and just more to understand about that just so we don't kind of get like dinged for like >> Let's uh we'll put it in and see how it goes. Yep. >> Yeah. Thanks, Lisa. >> Thank you, >> Jess. Sorry, Lisa.

142Hold on, Jess. You have a question. >> Oh, no. I was just I mean that the ELA coach I know we had had a reading coach previously and we had to take it out of the budget because it wasn't filled and so we decided we could cut it for then, but we're putting it back in because our reading scores show we need it. >> Right. And I think that in the material that Rich put together and my material and and in discussions with Joey, we really have seen that that it's t not having the LA coach has taken a toll on our scores and the ability to provide consistency across the district and and and we're seeing we're advocating for a reading specialist just at the high school, the middle high school level. Um that

143really that foundation work really needs to be done at the elementary school. >> And the coach will be working with our teachers, working about this the new reading program, working providing that professional learning as well too, working with our teachers on those faculty meetings as well too, answering any questions they might have about um the curricular as well. >> Okay, anybody else? >> All right. Now, thank you guys. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Joe. So, um my ask is for the funding to um increase the increase the number of hours of my technology support specialist um that this position currently seated by Alex behind me um is allotted. He right now he has 35 hours a week. Um and anything that is required of him after hours such as being here tonight is taking away

144his ability to service the classroom, service the students and service the staff. Um because he has to take his aotted hours and adjust them because he's here and now it's taking away from being able to service the the everyday classroom in the everyday school setting. Um, so the ask that I have for you, um, with the increase of the funding and right now, it's it's roughly $6,500 to give him that a lot of time to bring him up to, uh, give him that that extra five hours a week to to service the school district and as well as service here. Um, we're also asking him to take on servicing the websites um and and making sure that those are up to date and on a more regular basis given the hours to do these these

145things. Um, we've also seen an increase in in tickets, ticket requests, help desk requests. Last year alone, we had roughly 450 submitted tickets. This year to date, we've had over 450 tickets submitted. So, the requests are coming in with the new um curriculum that that's going to be coming out with the upgrades in technology and the new platforms. The uh this position also services the MCCAST tests. Um the students taking it and the staff that are proctoring the MCCAST test. We're just looking for the ability to to make sure that he has the available time to be in the school to service the district that and and needs that we have. I' I've had a chance to meet with Alex number of times. He's doing incredible work for us, but appreciate every time he's here

146and and the filming is and the audio we we're really getting it to a good spot. We can't have him in the school, expect to to accommodate the hours that he has. Um, so the other part is he's doing incredible work. We don't want to lose him right full-time position somewhere else. Um, so we want to continue to keep that consistency. We have it in the tech department and that would make us have three full-time FTEEs total in a in a district our size for technology and repairing as well too. So, it's definitely a a need. >> Questions for you? >> And I I was curious, historically speaking, um, we had students volunteered into filming um, when we had those classes. So, I'm curious if that also could be brought back to alleviate Alex from

147here. as my understanding is those classes have kind of gone away. So, we don't really have those programs in place anymore. Um, I mean, we we Dave Dave and I have talked about exploring these opportunities. We just haven't had the ability to sit down and and look into it with anymore. And truthfully, we're being a little cautious, right, in the filming and the audio, right? We've had a couple maybe hand slappings on us, right, for not maybe filming it the right way or the audio might have not been on at the right time. So we've had some complaints filed. So we we're making sure there's consistency. But do I agree that students great opportunity? >> I mean I think they had headsets and listening to make sure it was being recorded. >> Yep. >> Definitely

148the future. >> Thanks John. >> Great. >> Before Aaron you can come on up before you go. So just so the public knows all those reports that we just heard about that there's a lot of detail these reports that everybody put together. They got charts in there and data in there to support why they wanted. So last year when it came to budget time, we got to our March budget hearing. The room was full and it was a surprise to everybody about what the budget asks were even though we've been talking about it since December, right? So this is the first time we're talking about it. Aaron's going to give us a little bit of information on how it affects the budget tonight. But our next meeting on February 24th is the big budget meeting

149where Aaron will tell us every single detailed number, what it's going to cost the towns or maybe not. I don't know. But um that will be a big one to watch. And then the March 10th meeting will be the opportunity. That'll be a hearing where everybody can come in and say yes, I don't care about the math curriculum. Cut that, but give me my biology teacher or whatever it is that people, not the committee, but community want to say about the budget or you're going to support a town meeting. So that's sort of the roadmap from here until town meetings. Tonight we're hearing about the asks. Next meeting in a couple weeks, we will hear about the exact numbers. And I say exact numbers, but they will likely change come March 10th. They'll likely change

150from March 10th to May 3rd, I think, is the town meeting. But that will be the the public's opportunity to hear about the budget. So nobody should say, "I didn't know you were voting on the budget tonight. Here it is. Spread the word. Tell your friends. Jed put it on Facebook. Everybody watches Facebook. So that will be this is the opportunity. If you've got an opinion about the budget, what's being added, what won't get added, what towns will support, what they won't support. This is the opportunity for that. We're starting now. There's at least three more meetings before the committee actually votes on the budget. So the committee will take a vote on the March 10th date. That will be the number that gets certified to the towns. that will go to town meeting unless

151of course it changes before between then and we know that it usually does. >> So but that's the process. So >> I'm curious when um if we could put our schedule the budget schedule and like you know this was the meeting this was the preliminary budget these are the specific like hyperlinks to these asks and the budget presentation and then our next meeting is this just so people can see it within the newsletters um for each of the elementary schools and the high school. Um I didn't see the scoping meeting on those newsletters this week. Um so I think it would be really helpful just to get you know shot front of the bow to say hey this is happening. >> We can put it on our our website as well too as pop-ups. U

