Dartmouth School Committee Meeting, February 9, 2026

001Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] >> He me out. Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] >> I call to order the school committee meeting of February 9th, 2026. Please stand to say 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 with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Miss Gner. >> Kathleen Emerald, >> here. >> John Nunes, here. >> Chris Oliver, >> here. >> Mary Beckwith, >> here. >> Jess Coughlin >> here. >> Uh, this meeting is being recorded and it will be rebroadcast on DCTV and can be streamed on their YouTube channel at any time. Uh, we now welcome public comment from the audience on

002any topic of this evening's agenda. We have allowed 10 minutes for this. So, please approach the mic, state your name, and keep your comments to three minutes. Thank you. >> Good evening. Nathan Silvo. I'm speaking on behalf of myself. Um, I did have a chance to sit in on the budget subcommittee meeting um a few weeks ago, and I just wanted to take a moment just to say thank you for the approach the schools are are going to be taking uh in the budgeting process. I'm not going to steal your thunder, Jim, but uh um I think it's important that the schools ask for what they need and that we can have that discussion in public uh at the various budgeting uh discussions that need to be had. I think our kids have done enough

003at this point in time with the uh not having level services year after year. And I think it's time to to stop that and and get at minimum a level service budget. But there's a lot of needs in our schools and I think um we need to start filling those needs. So, thank you for your uh your time, your efforts, and uh we'll keep keep the conversation going. >> Thank you, Mr. Silva. >> Hi, Heather. Noise Fet, mom, um staff member, and Dartmouth resident. I'd like to start by thanking you all for listening to those that have stood at this microphone asking you to put forth a budget that really details what we need as a district. For too long, we've watched a yearly budget shrink to meet the constraints that the town has placed

004on us. There are many of us in town that work to stay informed. We listen to meetings. We attend meetings. We watch meetings. We send emails to advocate for the schools. We also talk to our family and friends about what we've learned. We know that education matters and I mean that in all the ways you can interpret that sentence. Schools are the lifeline to kids 3 to 22 when we what we do in those buildings matter. But in addition to that, the act of educating others matters. It's how we move the needle and create change. Those of us plugged into these meetings are aware of the challenges you face as a board with the budget and the revenue issue that impacts all parts of this town, but not everyone is. I've stood here before and

005asked you to fight for the kids and your staff. You've done that, and I thank you. Today, I'm asking you to help those of us working to amplify your voices. Whether it be by a website or social media, it would be really helpful to share your work in bite-sized information, clear and concise, to get the word out to help others in the town understand why funding the schools is such an important choice. I mean, who doesn't love a good infographic? You have support here. We are trying, but we need you to do some of that outreach work, too. These meetings are one way people can be informed, but they can't be the only way. I hope you will consider a new venture that will help everyone understand your role, the district, the school district's budget,

006and our needs, especially ahead of town meeting. Thank you. >> Okay, who's this guy? >> My name is Peter Nolton. I'm 35 Buttonwood Road. I'm also a town meeting member and I'm just here to voice my support for what's already been said. Uh and I've had two kids who have gone through the Dartmouth school system, lived here my entire life uh with our families. We understand the uh the purpose of the school system, the importance of it to our town. Uh when the majority of the budget of the town goes to education, it's something that we need to begin to elevate and to discuss as a town more. But that's only going to happen if you folks uh put forward a budget that the school needs, which is seems like what you're doing, and to

007push that with the town and with the select board. Uh and to make it a big discussion in the town amongst the residents. I think people are ready for it. Uh I support it. I mean, I think it's a really we need to look where our tax dollars go. Um, and then finally, uh, in terms of our tax dollars, it drives me crazy how much money our tax dollars are going to private health insurance companies through the health insurance that we have in the town. And as the committee that represents uh, a good chunk of the employees, the majority of the employees in the town, I hope you take a good look at the health insurance and how much the town is spending and how much it would save uh, with legislation that's in the

008legislature now. Uh, it's important. Um it's a huge chunk of the budget. Uh the town could save $5 million a year. Uh but that's all part of it is the economics of it as well. It is important for all of us to be looking at regardless of how it's structured, but the most efficient, the most cost effective and most human way to do it. Uh so I appreciate the work that you're doing. Um and I'm just one of those people and also town media members I said that looks forward to keep working on this issue in the future and to support it. Thanks. >> Thank you. Thank you. I see no one else. So, we will move forward. Um, we will now look for a motion for approval of minutes for our regular session of

009January 27th, 2026 meeting. >> So, moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Mr. Noun, seconded by Mr. Oliver. All in favor? I I >> abstension [cough] >> four for pro and one abstension. Um thank you. And next up we have the student representative report we have Isabella Pers who is a junior I believe. >> Yes. Hi. So firstly, I just want to talk about how in celebration of Black History Month, the Black Student Union will be hosting special screenings of the movie Soul by Pixer that explores themes of identity, purpose, culture, and the importance of community. This movie will be shown on February 24th and February 27th, which give students multiple opportunities to attend. And these events will allow students to reflect, connect, and celebrate black voices in storytelling. They are also working on decorating a

010few bulletin boards in the building highlighting Black History Month. On top of this, the Women in STEM club recently went on a field trip to St. Luke's Hospital where they learned about different careers in healthcare and science. They heard from a panel of eight women leaders from departments like radiology, nutrition, and data services who shared their paths from college to their current roles. Students also participated in a Q&A session and toured the hospital, including the simulation lab with lifelike patient mannequins. Overall, this experience was really informative and experience in inspiring for the members. On February 13th, the Dartmouth High School National Honor Society will host its annual Valentine's Day dance at the Dartmouth Council of Aging. This long-standing tradition pairs students with local seniors for music and dancing and socializing, fostering meaningful intergenerational connections and

011serving as an important community service event. Finally, looking ahead, Dartmouth High School orchestra will be performing next month at the newly renovated Ziterian Theater. Students are very excited for the opportunity to perform in such a historic and professional venue. Terrific. >> Thank you. I'm just writing down that you're going to be playing at the Z. [laughter] >> Do you have a date on that, Isabella? >> I do not. >> No [laughter] worries. I actually do have it on my calendar. Let me just take a check. >> I'm thinking March 20. >> Never mind. My internet's not working. [laughter] >> Okay, never mind. Well, thank you very much. I do have the date. I'll send it to you. Um, and you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting. I know the next up, um,

012a spotlight on kids will be fascinating, but if you have homework or other obligations, feel free to leave. >> Okay. >> Thank you very much. >> No problem. >> Thank you, Isabelle. >> And now, Dr. Steven McGuire, we have spotlight. >> Yes. Clearly, we have quite a crowd here this evening, so I will invite Mrs. Cora up. But I'm really excited to see all the folks that have come out this evening, including all of our dlo students and families. It is really cold out there. So, you have braved the weather and here you are. And I know that you'll have some stories to tell us that I'm sure will um allow us to gain some insight into all the wonderful things happening at the dlo. So, Mrs. Coria, you have quite a crowd here. >>

013I think they brought a lot of support. They sure did. >> You know, it takes a village and everyone is showed up for everyone today. So, it's a great way to start. So, good evening everyone. And once again, Mr. Hill and I thank you uh for this opportunity to spotlight what our kids at Delo School have been up to so far this year. Uh we thought that we would start tonight's presentation with just a quick overview of some of the typical things that we continue to do at DLO school. And this slide kind of outlines the DLO school traditions and events that we've spotlighted in previous years that we continue to do such as student of the month assemblies, literacy events like our annual pumpkin book character and bookmark design contests, unity day celebrations, holiday

014singalongs, and PTO sponsored events like our fall fest that was very successful. We brought back after a very long uh hiatus last October and our new favorite [clears throat] tradition which is trunk or treat. shortly before Halloween. So, at last year's spotlight presentation, we celebrated the work of our fourth and fifth grade student councils as well as the fifth graders who uh made up the Howler newspaper team. And here on this slide, you can see this year's groups who with the support and guidance of the fourth and fifth grade teachers continue in the tradition of supporting our school and the community with many acts of service. In fact, just today, uh, Gifts to Give published an article on their website about our fourth grade student council's work over the years in organizing donation drives for

015clothing, winter coats and hats, and mittens uh, and sports equipment, all to benefit uh, South Coast families in need. And I can tell you this recognition filled the buckets of the entire school today when we when we received the news uh which was particularly needed in the aftermath of yesterday's big game. And we are so proud of our fourth grade student council as well as our fifth grade student councils. So, uh, here are pictures of yet another exciting group of students at DLO school, our 2024 and 2025 DLO invention convention teams who not only competed in the Bridgewater State University invention conventions, but took first place both years. So, at this time, I'd like to invite Mrs. Liz Vosce, our instructional technology coach and invention team advisor to talk to you a little bit about

016this year's team and introduce you to them. >> Thank you so much, Miss Cora. My name is Liz Bosi and I'm the instructional technology specialist at TMLO and Kushman and this is our third year participating in the Bridgewater State University project invention convention and we've had two incredible teams but I have to tell you this year's team is off to an amazing start and they want to talk to you just a little bit about the process we're going through. We're about halfway through our invention prototyping and development and they're just going to share a little bit of their journey with you. Good evening. We are the Dlo Invention Convention Team. I'm Hunter. I'm Brady. I'm Maddie. >> I'm Giana. McKenzie. I'm Faith. >> I'm Walta >> and we are excited to talk to to you

