001all right noting the hour in the presence of a quorum I call the a br SC to order we have need for an executive session tonight to be convened under mg/l chapter 30 a section 21 a purpose three to discuss strategy with respect to litigation because of an an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the committee we will return to open meeting at approximately 7:15 is there a motion to enter executive session we'll do a roll call vote yes welcome everyone thank you to act in TV for taping this meeting and providing it on their website act in TV org I'd like to open this meeting by thanking our past cher Diahann Bob for everything that she's done in the past year Amy and I joked this morning that
002I do know what I was gonna say because Diane would probably remark on the passing of Tony Morrison has some fabulous quote that like totally connected to everything that we were doing and talking about this evening so he looks for a quote so I did find a quote that pertained to Diane and it was Toni Morrison's thoughts about her writing process she said writing is really a way of thinking not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate unresolved mysterious problematic or just sweet one of the things that I found most striking about Diane under her tutelage sort of is that she is able to look at the whole picture and find all of the little nitty-gritty things that either are in sync with each other or aren't in sync with each other and
003she pulls laws and policies and other things out of the air I don't know where she finds them and seems brings them all together in a meeting that gives us structure and context and it all makes much more sense so she's leaving in new shoes to fill because I don't know that I can do that I will certainly attempt to on top of all that she's become an amazing friend this year and I'm glad that you're staying on as vice chair for your advice and everything else if anyone else wants to say something about Diana thank her for this year now would be the appropriate time well she's not leaving yet she's still on the committee so but what I appreciate is a thoughtful and deliberate leadership and that's that's kind of what we needed
004so thank you I don't have anything prepared but I found your style of leadership to be inspiring you put so much work time thought and purpose into you into what you anything that you took on and you and you took on a lot and I'm sure your whole family is keenly aware of that and and we are also and we're very very grateful thank you for everything so I will say I think you it's been an amazing year Diane I'm what constantly everything what everybody has said what you have brought to the table just so much thoughtfulness you do so much research you think things through and then you come in with some you know really profound and unique insights that are really important and I have really enjoyed working with you and I've enjoyed
005having you as a friend too I just want to say that I think you did an awesome job and you did it and really thank you for the dedication and the courage to that I know that you step out and then take the on the responsibility and you spend so much time and develop the leadership and your style and I really appreciate that thank you Wow thank you so much everyone I did not expect that at all I just want to say that it's it's fun for me to weave together all of those things and to think about things and it was a lot of growth for me last year and those are two of my favorite things so thank you for coming along for the ride and allowing me to be your leader for
006a year I'm just gonna jump in too because you got to the mic before I did but I just wanted to thank you that you know last year was my first year as a superintendent first year at acton-boxborough I couldn't think of a better person to work with you were always prepared you were thoughtful you thought at a very deep level about all of the issues that we had over the course of the year we know that the school committee chair superintendent relationship is so critical to the effectiveness of the whole district and it was just really a tribute to you that it made it an easier for me so thank you so Babu laughs because she told me that on my chairs agenda that all the things in bulrog were for me to read
007and the things that were in parenthesis were just commentary but I'm supposed to give you your card in flowers but because Idlewild is closed today there are no flowers because it's Tuesday this is the part of the meaning / policy be EDH when members of the public may speak for up to two minutes on items not included on 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 is there anyone that wishes to make a comment okay so next on our agenda is the superintendent's update all right so I think last year when we had our business meeting in the summer it was probably about three days before school started so we have just over three
008weeks three weeks in a day and it is hard to imagine that we're thinking about school starting up there's a part of me that knows it's coming like a train through a tunnel and you know the other part of me knows that you know for many of our community it's still just August 1st and we're just starting summer so we're treading water in between but I want to provide you a few updates first I want to do a little recognition of one of our graduates Christopher Wang he just recently received a gold medal and he placed a third overall in the International biology Olympiad Christopher was the top performer for Team USA at the competition held in July in Hungary the competition was the 30th such event and included 285 students from over 74 countries
009this is a tremendous honor and we just want to congratulate Christopher I also put in a link if you want to read more about that event our annual report will be hitting mailboxes soon you know we tried to revive the annual report this year it's been a number of years since the district was able to communicate directly with every household in both communities and not just our families that report is now out to print and is scheduled to be mailed August 15th so it should be in mailboxes shortly thereafter one of the goals of that report and I just want to keep iterating this publicly over and over the goal of that report and by printing it this first year was to try and get as many people as possible to sign up for our
010digital newsletter so I'm also putting that a link to sign up for the digital newsletters right here but we want to start building that email list so we can communicate with people digitally our intent is to do an annual report each year and then follow that by three quarterly report that go out to the community as a way of keeping in touch with everyone I value professional learning and I just thought it was important as much as we value professional learning for our teachers we also do that for all of us as administrators as well but don deb and i just recently had a chance to go together to the massachusetts association of school superintendents annual executive institute which is held at Mashpee high school and it was really a great institute this year a
011lot of the topics focused on work that we were doing around equity and also around social-emotional learning so two topics that are very close to home here what's great to know is we're not alone in this work there are a number of superintendents all across the state engaged in this work and it's an opportunity for us not only to attend some presentations and here for some from from some fantastic keynote speakers but also to network and understand what other districts are doing so we can share best practices and bring things back to acton-boxborough that work in other places first day of school sorry students if you're watching this hopefully you're not watching the school committee in August if your student but our first day of school is scheduled for Wednesday August 28th we included start
