001e for a good um opportunity for me just go and do a walk through with school yeah for e for I think we're ready to call this meeting to order it is 6:30 on November 21st and we are meeting in the Dover Sherborn Middle School library before I read the Preamble are there any Community comments no one's there and no one's here okay so we're just going to get started and the first thing on our agenda is the superintendent comments um is Beth doing that or are you uh Beth is doing it okay hi everybody can you hear me yeah okay great um first of all thank you for your um leniency tonight and and zooming in from home I figured I'd try the technology on the other side just to make sure it works
002um and many thanks to Denny and Don and Kate for holding on the fort in central office this week um I know it's a lot on Denny tonight to be juggling uh the technology and Don I know tonight's your big night so I'm excited to be here to support you thank you um so Denny's going to project my slides and we'll make sure that you get a copy of these in the updated packet Denny let me know when you're ready yep I'll set okay great um so I just wanted to give you some updates on my goals as superintendent this year my first goal focuses on um a vision for teaching and learning and certainly I'm doing all of this work in partnership with Denny and our building leaders so as you know we have
003identified nine best practices across the district K to 12 and they're identified in this beautiful infographic that Denny created um and we are using these for a number of reasons and a number of ways this year our Educators have created goals around um these best practices and expanding their toolbox to implement these best practices in their classrooms the leaders have identified goals in how to support Educators in acquiring these best practices implementing these best practices perfecting them um and so as a leadership team we continue to bring our ideas back to the leadership table and calibrate what we're seeing during observations and how we give feedback to Educators in order to promote their professional growth and learning our building leaders are also using their monthly faculty meetings to highlight these best practices having Educators share
004what they're doing in the classroom so they can learn from the experts in the very classroom next door as to how they're supporting students to to own their learning um and putting students at the center of their learning each and every day and I'm sure you'll be hearing from Denny after next week's professional development day as a reminder we don't have school on Monday our educators will be engaging in professional development um right after Thanksgiving and we have a keynote speaker from AJ Giuliani who we leaned on very heavily during the pandemic when we were Reinventing teaching and learning so we're excited to be hosting him um he'll be talking to our Educators about how to put students at the center of their learning especially in an age where they're distracted by technology and we
005now have the challenges of artificial intelligence and then Denny has uh created workshops with the help of many experts both in person and on Zoom around all these best practices so again opportunities for educators to fill their toolboxes so we can see these best practices happening more often across more classrooms next slide yep all right um my second goal is around um showing progress and holding ourselves accountable to our strategic goals so um thanks again to Denny we've been working with open Architects to create a data dashboard it already has been um created and is an opportunity for our leaders to be looking at our mcast scores but we're hoping to also include additional standardized assess ments in information um including both AP information SAT information um but also information from the benchmarks that we
006use throughout the year especially at the primary level around math and literacy so that we can track our students growth and provide interventions to make sure that they're continuing to make progress towards benchmarks we'll be able to see attendance and discipline information um throughout the year and then as we conduct surveys with our students on a more qualitative level around social emotional Wellness um student health and well-being around sleep um student engagement homework we'll be able to look at this information too so with all of the goals that we talked about last year through Dei and making sure that we're looking at the success of all of our students across academic social emotional and behavioral Realms we'll be able to track and monitor progress through this dashboard so we're very excited about that the third
007goal is around transparent communication so I'm sure um last month you saw my superintendent's newsletter come out um this will continue to come out hopefully um on a bimonthly period I've held three of four office hours for parents and community members to drop in um bring ideas ask questions and just engage in conversation they've been held in the mornings in the evenings on various days of the week hopefully to provide all people regardless of their schedules an opportunity to check in um so far I've been able to attend three of the four school's PTO meetings just to give an update on the district strategy and our goals and what's happening in the district again taking questions and feedback I'll be going to the last PTO meeting at chering um in December um I met with
008the Sherburn Council on Aging last month and a meeting with the Dober Council on Aging in January again to provide information on all the wonderful things that are happening in our schools um answer questions engage in conversations so that all of our taxpayers and stakeholders have IDE of what's happening in the schools um in the lines of communication I attended the U Massachusetts Association of school superintendent conference last week it was held in coordination with masc and I went specifically to attend two workshops um from the communication specialist Chris um horen who I worked with in Boston the first one was on how to address um and communicate about polarizing issues within a school district I will say say that much of the advice uh he provided in terms of how to navigate polarizing uh
009issues we follow black St so we will continue to do our best to bring our community together around difficult topics and find common ground in how to support our kids the second um Workshop I attended was around how to keep the district strategy at the Forefront of all that we do so I have lots of ideas on how to uh continue to keep our goals and progress on our goals at the center of our website center of our school committee meetings and my newsletters so that everybody knows what it is that we're working on and how we're making progress we're hoping to bring Chris to the district um in January to meet with a larger leadership team about how better to communicate um at the school level um our principales spend a lot of time
010trying to communicate information out to their parents but we want to make sure that we are using our time and energy and resources effectively so that the information that our parents and caregivers is getting are getting um is um bit-sized enough and informative enough about the topics that they want to hear to make sure that everybody knows what it is that we're working on at the school level um and how we're supporting their kids lastly on this topic um I've app plowed to be part of the lead now um cohorts lead now is an organization that is bringing together superintendent from across the country to learn how to be proactive with communication reactive with communication and problems solve around um issues with communication they're having in our districts so I've applied to be the next
