ABRSD School Committee Meeting 3-19-20

001can you hear me here you okay no Denny our in the presence of a quorum I call the Acton Boxborough Regional School Committee to order as you all know this meeting is being conducted remotely the assumed webinar by all eleven school committee members although I believe Michael is still absent right now her remote participation follows its policy de dja and is also being recorded by the Xoom application and being live streamed and recorded on YouTube it will be posted on Acton TV's web site tomorrow part of the remote policy all votes will be done by roll call with each member saying their name and how they vote okay so welcome everybody this is a lot my first student we think now although the first is not really suitable just see how things go tonight Peter

002and I practice the other day I know that Peter practice sword practice with some people today that as far as the spring town elections which is the very first thing on our agenda our talent websites are the most up-to-date information about our elections in the annual town meetings acting annual town meeting has been postponed with no new date at this time the selectmen are taking steps to delay the act in town election FoxPro election is not on March 31st although we have the state election that day the primary and I believe they're working as well to see if they can delay that our regular election is scheduled for May 19th I don't to point to is public participation per policy be EDH members of the public may speak for up to three minutes on items

003not included on there this agenda comments regarding items on the agenda should be made during that part of the meeting typically the committee administration will not respond to comments during public participation please use if you are watching from home the chat feature to indicate desire to participate is that right Peter or the Q&A feature so actually what I can do I thought maybe it would be easy to start off by just giving some instructions so just to review for everyone committee members public I thought it might be helpful just to make sure everyone can participate the way they want to so for committee members there are two ways that you can ask questions first option is if you open the participant dialog box at the bottom of your screen you will then find a raised

004hand option within that and you can then use that and then wait till the chair recognizes you and then the second option is to just actually raise your hand and wait to be called on it's kind of the old-fashioned way but I'm sure we can make that work as well for the public two options in order to ask questions or provide comment the first option I'm at the bottom of your screen you should see a raised hand option you can click on that and that lets us know that you would like an opportunity to speak that will then give me a way to be able to when the chair recognizes you to allow you to speak and unmute you temporarily so that's one option and then the second option is to use the question-and-answer option

005at the bottom of your screen as well so hopefully that provides a little guidance to everyone and you know as always we just want to remember the public is speak a portion of the meeting is for items not appearing on the agenda and if you want to speak to an item that is on the agenda just wait until there's a discussion of that agenda item okay Michael okay so one thing so public participation so Angie did you want to start off public participation yeah thank you so I'm presenting this as a community community member so he was at this difficult time I just want to let people know that there in addition to all the agency there is a community support that would like to coordinate with all the agencies so to offload the the

006load they have they are added on because of the corporate 19 and United and acton-boxborough United Way well lunch for example you acton-boxborough United Way is planning to lunch your thumb raising campaign next week to establish a dedicated coordinating impact fund to support the acton-boxborough residents in needs and local direct services agency Derek are going to need extra resources for example that the food pantry for example that volunteers there may need face masks or any uh you know the the protection they need so this is an organization that is it established to choose as a previous topics coordinating task force as recommended by CDC and this is to identify address any unmet needs by resident and critical agency and foster interagency collaboration and exchange of resources and to help guide the volunteers where most people

007were most needed this is an in collaboration with neighbor neighbor forgets and this is also to streamline communications from the private sectors especially the rec agencies to the websites to the town of Acton Boxborough and to the school website and to the Massachusetts Court in nineteen to on one hot lines which is hosted by the United Way so this is just to let people know there's a coordinated effort and we're trying to offload the agency load and provide because there's a lot of resources that's provided by the from the community would like to help so we're trying to streamline this this process to to mitigate the load of each agency so we can they can focus on what they're originally working on so this is just information sharing thank you Thank You Angie so do

008we have anyone from the public that has raised their hand we do so I actually I'm gonna see if Christine Russell wants to she actually put something in the Q&A but I'm gonna see if Christine would like to talk so Christine you are unmuted now if you'd like to speak otherwise I can just read your comment you just have to unmute your own mic okay got it can you hear me yep all right I would just like to urge you all to consider the 2021 budget in light of the impact of the current situation and what we can expect going forward I think it's likely that some resources will need to be adjusted to better meet the Clinton coming issues facing our districts I know you guys worked really hard on that budget and it

009made sense for when it was created but given the substantial changes we can anticipate I just think it bears another look through before we eventually take it to Town Meeting okay thank you for seeing is there anyone else in the public that have had something to say I do not see any other hands raised and no other questions student representatives are participating at the moment if we have any student reps on if you could just raise your hand I do not see any student reps raising their hands to speak all right well then we can move on to item two point four which is your update all right so my update probably actually blends right into the next agenda item my update is focused really on the school closures and opportunities for that so you

010know with your permission test I'd like to just move right into the school closure update okay so you've received a memo outlining a lot of the school closure information and you know I think in an ideal world we would have written a much more extensive memo but a lot of our time as leaders in the district has really been focused on trying to get the educational program started for our students and that's required you know the vast amount of our attention over the last week and a half or so but what I do want to do is provide you a little bit of an update and I'm going to go ahead and my screen with you and I'm actually going to start off with some limericks that some of our junior high school students wrote

011and I thought they just to provide a little insight into their thinking right now about what's going on and you know it a little bit of fun but in all honesty I think what you're going to see out of these limericks is that they're very telling about how our kids are thinking about our schools being closed and the virus and just the unknown so the first one is titled at home this virus is honestly irritating I'm sitting down with the snacks I'm eating staring at my cat while he is on the mat sitting here with the music I'm listening and then sorry I'm not good with poetry I appreciated that ending the second one is titled home Here I am just sitting at home the day passes by as I let my mind roam with

012all this free time I ponder some rhymes while I understand the situation as it is known the next one is Corona keishon last week I just wanted school to end but now I would rather be there with my friends I can't find anything to do and I'm bored out of my mind - I hope the craziness of coronavirus will quickly descend and then finally cove at 19 dear virus called Kovan 19 why can't you just have a vaccine then all this could end and I could see my friends because I'm starting to become a grumpy teen so you know I think you know a little bit of humor but but in all honesty I really do think it talks well to how our kids are thinking right now we also you know amid a lot

013of the uncertainty we have had a couple bright spots I wanted to highlight this is on the bottom left is a picture of our couple of our food service workers volunteering to make food for community members and then above is a image of our distribution process that we have going over at the high school and then I wanted to share just a little bit of a video that some of our high school faculty made on one of the first days of isolation which was Saint Patrick's Day and it's about two minutes long but I think you know again just to cheer everybody up find that people are finding ways to connect with each other through different means than we might normally [Music] so not exactly the way we all hope to connect but people are

014still finding ways to do that I hope no baby was hurt in that there was no baby hurt in the making of that video my knowledge just seemed to drop them pretty quick so some details on the school closure and I think we all have this information but I thought it would be good to just make sure we're all on the same page now our schools are closed for order of the governor from now these through April 3rd and we are scheduled to reopen April 6 we certainly could receive some additional guidance from the state based on changing conditions prior to that but that is the best information we have as of right now also heard the Department of Education guidance from the Commissioner of Ed schools are scheduled to go no later than the

015185th scheduled day if you recall we attend 180 days of school however we are required to build in five additional days into our calendar and the Commissioner is indicated that they are not having schools go any further than that 180 fifth day at this point so just to review the dates the original 180 fifth day of school was June 16th we then had three snow days that pushed it out to June 19th to get to our 185th day that pushes us into the next week with Monday and Tuesday so right now the final day of school is scheduled for June 23rd and that's where we stand as of today fluid service I'm putting this first because I think this is one of the most important messages I think and you talked to this earlier but

016we are providing bagged lunches from 11:30 excuse me until one o'clock daily at the high school the lunches can be picked up during that time slot but also starting on Monday we can have bagged lunches delivered to those who are unable to pick them up families can sign up at a bqualified lunch at neighborhood neighbor brigade org or by dialing eight six six eight nine six three five nine nine the acton-boxborough neighbor brigade is coordinating requests and volunteers we are very thankful for all of their help as well as that of the United Way and all of the volunteers participating in that effort also opentable and Maynard has bags of groceries available for pickup community supper served meals today and tomorrow finally thank you to all of our community partners and also to a huge

017thank you to our food services staff will have volunteered to come in and help prepare those meals staffing during the closure the we have a almost entirely virtual work environment for the school department with very few exceptions some of those being our facilities department has been in the building's cleaning disinfecting and providing building security we anticipate that we'll be finished cleaning and disinfecting this week and at that point we're going to a reduced schedule for facilities to make sure that they're also maintaining appropriate physical distance from each other food services is not working except for the people who are preparing our bagged lunches and edtech and payroll are on site only as needed for support most of their work is done virtually but there are just a couple of functions where they may need to