012times in the school committee packet we'll be sending that out to families as well after the meeting and principals will be sending that home as well we do have an exciting piece of news and I'm not going to steal all of JD's thunder but I get to steal the good parts of it but we are launching an application called here comes the bus and there's a link to that for anyone reading this update and that actually provides the families GPS access to where the school buses are located is their driving routes during the day it's a request that's been coming over the last year or so we've been piloting it we did a beta pilot over the summer with our extended school year program that worked very well so we're very excited that is in
013place for people as we begin the fall I also just want to send out a reminder that you know as the high school schedule changed we also changed since the start time of the high school slightly if you remember as Larry Dory was updating committee earlier this year one of the largest areas of concern for our students was a reduction in lunchtime they wanted to maintain that longer lunch and Larry spent a considerable amount of time listening to students and listening to families over the course of the fall and into the winter and what he and his administrative team came to the conclusion of if they started the school just a little bit earlier then they could maintain that lunch time the good news was we're still picking students up from the bus at the
014same time as we have in previous years so we're not making students wake up earlier we're just having the buses go to the high school first to drop students off before they then go to the junior high that will necessitate a change in the traffic pattern so that rather than bus coming in from 1:11 down Charter Road from the junior high to the high school the buses will now return to coming in from Hayward hit the high school first then go up Charter Road drop at the junior high and then they're actually going to be leaving the junior high turning right on 111 and that will actually keep almost all of our bus traffic out of Kelly's corner which we think will have an ancillary effect of reducing traffic along 27 which was also providing
015a challenge for some of our families to get to the junior high when they were dropping students off so we're excited about that we wanted to get this information out to you and the community through this update my next update is regarding the building projects you can tell it's been a while since I updated you by the number of updates and Adam is gonna update later but where we do send this update out to families we wanted to put some things in writing for everyone but this is really an incredibly important time for the building project between now and you know really in December so we are just at a point where next Wednesday the building committee will receive the official first round of cost estimates back with regard to the building project and then
016they're going to engage in the process of looking at those cost estimates and making some really thoughtful decisions about how to control costs and while maintaining an outstanding educational program that's a process that takes place in every building project that's ever done this process called value engineering so that will happen over the next two building committee meetings August 14th and again on August 28th and then August it excuse me in early September I believe it is we just added the meeting September 4th the building committee will come back and actually will vote the final schematic design that will be sent to MSBA on September 11th that is our final MSBA submission and then we're scheduled to have a board meeting with MSBA on October 28th that is the board meeting where they will look at
017all of the work in our schematic design and they will approve us hopefully we'll knock on wood for that they will approve the project officially and also give us the final reimbursement for funding which will allow us to then put out a very clear firm financial model to the community once the state sets that reimbursement rate and the total project budget it cannot exceed that with state reimbursement the community could choose to but we're just not doing that once we set the budget that's the budget for the project we're also in the process of hiring construction manager and that is a subcommittee of the building committee who is responsible for that there's several staff members that are involved in that plus a couple of our building committee members who have specific experience in that field
018so we'll be working on that as we go through the fall and the last piece that I really wanted to make you aware of but also our community in anticipation of the importance of this information that people need to have as we go through the fall we've revised our building project webpage to make information more accessible to the public there are now frequently asked questions we have news items that come out of every building committee meeting that we put out on the website those then get put out on social media as well so regardless of how someone wants to access the information there's information going out we also have a page just for our cost estimates and is our debt subcommittee continues their work all of their information will go on to that website once
019they come up with a financial model so it's very clear and then we're also working on an additional page to add to that around the sustainability initiatives that we have going with regard to the building project so we're encouraging everyone that is probably right now the best source of information to get about what's going on with the building project if you're looking facts and figures because you get questions the frequently asked questions are all items that we've been asked in various formats in our community forums and we wanted to put those back out for the community finally I want to give a huge thanks to the act in TV Board of Directors so recently the act and TV board voted to fully fund all of the broadcast media that we needed for the auditorium building
020over in the administration facility so that we can move our school committee meetings there that is a huge level of support coming from that organization and I just want to thank them tremendously for that the improvements that we're doing in that space not only allow us to move our committee meetings there but it's an enhanced professional learning space that we intend to use throughout the school year and it also provides enhancements for our students who access community education programs in that space so really big thanks to act in TV to the board and you know we're looking forward to moving into the space currently we're anticipating that that will happen around October 1st the challenge with the admin auditorium is it's used highly during summer months and so it was not advantageous to do construction
021while community education students are in there so we decided to delay the work we needed to do in the admin auditorium until very very late summer early fall and it should be ready by October 1st for us to move in so we're excited about that you may also know but Acton TV has an important public hearing coming up on August 19th at 7:00 p.m. at the Acton Town Hall and that is in regards the renewal of the cable television license with Verizon so that may be of interest to any of you and also the community with that said thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions thanks Peter early on you mentioned first day of school as the 28th but that's just for the ninth grade orientation and it's the 29th it's the in