011cohort um I will know in January whether or not I've been chosen and I'm hopeful for the opportunity to collaborate not only with um superintendent from Massachusetts but Across the Nation as we all face similar problems [Music] um met Cod 2.0 so Denny and I had the opportunity to attend the metco leadership um uh Retreat excuse me a few weeks ago with all of the metco leaders um from our area it was held at jillette stadium and it was an opportunity for us all to come together after a lot of work that's been done done by Meco headquarters around reminding uh districts and re-engaging districts in what it means to be a Meco community and our commitment to all students in terms of developing an inclusive and Equitable School environment for all of our students
012to attend um I'd love to share you with you this quick video that was developed by metco just as a reminder of our commitment as a community to um our Boston students of auson families and what it means moving forward um in terms of our work so Denny racism has been very bold in recent years people are losing their lives walls are being built children are being separated from their but the me can be bolder and stand up for racial Justice after George Floyd was killed we developed an anti-racism road map we're embarking on a journey toward a vision we call Meco 2.0 where every student in a Meco District receives an inclusive Equitable and anti-racist education every student Meco 2.0 means changing improving enhancing the work that we do each day in our schools
013let's ask ourselves how can we do better by breaking down racial barriers and stereotypes by diversifying our teachers by creating inclusive and representative Curriculum by building interracial friendships by implementing restorative justice practices and by preparing students for a diverse Workforce we cannot end racism but we can make the experiences of all students better by implementing small and large changes our founder Ruth Batson said business as usual as a way of life must be totally discredited we have to continue to evolve as individuals as a community as a school system and as a world Meco is not a Boston program this is just our mode of transportation Meco mobilizes people people's hearts and people's minds being a mea Community carries a lot of respons ability we are the largest voluntary School integration program in the United
014States people see us as a model for school integration you are participating in something special and unique as long as the community begins to see it that way then every decision that you make will benefit everyone in the community Meo was Grassroots then and it's Grassroots now what is your role in this next chapter of Meco 2.0 remain inspired to do this work be intentional about your approaches and insist that change can [Music] happen right it's all set Beth okay thank you so that's a good note now that I'm experimenting on the other side of the screen um people on the screen bu can't hear the video when you're playing it so just a note um for people watching from home um so lastly I just want to mention an update about the calendar task
015force um goalie is your official representative on the the calendar task force goalie I'm not sure if you want to provide the update or I'm happy to sorry um um I I'm sorry I didn't prepare anything but I can um if you want to give an update I can also add anything needed okay thank you so as you know um the calendar task force has been meeting since the spring it's con um it includes students faculty members parents community members and school committee members and you test us with the um the job of looking at our school calendar with an attempt to be more inclusive of the many um observances and celebrations that our community engages with throughout the year we've done a lot of work including uh sending out surveys to students staff and
016families and I think I mentioned we had over 7 100 responses which was a lot of information to to uh synthesize and analyze we've also done a lot of research in terms of what local comparable districts are doing including uh those that we compete with in the sports arena because certainly schedules need to align there um we had our last meeting a few weeks ago and we engaged in really deep conversation about wanting to reach back out to the stakeholders one more time uh to collect additional more detailed information as we move forward in doing that and as we start to think about questions that we were going to craft around whether or not we should revert to a calendar that only recognizes um holidays mandated by the government or whether or not perhaps we
017should um consider the holidays that we've included in the calendar that aren't required maybe some of them be taken off and replaced with others we realize that given what's happening in the world right now that this is a very difficult conversation to be having around holidays and who to celebrate and who should have time on the calendar um and so we have asked um goalie being your representative to come back to each of the three School committees and and just ask if we can put this committee on pause at least for the short term um until we get through the holidays and perhaps catch our breath and can go back up to the balcony and think about the task it is that you gave us and how best to move forward um given the raw
018emotions and feelings of everything happening and how we can use this as an opportunity to bring our community together as a as opposed to um causing additional um strife and division I'm not sure if I missed anything no thank you so much uh for the detailed up uh updates be um as uh Beth mentioned we had um a lot of deep conversations we looked at the surveys and um in um in our last meeting we we were not sure if it's a good time at this right now to ask um to send out another survey asking if um if families are like the one of the options is having the mandatory just mandated holidays as our school holidays and uh we thought it's not a good time to act to ask this question um from
019our families thank you goalie so um sure we or I am happy to take any questions about the goals update or Meco 2.0 about the calendar task force um at this time any questions I don't think there are any questions Beth thank you all right well thank you you know where to find um goalie and me if you have any questions or follow up perect thank you yeah please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about the task uh calendar task force perfect thank you both um Don I'm going to hand it over to you to present the warrant report and the fiscal year 24 monthly report great thank you um in your packet is your monthly uh routine monthly uh warrant reports again uh thank Liz for stopping by
020uh town hall and signing those on behalf of the school committee uh and again if there's any ever desire to look at the detail in these particular warrants um there we definitely keep copies at central office so always feel free if you want to just explore a little further uh what makes up sort of your operating expenses that does come in handy you know as we start talking about the budget to sort of see the ins and outs so um I'll just add that little comment um on the monthly report which I think is going to be another good tool for you for looking at your budget is that you can see where we are coming in um towards budget through November 16th Uh I that is actually a date where we had just posted
021a warrant had just posted payroll so I wanted to make sure you had the most up-to-date information that we could provide um as I have done in the past on your um Business Report anything that is new information will be in bold other than that I carry the narrative forward because a lot doesn't change and it's always there as a good reference tool for you from month to month uh so really the only new thing I have to share on both salaries expenditures and out of District which is a good note um since our last meeting is that uh as they've settled into school and they've looked at the needs of the students we did increase your OT um FTE needs at chering by Point 2 um what how we were able to do that
