001um public meeting for our FY26 school budget. So, right now we have the we are on budget version B of the uh FY26 budget. It's the same one that we presented uh last school committee meeting March 24th and it's the same one that we presented to the finance committee uh last week on April 10th. So the bottom line um the iterations we made from the preliminary budget to budget version A, we cut 580,000 or so of non-personnel cuts. And then to get from budget version A to budget version B, we cut about 600,000 or so more personnel cuts. And um but the the number we were trying to get to was an increase of about 1 4 million. We tried to match the number that chapter 70 is anticipated to increase uh for the town
002of Clinton in the governor's budget. So, um, what that would mean would be basically we'd be asking for the town to pass through the education funding to the schools and, uh, not asking for any additional, uh, allocation of local funds. Obviously, there are some indirect costs that that that, uh, the town absorbs as well that go to towards maintaining our um, net minimum school spending. So I guess at this point if there's any questions. Are there any questions on the budget? Great. Well, I certainly want to thank you for this. The packet looks looks uh very concise and it's well done and I know there's a lot that goes into it. So, thank you to everyone who participates in this and we did uh we presented to the finance committee. Um they had a couple
003minor questions for us. Um most of them were just about just sort of the process and and um maybe looking at the potential for other funding or uh what could happen to some of our other funds. Um but the overall we didn't you know I think that they thought we gave them a lot of information and they were taking that under adisement as they continue their hearings and putting together the budget. So we haven't got any official feedback from them yet. Uh we'll wait for that and I think that would be probably our next step would be um hopefully as maybe we start to settle some of the contracts and uh we're going to do some updates on our tuition both vocational tuition and special education tuition now that we have a better sense of
004um who applied and hopefully soon we'll uh get some more information who got accepted to vocational uh placements and we'll be able to uh fine-tune some things. So, I'd expect that um we're probably going to have a budget version C. How different it'll be, I don't know, but we'll probably adjust some of the line items um depending on those numbers and uh depending on any feedback we get from the finance committee that we would um present probably either at the first meeting in May or the second meeting in May. um so that we can hopefully come up with a budget that the uh finance committee endorses and we can and hopefully we'll get the school committee endorsement and uh go from there. Sounds great. Any questions before we close the hearing? No questions. So, I'll
005officially close our hearing on the budget. All right. And then we'll just take a couple minutes and we'll um get get right into our meeting. Reconvene at seven. Okay. I didn't see it. Yeah, I remember. I still need a copy of his transcript. I got the transcript certified true school that I went to Steve's office just give me one that says school. So I saw that they see In fact, he was told this My brother retired. Could we all stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for a moment of silence. Paul Christie who is the father of Mona Christie. She is a
006IA at Clinton Elementary School and Timothy Veracus who is the father to our school committee chair Matt Veracus. Thank you. All right. First agenda item is the approval of the bills. So moved. Second. All those in favor. Okay. Next up is the minutes from the March 24th meeting. So moved. Second. All those in favor. Was there any public comment tonight? Student rep. There's no student rep. Okay. Thank you. CTA. Okay. PTA because we're never going to give up an opportunity to talk to you guys. Um, good evening. Happy summer, spring, winter. I don't know what it'll be tomorrow. Um, so as of today we have 151 members. We are doing um a bit of a membership drive right now um to double that by the end of the school year. Why not? Um just a
007reminder that anybody can be a member. It's $15 to join. Um we just sent out the latest newsletter with details about nominating a teacher to get an extra entry into their teacher appreciation raffle for the week of May 5th when you join. Um, and flyers are going home to all the students at CMS and CES this week. Um, at our April meeting, we approved $5,000 in fund requests. Our PTA scholarship for CHS is still open till the 30th of this month. Teachers can still come in for fund requests. Um, our next meeting is April 3rd for those who want to present that in person. May 3rd. April 3rd. April April April. No, April 30th. No, May 7th. It is not May 1st because that is presentation night at CES. So, May 7th. Okay, we'll update
008that. Um, this week we have the Clinton Middle School book fair. Um, we could still use a few volunteers to come in and cover a couple hour slots if you have some free time. Um, Emily and Jess visited an elementary school in Milford to see a booster fun glow run take place. Um, we just happen to catch first graders participating, which was um, a bit of a tearjerker for me because my kids's in first grade. Um, and we're looking forward to talking to Miss Sylvio more about how we can run um, a booster event as a district-wide fundraiser. Um, teacher appreciation is still in the works and we're getting even more stuff to add to our raffle prizes for that. Um, and I'd like to invite you all to stop by the book fair um,
