001e for spe e you for e I'm well how you doing do that happen to be about Xbox my kids just lost video games for a week in our play for hours and get Stu done but then like moners of you need to Bean is about that what are for the microphone and speaker again camera good all right perfect thank you can you hear us [Music] Denny didn't want to talk budget no had a sick baby [Music] budget we love the budget don't let them fool you sure they've all so busy all weekend I read to make write tabs on my question sh I wanted my I procrastinated for work just make sure you bring him back to the meeting cuz then it's sad like next me people shoping I'm like supposed to your book
002every time you should collect the [Music] book so I good to roll good to roll never focused all right you good all right so we're going to call the Sheran school committee meeting to order here at is 6:34 p.m. on uh November what is it 14th um so we've got a jam-packed agenda thank you everybody for joining Kristen thank you for joining us uh remotely hope you're feeling uh okay um so thank you Beth for working sort of diligently on the agenda with a bunch of different folks um we wanted to open it up first to community comments is there anybody is Kristen the only one's the only one online um or anybody else that would like to uh provide a community comment no all right perfect um so I'm going to call this meeting
003to order um my name is Dennis Quant I'm the um chair of the Sherburn school committee um and we're going to get started right so first super intendent comments great thank you good evening everyone I'm just going to give you a few brief updates on my um goals this year and then obviously we want to get to the um showcase of this evening which is the first phase of the budget so few updates um as you know one of my goals is around developing a vision for teaching and learning with Denny's help um and so at this point we have the nine best practices is identified you've seen them and we have posters now going into every classroom um Educators have chosen one or two of these best practices that they feel they'd like to
004work on this year so they're learning from each other during faculty meetings they're learning through professional development that they're either getting through or outside the building um and the November professional development day the Monday after Thanksgiving a reminder we don't have school that day but our educators will be here um all of the workshops that Denny has arranged are around these nine best practices so educators will be able to choose which one they want to go to um and be to fill their toolboxes so that we can see more of these in action um every day across all classrooms our leadership goals are also connected to these and how to support the Educators in bringing these practices to life in the classrooms so as Jenny and I do classroom observations with the principles in all
005four buildings we are looking for these best practices and then calibrating the feedback the constructive feedback we would give to teachers based on what's going well and perhaps how they can stretch themselves and grow um as as Learners themselves I mentioned the monthly faculty meetings in each of the buildings um each one is dedicated towards one of the nine best practices and sharing out best practices um that are happening in the classroom next door and November PD of course um more to come on that Denny will have a lot to share as we get closer and then as we reflect on it my second goal is around taking um a look at how to capture measures of success as we know we have multiple ways of measuring success as a district um both um quantitative
006and qualitative so um Denny and I are working with a company called open architect um who creates data dashboards so we are going to be creating a data dashboard around quantitative data including academic benchmarks standardized assessments including mcast SATs APS um and then attendance and discipline information and then on top of that we will be able to pull qualitative data and quantitative data from all of the surveys that our students take over the course of a year um and be able to highlight which aspects if we want to focus in on belonging or connections or um um um extracurricular activities and students involvement in those we'll be able to highlight them and then track Trends over time to make sure that the goals we're putting in place particular around Dei and belonging and making sure
007that all students have access to high level courses and feel like the sense of belonging in the building that we are holding ourselves accountable to making progress in all of those areas so more to come on that and then transparent communication is my third goal um you saw my superintendent newsletter go out a couple weeks ago I will continue to try to do those um every other month I have held three out of four office hours that have been scheduled for parents to drop in to come and ask questions to give feedback um to give ideas um I've had kind of low attendance at those so I know it's a busy time of year so I'm taking that as good news because I would hope that if people had questions or concerns they would come
008but I will continue to hold them from time to time so people have a space where they can come and chat with me um I've attended three of the four PTO meetings and due to come to Cher PTO um in December but otherwise that's been an opportunity to connect with parent leaders um share the district strategy talk about next steps and answer questions um I've also scheduled opportunities to meet with both councils on Aging so I've already been to the Sherburn one and I'll be going to Dober in the new year just an opportunity to check check in with our older community members um share some great information and wonderful things that the schools are doing um and take questions and feedback Sheran was great they really had um our our community members had questions
009around um technology and how we balance screens versus screen free time what's the future of Education around um artificial intelligence and I said it's a great question we're all wondering the same thing um and then lots of questions about the um Lost Art of cursive and where does that fit into society so um great conversations there um I attended the Mas masc so that's my Association and your Association joint conference for the day on Thursday um and attended two workshops on communication the first one was um how to communicate on polarizing topics um Chris horen who is the presenter I used to work with in Boston and he's fabulous he now owns his own consulting firm and he's Consulting for the entire state of Massachusetts as well was specific districts um but all of the
010um recommendations he had to help a community Through polarizing topics or things that we did last year so I feel really solid about the way that we handled the community um conversations last year um and try to kind of find Common Ground moving forward in terms of our goals for kids um the second one was on how to bring the Strategic plan to the Forefront of all of our work so I got some new ideas on how to rearrange it on the um District web page again the data dashboards to help our to hold ourselves accountable to making progress um and then making sure I'm always providing updates on the Strategic plan to you and to the community Through newsletters flyers and mailboxes Etc Chris is going to ask be working with our leadership team
011on some strategies around newsletters um so we have come up with a common template and a common platform for all four School newsletters so you'll be seeing kind of an evolution of those over the next um couple months and Chris will also be sharing with us some strategies on how to be better at communicating all of the good things that our that our schools and our students are doing I've also applied to be part of an organization called lead now they take superintendents from across the country um bring them together for one full day workshop together or two full days actually and then a bunch of zooms online um around strategizing around crisis communication um being proactive being reactive sharing problems of practice um I've heard wonderful things about it from the two courts two
012cohorts that have been through it already so I'm hoping to be part of that group as well which would launch in January so lots going on around communication as things roll forward and please provide feedback updates areas for improvement um because certainly want to get better at that I thought the newsletter was fantastic really consumable like sort of snackable content really clear it was I thought it was great really really good thank you appreciate that feedback is that a posted to like the Council on Aging or something like how is the audience obviously sent it to the parents of the schools but there's a lot of like Community Information to the extent that they're sort of directly funding a lot of what's Happening Here how do how do it's a great question because you can
013get to it through our website um but certainly an area we can work on in terms of trying to get an email out to other members I know some districts you can sign up for the newsletter you don't have to be already in the student information system so that's probably something we should look into for those not already assigned to the school how can we add those external people yeah we should look on the town websites because a lot of times when I'm doing research um you know because we're like I look at the region and we're our own website but a lot of you watch from the towns so we should make sure that we're clearly we are on there okay so then that's the other way if people are interested yeah um that's
