001good evening I would like to call this meeting of the bbrsd school committee to order um Please be aware that your voice or image may be recorded thank you Julie let's all stand we'll start with Pledge of Allegiance thank you I pledge allegiance to flag the United States of America to stand one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all okay we will start with public comment is anyone here to make a public comment okay Mr Dy you like to stand you state your name sure thank you my name is Peter dy I am an English teacher in the ELA Department here here High School um I wanted to speak today uh would like to read a letter that I just finished finally finished today uh to the school committee regarding um policy subcommittee
002that's looking at masc policy I dear members of the Berlin boilson Regional school committee and superintendent Costello I began writing this letter last Monday it's spent a week and I must have written at least 10 drafts by now since there are so many things I feel need to be addressed from the meeting on 6 June 2024 regarding the proposed amendments to MSE masc policy I in the ensuing discussion for the sake of relative brevity I'll keep this letter to what I believe are the most important issues I plan to attend the entire meeting in August and will gladly answer any questions during the meeting that may arise during the discussion of this agenda item as a followup to my emails from Sunday 9 June 2024 which expressed my concerns that the adoption of proposed amendments
003to masc policy I would unintentionally Target and marginalize certain students and therefore open the district to litigation I'm encouraging the school committee to reject the policy subcommittee's proposal I found the potential ramifications to both our students and our district of such concern I decided to contact a civil litigation Law Firm for guidance to see if my initial thoughts were Justified based on communication I have had over the past week with the firm as well as conversations with tono's social studies department chair step Mico and history teacher Daniel Rinker who are well-versed in the state mandated Civic Action Project which plays a role in the impetus behind this policy change proposed amendments to masc policy I are problematic for multiple reasons first and formost for most if masc policy I is adopted as amended by the
004policy subcommittee is a serious concern that the policy would be discriminatory and could open the district to discrimination litigation on multiple counts an education Advocate and specialist with within the firm I consulted believes that quote specifically listing sexual orientation gender or preferred gender into the districts optin PA opin policy where all other types of surveys would not be subject to the same opin rules would be clear discrimination end quote additionally by making this policy opt in which creates a major obstacle in students receiving data for the research it could be argued that the district creating obstacles for only students who wish to potentially research sensitive topics that are fundament fundamentally important to who they are directly opposes the amended access to equal Educational Opportunity regulation 603 CMR 26.0 and the non-discrimination provision of the Char
005School regulation 6 3 CMR 1.0 which quote requires schools to establish policies and procedures provide training and Implement and monitor practices to ensure that obstacles to equal access to school programs are removed for all students to reiterate obstacles need to be removed not created during the June 6 meeting I heard members of the subcommittee argue the amended policy is to protect parential rights and that no students would be NY the equal opportunity to study these sensitive topics while that may be true by creating a separate set of rules and conditions for one group of students as opposed to other groups with no such rules and conditions this policy is dangerously close to echoing the infamous separate but equal Declaration of plusy versus Fergus in 1896 which was later overturned by Brown versus Board of Education
0061954 considering our nation's troubled history in this area I hope it is safe to say that no one wants to promote a policy that creates a separate but equal environment in our school while I respect and agree with the subcommittee's desire to protect parental rights which the original unamended wording of masc policy I guarantees based on the anti-discriminatory protection of pupil rights amendment I believe the proposed changes to the language go too far and actually make masc policy I discriminatory which will then in turn cause irreparable harm to our district and our students as the department of Elementary and secondary education States all students need a safe and supportive School environment to progress academically and developmentally and administrators faculty staff and students each play an important part in creating and sustaining that environment potential civil
007rights violations aside it is the opinion of my colleagues Steve Pico Daniel Rinker and myself that the proposed policy would also negatively affect and in some cases directly oppose the state mandated civil action project as well as the Massachusetts Social Studies Frameworks which encourage students to freely research topics of importance to them which often include the sensitive topics listed in masas policy ields on a similar note tono's own senior exhibitions would also be adversely affected by this policy for the same reasons des's documents titled race racism and cultural responsive teaching in history and social science in Massachusetts frequently asked questions directly addresses the study of sens sensitive Topics by stating and I quote an effective history and Social Science Education incorporates diverse perspectives and acknowledges that perceptions of events are affected by race ethnicity culture
008religion education gender gender identity sexual orientation disability and personal experience the traditional model of the United States is Unum out of many one a history and Social Science Education that does Justice to the remarkable diversity of our country must tell the history of individuals and groups and honor a plurality of life stories while acknowledging our ongoing struggle to achieve a more perfect union teaching how the concepts of Freedom equality the rule of law and human rights have influenced United States world history necessarily involves discussions of race ethnicity culture gender gender identity sexual orientation and other characteristics effective instruction challenges students to Value their own Heritage while embracing our common ideals and shared experiences as they develop their own rigorous thinking about accounts of events effective instruction celebrates the progress the United States has made in
009embracing diversity while at the same time encouraging honest and informed academic discussions about Prejudice racism and bigotry in the past and present race and racism are part of America's complicated history and a complete history and Social Science Education must include an honest examination of prejudice bigotry and oppression in the past and present end quote by adopting the proposed changes our district would have a policy that in essence discourages students from studying sensitive issues by implementing restrictive regulations thus reducing the opportunities for our entire Community to engage in discussions of race ethnicity culture gender gender identity sexual orientation and other topics that are the core of our Collective American experience as I said earlier there are many concerns I have that I am happy to address at the next meeting for now I'll end with a
010few suggestions on how we can move forward from here so that both parental and student rights are not infringed one reject the proposed amendments to masc policy I two create and distributed document like countless other documents our district has created that allows parents to officially opt out of surveys that surround the sensitive topics listed in MC policy I the particulars of this can be worked out any policy subcommittee three reconvene the policy sub sub commmittee for further discussions of this issue but amend the subcommittee to include a a Tahanto administrator b a civil rights education law expert C faculty or Department chairs whom this policy would affect and d a student representative for for further information on the Civic Action Project please feel free to access the hyper links below I put uh in my
011digital copy of my letter a bunch of links to the civil action project thank you for your time and consideration Peter thank you okay did anyone else want to say anything from the public okay thank you I appreciate that the time you took to write that all right uh Communications did anyone have any Communications Meg I want to take some time yes y kind of communication not really communication the past few weeks we know ending last night budget was uh a little bit stressful for everybody everybody had some frustrations to the point where even Mary had some nice things to say last night so that was very [Music] welcome um a couple months ago Megan we had a meeting and I was a little short with you at one point kind of snapped out at
012you so sorry for that thank you all right Jess same with you you mentioned the hyperlinks a couple weeks ago and I SN to you too so I'm sorry to you too uh last night shaking hands with Peg and Scott Hawkins and everybody was an interesting event so hopefully we move on and get this financial situation unraveled thanks okay great all right any other Communications all right thank you um could I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda goie second Jess any discussion on that all right all in favor I I I'm an i as well that motion passes all right Nicole's taking notes from home okay we'll move into my report um so I'm going to do my report and then um Mr JY is here because he has a field trip
013as well so we can do that vote because we have a a presentation from our Auditors coming up and then we're gonna have a presentation about portrait of graduate going to some budget discussion we have the administrative reports it's going to be lengthy so I want to get that vote done so that that way if you want to take off no judgment I would take off if I could trust me um okay so quickly my chair report so for anyone that still has not heard the news um the budget did pass last night the school budget um we did cut about $225,000 uh and then we agreed to apply another $150,000 of cash um or Revenue you know search breaker or school choice or end wherever wherever we have um we have to take a
014look at that and see where we may have some excess um so that's something that Michael will be working on um in the future I don't know if he has an update tonight we'll wait till his turn but obviously it's hasn't been 24 hours so not expecting anything um but I did want everyone to know that so essentially what happened was we met smack dab in the middle right we had about a $750,000 difference from the town of Berlin and the schools gave the 225 plus the 150 which is the 375 and the town threw in some cash and then they raised the tax levy slightly so in the end everyone ended up compromising like Mike said it ended up working out and hopefully moving forward we've learned some lessons and next year will be
015a lot easier hopefully okay that's all I have to say um so did we want um Mr Dy did you want to present this is the um the overnight trip to the C this is this is uh our other than the co years this is our annual cap trip um with AP students in our n be class on the multidisciplinary study y the weekend so the itinerary at this point is still building um Le a couple of months away I just wanted to get this approved now because I know how busy things have been and yep um I think we have to seek two months in prior to our trip which is October 19 through 21 so I wanted to make sure we got this in as early as we could yep yeah because uh
016we do not anticipate to meet over the summer so we will not be convening again the committee will not be convening again until the end of August so probably a good idea to get this done now so it's basically the same trip you know just we'll be staying in the same Hotel we've stayed in the last two years we'll be taking the bus down it's great having Chris cavino additional chap plus his science knowledge and his bus skills so okay great did anyone have any questions on this it's always nice to see the presentation when they come back so it's a wonderful experience they to have this is the one on the book what's the book The I bought the book and I still haven't read it yeah I would love to yeah okay great
017and I plan on attending as well like I i' I've always attended and I continue to I attended last year and I'll attend this year as well okay this was our bra child three of our back in yeah yeah that was a little silly okay buil character um all right any other any questions okay could I please have a motion to approve um the overnight field trip to Cape Cod with Mr Dy okay Jess and Julie any discussion all right all in favor I I all right I'm and I as well that motion passes thank you so much thank you gon take all right next up is going to be uh we have a proposal from our Auditors so these are not our Auditors this is a these uh folks are um they're like a