022is that we do have districtwide shared staff members which allows us to sort of have them on staff and then if when school starts and we see what the case load is we can allocate them based on where the need is uh so this is an existing person who's in the system who's case load just got switched a little bit based on the schools and so you picked up an additional Point too that is reflected in your financial statements um really other than that it was only a month in between and um your uh a lot of things are just operating as we thought they were so that's actually positive um also you have in this month's uh report your quarterly statement for your special um revenue and revolving funds um um so this can
023just shows you sort of the roll forward of those funds um from July 1st through September 30th and a couple of these will come up uh you'll note that uh I I pointed out that we added the second preschool this year and that it was being covered by the revolving fund this allows you to sort of see how the finances are working at that so what is incumbered actually are the the full year it's what's been expend what's been expensed so far for payroll and what's um expected to be uh incurred through the end of the school year so they can see we're really going to be pulling from the fund just under 125,000 for the year so we had the funds to do that and that's how we'll operate the second classroom that we
024have at uh chck ring any questions on that probably not pretty straightforward again I think um when you start you know spending more time with your budget book it's actually good also then to look at the uh where we stand because you have your 23 actual in the budget book then this will give you at least a peak into 24 as you look at what the budget is for 25 actually done quick question on the unexpected additional out of District placements were all those uh incoming like kindergarteners or those were people in the school district that ended up moving out of the school district the like there were six more than no it it was um majority were um in District that just got placed out okay um where I think there was um there
025was one no the move in actually was reflected last year so it was really just changes in student needs um for um between last school year and this school year any other questions okay we do not have any discussion items this meeting but so we'll move on to the action items so don if you would like to continue with the proposed fiscal year 25 budget exactly um so hopefully you had some an opportunity to spend some time with your your budget book over the weekend or or at least um on Sunday um just to sort of step back a little bit and give you some insight as to the process that we follow for building a budget uh we sort of Kick the process off in mid October third week of October and at that
026point in time it sits in the building hands um and so your building Administration meets with their curriculum leaders um with other departments um that are operating in the school and they sort of say okay what do you need how's how's your budget looking now um it's an opportunity for them to sort of reflect as well and bring forward any new requests or where they can see that we need that something's not being used anymore and we can reduce the budget um with that while they're doing that in central office we're actually building the budget on the payroll side and I will tell you we do it employee by employee so um payroll rolls into the budget based on where we are now um advances staff into um the steps and Lanes where they will
027be for fiscal year 25 and now that we have all the contracts it's great because we know exactly uh where things are going so these this is the easier side of the budget to do uh because we don't have to um wonder what what the contracts are going to be so just so you know payroll then is built up employee by employee um and then uh we come together and have a meeting with uh everyone in central office and the building chck room building Administration and discuss um what they have come back from their buildings with and we'll talk more high level to about staffing needs both at the special education level and the Genet level new initiatives that we may be contemplating so that we can pull all that information together and put um
028our best sort of foot for forward as to your first version and we try to capture everything even if we're contemplating it because this is sort of the first budget that's going to go to the town and it's going to sort of earmark the funds that they sort of set aside for us so you don't want to come in January and say oh well we we want to add the math program now or or such so we throw everything in this first version and now we have until um march to sort of have some of that sort of sift out uh so that's sort of what we sort of do to sort of get to the point where you're getting your budget book um and then if you look at the components um we sort
029of give you an overview of of the budget itself uh a higher level statement where you can just sort of see the main categories and at least that gives you sort of a um a highlevel look at the budget in the categories without looking at all the details um we it's very important that we share with you the town's budget guidelines I also think as a citizen L it's great to read because it sort of gives you a sort of the big picture look at what the town is is dealing with right now coule issues that they' notify uh us about and just sort of their approach to the budget and I think it makes you realize that we are a big part of the budget and sort of our fiscal responsibility to know to
030understand what the town is dealing with on a bigger picture um so that we are sort of a collaborative partner in that process so I think that's great reading and I will say that the a recommendation that they sort of are given all the Departments are sort of the steps that we follow anyway um as you see they say look at your fiscal year 23 actual versus your in your 24 budgets as you're contemplating your budget that's exactly what we do and we provide you with all information um so that you can do that as well uh Dober is usually uh very generous and that they tell you to do level service so no matter what it costs theoretically they want us provide the same level of service Service uh where another uh funding option
031could be level funded so we're going to you keep the same amount of money and you just figure out how you're going to make that work so it is very advantageous on the Dover side that it's level service but they also want you to be physically responsible um and so I do believe when you start looking at our budget you'll see where we have made some cuts um because we know we don't need the money and then that helps where we do need to ask for more money um in addition I think this is the opportunity that you get to see like every line item in our budget um and how it sort of rolls up to the bigger piece um and that is in your tab two and then also to supplement tab two
032you have your summary of Staffing and then the summary of Grants um and we'd like to share the summary of Grants because that is money that's outside of the operating budget should for any reason we lose any of those grants you understand the financial ramification of what we might have to make up in the general fund so so it's good to just sort of have that we're lucky and that the biggest piece that we rely on is the special ed um Grant the 240 where we do put for EAS so if that Grant ever went away then that's you know Staffing that we'd have to um build into the general fund so it's good to see that there's funds that we get from state and federal um to supplement your budget but also understand that