014a recent update we are on one Town's website but not on the other we're now on both with links to our website but again you know how can we be landing in people's email boxes as opposed to them having to reach out we want that two-way communication so we can we can figure that out great suggestion would you say you're quarterbacking the communications through the district or is that like somebody on the team or is it sort of like a a team team sport I would say I'm probably the the primary person but with certainly help from the principles and the assistant principles and between the dino the the Duos and each of the schools you know some have their strengths and and they kind of figure out who's going to be the prime person
015but um I would say I probably the quarterback despite my size um and lastly um Denny and I had an opportunity to attend the um metco leadership conf conference two Fridays ago with all of the metco districts so it was the superintendent assistant superintendents and Meco directors that came together um at Gillette Stadium um and it's an opportunity for us to share best practices and what's exciting is that Meco is launching Meco 2.0 so it's really an opportunity 50 plus years later for communities to re-engage and relearn what the metco program is all about and recommit to its core principles and values um and it fits right in with the work that we're doing around teaching and learning belonging to EI Etc like it's just such a great mix on wanting all of the same
016things to be happening in our district so this is a quick short video it's only 2 minutes that I thought I'd share with you um just to give you a taste of what Mecha is working on oh okay so Dennis just unmute just click the speaker racism has been very bold in recent years people are losing their lives walls are being built children are being separated from their parents but the MEO program can be bolder and stand up for racial Justice after George for was killed we developed an anti-racism road map we're embarking on a journey toward a vision we call Meo 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 and enhancing the work that we do each day in our
017schools let's ask ourselves how can we do better by breaking down racial various 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 Bon 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 in as a world Meco is not a basting program this is just our mode of transportation me mobilizes people people's hearts and people's minds being a meal Community carries a lot of responsibility we are the largest voluntary School integration program in the United
018States 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 medo was Grassroots then and it's Grassroots now what is your role in this next chapter of mecro 2.0 remain inspired to do this work be intentional about your approaches and insist that change can [Music] happen so again very much aligns with the work that we're already doing um and so as uh more information comes out this year and opportunities for the community to engage with MCO 2.0 I will certainly keep you um posted do you know if this video's been shared with like the the pto's or the csas I don't think so it's on
019the website under on the Meco page um so people can pick up it from there but I'm certainly happy to ask the principles to send it out in their newsletters yeah because I know that on the CSA they're still looking for some some metco families and I think that there's still as much as everyone tries to communicate and and have the proper messaging there are people like I don't really know what it is but this is a beautiful beautiful piece that should be utilized in as many ways possible sure so we'll send that out and people can check it out there's also if you go to the Meco page on our website a longer video about the whole history of the Meco program and it was produced by students so that's super powerful um will
020are we still planning to have a meeting at Meco headquarters again in the yes in April I can't remember if it's the first one or the second one but we'll be um at the office yep it's the second one thank he any questions in general about anything else I have a just a really basic question and it's mostly for Becca's benefit um are you able to share your slides with us um because just a as a reminder for especially people who haven't been through the process before these updates are so helpful when we're doing your evaluation in the spring I'm just like prompting what um what you've told us throughout the year so it's good to just save them and have them um so you prepared for that absolutely typically they're part of the packet
021and it was um an accident that they weren't included so I will make sure that the packet gets updated with the slides great awesome thank you they also help me when it's time for me to do my self-reflection CU I can go back and spread all the together on time for many of us good call great thank you any other questions I do I do just want to Echo your great point about having um Community stakeholders receiving your great updates Beth because it's one thing that the parents and the caregivers and the administration and the teachers are seeing them but as he just wonderfully put the voters everyone else you know who is living in the town um I'm sure would would really appreciate seeing all of the great work that's going on and and
022in some ways not having to go look for it um so in whatever ways we can be helpful in our circles or with our conversations that would be great okay absolutely yeah I mean we talk with um the town halls frequently and now I have contacts in both Council of aing I brought hard copies of the um strategic findings and the Strategic plan to um the Sherburn one I plan to do this same to Dober so now that they have the hard copies it'd be great to keep everyone updated so we'll find a way to make that happen thank you I'm just trying to find Kristen on here now oh there she is all right perfect um Don Van report reports I'm so you have your standard monthly Financial um or warrant report of all
023the expenses that we process uh since your last meeting um and again I for going town hall and getting the warrant on your behalf on the U monthly statement um you know this is a um an update from when we just met which actually was last than a month ago um and as I I forgot to put on here the little saying that what we'll do is I'll keep the report running and any information that's new is in bold so it brings your attention to that um but it's actually good to sort of leave the bases Basics there um so we don't have to recreate the story every month um so looking at salaries I just wanted to highlight that if you remember the budget last year carried a reserve for negotiations I did a
024draft in your last statement but I we did the formal journal entry so all the numbers that you see in your budget for salaries now are reflective of spreading that 200,000 um if anyone went back and compared to the last time there were a couple little swings so I just wanted to make sure I was clear about about that um and they're really um we're going to continue to see variances we have leaves going on we have Staffing changes going on um and so every month you may see a little something different happening but the good news is that at least for um building our budget for 25 and where we are now we do have some salary savings from post budget change uh Staffing changes um and as one line item for sure is
025the special education where you see almost 100,000 and that is reflective of uh positions changing um from March when we did the budget to September when we opened school um so that's very helpful for numerous reasons one for our current year a of District situation but also it does give you already a reduction as you're building your fiscal year 25 budget um other than that the other really good piece of news is that are out of District uh negative variance went down by 35,000 every little bit helps um and so that's reflective of about 200,000 now and as I as I always say it's a very volatile um sort of scenario so um you know things could change either direction every time we meet but for right now we're looking at about a shorall of
026about 200,000 but um keep in mind that we're going to have additional circuit breaker because we don't budget um we don't offset the budget dollar for dooll for a circuit breaker so once we get that final number which we should have before we meet next time um I'll be able to say uh we probably have another you know 80 to 100,000 that we can apply towards that deficit um and again other things can change as far as placements um so I'm hopeful that we'll be able to close the gap and not have to ask um the town for additional Appropriations this year um but again that's just part of the budget that we actually have no control over um also included in your uh Financial packet is sort of the quarterly statement for your special
