001in there [Music] all right you're pretty Full House in a hole again at night so let me it's called yeah let's please stand for the pledge allegiance money okay um my name is and I am a fourth grade teacher at Williston elementary school and I'm here with many of my amazing colleagues and what representing many more who are unable to so we want to say thank you for giving us a few minutes of your time I will make this quick and pain-free closer so we wanted to come tonight because we have a small story to tell it was August 18th I had just received one of many emails announcing that a beloved co-worker had made the decision to go to another District and I'm not going to like friends I cry could you all cry
002we all cried it was hard and none of us were sure what it was going to look like that first day but two really amazing things happened one everyone who showed up that first day wanted to be there so give these guys a round of applause and the other thing that happened so we came in that first day we didn't know what to expect but there she was our new leader and I'm not gonna lie it was hard it was a bit crazy it was a bit Rocky it our new model became it's fine everything's fine it's gonna be fine because we had a new composition to our staff or a lot of new people including our new principal that were trying to make their way but what we came here tonight to tell you
003was things are indeed fine and we decided we wanted you to hear from us about how things are going over Olsen elementary school so we have crafted in the spirit of report card we our very own principal report card because we wanted to let you know how we feel Donnelly is doing so under positive Spirits she gets an egg under the ability to listen really listen she does the name under the ability to get oh I gotta tame this one down to the audience under the ability to get things done no matter what it is whether it's helped with the curriculum room clean whatever it is she gets an A plus the ability to think catastrophically which was a new word for us but one that we have come to appreciate and in truth has
004created a safer environment at Boston Elementary she gets an A plus plus under the ability to tap dance through tricky sensitive situations both literally and figuratively she gets an A plus plus and most importantly under being caring and supportive of the staff and the students she gets an A plus plus and we all would like to let you know that you are a pleasure to work with thank you but they're all here well we just wanted to let you know what a wonderful addition she's been because you don't always get to hear from us but it looks like on the inside and we can tell you that if you walk the halls of Boylston elementary school right now the people that are still here and that are new to us have created a community unlike
005any other and it's warm and positive and it's going really well it's really going well so because it is report card time we hope you will excuse us because it actually that was done so thank you we want to say thank you to all of you as well for doing this foreign [Music] public comments all right any Communications from anyone uh there are several emails in the folder for you to look at real good uh okay so next in The Descent agenda may have a motion to approve consent agenda worry second second uh in favor of the Senate Virginia [Music] on to our reports um on the report section of the agenda is a little different than in the past I've put some time limits um I want to say they're hard and fast but
006if you absolutely need more time just take more time on but just in the spirit of keeping things moving um I put a few times there I checked with everybody who's going to speak if those times are enough so it should be enough but uh first up we have the annual Cape Cod field trip presentation yes sorry uh we're here tonight just to my name is Peter darling I'm uh through the department chair at Thompson Regional High School and I haven't met a couple of people um I'm here tonight with Lisa Sequoia was a biology teacher in our science department chair just to ask for permission uh to resume once again an overnight trip to Cape Cod this year we have it hopefully scheduled for um April 29th to make books it's a Saturday to
007Monday we get started this overnight program back in 2012 carried that right up through 2019 and obviously we've had everything and then also the place we stay in the Cape Cod Sea camps closed so we've no longer stay there but I found the place in Providence town it's a hotel and she said she could fit us and so we're here tonight to ask you for a permission uh two reasons why we should have hopefully handle the packet with all the details in there that we planned out so far and I'm happy to answer any questions any other questions would you mind estimating yes um would you mind to share here just a quick summary of what the goal of the trip is yeah it's an interdisciplinary study right um to try to pull together all
008facets of Education specifically with like our seniors right because by that time you try to culminate everything um as we wrote in our letter to the students and I mentioned in that article that I think I said you know so much in our modern education standardized testing is like disassociated like you departmentalize everything this is that opportunity to try to pull things together and so with our philosophy classes Stephen Chico And I teach um this course became a good supplement for both my AP Lit class and scheme safety Euro and U.S classes they were able to pull together they can files well the primary source that we use is Henry bessins the Animal's house um you're not familiar with that book invested wrote that in 1929 um after getting home basically from World War one
009he spent a better part of a couple of weeks on Cape Cod there to write an article about the coast guards and so you spent a couple of weeks there was like I need to stay here at the end of the house became National literary but Landmark unfortunately had Swept Away in the Blizzard of 78 um but it was you it's this book became like your Cornerstone right with so many different ways we could approach this interdisciplinary box and so that's the foundation for this trip so we bring our AP Bio AP Lit uh nature being students we'll be on this trip in the past we've included AP chem and independent art where the classes started getting a little too big and because we had to stop you over our new trips we didn't go
010back to that first trip which was 10 years ago last weekend in November for speaking in December it's pretty easy there's eight of the Coast Guard Station the iron Coast Guard Station East Ave which was a wonderful opportunity but right and after that first year they closed the building so it's like where do we all have um so that was the impetus behind it okay and we have great opportunities to meet with some great organizations the Atlantic white shark Conservancy I don't know if you guys are familiar with that group they are there to raise awareness for the increasing white shark population off of Cape Cod um and we were the first school that actually reached out to them when they started and so we have a great working relationship with them so they present
011to our students every year we're going to work with the center for postal studies this year year we worked with the ottoman Society just you know a lot of resources we've worked with the self-time visitor center and the resources that they have there so we have a pretty extensive network in the area and it's not wonderful yeah I mean they just it's wonderful and we really would like to expand it um which has tremendous opportunity and you're actually looking to connect with school groups so I'm really excited about that and we can tell the kids this is not like we're going out and have a vacation you're going to be up early in the morning and you're out in all types of weather so you're ready for that it's uh it's they're busy throwing sun
012up to sundown and we do all cooked meal with the kids cooking clean and more or less also yeah bonfires at the beach at night this year will be if all of them they'll be 27. we've had the smallest group is our first year it was 21. our largest group is 50. that was here we tried the sea camps again could accommodate us if you're not compared to see camps uh that was a tough one so we scaled that one back so we typically you're in a 30 kid range that's wonderful and I mean that's a wonderful group to work with you can we have you know intimate conversations we pull good conversations there's a lot of learning a lot of exposure students often have opportunities to go back and work with you know scientists
013after that you know a wonderful opportunity we've had a tremendous resource for our kids class [Music] was in Rhode Island you know it's an URI the state of the house I still remember it it was one of the best experiences I was a junior it ended up being all girls it was only 10 students but it was amazing it was amazing just not just learning like you said you know class or material but just learning how to almost be a human in the world um being away from home so I just happened an unbelievable experience that you guys are willing to do that because I know it's your time so thank you I think you're awesome [Music] but it's just the adults talking I can tell you for my job and all of his friends
014it was the most significant experience they've had in their time and time I was in the hospital yeah Jackson beat the outermost house damn things offensively but he can talk about this stuff yes couldn't his friends who came to that um it was amazing that the one thing I really wanted to share was I shared this with history recently chance cleansed several of them gathered together right before they belong to their different [Music] yeah they promised each other that they'll keep doing that and it's all because of the dead Spirits it's not truly life so like I had a child what was the name [Music] oh my God it is it is quote on my wall and you dare it one sometimes I'm like okay just listen to this you know because it's really weird
015I mean it's really probable any other questions um so this is on our list of items to vote on but I think we should probably move that up to vote on that now so that way yeah so I'm going to suggest we move at an age for the business items in your room right now so can I have a motion to approve the annual Cape Cod field trip so um David hi hi yes all right now thank you all right bye Mr Carl is Logan uh Unified sports presentation yes um we've been looking at get Unified sports here to Toronto for a while been talking about it for a few years now again just before the pandemic hit and then as we've come out of it and I've been discussing with Diane last year and
016and as she retired kind of got the throne on the background a little bit but um as the year went through we found that there's a program that would actually fit pretty well for us here at the Hondo this year and if we could get into it it's when we give a quick rundown so it's called the unified strength and conditioning team it's all a tejanto and you know you track your progress throughout so to be about six weeks and it's a set of exercises that students will compete in and it's students of all abilities to promote inclusion and acceptance and friendships between students who may not have classes together who may not you know sit together at lunch and it's an after school program it'll be about an hour after school like I said
017for six weeks and it's just a great opportunity that's very much needed out the other schools the schools in most schools and the experiences that they're having with this through like unified basketball or unified track is just amazing everybody getting together and Gathering um it's it's pretty important it's like really it's be really good for the school and just this opportunity I don't I'm not sure if we have enough kids to interested to necessarily get into track or it would be what you need but this would be an opportunity to start getting more people interested in to start doing it for future years that we can bring something else here um good question can you say a bit about what it means to be Unified sports that's a new phrase right so it's through Special
018Olympics I'm not sure if you're familiar with that um but it's in throughout school so it's called like a unified Champion school so students with and without disabilities will compete together you know on the same team for one cause you know to to make friendships to improve you know their Fitness and confidence and um so that's the unified aspect is that you're unifying people for you know this one cause sure another specific um that they train specifically in certain categories yeah so there's a whole list of these exercises you can choose and students will choose seven exercises and throughout the six weeks they'll track their progress so we'll take a baseline we'll take a mid season you know we're out have you improved here and then an end of season so you know they're also
019doing some math like calculating their averages or getting them together to you know say oh wow I've you know I did three more push-ups this time around and it's also something they could practice at home so you know you're creating friendships but you're also you know getting healthy and active and like bringing it home oh wow this is what I'm doing at school so it's you know a great thing for all kids you know I love it is it on body weight or do you use weights so it sort of depends on where it's at and I really like there's like modifications to all the exercises so you're meeting the students where they're at so if a student has you know some limited Mobility there's exercises for that student so one could be it's like
020um going back and forth between cones and sitting in a chair and tapping the floor it's a plank but you could also do a plank on your knees it's what works for that student so not every student is doing the same exercise but you can you know you have the opportunity to select the exercises you're most comfortable with and who writes the program so it's through Special Olympics yeah so I actually have like the whole packet of all of the exercises to choose from um I met with the woman who like runs Special Olympics Kathy Watson she had a lot of great information from Matt and I so that was um she's rare like very helpful um there's just a lot of information on mine and I think Matt was saying it's a nice segue
021to hopefully something in the future like we've played basketball team or there's like a Bocce tournament that they do so it's just nice you know it's nice for all the students who might not have the same you know opportunities to participate in these sports that they may want yeah but two on the last on the last time when done you know you see how you did or how you progress It's you want to try and get people in the channel on that's you know similar to how we unified basketball game if we look to a unified attractive and to have I mean I didn't bring some of that stuff right into the gym and did you say a six-week program yeah it runs it's been six to eight weeks depending on you know the school
022and what to do but it's it's like January to March okay the um dates and then that's it for the year or do you run it a couple times throughout the year that's it for the unified strength and conditioning but there's other opportunities for Unified sports but we're hoping that this is the first one to hopefully do more in the future you know if there's like a turnout if we have support and everything this is my last question this is just my field so I'm just asking um is this a training happens once a week or do you do every other day with these athletes so it's brought us once or twice a week again depending on you know availability because we do need a nurse um so that's like a big thing um but