009at CMS and I'll entice you with a coupon. and a bookmark. Thank you. Nice. If you need anything, feel free to reach out. We're always somewhere. Find us. Thank you so much. Um, CPAC, LPAC. Hello. Good evening. So, this is just a friendly reminder that we have the um the multicultural night in April 29, middle school cafeteria starting at 6 p.m. We have many families showing interest and exciting for this event and community leaders are reaching out to put out information about what they serve for the family. Um business local business are donating. We have about seven countries that are going to participate having their table. Great. Last week I attend uh the fourth regional family engagement meeting from Destie and I met Olga Gal Lopez. I spoke to her. She is the family engagement
010specialist in Destie and she would like to come to this event. Let's see. she can make it look like. Great. And we talk about some events that are Desi going to create for next year if they have the funds in the absences in school um state level. So I have the pin for the multicultural. I hope you can come. You have one right? Probably you. I think so. Okay. Oh yes. Thank you. I don't know if you have come last year. Y I think I do. Thank you. And this is is this the third annual one? Oh, this is the second annual one. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And that was April 29th at 6 o'clock at the Clinton Middle School cafeteria so that everybody um make sure everybody is aware of the multicultural
011night um put on by Elpac. And it's usually a really wonderful night. All right, we'll turn it over to Dr. Meyer. All right, looks like a long list, but a lot of it's pretty quick here. Uh, so a couple staffing updates. Uh, we did just hire a uh long-term uh sub for the m the band position. Uh, music and band at uh Clinton Middle School. Christopher uh Beasley will be filling in um basically when we get back from April Vacation. Uh we also had two uh resignations. Um Mark Lasage and David Wood, both uh elementary school IAS, uh recently resigned. We have posted to try to fill those as best we can. Um we've talked about potentially looking at different sub options, too, since it'll be close to the end of the year. Um you
012know, next topics are funding and finance. It's just a, you know, reminder that we do have that in the strategic plan where we're trying to look at things like exploring efficiencies at the town. Um, focusing on our multi-year budgeting, which I think we've been trying to do to show that sustainability. Um, you know, uh, reviewing our um, bid specifications and things. We just went out to bid on transportation this year and looking at alternative sources of funding. And one of those things was just at a uh uh 18 grant convening today for one of the grants that we got this year for the um project lead to get project lead the way going here. So I think we kind of keep those in our forefront uh as we try to do all our budgeting. Um
013the that rolls in kind of budget version B. I'm not going to reiterate all of that, but that's basically um what we just had the public hearing on, what we talked about last meeting, what we've talked to the finance committee on. um budget version C I mentioned a little bit like I uh we'll see um I'm hoping that'll be our last revision and I'm hoping at that point we'll have the the next cherry sheet from the state finance committee recommendations um and uh we'll be able to look at any of our contracts that might have been settled and um update our tuitions for both out of district placements and vocational. So, those are kind of on our punch list to kind of clean up. Um, hopefully we can um go ahead and figure all that
014out. Hopefully, we're to the good on those, but we'll see. Uh, next thing is a school choice vote. Before we Sorry, did anybody have any questions on uh the budget? I just had one quick question. Yeah. What is the timing of where we would prepare if we knew if we were going to be getting a warrant article ready for the time being or do we already know that? Um probably probably almost like now if we wanted to get one ready. Is there anything I I know from Brian's report I wasn't sure what normally I don't think I mean for us anything facilitywise he usually I don't think he has anything that's really school specific. I think we were um you know we had kind of a big ask last year so I think uh this
015year we've been uh I don't think we had anything that we were um pursuing as a war critical. All right, great. Thanks. Um, all right. The next item was a school choice vote. And the change from last year to this year that I'm recommending is last year we didn't open school choice in grades five or six. Um, but I think with those class sizes now, um, I think we could, um, make it so we have five slots available in grades 5 through 10, three slots available in grades 11 through 12. We typically don't get a lot of school choice in in grades 11 and 12. Those slots more are for like if someone a lot of times what might happen is like a senior their family moves you know towards the end of the year
016and they want to try to stay here and graduate so they become school choice. Um we're still recommending to close. There really isn't anything in prek. You can't really do school choice and prek but uh basically no school choice in prek through 4 or a sub separate programming. Um the only thing that we did last year uh the only other change that we did last year was we had um we did have a couple slots last year for K that were designated for sibling preference. And I haven't done any I didn't do a survey yet on that. So I could probably do that just to double check and make sure there isn't anyone who's like a you know a second grader who's a school choice student already that might have like a kindergarten sibling coming.
