School Committee Meeting 5/13/25

001Good. All right. Let's call this meeting for Oil Regional School Committee to order. This meeting will be recorded and your image or voice may be broadcast. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Uh thanks everybody. Anyone here for public comment? Nope. All right. Uh, can I have a motion, please, to approve the consent agenda? Lisa second. Jess. Okay. Anybody have any questions? All right. All in favor of the consent agenda? I guess. Okay. That motion passes. Uh next up, so my report again, I don't really have much to report on, just a thank you to the community. Uh both town meetings uh passed and supported the

002school budget. So thank you to the voters and everyone who made that possible. Uh I especially want to thank Al and Aaron and the rest of your team. I mean, I don't know where we would have been uh after last year, but everyone seemed to to love having you guys here to sort of clean things up and get things going. We built a incredible team in the central office. So, everybody up there is doing a great job. Um, even the people who had some negative things to say, well, some of the people who had some negative things to say at the Berlin town meeting were singing your praises as well. So, I think uh Mary might even made a couple. I don't know. Um, but it it was overall pretty good. So, thanks to everyone

003there on that. Um, next on the list is our superintendent search update, but I don't think Tracy's here just yet. So, you can have to put that on hold. Uh, so Al, over to you, I think. Yes. So, thanks for So, good evening. So, uh, right back at this conversation that you just said, Mike, we also want to thank school committee, right, in both towns of Grill, Wilston, in the communities as well too, um, for the budget process and helping us out through that as well too. Um we couldn't be more um grateful for the support that the families gave us. Um we sent a message out to them thanking them as well too for for the help um and supporting the budget and passing it in first time. So thank you school committee. Thank

004you as well. Um so I'm taking things a little out of order and I'm going to turn it over to Joe directly um our interim director of technology um as well. Um so one of the things that um I was hired as as the interim superintendent of schools was is really looking at um at a lens of looking and and finding the things that we need to get this district in place so that we go to have a full um superintendent and board. We have things in place and ready to go. Um yet again um last night was brought to our attention another thing from previous that we uncovered and that we're going to share a little bit with you underneath the agenda item um that we already have on there where it says um

005for interim director of technology Joe Spazado will talk about student uh firewall and security issues. So I'm going to turn it over to Joe. Um there was something was brought to our attention late last night. I want to say about 11 o'clock last night. Uh, and within a couple hours we were able to address it and take care of it. I'm gonna have Joe talk a little bit about it now. I apologize wise that we we put a a close on that. So, I'm going to just turn it over to Joe. Thank you. Uh, first I just want to say thank you to the parent that made us aware of this situation. Um, it's communications like that that help make this district a little stronger. um especially when it comes to the safety and security

006of everyone within the district. So, as uh Superintendent Ganon was saying, about 11:00 last night, we were made aware of a potential um well, it wasn't potential. There was an exposure of sensitive material where a student gained access to sensitive material um written by administration within the district, shared with uh faculty and staff. Um this student then took that that information and shared it with a few other students. Um once we were made aware of this uh we immediately address the situation. We locked down the pathway that was taken from when this original um institution of this communication was put in place. Um, we locked down that back door pathway. Um, which locked out all students from and pretty much it, I'm sorry, it locked down everyone from gaining access to it that wasn't supposed

007to have access to it. Not just students, but faculty and staff as well. Um, we closed all additional pathways that could potentially lead towards people gaining access to sensitive material. Um, please let it be known that this material wasn't available to people outside of the school district. It was only for people the the pathway was only open for people within the district within our um organization. Um, so it wasn't exposure to the immediate public but for vet people within the district. We closed all those pathways down and um everything was locked out by the end of the night. Um and then this morning we went we took a deeper dive and continued to lock down our district and make it safer and more secure for our faculty, staff and students. So just a little I'm

008going to put in layman's terms a little bit the way the way I understand it. been working with Joe again found at 11 o'clock by 1:00 this morning we had everything locked down except um we met early this morning with the administration from from along with Joe myself and the technology team to see what was taking place and how students gain access kids are incredibly um in terms of technology have an incredible way of of of going around some things but let me just be really clear they weren't able to get into individual emails right so there is that piece that was protected but what happens if If people created um working groups through Google, if the for I'm going to going to give examples at the elementary educating with each other, we want to

009make sure that it's it's almost like Facebook public and Facebook private. And what should have been happening is those when those were set up, those those groupings, they should have been private. They should have been that people didn't have able to access and get into that. Um, nothing was inappropriate that was in there and and we obviously credit all of our our our teachers and administration. No inappropriate things, but they were able to get into conversations that appropriate teachers should have about sixth grade students about particular things taking place. This student's going to be absent for the week or whatever happens that the information sixth grade teacher or teachers were exchanging with each other. A lot of things they could access to might have been at Bolson Elementary School where they were able to access

010that. There was going to be pizza game day today or there was going to be an event taking place today because those weren't locked down. If those groups were created in the past and weren't checked off that they could people didn't have access to them. A lot of times there might have been 30 or 35 people in that group chat and then someone else tried to join in and people didn't realize that person was joining in there as well too. It's sort of mimicking what's happening in in our happened in our country as well too. Um but there we minute we found out shut down locked down and we went through 147 by the way is the amount of individuals brokenoff groups that were created in our community. Um again amongst teachers amongst teachers and

011their and their students it could have been any type of group that they were having conversations on Google with. Um we lock them all down. Joe's going through each individual of the 147 and making sure that you have to either get permission to join that group or that you don't even have access to that whatsoever. Um there were students responsible that got into this information um respectfully because of this student I can't share information but we we've been having conversations with those parents and with the administration of of Tahanu as well too. Um, we will be issuing a letter that's going out either later on tonight, um, or first thing tomorrow. Um, and we have vetted that and vetting that and made our attorneys aware of that as well, too. So, we know they know

012what's taking place here. Again, things that we're still uncovering, right? And we're still trying to we're trying to fix and make sure that we have the highest performing district. Um, and and again, to Joe's point, we appreciate the people letting us know as soon as they find out about this. Um, and and I'm sorry to say, I'm sure other people might have known about this taking place as well, too, but didn't tell us. It's all of our responsibilities as parents, school committee members, teachers, and preceding stuff like this. Technology-wise, you got to let us know so we can make those necessary changes and adjustments. Um, I I really put that layman in terms, but I want to make sure people understood that. Any questions on that at all? School committee. Thanks for acting upon it

013quickly. Yeah, we we Yeah, 11 11:03. Yeah, 11:03 texted Joe at 11:04 and I think we had it shut down by a little before 1:00 a.m. this morning. We had that shut down this. So, we got work to do on our end. Um, but to use that expression, students were able to get in the back door. We left a little bit of a back door open in our district and we were able to shut that down and now we're we we know that that's taking place, but 147 individual groupings that are out there, we're working on those right now to make sure that will not happen again. I would just ask can I just ask is there any plans for like the summer about just like going through the whole Google classroom ecosystem and making

014sure like double check I know it's this in the middle of the year you can't really like tear it apart but yes um we we've actually started as we're going through these individual groups um where we're slowly some of these changes are going to affect districtwide um for instance where we're taking a look at emails in and out of the district. If they're by students, should that be allowed? Should uh Google chat be available to students? All all sorts of different measures that we're starting to look at to know if whether they should be utilized or not. Um we're able to go in and look and see if the kids are using it. Um see if faculty and staff are using it. So we're we're taking a deeper dive at that. Um and everything every

015item that we look at we're going to make a positive change towards safety and security for our students. The other part is we we need to do some professional with our staff and in reality right so when they're setting up these Google chats that I'm going to get a group of us working together and working on a document or having an exchange of a student absent or whatever it happens to be that we know that we're making that a private document and that's not a public document as well too. We need to do some work on that and as our as an admin team and with our staff and faculty have most of this any other question again communication either today or tomorrow we're just making the final changes to that get that out um

016as a community and again our attorneys have been made aware of so this way that we're making sure we're doing things right and protecting our district as well. Do you want to continue with security or do you want to come back to it later in order I'm good with that. I just want to make sure that information was out because we're trying to get that letter out and we want to make sure you guys knew about this before the letter got out to parents and you're getting that letter at the same time as parents and school members and saying what's going on with this have them follow up really nicely underneath um the agenda it for tonight if that's okay. All right. Uh so there's no more part of Joe's report. Joe, do you want

017to add a little not necessarily on this but on anything? Sure. If you want me to continue, we we have summer projects lined up. um changing out the firewalls at the three schools, upgrading that um adding going through the Google admin console and and sharing up additional measures for safety and security in there. Um updating the access points to improve Wi-Fi capabilities throughout the buildings. In addition, we are um we've been talking about how we're going to um completely take control of the safety and security and the protocols for all of our students and and how do we do that? How do we take more ownership um whether we go to a true onetoone school district and we um eliminate our students from being able to bring in their own devices? what a plan like

018that if if that's the decision that we're going to go, how does that plan look? Um, you know, we I know that our families are are buying devices for our students to bring in MacBooks, Chromebooks, Windows-based computers that they're they're allowing and we're allowing them to do that. Um, but what that does is that leaves us open for additional um safety and security issues by not having complete autonomous control of the device. So, the students have additional ways. Um, for instance, if a student brings in a MacBook, they can very easily open up iMessage and and text with their friends in the middle of the day and it looks like they're working off their device. Um, if we if we own our devices, we can look into programs such as um Harpa or Harper or

019or GoG Guardian um at our elementary schools or even across the entire district, which will allow our teachers to actually visually see at any given moment in their class what the kids are on. Um, obviously programs like that come with additional expenses, but um, we're trying to figure out what is the best direction for the district to go in to take control. I don't want to say take control, but to provide um, our students and our families with the highest level of support and security features that we can. And I know that's something we're going to probably talk about in the subcommittee you guys have. But yeah, I gotta I gotta tell you, we we tried in Hampton and Wilber moving forward in that direction. We're gonna have to definitely survey parents because a lot

020of parents have invested in computers and invested in technology for that as well too. But the best way and the only way for us to be able to completely control the security of technology is when we have those devices, we own those. We can control what's going in and out of those devices. But that's a conversation we're going to have to really get input from parents on. So Al, this might be a question better for the principles, but what is the school policy? How do teachers I don't want to say behave because that's not the right word but how do they operate in a classroom? The kids got a device whether it's their own device or school's device and they're on a type and way teacher thinks like George said oh they're probably just doing

021that work. What is the procedure? Do you have a set time for them to be on a device working? If a kid just randomly opens a device says oh I'm taking my notes on my laptop. Is that allowed not allowed? What are you doing right now? Because the same thing with the cell phone policy, like we can write all the policies we want, but if they're not being enforced in the classroom, what's the point? So, so what is the procedure right now? Um, so right now there's a variety of um, you know, depending 6 through 12, that's a wide range of grade levels. And so most of the information that I received and as I walk around um most most teachers are allowing students to use their Chromebooks um for a small part of a

022lesson um most of the time maybe I would say four out of the five days. Um, some teachers are don't rely on it at all and maybe it's once a week for 15 minutes. So, it's it varies depending on the content area and the type of work that's being done. All teachers are walking around when students are on their devices. All teachers are walking around to make sure and to make sure that they're they have the work that's been assigned on if they're doing anxl for math or delta math or if they're on HHMI doing some type of um exploration because there are some very, you know, good quality materials to be accessed out there, but they're walking walking around and having if there's a pair professional in the room, they're having that pair professional

023um walking around as well. They there are some teachers who would like I I think there's different uh you know protocols put in place at the elementary school. I think, you know, even at the middle school, I think maybe like a GoG Guardian, um, people would appreciate that the people who use it more, you know, use the Chromebooks more often in the classroom, but there are some classrooms that don't rely on it. So, it really would have to be on an indep like, you know, who would use this particular technology. I know that English teachers right now for um moving you know historically it's been a great tool tool particularly when collaborating you collaborate on a Google doc now we we're becoming more cautious with authentic writing and so we want to make sure that

024students are collaborating collaborating in an authentic way and not having AI disrupt that process. So, some of the high school teachers are having them put the Chromebooks away and doing things more of a pencil and pen traditional way. Yeah. Good. Okay. I mean, I'm a fan of using the technology in class. It's a tool. They're going to have to get in the real world. Absolutely. But I'm sure some kids are are better than others at the alt tab shortcuts to hide things around. Absolutely. So, are we doing any sort of training, professional development for teachers on how like signs to look for, what to spot, how to make sure that you know what I'm going to say probably, how to make sure a kid's son isn't going on LinkedIn, creating a profile, sending them a

025message during the day, like what do you know, how are we handling that? Yeah, I can talk about the elementary and then I'll ask that question. Yeah, that's why I let you question. I know it's a little different at this level. Um, and I'm just looking, Joe had asked for some information about how often they're using it, what they're using it for. We're still collecting that data and it depends on the grade. Um, so for instance, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, right now it's 20 minutes weekly on handwriting, handwriting without tears that and there's a lot of assistance there with those with those kids. First grade it's, you know, they're they're watching these kids are learning how to do it. First grade is they have Chromebooks and they have iPads, not one to one, they're