027revenue and evolving funds um and there I just wanted to sort of highlight the building rental because we're going to talk about the use of that Fund in a couple different places this evening um and you can also see that um what we've applied already to circuit breaker the 340,000 and that we're hopeful that we'll have at least 400,000 when the uh calculation is is um settled um and then you can see your other um preschool non-resident tuition the saw and gift fund um so this is a report that we give to you on a quarterly basis just to give you a feel of the ins and outs and sort of how the money is being used you can see in the building rental fund for current expenditure activity is that we did um pay
028for the rental of the portable AC's that we had at the beginning of the school year um and so we use that fund for that piece Don can you explain non-resident tuition how does what is that so um we have an agreement with do that we actually sending students so there will be activity in there this year because there's two students from do who are attending but it's only do it's not okay cool I remember we have a committee to committee agreement um for that right now um and so that will yeah so you're um we haven't booked anything to that right now so you're going to see you're going to see Revenue coming in you're going to see tuition coming in this year um but at this point we have um we have no
029uh plans to use it just for uh historical purposes when we find that we need to add a section because of enrollment and it's past the the budget period we have tapped into that fund to pay twice three two or three times okay I believe so it's sort of a little bit of a safety net for us to give us some flexibility great thank um because even last year so the year before we did this and then um in fiscal year 23 fiscal year 24 then we added that teacher or that section into the budget so it's sort of a nice little and it was getting it was getting low so it's nice now that we're actually going to get some more um tuition Revenue into that fund to sort of build you back up
030another sort of safety net great thank you that's it on the monthly financial report any other questions thank you for that appreciate it just to clarify Christine thank you for um signing the warrants she's ohe oh thank you Christin I just put a hat on and say um all right discussion items so couple items that we just sort of just to more keep the uh the members updated on on where some of the big ticket items are moving um Christine did you want to give a quick update on the calendar task force yeah thank you so much so um Beth kindly compiled a task force uh for us to look at the school calendar for greater inclusivity of religious and cultural holidays and she did that in Spring of last year so around May and
031I think um the group was comprised of uh students parents caregivers staff and School administration members and um school committee members and we have had at least five meetings I think some um many in person and some over Zoom where we had really wonderful discussions about um you know what we hop to see in the calendar what students hop to see there was a lot of great data collection around what the parents and caregivers were hoping to accomplish and same thing with staff and again students um but we were meeting recently and I think as a group it was a very organic decision ision that in light of the current tragic events that continue to unfold in the Middle East on a daily basis that this is not the time to be altering uh the
032school calendar um so we have suspended conversations at this time um I think we will look forward to a day when we can continue and have reset um and in the meantime we have such a great wealth of data collected by so many intelligent and thought voices but for now um the task force has paused any questions that's a great explanation thank you I would just add that you know everybody is affected by what's going on in the Middle East and um there's so many raw feelings and emotions um in our Jewish and Muslim and Christian communities that now didn't seem like the right time to be saying what what belongs in the calendar and what needs to be added or changed so that it's suspended and is there a mechanism to evaluate that or
033what what is the process to either continue the yeah I think um I think one of the benefits too was just a little bit of space because as we thought about um the next iteration of questions that we wanted to ask our stakeholders um we were so entrenched in the data in the conversation where um we looked at the survey questions we had drafted for the next round and thought to ourselves if you weren't part of these you know 20 hours conversation these questions might hit you in kind of a um strange way so I think it's a break for all of us to take a step back and go back to the balcony and say what's our mission and how do we work with our stakeholder groups to make a decision that is representative
034of of the um you know the larger group um I would say probably after the New Year we can you know I will work with um the school committee representatives to reassess you know obviously we don't have a crystal ball in terms of what's going to happen in the world but knowing that decisions have to be made in January February about next year's calendar we'll see if we can come back together um you know having taken a little break and with the ability to be more thoughtful about how we move forward or if if we just need to you know pause again um I think the good news is you can tell next year's vacations December February and April based on when the winter holidays fall President's Day um Patriots Day so people can plan
035their vacations it's just a matter of and school we still I assume begin just before lab day so it's just a matter of you know those other days off here and there that might shift so we do have a little bit of wiggle room January February to make those decisions but you know at that point we'll come back and and speak to you about if we weren't able to make those decisions yet what do we want to do about next year's calendar okay did the data have any clear results I would imagine this would be just a lot of different opinions but I'm curious if there were any key themes like too many not enough or if it was really all over the place was all over the place okay otherwise it you know it
036would have been easy to make a choice yeah okay so we're trying to stay true to kind of the mission of you know obviously having an excellent education for all of our students is number one recognizing the holidays in some way shape or form and that doesn't have to be with the day off there's a lot of conversation and just about making sure it's recognized and students are learning about holidays during the school day or during the school year um the equity piece um you know there was conversation about when you have the majority of people saying one thing then the majority voice continues and the minority voice isn't heard so isn't that the problem to begin with um so no clear answer and um I think the conversation kind of landed at this is
037not going to be easy some people are probably going to be pleased with the outcome some won't um including some of the members of the committee and then I I said well welcome to my world that's do every day um so no okay thanks like we recognize the CSA as well they provide a lot of color into the various holidays and celebrations and whatnot that kind of exist and I've noticed over the past couple years that there's been sort of a more uh purposeful push on sort of if we can't necessarily recognize something through sort of change in school calendar at least let's acknowledge and and make sure there's awareness of what that holiday or celebration is and and whatnot so that certainly does go notice okay any other questions cool all right building assessment
038and engineering studies you want me to give the high level sure yeah so we talked about this at our last meeting this is the sort of professional engineering studies um of the physical plant um over at Pine Hill um it sort of think about it in two different sort of phases and what is kicking this off is sort of an acknowledgement that there's a lot of space constraints and other kind of difficulties in managing the building itself um and that has been sort of exacerbated with some of the heat related um uh changes to the school day that we've experienced in sort of June towards the end of the year and then also in September and early August or sorry end of August um as as well so right now on the table are two
039different assessments that are um likely going to be executed by sort of a um two different folks working very closely hand in hand one is sort of a building assessment to understand and kind of rack and stack the data and the um elements of the actual building itself so heating system and uh various mechanical and and other kind of attributes of the building itself to kind of say all right here's where the building is and what we're actually dealing with uh the second assessment is sort of more focused on the cooling strategies I guess is the best way to say it around okay these are folks that do engineering work around um you know developing you know hbac systems for these kinds of buildings what do they think is possible um not coming up with
040the plans to actually go install but just sort of say here's what you're dealing with and here's some things to uh to guide sort of decisions and and next steps um I miss anything big on that no and I think that so that the um cooling study is sort of kicking off initially with the building assessment and then they will go off and do more on just the cooling so uh by by actually combining these were probably Sav we being efficient and in cost um and we have asked them and I and we talk about Capital you see I mentioned the capital plan we've asked asked them to sort of expedite that piece so they'll get started first um be able to gather the information they need for the Architects to do the building assessment