033those happen to go away sort of the financial um implications of that again I think one of the um important pieces and I'll go through we'll talk about this but I just want to sort of walk through what's in your budget book is um tab three is the enrollment uh both a 10-year historic and the 5-year projected again we're built on our budget's based on who is coming to us for services um in the fourth tab is looking at out a district gives you a little bit more insight into um that budget number and your fifth tab is your capital budget which you approved in October so it's there for reference only right now until we make any further um decisions on the flooring this is what has been sent to Capital um and at
034some point Liz they'll request us to have a meeting um and we can go talk the capital about our Capital so getting into sort of the where we are with the fiscal year 25 um budget again the assumptions are that we have level enrollment based on fiscal year 24 uh we obviously follow the compliance with the town budget guidance um we work towards you know to make sure that we're in lined with the alignment with the district strategy because that's very important right the strategy is where we want to go so we want to make sure that where we're putting our financial resources is going to get us there um we continue to sort of assess student needs and postco especially at the elementary level um and so we take into considerations and there as
035far as educational supports additional curriculum supports that we need to do and as I just mentioned um just keeping our eyes on the entitlement grants um just so that you're aware of that component of your budget so overall we're looking at a 8.83 per increase just a little under a million dollars and um recall that we sort of look at our budget in two pieces one is the operating budget of checkering itself and the second component are students ages 3 through 22 who are do residents who are educated outside the uh District um because there's that's actually sort of beyond our control and so we obious look two components we've got the elementary component and then the outer District component um just for Jesse and Martha for the new members um the region here itself
036doesn't cover any out of District expenses in their budget it sits at the Two Towns so Sherbon covers all Sherbon residents at their Elementary oh budget and you cover all of doers and that's in the regional agreement and that way you're actually sharing your each town is responsible for the expense of their residents versus coming to the region and sharing it based on enrollment and who makes those decisions about how the placements work the placements so we um we have an outed district coordinator uh who reports to Kate McCarthy who's the director of student services so there's a team okay um so if you're on a individual education plan and IEP uh it could be that that's the recommendation uh you've been evaluated and we might not be able to accommodate your learning disabilities and
037there's a place better suited for you to to grow and learn um and so that's where um then they will go out and send packets to various um educa private and and up public some Public Schools do have uh special education programs that accept students from other districts um and so then that they are then placed um we are because we're a small school district it's a lot of times we have to place students out because we don't have a cohort of students in that programming that they need Y and you want them to be with peers um and so that's what you'll see a lot of times we um if you only have one or two students then they're best probably served in a different learning environment but then again we're trying to invest
038more in our programming as you know we talked about um a couple of Dober students who are attending the goals program at Pine Hill yep so that's an added that's sort of a IND District program that do student are eligible to go to which is great because it sort of keeps them in their home District sure um but gets them in a program with cohorts and with the Staffing they need to to be successful the cost per student is really high it varies yeah um it can go anywhere from uh let's say I would say like 40 now is our least expensive and it could go all the way up to hundreds of thousands of dollars um because we also have residential students so there'll be students who are in a program 365 days of
039the year and those are anywhere from like 3 to 700,000 so uh part of that and and and I'm happy to have like a finance 101 meeting with you is just talk about the circuit breaker reimbursement so there is some State Relief from those um students who cost at that level uh so anything that's over say $5,000 I think it's about the threshold right now so we'll spend $50,000 if the placement is 100,000 50,000 of that is eligible for reimbursement and we get 75% of that back so when we talk about circuit breaker reimbursment we're estimate that we're going to see like a million dollars that's money coming back to us of tuitions that we paid in the previous year so there is a mechanism to help districts with the to sort of manage the
040finances of out a district so it's not coming all on the tax players of the Town um so as I said we are looking at about just a little a little under a million and you're at uh a 5% increase for your IND District just to give you sort of a comparison that's almost exactly where we started last year for version 1.0 and then you can see we ended up at 4.63 um because again we start at the high point and things that can happen hopefully will only benef benefit us coming um bringing that budget number down um the Adda district and as you know we've been having um a a pretty large negative variance this year so you would expect to see an increase in the budget uh for uh fiscal year 25 is
041about 20% and that is up over just the one almost under 2% that we had last year you will see um definitely wild swings in that a district um due to new placements uh we can have years where we have several students graduating or um aging out in 23 um your out of District budget was down half a million so it's not uncommon to sort of see some some big swings both ways um it's just the nature of also the small number of students that we have in this population can make it swing uh so looking at the um IND District operating budget obviously we took a a cut at just telling you a little bit about the key budget drivers um obviously people payroll is 87% of your budget um and so that's the
042easy piece right now to sort of um uh to sort of at least budget for version 1.0 if you remember you approved um all the contracts last spring and you're looking at contractual increases and the majority of them at 3% um in addition for your Educators there's the step increase which can range anywhere from 4 to 9 so if you look at it this way there are some um staff members who could be be getting either like the 3% because they're on the top step or closer to like 7 to 12% so I would say the majority if you're in the Matrix are getting 7% increase and there's a couple little areas where it does Spike um and Jeff being on negotiations you're probably aware that there's just certain movements in the The Matrix that
043have a higher increase um but that's where you have to just keep that in mind and the seniority of your staff has a big difference on what you're going to see in payroll increases um coupled with that is when you add staff so we are in this budget requesting a05 FTE to make the math coach at both Pine Hill and chering be a 1.0 um and that is built into this budget uh that's approximately uh $50,000 increase and then you're also making up for all the post uh fiscal year 24 budgets so if you go back to your monthly report you'll see that we did some uh some conversions of some positions from contracted services to FTE that's also in your Staffing report but those now have been worked into the salary side of things