026working on that as well, but um they have those things. they're being taught how to use this. Second grade is like an hour per day uh research typing. I don't have any information on third grade yet. Fourth grade is an hour per day doing things like Savas, practice buddy, the math um waggle, rocket math, walking around doing this. Fifth grade is 6.25 hours weekly on research reports, things like that. There are some filler games in that we've cut back on um to do more rigor. Um, but I will say that uh, one of the things that's helped is Bark. So, I just went on just to see that I had eight alerts from just the last couple of days. Um, one of the things that we found out about this is the kids didn't know

027about Bark, but we kind of let them know if um, we have seven, doesn't it? It certainly does. They're being kids. They're they're calling each other, you know, silly little names. And my school site or my adjustment counselor or myself have access to this. We go through we go and say, "Hey, did you know we can see what you're doing on your school computer?" And that's not okay. That's not kind. Um, so they're really, it's really cut back on. We get a lot of alerts about that stuff, but the teachers are going through, the parents are going through. We have had some things like that. Um, LinkedIn, and I'm going to tell you that was fixed within 15 minutes. All we do is reach out to Joe and Dave and boom, it's done. These kids

028are smart. They're techsavvy more so than I ever was at their age. Um, we didn't have all this technology. I know there's been um another classroom where um I had to speak to someone just because there was something set up and kids were going on to games that might not have been appropriate. Um and we address that when it happens to have your eyes on. You should be circulating because technology is great when it's used properly, but these kids can get into things. Um that is just amazing to me. I had to bring something to Kyle about they they could open up other accounts. I don't know if he he was researching. I don't know if you brought it to you that they could go into another account to open another account and I'm just

029like what? What do you mean? What are they doing this for? So, we're we're keeping an eye on them and it's just circulating and just have an eyes on. Are they being made aware through like a privacy policy or something that this is not your device? Anything you do can be seen. We sign in the beginning. So, so that's the thing, right? So, I'm going through this right now with globally 28,000 people and yes, you can make them sign it. You can make them stand up. and shout it that they read it and they understand it and then they'll go and do it and say they didn't understand. So more than just a signature on a million forms that they get at the beginning of the year and it goes for staff too. Y so

030so one of the things so so what Cindy was just going through. So Joe sent out some information to all of our principles. So I know Cindy's grabbed that. I know John's still working. I know Lisa is still working on get surveying our teachers saying how much screen time do our kids have? What what are they looking at so we can stop looking at that? Um, you know, even the conversation we had today at the high school, um, one of the things that we're able to refer back to is just as a reminder, mom and dad, if your kids sign this and you sign this and and they're held accountable and and that's one of the things we're we're teaching. Um, but even like I said earlier, say we we need to be constantly working

031with our teachers on the professional learning aspect of this because to the point that Cindy said, these kids are smart, right? even the way that they were walking us through how they got through the back door today. It's it's amazing to us the knowledge that these kids have and for us to be able to keep up with them constantly with this as well too. A great article I haven't sent you yet, you know, in Nicole that I'll be sent out about the school districts that are not using cell phones that are not limiting this the the screen time and what kids are bringing in and how they're working the way around that that's taking place in Boston. I'll share with you as well too. Bringing burn phones and bringing other devices in as well too.

032is just amazing. That's healthcare as well too. So all of these things we need to take into account. But it will be interesting. I'm hoping for the next school committee meeting June, we'll have the report from Lisa, from John, from Cindy uh about what our kids are doing for screen time and making sure that we're we're looking at holding our teachers accountable to make sure that it's not that much time being used in the classrooms as well too. Is there legislation currently being talked about about required minimum or maximum screen time? Uh I don't know the answer to that. Um I don't I know I know another state just said no no no cell phones. I think is New York. I think I don't know if it's state or national being proposed that is setting

033boundaries on screen time. Yeah. I I think it's in the early stages. Yeah. Right. But um so I know that locally Massachusetts level there's legislation being talked about for cell phones specifically. I think there's also screen time. Um, interestingly, so I was for our last meeting and I'll sum that up later, but the American Academy of Physicians um actually went took a step back from saying two hours only screen time, right? That's all that we hear. That's all I council. Um, but they actually took a step back and they said really it's the quality and who's overseeing it and not the quantity. So that sounds like it makes more sense because uh I mean you can't get away from it. You know, you have every single person in this room uses a device to work,

034but you're going to be on it. It's a tool, right? It's just like a graphing calculator instead of uh Abigus. We we we talked about it. I'm not sure whether it was Cindy, John, and Lisa, but even keyboarding skills like my age, right? And so we had lessons where you learned how to use the keyboard. We're watching some of these kids is walking around doing the MCAST doing this trying to like because they're used to this, right? And being able to go this way. I sat behind at that program we were at last night, right? The Nobel laureate. There was a girl sitting in front of me, man, she was so fast on that on that phone, but but all with two hits, but no no skill set could that travel on to using on

035keyboarding skills as well, too. So, you know, John tells a story about the MCAT grades being low and they figured out it's because they started they didn't know how to do punctuation, capitals, absolutely keyboard, right? Absolutely. Elementary and and we we don't teach that skill as much as those keyboard skills that we should be doing with our kids as well. There's a lot of work to do in keeping up with the technology as well too. And and we got two full-time technology people for our entire district as well too. And half of them are spending the time just fixing our technology devices implementing the work that needs to be done. pretty thin in the office there. Yes, you had a bunch of Anybody else have any questions or other comments? What's that? You've done your

036report. Oh, good. Thank you. I just looked at the list and I didn't see any bills that were related to cell phone use, but there is one for safe practices for wireless. Yeah. Being considered, which is cool. All right. Uh, thanks, Joe. Should we go back to uh Tracy? Tracy, Aaron, I think you were next on the list. Sure. Okay. You have two items. Uh first item is budget report. Um I'm going to speak to just a few items. I think some of them um we've gone over a lot of items um related to this. Uh everything seems to be trending similar to to last time. So I don't want to uh sort of beat anything to death. Um, if you look, there's definitely some ups and downs in health insurance. Our aggregate health insurance

037though. Uh, is about $222,000 to the good with with $78,000 encumbered. That's about $300,000 total uh available. Um, we have uh I believe two more bills that should be about $150,000 each. So, that seems like it's going to come in uh just about on uh transportation. Um you'll notice the net is is a little bit negative if you were to add all the numbers up. Um but within that is about $952,000 encumbered. There have been some challenges with special education transportation. Um and I think some of our NRT invoices are are running a little slow. So we're going to uh look at that. Um, Asibet right now is um way behind in terms of their special education transportation billing. Um, in fact, Asibet has filed a breach of contract with Vanpool right now um and

038is looking to get out of the contract um for next year. So, they're putting that back out to bid um so that's um going to be our collaborative or just that's as collaborative. Yeah, as Valley Collaborative, I'm sorry. they do our they coordinate our special education transportation. Um so they're looking at a number of options, but one of them right now is is definitely getting out of that contract and re um redoing it with with much tighter specifications. So the real challenge is uh the people at Asabet are struggling to um reconcile the invoices they're receiving um against the actual sort of student information. um there's a lot of uh waiting hours being charged um that they don't think are appropriate, things like that. So, um you know, separate item, but you know, we don't

039really have a lot of control over that. It's really um but they're they're starting to reconcile some of them. Um I think they're a few months behind right now as of this point, but as of this report, they were quite many months behind. So, it's it's a bit challenging. Um, another item, uh, long-term subs. You know, we've talked a lot about sort of looking at those numbers. Uh, right now in the aggregate across the district, uh, we have about $58,000 to the good, long-term subs, which is good. Um, day-to-day subs, we're only about $9,500 to the good to get us through, you know, sort of the last couple months of the year. Uh but net net, if you think about that as one big category of substitutes, we're about $67,500 to the good that should

040cover the the remainder of the year one way or the other. Dayto-day subs will go over, but long-term subs will be under, which is that that's the way a budget works, right? We're taking the best guesses we can. Some things pan out to the positive, some things pan out. Um and then we I talked about a little bit before. Right now in the aggregate we're looking about 122,000 over in private out of district special education. Uh but we've got adequate circuit breaker to cover that. Um by the next report there is that odd encumbrance. So if you look at the notes uh on the first page there's that odd encumbrance that I've talked about a number of times about $2.4 million. um 924 of it seems to be intended to be coming from school choice.

041Um so that leaves us so when you look at the $5.7 million balance that we have right now that leaves us with another about $1.3 million of sort of encumbered funds that um is mystery encumbered funds. I'll probably just clear out that encumbrance um before the next report so we see where things are at the end of the year. doesn't bother me to have some extra conferences in. It just means we're being a little more honest. I don't argue with that. Um other than that, um there this report does include one of the things we didn't realize when when we came in and took over uh earlier this year is there is a bus um that is dedicated to taking uh Boilston's vocational students to Asabet uh Valley uh uh uh uh tech um the

042tech school. So, we've been paying that out of the general fund, not knowing that that's what it was for. Um, so Boilston called us and said, "Hey, are we going to get bills for this?" Uh, so we went through and we found all of those bills. We've given them to Boilston. They're going to be giving us uh a check for about $43,000 to cover um that amount. So, you know, little bit of help on the transportation side. Uh happy to take any questions if people have questions. Um otherwise feel free to email me anytime if you go through this and and see a line item. Um you know like uh health insurance you'll see is is kind of all over the place. The reality is people move around a lot. They change plans. You know

043once we make that determination more than a year in advance on health insurance um you know it can change a lot. But again, you you kind of hope that to the you're going to be in the aggregate, everything's going to balance out, right? Someone's going to go off a family plan, someone's going to go on, but they're not all going to do it at the same school, right? So, you've got some movement, a lot of movement there. Any questions? Sorry, I asked for questions then. To be clear, because I know in the December report, some people had some questions about why we halfway through the year and haven't spent half the money. This is as of the first quarter this year, right? This is through this is through the third quarter. This is through the

044end of March. Third quarter of our year. First quarter of the calendar. Yes. Yes. Y So it's And that's July 1st through Yeah. Now keep in mind um administrators who are on a 12-month contract go July 1 to June 30th. Teachers go September to August. So they've been paid for seven months this year, not nine. So they're about run about two months behind. I have looked at the spending on teacher salaries and it's just about on it's within um you know about $100,000 but again we haven't tapped any school choice. We haven't includes that incumbrance things like that. So I think um we're trending fine there. That was the question that the broncom had was about teachers in December. The answer was well we've only paid them for two months by six. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

045So this is a month. All right. Cool. Anybody else? Megan. Um, yeah. So, like going back to what you said about that that I know like there was an issue with this report and the incumbrances. So, that piece of incumbrances for some reason it wasn't encumbering certain salaries. Is that what you're talking about or No. So, well the report our because we do our payroll in Harper's we don't naturally encumber anything like like in terms for salaries which is a problem. I we we'd like to figure out how to remedy that. It's not an easy fix. Um it either requires a lot of manual labor or finding a system that will allow us to encumber salaries properly. Um what exists though is someone prior to my starting in July or August put in this random

046$2.4 million encumbrance in the system. I have no idea. It's it's dozens of different line items like a portion of my salary, a portion of Al's salary, a portion of teachers is encumbered. So any salary incumbrances, salary line incumbrances you see are part and parcel to that encumbrance. It's almost all salaries are encumbered. Um, again, I said I I don't mind having extra encumbrances in the system because honestly, all it does is make it look like you've spent more money, which is probably where I'd want to be unless, you know, we were way over before we close the year. I will certainly zero that out because it doesn't make sense to keep beyond the end of the year. And I'll pro I'll certainly do it before I provide another report. All right. So, that's just

047that was something that was already encumbered in there. It's a bunch of different things. Salaries are not encumbered. So, in your opinion, we're in good shape, but we it's not like we have crazy extra money. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah, we're we're trending as as far as I can tell, we're trending very even to where we should be with the understanding there are some items that are in this budget that weren't necessarily intended to be. So, for example, um like there is fund in the budget, right? We haven't assessed it to the towns, but in the budget there literally is still in the line for um the SRO that never happened. I think was intended to come out of the budget. I think we've had that conversation and there's a few other line items that are

048in there. So um you know the intent is we should be within or below budget. Um and hopefully that intent, it appears like there was an intent to take quite a bit out of school choice. Hopefully we won't have to take that much. Right. I think we talked about, you know, rather than trying to commit to a number up front, we'll get towards the end of the year and we'll see where we are and and try to minimize what we take out of school choice. Thank you. Thanks, Sarah. There other questions? Okay. Uh item two um is a memo from me regarding these are actually Tanto student activities accounts. I'm sorry I haven't uh the elementary school uh accounts uh typically fall under the threshold um to require that much action on it. Um but

049uh our uh Tahanto accounts are under a little more scrutiny. They're audited on a regular basis, things like that. I will look at the elementary student activity accounts, but those don't change as frequently as well. So there's a little little more um movement in middle and high school. So, uh, what I'm hoping to do is I can't see anywhere that indicates that the school committee has taken any action in the past few years, um, regarding student activity accounts. So other than the ones if you look at the top two that say pending to Hanto world uh explorers and sweet and savory which are clubs that the school committee already approved um as well as if you go down to the second page the bottom of the second page you'll see class of 2032. I apologize

