001Thank you, Mr. Baracus, for your inspiration um on that effort. So, 3 days left to purchase tickets online. So, that closes on March 11th at 6 p.m. Um and anyone who purchases an admission ticket is eligible to win that $50 gift card. Our amazing door prize, as always, is a 43in smart TV and a big basket of snacks and popcorn. Um which is always a big hit. All of our raffle prizes um are starting to come in. We just got one from Launch and Lemonster for the first time, which is awesome. Wellies just came in with a donation for the second year in a row and so did O'Neal Cinemas. Um, we've got I mean gift cards and baskets. Um, I can't even tell you. The list just went from like 10 to 29 items
002in the last 48 hours. So, um, some of the biggest items that we have that are a real hit with our family bingo are the Scholastic book bags that we put together with, um, there will be, uh, you know, the big cheese and the sour grape and all of those fun characters and the plush that match with them, which is kind of exciting. And we'll have, um, certificates for the book fair to raffle off. Um, >> so I read Humble Pie Read Across America Day. It was great. >> Did you really? >> They're awesome. >> They're good books. >> They're really good. Um, so we love that. That's exciting for them. Um, our next meeting is Thursday, April 2nd at 6:15. We have the expo coming up on April 15th and then the PTA conference
003um for the weekend of April 11th in Winterham and we've finally booked our hotel for that. So, we're excited to have a little girls weekend if you may. It'll be fun. Any questions? Thanks for all that you do. >> Thanks. >> We will come back to the top of the agenda. Come on over, Thomas. >> Thanks, guys. >> You're welcome. >> Good evening, everybody. >> How you doing? >> Good. >> Okay, so for student council, last week we had eight members of our student council attend the annual spring conference in Hyannas. Um, they attended leadership workshops, listened to motivational speakers, andorked with students across the Commonwealth. Um so they're bringing a lot of ideas back on how to improve the school which is great. Um they exemplified leadership, communication and collaboration and it was very
004successful all around. Everyone was happy. Um the members who attended were Grace Alvarado, Novia Valley, Katie Pruce, Drew Asroom, Jameson Brier, Millia Mahan, No Gates, and Jane Karns. Um we also want to say congratulations to Grace Alvarado who received the Commonwealth award for her leadership as StuCo president. And then we have another workshop coming up this on March 18th at Worcester State um that another six students will be will be attending. And then lastly, we have our blood drive on um April 16th coming up. Um an email with instructions on how to make an appointment was sent to students and staff. Um as well as a mailing list for those who had already registered. Um, to make an appointment, you can go to the scheduling feature on the Rhode Island Blood C Center's website um,
005and use sponsor code M038. That's M038. Then any questions can be directed to, uh, any of the student council members or Matt Russell. That's all I have for you guys tonight. >> Thanks, Tom. Great. >> Thank you, guys. anything this evening from CPAC >> Elpac. >> Hi, how are you? >> Hello. >> Good to you. >> Good to see you too. So, um next Tuesday, March 17, we are having uh ELPAC meeting in central office building. We're going to talk about some topic parents are very interested to talk about and we're going to be planning and organizating uh the multicultural night. The multicultural night going to be April 28 going to be in Clinton in the middle school cafeteria. Uh we have already several countries that reach out saying they going to participate. I hope
006to see you there. Administration and all staff, school staff. >> Got it. >> Thank you so much. >> I don't have the invitation but I think Kelly might email. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> You got it. >> Talk tomorrow. >> All right. Thank you. >> Uh so we had some uh staffing updates. Uh we had one new hire. Uh Jessica Franco is ABA at CES. Uh we had a few resignations. Uh Carrie Gemma uh Daryus Sanchez, both IAS at CES have resigned. Um, asked before describe a fourth grade teacher uh gave her resignation. She's currently on a leave of absence. Uh, she was out this year for maternity and decided to stay home. Um, and Madison Cole, CMS school psychologist, uh, resigned as well. We also have some retirements. These are the retirements we
007are aware of right now that we've kind of factored into our budget. Uh, which is, uh, Bob Seed, CMS assistant principal. Michelle Elliot, CHS world language teacher. Toby Cwley, CHS technology teacher, Blanca Brusso, CHS ESL teacher, and Kirsten Kogan, CMSIA. So, those are the retirees that we are aware of right now. Um, I have one other Oh, so CMSAP search update. I was just going to give a quick verbal on that. Um, that was posted a while ago. Uh, that committee has been working and I believe we have interviews scheduled Wednesday and Thursday. I think we're preliminary interviews to get that started. So, they've identified those candidates. Uh it was a very deep deep pool of candidates I I felt. So, hopefully we'll it'll be a good search. >> Um there's also one request uh
008for a leave of absence. Uh Katie Whitley uh who's a CES school counselor. um she's uh will be her anticipated due date is over the summer and she would like to take uh a year-long maternity leave. So she would take what the time she's eligible for at the beginning of the year and then the rest would be unpaid. Uh they can do that uh per the contract as long as it's approved by the school committee. Um I'm recommending we approve it, but I would need your approval for that. Clear >> to the board. >> So moved. Okay. Any questions, discussion? Okay. All in favor? >> Great. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh I think our next agenda item is our athletics uh winter report and I think uh athletic director go here to share
009it with us. >> Hey John. >> Hi everyone. >> Thank you for having me today. Um quick notes. I know you got this. Um our all stars. I'm still waiting for approval to get this released from from MWL, which includes like our coaching updates as far as like all the coaches who won awards and such. So, as soon as I get that, I will release that. Sorry for the delay, but I'm just waiting on MWL to which our Midwatch League to release that to us in order for us to release to the public. Um, cheer had a great season, qualified for regionals. This program is hosting a showcase tomorrow night at the high school. So, anybody around that would be great. there is a fee to get in as a fundraising opportunity for the students