023yeah sponsor types of choice okay why do you mean the nurse for um students who lead reversing throughout studies some students when you have the nurse on site with them it didn't depends on who's competing okay it's not like you know it doesn't necessarily nurses need it it's just depending on uh okay yeah exactly it might differ from year to year like one year we might need you know a paraprofessional or a one-to-one support but for this particular season we will start yeah we're excited yeah does the program stay within the school right so we don't have to go okay and you'll get yourself over the other schools kind of like competing but to see how you improved to how long the schools is there um I don't see anything on the agenda to go
024or approve for this but that could just not oversight is there something we need to go to approve this tonight I thought I suggest yes involved yes discussion um just to have to ask uh there is this become a budget item is there a budget estimate of what it would cost foreign the other aspects we can cover there's a coach that yes and the parents are picking up so transportation will you train in the weight room or sort of where you said I think that was your question um yeah I'm thinking well it depends on like gym availability but we will go to the wave room and I don't know if we need to run back and forth between phones and it's nice out we're going outside their space you know so we'll just right
025[Music] congratulations if we if we okay this thing is it just for this particular program that we're okay or for this to move forward in other ways as well that the Microsoft's associated with it I think this would be first just for this and I think we move on to see what we can go through for the future events see how it does and you know if we could get more interest it's got to be something we need to do have different sports in the future any other discussion questions [Music] great idea I really all right um capacity improved thank you uh next is Caroline do you have anybody yes I do um so hi I'm Caroline I'm a current senior at Toronto um and just um some things I've been hearing um I know
026a lot of kids are actually very excited about this school year because we're finally able to get back to some you know like field trips and stuff like that like I know especially in seniors it's all a buzz about the gay field trip um and I know I think some kids from the technology classes are going on a field trip this Friday or something um I heard but a lot of kids are very excited about that um so that's been a very positive thing I've been hearing um one thing I know that I'm hoping to bring some cheer is um there's Deck the Halls going on which is where the grades decorate all the hallways with their like um gray color for spirit week and that usually brings a lot of Cheers so I'm excited
027about that um one thing I have been hearing is some concern about like um winter this time of year um specifically about like snow days and stuff um sorry I keep saying stuff but um I know especially I've been talking to a lot of seniors who are new drivers and they're a little concerned that there might be some like kind of pushback on having more snow days I think people are just concerned with like icy roads and new drivers how that might you know react so I think I've just been hearing from not even just seniors but other people just you know to maybe take some like more like on the more proactive side when it comes to you know snow days and with ice and stuff then beyond more of like the reactive side
028but yeah that's pretty much what I've been hearing and I'm not sure if any of like the you know the legalities or procedures that go with that but that's just what I've been hearing is like the main concern from other people but thank you thank you very much since I just walked through this for the first time on Monday we were all prepared in case we do have a delay we anticipated a two-hour delay but this has been kind of talks with the highway departments in both houses and we were fortunate because both individuals are very very proactive about ensuring that the roadways are safe not on the main roads but the other as well so um I trust what they are saying and they tell us that it's okay to go and I and
029I am concerned about that because I do think about those particularly like you said the new drivers the young students on the road and that's our first concern so we're doing our best to be mindful of that I know we have another of course another storm possibly coming up of Thursday into Friday so we'll probably be already talking to each other on Thursday to keep an eye out on that story but we'll do everything we can okay thank you yeah it's good to hear I learned a whole new process yeah thank you I love that you've come and you report on what the students have to say I think that's so great um the deck the hall sounds so fun yeah but what is that um it's usually like I would say I think it's
030like the Friday before school um but just like so there's like a couple of days or something um before the break where it's just kind of decorated um and I know it happens I think it's run by student council it's next week okay so yeah I think it's next week and then um you know the people from the different grades they bring in their own stuff and um they you know decorate it all up and then people kind of have that little like a little bit of like holiday share before they leave thank you um I actually just interact with me because I just want to take a minute before we get into the rest of the meeting uh as we come into the end of the year uh just congratulating all not just the
031student athletes but all the performers that had any sort of conversational performance in the fall especially the football team enforcement in the Super Bowl excited good stuff regardless and that you you know just pass along committees congratulations and thanks to all coaches that's awesome you got it um all right so moving on to um the chairs statement that was mistaken uh well hey you know I got a plan right um so some committee appointments so this is something that I just want to reaffirm after the election was everybody here so budget facilities and safety that's going to stay with Megan and Julie Megan who's the chair uh Student Success and Technology I'll stay the chair there with Bob and Jessica if you miss me on that one all right uh and then for the next
032two I'm going to rename the policy and school can be Effectiveness to policy Personnel negotiations the Lord he was still a chair uh myself involved on that members and same thing renaming Personnel negotiations and superintendent evaluation to just the superintendent evaluation because that's a fairly large weekend off there and again Lori consumer main chair with Megan and Jessica as well all right that takes care of that next is a discussion on our school committee meetings calendar uh dates and possibly changing the day that we did not like that falls on uh well if you want to discuss anything sure yeah so I think historically the school committee meetings on Tuesday nights um I just have an ongoing personal uh scheduling conflict that makes Tuesday night's very hard and you did not incredibly sustainable and I
033don't think anything magical about Tuesday nights but I don't want to create inconvenience for people so I'd ask that we at least vote a discussion of potentially removing the school committee to other other ones who say we want to stay in the leadership TV anymore I guess yes the only thing consider was slight input as a vote for tonight yeah is the entire calendar for everybody else it's not just six people in the committee it's everybody else over here uh it's other meetings in the towns uh Mondays are probably going to I would never go to have a meeting on Monday or Friday period um well select sport is on Monday right so there's a lot of a lot of other meetings that like Carol might have to attend or they might want to attend
034this meeting or something like that so um there's you know there's uh everybody can't remember there's you know recording secretary he hasn't kind of weighed on this schedule through the end of the year um but it's a tough thing I don't know but I even love Don Porter um soon so it seems like Monday's a popular day after Thursday it's just going to submission um I know yes be opposed to a Thursday yeah anybody yeah this affects you guys too so if you haven't I think maybe the best thing to do is maybe take the idea back and look at your calendars for the rest of the year and then in January I think it's too soon to change anything January probably February to budget stuff that's going on um but we can we can
035go back look at our calendars and see and then maybe discuss with right in January I think we need a month to look at our calendars yeah in the end of the year going to break everybody's probably got things already pretty hard let's get it but we have one school today meeting in January and two um what is February governance the last yeah and they're close together because it's a vacation indications I'm open to any other videos as long as I have advanced notice and I don't have High schedule like a month at a time so if we've made the change in January for whatever understandable if the budget's already set in stone for February but I'm I'm flexible um but I agree Monday's a problem yeah I would do Monday and it's a lot
036forward and out of town I think that Boylston town hall is open six to eight so that's okay as far as like change anything you know I there is no magic to the Tuesday right was there is there any reasons on Tuesday I don't know it's just about all week Tuesday Wednesday Thursday [Music] we get together but I think when you know the members come on the committee scheduling issue yeah changes in the times and stuff as things come up on people's lives so it's Wednesday or Thursday so are you yeah I mean my schedule is just size four yeah I know so it's like it's like as long as you know ahead of time like later in the week is probably not a great idea just because it was just kind of drinking right
037Thursdays well Thursday is PTO and bef meetings so if that might be um yeah but that's once a month it is but then we have to make sure we're not doing the same because PTO and bef made on different ones and the topology I don't know about I'm just saying for those principles okay what does Berlin PTO mean Thursdays yeah yeah Thursday is the elementary teacher so I'm sure Mrs ayles I'm sure you in and out of those yeah yeah I'm not opposed to either but I'm just if we're going to make a change but I don't know Jessica is at your work schedule or are you a mother I usually only work until six so if you know so all right Thursday all right so you guys the other idea it's not ideal because
038you flip-flop Wednesdays and Thursdays and then one week it works for some first you know one time it works for you and then you just make it work [Music] I'll talk to Carol so we don't have to have it in our own conversation all right yeah I appreciate it yeah all right um subcommittee reports um budget um so we had a wonderful meeting um last week with Nancy and Harold and pretty much we discussed everything that Nancy is going to present tonight so I do not want to divulge any details one thing I will say that we um the end of our meeting we did talk about the cell tower where the cell service at Toronto is there any parents listening I know this is a huge concern it's become a safety issue we are
039working on it um Paul has let us know that we do it's probably something we have to work with with the town of Boylston but I think the best way to get a service at to Hondo is to get a cell tower you can get a cell tower somewhere near the building um so we just have to kind of figure out if that's even possible but it would probably through the town of oilstone so I've actually reached out to somebody in the town of Boylston um otherwise we discuss the budget and I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of Julie and I um for all of the hard work that went into this budget I think it's wonderful I'm very excited to hear the presentation tonight and not just thank you you guys
040thank you to all of you for putting forward all the requests and I am so excited about this because it's going to be amazing for these kids and the teachers so thank you all for all your hard work and making our vision hopefully some type of a reality uh Student Success in technology we have a meeting scheduled for December 8th but uh it's good to accomplish that was canceled so there's no updates there but what I am going to do is uh sort of assign to that committee um to work on planning new account on the district Improvement plan on just a top Community marketing projects or discussions um policy so I apologize my report it wasn't the drive but it's not there anymore so I'm just going to go off my minutes um I
041would like to send it out um someone said it up to um because there are action items on there um we did go through um the August newsletter yeah see I apologize I mean can you go on to somebody else it was interesting yeah so just uh so should I submit this is so that's good yeah they're just quick updates but I think some of the stuff there I think was about some of the books we've got coming up later tonight so we'll discuss them the August newsletter was [Music] wrong uh and personal negotiations and superintendent evaluation I don't think there's [Music] all right uh that brings us up to the MCAS reports hello Mr George he's getting set off but he's just kind of chime in for a second he and I started talking
042about this DX away with data that very few people yeah and our goal with this committee is to kind of get into a place where the number that makes sense of computing picture um and we're going to continue to talk about this over the next seven months um was in January is the actual empty Dash report um those reports when Dave's done some of the things that you know uh Mr George is going to talk about today um but it's wonderful that we're in place on this committee where people are really digging into yeah um no it's totally fine no one needs to see this maybe on the slides [Music] no that's fine so um as John was saying yo tonight we just wanted to introduce to you what our presentation in January will be
043about really because there's so much data that's available to us way more than just the cheap achievement is usually what people go to when they look at that and they want to do all these law where's the school but that's just such a small portion of what we're actually looking at it doesn't always necessarily accurately portray how a district is doing so it's it's important that we're all on the same page looking at the same information and coming to the same conclusions for instance just we we look at this right very simply what do we see what just what pops up to you anything [Music] oh my God is this for all grades in schools in the district this is just the biology test since last year last year I see a lot of people