017about our process so far. We started our process by looking at ways to keep kids healthy and happy. We brainstormed a lot of challenges that kids have to keep themselves healthy and happy. At first, we have two awesome ideas for our fun fidget water bottle and a silly soap stamp. We designed and to develop a stamp to help kids remember to wash their hands when they go to the bathroom. The idea is that when a kid asks to go to the bathroom, they will go to the stamp station and get a wash my hands stamp that is made of special ink that has soap already in it. And when they get back to the classroom, the stamp will be gone because they wash their hands. We got to work experimenting with ways to make stamp

018ink that is soapy when it is wet. It dries quickly. Then we found a solution successfully solution. We designed this wash my hand stamp and loaded it with our fancy silly soap ink. Our next step will be designing and building a classroom stamp station that holds the auto stamper and other healthy features. Would anyone on the school committee like to test test out our prototype and get a silly soap stamp? We hope it will wash off easily after your meeting is over. If not, let us know because we are still in the research and development phase. [laughter] >> So, in other words, you're looking for sweet. >> Any volunteers? >> All right, we have Walter with our our silly soap stamper loaded up. >> It goes on the back of your hand. >> I'll do

019it, too. >> Hang on. Let me put it down. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good idea. >> I love it. I love it. It's great. >> Thank you. >> Excellent. >> I'll try it out. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> Oh, sure. >> Thanks, [laughter] >> Miss Bosi. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Awesome job, guys. Thank you SO MUCH. [applause] >> [applause] >> THAT WAS AWESOME. >> A big thank you to Mrs. Vosce for all the hard work and the love that she puts into all she does for us at DLO. We can't wait to send these students off to Bridgewater State where they're sure to impress. All right, moving on. We are excited to talk about some new initiatives that we are working on at

020DLO. As always, our work is grounded in the [snorts] district strategic plan. And tonight, we will be focused on initiatives aligned to the areas of teaching and learning, family and community engagement, and safe and supportive schools. I will now turn this over to Mr. Hill to take you into the work he is leading in supporting our students social and emotional needs and learning at dlo. >> All right. Good evening, school committee. Just going to talk briefly. I got this uh about you know our initiative this year uh was to continue the conversation of implementing neuroirming uh practices and strategies within the classroom um environment and I just wanted to provide everybody a brief update on what we've been doing. I I started with just a a a quick quote that came from one of our

021PDs this year. when when sitting still decides who belongs. Neurode divergent kids are often excluded. And you know, I put that there, you know, for a reason because it's our job as educators to uh know our students and really identify student needs and what we need to do to meet them where they're at. And for many of our kiddos, myself included now and as a as a little one, um sitting still just didn't work for me. So, and that's okay, right? So, we just need to make sure that we understand and are meeting our kids where they are at. So, this year, um, Dr. Heather, our OT, has continued the conversation talking about neuroirming practices. Um, and this year, we've included some of our staff members, some of our teachers, wide range, lower and upper,

022um, sharing their, um, their opportunities and what they've implemented in the classroom that have been effective for them. So what neuroirmiring practices and strategies they've used and we found that that is super important hearing staff hearing from their colleagues of what's working um you know really really confirmed and and um really really I think it it helped everyone really understand and we're using those teachers as a go-to to um say hey what what works for you here's what I'm lacking here's where I'm struggling and and we can come together on that. So for example in kindergarten Mrs. Condan shared um ways that she's teaching her students how to effectively use fidgets in the classroom um understand the purpose that will carry them through through the uh through the grades. And then Missina in fifth grade

023shared what she does for um just to help her class stay um focused and organized. She takes pictures of what she wants her students desk to look like, what the class look like. sharing that as a visual really was a a model for her students and found that to be super effective. So, just some brief examples of what we are doing as a staff to um best meet our kids where they're at and it's great for our staff to listen in on that. And then PBIS, we meet monthly and this year we have been talking a lot about functional communication. So, we know our elementary curriculum is rigorous, has high standards, um, and requires a high level of critical thinking. And not only that, our curriculum is also language heavy and requires our students to

024attend for lengthy amounts of time. So hearing from the committee, hearing from the teachers, you know, we see our kiddos while during instruction, getting up from out of their seats, maybe getting a drink of water, using the bathroom, [snorts] we're also seeing our students really trying to sit and focus. Um, but are they really attending? You know, are they are they getting the sort of that little glaze look? And that really brought us to that functional communication. what are our students trying to tell us? So, our PBS committee has um developed a student survey. Um right now it's grades one through five. We'll focus on K with more pictures and visuals and we are asking specific questions where you know we we the information we get from the students are going to help drive our

025instruction and help drive what we need to do to best support them. For example, questions like what subject do you like best? What's the hardest? What's the hardest about a certain subject area? And then more specifically, what kind of breaks do you need in order to stay attentive and focused? And then lastly, do you feel comfortable telling your teacher that you need a break? So, we've designed these questions one through five um and we've had to adopt them to be developmentally appropriate and we'll be launching this within the next two weeks. our PBS committee will come back and analyze that, share it with the staff, but then also share and offer strategies based off of the results to help all of our teachers. And that we hope will um only create, you know, and improve

026their um ability to attend. So that's that. >> Thank you, Mr. Hill. Moving on to family and community engagement. This year we continue to look for new opportunities to keep our families connected to DLO and to welcome them into the building more often. A new initiative that we are very excited about is our grade level bring your family member to school math days organized and presented by our exceptional math team consisting of interventionists uh Kelly Damrosio and Deb McGillic and math coach Jen Fitton. These one-hour workshops are held during the school day. Um and we invite students and families to come together to play games designed to deepen students conceptual understanding of math and practice math skills. So last month we held uh workshops for fifth graders and fourth graders and their families. Both workshops

027um were very well attended and I think enjoyed by all. The concept of holding short events during the school day is, in my opinion, brilliant, especially when you consider the fact that is often easier for caregivers to step away from work for an hour or two um to attend a school event than it is to try to get to the family to a family night that competes with dinner and homework, sports, and other activities. Uh looking ahead, our literacy team is working on developing uh family reading workshops using this model. We'll report back to you on that at next year's spotlight, we hope. And finally, we would love to spotlight work we are doing under the focus area of teaching and learning. As you know, last fall we began the roll out of our new

028literacy resource, CKLA, across all KTO 5 classrooms at the elementary level. And while it has been a sizable undertaking, I will say without hesitation, our teachers have done an excellent job in bringing this program to their students. So, you will remember that back in October, Mrs. Paveo presented an overview of this program uh to the school committee. Uh, CKLA uses complex grade level texts and daily readalouds to immerse students in fascinating units covering everything from literature and art to history and science. The units and lessons are designed to spark rich classroom discussions and expose students to robust vocabulary while teaching them comprehension and critical thinking skills. In my opinion, the content that the students are engaging with has transformed the literacy literacy block into an exciting opportunity for our students to learn so much. But

029don't take our word for it. Hold on. We're going to have the students speak for themselves. And I'm not seeing the link. Mr. to Galashar. Oh, >> is that it? That's it. Okay, crisis averted. [music] >> I love how my teacher always like if she [snorts] always expresses the words and if it's like if it's dramatic, she'll be dramatic about it. >> My favorite thing is that our teacher always teaches us [music] new things every single day and it's so fun to learn about. My favorite um thing about um CKLA is that now that I know all about insects, if someone like [music] asks me um a question about insects, I would probably know the answer. And also another thing is I just like having fun learning about new things. Um I like anything about

030CKO. Um [clears throat] anything. So, um, personally, I would definitely teach them like something about zonote because, um, in the first lesson, we learned about like the steps of becoming a knight, which is a page, then a squire, and then you might become like a knight when [music] you're like older. And I think that's really cool because when you become a page, you're like probably like like seven years old and you learn to like like ride a horse and all those things. Then when you're a squire, you have to like like learn how to like dress the lord or the king or like what they call it and like you have to learn how to like take care of a like like actually like groom the horses and then when you come at night you

031[music] just you like protect them and like all the things that knights do. Um, personally for me, I like the Aztec Inca and Maya and how [music] like their different strategies of living. Like one grew potatoes and one like grew corn and some grew beans. But like the way like they farmed like [music] like two of them were more like the same. One actually planted on a mountain and the others planted on like a rock platform. But the one I thought that was like the coolest was the Aztec where they [music] made like uh farm like farm boats where they farmed on the water. My favorite thing was probably learning about the Middle Ages because it had a lot of knowledge and fun facts including fun and interesting stuff like wars and kings. And a

032fun fact is that people in the Middle Ages weren't just the same power. They had the least power, which were the serfs, and the most power, which were the kinks. >> Sure. I think my favorite thing I've learned in reading class is poetry. [music] I I like poetry the most because it kind of shows how you can be talking about a bird, but it [music] could actually mean something completely different like your mother or something. And it allows you if you're upset or you have something going on, you can express yourself [music] and make it feel like it's off your back. I like the Maya, the Aztec, and the Inca because [music] they really made stuff out of nothing. I like poems because just like Ron said, you can express yourself without saying [music] words.