010um for the student athletes and they have had a great season. Boys basketball, it was on here that they had Friday, March 6th. Um they did fall to West um Bridgewwater, but it was an awesome game. Uh great evening and they had just an unbelievable season this year. Girls basketball finished on the road for most of the second half of the season. I just met with coach Gity today. We talked about next year kind of how it flips. We're going to end start on the road and then come back. um just how that kind of works out by the league. They again had another great season um and looking forward to next year as far as what we're going to do for tournament prospects. Talked about Clark and some other things. But again, a wonderful
011year for those guys. Uh boys and girls track and field is still going. Uh the boys compete this weekend at nationals at New Balance. I hope to have some time updates, but they're not quite out yet. So, as soon as I have those, I'll get those posted. But we do have uh four student athletes participating um in that event this weekend. And again, the girls had a great season. We also were the league champions for that group and the Mass Division 5 state runner up for indoor track. So, it was just an awesome season for them. Quick note on that. Um Bill Marsh donated $1,000 to make sure that both the girls and boys get the league championship jackets, which was another great thing for for us. Mr. Marsh. Yep. >> Send him in a
012nice Thank you. >> of course. >> Um Gail Wolf ice hockey. I was able to see quite a few of those games as well. Excellent season. Few OT games that were kind of uh sitting on the edge of your seats. They did fall to Drake um in the MA round of 16 at Sus Arena. Uh we have about 16 students. I'm sorry. We have about uh we have three students competing, two on the varsity team for the hockey. Uh for swimming and diving, they had a strong season. Um hope for more students from next year to join. Uh we had two students participating there. We had uh the Gail Wolf wrestling again excellent season made it into all states um with quite a few of our student athletes from Clinton competing in the all state
013championship. So again great season for them. 16 wrestlers we have from Clinton that go um next year will be a little smaller. Was a big heavy class this year on our seniors uh who are really did a great had again had a great season. JB team's basketball cheer had a wonderful had wonderful seasons. Um and we look forward to them continuing next year. Middle school basketball, lots of improvement this year both on the scoreboard and learning about how to play as a team. Kind of our focus this year with a little bit smaller teams. Um and our girls program really picking up which was great. So um that's where we are with that. Concerns again, field hockey, we talked about this before. I am applying for a grant from USA field hockey to boost our
014youth opportunities and exposure and I'm also working with Mr. Rockus on uh working with Dicks to expose again all the way around just have more opportunities for our female athletes. Uh football we'll talk about again evaluating numbers uh registration is less than two months away for the fall season just so that we're we don't have to snap the ground yet and so kind of thinking ahead you'll see dates are already up. I had to adjust some dates because there was some adjustments on dates for start dates for fall athletics. Survey did go out to the students. We talked about this a little bit. Volleyball is a really strong I think I'm going to send it out again. We got about 200 responses and that included some of the middle school and high school. So, I
015feel like it just needs to go back out and just see where we are. I don't think that's quite a big enough, but we'll see what happens um when we send it back out as far as how many more kids respond to that. So, be looking for that. Um, despite the snow, we're starting March 16th with spring sports. Uh, and we're looking for that. We have strong numbers this year. I just took a tally on that. We have 153 registered for this season. Last year we had 144 at the high school. Currently we have 72 middle school students. Last year we had 84, but usually there's a huge influx the last week or two. So I expect it to be at least level if not above again. So which is nice. We're seeing some growth
016in those programs all the way around. Um, just real quick question. JV softball, do we decide, are we not having JV softball or we're not sure? >> Yep. >> She's like, uh, >> so we we were going to meet today and we had to change the meeting date um due to one of our, uh, coaches not being able to be present today. So, um, >> I wasn't sure. Oh, I know. I mean, I know for the last couple years, I think we've had to call eighth graders up to have a JV team. So, I think that was the discussion you guys were having, right, about sort of >> Yeah. >> So, it just is a lot this year. The numbers are a little lower in softball. We knew that was coming. Um, same thing we're
017talking about for field hockey next year because of the numbers in football too. Just looking at not necessarily getting rid of program, but how do we build to really support that JV and varsity program in the future? What does that look like? So, we'll continue to kind of evaluate numbers. >> Yeah, this graduating class had quite the uh impact on numbers and athletes and success when you think about how big the graduating classes. I think it's likeund >> 50 160 kids or whatever it was, which was a big class, >> right? And again, I mean, 21, I think it was 21 football players, 11 field hockey players. So, again, you got some big numbers of heading out. So, we just need to evaluate that and how to make sure that we're developmentally development development developing
018the student athletes properly through that middle school and then get them into the high school programs. Um, we are still looking at hosting uh Thanksgiving at Fuller Field. Um, conversations continue about that as soon as the snow is gone. Um we're going to meet down there and see what that means, what what the logistics are, what we need to do, get some program on that and make sure that that's a that's a fe that's feasible. Um definitely something that we want to do. Um and again on that, we have built out the spring season. I will I sent out the dates to many people. Those will get posted very soon for senior games. We have a big youth game coming up. It's going to be ba uh baseball and softball at Fuller and Veil. um
019right back toback with each other and looking to get some of the youth groups in there as well to really just make it a real big community event. So those things I really want to continue to build on um for the future. Again, participation numbers are on there um from the winter season last year to this year and the cooperative numbers for for this year as well. One last surprise, we do have a surprise. I'm not going to do it yet. Hopefully I'll be invited back in a few months to talk about the spring season, but I'd like to really thank Brendan Bailey. Um, so we have Memorial Day uniforms for our softball and our baseball team and that is because of Brendan. >> That's awesome. >> So we'll be able to wear those around
