Special School Board Meeting

001[Music] I know it's just six but I want to I'd like to give Nick and Hillary just another minute that's totally fine I didn't mean to move the screen forward my kids are super sensitive we are live up on YouTube Don got that taken care of for us so thank you yes as people are ready we can certainly begin okay before we start can I ask a question we had asked last week from the week's slides and I haven't received them yet um does anybody have that information it's part of the slide deck for tonight so I can certainly send that along if you'd like well I guess the protocol is that we get it in advance then we can prepare and ask questions and review and we also our protocol includes posting it to

002the website I think Kelly shared those yesterday I didn't get it actually I didn't go out to everyone that sir I think doesn't look like it actually went up to everyone I can share it now Kelly has been out so Kelly get it on the website I don't have the ability to get it on the website but Don might and he might still be listening so let me share it with him yeah I'll go ahead take care of it it'll be up here shortly I'm gonna make a various amount of disappear real quick she wants to be the star of the show yeah a Hillary said she didn't get a link I just learned her mind so hopefully she'll be in soon great thank you sir oh here we go okay all right everyone's here

003I'm gonna go ahead and call tonight's meeting to order for Thursday June 25th it's a special meeting for the Scarborough School Board can I please have tonight's attendance sure mr. Egan here mrs. get Joe's yep dr. Gill here miss Kazue lowness here miss Leighton here mrs. Snyder here mrs. Turner here and mr. Bennett here and if you could please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right are there any adjustments to tonight's agenda seeing none opening up to public comments on the agenda um if you have a public comment you can either email us at public comment at Scarborough schools not work and

004we can read that into the record or you can raise your hand through the zoom function we can promote you and you can speak to us in the same way that you would if you were behind the podium Aaron I promoted you at two analysts and you should be able to speak hold on think of unmuted you can hear me I can hear you hi this is Aaron Rowan Bonnie Grove Drive and I just have a brief comment tonight to say that I watched the town council meeting last night and and participated and gave a public comment there I would like to commend you all for your work thus far and I I also appreciated Sara's pushing back against the tone that was present with the council last night I think that that must have

005been hard for her to do and and having been on the receiving end of that tone myself I really appreciated her setting that example for other people in town to also say this is just not okay um I like I said I appreciate the work you've done this year I I do not believe what I heard last night in some of the councillors attempts to question your motives and so I hope that that you also do not believe those kinds of questions and that you as you're presenting tonight that you remain strong and proud of the work you've done this year in spite of all of the hard things that you've had to face I I feel better knowing that you all have tried really hard to have my children's backs so thank you I

006also wanted to say that I might be the only person in town that's really excited to hear Monique's essa update so Monique I wanted to let you know that I'm here and I can't wait to hear it so um don't worry about boring everybody I'll be here and I'll be excited thank you Thank You Erin another minutes is going to join Denise I've unmuted you at least I think I admitted you okay I'm on my phone so can you hear me can't hear you okay Denise Blaine I am a teacher at Scarborough high school thank you first would like to say thank you for all your hard work with the budget I have also stayed very active so I appreciate everything the board has done tonight my comment is more geared to next steps for

007opening school in the fall I am part of the start committee that has been doing some work over the past two weeks tonight I would really just like to reorder reiterate some of the things that I said in my group and and make them public comment I'm finding as a teacher right as a union member a little frustration in the pace at which this plan is moving along I know we can't work at warp speed but as other districts start to present their rough plans and and we see them coming out I feel myself getting more and more anxious about what is Kerber going to do I I would like to remind the board not that I have to but more than 60% of your staff does not live in Scarborough so as they get

008their notices from districts where there children are going to school their anxiety levels are going up not just about what are they going to do with their own children but what are they going to do in the classroom and I know it seems like some are just started but it it is going to come before we know it so my pitch tonight if there is a pitch and all of this is while I appreciate the dialogue and all the talking that is has gone into some of these meetings I hope that we can get some stuff on paper and start communicating that to not just the staff but the community so people can start planning from the fall so I appreciate April who's been in my group and and it's been nice to work with

009her I know that a lot of the other board members have joined this other subcommittees and it's been nice to to just let them hear what we have to say so I do appreciate the dialogue I just I want to start seeing some stuff on paper so thank you for your time and everything that you've done and um thank you Thank You Denise just wait one more second in case anyone else wants to speak okay seeing nobody else in queue I'm gonna go ahead and close out public comments and move us into item again agenda item number six point zero goals progress and an ESS a update Monique it's all yours thank you so much hear that someone else in this world finds federal and state grant reporting and applications as exciting as I do

010sometimes it's quite a bit of paperwork but it's always wonderful when we see what those grant funds can provide to our students so much appreciate it as you know we are required by law through essa through the state to connect our goals building goals to our improvement plans it's all part of the grant process if you recall we had a comprehensive needs assessment several years ago and we develop goals around those and we've been tracking our progress and we have an annual timeline from which to do so thank you so tonight I just want to talk a little bit about our progress despite a global pandemic recognize that progress and then share some of our thinking on next steps things are in the air this year and we still have some more data to mine

011before identifying our focus areas and very specific goals so I want to provide an update on our essa application what funding is going to be available to us for next year as well just a reminder pandemic or not our purpose has not changed as an educational organization it is to provide safe and inclusive learning environments each and every student empowered to be a resilient lifelong learner all the more important during our current uncertainties in this world our strategic focus areas we have four focus areas which we build our specific goals the first focus areas effective teaching and learning the second safe and inclusive schools the third global citizenship and the fourth is in and around community engagement from those areas we built a strategic improvement plan for this year the focus areas that came out

012of that spring 2019 needs assessment were those on the list we focused quite a bit of our energies and goals on social-emotional curriculum needs and that is another area that is emerging as we continue to move forward as well as addressing database issues our curriculum consistency writing as benefice we've made great progress in absenteeism and truancy in the area of mathematics is continues to be an area of focus and then reporting and communication as well so getting right to it our district goals focus around effective teaching and learning we had two large goals one was about enhancing our district-wide improvement process itself and we've made great gains there the second goal was really around building our staffs assessment literacy how to use data to inform and drive instructional decisions in our progress in this area

013we implemented as you know a new Universal screening tool we were able to do two diagnostic assessments K through 8 we were able to we engage staff in to fall trainings as well as a mid-year training we were offered a free pilot which proved very very helpful as we moved into an extended school closure of online instruction K through 8 and that's the data that I'm continuing to work on to summarize and provide some data displays for our building leaders we also updated our cognitive abilities test we were not able to do any training because we're at an extended school closure we are going to use the we have used at the mid-year we looked at student growth and we identified some focus areas one focus area which is not a surprise but it confirmed

014our thinking is an area of phonics even with our literacy implementation that's an area we're still concerned about so potential next steps we want to continue to provide learning opportunities to our staff in and around data informed practices but also we want to revisit our annual timeline in the light of the world in which we live in now but we also may want to consider some different district-wide goals more applicable to our current situation to address our students needs better k5 worked together all four schools and they work together under the theme of safe and inclusive schools by focusing on social emotional learning and align to the Kassel framework all staff and across all four schools receive training in that framework what social-emotional is its importance some strategies the committee has completed an assessment a

015needs assessment and they've identified a set of next steps they endorsed panorama as an SEL survey tool and it was a focus within our distance learning plans we continue to provide activities and learning opportunities for students every week through those plans both online and offline we also started a k-12 steering group which made great strides as well they endorsed panorama as a survey tool we were not able to implement that survey across the boards but we are continuing to update that action plan to see if we might be able to do so moving forward so in terms of next steps social-emotional learning is a significant part of our transition planning it's a working group of that start team we also in terms of next steps want to increase our emphasis on trauma-informed practices we want