044meeting expectations are about the state what about these two what do you notice which one would you want us to be us this one let's see we're both yeah so this is this is what I'm getting advanced so it's just this way they're doing the exactly what's happened it's just happened recently as the state has taken the goal posts and they've done this they've moved them and they have a whole new way of assessing kids this part these are two different graphs same students same test same results and it's this year's biology it's lacking on the 2022 biology exam just graded differently and so automatically sometimes people who aren't you know they're just looking at this like what happened why did we drop we're used to seeing charts like this where we have you know
045over 40 almost 50 percent of our students in the advanced category but now you look at the top one it's only about 18 what happened why the drug school's not doing them that's just not the case what's happening is the state is changing how things are created biology was the most recent example they changed math and English in 2019 2018 is when it changed I had to slide on that cover in a minute and I just we wanted to start with you kind of everybody know it's like things are changing in the state the way they're assessing us the way they're grading us the scales they're applying to us so things do not look the same as they did five years ago four years ago a year ago but we're still doing approximately the same
046as we've always done it's just the question of how it's now being graded and presented does that make sense so what the bottom is how it's being great this is now see what this is this is what they call the Legacy test this is the next gen test this is the length this is the Legacy scoring this is the next gen score so with Biology they literally the kids took the same exact task it was on was it online or was it paper on pencil stuff yep it was all online so but they graded it both ways so you can see the differences in the old wave scoring things and the new wave scoring and they actually had they actually need to know what to do with the data they were kind of scrambling it
047took a long time for them to roll out and because it is as math an Ela it is a requirement of graduation requirement they had to figure out what they were going to do the com you know the determination for competency what is that going to look like so there's some overlap and there's some pulling at the edges um so that this new grading is not going to be impacting student students ability to reach the goal of the graduation so at least I'm glad you brought that was typically speaking we'll get curriculum analysis how our students did usually by like the end of June we get raw scores so I started doing my analysis June July you know through the Summers this year we didn't get it into the very end of August beginning of
048September and we're trying to get information to our staffs to look at you know curriculum in the states just the late this year putting things out so that's it's just part of this that we need to communicate with everybody so everybody knows where we're coming from what's going on with this this information wait so what do you know why they changed it I mean it's just troubling it's like they're making kids look worse than before just because people are getting up past scholarships like this is a money thing or is this they're saying no the students our expectations are growing they actually need to be better like what would you have any idea what to drive for the reason Riley came out yeah spoke to that and they were saying that our standards were good
049but they need to be better we're not reaching a certain population of students we need to bring their get their results higher because then that has a greater implication on how they do in college afterwards and so they're making all that argument they just happen to impose all this stuff like literally Castro coming out of the pandemic and now dealing with all the other things we're dealing with the social emotional piece we'll just don't truly understand the impact of that and how that's affecting is this grading system or scoring system used to or we can conveying results to students in this manner or is this just for abilities so then like this information you know the District this goes to towns this is the stuff that came out on the website I think back in
050October right it's usually just the achievement data how did we do and you know one of the things that can happen too is people want to look how do we do in years past okay for instance this is um the 10th grade I pretty much pulled everything just from elas and stuff that this is the data I stop in so this is how 10th grade did in 2016 2017 2018. okay so we're looking at tejanto's Food it's 74 of our students are in the advanced category uh 25 so we're doing pretty well and then I get the 2019 results and I'm literally my first comment was what happened um that's crazy like did I stop learning how to teach in one year and so that was the year that I really started looking at all
051right what happened with the state literally we moved the goal posts do you have clarification on quantitatively what's changed such that results that would have landed in the advance now land in media but that's on one of my last slides and I provided a bunch of links that's why I gave you that stuff hopefully like I gave it to you last Tuesday to look at it I'm not sure if anybody got a chance to look through this stuff but again we'll get more detail of this in January today is more just to let you know where we're coming from and the different types of reports like we only look at achievement analysis it's easy to see the school's not doing as well as it did the year before if you just if you only look
052at that we can come through a lot of bad conclusions so changes in state testing since 2014. uh the ELA standards changed in 2011 again in 2017. I'm not quite sure math will file and biology with Francine will get into this is from a slide presentation that I did about 2019 2019 was the first year for next next-gen MCAS exam for grade 10 first year to test the 2017 standards Legacy impasses from 99 to 2018 so Jess would have taken this test grades three through eight have taken next gen since 2017 uh testing on the 2017 standard stuff grades three through eight took Park exam in 2015 and 2016. that screwed up a whole bunch of stuff we won't go there um and all grades took the Legacy mccast ER just some of the changes
053that have happened and there are more changes to come and I'll get it so that's something else we want to talk about is the states constantly changing things so it's really important that we're aware of that so then we're looking at data we have that in mind that things now are going to be very different in two three years strong so the class of 2026 this year's freshman the graduation requirements are going to increase and the current fourth graders they're going to walk even higher after that more difficult for students to graduate high school starting with a freshman and again even more difficult for the current fourth graders that's confusing to me can we pause there yeah sure um so I'll jump right to that slide if you want I guess I I maybe I
054might have made a bad assumption which is that um the scores of the scores we're just dropping them as different buckets yes but they're also changing the buckets loves the expectations right so this slide which is the last one I have here I had to put this together based on a couple of different pieces of information the state gave us because they don't the state doesn't have something like this they have it in two different places and you have to kind of put it together I was like I can't do that so I made my own chart yeah um next-gen achievement level classes you know 23 um 25 if you score in this category you're not meeting expectations these categories partially meeting and these are meeting expectations and exceeding expectations while the old test okay
055the Legacy test you can see this was just a small area would have been failing this area would have been needs Improvement this area was proficient and this area was advanced okay so what was used to be Advanced is now meeting and it's a very very small percentage of students who are going to get here as far as raw score is concerned I'll pull that up chart for you in a minute I think on the English test they have to be within five points of getting a perfect score to be considered exceeding it's it's the it's a tiny tiny window that kids are now in the exceeding category so this is our current uh where kids will currently be as opposed to how things used to be okay um whether or not students Pass High
056School if they score in this category they did not pass the exam therefore they have to continue to take the exam until they pass if they're in this area they are um considered past but they have to be put on an educational proficiency plan which is the district that gets together to say all right what do we do to ensure that the students have met proficiency Levels by the time they graduate these District gets into trouble so students in that area that's what they have to do and this is considered past so you can see the classes of 2026 through 2030 things are changing again okay the whole did not pass is now a bigger area this is a smaller area here past will still be and then it changes again for class of 2031
057so this is where we're headed so we have to make sure we're all on the same page we're looking at our curriculum we're talking 12th grade to kindergarten having that conversation because what the third grade teachers are doing now is going to impact what I'm doing to 10th grade so that conversation is happening I think we're having good conversations about that now and so we're heading in the right place but that's the stuff we're going to need to make sure that that those current fourth graders are hitting these marks and it's going to be more difficult for them than the current seniors current Shooters in the current stockings I'd love to see the scale like from when we were in High School I remember taking the MCAS I think it came out back right when
058I was and I didn't take all of them I remember taking them towards the end but it was like a past fail I think I guess I'm just wondering like 20 years ago what was considered past versus not passed okay this is a Roth it's on one of the links to them um this is the raw to scaled score chart that the state gave to us and then I added these things over here just to give myself a better visual of how things are changing so you can see here's the old MCAS if you were in these scores you were considered failing these scores needs Improvement and it's all based on the percentage of Ross or raw points that you get like the English test is based on a 51 points the contest the former
059test used to be 72 but that was because they had a couple of different essays and we changed the test entirely with the English test as well so that lets you know over here what's considered not passing passing requiring competing what was passed and if I scroll down so essentially less people are passing now correct but because of how to change the scale that just makes sense what's your opinions it's a good thing a bad thing I have no problem with standards increase and asking more of our kids but to be realistic too about what we expected because high school should be more than this yeah does that make sense like we could become an MCAS craft School I hope to God we never did because that's just looking at this is one test done
060for English it's two days kids sitting there if any of you have taken a practice test sure see this is why I wanted to do like a full executive session I wanted I was going to make you take these they have to write three essays in two days based on reading it's not easy and then that's the sophomores bad in a third grader sitting there trying to type in a little stuff one bigger one and once you're like sick or not I don't have an off day I mean like that's it I thought colleges were going through moving away from sat or just the the happy emphasis on this standardized test it just makes no sense to me right I'm lost is the emphasis on the test changing or we're just moving the bar and
061changing what it takes to achieve a certain way so just curious um you know if a student can can learn let's just say anything from zero to 100 in their academic experience right whenever being the most uh to oversimplify uh you know let's say a student learns 70 of their potential um you know that will send them off into the world prepared at a certain level it comes with a label right meeting expectations partially exceeding whatever religion you know in your opinions how how impactful is the label as compared to what they what they're taking away from their academic experience let me go first on the elementary yeah I have to choose my words carefully yeah I do yeah um I'm not a big fan of labels I'm not a big fan of tests it's
062just the reality is this has been this is my 30th year of teaching 27 at Toronto and 25 of them have been dedicated to this exam and I would rather be doing anything else than that does that make sense sure sure I understand the need for standardization and making sure students are hitting the benchmarks we have to have that we have to have rigor obviously we want our students to be the best we want our students to go off to school after this is this the best indicator for success that's all for today I think it helps but I think there's way more to a child's education than this that's why I don't get I try not to get caught up in what are the scores this year how are they last year as schools
063failed that leads us to a place that causes animosity and distrust certainly pointing fingers and that's not the best of our kids because then the teachers feel it and that is not a healthy environment in my opinion right the other side of that's not the other side of the other keys to this especially this test was designed these tests not just a high school the talk of mcasking is um in the original intents were good and they look at how we were performing how we were getting our students ready for college and careers and you could see if you looked at the big picture certain places were doing it very well certain places we're doing a bus well certain places are just like doing whatever they are well please and that was a problem so
064they started they wanted to do something identifying specific standards at each grade level and all of that happened with them before it started there and moving on so that we could start to stay all right in mathematics we are strong in numbers and operation but our kids need some help in geometry and when you looked at a big picture and big subjects it became productive I was a new teacher the second year they did this experience and I can remember sitting with my teaching team not bringing you um but they the English teachers and the science teachers of myth we all dug into this and they had fabulous discussions when we get lost by Mr just I was going to say inappropriate work not workable telepathics read my mind not worthless not worth the discussion
065but and we have had this experience we'll sit down and talk about how my kids come to the Middle School how prepared are they or are they now and what one of the data points is how do they do one of these accounts they're standard everybody takes it the same way at the same time with the same questions to see how we're going to do right and then we're in high school here we have that same kind of discussion because we're talking apples and apples is it a perfect measure no does it ever indicate the quality of the child never and we tell her the kids left it's just two years we've never had practice tasks we don't do it against crap it's just cats over there and I think that's where we want to