041and then continue on with sort of looking at um ideas they can have for cooling um and they will probably give us a couple recommendations and with those recommendations come estim at cost as well so that you'll have a little basis um to sort of make decisions about um and so probably by the end of the week we'll actually formalize and kick both those off um we were waiting I had initial conversation with the um the architect after we had our meeting clarified a few things um it will take them a little longer than what was in their proposal um cuz when I at the meeting if you remember I said 3 to four months and the report said 6 to8 so I went back back to him he's like yeah I don't know why
042I put 6 to8 sorry that was like it's really wor 3 to four but that's where we talked about the engineering doing the um HVAC work to to sort of move faster and that won't hold them up um with his with their report will come as well as potential re um suggestions maybe renovate and give a Cost U build new give a cost so if anything it's going to give us Insight too as to what we're talking about moving forward so that is part of what their report will do as well sort of give you some launching paths as to what direction um and all necessary for any work that we want to do at the msba this is definitely a starting point and something that would be required of us to do along with
043multiple other studies afterwards but this is this is a good starting point and it at least answer some of the questions I think that we've all had and then give us a premise of like what does construction cost today so then we have something that we're just not pulling th air yeah so I think I want to be incredibly clear that this is not like the precursor to a new building this is us doing diligence to understand what options are available I think it's good diligence and good sort of governance to make sure that we understand what is it that we are um working with we're putting 400 or so kids in this building every day during the school year and making sure that it's fitting the needs of what we kind of have and
044the goals and and you you know strategic vision and whatnot that Beth kind of has mentioned so um there's a variety of different data points that'll come out of this and that will give us sort of a good foundation to then engage with the Myriad stakeholders community members the various boards and other committees within the town um to start to work with actual data to kind of say here's here's what we think um the problem is and here's some potential Solutions and to uh to Don's point trying to marry the AC solution in here as well cuz we I think very clearly recognize that there is there's an issue at that point I mean so in my uh actually monthly report sort of summarize for you the cost um so the building assessment itself is
045uh 16,800 um we've several meetings we've had with the town they've agreed to sort of cost share that with us um and then we'll pick up the full cost of the cooling study um and so those two half of the 168 and then the whole 8,000 will be things you'll see next time on your report Inc Comber against the building rental fund um and again that is great use of that that money um to sort of allow us to sort of move forward with that and not have to wait for um additional to build it into the budget itself um and I will just to for the newer members the there's multiple ways we get Revenue in the building fund um just to sort of make you feel comfortable that we're not going to deplete
046it won't be replenished um we do a lot of rentals of the gym to basketball program and um our largest revenue gener generator is actually the sheeta program that is run by the region so we do assess the program um rent to use pine hill and so that's $3 to $40,000 a year um so that is definitely will be replenished and sort of gives us a lot of flexibility in the past we've actually carpeted like the auditorium so we've been able to do some building projects that we need to do done sort of more um um expeditiously than if we had to go through the whole Capital process we always share it with with the town so they know what we're doing um and later on in the meeting I feel like it all comes
047back to the building rental fund tonight um when we talk about the playgrounds there's some other expenditures that we've agreed to do with the playground too that um will come out of build rental fund great it's a hot hot fund right now to to have it's it's definitely allowing us a lot of flexibility to get a lot of good work done um and provide you know um great information and also take care of some things that we need to take care of so we'll keep you updated um definitely the the both projects will be well underway before we meet again um in January so look forward to uh you know seeing what they say questions thank you for studing all that great good work got so many studies going on right now and budgets and
048budgets yeah all right now for the star of the show the budget yes so there's where do we start right um well I always like to just sort of give you an overview of the budget book and then we you know we won't delve too far into the details tonight know that this is just our this is our starting point um we're required by the town to have a budget prepared and approved by you and submitted to them by think December 8th I'm going to say um so we're going to meet that that deadline and it it should Encompass as as many new things that we can that we know about at this time so that we're always starting with um the largest budget and hopefully as as time goes by it won't grow it'll
049only either stay the same or get a little bit smaller but it's an opportunity to sort of put a placeholder on on funds for fiscal year 25 uh keep in mind that we're only a couple of months into fiscal year 24 which why makes this a little more complic ated because you don't even really know what's going to all happen in 24 before we start building 25 um but you have an overview where we try to summarize sort of our assumptions for the budget some key budget drivers the financial statistics which you know um at the high level is included in there uh We've included for your review sherber and advisor's um budget guidance and you can see that I've highlighted in yellow for you um the school department Liaisons and we're to have them
050all in the audience with us tonight Dan Paul and Mike so we thank you for being here um and then it just gives you some other timelines um uh the town that we that we work into our calendar um it's important to also to we try to tie as much as we can into what we do with the district strategy so just as a as a reference point um the two-page summary is included there for you to reference back if you're ever questioning something where does this tie um hopefully we you know are are practicing what we preach and this is what we want to do and this is how the budget's going to fun to do it um tab two is where you get so this is you've got the line item from our
051general ledger buildup of the budget um you don't see this on a monthly basis if you go and look at your monthly reports they're sort of summarized by the function codes um but within this budget detail you can see what makes up those function codes by line item so it's a great way to sort of delve into the budget and understand how it's um derived so much of our budget is a people payroll um but then you can just sort of see the categories and in the addition to that we give you a summary of um Staffing and in bold we sort of have put sort of the new um reductions or ads so you can see the changes and then we've also given you a summary of the anticipated grants I never want to
052lose sight of the grants and the importance that they play in our budget um just by chance for some reason that these grants go away you know what we depend on these grants for so that's another piece that I think is important um to see um and then you have um enrollment which why do we that's why we have a school right is is based on how many and as we typically have done we have our three-year projection and our one-year projection rates um this is looking at inmigration and out migration as of October 1st so we look at October 1st um data and that drives what happened so you don't um every so you can see the ins and outs that happen over the year that's what's playing out here and we always use
053that same date at the top you see that either the growth or the decrease um per grade so if you look at the three-year rate you've got 112% 103 99 107 101 that's the expected um growth that we expect on the class moving from like first to second over 3 years it's averaged that it increases by 3% um and then we also just keep our eye on the oneyear projection rate too just in case there's some outliers that are happening that we should just sort of um keep at the back of our mind and but we typically we're we work with the threee just because that's more of an average of what happens um but it's it's good to see both so we'll keep our eye um on these numbers in case we uh do