016to also focus on anti racism which is also in the area equity and also provide inclusion training as well as we move forward when I move up to the next slide could you explain what castle and panorama are and um someone doesn't me not I don't know what those are and then solicitors who may not know what the acronyms are could you explain those as you go through them certainly I apologize for the educational jargon castle isn't a collaborative organization for academic and social/emotional learning it's a national organization and they really are a wonderful evidence-based clearinghouse of social and emotional research resources recommendations for evidence-based programs and they also provide a wonderful strategic planning process by which schools can follow in order to implement and improve social-emotional learning for all students in schools SEL is

017social-emotional learning and our start team is the school transition we start redesign team let's remember panorama is an organization that provides survey tools and resources to schools in a variety of areas one of their large areas is in social-emotional learning they provide evidence-based research based survey questions and a reporting mechanism they also provide they've tapped into and have partnerships with a variety of curriculum vendors so that you can access instructional strategies based on where you are they another area they focus on is family and school communications and relationships and then they also have another component around student success and supports for students thank you for the explanation sure the middle school focused in the same area of safe and inclusive schools their focus was around a behavior framework they were looking to make that a

018bit more comprehensive they did quite a bit of work and research and they developed a framework using the acronym pride PRI D preparation responsibility integrity dedication and effort and so what they did was they worked with students this year and they identified encouraging practices sometimes when students may sorry about that must be my internet connection can you hear me now thank you so much sometimes when students particularly adolescents don't always make good decisions we traditionally have had a discipline framework which does teach students what not to do but we sometimes fall short in teaching what students should do and so that is the focus here to promote more positive behaviors and help support students in making better decisions they have developed a plan and a flow chart and they've been tracking their data so one

019of the potential next steps for the middle school is to take a look at that day to review that data and see how much continued energy they need to put into this or they may choose to expand and move into another area around those four strategic target areas and the high school has to building goals the first goal was in and around their curriculum units and working on the internal curriculum guide they identified the components of that guide they needed to work on which would be essential questions key themes learning targets and guiding principals they were well on their way departments worked on that collaboratively they need to reassess and see where they are and see what kind of time they need to allocate in order to complete that process their second goal was also

020in and around was in and around safe and inclusive schools they were took a hard look at their advisory program and wanted to identify some themes and some objectives and they did so there were four quarterly themes that were developed the training was provided to the staff during faculty meetings and even during school closure they were even able to launch at least one of those lessons virtually so they as well as the other schools are going to reassess and make some adjustments for the coming year so what does all this have to do with essa well the essa funds can help fund some of these activities title one is focused the purpose of title one is focused on improving academic achievement for students title two is really around professional development for all staff teachers and

021leaders title three is a language instruction support for English learners and immigrant students we do not access these funds 21st century schools we do not qualify for those funds title excuse me title four we do qualify for those funds those are twenty-first century school funds and I'll talk in detail about those title five is flexibility and accountability that's a rural education initiative and we don't qualify for title five so title one two and four we receive funding so for title one title one probably has the most restrictions or constraints on the funding we must allocate the funding for neglected or homeless students those are called set asides we have a requirement to engage parents and family in our title one programming and we have to provide equitable services for eligible private schools the funding this

022past year went to Wentworth it funded additional positions in the area of literacy specifically writing support and in the area of social-emotional learning with an IDI technician to help support some of the behavior plans for students for next year Wentworth will continue to receive title 1 funding we're going to take a look at that data and see where we need to place emphasis in terms of providing supports for students one of the pieces during this school closure that has been a challenge is getting an accurate read on where our students are whether or not they are on target or whether or not we need to provide additional supports in either literacy or math last year we received one hundred and thirty three thousand seven hundred dollars this year our preliminary allocation nothing is final yet

023but our preliminary allocation is a hundred and thirty one thousand nine hundred and eighty dollars so it's down a little bit Monique what does FRL stand for on that chart May and reduced lunch the numbers how we receive funny funding the formula depends on the percentages of free and reduced lunch students thank you title to a we must allocate funding to support quality and effectiveness of teachers principals and other school staff this is the professional development funding and also to address the learning needs of all students so that really is the focus of the funding so we are are thinking this year is to focus that on providing training for teachers in support of the building goals that will align to what we need to do in terms of our transition back to school this

024year title four is a little bit more complicated there are funding allocations for three different options one is well-rounded education which really provides funding for a whole slew of possibilities everything from the arts to or a language it's it's it it's quite wide it's quite broad but also safe and healthy students and effective use of technology the technology piece is rather restrictive so we did provide money this past year around safe and healthy students we focused that around SEL to help fund the assessments and activities and professional development for social-emotional learning so next year other thinking is we will continue to do so given where we are with our pandemic and the impact that has had on students and families and staff last year we received $13,000 in title for this year about the same

025thirteen thousand six hundred dollars sorry I failed to mention title to a title - hey last year was 75 proximately $70,000 this year it's 81 thousand dollars and finally overall we're down a little bit in our title funds but it's still an amount of money that is over two hundred thousand dollars that we want to allocate towards this current year in supporting our students and our staff this presentation is part of our requirement to ask for public input and if the public would like to get involved or be part of the process especially in terms of looking at the data please reach out to me especially if you have some ideas on how you want to see some of this funding allocated we have a deadline of August 1st to submit the report for this

026year as well as the application for next year so I will certainly keep the board appraised of what our goals will be you'll certainly hear us roll out our goals in the fall and we'll have a better sense at that point in time how we're using very specifically how we're using this funding moving forward does the board have any questions of me Hilary I have some so I know that title one funding is allocated based on the free and reduced lunch percentage how our title to entitle for funding how are those allocated it is based in part on free and reduced lunch numbers but also our enrollments over time and we receive those in Title I believe title for title four has a cut-off number as well and title two is is in part enrollment

027and part free and reduced lunch so so I guess I'm curious specifically about anti-racism curriculum and I had requested to do a separate workshop on this because I know that it's not to the level that I personally would prefer but it does seem like title 4 might give us an opportunity to fund some of some of that is that accurate yes and is has that been allocated for that purpose not as of yet I need to work with the Leadership Council we're going to take a look at our data we the SEL group also has an action plan as well and my understanding is that will be embedded within their action plan okay and then it does and then it seemed also to me that title 2 might be relevant in terms of professional development

028for distance learning that we may not otherwise be able to afford is that also in the plan absolutely thank you max um just to piggyback off of what mrs. Durgan said about the anti-racism curriculum I think that that should definitely be a focus when going forward just because of today's like the I guess waking up to systemic racism in our society I mean Scarborough is such a white town that it cannot be ignored I see racism daily in our school so I think that a focus on anti racism curriculum and better education for like black culture and that kind of thing should be focused on absolutely we with the social studies curriculum recently being revised we will that area we had that has been a bit delayed because of constraints within our budgets over the

029years but that time we need to act on that sooner rather than later it's more than a an issue of just implementing a new curriculum there is significant training that needs to happen for staff as well as leaders are exploring our own implicit biases and taking a look and starting the conversation around that that we want to be sure that our staff know how to have these difficult conversations and there are lots of curriculum options but a big part of that will need to be looking at our our own biases and looking at our policies and practices across the boards as an organization as well so I'll just say just again quickly because I agree with max the time is now and I don't want us to say sorry we can't implement an anti-racist curriculum

030because we don't have the money for it even though I know that we don't have a lot of money right now so I just want to make sure that that that is you know and all those things that you said I I understand Monique but I just want to make sure that that's being started now as opposed to later or or being put on the back burner for when when or if there's money available understood in the other comments Monique thank you very much thank you so much I appreciate the time alright moving into new business 7.1 it is regarding the 2019 2020 to professional staff contract Hilary turning it over to you all right yep so I just wanted to give a quick update on the professional staff contract the faculty contract also known