018sister company of our audit company because we we have to keep things independent so the proposal tonight and uh Carol and I well one of the findings from our last audit was that we needed um we had weak internal controls which is very common right um for small offices um so we asked uh our auditors to recommend somebody that could put together a proposal for us and the company's called Markham our Auditors is powers and Sullivan right um so Markham so they these uh Michael and Jim are going to come up tonight and they're going to talk to us about the proposal was in the drive um on some of the services they may be able to offer us that will help with internal controls okay and without further Ado please take it away Michael
019and Jim do you want to come up and sit between Michael and over there this is Michael M and Jim low from Mark accounts and they're the parent the parent company of the parent company of powers and sullan previously we had provided a PowerPoint I don't know if that was distributed I do have some copies as well folks it was in the drive everyone drive right okay anyone likes paper yeah you can pass it around in case anyone has questions should we put it up on the screen uh fine yeah that's fine I don't I would spread it you have on computer all right I was gonna say I have so thank you very much for the opportunity to present tonight we'll do some introductions and we'll go right into the presentation my name is
020Jim L I'm the partner in charge of internal audit services from Marvin 31 years in Professional Services industry where I've been external audit internal audit forensics audit every type of compliance audit regulatory audit r i lead up the group and we specialize internal controls control assessments Enterprise risk assessments prod assessments my colle Mike yeah Mike McShay um 30 years in Industry been working with Jim for the last almost seven years I'm a director in our group and uh we'll Echo everything that you just mentioned our our bios are probably on page I think six of the presentations everything else prior to that was just some general information on the firm some of our credential in the space so the rest of that is is for light entertainment tonight or tomorrow over the weekend and as
021mentioned our bios are on page six um and then on page seven we get into the discussion around what really were proposing based on discussions that we had with the with the school um over the last couple of months here kind walk through bit that if you want your walk through yeah just high level we propose two phases um obviously we can do it concurrently or separate or this one but we wanted to break it up based on the discussions we had with Carol and Megan just to show the different options as to how we actually scoped it out and openly priced it so when we talk about phase approaches a lot of what we see is you know communities whether it's the school system within the community or the town or the city of
022municipalities themselves they're looking at problems that they're facing a lot of those are around Staffing constraints the resources that they have do they have the right experience enough experience what type of documentation exists if somebody leaves who can come in pick things up so part of the reason we break this out also is to give you know the realization that this is a lot this isn't something that's routine to a to either a town or to a school district like this to say we're going to come in potentially and do all this work and and be in everybody's business you know for for a number of weeks so phasing it also gives everyone a chance to absorb what we've gone through make some decisions do some analysis and then consider is the phase that we've
023proposed where you still want to go or do you want to go someplace else because we've gone through and done some analysis some the leg work and potentially raised an issue that was unexpected it takes us in a completely different direction so again breaking it up gives everyone that chance to as well and you consider where the direction needs to continue so the first phase here the nature of services is just a disclaimer the the body of it is in Phase One we're talking about basically going through the budgeting process and conducting a review over that entire scope of services that that everyone is involved in that would be from the town Side school department side the actual folks that are in uh the finance and accounting department we're just one up actually jul and
024I we've been working on one in a different state that had this pretty much this exact same request they just weren't sure how budgets got constructed how did budget inputs get analyzed how do we ensure that the numbers were using are coming from the right sources that they're constantly updated for any changes that are taking place whether it be Financial impact you what we're actually getting uh in for the for the allocations themselves are there any changes at the federal and state level so we've been asked to do this a couple of times like I said we're just wrapping one up very similar scope uh the results of that is also a phased approach and we've prepared to see deliverables on the right hand side which talks about what would you actually see afterwards a
025lot of times we find that even in corporate life in Corporate America people don't really have a good understanding what the process even looks like so we talk about creating flow chart while might seem fundamental at its core you'll find in a lot of places this these don't even exist and that's an easy way to point out you know where this disconnects where do we have some seg of do these issues where do we have information that's coming from the source that nobody has to handle on or control over or access to whether it be a funding source or information that it at a data level so a flowchart is a great way to kind of after you go through all these interviews with folks to stand with the process is see it on paper
026see basically the road map from start to finish and that points out where there could be disconnects as well communication breakdowns process breakdowns a black hole or something just goes there and doesn't seem to get followed up on and we could also identify where there are gaps in the process where there are gaps in controls whether it be missing policies procedures the general understanding do the people have the right access are they doing too much of of the whole process themselves again talking about certification so that process would take a couple of weeks it's it's not a linear process necessarily to say it starts today and it ends three weeks from now a lapse time it's a couple of week project of interviews and Analysis then we go back and forth to make sure we've
027got all the right information because the last thing we want to do is hand something over and somebody raes their hand says well we didn't ask me you didn't get my input so it does take a little bit of time to go through that and then from there if things continue and the district decides they want to go on to phase two which is on the next page that talks about a broader assessment of all operations which is a risk assessment and that's also something we're working on in a number of instances as well both in school settings and the dist settings this is where you you get everyone together independently of each other and you find out you know in their mind where are the risk where do you think is a problem whether
028it be Financial Risk Town school department might have is a reputational issue is it something they don't want to be in the newspaper over as something that could potentially Impact Services could impact you financially so we gather those from all the different um elements to be able to present back a risk assessment to say budget process aside here's a whole bunch of other things that you should consider and where are these to be able to address those you know do we actually come up with something at the end of the day that people go we had no idea that we had this risk facing this this could be ADA compliance you know you think of the spectrum of things that could be out there U it's just a great opportunity to get people to speak
029freely about what things are that they think are of concern you know we weigh it and evaluate and ask questions back and forth to make sure it isn't just a a gripe you know it's an actual RIS that's foreing and then we would also prepare a report based on that which has um if folks are familiar with heat map red yellow green basically a nine quadrant uh Cube and then we help plot that out and obviously the things that are in the red the things to worry about the things that are in the green at the end of the day yes it's a risk but chances are it's not going to have any material impact and that also then use your road map forward when you talk about where do we need to spend time
030energy resources you know hiring decisions cutback decisions anything along those lines is the benefit of a risk assessment so right now those are the two uh options that we came up with through discussions again all the procedures are kind of basically Rel out on page seven eight and then page nine gets into cost and fee assumptions into a couple of points on phase one one it becomes a living document over time it will change as your process change but it also becomes a training manual as new people come in in new roles they're not starting from scratch it allows for them to get a head start as they come in so then that's probably one of the biggest understated value propositions that come out of this is that you've got a road map for anyone
031that's coming in in fact if you're actually looking to bring someone in you can explain that you have this documentation and they may want to come because you have it and not learning it from scratch on the risk assessment what do we what we also try to do is aggravate the risks connect them is there a common root cause that's causing Downstream three or four risks because we know you cannot mitigate 100% risks it's just too expensive but you have to come up with the concept of what is the residual risk that you can live with and can you connect your risk to actually mitigative one that has the down street consequences with the minimal amount of effort to be able to keep that structure together so a lot of what we try to do
032is think of sort of what are the pros that come out of this as opposed to actually coming in and looking at what we're trying to solve for what can a value come out that's not seen right away so we're happy to of course take any questions and try to answer anything that's out this is fitting the timing of this Carol and I had started talking to them back I don't know months ago right Carol and we just had I'm sorry we put you off three times probably already um been putting up fires left and right here so um yeah I just think the timing of this is uh very fitting because this budget process was difficult to say the least um and we have had a lot of turnover in that department and I
033think there's a lot of question marks not I don't think anything bad is happening I think we could all benefit from somebody independent coming in and documenting process and kind of streamlining streamlining the budget process because I think right now you know the turnover in the Director of Finance role what if we had like seven or eight director of finances in the past 10 years I mean it's so I think that this might be a huge benefit to the district regardless of whoever ends up taking that seat permanently Michael is inum um so I don't know what anyone else thinks I just think that this this might be a a a huge value add to the district and uh you know listening to some of the public feedback about you know frustrations with the budget
034process can I ask you a question when you said you work with the town did you mean the town the finance department in the town or you were specific to just engagement that M was referring to we we we we were engaged by the town the finance department of the town but we worked at the school administration went across both but in that scenario the town actually engaged us because they didn't have any insight into the school it was almost perhaps revers from what we're perhaps talking about today but they wanted to get a level of insight all of our interviews were on the school side but then we brought it back to the town and we actually met with the town C the school council as well in a session like this interview them
035like in a session like this right that would be helpful so you could go to like the different town finance committees and kind of understand their process and like document it and bring it back to us what we do is out swim so you can see from the town in the school back to the town to the approvals and in that scenario we had a big red arrow stopped right here they still haven't approved that town their budget yet and all of our findings that came out were concluded to our suggestions as to why that was there but I think seeing it documented in swim Lanes between the town and the school it becomes a lot more transparent and then it becomes a lot more evident as what the holdup are so it isn't it
