001commentary or concerns. Hearing none. All in favor? Okay. Do we have any public comment this evening? Close public comment. Do you have a student representative this evening? >> I think we had two at the last >> We had two. I think they went to the basketball game. So, they're well represented over there in the gym. Uh CTA, >> nothing at this time. >> Thank you. >> PTA. >> Okay. >> Anything to do today. So, your notes are the same from two weeks ago. Um, our snowball dance is this Friday night. We have a bunch of volunteers. Um, they didn't scare us yet by dropping like flies, but sickness is um rampant, so we're hoping, fingers crossed, everything goes off without a hitch on Friday. Um, family bingo is taking place March 13th. Volunteer positions and
002our wish list are posted um at the link and on our Facebook page and our website. Next meeting is February 5th and we will be attending the PTO today expo in Malboro on April 15th and the Massachusetts PTA conference in April um in Wearham which is cool. We're planning to do an all night. I know how exciting. >> Wow. >> Usually it's in Lexington. >> Um and that's it. Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you. Doesn't look like CPAC or LPAC are present. >> Okay, Dr. Myer. >> All right. Uh staffing update. We had one new hire. I think I mentioned it last week because it just happened before the meet, last meeting, but Max Wheeler has been hired as the part-time band teacher. Uh I do have one uh leave that I just need uh I'm
003recommending that you vote to approve because this is the wording of the contract. Um it's for uh Lauren Russell's maternity leave. Um she was out on leave, but her leave started a little earlier than she wanted. She's looking for an extension to her leave to keep it to March 30th. That would be uh it would be on sort of the regular leave. So the the end of it would be uh unpaid. Uh she's eligible to take that. Just needs approval by the school committee. So I'm I've met with her. I'm recommending we approve it. >> Okay. I have a motion for that. So moved. >> Second. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> All right. Um so couple things in here that we, you know, human resources was one of the topics that we
004talked about uh from our strategic plan of doing an update on today. Um really we kind of roll that in there because of the way we in the tri council meeting that we just had, we talked a little bit about next year's um budget, right? So, um, you know, if you look at the human resource goals, we're working with the town to develop the human resource manager position to service all town employees. So, we do have that position in place. Um, still, you know, trying to figure out uh all the intricacies of that. Um, review and update human resource policies, which I've been working on as they go. Um, the HR practice procedures, including requests on personnel leaves, uh, personnel files. Sorry, leave requests and personnel files. Uh that is something that we've been doing
005a lot more of is including uh the town HR in the uh FMLA type process and making sure that we're tracking down all the appropriate doctor's notes, those types of things um and ensuring that all employees are evaluated on a regular basis which uh we're pretty good at because we have to report most all of those to the dees anyway and we've been building them into our contracts. So moving along with that um I put two CES things in here. First one was recognition for being uh CES was honored as one of 63 schools as a school of recognition. Uh so this is the press release in your packet. Um Clinton Elementary School was selected based on their achievement uh and growth in uh math. Uh so uh we're it's a you know great honor
006to those uh staff and the students at elementary school for all the hard work they've been putting in. And like I said at the previous meeting, you know, we're hoping that uh we've been doing a lot of that work across the district and we're hoping we continue to see that pay off and and see those types of gains in all the buildings as we go forward. Congratulations to Megan and her staff. And then the uh second press release I put in here was from the um the governor released uh announced a grant for early literacy early early literacy tutoring. Um, so we had this two years ago last year. >> We we had it for two years in a row. We weren't selected for the first round this year. Yeah. Tomorrow. >> And then we
007have Is this more seats than we've had in the past? >> Yes. So I always had 50 to 55 seats. I applied for 50 and they awarded us 96 based on our partnership. So >> good. So, if you didn't hear that, we just got awarded basically 96 seats. It's a program that we've had the last two years. We weren't awarded it in the fall, but we did get 96 seats for the the rest of the year uh to do early literacy high dosage tutoring. Uh it's a virtual tutoring that will identify K through three graders. The target is first grade, but you can use it K 1, 2, or three. Um so, we can try to help get uh students caught up with their reading. Uh midyear goals update. Once again, this is one that