033It's like if you're shy and you don't want to and you're feeling down and something's going on in your life and you don't want to say it to someone [music] cuz that would just make you more upset, you could write it in words and like send it to them. So some plants like water, sunlight, and we need water and sunlight too and food cuz [music] my grandmother has plants for her food. So they also need food like us. And also when the flowers die, the seeds in the middle fall down and you can either plant a new sunflower or whatever kind of flower that is or you can either eat and the and gold walks went to the three bears house and they sit and then try their porridge, eat their porridge and sit on

034their chairs and sweep on the and their bed. >> And was that a good decision for Goldilocks [music] to make? What do you think about Goldilocks doing all of those things in the bear's house? >> Uh, bad choice. >> So, uh, we were recording during gym, during like drop off when the doorbell rang. So, um, it picked up all the all the all the noise around. I'm sure everyone picked up on, but it was fun listening to the kids talk and we had we had much more footage, but Mrs. Vosce paired it down to that nice video. So, thanks again to Mrs. Vosi. So, last month our fourth graders were brought into the world of inventors, inventions, and inventing with the Eureka Student Inventor unit. This unit serves as a perfect example of how this

035literacy program blends rigorous academic standards with high interest real world applications. Throughout this unit, our students didn't just read about the history of inventions. They stepped into the shoes of innovators. On a daily basis, they engaged with complex informational texts to explore the lives of famous inventors and groundbreaking inventions. Our students learn to identify the quote unquote spark of an idea and research the persistence required of inventors to move from failure to eureka, which we all learned is a Greek word for I have found it. Over the course of this unit, our fourth graders were also challenged to generate their own invention ideas and create their own persuasive pitches to explain why their invention is important. I think the teachers would wholeheartedly agree that the heart of this unit was the team invention process. Students

036were put into invention teams where they were required to work together to identify a problem to solve as a group. They then assumed roles in designing, writing about, and presenting their ideas. All students were then expected to provide and accept feedback from their peers on improving their invention prototypes. The unit transformed the literacy block into a laboratory of ideas. By the end of the unit, our fourth graders hadn't just improved their reading skills and vocabulary. They had developed the critical thinking skills and resilience of true inventors. And to wrap up tonight's presentation, we have brought some of these students to share their thoughts on this amazing unit and maybe even show you their team's invention. So, fourth graders, first. >> You ready? >> Good evening. Our names are Claire, Emma, and Ellie. We are students

037in Mrs. Marky's class. We are learning about famous inventors and inventions during our CKLA literacy book. For instance, did you know that a woman named Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie in 1938? It was invented in a restaurant near Boston called the Chole House Inn. We've also have been using such skills as collaboration, research, planning, and even learning to fail when while we try tried out our own inventing and building skills. This is our invention. We were asked to build something that could throw away a piece of trash from 2 feet away. This is how it works. [snorts] You guys just very quickly explain how it works. >> Our invention is made from four cardboard boxes, two pieces of string, and about 70 pieces of tape. >> Miss Marky gave us um a white

038piece of paper and she crumbled it up and we had to put the white piece of paper in our invention and we had to throw it like toss it down to go in the trash can. We taped our invention to the table at an angle that it would roll the piece of paper would you put it in and then it would roll into the trash. >> It was very successful. [laughter] >> They did a wonderful job. >> Great. Thank you. [applause] >> And we have a group from Mrs. Raffert's fourth grade. Hi, my name is Gabby. Hi, my name is Henry. >> Hi, my name is Phoenix. >> Hi, my name is Annaise. >> Hi, my name is Evelyn. We also have our invention which we call the grapple 104. And we have the same

039lot of paper. We used cardboard, popsicle sticks, and tape, and pipe cleaners to make our invention. Analise is going to show us how it works. So, how the invention works is you would you would put the water paper inside. Wait, can somebody want me to hold this? Hold this. You can speak. You would put the water of paper inside the grabber and you would sit down from two feet away from the trash can. You would hold it out grabbing the piece of paper and when it was ready, you would let go and the piece of paper would fall inside the trash can. We tried this eight time and we had to get six of it, six out of eight correct to get 75%. We didn't though and we got 50%. But when we tried again,

040we got 100. We also learned that we can learn from our mistakes and not and not and we don't have to get it first on the first try. Like Thomas Edison, he messed up the light bulbs over 99 times. I think that's what motivated us. [laughter] Like Phoenix learned that invention breeds invention by Jack Kusto. He he wanted to see underwater. So he made a lung. So then he so he can deep go swim deep down underwater and see the ocean. But he couldn't really see well. So then so that so he made an underwater camera so we can see. And while we're talking about Jacques Kustoau, we also made inventor cards and one about him. Some of the questions were birth date, birthplace, inventions, and a challenge or disappointment that he um faced. I

041think one of the cards the Jax Kustoau I think why I made it so intriguing was because he was in such a big car accident and he and when he was rehabbing he was rehabbing underwater and that's how he learned to walk again and he realized can I make an invention that would help the world underwater more and so he made the aqualong and the underwater camera which I think is really inspiring. ing. I think that invention breeds invention is an amazing way to explain what we've been learning. Without the CKLA unit, I probably wouldn't even know who Jackus was. I'm very grateful for it and I'm hope I get to do more knowledge next year in the same program. And we for our trash challenge where we had to build this, some of our

042classmates made these diagrams. Um, if you want to pass it around. Somebody's very talented. >> Yeah, >> that's neat. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> Very cool. >> Yeah. And store it. >> Compact. >> Really cool. >> Nice job. >> Very detailed. >> Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. >> I see we have uh budding engineers here. >> That's exactly what it is. >> Take a look. >> Considering I can't draw a straight line with a straight edge. >> That's so impressive. >> Good job. >> No, it's nice. >> It's a sling. It's great. It's >> a piece of cardboard. Basically, they've diagrammed what they built and what they make. Inventions. >> Fantastic. >> Wow. Great work. >> So, >> you should all be very proud of yourselves. >> Excellent. >> The tail wags when it is full. Wow,

043[laughter] >> that's fantastic. Thank you. We did not actually make these diagrams. These are from some of our other classmates, >> but our teacher thought it was a good idea to spotlight them because we're not the only ones who are learning. >> Yeah. >> Terrific. >> Fantastic. >> Thank you for listening to our presentation. I have one more thing to add. It was very hard to make this invention, especially when Miss Rafferty was like tearing apart all the cardboard and we were all yelling, "No, save some big pieces." [laughter] But she wouldn't leave any under two feet. [laughter] >> Thank you. [applause] >> And thank you to Mrs. Marky and Mrs. Raerty for helping the kids get together and for making sure they were here to support them tonight. We appreciate that. We'll take any

044questions or comments on tonight's presentation. >> Anyone just >> Yeah. No, I I don't have any questions. I just uh I love how you you were so I'm always so impressed when we have students who are able to articulate the work that they're doing in the classroom. And tonight was just an amazing example of that. And I actually loved how when you were talking about like, you know, the trial and the error and I just reminded me of like a mantra in my house is that um I have a sophomore and uh she's AP classes or whatever and I said we don't lose, we learn. And it sounds like you have taken that lesson to heart. And I hope it it remains with you because as long as you do your best and you learn

045these skills and you work with others, uh you you're never going to lose. You're always going to learn. Um and probably going to win, but [laughter] just wanted to share that. >> Just fantastic. It really is the presentation and then uh the best part, no disrespect, the students doing what they showing what they're doing type of deal. It's what makes for me this enjoyable. Thank you very much. >> Yeah, I'll have to agree with uh Mr. Nunes. You know, as much as I love uh budget and policy, uh that's Magguire and Mr. Kylie. Uh I would much highlight for me on school committee is to see all the kiddos coming out and presenting at nights like this. So, uh a job well done. Great presentation as well. I love the um the family and community

046uh engagement and the outreach you're doing with that and uh bringing in families for the the math hour during the day. What a great idea. Um you know and this and it sounds like it's been very well received. >> Absolutely. >> So just congratulations once again to all the students and um for the uh the teachers as well and to you. >> Yes. Thank you for this presentation. It's just so great to see the range of things that you're doing across grades, across subject matter uh and making learning so exciting for the students. So, thank you very much. >> Yeah, I appreciated uh in particular the voice and choice for students and giving them a questionnaire so they can have input into their learning. Um, also it's great to see the outcome of CKLA and

047see how that's working. From what I've seen when I visited schools and tonight, it seems like it's a very well-received program. Are there any negatives or are there anybody that doesn't like it? It just seems really wonderful. That's it's very engaging. >> It's it's fascinating because we've been in classrooms with young children who are taking on, you know, ancient Greece, uh the you know, the Roman Empire. um you know, they take on uh a astronomy. They're they're looking at all of these different things. And I've never engaged in a conversation with a student who wasn't didn't have something to share and wasn't excited about it. And that we we thought this is going to be really good. We piloted at at DLO last year and it was very wellreceived. But the kids can all talk

048to you about what they're learning. I had so much footage from just talking to kids. What did you learn in CQLA? what's the favorite thing you learn? What's the like the biggest vocabulary word that you love to use? And everyone went on and on and on. So, you know, it's been a heavy lift for the teachers and we knew that it would be and they're doing such a great job and every CKA lesson that we walk into, there's engagement and the kids are learning and they're talking about it. We um ended up buying a lot of books to go in our school library to go with these units. So, if a kid was really excited about farms in kindergarten or fairy tales or wanted to learn more about insects, they could go to the library

049once a week and have access to even more texts. And that's that's taken off a bit, too. But there's just a lot of enthusiasm. Um, they're just learning so much and they think it's the coolest thing that, you know, one month they're they might be working in science, but then the next month they're focused on history, they're writing poetry. It's wonderful. It's it's really been energizing and um very positive. It's a lot it's a lot of work. The kids are learning a lot, but they're doing really well with it also. >> Terrific. >> Could I mean I just want to thank you for doing the superintendence update under teaching and learning from me. [laughter] So, thank you all very much. I think we we heard um so much about what the students are learning and

050it's really for me that's very gratifying to hear the the kids be able to talk about what they're learning in just such a um articulate way and without any notes. I know >> impressive and we didn't tell them to say all those wonderful things. We just let the camera go and they just they kind of said what they need to say. Right. And that's what's so I think uh important to recognize is the authenticity which we heard uh when the students were speaking to us and that's the best part of the work you um said I think I think Mr. Oliver, you said this is the best part. I mean, I would rather talk and listen to students over talking about budget and policy as well, just but um thank you so much and thank