066take this away from the civility we need to see is Advanced proficient are we doing our job for kids you know when we come to you and we say we need money from x y and z part of our range now it's going to be we need it because of that when we talk about rocket manthazone's budget it's like it's not a huge money but it's like seven thousand dollars but why do we need it because our kids aren't fluent in math facts and that's going to help them be more proficient we know that they're not sufficient because we watch them on the end test house but our response is a deeper student-centered kind of response it's the same thing with typing I share this with you guys a couple months ago I realized finally
067they were getting terrible scores because they can't capitalize letters those are the kinds of things that we do got but when we get lost we got lost in Austin seats it'd be applying ourselves that way we're just wasting time yeah so John Carroll Maybe how is this all going to fit into our new plan your idea for the portion of the graduate right it sounds like what you're talking about is more a picture of how the kids learning not necessarily how they're scoring scoring is important for colleges and after school and whatever emphasis that you put on when we how is all going to fit into this next year I think that um what we're looking at is a comprehensive based approach the students a whole a whole portrait of a child as they move
068forward how they approach learning not just the field of learning facts but they're learning how to learn and they're learning to apply those skillful strategies for the future so that's it that's the approach of the portion of the gradual type of work that we're doing this is a great measure for us to make sure that we're giving students the standard hitting the standards that we need to for those students but as John and Peter said this is a piece of the story of those and so we want to make that available to them every possible type of learning opportunity a lot of experiential types of learning project based it was a Peter's class the other day philosophy and they're they're doing a project on Aristotle and those kinds of things that get them to be
069big deal or some problem solver so that's how this work I think ties in it's a piece of pieces I it's just a tag on to that and just took that up for a second when Carol first started talking about unfortunate for graduate 500 here we go Carol and her fancy ideas again but as we learn about that and learn about what this district-wide approach would be when we talk about what we want kids to look like at the end of their careers it unifies the whole thing from the little idiots okay to deeper things like expressing themselves developing critical thinkers and support them fifth graders so that when they get to Aristotle or the outermost house which is not an easy book to read it and as well it should be um they're prepared
070for that because if we do our jobs if we teach them well the test isn't going there they're going to be prepared right they're going to do fine but we get together and so if you don't mind I'll jump in a little bit because again this is just achievement analysis and again I've just taken from Ela for the last couple of years how our students have done we just look at that that leads us to one conclusion I think is better for us to look at we want to really get a better look as a more accurate look at it's a piece of a piece of the puzzle for our graduates what they look like we want to look at the growth model which the state did put out in 2008. one was the growth
071model is and I think that's a better way of looking at how our students have done long time this is just a chart that I pulled off a data a spreadsheet that I've been creating because the state used to give us these reports and they don't do it anymore this is looking at how graduation graduating class has done over the years this is a better picture if we will of watching growth because every graduating class is different they're just different they come with different skill sets they come with different emotional issues and so every so we need to really look at how has this grade done from third grade to 10th grade not how is the 10th grade done this year compared to the 10th grade last year because that that can lead you to
072very screwy differently thanks and this is just grade love and what we really wanted to look at as well is break this down even further is look at how has a child born since third grade that's really a way more accurate representation of how we're doing with our kids where was this kid in third grade where is that kid like 10th grade have they grown and we're doing something right and that kid could be on a totally different plane than another classmate so that type of assessment I think is more important to me to look at I think um I know Franny feels the same way with math we want to look more at that growth model so these next couple of slides just show us how these graduating classes did in sixth grade 7th
073grade eighth grade and 10th grade class of 24 obviously didn't take out a pass in 2020. you know how are we seeing growth through the years and so this is again this is a spreadsheet that I started to build just the summer um and will be available to whoever wants to take over them every time so it's about seven years left um so that's one what the state does make available to us as well is again looking at the growth model this is another chart that I think gives us a more accurate picture of how our students are doing so this is this is last year's MCAS uh exam looking at grade six the percentage of students who were considered with very high growth high growth and moderate growth as opposed to low and this
074they will look at how a student performed in fifth grade fourth grade and third grade put them into a category with similar students and then how did they do in sixth grade compared to that same cohort of kids and that's how they determine their growth so if we look at our numbers for moderate High very high growth those are pretty good numbers and that's just based on last year's exam okay so I look at this and I'm saying hey this is pretty good district line you know so we can look at 2022 numbers and maybe they're not as strong as 2021 numbers when we look at the growth we've got quite a few kids in those taller in those higher categories first of all I love the reduction of data good stuff guys so thank
075you I'm an English guy so this is foreign um so you mentioned uh that you know really the goal and the culture we want to create is around helping each student meet their vocal direction right which I think and I fully supportive um do we does the school system look at um growth on the individual role in the cat is that something that we do absolutely so when you know this again I'm just scratching the surface of the amount of data that's available to us through the state's website so I can I can break this down for each individual student and see their growth in third grade to 10th grade I can get individual reports in every single kid and we'll want to share those at the beginning of the year especially with like our
076case I imps and 504 so they can get into the special ed teacher's hands where those kids so we we do look at that it's just we may not share that publicly but we can't shares obviously with each individual kid but that is that is a level of data we're looking at one of the things to remember was to grow is that low performing through the special education kids kids on 504 is learning challenges can still have my growth right that that's what Daniel put me it does this is sure yeah it's also you've got the growth how are you combining and measuring the growth of the YouTube because if you've got high growth when you start from variable achieving score it looks great I grow it but you're still failing I'm sorry so how
077are you presenting that it sounds to me like I think we understand Tina know what's going on here right but how yeah it's becoming a communication issue again it's parents how are you going to sell those parents back to the portrait idea the plan yeah so this is the first step like this I love this channel it's in this growth uh achievement and growth scatter plot and I can break this type of data down into gender uh economic status High needs that you can do it on a district district like this is literally District or District I can look at this chart we want to see how we're doing against other districts if you want to do that we can do that this data is available to us this is from 2021 you can can
078see this is where we are we're in high achievement high growth District in 2021 these numbers were great actually very proud of that to Hunter was second in the state for our growth in 10th Grade we were saying in 2019 I know this year math was sixth for growth so when I see those numbers it's like you're doing something right and it's it's work despite the pandemic like this this was this was the hybrid year and that's our 10th grade scores and these are against you know you can see some of the other districts they put up here so I can also do this for within just the grade where our high needs kids versus our non-high needs kids where our kids who economically disadvantage all anything like that we can break that down this
079chart I love because it gives us a real quick snapshot of that achievement and growth together at the same time that gives us a way more accurate picture than just achievement by itself does that make sense yeah now to go even further and this is the stuff we really want to get a look at within our own departments the state shows this curriculum wise these are the standards um that our students have to do well with that we have to hit certain benchmarks with on every single test so this is the stuff that we really dive deep into within our departments how are we doing against the particular standards it shows us our district percentage the points that we earned against how many were actually available and then how we did versus the state again
080this is from 2021 I just had all that stuff available from the year past so it's this type of data that we spend most of our time with within our departments so that we then can look at how we're doing against the standards and then to break it down even further we can take these adjust your major the major categories this chart and there's a whole other thing to go with it I don't want to bother you with that this is every single question and it will tell you which standard it falls under and how we did we're in blue and this is the state how the state did on every single question so this gives us a quick snapshot of all right what happened on that question what happened on that question but overall
081for a 10th grade we're above the 80 mark of of uh earning the possible points and that was on a 51 Point test so it was 100 Point tests would be a percentage right does that make sense so this is where we spend a lot of our time is looking at this and then we can go and look at the actual questions about standard that um did that show us and then another thing I'm currently building too is the state does not make this available to us is how did a graduating class do with the standards through the years the state does not have that information available to us that to me is far more important to look at than achievement because it's in ela are we hitting standards year after year after year within
082that graduating class and that is something that I think will be beneficial for us to look at to have our conversations across the schools hey this third grade class is lacking in these areas as or that graduating class as opposed to this graduating class so it really helps us just year to year to what the needs of those students are so again this is just to kind of give you a snapshot of what we're looking at what we're presenting to you in January because we have a lot to look at um but it's way more than just that achievement that you know these are some links I provided for you in my travel point you just click on those and it'll bring you to some a few of the things that I I was able
083to pull from here all right so that's basically help us to be better teachers it helps us to look at what our students need is because Peter said that one slide we can take this apart in so many different ways and focus on particular areas to make sure that we're reaching out to all of our students so it's a great tool for us to use even more so and you get the reports about your child and it's good to see or it isn't and it sends a message but but the value the full value is for what we get as Educators about these tests I I want to just say thank you I'm proud to work with these these Educators Peter and John and Lisa in the room they are doing such outstanding where Peter
084does is he's emailing me into August I got the results and I already put them together I'm like wait wait we haven't started a year yet and he's already doing so he's ready to hit the ground with this what happened this year and I've never seen this before in this district is new started to talk the elementary schools and the high school English Department John's been focusing on literacy in a way that has not happened before I'm excited about I'm beyond excited about it when I listen to them they're looking at the youngest learner and Peter on the 10th grade is respecting the third graders results because it matters to him because they're going to come up same thing at least it is not only the science department chair but she's also the science coach
085for the Middle School and she's been working with Ben Gilman who is our science coach at the elementary school she's going over in March to work with the fifth grade team in a way that they haven't looked at before to look at the science with the science and caps and what she anticipate coming and what she's expecting to see you know it's going to come up for the Middle School whether we need to know how to do that that's that excitement is exciting and it's it's the beginning steps of the potential of what we can be doing here thanks to this Educators so thank you great job awesome job so do you have any more questions are you going to see a lot more of me in January I think the point that you and
086Carol and John 10th grade worrying about third degree we've talked before about Berlin worrying about Wilson Elementary that's the message I apologize to the 10th grade teacher because in six years your kids are going to be in class today that's the thing that I didn't probably put that together before I was here right as a parent you don't realize that you say my kids in third grade my kids in sixth grade my kids in ninth grade why isn't doing this or that the idea of having three or four separate schools three separate buildings has to go away and it has to become one one graduate from kindergarten to graduation day so when we talk about the communication piece of this plan that it has to be communication that I think is the biggest thing that
087was lacking around here at least in my experience just communication and applying and it sounds like you're starting to have a plan now so that's good that's the biggest thing communicating to the parents what's actually happening why you're doing this very great because in Tech grade you need to go through this test and we don't want to just do the test we have to do all on things so to hear that you know that's why we have this plan and when we get this big budget coming up that's what we need right thank you that was great thanks are you doing are you using that can you shut that off all right uh yeah thanks Apostle budget sure hey so in charge of Transportation again I want to thank the community for their patience with