017Um, so I could do that, but I think if you wanted, I think we could maybe vote to um accept these um and you could even maybe say with kindergarten for um pending sibling preference numbers, something to that effect. We were able to honor that last year. Yeah, I think it was only I think it were two. Yeah. I'll entertain a motion. So moved. I'll second. All those in favor? Okay. And I do know we've had a couple um in that sort of like seventh and eighth grade range who were waiting for this vote. So, we'll let them know so they can get their paperwork in for next year soon. And I will do the survey just to see if we need to adjust for any sibling preference for K. Thank you. All right. Uh
018the next one, special ed director uh search committee. So there is a job posting in here for the special ed director. I know we kind of had to shrink it to get it to be available. So it's a little small, but uh we did post that. That posting closes at the um at the end of break. Uh we have had pretty good responses so far. I think we've got about 12 or 14 uh already who have applied. Um and it's a pretty good mix I think of candidates. I was just just kind of doing a quick perusal of them. Um one thing I would want to know is so special ed director is one of those positions that um it becomes sort of like a school committee uh superintendent recommends to the school committee and
019then the school committee actually has to approve that hire as part of the checks and balance. It's like B school um superintendent they they do the full hiring assistant superintendent um special director business manager all are recommend with school committee approval as sort of a check and balance um so with that being said uh if I don't know if one of you wants to serve on that search committee I don't need an answer tonight if you guys want to talk to each other and let me know we probably won't start till like I said the posting closes right after I think closes the Sunday of vacation So really that Monday we're going to try to get the ball rolling and and move pretty quick. Hoping to kind of get that process done uh so that
020we're making an offer by the end of May. So um maybe we can um email Matt if you're interested and then we'll have that come from Matt. Okay, perfect. Uh just some random updates. Not random, but they're deescortivity act uh plan. We had to submit our student opportunity plan update that is in here. Um it was like seven pages. You can read through it. Um basically just sort of the progress we made on what we said we were doing. Um a couple uh more exciting ones is the innovation pathways. We had a visit by our uh liaison to look at our applica a followup with our application to do a advanced manufacturing innovation pathway. Um we haven't got anything official yet, but the uh unofficial word from that um visit was that you know where
021we've made it so far it's it's promising. So we're hoping for good news with that. And then we had uh we've applied for the early college designation which we've been trying to get for a few years now. and we had an interview uh that I was a part of uh on the 9th and um the interview seemed to go pretty well. They had very few questions for us and I think the ones they had we were able to answer pretty well. Um, I'd say that uh Katie Ball, who is our uh college and career counselor that we added, she's been instrumental in um putting these applications together and kind of navigating this process and making sure that we were really kind of um maybe checking all those boxes that in the past it's been a
022little more difficult to to to get. And uh so we're hoping hopefully we'll get some good news soon from the state. Uh but those would be nice to get those designations. Great. Thank you. And the last update was probably the only the only positive thing that's happened so far with the uh shrinking of the US Department of Education is that uh we had to do this I had to sit through a webinar on all the reporting they wanted for our ESSER spending and then like two days later we got a memo that the US Department of Ed doesn't care anymore so they've canled it. So we don't have to report them. um the uh before and afterare program. Uh there's a flyer in here. It says Clinton Parks and Recck extended day program. Um and
023there's a couple pages on that. But the uh one, if you remember, one of the things we tried doing last year and we kind of ran into a little bit of issue with the timing. Um but I think this year we got the timing straightened out. So, what we're going to do is essentially we're going to stop running our um before and after school program and the parks and wreck is going to run a before and after school program. So, it should be it's a different program in the sense that it's their program. It's not just it's not just our program being run by them. It's their program, but it should accomplish the same thing for those families. Um, and like I said, the the part of the goal with that is um to try