031as the teacher's contract it was signed on Thursday signed last week and it was posted on our website with literally within an hour of signing so it is now available on our website and has been since almost the moment it was signed and then so if anyone has any questions about that I also have another quick update about um about some other negotiations but I'll pause there okay um max you still have your hand up but I assume that was from earlier well I should assume that okay so then my second update I'm just regarding it's it's tangentially related it is related to the contracts is that in response to the resolution that the town council passed at the beginning of June the board negotiations team has met with the ESPE which is the educational

032support professionals group EDX mostly is mostly represents EDX and secretaries in that group we have met with them regarding cola concessions we have also met with the teachers negotiating group regarding Cola concessions we have a meeting on Friday with the administrators on that same topic and we have emails out to schedule meetings with the bus drivers and the food service and custodians bargaining units which are all represented those two are represented by the SCA and the administrators and the maintenance workers are self-represented so we do have some irons in the fire there I don't have any specifics that I can share with you but I just wanted to make sure that that it was out there that that is something that we have been meeting about thank you house for one hot second for any

033questions okay seeing none moving into 7.2 FY 21 budget Sarah uh yeah so I guess I'll just talk here I think how this is gonna go and that key is actually gonna I think has offered to share her screen and take us through updates so after the town council meeting last night we have to make some revisions to our budget what we so to Kate today about and sanding Diane was rather than going through specific line items if we could just kind of do like the voting categories in the group so we have a legal obligation to put everything in certain very categories that will go out to the public for the referendum so we need to accomplish that task but we also have some outstanding some items in motion that Hillary just referred to

034and so we're not in a stage where we can commit to any reductions in our budget from those contracts and so I think the best bet at this point is to just do sort of the legal portion that we need to do and then hopefully circle back around and go through the line items detail at a different date once we get through all that I do think that the public is looking for us to give our endorsement either yes or no and for the budget so I would like to spend some time just everyone talking through their perspectives on that Kate anything to add or sandy I'll just say that I hope everybody can see the screen that I'm sharing this is a two-page document that's basically designed to guide us through where the the

035process from the school board's second reading last week to where we are today and the adjustments that that need to be made tonight thank you everyone okay with that approach any I guess can I ask a question about what's on the screen now Kate huh so this is just our second reading versus last year's budget am I correct that's correct okay Thanks so yeah what I'll scroll down for a minute just so people can see what's on these two pages you've got the budget as it was approved by the board and you're right the the differences here are from last year to this year this is the school board's second reading all the operating budgets plus capital the bottom of the sheet is the allocations that were approved last night by the town council for

036those same segments of the school budget and then down on the second page there are some adjustments that we're recommending be made tonight to get us to that reduction that the town council made last night and at the very bottom we have the adjusted budget which matches what the town council approved for the schools thank you so Sarah do you want to talk us through this do you want me to jump in a little bit or what's what's good for everybody yeah I think you just want to talk us through like where the additional reductions came from from our second reading to including the town councils vote last night to get to where we are right now okay so right so the difference between these two blocks what the school board has approved so far

037and what the town council has allowed the school budget to include the differences are a total of 240 mm 180 reduction to our general fund operating budget and then a four hundred and six thousand nine hundred dollar reduction to the capital budget and so today the school leadership team set together for a bit and talked through some of the things that we've already seen some of the things that that this group has discussed many times in public and essentially accomplished two things one was to book some insurance premium reductions you'll see some ups and downs there in this first section but in that reduction of just under $20,000 and that's just because an item in motion we received our final numbers on Friday after the the board have already voted so that's a reduction we

038could take quickly and easily the other reductions in the general fund operating budget down in this section we have simply allocated proportionately to the largest the three largest cost centers in the school budget again sarah said this the board needs to place those reductions into the voter categories so that there can be a notice posted for voters for the referendum and that has to be up pretty much immediately after you folks take a vote so we haven't done specific line item reductions yet but we've proportionately reduced each of those cost Center categories by the amount shown here to reach the 240 to 180 so comments questions thoughts about that maybe before I do CIP thanks I'll put my hand no man you're a mute yeah that would explain why I was i killer you're all

039set I'm sorry Hilary talking she's always talking um thanks Sara and she's being really quiet so you don't know what's going on right so I think I'd have less of a question and more of a clarification because I think this is what you said Kate so after some of the confirmed insurance numbers so that sorry so the difference between our operating our general fund operating budget of what we asked for and what they gave us was two hundred and forty two thousand dollars you removed some additional savings that we got from insurance that we just have a clearer picture on what that amount actually is and then did you just distribute the rest into those three categories by percentage on how large those three categories are exactly with a little bit of rounding that's basically

040what we did the three largest categories and that there is a certain amount of strategy behind that Hillary which is that under the law we are not able to take out more than 5% of any category so if we if we try to do reductions without specific goals in the small categories we run the risk of you know having a shortfall in funding in those categories so we we want to go with the biggest the three biggest categories and you're right it's simply a proportional reduction okay and then also just another clarifying question I think I recall that funds can be moved if when when and if you ask if if the board approves that is that the case yes from category to category they can be the caveat is that once the voters have

041voted their voting actually on the placement of those monies into those categories so you cannot we you cannot remove more than 5% of any category and put it in another one and the the processes you know if I said I wanted you to have money and guidance I don't want you to take all the money out of guidance and put it into transportation yeah yes there are limits but because these are the the largest three categories they have the most flexibility in terms of the amounts of money that can be shifted thank you welcome Alicia so can you go back to the first page is this one is this what the voters are gonna be voting on no the voters are gonna be voting on the amended one the voters vote on what the Town

042Council gives us there are 11 categories right that they vote on it right are those the 11 categories right there now in the 11 categories aren't represented on this page I can pull something up that will show them yeah thank you I don't actually have the the voter notice yet I'm still working on that waiting on you guys to have a vote but let me unshare for a minute here I'll show you what I'm talking about thank you I mean I voted on it plenty of times you think that thing you'll you'll recognize when I when I put this up here if I can't get my screen to open what I'm talking about baby come on baby okay so this is the voter categories and actually the washer was Susan Williams scroll there we go

043the the 11 categories are these ones way over on the far left regular instruction and then that has some subcategories special education CTE and so on so these numbers that are sorted into these categories are the ones that the voters will see the summary that I was just showing you was basically the whole general fund operating budget which is included in this number this is the number you folks voted on last week and I don't have a new one for tonight yet and you said to Hilary its artilleries question that the distribute distribution or or allocation of the reduction is based on the biggest cost centers of all right yeah just a quick glance here you can see that regular instruction is 22 million which is obviously the hugest one special education is ten million

044and then the student and staff support comprises all of this these five different sub categories and that adds up to let's see 5.2 million so those are the top three is there any way you can share this document with us to look at while you're talking so we can just well this one is actually one of the documents you already have this is one of the backup documents from the second reading it was a massive PDF and it's part of the it is the supporting documents for our last meeting okay yeah I think if you can't find it let me know when I can send it out again is it an email or share driver booth it would have been an email from Ellie I think and Kelly posted it on online so you could

045just go right out to the website to find it probably pretty good all those that look in your stack of paper thank you let me know if you can't find it because we can we can send it again for sure in the meantime I'm gonna go back to this little working dock thing here so yeah these are these are not the voter categories this is just all of general fund together school nutrition adult education and then the non tax revenues for each of them hey this is a pretty nitty-gritty question but can you try and explain what ended up happening with the middle school laptop tech refresh and there are those funds are now absolutely got and I didn't actually get down to the second section of this page which is the Atari so let's