088our buses especially in Berlin bus Korean boys So currently we are still scheduled to have a full staff by the end of January it's been pushed a little bit training's kind of gotten behind so now it's the end of January the unfortunate part that we are still facing is that and our team doesn't have any substitutes so when the driver calls out the only option is to either double up or run if capacity allows it or delay of run and have a driver go back after they do their first obligated run so if anyone knows anyone who's interested in driving please reach out to me and I can help you get in touch I do want to mention just so every Community is aware that nrt isn't committed to trying their best to attract new
089drivers so they have recently enhanced their benefits package and they're giving their drivers a six dollar an hour increase and they've added a paid holiday in overtime that they never stop before so they're really they really are trying um the other good news is that where's my kid app is scheduled to be released in January I am scheduled to be set up for a pilot program for it next week and then it should be released I had a brief overview of it and I think it will help tremendously especially with our current busing situation so parents can track any bus they choose and then they can choose a location Zone they'll get an alert when the bus lands in that location you can also flag the buses when they arrive at the school and then
090they leave the school I'm told that service shouldn't be an issue as as it's running off of the bus's GPS the only issue that we might have is in the parents house they don't have good service they'll have to connect to their Wi-Fi I want to reach out Beyond Transportation if I can have another updates okay um the previous app didn't work very well but I'm curious so they said the difference with this app is the way it connects to the GPS so it actually connects to the GPS on the buses and the other app was working on the towers which we don't have that many as we know what to haunt over um so that's why they feel this one should work a lot better and then with that app is there an ability
091to set send notifications like vehicle buses out like it's it's hard you know if you don't like all right it's 8 10. let me look at my email there's no bus today so you the parents can set it up by bus so they'll be able to see say your child's on bus Berlin bus one they can set it up so so they'll get notified when Berlin bus form starts the bus in the morning so you and then you'll get notified you can also get notified when it leaves and then when they arrives at the school so that's how you'll know yeah I actually um I did a pilot for this I've done here comes with us and then I did a pilot with us last year put this out oh yeah where's my kid um
092where's my kid yeah um to my house all of a sudden I was like why is it stuck there and then all of a sudden it would be around the corner for me but as soon as I saw it near Green Street I just I would track it this was over a year ago so it might be running off the GPS and not the cell towers anymore it would give me a heads up that I should start heading up right the only issue I had with it was if they used a sub bust sometimes it wouldn't show up but as long as you're not relying on the app it really is just a helpful thing it's really a sense of security and you know kind of like oh good the bus is coming especially when
093they're when they're late but um I think people need to realize that nothing is perfect but this is a very good app it's better than here that's a very good point because it's faced by the bus yeah yeah so the bus breaks down they go to a different bus yeah in a comment on the bus situation um I get that we're not unique in the bus situation this is an endemic I think issue across probably a number of communities um I just and I know you're you're doing your best Nancy a lot of this stuff is out of your control to an extent and we're under contract with nrt so we um but I would ask that you just uh do your best to hold nrt accountable um there's a couple of you know I'm
094sure you have pulled your hair out and chewed off your fingernails over this as much as um the parents in the community um what what is concerning is that um you know you mentioned that nrt has no substitutes right right and when um you know we've chatted about about the bus issue and uh about a month ago they were you know short just short of declaring Victory because they found a bus driver for for Route three in Berlin right um that will still leave them without any substitutes right they just have the adequate the minimum number of drivers so um I'd encourage you to ask you know try to get more than that um to push your more because one of those drivers calls in them hundreds of families in the community or you know
095heavily disrupted um and then of course it's disappointing to hear that um you know the initial onboarding was four to five weeks right for that driver that was four weeks ago and now we have another six weeks um it's hard to imagine how sideways things could have gone to have gone from a four to five week five week process to an attended process but please keep the keep the fire on them if you can be the squeaky wheel I know you are uh with them they know me well yeah it's just um we definitely need to discuss our options at an appropriate time when does the nrt contract up I think we have two more years of double check it when I'm quite sure is two more years what um do we have any any
096options within the next two years so they they can just simply not provide the bus service there oh and we made up front of course I haven't paid October or November I asked for the invoices to be adjusted for I mean we've been definitely not buses pretty much since September right um they haven't gotten new invoices to me yet but offline a little bit and I'm still holding one I'd love to understand with their contractual obligation is community and I can take a picture of contract with us sorry could you share their contract with us yeah yeah but I can re-share it so you guys that would be great yeah yeah I'm curious do they say you know you said onboarding and they're training new people is that is the training four to five weeks
097or is that including so training can be very time consuming the reason as to why it got delayed is because the person who's being trained hasn't had the time to attend all the trainings that they would have liked so therefore it's been a question so and then one and one of the people is out on the game but that's still okay supposed to be lined up to being as of right now returning but life happens and we all have seen that probably so it makes me nervous it won't lie and so one of the lessons to say bye yes yes to me yeah that's the one that should be cleared that one's set to supposedly set to be all good when the person comes back from leave the one that's going to get delayed today
098but that substitute is currently doing plus five we're not going to lose him so that person is actually a CD instructor that's these two instruct safety so it's going to go back to his real job can you give us a link or anything so we can put in our newsletters okay you've gone over the increase pay and the benefits maybe because I know I have a parent driving of Wales yep absolutely It's gotta be a way I know Carol you spoke about this Sunday we're not a big community against us that is exactly because I feel like we talked about this larger towns no no no I'm thinking about I mean we have no drivers whereas more at the mercies yeah so now we don't have a driver for Berlin bus three until the end
099of January so some kind of carpool I mean there's so many cars that get dropped off carpooling safety like I know it is there has to be a solution here to the parent groups yeah I think it's very I think a lot of parents are starting to take it yeah that's why I have drop-off lines I mean I can speak for BDS Mrs sales and it seems like it's longer every day all right yeah can we put this on the town page um because I don't know if that's been done yet um do you know what I'm talking about Laura the Boylston area yeah on Facebook I'm just thinking like you know we talked about this I know it's it's a part-time job so you're not going to get somebody that needs money doing this
100you're getting retirees that are looking for something to do and make a little bit of extra money you know you might get some people are like oh I didn't want to get the germs and now they're like well for that much money maybe I don't want so I'm just wondering if we can get the word out on that Boylston I don't know if Berlin has a page yeah all right because I I haven't seen anything on the boils today I would take you know my newsletter probably do but I would just take that all right I'll do that yeah spread it around as far as you can yeah the only way to solve this right now is to help our own District like yeah somebody in this town we are the only ones I mean
101modern world has 41 buses and they have 30 drivers so that made me feel a little bit better about ourselves because I'm like okay but yeah so we're not they you know we know that you know but that's what I said to myself we got to solve this ourselves because they can't they're not and that's nrt so that shows you how many drivers I did find the contracted it was drafted or at least shared out on the 14th of April 2020. um it references a sealed bid which where I imagine the um details of the routes or the scope of services um is captured it'd be good to see that because the contract itself doesn't really have any need to it yeah you know it um it just kind of says regular route transportation athletic
102Transportation Etc it does reference the GPS app from 2020 which we don't have still um so I'd love to see the sealed bid and understand um a little more about what our expectations are yeah they're just not providing the service and that I get that we have a contract but we can't you can't stop providing the service so I'd just love to love to see it um thanks all right so we'll get the contract ask for more drivers anybody wants to drive can we offer an incentive of like the after school program if it's a parent and a student that's good idea I just learned like no cost to the district yeah I I had um I also wanted to mention our food service department um we're in desperate need of help kind of the
103same situation so if anyone is willing to substitute or want to be hired to help out in our food service department we would greatly appreciated our facility director has been gracious enough to help out sir Hall so I I just wanted to mention that so yeah but yeah Toronto's having a really rough time and are they just the lunchtime hours that they're doing prepping the lunchtime hours we're flexible so eleven to two somewhere around there you know they could even if they did that exactly and I know and you know I also wanted to mention that last night Carol and I like today meeting and um in regards to the facility assessment and that the committee approved for Boylston Elementary and I'm pleased to let everyone know in the community that Northridge Partners has graciously
104committed to donating 35 000 towards our facility assessment um so between the ten thousand dollar grant that we got from the Mia and this donation we are going to be able to fund facility assessment so that that's just amazing wonderful news so I'll be reposting that in January after the holiday so until hopefully we will get better and we can move forward in those of my updates so if you want to help unless anybody has any questions so I wanted to start tonight by reiterating some of the highlights of our previous month's meeting where we introduced The District Improvement plan we discussed all of the aspects of that I wanted to remind the public that again this is only our fourth year as a district because one single District that we are young we have
105this great potential to grow but we have to keep to the Forefront of of our work to essential questions how do we and and will we Define ourselves as a district and then what do we want for the future of our children that's what's driving the district Improvement plan is what's driving our budget today we're going to look at this for all of our schools not just individual schools like we used to in separate meetings that Peter was was recounting before about different districts it's one district and what we need all the way from elementary to Middle High School in the plan we have four different objectives and you're going to see those that reflected in the way this budget is designed and presented this evening we have the personnel the Equitable opportunities for all
106students the technology advancements and then maintaining long-term Financial stability and sustainability tonight Nancy Kaminski who is our finance director is going to outline for us the cost of accomplishing these goals the budget numbers Nancy will present represent and this is really important it's a collaborative effort of the members of the budget subcommittee who talked about that group earlier representing the school committee and the District administration to put together a budget to reflects the needs of our district in our district Improvement plan again it's our needs and I keep emphasizing that it's not our wants it's not our wishes it's nothing nice to have it's the needs I will tell you right now all of you at home who are listening this is aggressive and it is a reach we've never gone out on a limb
107this way and we're doing so tonight and this is how we're moving forward but however this opportunity enables us to be competitive with other districts with private schools and even to some extent vocational schools particularly in the step areas where they have the equipment they have the tools necessary to educate students in those particular fields and they have a funding to do that and then I see this watching this through the years this is the result of the years of holding back funding because of our inability to meet these from both of our towns and as a result we've pushed the software fits in the community I'm going to give you an analogy of this all day in terms of a wet grocery bag you're carrying all the things home in this wet bed that
108you need the items that you need to eat and the bag is getting heavier and heavier every year and it's start at the bottom is starting to go out on it you got to save some of those items we're gonna have we have to decide what are we going to save out of our grocery bin which of the items are we going to pick all of them some of them we're going to let some drop and break on the floor who's going to make those decisions who's going to decide what gets saved and what goes out of that poster about what the grocery bag because that's where we are right now Nancy Matthew the group at aspect Valley today and the finance directors all talked about this and said you're courageous right yes we're going