008I went through at the uh previous meeting. The writeup is in there. Um we talked a lot about the uh for the technology goal that the work we're doing is the uh districtwide AI working group. Um we're currently still trying to develop a policy and procedures that we will bring to this board uh as soon as we feel like they're comfortable. Um and for the second goal is really focused on English learners and our uh continuous improvement plan. We've been following that using primarily elevation as a uh professional development tool for our staff and to do benchmarking reports for our students. And then the um the last goal is really talking about our systems of support and uh some of the main things we have. We've got the early college program and the advanced manufacturing
009innovation career pathways at the high school. We're looking to expand that into a business pathway and information technology pathway. Uh at the middle school, they've been really working with um EXL to help provide some uh additional support for students. And at the elementary school, they've added a few additional interventions including Spire for reading and touch math for math. So, uh just sort of a touch point on those. We want to remember like those are the things we identified over the summer we were working on and we've been making progress on those as we go. Uh in terms of funding and finance, um the strategic goals are listed here. Uh focusing on multi-year budgeting to account for the needs, identified in other long-term plans, explore opportunities for efficiency, um explore cost savings through efficiencies, and identifying
010new and alternative sources for funding. So, I think we did talk I talked probably too much about the budget process in the previous meeting. Uh how we're looking at a lot of those things. Um, one of the things we did talk a little about though is that we know that FY27 is probably should be the last year of the uh, student opportunity act implementation. So, we are trying to keep an eye for FY28 and beyond when we know our chapter 78 would be uh, look a little different. So, we are trying to keep a sense of that multi-year budgeting. Um, and some of the things I didn't mention this in the last one, but one of the things that uh I know Annette had mentioned um is almost looking at potentially going back out to
011uh we can bid um special education transportation separately, maybe trying to look at alternative vendors to try to see if there's any way we could uh save some costs there um for that. Uh then after that, we had the FY27 budget. So, I gave you some big picture numbers at the tri council meeting. The line by line numbers are in this packet so you can see what we have in for each one. Um, I don't plan on going through each one individually. This is, like I said, this is our preliminary budget. As I mentioned at last meeting, you know, we try to start by putting um, you know, everything in there that we um that everyone says they need, right? So, uh, we haven't really gone through it all with a big with a fine
012tooth comb yet. um when we get closer to budget version A or those types of things, we might start talking about really some of the more nitty-gritty in there, but this gives you an overview. Uh if you have any questions on it by the time we get to the next versions, that's fine. There's also some uh comments on there. Uh, one of the things that we did kind of uh mention um the um on page I'm never going to find it now. But uh if you look at that, there's a couple of them that are going to jump out at you. Like one of them was the telephone upgrades, right? So that was like account that didn't even exist. Oh, it's on the second last page. Capital non instructional equipment. It wasn't even an account
013we had listed last year. and now it has $275,000 in there for phones. So things like that are things that we'll probably come back in a budget version A and say, "Hey, you know what? We're not going to be able to carry this in our budget." What we might say is keep it on the side. Is it maybe something the town wants to do like a warrant article and fund it one time so we can get this upgrade or is it something we have to just sit on for another year and figure it out? So those are some of the things we'll try to do in budget version A to try to get the cost down. Um, as I mentioned in the last one, our our expenses are up uh about like $4.2 $2 million
014and we're concerned a little bit about some of the revenue um particularly when we're looking to try to um uh make sure that we're being smart about you know the amount of circuit breaker we're applying and those types of things. So uh but we'll you know there's a lot we're looking forward to. I think a lot's going to happen in the next week or so when we get the governor's budget and we'll start trying to uh you know sync those numbers up so that we can come up with a town that supports our a number that uh supports our students and that uh works within the town's budget. All right. Uh there are policies for second reading here. Uh these are the ones that we had last week as I mentioned. They are uh we
015did get a couple questions on them over the couple weeks or since last meeting I should say. um and they are they are basically aligned with the state law. So I know it does look like it's going to make things pretty hard and uh not hard but different. Um and uh but I do think that one of the things that we want to make sure and I think I said this last week but just sort of you know I don't I don't think any of this stuff is stuff that at least from my perspective if it's already been approved it's already something that's been in motion. We're not going to we're not going to mess with people's plans this year. um as far you know this if it's been approved or it's been planned I