152we just finished the the popups for school premium is that there was a lot of things like that but we can certainly add this to that and and the other thing that I think will be helpful for Brent is the feedback in for our admin of this process. Right. So, it's a little different than we did it last year, right? Um, you know, doing the elevator pitch, giving that ahead of time to you so you had a hard copy to look at and ask your questions so weren't having the questions back and forth yet so we can answer them ahead of time. Um, but absolutely. So, we we'll look forward to feedback on that as well. >> Mike, one more question. I know you had invited the um town administrators and the select boards. Will

153they be coming next time or are they or you guys just meeting with them separately offline? So you guys have a meeting with them. You met this weekend. >> So we met with Berlin um both uh Fincom and Select Board and Capital. We um met last night with um the select board from Bolston, but that was to do with the roofing project of Bolston Elementary and we we've talked to April. April has a copy of this budget and she'll be inviting us to come in to talk to her her committees as well too. Um but this budget presentation was given to Poston as well too. So, we're waiting for the invite for that as well. >> I think it's like a minute. They do it late. >> Yeah. >> You can just about the popups.

154Is there any way? >> So, at the bottom of the popup, it says, "Don't show me this message again." You mean the school committee one was irritating for you? >> All right. Thanks, Aaron. >> All righty. Uh, another budget season is well underway. Um, uh, we're going to go through a quick presentation. Uh I'm not going to dwell on some of the individual line items um as we as well as what's already been presented. Um but uh I I did want to comment uh Megan raised the point of setting up reserve accounts. Uh great idea. I will look at the state limits us to the types of reserve accounts we can have. I'm not sure if say curriculum reserve account fits. I will look at that. Um, one of the challenges though with setting up

155reserve accounts, um, is a lot like, you know, my personal life. No matter how many pockets my pants have, I'm limited by how much money my wife gets gives me, right? So, unless we have money to put in those those reserve accounts, right? To your point, you made a point like, well, we need money to put in it somehow. Um, it's it's hard to fund those. and having a whole bunch of I I can't tell you how many times I've had people say, "Well, don't we have a reserve account for that?" Well, yeah, you you may have voted one in 15 years ago, but you never put a dime in it. So, now it's like there's doesn't ex, you know, it either exists or doesn't exist. So, I think we can look at that. It's

156certainly worth talking about. Um, we do have a couple pots of money and we'll talk about those pots of money later. Um, and those are our excess and deficiency in our school choice accounts. Um, those are places where we can save some money. Um, and I think we could even make sure that we're delegating some of our choice money to stay in the choice account for curriculum. So, it doesn't mean that even if we don't have a reserve account, we can't sort of delegate a certain portion of money towards that. and one-time costs or or individual um event costs are really good uses of those money. It's really hard to use those on ongoing operations. We'll talk about that a little bit. So Joe gave me the power um to walk through this. So my

157budget right presentation will be broken into three major parts. We'll be talking about the operating budget uh the investments requested by uh the staff uh and then we will get into uh capitals. Uh quick note uh as we talked about before there were cuts made to last year's budget. Um uh we we cut the biology teacher as as shared a world language teacher here at Tahanto. There were other cuts across the district that were challenging. Um we are hoping to not have to make more cuts. We are hoping to be able to uh improve upon things and make investments in our children's future. Uh with that said, I do think it's worth sharing uh that we are um within this budget, we are um including that additional fifth grade classroom. Um we're considering that a

158service level situation uh because of the size of that class moving up. Um it would be extremely difficult to have um two elementary classrooms with 33 students each in them. So that's something that um we're definitely keeping. As I talked about, you will see the math curriculum on slide 22. Um so these are some of the major uh budget cuts. Uh I talked about the biology teacher. We cut health teachers at the elementary school uh as well as the world language teacher as well as some smaller cuts. Uh really important caveat to this budget as we move into this year. There are other districts um thinking a little differently about this. Um but with the closure of the federal department of education, a lot of people are talking about what is going to happen to

159some of those major educational grants. Um my personal opinion is very likely for better or worse I I have no real opinion on it one way or the other um that those would end up as what's called block grants. Um and the federal government would block grant those to the states with certain provisions for their use. Um ideally those uh formulas would remain similar. Uh our district receives about $300,000 that we applied towards the budget um that would be impacted. So uh you know we are hoping those are for very specific purposes and we assume that those purposes um that are uh based on law would stay in place. There might be specific um items related to the administration's wishes and desires. They might add on to that. Um but uh largely so right now

160looking at the overall our proposed budget comes out to 26,928,214. That's an increase of about $2.5 million and a 10.3% cut. Um, I had one very, very small change come in yesterday and and I want you guys to realize I am updating the budget with every new little piece of information that comes in. So, it's actually 10.19% right now um related to uh a small item that changed the budget. U moving on by cost center. So you'll see districtwide has a relatively significant increase without a big change in staffing. Um that is largely due to a move of some items that um are are being moved to the district office. So as you'll recall uh in the past there has been a curriculum director stipen that has been received by one of our principles at

161the elementary level. um and then a full-on curriculum director at Tahanto. Uh this budget proposes saving a little bit of money and moving that position entirely to the district office. So it supports supports the entire district uh K to 12 preK to 12, sorry. Um additionally, um one of the items that that Janelle and I have talked a lot about is is translation. translation services um are very difficult to do at the school only level. Um they're very IEP based. They're very based on language needs of individual families that change and come and go. Um there have been comparable amounts budgeted at each school. We've just moved those funds. It's only about $12,000 all told from there to the district office. It also means that we can consolidate some of those efforts. So when we're

162translating things instead of worrying about is this a boilson translation is a burrow is it that translation service is just for the entire district. So what the pro the resulting product because of the product of the district. Um so big increase I understand that um the goal is to bring this budget down every meeting from here. So this is what we consider sort of the most conservative or worst case scenario budget given what we're looking at. Now I'm not going to dwell on every function area um in the interest of time. We'll talk about these items a little bit more um in the upcoming budget meetings, but you do have some comments on each item that has a significant change. Um and uh and I'm happy to have conversations individually if people have questions. Um