050if you pulled this um uh earlier it may have said uh 2023. I just mixed the two numbers up. Uh thank you Jess for pointing that out. Um but it was intended to be 2032. That's the incoming grade six, right? So they'll come in and they'll have a class account. Um but not knowing when, where, or how a lot of these accounts were approved. Um it's my preference to just have the school committee approve everything sort of in in one fell swoop. You'll also see there is some movement. So we're eliminating some accounts. So the school committee policy indicates that every that any student activity accounts that ceases to be active for a period of three years um should be um there's a process for that um so with the realization that we probably have

051not followed that process um I went through with Lisa and Patrick Minahan who is sort of the overseer of the student activity accounts and we looked at accounts that really didn't have any activity in like more than five years and said let's let's scrub those and let's put those funds in appropriate areas. So you'll see some actions. So the community services club hasn't had activity in uh between five and seven years. So we're going to request that you remove that account and transfer the $130 in it to the civics activity account. So, the goal is to put it in the most closely related account you can find. Um, arts and crafts, uh, transfer that to the industrial arts club. Um, we're going to the garden club. We're going to look at whether there's an opportunity

052to do we'd like to close it, but hold those funds for now. Um, there is the possibility we might try to see if you can move that to a more appropriate revolving account for the teacher to use for things like plant sales and things like that to help fund classes. So, we want to look at that. Uh, the life skills cafe, the goal would be to remove that and transfer the remaining balance to unified sports. uh the globe middle school global citizenship club would be to remove and transfer $244 to the high school model UN uh math team we're really just you'll see there's freshman and varsity we're really just consolidating those two and moving um interestingly in the aggregate they have a positive balance but the varsity math team has a negative balance so

053it'll just come out of that other account if you read also read this the student activity accounts policy. Uh accounts aren't supposed to have negative balances in accordance with the policy. So, we're going to try to wipe that out and clean that up. Uh guidance college fair. Um we're going to um remove and transfer the balance to PSAT AP test. Um, I am also going to look at that account as to whether that has a pretty large balance and it's not really doesn't really fit the definition of a student activity account per se. Uh, in my former districts, we've had uh more formal revolving accounts, guidance revolving accounts that they would use for that. So, I'm going to look into that. uh library. Uh we move remove and transfer to miscellaneous field trips. Anatomy field

054trips remove and transfer to miscellaneous. These were sort of for oneoff field trips and items that just aren't done anymore. Uh Spirit of America field trip, um move that to miscellaneous. Uh the lay miz field trip, um remove and transfer the 425 to the French field trip. Um that seemed to make sense. uh computer field trip would be removed and transferred to um the industrial arts club. Alexis's field trips um that would be removed and transferred to miscellaneous field trips. Um you'll also notice in your policy that um graduating classes when classes graduate um they should do something with those funds within two years. Um really at the end of the day um student activities accounts are student activities accounts. The minute that students graduate, they're no longer our students. They really should take that

055money almost immediately is what the state would recommend. Uh but we went we went with policy and want to give a little bit of a window to some of the more recent classes. But there is uh class of 2008, 2014 and 2021 that we really feel like we should just close and move to um undesated funds in accordance with the policy. There will be um an effort to reach out to the other classes that have graduated and a renewed effort to speak with um those classes, the newly graduating classes in advance of their graduation. uh things I've seen done frequently is the graduating class will take whatever funds are left over and transfer that um do a formal transfer to the incoming class. So they might give that to uh the incoming sixth grade class

056or they might do something on behalf of the school donated to the school for a statue a bench something like that. So, um, some options. Um, so adding the grade six, um, math calculators. Again, not really, this doesn't really didn't really feel like it, a it fits the the um definition of a student activity account. Um, additionally, it hasn't been used, so we'd move that to the math team. Uh, invisible child fundraiser, we'd move that to the civic activities club. So, those are the moves. um as well as sort of um approving all of those accounts just to make sure we get them all approved and in uh the second action is I have no idea what this school committee has approved at any point in time in regards to the total balance of that

057student activities agency account. So we have one big bank account right now it has about $134,222 in it. Um what we'd like to do is have the school committee authorize a maximum cash balance of 150,000. That way if if additional money goes in um again we're hoping to move some of this out into more appropriate venues. Um at which point we might take that down but at least for now we'd like to um put that in and make sure we have some wiggle room to work with. So uh you'll see below I have a recommended action uh in two parts. Next questions. Um, so like the class of 200 uh 2008 and the class of two 2014, I understand moving those, but I feel like the class of 2021 maybe should also be reached out

058to. Okay. I don't know what other people feel, but I just feel like that was a odd time of our history. Mhm. A lot of times these class reunions in previous dishes they they I'm sorry the class money they put to their own they move it and then they use it for their reunions like the 50 or even the 10 year reunion. So there's options. We just need to let they just need to let us know. We shouldn't be hanging on to their money, right? And figuring out like us and also managing that. Our treasur needs to look at all that stuff as well too. Um what's the policy say on the years again? Uh two two years. Yeah. So I'm I'm h it's you know it's your policy. You guys can kind of override

059it. I think we've tried to be a little extra generous on some of the time because we're not sure some of the proper things have happened. Um so I'm I'm happy to hold off on that. My recommend I would change my recommendation slightly if the committee I don't I don't think we need a vote but if the committee generally feels like that I don't know by a show of hands or something I'd be happy to just amend this to that. So that whenever you make a motion, it would be inclusive of my change. Is that it's it really just amounts to another $250 sitting in that account. Um you know, if we were doing it year, um you know, the auditor would give that as a you know, a concern, but it's fine. I think

060it's fine. I think that if you reach out to the 2021 that person still exists obviously 2008 person might not even be in this area but 2021 hopefully the person is they're approaching their five years and they might be you know that's money I don't know right they're probably still in college probably they served I don't I think that's fine okay I I will make that amendment then so my consider my memo amended why don't we uh vote on it as is and want to amend it okay that's fine I we've got in trouble before without doing actual votes. Okay. Um I just have a quick question. So you've got this hundred and something thousands in the student activity account and I get they're all designated for these things. Um well I think you have

061an undesated account in here, right? Yes. Um all right. So I guess my question is you know we're looking at putting in more parking at Tanto. Um we're looking at fixing the soccer fields which certainly affects student life. Yep. So I'm wondering uh would the committee be able to allow you know using some of these funds hundred and something thousands seems like a school committee cannot direct this money. This is stu this is studentowned money. The school committee cannot direct how this money is spent for the students. This is this is owned this money is owned by the students. Back to Jessica's point they they they did bake sales. They did pancakes. This is this is not our money. Yeah. So if but where's the majority? If the French club if the French club would

062like to donate to a parking lot, the students in the French club can vote to donate money to a parking lot but otherwise the school committee cannot direct this money. So Aaron, when you say this money, when you say renew account, what do you what specifically are you is? So, we're within within the accounting system that we use for this. Um, uh, Patrick would just create an account. Um, a line item to hold some of this money. So, as people deposit money, so we have one big account with $134,222 in it. The accounting software really just creates a series of buckets. Yeah. Right. And all Patrick's going to do is create new buckets for each of these classes. Okay. Yeah. Renewing an account just makes it seem like it's about to expire and we're Yeah,

063we're we're I don't I don't know for a fact when, where, or how any of these accounts were approved. So, I would just like to shore up the accounts. In fact, I usually go to school committee every single year and just ask them to reauthorize all the accounts and any new accounts just to be safe. Uh I I wanted to go back to the question I was asking though. So, all right. So, you like I get like I'm seeing this you're moving $90, $200. Great. I don't care. Then you tell us, oh well, we've got $130,000. That's a lot of money. Yep. Is the majority of that in undesated funds? No. So, like where is this? Like if you told me we had 20,000 I'd be like $100,000 the SATs SATs has 30ome,000 in it.

064Okay. Again, this is money that's that's been raised by students, they own this money. Um I get it. You know, regardless whether it's in undesated or not, it would need to be related to a student activity of some sort. It it can't just be So you gave us this report. You didn't put the dollar figures for every single account. No, no, no. Every single account. So, so you would you would imagine that the class of 2025 who's planning a prom and events like that would have a significant amount of money. I think Megan's point, I think the accounting says 134,000, but I only see like 800 or something. Yes. Yes. But what you're saying is we have zero, we know this, we have zero authority over this money. We just need the school committee to

065say go ahead school, keep these accounts treated the way they are. Sure. So, for example, the the yearbook has again they haven't all of the yearbooks are are pending being paid for, right? So, there's almost $10,000 in yearbooks. Uh, the drama club has almost $10,000 in it and there things down the list. Class of 2026 has 10,000. Um, all right. Class of 2027 has 16,000. Things like that. Undesated funds is actually only 2,000. Why would we why would we put a cap on this if this is why would we put a cap on it? Uh, you're mandated to put a cap on it. So that the requirement is that we come to that that you authorize a cap to the the balance. Um there's certain activities that your you know so if they have a

066car wash next month to clean everybody's pollen off their car they raise $17,000 they can only take we would come back to you at the next meeting and ask you to authorize bringing we're trying to anticipate that no one's I don't think anyone's going to have a $17,000 um car wash. We're anticipating that the graduating class is going to spend a lot of its money. yearbooks, money is going to get spent, things like that. And a lot of money is gonna get cycled through. Well, we're trying to this a lot. So, we're trying to avoid people having their own individual accounts, right? Or 10 years ago, a few years to keep it in their in a in a in a lock box in their classrooms and stuff like that, right? We're trying. So, everything's we

067just house the student money. We just keep it here, but we don't spend it. You know, I agree with the cap. I mean, I it's I don't like I for me it's eye opening that $134,000 is just sitting out there in assets. I understand that there are activities going on like the prom and stuff like that that you're going to spend money on. $134,000 is a lot of money. Um I'm sure the prom is probably $20,000 for whatever reason. It is, but it's all it's some of it's old money. Some of it's just money that's sitting there. So, I feel like we need to do I'm I applaud Aaron for trying to get this cleaned up. And I think we need to do kind of go through and make sure that things are being spent

068where they're supposed to be. And yeah, again, the AP stuff. Yeah, I totally get it. That's expensive. But, you know, that stuff isn't just kind of sitting there idle. Like parents are paying the dues to your point and then the money's kind of going in this black. Well, no problem. I mean, you see what these classes were left with. They were left with like $200. At one point, they had $30,000. They dwindle it down. Like it it sounds alarming. I totally understand that. But I for this looks totally normal to me. Yeah. So if you if you think about like each class if you think about each class has $15,000. Yeah. So that would be, you know, $60,000. And then and then you have, you know, yearbook has $15,000. Now we have $75,000. So your

069$134,000 all of a sudden is not that much money, right? Because it's there really are buckets of money that have that they're going to be used and prom is very expensive. And then there's prom and there's dinner, there's yearbook, point where they're going to spend it all Yeah. So maybe we should get a year end maybe we should be looking at year end reports. All right, I'm finally putting a cap on it. We're just trying to clean this all up and get this in front of you guys so you see what it looks like, right? All these obscure accounts. Should we uh should we do a vote? Have a motion that the school committee vote to authorize the following actions. Authorize the actions describe the vote to renew or remove identified student activity accounts and

070transfer balances remaining in removed accounts to the identified accounts and authorize a student activity agency account balance not to exceed $150,000 going forward. This is as presented in the SC memo student activities. Um 2025 513 PDF in the drive. Nobody wants to second after all. Second. No, you No, somebody has to move the motion and we do the amendment after. Correct. All right. So moved. I'll move the motion. Okay. Second. Second. All right. And then we have to make the amendment. Does anyone want to make an amendment? No. So I would like to amend that motion to say not the class of 2021 to reach out to disperse funds as well. So minus class of 2021 38080 line per account or whatever. Did you get that Nicole? It would just be to make an exception

071for the class of 2021 and rather than transfer funds, it would be to reach out to disperse funds. All right, I'll second the amendment. Would anyone like to discuss it? All in favor? I. Anyone against? All right, so the motion is amended. Anyone like to discuss that? All in favor? I. Anyone against? All right, that passes. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you. And I think that covers me. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks. Next time. Oh, no. Uh, yeah. Uh, Tracy's here. Yes. Let's talk about the upcoming superintendent search update. Thanks, Tracy. I apologize for being here. It's okay. Never underestimate the time. Um, I realize that you do have the handout that I have forwarded to you on the weekend. I did make one tweak. It's honestly just um add adding a date. I realized

072that I actually had to put in it when the position would close, which potentially is more for my knowledge than yours, but does make the luck makes more sense. All of there isn't any other change other than that. Um I do have a question to ask all of you. Look at this. Like suddenly there's furniture appearing. um do have certainly a question to ask all of you. So just to review um in terms of now that you have next year squared away um preparing for the full search for the permanent superintendent. Um we uh planned for getting started essentially right away. Um, and in fact, I actually even have a a bit of an assignment here for all of you to work on, um, however it is that you choose to do. So, over the

073summer, um, as I think I mentioned, what when we put together the brochure, which will become, um, that which gets posted in the position description, it has, uh, a description of the district, bunch of the data about the district, description of the communities, um, and that actually comes from all of you. Um and so generally we send it to the the school committee chair, ask um the chair to work in the administration, but also you all know your capacities better than I. So if you've got somebody who's really good at, you know, putting together the description of the community or what have you, that really is up to all of you. Um my sense is that we can there's not any sort of um restriction on when we do that. So my thought was to