016think that's fine. Uh I think it's just going forward once once we have the new policy going forward anything else that's applied we want to make sure we're trying to follow the that a little better. So I don't know if you guys are uh prepared to make a a approve them at this point or if you wanted any other comments or questions on it. You ready? >> Okay. Sorry. I thought somebody had a comment. Um I may How do we uh we approve these for the this a final reading, right? >> Y >> for all five of them. >> Right. Second. >> Any questions, comments? >> Yeah, I do. Steve, is there how um hate to drop a problem here? You brought this up and I I read through these today. Yeah. So, how do
017you get how do you get this word out, you know, to all the you know, you read through that, but you booster seems to be the most common one that's used throughout there, but all the fundraisers that are done. How do we >> I mean, that's what I'm saying. I say we, I mean you. >> Yeah. I think we'll we'll have to do it a lot with, you know, as we appoint advisers and everything for next year. I think in the beginning of the school year next year, we'll start getting the word out now. But, like I said, that's why I don't want to do a whole about face and try to mess any plans up people have right now. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, like if something was planned, it was planned,
018right? >> Just all the small fundraisers, you know, like the car washes and all this stuff. >> Yeah. Some of that stuff about how they're Yeah. So, and like I said, I don't want and I don't want to try to, you know, um get rid of that stuff either, right? We've just got to I think we got to be very careful on sort of how what what what is you know I say this all the time about you know handbooks or or regulations and stuff like when they tell you what you can't do if you flip it it's kind of like they are telling you what you can do too right so we've just got to kind of look at this and say okay from a different lens what can we do that's going to
019be similar and um and how do we go about doing that >> but I think to your point I think as we reappoint advisors is uh we'll probably have to meet with all them um and and and I'll share with the whole staff definitely by the beginning of next year to say hey we got to at least figure out some things >> and it'll take a little bit of time for us to probably figure that out too in terms of like what's the you know what's the booster club's level of of comfort you know like we said like I kind of threw out PTA and PTA was like well oh we can't be a pass through for you or whatever you know so >> we can help we just have to honestly be aware of
020how it's being met. If we did the event for the the elementary school, >> we can gladly do it and step up and then we have to just make sure that it's aware that we can ear mark, but some of the proceeds that are paid have to be distributed to the whole district. >> Yep. >> Cuz we're not a single school. >> And so like we earned I'm going to round the number 35K from that um fundraiser. 25 of it is going right back to the elementary school. So all of their spring fundra uh field trips are paid in full. Yeah, >> but the other 10 is >> kind of reserved for district middle school uh requests that come in to us. So, we can definitely play ball and help and do what we can,
021>> but it can't just be a rubber stamp uh uh fake, you know, hey, yeah, technically it's a PTA. Like it needs to be a real either either they engage you as a real partner or or you can't do it. Yep. For instance, someone reached out to us about um our using our number to do a restaurant um fundraiser for an outside club or whatnot. And they were like, "Oh, can we just use it?" And we had to say >> because it wasn't a PTA fundraiser. They were doing it for their own purposes. We can't sanction it. We're monitored and >> that's you see the reference. The reference is in there for the fundraisers for sports and it references title nine quite a bit. Yeah. >> And that is something you know if you >>
022if you look right if you do a fundraiser for >> larger sport and you leave out the other one that's the I'm sure they're not doing it on purpose. It's just been asked for before where now you have to make sure to point >> and I think some of these things are things that we've had discussions before. So refreshing these policies is probably >> I'm good a good thing to do. Yeah. >> Now it's in writing. >> All in favor? I >> thank you. >> Uh CMS building project. Um I just uh did I put something in here for it or was I just going to talk about it? I don't remember. Okay. Oh, I put the uh cost sheets in here similar to ones I just went over. Uh just showing that as of