051you to all of our students and thank you to our families. Thank you to our teachers. Um so much work went into this and it really showed. So wonderful job. And if you want to hang out and listen to us talk about budget and policy, that's just about what we're going to be doing next. So, thank you again for coming out. Stay warm. >> Thank you. [applause] >> And school committee always has an open invitation to visit us anytime at Dlo School. Come and walk through the the rooms with us and see in action for yourself. We'd love that. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> That was awesome. >> All right. Um, so next up we have a consent agenda and we all should have >> Madam Chair just wait till they leave. So give it

052a second. >> Thank you. >> They're excited. Okay. >> So, >> thank you. >> As I said, we have a two consent agendas coming up. um the WGI World Championship indoor color guard for April 1st through 6 in Dayton, Ohio. And the um WGI World Championships indoor percussion April 18th to 13th. >> Yeah. >> Uh this is 20 Okay. In Dayton, Ohio. >> Madam Chair. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Those uh the the winter guide is in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It's the power regional. >> Where am I? >> On March 20th to the 22nd. >> I'm just noticing as I look at the brief, I think those are last year's dates. >> Yeah, they are. So, >> they are. So, what we're looking at now for the consent agenda is the trip to the indoor percussion team

053uh to attend the field trip to Tom's River, New Jersey. That's March 7th and 8th. And then the second one is the winter guard as Mr. >> I know um we were just saying so sorry about that. No problem. >> Um but March 20th and through 22nd and that is in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. All right. Um, so >> motion to approve. >> Second. >> Uh, motion by Mr. Newton, second by Miss Ammerald. All in favor? >> I >> And that was unanimous. And I am sorry about the glitch. Approval >> about that. >> No problem. But now for the most important >> presentation on the fiscal year 27 proposed budget. >> Great. I'm just >> McGuire. >> Thank you so much. So I'm just going to kick it off um by just making a statement regarding

054the budget. We've heard from some folks already here this evening and so before Mr. Kylie gets into the details, we want to take a moment to provide some what we think is important context for the work behind it. So, this proposed budget has truly been developed with great care and intention. It's aligned with our district strategic plan. It's designed to ensure that each recommendation moves Dartmouth public schools forward and it's also mindful of the fiscal realities we face as a community. So, we're acutely aware that this budget is being presented during a time of significant financial pressure, not only for the school district, but across the town as a whole. Rising costs are a real thing. We know that contractual obligations, special education expenditures, transportation and utilities, these obligations continue to place real strain on

055municipal budgets. In this environment, every decision that we make requires thoughtful balance between need, impact, and sustainability. And one of the things that I pay a lot of attention to is every morning MASC, as I'm sure you all receive the updated bulletin and around the Commonwealth, there are um um so many communities that are facing the same exact kind of pressures that we're facing here in in Dartmouth. So, at the same time, we've been intentional about listening. We kind of heard that tonight. Over the past year, we've gathered input from families, from faculty, from staff. We've done that both formally and informally. We've um included we've gone out to meetings. Uh for instance, when when I go out as a parent, I I as a a superintendent, I go to some of the PTO meetings

056and I do talk to parents about the budget. Uh, I've had an opportunity to do that and I'll visit every school's PTO at least once this year to have those conversations. We, uh, we administer surveys and we do have ongoing conversations in our schools. This budget reflects those voices and responds directly to what our community has asked of us, particularly in the areas of student support, staffing, and services that address increasingly complex student needs. So this proposal does include investments, important investments that support our strategic priorities, but I believe it also reflects restraint. Uh there have been thoughtful and well-considered requests that could not be funded this year. Not every single thing made it into this budget proposal. Um but underscoring the difficult choices that we need to make, we have to make them in

057this current fiscal climate. Those needs haven't been forgotten and they'll continue to inform our future planning and we need to be strategic about adding things in over time and responding to the most immediate needs of the school district. Ultimately though, this budget does reflect our best effort to be responsible stewards of public resources to remain focused on our mission, which is supporting students, empowering our staff, and preparing this district for the future. With that context, we are looking forward to presenting our FY27 proposed budget and the continuing discussions that will result with our committee, with the school committee, and with the town and the community. So, thank you. And Mr. Kylie, I'm going to turn it over to you to talk about some of the details and the hard work that you've done over the

058past few months in putting this budget together for public presentation. >> Thank you, Dr. Se Magcguire. So yes, as you know, it's been months in the making um to get to this point, and I appreciate your patience um with us as we as we prepare some very important um document for you to consider. And um as as you um as we go through this process and certainly even as we go through the presentation tonight, if you have questions along the way, feel free to to um you know, interrupt me. We'd be happy to discuss things as we go um or happy to discuss things afterwards and we'll have the opportunity over the next few school committee meetings to really dive into this more um and uh and you know get get more involved in this

059uh in this important process. So thank you. As Dr. S Magguire mentioned [clears throat] um we continue to focus our efforts on aligning our resources to the strategic plan. So we made the strategic plan an actionable plan and um this budget reflects alignment of resources to the strategic plan objectives. Tonight we're um asking for resources to support further progress towards meeting those objectives. But first, a little bit about our kids. U so this slide shows um K through 12 enrollment and class size. So you'll notice that our enrollment is um this is fairly stable uh projected in FY27. Right now we have 3,251 students across all all the grades. Uh we have K through 5 average class size of 22 students projected in FY27. 6 through eight average class size of 21. We've talked a

060little bit about the in the past that class size varies um obviously at the high school depending upon the offering. [snorts] And we have um an average of 12.2 to1 teacher uh student teacher ratio. Just for your information, that's slightly larger than the state average, which is 11.9 um students to to each teacher. We'll talk a little bit more about our staffing as we go on with the presentation. >> Mh. >> Yes, sir. >> Madam Chair, do you mind? >> Couple of questions. Uh just for the enrollment is that as of October one report or is that live? >> No, it's it's it's it was January 1st actually. >> Okay. >> Y >> and just I think I don't know if it's in here. I didn't go through the the entire 72 pages or of

061the budget. Um >> do we happen to know what our out of district enrollment is that we're financially responsible for? I >> I can give you that as we go through. I was just curious on that. And then >> it's about 40 students. >> Just so for the public to be aware as well, the 12.2 students to one teacher, I'm assuming that takes into consideration our our coaches, our >> clearly >> coaches, all that, not just classroom staff. >> That's right. No, it's uh we don't have any classes with uh with with 12 students in them. Um we we are certainly um significantly higher than that on average. So thank you Mr. >> Yes. >> So the other thing about en enrollment is there's a lot of discussion in town about new developments and we

062just wanted to make you aware that we've been in discussion Dr. Save Maguire and I have been meeting with the town administrator and the town finance director regularly. Um we're in discussion with them about the new developments and what they might mean to the town from a enrollment standpoint. Um at the current time it is uh we believe that there will not be a new development online during fiscal year 27. So the timeline for you know build constructing these projects would be after that. Uh but there certainly is a future impact on the horizon. So we'll keep you informed as as that develops and I would imagine the fiscal year 28 budget it could be a significant impact. So we've talked before about um our sort of selected student populations and and I think that

063through recent in recent years this has been a major factor in terms of driving our needs um our staffing needs and how we serve our students. So we continue to see that about 43 it's now sort of leveled off where about 43% of our students are high needs. Um that is up from 29% 10 years ago. So a significant increase in in high needs students of our lowincome students that appears to be sort of leveling off around 29% right now. Um, so you know, we're certainly happy to see a little bit of a decline from from sort of the COVID peak there of 33% down to about 29 and into uh that leveling off period. But if we look where we started with that um at 18% uh 10 years ago, it's a it's up

06411%. So significant increased need for our students of students with disabilities. We we see a similar trend. This one is a little more consistent where we're now up to 21.9% of our students um identified with with disabilities up from 13 uh you know 13%. So again, a significant increase and um as we see our students continuing to become needier um as a percentage year after year, our allocation of resources becomes more challenging and during that stretch, our budgets really have only increased very modestly. So more of a cost of living increase than an actual increase in terms of addressing these needs. So it it is placing more more of a burden on the you know the finances and we're getting to the point where we just don't have the resources to to you know to

065serve students in the way that that we should be. So per pupil [clears throat] spending um this this was a little interesting uh as we updated from last year. So this is fiscal year 24 per pupil spending. So we just finished in July fiscal year 25. The state doesn't publish those numbers very quickly. So in fact they just published these numbers fiscal year 24. So, it is a little bit behind, but what we found was that we are $3,824 per student below the state average. So, of the 319 reporting districts, we're 263rd. That's not really a good place to be, obviously. In the prior year, we were $2,752 per student below the state average. So, think about that. we were $2,752 below the state average. We're now $3,824. So, we're significantly significantly falling further behind

066in terms of dollars. Um, and I I didn't expect to see that to be honest, but um the gap is widening and we'll see that through as a trend through some of these other categories. So, we're $592 per student below average in in teachers. Um, of the 319 districts, we were 187th. Um, we we were $276 per student below average in teachers in in the previous fiscal year. So, again, falling further behind. Uh we're 38% or $1,418 per student below average in insurance and benefits. Of the $319 districts, we are $33rd. In the prior year, we were similarly 38% but we were $1,264 per student below average. So, not as dramatic a change from year to year, but still falling further behind with the gap widening. In terms of administration, we are 32% or $243