054identify anything that we can sort of um make decisions on but your class size is 18 to 23 and you can sort of see with the three-year projections where we would be um with the sections that we currently have in the budget which is 21 um and then your fourth tab is sort of just more detail about out of district and we'll talk a little bit more about that um when we start walking through the budget and your fifth tab is actually your capital your 5-year Capital plan um so those are the pieces that you have and as you either have requests or we get additional information that's why I like that you bring your books with you because I'll bring additional um documentation for you and documents to go um into your book so
055if we update Capital if we update um you know the budget when we start doing the different versions I'll actually bring you hard copy so this can be sort of a a reference book for you um for the coming year so I always like to just jump and say okay where are we starting um so we are uh presenting tonight a budget that's um an increase of 8.3% over last year um just to give you some perspective version one last year was an increase of 8.57 and we settled at um 8.17 so as you can see we always start with our high number and then hopefully when we're done the increase um is isn't quite um as large as we start out so I feel like we're in a good a good position where we're
056um starting out we clearly look at um your budgets in two pieces one is the IND District which is actually operations of Pine Hill and the second piece is your at a district which is basically all students who we don't aren't able to service in our district from ages 3 to 22 so any of those residents of Sherburn who are placed out of District um we cover the cost in your seran school committees at a district operating budget the region has no operating has no costs in their budget for added districts it sits in the Two Towns respectively so I think that throws people a little bit but that's um how that works um and then um we do look at that is two different budgets because you really would never want to sort of
057impact your IND district with what might be happening in out a district so we we definitely look at those as two distinct budgets looking at our assumptions um as we just talked about we're assuming that we have level enrollment for fiscal year 24 um we obviously work in compliance with the town budget guidance so any new ask that we're asking for we'll make sure that we can substantiate the need obviously we align it with the district's um 2328 strategy um you know even though we're a couple years out we're continuing to sort of look at um students needs postco there was a lot of learning loss at the elementary level so we're constantly trying to see what we can do to shore um those students up and as I just mentioned just making sure that
058you're aware of the entitlement grants that do play a part in your budget looking at your drivers obviously as I mentioned we're we're a people-based business and payroll um represents approximately 87% % of your IND District budget um I will uh point out that we talk about the contractional increases on all of our ratified Agreements are 3% for fiscal year 25 that is actually up from the previous round of contracts where you used to see me say more like two to two and a quarter so that is an uptick in our budget that has really been driven by the market and um the last round of contract negotiations that we just undertook um the only group that doesn't have a current contract right now is our educational assistants if you remember we just approved a
059one-year contract with them because we were looking at um sort of the different levels um we're hoping that that study or that group will be wrapped up soon and then we will reenter negotiations for uh fiscal year 25 and 26 so that we put them back on par with our other um barting units of having a three-year contract um looking at sort of Staff addition uh we're bringing forward in this budget an increase of 0.5 to the math coach as you know we share a math coach right now between the two elementaries I think with what we talk about that we're looking to pile or to actually bring forward a new math curriculum it makes sense to make sure that we have the support in both buildings so both elementary schools are requesting a a05
060math coach to sort of make them whole and we'll have one in each building uh we do have some staff reduction though that are helping offset that um our elll educator based on student needs is decreased by 0.1 and um OT when we're assessed what current needs are in pin hill with the student cohort is down point2 so that's a savings of about 15,000 and as we talked about in our fiscal year 24 monthly report we had post fiscal year 24 budget Staffing changes that netted about 95,000 um it's not a coinci idents but a lot of these numbers are going to sort of net and I don't plan this this is actually all it this happen um but when we get to the end you'll see that really all these ins and outs we're
061only looking at a net increase of 10,000 the other piece and this is the only um place where we did rely on Esser funds but it allowed us to sort of try out a couple of different positions um but we are looking to add two positions that were funded by Esser through this year and one from circuit breaker so for the last two years because of our added District activity you've noticed that we've pulled the budgeted educational assistant that was going to circuit breaker and brought it into the operating fund to provide some additional relief um to uh out of District activity um so to be safe I think we're going to start version one bringing that circuit breaker EA funded historically into the operating fund we'll see where we shake out without a district
062we can always put it back into circuit breaker um but because 2 years is running we've had to pull it I thought it made sense to at least roll it out in um a version 1.0 so we are adding three positions that have already existed but were're not funded with the general funds um but it is offset with one Jed position that was um sort of now combined with one of our new positions that we tried so we have the um academic coordinator that's sort of in the Learning Center that was one of the the positions that we've been piling in at Pine Hill that can sort of serve some of the um same needs that we had for one of the Gen atas so we combined that so then that gives us just a
063net increase of 70 the other position that we were sort of piloting was uh floating EA which is instrumental to helping classroom coverage when staff members have to attend IEP meetings so we've done that for two years um where we funded it with Esser it definitely is worthwhile so we want to bring it into the general fund um and then if we have any retirements um we will bring those forward in later versions um but right now we we don't anticipate uh any retirements and had if if we were made aware of any retirements the way our educator contract um is sort of written as they have until February 1st to sort of pull that back so we never really talk about retirements until we cross that February 1st date um but that would be
064something that would be coming uh forward in uh later versions so we talked about the math coach and and and the addition of the math curriculum that's one of the big increases um then we'd be looking at adding it um well the cost would be 47,500 for pil for bringing on a new math curriculum that would be K through five the sort of nuance here is that it's a 5year package price that you are required to pay in Year One um so it's um Master law has actually been a little bit more uh Savvy with working with schools in that they know that's a lot of the vendors are sort of creating um contracts like that or and purchasing contracts like that that actually build in Savings in the past we weren't able to really
065take advantage of that because you could not prepay um but I think there see they realized that we're they were costing municipalities and school districts money by not allowing that so I I think that's why more vendors are sort of crafting packages like that the beauty of that is that we would pay for it in 25 then we would really have no math expense for the next four years and when you pick back up in year six we'd really just be getting the workbooks so we'd be back to where we are with everyday math where we spend 10 to 13,000 on just um materials um so that is again still totally under discussion but with was important for us to at least put a placeholder in the budget um we had some funds that were
066being used for other uh um textbooks that we didn't need so you're going to when you look in your detail budget you'll see an increase of only 21,500 and that's because there was already some money there that would have gone away um if we weren't doing this math curriculum so it sort of helped um sort of uh make the increase not look so large dollar for dooll um and so where the plan is for for um uh a full presentation on this initiative it may even be a joint meeting with both elementaries to sort of hear the plan um in sort of uh sometime in the J January February timeline definitely prior to your final budget approval in March but I think there'll be a lot of items to hear about to discuss and see
067how um we want to proceed um you don't have to do k35 it could be something less but again not knowing in November where we want to be we're went for full full mentation um the majority of our other operating accounts really remains um level um and I think that's going to be in Guidance with um um sort of the Town guidance to sort of take what you have and still make it work um two areas that we really don't have any control over of doing that though is our general educ our general um education transportation we have an automatic 1.6% increase but fuel is still not the price of fuel is still not in our favor um and I've been hesitant to keep adding to the fuel Reserve but it seems to be pretty