023right now um our projected uh sav bid savings uh came in a little over $4 million. So, when you look at what uh was originally budgeted and the number we took to the town for construction versus what we've bid out, it looks like there's about a $4 million savings in there, which is good. Uh, you know, that's always positive. Uh, the way the MSBA seems to be doing it right now because that savings, even with that savings, we'd still be over the caps. That should all be savings that the town realizes. It shouldn't be at a split with the MSBA. Um, essentially it's, you know, keeping our our reimbursement amount from the MCBA the same, which makes our effective reimbursement rate a little higher with the project going down. Uh, there's also still, as I
024mentioned, there's some contingency money that's still in that budget. So, um, you know, the hope is that there'll be even more, uh, savings at some point. Um, which is great cuz, you know, you don't want to cut corners and end up having to, you know, have a building that that doesn't have everything you want in it. I've seen that happen in projects. We're trending the right way. So hopefully that, you know, everything on that campus should be um the way we we want it to be. Um the one thing I said that we might want to start exploring is one thing we can't do with this project because it just kind of because it's across the street. Um is anything with those types of fields. So some like the fields that we kind of lost
025that we're trying to sort of build over there. So, it might be something that we bring up with some of this bid savings at some point to talk about the mechanics with the town of is there any appetite to take some of that savings and maybe reallocate it to address some of the the fields or the track or those types of things. Um, but we'll see how that goes. And that's something that and probably not I don't think that's something we would do this year because I think there's still too many like unknowns. Um, but I think certainly by next year's town meeting, we'll have a better handle on what that number really uh is closer to. And uh I think in the meantime, we'll do a little more work on what we think the
026true cost of doing anything over there would be and see how those come in and see if there's any appetite for that. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I would just comment additionally that like you usually like early on why we didn't think about including some of these callouts is because when you're doing a project at this scale the the fear is always that you'll be over budget and that you won't hit the timing right and you don't know what you can include. And I think the team collectively has just done such a great job in regard to and timing actually ended up being right for us where um there's a lot of competitive competition around the bids that we are under budget. So being able to circle back on it for at least dialogue is is
027a really good opportunity for us. >> Yeah. And I guess to to clarify that um the reason why I say like you know the MSBA won't let us do anything over there with this because it's across the street and someone will say like oh I'm sure they did it some other we didn't have that in the original scope of the project because we were trying to keep the cost of the project down. So the MSBA won't let you kind of like expand your scope, right? Um, so that's something that, uh, I think for us to do that, it would it would require more of the the local thing. But I think, uh, to your point, I think a lot of what we're talking about is stuff that we probably could have included in the project.
028It's just we didn't because we were trying to keep that number as hopefully manageable as we could. >> And it'll get us back to optimal usage for what we're actually losing. >> Yep. All right. Um, but that's where we are moving. It's been moving right along. I get uh there's an updated time-lapse video on the web the building website. You can get to that through our homepage. Uh and uh you know, steel's pretty much done. It looks like a building now, which is great. I think the next building committee meeting is February 10th. Um and the last comment I made on here, last thing I had for mine was just downtown parking. Uh there was a downtown parking group that met. I think it was in the fall. Um and it was really just looking
029at um what you have for it was really some of the concerns from local businesses about um there not being enough parking on High Street and then sort of like okay well why is there not enough parking on High Street? And it's like, well, some of the town lots are right right beyond behind High Street is where a lot of the school parks and okay, well, what can we look at? So, one of the topics that was uh discussed was um trying to have a discussion maybe with the representatives from um uh St. John's about what their plan was with the uh elk slot that's now torn down. uh because the the rumor was that that is long-term is going to be parking. Uh so we did meet with Father Mazone. He didn't confirm that
030uh that that is their plan. And so I met I met with him with uh as well as uh Phil Duffy, the economic development director. Um so at least we can kind of bring that back. Um he did express some uh openness to sort of like moving forward with trying to maybe do something where uh St. John's might develop sort of their portion of the park portion of the parking and maybe we do something more with like around the my the building where my office is to make it sort of one continuous lot that we could optimize. Uh we might have to loop in the uh Greek church as well. I think there's a little parcel that they own right behind there, too. So, um, but if we could try to do that to maybe