044versus the operating which is going to show it's going to give you a larger increase um in salaries um in addition um any retirements that may come forward for next year we reflect inversion 2.0 we do have an early retirement incentive for the Educators if they let us know by November 1st um they'd be eligible for $5,000 uh early retirement payment but they have until February 1st to resend that um so we don't make any of those impacts on the budget until after the February 1st date rolls around so you'll see those in your March um meeting um the other really I think the biggest budget driver on the operating side is the proposed adoption of the new math curriculum um and so we're putting it in here now as Denny's been telling you it's
045sort of in the early stages we're still running the second year of the pilot um but we took a we did get estimates of what it would cost to take one of the pilots and Implement at K5 um and so Ching's piece of that is about 72,000 the way that I think a lot of the vendors are packaging things right now and um Mass General law has allowed municipalities school districts specifically to take advantages to do package prices so that 72,000 actually represents five years worth of um so you're buying the curriculum plus all the supplies for 5 years um but you have to purchase it in the first year so you'll see that spike in the first year but then you won't really have any math curriculum you might have to supplement a little
046bit but the majority of it um you won't see in K so it's it's good and bad for municipalities because you hate to have that Spike and then have four years with nothing and then have to have the spike again um but the spike the next time won't shouldn't be as great um because we're just going to be picking up the supplies the workbooks and that's what we do right now in Everyday Math so we'll have a little bit of a break for four years and then pick it back up it'll be picking up the supplies so so that we'll have at a further presentation just cuz yes yes that's still that's good to budget for it now but we don't know we don't know and so um in I think in the you know
047in the um memo we sort of say there would be a full presentation on this we're thinking in the January February time frame and we envisioned both Ella both Dober and Sheard School committees having it together that's great since it'll be implemented together across the school so to the5 coach there's currently one one currently. five yes among both schools that are 1.0 that's shared ah and so each school is adding an additional 0.5 so each school would have a 1.0 specifically for the math curriculum specifically for ma whatever as an expert in the decided program well not not necessarily but it's someone who's already working so we already have a math coach who been working with um the Educators to coach in the class got it together so not not necessarily because of the curriculum
048classroom it's just to have well I think it's going to definitely when you implement a new you're going to need extra support yeah that makes um and I do think that even without that they're seeing the need that it would be nice to have a 1.0 you have a 1.0 literacy coach okay um so that would equate Ela with math and probably um give you a little bit more building support it's great to have them work across the buildings uh it's for that um consistency but I think at this point especially with a new math curriculum it makes sense to have a dedicated person in the building because there will be a lot of of uh PD a lot of questions about the new curriculum so I think it's going to give you a better
049um sort of starting point to make it be as strong as we can if you've got that person there to support it but if we decide that it's not this year for that program that might be postponed as well maybe but as I said I think that was something that was coming up and I think it only is is more solidly supported with the math curriculum but it's definitely something a need they see now so that piece could stay but I think that's where the presentation will bring it all together hopefully for us um and uh then we'll see where we'll go but that's we made sure we put uh K through five full implementation in there so that we were only coming down and not have to worry about going up because it could
050be that you know they decide to do something K2 something different than that but um we want to go for the whole the whole shebang right now to to at least have the placeholder in the budget um and then the majority of all of our other operating counts um luckily were at remain at or below funding you will definitely see a lot of red where we went and looked at the threee act the three last threee actuals looked at where we are in 24 right now some line items we could pinpoint something we are no longer using so if I did that we made that comment uh specifically we moved our IEP um uh uh management system from an outside into Aspen which is already our our student information system anyway so that annual fee
051could come out of all three schools so wherever we can we sort of we do pull out those um numbers that we know we just don't leave that padded in your budget um and I think you can see that when the the different line items were you do see reductions if we have an increase for any particular reason we try to give you a little more background as to why we're having an increase in that line item um obviously in enrollment um how many students we have dictates how many special how many classroom sections we have how many specialists we need so that is definitely a key um budget driver which is why we give you the 10-year historical and then the five-year projections um just a little bit of background about the five-year projections
052we uh use a formula where you look at in migration and out migration all as of October 1st so we look at the October 1st of each of the years you can see what the grade was the year before what the grade became you look at take that percentage and that's looking at both students who came new to the school and the students who left so it gives you a blended average um and that's what the percentages are at the top so if you see something over a hundred that means from grade from year to year that grade grows and if you see a number below 100 it could either be for that particular year or over the three-year period That's a grade where we typically might see a decline um and so at least
053gives you sort of a forecast the one number that is in there right now that sort of skews it a little bit is kindergarten so we just use a threeyear average um but we know that number can be something other than the threeyear average um in the somewhere in mid December is when the uh school gets the sort of the initial census from the town's um clerk's office um and so we'll have a better feel of what that number is like last year it was in the ' 50s um so so that's where doing a three-year average and putting 70 in there could be overstating it uh but the kindergarten is always one of those things that it's hard to sort of know exactly um where it's going to be you can have your senses
054but then you also know parents can hold kids back there could be kids that we don't know about that are on the censes um but we'll have a better feel of that too when we meet in January we should have an updated number for you for kindergarten um at the bottom um we sort of show you the sections using the three-year projection um and where they would be uh class size wise your class size policy is 17 to 22 you'll see that there's some that are below that however we would never reduce an educator if we didn't think that long term we could substain that um reduction we you don't want to reduce one year add it back the next year so we're very thoughtful um when we we either add or uh reduce a