074actually just send you that, you know, that worksheet right away and have you start working on it with the idea that that would already be done then when we start entering all of this conversation in the fall. Um then having spoken to Mr. Ganam um my plan would be to be in central office the week before school starts. So as you know things start to gear up in central office as we go through August. as part of that process having a conversation with those who are in central office um about what are the needs of the district what do they see um the district needing in terms of leadership um what is working well what is not and so forth then with the agreement of Mr. began the start date for faculty which as you

075know is on August 26th I will be in the district and actually do input sessions with the faculty as part of that. Um one thing that I really appreciate and think is actually really important um is doing it as part of a thing that staff is going to be doing anyway rather than a here's an option that you can give input about makes a huge difference in terms of the level of participation. Um, and so I really appreciate that actually just being part of the the professional development day that day. As you all know, the first day of school is the 28th. Um, honestly, genuinely, rather than having the public survey open that day, my plan actually is to make it available to send the link to all of you um to the district leadership

076so that it can go out with the back- tochool communication and just make it part of, you know, those first newsletters and those first emails and put make sure it gets on the website and everything else. Um because as you had spoken of, you know, making this essentially part of the we're coming back to school, we're planning for next year um is a really useful thing. Um so you can I guess disregard that it would be actually opening on the 28th, but mark that it would be going on through the communication. Uh I am going to ask that within that first week or two, there's some flexibility there. It will depend on when people are meeting. Um, I also get an opportunity to meet with your student council and then um I will schedule public

077input sessions in the evening. Um, if you have strong feelings about how that should work, I'm happy to take um your direction on that in terms of sometimes two town regional districts want to make sure that there's one in each town. Sometimes communities like to make sure that there's one in person and one online. Um, I'm happy to do that however you think would work best. then I will be back before you for your meeting on September 23rd. Um, and that really is a a decision night for you. Um, I will be coming back to you with a draft brochure which will have all of the information that you've compiled from the for the district profile in it. And I also will have a report for you that evening based on all of the input

078that I've gathered over the preceding number of weeks. um from the survey, from the staff and faculty input, from the public input, from the student input, from central administration. Um I will bring that back to you with a draft um position description, a draft of here are the things that the that the Berlin Boilston public schools are looking for in their next superintendent. Um that may be experiences, strengths, professional descriptions, what have you. Um but that is entirely under your purview. So I'll bring you a draft. it will be up to you to deliberate and to figure out exactly how you want that to be phrased. Um, the other thing that you'll be doing that evening is I'll be asking you to determine the makeup of your search committee. Um, there are some sort of

079general outlines as to who tends to be on it in terms of, you know, there's usually parents, there's usually teachers, there's usually representation from central administration. I highly recommend having at least one student on it and so forth. I'll be bringing to you that evening a here's what I would recommend kind of list and then it will not only be up to you to determine the size and who what the seats are but how those seats get appointed that evening. Um again it is entirely under your purview. So if you all want to actually appoint by name you can. I've also had a number a growing number of communities um ask essentially for applications and then I try to make sure that I balance out the committee through the selection process. Again, not a tonight

080decision um but something that I'll be asking you to do that for that meeting in September. We would then post the the position by the end of that week and um it would be open um Yes. Right. So it would be open for about a month. So in the paper version that I I've shared with you, you'll see that the position closed on the 24th. We generally have positions closed on a Friday. Um the one thing that I would do in between the position posting and the position closing is that I would meet once with the search committee. Um something that we do is train your search committee because they are a public body. So they are subject to the open meeting law. They are subject to the conflict of interest law. Um they also

081of course are operating largely in executive session which means that they have um responsibilities there and of course they're also an interview committee which means that they have sort of hiring responsibilities. Um we train our search committees in all of those things. Um it will also be sort of essentially a first meeting for them so they get a chance to meet each other prior to um as they go to work. When the position closes um on the 24th, I share those electronically, all of the applications electronically with the search committee. Um as you know, those applications are confidential. Um they're confidential not only in terms of content, but also in terms of you know who applied. I also uh generally keep confidential how many um until you actually get the full report at the end

082so that we don't get distracted by numbers and actually get to the part that matters which is the where did we end up by the end of this. Um the search committee on that evening in October will be sele going through all of the applications together in executive session. they will be making their determination that evening as to who they want to bring in as semi-finalists for interviews in confidential executive session. I would propose that those um interviews be on the week of November 3rd. Um you then I assume are displacing your usual Tuesday the no which would be a November 11th meeting to and maybe you're not doing it on the um the 10th but that was a guess on my part. um I can't meet later in that week because this is a

083joint conference but when you do meet that would be when they then would be publicly announcing the finalists to you. Now at this point everything after that is in green and the reason for that is that as soon as it passes over to all of you we have scheduling questions. Um, so the discussion that I had had with you when we were talking about timelines, um, really the couple of times that we've done it while I've been here has been that you would be finishing the search and would have your next superintendent at least selected. You might still be in contract negotiations before you broke for the winter break. Um, essentially then before the end of the calendar year. Now the what that means is that this this once this the semi finalists are interviewed

084and the finalists are selected the process turns back over to the school committee and so it's the work of the school committee that then happens between that November 10th date and the end of the calendar year um if there's going to be any sort of um scheduling difficulties if there's complications I know people make plans people may have holiday plans people may generally take various kinds of vacation during that time. If that is the case, we should know that now. We should decide that now and not commit to a timeline that's going to essentially not be something that we can keep. Um, if you do as a committee are sure that you will all be able to have the weeks of in particular, you would need to have a meeting that middle of November in

085order to announce the finalists. Um you committee members would need to free up some time during those week particularly the week before Thanksgiving. Um I also did include the 24th because there are two days of school in the the next week. Um to be able to visit the home districts the finalist. Um that is something that I think is actually a really good perspective for school committee members to have. You do that in nonquorum pairs. Um and yes it generally does happen during the school day. And then you also would be able to run would need to be um able to all be here to run interviews during that first week of December. So really the main question, Mr. Chair, for you all is whether or not that is something that is achievable by the

086committee. Um because it's entirely it's entirely up to you. Um it's you know we can we can reschedu this to be happening at January. It does mean that you won't be finishing the search by the end of the calendar year. Um, I try not to be sort of fear-mongering, but I will say that having searches completed by the end of the year does tend to be a sort of fairly traditional pattern. So, what that does to less those who apply, but whether or not we get to a point where finalists are taking positions other places because you're waiting until after vacation, that is always a possibility and um sort of, you know, to be realistic. So, but again it is entire it's your search. It's your decision. Um it's your calendars. You know best um

087whe what you can keep to and what you can't. Um but that last part in particular would be what I would be interested in from the school committee. Although of course I'm happy to discuss any other part of this. Mr. Chair, thanks Jason. Uh first question is anybody have a major problem with those dates of the November December or right? I mean not now. [Music] Yeah. I mean it's May so well and so then I think processing this return then that really becomes I mean honestly one of the things I like about doing this to be quite honest with you is that I then go in and I actually put it all in my calendar and I already know if you all are willing to make that commitment such that you know you're just going

088to be scheduling everything else around this because you want to make sure the search gets done by then. I mean that you again you know you're so nobody has a vacation in advance. Exactly. I mean my schedule comes out four minutes in advance. So, so I I'm curious like the you said set time aside during the school day. How many days of those weeks are you imagining or is realistic or so going by so understanding of course that we don't know for sure how many finalists you'll be presented with right I will tell you upfront I always tell school committees search committees um they need to bring forward um at least three um just because sometimes finalists say no um and as you may or may not know if you can't bring forward only a

089single finalist because then you've completed the search and executive session and you'd have go back and start it all over again. That's literally illegal. So, um there I got to have starters bring forward five finalists, three finalists, four finalists. Um what you would need to be doing then is having um school committee members visit the home districts of that many people. Um, and it essentially just becomes a a big chart that I make of these are the days that the home districts can host and these are the days that have school committee members available. Um, it is it is hard if we if we have people who can't do it at all. It is certainly understandable. I get it right. It's a work day. Um if there are people who say you know if I

090know in advance I can say that I can take this Wednesday and we do our level best to use the fact that they have that Wednesday. So Tracy and I and and Nicole met and we're looking at calendars. You guys have not approved your school calendar for next year. So made it hard for us those November dates but the the one pause that I said to Tracy maybe looking at that week before Thanksgiving. Does that work in your schedules as school committee members as well too? The week of Thanksgiving I think is to do you're saying that would we be doing in district visits? So the IND district visits one would hope would largely be completed the week before that which is the week of the 17th. Okay. Um the I like to be able

091to give the added flexibility of wrapping around to the Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week if at all possible. Now remember you're going to be doing both things because the the calendar goes in both directions. So that also means that the district is going to be hosting the finalists during that time too. Um and again because if I say only a week that gives us five days to have you go to as many districts as there are and also have those finalists all come here. Um if we can add the two days then if nothing else we get the added flexibility of those additional times. I do by the way also try to avoid the days before vacations because like no one's getting a realistic perspective on anything that day. Yeah, that's all I'm thinking

092is usually I know like our schools are like chaos and everybody's sick and you know it's just insane. We will we will certainly run into some of that in November regardless for sure. Yeah. So I don't know if it just makes sense to plan on like the week before Thanksgiving and then the week after Thanksgiving. I get that's the first week of December, but um I that's my only thought. Otherwise, the schedule works fine for me. Anybody else in the hosting here? Tracy and I will coordinate that. Right. So that won't be on you guys. You guys don't have to be here all those days, but we'll coordinate. You actually don't have to be here those days. Yeah. So, right. It's it really the the part in the November piece is really just about I

093can free up this Tuesday and this Thursday or I can free up this, you know, on Monday and this and I will, you know, be I will be in Massachusetts and I can actually do that. Um and then also that first week of December, I know we will be here. we can schedule either one long meeting or multiple shorter meetings to make sure that the interviews happen because obviously we don't want to be scheduling that and I did have a one of my colleagues had a search where someone went on vacation when they were doing interviews. Um and it would be great if that weren't happening because obviously you wouldn't be part of the decision. Yeah. Questions for me. What's that? Works for me. Yeah, I'm free. All right. And so just so you know

094then what what I will do is I will first of all I'll send the updated one that actually happens when the position closes to you. I'm sorry. And send a non-green version um to the district so that this then can go up on the website. And this is also something by the way that goes into not the the input sessions but the rest of it actually goes into the brochure. So people who are applying already know oh this is when the semi-finalists are going to be selected. this is when you're going to be doing an interview. This is when you're going to be making your selection plan. Um I also will say that I think that it's nice to have that you're planning on interviews for the first week of December. If you know we

095have havoc ensue and days off or what have you. Um we can you know we still have some time in December to get this done before the end of the calendar year. So we already have Tracy on the agenda for our opening day. So we coordinated all that. should be able to go with this similar timeline right with our staff as well. Yep. And I am making a note, Mr. Chair, that I will send you the um the district description um the profile via email and then again you can decide um how you want to piece that out and work with Mr. Ganon and his staff in terms of filling it out. Yeah. Um unfortunately Lor's not with us tonight. she's sort of the search sub committee chair. Um she's not feeling well, but I'll

096talk about that with her and um it may be something where she wants to head out the effort and yeah, tease it out from there. But yeah, we can definitely figure that out. You know, nobody has currently scheduled plans those weeks it sounds like. So I I don't know about Lori, but uh definitely check with her. Okay, that that would also be useful. Thank you. Yeah. So, so just for for the week of like the finalist interviews, how many days would you imagine would be realistic to people after? So, the day of the of the interviews, the interviews are in the evening. They're public meetings. Um, and it will be up to the committee to decide if you want to run them sort of one interview per evening or if you want to do them

097all one after the other. And that may partly have to do with how many finalists you have. I have to block my schedule. Sure. moving 10 patients is kind of rude last minute and so I try to avoid it. So that's why I'm asking like how should I block my So actually what would be great a couple probably be similar well and the other thing is that um what will be good is you'll know how many finalists you have on November 10th. So we can even have that evening I I will be with you that evening we can even have that conversation that night of when do you want to actually plan then to schedule the interviews of the week of December 1st. Yes. Nope. That's a that's even a good practice because then we

098can let everybody know ahead of time. Um, yeah. Anything else? Anybody have any last minute questions for I'm excited for the conference and I hope other people go too. Well, that was why I was like I was like I can come on the 10th but then after that my time belongs to the association. So, um, yes. Yes. I hope some of you can join us at the conference. Yeah, we're we're a little bit weak. We're kind of a week later this year. We're starting with Veterans Day rather than ending with it. As soon as Lauri approves this and not just approves, but get her input on those dates, then we'll get this on a district website as well, too. Yeah. Um, yeah. I know we don't have the the uh calendar for next year yet,