036isn't necessarily A on size fixes all but it does help point out the you know the obvious breakdowns uh like I said the roads to knowwhere the bridges to knowwhere if there are activities that taking place it don't seem to make sense you know we're also going to provide recommendations as part of it what would fix this is it a communication problem is it you know more structured meetings need to occur with agendas and deliverable dates between all the parties is it a knowledge breakdown to sobody not have the requisite skills to be able to do it or is it just you know at the end of the day it's it's money you can only squeeze the rock so much to to get you know what you're looking for and this is not uncommon everyone
037that we've been talking to it's it's a budget issue in terms of where do we where do we have to cut them so we know that there's a lot of these asss coming out and it's what doesn't help is having any confusion over whole you know the process that's going into it in the first place so if there's uncertainties or confusion or uh just lack of accountability things like that's can at least Point those things out and offer recommendations to to remedy them you know it's up to whether or not those are actionable in the short term the long term financially of course is a cost a lot of the fixes that you need to put in of those problems but you'll at least have that that road map of where things are and what
038you need to do to get to where you want to be what's the ideal future State and we have two towns so that wouldn't affect the quote right no no that the quotes all in yeah yeah and what was unique in the one that we were just talking about we actually met with that State's Department of Education to understand their interaction with the school department and the data that they have so we could do benchmarking study of districts that they thought were comparative to them whether it was total population student population the number of schools ratios of students just to show all that is an expense or it shows the expenses and when you actually start to see the data and the data that that State Department of Ed that that town was not even
039using as part of forecasting it became pretty event whereever the breakdown a question what is the timeline that you would anticipate for like the phase one and then how soon when you do typically do this work and how soon would we need to let you know you as soon as you want or as late as you want we'll be here so I wouldn't worry about that phase one is generally coming up three to six week project and may maybe um the report writing sometimes takes a little bit longer because there's versions that are going through and we want to make sure we obviously going to take the first crack in a drafted report but there's going to be feedback we're not going to get everything 100% right and there's that going back and forth same
040with the second phase another three to six weeks same sort of thing we don't need to do concurrently consecutively we can do one wait six months do the other on so we can break it up anyway that you see appr but that's that went to the point about it doesn't have to be linear it just becomes problematic sometimes when you think about it it's I only have three weeks to get this done and then half the people we did we were at the cave or on vacation or something so field yeah a lapsed time but you know wi year it just is going to depend on schedules and trying to get in you know hurting all the cats together to get the information that we thank you so it would be something we if we
041move moved forward with this it would be something we would have for next spring for the budget might be upful or for when we have a permanent Director of Finance um again a new person I think that would I can't speak for Michael but I'm sure it was difficult coming into what you came into it's been some Moments One of the Del walk whoever that person that comes in through our reports and what we we can hope to un them yeah yeah yeah we just hear you and the idea you have creating creating a road map for people coming in it's it's that's probably one of the most important things is having a set of documented policies procedures process and so on and just I think what's important about it is a refresh at least
042on an annual basis it doesn't need to be a full but just to be sure a confirmation going on various Department I think change just to confirm it so it's you're keeping it fresh we've seen a lot of times where folks would create documentation put on the Shelf wait three or four years and it's not worth the paper it's written on right right changing sounds like an amazing process the parts tag after yesterday to swall and you know I respect your work and the time you put into it but it's hard after the last several months right especially but I mean having it would that would prevent that situation happening yeah that's how I would look at Future looking forward yeah and I think it's helpful it's almost I feel like that was where we
043got the most criticism was the whole budget process it wasn't oh you guys want more books or oh you want another teacher it was this process is not clear it's not I'm confused so I feel like it would address something that in my opinion publicly people have been disgruntled with and so yeah I think that's something first we'd have to take it to Michael and see about funds obviously I don't know that the school committee has to vote on this or if it's a decision that Carol has to make I just I don't know the process on that like because it's not really a contract right it's just she's she would be um making a decision on um right I I don't know I I guess I would feel like I wouldn't want to make
044this DEC this as you to your point this isn't a costly um right service I would absolutely want you to vote on this and I think it's also the benefit to the school committee as as myself right so okay but it see it seems like if we take this into consideration we can in order to get get Jim and Michael consider it over the summer and get back to them in the fall we'll have a better sense of where the budget is better SES yeah I think of possibly sh cost sharing as you mentioned I don't know if this is something in the towns would be interested in right because we're all feeling it's not just us you know what I mean I think they you know and the other thing is and I really
045want to say in my charity Bo all of these boards are volunteers even the select boards I don't know that you can get paid if they do it's stien school committee doesn't get paid these Finance committees don't get paid so I you know to have some guidance would be very very helpful all across the board right yeah so yeah why don't we do that we could bring that up with April and Kristen and see if it's something that they would be interested in yeah like to to your point cost sharing because if they're going to be interviewing the towns for the budget process then it feels like based on the feedback we've gotten this year and the town's desire to work collaboratively would be a nice a gesture anyway to to consider this anyway with
046them together just and that's up to you you know a suggestion guess there were PID answer followup questions through uh through email or phone call anyone share the information you have our emails please feel free to reach out structured it also in a way where there's some flexibility in terms of like almost like a menu type of options we did break out some of the services to give you a total um there's been a potential of starts and stops as well so we take a look through that information within you'll see that it does have particular line items for different types of services within each of the phases thank you sure thank you for the presentation and for coming in thank you very much with us we did make sure before the summer came but
047Beach weather Beach weather yeah all right anyone have any more questions before Michael and Jim take off all right great so next step we Carol and I will talk we'll be in touch and then we'll put a formal vote probably in the August meeting I know the committee will probably convene over the summer and a we'll probably Retreat over the summer or something but yeah super fun all [Music] right thank oh thank you thank you so much fun all right next so we're g to roll right into portrait right sure so Carol's gonna talk about our portrait of a graduate well we're introducing this for the first time to the school committee and we're going to be hopefully taking this on the road early uh next year but we wanted to to share with you
048first this is a culmination of months of work from this amazing Committee of individuals who volunteered their time uh from different different aspects of our district community members staff administrators parents um to come up with this document that you see in front of you you'll have two of them you'll see this graphic which we plan to use as our kind of logo going forward and we'll describe that in just a moment um and then the portrait of a graduate all of the different pillars that were ident that were created by this Comm committee moving forward this is the vision that this Comm this Committee of 21 people put together um based on their own very different perspectives as they were coming into this session um we were those of us who were coordinating this at
049first we a little um cautious maybe that's a good word about how this would go over with so many different thoughts and different um different way different ways of thinking I guess I would say and at the end belt it into this one amazing United group who came up with all of these these pillars um during that time together the group had a chance to listen to alumni um both younger alumni as well as those who had been out of Tanto many years it was interesting to hear how much how similar their perspective on Tahanto was and what they needed um what they felt they needed as they graduated and then also we had a chance to we had admissions counselors coming in from colleges in the area colleges and universities to talk to us
050about what they what they saw coming forward to them and what they felt they needed for the skill sets um and characteristics of students that they were admitting into these colleges and universities so I have several of those individuals here tonight um well Jen and Joey over there I do want to read the names of all these committee members um because I so appreciated the time um I fed them which seemed to help lots of sandwiches from the deli um and they were really great about that some pizza mixed in but um they were just amazing also I I do want to talk about the graphics for a moment that you see here once the committee had its ideas together um one of our parents Amber bio from Berlin who I was hoping would be
051here tonight I don't see her um she planed to come to the meeting before anyway Amber worked with John Campbell and myself and a little bit with Adam Wilbur a couple others to look at this graphic design that we would use so if you see it the two hands represent the two elementary schools holding up this tree that's the Tahanto Green Tree um and those and those different images around it are actually represent the resilience the community and so on so the next phase of this um is the Strategic plan that's more the nuts and bults of the work we need to do I think it's a perfect time because it will tie into that three-year plan um that we had developed a while ago that I BR forward again the beginning of next year
052to kind of wrap all of that up and begin really digging into what we need to have for our our children our schools I think it will lead us and guide us into the budget process among things where do we need to spend our money what what do we need to do to develop our children on the curriculum work that we do um and just generally the culture of our schools so I will stop talking but I do want because I do want Jessica was on that Lisa May um our folks down here all of them and then Jen and Joey so I don't know if you want to share your experience what you learned from this or your thoughts go ahead I thought we were going in order she start I will say I
053I felt the same way in the start there was a very uh wide range and eclectic group of people from all different areas and was curious how it was going to work out um but I will say that once we started to get into it and realized what we were trying to accomplish which was sort of an inspiration document motivational big picture type thing um people started to get behind it and there were some places where we were in agreement but we just couldn't agree on how we wanted to express ourselves um so there was a lot of conversation about that because we wanted to make sure that we were saying exactly what we wanted to say um but it was it was a good experience and I think at the end we all came