109to be in this class in a couple of years cut and cut through the ears and you push ourselves backward and now turn it down with this I'm going to say to you that I know that the school committee and this admin team including myself are open and willing to explore options to getting what we need possible grants and reach outs to local corporations developers as we did with the with the facilities right philanthropic organizations that's the work we're going to be doing in the next several months we're going to do our best and we're going to do our part in this and we can continue to explain what we need and why it's important ultimately it's going to be up to the towns to make the decision to make that reach out on behalf
110of our students it's going to come down to you in the towns to do this so at this time oh yeah so as we start to review the fiscal year 24 preliminary budget please stop me along my way and let me know if you have any questions we're fortunate that we have our leadership team with us here tonight so they'll also be here to answer questions the first item that I would like to start with is the fiscal year 24 preliminary budget totals I know you have a lot so it looks like that so this is a document shows you the budget comparisons from fiscal year 21 budget and engineering budget for 24. you will see that it is broken out by level service only in above level service for the community who isn't fully
111aware level service is when a district provides the same level service to students that it had in its prior year the district will meet contractual obligations both with its employees and vendors it also will include additional costs to meet Federal mandates and anticipated increases due to inflation the above level service is when the district provides the same levels of service to students that I had in this prior year but it also includes additional needs the above level service helps the district with changing needs in education it ranges from new curriculum new programs additional support and Advanced Technologies in reviewing our entire District as a level only service budget it is projected to have a 13 increase which is a dollar amount of 2 538 540. in reviewing the entire District at above level service it
112is projected to have a 23 increase which is a dollar amount of four million 477 269 dollars so before we go and review the budget request from each School individually I wanted to briefly review the enrollment history with you going back to fiscal year 17. so the enrollment numbers so if you want to pull that up so the enrollment numbers for our two elementary schools Berlin Memorial Elementary in Morrison Elementary have both increased last year fiscal year 22 and then this year for fiscal year 23. keep in mind when looking at this that fiscal year 20 and 21. can be misleading due to homeschooling after covet so in Berlin Memorial we had a 15 increase in 22 which is 24 students and a six percent increase in 23 which is 12 students in Boylston Elementary
113we had a 16 increase in 22 which is 38 students and the 12 increase in fiscal year 23 which is 33 students and looking at Toronto middle school high school we had a decrease of four percent in fiscal year 22 which is 20 students and a decrease of 3 and 23 which is 16 students the greatest decreases are an 8th to ninth grade as students are choosing to attend at the other schools we would like the community to keep these enrollment changes in mind as we review the preliminary budget for fiscal year 24 . it will help communicate by the school committee and the administration would like to see these above level service requests as an elementary school's enrollment is increasing the needs of our students are increasing at tohato the enrollment is dropping which
114validates the district's needs for offering new programs and supporting our students one of the other things that I think it's important for the community to be aware of is that 231 000 of personnel and services that are in our fiscal year 24 budget are currently being paid out of our Esser grants for code our covet Ester grants in the current Year's budget these are items that we feel we still need as a school district to support our students so now we can go into each tool individually unless anybody has any questions but I can get it for you so to for this current year 231 thousand between personnel and services are this being paid out at this current Year's budget through that asset grants those personality Services were put into the fiscal year 24 budget
115but now we don't have the grants come over now foreign projected uh uh growth or you know increase or decrease for the schools from 24. very moment I did not do that yeah yeah it's a great book that that's a something that should be done probably tell the story before yeah absolutely yep okay and failed okay then we'll move on to Berlin Elementary so the level service we'll start with level service only so the level service only has an increase of 12 and 481 000 12. seven percent of this is from the general budget of two hundred and ten thousand forty dollars the significant increases to bring to your attention under general education are that we have a math tutor that is currently being paid through a grant and it's being put in the general
116budget next year this dyslexia screener that was paid through a grant this year you know will be put in the budget for next year we need a new copier in the main office this was purchased in 2018 we have a slight increase to our trans regular transportation we have a retirement payout for one teacher for the contractual agreement we currently have a note night custodian that has contracted out we would really like to bring that custodian back in-house the increase would be benefit costs only electricity we have a 31 increase in our health insurance and benefits are projected to have a 10 increase 26 is from the special education budget which accounts for 278 973 dollars the items that attribute to this are we have two new Audi District students which also included 14 projected
117increase or private item District tuitions we have an additional classes monitor for now additional bus monitor via in an increased to special education transportation and we have a special education teacher that's retiring that also will get paid out for the contract ual agreement distribution so those are Muslim girl and girls I have Berlin students that are their needs aren't met within our district and so they need to go through and out of business yes that is correct that's correct yeah the above level service request for Berlin have a total increase of 20 and 841 143 dollars 15 is from the general budget of 484. 600 484 653.34 from the special education budget at 356 491 dollars so the first section that you'll see of the above level service are the items that we went over
118at the last meeting with the district Improvement plan so I'm going to move over that um unless anyone has any questions in that area I thought I would just move to the above level service items that weren't in the district is that okay with everyone yes so the significant increases to bring to your attention under general education for that we have various software that we need we have we would like to start putting in a small line item for new desk and chairs for students to kind of keep you up to date with them the literacy decodable materials for K through three kindergarten through third grade via the outdoor storage container in Berlin that we have been releasing for several years it makes sense at this point to just purchase it outright instead of keep
119leasing it if we did that at the beginning we would have already saved some money um reprogram our pellet boiler needs repair we put in various Capital items from the facility assessment into the general budget our special educational Reserve fund and we have we have increases to several of our facility line items ranging from maintenance and repairs Plumbing electrical HVAC boiler and other expenses and under special education we have born in killing the entry anybody have any questions are there any other details I'm really familiar with the district [Music] um and by the way the vision that this stuff creates for for Berlin Memorial and I know we'll have the same for the other schools it's pretty awesome so I'm pretty supportive um but are there any other details about the items not in the
120district's Improvement plan where if one wanted to kind of double click on that and learn more about those individual items they could there's not but I can add it in I don't know I think the way you've got the sunrise is really nice yeah it's a lot of information so I wouldn't change it I would just be curious if you want more we can give it to you like just talk right phone call will probably do it but but we can do it now whatever you know we're glad to answer any questions you have um yeah I mean maybe you could share a little more about some of the software packages that are being proposed and what what impact do you have on the school community absolutely so this is why we brought the leadership
121that's why everybody's here I am the finance they do the they know the info behind itself this is great so there's a few that I can't address but for example the single sign-on Etc is a it's an app that allows kids to send them to a bunch of different programs with one password or like a QR code and it's ironic because we were just talking in plc's like my first grade teachers because it takes them 20 minutes to log their first graders into their iPads because everybody's got up password everything it's a password is different than user game and single sign would help with that Rocket Math is basically an electronic flash cards um but very visual lots of little circuitry Goods um mirror fluency is a program that's fast-pacing um where kids are prompted
122to read um videos but headphones and a microphone and the computer of apple and actually keep track of the really cool rather than having uh Amazon listen to one period of time sure five kids at a time um Foundation upon um is just something that goes with recommendations on this program yeah I think it's just it's online to further enhance your learning um Harper's time in attendance um currently we keep attendance through eye visions that's with our newness program and but we have our software through um oh my gosh Harper's it's for student attendance yes so this will actually the attendance will go through this software and download right into our payroll software right yeah yeah got it and that is DocuSign for for the administration or is it by chance going to alleviate parents
123needs for filling out 10 forms at the beginning of every year I don't know what to talk about John I love it that's on the application okay um really cool one other question that came up as you were going through this Nancy um this one might be tough and it's not early Memorial specific but um you know I see that we have this uh grant that paid for the math tutor right last year it's not going to pay for it 24 so before we get that we need to pay for it yeah um but it does uh imply that grants are a funding opportunity for us and so as we look to um execute those many of these great things as possible do we have an idea of what Opportunity Financial opportunity uh is out
124there from from a grant perspective and how do we apologize to get money that way the way I built the budget was a little bit different than it has was done by the prior Director of Finance so the way I built the budget is I took all the entitlement grants the your your special education grant to be 240 or 274 your title one your title four they're all grant that you're entitled to that you get as a school district I apply them to this budget so they're in there awesome yes no because we're still so high right but so I accounted for everything that I'm aware that we will perceive okay so they're they're in here so yeah about the grants because this is something we've talked about in the subcommittee meetings it probably would
125be a full-time job for somebody else and whether or not we want to invest in this down the road maybe not right now um to there's so much money out there whether it be through Federal grant state grants or even private grants private funding corporate you know um but somebody has to have the time to research on do the extensive application process um you know follow up on them figure out what's needed what can we slightly change in our district so we fit this or we fit that um so I think there's a ton of opportunity grants and I just feel like we've got so much on our plate right now maybe that might be a thing for next year to kind of gross that subject maybe with the 7 million person that brings to
126the committee maybe about hiring or have it be you know part of somebody's role that's already in central office that might you know need another thing to do but I think there's opportunity there but I just I don't know how much money Nancy's gonna have done to have one for I love the idea of hiring the grant writer and yeah I don't know the size of the grants that are available but you know we just need to cover one salary you know and then it's worth it and then after that is crazy so that would that might be interesting one of my prior districts we actually we consulted with the grant right now and you know great [Music] and you know some years like a year like this would be really beneficial to have um
127they'll get a small percentage of any grants that they get so the bigger grants yeah ourselves in-house we can still uh put out sort of more of a private community so that we do have some some positions that are in our brand fund HML has a repair professionals and special education entitled with tutors in there so we do have we have positions we don't get a lot compared to other districts the other side yeah it's entitled but we're entitled to a certain amount that that's a term for us by the federal government so that's all regions so we get ten thousand dollars twelve thousand dollars per Target professional development does it make sense now as I just said we have so much on our plate but I'm thinking like this year is such a large
128budget and it's a our hope hopefully we're not going to be doing this year after year fear um doesn't make sense to maybe look for a consultant I don't know how long it takes I don't know maybe that's something we can talk about in our next stop committee meeting that's part of what I'm saying before we should be looking at private grants to find some of these these items but it's difficult to fund positions because we can't sustain them you know yeah um but we can certainly look for things and then those private grants about that many times yeah all right um one other general question uh last question um so regarding um process here is there is there a point at which again across schools we would consider prioritizing um some of the things
129we're asking right we love to be able to execute all of these right um but if if our decisions have to be made I think we might want to be influencing those decisions right as opposed to someone randomly doing their best Carol and I kind of have already sad and we couldn't have a side blessed I'd say where our priority in when it comes out to commitment you know this budget tomorrow that's why I asked you guys about tomorrow night so it's like a word of our process right until February when you guys make the official final vote at the open public hearing that's when your final budget so Cuts will happen if you if somebody would like between now and then or shifts of course our struggles is we said it's for years so