046do that because you know thank you for the intro so in the capital budget the budget reduction we needed to hit was to four hundred six thousand nine hundred dollars and there was this little shift back and forth of whether the hundred and fifty thousand for middle school tech refresh was going to be an operating or maybe it was going to be bonded and then it went back to sorry appropriated not operating and then there was discussion about it should be in operating so there's a lot of talk about that 150 thousand dollars so what ultimately happened last night with town council was that they made a reduction of fifty thousand dollars to our capital budget over and above what they had already had in their in their proposal from the town council Finance Committee

047and I I was understanding that the rationale was that they felt that that tech refresh money should either not be there should be accounted for someplace else or you know I'm not a hundred percent sure but it was the conversation was around the middle school tie profession did we really need those funds so today my friend Don Bayesian finished a very impressive looking seven year plan for our tech refreshes which is something he's been working on for quite a while to kind of smooth out the numbers around tech refreshment you remember we have a cyclical refresh every year it's a different phase so what happens is on in in the fourth year or fourth phase it's the high school and the high school is so much bigger and more complex than the other schools that

048you end up having sort of steady steady steady and then a bomb you've got a whole nother grade there you know you've you've got more complex needs at the high school and more kids and more teachers so Don's goal was to sort of smooth things out so that each year we wouldn't we would be able to manage refreshes so that each level had the appropriate technology whether that there wasn't a bump he was striving for something in the three hundred fifty thousand four hundred thousand dollar range for each year so in doing that he figured out a timetable whereby for middle school we can take FY 21 money and we can purchase the student laptops and we can defer the fifty thousand dollars that's been cut to FY 22 to buy the teacher laptops and

049it will still be on the right cycle because it will be sort of June in July and he assures me that that we can make this work and I trust him implicitly about that I mean that we have to buy the laptops by like Tuesday no no this is for next year and the year after oh okay sorry I'm okay thank you I don't know what year it is either so yeah so we're right now we have a hundred thousand dollars in our operating budget which isn't even depicted on this page that's been there all along and we have fifty thousand dollars excuse me we have another hundred thousand dollars in CIP but that's been reduced by fifty thousand and that fifty thousand Oh Don and I will both be reminding everybody when we get

050around to the FY 22 budget hey guys there's that fifty again and you know here's what we're going to do with it so that was that was the solution to that and then the there are items that you see on this capital improvements reduction list are the things that we've already talked about if we take out thirty-one thousand nine hundred dollars we're deferring all of the masonry repair money that we put into CIP and with a fifty thousand dollar reduction we're deferring the capital monies for the playground upgrades and I'll come back to that in a minute and then this third one is dear and nearer to our hearts two hundred seventy five thousand dollars which we added in to attempt to move forward the long-range planning on the K two schools but I did

051hear Sarah say last night that that was something that we would push off prior to trying to make reductions in other areas I'll go back to these two facilities projects here and say that we did talk to our friend Todd today and he is aware of these reductions and willing to work within them we did we did spend a lot of time talking about the playground with Todd and with Allison because there is an equity issue for some of our folks who aren't able to get to some of the playground equipment and we have made a commitment which I've noted in sort of shorthand here that we will get started on some of the easy fixes in terms of a walkway and an area that Todd wants to rework on the Wentworth playground and we're

052going to make that happen with with operating funds but we won't be able to have quite the scope in that first year that we wanted to have in getting that off the ground we were down to at this point we were down to fifty thousand dollars which wasn't necessarily the scope of a capital project anymore you know and if you start to think about it that way it was something that we we can probably piece together from our operating budget we're definitely committed to being able to help our students at Wentworth gain access to some more playground equipment the equipment itself is quite expensive but we can definitely do some work in terms of the grounds I think you heard Todd talking about like converting wood chips to one of those rubberized walkway surfaces or

053play surfaces where a wheelchair can roll over it easily and a staff member can push a child if need be without having to navigate that rocky terrain of wood chips and we've also heard a lot of comments about people wanting to fundraise for the playgrounds and I think that's a great idea as well we've talked a lot about alternative funding sources and people wanting to give back in the community and that's kind of a neat idea as well so that's what's what that is about and I guess questions about those bets Alysha so I've got a couple of questions and maybe comments the what do we need to vote on for CIP I mean CIP you need to make a reduction of four hundred and six thousand nine hundred dollars because the Town Council has

054given us that much less than what you voted on in second reading so we don't need to decide what projects were gonna decrease the funding well actually what capital you do because their project specific so I mean we had talked about the 88 playground and that's something that I feel strongly about and and I hear you saying that we can get a little bit done and and you know I discussed the fundraising issue I think at last finance committee meeting that County broke had done that and it was great but to me it feels really uncomfortable to say that we're going to fund other capital projects and we're going to try to fundraise for equitable access to our playgrounds that that feels just really bad to me that's absolutely agreed I think it's it's an

055awful choice to be making and no one here wants to make it I think the problem is that in the appropriated capital budget there really isn't anything else left to take I just I guess I would like us to all as a board to you know understand that this is the leadership's recommendation but take a look at that capital budget ourselves tonight like we would in the Finance Committee and that my ask would be that we just take our own look at that to see if there's anything else that we can do to try to save that money I mean that was a reduction anyways and to shift it again I just I don't feel like I'm doing my job if I just say okay let's stop there I really would like to take another

056look and see if there's anything else that we can do if others are amenable to it so I'll just speak if I know like to the to the rule yeah so the capital budgets a little bit different right because we the community doesn't vote on that only the Town Council does but the the way that the capital budget is set up you were raising the money for specific projects oh you're right Alysha you could say I you know I don't want this money for this I want it for something else and we don't have to say that for the voters tomorrow but we would have to say it for the community you know fairly soon and I I think I said in an email I don't know what the legal requirement is for us to

057have our revised detailed budget out but I'm sure community is gonna be interested in knowing what we're doing and what we're not doing so yeah absolutely well then I guess do we want to I mean I would I would ask the group to at least defer that decision tonight and I don't know if you want to kick that back to finance for a saving time or if the whole group has an interest in diving in and looking at it but I would like to do that I mean whether it's tonight or a finance so the the vote that you know tonight has to allocate funds like in CIP it's by technology transportation and facilities and facilities is obviously the biggest category and has the most money in it so that's I think those would be

058the areas you'd be working with you did still reduce fifty thousand dollars in facilities and then look for something else in facilities to shift yes I would I would just advise her no I answer alysha's question I would just say let's just pull it up pull up the appropriated line items now and go through that and see if there's a place that we can agree because I would rather just get it done now than have to circle back and people want to know yeah our budget is and I've been going on for a while so thank you if everyone's okay with it I don't think it'll take that longer there's not a whole lot of speaking at a time but it's always been a priority for me so it's minor question okay are you happy

059to pull that out I got too much stuff open here so bear with me a second I'll find it I have two questions but one of them is related to this and I don't know if it will I have the same issues as Alysha does like I I find it hard to believe that but our playgrounds aren't accessible playgrounds and I guess my question is we're starting this work now like why isn't this a big project to make all of our playgrounds fully accessible and and why isn't it bonded well I can't answer why it's not bonded because that's a town decision and there are some very mystifying choices in that area this year to me I can't answer that actually the the playground surfaces that we have now are considered to be a DEA

060approved the the wood chips that we use are supposed to be navigable but from a practical standpoint we're really finding that that's not the case I mean they're there they're marketed and sort of authorized as a good surface for playgrounds and accessible for kids but in practice what happens is that the wood chips kind of as Todd described it they kind of push up and they get into lumps and clumps and and bothered super uneven and they would be easily easily navigable exactly so we're discovering that you know although you know the label says a DA accessible the reality is not is not panning out so that's why it hasn't been an issue immediately I would say Allison could probably speak to the changing needs of our students but I've observed that we you know