022is all of our it's all K through six and then it's also the orientation at the high school okay seven to nine yeah thank you with respect to the the comment that you made about value engineering for the building I think it's really important to know that the building committee has worked very hard to make good strategic decisions that lead up to that so while clearly you know there is no more opportunity to do what we can to reduce the cost of the project the building the subcommittee should get full credit for you know a series of very consequential strategic decisions which represent you know the savings of tens of millions of dollars which you know extremely important in terms of viability of project no thank you I think that's a that's a great point
023and I think the community actually helped make those decisions already for example we know if we were just replacing Douglas and only that one school the cost to replace that building alone was 99 million dollars and so if we were to try and do Douglas independently gates independently and a preschool independently we've saved tens of millions of dollars just by that one decision alone to build you know three buildings in the one facility so great point all right so then we will move to item 4 which 4.1 which is our operations update so it invite JD up here [Music] Adam I think Peter missed the Thunder stealing from you about the being fully staffed for bus drivers I think considering last year's challenge with that it'll be nice to not have you running dispatch at
024the beginning of school so congratulations on being fully staffed so when you access the here comes the bus app will it be plain the wheels on the bus as you search for your time question that I had you know with respect to I notice there were a number of projects around Blanchard and obviously one of the questions that came up you know with respect to our current building project is you know the timing of new buildings and of course if you look at debt service the question is you know what might be out there 10 or 20 years so in the context of Blanchard what ultimately is going to bring that building to end-of-life and when might that be not to the year but sort of to the decade so just say so that I
025get a sort of us more specific answer so I understand obviously that you know these buildings just like cars if you maintain them they can run a long time and as you say we're doing a lot of things to make sure the buildings you know well-maintained so to ask the question specifically do you imagine that Blanchard will provide at least 20 years of service from where we are today the I don't have a Carson's but you know why I threw those stuff what you provide to us it's Marie will organize I term by a term and they also were clearer everything Tripura transport so I would say this good so when we first talked about launching the CIP we talked about putting up a spreadsheet on the website to track what we're what we're doing
026and the funds that were that we're spending so can you do you have an update on that for us I've actually been working on that project since February so any busy wits and I had a conference call in early March with our website vendor and we provided all the requested information that we wanted the format we sent him a copy of the spreadsheet that we had used to develop it I would say probably two weeks ago now I got the first draft back I provided comments that day sent them back I have not heard back from the vendor yet we're anticipating with bated breath that we will hear back sometime soon we're just experiencing technical delays on the vendor side of it they have not been as responsive as we would hope so we would
027like to see that happen all right Thank You JV all right up next item 4.2 we've got Dave with the budget update Thank You Tessa while Beth loads the brief presentation I'll remind you that you've got a two-page memo from me regarding the preliminary closing for fiscal 19 we're still good we're still in the closing process it should be a couple more weeks and so during September I'll make a final report on FY 19 and have more details the thank you the the report the memo that I gave to you in the packet obviously is one more year of good news relative to the overall picture of the district's finances we had a significant revenue variance to the good we had a significant expenditure variance to the good indeed looks like it's going to be
028right within the targeted range and I couldn't be happier to to be the one to get to report that information so in pictures you can see that if you get a handle on the colored bars and the grand totals and the scale we had another good year revenues have been robust the last three relative to budget expenditures looks like the variances a bit down but I'm going to have a comment about that and obviously all three years have finished in excess of a million dollars to the good there were a couple there were a couple of events that occurred during the fourth quarter relative to the third quarter report one of them was we were able to prepay the early retirement liability that's a contractual liability for a B EA by doing so by doing
029so we may be able to skip one year hence the picture of this future liability depending upon the extent of the liability in the final year of the program which is FY 21 and we won't know the dollar amount until mid year because they get I believe until December 2 to par to elect to participate we won't know the exact numbers but that is that is coming and so by prepaying we we think we were able to potentially save some or all of a year off that liability circuit-breaker reserve each of the last three years we were able to build this reserve up you see the blue shaded columns on the on the chart the declining reimbursement is not particularly worrisome to me because when you think about it the reimbursement is based on how
030much you're spending in tuition and so by one measure if the if the tuitions are fairly consistent then declining reimbursement can can indicate declining tuitions and to win tuition expenditures the gross expenditures have been have moderated during my time at at the district we're close to being not being able to keep anymore you're only allowed to keep one year of reserve in circuit breaker it has to be spent within the following 12 months by getting to an entire year's worth in the year-end balance in my view what that gives you from year to year is budget certainty we'd be we'd be able to budget whatever is in there because we'd have to do that and it would allow the maximum amount of amount of cushion against unforeseen expenses in special education tuition so on the
031second page of my memo I got a little wonky and I and I put in three paragraphs that got into the weeds about how indie is calculated so I took this picture from the DOR manual to show that it's a very complicated process it actually isn't but I I do apologize to those who had a hard time following the memo I view my role in publicly presenting financial information it's important to document the district's results and compare it and relate that to Andy it really isn't that complex maybe it hasn't been done before it probably certainly hasn't been done in text form before but I'm trying to relate the plusses and minuses from the first page if you will the revenue variances revenue variance that expenditure variance to how Andy Howie Andy gets calculated if
032you have questions on it I'm happy go into this in more detail if you if you want to torture yourself and and submit to that but hopefully it's hopefully it's understandable so the indie reserve at fiscal year end looks to be somewhat down but within the targeted range I should point out that the target of between four and four and a half percent actually if we went if we hit the target was going to set us up for a reduction in the in the percentage we're still over three and a half close to four million dollars that's my estimate there based on the preliminary budget numbers and what I anticipate to be do our adjustments when they come and do the certification so here's a quick snapshot of Indy usages during the a cinch since