020Memorial Day and on special occasions in the future as well. So thank you so much. The team is is very happy and thankful. >> That's super cool. >> Now they just have to march in the parade, right? >> We're going to get you the hats coming. >> Uh, the hats I believe are in there. I've got to go dig those out. So there's literally there's probably like 15 boxes right now set up. I was like, h so lots of stuff came in. But again, thank you so much. They appreciate that. >> Thanks for your help. >> Any other questions? >> Did I know I read something, but I'm hesitant to believe what I read all the time, but is there any issues going on with the MIA? Like I don't know. I thought I read
021some negative press about it, but I didn't know. >> There was an article recently as this week saying that their revenues were down overall, but that's more geared towards like them probably looking at ticket sales and gates and things like that. But >> oh >> I mean that was I think that was in like the globe or something that ran that story. >> Yeah they usually do we need to be >> concerned. I don't think so. No >> their fiscal updates we also get and again that was mainly is around ticket sales and such and and how do they work how they work with that now there there's so much a lot of it streaming which is great. Um but it does kick them down a little bit. So >> Oh I see. >> Thank
022you. Thanks. >> Appreciate it. >> All right. uh FY26 school calendar update or revision. We don't really have a revision. I guess the update would be that uh for FY 20 I don't even have it in here, right? The the FY 26 calendar, our last day with the snow is now Thursday >> June 18th. Thank you. >> June 17th. Thursday is the 17th, >> isn't it? >> This year. No, I think it's 18. I was looking right. Yeah. So, next this year it's it's Thursday the 18th. Um, part of why I had this on the agenda was because I was worried that if we had a snow day on Friday, I might have to try to get creative. This last Friday, um, but we were able to get get away with just a delay. Hopefully,
023no more snow days. It was beautiful out today. It's supposed to be beautiful tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll be all right. >> And, uh, right. So, as of right now, our last day is uh the 6:18. Thank you. which is a Friday. >> Which is a Thursday. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Which is a Thursday. >> But the Friday is a holiday. >> That's right. Okay. >> So that's why it's the day. Okay. >> Didn't want to like bring the kids back for a Monday after holiday. >> You don't want to bring kids back for a Monday after 3day holiday. Yeah. >> Does it change the last day for prek? >> Uh conversation about that one Facebook groups. >> One week before everybody else. Right now we're out on the 11th. June 11. >> Yeah. >> So, it
024automatically just be one week prior. >> One week prior. >> All right. Uh FY27 calendar is also in here. We had one change and uh it's was of all things a math error. But the last calendar we gave >> hard to believe. Yeah. >> Because well, we moved. It's because we started the week earlier in August. So, we actually have four school days in August when we normally end up only having three. So, when our we did our numbers at the end of each month, we had three written there. And when you did all the when you added it all up, when we shared after it was approved last time, we shared it with the staff, everyone was all over me saying we had 181 days scheduled. So, um >> down. >> Yeah. So, it
025it's actually it's good for us. I mean, it was one it moves the last day up one, which may or may not be the last day, right? It's all a function of the snow. Um, but what it was was I hadn't I missed counting one of those days. So, we had one extra day in June. So, it just to make things clean, if you just if you guys are okay approving this calendar, it just has the typo fix really. >> Oh, so moved. >> Second. >> Any questions, discussion? >> All in favor? >> Thank you. Scott, when's the last day for the seniors? Do you know off the top of your head? Do you? >> Huh? >> Yeah, I do. >> Do they not know what the last date for them? >> It's May. You're
026going to quote me on this when you >> I'm going to write it down, but I won't quote you. >> May 28th. Should be a Thursday after Memorial Day. >> Thank you. May 28th. >> Is that the right date? >> Uh, Thursday after Memorial Day. >> That's next year's calendar right now. >> Oh, that's next year's. >> Yep. May 28th. >> Thank you, sir. You're welcome, sir. >> Appreciate it. All right. Um so for the strategic plan we had academic uh achievement which talks about uh developing and applying best practices for instruction supporting all learners aligning enhancing our curriculum with master's curriculum frameworks. Um obviously hoping to show this the growth on standardized tests increasing enrollment uh which we've done in the advanced coursework um and the career pathways and uh career early college and
027innovation pathways. Those are continue to work on expanding those. The ones I'll talk about right here, I put uh sort of some subgroups on dees accelerating achievement. Um so the new commissioner is putting together he's calling it an accelerating achievement group. Uh what it is is there are certain schools uh that based on their um uh scores, whatever the triggers are, that they they're identified for needing some sort of targeted assistance or support. And what he's trying to do is not just focus on those schools, but cast sort of a broader net to create more of a uh like a network of support and to try to like align the supports from DESIE a little better. Um which in theory sounds like a great idea. Uh so our high school, we've been invited to participate
028in the accelerating achievement. Um we're not required to, but we've been invited to. Um, and I think it's something that we'd like to do because the hope is that by participating in their kind of networking and their professional development that we it'll help us with some PL best practices and planning and then the idea is that hopefully uh the state is going to uh support financially implementing some of those things. Right? So, for example, sort of like how we've got the um the tutoring at the elementary school for the first grade, right? Like that's one of those uh grant state grants that we got that they're that they're doing um because the state has allocated that they've identified early literacy as a priority. So, the idea is like if we're part of this accelerating achievement,