055section um you can see there's some numbers there that are below below 17 however you only need one or two more students who sort might show up in that class and you'll need that and then you can see they're going to grow as they continue on so um we look pretty stable I think right now as far as 26 sections um so before I just jump into outed District does anyone have any questions sort of about the IND District um and again you've got two more meetings and or maybe three um actually with the special meeting um and always feel free to as you're looking at it and things pop in your head send questions to Liz um and she can uh send us send them off to us and we can provide um answers
056as well why is there 1.99 FTE for principal and the principles um because the our assistant principles don't work a full year oh yeah they work something short shorter of a a 12-month position okay so we sort of equate that it's two people but technically they're not they're not a 260 day person yeah schools love FTE we got all kinds of weird FTE I got 10.55 all little they're a little Wy but the 1.9 stood out as the 1.9 and that's released because we um had made this a couple years ago but there's there's very few schools that have both administrative uh ass principal and assistant principal work 12 months um and so we sort of uh uh move their schedule back to something less than that a couple of years ago okay so technically
057they don't work full ft um so there's like I said a lot of information to go through you've got the line items we try to give you some really good explanations off to the point off to the side I would think that's why one reason why your your U print shrunk a little bit because the explanations were so long and it still tries to keep it printed on the 11 by 17 um so you might have to get your magnifying glass out but um I think that uh you know it's good to see the three years so you've got your three years of actual your current 24 budget keep in mind you've got your monthly financial statement for 24 that you can refer back to and then our 25 proposed and then you see the
058differences between your 24 budget and your 25 budget with the percentages and where something doesn't look like it's in a normal increase mode is where we try to give you an explanation of what's going on and I think again the biggest piece that we have here as far as an ask for the town is the math for the bus and contract I noticed that we're in the is it a 5year contract or we're in the fifth year we'll be in the fifth year and fiscal year 25 so we'll go out to bid next year um and what we do is it's typically um a three-year with a 2-year extension okay with one two-year extension with one two-year extension yeah so it gets you to five and it's those twoe that's the two-year extension where they
059really sort of entice you in because we're seeing like a 1% increase so I'll prepare you for fiscal year 26 you're probably going to see like 18 to 20% increase because we take a huge increase the first year of the contract um second year gets lower third year gets lower four fourth and fifth year are always like um minimal increases because they're you know they want you to sort of like buy into program years yeah so we're in that sort of I love the fifth year I just don't I'm not going to like first year or next year that's where it it definitely um we see we see the increase maybe we can Factor and extra services like Bus tracking systems yeah so I've had told Liz I've had more people come to me this
060year complaining about their kids standing what people who don't get picked up at their house they're like down the end of the road for like a 15minute time span of like when the bus is coming and they're like maybe I already missed it I don't know and I walk all the way back down the street to get driven to school yeah usually they're not our bus drive our bus routes are pretty cuz they're they're not as spread out as some other districts um cuz we have you have 10 buses alone just in um in Dover but yeah that is something that you would negotiate um because it's an added cost to the contract and every year I will tell you at least I've been done the bus been involved in the bus contracts twice um
061and we do talk about it they'll give us pros and cons about it it's it seems like it's a good thing but there's also some cons about it so we do have this discussion and we'll definitely ask school committee for any other uh concerns they have about busing that we'll bring mov forward when we do the RFP uh next like next late fall it's one of the odd Hot Topics that I come to me no and and it's it's you know it has its cycle um because we definitely talked to Conley about it last go around and at that point they only had one school district that was doing it and um it becomes like another thing you have to um manage yeah and that's where it's a little bit of a drawback um on
062Administration the communication's gotten better though I think that there's more updates about buses that are late or like you know late in their route this year than there has been in PR right we get all those calls I've never gotten that oh yeah me neither yeah well you might have buses that aren't we've had a couple we've had a lot substitute buses this year and if you throw a different substitute on a bus we've been running into problems both scattered buses in Dober and Scattered buses in sherbet uh we'll usually get a call in the morning then we call the school and they can quickly send out emails um so we do try to to keep everyone as up to date as we can on what's happening with with the buses but I will have
063to tell you I think we're in a really good situation we have um veteran drivers um and the communication is great between us and the bus company yeah so I think goie wants to say something yeah yeah I have a question we are sorry can you hear me mhm okay so I know we are in a very good shape um in terms of buses especially with uh what you're hearing from other districts I have a question about the routes um who uh plans uh on the routes Conelly themselves plan the route or We Do It um ourselves uh Conley does the um first draft and then where we know that we've had some uh uh feedback in previous years we share that Fe feedback and we've make adjustments where where we can um we're very
064happy to say this year that there is no Elementary bus that starts before 7 um yeah by making one or two tweaks over in Sherburn we were able to take one bus that was starting a little bit before 7 and make them after 7 so we have been able to sort of maintain that goal of not having any Elementary buses um uh with a starting pick off any earlier than 7 and do just because of the Graphics even have some that are much later than that yeah so um I I know it's they're really becoming more efficient and great um is there any way that now with new technology and all these Google Maps and Improvement in um uh traffic studies can be used that technology to even make it more efficient so we actually
065have the technology that um at least a transportation we added that pre preo um and we we actually did prototype runs but they were basically giving us where we were um and I think there's some nuances about some of our streets and some of our um turnarounds that then dictate a little bit changes to that where we have to finesse it so I we're very fortunate that the main router at Conley who works who's been assigned to us knows our streets uh forwards and back W but she's also very open like I said we changed two buses in Sherburn this year um with some suggestions from families that were that it did allow us to to change time so um I don't I think that we do a pretty good job of that and I