163and we will move through uh Berlin uh again again you'll see the removal of the curriculum director that's being moved to the district office and consolidated um as an example of some of the changes. Uh Boilston, same thing. uh that curriculum director in a few changes. Happy again to talk about individual changes with folks if they want to talk about schools. Uh to Hondo, same thing. I won't dwell on individual line items yet. Um but all of those changes, you'll see the curriculum director moving to the district office. That's one big shift. So, some things to consider, and this is a lot of what gets us into the conversation of why this is a most conservative budget. Uh, right now, um, our budget is based on, uh, the governor's budget. Uh, the governor's budget came

164out a few weeks ago. The governor has funded chapter 70 and $75 per student as minimum aid. Uh, we appear to be at or close to a minimum w aid situation. When I look at our chapter 70, uh this past year due to inflation and health insurance, uh the legislature brought that number up to $150 per student. It is unlikely that we will get that information before we have to finalize our budget, but part of our excess and deficiency at the moment includes those additional funds that came into the budget for this year. So, as we talk about utilizing a little bit of excess deficiency possibly down the road, those are funds that I would be comfortable with carrying over into using towards the budget as we think about that. Um, out of district tuition,

165Janelle and I will probably be having weekly conversations uh throughout the next uh month um talking about uh individual situations uh moveins, move outs. Um right now uh we have again very conservative figures. Uh the figure I have in for circuit breaker is based on um another conservative estimate based on uh this past year. Uh Janelle and I will go through all of our all of the placements. Uh Janelle, we'll be doing um uh sort of a proforma uh review of circuit breaker to get a guess as to where we will be and how much money we will have. Uh we also do have some retained rolled funds that we have available in circuit breaker that we might utilize if uh if we feel like that's necessary. Um we have not utilized excess and deficiency

166for operations in this iteration. Um, as I talked about, we could use some excess deficiency. I'd like to see where our balances consistently roll to and where we're coming to this year. Uh, in terms of what we might be willing to, um, put forward for excess and deficiency. You will also see that we are committing to some excess and deficiency for one-time costs. Um, and we'll talk about those a little later. Uh final health insurance figures um are are supposed to range from either from 2.9 to 14.4%. Um I did get an email today from our representative with Maya, our insurance provider, uh asking to talk about rates. I assume he is going to give us our rates. Um right now I have 15%. Uh the highest it will be is 14.4%. So, I'm hoping

167we're less than 14.4%. Otherwise, we're close. Um, but, uh, assuming we're somewhere in the middle, that would be savings. Maybe we'll be at 2.9%. Knock on wood. Who knows? Yeah. >> Um, fingers crossed. >> Uh, so the next few slides talk about um proposed investments in the district. This is using one-time funds um to uh make some investments in the betterment of the district largely or uh doing some things that we need to do. Um and we'll move into that in a moment. So, um oops, sorry. Um these are I'm sorry. These are the investments that we just talked about. I apologize. I have other slides for investments for onetime costs. So these are exactly the ones we have them arranged by priority. We have three priority levels. Priority one, priority two, and priority three.

168Um I'll let you read those at your leisure. Um you will see P2, P2, and P3. On the second slide, I just consolidated priority 2 and priority three. Um these are not ranked in order. Um, if we do determine that there's funding available for these positions, uh, we would go back to the table with our administrative team and talk about what we would recommend to the school committee, uh, based on largely these priority levels um, and how much money is available. And Aaron, if I could just jump in. So these P1, P2, P3, the priorities, I thought we're presenting, Mr. Scoop the first time, our budget, this is the work that this team has been doing, right? We've been meeting since I think even before the holidays and deciding what our priorities. Do they think

169they need all three of them? Yes. But they're being mindful of what we can also afford. Um so that's why they've narrowed it down to these are the top things they really feel they need those priority ones to be able to to for to have a high quality education next year schools. So this is the work that we've all done. It's just not Aaron and I presented this. It's everyone here. >> I apologize. Slide 16 is an extraneous slide that I meant to take out. So, uh, ignore it. I was cutting and pasting things and moving them around and that one got left in. Uh, so moving on to our capital budget. We are considering a number of one-time investments in our capital planning. So, it's not just sort of hard capital items, but it's

170one-time investments. Um, you will see some of these are fairly uh aggressive amounts. Um, one of the things to remember is, um, we will likely be over our cap for excess and deficiency. We will have a need to spend down some money, period, from our excess deficiency. Um, we have not spent money from school choice um for the past two years. So, we've taken money in and we've not spent money out as part of the budget. Um, that's largely due to some luck. Um, we've had a few things swing our way. This allowed us to not have to use school choice. Um, we did put school choice forward towards this budget. We may have to use a portion or all of that, but we do have a robust school choice account. Um, and so we

171feel like it makes sense. Our auditor will very likely tell us that we should spend some of that down. Um, and our position is that we should probably invest in some things. We also have a big ask on the table and we have some investments we're asking the towns to make on our behalf by picking up some of these costs, these one-time or capital costs. Um we're hoping there's a little bit of olive branch extended in that that we are doing our work to try to better the district um with the funds we have >> and and Aaron just I know that that's David the funding we we really feel that we're we got a good handle in the budget right now, right? So when we first came into this as there's no secrets here

172as a district, we we're very close to a 112 budget, right? We were working very hard with Michelle Griffin, Department of Education, right, to really see exactly where our budget was at. That's one of the reasons why we were brought in here. Um but now we're feeling that we have a handle on this um and where our funding is. And so that's why we're presenting the budget this way to you guys now. >> Sure. So the very first item uh on capital is our debt for the honto. um looking at the the schedule. So this is the debt service payments that we will be need to be making this year. I think as you'll recall we had two years where it looked like um those were calculated incorrectly and provided to the towns. We corrected