067per student below average. We're 281st of 319 districts. That was pretty similar to the prior year. [snorts] In terms of operations and maintenance, we're 35% $650 per student below average, we're um 286th of 319. So really really at at the you know towards the bottom again in that category. Um that was similar to the prior year in terms of pupil services spending. So things like um transportation, athletics, music, student activities, um nursing services. We're $21 per student below average, 8% below. We're 163rd of 319 districts. Uh in the prior year, we were just $9 below average. So, we were pretty close to average and now we're we're slipping significantly almost $200 uh per student. So, I guess, you know, in terms of what this tells us, well, I guess the positive thing would be that

068in Dartmouth, you continue to receive strong return on your investment. Um, you know, we have an above average performing school district, obviously at far below average cost. However, with [snorts] these numbers coupled with the increases in student needs, this is not a a a thing that can continue indefinitely. Um, you know, there's there's no way that we'll be able to sustain the level of performance with these diminishing levels of funding. So um you know more investment is required definitely speaking of um so so we look at staffing so that per pupil spending deficit you can you can see a little bit about why that is happening one reason why it's happening [snorts] so the top line is Dartmouth staffing level per 100 students the bottom numbers of data there is is the states um staff

069per 100 students. So what you'll see is that Dartmouth has less staff per 100 students in every category across the board. Teachers 8.2 versus 8.3 for the state paraprofessionals 1.2 versus 2.8 8 for the state leadership 7 to 1.2 for the state student support 6 to8 for the state clerical 6 to 1.0 for the state and technology 0.1 to point2 for the state. So that's the most up-to-date numbers from 2025. It's those are recent numbers from last year. So um that's part of why our spending is what it is. So there are key budget factors that we had to consider in formulating the FY27 budget and I'm going to walk you through some of these and I won't speak about everyone individually but I'd be happy to talk about them more if if um you

070know you have a specific interest and a question in one. So salaries represent almost 80% of our budget. you know, we're the we're in the people business and um so our cost of living adjustments for fiscal year 27 range from 3.5% to 5%. Then when we add in contractual step longevity and other contractual increases, the result is the salary part of our budget almost 80% of our budget is increasing approximately 5%. So that's where we're starting from. Uh other factors such as the increasingly needy student population are significant. So additional contracted services needed, additional tuition, additional transportation costs, all increasing significantly. You'll see them on that list. For some areas of the budget, we've incorporated an adjustment to reflect actual costs. So, we have and I had to look because I I hadn't seen I

071I couldn't recall exactly when this started, but we had not increase the supply side of our budget since 2019. No, no increase. So, level funding since 2019. And that was really because not because it wasn't needed but because there was such economic pressure financial pressure on us in the budgeting process that we just continued to try and live with what we had. But as we know inflation since 2019 has been incredible. Um, [snorts] so really we're just trying to string it together with less. And uh, so we've we've made some minor adjustments. I mean they really are not the the driving factor of this budget because again most of our most of our costs are staffing related but um >> so >> um on the instructional supplies have we just I mean we just haven't

072been buying as much or we've been >> supplementing [snorts] >> with donations. >> Yes. Yes. and skimping and yep so so we've on instructional supplies we've built in a 12% increase which is not I mean the the rate of inflation in this small time period is significantly more than that but um but we built in something to begin to address those needs [snorts] similarly uh we've we've adjusted the athletics and music budgets which also have not been increased in in recent years and the need to support those programs and continue those major programs of ours is there and so we've adjusted those to reflect that. We've also increase the maintenance and utilities budget. So I mean you've heard me talk many times about our aging facilities and what we're doing. We're doing everything we can

073but it it what we have is not sufficient to fix what what goes wrong in these buildings. We have made an adjustment uh to the maintenance and utilities budget for $365,000. That is not for major repairs or or improvements. That's just day-to-day fixes and routine maintenance. Um so sounds like a bit of money, but when it's spread over the six building, the six school buildings, it's not a lot of money and um it's probably not enough. But it is an increase and it will help us do what we have to do to maintain these buildings long term because at the moment we're not getting any new ones. So, >> Madam Chair, >> through you Mr. Kylie, just for curiosity with the type of winter that we've had, what's what are uh how are our utility

074bills and costs coming in? >> They're high as you would expect, right? They we've had record cold uh temperatures. We've had some real some real issues and coupled with the fact that um our heating systems are not working very well at the moment. They're very inconsistent and we're doing what we can to to fix them and provide the right learning environment for kids, but it's been a battle this winter and um you know it's it's from you're about a month behind with all the utility bills. you know, but by the time you get the the new utility bill, it's already it's for a month ago. Um, so what we've seen so far is pretty high pretty high utility bills. >> Yeah. Significant. Um the the other thing on there that I'll just mention, we'll talk

075more about it, so I'm not going to dwell on this at the moment, but staff moved from school choice 245,000. Just remember that. We'll we have a whole slide on school choice. So, we'll uh we'll talk about that. So, this is the sort of I guess I guess the exciting part of the budget where we're actually trying to um trying to implement strategic plan objectives and meet student needs. So we are proposing four uh education support professionals, one in each of the elementary schools. You did notice our staffing level of uh education support professionals is up last year. >> You did about ESPs and I I hear I hear the staff in Dartmouth. I am well aware that we are uh under with our educational support professionals and I think this I was on the

076budget subcommittee uh with uh Bess and I think this will go a long ways towards at least addressing some of those needs and some of those concerns. Um but it certainly still you know ultimately when you look at the numbers Mr. Kylie shared with us in rankings across the state. It's certainly um with the needs we're seeing right now, it's certainly not enough. [clears throat] We are proposing three registered behavior technicians at the elementary schools. So they they will support students and staff to implement behavior plans for for our kids. One adjustment counselor at Dartmouth Middle School. We currently have one adjustment counselor for the whole school. So if you think about that, there's 840ish kids right now with one adjustment counselor. Um, one job coach for the Atlas program at the Dart at Dartmouth

077High School. So you all, I think, are familiar with with the Atlas program serving our 18 to 22 student population here at at at DHS. And uh, next year we'll have 14 students in that program. It's been a very successful program. Certainly um great that we've been able to u you know provide that that program for kids. The issue is that with 14 students in the program there is no way that our current staffing can can meet all those students needs. Um you know the alternative to this is is really not palatable. Number one, we would not be a there would be students that we would just not be able to serve in in the program and um [cough and clears throat] the from a financial perspective it would make absolutely no sense because the

078cost of you know send sending a student out to a different program in which we'd be paying tuition would be significantly more than this cost. So so I I think it's a a wise investment. We're also recommending one special education team facilitator position. So, this position would support um support students with special needs and the staff that serve them. With the addition of this position, we would we're we're we've got a plan in place that we are um working on currently, but what it would mean is that the high school and middle schools would have additional support um and really have uh full-time support at both of those facilities. >> And did we ask for that last year and then decide not to? you. We asked for team facilitators last year and we did add

079two team facilitators. So, knowing that we wouldn't be able to get as many as we needed last year, now we've added an additional one to this year's budget. >> Thank you. >> And since and I'm just asking just because you you said it was okay to interrupt. I don't want to lose you I don't want you to lose your your train of thought, Mr. Kylie, but either either you or um Dr. SA Magcguire, can we just talk a little bit about for everyone at home and everyone in the audience around what our sped team facilitators do because they hear people hear facilitator and not teacher and you know people may wonder they're not directly in front. >> Here comes Mrs. Denisio right to the microphone. >> I figured she might be coming up here. [laughter]

080>> Um >> did they make a difference this year? The two that we we invested in? I think they made um quite a difference. Uh we hold anywhere from 10 to 25 IEP team meetings a week in the various buildings. Um and so these uh team facilitators have sort of taken on that burden of running the meetings. They're also supporting special ed teachers and related service providers with scheduling meetings, which is really a lot. Um, and also the paperwork, the IEPs, um, and sort of shoring that up after the meeting. So while it's working great and they have been an amazing addition, um they're scheduled in different days in different buildings which um sometimes can burden the staff in that buildings because they might have two or three uh team meetings in a day which

081is a lot when you're trying to you know teach a class or see kids. So this additional one again um like Mr. Kylie said, probably we would have one for the middle school alone because there's a lot going on there. Um, and one for the high school alone because again, just the scheduling and the the rotating schedule. Um, it's tricky to hold all those team meetings. >> Sure. >> I'm sorry. If I could just add a little bit to that too, Mrs. Denisio, because I know that you absolutely know this is one of the things that we're really working on is consistency. And when I say consistency, we're talking prek to 12 consist consistency in the way our IEPs are developed. And by having a core group of folks that are working together and have

082common understanding of the way an IEP is developed and what services and what our structures, systems, and structures here are in Dartmouth. Having those core people is key to being able to do that rather than having sort of disperate um approaches in diff because we're in different buildings. And I would just add you know another not as obvious sometimes speaking to your question of this isn't a teacher whenever we bring positions like this in and Mrs. Denio did address this um but I just want to reiterate it's meant to take some of that workload off of the teacher who's delivering direct instruction to students. It's meant to remove some of those administrative tasks that some of our teachers especially our special ed teacher special educators are required to do. And so that's the goal. >>

083So I just want to add that. Thank you. >> And thank you Mrs. Dianio. So we've also recommended the addition of one maintenance staff position again supporting these aging buildings that we have. We've also included a you the human resources position. So we've had a fair amount of discussion about that and um boy it we we live it every day. Um and uh again we're expressing that need >> and I'm I want to jump in again just I have a lot to say tonight. Uh human resources uh based upon in discussions we had last year around this uh we're bringing this back around uh it was originally presented at our budget subcommittee meeting. Um it's certainly we don't have a well we do we're we're looking at the HR people uh at the table here