018come into the office to print something or provide support make sure a network server is up and running our leadership is virtual at this point we hold daily meetings one meeting every day is with just our central office administrators and then we have another meeting that's between an hour and a half long hour and a half long with central office same principles what I can say knowing my own schedule I am generally in about 6 hours worth of video conferences a day it's not why I got into education but it's become our new reality we also have school-based virtual meetings whenever those are possible and I wanted to give you a little sample of one of our schools on the right of the screen this is a sample of one day at the Junior High

019School of video conferences that our leadership team and educators are holding so this was for today there was a you know the seventh-grade Green Team met virtually at the beginning of the day that went into a special education meeting with Debbie Dixon we had a couple different meetings there and then there was a meeting for academic support ëall and reading teachers then we had an eighth grade team meeting followed by a meeting for our counseling staff so just a little window into how our leadership is spending time and what some of our educators are doing with us while they're not necessarily in the office but certainly working from home to the best that they can pay for staff I thought was important to touch on as well all staff are being paid during closure and

020I'm gonna go through certified and then hourly staff as well our certified staff we have designated to no work days this week and next week so tomorrow which is March 20th and then next Friday March 27th are no work days for our educators so our parents at home should not expect and students should not expect our educators reaching out tomorrow we had those as no work days because we know we will have to make up those two days at the end of the school year just to give you a sense of scope if we had to pay our teachers to work two extra days and not approach it this way each day is about two hundred and twenty thousand dollars worth a salary so just trying to make up two days at the end of

021the year is over 400 thousand almost four hundred and fifty thousand dollars expectations that we have of our certified staff while they're out we are asking teachers to connect on a daily basis to the extent they can with their students they are also starting up attending special education meetings to the extent we can have those be held we also have virtual grade level meetings and team meetings at some of our schools and we are expecting all of our faculty to check emails throughout the day so just a little sample of that and for our hourly staff they're also currently being paid during the closure what we did similar to our certified staff we are pre paying the two final days of the year but rather than withholding their pay now and then paying them later

022we thought that pay consistency was extremely important right now and so we've been clear with our staff that were pre paying two days off but we expect them to work June 22nd and June 23rd this also allows us to fit within the budget we are also now that we are starting to get settled with our certified staff and establish some routines in this virtual environment now we're also looking for opportunities for our hourly staff so we've been searching out some professional development for classroom assistants and special ed assistants to be able to do while they're out and then we're also looking at ways that we can utilize our non-certified staff to help support our students and assist our teachers in the virtual environment as well I think all of this I would you know just

023make sure we emphasize that this is a work in progress and it will continue to be a work in progress for the foreseeable future educational goals that we have during this closure we have two overarching goals and these are goals that we set but they were based on some guidance from deci one is to make social emotional connections for our students and that's with our students and among our students and then also to really think about engagement and how we can provide engaging opportunities in an enrichment based manner couple notes just from a technicality standpoint we did receive some guidance both from the State Department of Education and the federal Department of Education that if schools were to try and replicate classrooms online we would need to ensure that we're able to provide faith which

024is free appropriate public education for all of our students with disabilities and in addition we have considerations above that to be able to provide access for English learners and who might not have that technology and technology access is really two challenges one is around making sure that they have devices at home they can get on but the other is making sure that they have effective broadband access so you know without all of those pieces in place schools have to be really careful to make sure anything we do is equitable for all students one thing I just want to emphasize as well is that while our traditional strategies for teaching and learning may not be available to us I think what we do have an opportunity to do is rethink how we engage our students and

025think about the types of opportunities that students can continue to learn even if it may not be the exact way that they expected to be learning through school so sometimes with challenge comes opportunity as well standardized assessments just to go through some of that grade 10 ela would have started but that has now been postponed we do not have a start date on that yet we expect to hear that from the state at some point in the future similarly grade 3 through 8 ela would have started but that is now delayed we will have more information on that coming up grades 3 through 8 math and science and technology the window is April 27th through May 22nd you know I think as we start to know the exact return date and that is confirmed from

026the state we'd be able to confirm when exactly that will start so I put more to follow as a note AP exams are on a lot of our high school students Minds right now unfortunately the College Board let us know that they be giving us guidance tomorrow that didn't meet my timeline for the meeting tonight but they didn't seem overly concerned with that so we expect to hear more tomorrow but while College Board is indicated is that they are currently developing resources to help students at home in order to prepare for tests and they're also looking at the possibility of allowing students to be able to test at home so stay tuned for more information but families and students can go on the college board website I believe tomorrow probably by the end of the

027day they'll have more information up and then for SAT tests we know that the first test is not going to happen however the next testing dates available are May 2nd and June 6th and the SAT has not expanded on what this means but they have made a commitment to being flexible so we'll see what flexible needs from a facility standpoint all of our buildings will be cleaned and disinfected by this Friday and that includes all hard surfaces in classrooms including desks and conkers as well as all of the high touch areas including restrooms railings doorknobs and light switches throughout all of our buildings our facilities team has worked extraordinarily hard to make sure that can happen and I just want to make sure I thank all of them our facilities department is also going to

028be providing building security during the shutdown and we are rotating those employees shifts so that we can also make sure that they have proper distancing measures and we make sure that our employees are healthy as well and that we're taking care of them finally you know I wanted to make one comment that we had to slow a lot of our capital projects because we didn't want a lot of people in our buildings however there were two capital projects that we had an opportunity to do some of the high school flooring in the cafeteria that had been installed I believe was starting to bubble so we do have a very small team of about three workers who's coming in to redo that while we're out we're doing that in the middle of the closure period so

029that any type of germs or but you know virus that may be in the building certainly has time you know to be gone by the time we would open up again and then blanchard hvac we have some improvements to that that we're able to make that will improve the indoor air quality for users of that building so we wanted to take advantage of that as well I believe that work is happening next week for both of those projects building project the building project is actually on schedule as it was originally planned we are doing all our meetings virtually at this point that includes our weekly staff meetings all of the meetings that take place on the architect side in between those staff meetings also happen virtually and our building committee meetings beginning next week will

030also be done virtually one possible consideration put on everyone's radar is the availability of acting Board of Health to issue the permits for the geothermal test wells we need to do we were hoping to have those done over April vacation I think the Board of Health is pretty busy right now I think they're actually meeting again right now out while we're meeting and Board of Health it does have to issue geothermal well permits so you know that's the one area where I just want to put it on right everyone's radar they need to stay tuned it's not that Board of Health is trying to delay anything for us it's just the reality of the world that coronavirus has kind of taken over everything they're working on right now I'm going to see if I can

031bring in Dave verdolino into the conversation so Dave I am gonna hi there pop you on and if you don't mind going through some of the financial implications for everyone can you hear me first yes awesome hi everybody so the the outline that's in the memo mostly speaks for itself but I'll go through the bullets here the revenue is what it is I mean the assessments will come in the state aid is expected to come and there might be there won't be any transportation impact this year because it's a reimbursement it could be some reduction in transportation aid next year as it's a reimbursement program and we'll have fewer cost this year presumably reboot reimbursement for food services might be affected again because of the production the number of meals that are that are undertaken

032that's not an operating budget item though so not not much change in there on the revenue side Peter talked about salaries that were continuing to pay people there there will be savings pretty much assuredly in things like substitute coverage and overtime during the during the shutdown will will not be necessary so that so there should be some savings there on the expense side my staff is is about to undertake an analysis of the potential savings whether it's if it's a three week shutdown it'll be it'll be fairly insignificant comparatively speaking if it's longer obviously some of these the the amount of the savings the potential savings will be proportionate with the amount of the length of the shutdown but clearly if we're not occupying buildings computers and lighting being the the primary driver of the

033of the kilowatt hour usage we should save significantly on utilities in the month of March supplies again classroom supplies should go down if they're not in classrooms things like contracted services there might be some savings conference registrations things like that we're looking to identify for our purposes a more comprehensive list to see what we're to make sure we're not missing anything there could be some incremental expenses for the technology among which is how you're listening to me right now and are there Hardware relative to devices that might be made available to to certain students so we're keeping we're keeping track of on this I think the from the standpoint of the operating budget this isn't this isn't bad news it could be health wise and finance wise is are two different two different matters for