061have kids with a number of of physical needs or so at Wentworth school this year in eight corners which is where we were planning to start the project so I pulled up the document this is a an amended version of what we had before us last week at second reading it's kind of hard to see I'm afraid but this section right here I can get it to move is everything that's appropriated in facilities I'm trying to cue it up so you can see everything so can I just ask one more thing yep how do you like is there any way to go back and or maybe it's too late for this but I guess I can't understand why a playground wouldn't be bonded I mean it's a permanent structure I mean can you like appeal

062that I tried appealing a number of things like little laptops and and that didn't work and I you know of course I could appeal anything but I think we're we're at the end of the game here I don't mean you specifically I just mean like us like that just seemed it seems I can't imagine okay so I think probably part of the problem is imagine a lot of things but a lot of things happens I think probably part of the problem is that it's a fifty thousand dollar ask and it's not a like a building it's I don't I don't know I guess I'm not even going to defend the decision because I don't understand it what would ask me if we fully funded it we started with a hundred thousand and then that was

063supposed to be the beginning of a staged replacement at eight corners and and Wentworth school but what would it be if we did this to all the playgrounds and made them all a DA accessible and appropriate and had appropriate services I don't know I know that the hundred thousand dollars was just a start for to building you know but I mean just to alysha's point like it just it feels gross to not have that available and accessible for all of our students and it also feels yeah and it and then to have them say well that's appropriated and not bonded even though it's all part of a permanent structure I just also find that kind of gross if I think stare didn't I asked it for that to be put on the list for requested

064for bonded when we when we did the follow up after our finance weenie because it was a permanent structure and we had back and forth about that do you know where that landed I mean I don't recall them talking about it specifically but I think the way it works is the bond committee makes whoo I don't even know who they are makes the recommendation and the Finance Committee has the final authority so when we ask to lose the tetris rush back to be to be bonded the Finance Committee with their decision to appropriate it so ultimately since the tot Finance committee's decision but I don't recall them having a specific conversation and I believe yeah I don't either refresh I I could see the reason why on did but but and it has been in

065the past but I mean technically this is even more appropriate to be bonded in my opinion I mean it's not like we take our playgrounds down at the end of the year and put them back up yes I think it's frustrating right and I don't think it's right but I know feels like we're out of options and I don't know that there's anything we can do at this point and and so if we feel strongly that and you be in there at least even at the significantly reduced so now we just need to agree on where we're gonna cut stuff if you don't know it's true if I know I'm afraid I have to agree with Sarah because your council is not going to go back and make changes for you after their meeting last

066night until the referendum there they're done with us they're not going to do anything for us that was pretty clear so at the moment what you're looking at here is everything that's left in facilities in appropriated and that is the furnishings for the modular $100,000 for long-range planning which we all know what that is and seventy-five thousand dollars to replace underground pipes at the middle school and there's a hole in the ground right now they've done half the project with the money we saved from this year and so we pretty much have to finish putting the pipes in and close the hole or we won't have HVAC at at middle school so that was the one that Todd said please don't take that one mister doesn't have to come out of facilities because that was

067the way it was appropriated from Town Council or is it only once it's sent to voters as a facilities it won't go to the voters it's the Town Council and they've seen it as a facilities project the fact is that there really isn't anything anyplace else either John's got the classroom laptops for the new classrooms he's got our teacher devices for the new staff and he's got network switches which he's already reduced and we've got the tech refresh which we all know what that's about and then we have the passenger van for transportation which we thought we've also talked about and made a priority so we're and we're in that place where there are no good choices right now can you go down to the Tonys this is all bonded they're bonded okay yeah and

068again I mean I have lots of questions about why Peters favorite subject of painting hallways is a bonded item where the playgrounds aren't a bonded item but I you know I asked the question several times during the process and I didn't really get very far so I think it's I know that the the town finance office consults with what they call a bond Council which is an attorney Attorney's Office that helps them decide what's suitable for the bond market and what isn't so I'm not saying that they're doing this stuff arbitrarily there there are obviously parameters in terms of you know the type of work that it is and you can sell a municipal bond for just a proposal out there on the table I well I think I'm just trying to think of this

069two ways one is can we if we really don't think we can do anything with $100,000 and one range finding then we just then we're basically just keeping that in there to build that fun so when we can't do something but that may be an area to potentially pull from the other idea is leave it as is acknowledge that it's not what we want and then make a push for next year to do what Hilary suggests which is to fully fund a be a compliant playgrounds at all in our schools and make that a big to the bonding item I think so to me if if if beginning this project so that's not fully funded but just to start it was originally asked that had an original ask of a hundred thousand dollars I can't

07030,000 seem so insignificant compared to that that I would almost rather say to Todd what Sarah just said like what do you need to get this done fully not a hundred thousand dollars not thirty thousand dollars like how do we get this done in in one fell swoop and make sure that everything is accessible and and asked for that and and advocate for that to be bonded because it is a playground and it is a permanent structure and I feel like that might be more that benefit like it might happen sooner if we did that than it would if we did thirty thousand this year and then okay well now maybe 100 thousand okay and then maybe the next year I mean that feels like there's a but if there's a possibility that we could

071get the entire project done in FY 22 I feel like that's a better choice than getting an eighth of it done in FY 21 another third in FY 22 a quarter and F what you know I like that idea Hillary but I I'm I worried that today there are kids who don't have disability and I also worry that it's gonna be rejected and we won't find that out for for quite some time and so you know I I'm looking at this now that she's pulled it up and remember and we had this discussion and if finance it but it's you know there's not there aren't any good options here right I mean it looks like it comes down to range planning or partially funding the playground and both a feel like harsh there are kids

072who might not have access today but we're only fixing some of the access at only one school that's thirty thousand dollars whereas I feel like if we advocated really hard next year we could fix all of the access at all of the schools for all of the kids but but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't commit today to do what we can for and and resolve that we'll continue that work in the future I would say a couple things about that one is that Todd and Allison have both sworn on their firstborn children that we are going to move forward with something to help the kids at want with school next year because that's you know that's an ethical must we need we need to get that moving and whatever you can do we will

073do I would say he's pausing are you talking about without that $30,000 or with that $30,000 I'm talking about in our operating budget we will defer other money and without the third cousin not do something without that money obviously won't be as much as what we could do with the money that we asked for in the first place the other thing that I would say is that I love the idea of having a comprehensive plan for all the playgrounds and I did want to throw out that when when Todd and I were first discussing this with the other school leaders we did envision it as a two year phased program for a couple of reasons one is that Todd can't be at all the playgrounds for the two months of the summer when we would

074have access to them maybe and get it all done in one year but secondly because what we were hoping to do was to do some of the ground and site work first in terms of just you know sidewalks and and covered spaces and and the the physical space and then engage a team of experts to talk to us about adaptive playground equipment because what we don't know is what's the appropriate clay equipment for a student who has a disability what's going to engage that in some fun play out on that playground and so we've already been talking with some of the occupational therapists for example and you know some of the folks in special services about well what it what kind of cool things could we get but we had envisioned it as a couple

075of years project from the beginning just because it's got a big scope to it but I definitely like the idea of a more comprehensive plan taking into account all the schools and all the playgrounds and all the kids I think that's a great great way to approach it well Hilary if we do that can we resolution tonight that we will form this committee or something immediately to start looking at the skull to see if there if there's anybody that would be willing to look at fundraising or or commitments from businesses and then also the the bonding piece like how big the scope would be and bringing in some some of our special services exports well I mean I would volunteer for it it's really important to me or and I don't know if it's separate