029if we say, "Hey, we could really benefit from um you know, maybe it's looking at high dosage math tutoring at the high school." Well, if that's something that we think we we can benefit from, that might be something that by by participating this, maybe we'd be eligible for funding to support. So, that's the hope. The hope is that we we can take some away and that hopefully benefit the students and our staff. Um, we'll see. Sometimes, you know, it's a new thing. We'll see how how it goes in practice, but so far been to a couple webinars. We'll keep it going. Uh, gear up is the next thing I just put in here. Gear up is gaining early awareness and readiness uh for undergraduate programs. And Gear Up is a federal program, fedally funded program
030uh that uh what they do is like right now at our school in our schools we do a lot of work with TRIO um which is really kind of like working with Mount Wuset and trying to to help students get ready for undergraduate for college. Um but TRIO is a very specific like it it targets very specific students right for whatever the whatever the criteria are those different criteria. Um gear up is like a broader version of this where essentially you they support your entire uh like two grade cohort. So it starts at grades six and seven typically it's what you put in for and then it actually follows at grade six and seven all the way up through graduation. Um Fitchburg has a Gear Up program. They partner with Mount Wusett. Uh Mount Wusett
031is the one who said, you know, Gear Up has been funded, uh the federal government funded Gear Up again. Uh they haven't released the grant application yet, but they they said one typically historically what's happened is when they release it, it's a short turnaround time. So they're trying to work with us and with Gardner um to try to do it as one big pitch of a cohort. we we could still run independently but with Mount Wusid as our partner um to try to make the application stronger by getting the numbers up. Um so we are looking at that u but that could time up uh I think that could that could time up well for us. It could do some nice things if we were able to get into that. It might probably would end
032up being my guess is it's not hasn't gone live yet that we wouldn't be implementing until it probably wouldn't hit next year. It would probably be like next year would be the process and everything would kind of hit to really be implemented the following year which would be when we open the new building. So if there were additional I think our grant application would be focused on supporting the transition to the new building um and and things we would want to do to support that sixth and seventh grade class and then those supports would kind of roll up with them. So it's an interesting opportunity. We'll see if it if it works, but it's uh they've done a lot of nice stuff with it in uh in Fitsburg with M Mount Wusett and Fitchburg have
033done a lot. So, we'll kind of have a pattern to sort of look off of and say, what's that look like for us? And then the last updates I have are investigating history. Um investigating history is a uh uh curriculum uh for history for teaching grades 3 through 7. and um it's basically um it's aligned to the state standards and it's really kind of being uh pushed not only by department of elementary secondary education um but also the 18 foundation I think I think technically it's free um but really what they're going with is the there's different grants through through desi and through the 18 foundation for the professional development and any of the materials you might want to like the cost of printing the materials, those types of things. So the um uh so
034we actually are going at this kind of from two tracks. Uh I was in a meeting, we applied through the 18 foundation to try to bring investigating history into the middle school. I was in a meeting with um uh principal Stephie and uh Mr. Murray, the department chair to talking to that grant recently. And then I know that Miss Silvio miss sorry uh has been um working attending the DESSE stuff and working on the grant to try to get the support for grades three and four um through the kind of the desi track. So we're trying to sort of go both those ways to bring that in there. And I think it's kind of a natural thing. I think it's one of those uh you know you talk about I think typically in education you
035know things kind of you make one reaction and then a couple years later you realize you and I think um this is a good opportunity for us to look and say you know we focused a lot you you really started really focusing on getting you know solid tier one curriculum in math and ELA and math and ELA and now it's like okay well we kind of got that going now we need to figure out how do we balance that with solid tier one curriculum history and then how do we do it with science and kind of rounding that back out again. So, uh I think that's where we are. So, that's pretty much what I have for under academic achievement. Uh the next one hopefully fairly straightforward. It's on staff mileage reimbursement. Um all this
036is this is uh this from Annette. um trying to get a formal vote of the school committee uh to go with our policy DKC. And basically our policy says when official travel by a personally owned vehicles is authorized, mileage pans will generally made at the rate currently approved by the committee aligned with the Internal Revenue Service standard mileage rate. So one of the things I think came up with our auditors and we're working with the town is that at least periodically we need to review this rate and clarify what the rate is. So, all we're trying to do is um get approval for the IRS standard mileage rate for FY26 and FY27 at 725 uh uh cents per mile and then saying you know after that whatever they change it to and then if we
037need to come back to you in a couple years if it changes a lot we will. >> I'll make a motion we approve the new rate. >> Any discussion? >> Yeah. What's the Is this the same as the town? >> It should be. >> They just approved it, too. >> The town just >> So, the town's on the same one. >> The town. >> Okay. >> I just don't want you getting any more money. >> They went ahead and did it the last meeting. >> Okay. Now, okay. >> All right. You win. >> That's my only question. >> Any additional questions? >> No, I do not. >> Okay. All in favor? >> All right. >> Very good. Thank you. >> And that's all it is. So, thank you for that. that I know that that's
038stuff that Annette and uh Annette when she's working with the town to just try to make sure that we're cleaning all that up and making the keeping the auditors happy. Uh FY27 budget is in here. Uh this is version B. So, um you know, I sent a little email out to staff today because I know this was published, but I wanted to say, you know, part of what I said about that is there's still a long way to go in this process. Um, I also sent an email today to uh Matt, you were on the email and um, Bill Connley was on the email. I sent it to Mike Ward um, saying to try to get the because we have the budget and what do we call it? The budget and finance subcommittee. >> Yes.