054up with something where we could all stand behind us say yes this is what we feel and having the people that came in students that came in from uh who were current students or past students was incredible to listen to their real like some of them were very open about what really goes on in school which was um and then hearing from those admission officers I I went home with a page full of notes for my daughter who's about to apply to colleges like this is what they're saying so um there's a lot of really good information I think we could certainly use to spread around thank you J we also we also were sure to include those who may not be taking the college track we had a lot of discussion on The non-college
055Graduate or not yeah that weren't going off to college but we wanted to make sure that was all part of this um discussion and this decision creation Sy I would like to say that um just bringing everybody to the table the different perspectives of teachers and administrators community members parents was very eye opening for me I mean I know as an administrator we hear what parents want but having us all at the table sharing those ideas was very beneficial um not only as for the district and going forward with this but for bees as well and just hearing what everyone had to say and a lot it was very similar just was very nice to me thanks J thanks Cindy John follow just real quickly I you know I I think that uh it was
056amazing to watch this kind of come together because there were moments when I I was not sure um this was the easy part right bringing this pretty document to life in our schools that's going to be the hard part to actually live up to our aspirations we'll work ahead I I would have to um Echo What U Joey had said I my favorite part was hearing from the students and having them at the table with us I think that's so important often times I I believe that the students feel that things are happening around them they don't have a voice and so that was incredibly important to me and and I too loved the the admissions officers from the colleges because I think they're um there's a lot of rhetoric out there of what our
057students need but I I I think we're in it like a Time shift like a lot of that rhetoric is what we remember college how you know that process being and it's shifted and we all have to kind of get on the same page so we're building up our students in a way that's you know they'll be productive for their future lives yeah I I just I was thinking about what Cindy said just having different community members um coming together I think that was really important and I know it was kind of a you know kind of an who would like to sign up for this right and it was kind of authentic but we ended up getting a variety of stakeholders which I thought was really important because some of the viewpoints of somebody
058who has a kindergarten student right um is very different than somebody who's has a graduate that you know um is 21 years old so I thought that was that was it you know we did have so many different viewpoints but I did think it was really important to hear from all them that was good Jessica um so as was like a tonr and the school Committee Member and a parent of kids in the elementary school you know I have certain perspectives hopes for the education of my own kids and and it was really great to hear the kids in college on Zoom you know giving their perspective now that they've left and and what they feel they needed and what they got from their education so and you know it it was amazing you know
059there was a lot of different opinions and a lot of different people and and it was a really great process and I thank you for organizing it um you know it's it's a really good project to bring them the school to a certain Vision thank you I'm s oh much like what Rene was saying about the variety of people I also was just impressed about how many participants it was a very large group which I thought was great and I also thought that when we had discussions it was very everyone was focused and it was there were really good Rich conversations so it was a great experience well we set Norms early on you know and really I think everybody was respectful of different opinions and I think that worked well in as you look
060at the pillars here the community resilience Civic engagement critical thinking and creativity it was this kind of all of the words in here mattered and to see all of these people trying to Wordsmith and get wasn't about wordsmithing it was getting the right words to convey what they meant in each of like the first word the community and bringing it down to these one this what did it mean to us each of these had meaning um so we worked very very hard on that it seems like it was simple but it really was very complex so um I'm grateful to all of them so I just if you don't mind just want to take a moment just to read Nam of the individual on the committee and um so thank you Amber Vio Linda Chola
061Cindy Sykes Patty and Inwood Lillian cedo who our our student representative Stephanie Woodward Jen Smith Renee Leandra Lisa sequera deer Lisa Mayer Adam Wilbur Karen Gordon Kathleen Barry darling yunin Joseph floro Katrina laon Sally stles and then John Campbell so thank you to all of them and work ahead that's awesome if I could I think the the organization of it you know be you know um Carol John and Sally each session was well orchestrated so I don't believe anybody felt like their time was wasted it was very um focused but fun and engaging and purposeful and I thank you all for doing that our next step is to bring these forward to the school to the um PTO beginning of next year and our school councils to get them familiar get more people on board
062and hopefully we'll be able to have folks who were willing to volunteer for the Strategic plan so you'll have a committee next year that will work on the Strategic plan and that will essentially turn into like the district Improvement plan okay for like the fall or that'll be for the following like fall of 2025 the fall of this coming year fall we'll invite folks to join that committee but before that the the administrative team is getting training this summer and theate creating a strategic plan from our colleagues in Menon lton to do this to learn how to do this well so because they have if you go on to the m Upton website you will see their their portrait of a graduate with their strategic plan so I think it'll really lend itself to a
063deeper richer um plan for the next several years great thank you all for participating in that project question oh yeah sure Carol this is the I think this is the third year we've been talking about for of graduate two years ago you kind of brought it up to everybody last year you started planning for it this year was the committee work I know you just you mentioned next year we're going to take a whole year to do a strategic plan I I look at the infographic and the logo and they're great they're beautifully done but the infographic specifically what are what could we tell parents today your taking a step back document that you had in there what is a portrait right it says it takes us from where we are to where we want
064to be but nothing else that I see in the drive or anything we can tell parents tells them well where are we and where do you want to be I look at the infograph and I think a lot of parents might have the question that I have is well this is where you want to be I was under the assumption that we were doing this or that we should be doing this now so what's what's the outcome of this when will it come because next year will be the fourth year now that we're involved in it in some way I don't know I just I guess I thought after this year after all the work not to diminish the work that was done because I know it was a lot of work that was done
065I talk to people on the committee all the time about it but I just thought we might have something more at this point what's going to change what needs to change why does it need to change what's it going to be how are you going to do it when is it going to be done those types of questions yeah those are the questions that would get answered Mike with the Strategic plan yeah that strategic plan is going to take the whole next years no it's not no no I I don't feel it's going to be the whole year I think it's going to be the fall of next year um and I would say with the vision and to your point I don't recall because I just took like I talked about it last year
066when I was two years ago you brought it up je was still here you mentioned it to me at least I was really excited about it Jeff was against it last year you started talking about planning trying to find the money for it this year you put the committies together then we did the work yeah I just I'm looking for this to be in place like I'm excited about it when is it going to be there what's going to change how is it going to help is a strategic plan going to be in place before the budget talks next year should be yes yeah okay y and I think I think it's just putting down what Danto is already building towards and and have for decades at least from my point of view and so
067I think it it really was just putting into words and ideas of what the staff is already working towards yeah and not only that Jessica I think just in general across elementary schools and the high school um to really say this is what's important to us now this is what's to the parents to the community members to the to the staff and to students about what what we want to have for our children when they graduate so I guess that is the question what is important to us now like I see the resilience okay students will demonstrate the ability to face challenges will collabora dependently with adaptability perseverance and G they don't do that now um I don't think it was ever defined I don't think it was ever actually in on pav I don't
068think it was ever ident identified we could say well this student has resilience and maybe that student doesn't you know needs need some help with that we can't really tell but we can at least now look at these are vision statements so we want to make sure that all of our students come out with a sense of resilience to what it means to them to be successful individuals when they graduate from T I guess that's my question yeah the vision statement it's like a company has a vision statement it's not good unless you do anything absolutely to live it so are you going to make changes over the summer to the course offer to change any of this or do like what is going to be done to do this and that's what we're learning
069about this summer to guide us and creating that strategic plan as well right how how slow the whole process works I guess yeah it is slow but me take time slow and but means are you guys all what did you meet six times felt like seven we me for s but it was like you guys met once a month so I yeah once a month yeah it was if you met once a week for six weeks then it that's not how volunteers yeah it's not achievable for volunte for 20s something volunteers so I do hear what you're saying but I I get it because it's government and it's volunteers and it's just yeah and being respectful of people's time to try to not make it a weekly meeting and um burn everybody out it's hard
070to make commitments I think for folks to do we have it's hard to right we have a monthly meetings here but um I think it was monthly and it gave people a chance to think and talk in between that time Joey I'm sorry did you have your hand up I don't I would I'm not sure why I would speak a second time I made do the first one sorry I wasn't paying attention I felt like I wanted to speak because one of the things I said about at the beginning when we sat to what you were speaking about I think we all realized that there were 20 something people there that we were all doing these things but we're all saying it differently calling it different things and and so part of it was just
071the unity of hashing it those conversations going oh we're all we're all saying the same thing we're just saying it a different way so the unity came in finding a way that we could all accept this is how we're going to say it from now on so it's sort of that that not a motto but sort of we are all on the same we were all on the same page we were just reading it slightly different like the old elephant thing we were all healing it part of the same elephant so now we identified right here's so a lot of it was just coming to that Unity because we are doing these things we aspire to trying to accomplish but now we just sort of have a way to say it in un I think
072was part of that thanks I think too like at the elementary schools do you still have sore yeah yeah so it's like a vision I don't know what that is what's sore we don't have that do we it's like our B safe oh it's like it's PB I'm not question whether it's great I'm just get it I know no I get it it took a year to gather information and now it's going to take another six months to actually execute on the plan I get it all right anything else good thank you to all the participants in that um especially the principals and the employees that are working all day and then doing these meetings and coming to school committee meetings so thank you that's great thanks Jess and Lisa too okay next up did