024to help provide a little more continuity because I know parks and recck does a lot of things that'll be able to probably account for some of the things that we've had difficulty over the years, whether that's the school vacations, the half days, that type of stuff. Um, so we're hoping that that'll be successful. They'll still host it in the um they're still going to at least for now the plan is for them to still host it in the uh elementary school. Uh they might do depending on the numbers it's possible they might do some of the morning stuff at their place but uh we'll see how that goes. Um but um that looks they've got their registration going and we've let our staff know. So that's moving forward as we had uh intended. Steve is
025cost the cost the same the cost charging is that what you guys charge it's very similar. Yeah. which is still uh I think it might be, you know, uh like $5 or something like that more, but probably would have had to do that anyway. Um and the it's still very reasonable compared to um other places. Y um all right, the building project update. Um, one of the big things I have a walkth through on uh Wednesday uh at the site with uh Fontaine, the construction management and um our designer will be there. And really what we're going to do is we're going to kind of walk through and look at a couple things. One of the things is to look at exactly where the fence is going to go up this summer so that we
026know the exact kind of line of the constru. I mean, we've seen the drawings, but really just to get out there and walk so we know exactly what's going to be where. Um, and then there might be some things where over the summer like they might have to tear up part of that parent loop for a little bit, but then they're going to patch that if they need to. So, by the time school would be, you know, be around that that would be us serviceable again. Um, the other thing we're looking at is um salvageable items. So, for example, like there's a shed out by that softball field that's going to be in the, you know, in the construction zone as of this summer. So, we've just got to decide like do we want to
027save that shed and get, you know, move it somewhere different or is that shed, you know, we've seen it seen better days and we're just going to let them dispose of it. So, um, and then we're also going to take a walk inside the building to look at items to be salvaged. Um, so there's some things that they've, you know, I, uh, suggested that we look at things like the main dedication plaques, um, any of the art that might be hung on walls, the AEDs, some of these things that are are, uh, that they've kind of listed that are in here. Um, we will salvage a lot of the stuff ourselves. Um, but this is really what they're looking at now is they're going to start writing the specs to bid out, be ready to
028bid out the demolition of that building. So, part of what they need to know is if there's anything that is major, like if we want to salvage the gym floor. So, if we're going to try to salvage the gym floor, that's in the specifications that they need to be careful taking that up versus not taking that up. Or do we need to have it removed? you know, someone else going to come in and remove it before uh they come in and and do major demolition. So, we're taking we're going to walk around do that. The main reason I'm bringing up now is just in case you guys have anything that you can think of that you think that we might not be aware of that you're like, "Oh, this is an important thing that we
029should get out of there. Um or even anyone in the public that that would say, you know, this is have we thought about, you know, this thing or if this thing's just going to get thrown away, is there any way we could have it?" Something like that. Uh we could look at that. Um, you know, most things, like I said, if it's a lot of this stuff we're going to take anyway, right? So, if it's like um the internet access points, like we're going to take those out anyway. Uh, you know, the uh anything that's that you know, things that can be reused, we we do plan on taking out and reusing them. Really what we're trying to identify now is more of the stuff that might be part of the building that we would
030say this this needs to be pulled out in a demolition spec. So if you have any thoughts, let me know. Okay. Uh the last thing I think I have on mine is these health policies. So there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven health policies in here. There literally are no changes to them. Um they're recommended to be reviewed every two years. Um the uh the nurse brought them up. We've talked about it kind of at our wellness committee and uh we're recommending to just approve these basically just approve them as reviewed. Um so that it should be uh like I said there's no changes in these ones. Anyone with changes will get will go through the policy subcommittee. So moved. Second. All those in favor. All right. Thank you. All right, on to
031the uh advisory committee if there's any updates at all. Uh we had pretty much a lull. I think we got some end of year meetings coming up for some of these in May. Um negotiations. Um we're we've reached sort of a verbal uh MOA with the teachers and we're just working on finalizing that document. So hopefully we can get that signed and then um our goal is to hopefully have that finalized so that we can bring it to this committee for our next meeting to uh to vote vote on. All right, great. Uh anything under old business? How about new business? I think so. All right, I'll uh accept a motion to So moved. Second. Okay. Scott vote. Enjoy the rest of your the rest of your evening. All right. Thank you. Ready? Oh, yeah.