066think you can look at different routings and it could give you a little bit of different scenario but I don't think we have time Savings in there necessarily to um to be made up uh we we also have to look at uh the Riders the number of riders on a bus that sometimes also impacts um sort of routes but I think that we take a fresh look every year I will say a lot of especially at the elementary level because kindergarteners get that door to-door service um that impacts the routes on an annual basis depending on where those students are located um but a lot of work goes in all summer long to sort of perfect those and to make sure we have a safe route for drivers that they have places they can turn
067around um and uh you know can safely get down streets uh we do more coner service I will say in this town than we do in surrounding districts um in that we don't have at the elementary level their stops aren't that far apart um so I think that we maximize what we can I that's great I was talking to our our bus driver the other day and he was suggesting changes to the bus route and he was wasn't quite sure how those changes were going to get taken yeah oh no they usually are well received because they're the ones who's who are writing to yeah and we had changes in DOA this year because clay Brook being closed and that driver was instrumental in helping us figure out how we were going to get that
068to work when you couldn't use clay Brock right to get out so um I think they are a valued um input and uh communicate well with their dispatcher um who does who makes the impact so it's a collaborative team process for sure so yeah exactly so any other questions on the operating just let Liz know um but then we'll take a few minutes to sort of uh segue into the out of District um so there is a chart in um Tab four that I think is a helpful um it sort of breaks out the big number of you know um 2.6 Mill million and sort of shows you the age groups uh by Elementary Middle School High School 9 to 11 we separately break out 12th grade because theoretically in most cases those would be
069the um students that would Age out um for the following year and then we do uh highlight for you that students that we're keeping 12 who are in fifth year in the fifth year of sort of a high school um uh schedule but also that we then U maintain until they turn 23 so or when they turn 22 um and that maybe most are morly our residential students who actually will never be able to sort of graduate and get a diploma um a school district is responsible for them until they turn 22 um and then we also there's different uh placements you can have a mass public as I said uh where there are lot some of the larger school districts Wellsley for instance some we used to send students to they have IND District
070special education programs where they allow other districts to send students and that way they have a healthy cohort um of students to participate uh we have a collaborative so if you hear us talk about accept and accept collaborative is um actually also provides our special education transportation and then we have the tech collaborative so those are collaboratives that uh come together to serve the needs of districts and provide programming that they need and they both provide special education programming um and so students can go to their locations um so that is a a category then we have the non-public um which are obviously some of the more private schools um if you think about neck um there's a a landmark so the schools that are specifically special education schools that are non-public in nature um
071and then we have some students because of where their needs are are placed in out of state schools so I think it's good to see those different categories again just to sort of wrap your head around the number um and then uh the number of students in each of those categories so we are budgeting 22 um placements and so that are fiscal year 24 placements that we have now that we know are going to be continuing in 25 so if you look back at your monthly report you'll see that we talk about that we have 24 placements well of of those 24 two are aging out or graduating um and so those are not continuing into 25 um and your 24 but obviously was with 18 which is why we're seeing the spike since we
072have 24 um I think it's also helpful to sort of roll forward the budget one year to the next um sometimes you'll see the number is the same but what you're not seeing is the ins and outs um and so I think it's important just to see what's that what's coming and what's going so if we start with our 18 that we had budgeted we had three that graduated or aged out and I sort of give you an estimate of what that is the 190 um we had one student who actually moved out of District um so they left us um and so that that's a savings there we had eight new placements and that half a million dollars is sort of the the uh composition of those um we are looking at a a
0735% with increase right now so I put 5% in the budget I didn't actually put 5% in your report because as some of these schools start making their announcements I could refine that uh so I hated to put a number so it's 5% but I hated to put it in writing because it could change um and then changes in placement so um once a student goes out of District they they may or may not work be working well in the district where they are and the placement where they are and so we have to seek another placement with that sometimes comes an increase or change in prices so we did have about $100,000 of that so if you look at that we've got an increase if you look at the ins and outs between 24
074and 25 it's a net increase of 500,000 which is approximately what you're seeing in your budget but it gives you a little more insight as to how that's coming about and sort of what some of the drivers are for that um one thing that we don't have really good insight into right now is our transportation expense we're still waiting for our first sort of monthly bill so that we know how many riders we have and with the mileage they're being assessed for their writers I should definitely have that we're expecting it actually this week so I'll be able to refine those numbers both for your 24 actuals and also for your 25 budget um I do know that the rate approved for accept was a 4% increase so I know what the increase is going
075to be just don't have a good handle of what our base is going to be um so we will hopefully um hopefully it'll be in that $372,000 range um but that would be one number that we will definitely tweak in your version 2.0 just a small question when you have number of students in the categories here mhm what is what is less than three like we started with three and somebody left the pr there's um sort of a um compet we don't want to single anyone out in those categor so I just mean we have less than three when you only have one category from less than three you can actually back into it U but like last year we had a couple of less than threes okay that's I kind of wondering what it's
076the total end up in a point something or other an anonymity to keep someone exactly yeah yeah and then sorry the tuition collaborative is is that the Dover Sherborn no so that is going to accept or Tech or there's there's also a couple other ones out there case there's a lot of collaboratives so a collaborative is considered like an extension of public school and that it is all public school districts that are members and together sort of created um this organization so except not only does our transportation they also have special education programs um that you can send students to that are um intense uh learning disability type programs they have a great transition program so it's a way that school school districts come together who don't have cohorts think about all these school districts