034us at this point the revolving accounts will be impacted because each of these that you see on the screen are fee-for-service operations they're quasi business enterprises and if there's less money coming in if we're going to waive tuitions for days that that that the programs don't run if we're not selling meals if we're not able to offer community had programs those operations will suffer a revenue hit we're looking at the fund balances and all of them I think I think they in all cases have sufficient reserves certainly for a smaller length smaller duration shutdown at this point but again I think that the revolving accounts are going to suffer more significantly than the operating budget so I thought this was a good place to you know just to be able to take some questions from

035everyone and you know all of our entire central office team is here tonight and so what I will do is actually bring them in to the conversation now so that if you have questions they can respond directly and as I'm bringing them in I just want to take an opportunity and thank each one of these individuals because the change from going to from brick-and-mortar schools to trying to replicate some of this online to the degree we can is absolutely monumental and the leadership that each of these individuals has shown throughout this process has been absolutely amazing I can't talk enough about the work that everyone has done the commitment to education that everyone has made and just really you know trying to on a daily basis doing the best they can for kids and you

036know I'm talking about you know a lot of our central office people right now but this certainly applies to all of our principals as well because this has been an absolutely incredible amount of work for everyone so just thank you for me to our entire leadership team and then I'd extend that as well to all of our all of our staff throughout the district because this has never been done in education before and if we thought of school closures 20 years ago this wouldn't even have been possible to do for technological perspective so we would have just closed our schools and that would have been it we would have reopened at some point in the future and instead what we're talking about is trying to see how we can continue to engage our students and

037stay connected with them and make those social emotional connections so with that said I'll turn it over and if you have any questions we're happy to answer okay so I'm gonna try my hardest here I can't see everybody on my screen all at the same time so I can see that Jenny's raising your hand and I saw that Diane just raised her hand so if you're not if you don't I don't see you raising your hand then maybe use the raise hand feature if I don't call on you and then just when I call on you Ginny you can go first just unmute yourself go ahead thank you thank you I can't find my virtual hand so thank you madam and I just wanted to say that you know in talking with parents and neighbors

038and friends over this past week about you know obvious obvious chaos that's going on around us I keep explaining to them this little antidote about how when we talk about blizzard bags last year the amount of time we spend just thinking like what it would be like to make up a couple of days and how much work that was gonna be for the educators in our district and how to make it meaningful and going back and forth and at the end of the day thinking out the you know it probably didn't make sense for our district and when you think about the amount of work we anticipated that that would cause our educators in a well thought out process and go from that to within 24 hours you know we were moving to online schools

039I think it really shows I mean this would have taken months if not years to prepare you know a cohesive plan that you know figured out to do with what with all students so I've been impressed as a parent of an eighth grader and a tenth grader with what has been put together so far and you know my one observation is that you know for adolescents it's really just the impact on their you know psyches for like their friends being ank their schedule being yanked their UT routines being act like everything is gone and I think that we really need to think about how we are going to try to assess and address mental health needs of our of our kids and I really appreciate all the thoughts about keeping them together but it's it's

040just so hard to be you know a teenager whose whole life has kind of like vanished you know suddenly and unexpectedly and maybe some kids out there who really struggling with that so that's just I want to say thank you to everybody and obviously this is an extraordinary time and I think you know I've been impressed so far but I worry about you know just the mental health from lack of connections that are our kids I really do thank you thank you I'm Tess I see Diane has her hand up I got it okay sorry about that I would like to thank the leadership and the staff for all the hard work they did in stepping up so quickly to really effectively launch this connection and an engagement initiative I also have two kids at

041home who are in high school and connecting with their friends virtually but they are feeling the kind of the sting of not being in school so it's I just it's it's just it's been very much appreciated to be kept in in the prize of the process I think everyone really has a very good understanding of how much work it was and we're all in awe of you so thank you for that I did have one comment and question and this is really maybe directed at Ginny as our legislative liaison on yesterday the US House of Representatives passed HR 6201 and it gave the USDA the United States Department of Agriculture authority to approve state waivers to reimburse us for providing those free meals usually districts who have under 50% of their student body under 50%

042who get free and reduced lunch they don't receive assistance my understanding is that we are one of those districts and I don't know what the status of this is but it would be it would be worth or reach out to Lori Trahan to see if she can get on board with other legislators of on the federal level to get us a state waiver because the USDA can proactively grant them but the feeling is they won't so I don't know what the feeling is of the committee but I think this is a no-brainer to try to get that and and I guess I just want confirmation that we are one of those districts that still have 50 percent less than 50 percent of kids on free and reduced lunch thank you okay Marie I unmuted you

043but do you want to talk to that quickly of course we're lower than 50 percent we're at 11% of our students are on free or reduced lunch and I'm in Kirsten Nelson our food services director which I'd like to throw shout out to her as well um the work that she and her team have done has been monumental and we've made food available to folks in town but she was on a webinar today and my understanding is they do not believe there's going to be reimbursement for districts that have less than 50% so I don't it is federal funding so I do think it's a federal legislature legislature but as far as we know right now we will not qualify okay can I can I ask Jenny de to try to get in touch with

044Laura hands office to see if that is still the case yeah I do believe it would take to change that rule I believe it's legislation not by regulation but you know I think everything's on the table so I'm happy to make the ask I'm sure we're not the only you we're not unique in this way it's in anyway so I will reach out to her and I'm meeting with our state delegation as soon as they're able just to find out what is available for us at the state levels because I think there's going to be a lot of stuff potentially available there as well but thank you I will ask that question we are also trying to make a push toward that as a superintendent's Association I see John and Amy have their hands up

045Tessa thank you I have a question for Dave with respect to this exercise of looking at the impact of the next three weeks because I love back-of-the-envelope calculations if we say that there are about 12 weeks left will we be able to take the numbers you're gonna generate sort of multiplying by four and have an idea about what the end of the year might look like if this extended through the end of the year just unmute yourself Dave I clicked it there it is okay John we're not doing something so granular as to say what's the impact of three we're looking at the major categories and identifying where there could be savings where there we haven't come up with many if any could be additional costs and just be just being able to anticipate so

046so that's that wasn't the purpose of the exercise it's more of an overview and to start to get a handle on where we think there might be some savings in the long term I don't think it's going to be to anyone's benefit given that given the working conditions to try and come up with an analysis of a three week savings and then try and scale it up that's my own personal feeling about that yes so I I think that to play off Christine's opening remarks that you know when we created this budget the world looked one way and today the world looks rather different you know it's interesting to reflect back on the contract that we settled with the acton-boxborough educators association and think about the discussion of what compensation was and what services we

047were requesting versus the services that are now actually being delivered and so I want to also echoed the sentiment that you know our staff you know has been great at doing a pivot saying although we thought we were going to be doing one thing over these next few weeks and I think actually it's going to turn out to be over the next couple of months we're gonna do something else and then the last comment that I'd like to make is that I think it was an extremely important decision to continue to pay all of our workers as awful as this disease will be I have no doubt that the economic consequences associated with the disruptions that are going on will be severe and every community that stands up to help minimize that disruption will play

048an important role in putting the wheels back on the bus and then the last point that I'd like to make is for people who are familiar with Maslow's pyramid the bottom of the pyramid of course starts with food and shelter and so it's extremely important that the district does what it can to help make sure that people are well fed and then of course the next part of the pyramid makes sure that people are supported which is exactly where we are with social emotional learning so whatever lessons are being taken away from the work that we are doing I hope that that very next step of activity is social-emotional learning but like Peter you know I also see in this you know some possibilities for people to move forward to the top of the pyramid

049that this you know because of social social isolation actually becomes in a different lens an opportunity for independent learning and independent development these are critically important skills for everyone to have at some point during their life so to the extent that we support students in directions that make them stronger independent learners will have provided a very very valuable if somewhat unexpected service all right do I need to impose so like two minutes speaking on school committee members Amy okay hi I just wanted to say I do really appreciate I what's kind of happening with my four kids in the house I all of them have been on video conference video chats doing lessons with not less it's not even lessons it's just an opportunity to meet with their classmates with their teacher discussing a book

050or the psychology class they're doing some really you know very interesting things and I know this has been a huge huge adjustment in a in the matter in a very short period of time I did want to put out there having a senior and as we go forward that I know that I know Peter I know that mr. doar you guys they're they're thinking about this but this is really having an impact on my senior thinking about graduation prom and all of those into the year activities and it's it's been it's been very difficult on him and his friends so I hope that maybe we at you know some time soon can have some kind of a plan going forward if we end up being here for a couple of months of how how we're