173that in 2026 and we're continuing that correction going forward. Uh the Tahanto debt should be paid off. The first bond should be paid off in 2031. So we're five years and the second should be in 2033. So a little bit longer but within five to seven years will be all ours for better or worse. >> Just the time to be looking at this. >> Okay. Sorry. >> So here's here's where we get into some of the heavy hitters. Um so these are the asks we're u making to school committee to first come from END and school choice. Uh as you know Tonto has had almost no capital investment in the past at least for the past two years. So this is an effort to try to help correct that through some of the excess deficiency

174that I believe we have. Um I know we have at least enough to to fund this. It's a matter of whether we'll have some to put into operations. We are awaiting and uh I know that um our excess and deficiency uh packet is with the individual who's looking at it right now. So when they get your packet, it just sits in line. It gets queued up. Uh and finally, they are reviewing our packet now. I'm hoping to have those numbers um uh by the end of the week um andor questions from them that I'll answer and we'll get that done. Um so uh to begin with student and staff technology devices have not been updated in uh I want to say three years. Uh so we have been sort of limping along in the Chromebooks.

175We have the the staff devices in some cases. uh Robin Peter to pay Paul sometimes. This will reinvest into the student and staff technology at Tanto. Uh I think as we've talked about um the IDF ele and elevator controls air conditioning unit uh needs to be replaced. Um that's uh essential if that goes. Um we have a lot of electronic components. The IDF is what our phone system runs off of. So, if that were to go down and that would overheat, our phones would go down and then we'd have to replace it and a server. Um, and we don't want to look towards that. The auditorium lighting and projector has been on our capital request for a few years now. Um, it kind of has kept getting kicked down the road uh year after year.

176Um, that is a very frequent uh rental um for us, the auditorium. many many events uh take place there including town meeting for the town of Boilston. Uh we uh are proposing replacing that. Uh lighting controls and gym lighting. I think as you may recall the controls for the gym lighting are um out of service. So we're having to sort of manually at the breaker box. I think I don't know if N's still here, but I think we're turning those on and off at the breaker box, which is not a recommended means of um turning lights on and off. Um our general lighting controls are out of date. Um so we are proposing to replace sort of the district's the school's lighting controls overall as well as that gym lighting piece. Uh wireless access points.

177Our wireless access points uh overall are coming to end of life. um one way or another in the next year or two, we'd be asking to replace those. So, we're putting this on there. Uh middle school furniture, as you'll recall, we replaced some middle school furniture this year. Um we shared that middle school furniture is really elementary school size. There are many middle schoolers that are bigger than me. Um I've sat in those chairs and I look silly. Um I'm sure they look silly, too, when they're trying to sit in those chairs. So, we did bring in some furniture from Pitchburg. Um, they were closing a school. Uh, Diana and I rented a U-Haul and we drove up there, um, loaded it with furniture and brought it back. Um, that was a significant savings. We

178also bought 20ome,000 in furniture last year. That was the only capital item approved for Danto last year. Um so this should finish that at least um to the degree that you know most of our students have reasonable seating that's age appropriate, size appropriate. Um our Lego uh robotics system that we use in some of our science classes um predominantly technology is now at end of life. We actually just realized this as we were thinking about replacing uh some of the existing units. they have moved that to computer science and AI. They are discontinuing the robotic system in June. Uh so it will not be supported. Um so this is a a separate program that should last a number of years. Um I'd expect it has a seven-year lifespan with maybe some upgrades along the way.

179We may look at modules and things like that to add on. Uh Avid curriculum uh grades six to 12. Uh, that's a relatively minor uh ask, but it's a a um Oh gosh, I'm blanking on enriched, help me out. >> Executive functioning tier 2 intervention program, >> right? Um, life readiness. >> Um, the last item you'll see, and we'll touch on this in a few moments, uh, is a school van. Um we would anticipate this would result in savings over uh the long term. Um for example uh we would we would not only use it to support our bridges program to go to job sites and work um programs but our athletic programs could use it as well. And talking to uh Julie Lee uh he would be size appropriate for our golf team for

180example. So instead of paying $350, $400, $500 or more uh for each of their matches, um we could use the school van uh drivable by the coach, for example, who could take them to their games. Um and that would be significant savings over a period of time. Um I have a couple examples. So this is an example of a 12 passenger multi-purpose van. This would be the larger of the sort of size vans we'd recommend. Uh 10 to 12 passengers is pretty typical. As you can see, uh there is seating for up to 12 students in there plus some luggage. So this could be a number of students uh a coach uh and some golf clubs in the back. So reasonable um for that purpose. Uh we could also use it to transport uh resources

181from school to school as needed if we needed to. Uh but this would be a resource for the district in addition to cost savings over the longer term. It's it's also not only we use it for our bridges program, right? The opportunity for kids to build the supermarket life skills for our athletics, but it's also great PR for us as well too, right? We have the we have the Van Rap in Boston, right? You see them all the time when you drive. you see Whisper Academy, you see different districts that have um that piece, but it would be a great opportunity for not only for our our students and our teachers, but also to to promote our district as a whole. >> Um with this, people have to be certified to drive. I'm sure insurance

182has to match that. Um is that kind of going to be to the budget as well or >> So, uh interesting. There's no specific certification for this. Um, you know, we would we would definitely um look at making sure that people are comfortable with it. Maybe even provide some training as necessary if we could. Um, but uh so yeah, the laws are very interesting around vans and transportation and how that works. To drive students to and from school, you need a very specific license. But when they're once they're at school, um that lensure requirement um doesn't exist anymore. >> We bought one of these district work. So we had some people come in and do some training for us, right? So that we knew how to back it up and how to look where park