099but I mean, it's just typically, you know, the second Tuesday of the month. So, so we played with that November date when Nicole and I and Tracy met because of the way the holiday felt, right? Yeah. That's a really, you know, October dates, September dates or second Tuesdays, right? Yeah. So, we just have to be mindful of this when we're putting our count together in the school committee like make sure that we have those dates. Yeah. And is there like no school on that Monday too? I can't remember the school calendar. That's like a really long weekend. I thought we we looked at that though. It was November. Monday is a PD day. And then Tuesday is a no school for the holiday. And then don't you guys have the conferences like the week before

100conferences? It's actually that same week. No, I mean like school conferences like for parent teacher I just feel Yeah. So the week a after Veterans Day I think is fine. Yeah, that's weird. We've never It's never fallen uh school committee meeting has never fallen on the holiday. So yeah, it would be it should be the 11th, right? Okay. Good. Good. All right. Anything else, Tracy? Any last words of advice? Thanks for coming in. Thanks, Tracy. Of course. No, thank you. Appreciate it. Anyone to talk about have Lisa do her admin update? I'm sorry. We could do that. I know we have some guests and I'm so sorry we kept you. Um, but enjoyed our meeting so far. I'm gonna we could go into Lisa. Yes. So I um I'm really excited um tonight. My report

101is kind of a one one point and we have um our esteemed guest um Mrs. Irene Barry who is retired from the district. She was um um world language teacher extraordinaire as well as the world language um department chair and Such Chico who is currently the um history uh social sciences department chair um and um extraordinaire and all that he does and our varsity softball currently coach right now. So, um, but I invited them here today. Um, and there was another staff member who was not able to, um, come this evening. And it really is to honor the legacy that our staff leaves um, in um, in our students. And I think that's something that really needs to be lifted up and we need to feel very very proud of. So, I received um this

102letter. My name is Brendan Shanahan. I teach US and Canadian history at Yale University. I'm a proud graduate of Boilston Elementary School and of Tanto Regional Middle High School, class of 2007. Ghost Dags. My first book, Disparit Regimes: Nivist Politics: Alien Edge Law and CI Citizenship Rights in the United States 1865 to 1965 was recently published by Oxford University Press. I am sending a hard cover hard coverver copy of disparit regimes [Music] there um to Mr. P Chico to review in in this is this is I I I can't imagine how you feel being recognized in the book's acknowledgement section. I recognize the foundational education I received from the schools of the Burland Boilston Regional School District and my teachers at Bees and Hanto. I meant every word. I thank Mr. Pico specifically along with

103Mrs. Irene Barry, Mr. Patrick Minham for launching my interest in North American immigration history. He outlines that in um in his in the acknowledgement acknowledgement sections. Um Brendan's journey is not only a reflection of his own dedication but also a reflection of the educators who guided him along the way. This serves as a powerful reminder of how the power that educators have to transform the lives of young people and the future. and Brendan's success is really one of many that highlight the great things we do at um the Berlin Boilston School District and I wanted to acknowledge Miss Ironberry and Mr. Steve Pico for their contributions and being a legacy. And so not and so this serves as to me like thank you for the public for supporting what we do because it is so

104incredibly important. Um and I don't know did you you've been reviewing the book I know I know it's the end of the year so not a lot of extra time. Um, but is there any was there anything that you wanted to say about the book or about Brendan or Well, it's it's an overwhelming piece of scholarship actually. I mean, there there are about 60 pages of of notes at the end regards to, you know, his sources and that sort of thing. It is a tremendous piece of scholarship. Um, well beyond anything I ever tal um but uh It's just an impressive piece of work and and um it is something that he was oddly um passionate about um even as a teenager. So it wasn't wasn't like anything I directed him towards. It was um

105motivating Brendan uh is like motivating a shark to attack seal. Uh but but he really um so I'm quite proud to even have him be able to acknowledge me in this in this piece of work. is is is obviously it's topical but it's really more associated with 19th century. So it's not really a work by any stretch of the imagination, but does it is a great reference. you know, sort of the history of immigration um in this country and how it connects to voting rights and and um citizens rights and and um and census and even you know um lenture for professional um work within the government and even blue collar work and there there is a there is a blurb about the building the Clinton Dam right um and that's which is really cool

106and um in regards to um the workforce that was needed build the Clinton Dam and of course then you had the des you had conflict between the Irish um uh existing workforce and the Italian immigrants and that was very interesting I never I really never so it's it's um it it's a book that talks about the varying policies of state for state but it's also local so it's it's it's a wonderful but tense read well thank you thank you so much both for coming and that is my lifting up of what happens at Tahanto. Nothing could highlight that more. I'm going to you guys can um release a hug. [Applause] Thank you. Lisa, so that book. So that's a copy donated to the school. So that's here for anybody to check out. Yes, absolutely. And

107after Mr. Autograph that as well, too. Yep. Yeah. So I I I did want to make sure that Mr. Pico got the first read. It says to hunt to teachers and students past and present. No stats with deep with deep appreciation. How great is that? That's awesome. Great. Nice job. No, that's we talked one of the first things we talked about was celebrating things like this. Exactly. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you. Appreciate Thanks everybody. Thank you guys. I think Thanks for taking us out on that. Yeah. All right. Who wants to go next? That um I think we're on mute now. Do we want to do the You want to go me first? I was going to say Cindy, you want Can we do the principles and just have

108that piece be done? Completely out of work. Sorry about that. I'm up. Go ahead. Thanks. All right. Um so just a couple things happening at BES. Well, there's a lot of things happening at BES. It's the end of the year. Um, I want to highlight Nature's Classroom first. Um, fifth grade students and four of our staff members chaperones left this morning a little late, but they left. Um, check out the Facebook page. Those those the students were ecstatic. They were singing as they left. We had some great pictures on there. Um, beautiful day today, too, right? Yeah, it's going to be a beautiful I'm glad it wasn't last week because they would have gotten they wouldn't have minded it. They don't mind the rain, but um, very good trip. The kids were really happy. the

109a couple parents cried um because it might be the first time the children are leaving for a few days, but they're really excited. I do have a note in there that next year we do not want them in the encast window. This is the unccast window and we we have all this month until the the 29th I believe it closes. So, they're gone this week. We have um third and fourth grade taking math this week and when they come back we have makeup week. So, we kind of don't want that trip in there. So, that's in there. Yeah, that's in there for a reason. Um it's a time of um assessment right now at the end of the year for everybody. So Ames as web is going on. Um so we're in the middle of

110that. I would have liked to have shown you some of the results. We're we're not done yet. So AmCast takes the cake right now and then we're doing Ames Webb as well. Um so a couple things that were going on. This was the year math and we've really seen some nice growth in math. I'm really looking forward to seeing even though I will not be here, I'm looking forward to seeing the math scores next year. I will be looking. Um, so we've been monitoring, you know, the AS web since the, you know, all year, but really the winter there was a couple dips in our scores. One of which was math in one grade, which we, you know, the teachers did a great job of attacking why. And we, we really assessed that data. One

111of the reasons why that particular grade did not start the wind block until December of then, so where everyone else started it and they noticed a dip. So they really jumped into that. Um, we do not have their scores yet to show you their growth, but give it another couple weeks. Um, and another area that we noticed a dip in winter was the KLA. Um, and this happened last year, too. So, they're really looking into the why. And there's a couple things they're talking about is when we take those little five, they're five and six years old. We take them out of the room and BMS and Bees, their team assesses these kids. They don't know some of these test, the testers. We take them out of the room. We walk them down the hall

112and we give we're testing them on these things and we're wondering why. Um that could be a part of it. It's not everything. But then we've been progress monitoring them and when we progress monitoring them they're doing great and then we take them out and we do a benchmark and they're a little low. So we're kind of looking at that as well. The data on benchmark across the country and I I know John's on here at SL is they they they drop in the winter natural progression for kindergarten kids. Um, and I wish I wish I could tell you the exact reason why. My previous curriculum director could tell me the reason why that takes place. And then you see that surge back up again in the spring every winter. Back up when we haven't

113even done everyone. But there's a lot more skills in the winter benchmark versus the fall market. So somehow there's a dip in the winter and back up again. Well, my team doesn't want to see them dip. They really attack that why they're dipping and they look at everything, but it's really interesting to see their progress monitoring because the progress monitoring is up here and then and they're like why? Um, so they're very excited about that. They're really looking at that. Um, a highlight of one of the teams went up 20% in both ELA and math. That was huge. That was the first grade first grade team. So, we're kind of I want to see their scores this as well, too. But, they're just not done yet. But, they're they're really jumping into seeing what what

114what can we do to bring these kids to where they need to be in student success. So, that um other than that, events at the bottom. Um, you're welcome to attend any of them. Um they're coming up and it it's a very busy time of year there. So this week nature's classroom, John's gone early part of the week. Jar there on Friday as well too. I don't stay over. The kids come back. The kids come back Friday afternoon. They come back around 2. Perfect. Excellent. Thank you. You're welcome. What time is you? That is Sure. Um, so I had um three topics in the report that we submitted um having to do with our new special education determination rating from DESIE. Um an update on our bridges program as well as talking a bit about

115our special education coordinator role in the district. I'm actually going to start there. Um it's a great segue to the other two topics. Um and I added this to the report just based on the attention um in recent months that the special education coordinator role has received. Um and wanted to take the opportunity to share some information about the essential nature of the role in our district. um given that you know some of you may not have interacted or maybe um a handful of families or a majority of families haven't interacted with the special education coordinator. Um we have two in the district. We have one at Tahanto and then we have one that is halftime at Berlin Memorial and at the other half at Boilston Elementary School. Both are certified as special education administrators

116by DESIE and average 20 years of experience in special education each. Um, and as you're going to hear in my subsequent reports on our DESIE rating as well as our Bridges program, there's a great deal of technical compliance and interpersonal sensitivity in special education across the board. And both of these folks are really critical to all of that work. Um they have highly nuanced set of skills and responsibilities that are really critical to student well-being, family engagement, staff support as well as legal compliance. They're both um in very busy positions. They participate they coordinate participate and facilitate about 200 meetings per year each. Um and in Berlin Boer I'm sorry in Berlin Boilston our special education coordinators are also our preschool coordinators. Um so if you know if any of the families are coming in

117oftent times the um the special ed coordinator is their first point of contact in our school system. Um and there's a whole set of work and compliance and interpersonal skills that go with preschool as well. that's fairly unique in our district that um the roles are overlapping that way. Um so really this position supports families during some of their most vulnerable moments, guides staff in complex instructional behavioral decisions, helps maintain balance and functionality of classrooms across the districts. Their work impacts all students, not only those with disabilities. Um and as I like to say the role is really greater than the sum of its parts. Um in my report I had shared with you a couple of dozen you know almost bullet points of tasks that the special education coordinators do very specific to their

118roles. Um but really any of those um the importance of the of our special ed coordinators is much more than just those bullet points. It's it's really a collective nature. So, I want to just I I appreciate the time um to be able to talk about that role. We don't often do that in our committees, but again, I know that there's a fair amount of folks that don't have experience with the special ed coordinator or maybe even this preschool with them as a preschool coordinator. And there was a lot of conversation during the budget, right, about the special coordinator. I'm not sure if people really fully understand what the the responsibilities of that job were. So, we felt it was important to make sure we got that out there. Thanks. Thank you. So I just

119you're advocating for the to one not to be cut. Is that the Yeah, I mean it is really an essential role as I wrote in in my report. Um we've had both of those special education coordinator positions for at least as long as the 15 years that I've been in the district. And I don't think that they, you know, just appeared that year. Um you know, they've been here in some iteration for a very long time. Um, and I do think that it's really critical, um, you know, to the success, the compliance, the quality of our special education programs to be able to keep, um, that special education coordinator position at Tahanto. Um, so, you know, looking at some changes in out of district needs at Tahanto specifically may very well give us a segue

120to bring back that position. That's what we're looking at and that that's our hope as well too. So, we're still working on that. Um we're we're we're at this point because we're in the job market right now. We we put uh posting out there for um anticipated just to see what's going to take place with that as well. None of us wanted to really make the cuts that were made. Thank you. We appreciate that support. Thanks. Sure. Of course. I'll move on to my next my second topic which is bridges. Um so an update on our bridges program which as you may know is our special education program to support students with um significant and complex developmental needs. Um we have students in the district all the way really from preschool all the way through

12112th grade. I know that we often talk about it at the elementary level and indeed the majority of my report does focus on the elementary level but I haven't forgotten about the Tahanto needs here as well. Um so both Berlin and Boilston Elementary School um have a Bridges classroom. The one at Boilston has been there since 2018 and Berlin since 2023. um they each right now have a developmentally appropriate cohort and we are anticipating a total of 11 students next year at those elementary levels. Um that really demonstrates and reflects an increased need for this type of programming in our district which is not unique to Berlin Boilston. school districts everywhere are seeing um this level of need and we've been very responsive to that level of need and in that spirit as an admin

122team we've really assessed well what do we need to do to continue to meet this level of need and the projected growth here um so what we're looking at for next school year is really some imbalanced group sizes in Berlin and Boilston um and also an inefficient use of our resources given that projected enrollment. The admin um team has worked on that and looked at it and is bringing really a recommendation to bring both of those elementary bridges classrooms together under one roof. Um there are clear dis there are clear advantages and even disadvantages really for which building would be best suited to host that. Overall, we have a recommendation for Boilston Elementary School. There's simply more available space. It's on one floor. Um, it requires, you know, less movement and even the classrooms themselves