051going to address this yeah I mean I can just talk to that briefly I would love to have a plan right now you know I think the challenge is there's so much unknown still around what's coming over the next you know three to five to six to eight weeks that you know if we get too far ahead of ourselves and try and make a plan that okay if we push the activity back now for a week you know we'll be okay I think we're gonna end up changing so many times that you know I think the first step is to going to be figure out when we're going to return and then under what circumstances are we returning is the state can to impose restrictions on us in terms of gatherings and things like that

052I really feel badly for our seniors you know just like we see a lot of our college athletes losing their senior year for something they've worked at the same thing is happening at the local level so we're very very sensitive to that we want to make sure we can try and provide some great activities for our kids at the end of the year but we're just we don't have enough information quite yet to try and plan that no I just appreciate the fact that you're all on it and you realize that how stressful this is so that I appreciate that more than anything and I know that as long as you have a focus and you realize this is a big deal then I'll feel much better about it Tess I think Angie so I'm

053okay I also impressed with how fast and smooth the transition that the school district is able to transition from the physical classroom to the online class to the virtual classroom so because we have this unexpected events is there any new things that we're thinking considering to implement providing it's like a platform for their student to get more collaboration or any additional online education Deb would you like to speak to that I'm sure so I think the first piece is the ensuring that all students have access to technology and concerning me has some thinking around that that she can contribute so the first piece is of course making sure that students have access we know that there are some platforms there are quite a few that many of the different companies have provided for free so

054in terms of vetting what those might look like but we really need to also look we know we have a conference conquer Commissioner tomorrow we are also looking to the state for some guidance on some of this because we want to make sure that whatever if we were to decide on something we need to make sure again that all the access is available make sure that the translations are available and make sure that accommodations can be made and we just need to make sure that we can provide faith as Peter mentioned before so it's an ongoing process but we are looking at all those things yeah thank you and you see I understand mine's real brief mine is just a thank you a retroactive thank you as many parents are realizing a lot of the

055work and prep that goes into what our teachers do in preparing for lessons a current thank you for all of the work that's been done so far and a proactive thank you for all the amazing work that we're going to see in the next few weeks I'm really appreciative of all the support that we're getting from the district right now thank you alright any other questions for our panelists I heard all my questions asked all right I'm gonna go ahead and our panelists again so that they don't have to be on camera the whole time they're still with us now if I have to remember exactly how I do that that may take me a minute here but Tessa feel free to carry on so Maria let you take it away and I'm gonna go

056ahead and share my screen again while Marie talks hey everybody it's nice to see you all my screen says beth better but don't let that fool you I'm not that smart so um we put a brief memo in your packet and we want to keep you apprised of things that are happening financially and ask for your advice and action on this particular item so two programs that we have that our tuition based our all-day kindergarten and our Carole humor early childhood program or our pre-k students so there are two ition students in both programs and obviously we're not in session so we would like you to consider waiving one month of tuition for each of those programs we could have rated it down to the day and then at this point we're at sixteen days

057but we were thinking it's much simpler and you know each month has a different number of days and all that so and people pay by the month so we thought it would be the way to do it would be to reimburse or not charge for one month for each of these programs and in the memo we share with you for all-day kindergarten to not charge or reimburse for one month would be ninety two thousand dollars and the all-day kindergarten revolving fund as of June 30th had three hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars in the fund balance I use the June 30 number because we've got revenues in and expenses out since then so that's a real good measurement of of what the fund balance was and then for the preschool one month of tuition is $27,000

058and the fund balance for that revolving account is two hundred and five thousand so we look forward to your feedback about this and if you are in agreement we would ask you to consider voting on this this evening yeah mine is a brief question which is since we just mentioned that we are changing video shots moving to pay those teachers while we're closed how does that affect our fund balance so we're not going to take in revenue some of those teacher salaries were covered by that revenue for the kindergarten what did how does that affect our balance at the end of the year yep so the numbers you see in front of you are the revenues that we're not getting the expenses would stay consistent so you could estimate that the fund balance would be

059reduced by the numbers on the chart it's not quite that totally black and white because we already knew we were going to reduce all-day kindergarten fund balance a little bit based on more scholarships this year but there is room in those fund balances but you could anticipate them going down by 92 thousand for all-day K and 27 thousand for pre-k and Murray can you just clarify is that per month of tuition waivers what correct so we're talking about one month here and we believe that would cover us certainly through the current shutdown and if the shutdown were extended through April vacation that we're in the one month window if it goes longer than April vacation we'll probably be coming back to you for another discussion question or comment we have three hands up here so

060how would that change if the school restart they welch be changed and can I follow up one more question because right now what the anticipated return date is actually the beginning of April right so if that will be changed if the restart they will be changed by the state say they're gonna restart they stay emergency will be extended how would that be affect us okay I can so Angie if if it were to be extended through April vacation we think this one month would cover that and if it's extended beyond April vacation we would come back to you and discuss what to do about however long that extension would be but if it were to go the rest of the year certainly the all-day Kay revolving account would have some issues if we were to

061reimburse for three months can you help me clarify again and the reason why we're not using the actual date the paraded rate and instead of a mouse is it four because instantly because they pay by per month yes so they pay by month and as soon as we know the decision here a lot of the parents have automatic credit card payments so as soon as we know we would notify the parents to stop that automatic payment and then we would reimburse folks who had already made the payment so it's seems simpler to do it for one month and then if the committee would prefer us to do it on a per diem basis we could do that we just don't want to do it multiple times over and over again because the reimbursements are manpower

062intensive no Angie asked my question thank you John did you have a question I move to waive tuition for the month of April for the Acton Boxborough Regional School District's all-day kindergarten tuition and the Carroll Hebron early childhood program tuition you were raising your hand for did you have a question an actual question well no to the motion I'm sorry what may I comment on the motion okay confusing could you like when you're already you're handed I would have asked for a motion so here's what we'll do from going forward okay just wait one second John because I had already called on Paul I didn't realize that you also had something else to say on top of making the motion and if we're going to do any other motions I will have all of the

063discussion person then I will ask somebody to make I will ask if there's anyone who wants to make a motion so I'll ask your questions and John I'll come back to you so it's more comment I I thought that you know hearing that the the the difference between a per diem and a monthly I I think doing this for one month is a reasonable approach because it kind of streamlines the decision making process if we if it extends again then we have maybe another talk about another month or we talk about you know per diem but for now I think it's a reasonable hedging of the bet to just go for a month so I'll support I'll support the motion yes the idea of charging people for services that we are not providing you know

064strikes me as just wrong so you know I obviously I think everybody knows that you know I had concerns about you know revenues associated with all-day K but this seems to me to be very straightforward if we are not providing services we simply cannot charge for services not provided and then I would also make the editorial comment that since I fully expect that this will be extending you know longer than just April I do think it's important for Dave to do the analysis to see if some of these revolving accounts are going to go negative and if so how we will address that is anyone else raising their hand no okay so then this is the way we will do a roll call vote I will call on you and you will say okay Paul

065yes Amy yes sorry Ted unmute Andy yes Diane yes John yes maíam yes Michael yes Norah yes Adam yes Jenny yes myself yes okay so that that motion passes unanimously [Music] thank you okay looks like what's next on my agenda is policy subcommittee is that correct Peter is that what you see I understand that the graduation requirements policy ikf revision and the request to name the active US for regional high school pool will be discussed at a future meeting we let everyone know who had contacted the community about the renaming know that this would not come up tonight and that we would not be following up with us tonight as we wanted those people to be able to attend the meeting not in this virtual sort of forum any do you want to speak to

066the new diversity policy or go right to Don I'm just gonna hand it right over to Don good evening it's fun seeing you all like the Brady Bunch on my screen so as you know this is policy well GBA a but over the last few years we've prioritized hiring educators of color this year we've taken additional steps to recruit candidates from diverse backgrounds and as part of that work we're asking school committee members to help us put another stake in the ground by considering a policy that further illustrates our commitment while much of this policy speaks to candidates from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups we were intentional about also adding language to recruit quote allies and our diversity equity and inclusion work additionally the policy lays out our priority to create inclusive working environments that

067value different perspectives and experiences because ultimately a diverse workforce is a stronger workforce that benefits our students in numerous ways so tonight is the first read for policy G baa there any discussion so as I read through that the draft I noticed there was no reference you know legal reference to that and I asked a question of Peter on that and there is no legal reference which tells me that we're going kind of above and beyond what is legal really required and for this this subject I think that's I think that's great and I applaud the district for doing that thank you I my understanding is that what we're striving for here in this policy is a it's a confluence of two ideas and and I'm not sure that they're both clearly articulated in the