039>> Uh, so I and that's what Matt and and Bill are on. So I reached out to Mike to say, >> hey, you know, we at some point we should have a conversation with the with the finance committee here about um about our budget. So, trying to get that ball rolling. Um, you know, I think we can maybe share this budget as at least a jumping off point and then we can try to make our changes as we go. Um, I said there's things still change every day. That's the way it goes. Um, we haven't got any new updates from the state um regarding state funding. We did get an update regarding federal funding. Um that uh while the federal government um sorry I'm going to jump around here but while I'm on this well
040the federal government level funded uh title one um they level funded it for the country. So then it's broken up to each state based on like the percentage of population who meets the federal poverty level and the Massachusetts percentage of population who meets the federal poverty level decreased by like 10% relative to the to the rest of the country. So they're anticipating actually Massachusetts is anticipating a 10% reduction in title one um which has happened histo ever ever since they actually said since Massachusetts raised their minimum wage um few years ago and it kind of spiked up to $15 an hour that we don't I mean the the federal poverty rate is like uh levels like $31,000 for a family of four. So it's almost you're basically making that if you work a full-time job
041at $15 an hour you basically make that. So the um so our rate has been dropping. We haven't seen it really as much as drastically because they haven't been level funding the title one. They've been as they increase it. Even though our share might have gone down, we still got more than we got the year before because the appropriation went up. Um but this year when they level funded it, the appropriation went down. Um, so, uh, if we look at the budget version B, uh, what we've started doing is making some changes with with personnel. Uh, the two big areas that we cut, I'd say, were were personnel. And I have a list in there that we'll talk about quickly. Uh, you can see we've reduced about $400,000 from, uh, teachers and about 250 from
042uh, classroom teachers and about $252,000 from EL and special ed teachers. uh from the the last version. Um the other main area that we reduced from was um the biggest one. Where is it? I want to get to the last page here. Uh special ed tuition. Uh we did end up reducing that by $33,000. That's another area that we'll continue to go through. Um, some of that was we literally went through, we had a meeting, we went through student by student, uh, looking at transportation, whether transportation was shared, all that kind of stuff. And just like I said, everything, you know, every day something can change. Um, one of the some of that savings was as simple as we had a student who we thought was going to return for like 18 to 22 year
043old post-graduate services and they're out of district placement and instead they made a decision they wanted to accept their diploma and graduate. So, it's just a tuition that we were we thought we were going to have to pay. There was a meeting now we don't have to pay it, right? So, um, so those are some of the changes that we're trying to stay on top of. that should settle down. Usually April 1st is kind of the deadline of um you know, I mean, there still could be some changes that especially if they're out of state, but within state, April 1st is is kind of that deadline of if if if they're yours, even if they move, they're yours. Yeah. So, um so we'll continue to monitor that. Um so, if you look, there is a
044list here right now to get to this number. Um, and we what we what we came down to was the target that we had talked about at the last meeting of asking for the town for the $1.1 million in chapter 78 and an additional 862,000 in town contribution. That number 862043 came, if you remember, that came from the cherry sheet that the town that the the state said when calculating educational aid, they felt that should be the increase in the town's contribution. We also talked about how the town really has we we haven't been um getting that contribution from the town in the form of dollars allotted to our budget for the last few years. They've been absorbing it in indirect costs such as health insurance increases. But we just kind of I know it
045came up at the last sele increase for this year is a zero. So there isn't that sort of um indirect contribution to schools on the other side of the ledger that we normally see. So what we're saying is that what we're asking for is so that you can keep pace with what the state is saying that you should be doing since you typically keep pace by investing in the in in the insurance. We're asking you instead since that's a zero this year to allocate the funds to us. So we'll see how that goes. Like I said, we need to have a preliminary conversation with the finance committee and go from there. Uh right now we have um 11 positions that we've identified. Um you know, we had a part-time payroll position. She was uh you
046know, Marilyn retired. She was working part-time. Um that's pretty much all shifted to Kelly now. Uh so we're going to kind of eliminate that as a part-time position. We have a technology specialist. Um so we were up to one technology specialist in each of the buildings plus um basically plus Chris and plus Christy as sort of our technology department and one of them uh resigned in January I think it was uh decided not to fill that position so that'll drop us down u basically making Chris sort of the technology specialist and the director in the in the high school building. Um then I kind of broke these out by whether they're district or by building. So, at the elementary school, currently there's a interim assistant principal position. Uh, the proposal was to eliminate that position
047for next year. It's most likely going to be was most likely going to be eliminated anyway the year after when fourth grade moved up. Um, so that current position is interim. the person who occupies that position will have the you know there's there's a lot of unknowns but at a minimum there's a chance that that the person is still in the budget to go back to um the previous position that she had. Um there was a school psychologist position and I didn't count this as an FTE but it was a change in the budget was that we were trying to add a school psych. Uh we removed that position. Um however we did look at our special ed coordinator position. and she was formerly a school psych. We met with her to kind of change
048some of her job duties. Uh so she's going to do a couple things. One is she's going to pick up some observations at the high school at sorry at the elementary school to help cover for the loss of the assistant principal. She's also going to pick up some of the school psych evaluations for those grades. Um there's one jet ed section that's been removed from the elementary school. That was the resignation that I mentioned earlier. Um and then the guidance leave uh looking at probably not replace that guidance leave. Uh that was the one we approved earlier. Um CMS uh special education teacher. There was one new position that we had added into the budget. We removed the new position. That's why it's listed as zero because that wasn't the current position. Uh CMS Spanish.