183so we >> Okay. Yeah. I just as a parent I would want someone to have a good driving license and you know a little additional training >> and even one of the things that we learned when we brought it in previously is like we pocket that right. So you're not going to spot that someone backs in behind you, right? And then you can't open up the back doors to to speak of parking. >> I want to speak at a park. >> Can you use this for a field? Can you use it during a field trip during the day? Like could like the art class go to a museum? >> So like it's as long as you're not driving them to school at the beginning of the day or home. >> Yes. >> They can take

184it out. 100%. Yes, anything during the day would be fine. So, smaller field trips would be would be a possible use for this. Um, again, the only like real specific license would be directly taking them from home to school or from school to home >> and that would be for the district we'd be able to have the access to, right? >> Or like when the band the band gets together to practice all the trumpets, they all get together. It's a huge opportunity. I'm curious you can consider like hybrid or electric because there's different maintenance associated with those types of engines. >> I I have looked at electric or or hybrid vans in the past. They they currently don't have sort of a model that would fit this bill. Um school buses are kind of that

185were kind of the rage. Um uh and >> you know they're very expensive. So your your average um electric school bus is $350 to $400,000. Uh whereas a normal gas diesel uh school bus is in the$1 $120,000 range depending. So it's a big though through less maintenance. >> Yeah. >> So that but even I'll use an example like Monday schools had to all delay right. So I was communicating with the superintendent and they had to do that because they're electric buses, right? Nothing to do with the Super Bowl and nothing to do. It was just so so cold that they were concerned about those electric buses getting ready to start as well to so there was cost savings about buying electric buses, but there was also other costs that they have to associate that. So,

186I attended um some electric school bus workshops last year through um MASPO, the professional organization for school business administrators, and I specifically asked about vans and you know, their answer was really there's nothing really out there for that just yet. Um they're talking about it. Um I think a lot of it's going to have to do with what sort of support for sort of alternative fuel or electric vehicles there is um in the coming years. It's also for the efficiency. I appreciate the electric piece, but one of the things we dealt with when we purchased it previously that if the art teacher is driving while that teacher and they have to fill it up, right, because they're getting low on gas because they're traveling out to the western part of the state, right? We have

187the company car that they can pull over and fill it up as opposed to, you know, just all those things we would be looking at. Okay, so next slide gets us into a little bit about the Lego computer science and AI sets. I talked a little bit about this, but um this program includes the Massachusetts State STEM standards with lesson plans. Um it provides introduction to coding for students, which is a really important um skill for students to have or develop as they go through high school. Um great job opportunities for students who can do general coding in the real world, whether they go to college or don't go to college. I have some real life experiences with that. Uh then that we share at some point. Um there are also expansions. So we could

188consider some expansions later down the road. It's very similar to robotics. The robotics program had expansions. Um and this does transition us from the legacy system uh to this new uh computer science and AI set. The spike robotic system is being cancelled as I shared before. So it won't be available anymore. So next we're going to talk about some items that we would be interested in taking from school choice. Largely this is pulling items off of the capital list that we have provided to the towns. Um these are uh the classroom technology for both elementary schools. Uh this includes the math curriculum. So, we talked about that before, the prek to five math curriculum, that would largely be for uh Berlin Memorial and Boilston Elementary at 110,000. Uh we would finish up our adding and

189replacing security cameras at the two elementary schools. Our goal is for full 360 coverage of both schools. Right now, we're a little bit shy of that. There are also some cameras that we would like to replace uh with that funding. So we would look to do that. Um we are looking to get consistency around our classroom projectors and um sort of multimedia boards for use in the classrooms. Uh this um 61000 would provide consistency. I don't have the specific model numbers, but we could speak to that later. um a lot easier for maintenance, upkeep, parts, what have you, bulbs, uh things like that districtwide. And it means that if you're a teacher and your classroom moves or you choose to move, you don't have to relearn a whole new technology. Um uh we are looking

190at I think we talked about this last year and the question of you know, funding for these sorts of things came up. Um, oh, I'm sorry, I skipped one. Um, but I'll talk about the robotic field line painter and mower. Those are two items we talked about this past year. There was a question about where the funding would come from. Uh, we are proposing we look towards an investment there. Uh, there may be some conversations with the uh, custodial union. Uh, we will want to have those and and ensure them that we're not looking to use that to cut jobs. we're looking at to make their jobs more productive and um vibrant. Uh so walkietalkies, I have a slide on this uh in a moment. Um but there has been a move to upgrade the

191walkie-talkies. This would finish that move. This would be the final part of that move. It would also add a repeater to Berlin Memorial School. It would allow us to have districtwide walkie-talkie access. Um which would be really important. It would also allow us um possibly to pipe in with some of the emergency channels, police, fire, what have you. Um really nice feature to have in this day and age. Uh you can designate specific channels to specific purposes. We have a custodial channel, we have an administrative channel, things like that. So a lot of power with that. It would be one complete system that we actually even house in that central office so that if there was an emergency going on, we'd be able to all be able to communicate with each other as a district

192um through walkie-talkie as well as the police and the fire department. >> Yep. Uh two minor things for BES and BMS, a scissor lift. Um at Boilson Elementary, uh there are a lot of lights, particularly in the gymnasium, that are difficult to replace. we have to hire a scissor lift or hire someone to come in and replace those bulbs. We would be able to do that ourselves with a scissor lift at Boilston Elementary. Um and then at Berlin Memorial, uh the ask there is for a shed for Berlin Memorial to um store materials, supplies, things like that to the school. Uh so the total 394,000 to come from school choice. Uh we have certainly that much money available in our school choice and then some. Um so getting to walkie-talkies. If anyone wants more information