076or if it's part of long-range planning but either way I'm happy to do the work that's kind of a neat idea yeah cuz Todd and Alice and I've already been sort of deep in the in the details of what we can and can't do and and how quickly and so it would kind of be a natural for long-range planning I guess on Hillary maybe something we could take up I said oh you can pick up I feel a lot better with with that reduction if we could commit as a group that that committee would be forming like immediately to start that work I would agree Alicia I think that um it's a necessity I do think it probably belongs under long-range planning and it may require a subcommittee from the team but we need to

077address this this is this this is not okay Nick you've had your hand up yes so we've kind of danced around this a little bit I just wanted to kind of say this out loud from a long-range planning perspective we're also on the same page talking about planning for a brand new school and so while I'm usually a huge fan of big comprehensive projects I guess I'm feeling like the one playground we have that's going to be here in the long run as well more and that's where this work was going to start and so part of me is like why would we ask students to go without for a whole year I would come up with a comprehensive plan to renovate all of our playgrounds when three of them will go offline probably a

078few years after the work is completed so I'm just kind of thinking I don't know I'm just trying to think from a from a efficiency standpoint like what makes the most sense I don't want to ask students of a certain phase to wait so that we can have a bigger conversation about all of our playgrounds I feel like if there's $50,000 we can put toward getting some stuff out there for those wentworth kids this year and that's something that's that's worth worth doing and kind of comes back to what I said at the last meeting which is I attended I'm much more in favor of maintaining what we have these ground maintenance lines of the 50,000 and the 31 nine then leaving a hundred thousand dollars in long-range planning for our k2 project if that

079project is not something that we know we can start right now I don't know I don't want to leave the money there just a hope that it builds over time you know what I mean but I may be in the minority here I just to address the long-range planning money I do want to leave it there I think that if there is something that we can get done with the hundred thousand dollars then great but I think either way we need to start saving for that because we're just I mean we know we we know we know we need it and and the longer we take to get started the more money we're gonna spend the longer kids are going to be in insufficient facilities I mean I see your point Nick but I can

080Kate can you if I like I thought that some of this was for eight corners work sorry it looks like I got frozen I look very yellow looks like I saw something out the window so I'm gonna chew on Jillian gotta love it see now I thought that was an at-home thing but I'm out in my office and it let me out too so originally Hillary if you look at the where my cursor is here the grounds in site maintenance for playground was originally going to be half for eight corners and a half for Wentworth because those are the two buildings where we have the largest population of students using wheelchairs plus the most challenges on the playground so so that was the idea that we were going to tackle both of those in terms

081of at least the site development piece and when I say that I mean like you know the the surfaces the walkways and and the surfaces underneath the play equipment so then when we reduced it in that first go-round to 50,000 the conversation was about well let's start with Wentworth because into Nick's point that's the building that's going to be with us the longest and you know it's it's a place where we can sort of take an already new and shiny and great playground and and just make it available to more children Kate yep alison has come in to the meeting and I'm hoping that maybe she can speak to this a little bit more as well so I think Kate's done a great job speaking to it I will say at k2 and students have

082accessibility issues we tend to redistricting to the eight corners school so the biggest impact is for our eight corners and well or school and though we are meeting a DEA compliance technically we are under servicing their access compared to their peers and Todd and I when we realized we needed to prioritize which you know due to the budget we did prioritize wentworth school because we do as kate said we do have the woodchips down but it has become increasingly over time difficult for the wheelchairs to access the adaptable swings that we put in ideally we'd like to create another area that had adaptable equipment for anyone to access but again under budget time so that's why we prioritize wentworth eight corners there was a grant years ago to build in accessible equipment so there are

083pieces there but it is not at the level that meets the needs of our students in this point so happy to answer any questions I think Kate's done a great job so just to be clear Kate um if we remove this from long range planning Kate seemed to think that you and Todd had a plan to make sure that there was something in place oh and then we're also talking about maybe under long-range planning coming up with a longer range and more comprehensive plan on what to do and how to fund this for the for the following year well so to speak to that just a little bit I'm Todd and I have have often faced the removal of something from our budget over the years it's not it's not an unusual thing to happen

084and so our default mode is to say well what do we absolutely have to get done and what can we defer or rework or reallocate from our upper budget to make sure that that has to get done so that was the type of conversation that we had and Alison was in a conversation with us earlier today as well I will also add specifically Hillary to your question that Kate Todd and I thought that we might benefit from some community resources and we could meet the minimum initial requirement at Wentworth hopefully for about $30,000 for this coming year hey awesome how did you get that grant last time you know that's a great question I'd have to go back and talk with a n Lovejoy about that I I think it was a parent piece and

085it was limited maybe about $5,000 but we had someone come in and consult with us about what pieces would be good to begin with so we could definitely revisit those type of initiatives as well [Music] any other questions Kristen we talked about the playground pieces the actual equipment those can be moved building to building correct do we you know that I think that's true of something okay I think it's true of some pieces Kristen and it would depend on what it was made of and how it was constructed whether it was like you know take apart or pick it up and move move we've had a bunch of different types of structure so some yes at some though yeah I mean I'm not thinking like move them for no reason but when eight corners should

086the day come that it does clothes can that equipment go along to the new building I mean if we had bought new things adaptive equipment yes and I think it also depends on the type of material that things are made out of I know we had some really cool things at eight corners that were made of wood and over time they disintegrated so you know there there's a question in terms of the durability and longevity of these things as well yeah I think we just need to go start with Nick and mine next you're gonna comment sorry I think I left my hand up okay yes I think we just need to make all right so it's either fifty thousand dollars for this or fifty thousand dollars that we take from long-range planning or potentially

087thirty thousand dollars to point the house and just made I don't know the end if you want to do that and the form of the fish' do in the form of the motion or how you guys want to handle this procedurally I think we would need to do it in the form of emotion so motion to move $30,000 from long-range planning in to ground in site maintenance for the playgrounds I have a question so is that the is that the the reduction that was recommended can Kate can you go back to the to the original she look at the reductions on it the original proposal was for I believe a hundred thousand yeah just run away and then it was fifty thousand dollars and that was fifty thousand dollars was just for one word no

088yeah I know that but what was the original like yeah yeah it's fifty thousand but I think Allison just said that they could make some progress for thirty thousand right well it's not $30,000 appropriated or thirty thousand that's going to come over some operating budget the appropriate we need to cut fit we need to we've cut fifty thousand dollars an appropriate from if we restore the playground we have to find fifty thousand dollars elsewhere in appropriated CIP so it doesn't make more sense if we just vote on the way this is here and then if it fails then we would have to talk about how to change it actually I think that the action item that you guys are going to be voting on just specifies the amount of funding that's left in the capital

089budget a reduction in facilities so if you said to me that fifty thousand dollars is coming out of this line versus that line I don't think you need to vote specifically on that well I mean you can still vote but the what you're agreeing to as your budget is going to be just in the bigger chunk of facilities I thought we had to keep because of how little money is left in that um I didn't think we could move that much around but if we can from the line items then great you need to ignite it or action tonight but the vote is more of a clump it's more of a you know here's everything that's in facilities but you have to agree if that's what you want that facilities money to be Spencer then

090we can do a line-item budget the movement out there okay Sarah is there any way you can explain this is going backwards a little bit but I thought that Town Council took out the hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the middle school tech refresh and then an additional $50,000 randomly it so and to me that adds up to like two hundred thousand dollars can you explain how the difference between our request and what they gave us turned out to be four hundred thousand or four hundred and six nine he can really excited hey that's mine I just yeah so the council in the town council finding hands committees original recommendation they had a recommendation that we reduce our capital budget by 81:9 I believe it was 80 to nine and they landed with 81 nine