068policy so I just wanted to float the idea that what what I think you're going for is that we select applicants on the basis of their qualifications their merit their ability and we are aggressively and proactively taking measures to achieve a workforce at all employment levels and that's the other thing I didn't really see in there that reflects the composition of our student population because we want them to have adult role models and a diversity of role models so that we create an environment that includes all all kinds of people and encourages communication about and discussion about differences and appreciation of everyone's uniqueness so I I can send this to the calls this is a first rate correct so well the policy subcommittee be meeting again I just I I don't see that kind of

069balance in the policy so I'm interested in having that discussed perhaps when you say balance Diane are you talking about the fact that it speaks to educators and leaders and there's a missing piece there for you or about the selecting applicants on the merits and abilities versus diversity both I think both should be in there I think both is really really important and to leave one out doesn't it makes me uncomfortable to read that without that language in there Adam I see you're raising your hand yes thank you first I think this is a great policy I am struggling with the title of it being workforce diversity and then the purpose of the policy in the third paragraph talking about candidates from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups and this is a little bit I think

070from our learnings at mas C conference this year with when dr. Derek gray spoke about what does diversity mean and so I'm I'm sort of throwing this question back to the policy subcommittee to sort of talk about that and and help us understand what we're looking for here because some might argue that diversity and say the elementary education might also include different genders if we see a large population we'll say female teachers in the elementary education setting might we think about diversity to be including a different set of genders and met or are we actually looking to hire those who are from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group so I just think that sort of teasing out whether or not the title of the policy or the the purpose of the policy are aligned with

071what we talked about in terms of both diversity and underrepresented groups I agree with that Adam we have that Derek gave presentation made me think a lot of more about diversity and what we mean by that word when we say it so I would do a second that that notion that we should that the ballsy subcommittee should either look at the title or look at the language to really clarify what it is that we're looking for me Angie did you have her hand raised yes is actually the same language diversity which other than the gender the race and and how about the culture because people may look totally different by having underneath they have the same culture and also a different you know moral standard or anything so the diversity is I really encourage the

072the group to think about what we mean by diversity John I think looking at the language around equal opportunity the the point that Adam made about gender basically argues that the way the policy should read is to take the language around equal opportunity and say that we hope to achieve balance in these same dimensions in our workforce so you know it would be nice to see a teacher who happen to be in a wheelchair for the sake of argument but I do think of course this shows the fundamental tension in the policy that there will be an equal opportunity and yet somehow we will find some balance so I think it's it's it's a complicated issue but from a language in perspective simply looking for symmetry in the first paragraph in the third paragraph would

073help okay I don't think you see anyone else's him so that's just a first read so we will consider it at a future meeting possibly after it has gone back to policy for some of those tweaks thank you Thanks all right so item 4.1 is approval of our meeting minutes from March 5th we have draft minutes of the meeting on March 5th in the packet is there a motion or discussion move to approve second yes Amy yes Angie yes Diane yes yes Maya yes Michael yes Nora yes Adam yes Jenny yes and me yes all right those passed unanimously thank you and then item 4.2 I believe is back to you marine with a kindergarten registration update thank you so we committed to families that we would do the lottery and notify them by the

074end of March so we wanted to talk to you about kindergarten and the enrollment numbers and some of the things we're working with so next slide please so on this slide you can see the enrollment as compared to the projection so we have a total of 300 and I'm sorry we have a total of 288 students as of today and we're going to anticipate twenty to twenty-five more so we're anticipating twenty-five more would get us to 313 and the projection was 334 that were slightly below the projection 21 students below the projection we're more than that at this point but we an average of the last four years is 25 kids between now and October first of those kids we were below the acton projection by 11 students and we were below the Boxborough projection

075by 15 students the box projection was 74 that was extremely high the last few years we've had old 40s first students who live in Boxborough so the projection was 74 I anticipated it would be lower than that and as of today we have 54 I'm going to project five more between now and October 1st about 59 so that would leave us 15 below the projection so as we then looked at the chart that shows how many kids Peter would you go to the next slide please um as we looked at how many kids were selected each town and how many kids had priority we budgeted for 17 classrooms that's on target we could have budgeted for 18 if we look if we went with the full projection but as I said I was anticipating something

076less than that so we budgeted for 17 and that's going to work fine but we had we were hoping we could just have three in Boxborough and we played for 14 and Acton but the number of students who have priority to attend Blanchard for next year is 66 so with 66 kids already we really can't go with three classrooms so what we're recommending is that we go with a fourth classroom in Boxborough but based on the number of kids that leaves in Acton we can actually reduce a classroom in Acton so we're recommending moving a classroom from act into Boxborough and analyzing it working with the principals looking at all the schools we're recommending that we move a classroom from Conant to Blanchard so gates already has two kindergartens all the other active schools have

077three and Conant would be the next school that really needs to free up some space over the next few years so we're recommending that instead of having three kindergartens at Conant we have two and instead of having three a Plantard we have four and by doing it that way we're not adding a classroom the budget is neutral this will allow us to have class sizes between 18 and 18 and a half across the district and those will grow over time but for September we're expecting it to be 18 to 18 and a half next live case so now this is the chart that shows how many folks selected each school and the first column is all the first choices by school the second column is of those how many of them have priority to attend

078at school with the hometown guarantee Blanchard is always much higher so 66 students have a priority to attend Blanchard which is why we are going with a fourth classroom um the other schools it's mostly siblings and you have a few walkers here and there I gave you a column of new families to each school and then a column of how many sections so based on what we just talked about again we're recommending four sections at Blanchard 2 at Conant and gates and three down to Miriam with that we determine the seats that are available in each school targeting class sizes around 18 17 18 for now again there will be 25 more kids 20 to 25 so that class size you see in the class size column it would be as of the lottery will

079add 25 students to those totals and we'll distribute them starting with the class the schools that have the fewer students so at the time of the lottery we're going to need to have a lottery in three schools Miriam Conant and Blanchard and the Miriam and Conant would be small four or five kids and we're hoping to get most of those kids into their first choice school before September and again that happens because we would have more kids placed in other schools and that will get us to our 1819 class sizes the Blanchard the 11 that won't get into Blanchard our acting students who want Blanchard we're probably not going to be able to move any of those I think four will get in with the lottery but the remaining 11 we need to leave those

080seats available for future Foxborough students who move in and have the hometown guarantee I'm almost done the last part is all day and half day we had 242 students request all day we have 46 students who requested half-day I see those are at Blanchard so we're recommending that we continue to have one half-day classroom in the district that would be at Blanchard the other schools will have hybrids and so the students who are in half-day will be part of an all-day hybrid class and by doing it that way all the kids who are in the lottery will get half-day or all day whichever their family preferred and the only kids who might not get their preference around all day and half day is there could be a couple in the future at Blanchard who end

081up in half day to balance the class sizes there because there will be a couple more seats in half day but we'll have to see how that plays out but at this point in time everyone who wanted all day gets all day everyone who wanted half day gets half day I think there's one more slide Peter so this is basically what I just talked about you can kind of read the bullets I think it makes sense to go back to the previous slide and then we can see if you guys have any questions I can see Adam Tessa you're muted alright I'm just gonna go a couple questions about this Murray with the additional pathways classroom and Blanchard and how does this affect the space for classrooms in that school so we're still working through

082this space question at Blanchard we're looking at several options but there aren't any empty classrooms at this point especially by adding another pathways classroom but we're trying to figure out what we can move around to make this work okay and then a quick follow-up is how does our there's three full days plus a half day relate to sections that will have moving forward through the school would this be a four section sort of bubble that moves through the school yes so this grade will move through with four sections every year yes and we have a couple grades already like that there okay thanks Marie in looking at the memo the table for the projection has the dates of 2019 to 2020 is that correct no and then just to make sure that I understand this

083so this you know total of 313 that's reasonably well aligned with the size of the current kindergarten class if I read it correctly off the chart at the end we're at 312 now is that correct um I'd have to look it up I'm not sure yeah I you saw it oh yeah in the back of the packet that's yes that's what it says that's correct yeah this is actually that's a good point John very consistent with last year's kindergarten at the time of the lottery we had 287 right now we have 288 Thank You Tober I think we had 304 Andy oh sorry I didn't hear you um so how would this because the enrollment number is lower than the projected how would that because I remember that the only talk about the budget that