073anyone anything else before we move on Michael did you have anything that you wanted to say um about the budget tonight I don't want to put you on the spot you can say no I don't anything yeah I mean it the next phace really is to start of rebuilding um especially Berlin's and tant's budget y to address those um cuts and changes so that's why I spent most of my day today is looking at T I met the special ed department and I'll meet with um Lisa to go over you know what those like changes need to be and have to address them okay and get to a bottom line great and do that with John for Burman Elementary and uh we met briefly today with Cindy to talk about you know if there were
074impact with with Boon but of course there aren't so well there would be if we are using cash the impact Boon would be that cash will come back and we have to decide that's a different yeah we'll have to decide if we're going to lower the assessment right right and then we'd have to let the town out or if we use the cash right the committee can vote to do you know there was a we had a laundry list of asks for Boyston Elementary School y there's a piece of playground equipment we had originally said the bathrooms need to be red done um we were postponing parking lot project because we didn't have an appropriate quote at the time so I mean depending on how much cash we end up using out of end and
075all that stuff so um I guess my question is I know we've got seven days to get the assessment to the town right um but we can always lower it so we can go with the you know we could try to get a meeting um do we have to vote I guess is the question you don't because we've already voted on the assessment yeah all right what about Boon it's the same assessment um unless we lower it unless we lower it if we lower it we got a vote and we do a new assessment letter right okay but if we don't lower it you're you could stay the course um but you need to have a conversation with the their finance committee and their their select board so that can happen you know at their
076okay invol them ter of their okay so once you have numbers solidified we can get together I'll Reach Out Julie and I will we can put a subcommittee meeting on and we'll get with Howard and Matt is here so we'll definitely get with Boon and figure out um Berlin you'll get that assessment letter over all right that's good and then you'll present to the school committee what we ended up doing as far as we use this much cash we yes all right yeah all right great all right so did anyone have any questions I felt like it moved like 5,000 miles an hour last night even for me who was very deep in the details it was moving quickly did anyone have any questions or followup they wanted to discuss since we have it on
077the agenda or or we like budgeted out and we want to just move on did you have I'm just hopeful that from the 225 or what ended up being 215 that we won't impact any Middle School sports that weren't that aren't happening that list was solid so I don't think we're changing anything on that list it's just the 150 yeah yeah well there's that piece and then there's definitely the 150 as well that that was going to be more cash applied than reduction for that we kind of need to look at like it would be great I Mike and I were talking after the meeting last night it would be great and I don't even know if this is doable right now I know Michael you got so much on your plate it would be
078great to get monthly financials and like a budget to actual like a monthly yeah yeah we've never had that before definitely so to have that type of visibility and I know I'm not like asking for it now or even like next month because I know you have to build all that from scratch but it would be great like sometime with the beginning of next school year to have that so the school committee can gauge you know we the school committee took a lot of criticism for this budget it was frustrating because we all had so much skin in the game we were all working so hard we were all doing the best that we could with the information that we had so I think it would be wonderful and I mean Mike I remember Mike
079when he was chair asking for these reports this isn't like something new um so that would be wonderful yeah that's yeah that's that's it something we never had before all right great okay moving right along unless anyone had anything else to say all right Carol I know Matt here for the CPA conversation yeah do you want to do that before we get to administrative reports in your eil yeah that would be great yeah you not at all sorry no you Joey and Joey and Jen if you don't feel like I I just always feel about don't feel like you have of studies your portrait of graduat done there's anything else all good it's all good thank you both great so thank you yeah have a wonderful summer I know they were both there last night
080too okay go ahead Carol yeah so Matt texted me earlier today to ask about tonight to talk about the the CPA the preservation application um and some things that we he wanted to share about uh fixing our Fields over at Tanto and some of the money that's available to us so Matt would you like to go first and I can talk about this application um sure so oh I guess I missed that CP okay it was great though they were so helpful yeah they were they were really yeah they were waiting they were waiting for I talked to I ran into a lane and Sue um so kind of how I got pulled into this is there Junior the junior class the civics class yeah it's a Civics project um three of the students there
081chose to you know as they to the athletic fields um they asked me to help then raise some funds um and obviously CPA is the first thing that comes to mind um and I think you know car I think you guys probably have more conversations with them my initial conversation with oilon side is they were certainly willing to go down that road yeah but I know there a process and you know there's a long to go there they're willing to entertain it anyways um I think it's it's probably two phases is my guess is the first would be that soccer ac Crossfield inside the track which is a full renovation for what I'm told jul may know better than me I you've done some more work on um but to me that's what it use
082it's a full renovation and maybe the other fields don't necess quite I think the baseball probably next but second as far as the amount of we go um there's certainly traction right now with some businesses in town to help fund call phase one that that few set track um either through you know cash donations or labor donations or material donations I a couple meeting set up with some landscapers that are interested in helping out um what offer already to you know get the at Cost but um so there's a lot there as like I think I guess the only reason I want to come to I really want to make sure the three girls that have kind of Tak on this project stay involved because I don't want to discourage them you know the work
083that they put in I they quotes they want to put project together they're going to present to some of these businesses and things like that so I just want to make sure that they stay involved and get a wi that's the way it's going yeah so um my first thought is Julie we should like we have a I feel like we haven't had a subcommittee meeting in a while for budget so maybe we can get that on the books and that was something Matt Julie and I had talked about back in the fall and then when budget season hit yeah we just kind of everything else kind of just slipped through the crack so I'm very much looking forward to um getting back on that again and uh Elaine Jones is my neighbor and talked
084to her about CPA money from Boyston and the big thing she said was she's absolutely you know I think we get we got to go through application process it's something we can look at together um but also she she said you know Berlin has a share in that as well so and I know Julie you're on that committee as well and I think there's some funds there so I I feel like I'm very positive about this project and I think it's just kind of like getting a meeting on the books and getting started and I I took um I think is it Taylor's email yep I have her email so I told her I would reach out to her and we could all connect and I think it's wonderful that students are getting involved in
085this so I do think we can probably get phase one funded outside of CPA okay earlier on one way or another and if it sounds to me the simplest way to do that is to run through the booster club and then they get the project to the schools like so you guys would have to accept it all that but it'll make it more stream easier start process and all that so just some work to do there I think the initial timeline will start this summer see that happening I'd love to say the fall that may also be optimistic but um we'll see Y is it used in this [Music] trr that's a whole another aspect is a full year of no use yeah they told they said that they said they were G to talk
086to shury um they said they could use Hillside I don't know if anyone saw their Civics project it was great I don't know they they like have thought of everything I meaning 16 years old and going through this I thought it was phenomenal but I asked them that and they were like yeah we found out that you can't use the fields like six months after they're done right so she said they were going to look into like using fields in shury using the hillside working you know with parks and Ro in Boon burlin fields did you have something to say sorry no I Matt thanks for bringing this up but how old do these fields at 10 years old 13 school yes 20 13 years old 14 probably I remember in the spring when we
087T the schools we were talking about Fields Julie brought it up yes and it's 13 years old it doesn't seem like that old what's the issue that caused them to be in such a position they need to be completely lack of Maintenance so all right that's yeah that's what I figurability we talked about this in the fall with Dan and new Carol is there a written m plan going forward so C CP will require yeah okay Y for the application so we'll have to do that like I do have okay because I know that was we talk we've been talking about that since what was that September we talking about like you and you've been doing since before then I know yeah no I'm talking as like funding for that just like even a feel
088that size I mean that could be $40,000 just for maintenance right I understand $40,000 to maintain it or how much is going to be to completely redo it every couple of years because we don't me well no I agree with you you need to have a maintenance plan built we talked about that I don't know it's but when you think about like things that are cutting you're like oh I'll just you know pull the fertilizer for this first application it's not a big deal but it turns out is a very big deal which you probably they got maintenance so we had this is really frustrating too because we had in our original budget in February of 20 24 full-time meain and Par at Danto which I personally think probably to have a full-time ground ground
089person right the person would full-time be doing grounds for the district and that would eliminate needing to hire a maintenance company right or no they would have to Outsource right you would still have to Outsource a fertilizer yeah you need all that stuff it's a lot do s in land right yeah also have a drainage issue which we don't have so the drainage issue I believe um I need to confirm with the super he had gnl Plumbing that was going to come and put a camera down there think he said it was coming this week they were coming this week so we can find out what the deals with that pipe because either there's a valve close or there's a blockage or something we don't know the issue or or we know there's a pump
090that the pl a pump we don't know if that's real not I know the pump is not there we know the pump's up there we don't know PL say supposed to be installed so the water not making to the no knows why and this is a natural grass field because you can't do artificial because of the water right is that right artificial is tricky actually artificial is more to costly to maintain yeah more costly to maintain and put you're looking at so the quote right now is 268 for that field and you're probably at 1.2 for that's but it's over a million doll tur and like look at Messi won't even play on Turf so is it really that great oh I mean I I think it would be an issue yeah I was just
091gonna say yeah the conservation that's nasty stuff too yeah yeah yeah we brought them in in in the fall to look at it they weren't too keen on the idea of an artificial turf there for sure so um didn't we build in like $25,000 into the budget for Photon I can't remember if we removed that or if it's in in the capital I'm trying to BR the to but it doesn't it just it doesn't go that was just for like maintenance or something if it's if it's a mess out there right you're going to pour in all this money fertilizer you need to do like several applications of fertilizer and seed to kill out the stuff that's there add to that you can only treat when kids aren't on campus yeah that issue you had