091they never included the two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in their recommendations because they went off of our first reading and that wasn't in there so their their starting point was already well below and then they actually ended up only taking only taking out fifty thousand more for that was linked in some way to the tech refresh so they I understand it now yeah and that's why I think Paul was the one who was saying last night well if you take out the two hundred seventy-five thousand then it's really not that much money because they never they never accounted for it in the first place they that it is alignment what okay adda playground right given what we had for information I'm withdrawing the motion Nick has his hand up Leanne I don't know

092if you can see him oh no he didn't have it okay no not his blue hand I know I couldn't see based on the way the screen sorry actual hand throwing your motion will be looking for a different one cuz I was gonna try and swing one but I don't know what do you think um if based on what Kate said if we do not need to make that motion and it's a matter of a line-item adjustment at a different point they didn't feel as though we had appetite for this I think the discussion is heading us in a specific direction right I don't I don't think I don't want to mislead you I don't think there would be any flaw in your taking a vote to get the the temperature of the board on

093which of these items you want to reduce in which you want to retain and that gives me a direction and then the ultimate budget amendment motion that you do later is more global okay that's why I was just wanting to move in here we need Sarah Jerry go ahead on my delay I was just saying should we make them can you make a motion to pass it as it's printed here like the way Kate reduced it and then you're right and then it could either yes al and then we could redistribute or it could be amended yeah just like you know what they're you know I'm talking over you again I'm sorry now that I look at the way I wrote the motion it does say four grounds in site maintenance so we could amend

094that that motion I did time when we read it it is going to pick on the vote now that I'm looking at it at the actual language of it so we eat there could be a motion on the floor and then amendment two say instead of 50,000 foregrounds insight maintenance we want it to be 50,000 for something else the production so that's kind of what I was going to do in one fell swoop but we can do it in two steps if that makes more sense other other things that need to be discussed before you go to that motion to the to the passing of the of the amendments the CIT me well it's there are two other answers everyone that ones first the IP I don't I don't have any any patience okay I

095think we can go to the amendments and they pull about it do you want me to put things on the screen again here no pull it up there now okay [Music] okay yeah you mind pulling it up what it's coming off jug hold on my phone well I you can't see me and now I'm on nude and I don't know what I'm doing all right I'm with you guys hang on a sec all right I think we're here alright awesome alright so the first action move approval to amend the FY 21 school operating budget expenditures approved at the school board second reading on June 16th as follows adjust the general fund operating expenditures in the following budget categories reduction of 150,000 $27 to regular instruction reduction has forty one thousand five hundred and eighteen dollars

096to special education direction of fourteen three thousand five hundred and fifty two dollars to student staff and supports increase of twelve hundred and fifty dollars to system administration reduction of twenty eight hundred eighty two dollars to transportation an increase of six thousand five hundred and fifty dollars to slowly the maintance please create a total reduction of two hundred forty two thousand one hundred eighty dollars to general fund operating expenditures making our growth agenda from the most pleasure fifty two million three hundred and eleven charging the $43 and their general funding net budget forty eight million one hundred ninety five thousand three hundred fifty six dollars with no changes to adult adversity nutrition and leave this alone just to took clarification of the special egg eighteen forty three thousand five hundred we're special education thirty three

097thousand five hundred eighteen yeah sorry Ron I don't know oh and just for clarification when you're when you're tying this out to the document we've been looking at the process document with the blue stuff on it those numbers are a combination of the adjustments to the insurance premiums and the sort of generic instruct reductions to the large category their second technically I would say there should be discussion but I think we've talked a lot about where things are so if we wanted to have any further discussion on asset we limit the conversation slightly Hillary I'll be quick um I don't want to reduce our budget I don't think it's in the best interests of our students or our community or our staff or really anybody but I know that it that we have to make

098adjustments based on what happened last night I just want to make it really clear that that it's not really by choice Alysha to people that can't help themselves is this the time we're going to be discussing our our overall position about the budget in terms of our support of it or not or I would kinda guess you do that out there agreed yeah okay I think we're ready for the vote Diane very good miss Durgin yes mrs. give dos yes doctor yes miss Kazue lowness yes miss Leighton yeah apparently my dog too yeah this is yeah mr. Bennett yes sorry your dogs upset that we have to do this I am alright Petros pack roll down move approval to amend the SLI tournament tool capital budget crews at the school a second reading on June

09916th 2020 as follows produces the technology CIP expenditures by $50,000 reduced facilities CIP knee expenditures by three hundred and fifty six thousand nine hundred dollars including two hundred and seventy five thousand forints planning 50,000 for grounds and site maintenance 30 1904 by being envelope work the amended CIP expenditures budget total budget total category by category are two hundred forty nine thousand seventy dollars for technology 1 million three hundred nine thousand one hundred and forty two dollars for facilities and maintenance and 255,000 for transportation which brings our mended school capital budget to 1 million eight hundred and thirteen thousand two hundred twelve and the amended portion of the school CIP budget to be funded to tax revenue will be four hundred nineteen thousand fifteen dollars so most Alysha you're mute you're still on you alright I'll

100be voting in support of the motion with the understanding that there will be a committee formed to explore the global solution for 88 compliance or ABA beneficial to the that meets what we expect for standards for students who need to accessibility in the playgrounds and as a cause of removing the 50,000 Nick oh wait I'm you did I'm not me to know okay um this is where I can make an amendment it is well I would like to amend the motion on the floor to augment the facilities CIP expenditures keeping the total amount at three hundred and fifty six thousand nine hundred dollars but increasing the reduction to long-range planning to three hundred and five thousand dollars while reducing the reduction to grounds and site maintenance to twenty thousand dollars this would leave $30,000 in

101grounds and site maintenance to do the man at the minimum amount necessary to allow access at the lower flavor second any additional discussion now I'm going to ask a procedural question do we vote on the amendment or do we vote on the first motion first you have to vote on the amendment yeah but on the amendment first if that passes then you return to the main motion it passes or fails you return to the main motion okay thank you Sarah yeah I am gonna support the capital budget as presented and I'm not going to split this amendment but that I take the same stance ever this is siliceous taking that I want to see this goes back to a long range planning committee and I'm also doing that based off the fact that Kate and

102Todd and Allison have all said that they can make some progress this year by taking some moving something on the operating budget so I don't hate asking to do that but I do think it's important that you between the hundred thousand dollars for the long-range plan one thank you make your hand is still up to do have another comment no I keep forgetting to put it down okay my bad no just want to make sure I'm not slicing anybody out Diane I think we're ready to vote very good miss Durgan sorry just to be clear we're voting on the amendment correct no mrs. skip dos no dr. Gill yes no yes Layton no this is either no mrs. Turner yes mr. Bennett no motion fails all right returning back to the main motion leave her

103ready to vote on that as well mr. Egan yes mr. skip dose yes dr. Gill no miss Kazue lowness yes miss Leighton yes missus either yeah mrs. Ternan no mr. Bennett yes the motion passes 62 thank you all right yeah thank you I know this was it was a lot of work to get here this doesn't feel good in any way shape or form I think now is when we would offer our comments I very rarely do this but I'd love to start off because if I don't I'm never gonna get through what I have to say tonight mmm it isn't the time of crisis when you see people for who they truly are some people can be become more introspective some focus their energies on helping others and then some use that moment for

104their own personal gains or further a personal agenda I wanted to believe the pandemic would bring scarborough together as we work to reopen our schools however last night I saw a divide that has never been wider and has the potential to never be bridged if we continue to use words like anger disappointment spite and vindictiveness as ways to describe our actions there were numerous please facts statistics and warnings where our constituents supporting the needs of our schools which were shared with a closed ears of our town council for those who spoke or have written thank you I am grateful for your ongoing support even when you may not always agree with the decisions we make as a board we can find a mutual cause to rally around in our schools I'm asking you now to