031maximize what we could get back there, then that that might be something that could be beneficial. So, really, I just put that down. There's no that, you know, we had a meeting. We're working on some of these things. There's no real action steps yet, but just so you're aware of it if you hear anything. Sure. Uh, as far as advisory committees, I think mainly we have a bunch of meetings that are scheduled and upcoming. I know we have a safety committee meeting tomorrow, right? >> Yeah, safety is tomorrow. >> Um, and then marketing, we have marketing before the next meeting, which is February 9th. That's right before. And actually, we're going to probably have some we did have a design kickoff with Parent Square. So, we're probably going to bring some questions or at least
032a couple things for feedback to that committee about the the new website design. >> Um curriculum I think is in March. Uh >> obviously budget will start getting more involved. >> Yep. We'll see how that goes when they're when they're ready to do that. Yep. And then uh wellness, we met a couple weeks ago. Um, our next meeting is set for April, but we got to kind of there's a wellness one of the things you have to do is every 3 years you have to review the wellness policy. So, we did that process. We'll probably make some uh adjustments to it and bring try to bring that back to this board to amend it and and go and share those results is one of the things you're supposed to do. So, >> awesome. And I
033know Brian had a facilities update that was in our packet last meeting. >> Yep. >> I think we're pretty good there, too. >> Okay. Anything under old business? real quick because I'm on a break. Um >> the uh I did send that after the last meeting. I did send something to the traffic committee. Oh, they don't they don't have a set date. They wait till they get enough agenda item. >> Okay. >> Well, while I'm on my traffic, >> do you mind if I also I I don't know exactly unless somebody knows who's responsible for maintaining the lot between the old um office there and the in the elementary school with the teachers park. So they go in in the morning and >> between like behind the uh >> not all the way behind Oxford
034Corp, but right there at the beginning it's where all the most of the teachers and the staff park, >> right? Right off of Church Street there. >> Right. So when they go in the morning, nobody's plowed and the cars that did park overnight pull out. So then their staff has nowhere to park. >> So we looked into that at the last who's responsible. >> I think it's actually So we don't the the facilities department doesn't do it, right? >> I don't think the DPW does it. I think it's actually the town contracts it out to I think it's the same person that does the >> So it would be under the DPW then >> I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's >> You guys mind if I talk? Just >> No, I mean I
035mentioned to him last time, but I think Yeah. >> It's just not happening. >> Yeah. And I Well, and I think part of what they're >> This was a unique storm. I get that. >> Yeah. And I think part of what happens though too is um when the guy does go through there, the cars are there. So it ends up and and it's like where do you want them to go? Because there's the parking ban on High Street. So now they are moved out, you know. So >> So now they're all then all iced in and they leave and then there's no >> then it's just all Yeah. And then they just clean their cars off and now there's a big pile. Yeah. >> Maybe we'll find a solution. >> Yeah. >> Probably not. >>
036But if you want to start hunting around, I'm fine with it. >> Well, yeah. Thanks. >> But I did I got some pictures and updates from teachers today, too. They Which is good though. >> Same people I did. >> Yeah. But I but I've asked them about it, too, because that was part of when we were talking about the downtown traffic stuff. It was like >> it would be better, >> you You know, I think like like part of what we talked about with like, okay, if we could work with the church, if they're making that parking, could we maybe do something with an agreement with them where that's church, you know, it's the church owns the lot, so we're going to allow it to be used for school employees only, you know what I
037mean? It's not necessarily public parking. It's an agreement where it's for, you know, we're going to put little placards on them or something and then give them a place to park or something like that, right? So, >> uh, during the school days because normally we don't compete with St. John's apartment, right? There's not a lot that goes on over there unless there's like a a funeral or something like that and it's overflow typically >> overflow or they might come over to my building if it's >> well that office >> but we're not Sunday >> but we're not >> we can't park >> so he was with you >> but we're not on Sundays that's the whole point like it's it works you know we don't bump into each other >> okay >> dogs got to
038hunt luck with that >> anything got a new business >> that was Okay. All right. I'll entertain a motion. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.