130if we have to shift items or personal positions into a second or third year that's what we would want to be looking at because all of the things we said we want to do in the district want to to cut you know for yeah for forever we want to make sure we just push it to maybe the second and third year and I do think even the admin team the principles have in mind what they want to what they would see as logical they should continue okay yeah just I guess um you know I understand that we're voting the record our recommendation for this budget to move forward but you know we have another hearing in February as a community has a chance to see this react to it as we hear from constituents about
131what they think they want to spend their money um it might be nice to sort of um have a list of items that we really want to protect right um instead of just crucial and some that you know maybe we can consider otherwise yeah we will continue to look at that like The Descent I think there's a purpose is yeah and we talked about too Bob there are huge things this year that we almost don't have a choice um increases in utilities increases in Special Needs that's State mandated so I mean some of the stuff it's it's almost like we don't have a choice so if we're forced to make Cuts somewhere it's going to be well we'll have two teachers and there's going to be 30 kids in the class and some of some
132of those things it's like we're at that direless situation I think just because of the cost inflation and the current state so I think it's going to be important to get this budget out to the community let people know how important it is um you know just put the investment in in public schools right now in our community that's really cool I wanted to break it out by level service and above level service just I mean just love the service itself was 13. yeah at least not to mention inflation and you're going to get to Boston and talk about a 40 increase in electricity yeah yeah right thanks you're welcome anybody else all right so starting with the level service only the coil stem has a total increase of 16 that's 763 763 dollars six
133percent of that is from the general budget which is 226 600 41 of that is from the special education budget at 537 163 dollars so from the general budget you have the dyslexia screener that was paid through a grant last year that was put into the general budget this year we have needed plumbing and building repairs so we added an increase for that we have increased to Transportation we're leasing a new copier the one last one that was purchased was in 2018. I'm changing some of the copiers it seemed like the prior history fears have always been purchased outright and then they've been kept for several years so I'm recommending kind of changing the ones that are used very often to a like a three-year lease so the teachers don't get frustrated and they're not
134jammed all the time and they're getting married so copy is just as someone said like who cares about copiers it's because the teachers use them daily and it's affecting their ability to teach yeah absolutely they're just so old they need to be updated so the business the copiers that the teachers use for all their copies and everything I put on a three-year release the copiers that are aren't used as frequently they're going to purchase outright because you can keep them longer it was a 39 increase to electricity projected 10 increase to health insurance and benefits and a 31 increase to Natural Gas we're projecting two new District students with a 14 increase built into that for our private added District students we have additional needs for home medical services additional needs for evaluations and consults
135and then increased our special ed transportation so that's level service only our above level service has a total of 30 at one million four hundred and forty three thousand and thirty three dollars twenty two percent of that is from the general budget and 752 318 and 53 of that is from special education for 690 714 dollars then I'm just going to skip the above level service items that we covered in the district Improvement plan I'm going to move over to the blood level service items that weren't in the district so those were the various software it's actually the same software that we covered in Berlin the new chairs and deaths literacy to codable materials kindergarten through three and also purchasing the outdoor storage container those are all actually the same and the same for special
136education which is the Orient Healing Hand training are there economies of scale that we can leverage for software for within the district and can we buy that you know put a network license of some of these things and use them in the different schools which we need to make the same investment of our Standalone software at each school at home so they think they will we're getting votes as a bundle that most of them have you know cut off as possibly they might be zero to 250 is X 250 to so we will see so you're looking at we will see that again thank you anyone else have any questions at the start of the level service only as a total increase of 13 at 1 million 289 446 dollars eighty percent is within General
137budget for 642 351 dollars thirty percent is from special education at six hundred and forty seven thousand ninety five dollars so under the general budget we're leasing a new copier and purchasing two all the copiers are from 2016. we have a 39 increased electricity 10 increase to health and insurance benefits we have a decent increase to transportation increased to oil we don't have the exact amount I put nineteen thousand dollars in we're currently out today they're waiting for it to come back um and we also have enough custodian in to Hunter that we would actually like um to bring back in-house so the cost would be benefits only uh under special education two new Audi District students with a 14 projected increase to private out of District tuitions I put in conferences that increased according
138to Personnel contracts additional needs for evaluation and consults there's an increase to special education Transportation increasing special ed services such as PT music therapy inherent impaired so I think above level service is in 22 increase at 2 100 874 dollars Seventeen percent with the general budget and 40 from Special Ed so just skipping to the above level service items that weren't in the district Improvement under general education we have a laptop Department science department various software the DocuSign single sign-on and Harper's payment attendance purchase an outdoor storage container there we would like to add five working summer days for the guidance counselors we would like to get our drama club up and running so we would like to add supplies into that we'd like to update our AP psychology textbook textbooks and update our physical
139physics lab equipment our fiscal year 25 standards competency and curriculum mapping I would like to have a pilot program for grade 7 social studies and our special education research want we'd like to add and for special education Thornton Gillingham training and for our new special education teacher that we are requesting and chairs and desks if you have any questions um I think this is awesome it's a tremendous body of work and what's really impressive honestly is how you've summarized it concisely because if I know it represents you know what's in this 30 some odd page document um what what I think about when I see these is how I will convey and communicate what we're seeking in the vision that the district has to people that aren't in the room or watching them right and
140I think the only thing that might be helpful and maybe we need to take this down so we could apply for this opportunity or maybe even the Student Success since it's sort of overlapped with the districts um I wonder if we could somehow not to be too prescriptive but like show a pie chart right of you you know you've shown the categories of the different things that um that make up the whatever percent increase right the top level number yeah um but it might be helpful to convey to to the community you know how much of that number each of these things I have that right here if you wanted it yeah communication tools for us as we talk to people in the community that might be really helpful yeah yeah absolutely yeah thank you
141great job thank you and I'm hoping that these documents with my friends but I think looking at this and seeing General budget special education and really to get broken down really explains where the money's going and I think that's very helpful so I think you know I think High courts are definitely good tools but I think this doctor that you need to provide it would be great to share with the public too in a minute right yeah and I can do the pie charts and add it for each section yeah that's true another PowerPoint yeah I think too Nancy for community members to see it too that's exactly what they said I mean to see a budget as it was presented previously it was so very nice to do um to understand what's broken down
142like this it really tells the story of not not with what our history one of the things that I talked about this afternoon too is after we present tonight I was voted on taking this and putting it into this week's newsletter literally send out from the district so we kind of put in I'll do the summary again and then we put in things presentation if you footage take your portion when you presented this because I think that really you know spoke with you presenting a vision of the district I think that would be positional video the actual part of the video [Music] because I think real high school kids of Technology I'm sure Joel's telephone company yeah I mean we could like we can use a link to understand like where you said that too
143like in the YouTube channel today so yeah I think we should be able to do that yeah the only I think I guess trouble with that idea though is because I think the camera is focused on you rather than your presentation so that will I mean that one would be interested communication more is more is better yeah yeah even the paragraph you read in the beginning of the newsletter yeah so you just write that exactly your whatever you spoke yeah figure in that speech different places you know you started with the enrollment projections I mean I didn't I knew Lori is in real estate you can see the building going on around town I didn't realize it impacted the role that knows that much 16 13 and that's a huge we have classes of 13
14414 20 kids that's two kids to add to a classroom which takes the focus of the teacher away dilutes everything down right so the story here is the growth of these two towns right the last five six seven years and that's what you're going to do in schools do you want to have small classes you want to have extra resources or opportunities for kids you want to compete with other towns around us you have to fund it you have to invest in it I think that's uh that's that's part of the story is the growth of the towns uh like that I know you asked for the nephew's numbers too and I know that's in the works I know you get reports on that so yeah I know that is coming the other piece that
145I think is important for people to understand is in this budget we have kind of two categories one is like recurring expenses so hiring a teacher that's a recurring expense every year like they're starting things in here that are one time you know like part of the capital budget yeah so I mean the numbers are really big this year but some of that stuff we put a roof on des and it's a million dollars we're doing that once so that's a million dollars once we are not going to need that year over year so I think it's important and I'm sure you have that kind of broken down too for the presentation as to what's a recurring expense and that was a one-time right you know some of this software again I don't know what
146is it you pay every three years so yeah you know you might have to get creative for one year that's kind of the idea of getting everything all out there at once I guess if you could break it down like a percent of recurring versus one kind of asks for the community right I'm just saying it comes to a vote and you know classes are going to go up this much this year but then and like I think you're here because like you were thinking like I wasn't here at this meeting and I think quantifying career taxpayers of the CPA yes and so I think that is also a huge paste yeah we'll definitely need each Town assessors help with that but I think that's going to be kind of a huge aspect when we're
147presenting to the community and that's what the voters are going to want to see if this goes to a town being vote and what what am I going to have to pay taxes that's the bottom line for most people bottom line is when we're going to have to pay and when we're going to get it right where does that return of what happened today exactly yeah and everybody's got a price tag we're like oh a thousand dollars a year no way I'm not doing that or oh fifty dollars a year wow that's nothing I don't like you know what I mean thousand dollars a year I'm not paying that and then my grandkids not gonna graduate with whatever opportunities we're trying to cut yeah that's the conversation that's going to be at that's the conversation
148yes but we need some numbers so people can be and then like I think we talked about this at our meeting there are some people that physically cannot afford another thousand dollars a year they have for themselves so I cannot do this um and I think you know it's just about kind of figuring out what the income what the increase would be year over year what we can get from Canada we can get from Grants okay that's the next step I feel in this process because I think kind of we're all in some type of Unison we all want this to be thinking we think we believe this is what we need next episode how do we get there so he didn't go over the capital plan we haven't can you put it it's in
149there you take a few minutes while you're pulling down just a question about about capital and really maybe non-recurring costs so um just thinking about the question that some of you in the community might ask that is you know maybe they don't have children in the district and it is right to have a tax increase um if we budget for a million dollars in for a new roof uh this year or next year is there an expectation that that budget will tricked by a million dollars after that project and for years subsequently after the project is done so I actually for the capital plan I did it out the three for that reason so I mean I didn't bring it with me tonight I have it um yes great we've it decreases greatly so we
150have uh sort of like okay great great I think that's uh that's helpful to see that I will um tomorrow I'll send out the three year yeah I mean your capital is that but that's a one time class right so next year you're going down right the main reoccurring cost in your Capital that we're requesting that will go over is your one-on-one initiative or your Chromebooks your student laptops that type of stuff that's definitely one-on-ones okay anybody else okay so we'll go through this real quick so for Berlin Memorial we have 45 000 for a replacement plan for 90 Chromebooks 25 new iPads and we also put in their new phones for the district offices twenty thousand to repave the walkway and playground the walkways cracked and unsafe and 273 000 to replace the flat
151roof the existing roof is 22 years old to remove the existing group to existing deck and replace it with a new roof system the total of the request is 337 838 dollars what does the playground mean we paved the walkway and we're playing around I mean I don't repeat the walkway still on the back of the building is a little walk with you not the playground itself the walkway right yeah thank you sure and then in Boyle's dead we have to resurface the roof we put the resurface of the roof is 1.2 million a new move would be 3 billion in a resurfaceable glass a good 20 years 15 to 20 years versus the new rule for 20 to 30 years so that's why we went yeah and under it your replacement plan would be