084the HR department uh but we don't have uh for the amount of staff that we have we don't have anyone dedicated to HR uh town hall has I believe town hall does have an HR director uh that oversees the town hall staff but we do not have we are the biggest department in this town and we do not have anyone overseeing direct Correct. We do, but we don't have a dedicated person just focusing on HR. And that burden could certain that person could certainly help take the burden off of some [snorts] of our our staff here to focus on uh other other initiatives and day-to-day operations. >> Yeah. And I would also say any business that employed 600 employees would definitely have a dedicated HR person. Yes, >> thank you. Yes, >> we gave last

085year but not this year. >> Uh we've also prop we also uh incorporated a proposal for an additional technology staff person um to provide support for students and staff. We uh in we added a stipened for seasonal athletic event coordination. So some of our largest events are athletic events um in terms of attendance and public uh facing events. So um it's it's very important to have consistency of coordination of those events. We have our athletic director who can only be at one event at a time. And uh we we would [clears throat] really hope that we could incorporate this and and um have someone a stipen position in which um you know one of our staff members likely would would be employed in this role and uh have consistent coordination for our events. In addition

086to that, um, lastly, we have included a 0.5 FTE elementary instrumental music teacher to reinstitute elementary music lessons for fifth graders. So, this uh that opportunity was eliminated several years ago for kids and um we we hope to we hope to bring that back with this proposal. So in all um here most of our you know significant these are all staffing recommendations uh they amount to 13.5 FTEES that we are proposing added to our budget and I would say in the last 10 years how many people do you think we've lost We've we've lost and and reallocated many positions um because of the increase in our students with high needs. Often times the only way we got through a budget process was by addressing maybe there was some declining enrollment in which we um you

087know eliminated sections at the elementary or middle school or high school level and as a result reallocated those staff to um provide services to to students with high needs. So we did that a ton. Um and we also eliminated positions along the way and uh unfortunately you know that has uh has has a toll on on our ability to provide the right services. So we're hoping that we can begin to address that with this proposal. This is one step of course in the process. This isn't the end but this is this is a step. There were a few positions that were proposed that we did not incorporate into this budget. We just weren't weren't able to. Um Dr. S Magcguire mentioned, you know, we're we're cognizant of fiscal realities and and we understand um we

088understand that there is a limited pool of resources. So, the following positions, the behavior specialist at the elementary school, we do have two currently and we were not able to add a third into this budget. Special education teacher at the elementary level, we were not able to add. And a reading specialist at Dartmouth Middle School, we were not able to to add into this budget at this point. >> School choice. So, um, >> can we can we just go back to that slide? >> Um, so you said we currently have two behavioral specialists in the elementary school >> and special um actually the reading specialist. How many reading specialists do we currently have? Um, >> at the middle school level we don't have any. >> Okay. Um, so that >> Oh, wait. Oh, we have

089one. We still Okay, we >> had >> you had two. >> Okay. >> So, for kids that are struggling um who how how >> well we have special educators. So what we did with one of the reading specialist positions is we um we converted it to a special educator so that students who are having difficulty reading at the middle school level typically would be receiving services through an IEP. So that was um what we did with the with one of the reading specialist positions at the middle school level. Okay. So, school choice. Um, so [sighs] this, uh, this is an updated plan. Um, last year, fiscical year 26 budget process. We worked in collaboration with other town boards to create a plan to gradually reduce the reliance on on the school choice funding. Um so

090gradually we would be less reliant on the reserves in the school choice account. [snorts] The town boards at that time all agreed on to this plan which is to increase operating budget spending by $245,000 annually to bring us to the point after five years. You'll you'll there's a lot of numbers on that screen, but you'll you'll see that um after 5 years, we will expend approximately what we earn in the school choice um revolving account. [snorts] So, this plan is is updated for fiscal year 27, which is year two of the five-year plan. And um each year we'll decrease the funding for staff positions and that is what is reflected in the fiscal year 27 budget. So the incorporation of $245,000 of staff into the operating budget from what was formally funded by school choice.

091>> So looking at this, Mr. Kylie, if I if you look out the look at the projections out through FY33, that it's great that we're ultimately going to be, you know, [snorts] being financially responsible and spending what we're taking in with not having this huge um lump sum of money in there. Um I know there was some um finance committee at one point concerns around the um the amount of money we had in there because of all the grants we got from CO. Uh, but one of the things that I really just want to mention is that at any point, and the public needs to be aware of this, at any point as new school committee members come in, if one of us decides not to run or someone else gets in, any one of

092any school committee can, we just voted on, I believe, at the last school committee meeting, can vote to not engage in school choice. So, if there ever comes a time in which the school committee and obviously yes, it's it'll take some time because our our high school students will have to metriculate out and we'll still be receiving um school choice funds until those high school students graduate, but it could go away and we're looking at $700,000 that ultimately we're going to have to come up with >> um if that were to ever go away. And the other point I just want to make is that looking at the FY27 estimates and the cherry sheets that when it comes down to it, there's a lot of talk about is school choice really worth it. And and

093I think it is because when you look at the assessments that we're we're giving out over $500,000 in school choice tuitions in this district. I I if I had to do the math, it would be somewhere between 80 and 100 students that are that are school choice out of Dartmouth. So why is that? Could be a variety of reasons. However, it's important to note that between the 80 and 100 students in Dartmouth is school choice out and they're the really I just did some quick math based on uh what we're going to be looking at next year is that it's around $120,000 net in school choice taken is the and I don't know if you I'm sure you've looked at that Mr. Kylie. Um, >> so it it's just important to note that it's 100

094I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's 100% worth it to to accept school choice at the especially at the high school level. Um, so just be I just want everyone to be cognizant of that. >> Thank you, Mr. Kylie. >> Thank you. So what does all this mean? So in our fiscal year 26 budget is $55,431,558. So all of the things we talked about on the key budget factors slide. So all of these things, the 80% of our budget that is salarydriven, contractual salary increases and all of these other things [clears throat] mean that um we are building in a budget increase of $2,781,229 or 5.02%. 02%. The incorporation of the $245,000 that is the the school choice plan is an additional $245,000 which is44% of the total. The budget recommendations

095that we went through totaled $768,500 for a 1.39% budget increase for a total FY27 draft budget of $59,226 uh 59,226,287 6.85% budget increase. So that's what all that means broken down and as you know much of it is sort of out of our out of our control. Um but um you know with targeted investments towards towards uh strategic plan objectives that is what we're proposing >> 3.8. So another way to to take a look at that, [clears throat] this slide compares uh the fiscal year 27 26 to 27 uh proposed budget with the dollars changed in each category and the percentage changed. So instruction uh this category of the budget would increase 5.3%. Administration this category would increase 11%. Maintenance and utilities 10.7%. Other services 12.7% tuitions 9% for that total budget increase of 6.8%.

096So the total budget increase of 3,794,729. Medicaid. Um, it's a separate budget line, but I like I I've taken to showing it here because the town sometimes lumps it in with us. Um, it pays for a for one staff member who does all the Medicaid claim work for us. Uh, that uh has been underfunded through through in in for years. Uh so we're proposing a 10% increase $4,694 in that line. That line generated in fiscal year 25 her work um generated revenue for the town amounting to $300,197. So it's a good investment for the town. Obviously have that one staff member doing that work and generating $300,000 in in reimbursements from the government. So, >> and I know you've explained this before, but when we get those reimbursements, they go to the town. >> Yes.

097>> And so, it's just considered revenue from the to the town. >> Yes. It's it's revenue into the general fund of the town. Yeah. >> Okay. >> It does not come to the school department in you know anyway. [snorts] So, I I wanted to give you an idea of, you know, what's coming uh in terms of the budget. So, March 2nd, we have we have another school committee meeting. So, we we'll certainly have the opportunity to review the budget further. And along the way, as you're reviewing that that large budget packet, I I appreciate you saying 70 70 pages. I think it's 91 pages, Mr. Oliver. >> I was thinking so, you know, sorry, Mr. Yeah. Yeah. Ju just so you know that 91 pages is going to be up on Yeah. >> It's going

098to be up on our website tomorrow morning. So anyone it'll be publicly available on our website. >> I want to say I really appreciate the comments that are made all the way over to the right about >> whether they're contractual or >> um why there's a change. I almost wish there were more comments >> to every line, but I really appreciate [snorts] how much goes into it and um the transparency of >> Thank you. >> every line. >> Appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> So, March 2nd, we'll have that opportunity. If anything comes up in the meantime, please reach out. You know, we can we can certainly meet with you individually or I can or just have a phone call or whatever about any questions you have as you go through. Uh March 5th, we

099are scheduled to present to the finance committee. I believe I wrote it down. Let's see. That is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. >> Okay. >> On March 5th. >> Then um during March, so this we have the new budget advisory group. So we're kind of trying to figure out exactly what you know what the role of that group is and how that works in the grand scheme of things. But um because we you know we've had a couple of meetings of that group so far and kind of feeling things out a little bit. But um in March we'll have some discussion with that group about the budget. I'm not sure exactly when u March 23rd we would according to our budget timeline which is in the 91page budget um and you've you know voted on previously

100we will have a public hearing on the budget and also additional school committee budget review at that meeting with the hopes that on April 13th um the school committee would review and vote a a budget. So, there's going to be a lot of budget discussion um between now and then. I would anticipate that um we'll I' I've spoken to the town administrator and finance director and they're um going to be providing some additional information for your consideration um as we you know as we make some progress here. I think for the next school committee meeting, we should have additional information from them. And then uh with an end goal that we get to the June 2nd spring annual town meeting with with uh you know a budget that we feel is addressing our needs and

101that's where we are with all this. >> Mr. Kylie, >> thank you. >> I just would say um again just restate some of what I said at the beginning. I think a lot of thoughtful planning has gone into this. Um this is my third budget working uh here in being here in Dartmouth and I I do believe that we've seen a bit of an evolution of ter in terms of the support that we have out there publicly and people being willing to come forward and acknowledge that the schools um I appreciated some of the comments that I heard here this evening and uh moving forward we do recognize that we need to work closely with town administration ation as well to make some decisions. I will mention as far as the um human resources position

102that that's a position that we actually added the first year that I was here and we took it out and then we put it in last year and we also removed it. Uh the town um it's Susanna uh Cunningham who has we we have been in touch with and she has provided us some support along the way and I want to acknowledge the appreciation we have for that. It's more of the day-to-day work that we're talking about when when we refer to a position such as an HR position. I thank Kate uh who does a lot of the heavy lifting of the uh the administrative tasks associated with HR. Um but there are other components to HR that that we're talking about when we bring that position forward. Um, but I feel really good about

103this budget. I do think that every position that we put forward is a position that would greatly benefit the district and as Mr. Kylie said would advance our opportun our opportunity to uh to implement the strategic plan in a meaningful way and this is the I think a a good step toward that. >> So thank you. Um, let's start with Mr. Nunes. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry about that, Chris. >> No, go ahead. [laughter] >> Thank you, Mr. Kylie, Dr. Saba Maguire, also Chris and Best for your work on this great presentation. Uh, a couple of questions. Number one, [clears throat] I'm going to make an assumption, right or wrong, that uh the town is aware of what our budget what you are proposing for a budget. >> We've we've had >> per se.