068standard that we're going to have it so rather than having a deficit I did increase that a little bit and our utilities you'll note that um our electricity cost starting in December of this year is going up 40% so we only had half of the year in fiscal year 24 we'll have the full experience of that in 25 plus delivery costs are continuing um to increase on it so that we have no control over that we do um do we B you we do we actually sign long-term contracts for electricity so we were sort of in a really sweet spot um and then there was no way around it you had to you had to get out of that sweet spot for a little bit but I think we locked in in a pretty good
069rate um I think we we locked in at like 14 cents a kilowatt so if you look at your eversource bills and see what you're paying you'll see that actually um it seems like a 40% it was a 40% increase but it's actually really good um considering what's still is going on in the market right now um and then so we talked about enrollment so the added District um we are looking right now at 11 placements and I always like to have um sort of show you the gole forward of that so if you go to Tab four you can see that we're budgeting a million 2.95 last year the budget at this point was um a million6 so it's increase of 235,000 if you go down to the changes from fiscal year 24 budget
070you sort of see how it all plays out as I as I mentioned in 24 we saw uh increases we saw changes in placements that resulted increases in cost so that's 100,000 of the 235 we had one new placement um between budgeted 24 and budgeted 25 and then we're um luckily not seeing 14% increases this year but we're buting for five and part of that is the um increase so those are the components read on that H is there any early read on that didn't they give us a like a heads up that that was because that was across the board on a on a normal basis it's school by school basis but that was a one time across the board for all private placements um so we 5% we had in the past had
071always done 3% so I did sort of go up to five after 14% last year I don't think you're going to see a lot of of schools having anything over five we know our collaboratives right now are ring out their budgets and looking at 3% increases so that we've got a little bit of of leadway in that five but better to sort of hold that now um because we're still early in the process everyone's doing their budgets now so we don't really know how everyone's going to play out um but we all I think I feel very comfortable that 5% will get us um at the top where we need to be the one thing that we don't have a good handle on right now is sort of our transportation for out a district we
072still have not received our first like bills for this year U they're slow in getting those out and we use our collaborative for the majority of our transportations with all with like one vendor um once we get that then we'll be able to get a better sense of where we are with Transportation but I do know that they're only looking at a 4% increase uh per mile which is actually really good for us um for 25 I just don't really know how our B how who's riding and how many miles people are going right now until I get that first bill so we will try to update that but and then you also have the in the category sort of so I told you that we cover students who live in sherban between the ages
073of three and 22 it's always good for you to sort of look and see where they are in the realm of that age group right so um in Elementary uh we have less than three prek 5 uh we have less than three in middle school we have five sort of in the high school 911 range um we don't have anyone next year who's going to be a 12th grader and why that's good to know because a lot of those them will graduate out and you can sort of know that you'll get some relief um and then we have less than three in the 12 plus so we do have placements that we will continue to um be responsible for until they turn 22 um so we're sort of spread out um but it's always I
074think good to just sort of see it's also good to to see like where we're placing uh students so we don't have anyone going to sort of that another in District um public program because other school districts have Pro think about Pine Hills program right similar to that um collaboratives are usually the most um uh cost savings because it's it's usually collabor like we're all districts all working together so that you're looking to just sort of break even and help each other right the masses of working together um so we do have a a good amount in the collaborative and the non-public obviously is is our largest um category and Don for the changes in placements is that maybe when a student um is identified as being better served by a dis a different out
075of school district okay yes where we saw increase in cost we had one or two students actually last year that were in Mass public that that wasn't working in so they had to go to uh non-public and those typically do cost more um so that was that uh so if we just go back to um just looking at the overall um I there's an operating summary expense um that sort of gives you again the categories it's on Tab one um so if you look at um salaries and we talked about how your salaries are 87% you can sort of see the breakout and um it's a it's there's a lot there's a couple things going on that make so if you look at other educational expenditures and we've talked about the textbooks being increased but
076you only see $25 when you start going through the line items and when you read the staff report that we took two positions from contracted services and move them into the contract those amounts used to be in the other educational expenditures we move them up to salaries so it's sort of hiding the fact that we added the textbooks because we delete we took the expenses away from those contracted Services uh cuz when I first looked at this I'm like wait why does this only say $25 it's it should be more than that but if you look at the detail you'll see that there's um 21,500 that's coming out of one of those Contract Services accounts actually turns turns out to be exactly what we increased textbooks for so that just gives you the indication that
077everything else that we did in that category netted to $25 so we're really not looking for large expenses we did look for um we look we say Trend budgeting if you look in your your detail you've got five years of data you've got three actuals the 24 budget and then the proposed 25 we look to see if like certain line items it always going over is it always under and try to adjust for that understanding like we will understand why it's happening but you'll see some ins and outs on some of the individual line items in the D of where we sort of done we have done Trend budgeting somewhere up and somewhere down um but in the most part we we didn't touch a lot I mean salaries is where your activity really takes
078place and then you can just sort of look at your tuition and transportation um for outed district and sort of see how we have you know what our expenditures have been in the last three years um and then what our budget was for last year compared to this year and then knowing that we right now are using $300,000 a circuit breaker so you're at a district when you go back to that sheet was higher right because the number here is net of the 300,000 that we plan to cover with circuit breaker and that's a that's a conservative number that's about um assuming we're going to get 50% reimbursement we'll get prob we have now um for the last couple years always gotten 75% so there's some cushion in there that too when we work with
079the town is trying to balance our budget we can bring more circuit breaker in um but it's um it's comforting to have a little bit of a um Reserve I think that we have some control over in addition to the stabilization fund that the town has and so that's where I would like to not try to deplete ourselves to zero as we he but we'll see how that plays out okay I've been running at the mouth but hopefully some of this is making sense um you know looking at your having time just to look at it um over the weekend and just sort of how this the timeline will play out so our next meeting um would be February 6 that's your next committee meeting where we would present version 2.0 and then um we
080have a meeting with advisory that typically is just the chair um we thought maybe we might consider a different date February 14th but maybe we'll have a big Valentine's Day party um and um then the final version where you'll have your open hearing and do your final vote is March 12th and then we turn it over and it's all in the town's hands to go through their open hearing and and annual town meeting so as you spend time with us if there's any additional data that would be helpful for you please let us know um happy to provide it um detailed any detailed questions send to Dennis um and we can you know make sure that we address that at the next meeting so um no question is is too small or too large uh