193on walkie-talkies, there's a lot there. Those are basically the walkie-talkies we're looking at. Uh there's an example of how a repeater works. So, a really quick um sort of visual of how that repeater would work. Um, and I think everything we have there uh is is items I've talked about. We program all of the the radios we have. Uh we would do all of the FCC light licensing for that. We would do training for uh staff as necessary. Finally, uh some examples of the robotic field light painter and mower. Um uh the two pictures up there are of a turf tank and uh line painter and I don't remember the model of um mower. I may have it in my notes, so if you bear with me for a moment. Um but we are not

194wed to either of those. No, I don't. um we are not wed to either of those models and uh those were just for sort of visualization purposes. So all of these both of these models and the model who look at work on GPS and use mapping software that you set up you set up markers and it uh you set it and forget it. You can leave that more out there in many cases for eight hours and it will do two acres or more at a time. um and get that done. The same with the line painter. You set up the plotting for your fields. Um set it and forget it. Um it's actually saves um on the lining paint because it's rather than the human um pressing a sort of a spray button, uh it

195administers a very specific amount designed to line the field. Um these will operate day or night. They'll they'll go back to a charging station. uh and uh wait for their next command. Um you can do a lot of this through an app online. Uh finally, we get to what are the items we would then push on to the towns uh through assessments. Even though this is a bit of a small item, what are one of the things we said is if it's physical to the building, if this is part of the building, we're renters in these buildings. we're going to sort of those are the items that we're going to sort of push back on the town to pick up. Um at Berlin Memorial, there are really only two small items. One is the gym

196exterior doors. Uh those doors are in really bad shape. Um if you've ever been there for say town meeting or to vote, uh well, you haven't voted there yet, you will be voting there. Um uh so this is to prepare for things like the elections. Um, additionally, uh, repairing the rooftop units. So, we have rooftop AC units for the library and various office spaces. Um, those are in need of repairs. So, the total of that is 25,000. Uh, it's worth noting that the town of Berlin also has approved $323,000 for the roof replacement. We are looking, we have received bids for that. We actually have a low bid of around 230,000. Uh Dan is verifying references and making sure that they're a responsible and responsive bidder. Uh but in our mind, that's an excellent bid

197relative to uh it's almost $100,000 less than uh what was what was estimated initially. Uh there are a lot of factors to this. So, it doesn't necessarily mean um that this is maybe an inadequate vendor and that's Dan's job to review their references, look at all the specs they provide, make sure they meet our standards. Uh keep in mind, um our standards included a 50-year shingle, um which is a, you know, a high standard for the quality of those shingles. Additionally, I believe it was six nails per shingle. uh that's above the sort of industry standard of how many nails you use per shingle. Uh that gets into how likely they are to say fall off or have issues down the road. Um so, you know, assuming that everything matches up, we believe this is

198going to be a good bid. Um there are also some other factors to be considered um relative to the type of company that bids and some bids inherently could be lower as a result um not because of the quality of the work but because of the type of >> this is only for the second half of the roof for real. They already did the first half a couple years ago. This is the second part. And the other part about this bid is they're looking to do that this spring. So we're looking at that. >> We're looking at the April break right now assuming the weather works with us. Um and the half they've done is the flat portion of the roof. So the rubber sort of flat membrane. Moving to boilston. Again these are the

199items that are more um uh intrinsic intrinsic to the building. Um we have two bathrooms that very much need to be updated. Um they're in rough shape. We'd like to look at at getting those updated. Uh continuing parking the rear end of the school. Um that is on the list. We'd like to keep that on the table. Uh and then we'd like to look at replacing uh some of the play area wood chips with rubber um with a rubber surface. Um you know, we we recognize that may be you know, a little little deep for an ask, but um we'll throw it on the table and see what happens. That'll just stay on our list um for the long term. So then we get to Tanto. Um the one item again this is sort of

200intrinsic to the building and it's a very big ask. Um this is expanding to Hanto parking. Um this is we recognize this is a big issue. Um the amount of parking we have for events um sporting events whether it's events in the auditorium um things like that. I think Al sort of hit the nail on the head the other day when we were talking to um someone. He said, "Families don't carpool or come all together anymore. They frequently take two or three cars now, right? You have kids got a car, mom's coming from work, dad's coming from work. Um, more and more we're seeing more and more cars fill our parking lots. Um, there's also more demand for say student parking. More and more students are driving. Um, there's more push for that. Um, and

201then we also have the challenge of snowfall and sometimes we we have to put the snow somewhere. Um, whether it's temporary or permanent, um, we end up with some piles of snow that, as you can see, have taken up a few parking spaces, and that presents some challenges. I know when I come here, it's a little harder to park um, for meetings and things like that because in some cases there's snow. Um, so having that additional overflow parking would be very beneficial. >> This is the conversation we're having with both towns. They they appreciate and realize it. So we keep bringing up on our our presentations for both towns because there's there's absolutely a huge thing to take place. >> Oh darn. >> And the parking lot is smaller than it used to be because

202the footprint of Dondo is bigger and allows to go above that. >> Yep. So um I I have a quick video that I I share frequently. I don't know if I've shared this one before, but um uh I'm going to hit play, Joe. >> Yeah, >> right there. >> Is that coming up? Did I kill it? >> No. >> Oh, there you go. >> So, what you think of the house? >> It's got a great kitchen. But did you see the school right now? >> Hey, babe. I got to go. >> Bye, Daddy. I want to talk with my parents. >> Okay. So, I I'm sorry that wasn't as loud as I'd hoped. Um, we'll take the volume up next time if we can. Um, but um, did anybody catch like what was what was

203the very first thing that they talked about? Very first thing they talked about, >> what was the school rating? >> The only thing, right? So, she had this great they great house she was in love with. His first comment was, "Well, look at the school rating." and instantly that house is off the table. It's not an option. No matter how beautiful the parks nearby are, no matter how few potholes are in the road, they didn't talk about police or fire response times. They talked about the schools. If you go to Zillow tomorrow, today, tonight, you will see school ratings front and center. You will not see potholes per linear mile of road. You won't see any of these other things we talked about. Um, this is what matters to families when they're moving into neighborhoods.