084we expect higher enrollment how would this impact the the budget so this is just kindergarten we're gonna have to wait till October one to see what happens k12 around enrollment so I'm not sure yet we'll have to see right now we're projecting twenty two fewer kids in kindergarten it's hard to know what will happen at other grades if enrollment is lower than projected k12 then that affects chapter 70 it includes our means it takes us longer to get out of hold harmless but that's sort of a whole other discussion and there are a lot of numbers in that formula so too soon to tell I think Angie is the answer okay assuming you can work out the the space issue at Blanchard that the the the shift looks like it makes sense to me so

085you know this this kind of work is always a little bit of nail-biting because you're working with numbers that you don't you know you don't always have all the numbers in hand but you still got to make the decisions so but I think this is a reasonable management of these numbers thank you Paul I just I I do want to come back briefly to the the idea of having multiple for class sections at Blanchard I understand bringing gates down and seeing that that number down to two sections but I would I would not like to see space constraints at Blanchard turn into us having to put say modulars in that on that site when we've got options at other other buildings Conant as an example where we only have two sections I'm my concern is

086that is balancing the the desire of all the those families who want to be at Blanchard with sort of our responsibility to to put a cap or a limit on people in that building so that it can serve everybody appropriately and both not affect that the education that happens in there but also the budget of the district if we have to bring extra space extra temporary facilities on line yeah so if I can jump in on that one I think you know the reason we wanted to look at that particularly the fact that there's 66 students from Boxborough who have that hometown guarantee right now we cannot reasonably plan three classes of 22 at Blanchard those are not good kindergarten class sizes to start and then we know that some additional families will be moving

087in over the summer so I think if we wanted to cap blancher that three sections I think what we'd altima be talking about is having to talk about ending the hometown guarantee for Boxborough students and then looking at placing Boxborough students over at the Acton schools even if they wanted a entrance so I think that's that's really what the driving challenge is so there that's probably the trade-off the committee has to think about Thanks well I guess the question I'm looking at the numbers that that murray provided there's actually only 54 Foxborough students right and the other ones are siblings current acting students there are 10 siblings I think a couple might be pathways placements but there are 54 Boxborough students and 10 acting siblings so we're all we're really all taking for new families

088that don't have hometown guarantee and that's definitely something that we're you know we're trying to manage it because the more siblings you have the more this could happen so I hear Adams point well I hear out of this point as well I guess I guess my I guess I guess it becomes complicated now that we have lots of siblings so who gets priority first Foxborough residents currently in rural families you know if you if you start to think about who might who might not get their preference I mean I can understand how how you know that the balance of concerns all right there was other people that had their hands up so Paul um so yeah this goes back to Appendix A and I'm I'm trying to remember I don't have it in front of

089me but I thought there was some language in there that the superintendent could you know make whatever placements were necessary but well I think before we go to Appendix A I'm wondering if there's something we could do to go to the parents of Boxter oh and just ask again if they're they be willing to voluntarily move so I can speak to the regional agreement the regional agreement does say that in extreme circumstances the superintendent could overrule the hometown guarantee it also says that after five years the School Committee could reconsider it that's really in your hands but you know I think people made their choices and claimed the hometown guarantee fully knowing that this is what what has been happening so I don't think we're gonna get ten volunteers to move Diane I think angie

090might have been first my mind is really really quick so Angie if you don't mind I'll just jump in angie was first but she's already under asking questions so that's why I called on you okay this really has to be considered in the spirit of open enrollment I understand the space constraints and we certainly don't want modulars at Blanchard we also don't want to lose hometown guarantee and we also have to consider open enrollment so this is really complicated may be worthy of another discussion because as we we have these situations come up and we start talking about putting caps on on enrollment due to space issues we again we really need to consider like what like why we have open enrollment and if we want to have open enrollment and if we are really

091if we have allegiance to the spirit of what it means to have open enrollment when when we start talking about caps that's really all I wanted to say so thank you I owe the I think it may be worthwhile to talk about this and the other complication is the transportation so we are transporting if there's more acting kids siblings and we're transporting across the town so I least because the for classroom they will grow and there's a potential there will be more for classroom in the coming years and that there definitely we have we would there will be more classroom in when they grow up so yeah we have to think about that too thank you okay I don't see anybody else's hands up do you hear do not and I do not see any

092attendees hands up either you know I think you know I don't want to talk from Murray but I think what we probably need to do is get some general direction from the committee I heard a little bit of talk of maybe he postponing until we have another conversation about this which we can certainly do but we would just need to notify families that we're not going to hold the lottery and that we're gonna postpone that so I just want to kind of put that out there that we need to this is one item that if we want to postpone we need to notify people Nora sorry I was just trying to unmute I think I'd be interested in having a further conversation about it just balancing those things that Diane mentioned of hometown guarantee and

093open enrollment like I need a little bit more information about what the impact of space would be if we had the four kindergarten classrooms and how do we weigh the sibling guarantee with the hometown guarantee what that would do to what goes on in the building the projected size of the pathways program and just have a little better understanding of what it would look like at Blanchard yeah I think um Adam can I just pause you one second just before we jump in there's something going on with the broadcast so I just want to let attendees know evidently any discussion going on with attendees can be heard on the public broadcast so just be aware of that sorry I'm no worries i I think I understand that we do need to come up with a

094decision pretty quickly for those members of the public who have who are looking to get some final answer as to where they're going to be placed for next year and balancing that with sort of a sense at least that I have that we don't have all the information and and haven't messed maybe necessarily express all of our thoughts I would suggest that maybe individual committee members can make send emails to Tessa and Peter and then maybe for our next meeting or meeting after that the administration can come back with a couple proposals a lot more options for us so that we don't have to wait until our next meeting to have a sort of a roundtable discussion on this my feeling listening notice I mean what I imagine dana has been informed of this sort

095of thing and this base obviously he's aware of the faith constraints I mean this seems like I mean obviously we just got this information and I you know I feel like it's important for you know the committee to discuss it but it does seem sort of like an 11th hour decision to maybe say like oh my gosh we're going to throw out hometown guarantee and as I said there's a complication and deciding like are we throwing out hometown guarantee are we throwing out sibling guarantee because there's a big difference between you know saying that hometown guaranteed you know which one supersedes the other sibling guarantee or hometown guarantee I mean those are big big questions and I just wonder if now in the very end of March when everybody's already going through all this chaos

096if this is the right time I mean I understand the implications of a bubble for going up through winter but did Dana have thoughts on them so I have a couple things I can add yes we've been working with the principles involved just especially with Dana the in terms of space in two years we anticipate the opening of the new school in that new school there will be room for the entire pre-k program there will also be room for a k-6 case program in the new school hopefully we can keep case in in more than one school but the preschool can definitely move over to the new school which will free up classrooms so we're seeing this as sort of a two-year question around space so yes we think we need a fourth section for

097next year we knew that was a possibility Dana we've been exploring lots of options and there are some options but it could mean building some small group instructional space in other parts of the building that are currently in a classroom it could mean there are several creative things unfortunately not having school last week you know this last week did not give us the opportunity to explore it as well as we would like to have but I think we're confident we can solve the space issues to a point where we brought it to you this evening so we can come back with what that looks like but if you want us to hold on a lottery we need to know that that's helpful to hear to think about the new building coming open and what that

098does to the space um I guess I can you share a little bit about the impact of having for kindergarten classrooms on the pathways program is that something that would impact the ability for pathways to be at Blanchard which I know is something that is pretty important to the community as a whole and also if you can share anything about yeah I guess it feels like I wanted to hear a little bit more from what the principal at the building was thinking about that if you have more information about that but a danís would have pictured it working with that sighs oh so I'm sorry I'm doing too many things at once I'm I don't know if Peter can see if Dana's online or not he's not okay yeah so pathways will continue at Blanchard

099and there's a full commitment to that it's if anything it's expanding so that's not an issue and Dane has been working through this with us and is supportive of having the fourth classroom we already have four classrooms at a couple of grades so to Adams point you know it's interesting there were four classrooms at every grade and a fifth classroom at one grade at the peak around 2000 but a lot of things have changed since then and we have additional programs there that we're not there then so you know we're watching it over the years but we we have four this would be the third grade that would have four classrooms at it in it um so I guess nor does that answer your question so maybe I can jump in a little bit you

100know I think they're in in terms of I don't know how much it would end up being a principals discretion about taking on a 4th class or not within a school I think that needs to be more of a district level decision about how we allocate students but I think in terms of space over the coming years you know we know that when the new school is finished not only is it to preschool classrooms but we've also allocated two case classrooms into the new building and case currently has one class from over in Blanchard I think ideally we'd love to expand access the case classrooms in the coming years but for now you know it's the proper thing to do to leave that case classroom at Blanchard we do have some space with related service