105endorse this budget for the sake of our students this is not the budget we requested it is certainly not the budget we needed but it is the budget we now have after the council took what they wanted I know we have the option to fight which could then risk our losing even more and frankly this council would not feel guilty in doing so but that will not bring our town together and will only serve to create more animosity between the two sides of this discussion it is our responsibility to model the behavior we want to see in the world and our share of our children how to become even better citizens this is our opportunity to do the right thing and be the adults that they need please rally together behind this budget and that's

106vote YES so we can focus on what is truly in our students best interests being prepared for school in the fall Nick first of all said it was beautiful very well said the only thing London had except to say that I mean we've heard it said in our meetings we first sat in town council meetings and even as even last night I believe was council catarina who said nobody's thrilled with this budget certainly the signs around town are telling us all that that we've got people that want to see it go lower we have folks that have voiced very loudly last night that they want to see it higher and I agree with you Liana I think at this point it's imperative that we all get behind and support this budget so that even though

107it's not ideal but we can have a budget and have something that's in ink because right now there's very little else in our word the world it's an ink game coronavirus is changing by the day we don't exactly know what the fall is going to look like but at least if we can get a budget through our community and find some pot of money that we know is there we can start to make real plans of real progress and move toward a welcoming our students back in the fall so I also support this budget it is not ideal but my worry is that without its support if it were to fail it would go even lower and that's something that I just don't think we can see and something that I can support so I

108will be behind this budget arguing and pleading folks to to vote YES when they go to the polls or mail it in billing mailing it in Kristen yeah I'm gonna read this too because this is gonna be hard to get through um I can't say enough how disappointing the Town Council's actions were last night it was really tough to watch how little they cared about the thoughtful comments offered my of our community their minds were made up long before that meeting began and no way it was given whatsoever to the many emails they have received and public comments are offered to them well there have been others shocking behaviors the last couple of weeks like a counselor lying in a public meeting to make the school board look bad last night really drove home the

109fact this council is not going to listen to any arguments in support of appropriate funding for schools I have so little faith that all but one member of the Town Council will do right by our schools that I will encourage a yes vote for this budget not because it's the budget that meets all the needs for our students and staff but because this is most likely the best we're going to get I fear for the cuts that will be made to our budget if the referendum fails as this town council will view any failed referendum as a reason to cut more they appear unwilling to acknowledge the possibility that many believe the budget is too low and to be clear this budget is too low there are now too many unmet needs and too many

110cuts that will set our district in the wrong direction this budget process began with both sides working very hard to find common ground in order to avoid a long contentious process but somewhere along the way the way there was a breakdown in those efforts and rather than trying to repair that break down the Town Council chose instead to punish our schools with additional budget cuts in the future I will hope that the council will solve their differences with their words not the town's wallet well I don't necessarily believe in telling anyone how to vote I will ask anyone who sees the same path forward to help get this done let's fight our hardest to get this budget passed and move on for the sake of teachers and students we have many great challenges ahead that

111required the energy and attention of the administrators and staff it's time to spend the energy where we can make a difference thank you Alicia I'm gonna try not to focus on my disappointment about what's happened and um what where we are in the budget this is our reality today and we're left with two choices either to endorse the budget or not I think that um the part of me that wants to advocate for the students wants to say no we're not going to endorse the budget I think that that's a slippery slope I'm concerned that the message may be received as the town believes that the budget is too high and there will be further reductions for that reason I will be supporting the budget and I'd like to say on the positive side we've

112seen our school staff come together and work hard to do what's best for our schools and they've made many difficult decisions and put the students first we've seen parents advocate for their students and we've seen parts of our community come together and I think that that's those are some of the positives stories that we can rely on to get us through this and I'm going to hope that that positive trend continues and that we can really rally support to pass the budget so that we don't have further reductions to our students and that where we really need to be thank you Sarah yeah a lot of the same feelings that everyone else has shared I've gone from being like angry to really just sad the state that we're in right now to just trying to

113take the emotion out of it and be pragmatic which is why I do not support this budget but I will endorse a yes vote because like everyone else has said the Town Council with the exception of one sometimes maybe two counselors have shown us their true colors and they under known certain terms have told us that if this comes back as a no the only way this budget is going down and I do not want to put our staff through anymore of this process that they'd have to go through that they had to go through to date I also think that the counselors Oh our administration and apology we've been told numerous times that we haven't done enough that we haven't done our job that we haven't moved the needle that were sneaky that we're

114playing games and we're not and so because they won't do it I just want to echo what Alicia said and just think sandy Diane Cate the rest of the leadership team the hours that you guys have put into this are recognized and appreciated by us we know these are incredibly difficult decisions you're not there's no good decisions as bad and worse and I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your efforts and your hard work and hopefully this passes and we can move forward and you guys could stop talking about budgets and start talking about how we get back to school safely so thank you Hilary I mean I agree with everything everyone said and I certainly am NOT gonna be able to put it as eloquently as Kristen or Leanne did

115but I think it's it's really unfortunate that we have a Town Council who either can't or won't accept that the board administration and staff are the experts on the schools and that they know what is needed and and we put forth what was needed and it wasn't accepted and and I that hurts and it's only it hurts our students and it hurts our staff and ultimately anything that hurts them hurts our entire community I'm concerned because I think if we if if we advocated a no vote even if every single person who voted no wrote to the town council and and told them that it was because it was too low and asked them to increase the budget I have absolutely no confidence that that would happen as I have heard it they almost every

116speaker I've heard in the past month has asked for adequate school funding and as I've heard it the majority of the emails they've gotten have asked for school funding as well and and that wasn't hurt so again I have no confidence that it would be heard after a vote without a Goldilocks question so as hard as it is for me I will advocate for a yes vote even though I agree with Sarah that this isn't an adequate budget I don't want it to go lower Thank You April I also wrote mine down so if I'm looking down I apologize this budget process has been challenging frustrating exhausting and at times demoralizing and thanks to coulded I have had the pleasure of attempting to do all of this work from a folding table in my bedroom

117as someone who ran to make a difference in the budget battle I'm afraid that I have failed many of you this year for what it's worth I have been told by people on both sides of the budget spectrums that I am NOT doing my job so just when you thought there was no common ground left in Scarborough and all the while while I was not advocating enough not pushing back enough not standing my ground enough I took comfort in knowing that I did this difficult job with integrity and compassion the two things that I feel this budget needed the most this budget is by no means robust and I am sad to report that it does not include many new or exciting investments but I am asking the voters to say yes anyway this budget

118is by no means completely bare-bones it includes funding for activities and student extracurriculars and other things that some voters may consider extras I am asking the voters to say yes anyway the budget will retain most but not all of our current staff and in a time of uncertainty this was a high priority the budget maintains our programs but delays most of our new investments in curriculum it is a relief package for those in need and the compromise from those that are willing to pay more I'm asking the voters to say yes this budget funds our teacher salaries but also asks them to shoulder many of the reductions in order to insulate our students and continue to provide them with quality education lastly I would like to thank early Council for working so damn hard thank

119you to our teachers for their input and their guidance thank you to Sarah for keeping us on the rails and thank you to Alicia for knocking us off sometimes thank you to my husband for making breakfast for dinner ten times throughout this entire process thank you to the voters of Scarborough who care so much about our community I am asking you to say yeah okay and with that there's a motion to a next motion need a motion to adjourn and I'm just as a reminder our next meeting will be July 16th if there is any goodness in the world it will be after a yes vote on the 14th motion to adjourn oh no miss Durgan yes this is if dose I think she said yes doctor go yes miss cancel Otis yes was Layton

120yes mrs. cider yeah mrs. Turner yes mr. Bennett yes and vote YES to support school thank you Thank You max have a great day everybody and I Charlie