152for 105 Chromebooks at 25 new apps iPads and portion of the new phone system for the district offices the kitchen floor replacement for 30 000 consistency concerned we really need a non-slip floor yeah in the kitchen and HVAC installation there's no HVAC in the buildings that's 400 000. so the total amount of their quad request is one million six hundred percent of the United States we have 200 000 for the security camera and system that needs to be upgraded we put in 50 000 for facility assessment for it replacement plan for 120 Chromebooks for middle school students and the phones for the district offices in a replacement plan for 85 Chromebooks with student laptops in those seniors 110 500. the auditorium sound and light system meaning an assessment um for that as it's not working
153correctly so that's five thousand dollars HVAC upgrade fifteen thousand dollars and then you've got your principal and interest from your bond building so the total request is 1.7 million for Donato how much does a Chromebook cost about 260 to 27 is it it varies it's not as high as 210 and they're kind of slowly it's a supply chain actually that's just because so that is to try to get everything the replacement plan is to try to basically have everything obviously so we're not asking them to the last longer than that we're right now we have things that are slow so Paula that seems totally reasonable right like just it Hardware five years so yeah Elder starts to become a dinosaur um and we talked about this a little bit during the district room treatment plan
154discussion I know it's probably not worth much um the Chromebook Chromebooks and such but man I would love for us to figure out a way to wipe them and donate them to like the Council on Aging maybe our seniors could use them or someone in the community you know improves in the community um so if we if we do get on a on a you know ongoing you know kind of recycling program I feel like I would just at this point what we're using is and again so it's like the things that we have as far as we end up needing these fairs for ourselves off or whatever you know we're going through anywhere from 30 depending you know like until maybe like 50 in a year almost replacing um can parents be held liable
155if their child's images Elementary School we haven't had I think we only had two claims so far so it's hard to touch um but I I agree again should it pass like we should be in a better position to do something like that with the diploma yeah all right can I have just one more thing because to kind of correct what I said earlier because I know I said like the future of the capital plan went down so I pulled up my three-year plane plan for the capital plan so just quickly for Berlin in 25 we have on there the it for the replacement plan wireless access points for 27 000 and then we have on there the shingle the roof area so that's 1.1 million so I didn't want I said it went down
156and I'm like no so in for 25 it goes up but then in 26 it goes down to 443 we put in uh playground redoing playground stages window blazing it updating HVAC but I'll get all that out to you the other schools did go down but I just wanted to yeah I mean of course everyone would want it to go down but I think more importantly they want to see that the right things are hitting the budget each year if you're not carrying over things just because right right it sounds like it's exactly right exactly yeah so that if that's Heating and Cooling what was the elementary yeah I think last year Jess Jeff had looked into getting Chillers into the rooms because I don't I mean I don't know maybe there's a better way
157maybe you can put those mini splits or something but we discussed it at like last year because some of the classrooms and that school get within the 90s and that again for a whole month of May or September that becomes a safety issue I think for our health issue this is awesome thank you [Music] yeah the questions or anything to add to it well I'll give that information out to you tomorrow with the pie chart love it send you out the three-year plan for the capitol I think it's great all right to move on to our business items then all right first one oh yeah yeah I'm sorry do you want to stick around one of those guys thank you it's up to you we need to miss a good part no idea seriously we're
158supposed fiscal year 2024 budget and capital budget as presented Julie Andrew yeah just I think I think it would be helpful Mr chair this is my first time going through it and I'd love to understand just the sequence of events right what is the significance of this vote I know we have another uh budget um Hearing in late February I'd love to just kind of share and talk about the whole Arc of this process and what is what it looks like yeah so when I thought on this one tonight preliminary right and then uh tomorrow to answer their questions we'll be up meetings like that right on a date yet yeah so I probably reached out specifically I really invited you to this particular day yeah they usually have their students yeah foreign very beginning
159of the budget season I did a budget calendar oh yeah was that shared with you yes it's at home um I can find that too and resend it that that will help too or just put it on the drive okay Julie has it yeah that's it [Music] does that help it's the month of January preliminary expended your budget gets presented to the respective towns Board of selectment and finance committees Berlin's probably just a little early yeah I mean in all honesty after next week nobody's doing anything I mean we're literally actually next week we got very close to the happiest time of year okay so today preliminary expenditure budgets presented to the school Community for discussion what's happening today then uh next step is to present these two respective towns for selecting the finance committees
160and it sounds like uh Carol Nancy I don't know if the school committee's approval is prerequisite for that but I probably would like to have it and thank you okay and then we have a three or four month process between December and March where the administration continues to develop budgets as new information occurs revisions are brought to the school committees for updated review so this is we see as a preliminary starting point launch it and then start gathering information and then uh looking for highlights here late January and early February Foundation enrollment minimum local contribution date is published those are inputs to the budget calcs February 28th in bold Regional school committee public hearing on the budget school committee will vote on the proposed 23 budget March and April potential revisions to the budget it's
161never final based on changing circumstances and or feedback from towns and then month of May Town meetings so so does the process always yeah let's talk about that does the process always go to uh town meeting yes yes always always yeah yeah okay all right but like last year I think we just did the standard recommended increase so it wasn't like a friends to go vote on this it was just at the rate last year was just we did we went to the finance committees in both towns so we talked about about the budget and even then you know you know there was a there was some questions that came up about some of the items we had on there I think of the school adjustment counselor for the purpose of that but we're pushing
162them so there will be a lot of what I anticipate tomorrow there'll be a lot of questions correct so a vote tonight you know a majority vote represents majority support for the budget as it's currently drafted kind of puts you in a position to talk to your stakeholders and share that you have the committee so hard what's different about this year though is that you already have been sitting with the school committee typically it's the superintendent Finance director that recommends the budget to the school committee and I said it's really the first time we've seen the first time I've ever seen that too and then did a lot of that was the conversation last year was we all see it until December the first time ever if you ever had a question about it we
163have current UI that's not a good way to do things in Russia's things doesn't give us time to review it I mean this is probably the 10th time you've been in a meeting about at night in June right we've been in several full meetings about it you know we had it last time so I think it's a better process this is yeah I like having a subcommittee I think it's so helpful on my end it's great just as bad Bob for like last year and I know numbers I was just like huh and we didn't even see last year we didn't even see what all the schools were asking for so for all we knew we were voting on his budget and the principals needed other things this year the subcommittee had the privilege of
164sitting down and looking at everything and so we were going into this meeting and taking this road and it was just like well this is what's presented and this is what we're presenting and we didn't realize there were other things until kind of after the fact so I mean this is just such a better farther ahead yeah yeah this is just a much better process I think I think yeah and likewise yeah I mean it was helpful to see the scope right the scope that we're receiving the fund yeah I think the key for us next and I think my politician that wasn't sure is to sit down and look at the dates of all these different groups that are meeting CPAC PTO meetings all of those including and then the town meetings and seniors
165senior citizen meetings yeah there's any of the organizations in town that we can think of and find out the agenda all right for the district foreign [Music] it would just be more like because people don't always watch the meetings as you know and then they're like wait what's this what's going on so getting in front of these small groups and giving a mini presentation it's stuff we've already talked about a little Braiding on so I think I think this person yeah I could go to one of the meetings [Music] my top we've talked before about getting into people's living rooms I mean if they were hosted uh yeah whatever it is great yeah sure you have a lot of we have a lot of people that potentially don't don't have children active within school system
166and during the days there um anyone else afraid of both of them yes all right may I have a motion to improve policy jica student address really a second Laurie anybody like to say anything about response all right all in favor they have a motion to approve policy AC non-discrimination including harassment and retaliation don't worry anyone yes question here so um in this policy it references um it State's application to any member of the school community and I'm curious if somewhere within this policy or elsewhere there is a legal definition of a school community I don't know what that means and who it includes so cool I'm noticing right now in the first reads I think it's it's ACR is not the right it's not the correct one a lot of ones I don't know
167if it's how different it is I apologize there's two acrs one was a regulation and one was a positive regulations thank you yeah and then the other one was like [Music] um policy for a updated policy AC is the revised one policy for bdrst foreign yeah the hyperlinks should work on this because I put those in here um agenda we'll just see if I can find it that way so if I go down it's already there yeah it's policy ACR I don't know why it's connected like that it should be in policy AC so I wonder if we should vote without that one next all right let's uh there's a motion on the table to approve this appreciate it hold this down yes oh so AC was never on there so the one we were
168reading with ACR ACR is a regulation uh because that's the ACR AC yeah all right yeah you do that um there was just one's a concern I had to I guess later on they can fill in the name of our school and stuff but um I just want to make sure there's a redundancy in who can be reported to um that there's more than one person that can be reported to in case that one person is yeah and these are the two these are the two policies that came from the attorney right um this one I do not know because this wasn't the standard uh we didn't have a policy we've never had one and it looks like it's like the Seattle I'm gonna have to go through and see what the difference is we
169never had an AC all right so we cannot approve the policy as it is in favor of this one again next time by any chance the case of the others I think I thought that was the only one that I saw um and as per Jessica's question I believe that was asked at the last meeting to the um there's a hunter administrators that I believe that they said that they did have it you couldn't report to somebody who was not like in case the perpetrator was the person you were reporting to um do we I think is your question that we have do we have then right yeah it labels to people's report too okay but it but it's different different instances of so um it's two different populations [Music] yes anyone okay the questions
170so in favor all right all right yes passes they have a motion to improve policy GCF professional staff hiring so removed anyone who's David hi hi yes seven [Music] yes anyone you think hi yes that's the evolution of true positive jfpv school choice Bob second Megan the one that's linked is jfbb one and not jfdb so we need to vote this one down as well yeah I have a question on this one as well um did it change recently it's not the right policy okay so basically the policy that would be this is jfd1 this is the this is the policy of the school district not to admit non-residents oh yeah oh yeah our states it would always be the choice of the school committee upon recommendations which is exactly how it's done every single
171year so we weren't changing into jfcpi okay I also want to ask about timing and I it uh it stated about reaffirming this policy on an annual basis no later than June 1st and I wasn't sure when the last time we we did that was and when we would be due to do it again for this week couch have we voted it today and but I'm working it's okay document is no longer here I'm not typing it so I won't worry too much about it we'll just wait for the right when we get the threat everything all right here yes okay may I have a motion to enter executive session to conduct negotiations with Union Personnel will be the GAA and to review and approved executive session minutes from November 15th and December 6 2022
172and return to open sessions thank you second Megan good question everything was included um there's the opening of the meeting their return to open session it's just the public part yeah so I understand that I didn't see that it would drive anywhere it was there at five o'clock oh I saw that meeting oh you know what Jessica this used to happen to me when I was new so I also will say Google is having major issues I'm seeing them today number six 2022 open meeting yeah sometimes you don't have access stuff it just doesn't show up okay yeah two four six eight ten so there's like 10 things in content agendas you see 10. [Music] thank you thank you [Music] sorry all right so let's vote Yes this happened to me when I was new
173Christy thinks they're filming