081we want you guys to feel comfortable with the budget um and uh know that we actually from a salary standpoint I will tell you we build it employee by employee and um so it's very detailed what we have and um luckily it's one school it's one school then one school and two schools but um you know there is there's not not I'm going to say there's not fluff in this budget um we really work hard um to do the best job that we can for both the staff and the students at at Pine Hill in the most economical way and I think that's always just sort of been the motto at Pine Hill they make um a lot with little and I think that anytime we're asking for additional funds it's because we truly do
082need those additional funds to continue to be the successful school that we are questions would you prefer us to send questions offline versus now or either way okay I just had I think three questions okay there were a couple um like percent changes in salaries that were higher than we had previously talked about and I was just curious again sure there's good reasons right but like the the um guidance counselors is up 10% I think the custodial is up 7% and it didn't have like an explanation so I was just curious about some of those big some of that so that um when you when we talk about the Educators so they have steps in they have Cola and steps so at least they have 3% then the steps range from 4 to 9% so
083um there are staff in there that probably had a yeah and they're all like they're spread out on the Matrix like it's not even in the Matrix so some places it could be 8% so it's 8% plus 3% so you could have an 11% increase um and so when there's only a couple of people in a line item like there's only you know 2.5 in there it definitely got it will vary that way the custodians I will say we had if you remember when you approved their contract their contract was uh exceeded sort of the the reserve that we had in the budget but there are so few employees in that category we went ahead and approved it so you're seeing a catchup of what we didn't have enough for to cover in 24 got
084it plus the Cola in 25 perfect thank you and then my um other question oh was the exact same question Christine had so just the the jump in the um out of state oh tuition out of state M we just hadn't talked much about is that that the right location for a student happens to not be in Massachusetts yeah okay that is those were my questions right and there you can see we didn't have anyone out of state last year right we had someone in 23 but nothing in 21 22 so that just all it varies and out of state for us is um you have to be like Rhode Island a lot of them are Rhode Island got it yeah okay great that's where Transportation can then start to get a little high transportation
085is mileage based yes got it and I did have one question on enrollment if and if we're ready to move there but if not I can wait oh okay um excellent so I'm just curious how these numbers are are calculated so I know that there's a lot of conversation in town right now about apartments and building and things like that and it did didn't seem like we were accounting for student increases as a result of that and I was just curious if that intentional or well I don't think there's anything concrete right so we would not start um inflating our numbers for the unknown and I will say in talking to other school districts that the net student the students that usually net for some of these is never as great as like what they
086say um we definitely have um a little bit of capacity um but you've got to think about a housing project that potentially the kids would be spread between prek and 12 right so when you start like just putting a few in all the grades it's I don't think it's as overwhelming as an impact as it can seem to be and sometimes this is um a little bit of a scare tactic right yeah um because I know I was getting some calls about when they were having that meeting that it was going to be you know how much was it going to cost per you know student to do this and I'm like when you at a student or two it really is not incrementally going to increase your budget but they were taking our price
087per student multiplying by how many students they thought it's going to cost us $5 million right so hopefully that didn't get presented that way because I spent some time talking with um one of the select board members about how that really works and that we have capacity to pick up some students and that's really not going to cost the district any more money um it's with there's it's something overwhelming so we have not we have not been told or we're not aware that there's something that's going to definitely cause us Mass yeah chaos chaos what I was going to say do you want to explain the three-year projection rate in the one year or do you want to take a break and I can yeah no I mean so the threeyear is just looking at
088um what has happened between grades over three years and doing the average and extrapolating it out yeah and then the one year is just what happened um like what was the growth from K to one last year that's what the okay cool thank you and then the kindergarten we just usually take the the threeyear average so the the previous three years and roll that out until we get Census Data um Barb has an indication on her Census Data though that we're still looking in the 50s actually for the next three years um which is sort of what our numbers say uh but that is um that's the only sort of unknown we have is what our incoming kindergarten is going to be got it great thank you the one cost driver on this is the
089um the class size limits that we've established right so I don't think we've had to increase Educators because we couldn't meet the cohort um class levels we did a couple years ago shift though no but we have added we added yeah we had to add in 23 using the non the non-resident tuition fund and we built it into the 24 yeah so like grader one of the years had a new teacher you have 21 sections now in in 2021 you had 19 so between 21 and now we've added two so that's where like cost could if you cuz Barb and Allison do a lot of gymnastics to try to figure out how do you make these like this uh chart down at the bottom guys help to try to forecast it where the things go
090so there is Shifting between grades y yeah yeah so you look at the sections last this year versus what they're projecting it a little bit different based on right so like um and if I recall correctly that that's a guideline of 23 students not a hard yeah that's limit correct 18 to 23 and then we combined you used to have two guidelines you had KY through three and four or five and four or five actually went up to 25 um and so there was the decision to sort of make it all one and get rid of the 25 but maintain the K3 which was 18 to 23 got it yeah we were trying to get closer to Do's Dober 17 to 22 but at the end of the day it all sort of turns out
091I mean you've got some class sizes that are below 18 cuz when you're dealing with numbers this small it's there's like a place where you know yeah there's not a lot of decision making yeah cool great those were the questions I came up with thank you so much thank you for looking at other questions do you want to just talk a minute about sort of you hit on it but like what's the interaction with Barb and Allison around like thinking about right like what their call their asss are working I jumped right in so I skip that part um so um we actually opened the budget up for um the building level um administrations start looking at like the third week of October so they do meet with their PLC leaders they meet with their
092um internally and they sort of talk about like where what changes they need to see what they'd like to request and you'll see some changes in there like library books went up um a thousand because they that was a request um uh you know talked about the math coach and maintain the same level of educational assistance that we have so they do a little little work then we actually meet um all all everyone in central office our whole team meets with the assistant principal and the principal at each school to walk through where we are with our work and then combine it with their work so you're seeing sort of a a collaborative budget here based on what they've told us they've need um what we have already identified sort of at the central office
093level of bigger initiatives that are going to happen um and it all sort of culminates in this obviously the taking into consideration um the town finances and and what we can do so it's actually a a little bit of a a juggling act to do the best we can but also not ask for the world and strategically using our our our grants too um I think that's where you know it's great um we've there's a new Grant system that actually is forcing us to be much better at our budgeting and actually took a lot of work this year um but it's it's actually making us um not just put some something together in a budget to get it done because they're going to hold us to it so we had to be very thoughtful and
094so there's some additional like uh textbook textbooks that can be used that we can put on some of the grants and so when we start spending those we'll share with you um where we you know how we're spending that money so you better understand I've given you a little bit of a glimpse because on the consent agenda tonight is actually all the fiscal year 24 has just been approved that gives you an idea of what they're used for and if we specifically uh Target them for something I've included that in as the background and I and I'll have to say too we're so grateful for the CSA because the um the funding that they do to sort of add the extras to the school is so um well appreciated and then Pine Hill sort of