123are a little bit larger. Having the program together under one roof at the elementary level is really what's best for students. Um right now we would be looking at one classroom hosting two students and the other one hosting nine. Um that puts us into a host of logistical issues with nine students um in in one space. We're running out of physical space. It's um not an ideal group size at that level. There's a lot of there tends to be a lot of equipment adults that need to come in and out. Um, and again, it's really just not best for students. Academic, social, and emotional needs would be much better addressed in smaller group sizes. Having those students in under one roof allows us to divide those groups differently so that they maybe they look like

124five and six um or or four and seven, something like that as opposed to two and nine. Um, much different. Um, it also allows us to really utilize our staffing resources, even our equipment and our subscriptions very differently. Um, we believe we can do this without creating any additional costs for either Berlin or Boilston. It's not necessarily cost savings, but it doesn't increase costs. Um, and it is a more sustainable model that we would be very committed to for the long term um, to meet these evolving needs for students. We've talked about it with our CPAC, our special education parent advisory council to get some feedback. It's very supportive of the idea. I would like to get some input as well from the anticipated Boilston principal for next year. overall in the spirit of you

125know making sure that we're developing that program prek all the way through 12. We've been working with case collaborative to develop opportunities for improvements in all areas um such as program vision and alignment instructional material staffing professional development um supervision and even long-term planning for the program as well. not wanting to miss out on the importance um of students as they're growing older and they are moving up to Tahanto which has been happening. Um we are probably at this point just about overdue or about to be overdue um to add a special education teacher at Tah as well to meet the growing needs of students um in this area. again remembering that Tahanjo also services seventh grade levels um and and needing to be able to meet those needs as we look ahead. So that

126would be something that I would recommend um to our admin team that we consider for the FY27 budget. And my third topic is um earlier in May, DESIE released um the new special education annual determination ratings. As you may remember, we received a rating in January of last school year. So, this one felt like a it took a long time to come out. Um it is new to us and the admin team really is looking at all of the data to understand it. We did receive a um meets requirements rating which is the top tier rating um which we believe is very well deserved. Um this um this year DESIE did change the way that the rating is calculated as they do just about each year. So that doesn't come as a surprise. there's a

127fair amount of overlap in looking at um the criteria or the considerations that were in last year's report and this year report. They were just maybe broken down differently. Um for example, last year MCCAST um all the scores for MCAST for grades four, eight, and 10 were sort of lumped together in one score. This year they're broken down a little bit more. Um, and it looks at the proficiency rating for students with disabilities. It looked actually at 17 different um considerations across three categories of performance compliance and even other considerations. So very briefly um it looks at like items such as graduation, MCCAST proficiency, integration rates of preschool students, suspension issues, any disproportionate representation, um especially among specific disability categories. It looks at our responsiveness and compliance with child find early childhood transitions, any issues

128of non non-compliance, although we didn't have any in that period, um whether or not they would be corrected very quickly. Um it looked at a couple of fiscal areas such as our maintenance of effort, our timely and accurate reporting um for students progress in preschool as well as post-secary readiness. um accurate, reliable, equitable services count. And they let us know a couple of additional areas that they're going to be looking at in future years um such as the percentage of children that make progress in preschool as well as the percentage of students engaged in activities after high school that meet certain criteria such as competitive employment, post-secary training, and education. So, we're very pleased with that um with the new rating and we are as I said digging into some of the data that came

129along with it because it is quite a bit of data. It's great news and I knew you shared that with CPAC as well too, correct? Yes, I did. Yes, they were pleased to hear that as well. Thank you. Great news. Nice work on that. Thank you. Um I didn't give any time for questions for Cindy or Janelle. So, does anybody want to take either one right now? time. This is for Janelle. I just want to really appreciate the work you put into looking into how to make the bridges like sustainable and stable for the kids for the for the big picture long term because looking at nine kids in the Berlin classroom with the corresponding adults is that's crazy. It's a small classroom. It's unfair to everybody. And so to come up with a solution

130that works is going to provide them with long-term stability is great. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, it was really a group effort. Um, but thank you. And I appreciate the explanation on the special ed coordinator. That was very helpful. Sure. My pleasure. Anybody else? And just the Memorial Day. Is that 2 p.m.? Yes. And then in Berlin, I think it's in the morning. Yes. The memorial day. Oh, sorry. Like, what time is that, Cindy? there's like a concert or a show. Okay. Uh next um so uh we've been very lucky for the past um prior to this school year five years working with a organization called education development center and they um partner with DESIE in the digital literacy and computer science department. Um they were we were well uh lucky to have an

131extension of that grant for this year. And so uh as a result of that we were able to use some of those funds to develop a new coding course for our high school students which uh is showing a high number of robots which is very exciting. Um, and we also, um, our eighth graders taking computer science discoveries created some applications through that course that were helpful to younger students in grades K through two, um, and learning some basic things like alphabet and numbers and colors and things like that. They were invited to Wister State College over the winter for our university, I should say, um uh to participate in an exhibition where they won a couple of awards and um as a result, they're also being invited back to a second exhibition that's going to

132be taking place on June 3rd. Um they changed the location a couple times and they've even changed it one more time since I've submitted this report. So, it's no longer at EDC and Waltham, but at a tech company in Burlington. But, we're very excited for them. I plan to go to see how that that's going. Another um piece of information about grants that's exciting is that um through one of our ESSA grants, we were able to fund um a presenter, his name is Eric Lendes. is actually a former colleague that I worked with when we were teaching at Hopkins Middle School who left teaching to create a leadership academy for students um that builds students self-esteem, confidence uh that teaches students about you know um giving 10 out of 10 for every all the things

133that you do. Um so from part of that grant we were able to fund him to come in and present to our sixth, seventh and eighth graders. They um each had a separate presentation. He's very dynamic. He's very engaging. he gets them up and moving around. Uh they really loved it. We had a a survey done to collect some data on how teachers and students felt about that and the results were really positive. And uh what's also really exciting is that he takes the fee that he charges and gives it back as scholarships. So we actually have an opportunity for three of our eighth graders going into ninth grade to attend his um enjoyed um education academy at Baton College this summer. So the counseling department's in the process of choosing those students right now.

134So that's very exciting. Um development I just kind of gave a little overview of some of the things that uh we did this year. Um and you know as you saw in the report uh we did a lot of work with safety care and ABA training. Also safety in general for the entire district. Uh we did have some vertical alignment uh sessions between grades five and six for all four of the core subject areas. Um we also did some book studies. Uh our staff here at Tanto um some of them read the book High Expectations Teaching by John Safir and then the counseling department had another one called anxious generation and uh our own admin team is doing a book study on the book Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lum. Um also we um

135had some topics about uh artificial intelligence in the classroom. There were several series of professional development. For instance, at the elementary level, there's the year of math. Um, and there was also at all schools, uh, a lot of work around schoolwide goals that have been developed to help reduce gaps between our high need students and our, um, non- high need students. And now that we're getting towards the end of the year and some of our faculty meetings, we started to introduce uh, the concept of UDL or universal design for learning, which we talked about at our last um, uh, school committee meeting. And um we are really excited to be bringing in um a UDL guru uh Katie Novak to kick off our opening day and we are ordering her book which is entitled UDL.

136Now for our staff um our wellness committee uh took a lot of time this year to prepare uh presentations um to inform uh our community about our new wellness policy. We um were able to visit all three faculties from each of the schools. We visited school councils, the boosters, the CPAC, um also the PTO. Uh I was uh had a really great time actually went into the um health classrooms at both elementary schools from grades one through five um with a separate presentation that was, you know, more um child-friendly. And um we um have collected a lot of data from those presentations. We also sent it out to families, by the way, in the newsletters. And so our charge for next year is to take that information that we uh took um from those presentations,

137all the feedback and input and make some adjustments to the policy um in terms of areas that need clarification or wherever there might need to be some updates um due to federal regulations. We have one last thing that we're trying to book right now. Uh that new sweet and savory club that you voted in. Um they have agreed to have us come in and do a presentation and do some cooking with them. So, we're just waiting to hear back on some leads for that. And then finally, our steam committee really um picked up some um momentum this year. Uh we were able to u not only enlist some staff but also some parents. Um and through that collaboration uh we developed something called the Eureka series which is uh our attempt to bring in somebody

138from the steam um fields uh each spring and each fall come and talk with our community and inspire students. We were very lucky uh to have one of our parents uh Eric Erica to works at UMass and knows um Victor Ambrose who was the recent 2024 Nobel Prize winner and I know we talked about that event and I I saw some of you there. Um so he he and his wife Candy were here the other day and gave a nice presentation to uh it was a small group of people but the people that came were clearly very interested in that topic and um I was really excited to see after during the meet and greet session some students going up to Victor and speaking to him individually and and just you know some of the

139kids saying to me how you know they thought that it was so exciting and inspiring. So that was a great event and we are looking forward to coming up with somebody else for the fall. That makes sense. Sally, you're the the first part that you mentioned, the kids that were coding with Python. And so, I just counted this today. In the last three or four months, I've interviewed 154 college grads either for full-time or as interns for our company. Just about every single one that moved on had Python and projects they listed that they worked in Python on their resume. So, that is definitely something that is like the new thing. That's great to hear. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, and I just want to say that event um with the Nobel Laurate was amazing.

140It was really great and I loved how the students were so engaged and they asked such great questions. It was really I'm sure it really inspired them in a lot of different ways. Talk about a humbling experience sitting with those people in that room. It was just so thrilling. So pretty. So thank you. Anybody else? We did capture the Eureka series. It's on our YouTube page for anybody that wants to go back and see it. Awesome. All right. Uh where are we here? We already took care of Joe, right? You want to add? Sure. Um if we just do the sub updates real quick. Sure. We get out. Uh Jess, anything for success and technology? Yeah. Um we had actually an amazing meeting back on April 17th. Um Joe talked to us about the content

141filtering and um and also the BYOB device that he touched upon earlier. Um and whether or not those protections are are to be extended outside our Wi-Fi to into the h the home as well. Um which as of a parent of a sixth grader, I would appreciate that because I have more strict restrictions on our devices than than what comes home. Um but obviously that's something that needs to be discussed further. Um the meeting that we had had back on February, we talked about the attorney general's um packet and about cell phones and uh and so it talked about three different types policies. So btobell secured, often away and limited use can be used during designated time. Um, and so we had talked about doing kind of a a pilot um during refresh day, a

142cell phone free lunch day. Um, and so, um, Lisa and Renee and Cara Ford um, also talked to us about the experiences of the students and the staff. Uh, we talked about outside time for the high school and the middle school and noise levels too. Uh and then we talked about there was a different refresh day at the elementary school too where little cards were left on the table for different interactions and sit with different people. Um so that was interesting. Um and then Mr. Campbell also noted that there was a lot of issues with phones. Um and ultimately the data really supports uh taking them out of the schools because kids depression, anxiety and suicide rate are being affected by them. Um and so within the attorney general's uh packet they mentioned um grassroots.

143So it really has to be parentled and culture needs to be changed. And so even before this was on our agenda, um parents in the fifth grade at Boils Elementary had approached Cindy to create this cyber security with a boil and police event which I just, you know, popped into and there was um a lot of talk about cyber bullying and safety. Um but it was really parent driven. There was a lot of concerned fifth grade parents about cyber bullying. Uh, and so I did uh ask one of those parents who had approached Cindy to come to the meeting as well. Um, you know, because within that attorney general packet, the toolkit, they mentioned the new norm cell phone uh advisory board and so that would have to be led by some parents to spearhead

144that. Um, and so I think there are quite a few parents within the community that would be able to do that. There was other resources that I had mentioned. Um the wait until 8th, which is wait for cell phones until after 8th grade. Um the anxious generation book that's been mentioned many times that has some pretty concerning data in it and trends since smartphones have come out 2013. Um and then also like a let grow uh movement too which is to allow children more independence to decrease their anxiety too. And so all of these would have to be parentled and a new advisory board would be formed. Um and then we had the April 16th cyber bullying presentation. Um I know that was recorded. I didn't know had that gone out in some form or

145somewhere. I don't I got to check on that. Okay. Where was it? There were the a when the attorney district attorney's office, I'm sorry, did a presentation. We recorded that. Do we have that? We did not receive that yet. Okay. I can reach out to them for that. It' be wonderful to share it within within that lens. And Julia Baron, we told them ahead of time is going to be recorded and they knew that so we can we can get that. Um and then we you know we talked about ultimately we need to reach out to the districts and so Cara Ford had gone to a conference actually regarding some of this. So she had forwarded some materials recently uh for us to reach out to different schools to get their experience about the different

146policies they have passed. Um and then kind of the final topic on the agenda was um exploration of organizational organization culture survey um from recent events and so it is actually going to be taken place as part of the strategic plan. So it was really nice to have a huge group of people to see what was happening because you know we tend to work in silos. So it was really nice to have that exchange of information ideas. Um and then the very end we just were brainstorming how to better utilize mobilize kind of match the community resources with the teacher or the school needs. Uh you know there's no direct access so to speak like I want to donate to Mrs. Woodward's class for potato growing because and so you know we no longer are