104Yes, we've had discussions with um with the town administrator and with the finance director. They've also attended our budget subcommittee meeting. Okay. >> The last budget subcommittee meeting. which in which we discussed in some level of detail what we're talking to you about tonight. So, um yes, they're familiar with it. >> Okay. Thank you. And the only other thing, uh you know, 91 pages I didn't print out or haven't looked at yet, but I will get to those, believe me. Uh, I went to the, uh, Department of Revenues, Division of Local Services website for the uh, for our cherry sheet. I didn't get into the other municipalities around here. I didn't want to get totally aggravated, but uh what I did is just real quickly the funds that affect the town, the chapter 70, the

105school choice, you know, the um unrestricted general government type of deal, you know, because you know, when you look at that, I mean the veterans benefits and exemptions and stateowned land, you know, well, that's the state owns level funded you know, public libraries debts per se, just those are reimbursements and or pass throughs to the to the library. We end up with $280,000 in the town. Okay. Approximate. Okay. When you take and again, I realize this is the governor's budget and it's got to get tweaked and and such, but when you take the cherry sheet [clears throat] charges type of deal, we end up with a net of $169,000. Okay. I don't know, you know, what we're supposed to do. I'm just wondering, and I may be preaching to the choir, not so much here,

106but out there, uh, if it would behoove us to try and get Representative Maki in here or his legislative aid or somebody to, you know, pound on the table to say, "Help us out." Because when you look at community, the same type of communities around us type of deal and they're getting a lot more percentage-wise than what we're getting. I'm not talking about the gateway cities. I can't fight I'm not going to try and fight that fight. Okay? I've been at this too long. I'm not fighting that fight. But, you know, when you get into, you know, the Westports and the Fair Havens and the Akushits and the Matapoes, etc., etc., and those figures comparative are, you know, a lot bigger than ours type of deal. There's a problem and I know it's going to

107take the legislature to change a funding formula that nobody wants to tackle, but somebody's got to tackle it. Just my two cents. So, just food for thought. Thank you for letting me indulge. It's a 1% increase for the town. That's that's in terms of overall state aid. That's >> 1%. >> That's that's what's projected based on budget. >> There's something wrong. It's not fair. >> No, >> it's not equitable. >> Not at all. >> Um, so at the very least, we should all call >> Yeah. >> Yes. Mr. I I don't want to you know I know we'll have plenty of opportunity to discuss this and I'm I'm certainly um happy to meet with you separately but uh in terms of uh you know moving forward with asking what we need when you look at

108the requests not funded um I'm just curious about that you know in particular asking for a special education teacher you know special education is a federal requirement it's highly heavily regulated and having that as a need, it just feels to not fund it. It wouldn't be asked for if it wasn't necessary. And so, um, I just want to hear a little bit more about the rationale for that in terms of what the impact is with the, uh, you know, that highly regulated required role for students that need it. Um, I'm also curious about the other two. I just I I don't feel good about leaving those not funded because they are important positions that wouldn't be listed if they weren't needed. Uh, so I just wanted to hear a little bit more about that. Well,

109I would say as far as highly regulated, uh, we absolutely fall within the standards and and even beyond for supporting our special education students. So, I just want to put your mind at ease in that way. There aren't any IEPs that aren't being supported in the Dartmouth schools. Um, part of what we talk about when we may add a special education teacher is, and I think this one was at the elementary level, is that how are we going to best utilize that elementary teacher, that elementary special education teacher in a way that is strategic. Um, so the the teacher that we don't have not included in this budget is a teacher that would have been assigned to one of the elementary schools and it would have actually created an imbalance across the elementary schools in

110terms of the number of teachers. Uh so if we're going to ask for an additional special educ educator, it would be more consistent with a strategic approach to how we're utilizing additional staff. So we added those three. You see we added the four ESPs and the three RBTs and those were meant to balance out that request. specifically the three registered behavior technicians because some of the requests that we're getting around special ed support is directly related to disregulated students. And so this is one way that we were addressing that need out across all three of our elementary schools. So I'm happy to talk to you more about that. Mamar >> I didn't mean to imply that we weren't following. >> No, I just um I know you weren't applying I know you didn't, but I

111just want to be clear that we are. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you, >> Mr. >> Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, I got to say in all my year, well, at least in the past six to eight years of being on school committee, this is one of the the most wellthoughtout budget proposals um that addresses some of our needs. um not certainly not all of them. Um but it certainly addresses it it it puts on the table, you know, our needs, what we what we need to function as a school community. Um you know, make no mistake about it. 6.8 6.885 6.85% There we go. Um is extreme is high, right? Um and I think the town recognizes that. I know we we kind of uh Mr. Kylie alluded to uh the town admin

112and finance director being at the budget subcommittee meeting and based upon some of what uh they were sharing with other needs in town. Um it's certainly concerning you know I don't know uh this is our first go at it 6.85%. Um, however, there's going to we're putting forward what we need and we're doing it thoughtfully and slowly um to get back to some kind of stable ground. Um, but we're not there yet. Uh, we have there's still a lot of work to do. Um so it it's just it's just frustrating right that year after year um we ask um and behind the scenes prior to this year we we reduce FTEES. Finally this year we're putting forward 3.5 additional FTEES which are desperately needed in this district. Um, I just hope that the community is

113hearing us and ultimately it's going to take some kind of uh fix to fix this structural deficit. Um, but I am I'm certainly proud. I thank uh Dr. Sam McGuire, Mr. Kylie, everyone else, the principles, administrators, um, Ross and Katie, uh, everyone that and uh, Lori, if I'm missing every name, I'm sorry. Um, there's a lot of time and effort that goes into this. So, um I I think this was the right thing to do and I'm looking forward to um what the outcome's going to be. >> Thank you. >> You good? >> I'm good. >> All right. Um I appreciate all the information to be continued. Okay. And um so let's >> hear the superintendent. Oh, great. Thank you so much. >> We've touched on a lot of it. We have I I really

114was sincere in saying thank you to the Dlo students who [laughter] did my job for me this evening. Um but in all s sincere sincerity what they had to say was really powerful tonight in talking about what our students are learning and what your investment because that was your investment. your investment in the strategic plan, your investment when you vote a budget, and then you trust us to go out and make decisions with our staff to implement a high quality resource that's clearly having immediate impact on student learning. And I know Miss Cora mentioned the heavy lift for our teachers. Yes, it is a it is a heavy lift for our teachers, but they're doing the work. We've been out in classrooms. We um we visited we this is sort of like our classroom visit

115uh school visit week the last couple of weeks and we went and we visited grade one classrooms in our elementary schools across the district and it is really validating and exciting and encouraging to walk into a first grade at the DLO school, a first grade at the Quinn school and a first grade at the Potter school and see that the kids are all learning. saying the same thing. There's consistency across the district. Katie's laughing because she knows I just always it's Yeah. cry. And that's the kind and it's good work. It's not just that they're learning lock step. That's not the point here. The point is it is a qu high quality learning resource. And the kids are excited. They're engaged. You walk into classrooms across this district and you can just see and hear

116because the students, as you heard tonight, like to talk about their learning. So, on the flip side of that, MCCAST season is underway. January, yay, right? It's MCCAST, it's access testing. So, just to assure you that we're on top of those things. Um, Jonathan's office certainly has the bulk of the responsibility leading up into getting us ready for MCCAST testing when it really hits in earnest in the spring. But there are things that are already happening. For instance, student rosters need to be uploaded um in the uh MCCAST portal for the state. Jonathan's team has to get out there and update and prepare Chromebooks for spring testing because we need to make sure that they are in the best possible um operating condition as we enter into testing season. So that's what we call Oh,

117that's really I didn't mean that the way it sounded testing season. U so on February 4th, I'd add we uh we held our second early release professional learning day. educators have are continuing to work in the professional learning strands that they selected earlier in the year. There's a lot of excitement that's building around those opportunities and again we're going to continue to listen to our teachers and respond. I know that surveys went out to seek feedback from folks on their experiences and we'll continue to refine as we go along. on just this past February 5th, we had our principal meeting over at Dartmouth Middle School who hosted. That's something that I've shared with the committee that we've that we do every year. We moved to different schools, different principles hosted and so Mr. Rossi and