204This is what impacts, there's no bigger impact on home value than the quality of your schools. Um, so if your communities want to maintain home value, they'll invest in the schools. The best investment you can make for homeowner value, period. And with that, >> thanks Aaron. >> My presentation. >> Any quick questions for Aaron and we'll have two more meetings where we can prep with details. But >> yeah, as a lay person, I see your END and then also school choice and all of a sudden there's a $400,000 request for each of those funds. Um, if someone's just tuning in, can you explain just very briefly why those funds are available and and haven't been utilized or seemingly utilized in past years now with so much money in them? >> Sure. So, um, the the

205district uh you've seen the draft audit um financial statements. Um, if you go through those, you will find school choice. And as of the end of uh 2024, the district had $2.8 million in school choice funds available. Um, I didn't put them there. I they they came through probably many years in the past. Many districts had balances in the past because the $5,000 you once a you've been getting all these years once a time upon a time was worth a lot more money. Right now, it it doesn't quite mean quite as much. So that it's sort of declining values as with anything that stays the same cost, right? That value declines over time. Um but that balance is there. Um in 2025, we received about $450,000 $435,000 of school choice funds. We did not need

206to spend school choice funds to close out that year. Um so that brings that total up to 3.2 million. Um when we started this budget this year, we knew we wouldn't have END. Uh we knew we um had already looked at shedding some physicians. Um we put additional school choice funds in there. So we've got about $400,000 to reserve the budget beyond what we take in. So that will bring down our balance a little bit, but that still leaves us at that sort of $2.8 million. If we were to we were to spend all of our choice money that you've allotted for this year, we would still be at that $2.8 million. That's a that's a a very very robust school choice um number. Um you would be very hardressed to find any district that

207has that much particularly not that much per student. Um so uh our our auditor will certainly suggest that we spend some of that down responsibly. I am looking at responsible ways um to spend out that money. Um so you'll see some of those items are investments in essential items, things that will better the school district as well as will demonstrate a bit of a partnership with the towns, right? We're picking up a greater piece of sort of this capital uh and one-time outlay. Um so uh it's part of building sort of that partnership with the towns. We understand um they're looking to replace it particularly in Boilston the BDES roof. Um they've just done the the Berlin memorial roof. Um we greatly appreciate that and anything we can do to sort of help alleviate um

208and help them meet some of their needs whether it's police, fire, recreation department in terms of capital this year. We want to be good partners in that process. So that's that's sort of the philosophy behind this. Um, uh, it's multiaceted. This takes a few things off the table that might also have been kicked down the road a couple years. So, we'd like to, you know, be able to start sort of fresh on some items. >> And how much income are we going to get from school choice this year or like for the next budget? >> I'm sorry, say again. >> The projected income from school choice with the current seat. >> So, we're we're expecting that to be pretty flat. I mean, that that's going to come down to a conversation about, you know, our

209willingness to open up school choice seats and where we might open them um and what that might look like for the long term. Um I think, as I've shared, I'm not some huge proponent of school choice, but I'm a proponent of school funding where if we're going to say that we don't want as much choice, it's absolutely fine with me, but then we have to replace that money somewhere, right? it it's a it's a give and take. The pie is only so big. Um if we start shrinking a slice of our revenue pie um something's going to give and so we need to ask that question. Um again like I said not not against even not doing choice at all. I worked with this a district that didn't do it by principal. >> So so

210we have an admin meeting tomorrow and one of the agenda items on that admin meeting is school choice to talk to our principles and see what they're supposed to. So that's part of a conversation that we're doing in February and then we'll get that information that we do every year and bring it back to school to make some decisions with that. >> So that's early. That's good because we usually don't get to vote on that until like April or May. So that would actually be nice to have that information >> before. Any other questions for Aaron? >> All right. Thanks, Erin. >> Okay. Uh, if I can just close by saying since we're, you know, kind of in public and and everyone's here, um, I I just want to re reiterate that anyone would like

211to sit down and talk about this budget, go over the budget, I will meet with you any time. If you're a school committee member, please work through as part of the communication process. But if you are a member of the town, uh, you know, a citizen, a parent, a select board member, just send me an email. um we can sit down and we can go through it. Al may join us. Um but happy to have this conversation. >> See, just appreciate it's an everchanging budget right now. Right. So this is the budget we're presenting to you, right? It's a little different than even the one we gave to April last night because they have to change that area today. Right. So it's ever changing, right? We're still working on >> perhaps a YouTube link could

212be put in the newsletters as well. >> Make it a little less hard for people to find for this for this. Yeah. >> Okay. Anything else? >> Good. Thank you so much. >> Thanks, sir. >> Is anyone here for another public comments? >> All right. Anybody have anything for future agenda items? >> Subcommittee subcommittee. >> What's that? >> Are we doing subcommittee the next >> at the next meeting? >> Are we meeting on the 24th? >> Mhm. >> Is that And so that'll be another draft of the bud this budget. That'll be a detailed budget presentation from Aaron. Maybe an hour and a half, two hours maybe. >> What do you think? >> I don't know. >> Yeah. Uh yeah. So the 24th is all about budget. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> The 10th. Yeah.