033full regionalization up until the last three years the district put an amount into the budget to reduce the assessments I've called that now the regular E&D usage it was three hundred thousand the first year it's been two hundred thousand ever since starting in FY 18 we have found specific uses for a and D you may remember the Leary field lights the feasibility study last year the the capper was the million dollar transfer to establish the stabilization a capital Stabilization Fund and for FY 2400 and not just about five hundred thousand dollars worth of additional uses a couple of extra buses we put in the last hundred and eighty thousand to balance out the the budget when during budget season and there was one more increasing the capital outlay from a million to a million a
034quarter we did that bot through use of the Indy so what's new for fiscal 2020 that the conference committee budget I believe the governor has signed it now so it's in law that we will receive $30 per pupil minimum aid in chapter 70 increase from last year that's exactly that's what we budgeted there's a few dollars difference because of the enrollment the way they calculate foundation enrollment regional transportation aid the percentage that's built into the cherry sheet isn't available but it looks to me as though it's a higher percentage than would have been built into our budget we won't know until later in the year what they've what they've certified what we submit to them as costs it's a reimbursement program so it'll be based on FY 19 costs which they don't know yet and
035the final percentage won't be won't be established until June if it's if it's like prior year's other revenues we are still chasing the budget revenue budget is still chasing actual I have said this I will have said this now for three years we're closing in on it but as as we get closer to the prior year actual the next year actual gets higher still and the two items here are Medicaid reimbursement and interest income we'll have more details about that but it appears as though we're going to have favorable results again in FY 2014 the extent and the foresight and the tightness of what has happened and the district is going to be very well served by that program and Chuck's not here he doesn't know yet the how lucky he will be to get
036to oversee a plan that's in place and not necessarily be the one to put together an advocacy for something that hasn't been addressed FY 21 budget processes around corner as our contract negotiations for the labor units in the district that will impact the FY 21 budget and lastly you'll hear more about this in the new school new school update December special town meetings will decide the fate of the project moving forward and there'll be a lot more information between now and then so in keeping with the mad scientist theme are there any questions if we turn the page to in the reserve by fiscal year that that broad short that paragraph the next one actually yeah this one so my question is that if I because it interesting to me that if I draw a
037curve over at the top of the shoe bar right so so you will see the curve there on the top each bar so you will see the curve there so I'm interested now you know going forward because you know our range is between four and four point five percent right going forward what's your way that the curve will well close to the four point five you prefer or a close to the four or you want that just the flat fall I'm probably between middle so I'm going to digress for one second and wish that JD was here to not answer this question like he not answered yours about when how much longer is the Blanchard school going to live I don't I don't know Michael obviously we have a target now of between four and
038four and a half best case best case this know understand the bars themselves are dollars not percentages the percentages are in parentheses at the bottom of the graph so but even still because four point seven was the highest it would still track that same curve to this point what I would expect the purpose the intent of the target going forward is that it's gonna moderate modulate between four and four and a half percent some years we had more revenue we turn back more expenses than we then we had budgeted some years less it will be it will be tremendous to be able to land the plane with that precision because we talked about a $800,000 turn back or so is one percent well the gap of four to four and a half percent of Indy
039is an even tighter band to to land on every year there might be creativity involved in how we either prepay expenses like we did this year or not but that it's going to be tough to to act it's gonna be tough to foresee for the for a long period of time oh yeah we'll be able to stay within four and a half four to four and a half percent it's a target it's not you you can't by virtue of the target in the policy say what we have to be in that in that range it's going to be it's going to depend on actual financial circumstantial merge to a line right so like I if I draw a four-person line there right if I use the Y the percentage so if I draw four percent
040and toward another full when half percent so we're not going to see that the merge to the good thing we have going for us though this slide we were still able to end at projecting we're gonna end at four point two percent despite look at the light blue line despite how much of E&D was used this year almost a million dollars more than as budgeted so far for FY 29 anticipating another million dollar invest went into the the capital stabilization that presumably was a one-time phenomenon unless some of the things happen that said if it happens that at the end of the year we have we have a surplus that was unforeseen we now have a vehicle which can accommodate it and help to support the the CIP I have little enthusiasm for torturing myself
041but I have some enthusiasm for torturing you to say that the memo was great and I think this is exactly the exemplification of best best practice so all good details are there for staff for school committee members or the public whoever wants to look into it and then we also get the high level and here's what you really know so I absolutely love that I was gonna ask a little bit different question but let me go back to what you were just talking to Michael about my understanding of P&D and the Stabilization Fund working together to provide you know a more robust buffer in toto is that when we looked around the country if you look at regional school districts and the kind of the size of buffer that would be appropriate it's more like
042a seven eight nine percent kind of buffer it's not the capped 5% by mg/l that we have to deal with in ND and so therefore to the extent that we have budget favorability going forward my expectation was that a piece of that would be used to continue to build the Stabilization Fund until the sum of Indian stabilization was some number that we haven't talked about but I assumed was a number like seven eight or nine percent it it is not mine John but it's it's up to the it's up to the committee to determine if if excess funds are identified where to put them I don't I don't I for one don't have even in my head a target of where I'd like to be someday in the totality of the district's reserves I think
043I think the district is in fine shape with respect to the rating agencies and credit worthiness for for bond rating and ultimately when it sells the bonds to finance the new school this being able to say we have significant assets also set aside in a capital Stabilization Fund certainly doesn't hurt that message jumping so you know I think as we talked internally as a staff about our hopes for the Stabilization Fund I think we talked at a little bit more granular level with it where you know we would like to have in our Stabilization Fund enough funds that you know two major systems could fail in a school year and we wouldn't have to change the operating budget to be able to repair replace whatever we needed to do with those systems plus funds that