049Uh this one we'll be meeting with the middle school probably next week to try to talk about the logistics of some of this stuff. But the m the CMS Spanish position. Um, if you remember, we ended up transferring a high school Spanish teacher to the middle school last year. We actually have a retirement a Spanish teacher retiring at the high school. So, it's shifting that position back over. And our thought was to try to try to get away with not replacing that for next year with the hopes of trying to align the schools a little bit better one way or another so that students in like 8th grade hopefully once the new building opens could have access to uh Spanish one as a full course. Um um the so the goal is not to just
050eliminate the goal is to ultimately try to bring it back better so that it's uh a full Spanish one course to help those students. Um part-time music, uh same thing. We did have an resignation of that position in December. We did hire someone to come in for the rest of the year. Um, we were pretty honest with that person when we hired them that we weren't sure what the status of the position would be moving forward because it was part-time. We're poising to eliminate that. Um, one of the ways we're going to cover that though is by taking um the high school music teacher and having the high school music teacher run the middle school band program. Uh, and the high school we actually was talking to Mr. Stormac today about his preliminary music numbers
051and it looks like that'll work pretty perfectly that he's got about four classes. um at the high school based on registrations and his fifth class would be the middle school music and the way that the high school schedule should work next year. It should be hopefully easy to have him go over there in the afternoons. Um the last one, we are looking at a uh reduction in the gener gened sections in grade five. Uh we currently have eight sections there, probably go down to seven based on the size of the class moving up. Um, that one we're just kind of calling it a reduction in a grade five section. We're not sure exactly the trickle down effect on. That's one of those ones that we are kind of waiting a little bit to see what
052else might pop up. Um, what I know is that it's going to get complicated because even if if you reduce a grade five section, it's not going to be any of the current grade five teachers, right? Because they've all been in the district long enough and with their certifications. So, it would end up being some sort of trickle down bumping effect. So right now, that's why we're not kind of, you know, while the the end result would be that section would be gone, the exact staff member would have to track down. And that's why I'm trying not to put a name on it yet because like I said, we could get a resignation tomorrow that could or another maternity leave or something tomorrow that could change that whole um domino. Um CHS uh special ed
053teacher. So we were trying to add a new special ed teacher. Um, but that was actually going to be replacing the EL retiree and then we've removed that from the budget. So, it's a retiree position uh eliminated from the budget. Same thing. There's a CHS staff member that we have that we're when we look at our number of teachers versus our number of students and our number of periods. Um, we should be able to remove uh another staff member from the high school. Um, but it's we're still kind of looking at it right now. sort of like the the slot is from the teched retirement sort of, but we're not sure if that's exactly what it's going to look like based on the course enrollments and stuff. So, we're kind of that's another sort of
054TBD. Um, CHS college and career counselor. Um, I put that down as as a zero for FTE because we're we're not trying to we're not getting rid of that position, but what we did was we took a lot of the salary for that position out of the budget because we know we should be getting an early college grant again. We got it this year at the end of the year. We should be getting another round of that grant. We should also be getting an innovation pathways grant. So, our hope is that we're going to be able to we took most of her salary out to say we should be able to put it in those two grants. Um, so it got it out of the budget, but hopefully allows us to maintain the position. And
055then family outreach liaison, uh, we had two school year family outreach liaison and I met with both of them on Friday to talk about the fact that we're probably going to have to eliminate those positions. those positions. It was really we have um uh those along with the family outreach coordinator. Um we tried to fund them all from various sources. So there was like a little bit in the general fund. There was some in title three. There was some in title one. There was even some in for this year there was some in the early college grant. So, as we look at the projected reductions in a lot of those grants, uh, combined with needing to make some reductions in our budget, uh, we felt that that was, uh, the next place to go. The
056one thing I did say, I know that the state has um currently they have regulations out for com public comment on um clarifying the what you need to provide for interpreters for things like IEP meetings and that kind of stuff. What I what I said that I could foresee happening, I don't have any like inside knowledge. It's not a given, but I think what I've seen over my career is a lot of times if the state then makes a regulation, there's usually a grant that follows up to help you implement and get in compliance with that if you are a district that would need that would be impacted, which I think we would be. So, I did say in my meetings to them, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a potential that we might get
057a grant opportunity to maybe try to restore those. But I think right now based on the way our grants are, it's it's uh I think this is the fair thing to do. So So that's where we are right now. I don't think that, you know, any of these positions cause um you know, chaos or eliminating, you know, essential programming. I think students should still have access to all the things they want. Um but we'll we'll we'll see how it goes. But I think I think it's important to show that you know this is sort of there is a tightening of the belt here that's happening and that if we don't get that you know if we don't work with the finance committee and the town to try to get some of that additional funding um