095has the soln fund mhm um it's unique to all to any of the other schools where there's U money there too that's at the discretion of the administration to use to benefit students and they you know have made some significant donations in the last couple years um mainly your Outdoor Classroom has been heavily funded by by the Sol funding and the CSA so it's it's sort of the partnership that we have um to sort of do some of those things that we might not have a capacity to add into our general fund but add so much to the school um and that's coming from from the support of those who um you know contribute both to the CSA and then just sort of the the U Genesis of the the solent fund and what its
096goal is and those are kind of the thank yous that we usually put when we do your formal budget presentation we highlight how important those are to the operation how they do um you know make it a better experience for the students couple of things just having looked at this number of years in a row um the first couple lines on the budget are all sort of District costs that are divided between Dober Sherburn and the region um another point was the HR manager that was hired that doesn't show up in here is that right because Sherburn isn't Ben technically benefiting from that individual I know that's come up in terms of that role what what yeah it's actually only in the Region's budget because even though it's shared partially by the town of Dover
097it sits at the town of do's budget not in the school budget because it's there for the town not specifically the school but keep in mind the region is a town and so we we have that because we don't have any F house so that's us so it sits in the Region's budget and that's the only place you see that position you don't see it in either one of the elementaries um I like we've got like a relatively long break between now and our next meeting the next meeting you'll have sort of a revised version of this so we've got some time to let this marinate and think through and see if there's anything that you know sticks out um but coming back in January with like it's really like things are getting real close
098to right right and then the monthly report is always good so those are your actual so that's what I one of the last I I do um when I'm finalizing is I take my most recent actual and say okay where are we now and am I making sure this there something that we haven't accounted for so you can sort of do a little looks there but you can also then see where we have the changes in payroll you're going to see how that's going to reflect in the budget because um one either we staff changed or in a case in point with the custodians you'll see that we're probably over this year because their raises were a little bit more than what we had out at one other thing I that's minor but um you'll
099see is an increase in there in the admin assist at the building level is increasing the um one of the front office people to be their 7 and 1 half hour a day is increasing it to eight eight hours a day just because it's been a little more chaotic at the end of school and it's nice to have the two people there so that's built into here to give the extra two and a half hours a week um so that was one it's not huge dollars but that was actually um an request from the building to have better coverage Mak chaos if school yeah shocking anything else huge thank you to not just you but to the entire team so I will and we'll need and actually let me just go to Capital real fast
100so you'll see there's nothing being requested Capital right now for fiscal year 25 but we put a placeholder for improvements to address the building temperature and I mentioned in there that we're doing the cooling study and hopefully we'll have something that we will still be able to jump on the the capital um uh committee's uh calendar if we can and then really looking out the only big item that we have even for the next four years is really just determining that building and the roof covering so so there's nothing I I updated that we had a rough assessment done for all the schools in 21 we made a few little repairs we have absolutely no concerns with that and the on-site Insight plan puts that at like 20 years but we know we all know
101we can get longer than 20 years if you have a good base of a roof so that um we're still holding it there as a placeholder in 26 but that can all also be pushed out probably another couple years and it could be depending on what we decide to do that we just never replace that that road because it it it's not an investment if you're looking at a 20-year investment it might not be the right thing to do so other than that our capital is looking pretty um empty um so we'll see what comes forward um from the cooling study but uh before you leave tonight I do need you to approve separately the operating budget and then the capital budget so we can submit it to each of the two or speci can
102I get a motion to approve individually or oh you can do uh the operating in capital budgets um as Don has presented to share first drafts with the town Christine M so moved second Amanda BR second thanks Amanda all those in favor Kristen I'm not sure if you can hear us yes I can hear you Kristen Abberly yes thanks Kristen thank you I forgot to check with you Kristen do you have any questions on um I'm assuming you're no I'm good thank [Music] you um all right thank you and any questions that you guys have feel free to reach out um yeah we'll we'll get in touch okay perfect thank you uh consent items these each need to be approved um so first and these are all in the package that was sent um earlier
103uh so the first is the approval of the September 19th meeting minutes so request a motion to approve those do it as a package all right um thank you so let's take a step back then so there's the minutes if you do have any edits I didn't notice anything um flaring donations do you want to give a quick summary or sure as Don mentioned you know Pine Hill wouldn't be Pine Hill without the CSA and um they have uh generously donated including ourselves $50,000 to um support uh additions to the playground including the climbing structure that you have in your packet as well as um some other items that need repair um so thank you to the CSA for that huge donation that in addition to some of our own funds will kind of bring
104Pine Hill playground back up to Snuff um with a few additional bells and whistles so yeah just to piggyback on that so we've agreed to fund about 10 $15,000 worth of repairs we're we're sharing with the CSA the slide that's has been non-existent um we're doing the open slide and also uh repairing another piece of equipment we're cost sharing that so it's about 15,000 that you'll see coming out of the building funds and that's part of their the gift from CSA to sort of I make that all happen and the last is just the grants so this we started this last year just getting school committee approval of the grants that we um have been that we have been um awarded for fiscal year 24 just to um sort of round that out I gave
105you the amount and sort of like um if we receive annually if we don't receive annually one thing I should point out when you look at your budget book for 25 you'll see in the title one Grant was much higher in 23 that one does um fluctuate based on our free and reduced lunch increase uh so when you go over the 5% threshold is where you get the higher amount which is where we at the 40,000 level um we were under that this 24 so it's really our October Sun's date from last year so it's 18,000 um we do fund a position with this grant however we have have carryover money from the 40,000 so it will be okay but we'll have to keep an eye on that for fiscal year 26 um speaking with
106our director of um Food Services she feels that we're going to probably be back in the 5% um for Sherburn in in 26 so in 25 I mean 25 my years I could not in [Music] um so want questions on that makees sense all right motion to approve the group of concept items as presented you know I'm so sorry um make for the last for the minutes from last meeting um mega attended and provided the update Ariana was unable to attend and it's got both of them done okay great we make that change thank you yeah uh um so moved Christine msh any second second amand discussion all those in favor hi hi hi Kristen Kristen Abberly yes unanimous all right um informational items so including the package or the uh newsletters for November and
107October I think you guys have probably received those your other mechanisms as well uh do school committee minutes from June um feels like an alterity go and then the regional meeting in September um just for kind of awareness and and what what's going on there our next meeting is the fifth I thought we had one in January but that might be the joint joint that's joint um so any items I know that I've talked to some of you guys about like committee updates or whatnot and you know if there's nothing to duck we don't obiously need to force it but I'll reach out when we come closer just to make sure that if there are any updates we'll we'll cover those at the meeting if there's anything else that comes up through talking with any
108of the stakeholders in town uh we can evaluate getting that on the agenda as well anything else cool so we adjourn at or motion to adjourn so moved CHR second second all those in favor uh