044are earmarked towards specific longer-term projects that we know are coming up because I think one of the advantages of having a Stabilization Fund is you can actually save for some of the future expenses of the district and I keep coming back to the Parker Damon roof is going to be a multi-million dollar project coming up probably in about a decade give or take a few years and that's you know several million dollars that we would never be able to fund through our operating budget but what we have an opportunity to do is continue to put money into that Stabilization Fund as reserve so when a project like that comes up it's fully funded and can be done without having further damage to buildings or having capital fall into disrepair so it's really about protecting for
045unforeseen emergencies planning for future expenses that could be known that could include fields you know it could include building systems things like that that was really our intent well it depends what dave says the question is with the late state budget and then you also talked about some of the things that happen late in the year the question is what would you like school committee members to be providing this feedback to legislature about to the legislature about the practical impact of budget behind schedule and you don't have to answer that now if you want to send an email out saying I thought about it this is quick the late budget is not beyond our control it's not and didn't impact us because they settled on the same number that we had budgeted whether they go
046into chapter 17 foundation budget reform I don't know that's there's been some discussion about that among committee members and that's something that you may wish to speak to legislators about and and very quickly John I would point you to policy DP which we approved last year which dictates the which gives guidance on the size and funding methods for the Stabilization Fund sets targets in Mack my understanding was that the the purpose of that stabilization the reason why we created it was because we saw that in in the whole scheme of budgeting for the capital improvements in the short term in the long term there was a need a few years from now where the operational budget wasn't going to be substantial at robust as we'd like in the Stabilization Fund was going to be there
047to to meet the need so it's it's not something I never even thought of stabilization plus E&D being a certain value just so the Triton School Committee has been studying circuit breaker and its impact on regional school districts should once the recommendations of the foundation budget review commission start to be implemented by the state legislature and build up the foundation budget and consequently the per pupil cost now the per pupil cost is key as a key part of the algorithm for circuit breaker so without going into a lot of detail what I thought I heard you save is that we have enough in circuit breaker reserves to kind of absorb any like losses that are anticipated as a result of our not receiving the Ben fit of the Foundation budget increases so the reason I'm
048bringing this up now it's because it's because I wanted I I would like to know if we should be advocating now with it with the state for an offset and any unanticipated estimated at this point losses that we would incur due to this change in the foundation budget so without getting into the details as as you said the answer my answer would be yes so if if changes to the foundation budget have the in my view unintended consequence of hurting over half the districts in the state in their circuit breaker reimbursement I think I think the legislature legislature if they haven't baked that into their proposals already ought to be encouraged by their constituents to say if you're not gonna give us any more chapter 70 if you're not gonna significantly add to our chapter
04970 certainly don't take away our circuit breaker okay so item 5.1 is the beginning of our new business school committee business in your packet you have the operating protocols that we put together last year and that we're signed at our workshop this year and the idea last year was that we would move forward with our meetings having a copy of the operating protocols available to each member to just keep in mind as we conduct our business together so I just encourage you to read them and go over them again did anyone have questions or comments or things a little bit of a question came up at our workshop so if anyone wants to have that discussion now in terms of the language or now is the time one small thing and I I don't have
050before me right now in the beginning there was a mention of bias and I'm not even sure I want to look for it now but there was a mention of something about we will not be biased and so now with our kind of new understanding of Ann Tobias I was wondering if that language might be inappropriate I would of course have to find the language more specific base our decisions on available facts vote our convictions avoid bias yes and so now that bias we know is not is unavoidable do we want to change the language in that particular section I guess I don't know how do people feel about that I mean is that something at this point we don't have the operating protocols subcommittee anymore so I imagine any changes we make we would
051send to policy was there something else John that you had mentioned you know I think it is very much no couched in the perspective we're here for education education but the responsibility of the school committee is deeper than simply focusing on the educational mission that needs to understand that mission in the context of the totality of the community there's other things going on that's what it felt like to me so I would like you know at some point if we revisit this to see that we really do embrace the mission that we're elected by the community at large to represent the community at large to make sure that what we do educationally it's into our acton-boxborough communities so just so that I can clarify your concern is basically in the first with the first paragraph
052before we even get into the operating protocols around the description of who we are correct yes okay so I guess the question is how how pressing is this - people feel I mean we signed them and they're fine I mean they're operational for this year do if people if there's a consensus amongst a sense among the committee that you want to send this to policy I think would be the appropriate place to relook at some of the language if that's the question is that something that you want to do or is it okay for now Oh Mike sorry Michael did you have it do you want to comment on that where can Adam go I like and I apologize for missing the workshop but I think the workshop is a great Avenue to discuss these
053and so my suggestion would be to keep these notes for the workshop for next year and have that be another opportunity to revisit these with lessons learned from these previous years and maybe that becomes an agenda item for whomever is the lucky chairperson for next year who gets to run that workshop and actually with regards to that we had talked at the workshop of having a follow-up workshop to to continue working on some of the things that that were brought forward and so maybe we could do it there as well if that seemed appropriate Michael did you have a couple comments first of all I appreciate this open discussion on this protocol a second that you know I do notice that you know in the first full paragraph you know we have a quick policy