058and we have to go back that's when I worry that we could start having cuts that become more of a an impact. So, um, anyway, any questions on budget version B right now? All right. Don't need any type of like vote to accept it or anything yet. It's not something that we're approving yet. We'll continue to update it whenever we can. If we have another version C ready at next meeting, I'll get it next meeting. If not, we'll do it the meeting after that. So, we'll continue to monitor and any updates we get, we'll we'll tweak it and try to try to do the best we can to um you know, minimize the impacts to everyone involved. Um in your packet right after that is the little memo about title one. You can look at
059that if you want. And I did print out our our title one figure. So, what you can see is that uh you know this year we've got $361,000 in title one. They're saying that uh it we should if as long as you still qualify, you're supposed to not be cut down to more than 85% of what you were the year before. So, they're telling us all now to plan on the hold harmless funding. This actually there's a whole bunch of cells I hid in here where it went through for every district about all the qualification steps based on our town's demographics. We're not at risk of losing funding for any of those other categories. So, we're not going to it's not a qualifications issue, but it becomes just an allocation issue. So, uh they're telling
060us to to plan on the 15% reduction, which is basically a reduction of $54,000. So, we are 361 we had this year would be 307 for next year when we write the title one grant. Um and title one essentially goes all towards mostly all towards staff. Um, all right. Any other questions on that? All right. Something more fun. CMS building project update. Uh, I know that actually uh Mrs. Cess was able to take her classes through there today, so she's been there more recently than I have. Um, but the uh I and I know that probably the last time I really went through the actual building was with uh Matt. We went was that right before vacation? That was the Friday right before vacation before. >> Yep. >> Uh able to get up on the
061second floor. That was neat. Makes you feel like you're in a real building. >> Is there um like a sign up for like us to become students to get home? >> We'll see. We'll see as we get to as we get to those um >> you know, as we get to different checkpoints. I mean, I know I know Brenda's been trying to work with them to bring all her classes in each and she's got a different you got a different set of students each trimester. So you're trying to get each each group as they go away. >> We didn't help them, you know, get, you know, WPI. But >> all right, you won't be forgotten. Don't you worry. >> So it's good. I think we're getting to the point where we will be able to
062um you know, they've been they've been doing their best to keep moving forward in the winter, but it's a lot harder, right? Because you're heating a section. and they're they have uh heaters in the ground so that they can lay the pipes in the ground and all that kind of stuff and get their concrete poured. And hopefully, you know, hopefully today's weather and tomorrow's weather is a sign of things to come. I know, not necessarily right away. We're it's going to get cold again, but hopefully after that maybe it'll stick and um and we can really start kind of moving and making some more headway. Um so I kind of you know in my in a way I feel like it's almost been um it's almost like this is sort of a small scale of
063like the different trades kind of working with each other as they work on this sort of one section. So hopefully they're a little better coordinated and know what's going on. So as soon as kind of the we get the all clear to just move around the building that should they should chase each other around pretty quickly. So um our next actual meeting is tomorrow. It's a virtual meeting at 6:30. Uh I think the last thing I have in the packet is a letter that we received. It was dated January 15th. Uh I don't think we got it that soon, but um but it was uh from West Boilston. Um and they are looking at trying to address their uh they were accepted into the MSBA program for a new 7-12 middle high school. Um but
064it was not approved at the town meeting. Um so uh what they are trying to look at is regionalization and they just this this letter just basically says if regionalization is an idea your district would like to explore with West Boilston it's to request to participate in and you know come to the meetings and talk about it. Um, I did have a conversation before this letter briefly sort of informal one with their superintendent and I just don't think it's something that we have the we don't have the capacity to just absorb them. Um, so I don't I don't know that there's a uh that it makes sense at this time, but I did it was addressed to you guys. I didn't want to share it. So I don't know if you you know you can
065either discuss it now or you could let me know. But if the only thing would be I guess if you if you thought it was something you wanted to explore, we could invite them to another meeting. But I don't know that it I don't know that it benefits us. >> Do you have any experience or or >> I'm just wondering like a letter like this goes out and then they want to regionalize. That's got to be something that then takes into account like two three years from now. I can't imagine that's something you can just do. >> Oh yeah. I mean there's going to have to be >> there's going to have to be planning about it. It could it might end up being >> I mean it could you know you sit there and
066go like well we don't have space for it. Well it doesn't mean we have to have all the space. It would be sort of like a do you want to have a planning meeting? Do you want to come up with a regional agreement? Would you say that hey we're going to do uh now as a regional we are going to try to build a a new high school and make the existing high school a middle a regional middle school or so you know like there's there's a million ways it could go forward. >> Um and like you said all of them are going to take time. >> Yeah. >> Uh it's in there. He said in the letter too that realizes it would take years puts in there. So yeah that's something they're looking at.