213March 10th should be the really big one. >> That'll be the hearing. Yeah. >> Next time >> March 10th is the hearing. Yeah. >> Then March 10th will be the hearing. >> Speaking of the hearing, you're on top of the dates for the newspaper. >> Yep. >> Yeah. We posted already. in the mods technical where reserve the auditorium like we did last year to present it there just in case there's a large amount of people so we take care of that as well too >> all right sounds good uh next up business items so the capital plan meeting we've been talking about this a little bit wants to be the representative to attend on behalf of the school committee um just remember it's attending listening bringing it back to the school committee if there's anything

214to act on you don't speak for the committee there's nothing that we know of that needs to be spoken for that I have a motion to appoint Megan Grill to attend on behalf of school committee at the board and capital play meeting. >> Jess, but I'll second it. >> Oh, Lisa, sorry. All right, Lisa move second. All right, any comments on that? >> All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone guessed it? All right, the motion passes. Thank you. Uh, then a couple items or a few items as first reads school calendar. Um, do you need to say anything? I hope it's self or it's self-explanatory. We got a little different format this year of presenting it. We worked with our admin to put it together led this. We've also vetted this through the union as

215well too. Um but we're presenting to you for first week. Give us some feedback on this so we can get this out to parents. As far as the school calendar goes, this is the first read. So this is people's opportunity to look at it, think about questions for next time when it goes on for a vote. And uh next time when it goes on for a vote, hopefully that will be the vote and we won't be talking about another vote in August. That's right. >> All right. Sounds good. um program studies first read. Any quick comments on that? Quick comments on anything. >> Um so just we are proposing four new electives that we have. Some of these are driven by uh looking at like the business concentration piece. We pull our kids every year

216to ask what they are interested in. And we had asked our junior class that if you were applying for a major right now, what would it be? And 17 of our 71 students said business. It was our top response. So in response to that, we are building in these courses. Um and we we're really excited about them too. They're really looking at some kind of new pieces and opportunities for our kids that haven't been offered before. Uh the final piece is the great American novel. Uh that is the uh fourth offering here to really support kids for the humanities. challenging uh piece for some of our high achieving students who want to take on a deep dive into the classics. >> Any questions or follow? No, >> I was going to say the only course

217that is not going to be offered for next year unfortunately is nature of feeding. Um SteveO who's long worked with this authority uh is going to be retiring um come the fall and this will no longer be offered. We always look to what can we now replace it with as this has been a staple for Tahanto. Um and other pieces that we've looked to build in which the school committee has supported is initiatives such as like our world traveling club um and these other expeditions that we have with world language. So we're hoping to continue to supplement and as opportunities go out new ones arise. >> Thanks Rich. So Al, we also talked um this is not here but just to point out program studies handbooks whatever handbooks we need to sign off on we've

218been getting those a little late the last few years. Yep. >> Signing up on handbooks in December. Yep. Probably not a great idea. >> Agreed. >> Could we could we get working on those so that you know come maybe the July or June or July or maybe even at the latest August meeting we can do whatever votes we need to. >> Yep. Absolutely. That'll be the work that we'll be doing with print on that as well, too. >> All right. That's why we're getting the calendar to you guys in February this year. >> All right. Uh, and then the last first read we have on there are the protocols. We talked a little bit about these last week. Um, I put them out there. I put them together. I It's first read. So, if you've

219got questions on them, we can discuss them. Probably more appropriate to get to them after the budget is is handled. again get them worked into the committee handbook however we feel like we want to do those but it's something that's been hanging out there since October so I felt important to just get a document out there so people can take a look and we can go back to that and uh discuss on the vote at a future meeting but just put something out there for everybody to take a look at all right >> and those those will then lead us into a self-evaluation >> I mean they're they're two separate is this is the training from MASC we took with Tracy in October that was about how we run our meetings make things more efficient.

220Self-evaluation relates to goals we might set at the beginning of the year and how we write about those protocols can help us run things in line with our goals but they're separate from whatever that process would be. coming up with the document was separate from whatever that process may be. >> Yeah, I'm just saying operating protocols are generally the things that we hold ourselves to and we agree and sign them and superintendent as well. And so that is generally what I learned at MASC trainings that we base our self-evaluation and our goals on. >> Yeah. How we the protocols that we met with, trained with not Tracy with, discussed and agreed on were things like uh how to uh communicate before meetings, how to put agendas together, how to run agendas during meetings, what should

221be on agendas, things like that. They're in the protocols there. If we want to set goals, we might set a goal of um you mentioned want to have a retreat over the summer, right? So a goal might be have a retreat and do some of the kind of training. We don't necessarily have to have a protocol that says we're going to do the retreat every year, but it could be a goal for a particular year and then we could evaluate ourselves on what we do for the retreat. Did we work it out? Did we stick to what we said we were going to do with the retreat? Whatever it might be. But this document is on there simply as a first step so that it got done and we can take it, vote it down,

222change it, amend it, whatever like your goals as well too. school committee not telling you how to do your goals, but it's reflective of the district as well too like starting a strategic plan next year. One of the things that school committee would want to be doing is is supporting that, right? And implementing some of the things that are coming through in that. There's a section that we heard loud and clear from the survey about school committee, right? So, you want to be looking at that reflectively so that you can then put your goals based on that as well, too. >> Will that Sorry, will that be on the agenda next time? >> What's that? >> The district improvement plan like Al was just talking about. We're hoping to we're working to get there. Um

223we're either >> no rush. I was just asking because you brought it up >> because we have to have you guys vote on it. So that's plans to come in front of you guys to vote on that. But we also have to go to from the towns as well too and let them see it as well too. So every month from now until the end of the year or the end of this school year, we'll have that on the calendar for you to look at. Absolutely. >> And then could we just go to a meeting so we could learn about what's going on? >> Yes. Okay. Those are public meetings. All right. So, next is an executive session. We might return to open session to vote. Could I have a motion, please, to enter executive

224session? May return to open session pursuant to mass general law chapter 38 section 21A purpose 3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining BBRSD custodial staff teams through the local 170 if an open meeting effect on bargaining position public. move. >> Beth, >> second. >> Lisa, anybody have a comment on it? >> Megan, >> I >> Beth, >> I >> Jazz, >> hi. >> Lisa, >> thank you very much. All right, we're going to enter executive session. Thanks everybody for coming. Take a short break. We'll get in there.