101providers within the building that can probably be condensed into some shared spaces because right now they're in very large classrooms with with very few students so I don't see this impacting how we bring pathways along in the building and I think in the coming years you know we can certainly still accommodate growth if that's the case from from Boxborough students you know I think one area we may want to look at if we think about it at all coming up is maybe we think about limiting new families from acting going into Blanchard so that over the next few years there are maybe fewer siblings as as things aged out and that might be a middle ground in terms of looking at maybe the long term growth of the school and that but but I even

102think with that you know even if we took out the you know that handful of students from Acton that you know non siblings the new students beyond the siblings it's still fairly low number and we would still probably be recommending that for sections for K know I just wanted to say I think that that's helpful to understand that I was asking the question about what Danis thoughts were about it more just in terms of the growth of the school as a whole and if we're thinking about I was setting up a lottery to honor people's preferences and choices in school choice what side does does this bring us beyond the ideal size of an elementary school does this change the feel of the building or you know sort of to Adams point that would we

103at some point need temporary buildings but I think if we're looking long-term that within a couple years we have this new building that will certainly be a draw for people that that might balance it out and I also just wanted to say that looking at the chart the class sizes look great and I think that's really important too it's nice to see the class sizes across the board for the kindergarten classrooms I don't think there's any reason unless I hear differently for my school committee colleagues to hold up the lottery I was just going to ask for consensus on that half raising your hand there or yeah III think I don't know I don't know what the effect of having lottery is on what Peters suggestion was but that's kind of where I was leaning

104towards as well to take current events into account you know for for non sibling kids this year is eight kids next year and if they've got two siblings each then it's you know it multiplies and not that I don't want a diversity of community members in the school but I think it might be a prudent decision to look at how that the the siblings has affected the growth of the students in Blanchard and maybe limit those families that don't have hometown advantage or siblings in the building for this next year or two just to help flatten the curve can I just make it ask a question um Dane is texting me he wants me to tell you he's good to go and we talked through this but so to Adams point in the current enrollment

105for next year we have 54 hometown guarantee we have 10 siblings I guess it's 52 and 10 and I think we have a couple we're reserving four pathways but there are four new families we were going to admit so 15 Acton families do not have a sibling requested Blanchard I was trying to push it to get four new families in so that at least they had a chance we could back off on those four I would probably notify them and we would place them in there we would their second choice school - their first choice school which might push the lottery a little bit at a couple of other schools you know it will affect a couple of some of those numbers but if it sounds like that might be the consensus and then that

106would potentially reduce future siblings over the next few years and I do think the sibling numbers have grown each year so 10 yeah maintain a fourth section or not maintain a fourth section so if you wanted to honor hometown guarantee in the ten siblings then we would still go with the fourth section I don't know what do people think about that I mean you know like I said I feel like yes and that's what Nora thinks all right yeah but I'm not raising my hand because I like it I understand the space constraints but I think this merits a discussion of what open enrollment means in this district and I would I wouldn't vote again I don't think this is a vote is it it's just a consensus and I'm not gonna now go with

107the consensus obviously but I just think it merits a lot longer discussion maybe not tonight but about what it means to have open enrollment in the district then I know well so I feel that way too I just don't I don't know the feeling feel it I feel like that's it for for families I understand there's like a ripple effect but there's a ripple effect the other way too so those four families don't go there and their first choices were one of the other places but has you know he eight people or it was Conant that that would have had you know I don't know I I also know that I feel comfortable like causing the ripple now when we just saw that rather having a more robust discussion when we come back in the

108fall ahead of doing this kindergarten thing you know when there's more time to discuss it I don't know if we're going to have four sections anyway because of the current needs of the kids that are already slated to come to blanchard because of their hometown or their siblings then I don't know I don't know I don't know that I feel that that's telling those four families that they can't just because we've decided you know all of a sudden that this is a scary number of kids to start getting if we entered when it's going to change in two years anyway with this new building I don't know if that's how I feel Adam Paul also had his hand up well you know it's it's really for me it's really nice to see the interest from

109acting parents to be at Blanchard and vice versa so I think that that it in a way this is a good thing it's just that we have constraints and I think that's always been a figment of open enrollment is is no one has ever guaranteed their first choice we do our best to get first choice but that's why we have the rankings so you know I I would hate to see going to three classrooms and have the class size get out of whack so I think I'd rather the four classrooms and we just and we just deal with that yeah I just I hear what everybody's saying and I think that the conversation around open enrollment is definitely one that we should have but we're going to be in this situation at this time every

110year because we don't know what families choose until this time so you know I think making the somewhat pragmatic decision around identifying that siblings come in as a follow-on effect we should do what we can to sort of limit that now we also don't know what will happen for move-ins the district and if we we do need to keep four sections if we have a lower class size in those four sections and we get move-ins in the district who are living in Acton then it would make sense for them to have access to those classrooms at that point as a way of balancing out all the class sizes around the district but I think looking at what's happened in the past knowing that we don't see this information until this time we should we should

111do it we can to limit that sort of exponential growth and I also feel that it's it's if we do take those four families and put them back into the lottery there are 23 families that are waiting to know where they're going to be placed and I don't want them to have to wait too long do we know how many Foxborough families chose in kindergarten chose acting school I think it's one okay Angie Angie did you have a question it's either zero or one text I have a question clarify so right now there's sixty sixty students so that is the reason why clencher is going to class room is that I thought it's like it's what is the number of fifty two versus sixty-six 52 box birth students ten siblings yep 52 box for residents

112ten siblings the rest is pathways okay so it's for hometown is 62 right 52 i I guess that was the find questions so we're talking about potentially disappointing for families and throwing them back into the pool I just want to make sure I understand this correct so what it means is there are 15 people EES who requested Blanchard who do not have priority and so we were gonna run the lottery and give four of those 15 seats it gives all 15 of them a chance it gives four of them seeds so if we say no to the four that's okay I think we would notify them before we run the lottery that we're not accepting any new families to Blanchard yeah and I think the school committee level policy decision here is whether or not

113to maintain open enrollment or whether or not to maintain home caring time guarantee so it's you know I think from a school committee perspective it's important to understand you know it may not be about the exact number of classrooms in the building and it may be more about the policy level aspect of it and then as administrators we have to figure out how that's going to work with the reality of the situation so just to make sure we don't don't end up going too far down in the weeds in terms of that level Maya my feeling is with you Tessa I think that we should leave it as it is the way that it's recommended by the administration the way that we've been doing it and if we're gonna start to reconsider shifting things around

114with bubbles and siblings and hometown guarantee it's just a much bigger conversation and I don't think we ought to be considering that right now and I think you should extend the four seats okay so I think that because we've had so much discussion we need to like kind of just go around it's not a vote but I would just like to get a feeling because I think we need to give the administration some direction on this I think what Peter is saying is that this is a little bit more than a discussion whether or not we you know put forth those four sheets it's more a discussion that's really a discussion of where we you know not honoring the idea of open enrollment as it is a policy that we have right now so Paul

115what do you think I'm with Maya keep just keep going Angie what do you think I agreed as uh we're not changing the policy now so I agree who is the recommendation I also agree with the recommendation Amy I agree with the recommendation agree I agree that now is not the time to have a discussion around open enrollment but would encourage the administration to consider the follow-on effect of continuing to have siblings in any of our schools because at some point we max out the space in our schools I think my answer is similar to Adams maybe a little lengthier but I'll keep it short um I I agree in keeping the hometown guarantee and sibling guarantee the way that we have it I look forward to a future discussion maybe thinking about a weighted

116lottery or something a little bit more complex and whatever the administration decides around what reasonable sizes you know I would go with that it sounds like you've taken siblings into consideration for future class size so it's just encouraged looking at that feedback what Adam said so I think we should it you know in the future should a customer data sibling policy so but for for this time I am okay with go ahead visitor Laurie [Music] I think we should go with the administration's recommendation I think we can minimize what it means to families who thought when they were choosing blancher that that meant that their siblings to go it's it's hugely even though they're everybody's on the same schedule to have kids in different elementary schools it's not something we should just take lightly and

117do casually so I agree with that thank you okay so land my feelings I'm listening to everyone is that the consensus is that we absolutely need to discuss this in the future but with a few dissenting voices but we are you can keep things the way they are and run the lottery Blanche thank you everyone I know it that was I'm sorry finger no go ahead I just I know it's a tough night to have that kind of a discussion but it is important to families so I appreciate your thoughtfulness and feedback and we'll be back with the policy questions you know I can jump in this will be pretty brief because we've been in this period of transition but the building you know committee is meeting next week a lot of the work over