054to have budgets yeah there are they are the you know the major responsibilities of the school community members and also the Skookum in members there's one more which is you know searching and harrowing the the supreme tenant I know that we already have a Peter here we don't have to make a replacement right but the things that you know you know I do feel that you know we should avoid that responsibility from from here that's what I'm saying so cool I do understand we have support the superintendent stuff in there implantation of policies and operations whatsoever we do have those to support bullies there but the things that you know as a three one of the three major responsibilities of leukemia members so it I do have you know hearing the sprintin and so well
055then it sounds like one of the other things actually that I had a question that I made some notes Michael after our last conversation was in terms of maintaining effective communication and maybe we can talk about this it's sort of a dual conversation so you can hold your thoughts on it for a minute because we'd also talk about the next thing on the agenda is the new school committee member guidebook but in terms of communication there had been a question about questions and compiling them ahead of a meeting when there are when there are a lot of questions so one of the practices that had been in place was that the superintendent would collect the questions that were submitted ahead of the meeting especially when there's a topic where there's a lot of discussion or
056or clarification needed and that that document would be presented to the school committee before ahead of the meeting so that you could see what other people had asked ahead of time but there are questions about whether or not people that send questions ahead of time intend for those questions to be public and published which is an entirely different question some people some people may want that when they send a question they obviously it's all a public document but not only if someone requests it so that's a lot different than producing something for a meeting that is then part of our packet that everybody can see so that's something that's one of our protocols and also something that's mentioned in the guidebook so just something to keep in mind as we have the next discussion so
057it sounds to me around the language that we can table it for now and maybe consider looking at the language again when we have our follow-up workshop okay so okay I hope everyone had a chance to look at the updated guidebook my goals for updating the guidebook were to clarify our role as a governing body to define jargon to offer some guidance on how to communicate without breaking the law and damaging vital relationships to give you quick and effective electronic access to resources through embedded links in the tax I also wanted to break down the budget process and not just in terms of a timeline but to help you think about the nature of the work in each face and then finally to emphasize the importance of our advocacy groups like the mass Association of
058school committee's the mass Association of regional schools and most recently support mass regional schools which is on Facebook because these are the folks who set the work we do in the larger context of what's happening at the state level so hopefully the takeaway was that the work is dizzyingly vast even for veterans and to take your time you will you will find that you gravitate and I think most of the people on the committee members have experienced this you'll gravitate eventually to a specific set of issues and kind of sub specialized based on your interest I think it is also helpful to understand what is the best practice for membership on any board you might find yourself on help hence I put those start items in I think it was like around page three up
059find mentors was another big one for me these are the folks willing to take the time to create the conditions to set you up for success and to be there to answer questions my hope is that the guidebook will help you feel more comfortable more quickly in our role and give you a deeper understanding of the limitations and basis of authority for the work we do so we can get to the business of passionate deliberation and be a strong high-functioning team whose members trust and challenge one another and engage on the critical issues we face on behalf of the 5700 students in a B so I much welcome your your questions and your feedback on this especially the newer members so if you have any I don't know if you want to just have people
060email me or react to it now I'm happy to answer any questions or take feedback yeah so one section that I find that I'm still not clear which is the motion process so they're different all different many different kind of motion and SN you remember that sometimes you don't know when and what kind of motion that you can make I would recommend that we as some clarify in the process of what kind of motion lists of motions that we can make thank you I was thrilled to see this new orientation manual it represents a tremendous amount of effort and it was really good in terms of getting people started and but I'll actually use you know one of the points of feedback to sort of illustrate what I think you know it is busy and
061that everybody needs to appreciate and that is it's very true that everyone needs to have some level of general understanding but it also is true that people need to at times specialize and do sort of unique tests which is exactly what this manual is we don't need you know eleven people write in a manual but we needed somebody to do it and I think that good service on the school committee requires not just that I understand the general things and participate in a general discussion but I can find some things that I'm excited about or I have special expertise and in this case I think you know your experience as the chair very much played into your ability to have a vision about what this document should be and use that to do something so
062that each member you know has a unique contribution so I would hope that when we welcome new members on to the committee one of the things we would do is to you know encourage them not only to be part of the general discussion but to bring you know that unique thing and to find their own work that they can can bring to the table yes to have to keep this breast so I didn't see the previous version so I can't really speak to the change but I found this incredibly helpful I really liked having the links I thought that was great that it felt very organized and succinct and it also had a really kind and supportive tone to it which i think is really nice to have and you know just the links to
063common protocols for example around how to how to make emotion just having that link in there made it it's not an overwhelming document but that I could find what I needed so I thought it was great it's really helpful I I just have a one suggestion that that you know because when we talk about the laws right if any example that you know we want to explain the law probably will want you put a link there or reference to somewhere that you know instead of we kind of explain the law we speak what's what doesn't mean right so so that's my only suggestion probably III echo what what she said you know just you know maybe more links will be helpful all right well John Thank You Diane I know that you put a tremendous
064amount of work into completing that over the summer on your vacation time so I appreciate it John's comment was actually a perfect segue into our next agenda item the subcommittee report so in your on the table you will find the subcommittee assignments in the packet you will find our policy around duties duties of the chair person and how subcommittees are assigned so when I assign the subcommittee's I took many things into account a lot of it was what what people asked for with the exception of one member everyone is on one of the two major committees either budge or policy I mean that being said school building is a large committee I mean an important committee and negotiations is an important committee so I don't I don't think I need to read them out loud