147supposed to use the teachers whatever site you know that is direct funding but maybe we can create an avenue that we can you know abide by our policies that say yes we didn't money money launder for this but we say I would like to donate for this need and it's now the school's you know property or um but it just in order to enrich the kids education and allow this the teachers to be a little bit more creative and connect people in the community that that do want to help and can help. So, so that was a long summary, but it was a really great meeting. So, thanks. Megan, do you have anything for budget facilities? Uh, nope, we have not met. All right. Lori is not here to talk about superintendent search, but uh

148she has your own probably uh Tracy's up there probably covers it yet. That's Yep. We have not had any meetings. So, all right. Um, and then the last thing, the sort of the Hanzo parking lot that's on there. We talked about that last time. I got a message from Matt. I don't know if you have anything more recent, but he said that so sketches were submitted to DCR. They asked some questions, came back, uh, wanted some different layouts uh, for smaller spaces. But Al, um, I think we need to get on this in some way, shape, or form next year. The town meeting that was here, right? This car is parked up and down 70. Y they're on the grass anyway. Might as well make it an official parking lot. Y um it's a safety

149issue. If you've got people coming into the school for events parking on the highway, state highway, you know, god forbid there's someone who's got a mobility issue or something walking down the state highway. I don't know. So, it's a safety issue. We we got to do something about it. So, uh I got a message from him. he submitted what they requested, but I think in some sort of official capacity, he's kind of taking it on himself right now, but it's an issue with growing town, growing communities. We need enough space to park at our Okay. Um, but that's the update there. Uh, you've requested that we do the business items next. So, uh, we'll move on to business items. Um, could I have a motion please for the approval of the donation of the boil

150night wox tickets to bees students? So moved. Lisa second. Jess uh who's what's this one here? Um so Matt Leum from Crest Technologies has arranged um through Al myself to donate one ticket per student at BES from Boilson night which is in August for um the Wux game. All right. It it was actually a great conversation with Matt and Lisi and arranged for that to happen. Um I actually have an opportunity to know that the new president of the Usox who kids went to Veterini, so he's going to arrange for us to have some special events taking place there that night as well too. Um and some of the characters are hopefully going to be attending Wall Elementary School. Um some of the characters of the Blue Sox will be there as well, too. So

151there's a lot of good things going on with that. So, we thank Matt for that. But we wanted to make sure it got in front of school committee because they would there was a price with with donable stamps as well, too. All right. Any questions? All those in favor? Anyone against? Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. Motion, please, for the approval of the Tah 8th grade field trip to Kennedy Lake. Some moved. Megan, second. Lisa now. Lisa jump. Um this is a um a field trip that's been taking place and is often looked forward to. It's essentially a celebration, you know, just prior to 8th grade graduation. So, and the only reason why I'm bringing in front of school because it's out of state, so we're going into New Hampshire. So, I have to make

152sure school approves that. That's that's the only reason why you're bringing a field trip. Right. Right. Yeah. This been an ongoing thing on the first time it's happening. Right. Right. And I think Nicole has a cup. Did you have Mike sign that? Did you bring that with you by any chance? Can I think? Perfect. If we approve it, you approve it. Yes, absolutely. Uh, all those in favor? I. Anyone against? Okay, the motion passes, too. Okay. Hope it's drier than the Six Flags trip. No kidding. Right. Yeah, that wasn't bad. Uh, okay. So, yeah, I guess that brings us completely out of order. So, so let me publicly apologize to Mike in the school base. So, a couple things. I I was trying to purposely rearrange the meeting. Tracy was running late, so she was

153giving us information from she was stuck in traffic. Aaron is on his way to Maso and as you appreciate the conversation I just had with Cindy trying to get home a little bit early because she's sick as could be. So, those are why I was sort of manipulating the um the agenda. So, I I apologize on that. Just to get Aaron and Cindy and Tracy writing a little late. So, sorry about that. Um, so my section of the first is, um, I know Matt's not here, so we'll go right into school choice. Um, I have a a a form for you below. If you could pull that up for us, Joe. Um, the attached. You're going to see it should be in your not has a copy of this. Very late, right? It's in Oh,

154I didn't see it. Yeah, it's in there now. I texted I was like, sorry, I I apologize. Right. It was in the Yeah, it was just in the drive. I always get paranoid. I'm missing something. Yeah. No, no, I apologize. So, this um after many conversations with myself and um Lisa and John and Cindy, um this is school choice recommendations for next year. Um at the elementary schools both in Verlin and Boston, um after consulting, we don't have enough for you guys. Sorry about that. We can share if there's one. I have it on my computer. Oh, there you go. After consulting with the principles in Berlin and Wilson, we are saying there is no room for school choice students at the elementary level. At the high school, um we're being very um specific on

155their grades that we believe um based not with this room, but with the recommendations at the lengthy conversations with the advent team, Lisa, Rich, and Renee. Um so right now at the different grade levels we're recommending um for school choice um and again this is community conversation grade seven um we have four open slots um in grade 10 we have three open so it' be a total of seven kids students that would be for open um for school choice if school committee agrees on that. Um just a couple of things that you need to be aware of as well too with regards to school choice. Um when we're looking at the students that are graduating from our class, um this year graduating total um Lisa is um 63. 63. And please appreciate the amount of

156kids that are coming in in grade six is 94. Um so there's a big uh gap of students that are exiting and students that are coming in. Um, we're also looking at the school choice numbers in relation to what middle school looks like and what high school looks like. When you're looking at that number in grade seven to four, that would round that off to 80. If you guys approve that, we're looking at the grades in middle school in the teams and the four classes per team as well, too. That would put that class size at basically 20 in each one of those. Um, take a look at the grades eight. They're high numbers there. um grade nine, we're we're looking at some data in there and we're concerned um with the work and support

157that we need to be able to give grade nine. So Lisa and I and Rich Rene were very thoughtful on these openings and making sure um that we can support the not only our own students that are in here and the needs of them, but also if there is room in uh available for those students as well too. again the number of kids exiting and the number of kids coming in um and and just be mindful of that. The other part is we don't know if kids going to be moving in so we're always careful about that. So I respectfully present to school committee um after much consideration conversations with advocations for school choice for next year. Questions? I would have a real problem with not adding anyone to grade nine. I like watching the

158trends of the kids dropping off. And I understand you've said you don't like adding students at the 11 12 grade. If that class continues to get smaller next year and then all of a sudden it's an 11 and they're getting smaller and smaller, you're graduating like a class of 50 kids. How fun is that? That's not a high school experience. Like I would like to see spots out of there. What's the reason for you said you're looking at some data? So what um when I looked at the MCCAST data um so those are students who are currently in n um eighth grade. So, I was able to share MCCAST data, their seventh grade MCCAST data from last year of those students. And that is a particularly um there's a lot of gaps in that in

159in that grade level. And so with smaller um class sizes, we're able to target instruction more effectively. I I appreciate what you're saying, Beth. I really do. We just we're we're concerned about that grade level and making sure that we're going to give those students everything they can. How does that translate across other districts? Is that a problem across the state with that one grade? Is that MCAT scores? Are they particular? Is that is it postcoid that they're all that grade is particular? I I I respect I haven't looked at others. I've been sort of focused on ours. I mean, so we were looking at this eighth grade group that's coming in here. Um and again, is there room? Absolutely. We we we know that it's what what what do we want for our students

160that are in here and focusing on those kids. This is the class that two years ago we were here talking about their fifth grade schools like 80% of them were not at the minimum literacy. There was literacy I think 11 like 80% of the class there was there's what four was not meeting partially meeting meeting and exceeding right 80% were either partially or not meeting right is that I think that's the class that's that is concern and then you're adding just through elementary to adding 30 to the building you're graduating 60 something and you're adding 94 additional 30 people running around building I with sorry fewer staff fewer teachers we cut positions here let's be clear we cut a science teacher here we cut a special ed coordinator position here right so you just got

161to be mindful and I I I just want to focus again we have 94 students coming into grade six here our focus is to make sure that those students all of those students and they they travel throughout this entire building. Our focus is making sure that they're going to have the highest quality education as well too. And that this way we're making sure that they don't leave us, right? And most superintendents when we get our students coming to preschool and kindergarten, we want to make sure we're working with those families because they're the ones that are going to travel up. We want to make sure these students 94 probably our largest class, largest class in a long time coming into grade six of Tanto. We want to make sure we're going to make sure they're

162successful. Is it 94 or is it Yes, it is 94 31 students coming from Burlin and 63 coming from Boilston. What's the current so the class after that? You don't add in the you don't add in the current school choice because like all the other columns do that already. Um so I I don't I have Yeah, I just have that information. So when I I just go into power school and identify um two from Berlin, one from both. Yeah, there is two for right that will be in grade six next year. Yeah. So that's actually 97. No, she's saying that there out of the 31, two of those students from Berlin are school choice students. That's correct. Right. It's because I don't I don't have my access my access is 6 through 12. So I

163you know so I just that data is regardless 94 97 it's 94 quite a bit and then is is ninth grade correct because it's like 70 + 12 so there are um so we are losing quite a few students um at this point we have 14 students going to Aset and um St. John's seven to as five to St. Johnson two private. Correct. And we we played with how many different versions, Nicole, Lisa and I, to try to get the best way to present this data to you. So, we we we have a lot in there. We're not sure what you're looking for. This is my first time presenting school choice numbers to you. I didn't know how clean or how clear you wanted them. I'm sorry. Can you say that the 14 makes up?

164How many to as many? Seven confirmed to Asibet, five confirmed to St. not to confirm their private boarding boarding. And I want to be careful not to go. Um what's that? You just said boarding. Boarding. It doesn't necessarily they're going to boarding school. It's just private institutions. Oh, private, right? Private institution. But well, like there's I I I put board because oftentimes the question is why would they go there? Well, it's like a because there are certain situations like um boarding schools offer a different type of education and it that's very different and unique. So that's something that makes it a unique experience, something that we could never replicate. Academy the one guy right sleeping there, they're still getting the full day experience. Yeah. So, so next year with doing nothing, we see 30 more

165students in this building than we see today. Fewer teachers, fewer staff. I know the year after that, the Bron class in what is the current fourth grade sizing was 40. So, you're going to have a similar number, high 80s. Um, because the Bron class in fourth grade is like 46 or something right now. Yeah, I did look into I just haven't. Okay. They're all big. After that class in Boilston, that's 40. They're all in Boilston, they're close to 60. Yeah. 65. And then, yeah, we got and count the new apartment buildings that really probably aren't fully incorporated yet. That report we got for the projection, the NESD report projection shows Berlin growth actually larger than Boilston growth wise, not middle class and and to add 30 additional kids into the building. Younger kids too, not

166you know, mature seniors graduating, but like younger kids coming in just get ready, get used in the building for the first time. with fewer staff, with fewer teachers, with a million dollars cut out of the budget for services that we just approved. My philosophy on school choice now is we have enough to focus on with local taxpayers, kids. We just went through a huge budget. Finance committee is upset with people who are making a pit stop in these towns and taking our public education. Right. This the comment that they made. I just can't imagine a lot of support for adding outside, you know, not outside but just additional students outside of a natural growth that's we know is I think over the next five or six years in Berlin the projection numbers are like 40%.

167Something like that. It's a blind lottery, right? So we're we're going to put names. So right now we currently have three six seven eight n 10 applications that of of students that have applied. I don't looked at them. I just know the number we have, right? Because again, it's a blind lottery. You put their names in a hat. I have have a school committee member with us. I'm not sure we've done this in the past. Here's the opening. If if you have openings, here's number one. Here's number two. Here is that. Um, a little bit more data. Again, we put a lot of time into this. Nicole, myself, Lisa, Rich, Renee. Um, I know one of the questions in the past was, you know, to help out with school choice, to help out with um

168extracurricular activities, sports, and stuff like that. So we literally went through every school choice student and see if they participate in extracurricular activities. It's roughly about 16% of students that attend our district from school choice participate in any extracurricular activities. Did you say 60? 16 sorry one6. So I'm just giving you all data. First time presenting school choice you guys. So I want to make sure you have all that information. Are we voting on this tonight? No. Okay. just I don't I am not prepared to vote on this tonight. I just got this information. Haven't had time to look at it. So I this is like a first. No, this is just a first read. And the other thing that I've been asking for for the past couple years and not to put any other

169weight on Aaron's shoulders is um it would be great to have some type of cost analysis like what are we actually getting and like maybe total money you know just in a given year total money we've gotten from school choice people and you know estimated expenditures for these specific y if that's even legal I don't know because I know there I'm sure there there's there's the exact exact dollar figure. We can give you $5,000 per student and we can talk about that special ed component. We can present that at the next meet meeting that we have, but there sometimes un undocumented or how do you account for expenses as well too and I'm just giving you examples. Yeah, it's a heavy lift something that he'd have to you might have comes into us with school

170choice um and Megan Grill comes right in but she needs to see Rich multiple times because I'm just saying it's a blind lottery. We have no idea how to document that, right? How many times they visit Rich, how many times they visit Renee, how many times they go to the office. All of those things we don't document, right? Again, it's a blind lot to where we choose our kids. I'm just giving you all the data and certainly I'll have we'll we'll give you some cost analysis about school choice and whether if they're special education kid, there's a there's a there's a misunderstanding about where that money comes from other districts as well too. We can provide all that information. I think we g gave that in the budget presentation. Aaron gave a presentation about the

171funding on that, but we certainly give give that again too. And how many kids are we sending out? How many kids are we losing in school choice? Because NOVA opened up quite a few seats for this year and I feel like I know of at least three kids from Berlin that have gone to Nshoba that are still waiting for more seats that are going to also be leaving. So right now we know of right now we know of the Senate confirmed asking the question. I'm sorry. No, like how many of our students are currently going out of district or school choicing to Bolton to Lancaster. We haven't been made been made been made been made been made been made been made aware of any of them at this point unless they unless they've started much

172early on like unless they have been school choiced into another district from very early on. There's really no way of until I I don't know like there there is currently there are currently no 6th through 12th graders that I know that are school choicing out. Um I know several well well they must have been school choiced out before like I've not we've not been got we've not been given the paperwork. So how how so tell us about that. How are you made aware of those kids? So they have to um they have to unenroll them. They have to unenroll. So So if they start if it was sixth grade then they would have gotten the board sent from fifth grade. Fifth grade, right? There's there's also the districts have to talk to each other, right?