077if we all have students we have a cohort and the collaborative allows us to provide the services to those students and so there are member rates and there's non-member rates so when you go to the collabor if you're a member rate you're getting a discount than if you're a non-member rate um so typically your least expensive C your least extensive placement is a mass public the collaborative is NE usually like the next one cuz it's really just an extension of public and then it gets more expensive if you do the non-public and obviously sometimes out of state is sort of equivalent to non-public so where we can we look at non-p we look at Public Schools we look at collaboratives because we're looking for the best match for the student but also the best economical
078placement for the town and it's nonpublic private is that another way of saying yes private yeah and out of state is private too exactly y it's just out of state okay and these are the categories that we use when we report um students out of District students to the state as well so this is what sort of the why we're reporting to you this way this is actually also the way that we do our financial and our student uh reporting uh to Desy and there's there is a coordinator that not to not to it's just kind of a a to check the accuracy of the not accuracy the yes they attend efficiency or the yes they do visits so part of that U person's responsibilties to go visit the student at the placement uh be
079in constant uh correspondence with the student in the placement if there's issues um the IP still that we uh manage here still goes with the student to those schools and then that's still annually updated um and evaluated so it is it's no different than um say we have a student in District the same uh sort of vision that we have and and uh oversight that we have for here we actually have for the our students when they're placed out as well and then out of district coordinator covers um you know she's or that position covers uh all three through 22 Dober and Sherburn so they have a great breath of uh a breath of what where the programs are they learn about the programs they visit schools that we might not have students at to
080learn about programs yeah that's awesome so that are the those are the two pieces um again I think that the your biggest cost driver is payroll on your operating side and then then the ass that we're asking for math I do think that we were very fiscally responsible in the other categories um where we could we trimmed um obviously uh the bus the one issue with the bus too is the fuel search charge uh we have in um in our contract sort of a fuel Clause that if we're within operating I think it's I I meant to look it's like from three from 280 to 3 uh30 we don't pay if you go below you get a credit if you go above you get a fuel search charge well as you know what diesel prices
081have been um they just keep they they're not coming down they're maintaining so we do for every mile that we drive we get a fuel search charge for the difference between what's in the contract and what the the market rate is on a on a monthly basis um what is that panged off of it is a it's a um industry pricing um something that I I know when I do the RFP because it's in there but there is a there is a index they oh it is definitely Regional specific yeah yeah and normally you're operating within it um but it certainly the first couple years of the contract like exactly well the first couple yeah it was a point we're actually getting credits it's great wow yeah um so it can definitely fluctuate some districts
082use um the fuel Sur you know the fuel um cause I do think it protects you because if you don't have it in there I think your contract cost is probably more expensive because they have to hedge it one way or another so you're best off sharing in that risk um and so I think we've always sort of had that in our contract that's good yeah any other questions great Don thank you yeah you just make it something very complicated clear and easy to follow and go back and look at and I appreciate how you walk us through year after year so thank you well my pleasure and um as I said as we get more information that's why I ring your book every meeting because I'll bring new handouts um and again anything that
083you see because you're a vital part of this process as well um please you know let us know um but I do think that you know we we meet weekly in central office and are always talking about um you know what's going on in the schools and where we need to find funding and I do think we're very resourceful um and uh do bring forward to the town's um you know good service at a really good price um and so I think you should pride yourself on and sort of being you know the community that overseas and make sure that you know we do do that yeah thank you okay our next no but I do need you to vote oh we vote on that yeah you got to vote so that I can send
084version 1.0 to the town 1.0 to the town so you just taking a vote on yep just approve the budget as presented um so you'll vote tonight and first round as a first round the next time you'll vote is in March um so you vote tce to approve the budget as presented okay because this will um as you read in the guidance they want all first uh version budgets turned in by December 6 got it okay so may I have a motion to approve the first version of the budget as presented Jeff Cassie so moved is there a second as hold second any further discussion okay all in favor does goie have to like yeah World call CU she's remote okay I forget how that works so I just say names yeah okay goalie suffer
085yes J all in favor yep Jesse hle Liz Gman yes so the motion carries by unanimous consent thank you okay our next agenda thanks again Don our next agenda item is the consent item so in our packets we had um the not the minutes from our last meeting on October 24th as well as some of the grant Don can you explain the grants piece just a little um so we started this last year just to make school committee more aware there's there's a whole slew of entitlement grants that we are eligible for that aren't competitive grants we're sort of then told this is the amount you're eligible for we do apply for those it was a very tedious process this year I will say they have a new Grant system at Jessie um but we
086wanted to just again as we highlighted in the budget we wanted to have you sort of approve acceptance um grants on behalf of the committee and so there's um and these have all been applied for and approved uh so we've talked about the sped 240 that we spend specifically on educational assistance for the sped programming uh we also get a small 262 grant for uh Early Education which helps with some pre- expenses and then we have some title grants that are based on various things in your budget book actually gives you more explanation as to what the grants are but these are the amounts that we've been awarded for fiscal year 24 okay thank you so I'm hope well first of all does anyone have any changes they'd like to make to the minutes I
087didn't notice anything well you're good okay um may I have a motion to approve our consent agenda Jesse H open mo okay is there a second Cassidy second any further discussion okay so goalie Seer yes Jesse Hull yes Jeff Cassidy yes Liz Grossman yes the motion carries um by unanimous consent and our next I lost my thing um the last second to last agenda item is the informational items so in our packets we all got the chering November newsletter from from um Dr Rhyman we have the Sherburn school committee minutes as well as the regional school committee minutes just so we are all aware of what's going on in the other committees um and then finally does anybody have any items they would like to bring forth to discuss at the January 16th meeting and
088if you don't have any right now can always email me and we can bring those forward anybody okay well that is all we have for tonight um do we roll call through this okay so we are going to do a roll call to adj uh goalie yeah J Jeff Cassidy Liz Gman yes thanks everyone Happy Thanksgiving feel better thank you Happy Thanksgiving bye Happy Thanksgiving B hope you feel better soon yeah thank you take care thanks Don thanks ding thanks Acoustics were