067So I don't um you know I just >> I just feel like we're growing as a town like so rapidly >> like sizewise. I mean we're building a new middle school and within x amount of years who knows where we'll be for capacity between aset closing and you know more kids staying and I I mean you always like to >> think about something like that. >> You probably don't know this. What's their their high school size students? >> I think they have about 80 kids a class and we if you say we have about 150 or something. So, we're probably about twice our size. Um, you know, just just under that. Um, but yeah, so I mean, you'll be talking another 320 students, which obviously, you know, we couldn't absorb uh without >> they didn't
068align with like Tanto when all that went down. That's more within there. >> I mean, I think at this point they're reaching out to I mean, I I don't think this was exclusively. I'm sure they've reached out to watchid and to Hanto and just put those feelers out and and sometimes they you know that's sometimes they they just want you to do that just to explore and see what other options might be there. But to your point uh to I guess that's one thing I would echo is I know I was invited uh to a statewide meeting uh that a lot of superintendents is run by the actually it's actually run by the uh regional schools association next week and a big thing they're talking about is uh chapter 70 funding calculations and how a
069lot of those schools are really really struggling and not really getting any money from chapter 70 and a big part of that is because their enrollment enment is going down. So they're statewide you're seeing a lot of enrollment drop. U which is funny because a lot of people then try to say oh well it's because of homeschool or it's because of private schools or what they're actually starting to trace it back to now is that a lot of it is just there's not as many kids like they're just people aren't having as many kids right like so so as you're you know the biggest grades you have are your older grades and as they graduate they're being replaced with younger grades. What I would say is that's not what we're seeing in Clinton. Um, we
070are pretty much seeing our population increase every year. Um, not huge, but it's a steady, you know, anywhere between 10 and 30 kids or something like every year that we're kind of adding into at least to our foundation budget. So, we are in a little bit of a different place than some of those other districts. So, uh, so we'll continue to to monitor it. Um, I'll continue to try to attend any of those sessions about, you know, the futures of chapter 70 funding and how the state allocates funds because, um, you know, that's one of the things I said is that, you know, the state came back and did the state did student opportunity act which changed how they calculate your your base chapter 70. So, they do that. We benefit from that. So, we
071our chapter 70 goes up. Then all these other schools that didn't benefit, they say, "Well, you didn't get your your chapter 7 didn't go up, so now we're going to give you a minimum per pupil." And it's like, "Well, wait a minute. You you raised the S SOA because you're trying to like help us close this gap." And then you said, "Well, now you took the, you know, people that were kind of technically on paper are overfunded and gave them extra money just it's like if you're going to do a minimum, like tack that on. I want that, too." Right. >> So, we'll continue to kind of monitor the uh you know how they do that to make sure any new any future changes um that they try to you know take every everyone into
072account. So, um all right. So, I won't you know I I'll tell the superintendent from Bison that we talked about it. I don't know that it makes sense, but if there's anyone else wants to bring it up at a later date or anything, we can do that. >> Do you guys have any other questions? >> I don't think there's any harm in hearing them all. You know, like you said, I'm I'm assuming this and this is, you know, just my guess is we're not probably not the only district to receive this letter. Yeah. So, you know, hear them out. Maybe there is a plan like you said, maybe they'll build a new high school for us. >> Well, probably not. But no, >> cuz like I said, it's going to take years anyway. >> That'd
073be the time to inquire about it now. >> You have that on the long range regular. Well, no, but the other part is they don't have a they also are not members of a vocational school. So, that's the only thing that you might be able to look at is saying if West Boilston's not and we're not, is that the way you could try to sort of sneak that in there, too? >> Sure. >> So, um All right. So, maybe there's a little more interest than I thought. I can let him know at least to kind of I could at least I can at least reach out to him and just see what he's what he's thinking. If you want to get a little more information >> they probably had the same conversation about joining Aspen
07430 years. >> Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. So, >> I don't know who to blame for that. >> Uh all right, that's all I have I believe. >> Thank you. Okay. So, for the subcommittees, it looks like we have several next meetings scheduled here over the next, you know, month or so. Um, so that's great. Uh, I think a facilities update we got two meetings ago. Um, and his budget and finance, the budget and finance subcommittee meeting was something that, uh, Bill Connley had asked us to add a couple years back, you'll remember. And that's really just as a liaison to >> like you know the board or Michael or something pops up that's um >> that's unique that we want to discuss and plan for but obviously the the budget is all of
075us. So I mean that's not anything other than acting as a liaison if there's any special requests through the through the the town and how it funnels down to us. >> Um >> but that's why I included you guys on that email just to kind of you know to try to maybe have a pre preliminary conversation with the finance committee to see what are they thinking. Yeah. Um, anything under old business? >> Anything under new business? >> Quick, try to make it a minute and a half. I want to thank the uh the elementary school. I know Matt was down there, too, for inviting us down to to do the read in the classroom first thing Monday morning. Maybe maybe next year, make it a Tuesday. I uh I learned what the kids' favorite subject
076was. I did learn to control I I learned I couldn't control first grade class. How's that? But I I I had a great time with that. I really appreciate it. And then uh Katie Ball and and Marissa Gity and and Scott and Jamie putting that career day together. That was I had the kids were phenomenal. Really was. And uh and to the I don't know who the student was, but I when they ended, I got pushed out into the hallway. They were changing classrooms and I couldn't find the stairway. So some student found the stairway for me. She asked me if I was trying to leave. I said, "Yeah." So she got me downstairs. So I I don't know who she was, but I appreciate it. It was a good time. Other than that, I
077had I had a good I had a great week. I was waiting for the middle school to invite me to something and they didn't. Maybe I'll go tour the building. >> You can always volunteer for a book. >> All right. >> Okay. Awesome. Very good. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So, >> very good. Thank you everyone. >> Thank you. My gift.