065to you what I do want to tell you is that on some of those larger committees we did limit them to five I did indicate who the chair of that committee would be you may note that we added John to the negotiations subcommittee and there are some places where there are question marks and that is mostly as liaisons no one stepped up to be the act and vin comm liaison or the act and vos liaison we need a box grofe in comm liaison and we also need someone to represent from annum and tech and that that would be an active member because box bros no longer a member of that region so you don't need to tell me tonight if you would like to take on one of those additional roles that that still has
066question marks we also need more people for warrants because Amy and I are going to be running up and down back and forth to the junior high signing all the time if there aren't additional people on that so with that said if you're unhappy or have a question or want to reach out to me about some somewhere that I put you or didn't put you like I said that under my when I when I went through doing it budget and policy I didn't want anyone to serve on both because there was enough representatives of people that wanted to serve on both of them that it made sense to divide it up that way I would also say that once we get into the work of these committees if you find that you're unable to make
067the commitment to one of the committees that you've been assigned to that you've come to me as soon as possible so that we can find someone else or you know make some adjustments and figure out how to make it work does anyone have any questions excellent the one thing that we do need to vote and this is a good example angie of where the motion is included in did we include a motion maybe we didn't include a motion we need to approve the ed co assignments that's the one thing that we're that were required to to approve as far as that go so if I can have a motion to approve the echo assignments great all in favor of the motion any opposed any abstentions great the motion passes unanimously so just add one layer
068to this originally in the posted packet we had a memo regarding the superintendent's appointments for board members to the OPM trust that has been done historically because it was stipulated to do that in the regional agreement the superintendent appointed and then no-oh-oh-oh peb trust agreement sorry not the regional agreement the ole peb trust agreement it was stipulated the superintendent appointed and then notified the committee of those appointments however Dianne sent us a reference in state law that said that that was voted by the governing body and so we sent that out to the attorney for clarification and it came back that we should be voting that so as a school committee so what we've done is we withdrew withdrawn it from this packet that will come back to you as a recommendation in the future
069packet same names same memo but it'll be a recommendation we'll be asking you to vote that in early September all right and item 6.1 school building committee update I'll be brief since Peter stole most of my thunder we did submit our schematic perd schematic report on June 26 which was approved and that puts us now into the schematic design phase and we are developing a robust schematic design that will be significant sufficient enough to detail the scope budget and schedule for our proposed project along those lines the MSBA has reconfirmed our enrollment figures at nine hundred and ninety students for case through sixth grade that's important because that's what we use to then size the school in the number of classrooms and everything moving forward on the design and speaking of the design we have
070seen a number of revisions by arrow Street on the design to get it more cleaned up for costing and we've sent the specifications out to estimators for costing and as Peter mentioned we'll see those in the next two meetings that the school building committee has and during those meetings we'll take a look at all those items and look at the cost for each of those items and begin to have some thoughtful discussions around what makes sense from a program standpoint and what makes sense from a budgetary standpoint and then obviously our next big date is September 11th when we submit our schematic design with costs to the MSB a following that they will vote to approve our project on October 30th our schematic design and move us into the next phase and I would just
071add if anybody wants to come to the school building committee they're very exciting where we're getting VR goggles brought oftentimes to the meeting and everyone makes a fool of themselves sort of stumbling around the room as they explore the building in VR I just have to go alright thank you Adam dan did you wanna oh sorry I didn't I didn't see your hand Michael go ahead so do we because we are calling to the to have that the total number right the total cost and if I could reimbursement rate do we do we have a run right now the the very smaller runs you know you could have pretty well you could have you could have to close or so we have a we have a cost range that's on the website right now that's
072been shared in all of the public forums and that's the number that we will continue to use until we get this next round of estimating in and as those numbers come in then as Peter mentioned will will put those on to the school building you know so that them are including the if effective or 18 birthday raid right the effective reimbursement rate Peter can you I think we we've not confirmed yet what that is is that correct that is correct so currently the effective reimbursement the net reimbursement rate is sitting at forty nine point seven we gained one point three three three point seven five additional points over this past summer two of which were for our sustainability initiatives that we've put into the building and we got an additional one point seven five for
073capital planning which is how we're maintaining the other buildings in the district so that was good news and that's certainly reflective of the law a lot of the work of this group over the last few years what will happen is we will submit the schematic designed to the state and they will review that for ineligible items and I can give you a good concrete example of something that would be deemed ineligible site costs so anything related to the demolition construction of parking areas tearing down Douglas creating ball fields anything related to the actual site work of the building is capped at eight percent of the total construction costs so most building projects nearly all exceed 8% because we know that site costs just naturally exceed 8% of your building project MSBA chooses to cap it
074because they prefer their dollars to go into the actual building for students so they say that's on the community so we know that the effective rate will be lower than the net rate we don't have a number yet as to how much that will come out of the October 28th board meeting at MSP a typically districts are ranging somewhere around 10 percent less than the effective rate so you know we're up just under 50% I would guess somewhere around 40 percent is what we're trying to target for the effective rate when it comes out but we don't have any guarantees it's really MSP a's decision and i would just add that that information comes to us I believe it's on that late October date well-well October 28th meeting they'll then come back to us with