092someone come and I thought we put I can't remember now it's very Tri we put 25,000 in for this budget sounds like they have a PR good plan yeah that's really accurate just for that a little bit High because of the way the condition of the fields are I got I got two quotes want to uh redo the whole this is just soccer field this cost $268,000 let's redo the whole soccer field if a little bit of maintenance plan uh $25,000 right I thought you we you brought that to us and I thought we put that into the capit yeah might as well the yeah all right yeah I don't think I saw renovation from golf course just but was but I do think we can bring that number down just through donations of material
093and things like that I don't know how much but and I think we can bring you know we can get M Athletic Field renovation 29240 we have we have we built that into the capital budget 29240 so that was just to do minor Renovations or maintenance or whatever but it's built into the capital budget for um Tanto for 2024 2024 yeah $ 229,230 not 2020 not no I'm looking at this right now the sub total is 10 19,800 of which Boon had like 70 something thousand and Berlin had like 28 or something yeah it was 29 240 for the athletic field 8,100 for the hbac 15,000 non-student device repair walkie-talkie P talk about next fiscal year sorry 2025 yeah starting it starts two weeks July yeah so that was approved on both ends so the
094cash is there for that we have the 20 it's 29240 so that should be something to jump start the project or whatever put a deposit down or whatever is needed but that was built into the budget Athletic Field renovation and that the money for this grant would be for next summer but we need to have and the the committee recommended getting two individuals one from each town to we have to get a um determination of Eligibility form completed and submitted by September 1st so I'll me so they asked me to get two volunteers from the school committee to do that this Sumer and and also asked about getting Berlin to work with us on that yeah I can work so Julie why don't we have a subcommittee meeting and we can work on that all
095right we'll do that we'll figure out that's it quotes on the rest of the fields so the only one I the softball field and I was just told that's good I don't know about the rest but just what those I mean does the DCR have any regulations about the fertilizer put down well that's the thing fertilizing is Trick more expensive you got games yeah we have the same thing too because weour so I'll just keep you guys posted on what I can raise and then see what the G is there yep yeah you just ra all the money yeah right through the booster club that's perfect that's actually SM um yeah so I think we all right that's great thank you so much thanks for coming back appreciate it we should have some plan for
096getting that field at least as much grass as possible before soccer starts off for the fall yeah so I play need do a couple formalization applications right they already did one oh great they just did one oh great all right there's also an OP of those quot that just do half of that field which I assume means the other half must not be T I think it is too unless we ra that and then we just we'll see we'll see all right thank principal reports Mrs Sykes would you like to go first I would love to thank you for allowing me to share uh the positive things at the end of the year that came fast and furious uh we had a lot of field trips we had a lot of parent involvement coming in
097which I'd like to see more of that through the course of the year instead of the end of the year next year but we'll work on that we had an amazing field day uh fifth grade recognition and the biggest thing I'd like to highlight is we have the PTO and the bef have joined forces and are now known as beepo yes I notto Boon education parent teacher organization and they provide us both organizations provided us with so many resources for our students we look forward to working with them again um next year there is a proposal I'll bring up later for the after school program that's okay yeah did anyone want to talk about the after school program so Cindy had a a proposal out there for the after school program to increase the um
098the fees I did not realize that um are the fees at bees were different than the fees at BMS I had no idea until I looked at that well Carol brought that to me like a week ago or two weeks ago she was said did you know and I said I had no idea my kids don't do after school so um did you guys want to discuss that did anyone have any questions on that can I explain oh yeah why don't you go through that so um thank you so um Michelle hadam and eile McQueen are the they run this and they have come to me with this a little bit the main reasons is there's some staffing and training for the staff there's some things that happened in the after school program that I'd
099like to get ahead of um for next year um but it's basically trying to make it more consistent with other districts our program and BMS but our our program is very big uh sometimes we have 80 kids there sometimes we can have 125 and we want to make it safer we want to make sure the staff is trained there um and we have enough staff to watch that many children so it's bringing it up probably about 20% and then having a discount for as the children go ahead that is something um Michelle hayam kind of compared it with BMS to see where they are and make it a little bit um consistent but also to give that percentage discount if you have more children so everything is laid out there what it would look like
100compared to other districts she did her homework both of them did um just to see where that is so the proposed increas is on the second page and so for example if you have one child that goes one day a week it would be $60 per month instead of 50 in set their Fe okay so these are monthly fees and we were looking at about a 20% increase this year so not hit parents too much but to to raise it we were talking with M about that and that's recomended and raise it a little bit every year till the till the both schools I mean coming from daycare to after school cost like that's it's quite cheap well can't believe how far under we are yeah I mean with everything we did last night you're
101going to have to probably increase that yeah yeah it's shocking yeah that's the the difference um it's just shocking so um yeah say that someone who uses it two or three days a week for two kids I think this is a leftover from the days will Mo to sep districts and so the districts were [Music] setting yeah yeah but bees just never raised their fees for like nine to 10 years right that was the situation so yeah I mean I don't think these increases are too so we'd be voting on raising bees to the proposed increases which was on page two it's about a 20% increase for one child if you have two or three kids you get a discount okay does anyone have any uh questions on this he's Fair where where does where
102does the money go for after school program rol than obviously to revolving fund it should be dedicated um to the the after school program right um I haven't looked into it but uh I understand there are some uh fees that may go to related cost like some for the custodian that's there that during the time that they're there to help out things like that also look at that make sure that you know it's apportioned appropriately U or how it's a portioned but um you know anything that's related to the operation of the program um can come out of those that involving it account and then any excess which just stays in a revolving just a revolving for the district not for after school no ST dedicated to that to after school to after school yeah
103I mean the you know we could we could come up depending on again you know like we were talking about last night we want the funds to to be there perpetually uh so you know we could look at you know cost for rent rental of the space because it's you know it's a sort of it's an Enterprise fund it's running itself um cost from running having director having you know staff is it staffed appropriately I think there's some question about the number of staff for students so you know maybe we come up with a rule that we should have one adult or 10 10 children you know whatever you know and figure out a budget for it and and say okay well now you know we're not quite doing it that way we kind doing
104it backward backwards in the sense that you know we're just trying to even out between the two Community programs um but you know we should we could do that and and actually a portion some cost um back to the general fund so speak so that they're operating yeah so that's a that's a good idea yep okay okay great all right Mrs syk did you have anything else no that is it all right thank you all right Mr Campbell I'll be brief thanks for uh including me um yeah end of the year was as lovely as always I think the thing I'll highlight is probably the uh end of the year concert that our combined fourth and fifth grade Bandon core students to I'm always amazed always amazed at the quality of music that comes out
105of very small children because I hear them in fourth grade I think they're never going to be able to tun and miraculously Mrs bruss always gets them there um the same thing with Audrey Thompson who is just an amazing thing I did have a concern you know the whole New York theme was fine but you know there were several lovely Buffalo songs they could have wrapped into it um and chose not to um but other than that you know Nature's Classroom was amazing the kids really enjoyed that um GL day school and clap out it was it was a good end of the year not nearly as stressful in my school as it was for the committee so thanks all right great thank you all right um did I know have questions for John okay
106Miss aquera thank you thank you for um asking me to share this I it was very busy end of the year I knew it was going to be busy and I wasn't quite expecting it to be um as busy as it turned out to be uh first um all testing was completed um the first week of June I think that's always a surprise that we are doing mcast testing right up through um June 4th and 5th I think it's important to note that the eighth grade students had four they sat for four separate mcast exams this year uh you know math Ela science and they added the Civics exam this year and that was two separate sessions so therefore they only tested only as web testing they only sat for that twice this year um
107but that um is important to note to understand um how much testing our students um undergo for graduation graduation exercises for the class of 2024 were held on June 2nd um at 2 pm um it was a beautiful ceremony and I was so proud of the students 76 students um earned their diploma and there there are a few stats that I'd like to share there were 69 seniors that applied to 174 different postsecondary institutions so there was a lot of applications um and quite a few of those um there will be students attending colleges and universities in Massachusetts but also in 17 different states outside of Massachusetts that's pretty impressive we have um about 76 6% of the students um went off to a four-year College 11% to a 2-year 4% to Career Education or
108technical training programs and 8% joining the workforce and we had one graduate who was already part of the United States Army so that was um an impressive group of young people um we will miss them um a great deal I think the last two high well last three highlights the career fair which had been the like one of the very few snow days the original Career Fair held we rebooked it for June 6th and it was really a wonderful opportunity for our community members to come in and meet with our students and for them to share their work um experiences and the training that went into professions in various different fields I think that it's incredibly worthwhile um and the guidance Department creates a scavenger funds to go around so the students actively because it's
109I mean high school student they they're you know kind of like oh what do I say you know but this gets them and then once they start talking that it becomes this really fruitful conversation and we've heard several people mentioned the cat Fair the Civic Action project this was the first year we invited community members to come in and share their projects and that was amazing I was so proud of all the projects and I was so proud of the work they did and the confidence they had and how they presented themselves and it was just it was that is what Tanto is all about and I was so proud of them it was um great and Shout Out fantastic Middle School f day PTO hosted an amazing Field Day Julie thank you so much