118his team hosted us. We were able to visit 8th grade science classrooms and if you remember that is um that the middle school has piloted and is implementing open sed curriculum specifically uh they were working on a unit focused on properties of matter and similarly to what I shared about the excitement and engagement of our students at the elementary level around CKLA. We saw that same kind of excitement and student engagement when we visited our eighth grade middle school science classes and in having conversation with our with those teachers, they're excited about the content they're delivering. And when I asked uh one of them, what's the difference between last year and this year? And she said, well, I've already done it. This is the second year. I feel so much more comfortable. And that is

119something that we constantly remind ourselves that the first year of an implementation is always challenging. And that's not to say they don't have their challenges right now, but the teachers that I spoke with when I visited the middle when we visited the middle school were excited about the work they were doing with students. Um so also on that day, um Dr. T-Bolt and Mrs. Pavale led the monthly project time meeting. I'm hearing really good things about how project time is going. I know that that Ross and Katie both recalibrated how that group comes together and the work they're focused on. And remember that's a check-in with new educators. And we had a good crop of new educators last year. If you remember at the beginning of the year when they came out, introduced themselves, but

120this time they were focused on focused on effective family and community engagement practices. So that's something again that supports our district strategic plan. Um, we uh we had a student, a junior, and I'm not sure if our student representative mentioned this, but Gabriella Corado, she represented Dartmouth High School at the regional poetry out loud out loud competition in Wellfleet. Now, what's exciting about that and connected to what we heard tonight was we heard our students talking about their engagement with poetry and how some of them now are right away starting to grow a love and understand that poetry is a really wonderful way for them to express themselves. So, we'll see more of that in the future. Uh, on January 30th, Dr. T-Bolt, Mrs. Paveo and I attended a legislative breakfast that was hosted by

121the Children's Advocacy Center. That's actually uh an event that we go to every year. And the reason that's important for us to do that do that kind or attend that kind of event is because uh what we take from it is opportunities to provide professional learning for our staff and students. In this particular group, um Katie's working with them to come to Dartmouth. They'll be in Dartmouth with us for two sessions during upcoming early elementary early release days. So, we have that going on. Um, last week we had Amplify professional learning representatives here to support our teachers as they continue the implementation of CKLA. again, broken record, but supports our our teaching and learning, our professional development, and that is one of our our core commitments. Uh, on February 4th, Quinn School held a celebration

122of reading. I was lucky enough to be welcomed as a guest reader. Um, so I got to read to a second grade class, Mrs. Rebecca Kelly's class. And if you ever need a book that will make kids laugh out loud and make you feel really silly, the book title is the book with no pictures. It's a winner. And they laughed through the whole book because I had to say some really silly things. And seven year seven and eight year olds really enjoy watching adults make themselves look foolish. So it was really fun. But we had quite a few staff members out there in the building at the Quinn school reading to students. So I always welcome being I always love being welcomed into teachers classrooms uh to engage in that kind of experience. So under

123safe and supportive schools at the secondary level uh Mr. Chrysafully and Dr. Teol are actually working with the children's advocacy center to bring presentations on digital safety to health classes at the middle and the high school. So those are the kind of relationships that we continue to work toward building. Um Kim Redlon has begun convening the district team. Again, those are our if you remember the train the trainer model. So she's doing that work. Now I would also mention under safe and supportive schools and I think this is equally important and I know you know this but the uh the issue around snow removal of the winter that we're having has has been a big I think a lot of work for for our maintenance staff. I know I have a friend who lives here

124in Dartmouth and she said oh they are out Saturday. I saw them everywhere getting the schools ready to uh open for Monday. if you want to just talk about that, Jim, because I know you've been in touch with John about that on a regular basis. >> Sure. It seems like every weekend it's [laughter] it's just been really a bear this winter. Um I, you know, commend John and his staff um in facilities and the custodians cuz boy, it there been some tough conditions um with the temperatures so low too. on Saturday. Uh it was particularly challenging with the timing of the snow and um trying to get cleaned up late Saturday, but um you know, they've been they've been working uh diligently to you know, maintain our environments as best they can in uh very

125very challenging conditions for sure. We haven't seen a winter like this in a long time. So, >> so I say that under safe and supportive schools because that could go under budget and capital improvements as well, but snow removal is clearly related to the physical safety of our students, our staff, and our faculty. I'd also mention that on February 4th, I I mentioned that this was going to happen, but Dartmouth High School did host anformational panel for families of students with disabilities focused on post-secary accessibility services. five local colleges participated and the recording of the panel will be posted on the Dartmouth High School uh YouTube page. So, you can look for that. I think that this my my next comment goes along with something that we've talked about earlier, which is that I've been

126meeting with several area superintendent to begin planning a legislative breakfast for the South Coast communities. So, we have tentatively set a date of May 15th and Mike Watson, who I know you all know, superintendent of Greater New Bedford, has graciously agreed to host agreed to. I'm not sure he volunteered, but he agreed. >> Volunt. >> Yeah, volunttoled. And we'll be sharing more information about this. We wish it could be earlier, but we can't make that date an earlier date work. But this is something that we've talked about. As you know, I attend a monthly superintendent roundt. It's not just made up of South Coast superintendent, but also Cape superintendent. And apparently, from what I'm learning, the South Coast has not had a legislative breakfast in quite a while. And so, that's something we're working together

127to plan for. And even though it's a little later than we would normally want, it's still something that we believe we should do and earlier in order to just get things started. So I'll be sharing information more information with you about that as as the planning continues to unfold. I also mentioned that CPAC is going to hold its next meeting on Thursday, February 12th at 6:00 right here in the library media center. and the topic is um going to be post-secondary transition planning. So for family and community engagement, I actually already mentioned a couple of things to you. Um but I would like to also just let the public know that the preschool application process is open through March 20th. I think I mentioned this at our last committee meeting, but there will be anformational

128evening for families on February 25th at 6:00 p.m. at the Kushman School and the kindergarten registration process is open today. So that opened today and that is for the 2026 27 school year. As in the past, we want to urge families to register eligible children for kindergarten as early as possible because it it really is helpful to us in looking at uh what class size will look like and what our staffing needs will be. So, we look forward to um seeing our um or seeing how our enrollment for our newest class um kind of rolls out over the next few weeks. So, that's my report. Thank you. to run through. >> Thank you. >> Um, and I don't have much, but I do want to let everybody know that the spelling be is on for

129this year and it's April 1st. So, think about whether you want to be a team, sponsor a team. And last year, we donated to sponsor a team. Do we have an interest in doing that again? I hope we do. >> Fine. >> Sure. >> Or great. >> Thank you. Um, and does anybody just >> Yes, Mr. Nunes. >> Uh, two things, Madam Chair. One, I talked to you and I know I've talked to Mr. Kylie about. Um, just wondering if we can put on the, uh, the next agenda. Uh, a discussion about snow removal. And no, not as a critical, but more so as we can get an update as to what the cost what we've spent for snow removal. It's like every storm that we have is either on a holiday or a weekend

130or a holiday weekend type of deal. And it's not 2 in, it's, you know, this past one was 8 in. We had 12 ines, you know, a week ago. and you know five inches, you know, in heavy wet stuff type of deal. So, if we could just have a discussion on that because my mind is uh my gears are grinding with having to maybe talk about going to the FINCOM for some money to to cover this. We will absolutely put it on the agenda >> and then and I know I mentioned it at the last one and I don't have any more information but I will have it for the uh March 2nd meeting but we're hosting the music department is hosting our indoor uh color guide and percussion show on uh Saturday March 14th.

131So I'll be looking for presenters but I'll get more information and get that out the next meeting. [cough] That's [clears throat] all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? >> I just have a um a couple things and well maybe one depending how the first one goes. Uh I um you talk about transition planning and um I had a recent uh uh one of my children recently transitioned um out of the school district and it just made me think about you know when we're talking about students and high needs um I just want to say that it has been a pleasure um sometimes rocky uh from 3 to 22 um but There has always been beauty in partnering with the schools and I just am grateful for the partnership that we've had all these

132years with that one particular still have some in the school district but um and I just want to like speak to those parents that might be listening who do have a student and might be re you know not quite understanding the needs of their child or how to articulate it or um how to ask for help. I just want to encourage you to partner with the people that are closest to you in your classroom. They care about your student. They care about you and they can only do what they can do. Um and you have so much value to add in terms of what what the needs are in your home. Um because it's a partnership. It is unless you move out and school choice out um which isn't always the the best thing. Um,

133it's like an univorceable situation because we all live in this town. We care about this town and we always have to think about the greater good. I won't get into details, but me sitting here is the greater good for a personal situation. Um, and number two is that um, Trembley Bus Company, uh, Mr. Kylie, if you could pass along uh unless they're listening. Um they have been instrumental in caring for my child and getting that p that child uh to and fro during the pandemic, before the pandemic. I always hear are always hear advertisements on the radio where they're looking for drivers and monitors and they have become extended family to us. and and jokingly uh conversations with uh our bus driver recently, you know, that I was we were thanking them and and like

134I said, they are extended family uh uh to us at this point. Um I said we don't always hear the compliments and we always hear like the complaints. I just want to let them know how fabulous they have been um and that they are appreciated. So that's all. >> Thank you very much. appreciate that. >> Good words. >> So, nothing else? [snorts] >> All right. Um, our next regular meeting of the school committee is scheduled for Monday, March 2nd, 2026 at 6 PM right here, Dartmouth High School Media Library Media Center. Um, do I have a motion to adjourn? >> Move. So, move. >> Second. >> A motion by Mr. Afternoon. Second by Miss Beckwith. All in favor? >> I It appears >> happy we are journ. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you.