118the last couple weeks has been focused on honing some of the revisions if the architects have been making based on another round of feedback from our educators and some different stakeholders we've been particularly focused on the development of the library and being able to just make sure that with a two-story library it's configured in a way that's functional for both schools and a pride provides appropriate supervision and access so we've been having some good discussions around that at the building committee level along with you know feedback from our library staff and administrators across the district to make sure it's a good space as I said you know brief update earlier we are still on target with the building project we're continuing our meetings for virtually and making good progress with that I will say you

119know just as an update what was stunning you know we had a discussion at school committee around bond rates just after we sold the bonds and you know we ended up with the bond rate just over two percent and almost immediately within days the bond rate jumped back up so in what we're seeing now is we actually hit the bond market at its absolute rock bottom so it came down just before we sold the bonds and it has since gone up pretty significantly and I think bond rates currently are now in the threes maybe even three and a half so we did very well by that so you know that's where we're excited about that and we got very fortunate in timing so I don't know Adam if you have anything else or anyone else

120from building committee wants to add but I think it's a shorter update nothing for me I did want to make the committee aware that I think that some of us had concerns well at least I did about a two-story library and how we properly staff that and how we divided it just seems you know in the initial design I obviously wasn't thinking about the the inherent issues that might come with the two-story library with with railing around the upstairs and wallet is very beautiful I just wanted to give you my two cents that I think it's it might be complicated to have library staff and many students over two floors I'm kind of wrestling with that alright move on to the next thing so are we doing that so I think tonight Peter there's questions

121all over her carriages that you and I were supposed to answer you know the statement of interest and I know Paul had submitted a couple of questions I'm not sure if JD had an opportunity to respond but the statement of interest I'll be honest it's for Conan school it is the same statement of interest that's been submitted multiple years in a row we have slim to no chance of being accepted the state is actually accepting fewer districts annually now because the cost of construction have gone up so much that they just don't have the money to spread around the real reason for submitting this is simply to keep us in the pipeline with the state if you want to table it for tonight that's certainly an option as well because the deadline we just learned

122today has been now extended into early May from MSBA so you can either vote it and we can submit it right away or we can table it vote it at a different meeting and you know submit at a later date so Paul correct me if I'm wrong but I believe JD did get back to you on some of those questions am i right yes and you know I was forgetting that this really is just a placeholder the the the one comment was that it was just cutting and pasting from the 2015 language from the original SOI for the general description of it and I was just thinking maybe we could have an update on that but but knowing that it's now just a placeholder and we know we're not going to be considered anyway it's

123it's kind of their kind of move issues although there was conflict in the in some of the language where we check off yes that we don't use modulars and then we go into the details of how we use modulars so any JD said he was going to correct that okay John did you want to make a motion I move that we submit the statement of interest with respect to Conan's school as listed in the back do I need to say something specific yes okay where's the where's the language 25 of the packet then Adam should probably make the motion I would love to make the motion my forte these days having convened I move that having convened in an open meeting on March 19 2022 the SOI submission closing date the acton-boxborough Regional School Committee

124of actin and Boxborough in accordance with its Charter bylaws and ordinance has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit to the Massachusetts School Building Authority the statement of interest form dated February 3rd 2024 the Luther Conant Elementary School located at 80 Taylor Road which describes and explains the following deficiencies and the priority categories for which an application may be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority in the future priority to elimination of severe overcrowding priority 5 replacement renovation or modernization of school facility systems such as rooms windows boilers heating and ventilation systems to increase energy conservation and decrease energy related costs in the school facility in priority 7 replacement of or addition to obsolete buildings in order to provide for a full range of programs consistent with the state and approved local rate requirements and

125hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting this statement of interest forum the Massachusetts School Building Authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or the approval of an application the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts School Building Authority or commits the regional school district to filing an application for funding with the MSBA Massachusetts School Building Authority second yes yes Diane yes you you're muted or we can't hear you Tessa you're muted I am I heard that yeah hey here you know sorry Amy yes John yes Maya yes Michael yes Norah yes Adam yes Jenny yes me yeah all right that passes unanimously my Chromebook is going to die okay I need someone to bring me a plug all right so budget didn't mean so Diane we don't did you have

126anything you wanted to share no budget is not met after leadership group has ended its meetings for the year okay so PLF met the other night in a somewhat chaotic meeting and a we haven't postponed town meeting yet because ours is until May 11th they are looking at laying the the March 31st vote nothing's been decided about that the pin come did approve the assessment and school budget and I think that that was the mean there was a lot of discussion about about moving things around and meetings and virtual meetings and all the things that we've been talking about for the last week feedback has not I will say Tessa that Acton Finn comm several weeks ago did vote unanimously to support the School Committee budget great okay so did you want me to do

127the CPAC liaison update sure I did I actually just called Amanda I'm thinking that I'll never get this right but I thought I missed the meeting and I didn't they did not meet this week but she did say that CPAC is seeking clarity on on and further guidance from Jessie on how a bee can ensure that students receiving special education services can access the enrichment and communication opportunities that are currently being offered and that that the state she knows the state has said that teams can conduct meetings remotely I don't know I would imagine that includes parents but she said CPAC is seeking clarity on what a bee and how a bee intends to do this she hasn't had success contacting Debbie Dixon just because of all the the chaos of getting up to speed

128so quickly and successfully and she's very pleased with that but I'm sure they'll eventually touch base the second thing I wanted to do is make an announcement so CPAC had floated to school committee I'm sure you saw the email the idea of having a session at the upcoming mas CMAs s conference that's the annual conference it's going to be held in November 2020 in Hyannis on School Committee CPAC partnerships we are considered a leader in developing because we've developed policy procedures with regard to school committee's and sea tax and we have a robust liaison relationship and we've consistently implemented the procedures that we have and the best practices to ensure that we're collaborating and we have transparent communication so that has been accepted so we a bee will be hosting a be CPAC a bee

129school committee and the AV superintendent will be hosting a session at the upcoming conference in November should that take place great thank you for that update okay so the next thing I see is that there's a recommendation to approve 650 dollars in grants from the mass cultural council to the junior high motion Adam move to approve with gratitude second all those in favor that was already we had to do roll call Paul yes Angie yes Diana yes Amy yes Don yes Maya yes Michel yes Nora Nora you're muted you're muted right yes Adam yes Jimmy yes and me yes all right that passes unanimously there is no statement of warrants tonight Peter is there anything else you wanted to highlight in any other F where you're muted thank you no I'm unmuted my dogs were

130barking in the background and I didn't think everyone needed to hear that no I think you know the one thing and I can't remember if you mentioned this earlier but you know I believe the town of Acton is applying to the courts for a waiver of the town election date and so I know that that would have meant some turnover and school committee but I do anticipate that that means that people the changeover might be delayed so I would just keep that on the horizon because I think that that's going to be important other than that you know I think right now I'm not sure of the format of the Kelly's corner forum that's listed on the FYI but certainly look out for that from the town of act and they might be doing something

131via zoom and you know we're planning our next school committee meeting you know to also be online so you know anything that came up tonight that you'd like to give us feedback on about how we organize the meeting tonight please feel free to email me you can copy Beth and we'll be able to sort through that if there's anything you can think of that would help make this smoother for you great all right Tessa I do see a school committee members hand up yeah I just wanted to say that in the fYI section we have the school calendar and having listened to the coffee last night every time we seem to have an event like this there's tons of questions about you know is when is this happening when is that happening so I fully

132understand from the discussion at the beginning that there's lots of things like what's happening with prom and the answer is to be determined but I do think it would be good if we had a place for people to go for calendar updates you know many of which will simply be this is in review because I know that people are interested in that information and then you know I would also say that that session went very well and then the last thing with respect to meetings of this group with the delay in act in town meeting and all of the uncertainty it's usually better to put things on the calendar and then cancel them than it is to scramble to try and put something on so my suggestion would be again that we would recall fine

133with Beth to get some things on the calendar just in case okay well then my sorry go ahead I just wanted to publicly compliment the administration I thought that this meeting was really smooth easy and accessible at least to me so thank you thank you I agree all right I will entertain a motion to adjourn so move second all right yes Angie yes I am yes Amy yes Don yes with gratitude me yes yes Maya yes Michael yes yes thank you good night everyone hey good night thanks good night thank you [Music]