173Because we we got to give the money, right? And so all of that conversation happens. It exists. What's that? Yeah, that that information does exist um in in a database of like school of students that are Burland, Boilston residents that are school choicing at any grade level. So I would imagine that is something if you're asking Aaron for that kind of data he would be able to so before we vote that I think it would be good to like give Aaron like an email I mean get in a month. So yeah so we will vote on it in June. Yeah. So what do what do you want to know to make a decision? Ask it now. It would be nice to get some more cost out. Beth makes a good point like how much money

174are what are we paying for school choice out? what are we getting for school choice in I mean I'm just saying like some facts that he has that you know you know about you know what are some additional costs if any you know Sure and along with that doesn't directly relate to school choice but the exit interview that we've talked about that we got information last year to get new information sure the only thing I might not be able to give you on this is is what you're asking for I don't know when we will be able what's sorry she was talking about assets so we I mean we're paying out we're going to pay out for those seven kids going to asette and then those seven people hypothetically the four and the three would

175cancel out those costs. I I the other thing I'm not sure I'll be able to tell you just going what Janelle says we know in our district who participates in school chess right now. We can tell you exactly who we won't tell you date, but the grades level. We can give you that information, but for next year. Oh, no. I don't mean for next year necessarily. Okay. I'm sorry. I like in general at this snapshot right now, how many students are we paying out for them to go to another? Yeah, we should have I think I have that. No, Aaron would have to go through the accounting system to see what he's actually paying because I agree with Lisa. How would you ever know unless they you guys aren't gonna you're not gonna report on

176that once they're out of district? They're out of district. Financial financial thing either. The town might I know like in Boilston they'll ask Aaron like for numbers and they deal the money like just like in Berlin how vocational comes separate. I don't know if school choice comes separate like if it comes from the town or if it has to come from the district. Yeah. Aaron might tell us differently but the I agree with Janelle. The information exists. You're not gonna have it now. He's gonna have to like research it and see whatever. What do we pay? Yeah. So, I guess I want to make sure you understand this in the financial pieces. I completely get that. Are you looking for numbers per grade? Just in general. I would like to know how many current residents

177residents are being school choicing elsewhere to another town. And like and if if you knew what town that would be great that information like I live in Boilston. I'm not going to go to Tanto. I'm deciding I want a school choice to show more importantly with why I think we have that information. So, but we might not because people might decide we might not want that as a as the St. John's and stuff. We have that. Yeah. People that started at Tahanto and then they decide they're going to send to private high school. I mean, there's always going to be people that do that in general. That's right. And and no mist, right? No matter what, you know, there's alumni. there that whole field of alumni, right? My my my son went to St. John's,

178my father went to St. John's. Some of those things we can control, but certainly we can find out the cost and and what grade levels they're they're school choice. So again, just presenting this to you uh my first time presenting the school choice numbers to you guys now that I know that you're looking for more specific the numbers per grade from Btown and the numbers that the cost. Yeah, that's perfect. Good. Okay. Before we go, anything else? And we do private schools. No choice. Yeah. Okay. So, by the way, just just for a little, if they go to a private Catholic school, not even private Catholic, a private school, we we don't pay the $5,000, right? Just only if they're going to a public school do we pay that money out. Okay. So, at the

179St. John's and things like that. And if I if I chair um so I I just wanted to make you aware um I believe there's a school choice um law on the mass Massachusetts general laws that the school committee will vote before June 1st of each year to notify the department of education whether we're participating. I don't know if we're already on the docket because we we currently have school choice people, you know. So, I just, you know, so the slots after you got to participate. That's what we're going to participate. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're just I just wanted to make sure that we're, you know, we're because Yeah. There's two things you can do. You can either choose not to not to participate or you can choose to vote on numbers every year. We

180chose the vote. Yeah. Okay. any other information you're looking for for us in the next meeting? Okay, that's good. Great. Thanks. So, the next thing um sort of housekeeping things is the facility use forms. So, our forms are very old and very outdated um and the financial cost that goes along with them as well too. Um so, appreciate Beth catching some of that stuff as well too. So, in full disclosure, I didn't recreate a wheel. We spent a lot of time and money and effort creating this and him and Wilberham. I sort of just took these forms and created now Berlin Boston. But it literally goes through when you have a hard copy. I'm not asking you to make any decisions tonight. I want you to sort of do a first read, right? We were

181paying X number of dollars for a custodian um paying them, but we're charging lower than what we were paying our custodian. So, we're losing money every time we had an event that we had to have a custodian here. It just wasn't working out for us. No one really revisited the the cost centers that go along with this. No one ever revisited the forms altogether and and the liability and the assurance that goes along with this as well too. So again, spent a lot of time, money, and effort years ago creating this um vetted through attorneys, make sure we're good with it. I'm now presenting this to Berlin and Wilson to just take a look at and update our forms. So every time we're having an event that we're not losing money for custodian use, instead

182should be making some sort of profit on that as well, too. So first look at them, please. Thanks. If you catch any mistakes, um, please let us know, but I want you to have a table. Just email you. Yes, please. And Nicole. Um, we spent some time last year with, uh, Berlin Basketball uses facility. We can connect off the line about that. Okay. Julie, we spent a lot of time working with Carol. Okay. About that. Okay. Um, so we don't need to talk about that. Okay. Perfect. I think some of that might be why the prices are lower. Okay, that's that's definitely part of it. I think that's changed with Julie not being on the Yeah, I have no idea what's going on in Berlin basketball. I just We're losing money for even I don't

183think we have custodians there, right? So, at that time, well, that was the thing, but events we have that's in the lease. Y So, they don't pay they weren't paying. She was Carol was waving the bee last year. I think first Boilston I think they replaced the they refinished the floor that was so warm and paid to refinish the floor. Right. In Boilston we have a second facility. We have the hillside and it's like dirt cheap to use because it's town facility and there's no custodians there. It's like everybody just does what you're supposed to and so it's just a different situation. So there was an inequity there. So like Boilston barely uses the school whereas Berlin wreck needs that's their only facility. And we're not we're we're not just talking about this for the

184pox and rex program. We're talking the the use that this building has alone right from outside agencies that for all like we should have updated forms like we should not be using forms that were at least 10 years old that I think was it 10 years old that that no I totally agree that it was like on the docket for last year the to-dos and then it got too complicated with Berlin being different and then we voted to like revisit it this year. and even like points of contact in case of emergencies and stuff like that. We just need to have this information cover like the alarm off. That's right. At 2 a.m. at 2 a.m. at town meeting in the town of Berlin. Yeah. Um anyways, so all of this needs to be covered

185as well too. And who's so just off that same line, right? So the town meeting happened in Merlin. Everybody sort of left, walked out the door, right? Who's really responsible for that that overseeing that? I walk out the door, I leave, I see a car still sitting there. It was a town moderator in there. I look through the window and everyone's gone. Everyone's gone except for the town moderator. I'm trying to get in. My alarm doesn't work after midnight. But who was I calling that was responsible? And luckily enough, the alarms were set off. So the police showed up and we were able to solve that. But like who's responsible at 2 am if something happens and who's inside of those events? Yes, they are. Absolutely. So anyways, that's I I just want for the

186fee schedule. It has been broken down for middle school auditorium to Hondo auditorium. There's no middle school aud. Okay. And then we don't have a tennis court, right? Not that's correct. So like there there's a few things on here that So I know you caught that one other for me if you don't mind. We painstakingly went through this looking at these, but if there's any other errors you check, that's why it's a first read, right? If you see anything, if you can just let us know those as well, too. First read on that. Great. Next budget update. Again, I can't thank everyone for your support in this budget process. Um, we're in the process of meeting with our admin and our goal is to bring back all those cuts and reductions that took place that

187that March 11th, right? that below that bottom line, any of those positions, that includes the grade T, grade two teacher, um all those literacy tutors, um all of that, the band, all of that is going to be being brought back, but we have not even had an admin meeting um since our last meeting last week. So, all of that will be in play. Uh we'll give you more of an update as we draw closer to that. But thanks to the support of school committee and the both towns, we're able to bring back those cuts and reductions that took place after that March 11th date. So we will continue to keep you updated on that. Um next on um my is is the BS Elementary School principal update. I want to thank everyone for this process.

188I mean parents, teachers, parents, school members, Rihanna Pasqual. I mean incredible work that they have done long long process to get there. Um I know that Jessica and and Megan were on that last round of from the very beginning on that rounds of interviews. Um at this point we have um narrow the inst I should say has narrowed it down to three finalists. Um they are Ian Duke who currently is an acting principal in Hudson Public Schools, Cheryl Cordiero who's an assistant principal at Placentio Elementary School in Hollston Mass and Robert Pelzki who is a current sitting principal in Oxford public schools. on Wednesday, tomorrow, um May 14th, they will meet the advent team at central office. Um follow after they leave for for a period of time and then they're gonna head over to

189Bolston Elementary School where Cindy and Briana will give them a walk through the building as well too. So we literally have a rotation. They'll come in, meet with us, head over to Bolston, and we'll rotate them through all three. Um we have created a a Google doc that Prince Admin will give feedback on the three. Um the goal is for next week they have a meet and greet with uh parents at Wolston. Same type of thing. All three of them will go there. Created a Google doc that parents will then give feedback on those three um three principles. Our goal is hopefully by the end of next week um to be able to um have offer someone a contract so we can start that process well too. I will keep you updated. Yes. Who's the

190third person? Sure. Robert Pelarski. He is currently a sitting principal in Boxford public schools. Boxford. Oxford. Ian Duke, Cheryl Cardiero, and Robert Belzowski. Thank you. You're welcome. I'll continue to keep you updated. Um, next staff appreciation day. Thank you to all our staff and parents. You know, I talked to Cindy, talked to John, talked to Lisa. The events that these parents took for these teachers and parents were outstanding. Um, also thank you to the advent team and school committee members um for the ice cream truck that um visited all our schools on Monday, May 12th. I know all of our um our admin, our teachers, our paras, our nurses, everyone appreciated that. And that's all on behalf of our admin team in school. So, thank you for that. Um it was it was a great

191nice little treat on a nice day to have ice cream for all of our our staff in Brooklyn. Um lastly, graduation scheduled for June 1st at 2 o'clock. Um again, that's the the metriculation, right? Every all the work that we're doing here every single day. Um every all the work that are prek all the way up to grade 12, the work you're doing, the final thing is when those students walk across the stage and accept their diplomas and going off to uh either college or university or vocational a services. Um it's a it's a great moment for us all. I invite you all to come. Um Lisa and I are working on that process. I know that her team is doing incredible work getting it ready for that day. Um myself along with Mike the

192the chairperson of school committee will be up on stage along with admin um shaking hands as the students walk across the stage as well too. So we we hope that school committee members can also attend that event which we're really looking forward to our students as well too. And I think that's it guys. Again I apologize for going off the water. I was really trying to be helpful to Aaron and Cindy and stuff like that. So I'm sorry about that. questions for me. I gave you a lot in a short period of time and I apologize for the school choice numbers getting late to you. We sort of were throw a curveball last night or earlier this morning with this whole technology piece. I would have had that in your hands a lot earlier than

193than as ladies. I got to you guys do better. I will I 1:00 a.m. 1:00 a.m. He text me. And like who is texting me back at 1:00 a.m. Sure enough, it was Joe and I. All right. Uh I think we covered everything on the agenda. Did I miss anything? We went quite a bit out of order. I'm so sorry that that's just make sure we got everything. I think we did. So the only thing we have left is the executive session. Uh so executive session one will not return to open session. Could I have a motion please to enter executive session pursuant to Massachusetts general laws chapter 38 section 21A purpose 3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining BBDA CVA if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining

194position of the public body and the chair so declares so move second Beth thank you uh all any questions about that call yep yes I Lisa Bye. Bye. As well. So, we will not be back in session and we won't be returning till session. Thank you, Lisa. Cindy, Janelle, thank you very much. Appreciate it very very much. Feel better. And you feel better.