075our reimbursement rate and approved costs and that's what we'll then use to go to town meetings okay thank you Adam all right Diane did you want a report on the MSC summer workshop that you attended so ma se had its summer institute as it usually does in mid-july viz on the on the 12th and the 13th and they called it an equity summit almost every district is doing work on equity now there were three phenomenal presentations the first one Friday evening was called understanding the dynamics of power privilege and Prejudice and and it was it was like a mini seed workshop for those of you who went I'm just really recognizing what you pretty much take for granted and don't really see as you walk through life as someone who has white privilege and it
076was really amazing the people who ran it Manuel for Ana Hernandez his name is he is the principal of a middle school in Cambridge who's just a phenomenal presenter and dr. desk Floyd did ran that workshop the two on Saturday one was on equity audits and one was on policies relating to equity they also had I actually didn't go on to Paul to the policy one cuz I went to a workshop on social media uses and abuses which I found very helpful but the equity piece they were looking at how our leadership teams like across the Commonwealth thinking about equity and what are the initiatives are servicing due to that work and they had presenters from Lexington Amherst Pelham Framingham and the Cambridge Public Schools and so like whatever what everyone seems to be doing
077is providing professional development on implicit bias so like art the analogous thing in our the equivalent thing in our district in our long-range shooting plan is the seed training for all staff and teachers everyone's pretty much doing an equity audit either internally there are a number of districts who are hiring assistant superintendents or directors of diversity equity and inclusion they're doing internal audits themselves or like Lexington's hiring the mid-atlantic equity consortium to come to their audit and the the impetus of all this work is actually coming from school committees like in Amherst Pelham and from the community in Lexington and from central office teams but the work is all about engaging stakeholders and giving giving them a voice in what works for their community so you see a lot of caucuses springing up and it's
078not a top-down initiative it's really a more of like an open government model just I'm just gonna let you know this Lexington the superintendent Lexington Julie Hackett wrote this paper called diversity equity and inclusion in the Lexington Public Schools it is absolutely like a must read if you're interested in what they how they're thinking about equity in their district the audits themselves target things that we're targeting like workforce diversity looking at implicit bias and hiring practices we've done both of those things in a B professional development for teachers staff on unconscious bias which we're also doing and but the two big initiatives that are coming out of districts are a hard look at discipline and the disparities on the rates of discipline by race and disability and they're launching initiatives to address that and it's
079really interesting if you read this paper you'll find that the research on discipline it's not what you think it is it's not like well these groups are just getting into more trouble so that's why the rates are higher it's not like that at all but it's really interesting like larger schools have higher rates but you can read you can read what the research says it's it's just really fascinating the other two pieces are restorative justice practices are finding their ways and their way into schools especially as discipline is rethought Amherst Pelham is is trying to do that it tends to be expensive and and in its infancy in terms of how to apply that in a school environment for those of you who don't know I'm as a volunteer for communities first art of justice
080which is a partnership between commute with police departments and it's a it's a different way to think about about committing crime in the context that I work in it it's not like you do the crime and you pay you pay a fine or you go to jail or you know you kind of do that you suffer a consequence it's it's a it's a different understanding of crime as a disruption of relationships that need to be then repaired so the applying that to school is like it's a big deal and it's really important work and again it's in its infancy the other big the other big piece was was access to honors and AP classes and Cambridge in Lexington are doing an awful lot of work in this area Cambridge specifically has has done something called
081leveling up so all freshmen take honors English and honors world history all ninth graders and extensive supports are put in place and and family-school partnerships are put in place to support all that learning but they're really like in Lexington they really want to make definition of equity actionable and this is I'll end with this I just think it's so powerful I'm just gonna read with what their definition is each student regardless of race ethnicity nationality gender gender identity disability sexual orientation religion socioeconomic status will have access to the opportunities resources and supports they need to attain their full potential and racial equity means the absence of institutional and structure structural barriers so this an it these initiatives they're bold and they try to make that statement actionable in a very powerful way it takes a
082lot of work to get there in these districts but I have to tell you that this was like one of the most exciting workshops lectures summits I have ever attended and I encourage you to to go to the m2 the MSC summer workshops and the one in November as well the work is ongoing and I'm sure we'll be hearing much more about it so I'm happy to share that tonight Thank You Diane okay the next thing is is the act and leadership group minutes of June 20th May 16th and April 2nd are included in your packet is there any update from anyone who went to the alg meeting meetings that is I don't know significant yeah so July 31st there was an al G meeting and you know we we received reports in the town
083manager and peer is also there on the close of FY 19 a little bit of an update on FY 29 is a verbal terms financially so is the town pam nurse was there who is the actin rep to the minuteman school committee and she reported that enrollment this year is projected to be 630 student so the school is full and they're looking at developing a waitlist policy at this point they're they're very excited to open their new building in the fall that we also spoke about the the the dead exclusions coming up so there's a North Acton fire station on the docket of course the the twin schools the consolidated schools on our end so just stay tuned we're gonna be meeting again in August thank you okay agenda item 7 is the statement of
084warrants and the approval of minutes there are four warrants on the agenda now being circulated offender warrants 2000 to 2003 PR and 2000 3a in the total amount of 2 million two hundred sixteen thousand nine hundred $1.48 and payroll warrant p200 three in the total amount of six hundred fifty nine thousand five hundred forty three dollars and eighty one cents thank you included in your packet of the minutes of the July 16th 2019 workshop is there any discussion needed on those if not can I have a motion to approve the minutes of July 16th all those in favor of the motion any opposed any abstentions motion carries almost technically he have saved yeah all right and item eight is the fYI in your packet are is paper about the back-to-school times and dates with the
085school calendar the upcoming school committee meeting dates the apps support member memo open government message the open thing we took off right and the acton-boxborough special town meetings that are now scheduled for December 10th 2019 our next meeting is September 5th at 7 p.m. here and the junior high library the Pecha will be posted on August 29th is there a motion to adjourn all those in favor any opposed we are adjourned