110for all of your help it was really that was um it was an outstanding kind of um end of the year and then we had eighth grade graduation on the last day and it was it was great great year thank you thank you for letting me share any questions no thank you that was great all right um oh so I did want to say one thing sorry I just got distracted for a sec um thank you for including us for the the Civil the Civics career the Civics Action Project sorry I thought that was excellent um I was blown away by the projects and some of the ideas that the kids had um you I forgot what it was like to be in high school it's been so long and I have little kids but
111it it really blew me away to see how much some of these kids want to give back to their community so thank you for including us I I hope that the school committee will and I saw pretty much almost everyone on the committee at least popped in so um I'm hoping that you'll include us next year yeah I love all I saw board and yeah I saw people all different people um Steve marrow was there from the highway department so it was awesome to see everyone from the community it really was I love I love that that we did that this year that was really great yeah all right Fant FC okay anything else from squa might want to expand it to the gym oh yeah we actually just did we had no idea you
112know so so moving forward right absolutely so moving forward we absolutely will have a diff um bigger we thought it would be like nice and cozy we very was great okay uh Janelle um sure so I submitted a report to you with a snapshot of um student data for the last um I believe that that is six years representing um different student groups that constitute um High needs and you know I think it's interesting to show how our small District changes little by little um over the years and um on the second page you can see that there's some definitions there that um accompany those categories okay great did anyone have any questions about this okay is there anything else okay uh Sally yeah so You' seen my report so as you you saw that
113there's a couple items on there that leis actually just spoke about one of them being the career fair and so I know you've already talked about it but I was just also very impressed that um first of all last year I think we had about 16 different participants and this year we originally when we um scheduled it for April we had 24 which I thought was great and although we had rescheduled we still got 20 participants to come back so um great so I was really happy about that and it was a nice variety of participants as well the other thing Lisa mentioned was also the Civics Action project um another thing is that um I know that we came in and um had a first read on the new wellness policy and there were
114some great questions that were brought up actual draft so that we can bring it back for a vote in the fall um but in the meantime Lisa May and also Lisa lamro who's our um lead nurse of the district and I were invited to a wellness to a a conference in Norwood in May where we were recognized by the um acting commissioner for being Wellness champions for the work that we did with the coaching program um that we were associated with there so that was really great and um then the other one was just that I also was um asked to do a presentation um for des's um digital literacy and computer science conference in Westboro and um that was a great conference too because they um had all sorts of different topics um that
115I was able to bring information back to umon awesome thank you did anyone have any questions for Sally okay wonderful moving right along Paul good evening um I also had a pretty brief report um just highlights um about state and federal reporting um again update on the federal side um we did um when last time I reported on this um we hadn't submitted yet we did submit on time um all the data was reviewed um by by the feds and at this time um they have any questions or um need any further details from for from us about our submission so that's always a good when when you get past that review process um and again noted that um typically this isn't every other year but because of covid last year was delayed um and
116so we will be um having to to do that report again and again at this point we probably already have about 60% of the data um ready for next year submission um end of year typical stuff from the state includes those four um different reports that I've noted um basically it's kind of like covering the schools the student side the teacher side the course and our course offering side and in the end of the year they have't added um school safety and discipline report that that needs to be done and again um most of that reporting is um is looking good we have some minor areas that still need to be corrected um before the August deadlines for those reports but um that should not be issued for us to do um I did want
117to and on that second page of the report um want to commend Bon Warren um who um is the data support specialist I think is her official title um she does a wonderful job keeping our our data um clean and up toate and um error free as much as possible so that um when it comes to my portion of what what needs to be done as far as like actually getting it to the state or to the feds makes that um that job so much easier so again I wanted to take the time to publicly say that as well that money more does a wonderful job and I don't know how I can do my part of that without her support um and then the second second item was the fiber Grant U project um
118it is moving all the fiber has been run to this building to Berlin Memorial and um Central office they were supposed to actually finish today uh running into um Bon Elementary but they ran into Subs at the 14070 split and so um it's currently um going to be now because they actually are losing some of their crew that they was going to work it's not going to happen until next Thursday um but again should be done by the end of the month um and um from the internal side um Carol approved POS today that will um get the equipment that once the fiber runs are completed um will allow us to actually have the communication between the buildings and again make some improvements in that our internal Network all right great did anyone have questions
119for Paul is there any sell service update sell service yeah um so the on the town side they keep asking Verizon 4 um um updates as far as like where they're at with again like they have added additional 5G um um networking along Route 70 um they have an indicated to back to the town whether you know they're going to add more again they just basically continue to testing you'll see every once in a while that there will be a Verizon truck out and um again they they spot test but um yeah I I don't have a lot of information for you because they Verizon is very close about what they're doing and they're installed past center of town towards like I think it's almost like those things are installed all the way to Tanto
120right they they are um again originally they had told the town that they were going to do about every third or fourth pole and then it became more like uh we might do four or five betweene 70 and um in Tanto and there is one right out in front if you don't have a 5G phone it's not really um helping you at this point um again anecdotally I can tell you that um most folks still have an issue here unless they uh get out front being in a building that has is made of concrete and metal is still going to be an issue even with that there okay something and again I think you like in the school Tech in the in your subcommittee to talk I I think before you start thinking about okay
121are we gonna do other things in terms of trying to get a better signal in here you're dealing with whether you wanted to have kids having cell phones on their bodies at any point anyway so um you know it's like those conversations I think almost have to happen for before you start saying going down the road of all right do we need to to add repeaters internal yeah that's the repeaters that we talked about yeah was like 200 Grand right okay I thinking more when people are in the school like parents if they're at things yeah a safety issue the other thing is like a safety issue like today did you see the 911 lines were down yeah so it's just stuff like that scary 69 to 1113 right oh my God you got memorized
122from childhood yes good for you teach my yes thank you very much okay last but not least Dan hi just a couple updates from the roof we're doing an initial walk through on July 18 10 a.m. um what it bid the what bid would be awarded on July 29th anti anticipated completion date with be September 30th uh I was told that should not fix school that's great yeah Matt sent an email today so this report and the drive didn't get a chance to read this whole pages I was like who wrote this um all right how now how often do those get done those reports talk about the BS roof no I'm sorry I thought she was going back to the report now yeah I I just was referencing this report th this is new
123report yeah what was this from I don't talk about the AI yeah that's the T facility addition assessment that was perform that's too I did not know that we did a Tanto facilities assessment did what that was not in the budget it's part of last year's Capital yeah it was in capital it was last year's Capital I did not sorry no no no that's good thank you yeah we decided BMS I don't know why thought we put it off like we're like we'll do that in two years because it was but anyways this is great I haven't had a chance to read through this so Jesus it's a long report yeah it's 232 pages I I I I I did find a curious highlights there was a lot of uh so on the report the
124report is a really good report it's an excellent report I mean I reach out to HBY for aot we talk to another company and this company AI consultant came out the lowest cost um I to get a reference check on them came out so they did a Boston Housing Authority they did a couple schools in in uh in Maine so I went ahead and gave him the job we met here walked through the whole entire building in and out um we have a lot of mechanical issues as you can see on the report um what I like about this report they also give you a 10e capital plan MH the cost estimates I think we had boiler repairs already in the budget right which is one of the things they so what are the highlights
125a lot lot of work to be done in gear 7even yeah a lot of out so we need to start do we have so we need to we should create like stabilization funds or is like I mean I guess we can take this offline we don't need to get deep into this but I feel like and like again this kind of goes to the budget subcommittee and the more I keep thinking I'm like maybe we do need a third person on that committee so you got immedate your your shortterm shortterm repairs you get the asphalt frame work rep um pbac 256,000 we have like 15,000 in the buget I got to tell you when I read the report and I I did I I went to the things that I know which was the athletic
126I I I I questioned how he could rate or she or whoever did this report the athletic fields in good condition because they're in deplorable condition yeah so it made me think and I highlighted some of the areas that I told him that we are planning on to redo which is a sh ah so he wrote it was in good condition despite it not being in good condition I guess that's it just led me to believe that if he wrote that's in good condition I I I I don't I'm not versed in all the mechanical stuff to know but it did it did we do know we have a lot of mechanical issues here but currently right now the cafeteria AC is not working yeah um uh the rooftop unit over the band room compressor
127uh compressor leak you know about that also the one in the Cs room just same wants to I'm just hoping that he got all the areas that need yeah repair that it's in here so we have a starting point to go from when we're at these you know what I mean basing that on what I'm saying is the athletic fields he said we're good and they're awful so if there's other things in here that he said we're good and they're not and you know we need to prioritize what needs to be fixed yeah right in general I guess my comment on this is like we need to have like some type of stabilization fund for this building because we own it as a district this isn't something we can throw back to the town and
128say hey the air conditioning doesn't work in the whole building we need a building like this many rooms don't have Windows you can't not have do you know what I mean not have some type of ventalation if something breaks that's significant do we have I mean this is the district owned building right we can't go back to a town and say hey these windows are the roof is leaking fix the roof we can't do that with this that's on us and we don't have any type of stabilization fund and to go back to the towns and and wait for a budget cycle and be like oh we need a roof it's going to be $5 million or you know a year seven we need $5 million worth of repair like it's just not logical so
129we need to figure something out for this building that's number one number two to Julie's point like I mean I I don't I'm not here personally so I can't speak to the fields but I just feel like we need a better maintenance plan on on like everything I mean I feel like Mike brought this up before um it's just Troublesome that um it's scary I don't know it's scary is is what it is to [Music] me another project to add to the D list right but I think I think opening up the dialogue with the towns with these assessments like you know because like oil and Stu Up on the Roof you know they but they own that building they like by the least they kind of have to but like knowing it's coming right
130so kind of like along lines of stabilization I mean where does the money come from ultimately the town yeah we just have to say we're trying to yeah so we're GNA budget in this many years is gonna need this you know can we budget we need to start budgeting now yeah like in year seven we need this money and we need to put away like an extra $100,000 a year $50,000 a year but I think that's something I don't know if that's common Regional districts where the region owns the bill I I just don't know anything about those finances I mean yeah not a stabilization per se but a developing a capital plan that balances it out so that the each year it's not too drastic yeah so you look at the projects and the
131costs and you know even even though the RO isn't as bad now you know you you tried to maybe do the roof first and then other projects along the way million is going to be borrowing anyway so so what becomes now with this 232 page document do you sit down and then prioritize Lis Carol okay well with a subcommittee like we did for remember we did it for bees jie sat down yeah but this is like I know wow this is yeah it's like that to an exp minute yeah yeah yeah that one was like 40 pages right this is big yes Middle High School yeah okay so we definitely have some work this summer okay great thanks Dan any want to have questions for Dan anything okay wonderful moving right along okay so um
132Jess do you have any updates on the student sucess and Technology subcommittee um we didn't have a meeting after that one on that Friday since the last meeting um but kind of to what Paul was saying about you know cell phones with the school that has to be kind of tackled like the two subcommittees policy and the and the technology St success um because I think you know it's affecting mental health and so I think that should be addressed pretty early on next yeah I wonder if you guys could do like a joint meeting um but I agree uh budget we have not met we talked about the budget we've been talking about the budget Non-Stop um but we we should meet sometime in July okay great um I'm gonna skip superintendent evil because I
133know Jess you're gonna present all of L's stuff I'll just skip over to Mike first and then we'll let you go do that and that'll be the last thing we have on our agenda tonight we have a few votes so um Mike did you have a policy so the committee update I do okay great thanks so we took I off the vote for tonight because we hadn't heard that from the attorney after we took it off we heard back from the attorney afternoon yeah so we're going to take a look at uh he said two things basically he said uh the Amendments as written uh he used the term legally sound and then he did suggest a couple logistical changes so that the school would have easier time meeting it uh but that's the update
134we have from him so we're going to get back together and take a closer look at it and it came in like I don't know 3:00 I was still in the office today so yeah I just read through quickly but U that's the all right awesome thank you yeah no need to rush on on that stuff so yeah you guys will meet and figure that out so thank you okay Jess um take it away thank you for doing this for lri yep so um Lori and I were on the um superintendent evaluation subcommittee and so Lori had done this in the past so she led the effort um so masc kind of puts out a template and um you know Carol was very nice in setting her goals according to that template which made things
135exponentially easier I have heard in the past years um so I just want to thank you for organizing your goals and and your evidence align with that that evaluation template um so just kind of to read the purpose of this so it's a summative evaluation report compiling five individual superintendent evaluations submitted by the members of the merland Boon Regional school committee on May 25th 2024 um so there are two purposes to this report first it provides a rich source of feedback to the superintendent as part of an ongoing Improvement cycle and th should inform reflection on current Year's efforts as well as goal setting for the upcoming school year second the report provides the basis for the school committee's deliberations and decisions regarding its evaluation of superintendent performance which is Tied by contract to the
136superintendent salary so following the receipt of this report the burlin and Regional school committee will discuss the compiled evaluation results in a public meeting striving to understand committee members VAR perspectives and to reach a consensus on the superintendent's overall performance rating um the committee then records two votes a vote to accept the final report with any proposed revisions and two a vote on the committee's overall performance rating of the superintendent's performance for this past school year so thus the report as rep represented here does not represent the committee's final deliberations or decisions and may undergo revisions during this school20 meeting um and so in past years I guess it was summative so all the different feedback was looked upon and kind of condensed um and so we agreed that um it's Lost in Translation so
137there quotes were you everyone's feedback was given um and you know names are taken off and it was put into the report in its entirety um and so I just very briefly wanted to pick some highlights that kind of summed up um the overall report um and again these have no names attached to them so Carol is a rare combination of hard work passion and peaceful presence it's clear that she has worked diligently creatively and collaborating to exceed her goals on behalf of the students in District we're very fortunate to have Carol at the helm she always puts forth a positive attitude works better than most people and welcomes everyone's point of view in problem solving she values District policy student safety and the education of each child in this District above all else Carol
138needs to continue to build a strong central office staff to complement her performance I'm confident that she will continue to sharpen her knowledge of Regional School District budgeting over the next year it's been a pleasure and privilege working with Carol this year I know superintendent uh Costello is curious to find new and different ways to build and fund programs for our district and when you're curious you find lots of interesting things to do as we complete this evaluation was still uncertain results for the budget and uh say that while superintendent costella has done great things there are still many things to improve upon Carol costell gathered detailed documentation of her obvious efforts to improve the district and herself as a superintendent her efforts for Community engagement and witness many times dressing up in a costume
139for elementary Halloween parades coffee chats at the Town libraries attendance at Town meetings school performance and sporting events I appreciate her drive to learn via Mar mentors and mass and masc resources and look forward to her and us to grow from what we learned this budget season congratulations to Carol and her well documented growth as superintendent this year we're thankful for such a level-headed thoughtful superintendent superintendent costell has demonstrated Proficiency in her goals this school year while some Focus areas are stronger than others this particular year presented several unforeseen circumstances that challenge the leadership ability of Carol she remains steadfast and committed to reaching her goals throughout these challenges I would however like to see super costell continue to develop a better understanding of the budget and spend more time observing teachers in action superintendent
140costell has a great strength in the areas of instructional leadership parent and Community engagement professional culture and has greatly improved in the areas of policy which a self- admitted weakness URS in the on from the outset she approached each goal with commitment visible via her evidence of meetings action plans walkthroughs book talks Retreats and other methods I would encourage superintendent costella to refine her goal for Budget to revise that goal for next year this is the only go area that needs Improvement the 2023 24 school year was not a predictable or easy one despite the difficulties that even a season superintendent would struggle with Miss Costello persevered and gave her goals and this District her all thank you that was great for some reason it will not open on this computer right now on this
141internet I'm don't know I I opened it at home and now I can't open it here sorry no it's fine I read it um did anyone have any comments questions Carol did you want to respond I I just told just before the meeting I just got this at 2:30 I know I know you probably Haven circumstances so anyway I haven't had a chance to fully digest it but I will respond to the school committee around it it's a lengthy document it is and that's what we have to do is we give it to you right before we discuss it so that was right that's what we have to do is give to her like the DAT right before we discuss it yes I'm pretty positive about that recollection of how that goes yeah I think
142it wasn't supposed to open today or something yeah okay all right anyways um that's fine so yeah I'll respond I'll respond can do this yeah and we can talk about it um but we do have to all right so that being said Jer do you have anything else what about the selfie that did not are we not done that that there was something wrong with that so we had a customized one and our masc field agent switched or retired or is no longer with masc and so we have I guess lost that and the new one said no here's a generic one yeah I did the generic one it was very generic um so I think we we haven't had a okay that's okay that's okay discuss worries yep no we have all been totally
143buried with school committee work so um yep I I texted lri when I did it and I was like is this supposed to not have any comment fields and she was like nope it's supposed to have comment Fields um no worries all right great so did anyone have anything else to say about superintendent evaluation because we do have to vote to accept the uh the summative report so the overall score ing among all the six members five was proficient which is what we expect and one was exemp Exemplar that's great okay could I please have a motion to accept the superintendent evaluation summi of report so Julie Mike any discussion on that all right all in favor I I'm an i as well that motion passes um we already voted on the field trip I'll
144skip the donation just now let we talked about the after school program I feel like we already discussed that did anyone have any other discussion before we get into that or is everybody okay with those fee increases it's a great service for working parents yeah yeah I agree with the incre increases they haven't increased in a while and that will hopefully give the ability to the school to maybe add staff or to have a little bit more wiggle room with the program all right so could I please having a motion a motion to approve the bees after school program fee increase as based on the schedule provided jul and Mike any discussion okay all in favor I'm me I as well that motion passes okay we had a boon liance Club donation to the bees
145art Department Cindy do you want to give us the two second version on that yes they donated $1,000 I believe um they reached out to Lauren cuffins just offered it I don't think she went after it her and I were supposed to connect and we just didn't have time but they're giving $1,000 towards the arts department that's from Katie's 5K Katie oh that's the Katie's 5K oh did she really nice she very much in the Arts oh it's so wonderful oh my God that's great well thank you for that um did anyone have any questions about that okay could I please have a motion to approve the Boon Lions Club donation of $1,000 to the boilson elementary school art Department Mike Julie all right all in favor I I'm an i as well that motion
146passes okay thank you so much everyone we are going to move into executive session everyone else can leave uh can I please have a motion to enter into executive session without returning back to open session we have one quick vote we have to do so Julie Mike all right we'll do a roll call vote uh Jess Julie I Mike I'm an i as well all right that motion passes meeting adjourned we're going to go into executive session thank you so much have a great summer we made it I didn't think we were gonna but we did we did